“And now you have a Blood Priest in your ranks.”
Gentry chuckled.
“Chesterfield has always been a ranking member of the Special Forces. The leader, actually.”
“And the religious zealots in the Capitol don’t have a problem with this?
“What the Oligarchy doesn’t know won’t hurt them. Loyalty is everything.” He sighed. “This is all very interesting, Mr. Shepherd, but I did not come here for idle chat.”
“Then what the hell do you want?”
“I wanted to confirm, for myself, that you were indeed back in New Chicago.”
“Well, here I am. Want to take this outside?”
Gentry picked up his coffee mug and finished the last of it, setting it back down on the counter top as he stood.
“As much as I would love to, I must pass on the offer.” He grinned. “I have a busy afternoon head.”
Kane grit his teeth, cursed in his mind. He knew he’d have to play Gentry’s games to get anything out of him. He clenched his fists. He could fight Gentry, kill him. But Bette and Ralphie might also get caught in the crossfire. He couldn’t risk it. He kept his gaze steady on Gentry as he spoke.
“You know I’m here. Why not just hit Hidden Valley with the full contingency? Come after me?”
“And level the place?” Gentry said, feigning surprise. “Of all people, Mr. Shepherd, you know that I do not operate in that manner.”
“Right,” Kane said. “It’s always a fucking game to you.”
“Indeed.”
Gentry pulled his amulet out of his pocket, smiling as he used a long and elegant finger to draw his rune on the face of it.
“Næturferð!”
A gale of wind swept through the diner. Gentry turned into mist before Kane’s eyes, the particles swept away and out the door by the howling gust. Bette cried out and ducked as Ralphie stepped back, his arm up to ward off any debris. It was over as fast as it had begun. Kane heard Tabitha speak up.
“I know that one! ‘Nocturnal Travel!’ Not the focus word I would’ve picked, but to each his own.”
“That was terrifying,” Bette said, standing up and straightening her glasses and hair. “That man scares the hell out of me.” She looked at Ralphie. “I want a raise. Hazard pay, Ralphie.”
Ralphie grunted and looked at Kane.
“Kane—”
“I know, Ralphie,” Kane said, nodding. “We’ll finish up and clear out. Stay away until it’s over.”
“No offense,” Ralphie said. “But I don’t need this kind of trouble. Got enough on my plate as it is.”
Kane and Tabitha had finished their meals quickly and left Ralphie’s, going out the back door to avoid the possibility of even more attention to them and the diner. The airship above had turned out to be a Special Forces Gunner that was leaving as they made their way into the alley. Kane had noticed the copy of The Rag in the trash barrel by the back door right away.
They’d wasted no time in getting the story out.
Kane picked up the newspaper out of the trash can, scraped off the banana peel and coffee grounds, and read the headline through the stains.
“Mass Murder at Walking Bridge! Gunman still at large!”
He kept reading, feeling some relief that the newsie had stuck solidly to what Kane had told him, and had left out the part about Kane returning to the scene and searching bodies.
He skimmed the article to the bottom, noting that Chris had worded Kane’s warning precisely.
“Stay hidden after dark. Do not engage.”
“What does that mean?” Tabitha asked, looking over Kane’s shoulder at the paper.
“It’s what I was going to tell you before Gentry showed up,” Kane said. “There were Magicians in Wilhelmina’s group. Like the man you spoke with during your last vision.”
Tabitha clapped her hands.
“Yay! We’re not alone!” Her face fell suddenly. “Well, I guess we are now.”
“I have a feeling there are more,” Kane said. “Which makes me think our gunman is a Hunter. A real Hunter. Not like the throwaways working for Thaddeus Douglas.”
Tabitha’s eyes widened.
“That means he’s looking exclusively for Magicians, right?”
Kane furrowed his brow.
“Right, but he’s also mowing down whoever gets in his way.” He rubbed his stubbled chin. “He had the perfect chance to kill me when I was able to fight him. He had the gun to my head and didn’t pull the trigger.”
Tabitha clapped her hands over her ears.
“I don’t need to hear this,” she said, stamping her foot. “La-la-la! I can’t hear you talking about almost dying!”
Kane rolled his eyes.
“Sorry,” he said, gently pulling her hands away from her ears. “I’ll stop.”
“What about Chesterfield?” Tabitha asked. “Could it be him?”
“Not big enough,” Kane said. “The Gunman is actually a little smaller than me. Knows how to fight.”
A shout sounded from the other end of the alley. Kane put a finger up to shush Tabitha as she began to speak. He pointed to his ear. She nodded, activated her amulet, and stood back. Kane let his hearing stretch out to the end of the alleyway, past the wall, the street. Another series of shouts.
“We won’t let them keep pushing us down!” A man. Young. Passionate. He looked at Tabitha and nodded toward the wall. She put her finger to her lips and nodded. Kane moved to the end of the alley and stared at the wall.
“Aspectu aethereo.”
His Ethereal Sight moved through the black and white wall and toward the mass of auras on the other side, the blur of colors becoming clear as he focused on the group. A young man stood on a box, talking to a small crowd of people. He was dirty, his clothing dark and stained from coal dust and grime. Shipyard worker. Had to be.
“They make their wealth off our backs,” he was saying. “They tax us into poverty, arrest us for stepping foot into their part of the city unless we’re working there, and sometimes even if we are working!”
A few of the crowd muttered agreement, some nodding.
“Then they place a President without an election? I can’t speak for any of you, but you gotta be fucking kidding me!”
The crowd grew louder, a few shouting agreements, one raising his fist in the air. Another cupped his hands over his mouth and shouted back at the kid.
“Try bein’ black!”
The rest of the colored people in the crowd shouted and nodded. The man speaking shook his head.
“You couldn’t pay me to be colored and live here,” he said. “I hear you, and I see what they do. You have it worse than anyone.”
“The homeless,” a woman said, speaking up. She wore rags, a long overcoat draped over her frail shoulders. “We’re hunted. They send a killer to wipe us out!”
Kane focused on her. She looked familiar. White, dirty skin, skeletal, but that look in her eyes.
That dialect.
“Christ,” Kane muttered.
Tabitha moved next to him.
“What is it?”
“Wil. Stirring shit.”
Tabitha grimaced.
“Ew. What kind of spell requires that?”
Kane paused.
“I mean…nevermind. I’m trying to listen. Shh.”
“You’re not the only one who believes that the Oligarchs are trying to kill us off,” the speaker said. “Anyone who speaks against them. Anyone who speaks against President Frostmeyer. And then they scorch an entire shipyard. They kill two hundred men. Husbands. Fathers. Sons. Brothers. Enough! The Revolution isn’t moving fast enough!”
“Kane Shepherd come back,” the woman, Wil, said. “He gonna get it rollin’ again. Gonna lead!”
The man shook his head.
“Not before tonight. No, tonight we can’t wait on one Magician to come fight our battle. We go in. We fight. We drown them out. We don’t stand down until Frostmeyer walks away from the podium. We sho
w them that we have numbers. That we are the people of New Chicago!”
Kane reeled his sight in as Wil shook her head and turned away, making her way through the crowd. The scene disappeared, the brick wall greeting him as he wiped his amulet clean.
“We’ve got problems,” he said, turning to Tabitha.
Wilhelmina’s voice echoed in the alleyway.
“Ain’t no damn lie you got problems.”
Kane looked over his shoulder, then turned fully as Wil made her way toward them. The white skin turned to ash, drifted away and revealed olive. The street rags turned into Wil’s dress, trinkets of bones and flora shaking and rattling as she walked. Her silver hair became long dreadlocks.
Wil glared at Kane as she approached.
“You got a shit storm tonight, Kane Shepherd.”
“I gathered that,” Kane said.
“These people need a leader, Magician,” Wil said. She pointed at him. “You. They lookin’ to you to guide them. But they impatient. Them want action. That man over there? Him tryin’ to take it up. Mean well. Good man. Gonna die like the rest.”
Tabitha tugged on Kane’s sleeve.
“Kane, we can’t let that happen.”
Kane kept his eyes on Wil.
“What do you mean ‘like the rest?’ What do you know?”
“I know that a good many of the group I’d gathered under that bridge was Magician,” Wil said. “I know that man with them guns lookin’ for your kind. And I know that Euro-man you hate so much got a bad surprise for them people today. Him your biggest threat. And him gonna prove it in blood.”
Chapter Nine
Wilhelmina didn’t elaborate on her comment about Gentry. She’d kept it simple: he had plans, they were set in motion, and a lot of people were going to get hurt if the protest took place at the conference.
Tabitha wanted to go back to Antonia’s, but Kane hesitated. Gentry knew that they’d gone to Ralphie’s. It wasn’t just happenstance that he’d shown up there. It meant that he had eyes in Hidden Valley tracking them. Possibly someone with a Seeker, a device that could track a locate magic users when they cast spells. The tinkerers who’d made the devices hadn’t counted on conjurers in their design, so a Seeker was no good on someone like Wilhelmina. Those who had power in their bloodline could be tracked with ease.
Kane wondered if the Templars knew about Gentry.
He and Tabitha followed Wil as she led them toward the South End and into the coal yards. Workers toiled away at the piles of coal, operating steam-powered matics that worked tirelessly, hammering into the ground, breaking up the coal, and scooping it onto the conveyers that fed the lumps into large metal containers to be shipped off to the airship depots around the city.
“We had to come here,” Wil said over the noise of machinery and shouting workers. “Had to get away. These men, they hide us. They know us. They are us.” She stopped and looked sidelong at Kane. “Them work. Them struggle. Just like you. Just like me.”
The opposite side of the yard consisted of hovels made of crates and tarps. People sat around, clumped together in groups inside the makeshift shelters.
The Homeless.
They looked at Kane and Tabitha, eyed them both. Kane could tell that some of them knew who he was, knew that he was a Magician. He would’ve put money on the idea that they, themselves, were Magicians looking for a fellow comrade.
“Are they part of the Revolution?” Tabitha asked.
Wil shook her head as she moved closer to a pile of rubble in the center of the camp. The little girl, Lexi, wandered out of one of the hovels and approached, the possum in her arms nesting its head in the crook of her elbow.
“I’m a goddamned fool for not comin’ here instead o’ that bridge,” Wil said as she reached down and stroked the possum’s greasy looking fur. “Didn’t count on that shooter-man findin’ me.” She shrugged. “Live an’ learn.”
“Wil,” Kane said. “The Revolution. Are the men in this yard part of it?”
She looked at him.
“Maybe. Maybe not. Them don’t know. Revolution is broken. That trouble in Charleston done got ‘em all messed up. Scattered out. They don’ know what to do now. Ain’t got one idea between ‘em. They think they movin’ forward, and that nothin’ in Charleston done slowed ‘em up. They foolin’ themselves.” She eyed Kane. “They scared. They done seen what the Special Forces can do.” She looked down and hissed at the pile. The rubble shuddered, smoked, and caught fire.
Kane looked around the yard again. Men, women, and children still watched them, cautious and guarded. They had a right. Kane showed up under the Walking Bridge, and the Gunman killed a dozen of them in seconds. Kane went to the empty apartment building, and the place went up in flames. It was as if his very fear were being made reality.
Death followed him.
“You’re doing it again,” Tabitha whispered to him. “Making that face. Stop it.”
Kane shook his head.
“Right,” he said. He looked at Wil. “How many of them are Magicians?”
Wil’s eyes flashed. Her mouth broke into a grin.
“I see you done got smart on this one,” she said. “Done looked closer than I give you credit for, white man.”
“Wasn’t me,” Kane said, nodding to Tabitha. “I just put it together and went snooping. Now how many do you have down here?”
“None that want anythin’ to do with this fight.” Will narrowed her eyes. “They want peace. They want to be left be.” She waved her hand dismissively. “Let them rich white men have this city. Let ‘em tax they own workers into oblivion, drive ‘em off. Them men in them ivory towers buildin’ up they own downfall.”
“In the meantime, we still suffer,” Kane said. “People are being killed for no reason other than living, and people live in poverty. It’s still legal to kill Magicians, and now it’s a witch hunt. All someone has to do is accuse, and it’s done.”
“That’s always been,” Wil said. She nodded to Lexi. “At least she say so. You just now paying attention, Kane Shepherd.”
Kane glanced down at Lexi. She pulled a trinket out of her pocket, rubbed her finger on it while cradling Wil’s possum in her other arm. She put the trinket away, muttered under her breath, and opened her hand as a small fireball began to swirl in her palm.
Tabitha clapped her hands excitedly.
“Oh, neat! Kane’s element is fire, too!”
Lexi looked at Kane, her mouth turned up in a faint smile as she closed her hand and extinguished the fireball.
“This killer not what you think he is,” Wil said. “Him a distraction. Got one job: keep you away from the truth.”
“And what’s the truth?” Kane asked.
Wil shrugged.
“Dunno. This just my opinion. Take it light.”
Kane nodded, though he put what Wil said into the back of his mind. The last time she’d voiced her opinion, Kane had turned into a giant werebeast and almost killed Tabitha. He knew better than to write her off as a lunatic.
Not that she wasn’t. Wil was just more worldly than most of the lunatics Kane knew.
“You got a conference to go to,” Wil said. She held her arms out as the burning pile of rubble began to fade. “Let me know how it go. I don’t want nowhere near that shitshow. But that man talkin’ pretty? Him walkin’ into a death trap.”
The transport lumbered through the air, the airship moving slowly between the skyscrapers of downtown New Chicago as it made its way towards the next depot. Kane stared out the window at the city below, the last shadow of Hidden Valley moving past beneath them and giving way to lights and lively city life. The airship, itself, was crowded, the low thrum of multiple conversations making it hard to hear. No one noticed the two women standing at the window, both dressed elegantly, their hands on the suitcases next to them.
Kane sighed.
“I’ve never been a woman before,” he said, still not used to the high pitch of his new voice. “This is different.�
�
“I’ve always liked it,” Tabitha said, pushing her new dark curls out of her eyes. She reached up to Kane’s now-small neck and adjusted his necklace. “Besides, I didn’t have a man handy to model you after when I cast the spell. Becky will have to do. It was nice of her to volunteer for it. I never thought Antonia would let her. And it was funny watching you put on a corset.”
It would’ve been easier to have Tabitha transport them, but Kane knew that the down side of that would be the risk of appearing right in front of a group of guards. The front of City Hall would be swarming with Special Forces, which would make it harder to get around without being noticed. Plus, Kane wanted to be on the transport going in just in case he might overhear someone getting chatty about the setup on the ground. Size of the area. Number of people.
Guard stations.
Kane looked at the reflection in the window, a young, thin brunette staring back at him.
“I can’t breathe.”
“It’s a corset, Kane,” Tabitha said. “You’re not supposed to. Besides, you’re the one who got the bigger boobs. That doesn’t help.”
Kane put a delicate hand to his forehead.
“Christ, I have boobs.”
“I like my normal ones better. These are too small.”
“Can we change the subject?”
“Sure! Want to stay this way until you start your period? That might be really different for you!”
“Not helping.”
Tabitha grinned mischievously, putting her arm in the crook of Kane’s elbow. A couple of passengers looked at them with raised eyebrows. Kane nodded at them, patted Tabitha’s hand.
“Look out the window, dear sister,” he said, playing the part. The onlookers seemed to sigh in relief, turning back to their conversations.
The speaker above them crackled to life.
“Please secure all belongings and make ready to disembark. Docking at port in T-minus five minutes.”
Kane stepped closer to the window, moving his billowing skirt out of the way as he looked down at the city below. City Hall loomed in front of the airship, the dock only a block away. The tower was the largest in the city: the spire guarded by four gargoyles. A crowd had already amassed below as crew on the platform flagged her in. There were hundreds of people gathered, the camera flashes from newsies trying to get the best shots bright enough to be seen from above.
Gaslit Revolution Page 12
