Call of Fire

by Beth Cato

  Cy glanced back. A few men had stepped closer to monitor them, but their weapons had been put away. “How are we going to make our own escape, Ingrid?” he murmured. “Even if we get out of here, we’re running straight into a street battle.”

  “You said before that we control what we can. Right now, that’s overseeing Lee to make sure he’s taken care of.”

  “Not like we have a lot of say in that regard.” He tilted his head to acknowledge their guards. “Can you sense Blum?”

  “Not since we went belowground. I’m hoping that feeling is mutual.”

  Cy’s dark expression didn’t agree. “She said she tracked you from hundreds of miles away. You sensed her from hundreds of feet away. I don’t think being underground will throw her off your scent. Foxes know warrens.”

  He was right. Being too optimistic would get her captured here. Ingrid backed away from the ledge and closer to Uncle Moon. Rat-a-tats of gunfire carried from up above, followed by another heavy boom.

  A cluster of men ran inside the chamber and to Uncle Moon. Soot and sweat covered their faces and clothes. They cast odd looks at Ingrid and Cy, and then engaged in a rapid conversation with the physician. The men gestured to the submarines, to the ceiling and city above, and then back to the submarines, their expressions beseeching. Moon’s hands and arms continued to work as he spoke, his expression remaining as stoic as ever. Three of the men dropped to the floor to kowtow. Ingrid stepped away, fearing another one of Uncle Moon’s intense claps and more deaths in quick sequence.

  “It looks like they’re trying to convince him to leave,” said Cy.

  “Yes. They’re trying to get Dr. Moon to bring Lee aboard a submarine, but he’s reminding them that he cannot work a healing while surrounded by so much iron.”

  A man spoke from behind them. “It distorts how a physician senses ki. Lee will die if they board, and the other men fear they all will die if they stay much longer.”

  A sob rose in Ingrid’s throat as she whirled around. “Ojisan!”

  Chapter 21

  Ingrid flung herself at Mr. Sakaguchi. He wore the same sort of stained cotton work clothes donned by most of the Chinese, the sleeves short on his arms. The wrinkles around his eyes had deepened in the past week, and his combed-over salt-and-pepper hair had thinned to show more of his scalp. He opened his arms wide to intercept Ingrid.

  She wrapped herself around him, squeezing him as she never had before. His head pressed against her shoulder as he shuddered in a sob. Mr. Sakaguchi had never been one to show physical affection; it was not encouraged in Japanese culture. Knowing this made his reaction all the more poignant.

  “Ojisan,” she whispered again. She seemed incapable of saying or thinking anything else. She pulled back to look him in the eye. They were of almost equal height. Tears streamed down his cheeks.

  “How was Lee injured so severely?” Mr. Sakaguchi gripped her arms.

  “Another tong held him captive just blocks away. The qilin came to me and told me where he was. It can see the places it’s called on to guard,” she whispered. “One of the rival highbinders shot Lee as we escaped.”

  “You saw the qilin. It spoke with you?” Mr. Sakaguchi’s gaze was stiletto sharp. She nodded. “You know what this means, how it regards you . . .”

  “I know what it’s supposed to mean, yes, but in my case, I think I’m handy because of my powers. That’s all.” All she had wanted for her life was, in truth, to be accepted as a geomancer—to travel, fill crystals, and maybe teach the little ones at an auxiliary. She could never see herself as a wise ruler or sage worthy of a qilin’s attention. “I can understand why the qilin came to Lee, though. It should have gone to him even if he was of common blood. Lee . . . Lee has that way about him.”

  Ripples of magic, of life essence, thrummed against her skin as Moon continued to work on Lee.

  “You know about his father, then.” His voice was especially soft. Ingrid and Cy nodded, and Mr. Sakaguchi regarded Cy as he extended his hand. “I believe we met briefly amid dire circumstances at my home.”

  Cy clapped his hand heartily. “Yes, sir, I’m Cy Jennings. I’d just come to your house when you were shot. Ingrid and I have become close in the past week, sir.” To his credit, he didn’t blush as he said this.

  “Have you?” Mr. Sakaguchi arched an eyebrow. A blast shuddered through the ceiling. “Your presence here is telling in that regard. I’m honored to meet you, but I wish the two of you weren’t here at all. What happened in the past week, Ing-chan? When I was told of what befell San Francisco, I thought . . .” His voice withered away.

  He thought she had died. Or worse, that she had caused the disaster.

  Ingrid struggled with finding the words to summarize everything that had happened. This was never how she pictured her reunion with Mr. Sakaguchi, and their conversation couldn’t last long. Blasts continued in quick succession. The highbinders guarding them were looking more ill at ease by the minute.

  A cluster of women ran through the chamber. Dirt powdered them into brown ghosts, their eyes large and white.

  “I didn’t cause the earthquake. Papa did,” said Ingrid. “Thuggees somehow got hold of him and brought him from China. Mr. Thornton was part of the conspiracy. He set up the auxiliary explosion.”

  “No.” Mr. Sakaguchi shook his head, his skin blanching. “That’s not possible. That horror couldn’t have been caused by one of our own.”

  “Sir, I’m sorry,” said Cy. “Mr. Thornton confessed his guilt outright. He even arranged it so the Chinese took the blame. You lived through the explosion, so you looked all the more complicit.”

  Mr. Sakaguchi continued to shake his head, as if he could shift the whole world right again. “I’ve known him almost twenty years. He was a stalwart colleague, I can’t—”

  “Ojisan.” Ingrid cut in like a scalpel. “We don’t have time to argue over this. He did it. He confessed. He’s dead.” She took a deep breath. It felt wrong to interrupt Mr. Sakaguchi like that, as if their roles had somehow reversed. “The earthquake provoked a two-headed snake to emerge in Olema. I talked to it. Mr. Thornton had brought Papa there. I . . . talked with him. Briefly. He tried to kill me. The snake, it . . . well, it ate him. In my defense.”

  Mr. Sakaguchi seemed to accept this more readily than the betrayal of one of his fellow wardens. “Your mother and I, we thought to spare you . . .” He took a deep breath. “Abram was not a good man.”

  Ingrid wanted to tell him how deeply she knew this, how Abram had likely murdered his other geomancer children, but the vibrations from the explosions above shuddered through the ceiling and reminded her of the time more urgently than any clock.

  “No, he wasn’t,” she said gently. She squeezed his hand. It trembled. How strange, to see him so frail, but she’d been so weak in recent days, too. If she sat to rest now, rising again would feel like moving a mountain. “T.R. helped us to get to Seattle. He’s trying to retrieve that stolen kermanite. Papa partly filled it during the earthquake.”

  “The Thuggees were behind that theft as well? A full conspiracy within our ranks.” He shook his head again, slower this time. The truth had begun to sink in.

  “Warden Sakaguchi, sir,” said Cy, voice low. “Ingrid’s found she can pull in power already bound in kermanite—”

  “Cy—” she hissed.

  “Another skill inherited from her father.” Cy spoke faster. “You’ve studied kermanite and fantastics. Ingrid’s nature suggests a lineage that’s not entirely human. These power fluctuations within her body have almost killed her more than once.” She began to sputter a rebuttal and he motioned for silence. “Ingrid, I know, you’ve kept us alive by using your power, but I’m terrified about what it’s doing to you.” He faced Mr. Sakaguchi again. “Is there anything you know from your research that might help her to stay alive?”

  “Yes.” Mr. Sakaguchi considered Ingrid solemnly. “Tranquilizer darts.”

  “Ojisan!”

  “Mr
. Jennings, you have come to know her well in a short time. She’s brilliant and obstinate. I wish . . .” He sighed heavily. “What I wish doesn’t matter. I knew the threat of her own death wouldn’t convince her to leave San Francisco, but I hoped that the potential she held to kill others might compel her to be prudent. Yet here she is.” A particularly heavy boom acted as punctuation. Bricks clattered from the ceiling and walls close by. A wave of dust swept over them. Everyone hacked and coughed.

  “I’m aware of the danger, Mr. Sakaguchi,” Ingrid said, coughing again. “I’m also aware that I have the power to preserve lives. I’m not callous like Papa. I care. I take precautions.”

  “Carrying a bucket of water into an inferno only does so much, Ing-chan.”

  “Mr. Sakaguchi, I need the full truth now. What do you know about Papa’s past? His childhood, where he is from?”

  “Abram Carmichael was classified as a geomancer at age ten in a California orphanage. He refused to speak of his life before then. My best guess was that he was from somewhere in the Pacific, but I couldn’t find proof.”

  “His tongue was looser in recent years. It seems that Pele is my grandmother.” Ingrid studied him to gauge his reaction.

  Mr. Sakaguchi slowly nodded, his brow furrowed. “Yes. Yes. That would fit with what little we know. However, you must keep in mind, Ingrid, that even though you may have inherited Madame Pele’s unique affinity with the earth, you are still very much human. That is the one certainty.”

  Moon clapped again. The shock of his power dropped Ingrid to one knee, gasping as if she were being suffocated by both dust and thick magic. Cy’s hand on her shoulder kept her steady as she glanced back. A third man stepped forward. He tapped his chest and spoke in Chinese, then knelt to join the row of bodies.

  “He said, ‘In twenty years I shall be another stout young fellow,’” murmured Mr. Sakaguchi. “In China, that was a phrase often uttered by criminals before execution.”

  “He assumes there’ll be a Chinese baby born now for him to be reincarnated into,” said Cy.

  “When your current life is hopeless, you must look to the next,” said Mr. Sakaguchi.

  Uncle Moon’s gestures were more urgent, more exaggerated, as he undulated his arms over the newly dead man and Lee. His loud, quavering voice was clear even through the cacophony that carried down from outside.

  Ingrid wanted to feel hope, but when she looked at Uncle Moon and Lee, she felt only hollowness. How much longer until Moon gave up? How much longer until the ceiling collapsed, or UP soldiers poured into the chamber? She stood again, gently shaking away Cy’s grip.

  “There’s another important matter,” she said. “Ambassador Blum.”

  “Her. Yes. Do you know—”

  “She’s a kitsune with at least four tails. She practices dark Reiki that rivals his.” She motioned at Moon. “She stabbed me and healed me as a test to see if I was like Papa. I escaped her during the earthquake but she can track me somehow. She’s somewhere above us right now, hunting me.”

  Mr. Sakaguchi tottered on his feet. Cy and Ingrid reached toward him but he waved them away.

  “Oh, Ingrid.” He pressed a hand to his forehead. Ingrid had the terrible realization that he was mourning her death, even as she stood before him. “Just as geomancers act as a medium between the earth and kermanite, ki passes through a physician of Reiki as they heal someone. If they work with plants, it is common for botanical freshness to linger around the patient like a pleasant cloud. If they manipulate the cords of other lives, it creates a more perverse bond between doctor and patient.”

  “A stain,” said Ingrid, thinking of what the Reiki doc in Portland said.

  “Yes. A stain, one that lingers for weeks.”

  “Meaning, sir, that if you left with us right now, Uncle Moon here would sense your whereabouts over quite a distance.”

  “That is true, Mr. Jennings. This is not something commonly known about Reiki, and with reason, as it would alarm customers of even licensed franchises. Floral Reiki is far less potent, but a doctor can often recognize their recent patients by a trace of their own magic.”

  “My God.” Horror formed a hard knot in Ingrid’s gut. “I’ve been endangering all of you. Cy, Fenris, Lee, even Mr. Sakaguchi right now. I’m carrying part of her power inside me.”

  Ingrid had already known that, to a degree. Known that the potency of Blum’s healing had kept her alive through overwhelming energy sickness in San Francisco and had assisted her recovery in the days since. That had been a major positive, no question, but Ingrid’s regeneration skill couldn’t offset this: that she was truly acting like a beacon, drawing Blum closer to everyone she loved.

  “Ingrid.” Cy cupped her chin and forced her gaze to his. “You weren’t willingly healed, and sure as rain, you didn’t know what all it entailed. This tracking ability might be part of why she stabbed you and healed you at all—”

  Booms thudded through the ground directly above. All three of them dropped to the ground as Ingrid instinctively called up a shield. Chunks of masonry pattered against the bubble and slid to the floor. Cy and Mr. Sakaguchi looked around, their breaths rapid. Beyond the shield, the air was turbulent and brown as it flowed like a storm from the nearby hallways.

  With a pang, Ingrid realized that she couldn’t see Lee through all the dust. She ached to call up another shield over him, but he was too far away. And she wasn’t sure if he was alive at this point to even need the protection. Her fingers curled as anxiety clogged her throat.

  “You seem rather calm about this shield Ingrid can create,” Mr. Sakaguchi said to Cy.

  “I’ve been through this with her a time or two now, sir, including a rather memorable walk on the bottom of San Francisco Bay.”

  “I see. I think we could have an interesting talk about my Ing-chan, Mr. Jennings.”

  “I think we could, too, sir, and I heartily hope for that someday, but I think we’re about out of talking time here. I reckon the fox is trying to flush us from our warren.”

  “I agree, Mr. Jennings.”

  The dust faded. The highbinders became visible first, like phantoms in a mist. They had bent over Moon to shield him. As Ingrid watched, they stepped back. Moon’s arms continued their dance. The gestures no longer had grace. They lashed like angry whips, this way, that, as if he could beat Lee’s chi into submission, into staying put.

  Ingrid let the bubble fall again. She immediately coughed, as did Cy and Mr. Sakaguchi.

  “I do not know what else to do,” Uncle Moon said, voice rasping. His hands rested on his lap, still for the first time in ages. “I can’t sacrifice all of my most loyal men.” He gazed on Lee with fondness and despair.

  Mr. Sakaguchi stepped forward. “I will give my life to save his.”

  “Ojisan, no,” Ingrid broke in. This was a noble gesture worthy of one of his beloved operas like Lincoln. “You can’t—”

  His focus remained on Moon. “I’m an old man. I’ve lived a good life. Lee must live.” He echoed the qilin.

  Cy shifted uneasily beside Ingrid, and she whirled on him. “Don’t you dare volunteer,” she hissed. “Don’t you dare.”

  At the same time, she knew she’d been willing to sacrifice herself for Lee, too, though not in this way. Not by willingly giving herself to dark magic.

  “I would rather Lee die and China with him than have his chi tainted by Japanese ki.” Moon referred to the Japanese version of chi as if clearing phlegm from his throat. “Your teaching has corrupted him.”

  “You knew who I was and what I represented when we reached our agreement five years ago. Lee is to be a bridge between our people.”

  “Our bridges have been destroyed by your bombs and your Durendals. What remained was lost to earthquakes.”

  Cy stood close enough that Ingrid could feel him cringe.

  “The bombs are not mine, nor are the Durendals,” Mr. Sakaguchi said softly.

  “Nor is this boy.” Moon’s fists formed hard rocks o
n his lap. He said something curt in Chinese. Two highbinders picked up Lee.

  Ingrid suddenly felt Blum’s presence like the crackling pressure of a lightning storm.

  Moon stiffly stood and hobbled toward the stairs. Ingrid looked around, her heart pounding in terror. Their guards had abandoned them. She, Cy, and Mr. Sakaguchi were simply being left behind.

  Bullets were precious to the Chinese. Better to leave them to the Unified Pacific.

  “Mr. Sakaguchi. You have to go with them. Lee needs you as his sensei now more than ever,” she whispered, galled by her own words. “I can feel Blum getting closer. She can track me, and Moon can track you.”

  Mr. Sakaguchi’s eyes widened; she couldn’t wait for him to respond. She rushed forward.

  “Dr. Moon! Sir! Mr. Sakaguchi needs to go with you.”

  Moon stopped, and for the first time his face showed genuine surprise. “What? You’re asking me to take him? You came all the way to Seattle to set him free, and now this?” He advanced on them, his strides growing stronger, his expression angrier. “He is a useless Japanese man. He has eaten our food, wasted my time. I shouldn’t have saved him to begin with, but I did so for Lee’s sake. There’s no room for sentimentality now. You would have him breathe our precious air as we suffer his presence?” He motioned to the last submarine below.

  The tap-tap-tap of gunfire rang out close by, somewhere in the tunnels. The remaining hatchet men readied their guns, but instead of looking to the doorways, they looked to Mr. Sakaguchi. They seemed grimly eager, as if they had been starving for this opportunity to shoot him.

  Ingrid held energy close to her skin, waiting. Her mind was blank. She couldn’t refute Moon’s argument. She even respected the presence of his hatchet men. They, at least, would shoot to kill Mr. Sakaguchi. Blum wouldn’t grant him that mercy.

  “You’re right.” Mr. Sakaguchi’s whisper was so low she scarcely heard it. “Dr. Moon can track me. Even more, he now knows you possess peculiar skills, but he has higher priorities to address at the moment, and little room left on the submarine.” Grief lined his eyes. “We make each other all the more vulnerable.”