by Beth Cato
“Does the UP even use ground landers?” She lightly tapped the gun in her pocket; the weapon would be useless against a military airship, but its presence made her feel slightly less helpless all the same.
“They are a more recent civilian fad, but the UP might utilize them in flat areas like this. Ground landers’ cushions are unreliable, but they can land where a traditional ship cannot. Here. Don’t walk directly down the lane. We’re too exposed to the house there.”
He walked to one side of the drive, beneath the palms. Dried fronds crunched and rustled underfoot, the ground beneath as hard as concrete. Ingrid was glad to have her staff in hand for balance.
As they neared the house, they entered the welcome shade of a grove of walnut trees. Birdsong belted out from the branches above. The sylphs’ susurrus grew louder.
“They should watch their noise,” Cy murmured. “Most people would assume them to be bees, but some might recognize what they are.”
Ingrid nodded and motioned for the sylphs to quiet down. They acquiesced, somewhat abashed at their own carelessness.
Cy didn’t walk toward the front door, instead circling the small home. A window was open, the sounds of clinking dishes carrying outdoors. Out back, a small plot of furrowed ground was dark with recent watering but showed no signs of plant growth. The wooden tower had an unlocked door; peering inside, they found that it housed a metal water tower. Cy continued around, headed toward the barn. The sylphs continued to follow in a sort of aerial dance from tree to tree. Other than birds, Ingrid heard and saw no other animals. If the property contained an autocar, it was either in the barn or elsewhere.
“Do you want me to see if the sylphs can scout out the house or barn?” she whispered.
“That level of communication would require you to utilize magic, right?” At her nod, he shook his head. “The sylphs would recognize some threats, not all. I’d rather trust my own eyes for our reconnaissance.”
Ingrid couldn’t argue with that. She tread as softly as possible as they rounded the back of the tall barn. White paint bubbled and peeled from the walls, reminding her of sunburned skin. Metallic taps and thuds carried from inside—the sounds of a workshop.
Cy stopped to peek through the gaps in the planks. “Wall’s blocked, can’t see a thing.” They continued to the front, where half the barn door stood open.
An autocar faced them, its engine compartment exposed and its contents disassembled across an oil-blotched white sheet on the barn floor. A thickset man had his elbows braced on the front of the car.
Cy angled his body to shelter Ingrid behind him. She glanced at her own flank. No one else approached them. The sylphs clustered along an eave just above them.
Cy tapped on the barn door with the copper length of his Tesla rod. The dense sound rang out. “Pardon, but I was provided this address to meet someone here.”
The man jerked up from the cavity of the car. He wore grubby dungarees and a plaid shirt like any workingman, and his face— Dear God!
“Barty?” cried George Augustus, opening wide his arms as he rushed to embrace his son.
Chapter 14
“Father? You’re alive?” The words croaked out. The sight of his father had rendered him completely immobile.
Cy had seen beings extraordinary and ancient over the past month, but now, when he found the person he most wanted to see, he couldn’t believe his own eyes. Ingrid wanted to yell at him, shove him forward, make him move, make him accept this wonderful reality, but she couldn’t. He needed time to absorb the fact that his father wasn’t dead. That his hopes hadn’t been in vain.
George Augustus circled the dismantled equipment on the barn floor and barreled into his son. Cy kept his arms out for a moment, like tentative wings, before lowering them into a hug. The two gripped each other as if trying to keep hold during a tornado, their arms wrapped tight.
“My God! My boy, my boy! Theodore said you were alive, but to see you with my own eyes . . . !” Mr. Augustus pulled back to gaze at him.
“You have a beard?” Cy asked, with a sound halfway between a sob and a laugh.
“So do you!” Mr. Augustus embraced his son again. “What a glorious surprise this is. And you, miss! It brightens my heart to see you.” He offered Ingrid a dignified bow, leaving her abashed.
“I’m relieved to see you, too, Mr. Augustus. We saw notice of your death in a newspaper.” She curtsied with one hand on the staff. A tear slid down her cheek. This was indeed a glorious surprise orchestrated by Mr. Roosevelt. She had a hunch it was more for the elder Mr. Augustus’s benefit than for Cy’s—Roosevelt had not masked his disgust at Cy’s status as a deserter of the A&A. To him, military service was akin to godliness.
Mr. Augustus pulled a red handkerchief from his pocket and mopped his cheeks. He had a long, angular face like his son, with blue eyes almost buried in padded layers of wrinkles. “I plan to remain dead in the public eye for the rest of my life, Lord willing.”
Ingrid heard the scuff of shoes behind her. Her legs braced wide, she spun around, staff held outward. A dozen feet away, she recognized Reddy, Mr. Augustus’s manservant. He wielded a shovel, blade up.
He recognized her at the same instant and lowered the tool. “Miss Car—?”
“Don’t say my name here,” she interrupted hurriedly. “I’ll explain more later.” She cast a worried glance to the heavens. She surmised that Blum’s scouts were attracted to her magic more than to her name, but she wasn’t going to gamble on her guess.
“I see.” Questions sparked in his eyes. “Did you bring along our boy again?”
“Of course I did,” she said, smiling as she stepped back from the doorway to let Cy past. His embrace with Reddy was almost as emotional as his reunion with his father.
“You both made it out of San Francisco.” Cy stood with a hand on Reddy’s back.
“We did, by the grace of God and Captain Sutcliff,” said Mr. Augustus.
“Captain Sutcliff?” she asked sharply.
“Yes. I understand he was of your acquaintance as well.” Mr. Augustus walked with a distinct limp in his step. As he passed by, a strange chill draped over Ingrid for a matter of seconds. She stifled a gasp. What was that?
She looked sidelong at Cy, but he showed no peculiar reaction to his father’s proximity—besides being awash with joy. She’d need to discuss this with him later.
“Come along,” said Mr. Augustus. “Let’s get us to the house for a proper sit-down.”
The two men welcomed them inside the home as if it were a manor house replete with a parlor. In truth, it was a modest place probably indistinguishable from other farmhouses around. The kitchen contained a sink, stove, and stacked orange crates for cabinets, with a board atop them as a counter. Reddy hurried to pull out a chair for Ingrid at a square table battered by use. Not five feet away, a thin wooden wall separated them from the rest of the house. The doorway to the bedroom was cordoned off by a curtain of stitched flour bags.
“I’m sorry to say we have no tea,” said Reddy. “However, if you close your eyes, you might pretend the well water is tea. It’s the right color.”
“I suppose you don’t have pie either?” Cy shook his head in mock indignation. “What a travesty of hospitality!” He sat, his father close by. Ingrid cast Reddy a look, which he answered with a small smile and a shake of his head. There was no chair for him, but even if there had been, a man of his station wouldn’t have sat with guests present. It just wasn’t done.
Ingrid wished she could have stood with him in solidarity, but to her chagrin, her legs needed a rest after that walk.
The sylphs had needed a rest, too. They had retreated into one of the big walnut trees just outside.
“We’re happy to offer whatever we have, little as it is.” Ingrid noted how Mr. Augustus shifted in his chair, and recognized her own recent behavior. He was in pain, but trying to hide it before his son.
“How did you end up here? What happened in the city?” asked
Cy, leaning forward on his thighs.
“How is Mr. Roosevelt involved?” Ingrid asked.
“Where to begin?” Mr. Augustus glanced toward heaven. “We remained in the Bay Area for some weeks after the disaster. By some miracle, Mr. Roosevelt visited the refugee camp we were in. He saw me, had his men pull me aside. He well understood my request and established us here near Bakersfield. Folks here mind their own business and most don’t hold repugnant views on folks of color.” He nodded toward Reddy.
“There’s even a thriving farm community of black folk a ways north, founded by freed slaves,” Reddy added softly.
Ingrid was warmed by Mr. Augustus’s consideration of Reddy; it fit with his kind reception of her as well. “And what was your request, sir?”
“To be dead.” He looked at Cy, expression sober. “I know you didn’t intend to fake your death. You simply deserted. When we talked at Quist’s, I envied you, even as you were in the thick of danger. You were free. I’ve been chained to a desk for a long time.”
“And the bottle,” Cy added. Mr. Augustus recoiled at that, cheeks flushing. He did not meet Ingrid’s eye.
“He hasn’t had a drink in a month now. Since the earthquake.” Reddy sounded matter-of-fact.
“Good.” Cy nodded to his father, then looked at Reddy, brows drawn inward in concern. “I understand Father’s reasoning, with the rest of his kin gone, but what of your daughter and her family?”
He flinched. “An autocar accident some five years ago took her and the little ones to Jesus.”
“My God. I’m so sorry, Reddy. Ophelia was a good friend. We practically grew up together,” Cy said to Ingrid. “She was seven years older than us twins. Probably saved our lives a time or two when our scientific mischief could’ve come to explosive results.”
Emotion glimmered in Reddy’s eyes. “I am proud of the woman she became. I hold no worries about her soul.”
Respectful silence lingered for a minute. “I worried for my soul,” whispered Mr. Augustus. “I still do. That’s why I wanted a chance to start over after I was reborn from the rubble. I hold no illusions that I can atone for what my machines have done, but I want a chance to set myself right with the Lord. I’ll accept His judgment.”
“You were still in downtown during the earthquake.” Cy’s voice trembled.
Mr. Augustus nodded and stood. He paced around the table, his gaze distant. That cold feeling crept over Ingrid again, and she fought the urge get away from him. Instead of prickles of heat, she sensed an utter void—the opposite of being near a fantastic. What did this mean? She studied him in the slant of light through the window.
Both times she had encountered this terrible coldness, she’d been in his shadow.
She was almost certain his shadow had passed over her at least once when they were together at Quist’s in San Francisco, and she had felt nothing then.
“You met Captain Sutcliff, sir?” she prompted.
“I did.” He rubbed his beard, the same gesture Cy often made these days. “You two fled from the restaurant. I went to the front door to distract the soldiers. Minutes later, I heard some of them mutter that they’d found the woman. I took that to mean you, Miss Carmichael.” He grimaced. “I daresay, I wielded my clout. I demanded to speak to their commander. I waited a time, and heard whispers that an ambassador was taking over the operation. I feared for you. The restaurant shut but I lingered with some soldiers. Finally, Captain Sutcliff arrived.”
Ingrid could imagine that scene well, and wondered how Sutcliff had recovered from having his authority usurped by Ambassador Blum’s arrival. He was such a pompous man, blond with a perfectly manicured mustache, his navy-blue uniform crisp and perfect even in the thick of disaster. She hated him. He had assumed Mr. Sakaguchi guilty of conspiring with the Chinese to destroy the auxiliary, of thieving the large kermanite. Even so, when Sutcliff had interrogated Ingrid after nabbing her at Quist’s, she managed to break through his stiff facade. She had gotten him to consider the fact that the Thuggees were the real threat, that they were engineering an attack on the city that very night. And then Blum had arrived.
“I remembered, in our conversation earlier that night, you had mentioned the captain being in pursuit of the kermanite. I began our discussion with that subject, with nihonshu to soften the way.”
Cy didn’t disguise his grimace.
His father continued: “Sutcliff had suffered something of a crisis of faith regarding his role in the Unified Pacific. I reckon I was like a father figure. He wouldn’t have spoken to me so openly otherwise, a man like him. That Ambassador—”
“Don’t say her name,” interrupted Ingrid. “There’s power in names. She can wield it. Don’t say my full name either.”
Mr. Augustus’s eyes widened. “I see.”
“The ambassador’s a kitsune, Father, at least four centuries in age,” said Cy. “Her powers are many.”
The shock of that news sent his father staggering back a step. Reddy balanced him with a hand on his back. “You’d best sit, sir,” he murmured. Mr. Augustus did so; Cy took in his father’s new feebleness with compressed lips.
“That old. That powerful. I had no idea.” He shook his head. “When I first heard a woman ambassador had been ordained, I rejoiced. I’ve been a proponent of universal suffrage for years, and I selfishly thought this news would bolster our cause. Then I met her a time or two, and heard some of the scuttlebutt that swirled around like her like a cyclone. I realized she was much more . . . but I had no idea about this . . .”
“Captain Sutcliff was terrified of her,” Ingrid said.
“Yes, I could see that. That night, he grieved that he had abandoned his men to her whims. Soldiers under her direction are often subject to outrageous commands and abuses. Many die. Just before meeting me, he had penned a report and taken the terrible risk of addressing it to Ambassador Roosevelt.”
“Bypassing his own commanders?” Cy shook his head with a low whistle. “Career suicide.”
“Yes. And his career was everything to him.”
“You’re speaking of Captain Sutcliff in the past tense,” Ingrid said.
Mr. Augustus nodded, staring away. “You had made quite the impression on him, miss. He was afraid he had committed an injustice by fixating on you and your mentor—by falling into the Imperial Japanese habit of guilt until proven innocent, rather than our American system of innocent until proven guilty. He worried that following the commands of the ambassador were to the detriment of America.” He sighed. “Fact was, he was a man beset by demons. We sat talking until dawn.”
“When the earthquake happened,” Ingrid said softly.
Mr. Augustus said nothing. His fingers drummed on the table. Reddy positioned himself in his line of sight. “There’s no need to drink for courage, sir. Tell the tale.”
“Actually, I wish most of all that we had some tea and sugar.” The words were flippant and rang false.
“Father, what happened?”
“Hell became real. But you know that. Theodore said you survived the worst of it.” His hands stilled on the table. “The restaurant began to crumble around us. I’m an old man. I can’t move fast. Captain Sutcliff all but carried me out. We just made it outside when the building’s facade slipped down. The captain looked up and shoved me aside. He took a ton of bricks that Death had surely intended for me. The barrage still buried me to the waist. I dug through the bricks and I found him. Much of his body had been crushed, but Captain Sutcliff looked at me, his eyes defiant even as he died.”
Mr. Augustus lost his ability to speak. Cy sat, elbows braced on the table, hand over his face. Ingrid blinked back tears. She had wished ill for Captain Sutcliff, but she never imagined that he was yet another death in Papa’s terrible tally.
“I’d been upstairs asleep when this happened.” Reddy’s voice was soft. “I ended up in a room that tilted toward the street as the first few floors had compressed together. I climbed down the rubble, where I unburied Ge
orge the rest of the way.” The use of his employer’s given name was awkward on his tongue, a new habit in their new lives. “We wandered for a while. It felt like forty days and nights in a wasteland, and then we found a park, and doctors. George’s leg was crushed. For a few days, we worried it would need to be amputated.”
Mr. Augustus waved a hand. “Reddy and the doctors worried. I was incomprehensible. I remember little of that next week.”
“I do,” said Reddy. “I remember every minute.”
No one spoke for a while. “I want to find out more from you,” Cy said, speaking slowly. “But we had best go check in with Fenris. He’s surely anxious in wait for us.”
“Fenris Braun? Your old roommate from the academy?” Mr. Augustus asked, brow wrinkled and perplexed.
“Yes, sir,” he replied. “We were in business together in San Francisco.” She noted that he omitted that he had been with Fenris during his full dozen years of exile.
Ingrid stood and waved back the gentlemen’s attempts to come to her aid. “We can come back after a visit to the dock. You all need to talk more.”
“Your company’s welcome as morning sunshine,” said Mr. Augustus. “We’re doing soup tonight, weren’t we, Reddy?”
“Yessir, George. I should start that soon.”
They transitioned to the front porch and stood together in an awkward cluster. Cy and his father mirrored each other in their hesitant poses, neither able to say farewell.
Ingrid looked across the fields to see if she could sight the Bug. “Cy. There’s a car coming.”
He jerked to attention. “You get many autocars out here, Father?”
“Almost none. Most folks here rely on feet or hooves.” As he spoke, Reddy retreated a few steps to where his shovel leaned against the porch rail.
A plume of dust illuminated the vehicle’s approach. Cy shot Ingrid a look, and she wasted no time arguing. She stepped just inside the house, out of direct line of sight or gunfire.
“Is that a salesman’s truck?” she asked, leaning forward to watch. “I can’t make out the advertisement on the side.”
