Warbound: Book Three of the Grimnoir Chronicles

by Larry Correia

  “Hello? Zachary?” But she knew right away she’d found the right place, because pinned to the nearest wall was a sheet of paper with a picture drawn on it, a quick and simple ink drawing like you’d see in the pulp magazines.

  The word Spellbound had been scrawled across the top.

  The picture was of her.

  It was a good likeness, not like looking in a mirror or anything, but she could easily tell it was supposed to be her. That was nice. Nobody had ever drawn her portrait before.

  There were more pictures pinned up, lots and lots of them. The drawings were of people mostly, but also places, and things, and machines, and events, and demons, and even stuff she didn’t recognize. There were hundreds of them, and when she took a few steps, she realized that all of the other walls in the room, from floor to ceiling, had paper stuck on them too.

  Faye whistled. “That sure is something.”

  She showed up as the subject often, probably more than anybody else, but she recognized many of her friends; Francis, Mr. Sullivan, Mr. Garrett, Lance, Delilah, Jane, Black Jack Pershing; there was Heinrich hitting a demon with a pickax, and even Mr. Browning showing off some new gun. Then there were her enemies, the Chairman screaming at her to give back his hands, and Isaiah Rawls and Mr. Harkeness plotting away, and Mr. Crow both as a man and as a demon, and Mr. Madi fighting on the Tokugawa. Then there were people who were sometimes both, like the one of Toru beating somebody’s head in with his spiky club, and J. Edgar Hoover bossing folks around.

  It went on and on, so many faces. So many scenes from her life. Some of the papers were yellowed and crispy with age, like they’d been drawn years ago, but they showed recent events, like Mr. Bolander calling down the Oklahoma lightning, or Faye’s fight with Toshiko the ninja girl, or Whisper right before she ended her life in Washington D.C.

  She froze at one that showed Madi standing over the fallen form of her grandpa, massive revolver pointing down to finish him off, and then at another of haystacks burning while a poor, scared, injured girl hid under a cow trough to carve a beetle out of her foot.

  Then there was page after page after page of folks she just plain didn’t know and places she’d never seen. Thousands of them, and it wasn’t like they were sorted into groups. One person she recognized would be squished onto a wall among dozens she didn’t. The only reason she could take it all in so quick was because it only took her a fraction of a second to scan over each one, record them with her grey eyes, and sort them out with her head map. There was a stranger who could create sucking black wounds in the world like the thing that had eaten Mason Island, and a mechanical man that looked just like a real man, and an old samurai with a big shadow living inside his head.

  Were these all things that had actually happened? No . . .There was one of her and Francis, holding hands up on a tall bridge, but she didn’t recognize the moment. There was a fancy UBF dirigible going up in flames over some foreign city with Captain Southunder still bravely manning the controls. A Peace Ray firing and a skyline she recognized as New York crumbling into ashes. Mr. Sullivan and Toru about to duel to the death on a rocky beach. A little boy crying as he was carried away by a monster without skin, while behind them a whole city was getting cleaned out of people, skinless monsters picking them like fruit.

  The details weren’t always right. Like the artist had only seen part of the picture and then guessed the rest, or maybe he only caught a quick glimpse and then had to recreate them from memory, but they were close enough to know that Zachary’s magic was real.

  “Hello, Faye.”

  It was rare somebody could sneak up on her, but she was awfully preoccupied. “Zachary?”

  “What’s left of me.” He came around the corner. Dead, but in much better shape than anyone else she’d seen in the city. It made sense, she supposed, since he hadn’t been dead near as long. If it had been darker, she might’ve even mistook him for an alive person. He’d probably stayed out of the weather. “I’ve been expecting you.”

  Faye nodded. “I guess you can’t really surprise somebody who can see the future.”

  “Sure you can. I don’t see every little thing.” The skin of his face was drooping and grey. There were holes in his cheeks where you could see white teeth. If he’d had hair when he was alive, you couldn’t tell because all the skin on the top of his head was gone and it was just a white skull dome. His clothing was frayed and torn, but far cleaner than anyone else’s around here except for the field marshal’s. His eyes, still clear and intelligent, swept across the room. “Saw you coming though. Saw that for a long time. What do you think of the gallery?”

  “It’s nice, I suppose.”

  Zachary shuffled in with a bad limp. “It wasn’t always like this.” His voice was raspy and dry, but he still sounded like an American. “Back before I got killed, my Power was weak. Just sporadic looks into what might happen. I could only see little bits and pieces once in a while. It wasn’t like I could actually tell the future . . . You heard of déjà vu?”

  Faye nodded. It was the sort of thing that Francis had read about in a magazine and thought was amusing enough to share with her. “Like you feel like you’d seen some things before?”

  “My magic was sort of like that, but a little better. Happened often enough when I was a kid that I started drawing the pictures that would come into my head. That way I could prove later I wasn’t making things up. Took years to sort of get it straight, but even at my best I’d get some things right, lots of things wrong, wasn’t much better than guessing. No wonder the Society never paid much heed to what I had to say. I was about as useful as flipping a coin. See, back then I didn’t realize that the Power sees things different than we do, and sometimes it was showing me things that could be.”

  “I’ve talked to the Power. It’s sorta weird like that.”

  “Wasn’t until after I croaked that it really started clicking. Believe it or not, death is handy for some things. When your choices are focus on the pain or focus on your Power, you get pretty good at focusing on your Power.” He made a sad noise, but then Faye realized he was laughing, so she laughed with him. “Now I can’t shut it off. It’s all there, all of it, all the time, from all over the world, and maybe even some other worlds that don’t exist quite yet. Things that are, will be, might be, doesn’t matter, the Power just keeps on shoving it into my head and I keep putting it down on paper.”

  “You’re a good drawer.”

  “Thanks.” He gestured absently at the walls and she realized he was wearing gloves. He must have caught her staring. “The gloves? Yeah, I don’t like to leave bits of me on the paper. All that effort, my hands are getting worn out. I can barely hold a pen anymore. It really hurts.”

  “But you have to keep drawing?”

  “Same way you have to keep Traveling. You can’t even imagine what life would be like without being able to Travel, can you?”

  “No.” That would be horrific. Horrific and slow. “It’s sorta who I am.”

  “This is different, but kind of the same. You ever have a toothache, Faye?”

  “Sure.”

  Zachary nodded. “Being dead’s like a toothache. Only for your whole body. Forever. You ever been real hungry, so starving that you’d eat anything?” She’d already seen that he’d drawn the shack in Oklahoma, so he already had the answer. “Being dead’s worse, only you can’t ever stop that hunger. And that gnaws at you. It gnaws at your soul.” He touched his head absently with his glove, and some more skin fell away from the top of his skull. “I gotta keep drawing. Keep listening. Otherwise, that toothache will gnaw right through the rest of me and I wouldn’t be me anymore. I’d just be the hunger, like the rest of this town.”

  That reminded her. “Jacques sent a package for you.” She pulled the satchel around and opened it up. It was filled with packages of typing paper and ink bottles and pens, and then she understood why it had been so heavy.

  “Thoughtful of him, but never mind that. Don’t need
them no more . . . My work is done. See, I only needed to stick around long enough to talk to you. This was all for you, Faye.”

  “For me?”

  “The Power wanted you to have it. I know why Jacques sent you. Last time we’d spoke was before the Power really started talking to me. See, I think I had too much humanity in the way before to really listen good, to really see the possibilities. Jacques figured I’d show you destroying the world, because that was what I’d shown him before.”

  “Do I? Do I really destroy the world?”

  “More often than not. There are lots of worlds and lots of Fayes, so that was just the most likely outcome. Not the only one.”

  Now she was really confused.

  His foot made a horrible sound as it dragged along the floor, and then Faye noticed that there were crumpled up balls of paper scattered about underfoot. She hadn’t paid them any mind before. She picked one up and uncrinkled it. This picture showed her, only older, and much scarier, her features all twisted up, and she was killing lots of people with all manner of magic, fire, and ice, and lightning, and from the looks on their faces, they weren’t bad people at all, just innocent folks, women and kids even . . .

  “See what I mean? And that one isn’t the worst. Not even close.”

  She crumpled it back up and tossed it down. “You hide the bad ones.”

  “Sometimes. Sometimes they scared me so bad that I tossed them right out the window, watched them float down. I saw too many good ones, so I know your heart, Faye. I prefer to think of what can be, not the worst-case scenario. Now Jacques, he has to think about the worst. Poor Jacques. I never saw your face back when I was alive. Maybe I wasn’t supposed to, you know? Power didn’t want me to see. You got no idea how many pictures I’ve got here of him, agonizing over some hard decision, staring off into space, trying to decide what to do.”

  “Fourteen,” Faye answered without hesitation.

  “He’s doing it right now, I bet.” Zachary chuckled, but it was a horrible sound, what with the air blowing out the holes in his cheeks.

  Faye went to the nearest one of her teacher. Jacques looked incredibly weary in that one. “What’s he doing with that vial?”

  “Deciding on whether to poison you or not, I think . . .”

  Faye was offended, but it made her more sad than angry.

  “Don’t hold it against him. That much responsibility on one man is a hell of a thing. It’s probably my fault, you know, I warned the others about you. I showed them . . . I told them there’d be another Spellbound coming. He’d devoted years of his life hunting the last one, lost his girlfriend to Sivaram, even. What’d you expect him to do?”

  “If I die, will there be another one after me?”

  “I don’t think you realize it yet, sister. Now that we’ve been found, if you die, there’s nothing after you. The Power is a funny thing. It’s smarter than they think. It’s picked you, Faye. It picked you for a reason. With Sivaram it saw a way out, a way to break a cycle. It’s been to a lot of worlds and bonded with a lot of intelligences, but humans are the first one that ever surprised it. We’ve got something the ones before us didn’t have: Creativity. It didn’t realize humans were that capable, and for the first time in a million years it got its hopes up. It tried, only Sivaram wasn’t good enough, so it picked you next. It’s directed you this whole time, guided you, put you in the path of the others it’s picked. I draw them too.” He gestured at the walls. “All of us have a job to do, but you’re the only one that can put it all together. You are the only way the Power sees to beat the Enemy once and for all.”

  “The Enemy is real. I knew it.” She glanced around. “How come there ain’t no pictures of it? You’ve got its little helpers and the people it’s twisted up and skinned, but no pictures of the big Enemy.”

  “That’s the bad part about my Power being stronger now. I never saw it before. I couldn’t see things without bodies back then. Now? I’ve tried to draw it. Take your pen, jab it through the paper, into the table even, hard as you can, and then start making a circle. You’ve got to cut it deep. You shred the paper. And all you get is ink bleeding out into a bigger and bigger circle. When I try to see it, I have to push so hard that blood starts seeping through my gloves. If I keep going, I start to bleed inside my head and then it comes out my eyes. The blood and the ink, that’s the only way to draw the thing that’s coming.”

  Blood and ink . . . She looked at one of the pictures of Mr. Sullivan, his shirt ripped open and the self-inflicted scars on his chest burning as he ripped an Iron Guard in half. “So the Power’s picked me to fight the Enemy? I know what happens if we lose, Power runs off, and we end up like the Summoned, but what happens if we win?”

  Zachary tilted his scabrous head to the side. “That’s entirely up to you. It all depends on how far you’re willing to go and what you’re willing to sacrifice.”

  Faye knelt down and reached for another crumpled sheet of paper.

  “Don’t,” the zombie warned. “Not that one.”

  Faye opened it up anyway. She stated at the picture for a long time. It was the worst thing ever. “I’d never do that. I’d never become that.”

  “Then don’t. I know you think you wouldn’t now, but you could. I can see the possibilities, and you can feel the truth. You’ve tasted what it’s like. You’ve taken someone else’s magic from them before and made it your own. You get strong as you’ll need to be, and it’ll change you.” Zachary turned and began walking away. “These are all for you, Faye. It wanted you to have them, to know who can help you, and who wants to hurt you. Learn them. Learn where you came from, and what might have been, and what might still be. I know it won’t take you long. Nothing takes you long.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “This was what the Power asked from me. I’m done. Now it’s time to make the gnawing stop. There’s a furnace downstairs. I’ve already stocked it full of coal. I plan to light it, then climb inside and burn until there’s nothing left of this damned body for my soul to cling to. See you.”

  Faye looked down at the horrific picture in her hands. I will not become the devil. “Thank you, Zachary.”

  “Good luck, Faye.”

  Art to come

  Faye with zombies

  Chapter 11

  They say I’m the best swindler there’s ever been, huh? Then what am I in here for? Most say the best cons are Yaps, Traps, Mouths, whatever you want to call ‘em, ‘cause they can change how the mark thinks. Then the Readers, Head Cases, they’re next, ‘cause they can tell you what the mark really thinks. Honest truth? They ain’t all that. Magic makes it too easy, makes a con soft. They got no imagination . . . Fine. You got me. I am the best . . . But you know what? Don’t take a wizard to clean a mark. You know the real secret to running a confidence scam? Tell them what they want to hear. There’s a sucker born every minute.

  —Joseph “Hungry Joe” Lewis,

  Interview at Sing Sing State Prison, 1888

  UBF Traveler

  The Japanese airships were right above them. Harsh rain pounded against the hull with a rhythmic drumming noise. Lightning flashed, seemingly just beyond the glass of the cockpit. It was blinding, yet the afterimage made it so that Sullivan could see the black shapes of the Imperium warships searching for them even with his eyes closed.

  They were running completely dark, but that wouldn’t help if the lightning reflected off of the Traveler’s hull. “Think they spotted us?” Sullivan asked.

  “If they did, we’ll know when the first shells hit,” Captain Southunder replied, perfectly calm. This wasn’t the first time the old pirate had run a blockade. “We’re practically swimming in Impy bastards.” He looked out over his bridge crew, obviously thinking hard about what to do next, stuck between several choices, all with bad possible outcomes, but sometimes a pirate just had to run on instinct and make a call. “Barns, take us down a thousand feet, nice and slow.”

  “Aye aye, Captain.” Barns ge
ntly pulled a brass lever on his console.

  The Traveler shifted violently to the right. Most of the crew had to grab onto something to keep from losing their footing. Sullivan just planted his feet and imagined that he was anchored to the deck until the tremors slowed. After several seconds of ominous creaking, the Traveler seemed to steady a bit, and the crew of the crowded bridge all got back to work, fiddling with gizmos that Sullivan frankly did not understand in the least. “That was nice and slow?”

  Barns grinned. “We’re getting sideswiped with sixty-mile-an-hour gusts. Anything that doesn’t corkscrew us into the ocean is nice.”

  “You asked for rough air, Mr. Sullivan. I’m happy to provide,” Captain Southunder said.

  “All I asked was for you to get us to Shanghai unseen.”

  “Same thing. As sleek as this girl is, anything that’s beating us this badly has got to be hell on those Imperial slabs. Shanghai’s position on the coast means that this area is crawling with ships. Of all the Free Cities, it’s the one I dread visiting the most. I drained my Power to unleash this unseasonable beast in the hope that the Imperium would have the sense to dock their fleet. However, it appears they don’t have the sense God gave a duck. I really didn’t expect to see any patrols this far out.”

  “Bad timing, or do they suspect what we’re up to?”

  “If they do, then we’ll know when the entire Jap navy is waiting in Shanghai to greet us.” Southunder turned to the teleradar operator. “Mr. Black?”

  The pirate’s eyes were glued to a picture tube. “They haven’t changed course.” It all just looked like green haze and glowing dots to Sullivan, but the UBF invention seemed to be working, and whatever it was showing, it was making the operator happy. “Good thing too. From the return I’m getting, one of those airships is a huge multihull. From the size, maybe a Kaga class.”