Call of Fire

by Beth Cato

  “Redemption.”

  Chapter 8

  Mr. Roosevelt shifted in his seat. He reminded Ingrid of the youngest boys at the auxiliary, the six- and seven-year-olds who struggled to sit still in hard wooden chairs for hours on end. Roosevelt had that same relentless energy.

  “Redemption,” Ingrid echoed. She clutched her injured arm to her side.

  “I have written numerous books on the subject of war, from my first treatise on naval and airship strategies when I was almost your age, Miss Carmichael, to the book published this past Christmas on my campaigns against Spanish-held domains. I believe war to be an agent of change. It is an opportunity for a superior people to guide the less advantaged to the light of civilization. China is a nation with a storied past that refused to move forward in time. This past century, they have destroyed themselves through corruption, vice, and rebellion.”

  Cy leaned forward on his knees. “If China of the nineteenth century was an ill man, Mr. Roosevelt, then he was a man pinned down in bed by a dozen different nations, each forcing a different poison down his throat.”

  “Ha! I see why you have this Mr. Jennings as a companion. He and Mr. Sakaguchi would get along like beef and beer. Yes, certainly. China was vulnerable and other world powers circled it like vultures. Japan and the Unified Pacific first and foremost. This . . . this is where we have fallen astray.” He had begun to speak faster and faster. From past observation, Ingrid knew that if Mr. Roosevelt had freedom to move, he would pace as he spoke. It’s what happened when he fell into pedagogue mode. “As Americans, as the most privileged nation on this earth, it is our duty to be stewards to our backward brethren, to enable them to rise and stand with us, side by side. That is what I have worked to do on native reservations across the west, and among the lost souls of the Philippines.”

  The dark-skinned, the pagan, the Catholic. Ingrid suppressed a sigh. Roosevelt could be very selective in what he chose to see from his high pedestal.

  “Yet in the most rebellious parts of China, beneath Miss Blum’s direction, the Unified Pacific has initiated the policy of Sankō Sakusen!” The Three Alls Policy: kill all, burn all, loot all. She knew American military units followed their own less brutal yet still ruthless code, General Order 100. “This goes against everything America stands for, and yet this war is powered by American lives and resources.” Roosevelt practically snarled. “Meanwhile, Japanese settlement continues in both China and America. Japanese populations dominate our most affluent cities. Japanese language is taught alongside English in our schools. We are losing our identities as Americans, and that’s exactly what Miss Blum wants.”

  “Why does she care?” asked Ingrid. “She’s not even human.”

  Mr. Roosevelt’s eyes widened in surprise.

  “She made sure that I knew, sir. I think she gave me every hint except for showing her tails. How many does she even have? Do you know?”

  “I know better than to ask any woman her age, especially if that woman is a kitsune. She has spoken of Tokugawa and Nobunaga as contemporaries, and knowing her particular brand of honesty, I believe her.”

  Blum was oddly honest, true, though it wasn’t a positive character trait in her case. Mr. Sakaguchi had always counseled Ingrid against using moralistic and hyperbolic labels like “evil” to describe actions, but Blum was the closest thing to evil that she had ever encountered.

  “Oda Nobunaga and Tokugawa Ieyasu? That’d make Ambassador Blum at least four hundred years old. Four tails. Lord have mercy. No wonder she has such magical might. I feel a fool for assuming that she was close to my own age, but I imagine she relishes such deceit.” Cy shook his head.

  “It’s all a game to her,” said Ingrid. A sort of seduction, really, not that she had the gall to speak the word aloud in reference to Cy and Blum.

  Cy looked to Roosevelt. “You never hear of other fantastics seeking out her kind of human political clout.”

  “No, and that’s what makes Miss Blum so dangerous, and it gets to the heart of your ‘why’ question, Miss Carmichael. To elaborate on your metaphor, politics are the greatest game in the human realm. A chessboard where a single pawn equates to billions of people. It is a game that involves wit and perseverance, but Ambassador Blum’s greatest asset is her patience. She believes in the holiness of Japan, that its superiority goes even deeper than the emperor tracing his lineage to the goddess Amaterasu. For many centuries, Japan’s culture, language, and religions looked to China as an inspiration and ideal. Miss Blum has enabled Japan to be the upstart child and put the elderly parent in its place, and she’s having fun doing so.”

  “Other fantastic tricksters manipulate people on a whim,” Ingrid said softly. “You’re saying Ambassador Blum is willing to set up her pieces and wait centuries to see the results.”

  “That’s it exactly, Miss Carmichael. She delights in the long game, in the pursuit, in being foiled and reworking her strategy. She’s at her most dangerous when she respects her opponent, and she respects you.”

  “Aren’t I the lucky one?” said Ingrid. She felt Cy brush her side as a reminder that she wasn’t alone.

  The autocar slowed. Roosevelt peered out the window. “Ah! We are here at last.”

  They’d driven deeper into the hills. The window showed tall pines, thick bushes, and a gorgeous lodge of hewn logs. Mr. Roosevelt bounded from the car the instant the door was opened for him.

  “Siegfried! Rally the crew. We must depart immediately. Immediately! Seamus—”

  “I’ll pack your things, sir, and see to the rest.”

  “Excellent!”

  Ingrid started to open her door only to be intercepted by one of the other men. He gave her a nod as he opened the door wide. She stepped out, followed by Cy. The place seemed almost devoid of people. In the distance, she heard the sounds of horses and chickens, and plentiful birds in the nearby pines. The air smelled gloriously fresh, in stark contrast to the scent of smoke that had haunted her these past few days.

  Across the yard from the lodge, a large airship was moored to a mast far taller than any nearby trees. The orichalcum belly of the craft shone like a fresh penny, the curvaceous shape of it reminiscent of an illustration of a Spanish galleon from a book about eighteenth-century pirates. The envelope had the mottled coloration of antique paper. The whole thing screamed of opulence.

  Roosevelt whirled to face Ingrid and Cy. “Clean up best as you can. There’ll be food aplenty aboard. My Bucephalus is fast—”

  “Pegasus class is fast, sure,” said Cy, “but the great weight’ll slow it down, too. Our Palmetto Bug is a heavily modified Sprite. If our thieves know what they’re doing, they’ll make it to Seattle hours ahead of your ship. Mr. Roosevelt. Sir.” Cy offered a bashful bob of his head as he donned his battered hat.

  Ingrid knew Fenris would have said very similar words had he been present, though without the softness and smile at the end. He and Cy were so very alike in some ways. Oh, Fenris. Ingrid desperately wanted him to be safe and sound.

  Mr. Roosevelt barked out a laugh. “We’ll see about that! Siegfried! Round up the men. The race begins!” He pointed at Ingrid as he walked away. “Once we’re aboard, I want the full details of what happened since this Sunday past.”

  “Of course, sir.”

  Maybe reciting the awful events of the past week would distract her from thinking of what terrible things might befall Fenris and Lee, if they were even still alive.

  Cy’s smooth ways and easy smile convinced a member of the household staff to let him and Ingrid briefly speak in private in one of the first-floor rooms. The way Cy handled the matter, it didn’t even come across as improper.

  Once they were alone, he motioned to Ingrid’s sleeve. “Let’s get that properly bandaged now. There’s no telling when we’ll be alone like this again.” He opened up the laundry bag, pulled out one of his newly whitened shirts, and started to shred it. “Please don’t ever hurt yourself like that again.” She couldn’t see his face, but th
e pleading in his tone tore at her heart.

  “I can’t promise that.” She flinched as she tugged her sleeve away from the wound. Bleeding began anew. “I can’t bear to feel defenseless or useless. I need to do something.”

  In response to her pain, a blue miasma flared along the ground, its warmth lapping her skin. She eyed a set of prisms hanging in the window but they didn’t even jostle, nor did Cy notice anything amiss. Being farther away from Portland and its resident geomancers enabled her pain to agitate the earth just a tad.

  “That something might kill you one of these days,” he muttered. “I wish we could wash this cut. There’s no time.” He began to wind cloth around her arm, his moves confident. He’d done this sort of thing before.

  “I don’t like how T.R. talked about my power in front of his guards,” she whispered. “I tried to keep the conversation away from us while in the car, but that’s not going to work on his airship. He wants to know everything, and I’m not sure how much is safe to tell him, especially with more people around.”

  Still bent over, Cy glanced above the lenses of his glasses. “You did just fine. Get him to talk, especially about Blum. We need to know her weaknesses.”

  Ingrid gritted her teeth as Cy pulled the bandage tight, even as she welcomed another tiny well of energy. “The old tales say a kitsune’s hoshi no tama is supposed to contain part of its soul. Blum wears hers as a pendant. If we could steal or destroy that, perhaps we could prevent her from changing forms.” She thought a moment. “Stories also say kitsune hate dogs and dogs hate kitsune, but she’s so powerful that when she simply bared her teeth at the tosa inu at the police station back home, the big dogs whimpered like they’d been kicked.”

  “A four-tailed kitsune or worse. Christ.” Cy tied off the bandage and his hand trailed down to close over her fingers. “A difficult creature to kill, even without an ambassador’s ring.”

  She reared back slightly but kept her hand in his. “I’m surprised to hear you talk of killing, Cy.”

  “I’m a pacifist. Blum is against peace. She has killed billions and damaged the lives of far more. She won’t stop. She won’t be reasoned with. She won’t ever concede defeat in this game.” Exhaustion weighed his features. He looked older than his twenty-seven years. “I want to go home someday, Ingrid. I want to go to Wedowee. I want to see my mother there in the garden painting her calla lilies. I want to see my father smoking his pipe as he reads in the evening. Maggie . . . I want to see Maggie’s grave and cuss and holler at her for dying and leaving me a twin apart.”

  Ingrid could think of nothing to say, so she gripped his hand between both of hers. He closed his eyes for a moment, regaining his composure, then brought her left hand to his lips. His kiss to her knuckles was soft but she felt it like a spark on her skin.

  “I’m sorry to ramble in such a way,” he said. “Grief itches at me. I have to hope that if we can get Blum, maybe we can stop this war. Ease my pain, and that of so many others who have suffered. It sounds grandiose, I know . . .”

  “It sounds suicidal, really. But as you like to point out, we’re in this together,” Ingrid said in a perky tone. “Just so you know, when I told you that I’d try to bring about world peace, I didn’t intend to be so literal and prompt about it.” It seemed like she’d known Cy Jennings for years, not a mere six days.

  He smiled at her, warm crinkles lining his brown eyes. “You’re a woman of action. Just please, take care. Don’t purposely try to pull in power. It breaks my heart to think of how close you came to death in San Francisco. I don’t want to repeat that.”

  Arguing over this would do no good; neither of their minds would change. It’s not as if she wanted to die, or to struggle through this accursed fatigue. She just wanted—needed—to be useful. To not be dismissed as weak-minded, frail, and feminine, as she had been for so many years.

  Men’s voices carried down the hallway. Ingrid pulled her hand free. “The airship should be ready.”

  “Yes.” Worry flickered across his face, and she knew he was thinking of Fenris. Lee as well, she was sure, but it was only right that Fenris be central in his concern. Ingrid hoped that Fenris was guarding his tongue for once and that the thieves had no reason to see beneath his clothes.

  Ingrid touched Cy’s sandpaper-bristled jaw long enough to provoke a smile, and together they exited the room.

  After a lifetime of ground travel, Ingrid in the past week had boarded three very different airships. The Palmetto Bug was still shiny and new, built as it was of refurbished parts and odds and ends; Mr. Thornton’s ground lander airship had been like a mobile version of a gentleman’s den, all dark woods and the reek of tobacco.

  Mr. Roosevelt’s Bucephalus was something else entirely. As a Pegasus class, the gondola was taller, the feel of it more spacious and narrow at the same time. Light cherrywood paneling, ubiquitous orichalcum, and a thick burgundy carpet underfoot made the space warm and yet masculine. Ingrid ached to pry off her boots and let her feet sink into the carpet, but that’d never do in such company. There was certainly no Japanese-style footwear etiquette to be found here.

  Besides Roosevelt and his three men, there were five airship crewmen. None seemed flustered at the abruptness of their departure as they brusquely went about their duties. Ingrid and Cy were advised to stay midship, which included a kitchenette, lavatory, and a miniature parlor with plush chairs and a rather well-stocked liquor cabinet.

  Ingrid let her body drop into a velvet-upholstered chair. Cy lurked at one of the porthole windows a minute longer and then sat in the chair beside her. He frowned at the liquor cabinet and switched seats to face her. Ingrid recalled how he said his father had fought the drink.

  “Well! The race is under way.” Mr. Roosevelt entered the parlor with the vivaciousness of a child coming home from school. Ingrid and Cy stood, and they all sat down again at the same time. “We’ll see if we can catch this Sprite of yours.”

  Ingrid heard voices and footsteps in the hallway. Privacy was impossible here.

  “I’m curious,” said Cy. “You don’t normally see a Pegasus gunship remodeled to look like . . . a pleasure boat, but surely the armaments haven’t been completely removed?”

  “Certainly not. As an ambassador, I must have a conveyance that serves both social and defensive purposes. Augustinian does masterful work.” Cy showed no reaction to the mention of his father’s company. “Now, Miss Carmichael, I must know the truth of the events in San Francisco this week. Truth untainted by a fox spirit’s oversight.”

  As Ingrid spoke, she kept an eye on Cy, waiting for him to make a sign that she was saying too much. He remained quiet for the most part, his posture attentive. Ingrid explained what happened at the Cordilleran Auxiliary, how Mr. Thornton had feigned illness and exited before the explosion ripped apart the building and killed all the wardens, students, and staff but for her and Mr. Sakaguchi. Mr. Roosevelt accepted her creation of an energy-shield bubble with a thoughtful nod.

  He was much more intrigued by the news of the massive chunk of kermanite that had been stolen by the Thuggees. His eyes gleamed behind his spectacles. “Aha! In this I can outwit Miss Blum. Now I know the very place from which it departed the Bay Area, and the sort of vehicle required. The crystal would almost certainly be aboard a train in order to move any great distance.”

  “If the kermanite is recovered, what happens next?” asked Cy.

  “Abram Carmichael couldn’t have filled kermanite of that size, not even in a quake of that magnitude. Certainly, the size of the tremblor indicates that he wasn’t in constant contact with the rock or he would have died. I would guess that he was unconscious, likely drugged.” He glanced between them. “The Gaia Project, as you are aware, has been under way for many months now, long before this single chunk of kermanite was recovered. It’ll prove very useful, certainly, but a new engineer on the project found a way to chain together other unusually large pieces of kermanite. When your father was in China, Miss Carmichael,
he worked to fill those other rocks.”

  “How big were they, sir?” she asked.

  “The size of that laundry bag of yours, though not of that shape, of course.” Kermanite tended to fragment into finger-sized or smaller pieces, so that bulk was indeed unusual.

  Cy frowned, his fingers steepled against his mouth. “Which leads to the mystery overhanging all of this, Mr. Roosevelt. What single device needs that sort of power? What is the Gaia Project actually creating?”

  “It won’t be a secret for much longer, so I shall tell you—”

  “Why?” interrupted Ingrid. His forthrightness set her ill at ease. “Why tell us so much?”

  At that, Mr. Roosevelt granted her one of his trademark grins, his teeth boldly white and broad in contrast to his dark mustache. “A sensible question. I am telling you as a sign of respect and trust. I know you, Miss Carmichael. I’ve watched you grow into a young woman, and I know that you’re more than a woman. More than most men, too. You are . . . uniquely qualified.”

  “Am I like a Marine to you, sir? A force to be . . . deployed?”

  “In a sense, yes, though you’re of a covert nature. Anyone looking at you sees a mere servant, a secretary, and yet you’re highly educated, intelligent, and a geomancer of profound skill. Most soldiers are akin to bludgeons; you’re a scalpel, Miss Carmichael. You can cut where others cannot.”

  Damn it. Roosevelt was no better than Blum, really. To him, Ingrid simply served a different function.

  “And you, Mr. Jennings. I didn’t know you from Adam before today. Are you the bludgeon to guard the scalpel?” He laughed. Ingrid shot Cy a worried look, but he looked thoughtful. “As I said, it won’t be a secret much longer, but if some anonymous tip were to arrive at the offices of the newspapers in Seattle, I could be fairly sure of the source.”

  “So telling us is also a test,” Ingrid said softly.