Gods of Chicago: Omnibus Edition (22 page)

Chapter 37

The air around Brand’s head swirled and shook. He batted at the visions of gossamer and lace until the room settled around him and he saw they’d returned to the speak. Madame Tibor stepped away from him, leaving go his hand.

“What the hell is this?” Brand asked. “They tell you to leave town and when you don’t they bring in the bombardiers?”

“I tell you, Mitchell Brand. Your Governor, for a long time he makes ready for this war. This eugenics. Now you see what he wants with city.”

“He isn’t my Governor. Not sure he ever was and he sure as hell isn’t now. Why’d you bring me back here?”

“Escape. To railroad.”

“Rail—?”

“We are making ready for long time, too.”

The gypsy led Brand into the cellar. Where before there had been gypsies and negroes resting and working, now there were only foot tracks and scuff marks showing the passage of multiple people and their belongings. The barrels and crates from the room above had been hauled through the room and out the hole in the wall. Brand heard an insistent squeaking from that corner, like a hinge being worked back and forth. Madame Tibor went to the hole and he followed. She stepped through first and Brand heard voices raised in surprise and delight on the other side.

A short passage of a half dozen feet had been cut into the earthen wall. Stepping through, Brand saw the passage connected the cellar to a wide tunnel with a set of tracks running down it. The fortune teller stood on the tracks talking to another gypsy, a tall man with a heavy mustache. Next to him was the redhead from earlier, still holding her wine glass in one hand and a book in the other. Madame Tibor caught Brand’s attention and introduced the pair in the tunnel

“This is
Mee-hawl-yee
,” she told him, indicating the tall man, who reached out a hand the size of Brand’s chest. They shook and swapped smiles.

“And this,” the gypsy woman paused, letting her tone suggest she didn’t know the nicest way to introduce the redhead.

“Dana Reynolds,” the woman said, tucking her book into a pouch on her belt and throwing her wine glass at the wall behind her where it shattered and left a dark stain pooling on the earthen floor. She wore heavy black skirts and carried an honest to goodness sword in a scabbard at her side. Brand spotted a cable connecting the pommel of the weapon to a pouch on the woman’s belt. She wore a thick jacket of brown leather over a white blouse that peaked out from her collar. A series of straps and belts were slung across her chest.

“You’d be…?” she asked him. A self-sure smile curled her lips while she waited on his reply.

“Name’s Mitch. Mitchell Brand.”

“The newsman?”

“Yeah, with the…,” Brand had been about to say
Chicago Daily Record
, but the instinctive reply died on his tongue. “Yeah. I used to do the news. Seems I’ve changed jobs.”

“And what do you do now?”

“Well, now it seems I make news that might do nobody any good. Not with how they’re doing things in Chicago City these days.”

To punctuate his statement, a burst of airship gunfire echoed into the tunnel from outside the speak. Brand heard the bullets spray against metal like a drum roll announcing the end of the show. Another volley came and Brand felt the microphone weighing on his hip.

“I’d better get moving,” he said to Madame Tibor and Mihalyi. Putting a finger to his brow he nodded at Dana Reynolds. “Little Red—”

Brand’s next words died on his lips. The redhead drew her sword faster than Brand could blink. The gypsies didn’t even flinch and let their grins tell Brand he’d played the wrong card. Not that he needed convincing. The blade hovering in front of his throat was proof enough.

“One thing first, buster. My name is Dana Reynolds. You ever call me
Little Red
again and I’ll carve that name on your backside.” She dropped the point, aiming it below Brand’s belt.

“And if I run out of room back there, I’ll just work my way around to the front.”

The blade vibrated with a threatening hum and the pack on the woman’s belt emitted a low buzz.

“What is it with the fancy pig stickers in this town,” Brand said, shaking his head. “Okay, Miss Reynolds—”

“Dana. I don’t miss.”

Brand noticed her patting a shotgun that hung down by her other hip, hidden in the folds of her skirts. Before he could try a third time, Dana had sheathed the sword and clapped a hand on Brand’s shoulder.

“You’ll get used to me, Brand. Watch the name calling and we’ll be jake.”

“We should go now,” Mihalyi said, motioning to his right. Brand followed the gypsy’s finger and saw a lantern light glowing down the dark throat of the tunnel. The squeaking sound from earlier grew louder as a handcar came into view. Two negroes operated the car and a trio of gypsies sat on the low wooden benches to either side. The two gypsies at the front were covered in sweat and the negroes looked fairly fresh.

Brand said to Madame Tibor, “Glad to see your pals take turns doing the work on this line.”

“Governor hunts us, treats us all like animals. We should prove him right?” she said and jutted her chin at the handcar, urging Brand to follow Mihalyi and Dana who had already climbed aboard. Brand got on and turned around to help the fortune teller. She waved to him as the air in the tunnel fell across the space where she’d been standing. Brand flicked his eyes at Mihalyi and Dana. Seeing no sign of surprise, he figured the gypsies were all in on it together. The gentle giant confirmed it with his thickly accented words.

“Comes and goes. You don’t know when. If needed, always she comes.”

The negroes did their bit and got the handcar rolling again. None of them seemed fazed by the gypsy’s disappearing trick either. Brand stayed silent, watching the dark tunnel give way to the lantern light. Mihalyi lifted a heavy great coat from the floor of the car and offered it to Brand. He accepted it and draped it over himself, nodding off almost instantly. The first fingers of a dream reached for him in his sleep, and Brand let himself slip into the welcoming embrace of slumber. He jerked awake when the handcar came to a stop.

Lanterns came to life all around them and Brand rubbed at his eyes to clear his vision. They’d reached a wider section of the tunnel. To one side was a large space piled full of crates and barrels. On the opposite side, the tunnel wall opened into darkness. Brand shrugged into the great coat before grabbing a lantern and aiming it at the opening in the wall. Through it he saw several sets of tracks, all heavy with handcars on them. Negroes and gypsies worked side by side, handling parcels and crates and loading them onto the handcars. Behind each handcar, flat cars were loaded with metal cans steaming with the scent of hot chow. Crates and baskets held loaves of bread and jars of preserves. A small barrel on each car dripped water from a wooden tap. Women and children were given the seats. Men stood or waited off to the side, apparently ready to walk the length of the tunnel if there weren’t enough seats.

Brand stared and marveled at the sight. Traded laughter came from somewhere in the throng, distinct deep guffaws mingled and mixed with throaty chuckles and higher pitched cackling. Brand followed as his traveling companions dismounted their handcar and moved to join the bustling activity. Mihalyi turned to him at the edge of the crowd, a smile of pride and approval creasing his face.

“You see?”

“I see. Yeah. Where does this track lead to?”

“Edge of city. Close to edge. Railyard. Trains there to take us out of city.”

“And how about the soldiers?”

“Governor has not soldiers there. All are here,” the gypsy said, pointing a finger at the roof of the tunnel. “I leave now with my people. Good luck, Mitchell Brand. We count on you.”

“Eh?”

The gypsy motioned for Brand to turn around. He did and saw Dana Reynolds stood on the handcar they’d taken. She smiled and lifted her eyebrows at him, drumming her fingers on the lever arm.

Brand watched the gypsies and negroes load their cargo and begin their departure. Handcars rolled in a steady stream down the tunnel, their lanterns glowing like fireflies until they winked out of sight.

“Nuts to this,” he said and stepped back to the handcar where Dana helped him aboard.

#

They pumped the lever arm in a rapid cadence to move the car down the tunnel. The squeak of the wheels against the rails gave Brand the distraction he needed. Overhead, the bombs continued to fall around the neighborhood. Brand was sure the roof would crash in on them in a shower of rock and flame. When the squeaking of the handcar wasn’t enough to keep him from tumbling into memories of the trenches, he gave conversation a shot. It worked well enough, he found out, but he wasn’t too happy with what Dana Reynolds had to say.

“You’ll need protection out there, Brand. Besides,” she said, “I’m not letting the Governor get off easy on this.”

“You think one girl with a sword and a shotgun is enough to send the Governor’s boys running?”

“I think somebody needs to fight back, yes. And it’s more than just one girl with a sword. There’s a resistance up there. Right now. Trading shots with those soldiers. Men and women who stayed behind.”

“What the hell for?”

“Because they didn’t want to give up so easily. Maybe they wanted to help their friends in that tunnel behind us. Make enough ruckus. Slow the Governor down. They think that train will get them out. But I’m not convinced.”

They kept up their conversation while they pumped the handle and rode the track further away from the speak. After a while, Dana paused and caught her breath while Brand did the lion’s share of moving the handcar. She gave him a breather a few minutes later.

After two more stretches of tunnel with breaks for each of them, they pulled up to a platform set into the wall. Above the damp wooden structure, the roof had been hollowed out, allowing for one or two people to stand level with the floor of the handcar. Dana stepped from the car to the platform and reached a hand over to help Brand. He nodded, but made it across on his own. Dana spun on her heel and stepped to the tunnel wall. Brand saw the outline of a door cut into the earth. He lifted the lantern from the handcar and saw a heavy layer of burlap and canvas had been draped to conceal the door.

“Who’re we hiding the door from?” he asked.

“If the Governor finds these tunnels, he’ll probably just dynamite them. Like the Mayor did. But if he sends his boys down here, and I think he might, we wanted to have as much protection as possible.”

“You’ve been in with these gypsies how long? Seems you’re part of their crew, but I don’t get that you’re one of them. Not properly, at any rate.”

“No. I’m not a member of their community. I work for them. Same as I work for anyone who’s got the right color money.”

“Does that include the Governor?”

Brand knew he shouldn’t have asked. The woman’s tough girl act rankled him though, and he didn’t know how else to play his hand. She stepped close and looked at him hard.

“If the Governor paid me to stick you in the eye, I might take him up on it. Otherwise, it’d be no deal. Any more funny stuff, Brand?”

He sniffed and gave her his smile that was half sneer. “No, Miss—I mean Dana. No more from me. Lead they way. Please.”

She pushed the door open and they entered a tunnel with a concrete floor. Brand’s feet were unsteady at first on the foreign stone surface. Two short lengths of tunnel later, they emerged through a second entrance to the curio shop cellar.

Outside, the bombs had stopped falling. At least for now, Brand thought. Gunfire crackled and popped still, echoing into the cellar through the doorway that led to the street.

“We should close that up,” Dana said and went to the door. The secret shelf that Stevie Five Sticks had come through was closed. Brand went to it and tried to find a hidden catch that might open it.

“Don’t bother,” Dana said. “It can only be opened from the tunnel side, just like the one we came through. “Let’s get an eye on the street, hey?”

They went upstairs and into the front parlor where Brand had stormed around the last time he was in the house. The soldiers had come through and left their mark. The chair was upended and much of the furnishings showed signs of being kicked or struck with rifle butts. A glow radiated through the cracked windows and Brand went to examine the street outside.

His jaw hung open as he took in the damage. Across the street, burned out husks of houses and shops stared back at him like a forest of corpses. Overturned carts and wagons filled the roadway. Brand went to the foyer and pushed aside the shattered door and went onto the porch. Down the street, moving away from the curio shop, teams of soldiers continued their trail of destruction. They went into homes, lighting fires and smashing windows before moving on.

“There aren’t any bodies in the street,” Brand said. “Where’d the people go? They weren’t all taken out in that march earlier.”

“You saw them down there, Brand. In the tunnels. Most of them. Hell, almost all of them. Nothing but a gang or two left up here, like I said. Trying to fight back. Buy their comrades some time.”

Brand was angry now. Angry as hell that it had come this far and that he’d been powerless to stop it. He knew, reading that bulletin the soldier tacked to the door. He knew and he raged, but he couldn’t think of a way to prevent it from happening. Still, seeing it now, on the street in front of him, in the splintered bits of wood hanging in the doorframe at his back— Fury burned in his gut and sent a haze of blood over his eyes.

“Who’s up here? Do you know who they are? I mean names, sister.”

“Your pal, Stevie Five Sticks and his friends. A few others. What’s—”

“Where are they?” he cut in, growling and barely keeping his voice down. The soldiers might hear him. So what. Let them.

“Follow the bullets, Brand. Like you used to do,” Dana said and moved away, going down the first two steps before Brand caught up to her and put a hand on her shoulder.

“Hey. I’m here to get a story and to get that story to the people who need to hear it. Now how’s about you make nice and lend me some help. I thought that’s why you came along, isn’t it?”

Dana knocked his hand aside. “I came along to get back to where the action was, Brand. You can follow and get your story in my wake, or you can take your chances looking for Five Sticks and his bunch. Make your choice whenever you like, but I’m leaving before the soldiers come by to break up our lover’s quarrel.” She gave him a salute and he felt his hand snap to his brow in reply. Then Dana Reynolds and her sword disappeared into the night while bullets peppered a wall nearby and someone screamed.

“Like I used to do. Dammit, sister, you know me too well,” Brand said as he ran toward the gunfire and shouts, toward the sounds of war.