Twenty-Nine
Of all venues,” Roma exclaimed, craning his neck to squint at the broken neon sign propped against the roof, “this had to be the place our man likes to frequent?”
The sun had set half an hour ago, turning the earlier red-hazed sky into vivid black ink. A light mist was coming down too, though Juliette wasn’t sure when that had started. She simply realized upon staring into the hazy blue iteration of M NTUA that there were little ecks of water coming from the sky, and when she touched her face, her ngers came back slick with moisture.
“Honestly?” Juliette said. “I expected more debauchery.”
“I expected more gunre,” Roma replied.
Mantua was slotted perfectly between Scarlet Gang and White Flower territory, a brothel and bar establishment bursting with the thrill of its own taboo. This was one of the most dangerous places in Shanghai, but in a strange, roundabout way, it was also the safest place for Roma and Juliette to be seen together. At any point, unruly men could get up and kill each other, women could whip out their pistols and shoot, bartenders could smash their glasses and decide to start a war. It was this adrenaline rush, the anticipation, the waiting that the people of Mantua were after. Who would believe the whispers coming from a place like this?
“By my knowledge, there have been at least ve disputes here in the past week,” Roma reported, matter-of-fact. They were still standing outside. Neither had made any move to go in. “The municipal police attempt to raid it almost every second week. Why would a Brit come here so often?”
“Why does anybody come here?” Juliette asked in reply. “He likes the excitement.”
It took the same amount of eort as it would if she were wading through tar, but Juliette pulled at the creaky old door and stepped into Mantua, letting her eyes adjust to the dark and dreary interior. Though it was hard to see, certain areas were lit with streams of neon, wires ashing brightly enough to burn her retinas. Looking around, Juliette could almost have convinced herself that she had stepped into a speakeasy in New York, if not for the murkier glow.
Roma closed the door tightly after himself, then waved a hand before his nose, trying to disperse the thick cloud of smoke that wafted his way. “Do you see him?”
Juliette scanned her eyes through the dark shadows and bright spots of neon, squinting past the three American men on the dance oor attempting to teach a prostitute how to do the Charleston. The bar was ocked with customers, an ever-changing crowd of already drunk patrons carelessly tossing dierent currencies onto the alcohol-sodden oor. As soon as one was drawn away from the bar and up a small staircase nearby, entwined with a stranger and no doubt on their way to further sin, another took their place.
Archibald Welch was seated at the very left of the bar, with a clear bubble of space between him and everybody else. Where others simply hovered around their plump, red velvet seats, Archibald was seated rmly: a hulking mass of a man with ginger hair and a neck thicker than his face. The scar tissue that ran across his face glowed under the bar’s blue light. The picture in his arrest le did not do his size justice.
“Huh,” Roma said upon spotting their target. “I don’t suppose we can try to intimidate him.”
Juliette shrugged. “We may as well try.”
The two surged forward, pushing through the crowds of Mantua and coming to a stop on either side of Archibald, settling themselves onto the velvet stools to the left and right of him. Archibald barely stirred. He didn’t acknowledge their presence, though it was quite clear that Roma and Juliette were here for him.
Juliette turned to him and smiled.
“Archibald Welch, I believe?” she said sweetly. “Do you go by Archie?”
Archibald threw his drink down. “No.”
“Really?” Juliette kept trying. “Archiboo, then?”
Roma rolled his eyes.
“All right, that’s enough,” he cut in. “We know about your business with the Larkspur, Mr. Welch, and I’m sure you know who we are. So, unless you want both the Scarlet Gang and the White Flowers coming down on your ass, I suggest you start talking. Now.”
Roma had decided to go rough in contrast to Juliette’s niceties, but it seemed neither tactic was working. Archibald didn’t give any indication that he had processed or even heard Roma’s threat. He just kept drinking his drinks.
“Come on, it’s not even information about you that we need,” Juliette said, allowing a whine to slide into her voice. “We only want to know how to nd the Larkspur.”
Archibald remained quiet. The jazz music raged on in the background and the prostitutes mingled about, searching for their next clients. One came near, a fan clutched in her delicate st, but she pivoted on her heel almost immediately, sensing the tension in that little nook of the bar.
Juliette’s ngers worked at a bead on her dress. She was prepared to prompt the man again, when, to her shock, he set down his glass and said, “I’ll tell you.”
His voice was gravel against rubber. It was the collision of a ship against the coastal rocks that would take it down with all its men.
Roma blinked. “Really?”
Juliette had a suspicion Roma hadn’t meant for that reaction to slip out.
Upon Roma’s response, Archibald’s face split into a smile. His eyes became swallowed by his heavy lids, consumed into dark whorls.
It was the scariest sight Juliette had ever seen.
“Sure,” Archibald said. He signaled to the bartender, who abandoned her present order to cater to him immediately. He was holding three ngers up. “But let’s make this fun. One question answered for every shot you take.”
Roma and Juliette exchanged a perplexed glance. How did that benet Archibald Welch in any way? Was he that desperate for drinking buddies?
“Sounds fair,” Roma grumbled. He eyed the liquid that had been set down before him with more disgust than his usual neutral expression.
Archibald raised his shot glass with a grin. “Gānbēi.”
“Cheers,” Juliette muttered, clinking her glass with his and Roma’s.
The liquid went down fast, re hitting the back of her throat. She cringed more at the taste than the heat, at the terribly cheap brand that her tongue immediately revolted against.
“God, what is this hellre?” Juliette coughed, clinking the empty glass down.
Roma did the same, careful to keep his expression steady.
“Tequila,” Archibald said. He gestured for the bartender. “Next question?”
“Hey,” Juliette protested. “That didn’t count.”
“I said one shot for each question, Miss Cai. No exceptions.”
Three more shots landed before the three of them. This one tasted even worse. Juliette could have been drinking the gasoline that fueled the Scarlet cars.
“We’ll start simple,” Roma said once those glasses clinked down, jumping in before Juliette could squander another question. “Who is the Larkspur?”
Archibald shrugged, feigning apology. “I do not know his name; nor have I seen his face.”
It felt like a lie. At the same time, Juliette could not imagine that this man had any reason to protect the Larkspur. He did not have to engage in this conversation at all if he wished to tell nothing.
Juliette resisted the urge to crush the shot glass in her ngers. “But you have interacted with him? He is a real person with a real place of operation?”
Archibald made a noise of consideration. “I believe there are two questions lurking in that.”
Six glasses this time. Juliette took her two smoothly, having prepared herself this round. Roma had to hold back a cough.
“Of course he is real,” Archibald replied. “Who sent you my way—Walter Dexter?”
Just to be petty, she should have made him drink for the answer to his question, but it likely would have done nothing substantial. It seemed like the
alcohol was hardly aecting Archibald.
“Sort of.”
Archibald nodded, satised enough. “I make direct deliveries to the Larkspur.
Does that count as interaction by your terms?” He tipped his glass upside down,
shook out the last few drops. “I pick them up from Dexter’s warehouse and take everything to the top oor of the Long Fa Teahouse in Chenghuangmiao. That is where the Larkspur makes his vaccine.”
Juliette let out her breath in a quick exhale. That was it, then. They had their address. They could speak to the Larkspur directly.
And if this didn’t work out, then she didn’t know what the hell they would do to save their city.
“Is that all tonight?” Archibald asked. Something about his voice was teasing.
He did not expect this to be enough. He was looking at Juliette like he could read her mind, could see the cogs turning rapidly beneath her skull.
“That’s all,” Roma said, already rolling up his sleeves, preparing to leave.
But Juliette shook her head.
“No.” This time she waved for the bartender. Roma’s eyes bugged. He started to mouth something at her in horror, but she ignored him. “I have more
questions.”
“Juliette,” Roma hissed.
The shots appeared. Archibald chuckled—a big and heavy hoot that came right from his stomach and smelled of fumes—slapping his hand down on the table in amusement. “Drink up, Mr. Montagov.”
Roma glared at the glass, and drank.
“His vaccine,” Juliette started, when the heat in her throat eased, “is it real?
You must know if you make the delivery. You must have seen more than the average merchant.”
This gave Archibald pause. He gargled his drink in his mouth, thinking for a long moment. Perhaps he was deliberating whether to keep silent on this question. But a promise was a promise; Juliette and Roma had already paid for their knowledge.
“The vaccine is both legitimate and not,” Archibald answered carefully. “The Larkspur makes one strain in his lab, using the opiate I deliver. The other strain
is simply colored saline.”
Roma blinked. “What?”
If the madness was not stopped, at some point, it would spread to every corner of Shanghai. With two strains of the vaccine, one that was true and one
that was not, the Larkspur controlled who was immune and who was not.
The weight of this revelation smacked Juliette dead center in the chest.
“The Larkspur is essentially picking and choosing who lives and who dies,” she accused, incensed.
Archibald shrugged, neither conrming nor denying what she had said.
“But how?” she demanded. “How does he have a true vaccine to begin with?”
Archibald waved for the bartender. Juliette tossed down her next drink before he could prompt her, slamming the glass down furiously. Roma was the slowest this time, grimacing severely as he wiped his mouth.
“You’re overstepping the extent of my knowledge, little girl,” Archibald replied. “But I can tell you this: The rst delivery I made, I watched the Larkspur work from a little leather book. He referred back to it continuously, as if he was unfamiliar with the supplies I dumped at his feet.” The cheeky glint in Archibald’s eye seemed to fade. “You wish to know about his true vaccine? The Larkspur was working from a little book made of tough leather found only in
Britain. Do you understand?”
Roma and Juliette exchanged a glance.
“That he is British?” Juliette asked.
“He prefers his notebooks made traditionally?” Roma added.
Archibald looked at them like they were both missing brain cells. “Tell me, if a merchant from Britain set sail for Shanghai when news of madness broke out, would he be here by now?”
Juliette frowned. “Depends how fast the ship is going—”
“Even the fastest ship would not explain the short time between the outbreak of the madness and rumors of the Larkspur’s vaccine,” Archibald interrupted.
“And yet his book came from Britain. Which means he had the formula to a vaccine before the madness had even broken out here.”
Without warning, Archibald suddenly lurched in his seat. For a frightening moment, in her frantic train of thought, Juliette assumed he had been shot, but the movement was only so he could lean forward and wave down the bartender again.
“I believe that answer warrants a few more shots. It was a good one, wasn’t it?”
Juliette’s head was spinning. She was uncertain if it was over the information or the alcohol.
“The book,” she said to Roma. “I shall get the book—”
“Oh, don’t bother,” Archibald cut in. “I never saw it again. I did, however, see charring marks on the oorboards. He burned it. Once he had the methods memorized, do you really think he would risk people like you stealing it?”
It was a good question. Juliette thinned her lips, but Archibald only grinned at such an expression and pushed closer the two shots in front of her. Juliette took one without much hesitation. It was the nal hurrah, after all. They had gotten what they had come for.
“Juliette Cai,” Archibald said, extending his second glass, “you have been a fantastic drinking partner. Mr. Montagov needs some more work.”
“Rude,” Roma muttered.
Carefully, making sure her hand wasn’t shaking, Juliette picked up her second glass too and raised it. Roma followed suit, and then the last shot of poison was going down, working its havoc. Wasting no time, Archibald stood as soon as he nished, clapping a heavy hand over Juliette’s left shoulder and another over Roma’s right shoulder in a gesture of camaraderie.
“It’s been a pleasure, kids. But the clock strikes past eleven o’clock, and my sources have told me it’s time to go.”
He hurried away, merged into the pulsing crowd and fading with the neon.
An absolute agent of chaos. Juliette hardly knew the man and she respected him on principle.
She squeezed her eyes shut, shaking her head and forcing her focus to clear.
She was ne. She could manage this.
“Roma?” she prompted.
Roma tilted sideways and pitched onto the oor.
“Roma!”
Juliette scrambled o her chair and knelt beside him, woozy enough to see in doubles but not enough to lose balance. She gave his face a light smack.
“Just leave me here,” he said with a groan.
“How are you this bad?” Juliette asked in disbelief. “I thought you were Russian.”
“I am Russian, not an alcoholic,” Roma muttered. He squeezed his eyes shut, then opened them wide, blinking at the ceiling with a stunned expression. “Why am I on the oor?”
“We’re leaving,” Juliette commanded. She hauled at his shoulder, trying to get him back onto his feet. With a grunt, Roma complied. Or attempted to—on his rst try, he only managed to sit up. Juliette gave him another tug, and then he was standing again, albeit with some swaying.
“We’re leaving?” Roma repeated.
Suddenly, sirens were lling the room, a piercing wail cutting over the roar of jazz music. There was screaming and then there was a stampede of people running in all directions in such a whir that Juliette could no longer comprehend where the exit was. Outside, a voice on the loudspeaker was demanding that all patrons of Mantua come out with their hands up. Inside, people were pulling the safeties o their guns.
“We’re not leaving anymore,” she corrected. “Unless we want to get shot by the municipal police. Up, it is. Come on.”
She grabbed his sleeve and dragged him toward the little staircase she had noticed earlier in the corner of the establishment. While all of Mantua’s patrons rushed and pushed and stepped over one another to get to the exit, the brightly dressed girls booked it to the stairs instead, slipping up and out of sight.
“Careful, careful,” Juliette warned when Roma stumbled on the rst step.
They were both breathing heavily by the time they came to the top of the stairs, trying to stand still while the world spun. On the second oor, the hallway was so narrow that Juliette couldn’t extend both her arms. The carpet was incredibly plush, half her heel sinking deep into the threads. The neon glow that pervaded the walls downstairs was absent here. This level was lit with the occasional dim bulb along the ceiling, illuminating just enough to see where they were going and to cast long, dancing shadows on the peeling wallpaper.
Juliette opened the rst door she came upon. Two distinct yelps of surprise sounded as light seeped into the tiny room. Juliette squinted and saw a man with
his pants down.
“Get out,” she demanded.
“This is my room,” the woman on the bed protested.
Below their feet, there was a heavy thud, then gunre.
“Oh, I’m sorry, let me rephrase,” Juliette said. It was getting very hard now to stay serious. For the most absurd reason, she had laughter bubbling up into her throat. “Get. Out!”
The man recognized her rst. He was probably a Scarlet, judging by the speed at which he pulled his pants back on and hightailed it out of there, nodding to Juliette on his way out. The woman was a slower case, begrudgingly stepping o a bed that took up half the room. There was one window above the bed, but it was too small to push a cat out, never mind a person.
“Move faster,” Juliette snapped. She could hear footsteps thundering up the stairs.
The woman brushed by and exited, throwing a glare back. Juliette tugged Roma into the vacated room and slammed the door shut.
“I don’t think she liked you very much,” Roma said.
“I don’t care to be likable,” Juliette replied. “Get under the blankets.”
Roma visibly cringed. Screams reverberated into the second oor. “Must I?
Do you know what people get up to under those—”
“Do it!” Juliette hissed. She reached into her dress and pawed through her money pouch, digging out an acceptable amount. It was rather dicult given that she couldn’t really read the numbers anymore.
“Fine, ne,” Roma said. Just as he stumbled onto the bed and drew the blanket over himself, an earth-shattering banging sounded upon the door.
Juliette was ready.
She opened the door a sliver, not enough for the ocer to barge in but enough so he could get a good look at her face, at her American dress. That was usually all it took to put the dots together, and she waited—she waited for that millisecond when the realization set in.
It set in.
“This room is empty,” she instructed him, as if she were putting the ocer under hypnosis. He was Chinese, not British, which was fortunate for Juliette, because it meant he was more likely to fear the Scarlet Gang. Juliette passed the cash in her hands, and the ocer inclined his head, tipping at her the coat of arms of the International Settlement on his dark-blue peaked cap.
“Understood,” he said. He took the cash and then he was on his way, marking the room o as examined and leaving Juliette to shut the door and lean against it with her heart thudding.
“Is it safe now?” Roma asked from within the blankets, his words mued.
Sighing, Juliette marched over and whipped the blankets o him. Roma blinked in surprise, eyes wider than saucepans, his hair opped in all directions.
Juliette started laughing.
The giggle bubbled up from the warmth in her stomach, spreading all over her chest as she plopped down on the bed with her arms wrapped around her middle. She didn’t know what was so funny. Nor did Roma when he sat up.
“This is… your… fault,” Juliette managed to hiccup.
“My fault?” Roma echoed in disbelief.
“Yes,” Juliette managed. “If you could handle your alcohol, we would have left when Archibald Welch did.”
“Please,” Roma said. “If I hadn’t fallen over, you would have.”
“Lies.”
“Yeah?” Roma challenged. He gave her shoulder a hard shove. Juliette’s entire, unstable body teetered backward onto the bed, her head spinning wildly.
“You—”
She came at him with her two hands, though she didn’t quite know what her intent was. Perhaps she was to throttle him, or pluck out his eyes, or go for the gun he had in his pocket, but Roma was faster even in his inebriated state. He caught her by the wrists and pushed, until she was on her back again and Roma was hovering over her, smug.
“You were saying?” Roma asked. He didn’t move away once he had proved his point. He remained—his hands holding her wrists down over her head, his body hovering over hers, his eyes strange and dark and on re.
Something had changed in Roma’s expression. Juliette inhaled sharply, a small, quick breath. It might have gone unnoticed, if Roma hadn’t been so close.
He noticed.
He always noticed.
“Why do you inch?” Roma asked. His voice dropped to a conspiring, merciless whisper. “Do you fear me?”
A hot fury swept into Juliette’s stilled veins. Such an insolent question reawakened all of her dulled senses, sweeping back the numbness of the alcohol.
“I have never feared you.”
Juliette reversed their bodies in one deft push. Bitter and resentful and aggrieved, she hooked her legs around his and twisted her hips until Roma was the one at on his back and she loomed over him, kneeling on the sheets.
Though she attempted to pin his shoulders down as he had done to her, it was a half-hearted, head-spinning attempt. Roma merely looked upon the ire in her manner and responded in kind.
He sat up fast, shaking her grip loose. But he did not act further. They remained as they were—too close, too entwined. She was straddling his lap; he was hovering merely inches away.
One of his hands landed on her ankle. Her hand came down on his neck.
“Perhaps,” Roma said, his words barely audible, “you do not fear me. But”— his hand was moving higher and higher, brushing her calf, her knee, her thigh.
Juliette’s palm sank lower, until it was gripping the space underneath the smooth collar of his white shirt—“you have always feared weakness.”
Juliette snapped her gaze up. Their eyes met, murky and drunk and alert and challenging all at once, the loosest they had ever been and sharper than ever,
somehow—somehow.
“And is this weakness?” she asked.
She didn’t know who was breathing harder—her or Roma. They hovered a gasp away, daring the other to make the rst move, daring the other to give in to what neither wanted to admit they wanted, what neither wanted to admit was something that was happening, what neither wanted to admit was a mere replay
of history.
They both gave in at once.
Roma’s kiss was just as she remembered. It lled her with so much adrenaline and exuberance that she could burst. It made her feel too ethereal for her own body, as if she could tear out of her own skin.
The alcohol had tasted terrible in its glass, but its remnants were wholly sweet on Roma’s tongue. His teeth grazed her lower lip, and Juliette arched against
him, her hands running across his shoulders, down the hard muscles along his sides, up his shirt, and against the burning warmth of his bare skin.
Her blood was roaring in her ears. She felt his lips move from her mouth to her jaw to her collarbone, burning everywhere he touched. Juliette couldn’t think, couldn’t speak—her head was spinning and her world was spinning and she wanted nothing else in this moment than to continue spinning, spinning, spinning. She wanted to veer o course. She wanted to be out of control forever.
Four years ago, they had been innocent and young and good. Their love had been sweet, something to protect, simpler than life itself. Now they were monstrous; now they were pressed against each other and giving o the same heady perfume of the brothel they hid inside, drunk o more than just cheap tequila. Hunger and desire fueled their every move. Juliette tore at the buttons down Roma’s front and she was pushing his shirt o, gripping at the scars and the old wounds that ran down his back.
“Call a truce,” Juliette murmured against his lips. They needed to stop. She couldn’t stop. “You are torturing me.”
“We are not at war,” Roma replied softly. “Why call a truce?”
Juliette shook her head. She closed her eyes, let the sensation of his lips brushing against her jaw roll through her. “Aren’t we?”
We are.
The realization hit Juliette like a bucket of ice, sinking into her bones with a sort of cold found six feet underground. She burrowed her face into the crook of Roma’s neck, forcing herself not to break, not to cry. Roma sensed the change before Juliette had even realized it herself, his arms coming around to hold her.
“What are you doing, Roma Montagov?” Juliette whispered, her voice only a rasp. “What are you doing to me?”
Wasn’t playing with her heart once enough? Hadn’t he already torn her in two and left her to the wolves once before?
Roma did not say anything. Juliette could read nothing from him, not even when she lifted her head and looked at him with wide, blinking eyes.
Juliette lurched away suddenly, scrambling to stand. Only then did Roma react. Only then did he reach out and grab her wrist, whispering, “Juliette.”
“What?” she hissed back. “What, Roma? Do you wish to explain what this is between us, when you made it achingly clear four years ago where your heart stands? Shall I hold you at gunpoint until you have no choice but to admit you
are once again playing me—”
“I am not.”
Juliette reached into her dress, tore out the gun she had hidden in its folds.
With the hand she had free, she pulled the safety and pressed the barrel to the underside of his jaw—to the soft part where her mouth had been merely minutes before—and all Roma did was lift his chin so the gun would sink in further, until the muzzle was only another press of a kiss against his skin.
“I cannot fathom it,” she breathed. “You destroy me and then you kiss me.
You give me reason to hate you and then you give me reason to love you. Is this a lie or the truth? Is this a ploy or your heart reaching for me?”
His pulse was beating hard enough that Juliette could sense it, could feel it thundering away even as she stood over him with her hand so close to his neck.
An arc of moonlight had shifted in through the small window, and now it ran along Roma’s body: his bare shoulders and his bare arms, braced to either side of him but making no move to stop Juliette from threatening his life.
She could pull the trigger. She could save herself the agony of hope.
“It is never as simple as one truth,” Roma replied hoarsely. “Nothing ever is.”
“That is not an answer.”
“It is all I can give you.” Roma reached up, closed his ngers around the barrel slowly. “And it is all that you could bear to hear. You speak to me as if I am still the same person you left behind, who betrayed you four years ago, but I am not. And you are not the same Juliette I loved, either.”
Juliette was the one holding the gun, but suddenly she felt like she had been shot. Mantua was silent now, the raid nished and the municipal police packed up. Below, all that moved was the reected glow of the building’s neon sign, rippling in the shallow rain puddles.
“Why?” she rasped. The question she should have asked four years ago. The question that had been bearing on her all those years, a weight chained to her heart. “Why did you launch that attack on my people?”
Roma’s eyes uttered shut. It was like he was waiting for the bullet to come.
“Because,” he whispered, “I had no choice.”
Juliette withdrew her gun. Before Roma could say anything more, she ran out.
