The Inquisitor's Apprentice

“So,” Mr. Kessler said, as cheerfully as if no one had ever mentioned dybbuks and conjure men. “The big day’s finally here. excited?”

“Well — I—”

“You’re not worried about Inquisitor Wolf, are you? Don’t be. Sure, he’s got this big reputation. But I know you. You’re smart and honest, a hard worker. What could he possibly find to complain about?”

Sacha met his father’s gaze — and was shocked to realize that they were looking at each other eye to eye. When had he gotten as tall as his father? and when had his father started stooping like that? had he always looked so old and tired?

“I just hope I can help out around the house some … you know … like Bekah does.”

He knew he’d made a mistake as soon as he said the words. He’d known his father was ashamed when Bekah had to quit school to work at Pentacle. Now that shame hung in the air between them.

“You mean help out with money?” Mr. Kessler asked stiffly. “You think we took you out of school just so you could make money for us?

“No, but—”

“We did it for you. We did it for your future.”

“I know, but—”

“No buts! You’ve been handed a chance in life, and I want you to grab it with both hands and not look back. You understand me?”

Sacha nodded, not trusting himself to speak.

“Promise me you’ll look out for number one and forget about the rest,” said the man who’d been looking out for Sacha all his life.

Sacha hesitated.

“Promise!”

“Okay, okay! I promise.” But in his mind he was promising something very different. I’ll do whatever it takes to keep this job, he swore. I’ll be the best apprentice anyone’s ever seen and the fastest to make Inquisitor. I won’t rest until you’ve quit the docks and Bekah’s gone to college and Mama’s sewn her last shirtwaist.

CHAPTER FIVE. Lily Astral

SACHA DASHED through the turnstile of the Astral Place subway station just as the uptown express arrived in a shriek of steel wheels and a cloud of old newspapers.

Astral place was named after the oldest of the Old New York families. The Astrals didn’t live on Astral Place anymore, of course. They’d moved uptown to Millionaire’s Mile, along with all the other high-society families. But the subway stop still bore their name, and terra cotta beavers adorned its walls in memory of the fur trade that had made the Astrals rich when shamans and medicine men still roamed Manhattan Island.

Someday Sacha would be able to catch the subway right near his house on Canal Street. But for now everything south of Astral Place was a mud-choked construction site. Sacha wondered idly which rich family their station would be named after when it was finally finished. Well, as long as it wasn’t J. P. Morgaunt. Normally Sacha didn’t mind politics, but he really was going to scream if he had to hear one more stupid joke about Pentacle’s Tentacles.

Sacha elbowed his way through the rush-hour crowd and just managed to claim the last open seat. It was a good seat, too: a smartly dressed banker was reading the morning paper right next to him, which meant that Sacha got to catch up on the latest headlines for free.

Mostly it was the usual bad news. Congress was considering banning all immigration from Russia because of “undesirable magical elements.” Another bribery scandal was rocking City Hall. The contractor on the new Harlem subway line had been caught using illegal magical workers to cut costs. Harry Houdini had been called before ACCUSE (the Advisory Committee to Congress on Un-American Sorcery) to prove that he pulled off his miraculous escapes without aid of magic. And Thomas Edison had invented a mechanical witch detector.

Great, Sacha told himself. His first day of work, and Thomas Edison had already invented a machine that made him obsolete. If that wasn’t Yiddish luck, he didn’t know what was!

He was craning his neck to read about the witch detector when the banker noticed him reading over his shoulder. The man gave an outraged gasp and glared at Sacha as if he’d just caught him trying to pick his pocket. Sacha straightened his neck and stared innocently out the window — straight at an ad for Edison’s Portable Home Phonographs.

He’d seen the ad before. Who hadn’t? It was plastered on buildings and billboards all over the city. It showed two little girls gathered around a shiny new Edison Portable Home Phonograph. They were listening to music — some kind of uplifting patriotic hymn judging by the expressions on their faces. They both had blue eyes and blond curls and pert little button noses. And the advertising slogan painted in flowing script under the picture read “Edison Portable Home Phonographs — Real American Entertainment.”

It was a popular ad. Even Sacha had been impressed when he first saw it. But somehow he’d never noticed before now how very blond those two little girls were. Or how the word American was painted in ever-so-slightly bolder and brighter letters than all the other words — as if to hint that other kinds of entertainment and the people who enjoyed them weren’t quite as American as the people who bought Edison Portable Home Phonographs.

It gave Sacha the creeps. Worse, it reminded him of Bekah’s mocking question: Who ever heard of a Jewish Inquisitor?

Sacha was still asking himself that question when he stepped into the booking hall of the Inquisitors Division of the New York City Police Department.

At first glance, the Inquisitors Division looked just like any other police station. High ceilings. Dirty walls painted in an institutional shade of green. Marble floors littered with spittoons, cigarette butts, and tobacco stains. An ornately carved booking counter. On one side of the counter was the waiting area, where victims and criminals were packed elbow to elbow on hard wooden benches. On the other side was the typing pool: two dozen efficient- looking girls in prim and proper shirtwaists pounding away at clattering typewriters.

The Inquisitors stood around the booking counter, gossiping and joking and flirting with the typing pool girls. Some of them were in uniform and some were in plainclothes. Most of them looked Irish. and all of them looked far too intimidating for Sacha to risk more than a quick sidelong glance at them.

It wasn’t until Sacha saw the criminals that he truly realized this was no ordinary police station. Scanning the faces of the suspects chained to the long wooden bench was like reading an illustrated catalog of magical crime. There were horse whisperers decked out in soft tweed caps and rumpled corduroys. There were ink-stained hex writers from every corner of Europe. There was even a fresh-faced traveling salesman toting a leather-bound edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica. He had a look of long-suffering innocence on his face that seemed to say getting arrested was just a terrible mistake. But the cops all knew him, and this obviously wasn’t his first trip to the lockup. He must be a conjure man, Sacha decided. The encyclopedia probably turned into rats (or worse) as soon as he’d pocketed your final payment.

In fact, a lot of the suspects seemed to have been here before. There was something practiced and coordinated about the way they all slid down the bench, with a little clink of their chains, when the desk sergeant finished booking a suspect and called out “next!”

At the moment the sergeant was struggling to keep the peace between a scrawny little fellow and a shrieking woman who seemed determined to take the law into her own hands. The arresting officer was doing his best to keep the pair apart, but he was no match for the victim’s stiletto-sharp umbrella.

“You again, Bob?” the sergeant sighed as the outraged woman swiped at the little man but hit the arresting officer’s ear instead. “We oughta start charging you rent.”

“I’m innocent this time!” Bob cried. “I swear I was just picking her pocket!”

“Come on, Bob. You think I was born yesterday?”