For some reason his embarrassment made Faye smile. She liked this Francis. She ate her sandwich. It was good.
Lance returned a minute later. "Here's the deal, you seem like an all right kid, Faye, but we deal with some… strange types, and there's more than a few folks who'd want nothing more than to see him dead. In fact, the predicament we're in now is because I didn't do my job a few years ago, and somehow somebody got through and put a curse on him. It ain't nothing personal, but I'll be needing to hold onto your little gun, and if you try to use any magic on the General, I will kill you. Do you understand?"
"No need to be impolite," Francis said.
"I once saw a six-year-old slash a man's throat with spikes that came shooting out his fingers," Lance pointed out.
"Fine," Faye said, removing the Iver Johnson from her pocket and passing it over to Francis. "I want that back. It cost ten whole dollars."
They left the kitchen area, through some sort of service room, past a workshop full of machines, out into a giant foyer, then up a flight of stairs. Lance's limp was more pronounced going up the stairs, almost like one leg was shorter than the other.
"What happened to your leg?" Faye asked.
"I left part of it in a demon's stomach," he responded without turning around.
Francis leaned forward and whispered in her ear. "You can't get a Healing if too much time's passed. If it's healed on its own wrong, it'll stay that way. A surgeon tried to fix it later by cutting out all the poisoned bone. He's sensitive about it."
He heard. "Shut up, Francis."
"You can control animals?"
"Sorta…"
Faye smiled. "That would be the best Power ever back on the farm. No cow would ever kick me in the hands again! What was that mark you put on that man's head? What's with the funny writing on the gate and in the house?"
"Magic spells. Do you ever get tired of asking questions?"
Faye thought about that for a second. "No. Where are we?"
Lance sighed as they reached the top of the stairs. He knocked politely before entering the first room. A beautiful blonde woman, wearing a white sundress, was sitting in a chair, reading a thick book. "Hey, Jane."
She looked Faye over as she stood. "Oh, honey, what happened? You've got a hole in your foot! And something bit your hand! You should have called me and I would have come down… Imagine, making the poor thing walk up here with a hole in her heel."
"How'd you know?" Faye asked, but was ignored.
"She didn't tell me nothing about foot problems," Lance said defensively. "Damn, woman. How was I supposed to know?"
"Is she okay?" Jane asked, looking to Francis for confirmation. "She must be since you brought her up here."
"She didn't burst into flames when we crossed the barrier, did she?" Francis said, pointing back at the doorway. There were more of the curious letters carved into the wood.
"Hold still," Jane ordered as she set her hands on Faye's shoulders. Jane's hands were extremely warm, so warm that Faye could feel the heat through the coarse fabric of her traveling dress. Then her hands were ice cold, and now Faye was hot, like she was burning with fever. She wobbled for a moment, dizzy, as the flash of warmth passed.
"What just happened?"
"The hole in your foot will be closed by supper," Jane answered. "I just gave you a little help is all."
Faye's thumb felt puffy. She held it up and the punctures from the squirrel bite were now just purple indentations. An actual Healer! Only millionaires had Healers. Faye felt lightheaded. "I can't afford to pay you…"
"Oh, honey, you've been listening to too many radio programs," Jane clucked reprovingly, picked up her book, and returned to her chair. "Don't keep the General up too long. He's having a bad day."
"It's about to get worse," Lance muttered. Western Colorado The dining car was nearly empty. Sullivan grunted politely as the waiter dropped off his third thick steak, then he went to town, carving the beef into huge triangles and hungrily gulping them down. "Oh… yeah… that's better," he mumbled. To him, magic was almost like physical exercise, and running his Power dry always left him exhausted and famished.
Heinrich Koenig and Daniel Garrett watched how much he consumed in amazement. The bookish Garrett pulled out a pack of smokes and offered them to his companions. The German turned him down, but Sullivan never turned down anything free, took one, and stuck it behind his ear for later.
They had procured clothing for Sullivan at the last stop. He would have to get it tailored later, as no one made clothing sufficient to fit his shoulders and arms, but Sullivan was forced to admit that this was now the nicest suit that he owned. The bandages were thick and itchy under his new white shirt. Once Dr. Rosenstein had decided that Sullivan wasn't going to die on him, he had gotten off in Denver to catch a flight back to his practice.
"So, about this job… I'm listening."
Garrett lit up his smoke and leaned back in the booth. "So, Sullivan, where do you think magic comes from?"
"Well, that's an odd question," Sullivan answered, still chewing. "The best scientists in the world don't know that. How should I? I'm just a po' dumb ol' Heavy, Mr. Garrett." His voice dripped sarcasm like the rare steak dripped juice.
"Call me Dan, and we both know you know more than you let on."
Sullivan wiped his mouth on a napkin. "The first documented case of Powers occurred in 1849, a Chinaman in California who could bend steel rails with his hands. Newspaper attention brought in some scientists, and the rest is history. Dr. Spengler's research indicates that there may have been isolated individuals in rural communities as early as the late 1830s, but those were usually hushed up or run off by the superstitious. Dr. Kelser from the University of Berlin claimed to have proof of one in 1818, but I think his methodology was flawed… and he was a quack."
"You know your history," Heinrich said.
"I read a book once." In reality, his tiny apartment was filled with them, and he'd visited every university library he could. He could devour a thick book faster than most educated men could get through the daily paper, and he never forgot any of it. People tended to equate well-spoken with well-read, but that was a mistake with Jake Sullivan. "It didn't even have pictures."
Garrett smiled. "You evaded my question rather nicely. Do you know where magic comes from?"
"I can only guess," Sullivan answered. "Some folks say it's hereditary, but you can have two parents with Powers, and there's no guarantee their kids get anything. You have lots of cases where the same Power seems to run in a family. Those eugenicist assholes have been tinkering with that for generations, trying to breed Powers, and they've still got nothing. Rumor is that the Japs are heavy into this, even doing some scary medical procedures to the people they conquer to try and make more Actives."
"I can tell you that the Soviets are doing it as well," Heinrich said. "I've seen things with my own eyes that you would not believe. Cog science creating terrors beyond your wildest imaginings."
"Disgusting," Sullivan agreed.
"So you don't like eugenics?" Garrett was curious.
"We're people. Not horses."
"Agreed," Heinrich said, taking a drink from his coffee. "There was a movement back home that espoused that sort of thing. Luckily, their crazy leader, some washed-up painter, got the firing squad. Good riddance."
"So if it isn't from…" Garrett paused, trying to think of the proper word.
"Mendelian genetics," Sullivan said, pointing his fork at Heinrich. "Your people produced some clever monks."
"Actually, he was Austrian," Heinrich replied.
"Close enough."
"So if it isn't genetics, you're saying that it must come from God?"
Sullivan shrugged. "Beats me. I don't get real religious in my line of work. Sure, I believe in God, but I don't think magic is his gift to man to make the world a better place, or any of that Father Coughlin radio show nonsense. If it was a gift from God, I think he'd be a little more picky in who he gav
e it too. I doubt God gave the Kaiser the ability to trap the spirits of men inside bodies that should have died ten times over, until they went crazy with a taste for human flesh, damned Teutonic zombies." Sullivan looked over at Heinrich. "No offense."
"None taken." Heinrich gave a long sigh. His tone indicated that he had some familiarity with the Kaiser's necromancy. "Please, do not discuss them."
"Magic has revealed Hell is a place, so perhaps magic can come from both God and the Devil…"
Sullivan frowned. Garrett was fishing now, testing him. He concentrated, but couldn't sense any intrusion into his mind. The Mouth was just getting a feel for his beliefs, not trying to influence him, so Sullivan answered truthfully. "Finders and Summoners have the Power to bring in beings from other worlds to do their bidding, and just because the easiest one to get to happens to look a lot like what we think of as Hell, doesn't mean that it is. I've dealt with demons. Both sides were using them in the war, but they were basically really smart monkeys. The Summoned aren't bright enough to be the fallen angels from the Bible."
"Very good," Garrett said, letting out a puff of smoke. "The personal beliefs of the Summoner tend to influence the form that the Summoned appear in, and they're not bright enough to tell us about their home. Since ones conjured by westerners tend to look like devils or angels, people tend to make assumptions. So, do you at least have a theory as to where Power comes from?"
Sullivan chewed his last bite of steak, thinking. "Oh, I do. Don't mean I'm right, or that I can prove it. I think magic is a force. I don't know from where. I don't know if it is alive, or if it's intelligent, but it picks people here and attaches itself to them. I can't make heads or tails out of why it picks who it does, but some of us can touch a little piece of it, some more than others, and we can use that little bit to do something to influence the physical world. What we can do depends entirely on what little bit of the Power we can personally reach."
The other two shared a surprised look. "Not bad…" Heinrich said. "You come up with this on your own?"
"Yep." Sullivan didn't add that he'd figured out a whole lot more than that. As far as he knew, he was the only person who'd put together how a few different Powers were related, and how he'd been able to stretch his into the adjoining areas a tiny bit. But that was his secret. It was time for the Grimnoir men to share some of theirs. "Funny, I've been doing all the eating and the talking, and I still ain't got no more answers."
"What if I told you that we know the real history of magic?"
"I wasn't born in Missouri, but I'd say show me, Dan." Mar Pacifica, California Francis stayed in the back of the room. He'd known General Pershing for most of his life. He was almost like a second father, especially since he'd done a much better job being an example of manhood than Francis's real father, and it pained him deeply to see the General in his current state. His body seemed to deteriorate a little more every day since he'd been cursed by the mysterious Pale Horse. Jane exhausted her Powers on a daily basis fixing all of the new health problems, and even she had to admit that at this point, Black Jack was living off of sheer determination alone.
If they could just figure out who it was that had cursed their leader, then the Grimnoir would kill the wretched Pale Horse and break the spell. They all suspected that it must have happened during the Imperium's attack against their old headquarters. The General had fallen ill shortly after. A Pale Horse had to touch his victim to bind the curse, so it must have been during the chaos of the battle. They'd done everything they could over the last few years to track down the Imperium's agents, but even after assassinating every one they could lay their hands on, they still hadn't found their Pale Horse.
The General's hands were so paper-thin that sunlight could be seen through his skin. It was hard to believe that those were the same hands that had taught him how to throw a ball, how to ride a horse, how to shoot a gun. It won't be much longer now, Francis thought, then hated himself for thinking it.
The girl, Faye, was showing the General her Grandpa's treasure. Whatever it was had certainly gotten the attention of Lance Talon, and he wasn't a man who riled easily. Lance had told Mr. Browning what had been printed on the device, and the second-in-command had immediately said that they needed to take it directly to the General.
The old gentleman, John Browning, had joined them. He stood on the other side of the bed, tall, regally thin, and extremely bald. Nearly eighty, his mind was still the sharpest amongst them. He studied the device with intelligent eyes, obviously worried by what he saw. So that meant that two of the most experienced American Grimnoir were distressed by whatever the presence of the device suggested. The General gestured with one palsied hand, and Mr. Browning lifted the small piece of metal, carefully reading the nameplate again. He let out his breath in a long, low whistle. "I would be forced to say that this is the real thing, General."
"I was afraid of this…" the General rasped. "I told them that we should have destroyed the pieces when we had the chance… The fools thought we might need the weapon someday… Who else knows where the other pieces are hidden?" The weakness of his voice made Francis cringe.
"Only the senior members of the Society," Browning replied. "The elders of course, it was their order. Here? Only you, I, Mr. Talon-" he nodded at Lance-"and Mr. Garrett. We were all sworn to secrecy. The others that knew were lost in the last attack. Even the knights entrusted with a piece did not know the others' whereabouts. None of the junior members should know."
"The Chairman has found out somehow… I feared this day would come."
"We thought them finding Jones was a coincidence, that the Imperium ran into him on accident. He had the blueprints for the Geo-Tel, but we thought they'd been burned." Lance was speaking. "We've got to assume that the Chairman has got the plans. I tried Christiansen, but no response on his ring, and he don't have a phone."
"What's going on?" Faye asked. "What are y'all talking about?" But the seniors were too involved in their discussion of mysterious devices and conspiracies to pay the young lady any mind.
Francis caught himself staring at Faye, even though she wasn't his type. He was no stranger to the ladies. That's what happened when you grew up in a family with money to burn and a line of eligible women who wanted to marry into that kind of money. Then when he'd gone off to school his father and grandfather had encouraged him to sow his wild oats and get such foolishness out of the way. He'd bedded half the lovelies in Boston, all of the reputable prostitutes, and still had plenty of time left over for drinking and gambling, but that was before he'd turned his attentions to the more serious business of saving the world and pissing off his family.
In comparison to other girls, Faye seemed rather drab, with her simple clothes that only hid too skinny a figure, plain features, and a complete lack of refinement. At best he'd consider her cute. She obviously came from poverty and a total lack of education, but something about her kept snagging his attention, and he couldn't put his finger on it. Maybe it was those strange grey eyes.
Or perhaps it was her refreshing directness. "Excuse me, you old mummy." Faye raised her voice. "That's my gizmo you're pawin' over. My Grandpa died for it, and I came a long way to find out why." Browning and Pershing ceased speaking immediately. "Thatmore like it."
"My apologies," the General whispered. "Your grandfather was a very good man, and you have my condolences. We are members of the Grimnoir Society, an organization that stands against the darkest magics."
"He was once a member and helped in one of our gravest missions," Browning said. "This item you brought here is a part of the most destructive weapon ever created by the hand of man, and in the summer of 1908, we stopped it from being fired on the United States. Thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands, would have perished."
"And now if you'll let the grownups finish talking, we've got to figure out how to keep the evilest bastard in the world from putting it back together and killing us all," Lance finished. "So shush." Western Colorado "So, you're a se
cret organization that protects Actives…" Sullivan took a long drag from the second cigarette he'd bummed off of Garrett. The train was rolling into the sunset, and the dining car only had a few other people in it, including a young couple, a businessman, an old woman, and the bored waiter loafing at the far side of the cabin. Nobody was close enough to listen in. "And fights evil magic?"
"Basically, yes."
"Define evil."
"It's pretty self-explanatory," Garrett exclaimed.
"Dan, one man's evil is another man's politics." Sullivan had once gone to prison for doing what he knew to be the right thing, and that wasn't too long after fighting in a war where both sides thought of themselves as the good guys, but that didn't stop them from slaughtering each other by the thousands with every tool at hand.
"I can't define evil, but I sure as hell know when I see it," Heinrich said.
Sullivan grunted in affirmation. "And I thought you said Dan was the one that was good with words."
"We do whatever it takes to stop those who would use magic to enslave others. On the other hand, we also fight those who would punish all magicals for the actions of a few. There are powerful Actives who would like to put the entire world under their boot. They see themselves as the logical end of the eugenicist's argument, the answer to Darwin's theory. On the other side are the normals who are so scared of magic that they would love nothing more than to just stamp us out of existence."
Sullivan had smoked the fag down to nothing, and stubbed it out in the ashtray. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. "So if it's so good, why's it secret?"
"Those of us that join the Society must fight in the shadows. There are forces at work, whole nations, and things even bigger than nations that would have us fail. They'd hunt us down, and if they couldn't destroy us, they'd kill everyone we love."
Sullivan pondered Dan's last few words. He seemed to be telling the truth, or at least he believed he was. "Does the U.S. government know about you?"
"Parts of it…" Garrett said hesitantly, glancing around the room. "It's complicated."
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