The Watchmage of Old New York (The Watchmage Chronicles Book 1) by C.A. Sanders

Met as he struck a bloody sailor across the back.  He didn’t stop to look at me.
    I kicked the leg out from one whapper covered in tattoos.  He sprawled to the ground and the Met stomped on his eggs.  “Welcome to New York,” I chuckled.
    The Met looked at my badge and raised his fists. 
    “I’m here to help,” I said.
    He was about to reply when a tow-headed sailor punched him in the sniffer. I grabbed the man and threw him to the ground with a flying mare.  Before I could react, another one was on me.  He hit me on the top of the head, knocking off my hat, and I felt the throbbing burn of an open cut.  I jabbed him in the belly with my nightstick.  He doubled over, and I drove my knee into his floating rib, flooring him.
    The other two Mets were able to subdue the rest, leaving me with three armed men who don’t like my type.  “Easy, fellas.  I don’t want trouble.”  The crowd that formed around the brawl closed in, sealing any escape.  I took a chance and held out my hand to shake.
    There was a long pause, and I saw Hendricks trying to cut his way through the crowd. His head bobbed up and down, visible over the mob.  Finally, the Met that I was fighting next to shook my hand.  “McGregor,” he said.
    “Hood,” I replied.  “How’s your sniffer?”
    He rubbed it.  “Not bad, I’ve had worse.  We’ve been having a helluva time this week.  That fancy English fella an’ his people came in for Thanksgiving with Mayor Wood.  His sailors think they’re too important to go to jail.  They’re not too important for a good annoitin’.” He glanced back to his friends.  “You better get outta here. We’ve got some more fellas coming with the wagon, and they might not be as friendly.”
    “Good idea, but one thing.  Do you know a Leenie Hyde?”
    “This isn’t my beat, but lemme ask.”  He turned to his friends and mumbled some things.  They mumbled back.
    “I know ‘er,” said one of the other Mets, a blue eyed man missing half an ear, but making up for it in mustache.  “Lives with her ma’ on Cherry and Catharine.  Red brick building, with a butcher on the bottom.  She’s a beer maid at the Bloody Knuckle, ‘bout two blocks down.  Watch out fer that place, it’s one of Smokestack’s.”
    I nodded and thanked them as the crowd wandered off.  Me and Hendricks continued down the street.
    “Smokestack?” Hendricks asked.
    “Smokestack Sullivan.  He owns a few saloons, gambling houses, brothels, councilmen, an engine company, whatever brings in the jack,” I said.  “He mostly rolls the sailors and Irish just off the boat.  He’s a real boss down here.  You don’t get in his way.”
    “What are we going to do?”
    “Talk to Leenie Hyde and hope that Smokestack isn’t involved.” 
    Hendricks gasped as we passed a tattooed sailor and a streetwalker kissing in a doorway. Her cat-heads were popping out of her dress top, and the sailor’s hand cupped one of them and squeezed. I rapped on the wall with my nightstick to move them along. Some people have no manners.  Keep it in the brothels or on the Hook, where it belongs.
    His wits regained, Hendricks returned to the conversation.  “Do you think he’s involved?”
    “We’ll find out.  There’s the building.”
    The building looked ready to collapse. The red bricks were blackened around the mortar from soot and grime.  A garish sign on the side of the building shouted “Fresh Meat” in bright blue letters, but it was overpowered by the dozen bills posted on the same wall.  The butcher shop smelled of bad meat.  Combined with the fish stand on the other corner, the entire street reeked like nothing I’ve ever had to bear. It’s hard to believe that people live here.
    The building couldn’t be more than fifteen years old, since most older ones are wood.  I’d wager that a wooden one burned down here, and this calamity sprang up like a brick mushroom.  It was the new tenement style, a broken