Suicide Run (Engines of Liberty Book 2)

by Graham Bradley

  He reached a hand down to Kalfu’s forehead and felt a presence leave his own body, returning home to its proper vessel.

  Godfrey staggered backward stiffly, still not fully in control of himself. A whirlwind of dust and magic surrounded Kalfu LeVeau, howling with terrible might, and when it settled down, the voodoo master stood on his feet again, shimmering with a dark aura.

  “Thank you, Master Norrington,” Kalfu said, flashing his

  bright white teeth in a sinister leer. “I’d have done it myself, you see, but a man can be too broken. You know a great many of my secrets now. I would destroy most men for so much, but you and I still have a task to complete.”

  Godfrey’s feet suddenly held in place. Kalfu extended a hand and cast a spell to reverse the damage to his heart, and as the magic worked, Godfrey caught a glimpse into Kalfu’s mind, his memories, his true history. What lay hidden in there would have stunned even a lifelong practitioner of magic—mainly because Kalfu was too old to still be alive.

  The sangromancer had left Africa almost three centuries ago, having been captured by slavers and brought to Meryka along with his brother. They were put to work in cotton fields, side by side, enduring their hardship by relying on one another. One afternoon his brother had tried to escape, only to be beaten to within an inch of his life by a warden. Kalfu had seen it all, crying out in anguish every time the whip struck his brother’s flesh.

  In magical terms, this caused a disjunction in Kalfu LeVeau, separating him from the barrier that suppressed his inert sangromantic powers. Up to this point in his life, Kalfu had assumed he was a duffer; his ensuing burst of power surprised him just as much as it did the warden, whose blood temperature soared until it boiled him alive from within. It was Kalfu’s first blood curse.

  Yet he learned blood curses were not devices of their own power; they drew from a nearby source. And there was plenty of

  blood on his brother’s back. Though Kalfu had kept the whip from its final lash, he had unknowingly finished the job himself.

  In his agony, Kalfu fled. He dedicated the rest of his days to the study of his newfound power. Years raced past, and as he interacted with other practitioners, he grew in power until he was the strongest and the wisest among them. From there, he began to experiment, at first reversing his old age, then later reversing dire injuries. He learned that he could use blood magic to control the minds and bodies of others, before, during, and after death. Those who he didn’t intend to control, he drastically shortened their lives, draining the life force from their veins and adding it to his own.

  And if his prey had special blood—like Calvin Adler—all the better.

  What’s special about Calvin’s blood? What does it do for you?

  Kalfu’s laugh reverberated through Godfrey’s hollow soul.

  “Trouble not your mind, Godfrey Norrington. It is enough for you to know that I require you to capture him for me. In my current condition, I’m afraid I’m unable to accompany you personally in this task.” Kalfu’s dark aura wavered. Was he still injured? Sensing the unspoken question, he said, “No, not injured; I am still dead. I shall keep my mortal vessel with me until I can fully return. Fear not for my well-being; I have beaten death before.”

  Paralyzed with awe, Godfrey silenced any further thoughts.

  “As for you, well, I think we’ve seen how you measure up

  against Adler in combat. You sorely lack any advantage over him. In return for the service you’ve just rendered, I give you a new lease on life . . .

  “. . . and the means to fulfill your purpose.”

  Godfrey dreamed of worms slithering through his skin, using his blood vessels like tunnels in mud. His veins and arteries squirmed throughout his whole body as they healed, realigned, and carried blood to his damaged muscles. Hours passed and when he regained consciousness, he sat up took stock of himself and his surroundings.

  Trees. Brush. A wrecked wagon, a few dead bodies, and the remains of what had been a spell circle, before someone had wiped all the glyphs away.

  “What the deuce?” he whispered.

  And where had he gotten all of these tattoos? Two alligators, a phoenix, a serpent, and eight wasps?

  His head ached something awful, and for the life of him he could not remember the last time he’d been conscious. Two days ago, maybe? He remembered a fight with the duffers in the Ohio country. They had a dragon machine. They repelled the mages.

  Godfrey had fled . . . where? He got the sense that he hadn’t been alone, and yet he was helpless to recall who might have been with him. And to add to the mystery, unknown magic swam inside him, powerful sorcery that begged to be cut loose. Pictomancy? That explained the tattoos, to an extent. That particular discipline

  had never been his strength, though.

  Fighting down a panic attack, Godfrey drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly. He repeated this a few times, stood up, and got his bearings.

  There was something he had to do, an itch that needed a hard scratch. It involved that duffer boy from Baltimore.

  Calvin Adler.

  More came rushing back to him. Not all of it, but enough of it.

  Capture Calvin, stop the duffers, and return to England.

  Yes! That was what he’d been on about.

  “Right, then.” Godfrey said, his words disrupting the otherwise silent air of the wood. “Time to get after it.”

  CHAPTER 17

  Calvin flew at full throttle to Mount Vernon. The terrain rushed past in a blur of gray-green, the forest opening up every so often at a farm or village. These he circumvented, as he couldn’t afford to get a trio of mages tailing him now that he was short on firepower. The mimic’s belly cannons were loaded, but since they didn’t fire aft, they were useless in an escape.

  Mount Vernon loomed ahead, a whitewashed beacon against a tranquil backdrop of wilderness. He thought his heart might explode. When he was a quarter-mile out, he spotted Peter and Brian with a new group of cadets, most likely training for a farm raid. If Calvin was careful, he could land during one of their firing

  drills, hiding the mimic’s exhaust noise.

  He swung wide and came down low to make a shallow descent between the mansion and one of the adjacent houses. The mimic’s landing legs cut twin gutters into the soft turf, and before it came to a full stop Calvin leapt out of the saddle and ran for the mansion, injuries and exhaustion forgotten, his need for Amelia outweighing all else. He shoved the door open and ran inside, unsure of where to look first. Would she be in the pantry right now? Or perhaps the lavatory? He had just grabbed the handrail at the bottom of the stairs when a deep voice called his name, making him flinch.

  “Adler!” McCracken growled. “What the hell?”

  Despite himself, Calvin cracked a smile. “Surprised to see me?”

  “Hardly. Get out of my home.”

  “Not until I get what I came for, you two-tongued snake.”

  Leaning on his cane with one hand, McCracken drew a pistol from under his coat, cocked the hammer and aimed at Calvin’s head. He was maybe twenty feet away; he wouldn’t miss.

  “Yours would not be the first blood that had to be cleaned off of these walls. Outside. Now,” the Commodore said.

  Calvin narrowed his eyes, planting his feet firm and balling his hands into fists. “You don’t know what it cost me to get here in the past week, old man. Unless you’re going to kill me, you’ll have to do worse than shoot me.”

  Commodore McCracken kept his composure, though he sighed dramatically and shook his head. “The fact that you made it here at all is quite a testament to your durability, I’ll admit. And of course, were I to shoot you, my daughter might hear it and wonder what happened. I guess we’ll have to settle for . . .”

  A heavy weight struck Calvin from behind. Two arms snaked under his shoulders and behind his head, rendering his own arms useless. When his unseen attacker pulled tight, the device sliced through the damaged skin on Calvin’s chest.

/>   “Not tonight, scum!” It was Brian.

  “You coward!” Calvin writhed and twisted, but Brian was in full health, and far stronger at the moment. He laughed at Calvin’s futile struggle. Commodore McCracken holstered his gun and came closer, a condescending smile on his face.

  “Here’s a secret, Adler: nobody put me in charge of this army because I’m stupid. Boys, take him to the brig.”

  “Amelia!” Calvin screamed.

  Too late; Brian spun Calvin around and brought him face-to-face with Peter, who held a stout wooden stick. He drew it back and clubbed Calvin hard on the head.

  The world faded.

  *

  McCracken didn’t like doing things this way, but a lifetime at war had deadened his conscience to it. The revolution would only succeed if hard men could make hard choices. He was a Sin Eater—the one who did bad things so that nobody else had to.

  If the Adler boy had just done what he was told, he’d have avoided all of this.

  “I assumed they’d have executed him,” Peter said as he and

  Brian carried Calvin’s unconscious body down the stairs. McCracken followed them, navigating down the steps with his cane.

  “Major Tyler had too much going on and didn’t want the morale damaged by revealing what he’d done. Adler might have inspired sympathizers—there were others like him at Youngstown,” he said. “The place was a powder keg of troublemakers.”

  The boys set Calvin in one of the cells and stepped back. Calvin’s tunic fell open, and Brian reached down to inspect something.

  “Hey, look at this. It’s one of Hamilton’s dials.”

  “Ouch,” said Peter. “They forced him to carry a message? Isn’t that what those are for?”

  “Ideally, yes. They’re meant to be used on mages, though.” McCracken shook his head. “Barbaric, but he brought it upon himself. Stupid boy.”

  “Do we leave it in?” asked Peter.

  McCracken thought it over. “For now. I’ll be back to interrogate him in a moment, after I check on your sister. Brian, you stay down here. Peter, get the recruits to the dormitories. Give them the night off.”

  “Yes, Father,” they both said. Brian locked the cell and sat on a bench against the wall. Peter followed McCracken upstairs and closed the brig door behind them.

  As McCracken passed through the kitchen he nearly collided

  with Amelia, who had just come out of the storehouse with slices of peaches and cheese.

  “Amelia! What are you doing?” McCracken asked.

  “I’m sorry, I had to stock the storehouse alone today and I missed dinner. I remembered we had these, then I got hungry . . . sorry Dad, I’ll put it back.” Amelia turned to the storehouse door.

  McCracken tried not to smile; Amelia couldn’t have heard Calvin through the thick pantry walls.

  “No, you don’t have to do that. You just startled me, is all. Although . . .” McCracken reached for a slice of peach, draped a thin piece of cheese over it, and popped it in his mouth.

  “It’s good, isn’t it?” Amelia smiled up at him. Damn, but she looked like her mother.

  “Delightful. I should think it will be a national staple in a few years, love.” McCracken patted her on the head and turned to leave.

  “Dad, have you heard anything about Calvin?”

  The question caught him off guard, and he was grateful for the low light in the kitchen. He knew his eye twitched when he lied to her. Maybe she wouldn’t catch it.

  “I told you Amy, he deserted a few weeks ago. Haven’t gotten any news about him otherwise. Why do you ask?”

  “I just, well, I could have sworn I heard his voice.”

  He hated seeing her sad. “Oh. That was just a messenger, coming in hot—he’d been cursed, like Badgett. Your brother rushed him to the infirmary. Urgent news from Pittsburgh, no doubt. I suppose he does sound a bit like the Adler boy. Come here.” He pulled her in and hugged her tight. “I know you hurt, but it’s a childhood crush, nothing more. And it’s a good thing Adler deserted when he did, so that you could see his true colors sooner rather than later. There are better men in the world, you know. You’ll have your pick of them in years to come.”

  She sniffled and hugged him back. “Hmm.”

  “Go finish your treat, and take the evening off. I’ll see you in the morning.”

  “Good night, Dad.”

  *

  Godfrey’s heart, mind, and soul worked in perfect harmony, like a living compass inside him, pointing him at Calvin Adler. He moved with swift purpose, crossing great distances at speeds previously impossible to him. It was as if the forces of destiny had gone on holiday, leaving him in charge in a way he’d never before experienced. Whatever debacle had caused him to wake up in the woods with new and amplified powers, it had been worth it. Calvin Adler’s days were numbered.

  Between Louisiana and, well, wherever he was headed, Godfrey used a long-neglected teleportal with the intent of staying dark on the grid. The monitoring agents paid more attention to the busy channels, but he knew of many portals that had been dormant for years. This particular jump moved him ninety miles, and the next portal from there was only three miles northeast. As fate would have it, he was able to add to his arsenal along the way.

  The portal dropped him outside an abandoned settlement overgrown with weeds, its buildings in utter ruin. It still showed evidence of a centuries-old fight, probably dating back to the quashing of the first Duffer Rebellion. That wasn’t what called his attention to it, though: his senses detected something else—something new, deep within the ground. Like a blind man seeing or a deaf man hearing for the first time. He marveled at this aspect of his magic. As he had never felt this particular sense working within him, he stopped and puzzled it out in his mind until he figured out what it was.

  Necromancy. A great and widespread death had taken place here long ago. The victorious mages had elected to slaughter the duffer traitors and bury them deep in the ground.

  Traitors grave, he thought. He’d learned of them at Ipswich School. While the ringleader Washington had been worthy of execution via Draconic Trifecta in a public spectacle, his nameless supporters could be cast aside like the trash that they were, often by the hundreds. There were probably forty of these across the country.

  Today they would serve a new purpose. Godfrey’s purpose.

  “History. Such a fascinating subject,” Godfrey said. He knelt down and punched both fists into the soft earth, then closed his eyes and reached out with his untested necromancy. Back at Ipswich School, he’d learned how to hone a new magical discipline several times over, like developing a talent. It might take him a few tries to tune his instincts to a new brand of magic, but he could

  figure it all out.

  He stayed there for the better part of an hour, muttering in Saxon and testing the reaches of his power, learning what it felt like to come in contact with something that had once been a human life. Yes . . . there was an excess of unruly souls down there, lingering around their bones, just waiting for him to come along and repurpose them according to his needs. Men, women, children, still wearing the clothes they had on when they’d been pushed into the afterlife. Godfrey called to them. They answered. They stirred, they pressed, they clawed their way up.

  The ground surged, swelling in a few places, then rising everywhere, breaking up in great uneven clumps of mud and roots and whatever else had settled over time. He stepped back as the first hands broke through, finding purchase for the desiccated undead to pull themselves free, to do his bidding with what remained of their bodies.

  After two centuries underground, they were mostly reduced to dark brown bones and tiny bits of flesh that had turned to hard leather at the joints. To Godfrey’s amazement, the necromancy enchanted their bones, helping the skeletons to stand erect, move, and fight. The earthen smell of turned dirt brought with it the fetid scent of death, yet Godfrey only smelled the genesis of a new era.

  It pleased him that his pre
decessors had thought to bury the duffers with their weapons.

  *

  The ripping headache did more to wake him up than the stabbing pain in his shoulders. He stood upright in the middle of a cell, arms tied above his head. Already he’d lost the feeling in his hands, and the numbness extended to his elbows.

  Calvin coughed and regretted it right away, wincing at the intense throb on the right side of his skull. He wanted to cup a hand to his head, but his wrists were tied to opposite walls, keeping his arms spread wide. He felt worse than he had in days, and that was saying something.

  The brig. He was back in the brig. Straw lined the floor; stone at his back, stone to either side, and iron bars in front of him. Brian sat on a bench outside the cell, humming to himself as he whittled away at a stick.

  Calvin failed to bring a foul word to his lips. Knives jiggled around in his throat, or so it felt; he desperately needed water. The rasping sound that escaped his mouth caught Brian’s attention, and the whittling ceased.

  “Good morning. Well, afternoon by now—hard to tell down here. You’ve been out all day, thought you might have died. I was wondering what that would look like. I’ve never seen how it works,” Brian said. He touched the tip of his knife to his own shirt, indicating Hamilton’s dial. Calvin looked down at his tunic, which had fallen open, exposing the infernal contraption. The skin around it was pink, white, and green with infection, and it itched horribly.

  Brian shrugged and resumed whittling. “I remember seeing a blueprint of it once. Eustice Hamilton designed it. You’ve met him, yeah? Good soldier, and most people don’t realize he tinkers with the tech, too. He’s pretty sharp. You should hear him go on about the human body, how it’s just a machine like anything else. I’m trying to figure out how it draws electricity from your heart. And what will it do when the counter runs out? Guess we’ll see, ‘cause you’ve got less than an hour to go. Maybe if you have a really good reason for shafting the entire army and blowing the lid off the Saint George, we might pull it out of you.”