Hard Magic (30 page)

“What do you think?” he asked the advance scout from the Shadow Guard contingent.

The young woman removed her sunglasses and studied the tower’s defenses. She did not need a telescope any more than he did, revealing that she surely wore the kanji granting the vision of a hawk. “They are complacent.”

Her assessment matched his own. He’d studied this location carefully when the Chairman had commissioned the study of weak points in the American defenses. The fact that they were able to park so close was a testament to Americans’ foolish pride. There were half a dozen other automobiles parked along the road here as well, mostly travelers stopping to gape at one of the legendary Peace Rays.
Pathetic.
“Can you take it?”

“Easily. Judging from the number of vehicles, traffic, and visible guards, I would say that they are understaffed. Even if they have any Actives, we will take them by surprise,” she stated. It was a well-known fact that the military had atrophied since the last war left the country in an isolationist stupor. After all, who could invade a country that had so many Peace Rays? “It will take at least twenty minutes for reinforcements to arrive. Their lack of fear has made them soft.”

“We’ll have to remedy that . . .” he muttered, glancing over at the Shadow Guard. The fact that she was female meant nothing. The Shadow Guard was made up of Fades and Travelers, perfect assassins. The Chairman would never waste one, even if they were of the weaker sex, but he’d been surprised to find that she was as white as he was.

She caught him looking, and turned her eerie grey eyes on him. Her hair was dark red. She obviously knew what he was thinking. “My parents were British missionaries in Burma when it fell. I was raised in an Imperium school. It was a great honor. As you are well aware, a Caucasian is able to do more among the Americans without arousing suspicion.” She put the cheaters back on to hide her unnatural eyes.

She was beautiful, and she knew it. Madi was impressed with the way that her every unconscious move managed to display her perfect body just enough to keep his constant attention. The Shinobi Academy had taught her well. Seduction was a valuable tool of espionage. Even if she wasn’t a Traveler, he had no doubt that she would be an effective tool. “What do they call you?”

“For the purposes of this mission, my identity is Gladys Mays of Toledo, Ohio. In the academy, I took the name Toshiko.” She returned his gaze without fear. That was something else he would have to fix. Madi had masters and he had followers. He didn’t have equals.

He’d taken so many kanji onto his body that all physical sensations had become dull. He had taken to cutting himself with a razor just so he could feel. It was a rare occasion to find a woman that got his attention. Madi decided he would take her for himself when this mission was complete. He’d see just what tricks the academy had taught her, and he’d consider it his reward. Being an Iron Guard had its privileges.

“Brief your men, Toshiko. We strike tonight . . .”

Mar Pacificia, California

Francis had watched
Faye training for the last hour. She was learning at a frightening speed, and he found it nearly impossible to keep track of how fast she popped in and out of sight, appearing suddenly at totally unexpected directions and speeds. Lance was clearly befuddled trying to keep up. Though he knew it was impossible, the girl didn’t seem to be capable of running out of Power.

He had needed to do something to get his mind off his grief, and his first inclination had been to raid the liquor cabinet and drink himself incoherent on his family’s finest vintages, but he knew that the General would have disapproved. Pershing had been like a father to him, far better than the man who’d spawned him.

His father hadn’t been a bad man per se, simply weak. He was a politician first, human being a distant second. He was the type who tested the wind before stating an opinion. There were no truths, only the path that had the least economic repercussions. When he’d been appointed ambassador, and had seen the Imperium’s evil firsthand, even that hadn’t been enough to goad him into taking a stand. Francis, on the other hand, had left Japan haunted with nightmares from the things he had seen.

He was a Mover from a long line of Movers, only he was far more talented than his forbearers. To them, it was just a parlor trick, something that could become an embarrassment should it ever become public knowledge, and he had constantly been admonished to keep his Power secret. General Pershing had seen his talent, recognized his potential, and had shown him how he could use it to make things right. Pershing had taught him how to be a man. He owed him his life, except now he was gone.

Francis jumped as Heinrich appeared on the bench beside him. The Fade always managed to move with unnerving silence. “Sorry,” he said calmly. “I did not intend to startle you.”

“Well, you didn’t,” Francis sputtered. “I heard you coming,” he lied.

Heinrich was quiet as he watched Faye disappear just as Lance tried to hit her with a padded stick, only to reappear ten feet in the air over his head. “She’s too talented to just be some poor country girl. I do not trust her.”

“You’re incapable of trust,” Francis muttered, then regretted it.

“I’ve earned that right,” Heinrich said softly. “Where I come from, trust is an honor given to very few . . .”

Francis was once heir to the world’s greatest blimp magnate. Who was he to judge someone who’d grown up as a homeless urchin inside the walls of Dead City? Francis had never been inside the ruins of what had once been Berlin, but he’d heard the legends. The smoking blight left by the firing of the Peace Ray had ended the Great War, but had burned the land and poisoned the air. Then it was made hell on Earth as the Kaiser’s undead soldiers had been rounded up and walled inside. He couldn’t even begin to imagine what it had been like to be one of the humans trapped inside, especially as a child. “I’m sorry. That’s not what I meant.”

Heinrich continued as if he hadn’t heard Francis’s apology, which was probably for the best. All the Grimnoir knew that behind his friendly demeanor, Heinrich was a pained man. “This girl . . . She is not as dumb as she pretends to be.” He couldn’t disagree with that assessment. Faye was smart, just not in a
normal
way. “She shows up and immediately kills a prisoner just as he is starting to talk . . . That doesn’t strike you as odd?” He didn’t wait for a response. “Then soon after, we lose the General . . .”

“We all knew it was coming soon.” Maybe that was why he didn’t feel as sad as he thought he should have. Part of him was relieved that the suffering was done, and that made him feel even guiltier. “That big Heavy was in there when he died, not Faye.” The very thought gnawed at Francis. He’d known the General since he’d been a little boy, had become a knight under his tutelage, had forsaken his family to serve under his command, and given him a home during his final years . . . and yet it had been a complete stranger who had been there at the end. “He’s Madi’s brother, but I don’t see you getting all suspicious of him.”

“I don’t trust him either . . . I barely trust you and we’ve worked together for years.” Heinrich’s smile was apologetic. “I’m very sorry about your nose,” he said. “I shouldn’t have struck you.”

Francis sniffed. Jane had fixed it, but it still hurt. “She’s not a Shadow Guard. You know. Black Jack said so.” It didn’t seem right to invoke the General’s name to win an argument, but he had, and Francis was going to be damned if his suspicious friend was going to cast doubts on anything that Black Jack had said from his death bed. “So lay off her.”

Heinrich looked at him, raising his eyebrows. “Francis Stuyvesant . . .
mein Gott.
Have you taken a liking to that grey-eyed lunatic?”

“That’s . . . that’s absurd. Go to hell, Koenig,” Francis said as he rose from the bench. He wasn’t in the mood. “I’m going to go and get completely drunk.”

***

“I’m sorry, Jane,” Daniel Garrett said as his fiancée cried. “You did everything you could. Nobody blames you.”

Jane blew her nose and wiped her bloodshot eyes. “It’s my fault, Dan. I should have been able to save him.” She pulled her knees up to her chest and rocked back and forth. “Why? Why couldn’t I be strong enough?”

Her pain was killing him inside. Dan put his arm over her shoulder, pulled her close, cursing his own inadequacies. He knew that all he had to do was reach for his Power. Just a little push . . . the tiniest of pushes . . . He could tell the woman he loved that it wasn’t her fault, that she’d done everything she could, that no Healer could stop a Pale Horse, and with his Power to influence minds, she would believe whatever words came out of his mouth.

Even if it was the truth, it would also be wrong, so he didn’t do it.

“I love you, Jane,” he said softly. He was careful not to even touch his Power as he spoke. He had no right. “It wasn’t your fault. You did the best you could . . .”

“You’re not trying to Influence me, are you?” she asked, almost, but not quite, laughing through the tears.

“Of course not,” he answered as he brushed some stray hairs away from her eyes. “You already know how much crap I get for being a Mouth getting married to a babe like you. Everyone in the world thinks the only way somebody like you would end up with an ugly mug like me is because I’ve got you hypnotized . . .” he said it as a joke to cheer her up, but they both knew it was partially true, and it hurt him every single time. He smiled. “It sure isn’t because I’m rich.”

Jane hugged him close, her fingernails digging into the back of his neck. “When you can see everyone’s insides all the time, we’re all ugly . . . and squishy.” They both had a laugh, then Jane began weeping again, and Dan did all that he thought an honorable husband-to-be should do, and gave her his shoulder to cry on.

Finally, she spoke. “I can’t bear it. It’s just too much hurt. I can fix physical hurt, but I can’t do anything about this kind. I need to be strong. The others need me. Dan . . . I want you to
tell
me I did my best. I need to
believe
it.”

He nodded, and pushed his Power hard. “It wasn’t your fault.” His words resonated like biblical truth.

“Thank you . . .”

***

Sullivan found Delilah standing at the edge of the ocean, staring out toward the setting sun. Her dress was whipping around her in the wind, and he could see her figure as the sun shone through the fabric.

“You’re a tough one to find,” he said.

“Who said I wanted to be found?” she said without turning around.

Sullivan paused, all the practiced words failing him once again. They always worked in his head, but turned to garbage when he tried to form them in his mouth. Instead he just said, “I came to say I’m sorry.”

“For trying to arrest me? For bouncing me off a roof? For being ready to shoot me down for the coppers because you just took their word that I was a mad-dog killer? Or for before that? For when you ran away and left me alone in New Orleans? Maybe even for just being a lousy jerk . . .”

“ . . . Yes . . .”

She finally turned around, placed her hands on her hips and gave him that same dangerous smirk. “You’re leaving again, aren’t you?”

She was so pretty that it struck his heart like a bullet. “There’s something I got to do.”

“Take me with you.”

“It’ll be too dangerous.”

“I’m a Brute, remember?”

Sullivan didn’t respond. He didn’t know what to say. She had the Power to pull a man’s head off with her bare hands and anything short of a high-powered rifle would bounce off her skin. She was tough as nails and worth ten men in a fight . . . but she’d always be that same scared girl that he’d found abused and mistreated in Louisiana. He’d put her back together while she’d helped him heal from the nightmare of the war, a pair of survivors who’d started to cobble together a life. But then he’d gone away. Prison had changed him, leaving him hard and uncaring, and it had been easy to believe that she’d become just as jaded while they’d been apart. But he’d been wrong, and here she was, the same girl, only with a harder shell, and she deserved so much better than a lug like him who had already proven he couldn’t protect her. There was no way he could live with her death on his hands. That was one thing that he wasn’t strong enough for. He just wasn’t eloquent enough to explain all that.

“You’re doing this for Pershing? I know what it is, you know. It’s the same reason he brought me here, only once he Read me, I think he decided I wasn’t good enough . . . But by then, he was stuck with me . . .” She turned back to the Pacific. “Story of my life . . . Damaged goods. Nobody wants me.”

Without hesitation, he moved forward and encircled her in his arms, crushing her tight against him, suddenly afraid to let her go. He whispered low in her ear. “I do.”

They were two irreparably flawed people. Together they almost made a whole person, and he figured that might just be enough. She leaned her head back into his chest and he held her there for a long time.

Chapter 15

. . . And on this momentous day, let us remember the brave sacrifice of Junior Assistant Third Engineer Harold Ernest Crozier of Southampton, who was lost after an ice collision on our maiden voyage. His natural magical gifts, combined with his great moral fortitude, enabled him to control the incoming waters before there was any other loss of life. He was a credit to the Active race. We shall now have a moment of silence for Engineer Crozier.

—Captain Edward J. Smith

of the RMS
Titanic,

on its fifth anniversary cruise,
1917

Lick Hill, California

There were four guards
manning the main gatehouse. Three were playing a game of poker, while the last was watching the clock, knowing that they were due to be relieved at two o’clock in the morning, and he was dying to get out of the stinking concrete shed and back into his bed. He cursed the slow clock, lit another cigarette, and went back to being miserable.