Iron and Blood

by Gail Z. Martin

  “True—but from Tesla-Westinghouse?” Andreas replied. “The crate, covered by a tarpaulin, was brought in at night. When the driver stopped to get access to the area inside the fence, wind caught the tarp and blew it back enough for the name on the crate to show. It was meaningless to the saboteurs, but interesting, I think, to us.”

  “Adam told me some of his shipments to the Department of Supernatural Investigations went missing—and for some of Tesla-Westinghouse’s other patrons, too,” Rick confirmed.

  “And we heard the same from Mitch Storm,” Jake added. He took a sip of his scotch. It was excellent, smooth, and smoky, and he wondered, given Andreas’s great age, just how old his collection of wine, cognac, and whiskey was. “I’m still trying to figure out whether Storm and his partner are allies, or liabilities.”

  Andreas sipped the blood in his goblet. “If the enemy of your enemy is your friend, then for now, in this, they are allies. I’ve heard better things of Storm and Drangosavich than of the Department as a whole. Still,” he allowed, “I would not trust them fully, or tell them anything beyond what they need to know.”

  Rick nodded. “We interrupted an attempt to kidnap Adam, then a bombing attempt at Tesla-Westinghouse, when we went back to steal Adam’s equipment for him before someone could steal it from him. I wonder if the bombing was meant to cover up someone else’s robbery and we got in the way.”

  “I believe that’s likely,” Andreas agreed. “And while we have no idea what was in the crate the false plumbers saw, I’m glad you got your friend out of harm’s way. I wouldn’t like to see someone with Adam Farber’s talents come under the control of Drogo Veles.”

  Jake repressed a shiver. “Makes you wonder what was in the box, doesn’t it?”

  “It could have been a steam generator, or an electrical gadget for the mine elevators,” Rick mused. “But if it was a legitimate delivery, why hide it under a tarp and show up in the middle of the night?”

  “I can ask Adam if he’s aware of any projects for the Vesta mines,” Rick said. “And whether anything he might have left stashed away at Tesla-Westinghouse would have any normal connection to that business.”

  Andreas nodded. “There was one more interesting observation. While the wagon was waiting to enter the complex, the gate opened and a very expensive carriage came through—one with a crest with a red falcon. It’s owned by Mr. Richard Thwaites.”

  “There he is again. Thwaites is pure Oligarchy blue-blood,” Rick said. “So is he part of an Oligarchy plot, or is this something he’s cooked up on his own?”

  “Veles isn’t Oligarchy,” Jake replied. “He’d disdain something so mortal. The Oligarchy is small potatoes to someone like him, unless he can use them to gain him greater power.”

  “So what’s in it for him?” Rick mused. “Veles isn’t the type to share power; he likes to call the shots himself. Thwaites may be a lightweight compared to his daddy, but the man has an ego the size of his bank account.”

  “You’ll get the chance to observe for yourself,” Andreas pointed out. “The reception for Mr. Carnegie’s new exhibit at his museum is tomorrow night.” He glanced at the black armband Jake wore. “It’s the kind of thing propriety forgives you for attending, even if you’re in mourning. Just don’t look like you’re having a good time.”

  Jake sighed. “It’s been such a whirlwind since Father died, I’ve hardly had a chance to adjust to the new order of things. I highly doubt most of what I’ve done since the funeral counts as proper mourning etiquette.”

  Andreas’s eyes darkened with old memories. His gaze flickered to an oil painting of a dark-haired woman in a gown at least eighty years out of date. “Grief waits,” he said quietly. He seemed to pull himself out of his thoughts. “Your father will be best mourned when he is well-avenged, and the threat to your family and business is ended.”

  Just then, the doors to the sitting room flew open. Nicki stood in the doorway, face flushed and eyes alight with triumph. “You’ve got to see this!”

  Rick, Jake, and Andreas dutifully followed Nicki into the parlor. Cady and Renate had cleared everything from one of the large tables. Renate had gathered the elements of a ritual on a piece of pristine white linen. Four thick white pillar candles anchored the corners of the linen. A wide silver bowl sat in the middle. The room smelled of sage.

  Next to the ritual space on the table was a crystal absinthe decanter and two crystal glasses, as well as Renate’s silver pentacle spoon. To the other side lay several small carved stones, a yellowed map and several pages that looked as if they had been torn from a diary.

  Cady pointed to an old map. “From what we’ve been able to translate from the journal Nicki found, Jasinski seemed to be obsessed with Alekanovo, a remote mountain section of Russia—and a name that was on Thomas Desmet’s list, if you recall. We found sketches Jasinski made, notes he jotted to himself, and it always came back to the same thing: a large stone and several smaller stones with symbols carved into them.”

  “Symbols like these,” Nicki said, holding one of the small stones aloft. “We managed to translate some of his Polish notes, but the symbols had us stumped until Renate realized that they weren’t in Russian; they’re in a magical language.”

  “Once I had the region identified, I did some digging in the Russian books we have at the university,” Cady continued. “Turns out that about fifty years ago, Alekanovo had some of Russia’s deepest mines, and then in just one year, the mines the Czar had poured so much effort into building were closed and tens of thousands of workers vanished.”

  “Vanished?” Jake said. “You mean they abandoned the mining towns?”

  Cady shook her head. “No. I mean that the people disappeared—and so did the crews sent in to find out what happened.” She gave a triumphant smile, proud of her research. “Jasinski had interviewed people from near that area. They told stories of hungry spirits and night creatures prowling the towns and the deep mines. Most of the stories involved finding people and livestock torn apart and partly eaten, or dragged into the depths.”

  “Like the Night Hag attacks,” Rick said, and Cady nodded.

  “I don’t think it’s an accident that Jasinski disappeared not long after he returned home from making contact with scholars in the Alekanovo region,” Renate said. “Throughout his notes, Jasinski talked about the ‘Dark Ones’ and the ‘Deep Wraiths’. Several times, he calls them gessyan.” She paused. “Gessyan seems to be a term that covers a lot of territory—the Night Hag, wraiths, malicious ghosts, monsters, terrible shadow dogs… you get the idea. It’s something of a supernatural catch-all term for bad things.”

  “His notes also refer to pages in Marcin’s book,” Nicki said. She looked at Jake. “Like Marcin of Krakow—the mystic Dr. Nils told you about, and another name on Uncle Thomas’s list.”

  “Except that we didn’t find the book anywhere in Jasinski’s apartment,” Cady added.

  “We think the large stone had some kind of instructions carved onto it, maybe a way to control gessyan,” Renate continued. “I can tell that it’s been used in the presence of strong magic, but I’m not sure yet whether the big stone has power itself. The smaller stones might have been amulets or talismans. And Marcin’s book could have been the instructions on how to use the stones.” She paused, eyes bright.

  “What if Jasinski had gathered the small stones himself, but he needed help getting the bigger stone with the remaining inscription?” Renate postulated. “So he asked your father to acquire the stone and ship it and Marcin’s book through Brand and Desmet?”

  Jake thought through the implications. “But that’s still not a reason for Veles and Thwaites to kill my father, whether they actually planned to release the gessyan or letting them out was an accident.”

  “If the gessyan’s release was the fault of Thwaites and Veles, intentional or not, they’d want to cover that up,” Rick said, thinking aloud. “Maybe especially if it was an accident and they didn’t know how to contro
l the spirits. Maybe they got wind of Jasinski’s shipment, and wanted to beat him to it, and Thomas was in the wrong place at the wrong time when they tried to steal it.” He frowned. “They might have been worried that Jasinski told Thomas something they didn’t want anyone else to know. And they’re still trying to kill us in case he told us, too.”

  Renate nodded. “That’s our theory.”

  Rick frowned. “It’s got to have been an accident that the gessyan got out. What would Veles and Thwaites gain from having spirits like that loose? The ghosts would be a danger to them and their people, and the killings have attracted too much attention.” He shook his head. “There’s got to be something much more valuable than coal that made them sink their money into the Vesta Nine mine and risk unleashing the gessyan. Something really big that they were afraid Thomas could somehow ruin for them. I think we’re missing something.”

  “I agree,” Andreas said.

  “It also doesn’t explain how Jasinski became involved, or where he got the money to pay Father for the shipment,” Jake said.

  “But we know more than we did before,” Renate replied. “And now, I’m going to see what I can coax out of the stones to see if we’re right.”

  Renate stepped forward to the table where Jasinski’s stones and her ritual elements were set out, as the others found seats. No matter how many times Jake saw Renate work her absinthe magic, it always intrigued him.

  A circular braided rug lay beneath the table. The weave of the rug held the protective wardings and bounded the ritual space. Renate chanted quietly, and Jake strained to hear the words, but they seemed to slip away from him, as if they were not meant for his ears.

  Renate took the crystal pitcher of absinthe, and she laid the silver pentacle spoon across one of the glasses. As she chanted, she poured a thin stream of absinthe over the silver pentacle and into the glass. The green waterfall of liquor had an inner light, touched by Renate’s magic. As the absinthe flowed into an intricately etched glass, the patterns in the crystal glowed.

  Renate took the second glass and let a few drops of water fall over the pentacle and into the absinthe, forming a smoky louche. She removed the pentacle and lifted the cup to the four points of the compass in blessing. Then she took the small carved stones and placed them in the silver bowl, poured some of the absinthe from the glass over the stones, then drank what remained of the consecrated liquid.

  Sparkling green embers flashed and flickered in the air within the warded circle, like fireflies. Renate took a deep breath, and stared down into the bowl at the smooth, rune-scratched rocks which now glowed with their own, magical fire.

  She began to speak in a language Jake thought sounded like Russian. Her voice took on the measured cadence of an incantation. Renate bent over the bowl, blew across it, and made a gesture with her hands.

  Fiery letters danced above the bowl, rearranging themselves from arcane runes to Cyrillic Russian under the force of Renate’s will and magic. Then the runes disappeared and an image took their place. It was small, as if glimpsed across a vast distance, and Jake leaned forward for a better look.

  HULKING, DARK CREATURES lumbered across wind-driven snow that stretched for as far as the eye could see. A torchlit army of villagers stood to oppose the creatures, armed with scythes and butcher’s knives, rakes, and homemade pikes. Standing on a slight ridge above the villagers were four figures, and beside them was an elliptical black stone about knee-high and two handsbreadths wide. The figures were dressed in furs from head to toe, but it was clear that they were human, which the creatures definitely were not.

  The creatures surged forward, moving at an alarming pace through the deep snow. The villagers raised their weapons. Although the villagers outnumbered the enemy, in the first few moments of battle it was clear the advantage went to the dark creatures—tall, misshapen things with impossibly long arms, clawed hands, and toothy, lantern-jawed maws. Yet as the villagers battled, Jake’s attention shifted to the four fur-clad figures and the black standing stone.

  Each of the figures held something aloft, but the image was too small for Jake to make out the details. The air around them was distorted, like heat from a sidewalk on a scorching day, making the image waver and shift. In a sudden burst, the distortion swept down the hillside, leaving the fighting villagers untouched, to break over the creatures like a storm surge. It glimmered on the snow with the iridescence of a soap bubble, yet it knocked the creatures back, tumbling them like leaves in the wind.

  The translucent, shimmering force wavered, glistening in the harsh winter sun, growing more solid as it began to turn and twist in the air. Flashes of light flickered inside the churning power, until a wall of cold white light stood between the creatures and the villagers. The white light enveloped the creatures, flashed blindingly bright, and then both the white fire and the creatures were gone.

  RENATE DREW A deep breath and let her chant slow as she thanked the powers that sustained her magic. The image disappeared as her hands fell to her sides, and the green embers that flickered and danced above the liquid’s surface winked out.

  “What did we just see?” Jake asked, looking at the items on the ritual table with a mix of fear and wonder.

  Renate gave a tired smile. She dismissed her wards, and the energy seemed to drain from her. Andreas was beside her before anyone else could blink, catching her before she sank, exhausted, to a nearby chair.

  “We saw the past,” Renate replied, sounding as if the vision had taken everything out of her. “We saw what the stones remembered.”

  “Did those stones do that? The fiery wall of death stuff?” Rick asked, staring at the silver bowl as if it might explode.

  Renate shook her head. Cady had already gone to the kitchen to fetch her a glass of water, which Renate accepted gratefully. She drank it, and some color gradually came back to her face.

  “Not by themselves,” she replied. “These smaller pieces were amulets, focus stones, a way for witches, or mages, or shamans—whatever you prefer—to fix their will and gather their power.” She paused. “And I’d bet that Father Matija and his Logonje know more about this whole thing than they’re telling. After all, he is a Russian Orthodox priest.”

  “Did the people in that vision get their power from the big stone, then?” Nicki asked.

  “Not exactly,” Renate replied, taking another sip of water. “Some of the magic came from the witches. But the big stone may well have stored magic for them, and it was likely their inukshuk, their totem—and their way of recording history. Odds are good that the Alekanovo witches may not only have stored power in the large stone, but also engraved information on it to protect the village—and maybe to preserve instructions for the future.”

  “If they had the information, why did people disappear at Alekanovo fifty years ago?” Rick asked.

  Renate gave a tired shrug. “Maybe they lost their witches. Maybe they forgot what the stone meant. You saw the images—the last time the creatures rose was a very long time ago.”

  “Marcin of Krakow bound the gessyan in Poland in the fourteen hundreds. They show up again in Russia a lifetime ago,” Rick said. “Someone—witches, priests, whoever—bound them at Alekanovo. So how did they get here?”

  “Hodekin said they not only lived in the deep places, they could move through the Earth’s core,” Jake replied. “The distances would be a lot smaller if you could go through the earth instead of over it. Maybe they know when someone opens a weak point somewhere. Then they show up until the opening gets sealed again.”

  “Which means the secret to fighting the gessyan lies with the Alekanovo stone—and Marcin’s book,” Cady said. “What if we aren’t able to find them? What if Veles has already destroyed them?”

  “Then you had better say your prayers,” Andreas replied. “Because we will be facing those dark creatures on our own.”

  “I NEVER REALIZED that a museum could make such a grand place for a reception.” Rick Brand said under his breath. He and J
ake stood shoulder to shoulder in their tuxedos, watching the well-dressed crowd ebb and flow in the massive sculpture hall of the new Carnegie Museum on Fifth Avenue. A string quartet played chamber music in one corner. Waiters in formal attire passed out silver platters of delicacies and flutes of champagne, while in the corner, bartenders served up stiffer drinks.

  “It’s a brilliant idea,” Jake replied, taking a sip of an excellent scotch from the Carnegie cellars. “No strangers trooping through your private spaces. No missing flatware when they all go home. And it advertises his pet project. There’s a reason the man is insanely wealthy.”

  Andrew Carnegie stood at the far end of the huge room, chatting with Thomas Mellon and George Westinghouse. New Pittsburgh’s upper crust were on prominent display, decked out in evening attire. By comparison, Rick and Jake were small fry. Dr. Nils had added them to the guest list, and now Nils’s prominent role within the museum had him glad-handing donors and working the crowd, although he had acknowledged them with a nod when they entered. Jake looked around at the guests, but did not see Andreas Thalberg, and he wondered if the vampire would put in an appearance.

  Per Carnegie’s new-found obsession with philanthropy, representatives of his favorite causes were also present, including the administrators from the huge new library that bore his name, and several scholarly men Jake suspected had something to do with the technical school Carnegie was planning to open.

  “There he is.” Jake nodded in the direction of a tall, slim man talking with Henry Clay Frick. Drogo Veles looked more like an Eastern European nobleman than a centuries-old dark witch. He chatted with Frick, utterly at ease among the wealthy and powerful. Then again, Jake thought, Veles’s magic probably gave him far more power than mere money or prestige.

  “Brand. Desmet. Didn’t think you’d be here, what with the circumstances and all.” Richard Thwaites was suddenly in front of them, a gin and tonic in one hand and a canapé in the other.