Hard Magic (43 page)

He laughed. “An apology? You think an apology makes up for all the terrible things the Imperium has done? That you’ve helped them do so you could turn a coin?”

“Don’t you dare lecture me, boy!” Cornelius shouted so loudly that it seemed as if the windows shook. “It is a competitive world, and if I didn’t do the job, then somebody else would have. I did what I had to do. I always make sure the family interest comes first. Your father understood this, why can’t you?”

Francis ripped the skeleton off the wall with his Power and hurled it across the room. Cornelius cringed before the sudden fury. “My father was a coward. He saw what the Chairman was doing to people, and he looked the other way. I saw children being butchered because they weren’t up to snuff! I saw people, horrible distorted people, broken and re-formed by magic! They kept Actives in cages like animals while they tortured them!” A bottle came off the counter and shattered against the far wall. “My father killed himself with opium once he knew I’d found the truth. He died rather than face it. He was a filthy
coward
!”

The door opened and his grandfather’s guard stuck his head in. “Is everything—”

“Be gone, you oaf,” Cornelius said. The door closed. “Francis, the world is what it is. The best you can hope to do is read the current so that you don’t end up dashed against the rocks.”

Francis did not have time for this. “If you really consider me family, then you’ll grant me this one thing. I need—” he stopped, scowling. “What’s wrong with your nose?”

“What?” A thin trickle of blood was streaming from Cornelius’s nostrils. He touched it, and his glove came away red. “Why . . . Why . . . I don’t rightly . . .” The trickle of blood turned into a torrent, rolled down his chest and splattered across the floor. He took a step, and Francis caught him as he fell, calling for the Healer.

Howard scrambled in, hurrying to his meal ticket’s side. The rest of Cornelius’s entourage was right behind, staring over their masks. His grandfather began to convulse in his arms, splattering blood across them both. “What’s wrong with him?”

The Healer’s hands turned to molten gold and he placed them against Cornelius’ chest. “He was recently cursed by a Pale Horse, but I’d seen no sign.”

“What? That can’t be.”
Just like Pershing.
“Why?”

“Nobody knows,” Howard said. “Let me concentrate.”

After several seconds of direct Power, the shaking stopped, and Cornelius began to breathe again, exhaling great rasping gusts that stank of corruption. The calculating part of his mind said that he should only feel disgust at watching this man die, but all Francis felt was alarm. Howard removed his hands and they returned to normal. “I can’t believe it . . .” he said, shaking from the exertion. “It’s as if everything is going wrong at once. Give me a moment to regain my strength.”

His grandfather’s hand closed around his sleeve. “Francis,” he heaved. “Listen.”

“Save your strength, Grandfather,” he cautioned.

“No . . . Curse him. If this is to be my death bed, you must know . . . the truth . . .” When he opened his eyes, Francis cringed at the sight of the blood tears flowing from them. “I . . . I had Pershing cursed . . .”

What?
He couldn’t believe it. He’d known his grandfather was a crook, but he’d never . . .”Why? Why would you do that?”

“For you . . . To avenge your father . . . Forgive me.” He spasmed as a terrible cough shook his ribs. Howard gritted his teeth and laid his hands back on Cornelius. “Oh, please, I did it for you . . .”

Francis couldn’t respond. The words would not come.

The Healer rocked back. Visible heat waves bent the air around his hands. “I can’t . . . It’s like the Pale Horse is counteracting everything I do . . .”

The Power had bought him another few seconds. Cornelius dragged Francis close. “The Pale Horse . . . He made me do him a favor . . . Mod-Modify the Chairman’s ship . . . Nonsense design . . . Nothing . . . He used me . . . as a fool . . . I’m a fool . . . But I did it for you.” He closed his red eyes and his breath was coming in rapid, shallow gasps.

“Can’t you do something?” Francis shouted, turning to the crowd. “Any of you?” But there was no answer.

Cornelius’s eyes flashed open, and he spoke with force, making sure he would be heard by all. “Francis Cornelius Stuyvesant . . . you are my heir. You’re the only one worth . . . a bucket of warm piss . . . in . . . in the whole lot. Howard, Raymond, Kirk, all of you . . . as my witnesses, Francis is my sole heir. Take it all . . . as an . . .” His voice trailed off to a whisper and Francis had to press his ear against his bloody lips to hear his last word. “. . .
apology.”

The richest man in the world died in his arms. Francis took a moment to gently lower the heavy body to the ground before rising and stumbling over to the sink. He turned it on, as hot as possible, and washed his hands, then scrubbed his face until his skin was raw. He tore his shirt off and threw it on the floor. The scalding water felt good as it sent the blood down the drain.

Pershing died because of me. Father killed himself because of me. Mother drank herself to death after father’s death, also my fault. Grandfather died, making a deal with the devil, for me . . . The Peace Ray was fired at Mar Pacifica because it was my home . . .

He had to steady himself on the sink. The UBF men were all watching him. None of them wanted to remove their masks now. The water dripped down his face and he watched it run in a stream from his nose. They’d always said he’d inherited his grandfather’s nose. One of the retainers stepped forward and cleared his throat. “Sir, I’m your grandfather’s senior attorney. There will have to be an immediate—”

“Shut up,” Francis whispered.

“Sir, really, there will be an inquiry, and the board will—”

What would Black Jack Pershing do?

Every loose item in the room rose a foot off the ground before dropping in a terrible clatter. “I said
shut up!
” he screamed. They did. He pushed away from the sink and used a towel to dry his face. When he spoke again, his voice was as calm as he could make it. “You heard the man. I’m in charge. Now I want
my
airship ready to fly immediately, with fuel enough for a transoceanic voyage. Which one of you is in charge of security?” A Brute raised his hand. “What kind of weapons do you have aboard?”

“Other than sidearms? A few Springfield rifles and a Thompson,” he said hesitantly.

“Not good enough,” Francis snapped. “Go down to the local outfitters. I want trench guns, accurate rifles in heavy calibers, automatic rifles, and machine guns, lots of machine guns. And ammo, piles of ammo . . . and explosives . . .”

“Uh . . . Explosives, sir?”

“Dynamite, or something better if they’ve got it,” Francis snapped. “Take my friend Heinrich, he’ll know what to buy. If you’re useless, leave now; if you’re willing to go kick some Imperium butt, come with me. This is going to be dangerous and most of us will probably die, but if you do . . . Grandfather was bound to bring an accountant. Which one of you is the accountant?” A tall man raised his hand. “Any volunteer who dies. Make sure his family receives double, no, triple his salary every year for the rest of their lives.”

“Can do,” the accountant promised.

Francis scowled at the group. It would have to do. “Let’s go . . . And take those stupid masks off.”

***

After telling his story, Heinrich had gone back to his stony morgue vigil. Faye watched him quietly. She had not liked the German at first, but she decided that that was just because he had shot her to death. He was nice too, in his own way.

Each of the Grimnoir had his own burden. All of them had been beaten by the world, but rather than give in, they’d committed to making that world a better place. She really did fit in here, and she amended her promise accordingly. She would kill the Chairman, not just for revenge, but because as long as he was around, the world was going to stay a bad place, and maybe even get worse. She was sick and tired of mean people hurting others, and she was going to put a stop to them.

It felt good to put everything into black and white and to pick a side. It filled her with a sense of purpose.

Heinrich shifted imperceptibly in his seat. He was listening to something. “What?” she asked, but Heinrich rose quickly, Luger in hand.

“Faye, Travel away. Right now. You do not need to see this.”

“What? Oh, Heinrich, no. It can’t be.”

“Please, just go, Faye. Leave this to me.” He approached the table, gun extended.

She slid off the edge of the porcelain and prepared to Travel, her heart heavy. She felt hot tears rushing involuntarily to her eyes. Delilah had always been so good and beautiful.

A pale hand shot out from under the sheet, grabbed Heinrich’s wrist, and Faye screamed.

Chapter 21

The white men were roused by a mere instinct of self-preservation. The negro during Reconstruction was threatening enough, but negroes with powerful magic were an inconceivable threat. At last there had sprung into existence a great Ku Klux Klan, a veritable empire of the south to protect the Southern country, to keep the magical negroes in check. Active Magicals, because of their chaotic nature, must be kept under constant scrutiny, especially those of untrustworthy races.

—Woodrow Wilson

History of the American People,
1910

Banish Island, Micronesia

The PBY Silverado
landed right on the ocean. The water thumped against the pontoons and water splashed rainbows over Sullivan’s window. The propellers kept on turning, dragging them through the crystal waves.

“We’ve arrived,” the Engineer shouted, touching him on the shoulder as he moved down the aisle, apparently unsure if he was awake or not.

Sullivan lifted his hat from where he’d been using it as a makeshift pillow. “Thanks,” he responded, stifling a yawn. His ears had popped on the way down. “That was a nice flight,” he lied.

“Whatever, pal. Looks to me like you’re vacationing in tropical paradise, and we’ve got an extra five hours ahead of us to swing around a bad storm front that’s coming in.” It had been a terribly long flight. Sullivan had managed to sleep through most of it. His dreams had consisted of strange geometries, pieces of Power stacked and fitting together over and over in an endless procession like some sort of children’s game, and in each dream, he still did something wrong, and Delilah still died.

After they’d dropped the other passengers off in Hawaii, they’d landed at two other islands to refuel, one of which had been flying a Dutch flag. He had no idea how long it had been since they’d left the Presidio, but he’d slept a lot. When he was awake, his thoughts would drift back to the Power, trying to remember it all. Looking at the surface of the being was like looking at a map divided into millions of shapes that were all locked together. He used a grease pencil to draw the strange geometries on the fuselage next to him, wiping them away each time as he decided they weren’t quite right.

The Grimnoir had thought of them as words, the Imperium as kanji. They were both wrong. They were constructs. Avatars of the Power. If he could just learn how to make them perfect, to meet all the unknown requirements, then he could tap into those spells too.

The part of the Power he’d paid the most attention to was the section relating to his own, one end of an almost hexagram. He’d tried to draw that bit during the flight, and he must have gotten something almost right, because at one point outside of Guam, just as he finished the shape, gravity’s pull had shifted, and the Silverado had dropped several hundred feet in one violent jolt. He’d quickly wiped the mark away while the crew struggled to keep them from falling into the sea. There were probably smarter places to experiment with physics-altering magic than on an airplane.

Now he was here. “Well, maybe not a nice flight, but it sure was long.”

“Big ocean, slow plane. Meet me at the back hatch once we come to a stop.” The engineer moved on and Sullivan tried to rub the feeling back into his cramped legs. The seats hadn’t been designed for a man of his stature.

A few minutes later, the only motion he could feel was the rocking on the gentle waves. The tingling had subsided in his legs enough to move, and he slung his backpack over one shoulder. The Browning bullpup was still disassembled inside as well as over a hundred pounds of gear. He used just enough Power to carry it easily with one hand. It was burning hot inside the Silverado, so he’d stuffed his coat in the bag.

The entire rear of the plane was a ramp that lowered with a mechanical clank. Brilliant sunlight reflected off the ocean and the distant sand. He slid a pair of round sunglasses from his shirt pocket over his eyes. One of the departing soldiers had forgotten them when he’d gotten off at Pearl Harbor.

The engineer kicked a tiny rubber raft off the ramp and into the water. “It ain’t got no style, but it beats getting wet.” Sullivan climbed down into it, and nearly toppled over as it flopped about. “Don’t fall in, buddy. I hear these waters is filled with sharks.”

“Good. I wondered what I was gonna have for lunch . . .” he said as he took up the little oar.

The engineer spooled out the rope that was tied to the raft. “I’d wish you good luck, fella. I don’t know what kind of secret type mission you’re on, but we saw a mess of Nip vessels out there. They ain’t supposed to be out this far, so keep your head down.”

“You too, and tell the major thanks.” Sullivan started paddling. The ocean was so clear that he could see fish swimming around the oar every time it bit the water. The beach wasn’t very far, but it was hot, and his shirt was clinging to his back by the time sand ground against the bottom of the raft. He climbed out, managed to not get his boots too wet, tossed his bag onto land, and waved at the engineer, who immediately started hauling the raft back. Between the incoming storm and the Japanese navy, they didn’t want to stick around to admire the view.