Hard Magic (39 page)

“Pershing told
you
?” Mr. Rawls said incredulously.

“Because he knew better than to trust anyone else. Yeah, I know how to find Bob Southunder.”

“You must tell us then.”

“Pershing gave me a job. I intend to do it. I’ll find Southunder and the last piece. That’s my duty. Not yours.”

“You can’t hope to do this on your own. You’re just mad with grief, son,” Mr. Rawls said.

“Maybe. But that don’t change nothing.”

“If the Chairman finds out where it is, he’ll send his Iron Guard against you,” Mr. Harkeness said coldly.

“I’m counting on it. And when they come, I’ll be there, waiting,” Sullivan stated. Faye could tell he meant it. If there was anything she knew about Mr. Sullivan, he was a man who kept his promises or who’d die trying.

Mr. Rawls was upset. “This isn’t a game. Tell me where Southunder is. That’s an order, Grimnoir.”

Sullivan paused, took Pershing’s ring from his pinky and tossed it into the truck bed. It rolled to a stop next to Mr. Browning. “I never took no oath.”

Mr. Rawls’ thick white eyebrows scrunched together as he glared at Mr. Sullivan. Faye could almost feel the Power crackle through the air around them. If Sullivan wouldn’t talk, then he’d just pick the truth out himself. She’d felt how strong Mr. Rawls was. He’d been able to talk to her mind through hundreds of feet of solid rock.

But Sullivan was stronger than any old ocean cliff. Unbreakable. He closed his eyes as Mr. Rawls tried to force his way into his head, a look of terrible concentration creasing the big man’s square face. “Get out of my
brain
,” Sullivan said. She turned to Mr. Rawls; sweat was rolling down his face and veins were popping out in his forehead. The whole truck creaked as Sullivan stood up. He calmly drew his .45, took a magazine from his pocket, stuck it into the grip, and racked the slide. Raising the gun, he aimed it at Mr. Rawls. “I said, get out of my brain or I spread yours all over the road.”

The Reader gasped as he let go. “What are you?”

“Angry.” Sullivan put his gun back into the military flap holster on his belt. He turned to Heinrich. “See to Delilah. She’d want to be buried in a place with a pretty view. Have somebody say some words. I think she’d like that.”

“I will,” Heinrich promised.

He addressed them all. “I can’t come with you to save Jane. Tell Dan I’m real sorry when he wakes up. Maybe we’ll meet again and maybe we won’t. Faye, thank you kindly for getting us out. Delilah told me she took a real liking to you.” Sullivan nodded at her, and Faye felt herself blush. “Good luck.”

“What’re you gonna do?” Lance asked.

“My duty.” Sullivan nodded once and stepped off the back of the speeding truck.

Chapter 19

It was during my wandering time that I first met an American. The black ships of Commodore Perry had recently arrived in Nippon. These foreign barbarians did not ask the shogun for permission to open trade; they demanded it from the decks of their warships while ringed in cannons under a cloud of coal smoke that blotted out the sky. There was an assumption of this absolute right. The strongest does not ask, cajole, or beg. It is the duty of the strongest to command and the weakest to obey. I had long made my way by selling my sword, and whatever lord I served inevitably became the strongest, so I was well acquainted with this concept at the individual level. Yet, it was the Americans that opened my eyes to the greater possibilities. As the strong lord must rule over the weak peasant, so must the strong nation rule the entire world. I owe them a great deal as I have tried to apply this lesson ever since.

—Baron Okubo Tokugawa,

Chairman of the Imperial Council, My Story
, 1922

280 miles west of San Francisco

Madi sat cross-legged
on the floor of his cabin, attempting to meditate. He could feel the ship rocking. It had taken him forever to figure out how to sit like the other Iron Guards. He wasn’t exactly a limber man, but he’d decided a long time ago that anything they could do, he’d do better, and now he could sit as still as a statue for hours. At the Academy, old master Shiroyuki would come by and crack him on the spine with a bokken anytime he started to slouch. The old bastard had been big on posture.

Thinking of the old master made him smile. That was his problem with meditation, thoughts just kept coming, and now he was remembering Shiroyuki and his big ridiculous samurai mustache. He’d hated Madi. Not only for being the first white man accepted into the brutal Iron Guard training, but also because he had come to Japan as a prisoner of war.

He’d been part of AEF Siberia, the Polar Bears, they’d been called in the news. It had been a shitty mission to a cold unforgiving place, mostly to protect American business interests while the Bolsheviks were getting their asses handed to them by the Japs. He’d gotten separated from his unit when his chicken-shit commanding officer panicked and ran. It was an empty feeling, waiting at your post for relief that never came. It had taken three weeks on foot through the coldest damn forest in the world, but the Imperium troops had finally captured him, though he’d killed a whole mess of them in the process.

They’d dragged him behind their horses for miles but he’d refused to die. Then they tossed him into a deep dark hole and quit feeding him, but he’d lived off of rats that he’d crushed with his Power. One day a new commander showed up and had marveled at the one-eyed Heavy chained in the hole. Apparently the weeks he’d spent evading and murdering them had earned him a reputation as some sort of great white freak show. He was the biggest man any of the Japs had ever seen and he was the only American in the camp, so the new commander had logically decided it would be fun to watch him fight a bunch of the captured Russians for his amusement.

That part had been fun. He’d never had any qualms about killing. It was really the only thing he was good at. The regular Russians were easy to beat. He could snap most of them in half. The Siberians were different. Those boys were tough, and he picked up a bunch of scars giving the Japs their show. Afterward, they’d put him back in the hole, only this time the commander had sent down food, honest-to-God real food. It was mostly rice, but after eating raw rats, rice was good.

That had gone on for another month, until Madi had damn near depopulated the entire camp of other prisoners. When they’d run out of Russians, they’d tossed in some Chinese, five at a time, and when they ran out of those, they’d thrown him in the arena with an angry bear. The bear had been easy. A ten-second surge of Power had turned it into mush.

He’d tried to escape, a couple of times in fact. The first time they’d beaten him senseless with rifle butts, but the commander had told them to let him live. He was intrigued by the Heavy at this point. The second attempt resulted in the death of nearly a dozen of the camp guards and he’d gone down fully expecting to get his head chopped off, but instead he’d woken up chained back in the hole, the commander sitting on a stool across from him.

Madi could remember it like it was yesterday.

The man studied him for a long time before speaking. The commander spoke English, even if he was damn near impossible to understand the way he tried to shout half the words. “Why you still alive, Heavy? Why you not dead while everybody else dead?”

Madi didn’t need to think about that for very long. “Because I was stronger.”

The commander had nodded real slow, like that was the wisest thing he’d ever heard, then he had passed Madi a dirty envelope. “My men capture this.” Inside was a typed letter on AEF stationery and he even recognized his old captain’s signature. The letter was real matter-of-fact, about how Sergeant Matthew D. Sullivan was AWOL and a no-good deserter and a coward. That had really left him steamed, since the only reason he was in this Jap prison was because his old captain had been yellow and run at the first sign of an advance. He’d been the one who’d left Madi at his post to be overrun. Madi had survived the Second fucking Somme. What did Captain Cocksucker know about cowardice?

“You read this?” Madi asked, disgusted. The Jap nodded. “Liars. I’ve never run from nothing in my life.”

“Your people dishonor you.”

“Ain’t the first time. Got my brother killed in France. Tore half my face off and they didn’t even bother to fix it all the way . . .” The women told him he was good-looking before the war, but now, it didn’t matter what they said to his torn-up face. He saw their disgust with his good eye. “What did I get? Nothing,” he’d spat. Jake had been the one who’d gotten all the fancy medals and the recognition and the praise after the war but his little brother had never cared about that kind of thing. He sure had, but all he’d ever wanted was some respect, but they hadn’t given him shit. “Then when I get captured ‘cause of some yellow officer they blame it on me.” He threw the letter on the ground, planning on using it to wipe his ass later.

“You are great warrior,” the commander stated. “My men told stories of how hard to catch you it was in the forest. How you killed many men. You put fear in their hearts. It is hard to make Imperium man fear. You strong. Strongest should be most respect.”

“Hell with ’em,” Madi agreed, really studying the commander for the first time. He was tall for a Jap, otherwise nothing special to look at, but he emanated a quiet confidence. Madi could tell he was some sort of Active by the way he carried himself.

“Yes. You think you strongest? Prove it. Make pact. We fight. You beat me, you free go.”

He’d had a good laugh. “No shit?”

“Shit not. I am Rokusaburo of Iron Guard. You beat me, you free. I beat you, you serve me.”

He figured that the Jap would last even less time than the bear in the blood-soaked little field they’d made him fight all those Russians in, and the next morning they’d led him out there. The whole Jap battalion had shown up and was standing in a big circle, watching, excited. They had bayonets mounted and he was no sucker. When he won over the crazy little man, they were sure as hell gonna stick those long bayonets in him, no matter what, but maybe he’d get to squish a Nip officer in the process. Rokusaburo had been waiting in the middle, shirtless, his body covered with strange intricate scars. He bowed.

The little man
destroyed
him.

Afterward, when he’d regained consciousness, Rokusaburo had come to him again. “What were all those burns on you?”

“Kanji, to grant me more Power. Iron Guard unbeatable. Iron Guard strongest of all.”

“Then I want to be an Iron Guard,” Madi told him.

To his credit, Rokusaburo didn’t laugh. He’d only given him that same slow nod, and Madi’s education had begun.

Back in the present, Madi’s nose itched, but he decided not to scratch it. It was probably from that damn incense that was stinking up the ship’s cabin. He might be lousy at meditation because he couldn’t stop thinking, but he could control his body. What had gotten him thinking? Oh, yeah, that asshole, old master Shiroyuki.

Rokusaburo had gotten him into the Academy. Madi had forsaken his country, his old ways, and sworn allegiance to the Imperium, but he’d felt no loss. He felt no loyalty. All his homeland had ever given him was pain and betrayal. They’d used him, hurt him, killed the only decent folks he knew, then called him yellow and left him to rot. The Imperium at least appreciated strength.

Shiroyuki had been hard on him. The old bastard had taught him and tried to have the other students kill him. He was always extra hard on the big white one. While the Chairman preached that he didn’t care where an Active was born, Shiroyuki was old school, real proud that he came from the same ancient samurai family as the Chairman himself, and hated the round eyes. He’d tried to break Madi every step of the way.

The fact that Madi never quit and was strong enough to just keep accepting kanji infuriated Shiroyuki. To bind with a new mark you had to go right up to death’s door, and each one you got, the harder it was to come back. The other students began to respect him at five, and then fear him at eight. The Chairman took a personal interest in Madi’s education, realizing how valuable it would be to have an operative able to move seamlessly in America. Plus, he was a sort of vindication of the Chairman’s beliefs, of his vision for a perfect world, ruled by the strong and the wise. The Chairman had taken him under his wing, showing him the dark secrets, the truth of the Power. Madi did not just follow. He
believed
.

Then old man Shiroyuki had dared to publicly disagree with the Chairman, saying that only the superior Nipponese should be Iron Guard. The Chairman had replied with his usual wisdom that the Power lived inside their bodies where all blood and bone was the same color. Shiroyuki had been chastened, dishonored, and when he was no longer in favor, Madi struck. He’d waited until he had received his tenth kanji before challenging the old master to a trial by combat. He had been honor bound to accept.

He’d ripped Shiroyuki apart like he’d been one of the Russian prisoners in Rokusaburo’s camp. The memory of the old man’s arms coming off in twin fountains of blood and the samurai screaming through that ridiculous mustache made him grin. He opened his eyes. “Hell with it.” The Chairman was a big fan of meditation, but reaching inner peace wasn’t exactly his thing. The Chairman taught that with proper clarity you could actually converse with the Power. Madi didn’t know about that, but if the Chairman said that’s how it was, then that’s how it was. Unlike the people he’d sworn allegiance to before, the Chairman never lied.

There was movement in his bunk. Toshiko was awake, watching him. She’d pulled the sheet up to cover herself, feigning modesty. The Shadow Guard was such a tease, but damn if her academy hadn’t taught her in
all
the arts of espionage. He could barely feel anything anymore, but he had felt
that
. He realized she’d been counting his scars. “How many kanji have you taken?”

“Thirteen.” He rose, retrieved his shirt and threw it on. He still ached from all the wounds the Grimmys had inflicted on him, but that Healer bitch had done as she’d been told and fixed him up, and he’d only had to smack her in the face a few times to get his point across. “More than any other man in the world.”