Shadow Soldier (The Gunsmith Book 2)

by C. K. Crigger

  “Did she?”

  “Yes, Gussie. And she told me it was my patriotic duty, both to the fatherland and to your memory, to try and make another poor soldier happy before he was sent to the front. A kind of living memorial, so to speak, and dedicated to you!”

  “How very humanitarian of you both.”

  “I thought so,” Eva said. “Especially since I don’t really like Paul all that much. Of course, he is terribly rich, but he always smells of garlic.”

  “That must be hard to bear.”

  “Oh, it is. I knew you’d understand. I’m so awfully disappointed, dear Gussie. I wish they hadn’t sent that letter about you. I wanted to marry you!”

  Eva looked pitiful, her cupid’s bow mouth turned down at the corners, her eyes round and wet. She sounded worse, her voice clogged with tears. She smiled bravely at him, as though believing he could change things, and make them back the way they’d been.

  “Don’t be angry with me, darling Gus,” she begged. “Please don’t be angry with me. I never meant for this to happen!”

  Well, that much was true.

  The thing is, I was in the unfortunate position of being privy to all her thoughts and feelings. I knew little Miss Eva was calculating her effect on the young August as analytically as a chemist might judge the result of pouring a newly invented acid on raw, living flesh. How could any man not see through her veil?

  I hadn’t taken into consideration the differences three generations of hindsight gives, I guess. Any self-respecting man of the second millennium wouldn’t have bought her act for a second. They’d probably have been rolling on the ground, laughing hysterically at her playacting. Or maybe not, I suppose, if they’d really thought they loved her. But they wouldn’t have been taken in by her act either. Not unless they wanted to be.

  As I studied August, I saw the misery in his expression and knew he wanted to be—taken in, that is.

  “Eva,” he said, taking her hand in his. It was the hand wearing the flashy diamonds and in the throes of his own unthinking pain, he crushed the gems against her other fingers. Being a whole lot tougher than he would have guessed—than I would have guessed, for that matter—she didn’t say a word, not even when the ring bit into the side of her finger and, cutting into her soft flesh, started a drop of blood.

  “My poor girl,” he said. “Don’t blame yourself. I know it’s not your fault. I can recognize my mother’s machinations when I see them. It’s my fault, too. I should’ve written sooner. I can’t help wondering— couldn’t you have waited, darling? If only for a little while?”

  Question her motive, he might, but he was still going to let her off the hook.

  “Yes, yes, Gus. It was your mother!” Eva grasped the excuse like a drowning person will grab a life preserver with both frantic hands, not caring who she pulled down along with her. “You know how strong a person she is, and when she told me what to do, I did it. There wasn’t time to pause and reflect. Everything seemed so momentous and I couldn’t think, and anyway, nothing mattered anymore if you were . . . gone.”

  Eva threw herself into Gus’ arms, a tiny smirk pursing her mouth as soon as she buried her face in his shoulder. I was stung by her anger as she realized Beatrix von Fassnacht had sabotaged her plans in urging a marriage to Paul without delay. Then I felt her smug satisfaction in the idea that perhaps the lady had outsmarted herself. August didn’t much care for his mother, or she for him. This only drove the wedge deeper. When dear Gussie was twenty-one, Eva vowed, she’d make him claim the castle away from Beatrix and they would come here and live like royalty. Eva could hardly wait. If Paul survived the war, she’d have to divorce him, of course, but that was no great matter, she was sure.

  People divorced all the time and it was so deliciously outre.

  Eva couldn’t see August’s face as he rested his cheek on her soft blond hair. I could, and wished for the ability to interpret what I saw. Too bad I couldn’t identify with more than one person when in a time conduit because then I’d know. Meanwhile, I’d have to retain a memory of the way he looked as an odd series of emotions crossed his face, and think about what I’d seen later. There was ambivalence, sternness, fury, yet an expression almost of mourning. What did it all mean?

  I needed to know in the most vital way because I knew I wouldn’t be witness to these people’s lives if it didn’t have something to do with what had happened to Caleb.

  At least I’d been spared the disgust of actually becoming this young woman under the skin, though I felt sure the only reason I hadn’t was because she was so utterly self-involved and shallow that even magic could not penetrate to a stronger core. There was no stronger core.

  There was only relief when the power, buoyed by the drop of Eva’s blood, let me—us—go, although, since I wasn’t any wiser as to what the experience had meant, I was left with a feeling of dissatisfaction.

  MY FINGERS HAD MADE white imprints in the backs of August’s wrinkled hands when the vision faded. The pale dots matched the color of his face. As though aided by a computerized morphing program, at least ten years had been added to the etching of wrinkles around his lips, eyes and neck. He sat very still, and I thought he appeared shorter and thinner now, with his shoulders narrowed and his back more stooped. Only his voice remained the same.

  “Well, sis, that’s quite a gift you have.”

  “Sometimes a gift, Mr. von Fassnacht. More often a burden.” I seldom let myself think this, let alone say it and I surprised myself by doing so to him, of all people.

  His finger caressed the girl’s face as he studied the photograph he still held. “A gift this time, Boothenay Irons. At least to me. After these many years, you’ve finally set me free, taken the load of guilt off my shoulders.”

  “Guilt?” Good Lord! He hadn’t offed her, too, had he, sometime after this scene?

  “Sure.” He shook his head in wonder. “Guilt over the way my mother manipulated her. Ruined her life because of me, or so I imagined then, and forever afterward until this minute. Back then I felt guilty because I never returned for her. A point came I could’ve gone back, but when you come right down to it, I just plain didn’t care enough. And then I suffered for the lack.”

  Well, not murder, at least, which relieved my mind.

  “All this time,” he went on, and I saw a smile crinkle for a second. Laughing at himself, in an old man way, laughing at his own pain. “All this time, and I never knew what she was until today—tonight. I lived every word, every heartbeat, felt the texture of her dress and the heat of her body in my arms, and I was young again with my Eva.

  “But I was old, too, the man I am now and I was watching her, and watching me. It was like looking through an airplane window, all dirty and blurred, with the sound dead and flattened. Do you know what I discovered?” He sounded creaky.

  “What?” I asked gently.

  “She was lying. Every word she ever said to me was a lie, a fabrication of her imagination. I hated my mother, then went and picked a girl to love who was just like her. What an everlasting fool I’ve been.”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “But like I said, sis, you’ve set me free. One less thing on my conscience. One less pain. Even worth the discovery that I’m not as bright as I always thought I was. And there is one thing that made this part almost meaningful.”

  I must have asked the question in some way.

  “Why, I smelled the roses, sis. The roses in the garden at home.”

  CHAPTER 10

  Home, he called that barely glimpsed castle of magnificent proportion, still standing after hundreds of years as a bastion against invaders. What kind of a life had August von Fassnacht been born into? Certainly a life beyond my ken.

  But he wasn’t up to telling me any more about his past on this night. I was seriously ripped when the old bugger asked me to leave, though maybe that’s exaggerating. He really didn’t appear to have the energy to talk anymore tonight. If I wanted him alive come morning, I h
ad no choice but to comply. A man as old as he claimed to be could kick off at any time, which was not what I wished to precipitate. Such a thing would definitely not be in Caleb’s best interests.

  It took almost as long to walk down the stairs and out to my car as it did to drive home. Barely long enough to mull over what we’d done, what we’d said. I was still ranting a little when I unlocked the gunshop’s back door and my dad met me at the foot of the stairs.

  “What happened? What took you so long?” His face fell when he saw I was alone. “No Caleb?

  “No. I’d hoped he’d be here when I got back.” Although I’d known by the empty feeling around my heart that he wouldn’t be, Dad’s confirmation was still devastating.

  I brushed past him and keyed the lock to open the vault. The Colt lay in the open case on a shelf and, as I drew near, I became aware of power strong enough to have become audible, like the singing of current through electricity lines. The sound was terrifying, though I knew I couldn’t let mere noise stop me.

  I reached for the weapon, only to have Dad grab my arm

  “Wait.

  In one word, he’d very succinctly stated my main problem. I wanted to wait. I was dangerously close to losing what little nerve I had left. Caleb wouldn’t appreciate my cowardice, I thought, trying to buck myself up. I knew he was brave; also resourceful, smart and with an uncanny ability to succeed with whatever he had to do. Still, this had gone on for far too long. I had to get him back—immediately.

  “I can’t wait much longer, Dad. He’ll soon be so distant I’ll never be able to touch him.” I felt like a shadow retreating from its substance. In an abject demonstration of spineless wimphood, I allowed him to draw me apart from the gun.

  “That fella you went to see, he told you how—where—to find Caleb?” Dad asked, doubt in his voice. He closed the case, pressing the latches down tight.

  I hesitated between truth and outright lying. Truth won. “Actually . . . no.”

  “No! What do you mean, no? You were gone long enough to ghostwrite his autobiography, let alone learn where Caleb might be.”

  “I know. But first he wouldn’t talk to me, then we kind of got caught up in a . . . a . . . situation. And after that⏤ I’m going back first thing in the morning.” I let Dad lead me out of the vault. “He’s awfully old and he got tired out tonight. But I’ll try again tomorrow.

  “If necessary,” Dad said. “But don’t you give up on Doc either. He still might find his own way home. You have.

  I’d never give up on Caleb. And yes, he might find his way home. Lord, how I hoped he would. But I had no doubt in my mind that tomorrow I’d have to talk more with August. Dad may have stopped me—again—from trying to follow Caleb to wherever he’d disappeared, but in all honesty, I knew the Colt would have ignored me anyway. Same as before.

  The power, given the sound effects and sinister atmosphere, showed no sign of abatement. Its story was ongoing, and had enlisted Caleb as one of the characters. Given what August had told me about his cousin, I saw no reason to be complacent about Caleb’s safety.

  Who was Caleb—what was his name in the place where he had disappeared? Please, please, don’t let it be Will Mueller.

  THERE WAS one thing more I could try: something not of magic, exactly, though something of magicians. Anticipation hurried my preparations for bed through the ritual of washing my face, putting on my p.j.s, and turning down the covers.

  I was ashamed of the crack I’d made earlier to Scott, the one concerned with warning his fiancée about this talent being hereditary. I hadn’t meant it to be hurtful—or not entirely hurtful. After all, just as both my brother and I had inherited an interest in gunsmithing from our father, so I had come by the ability to use an inborn power. Magic had been Mother’s gift to me. Recently I had come by her last bequest when Dad finally passed to me the ages-old grimoire from which she had learned most of her spells. Mother’s powers had been different from mine, stronger, without the need of foci like guns or photos. To my disappointment, the grimoire hadn’t proved of much help to me, but I remembered reading a bit of lore in there.An hour later I put the book aside, turned off my bedside lamp and, settling into a nest of body pillows and fluffy down, closed my eyes. Sleep. I commanded my subconscious like a general passing orders to his subordinates. Dream. Think about how to dream. Think about what to dream.

  Stressed by the need to stay cool when with August, and later to control myself with Dad, a fit of bone deep and gut wrenching shivering rattled me to the core. I felt like a kitten being shaken by a big dog, my head half-swallowed in his mouth.

  Curling up in a ball, again like a kitten, I let the shivers work their way through my system, draining off the overflow of adrenaline. After a while I slept—or something like.

  I dreamt, of course, of Caleb. I’d known I would. There was no power to drive this dream, no gun to provide a locus. No magic guided my travel—except the magic linking Caleb and me. Yet something took me close to him, as close as if aided by a magical interface, though only as an observer. I couldn’t speak with him, or touch him, or let him know in any other way that I was with him.

  I’d had visions like this before when I’d been transported into the history of one of the guns. In each of those previous visions I had been powerless, able to listen and strive to understand the meaning of what I heard and saw, but without the ability to communicate in my turn. This time was no different, and yet Caleb was somehow aware of my presence. He, in his turn, was thinking of me, and so we met in dreamtime.

  I wondered if he felt self-conscious in the costume he wore.

  “Jodhpurs?” I heard myself say. A giggle rose in the back of my throat before I could stifle it.

  As if the jodhpurs weren’t enough by themselves, he had some kind of canvas wraps on his lower legs, covering the tops of his shoes and all the way to his knees. A stiff, flat-brimmed hat crowned his dark hair. Caleb could wear almost anything—or nothing—with élan, but he had discarded his shirt and the coarse wool jacket I knew completed the uniform. Bare-chested, he bent over a coal-fired, portable forge. Sweat gleamed across his shoulders and on the washboard ridges of his belly. I wished I could physically reach out and touch him, to see if he felt as warm and alive as he looked.

  As I watched, the hammer he was wielding struck red sparks from a horseshoe taking shape on an anvil. A bit of slag flew from under the powerful blows, and stuck, sizzling a little, on his chest. He didn’t seem to notice the tiny burn.

  Being Caleb, no matter where the magic had sent him, he was trying to take care of himself. He’d stuck little pieces of cork or some such thing into his ear canals in an effort to save his hearing from the sharp clang of metal on metal. Perhaps the material also blocked the sound of heavy guns in the background, but it couldn’t block me.

  As I said, I couldn’t speak, or touch, or become visible. I could, and did, think powerful thoughts.

  Like, Where are you? Like, Who are you? Like, What about the Colt? Is it yours? Why did it take you, Caleb? Why can’t I reach you? Why won’ t it take me?

  Caleb shook his head with such force one of the corks popped out and fell into the forge.

  “Damn horseflies,” he grumped, scratching at the ear. “They’re gonna drive me nuts.”

  My purview expanded to include a large, lop-eared mule and a fair- haired young man who held the animal’s lead shank, gently rubbing its nose. Caleb, after cooling the iron in a tub of water, tried the fit of the shoe against its hoof. The young man—barely more than a boy, really—was Will Mueller. The real Will Mueller

  “I don’t see a horsefly, sir. Neither does this mule or he’d have kicked you into kingdom come by now.”

  “I’m a sergeant, Will. Don’t call me sir.”

  “You ought to be an officer, Sarge,” Will said with stout admiration. “The company thought you’d be promoted after you took that machine gun the way you did, but no. Thomas heard Major Page complaining about the chance you took. Abo
ut the medal, too, but I think he might’ve been joking.”

  Caleb reheated the iron shoe and put it back on the anvil, tapping in a little more curve, flattening a high spot. Satisfied with the fit at the next try, he stuck a few nails between his lips and picked up the mule’s foot.

  He spoke around the mouthful of nails. “In retrospect, I don’t see myself as being very smart. It’s a wonder the Huns didn’t kill me. God knows they had plenty of opportunity.”

  He tapped the nails through the shoe and into the hoof.

  Oh, Lordy. What was this? A medal? A machine gun? A wonder the Huns hadn’t killed him? I could only infer Caleb had been taking on a leadership role again. I wished I could scream at him not to do such things. Unfortunately, I lacked the ability to make a sound that he could hear.

  “Get out of the light,” he told a newcomer who approached and stood beside him.

  “Hell, Ned,” the man said, looking smug. “You don’t need light to shoe a mule. You could do that with your eyes burned out by mustard gas.”

  Ned. The name caught at me. Caleb is called Ned.

  Will Mueller looked aghast at the other man’s suggestion, but Caleb grinned as he bent the nails over on the mule’s hoof. Taking up a rasp, he began to smooth the edges. “I hope I never have to try. So, Walsh, what’s that I see on your sleeve? You make corporal?”

  Walsh shrugged with befitting modesty. “No choice. I’m practically the only one in the company left alive. Guess they had to do something with me.”

  Since Caleb—Ned in this dream—and Will nodded as if the news wasn’t especially startling, I gathered he wasn’t exaggerating.