Hard Magic (28 page)

The Chairman nodded respectfully. “Unlike in the West, here in Nippon, we respect those with such gifts. We take them in as they are discovered and give them the finest education possible. In exchange, they serve a term of six years in the Emperor’s military or bureaucratic corps.”

“Brilliant . . .” said the German.

Pershing gave a bitter laugh.

“Yes, Captain Pershing?” the Chairman asked politely.

“My understanding is that you steal children away from their families as soon as you see a sparkle of magic, and then you put them in a prison where you can turn them into machines. Those who don’t make the cut get experimented on until they’re either useful or dead. The really strong get additional magic branded right to their souls.”

“I can assure you that the Imperial schools are a strictly voluntary affair. It is considered a great honor for a family to send their children to such prestigious institutions.” The Chairman was not easily riled. “May I inquire who told you such lies?”

Pershing turned away from the destruction at the rail and looked the Chairman in the eye. “Maybe I was told by a Manchurian, driven gibbering mad with pain, who escaped from one of your schools with failed kanji branded all over his back?”

The Chairman looked down at Pershing’s ring and scowled. “I see . . . Would you walk with me for a moment, Captain?”

He hesitated. The Chairman struck him as a very dangerous man, but he was on a diplomatic mission. If any harm were to befall him, the repercussions would be severe. Japan was strong, but not strong enough to risk a war with the West . . .
yet
. They were still modernizing, though at a shocking pace. It would come though, he could feel it. Pershing nodded and followed the Chairman toward the end of the observation deck. Guards with bayonets mounted on their rifles bowed and moved out of their way.

The wind was louder now that they were steaming toward Vladivostok. Pershing could smell smoke and gunpowder on the wind. “You are a knight of the Grimnoir?” the Chairman asked.

“Yes.”

“So the Society plans on standing against me then?”

God, I hope so.
“That’s not my place to say. I’m here representing the United States Army. But as one Active to another, what you’re doing here is wrong, Baron Tokugawa. I’ve heard about you. I know you’re like me.”

The Chairman folded his arms. “I am far beyond you.”

Pershing tested his Power. Baron Tokugawa’s thoughts were far too well guarded for him to get even the briefest Reading. “No good can come of this. I’m begging you. If you follow this path, it will change everything.”

“Splendid.” He smiled for the first time. Pershing knew it was the smile of a predator. “The time for change has come. Tell your Society if they want a war, they will surely have one.”

New York City, New York

1908

The last Iron Guard
stood at the end of the brick tunnel. Fetid water dripped down the walls and had flooded the bottom foot of the narrow space. The Imperium man balled his hands into fists and they burst into blue flames. The water striking him turned instantly into steam and began to boil around his legs.

“You will not pass!” the Iron Guard shouted in Japanese. “Glory to the Emperor! Glory to the Chairman!”

Ten yards.
Pershing leaned back against the damp wall and peered around the corner as he shoved more shells into his Winchester ’94. He worked the lever and chambered another round. Time was running out. The same Geo-Tel that had destroyed a thousand-mile swath of Siberia in one stroke was now targeted here and was due to fire any second. They had to get past that Iron Guard. They’d already killed three of the bastards but lost half a dozen Grimnoir in the process.

“Sven, Bob, on my signal, hit him from the left.” Southunder and Christiansen moved quickly through the muck. Browning was still reloading his pump shotgun. “John and I will throw down some covering fire. Bill, you rush him.” The Brute, Jones, just nodded his head vigorously, his courage surely fortified with alcohol.

“What ’bout me?” Traveling Joe asked as the little man squatted behind him.

“Once he’s distracted, you get that device and break it. No matter what.”

He muttered something in Portuguese and disappeared.

The famous Cog, Nikola Tesla, had given them the information about his invention. The Imperium had tricked him into building it, and had kidnapped his pigeon to keep him quiet. It drew the Power itself up from the core of the Earth and spiked it on the surface, drawn to a complicated targeting spell. They did not know where the design was drawn, but they’d been able to intercept the Iron Guards before they could flee with the device from Wardenclyffe laboratories, but rather than give it up, they’d decided to destroy themselves along with it in suicidal fire.

The single test firing of the Geo-Tel had managed to wipe out the entire Cossack army, and now it would slag the East Coast of the United States of America.

Not if I can help it . . .

“NOW!” Pershing and Browning leapt into the tunnel and opened fire. The gunshots were devastatingly loud in the enclosed space. The bullets and buckshot struck, sending the Iron Guard staggering back, but his body was laced with kanji of durability and vitality. He raised one hand and blue fire erupted down the tunnel. Pershing dove into the foul water to avoid certain death.

He was hugging the bottom when the telepathic message from the surface arrived.
Blue light growing in the sky. We’ve only got seconds left. Hurry!

Working on it, Isaiah.

When he broke the surface, Browning was at his side shrugging out of his burning coat and holding a shotgun with a wood stock scorched from the heat. The Iron Guard was distracted by Southunder’s rapid gunfire as the other Grimnoir flanked him. The Iron Guard moved toward them, hurling fire, but jerked as the water around his legs was frozen into a solid block by Christiansen.

The Iron Guard lowered his hands, blasting fire into the ice to free himself. Pershing had once been the best shot in the Army and showed it as he snapped the Winchester to his shoulder, lined up the front sight, and drilled the distracted Iron Guard in one eye.

Jones crashed down the tunnel in a wave of water, his muscles driven with superhuman strength as he burned his Power. The Iron Guard was snapping around, blood spraying from one socket, kept alive only by kanji spells and fanaticism, liquid flame shooting from his fingers as Jones tackled him with a roar.

Pershing was up and sloshing forward as he worked the lever. The Power was rising up through the ground with a crackling rage. Soon it would supercharge the atmosphere and the resulting explosion would reach from Canada to Washington D.C.

It’s firing!

Jones was on top of the Iron Guard, fists hammering up and down like pistons as he slammed the man’s head into a misshapen pulp. He rose, still bellowing, meat and hair dripping from his hands. “Nobody messes with Wild Bill! NOBODY!” He kicked the body down the tunnel.

We’re all going to die.

“Vierra!” Pershing shouted. “Break it!”

Traveling Joe appeared with a splash next to him, holding a strange mechanical device. It was humming and crackling with Power. “You mean this?” He raised it overhead and slammed it down into the bricks, cracking it into several pieces.

The electric tingling in the air died. The Power was returning to the core.

It’s . . . it’s dissipating. You did it!

“Yes . . . yes, we did . . .”

Paris, France

1909

The international leadership
of the Grimnoir Society had come together for the first time in a decade. The meeting room was plain, the building drab, and little would a passerby know that some of the most important people in the world had gathered there in secret.

“General Pershing, we are honored to have you as the newest member of the international leadership. Your bravery has saved the lives of thousands.”

He hadn’t come all this way just to get his ego stroked. “What about my proposal?”

“As commander of the American members of the Grimnoir Society, you are aware of the mighty challenges that face us. I’m afraid that we cannot honor your request at this time.”

Pershing pushed away from the table and stood. “Respectfully, I think you’re wrong. We need to recruit more people. Not just Actives, but anyone who has the courage to stand against the Imperium. The Chairman is our greatest threat. The time to strike is now. The longer we wait, the stronger he becomes. We need to build an army and take the fight to him. We need more knights. There’s strength in numbers.”

“There is more strength in secrecy,” one of the younger Europeans said, his English rough, his pronunciation stilted. “War is brewing here, and I fear that our kind will be drawn into both sides. The Kaiser is already building Active units. I, for one, fear our own governments more than I fear the Japanese.”

“Then you’re a fool,” Pershing snapped. There was a collective gasp. “The Kaiser is a Barnum clown compared to the Chairman. He’s no mere politician. He’s a force. The Geo-Tel events have been blamed on meteorites, but we all know what they really were.”
No one in the American government believed him, but these people should understand. They had to.
“What if it had been your country that was about to be evaporated?”

“Then I would still listen to the knowledge of my elders,” the European looked to the three men at the head of the table for confirmation.

The elders deliberated quietly amongst themselves for a moment, before the one in the middle finally spoke. “Our strategy remains the same for now. We will contain the Imperium, but we will not risk an open battle. Secrecy is paramount. General Pershing, you will protect the Geo-Tel device in the event that we ever, God help us, grow desperate enough to use it, but I do not ever foresee the need to use a weapon so terrible that its firing would be felt through the very fabric of all worlds. You will report the location only to the Grimnoir elders, in the case that something should befall you.”

“You’re all making a terrible mistake.” Pershing stormed from the room in disgust.

Mar Pacifica, California

1932

Sullivan pulled his hand
away as dozens of memories flooded into his mind all at once. He remembered frustration riding in pursuit of Pancho Villa, confusion at the aftermath of Wounded Knee, the bitter soul-crushing sadness of losing his wife and three young daughters in a terrible fire, everything, the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat, and finally three years of unbearable suffering, but those were blurry, and had probably come over by accident. Others had been very specifically stamped into him, as harsh as the light of day. “What are you?”

Pershing appeared even weaker than before, if that were possible. “I’m a very weak Reader. I barely qualify as an Active, but I’ve been saving up a lot of Power . . . I thought it would only be fair to try and answer your questions while I answered my own . . . Thank you. I finally got to see the Power . . . It all makes sense now.”

“You read my mind?” Sullivan asked.

“Yes . . .” he closed his eyes. “I
was
right about you. And now I must rest . . .”

“Why’d you show me all those things?”

Pershing’s breathing had grown shallow and erratic. “Because . . . someone must know the truth . . . Only a handful of us knew . . . about the Geo-Tel . . . I need you to destroy the final piece . . . Don’t let
him
get it . . . Because we have a . . . traitor in our midst . . . I can’t even trust people who are like my . . . children . . . Whoever it is . . . they’re too strong for me to Read . . . Because . . .”

Pershing moved slowly, pushing something toward Sullivan. He took it, and found that it was one of the Grimnoir rings.

Because you are the man for the job. Carry on.

Pershing sent that last thought with his Power, then let out his final breath.

“General?”

His chest had quit moving. It was as if he’d found someone to pass the torch to, and had finally moved on. Sullivan sat there for a moment, stunned. Jane arrived a moment later, studied General Pershing’s still form and began to cry.

Chapter 14

You can go a long way with a smile. You can go a lot further with a smile and a gun. A smile, a gun, and a Brute get you the key to the city.

—Al “Scarface” Capone,

Interview,
1930

Detroit, Michigan

The Pale Horse awoke
feeling more refreshed than he had in three years. It was as if a great burden had been lifted from his soul.

It is done.

Harkeness had followed Cornelius Stuyvesant to Michigan. His sources had confirmed that the billionaire had completed his assignment, and the proper modifications were being made to the Chairman’s personal airship. He could not have asked for better timing. Pershing finally succumbing to his curse on the very same day as the completion of his favor would be seen as a sign of his Power. It was a coincidence, but Stuyvesant would be terrified. Having a man such as that under his thumb could prove valuable in the future.

Pershing had been a strong one. When Harkeness had first touched him, he had expected him to last a few months, perhaps a year at most. He had underestimated the willpower of such a man, not to mention the remarkable and surprising skill of his Healer. That thought made Harkeness swell with pride.

This assignment had been draining, but it would be worth it. He dressed in his finest suit and took the elevator to the lobby. He would send a telegram to Isaiah. The powerful Reader would not know of Pershing’s demise until it hit the papers, but he needed to get to work. It was almost time to provide the Chairman with the location of the last piece of the Tesla device.