The Five Points, as it turned out, was the name of a neighborhood that had been found at the intersection of four streets, that actually created five different sections. Four roads, five points, all full of buildings built around a kind of irregular shaped town square. Relatively nearby to some docks where immigrants from the rest of the screwed up world routinely showed up at. It had businesses, shops, cramped tenement housing, muddy roads, back alleys, saloons, brothels, and everything else a city neighborhood had.
It was also, apparently, the worst slum in the city of New York.
I made sure to strap on all of my weapons when I learned about that little fact.
I looked around at the little group that was heading for Orna’s home from atop of Butterball. Andrew Carnegie was as good as his word, and over two dozen men, including several heavily armed men I suspected were the infamous Pinkertons, had arrived at the hotel, ready for work. I’d saddled up my horse, and Halona, and together with Orna, we were heading down to Five Points to retrieve her Coppersmith devices and tools.
We left her young siblings at the Hotel, with orders to behave themselves. I had a wager going with Halona on how well that would turn out once we got back. If we got back.
We’re just heading down into the middle of one of the deadliest slums in the city. I thought darkly as we made our way through the crowded, winding roads. And one of the poorest. Run by gang leaders. One of whom was that little rat faced bastard. What could possibly go wrong?
“You sure your stuff will have been safe there over the night?” I asked Orna, who was riding in a large flat top wagon next to me. The streets and traffic of this city had forced us together, and the sight of so many people, horses, carriages, wagons, and horse drawn Omnibuses on the road at the same time was still stunning. It was also impressively aggravating.
The act of going down the road was actually frustrating to an increasingly insane degree, I had noticed. Good thing I wasn’t staying in this city for long, and that I had conversation to help distract me from it. Though I wasn’t sure what was worse: the traffic, or the dangerous lunacy of some of the drivers!
“Yes, my friend is guarding it.” Orna replied with a confident nod.
“Awful lot of trust in this friend of yours.” The man driving the wagon next to her muttered. “I’ve been to Five Points before. The gangs there are small armies of killers, and you lot pissed off one of the local leaders? He’d be obliged to steal your stuff and maybe even burn your building down, just to make a point.”
I stared, dumbfounded that any local population that had ready access to weapons like guns would tolerate such overbearing bullying behavior from anyone. Much less a local crook. Then again though, I’d seen some towns ruled over by less.
City folk. Was all I could think, shaking my head in disbelief.
“Maggie would never stand for that.” Orna replied to the driver, again with easy confidence and total trust in this friend of hers. “She’d rip their throats out.”
I blinked in surprise at the bloody violence she was so easily describing. Who the hell is this friend of hers? I wondered.
Turned out I wasn’t the only one wondering about that. “Maggie?” The driver asked, looking contemplative, before a look of recognition, followed by horror, flowed over his face. “You don’t mean Hell Cat Maggie do you?!”
Orna just smiled brightly at the horrified looking driver. “I do indeed.”
Oh, this ought to be good. I thought, feeling a small grin coming on. “And uh, just who is this Hell Cat Maggie?” I asked, fascinated. “For those of us who aren’t from this city?”
“She’s one of the most dangerous street fighting gangsters in the Five Points.” The man driving the wagon answered, looking both disturbed and grudgingly impressed. “She’s a cat beastkin, and a crazy one at that. Rumor is she has a jar of ears she keeps as trophies of fools who picked fights with her.”
“What kind of cat?” I asked, curious. I’d had multiple issues with cat beastkin over the years, and wasn’t eager to add more to the list.
“She’s called Siamese.” Orna replied, smiling at me, before turning to glare at the driver next to her. “And she’s not all that bad! She protects places for a fee, and in the Five Points, people fight harder than most, so she protects harder than most.”
“Way I hear it, she likes to invite people in and let them start making trouble, before she protects stuff from them.” The driver replied, shuddering. “They say she’s good with blades, short swords and pistols, but is literal hell with her claws and fangs.”
“Hence the name, eh?” I chuckled, looking around the city as it started to change from brick, stone, and construction projects of steel girders to old wood and plaster. The smell started to get worse, as did the general level of filth of the road and buildings.
Not to mention the people.
The clothing and general look of the people slowly began to get worse, and worse, and even worse as we continued through the twisty roads.
Welcome to the slums. I thought, looking around at the people and haphazard buildings, and feeling the atmosphere completely change. I knew now what Andrew Carnegie had meant. I was entering a very dangerous forest. One made of buildings, and where its predators were the people.
And just by carefully looking around, I could tell: these predators were both haggard, and hungry.
Desperate, basically. A terrifying thing to have in humans used to brutal, close quarters violence.
Many looked at us with varying mixtures of desperation, apathy, envy, greed, resentment, disdain, or more dangerous emotions.
“This is going to be such fun!” Halona stated cheerily, pulling our wagon along with no driver. She had a big smile on her face as she looked around, but I noticed it was a more toothy smile, and she was stroking her pistols and knife in a lovingly, if obvious way.
“We’re here to move equipment.” I told her, kneeing Butterball up to her as I kept an eye on the streets and alleyways around us. “Not to have a bloody city street battle.”
“You say that, but you’re forgetting something my dear Master Ranger.” She chuckled, glancing over at a group of young men bunched up at one alleyway watching us go by. They had the unmistakable air of predators deciding on whether or not we were easy meat.
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She grinned wickedly at them as she put her hands on her pistols, and they wisely averted their eyes.
If there was one thing the desperate learned to fear, it was those who found the prospect of violence exciting, rather than frightening.
“And that would be?” I asked, glancing over at a small tenement-turned-brothel that had women of all kinds leaning out of tiny windows in various states of undress, beckoning at all of us passing by. I also noticed several men standing around in the shadows of the building next to them, watching us, and I had a feeling they were allied with the whores.
I’d seen such cozy arrangements like that before.
“You’re here Master!” She stated, laughing as she looked at yet another group eyeing her, and deliberately tapped the handles of her guns, again, with a very big grin. “So of course trouble will come along. It loves to have fun with you!”
I rolled my eyes in annoyance, which only served to amuse the mischievous horse woman as we turned onto a road called Mulberry Road.
“Sounds like fun.” Orna giggled next to us from her seat. Her wagon was close enough that she was basically sitting next to us, even as Halona pulled a wagon behind her, and I sat on a horse. I shook my head as I looked around the even worsening tenement slums, wondering how my life kept getting weirder in all the subtlest of ways.
“Oh my dear, you have no idea!” Halona laughed, and then mock whispered to her, while glancing at me with a wicked smile. “Trouble just adores him! You’ll understand soon enough. I’m so glad you’ve joined our little merry band! You’ll fit right in, and with you around Master Ranger, things will never be boring!”
“Why thank you,” Orna laughed, blushing a little when she glanced at me before looking back at Halona with a grin of her own. “Though I’m really just here until the Exhibition is finished in a few days. Then, after he’s won his bets and made back his money, and I’ve got my sponsored patrons paying for my things, we’ll go our separate ways.”
“It’s adorable you think that will be the sequence of events.” Halona grinned evilly. “Truly, never lose that childish belief in simple fairytales my dear. Even as you wind up traveling with us for the rest of your life.”
I stared at Halona, both shocked, and amused.
“Thanks, I think.” I chuckled, not really knowing what else to do. A shiver actually ran down my spine at her words, and I had to deliberately push it away and refocus on the very dangerous area around us.
“It’s no trouble at all Master.” Halona giggled, even as her eyes continued to scan around the streets. “Though I think trouble will be visiting us today. And shortly at that”
“He is something of a needy old friend at this point.” I jokingly mused as we took another turn to an even muddier and more dilapated part of the Five Points. “I’ve been seeing him so much lately. Perhaps I should say hello to him the next time he so blatantly shows up, wanting attention.”
I chuckled, then stopped and blinked in surprise as I noticed both Halona and Orna giving me odd looks.
“That was an odd turn of phrase.” Halona muttered, looking intrigued. “Have you actually met trouble itself?”
“Of course!” I laughed, mock glaring at her. “The same day I met you!”
We all laughed a bit, and the tension dwindled at bit even as the atmosphere of the area around us only got worse.
“Still, the way you phrased that did stick.” Orna persisted, glancing at me curiously. “Was it a quote from a poem?”
“Somewhat.” I admitted with a small smile. “One of my younger brothers, Luke, likes to be a bit poetical. He likes to say that trouble will remind us that the world is a dangerous place, that demands the best of us by challenging us and trying to break us. And that whenever that happens, it’s our job to step up, grit our teeth, smile, and remind trouble who we are, by overcoming it.”
“I like that.” Orna said, grinning with an intense look in her bright blue eyes. “I like that a lot.”
“Me too.” I replied, as my thoughts briefly returned to my family back on their ranch. “He likes to literally say ‘hello trouble’ whenever an eventful mess happens to him, or us in general. Then he’ll roll up his sleeves, set his shoulders, and no matter what, see the task done.”
“Can’t imagine where he learned that from.” Halona quipped, raising an eyebrow at me sardonically as we came to our final destination.
I rolled my eyes in exasperation as our little convoy pulled off the road and came to a stop by the sidewalks of a set of truly horrible looking tenement buildings. Honestly, the whole city would probably be better served to just burn this whole place down and start again at this point. I thought darkly, looking at the four story buildings jammed together that all looked like they were falling apart, even as people moved about, all but shoving their way through each other.
I looked over at one street clogged with men sleeping in mud and filth, even as tiny children played in it around them, and shuddered before I refocused on what was around me.
“I’ll just let Maggie know we’re back, and then we can all get started!” Orna stated as she hopped down and quickly started walking to the building. “The sooner we’re out of here, the better off we’ll all probably be.”
“The sooner the better.” I muttered, looking around the street, and not liking what I was beginning to see. “Trouble is well on his way over here, by the looks of it.”
“What’s wrong?” Halona asked me, quietly, as she glanced around with narrowed eyes. “What has you on edge?”
“During the war, my regiment entered a town we thought had already been cleared out and captured.” I explained as I noticed several of the more experienced looking Pinkerton’s hackles start to visibly rise as they too started looking around with hard eyes. “It wasn’t. The Coalitioner’s waited till we’d mostly congregated to the center of the town before ambushing us. The only thing that saved me and my own men was that we were further away from the main square.”
“What makes you think this is a repeat of that?” Halona asked, seemingly accepting that we were half a step away from some sort of ambush. I still wasn’t sure how much her apparent trust in me was gratifying, or just worrying.
“All the locals were in on it, and when the ambush started they all cleared out beforehand.” I explained, as I glanced around to both sides of the road, at all the various crammed buildings around us. “Just like they’re starting to do right now.”
As I continued to look around, I could see it: women, children, and working men were all moving away, heading inside or disappearing into alleyways as quickly as possible. Soon all that was left were local looking tough guys, some in suits, some in haggard looking trousers and shirts, some in their blood or soot covered work clothes. All had the look of men of violence.
The look of predators.
And their eyes were focused on us.
“I think we better get these wagons set up, and get ourselves inside.” I remarked to the lead Pinkerton, who nodded in agreement with a hard look on his face.
He set about barking orders to his men, and they quickly and efficiently went about getting the wagons set up in a defensive perimeter that could double as simple loading and moving. We all quickly congregated around the front door of the run down tenement building, our hands either resting on, or outright holding our weapons. The entire block had quieted down, with fewer and fewer normal people walking around.
Still, nobody was keen on spooking a cat beastkin in their own territory, so we waited outside.
“What are they waiting for?” Halona wondered, standing next to me as I continued to scan the area from atop Butterball.
“I have a feeling there’s more going on here.” I replied, frowning. “Maybe some kind of local politics. Someone wants to put on some kind of show. Though for the life of me I can’t figure out why. Or why the hell everyone here gives a damn about a random coppersmith apprentice entering a contest. Big bets or not.”
“Perhaps the hack of a playwright himself will tell us.” Halona half sighed, half grunted suddenly, gesturing to a building across the street from us.
Directly across the street sat a butcher shop, and as I looked at it, a familiar figure stepped out of the front door onto the sidewalk, and just stared at us with an ugly smile.
The short little fat rat of a guild master from yesterday in the park. I never had gotten his name I realized. He strutted up to his side of the road, blatantly looking at us like a would be leader of an invading army, with nigh on three dozen men and women, at least, all congregating around him.
“Hello Trouble.” I muttered, feeling a toothy smile start to pull at my face despite myself. “It’s been awhile. Looks like it’s time to have some wild fun again.”
I reached down and gently caressed my pistols.
“Guess it’s time to remind you, again, who I am.”
“Told you Master.” Halona giggled. “Trouble just loves you!”
“My my,” a silken female voice said from the doorway behind us, almost like a purr. “What fun this is!”