One wood-paneled wall slid open, revealing itself as a door. The man that entered was in his forties, short and chubby. "Good afternoon, Mr. Sullivan. Glad to see you're awake," he said, walking over to the bedside, humming absently. He spared no time manhandling Sullivan's arm so he could inspect the stitches. Sullivan cringed in pain, but the man didn't seem to notice. "Hmm… Not my best work, but you're not dead, so I'll call it a win."
Sullivan nodded his head at the water. "What? Oh yes? The side effects of opiate based pain relievers can include cotton mouth, which can be rather unpleasant," the man stated matter-of-factly. It took him a second to realize that Sullivan didn't want a medical lesson, he just wanted a drink. "Oh, yes, sorry. Here you go."
He managed to spill half of it, but Sullivan cherished the victory over his enemy, the cup. "Who are you?" he finally croaked. "Where am I?"
"Dr. Ira Rosenstein. I was harassed by Mr. Garrett into coming on this trek. Mr. Koenig is in the next room getting some sleep. They had a late flight. I believe Mr. Garrett is in the dining car. I tried to tell him that I would prefer for you not to move for several days, but he was adamant that you must return to California immediately. The General must be briefed on the presence of an Iron Guard. Can you imagine? An actual Iron Guard acting with impunity within the United States? But of course you can, obviously. You did kill him after all, and in a particularly spectacular manner, if Heinrich is to be believed, though he does tend to embellish."
Sullivan just nodded, as if he had any clue what the doctor was talking about.
"You will need to take it easy for a while. Your physical condition indicates to me a rather intense life-style. In addition to what I attempted to fix last night, without my regular staff or equipment, in a moving train car rather than a proper operating room, but I digress… As I was saying, you are suffering from several other very recent punctures, contusions, and lacerations. I would strongly suggest that you tone down your activities, Mr. Sullivan."
"You a Healer?"
Rosenstein snorted. "As if… No. I am a doctor. I work for a living. Yes, I do happen to be a Cog, so I am a particularly gifted surgeon when the opportunity arises, the finest in Chicago. But I went to medical school and have continually educated myself at every opportunity to further my knowledge of anatomy and the most cutting edge surgical techniques, if you will excuse the pun." He smiled.
Sullivan didn't get it, but he'd had a really hard week. "Sure…"
The doctor continued. "Most people do not realize that Cogs are not just limited to machines or theoretical equations capped with bursts of magical brilliance. Some of us prefer to toil in fields of a medical nature. Whereas Healers"-he waved his hand dismissively-"know absolutely nothing of anatomy or biology, but work their magic from base intuition, and oh how everybody just loves Healers. They just put their hands on you and poof, you are all better. And then everyone showers them in money. Do you know how many years I went to school, Mr. Sullivan?"
"Uh… a lot?" He could tell it was a sore spot.
"Yes. A lot." Rosenstein raised his voice. "Have you ever met an Active Healer that wasn't an insufferable bore? Full of themselves with a God complex and an ego bigger than Lake Superior?"
Sullivan had never actually had a conversation with a Healer. They were, after all, the rarest of the rare of Actives, or so he had thought, until he met a Jap who could shrug off dozens of rounds of.30-06. He shrugged.
"Well, trust me, sir. They're all pompous, the lot of them. The only thing they're good for is publicity."
Sullivan nodded. The miraculous ability of the Healer and the wondrous ingenuity of the Cog were the single biggest reasons Actives had been so accepted, even celebrated in American society. Some types of Powers did not fare so well. Heavies were generally valuable as dumb lugs, useful in industry, so he was in the middle of the pack. Other types were actually discriminated against, even despised.
Rosenstein checked the chest wound next, clucking approvingly at his work. "I am rather surprised that you survived this wound. It struck bone, but managed not to shear through. It is almost as if your bones are extremely dense… hmmm… You should be dead."
Sullivan didn't say anything, but he knew that it was probably because of all of his experimentation at Rockville. When breaking rocks had become too easy, he'd broken rocks in increased gravity. Sullivan had made his body as hard as his attitude. Even when he wasn't altering his weight through magic, he tipped the scales at eighty pounds heavier than he looked. Toward the end, when he was using all his Power, he'd broken rock with his bones.
"Good thing Garrett thought to call me. Helping out is the least I can do." He held up his right hand and used his thumb to wiggle a black and gold ring. "Considering I owe the Society my life." Then he went back to work.
"Who's the Society?"
The doctor paused, fingers on the bandage. "Excuse me?"
"The Society. What is it?"
"The Grimnoir, of course." A look crossed Rosenstein's face, partway between confusion and embarrassment. "I thought you were…" He grew even more troubled. "Oh my. Excuse me a moment." And the chubby man leapt up and hurried from the room like he had just discovered his patient was inflicted with a highly contagious plague.
Sullivan sighed and watched the ceiling. He was a patient man.
Three minutes later the German entered the room, rubbing sleep from his eyes. Rosenstein stayed in the doorway, fidgeting nervously. The German pulled up the chair, knocked the bloody towels on the floor, and sat on it backwards, arms resting on the back, studying Sullivan. "I will handle this, Doctor," he said finally. The doctor gladly fled, closing the door behind him.
The new visitor was young, with extremely short hair and a neatly trimmed goatee, the guy he punched out on the blimp. He waited a minute before grinning. "Ira is worried he said too much about us. Very good surgeon, but he's always fretting about something."
The smile seemed genuine, but Sullivan knew better than to trust anyone. "Who are you?"
"Heinrich Koenig, at your service," he said. "Fade extraordinaire and all-around problem solver."
Sullivan nodded. The German was probably in his early twenties, so at least a decade younger than Sullivan, but behind that easy smile was something dangerous. Sullivan could recognize a fellow traveler of the hard life, a survivor. Underneath the friendly veneer lurked the soul of a killer. "Thanks for stepping in there."
"We did the world a favor by ending that man, perhaps more than you will ever know," Heinrich replied. "No thanks necessary. That is what we do."
"We?"
"I cannot say that yet."
"What are the Grimnoir?"
"That isn't my place to explain. My associate will be back soon, and he is supposed to give you the pitch. Believe it or not, the reason we were at your hotel room was to make you a job offer. Daniel's the one that's good with words. Me, I'm more a man of action."
"I got a couple of G-men who'd agree with that."
Heinrich shrugged modestly. "I have my talents."
So did Sullivan. "How's the jaw?"
The smile left. "You broke it in two places. Luckily we have a Mender on staff. She put it back together, fixed Francis's knee too. Having a Healer around is nice."
"The blonde on the blimp?"
"Yes." Heinrich reached up and rubbed his jaw. "A very good one. It still hurts though."
"Yep. Imagine it would." Sullivan grunted. He wasn't the apologizing type, and he was still waiting on some answers. "So you going to tell me what the straight deal is, or are you just here to waste my time?"
The German chuckled coldly. "The straight deal is beyond your comprehension. You have no idea what you have just walked into. We are in a war, the likes of which even you have not seen."
"Don't get lippy," Sullivan replied. "I managed to stack a few of your relatives back in the biggest war ever, so don't tell me what I haven't seen, kid."
The German frowned. He was too young to have fought in the Grea
t War, but Sullivan knew the country had fallen apart after the armistice. There were some tough feelings there, he could tell, but Heinrich kept his cool. "I just ask that you be patient, and your questions will be answered."
"I'm about done with this nonsense." Sullivan gasped as he tried to sit up, all of the stitches pulling in his chest and arm like strands of fire. "I'm walking out that door, and don't you try to stop me."
Heinrich uncurled his arms from the chairback, paused as if in thought, then reached into his grey suit coat and pulled a revolver from the inside pocket. Sullivan tensed, ready to Spike, but Heinrich just smiled again as he flipped the revolver around and handed it over butt first. "I believe you left this at the hotel. Your big gun was unfortunately smashed to bits."
Sullivan warily took his Smith amp; Wesson. He swung out the cylinder. It was still loaded.
"You wish to go? Your clothes, or should I say, the bloody remains of your pants and your shoes are under the bed. Unfortunately, neither I, nor my associates have anything that will fit you, my large friend. Feel free to leave at any time. I believe we are in Kansas by now. You should have no problem wandering around the Midwest, especially missing half your blood. Oh, and the police are looking for you. Apparently Herr Hoover is a little upset about you destroying a downtown hotel in a rather newsworthy manner and wants you brought in. I am sure he will understand why the mob and an Imperium assassin were trying to murder you."
He would also want to know why exactly Sullivan had gone to meet with Torrio. Hoover would more than likely send him back to Rockville just for being a pain in the ass.
The German continued. "Or… you could continue to rest until my associate returns, and then everything will be explained in full."
It hurt to move. It hurt to think. Just rising this far had made him dizzy. Sullivan glowered and slowly lowered himself to the bed. He kept the.38 in one big hand.
Heinrich stood. "Very good. Daniel should be back in a moment." He turned to leave.
"Answer me one thing," Sullivan said just as Heinrich reached the door. "You say we're in a war… what side are you?"
Heinrich paused. "This war is in the shadows beyond nations. I am on the side of righteousness, of all that is free, or holy, or good, Herr Sullivan… Rest. You look like death." He closed the door.
Of course, the Grimnoir thought they were the good guys. Everybody thought they were in the right. The evilest bastards he had ever met had still thought of themselves as the good guys. It was just his dumb luck to blunder into a bunch of true believers. Sullivan closed his eyes and went back to sleep.
Chapter 7
MAGIC LEADS TO TERROR – City Firemen were unable to contain the FIRE that ripped through a Mar Pacifica estate on Sunday evening until there were only charred remains of the home, belonging to famous big game hunter L.S. Talon. A TERRIBLE DISCOVERY was made once the DEADLY flames were extinguished. So far, SEVEN human bodies have been recovered from the scene. Local residents say that there was a great commotion and much GUNFIRE before the conflagration spread. RUMOR is that Mr. Talon was a supporter of MAGIC and was himself an ACTIVE. He has been missing since Sunday and is believed to be amongst the DEAD.
– Article,
San Francisco Examiner, 1929. San Francisco, California The address on Grandpa's note was on the far west side of the city. The neighborhood was called Richmond, and a lot of things must have changed from when Grandpa had drawn his little map. The area was filled with new houses, stores, and churches. Every now and then they would pass an area that was nothing but sand dunes, but then quickly enough there would be more homes. Some of the larger places had been started, but then abandoned when the developers' money had run out along with everyone else's.
"Lots of Jews and Irishmen in this part of town," the driver told Faye helpfully. "The Russians built a great big church up over that way." Faye just kept watching out the window. As Grandpa had always said, her brain would just get to spinning sometimes, and the real world would fade away. She lost track of time as the town turned into suburbs, and then into an area of gentle green hills as they went south.
She snapped back to reality as the cab stopped. "We're here. This is the address you gave me."
"This? This is it?" she asked, staring out the window. "Are you sure?"
"Yeah," said the driver. "Not what you were expecting, I guess."
There had been a house here once, that much was obvious, a really large one from the remains of the foundation that was poking out of the ground. Weeds had grown up over the crumbling brick and what had once been a big chimney stood like a monolith.
"Looks like it burned down a long time ago," the cabbie said. "You want me to take you back?"
There was a strange smell in the air when Faye stepped out of the cab. It was kind of fishy but not too offensive. It took her a moment to realize that she was actually smelling the ocean for the first time. This couldn't be it. This had been her only clue from Grandpa. She started to wander toward the ruins.
"Lady?"
There had once been a fence of iron bars around the property, but whatever had engulfed the house had been so hot that the metal had softened and bent, and now the fence just looked lopsided. She ran her fingers across the bars and they came away orange with rust.
"Hey, lady! Pay me," the cabbie growled.
"Oh, sorry," Faye mumbled as she returned to the cab and carefully counted the money out exactly. The cabby looked at it in disgust before driving off, and it was only a moment later that she remembered Gilbert warning her that people in the city also expected tips.
The gate was lying in the weeds. The grass was hip deep on what had once been a lawn. Faye thought that she could just barely smell the ash as she gingerly put her weight onto the charred boards of what had been the porch, and it reminded her of another, more recent, fire. She noticed that somebody had etched strange symbols into the crumbling floor, and she stepped over them carefully.
There was nothing else there.
Somehow she knew that something bad had happened here, something worse than the fire. Lives had been lost in this place. Death was in the air.
"I'm sorry, Grandpa. I didn't expect this," she said as she slowly turned around. "I thought maybe somebody around here would help me." She had been so certain that the address would hold the answers that she had not thought about what she would do next if there were no answers to be found. She was on the outskirts of a strange city, had no friends, and no idea what to do. She picked out a pile of bricks and sat down.
Why am I here?
Faye wasn't sure. Grandpa hadn't even really given her any last words, he'd just choked out half a sentence before dying, given her some weird metal thing, which she'd managed to already lose half of, and now she was just alone. She wanted to cry, but she felt like she'd already cried all her tears, and now she was just all dry and hollow inside.
A fat brown squirrel crawled up onto a nearby board. It cocked its head at her curiously, as if wondering what this strange human girl was doing sitting on some ashy bricks in the middle of its forest.
"Hello," said the squirrel.
Oh, great, now I've gone crazy.
"Hi," Faye responded.
The squirrel just kept looking at her, twitching nervously like squirrels do, and for a minute Faye thought that maybe it had just sounded like the little animal had spoken. Grandpa had always said that she got her brain spinning too fast sometimes and that if she spun it too hard it might break. The squirrel examined her for what seemed like an abnormally long time, and Faye started to doubt that she'd heard anything at all, and felt stupid for talking to it.
"Nice ring," the squirrel said. Its voice didn't seem to match, like the sound wasn't coming from the animal, but through it. It had a deep, scratchy, male voice. "It set the ward spells off. Where'd you get it?"
"My Grandpa gave it to me," she answered, holding up her hand to show off the black and gold band. She could have sworn the squirrel nodded thoughtfully. "He gav
e me a list with some names on it. I'm looking for somebody named Pershing. Could you help me, little squirrel."
"We've got a live one at the old place," the squirrel said, like it was talking back over its shoulder. Faye looked into the grass for other squirrels but didn't see anything else hiding in the grass.
"Are you okay, Mr. Squirrel?"
"You ain't from around these parts, are you, kid?" asked the squirrel.
"Is it that obvious?"
"Well, yeah, actually…" The squirrel twitched and swiveled its head back toward the road as it sensed something. A large black automobile was coasting to a stop on the road. Its whiskers twitched violently as the doors opened. "Shit! If it ain't some Imperium motherfuckers!" exclaimed the squirrel, then it swiveled back to her. "Damn it! Hide, girl! Hide! Go!" Then it leapt off the board into the grass.
Faye watched the profane little animal disappear, then switched back to the car. Three men had gotten out and were heading straight for the fallen gates. They reached into their coats and came out with guns. She scrambled behind the pile of bricks and ducked down low. It was just like what had happened to Grandpa, and she realized that she was shaking uncontrollably.
She could hear the crunching of the grass as the men moved. They were obviously city folk, not hunters, loud and clumsy. She risked a peek around the side of the bricks, and the closest was going to be on the porch in seconds. And there, right in the soft ashen wood, clear as day, were her footprints, leading right to where she was hiding.
"Psstt. Over here." The squirrel's head poked up out of the weeds. "Stay low."
It was either follow the squirrel, or Travel before they found her, but she didn't know where to Travel to, and if she appeared in front of one of the other men, they'd shoot her dead just like they had done to Grandpa. Faye crouched down, bunched up her dress so she could crawl, and hustled after the squirrel. The animal was gone by the time she got there, but there seemed to be an indentation in the grass. When she pressed on it her hand went right through into an empty space.
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