Cogling Read online

  The door opened a crack and a man’s bearded face peered out. “Whatcha want, kid?”

  “I need my m-mother.Victoria Mather. She works here.”

  “Sorry.” Cheap perfume wafted into the alley, and from somewhere within the dark interior, a female giggled. “I can’t go git none o’ the dancers.”

  “She’s a singer.” She held up her hands to display the gloves. He should recognize them from the Music Hall wardrobe. The man should be fired for not cooperating.

  He leaned his forehead against the door. “I can’t git one o’ them, either. When they’re workin’, they’re workin’, an’ that’s all there’s to it.”

  “I’ll go fetch her,” Edna began.

  “Can’t let nobody in without a ticket. You gonna buy a ticket, kid?”

  “You don’t understand, I need her. My brother’s missing.” Her voice squeaked on the final word. “If you knew how Harrison had—”

  “Wait till she gets home.” The door creaked shut and the lock clicked as it settled into place.

  Edna rattled the brass knob. “Mum! It’s me, Edna!” She staggered back, chest heaving. She didn’t have enough money to buy a ticket for the show.

  Once, when Lord Waxman had driven his motorcar to the ice cream parlor, a beggar had scratched the paint. An officer had found the culprit and had him sent to prison.

  The police would help her.

  Edna rushed to the next city block before she encountered a police officer patrolling the corner. A baby dragon with scales the color of emeralds perched on the man’s shoulder. The officer wore a high-collared jacket of ocean blue, with matching pants and a brimmed hat. Copper tassels hung off his sleeves.

  Edna stopped herself before grabbing his arm. If she seemed too aggressive, he might disregard her. “Excuse me, sir.”

  “I don’t have pennies to give out.”

  She tried to smile. Respect would gain respect. “My brother’s gone—”

  “Scat, kid, I’m working.” The officer waved his gloved hand and the dragon hissed.

  “I need your help.” Curses on manners. Edna grabbed his sleeve, but he pushed her hand away. The dragon flapped its wings and bared its fangs.

  “If you’ve got complaints, take it up at the station.” The officer sneered.

  Odds bobs! A light rain dampened her cheeks as she ran the four blocks to the police station. Her heart pounded and her legs ached, but she pushed on, unable to reach it soon enough. Despite the weather, hawkers sold their goods, and homeless children darted between vehicles. She burst through the doors of the station, stumbling to a halt behind a line of people. One officer sat behind the counter, his graying hair knotted in a ponytail beneath his cap.

  “Yes,” he said to the next woman in line. The baby dragon on his shoulder purred.

  “A man stole my purse,” she whined. “It had all my money in it. I just moved here from the countryside—”

  “Look, lady,” the officer interrupted. “You shouldn’t have put all your money in one place. That’s your first mistake. Secondly, no way am I gonna catch a thief in a city this big.”

  “He stole every cent I had!” She flapped her shawl, tears trickling down her cheeks.

  The officer shrugged. “Nothing I can do about that. Next!”

  Edna pushed to the front of the queue. “My name’s Edna Mather and my brother disintegrated.”

  Silence fell over the station. The dragon stretched its wings and yawned. As an animal, could it sense the evilness inside her?

  She glared at the officer’s smirk. Maybe “disintegrated” sounded too much a mystery novel. “My brother fell apart right before my very eyes. All that was left was some gears and a watch.” She fumbled in her pocket for the item.The crowd burst into laughter. The woman who’d had her wealth stolen harrumphed. “What kind of city do you have? A bunch of nut jobs?”

  Edna’s cheeks flushed. There had to be something she could say to make them believe. Harrison counted on her. “I swear it on anything you want. My brother up and vanished. You gotta find him. I swear that mess couldn’t have been him. People don’t fall apart. There were only cogs left.”

  “No, doll,” the officer chuckled. “They don’t fall apart.”

  “I’m serious!” She slammed her hands against the counter.

  “Run along back home, sweetie, before your father falls apart, too,” a man called from the line.

  “Maybe a hag stole him. Never can trust them,” another man said.

  The young man who’d been next shoved her aside. “It’s my turn, lass.” He turned toward the officer. “I can’t find my daughter anywhere. She’s usually….”

  Edna turned away, fresh tears burning her hazel eyes. The police wouldn’t help, especially now that she’d started a row. Laughter scalded her back as she stormed from the station. Rain pummeled her face, cooling her cheeks. Folding her arms over her chest, she bowed her head. “He isn’t dead. He can’t be.”

  They were both missing work. They would be fired, tossed out on the street until—if—they found other positions.

  Thunder rumbled in the distance. She glanced up; she’d walked a block from the station, but she couldn’t go home.

  Ducking into the doorway of an abandoned office, she leaned against the rough wall and sunk to her bottom. What did the heroes in mystery novels do? She fished the watch from her pocket. It had to be the clue—that and the cogs were all she had.

  “Where’d you come from?” She rubbed the pad of her thumb over the metal. “Are you real silver or just silver plated? Harrison, what is this?”

  The frigid barrel of a handgun pressed against the side of her neck, exposed by her braid and the damp collar of her coat.

  “Listen,” a soft voice said. “You gimme that watch and I don’t shoot you. You got ten seconds to do it, and those seconds started ticking a while ago.”

  All that is be here.

  ou bluff.” Edna couldn’t outrun a bullet, so she’d need something to throw at the gun bearer. She scanned the stoop and sidewalk for a rock.

  The evil should rise and nip at her fingertips, but it stayed at ease, as though her panic weren’t warranted. Curse it all.

  “Time’s run out. Not bluffing, m’dear.” The thief seized her elbow. He looked a few years older than her, taller, with gaunt cheeks, and trembling lips. Black hair hung matted down to his shoulders.

  “You don’t have the right to threaten me.” The prayer beads weighed against her wrist—the seven Saints would protect her. She threw her fist toward his face, but landed the blow on his shoulder. When he staggered, Edna jumped up.

  As she started to flee, he wrapped his arms around her torso. Edna and the thief hit the stoop, sliding in the rain, and his handgun bumped the cement.

  “Gimme the stupid watch an’ you won’t get hurt,” he panted against her ear.

  People wandered by on the street, but didn’t glance their way within the shelter of the abandoned building. She opened her mouth to scream, but he grabbed her upperarms and forced her onto her back.

  His face hovered a few inches above hers and his garlic breath scalded her nostrils. “I bet you stole it from some lady walkin’ on the street.”

  “Odds bobs, I’m not a thief! If you want it, you’ll have to shoot me first.”

  He rocked back onto his heels. His legs, clamped around hers, kept her pinned. His muscles strained the seams of his slacks. “I don’t wanna hurt you, I just need the watch.”

  “I can’t let nothing happen to it till I get Harrison back.” Edna struck his chest with her fists, but he grabbed her arms. The silver chain dangling from her hand tickled her wrist. Why didn’t the evil rise?

  “The fellow you stole it from?”

  “No! I don’t look like a thief. I don’t have a gun like you. I’m not accosting people.”

  The thief raised his eyebrows. “He your lover?”

  “He’s my brother,” she snapped.

  “You canoodle with your brother?
”

  “No.” The fool didn’t listen.

  “You steal from your brother?”

  “He showed up with this watch and when I tried to take it away, he balked something fierce. Then he kinda exploded. Nothing but some cogs left. I swear on the king’s head, I’m telling the truth!”

  She expected the thief to laugh or call her a loon. Instead, his grey eyes darkened, narrowing to slits. Were they grey, or silver, like a hag’s eyes? She sucked breath through her teeth. Hags were always female. His irises couldn’t be silver.

  Unless he was an ogre.

  Impossible. His features were too human. He released her and wiped his palms across the front of his ragged brown sweater. “It got some fancy sketching on the back? Looks a bit like a starburst?”

  Her gasp caught in her throat. “How do you know?”

  “I seen some watches like that. Turn it over so I can look. I swear on the moon I won’t steal it from you.”

  She clutched the watch to her chest. “I don’t trust you.” The metal heated beneath her palms and the engraving bit into her skin. “This is my only link to Harrison’s disappearance.”

  “Did your brother start hollerin’ when you tried to take the watch away?”

  Edna nodded. “I tried twice, and both times he fussed. You been spying on me?”

  “I reckon he was a cogling.”

  Her skin prickled. “What?”

  “Cogling,” the thief repeated. “I grew up in the countryside, and there we got automation changeling worries. Some bad hags replace kids for things they make out of dreams, breath, and metal.” He rubbed his knuckles over his turned-up nose. “Hags can control bits of nature, so they can make magical items. Like…” He scratched his head, long fingers catching in his dark hair.. “They can combine different herbs, and add a bit of a dream, and they get a potion that makes your hair grow fast.”

  She shivered as rainwater seeped through her clothes to her skin. “They sell their stuff to the rich folks. Necklaces and things.” Rachel’s new corset had come from a hag’s shop. The hag had enchanted it to make Rachel look more mature.

  “You know where they make ‘em?”

  “At home?” She squirmed against the cold ground. “The hags not in the swamp live in the south tenements. They’ve got hanging skulls and organs in bottles. I ain’t been, but I hear stuff.”

  The thief smirked.

  “Look, I need to find my brother. You might have plenty of time to ponder the city, but I don’t.”

  He rolled to standing. Holes without patches adorned his black slacks, gray socks showing beneath. A toe poked through his worn-out boots. His stained sweater buttoned over a white shirt, the collar discolored from sweat. “Look at the back of your watch. I reckon there’s a sunburst, an’ in it what looks like a lady’s face. That’s the same symbol they put outside all their factories out in the bog waters.”

  Edna sat up. “Don’t you dare push me back and run off, you hear?” When the thief stared at her from beneath his black hair, she turned the watch over. On the back, etched into the silver, shone the same design he’d described.

  He tipped his head, shoulder-length hair falling over his eyes. Dirt smudged his tanned skin. “Hags steal kids to work their machines, ‘cause kids got littler hands. They replace the kids they steal with automation changelings, like what I was tellin’ you. Coglings. The things that keep the coglings goin’ is that watch. Most of the time, the parents don’t notice a problem. The hags have it so the cogling acts just like the child.”

  “Harrison acted different. He was too quiet today.” The thief couldn’t be telling the truth. It was too preposterous. Too evil.

  “The hags have to trap the kid’s breath in a rag and then make the metal absorb the rag. Maybe the rag didn’t work right.”

  “Rumors about hags stealing children are only stories to scare people. Harrison was sick, not stolen.”

  But he’d fallen apart. The real him had disappeared.

  The thief grinned. “They do it in the middle of the night, an’ all you hear is the tinkling of a bell.” He grabbed his gun off the stoop.

  Blood drained from Edna’s face and she squeezed her eyes shut. A bell. The thief couldn’t possibly know she’d heard a chime last night.She narrowed her eyes.

  “Aha, you know I’m tellin’ the truth.”

  “Wait.” Edna held up her hand. “Why not just steal the kids?”

  “The police might start hunting the hags. They have to make a living selling to the humans.”

  “Horrid!” The darkness within her might not be worthy of the seven Saints, but it could never be that disgraceful.

  “That’s how the world works, luv. Not all hags are bad, but the ones who make coglings are.”

  “Why can’t the hags just use coglings in the factories?” She had to find a problem with his story, had to find a simpler solution to Harrison’s disappearance. Edna nibbled on her fingernail.

  “Sure, hags can make potions and cast spells, but there’s a lot of magic in those items they sell. They pull that magic from dreams. Coglings can’t dream, but kids do, a lot. That’s why they take them to the factories in the swamp. They put tracking devices in the pocketwatches so they can get them back to use again. They won’t look for this one right away, but eventually they will. They’ll come get you.”

  Edna swayed, then squeezed her eyes shut. She wouldn’t pass out, had to be strong.

  “Easy to steal a blessing from a poor kid to give to a rich old woman,” the thief added. “You want your brother back? I’ll take you to the factories, for a fee.”

  “How do I know you’re telling the truth?”

  “You either believe me or you don’t.” He flared his nostrils.

  “Can’t we just go to the police?” They thought she was crazy, though. Maybe she could go above that officer at the station. She gasped. “We could go to the king! If the hags are really kidnapping children, he has to stop them.”

  “Ha. The police want proof, and money, and the king wants to stay oblivious. You ever see him? He wants to tax and that’s it.”

  She gulped, twirling her prayer beads. The glass beads slid against each other, clinking. The boy’s answers made too much sense. “How much of a fee do you want? I don’t have a lot.” Of what she did have, she would spend it all on Harrison. Her parents would understand.

  “We gotta take a train to the country, and I should have some new clothes so people don’t look at me too much. The train back, too, and you gotta pay for all that.”

  “You can wear some of my father’s things.” She tried to add the prices, but couldn’t recall hearing how much a train ticket cost.

  “You also gotta pay for food and lodging, and left over, I’ll take five brittins.” He held out his hand. Dirt rimmed his broken fingernails. “Name’s Ike.”

  “Edna.” She shook his hand.. “I’ll pay for all that, and the five brittins besides, but I keep the money until it’s needed.”

  Ike searched her face with his dark circle-ringed eyes. Edna kept her lips pursed. If she backed down, he might take advantage. He released the handshake. “When can you be off?”

  “We’ll go back to my apartment and I’ll get what we need.”

  His smile seemed too eager. Her chest hurt from her racing heartbeat, but she refused to doubt her decision. Every second she paused took Harrison farther from her.

  “Wait. Why do the hags need to keep a tracking device on their automations?”

  “Easy, luv; so they can find them and take them back. The kid is said to act weird and gets taken to the hospital. The hags at the hospital—and there’s always a hag at the hospital—whisks the automation away to make into another kid to snatch. Then the poor parents are told their wee one died. They always pick the penniless people, ‘cause they don’t have enough money for a proper burial. They never need to see the body again, so nobody revolts against the hags.”

  All of those suffering families… blood drained from
Edna’s head at the thought. “That’s disgusting!”

  “Sure is, but that’s how the world works, luv. You want your brother back or not? “A sly light gleamed in his gray eyes, making her heart skip a beat. “Look, I know somebody who knows some stuff. I’ll take ya there. We should see her first, anyway.”

  Edna wet her lips. “Who is she?” A murderer? Another thief?

  “Name’s Hilda. She’s a Lady Fae, but she helps out us street urchins a bit.” His cocky grin almost made her smile.

  A Lady Fae, so she’s a hag who blesses weddings and Christenings for those who don’t have much money, because those with wealth don’t trust her as much as they trust others. “How much will she charge for a consultation?”

  “Hilda doesn’t care about money. She does it outta goodness.”

  “But she’s Fae!”

  Ike nudged her forward. “This way.”

  Edna followed Ike up the creaking, narrow stairs to the third floor of a tenement. At one of the last doors, he rapped his knuckles across the warped wood.

  “It’s Ike.”

  “How well do you know the Fae?” Usually, the magic kind stuck together and didn’t interact with humans, apart from business transactions. Edna studied him through the corners of her eyes, but he didn’t look Fae.

  “Shh.”

  Hilda opened the door with a beaming smile. She wore a long white dress with a high lace collar and her dark hair was pulled back in a bun beneath a blue kerchief. The hag appeared to be around twenty years old, but knowing the Fae, she could have been two hundred.

  “Ike, luvy, a visit for me?” She closed her eyes as she smiled. “Come in, dear. You’ve brought a friend.” She opened one eye to study Edna. “A troubled friend.”

  Edna shivered. “I need your help.”

  Hilda motioned toward a patched sofa. “Sit, luvys, and speak. I’m here to listen.”

  Edna sat toward the edge of the cushion in case she needed to speed toward the door. If the hag recognized the evil in her, Edna might have to flee. Ike leaned back and crossed one leg over the other.