Breath of Earth

by Beth Cato

“It’s ruined, isn’t it?” Fenris’s whisper was a hoarse croak.

  “Oh! You’re awake!” Ingrid leaned over him. “What’s ruined?”

  “My coat. The leather coat.”

  Ingrid paused, then she burst out in laughter. “The coat? Yes. I’m sorry.”

  “Damn. That was my favorite.” The words slurred.

  “You can always buy a new coat.”

  Fenris looked at her through heavily lidded eyes. “You know, don’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “You give Cy any grief about this, about me, I’ll kill you.” Sincerity resounded in the words, even as they sloshed together.

  “You love him.” She couldn’t help but feel uncomfortable saying that.

  “Yes. He’s the only person who’s ever accepted me as I am.”

  Ingrid opened and closed her lips without making a sound. She had Mr. Sakaguchi, but had he really accepted her? Oh, she knew there were valid reasons to be kept a secret. The wardens were a stodgy and conservative organization, a good ol’ boys’ club if ever there was one. She’d be a freak, a scientific and magical curiosity. Like a Hidden One in plain sight, to be scrutinized and analyzed . . . and some would think, to be neutralized.

  She felt the need to say something, though. “I . . . I wanted to thank you for coming with me to Chinatown. I’m sorry you ended up hurt because of it.”

  Fenris managed a breathy snort. “Cy’s always telling me to get out more, to live, see the city. Finally take his advice, and this happens.”

  “Next time, be sure to request the tour that doesn’t include scraps between soldiers and highbinders.”

  “How long have you used geomancy?”

  The blunt question caused her to recoil slightly. “Almost my whole life. How long have you felt the need to live as a man?”

  “As long as I can remember.” The pain in his voice didn’t come from the injury. “Look at us with our deep, dark secrets. We’re keeping them about as well as burlap holds water.” He started to chuckle and stopped with a wince.

  Ingrid braced a hand on his shoulder. The mention of burlap reminded her of the kermanite she found. “Fenris, I wanted to ask you. There’s a rusty car out in the warehouse, one that came in yesterday when Cy was out. Do you remember who brought it?”

  His face scrunched in thought. “Yesterday? Yes. I remember. Brits. Or Australians. I can’t tell the difference. Don’t have an ear for accents. They were white.”

  “Was one of them tall with a mustache? Balding?”

  “That describes half the men in town, and these men as well. Not like you see many younger men around.” No. British or American, they would be off to war. “They were upset. Wanted to have the engine repairs done immediately, even offered extra cash. As if I’d drop work on the Bug to fix some car.”

  “Yet they still left it here.”

  “Yes. I told them it would be finished today.”

  Ingrid shook her head, smiling. “You never intended to have the repair made that quickly, did you?”

  A funny little smile turned his lips. “It might have happened. Once my airship was done.”

  Ingrid touched his shoulder again, gently, and Fenris didn’t shy from the contact.

  Maybe Mr. Thornton had been one of these men. Maybe not. But it did seem that someone had taken advantage of his access to the auxiliary vault, willingly or otherwise on Thornton’s part. She gnawed on her lip, not liking where these thoughts led.

  The two British members of the auxiliary had been absent during the explosion. One was dead. The other, ill and missing, his autocar here.

  Something terrible had befallen Mr. Thornton. She was sure of it. If she tried to warn people that some conspiracy was afoot, would anyone believe her? She was a foreign-looking woman, by popular judgment, and one already under suspicion.

  God, what had happened in the past day? At dawn yesterday, her biggest crisis had been deciding how to fix up her hair.

  She looked at Fenris’s wig. It matched well enough, but still looked so wrong on him. “Do you want me to take that off?”

  “Yes, damn it. Feels like a dead animal is pinned to my scalp.”

  Ingrid laughed and worked it free. “It looks like human hair to me.”

  “That’s not much of an improvement. That thing’s probably older than I am. Ah!” He sighed as the wig came free. “Throw that in its casket again.” He motioned to the storage box.

  Voices and footsteps echoed in the warehouse. One voice was especially familiar. Ingrid turned toward the door to see Cy and Lee.

  “Ing?” asked Lee with a slightly pubescent squawk. The top of his head just reached Cy’s chest.

  Lee’s posture made him once again look like an unassuming Chinese kid. The servant, the friend. Who was Lee Fong, really? Who were any of them? It was as though Ingrid had found out they were all bit players in some incomprehensible play. Not an opera, she hoped. She sang like a cat in heat. And she didn’t want anyone to die at the end.

  “Lee. You took care of the . . . of the men?”

  “They’ll have the worst headaches of their lives, but yeah, they’ll live.” Anger smoldered in his eyes. “We all know Chinatown won’t stand for much longer. Graft only goes so far. Killing soldiers would be the perfect excuse for the Unified Pacific to raze Chinatown, and we’re not going to give in that easily.”

  Ingrid stared at him and again wondered about the boy she had loved and nurtured for the past five years. She always knew he was Chinese, of course, but that was an entirely different thing from understanding what it was to be Chinese.

  Lee hadn’t made any attempt at tact in front of Cy and Fenris either. They were all bound in this together, this tangle of sedition and secrets.

  “Is Mr. Sakaguchi okay? He didn’t absorb power during the earthquake, did he?” she asked.

  “No. He was still in that metal bed upstairs. He’s headed out of the city now, in an autocar.”

  “Good. A car won’t conduct well. That’s one less thing to worry about.” Even if he was held by a tong, near death, and had left her as the only geomancer in the city.

  “What’s the plan?” Fenris whispered. Ingrid realized with a start that Fenris still wore a woman’s cotton shift, but he had pulled his blanket to armpit level. It looked like he wore a white blouse.

  “The plan’s for you to stay in bed and sleep and recover.” Cy scowled down at Fenris.

  “That plan doesn’t agree with me.” Fenris winced. “Actually, being stabbed doesn’t agree with me either.”

  “Ingrid, I’m sorry I sent you off like that before,” said Lee. “I didn’t realize Mr. Braun was injured, not until one of the men told me. I would have arranged help for you both.”

  Ingrid thanked God for Lee’s obliviousness back in the alley; Fenris didn’t need his secret revealed to everyone willy-nilly. “We managed. Speaking of plans, I do need your help in another way. Mr. Sakaguchi told me I need to fetch something important from the house before I leave.”

  “Leave?” echoed Cy.

  She stared at the floor. “Mr. Sakaguchi encouraged me to leave. I . . . I think that’s the right course of action.”

  “What changed your mind?” asked Lee.

  She brushed the burn on her knuckle again. “If I’m the only geomancer here and a large quake strikes, I will die, very quickly.” It felt strange to confess to possessing magic out loud. “More geomancers will arrive here in a few days. I won’t need to be away for long.”

  Lee nodded. “Maybe I can go with you.” Ingrid cast him a grateful smile. Mr. Sakaguchi had wanted them to stay together, after all. He continued: “It might be awfully hard to get inside the house, though. The tank and soldiers haven’t shown the slightest sign of budging.”

  “You can’t make people disappear again?” asked Fenris.

  Lee’s expression was cool. “That’s Chinatown. But I might still have some resources. Speaking of which . . .” He reached into his pocket and handed Ingrid her mother
’s pistol. “It’s loaded.”

  “Thanks,” she said, and tucked it in her pocket again. She looked to Cy. “What about that Durendal?”

  “My offer to help still stands, Miss Ingrid,” said Cy. The warmth in his eyes told her that their bet was on.

  “It’s quite a risk you’d be taking. You, too, Lee.” Emotion caught in her throat. “I’ve already almost lost Mr. Sakaguchi more than once in the past day. This is my errand, and—”

  “If you think we’re letting you do this by yourself, your head’s stuffed with straw tick,” said Cy.

  “That’s right,” said Fenris, wincing. “I’ll even go as a show of support.”

  “You’ll do no such thing!” She gave Fenris her darkest glare, but inside she felt a comforting buzz of heat.

  “Actually, Ing, can I speak with you alone for a minute?” asked Lee.

  “Of course.” She followed him outside the bedchamber. He ambled toward the airship, his hands stuffed in his pockets, feet scuffing the cement floor like any kid his age. He stopped, still facing away.

  “Stop looking at me like that,” he said.

  She recoiled. “Like what?”

  “Like I’ve suddenly sprouted arms like a Hindu god.”

  “Oh. Lee, I’m sorry, I just . . .” She didn’t even know what to say. “There’s a lot I don’t understand.”

  “Did you really think we wouldn’t fight back? That we’d just wallow here until the Unified Pacific decided to kill us off?” His voice was soft, his words sending a chill through her.

  No, she wanted to say, but the truth was, she had never really thought much about Chinese resistance before, even with Mr. Sakaguchi’s frequent observations on the subject. After all, she wasn’t one of the elite, one of the persecutors of the Chinese. She was a dark-skinned woman who didn’t even know where her father came from, why she looked as she did.

  Ingrid always felt that she and Lee were bound in friendship, and because of that, their differences didn’t matter.

  “I don’t know,” she said in a whisper, feeling like a fool. Like she’d been a fool for years. She touched the spot where he had injected her again and wondered what she had allowed him to do, but she couldn’t voice that doubt in him.

  “You’re my friend, Ingrid. No matter what happens, that hasn’t changed. But you’re not Chinese. There’s a line there, between us.” His head bowed as his shoes toed a crack in the floor.

  “I never realized how big that line was.”

  “You’ve changed today, too. It’s not just about me.”

  Ingrid wanted to argue with him but stopped at the realization he was right.

  “I just want to know who you really are,” she said.

  “When I figure that out, I’ll let you know,” said Lee, pivoting on his heel to meet her gaze. Sadness lingered in his eyes, and she wasn’t sure why. “You do the same for me.”

  CHAPTER 9

  “A bored soldier’s worse than a starved dog,” said Cy. He squinted as he looked through the wall of bushes along the Suzukis’ front yard.

  “Boredom can be useful,” said Lee. He crouched, knees jutted out. “They might be more eager for a distraction.”

  Cy glanced over, a skeptical eyebrow raised. “These fellows are in San Francisco, a port famed for its debauchery, and they’re stuck here.”

  Here being the quiet, Japanese-dominated residential street Ingrid called home. Now it was quieter than ever. Vehicle and foot traffic had dwindled to almost nothing as the Durendal blocked half the thoroughfare. Defiant neighborhood boys, one with a baseball bat in hand, dashed over to touch the backside of a tread. They scampered away as though they were on fire.

  “You said there are five soldiers total?” Ingrid asked. From their vantage point just across the street, she could see only two on the front porch.

  Lee nodded. “Two on the porch, two on the sidewalk, and one inside the Durendal.”

  Still sounded like awful odds, even without the tank. “You’re sure there aren’t any inside the house?”

  “That’s not how they typically handle these affairs,” Cy said. “That captain knows there’s a shortage of geomancers here, so he likely intended to keep Mr. Sakaguchi under house arrest until more wardens arrive. To a passerby right now, it looks like these men are here to protect Mr. Sakaguchi after the explosion. The soldiers will have already searched the house, and I imagine there’s a surprise or two inside, in case.”

  Ingrid snorted. “A surprise, like a cat bringing a dead mouse to the doorstep as a gift.”

  She leaned on one hand to keep her balance in a low squat, even as the narrow skirt she was wearing hobbled her knees like a roped calf at a rodeo. Lee had acquired clothing to replace her soiled dress—a simple work smock in periwinkle blue, paired with a coarse cotton apron. To complete the look, she had coiled her hair into a tight bun. She looked like most other working women of the city, but probably most other women weren’t about ready to cut slits in their skirts so they’d maneuver better in order to break into houses.

  The costume didn’t allow her to conceal Mama’s pistol either. Cy hadn’t wanted the weapon, so she left it with her things at the workshop.

  “These surprises wouldn’t be fatal, likely,” said Cy.

  “Likely. There’s a comforting adverb.”

  “My people have had an eye out,” Lee said. “There are just the five. They do a loop of the house and yard every five, ten minutes. It varies. There’s no way to sneak in, front or back.”

  His people. Why did that distinction make her feel so sad and frustrated now?

  “This lot’s young, too, all of them likely daydreaming of being the next Roosevelt,” Cy said with a particular grimness. “Bet they’re talking up plans to paint the town red once they’re finally cut free.”

  “As long as they don’t plan on painting Chinatown red, fine,” said Lee.

  “The Durendal would make that easy,” Ingrid said.

  A strange darkness glinted in Lee’s eyes. “That time will come soon enough.”

  “You could steal the tank,” she said.

  “If it were at all possible,” Lee murmured.

  Cy gave Lee a look of disgust that said more than words, and all three of them focused on the Durendal again.

  The Durendal’s body contained gentle swells like calm ocean waves. A turret mounded at the top. The metal skin lacked obvious seams; seams meant points of vulnerability. So did individual wheels. The Durendal rolled on two treads, each as wide as a man.

  Technological marvel that it was, in her eyes it was an ugly, intrusive metal box, a machine of war that didn’t belong on this stately street with its glorious shade trees and shingle-sided homes.

  The long gun barrel tilted to one side and aimed at her bedroom window. From her singular encounter with Captain Sutcliff, she doubted that angle was an accident.

  “Why even bring the tank down?” she asked. “They could park any A-and-A vehicle here and wait around for us to return home.”

  “It’s all for show, Miss Ingrid. This Captain Sutcliff may have his suspicions, but after the auxiliary explosion and the gunfire here, other people will have put two and two together to realize something’s afoot with the wardens.”

  Lee nodded. “Even if they suspect Mr. Sakaguchi of something, he is Japanese and a warden. They’d probably need an Ambassador here to take care of things, not some captain.”

  An Ambassador. She doubted they’d send Roosevelt either. A hard chill shook through her. If the Unified Pacific knew that a tong held Mr. Sakaguchi, they’d assassinate him just to prevent him from being used as a weapons manufacturer.

  “The A-and-A wouldn’t need to show restraint with me. I’m just a secretary.” She couldn’t hold back her bitterness.

  “There’s also power in being underestimated,” said Cy, his gravelly voice soft.

  Lee looked at Cy. “You know, I’d like to see how you plan on stopping a Durendal.”

  “I imagine you wou
ld,” Cy replied in a long, even drawl. The man and boy stared at each other until Lee broke eye contact with a laugh.

  “No point waiting around. Time to play the diversion.”

  “Please be careful, Lee.”

  He shrugged away her concern. “Just one piece of advice—when I say ‘fan kwei,’ shut your eyes tight and look away.” He crawled about five feet away and glanced back at Ingrid, his expression softening. “Don’t come after me. You be careful, okay?”

  “As careful as I can be while sneaking past five armed, bored soldiers and a Durendal,” she said. If she was injured, he’d know. Everyone on the peninsula might know.

  Lee crept off and Ingrid scooted closer to Cy. Even with her nose near the boxwoods, Cy still carried his particular scent of turpentine and ink. From somewhere down the block, a female voice sang in Japanese, the words high and tinny as they drifted from a Graphophone or Marconi at full volume.

  Cy tilted an ear. “Is this whole street Japanese?”

  “Yes. The whole neighborhood is, really.”

  “My father used to wonder, sometimes. China’s being cleared of the Chinese so that the Japanese can settle there, but it seems they’ve done the same here, without any threat of violence. In Atlanta and Seattle, you can wander whole sections and see nary a word of English.”

  Cy certainly spoke a lot of his father. It was obvious he held tremendous respect for the man.

  “Mr. Sakaguchi’s made the same observation. He and Mr. Roosevelt would discuss the matter over scotch late at night, when I wasn’t supposed to hear. ‘A sly invasion,’ Mr. Roosevelt called it.”

  Japanese dominated the upper class. They received preferred treatment under the law. The entire economy of the United States depended on their technological might. Ingrid had grown up with the social order—and in a Japanese household—so it was difficult to imagine things any other way.

  “Pardon. Roosevelt the Ambassador?”

  “The same. They used to be friends, until last year. They just plain stopped talking.”

  Cy made a thoughtful grunt. “He’s the one Ambassador I’d want to meet, but only under pleasant circumstances.”

  Yes. Not in an interrogation. Much as she liked Mr. Roosevelt, there was a grim toughness to the man. There had to be, for him to be one of the Twelve. She wouldn’t want to be on his bad side.