The Song Bird (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour) (20 page)

“Is there anyone here? Annabel?” she called out, checking in all the rooms. A wave of smoke hit her, making her cough. But as she hit the top step to hurry back down, she saw Eugene Behr waiting for her.

“We never finished our conversation,” he told her.

“Are you crazy? We have to get out of here!” she screamed at him. But she didn’t try to push past him.

“No one takes what is mine and gets away with it,” he stated quite calmly.

She knew, right then, that he had set the fire.

Wanting help, she glanced over and saw Jason take a nasty uppercut. He fell back and stayed down.

“Jason!” she yelled.

Eli finished off his attacker and looked at her. She pointed to where Jason had gone down.

“Help him!” she told him, trying to project her voice over the roar of the fire. But more smoke zapped her voice, and all that came out was a weak call. She saw Eli glance at the man standing over where Jason had fallen, and rushed forward.

“Come, Miss Avilon,” Eugene Behr said with a wave of his hand. “Like you said, we have to get out of here.”

“I’m not going anywhere with you.”

He raised an eyebrow. “You stay here, you’ll die.”

“Get away from me!”

She saw him shrug. “Very well. Next time I see your sister, I’ll give her my condolences.”

A great cracking sound erupted through the room, making her and Eugene look up. The ceiling couldn’t withstand the destructive power of the fire and caved. In horrible amazement, she watched the massive chandelier fall and smash apart in a thousand pieces, sending fire, smoke, and ash through the room. Avilon leapt backward and beat out the embers that had fallen onto her long skirt.

I can’t die like this, not now!

“Avilon!”

She heard Eli yelling, and she hurried over to the railing and looked down at him. He held Jason, bloody and dazed, around the shoulders.

“You’re going to have to jump,” he called out.

“Are you crazy? I’ll break my neck!”

“I’ll catch you!”

She shook her head, coughing. “Get Jason out of here. He needs help.”

“I’m not leaving you.” He leaned Jason against some rubble, moved aside, and held up his arms. “Come on. Jump!”

The sound of splintering wood and crackling fire reached her, and she knew they didn’t have a lot of time left. Before she could think it over, she hoisted her skirt up and climbed over the rail. She held on tightly, looking down at Eli.

“Don’t think, sweetheart,” Eli told her. “Just keep looking at me and jump. Come on. I’ll catch you. Trust me.”

She did. She did trust him, and so she let go. She had a brief moment of free-falling, of fear filling her, before Eli’s arms encircled her. The impact of her body into his knocked him off balance, and he fell over, taking her with him, but nothing was broken. Tears tried leaking out of her eyes, but the air was hot, and they dried instantly. She started coughing again as she struggled to get off Eli.

“Are you okay?” Jason asked as he helped her up. He wobbled a bit on his feet and coughed.

“Come on. We gotta get out of here,” Eli told them. He put his arm around Jason to help him, and Avilon got on his other side as they worked their way to the connecting hallway.

They made it through and into the town house. The fire was spreading quickly, so they hurried outside.

“There they are!”

Avilon looked up see a crowd of people gathered around. Most were trying to put out the fire while others were trying to contain it. Avilon searched for Homer and found him sitting across the street, his hat in his hand. Annabel and several of the dealers rushed forward, grabbing hold of them, holding out water for her to drink. She looked at Eli and Jason. Both were covered in soot and reeked of smoke. She figured she hadn’t fared much better.

“Oh my God,” Annabel said, crying as she wiped Avilon’s face with a wet towel. “For a minute there, I thought the fire had gotten you.”

“For a minute, so did I,” Avilon croaked. She took a deep breath and ended up coughing.

Eli sat next to her, staring at the burning club. It was a sight to behold, hungry flames spiraling into the night sky, engulfing everything in its path. People scrambled around, working feverishly to combat it. Jason sat on the other side of Eli, holding a cloth to his bleeding lip, tears pouring down his face.

It was gone. Everything was just…gone.

As soon as Eli and Jason got their breath back, they were off helping to douse the flames. People scrambled like ants on a piece of candy, forming bucket lines as well as moving to knock down the building next to the town house, denying the fire renewable fuel.

“Are you all right?” Annabel asked as she came to sit next to Avilon.

“Yes, thank God,” Avilon murmured.

Just at that moment, a loud roaring sound bellowed into the night. The last of the club and town house caved in on itself, and within minutes, the fire was under control at last. It almost felt like everyone gave a collective sigh of relief, and it could be seen in the faces of all the people helping and watching.

And then Avilon saw Eugene Behr, walking through the crowd, shaking hands, and patting people on the back, greeting them as if he were some type of hero and acting as if he didn’t have one ounce of responsibility for the fire. Soot covered his face, and his clothes were gray from ash. San Francisco relied on coal for fuel. He could have burned the whole city to the ground, could have hurt or even killed people with his crazy scheme of revenge. She couldn’t let him get away with it. Terrorizing her sister, hunting her down, having Jason hurt, almost killing Eli…it was too much, and losing the club was the last straw.

She stood, pointed her finger, and screamed as loud and as much as her sore vocal cords would allow.

“He did it!” she yelled.

People stopped and looked at her, following her finger that accused Eugene Behr.

“He told me he set the club on fire for revenge! He left me in there to die!”

Eugene Behr stopped, staring at her, and she swore she could see his face pale beneath the blackish dirt. His mouth opened then closed, as if he didn’t quite know what to say. She suspected it was because he had expected her to be dead.

Keeping her finger pointed, she slowly walked toward him and sensed, rather than saw, the shift of people backing away from Behr.

“This city is covered with coal dust. It could have gone up in flames, and all because my sister stole a coin from him.”

Sheriff Scannell and his deputies started walking toward them, so she decided to press on.

“You all remember when the club fired all of its girls for theft back in November,” she called out. Many people nodded then whispered to the person they stood next to, and Avilon knew she had him. “It was my sister who took
one
coin from him, and because of that, he endangered all of us.”

It was one thing to be a visitor to Sydney Town, high and mighty, spreading money around, but Avilon knew she had one thing that Eugene Behr never would. She had acceptance. This might have been a district of depravity, gambling, and corruption, but Avilon and her sister lived and worked within the borders.

Behr looked around, saw the anger heavy on people’s faces, and took a step back. He reached into his pocket and brought out a brass percussion pistol. It had only one shot, but at this close range, he couldn’t miss.

“You bitch! I should have killed you when I had the chance!”

“Like you killed my cousin? Beat her with a fire poker then covered it up by throwing her lifeless body down the stairs?”

The pistol wavered. “How did you know that?” Then she saw rage and hate blanket his features. “Amelia. I’ll deal with her after I’ve dealt with you.”

Avilon braced for the impact of the shot. A gun went off, and Avilon’s body involuntarily jerked. But when she looked down at herself, she didn’t find any blood.

“Avilon!” Eli shouted, and a second later, he and Jason bounded to her side.

She heard a thud as Eugene Behr’s body hit the ground, and looked up to see Eugene Behr’s eyes, open and lifeless staring into the afterlife. She hoped he rotted in hell.

Avilon followed the path of where the shot had come from and saw Sheriff Scannell holding a smoking gun.

“I’d heard enough out of him,” he said calmly as he holstered his revolver. He met her gaze. “Besides, I don’t tolerate threatening the life of a nun.”

Then he tipped his hat to her. With a nudge to his deputy, Sheriff Scannell turned and walked away without a backward glance. Tears welled up in her eyes as her legs collapsed. Eli caught her and pushed her head to his chest.

Jason ran a hand over his face. “It’s over,” he murmured. “It’s over, and the club is gone.”

“I’m so tired,” Avilon whispered. “Where are we going to stay tonight?”

“You’ll come with us, of course,” said a voice behind them.

Avilon lifted her head from Eli’s chest and saw Sister Agatha, Sister Faith, and a few other nuns from the Sacred Heart.

“We have lots of room at the parish.”

Avilon pushed from Eli’s arms and hugged the diminutive nun. Sister Agatha squeezed her back tightly.

“Thank you so much for coming,” Avilon whispered.

“We heard the fire warning, and when I heard it was the club, I organized the others to come, to offer our services.”

“I’ll be damned,” Eli muttered. “I’m going to sleep in a convent.”

* * * *

Sometime the next day, Avilon’s shoulder shook as someone tried to rouse her. She moaned and opened her eyes, looking into Jason’s brilliant emerald gaze. In a rush, the night’s events came back to her, and she sat up quickly.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

“Eli’s not here. Come.”

They left the parish quickly and hailed a hackney outside. The stiff wool of the skirt Sister Agatha had given her hung heavily from her waist. The clothes were a little big and threadbare, but they were clean and didn’t reek of smoke.

The coach dropped them off near Broadway, and they walked the remaining distance. The burnt remains of the club and town house were horrific. The only things that could be halfway identified in the pile of twisted, blackened lumber were the hollowed-out piano and the once-magnificent chandelier. The rest of it was just charcoal.

Eli sat on the opposite street, staring at it, his face blank. Jason sat down on one side as Avilon took his other. For a long while they said nothing, because words couldn’t convey all the emotion and heartache stored within.

Avilon couldn’t imagine what must be going through Eli’s mind. “I have some money saved. We aren’t completely penniless,” she finally said, breaking the silence.

Eli glanced at her and smirked. “Contrary to Behr’s beliefs of my intelligence, I do believe in banks. The only money that was lost was what was being used last night.”

“Will we rebuild?” Jason asked.

“I don’t think I want to stay in San Francisco,” he admitted.

“What?” Jason and Avilon gasped.

“An opportunity kept us here, but it wasn’t someplace I wanted to be,” Eli clarified. “We were looking for our future, and now we have one.” He took hold of Avilon’s hand.

“We only know gambling,” Jason stated. “So where would you like to go?”

“Maybe a new frontier. We could build a classy little place. Have our song bird entertain while we offer a respectable place of entertainment,” he mused. “No prostitutes. I don’t want to make Amelia feel uncomfortable.”

Avilon sucked in a quick breath and squeezed his hand.

“And what frontier will we be settling?”

“The lumber industry is booming in the Pacific Northwest,” Eli said. “All the lumber for the club came from a place called Alecia Falls, and I was thinking it would be a nice, clean place to raise a family.”

“Washington Territory?”

Eli nodded.

“Then what are we waiting for?” Avilon asked with a happy smile on her face.

1856, Washington Territory

Avilon walked quickly into the small community of Alecia Falls, which lay just across the water from another new settlement called Seattle. She liked the small frontier town where everyone knew everyone and jumped to help new settlers out. She, Ellis, Amelia, Odette, Jin Li, and Homer had arrived in March, following after Eli and Jason, who had gone before them to buy land and set up a homestead. She had asked Annabel to come with them, but her friend had declined, wanting to stay in San Francisco.

And since she was finally free of Eugene Behr, Amelia had married Ellis in the Buddhist temple a few days after the fire. Avilon had learned his real name was Enlai, but he had chosen something English to acclimate to his new country.

In autumn, cholera had broken out, brought to San Francisco shores by a boat coming from the Far East. The Sisters of the Sacred Heart had helped as many as they could.

The stories pouring out of San Francisco were almost too horrid to believe. US Marshal Richardson had been gunned down by a gambler named Cora. Avilon had vague memories of meeting the marshal. When the newspaperman James King of William was murdered by city supervisor James Casey, the Committee of Vigilance rose again, swelling to as many as six thousand members. The irony was not lost on Avilon, who was all too happy to have left the city behind.

Alecia Falls, in comparison, was quiet. Only a handful of stores made up the town, mainly a mercantile shop, a fur-trading company, and several other local businesses. Amelia had opened a school for the children and taught them three days a week. Eli and Jason decided to leave gambling behind and embrace the lumber boom. Eli read all about the history of sawmills and turned designs from ancient Rome into a modern-day invention. He increased productivity with his plans, and soon, sawmills from all over the Puget Sound area were coming to him for his help.

And they did open their classy little place, except it became a restaurant of sorts instead of a gambling club. Jason hired a widow to cook daily, and the lumbermen came in each night to have a hot cooked meal, a shot of whiskey, and to hear Avilon sing, all for a decent price. Life was exactly how she wanted it to be, except now it was about to change again…forever. She walked into the restaurant and looked around until she saw Jason behind the bar.