Call of Fire

by Beth Cato

  “We’ll do everything we can to keep you safe,” he said softly.

  “I know, but you can only do so much. An autocar could veer onto this sidewalk. A tile could blow loose from a roof.” She motioned above.

  “Try to keep positive for your own sake, too.”

  “That’s another reason to find Mr. Sakaguchi. He’s the sort of optimist who can stand in the middle of a tornado and be grateful for the brisk wind.” She smiled at the thought of him.

  “We’ll find him. Have faith.”

  Faith. Mama hadn’t raised Ingrid to be the churchgoing sort, and she hardly knew what to believe now. In her brief talk with Papa, he had referred to himself and Ingrid as being like gods of old, gods that would be abused by any people who knew of their true power.

  Lee’s gun weighed down her coat pocket. She’d asked him to aim true if he had to shoot her. She wondered how steady her hand would be if she held the barrel to her own skull.

  Cy’s steps slowed. The Front Street Police Station was just ahead. “There’s a lot of risk just walking in that door to sign up to see Roosevelt,” he murmured. “Far as we know, Blum has distributed wanted posters for you across the whole west.”

  “An officer looked me in the face yesterday and didn’t recognize me.”

  “Things can change in a day. I’d rather you wait out here. If I can see Roosevelt right away, I’ll fetch you.”

  She took a steadying breath and nodded. “I’ll wait right over here.” She motioned to an alcove to one side of the door.

  His gaze raked over her as if to memorize her features, and he hopped up the stairs and inside.

  Ingrid took shelter, her hood pulled as far forward as possible without blinding her. People walked by with baskets of vegetables and baby carriages and wheeled carts of goods. She studied everyone, her hands in her pockets. The gun was cold against her right knuckle, while kermanite clinked softly against the fingers of her left hand. She heard no chimes and sensed no presence as she had the day before. It seemed like the qilin were satisfied that they had recovered the Crescent Blade.

  A brick building across the way wore a painted advertisement for Genghis Khan Cigars. The colorful figure anachronistically wore full samurai armor. Ingrid snorted softly. Mr. Sakaguchi called that sort of thing a “realignment of history.” Japan had taken many figures from mainland Asia, like Genghis Khan and even Confucius, and rewritten history to make them native Japanese who traveled abroad. After all, it simply wasn’t possible for primitive peoples of Mongolian or Chinese origin to do such extraordinary things. They had to be Japanese.

  The rain slowed and stopped. A sudden burst of sun made her squint at the glare, so she was startled as Cy rejoined her. “T.R.’s not in. So they say.” He jerked his head, and he and Ingrid walked on. “I jotted a note that I have something of vital importance to the Cordilleran Auxiliary and Warden Sakaguchi. The officer said Roosevelt’s in meetings all morning, so I shouldn’t expect anything for hours, if I hear back at all. I left our mast number to receive a reply.”

  “But if he does turn us in, that leads the UP back to all of us,” she whispered with a slight surge of panic.

  “I know, but if I rented a mailbox, we wouldn’t be able to get a reply from him tomorrow. As we discussed yesterday, every action we take carries a risk.” He tapped his elbow against hers.

  Cy was right, of course. It was just one of the myriad dangers they faced. And speaking of risk . . . “The letters from Papa said he stayed at a boardinghouse here in Portland for some years,” Ingrid said quietly. “At one point, he mentions it’s on Front Street and that he has a favorite tavern nearby called Edgar’s Coin.” She had spent an hour the night before skimming over Mr. Sakaguchi’s deciphered text to double-check the exact reference.

  Cy arched an eyebrow. “I know he wrote in code, but that seems foolishly specific.”

  “It was in one of his more recent letters. He’d been hiding successfully for about twenty years. Maybe he became careless, took the freedom for granted.”

  “I’ve been living the same kind of life for a dozen years now. I try not to give in to that carelessness, but yes. It is a real risk.”

  Ingrid recalled that Cy said he’d used a full alias for years but finally decided to go by his middle name of Cypress. She wondered now if that had been foolish of him, but she also understood his need to be true to himself. “I thought we could visit this boardinghouse. Maybe someone there knew him, or he left something behind.”

  “What name did he go by here?”

  She bowed her shoulders. “I have no idea.”

  “We can still take a gander at the place. I think I recall the tavern you mention. Its sign is prominent down the way.”

  “Thank you, Cy. It might not come to anything, I know . . .”

  “Your father wronged you greatly, but you still want and need to understand who he was. If this errand’ll help, it needs doing,” he said gently.

  And with those words he reminded her of why she had fallen in love with him so very quickly. Ingrid was glad he walked a step ahead of her so he couldn’t see the raw emotion in her face.

  Edgar’s Coin proved to be an easy landmark to locate. The three-story structure featured a placard out front with a coin upon a large spindle. In the wind, the coin spun to reveal carved heads on both sides. The disreputable nature of the place was obvious, too. At that hour on a Saturday, grungy men lined the wraparound porch and jabbered without a care for the sensitive ears of passersby. Tobacco smoke created ground-level fog.

  Ingrid and Cy paced up and down the block to find the nearest boardinghouse. The tenement was one of many wooden structures squeezed between the street and the river. The front steps creaked underfoot in a way that screamed for Ingrid to move fast or the weathered wood might well collapse. Dense metal banging noises carried from a nearby shop while dogs barked in an incessant chorus.

  Beside the front door was a small sign, easy to miss from the street, with letters in sloppy black paint: boardinghouse sophia stone propieter.

  “Pro-pie-ter. Does that mean she makes pies?” Ingrid asked, giggling. Spelling errors were an endless source of delight to her.

  “This isn’t the most pleasant of neighborhoods, but pie could be a redeeming factor. As my father would say, the only way to make pie more holy is to serve it at Communion.”

  Ingrid snorted softly. Fitting wisdom from an Alabama family. “I bet you’d like Mama’s recipe for dry apple pie. It converted Mr. Sakaguchi to the ways of pie. If we ever get a decent kitchen for a time, I’ll make it for you.”

  Cy flashed her a grin as he held the door wide. “All I can say to that is ‘Amen.’”

  There was a staircase directly ahead; a parlor wrapped around it. Echoes caused Ingrid to glance upward as she pushed back her hood. The ceiling stretched up high, a second-story railing forming an almost complete circle above. A few male voices carried from another room. No one emerged to greet them.

  “What do you reckon to do?” Cy asked, voice low. He held his hat in his hands.

  “Ask if anyone remembers a man who looked a lot like me? He lived here off and on for ten years. He only left last year. Someone has to know him.”

  “Papa? Papa!” a girl’s voice screeched from above. By the time Ingrid glanced up, all she spied was a blur of movement. Feet pounded down the stairs. The girl leaped to a stop before them. She was young with creamy brown skin, a stick figure in calico and stained white stockings. A mismatched bow in kimono fabric was almost bigger than her head.

  “Oh.” The girl stared at Ingrid. “You’re a woman. Up there, I saw the top of your head, and your skin, and I thought . . .”

  Ingrid didn’t know what to think.

  A nearby door squawked as it swung open. “Mirabelle, what fuss you causing?” The woman carried a damp rag and a scowl that could stop a galloping horse. She looked between Ingrid and the girl and stood even straighter. “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. You. You’re Ingrid Carmichael.�
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  Ingrid glanced at Cy; his expression was grim. She knew by how he stood that he was ready to grab his Tesla rod if a threat emerged. “I am. And you are?”

  “I’m Sophia Stone. That’s my girl Mirabelle. My other girl Casey’s cleaning rooms upstairs. Never expected to see your face waltz in my door.” Her laugh reminded Ingrid of a barking harbor seal. “I’m your stepma.”

  Chapter 5

  “My stepmother?” Ingrid blurted. “No. You can’t be, he couldn’t—”

  “He could and he did.” The woman barked out another laugh. “Come along. We need to sit and chat a time.”

  Ingrid’s legs went wobbly as if her energy sickness had suddenly worsened. Cy’s broad hand rested at the small of her back to help her stay upright. She took in a deep breath, willed her legs to behave, and followed the woman around the stairs.

  Papa. Another wife. Two daughters. Mr. Sakaguchi had told her that Papa hadn’t behaved with discretion during his marriage with Mama, but Ingrid hadn’t considered this. The letters gave no hint. She wouldn’t have expected the man to stay celibate, but a whole other family?

  And a new surname of Stone. If Papa had a sense of humor like Ingrid, maybe that was his idea of a joke—a reference to kermanite.

  “You’re my sister?” Mirabelle trotted alongside her, her face softened with awe. Ingrid looked at the girl and saw her younger self. That same black, bushy hair that refused to be tamed by any comb. That walnut-toned skin. Brown eyes lined with thick lashes. Broad lips.

  “I suppose I am. You didn’t know about me?” she asked.

  Mirabelle shook her head. Her mother unlocked a door with a large skeleton key, then motioned the rest of them forward.

  Cy stopped at the door, his hat to his chest. “Pardon, but I should introduce myself. I’m Cy Jennings, a friend of Miss Carmichael.”

  Mrs. Stone flicked her gaze over him. “I’m sure you are. Girl, bring in two chairs, then go back to work.”

  “But, Ma—” Mirabelle quailed at her mother’s glare and retreated.

  This was obviously Mrs. Stone’s private room. The Western-style furnishings were modest yet well kept, the bed made. A side table hosted a chipped china vase and a drooping rose. Mirabelle carried in a chair almost as tall as herself, and Cy took hold and brought it the rest of the way inside.

  Mrs. Stone faced Ingrid, her arms crossed over a generous chest. Ingrid’s mama had been tall and thickly curved. Her Irish, Norwegian, and Swedish heritage had been clear in her wheat-colored hair and skin as pale as Jefferson Davis’s ghost. Mrs. Stone’s face was a bit different, but her body, her hair, her complexion . . . good God. Papa must have liked a certain type.

  Cy set down another chair and Mirabelle left, the door closing behind her. Mrs. Stone motioned them to sit as she fumbled in a drawer. Ingrid obliged, if only to rest her legs. Cy was more hesitant, as a lady remained standing.

  “You want to know how I knew you?” Mrs. Stone flung a card onto the side table by Ingrid. “Here.”

  Ingrid recognized it in an instant. “That was taken on my sixteenth birthday,” she said as she picked it up. She’d posed in Miss Rossi’s studio next door to the Cordilleran Auxiliary. The colors were rendered in sepia, but she recalled her pride in her sea-green dress in a very current kimono cut. Her hair was knotted in place by sticks, pins, and prayers that the style defy gravity long enough for Miss Rossi to get some decent shots.

  “I have all sorts of his nonsense stuffed in this drawer.” Mrs. Stone swirled her hand around, objects rustling and jangling. “You seen him? Did he tell you to come here? Last time he left, he said he was never coming back. That he stayed as long as he needed to stay.”

  Ingrid had no idea how to tell the woman that her husband was dead. Cy caught her eye, then leaned forward on his knees. “Ma’am, we hate to bear bad news, but he’s passed on.”

  Mrs. Stone barked out a laugh. “’Course he has. Was bound to happen. I figured it’d be his liver with the way he drank. Not like he did much else around here.”

  “Mirabelle and your other girl, they were close to him?” Ingrid wasn’t sure how to feel. She knew Papa was an unpleasant man, but at the same time, he had stayed with this family. They knew him. She’d been with him for a matter of minutes and he almost murdered her. And she had directed a two-headed snake to kill him.

  “Close? No one was as close to him as a bottle. Those girls adored him just the same, the way fools do. The way I did, ages ago.” She snorted. “He went by Abram Stone here, so you know. That’s the only way I knew him for years, but as he drank more, he talked more. He said he had another daughter down in California but that the dalliance with the mother was well over.” Anger flushed Ingrid’s cheeks, but if Mrs. Stone noticed, she didn’t care. “You saw him, then? Or did he call?”

  “I saw him briefly, at the end,” Ingrid managed to say. “Did he . . . did you know he could . . .”

  “The geomancy? Well, sure.” Mrs. Stone shrugged. Ingrid gawked, stunned that she spoke of the subject so readily. “That’s the only way he brought some money in. Sitting on his arse, siphoning energy from the earth to fill those rocks, selling ’em or trading ’em away.”

  Being a geomancer in Portland would have offered a covert way to make a living, to idle in the shadows of other official geomancers in the area.

  She thought of Mirabelle again. Ingrid had inherited powers no other woman was known to possess. What if her half-sisters shared the same legacy?

  “Mrs. Stone, how old are your girls?” Ingrid asked.

  “Mirabelle’s seven. Casey is nine. Our two boys, God rest ’em, would have been eight and ten this year.” She crossed herself.

  Brothers? Ingrid felt a mix of awe and acute grief.

  “My sympathies, ma’am.” Cy glanced at Ingrid, concerned. “Did they pass as babies?”

  “No. My boys were both six when they went. Dead in their sleep, just like in the old prayer.”

  If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take. A cold sensation crept through Ingrid’s veins. Papa had said that if he had known about her geomancy, he would have come down to California and smothered her in her cot. Six was the prime age for geomancy to manifest itself in a slim percentage of the populace. She’d been a tad younger than that when she had first taken in energy, and almost died of a fever that no Reiki or Pasteurian doctor could cure. Only kermanite could pull away her high temperature; it wasn’t until she was older that she began to vent power when she was angry.

  If Mirabelle and Casey were geomancers, it would be evident by now. Had Papa suspected that his geomancy might carry through his female line, and stayed here long enough to make sure the girls were normal? Something Papa had said implied that his mother might have been a geomancer, too.

  “I don’t know much at all about Papa or his kin,” Ingrid said, speaking slowly. “Did he ever say anything about his parents? His mother?”

  “He grew up in Hawaii, a wild urchin. I know that much. He never said a thing about his father. Not sure if he knew who the man was. His mother, he’d have to get truly soused to speak of her, and when he did, she was a figure of worship. The most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. A spirit or kami or some such. Her name was . . . Bucket? Pail?”

  “Pele?” The word choked out of Ingrid’s throat. Had Papa really said Pele was his mother?

  “Something like that.” Mrs. Stone’s lips curled. “He’d say she made him who he was. One time I answered him that she must have been a lazy lout, too. He backhanded me and never mentioned her again.”

  Mrs. Stone touched her cheek, flinching at the memory, and her expression shifted. Hardened. “You sure look a lot like him, even more ’n my girls. You want something, don’t you?”

  “We just want information, that’s all—” started Ingrid.

  “Is it about money? Most always is, isn’t it?” She assessed their clothes, contempt like sparks in her eyes. “I don’t have much to my own name but my place and my gir
ls, and Abram near took it all. He almost gambled my house away time ’n again. He drank my profits, ate my boarders’ food, ran off good customers by thieving from rooms. It was a sweet mercy of heaven the day he left. The girls mourn him like a lost cat, and I keep telling them the truth of it. You want to know Abram Carmichael’s legacy?” She spun on her heel and reached into the drawer again. “This!”

  Mrs. Stone flung dark pebbles at Ingrid. A few rocks struck her, but most pinged against the table.

  Cy jumped to his feet. “Now, ma’am—”

  “Don’t you ‘ma’am’ me, boy. This is my place. I aim to keep it best as I can for my girls.”

  Ingrid picked up the rocks. They were darkened kermanite, each about the size of a fingernail; as a battery, they were the right size for flashlights and other small devices.

  These useless rocks had been fully drained of power and turned almost black . . . but they didn’t look normal at all. Ingrid picked up each of the shards on the table and studied them in turn. Kermanite was fragile and would completely split under pressure, not crack like this. It certainly wouldn’t melt around the fissures like in these pieces.

  “What did this kermanite power?” Ingrid asked. “How—”

  “Hell if I know, hell if I care. You want more of it?” Mrs. Stone flung a small drawstring bag down on the table. The contents chimed together. “Here. Take that. That’s your inheritance. Useless rocks. Take the picture, too, or I’ll just burn it.”

  Cy grabbed the photograph and the bag as Ingrid stood. “We didn’t come here for anything,” she said. “I just wanted to see where he lived—”

  “Now you have. So get. Don’t bother me and my girls none after this. We might be kin but we’re not family.”

  Ingrid and Cy didn’t need further encouragement to leave. Cy shut the front door behind them. Tepid sunlight glinted through the clouds.

  “Well,” he said. “That had more twists than an opera.”