Call of Fire

by Beth Cato

  “You didn’t even get a close look at that kermanite yet.” She started to hold up her fist, where she still held two shards, but he shook his head.

  “Let’s get off the street first. You’re shaky, Miss Ingrid. Let’s get some food in you.”

  “I am stronger,” she said as they slowly began to walk north.

  “I know you are, but I also know how the events of Wednesday taxed your body. It’s a miracle you’re alive at all.”

  “Hey. Hey!” called a soft voice. Ingrid glanced up to find Mirabelle crouched on the second-story balcony. “I heard Ma yelling.” Tears streaked the girl’s face.

  “You heard more than the yelling, didn’t you?” asked Ingrid.

  “Ma doesn’t know that voices carry really well if you lay by the vent in the room above hers. Papa’s really dead?”

  Ingrid nodded.

  Mirabelle blinked fast. “I know what Ma says. Papa was a bad man, but he was still Papa. Sometimes he was nice. He’d buy us lumps of sugar and at Christmas once he gave me a doll and the eyes opened and shut when she tilted back. I loved that doll till Casey broke it.”

  Ingrid had to take a risk. “Mirabelle, do earthquakes make you or your sister feel sick?” she asked in a low voice.

  The question didn’t seem to surprise Mirabelle. She immediately shook her head. “Not us. Just our brothers. When Casey and me were sad about them dying, Papa whispered that it was magic that killed them, that it was best that they were gone to Jesus while their souls were still pure as snow. He said that, but he doesn’t even believe in Jesus. Didn’t. Does that mean he’s gone to hell?” Her voice choked.

  Ingrid felt cold and awful as she thought yes. “I’m sorry, Mirabelle. Our papa wasn’t a nice man, but you’re right. He was still our father. It’s okay to miss him and miss those good times.”

  Mirabelle glanced at the open door behind her. “I need to finish my rooms. Will you come back someday?” Hope brightened eyes that looked so much like Ingrid’s own.

  “I’ll try,” she said, feeling like a liar. “Tell your sister that I wish I got to meet her.”

  “Hai.” With a quick flash of a gap-toothed smile, she was gone, the door closed.

  “Ingrid, what she said. Your father. Do you think he . . . ?”

  “I know he did. He killed those two little boys just as he would have killed me if he had known about my power.” Her whisper was barely audible.

  “Let’s find a proper place to sit.” Cy took her by the elbow and guided her along. Tears blurred her vision.

  She squeezed her fists. The clutched kermanite pieces stabbed the softness of her right palm. The earth responded with a mere breath of power. It wasn’t enough to affect her body temperature, but she shivered all the same.

  Chapter 6

  Soup was said to be good for the soul, and perhaps there was some truth to that. Ingrid and Cy sat at a miso shop and drank from their bowls. She closed her eyes and let the fragrant broth fill her senses. The rain had returned and pattered on the eaves and sloshed beneath wheels on the street. She could almost pretend this was a rainy-day lunch interlude with Mr. Sakaguchi at their favorite miso place on Battery, that he was safe and musing over a newspaper article, that all of the wardens were alive and San Francisco still fully intact in its cowl of fog.

  “I worry for those girls.” Cy set down his bowl with a soft clunk.

  Ingrid opened her eyes. Her circumstances might be dire these days, but she kept excellent company. “So do I, but what can we do? We can’t bring them with us, and even if we left some money, do you think it would be used for their benefit?”

  Cy used his chopsticks to pluck up a noodle. His entire face was skewed in a frown, his pince-nez still spotted with droplets. Ingrid took another long sip of soup and stared out the window.

  With the port so near, the restaurants here catered to a diverse clientele, but even so Cy and Ingrid were a white man and a woman of color on a lunch outing together. She found it best to not gaze at their fellow diners with their raised eyebrows and pursed lips. Their table was fairly private, at least.

  An old Catholic church stood across the way. It looked gray as the clouds above, the stained-glass panes like compressed rainbows.

  Ingrid prodded at her pork. Her favorite meat of all, one that usually made her salivate like a bulldog, and today she could scarcely stomach it. “In Olema, Papa said we were like gods and goddesses. I think he was including his mother in that statement. If his mother had power, that would explain why he stayed around Portland long enough for his daughters to reach manifestation age. Certainly no one else would have expected geomancy in girls.”

  “You wondered before about why your father bothered to continue exchanging letters with Mr. Sakaguchi for so many years. Maybe he was monitoring your maturation, too.”

  That was a sobering thought: that Papa had never cared about Ingrid, but only checked in on her progress in case she needed to be eliminated.

  Cy set aside his empty bowl. “What was the name that Mrs. Stone mentioned, that of a spirit? Was your grandmother some kind of earth fantastic, like a dryad?”

  Ingrid choked and coughed a piece of radish into her hand. “Sorry. That . . . I did not need to imagine a man and a sentient-tree woman engaged in those sorts of relations.” She tucked the errant vegetable into her napkin.

  “I didn’t intend for you to envision such a thing.” He blushed.

  “Let’s just say my imagination needs little provocation.” At that, his cheeks took on an even deeper shade of red. “Pele isn’t a dryad, if that’s really who she was talking about. As for Hawaii . . . It makes sense for Papa to have come from there. Warden Kealoha used to call me his hanai niece because we looked similar.” She blinked back sudden tears. Dear Mr. Kealoha. He had been Mr. Sakaguchi’s closest friend—his only friend, after the split with Mr. Roosevelt. She’d loved him like another uncle.

  “Ingrid.” Cy’s soft voice coaxed her from bittersweet memories. “What is Pele?”

  “An ancient goddess of volcanoes.”

  “And, perhaps, she’s your grandmother.”

  “She couldn’t possibly be my . . . No.” Her brow furrowed as she shook her head.

  “You’re denying that possibility because she’s so powerful?”

  “No. Yes. I don’t know.” The very idea of being descended from an actual goddess made Ingrid’s fingers tremble so much that she gave up on her chopsticks. “People still worship Pele there, though most of the old Hawaiian ways are discouraged if not outlawed. I suppose you could say Pele is not very hidden as a Hidden One. People still report seeing her from time to time. She demands acknowledgment. But really, Mrs. Stone wasn’t sure of the name. Maybe there’s another minor entity in Hawaii with a name more similar to ‘bucket.’”

  “You can talk to fantastics like the selkies and the big snake. That points to kinship with something more than human. A goddess sounds closer to the truth than a mere dryad.”

  “Papa didn’t speak with the big snake. I can only guess that he couldn’t talk to yokai, but he certainly passed that skill along to me.” Ingrid sighed. “I wish I were more like Mama in a lot of ways. It’d sure make my life easier.”

  “I didn’t have the pleasure of meeting your mother, but from what I’ve heard you and Lee say, you inherited a great deal from her.” Cy bent over the table to speak lower, as a few other folks had started to gab at the nearby window. “Maybe your father had too much of that ancient power in him. Your mama raised you, and she raised you right, but she brought into your blood what might be most important of all: your humanity. She was and is your saving grace, Ingrid.”

  She closed her eyes for a moment to absorb his words and take solace in his presence. “Thank you for that,” she whispered.

  Cy pushed himself away from the table. “I figure it’s high time we head back to the Bug. It makes me feel itchy to be away too long. Shall we go?”

  The laundry shop was almost empty. Ingrid double-ch
ecked their clothes to ensure that everything was present and clean, and repacked their laundry bag. She had just drawn the bag shut when a man burst into the business.

  “Charlotte! Charlotte, did you hear? Gold’s been discovered in Baranov!”

  “Gold’s been discovered in a bear’s what?” yelled the woman behind the counter. The clothes dryers roared behind her.

  “Gold! Like in California in ’48, but up north!” The older man hobbled forward. “News just hit town! An airship loaded with gold landed in Seattle, and there’s a naval steamer on the way with more!”

  Ingrid shouldered the hefty bag. It was about as long as her torso.

  “Ingrid.” Cy’s voice sounded strange. “This is bad. We need to go.”

  “What you telling me this for?” the woman yelled at the man as Ingrid and Cy exited the shop. “You can’t be thinking to actually—you are, you ninny—”

  The street was eerily quiet after the racket inside, and the mood had shifted in a matter of minutes. Few people ambled by. Several wagons tore by at a gallop. Out of nowhere, an autocar zoomed the other way, a hand heavy on the horn.

  “Cy, what . . . ?”

  “Run.” Cy plucked the bag from her grip and set off. Ingrid followed, though she felt the strain in her legs within a mere dozen feet. Panting, she forced herself along. They dodged pedestrians and overexcited dogs and rounded the corner to the bus stop. Men mobbed the area.

  “It’s as bad as I feared. Good Lord!” He spun in place. “Gold fever.”

  Ingrid was a San Francisco girl raised on images of the 1849 Gold Rush. The population stampede had made San Francisco a powerful city, but not at first. Men, overcome by visions of wealth, fled from their families and jobs. Entire cargo ships rotted in the harbor, fully abandoned by their crews. More ships arrived, loaded with fools and dreams. Folks soon realized that staying in the city and selling goods to the miners could produce greater wealth, but that level of rationality likely wouldn’t come into play here in Portland for weeks yet.

  “There’s going to be a riot at the airship dock,” she said through gasps.

  “The dock, the naval port, any means folks can use to get to Baranov.” Cy squinted to the north, as if he could see through buildings and around the bend in the Willamette to Swan Island. “We can’t wait for the bus with that mob. Come on. We have to move fast. And pray.”

  Swan Island had to be a good four miles away, but Ingrid wasn’t about to complain. She pushed herself to move at Cy’s speed, her eyes on the skies above in case she could recognize the Bug. Some airships drifted on high, but most looked to be Pegasus or Behemoth class by the sizes of their envelopes.

  Fenris and Lee didn’t have any weapons available other than tools and parts and a kitchen knife. If men rushed the ship, what could they do?

  Fight back. Be taken captive. Get injured. Die.

  Ingrid made herself walk faster, weakness be damned. “That man said the gold was found in Baranov, right?”

  “Yes.” Cy huffed for breath.

  “Blum mentioned Baranov more than once. She said it was why she’d been on the West Coast at all. She made it sound like some sort of big, important project.”

  Cy gave her a sharp look. “Baranov is a big place.”

  “What are the odds of it being mentioned in such significant ways in one week? You said yourself that Blum is involved in everything.”

  He said nothing more, but his expression was troubled.

  From Mr. Sakaguchi’s geography lessons, Ingrid knew that Baranov was far to the north, a sizable chunk of land that had been a Russian territory for centuries. Independently, it was of no great consequence. But Russia had recently tussled with Japan over railway rights in Manchukuo in northern China, and the conflict had expanded to include gun battles between fishing boats in the Sea of Japan. That had increased concerns over Baranov—that its location was perfect as a base for Russian incursions into Canada or Cascadian America.

  How would the discovery of gold alter those concerns?

  Ingrid and Cy started across a two-lane bridge over the river. All vehicles rushed to the far side of the Willamette; none drove back to Portland. It was as if they were traveling toward Swan Island and into a bottomless pit.

  “Might need to abandon our laundry. This bag’s heavy.” Sweat sheened Cy’s skin.

  “Promise me we’ll only leave it as a last resort. I only have the one other dress, and I’d rather not go gallivanting into the wilderness without a spare pair of knickers.”

  He burst out in laughter. “Knickers? Really?”

  “It’s a much funnier word than something like ‘unmentionables,’ isn’t it? And ‘unmentionables’ is such a contradictory term, since it’s being mentioned!”

  He panted for breath. “Even under these dire circumstances, you have a way with enlightening conversation. And about women’s underthings, no less.”

  An autocar roared past, squealed to a stop, then backed up. Rubber burned. Cy dropped the clothes bag and unhooked his Tesla rod. With a flick of his wrist, the rod extended to full length. The blue tip sparkled; in that mode, it’d provide a fierce electric shock to anyone it touched.

  Ingrid clenched the pistol in her pocket. Her fingers trembled, and she desperately hoped their survival didn’t depend on her aim.

  “Gomen nasai! Don’t shoot!” The driver’s-side door popped open and a gloved hand waved in the air. “Mr. Jennings! It’s me, Fujiwara!” His head briefly popped into view; he wore a bowler hat.

  Cy let the Tesla rod collapse as he dashed forward. “Mr. Fujiwara!”

  “Come on, you and the woman get in!”

  “Who—” Ingrid started to ask.

  “He’s moored at the mast next to ours.” Cy flung wide the back passenger door, tossed in their bag, and then he and Ingrid threw themselves inside. The car lurched forward as she slammed the door and flopped over onto Cy. As he sat up, he pulled her upright as well. The little car roared over the bridge at an alarming speed. Ingrid clutched the seat in front of her.

  “Damn ugly business!” Mr. Fujiwara said. “You think our ships will still be there?”

  “God help us, I hope so,” said Cy.

  “Thank goodness you had a car,” said Ingrid.

  Mr. Fujiwara laughed, the tone almost maniacal. “Yeah. I had an extra set of keys to show the driver.” He held up his right hand. Blood stained the knuckles of the white glove. He grabbed the wheel again to turn hard onto the frontage road.

  Cy gave her knee a discreet squeeze, as if she needed a reminder to withhold comment. This wasn’t a time to argue over morality, not when Fenris and Lee needed them. Not when they needed to skedaddle from here before all hell broke loose.

  The rail yard blurred by. Ingrid could see the tips of the southernmost masts at Swan Island. Many were vacated. She felt a lurch of panic and clutched the seat harder. Fenris and Lee had to be okay. They had to be.

  She felt the slight burble of the energy that she had absorbed in Portland; it wouldn’t even be enough to crack a teacup in her hand. She needed to be capable of her own offense and defense.

  Stopped cars clogged the road ahead. As they drove closer, Ingrid realized they had been abandoned. Doors were left wide open. Some vehicles were still running, exhaust creating small clouds of gray.

  Mr. Fujiwara pulled the car off to one side. “This is as far as we can get, it seems.”

  “Domo arigatou gozaimasu,” said Ingrid as she popped open the door. Cy echoed her. Mr. Fujiwara leaped from the vehicle and granted them a tip of his bowler hat as he waded into the tight knot of cars.

  Cy shouldered the canvas bag. “Let’s assess the situation before we get too close.”

  They wound through the autocars, their bodies hunkered over. Men’s voices overlapped—angry, chaotic, insistent. Ingrid glanced over car hoods and through windows, and ascertained that the mob was trapped on the narrow land bridge leading to Swan Island.

  “The staff must have dropped the
metal gate, but who knows how many men made it through first?” Cy muttered. “Could try to swim it. The lagoon between this road and the island looks to be about a hundred feet wide. No idea how deep it is, though.”

  Ingrid searched her pocket for the sharpest of the dark kermanite chips. With that in her fist, she rolled up her coat sleeve, then the loose sleeve of her dress beneath. Cy glanced back just as she brought the shard to her forearm.

  “No, Ingrid!”

  She drew the edge along the tender skin on the underside of her arm. Not too near the veins; pain was her intent, after all, not suicide. She pressed hard, biting her lip as she choked back a screech. The earth teased her with a faint and brief blue fog. She yanked down her sleeves again and wiped her bloodied hand on her coat.

  She formed a fist to inflict more pain in the muscle, but as much as it hurt, the energy draw was pathetic. She barely felt any heat.

  “Damn it. This is why the Thuggees killed everyone in the auxiliary before the quake. This very reason. The local geomancers are like a wall. I’d have to really hurt myself to get a reaction from the earth.” She wasn’t sure whether to laugh or weep. “Maybe this is enough to throw us over the water and the fence, though.” That effort might pull too much energy from her body, too, not that she would voice this to Cy.

  “Which won’t do us a lick of good if the Bug’s been nabbed or damaged, Ingrid!” For the first time she could recall, Cy looked at her with outright anger. His hands curled over her fists as if he could protect her from herself. To her surprise, he was trembling. “You can’t do this to yourself. Your body’s still struggling to get well. This up-and-down flow of power’s too dangerous. Your magic will eat you alive.”

  He was genuinely terrified for her sake. She gently pulled her hands back to her sides. “Everything is dangerous right now.” Gunshots split the air. Men yelled. More car doors slammed nearby as newcomers joined the fray. She warily eyed the mob through a window. “Let’s try to get a different view. Maybe enough of the other airships have left for us to see our mast.”