Call of Fire

by Beth Cato

  “Is there a home nearby where you go to play? Where you know people?” Ingrid asked, giving Fenris a slight nod of gratitude for his succinct words.

  “Hai. Mrs. March’s house down at the corner.”

  “Grab that scarf from the hook, please?” Ingrid motioned to Fenris, taking care to avoid saying his name. “I’m going to cover your eyes, Kenji, so you don’t have to see anything else in the building. We’ll get you to Mrs. March, and she needs to call the police and report what happened here.”

  “You can’t stay with me?” he whispered as he squeezed her hands.

  Hold it together, she told herself. “We have to hurry if we’re going to save your friends.” She caught the tossed scarf. It was soft wool, the sort a gentleman would wear. “Also, please don’t tell the police much about us. We shouldn’t be here.”

  “I’m glad you were,” Kenji whispered. He squeezed her hands again.

  “I’m glad we were, too,” said Ingrid, and wondered if she would ever again sleep without nightmares.

  Chapter 15

  “Never in my life have I seen so many canvas-back trucks,” Ingrid said.

  She, Cy, and Fenris disembarked from a rickshaw at the southernmost entrance to the largest dock along Elliott Bay. Since this location catered exclusively to larger-class vessels, Cy hadn’t included it in their search for the Palmetto Bug, and Ingrid was grateful for that. From the entrance alone, she could tell that the dock was huge. Her legs ached in anticipation of the walk to come.

  The embarcadero was a creeping glacier of autocars, carriages, rickshaws with both people and goods, and bicycles. Behemoth- and Tiamat-class vessels hovered above like bloated whales, with naval vessels below. A deafening roar descended on all sides. The airships emitted throaty rumbles that reverberated through Ingrid’s chest and down through her feet.

  The large airships required mooring masts that stretched as high as skyscrapers, with wide buffer space between each station to accommodate for the wind. Automated cranes assisted in loading and unloading pallets of goods with high whines and hoarse grinds of gears. Vehicle wheels rumbled, horns tooted, and everywhere men talked and yelled and whistled.

  As luck would have it, it had also begun to rain. This added to the cacophony with the heavy sloshing of wheels through puddles and water pattering on metal and the muffled drumming of droplets on broad airship envelopes.

  “We still have an advantage here,” said Cy, pressing into the throng of humanity.

  “Really? Do tell!” said Fenris.

  “If the Russians have the boys simply flung in the back of a truck, they’ll need to drive all the way to their ship to try to haul them inside with any secrecy. On foot, we’re faster than the street traffic.”

  “Never mind that the kidnappers were gone from the auxiliary before we even arrived, and drove away in a kermanite-powered vehicle,” growled Fenris, shoving past a stevedore. A Behemoth-class airship with a Unified Pacific flag hovered overhead; several Japanese naval transport ships were docked below it.

  “Fenris, can you swallow the sarcasm for once?” asked Ingrid. “Please, please, help me entertain the fantasy that the kidnappers are still here.”

  Fenris cast her a brief, apologetic look.

  Cy hesitated a moment to fall into step beside Ingrid. An autocar horn blared to their right. The potent stink of fish and motor oil almost made Ingrid gag.

  “Before I forget, here.” He passed her a rounded pouch the size of her fist. By the telltale clinks, she knew it contained kermanite. A glance inside confirmed this, and that the stones were empty.

  Cy ducked his head in a way that signaled embarrassment. “Yes, those are from the auxiliary vault.”

  They briefly separated to allow a rickshaw with a trailer to pass. Ingrid frowned. “I already had the extra stones that you passed along in case Kenji needed them. You can’t just empty their vault—”

  “Yes, I can. I know the potential of your power, Ingrid, and that you don’t want to harm anyone. This is for the public good, and your own. Be mad at me if you want, but I don’t regret taking those crystals.” His gaze was level, challenging. She gritted her teeth and dropped the pouch into her left waist pocket, where she kept the other empty kermanite.

  “Well, well,” said Fenris, his voice almost obscured by the horrible noises all around. “Cy, you’re stealing things with defiant justification. I never thought I’d see the day.”

  “I hoped it’d never come to that day.” Cy looked up, squinting beneath the low-angled brim of his derby hat. “It’s a mercy that the nationalities of these airships are easy to spot from far off. I spy some more UP vessels, plus Japanese and British. There are two Russian ships about a half mile down.”

  Ingrid recognized the Russian diagonal-centered St. Andrews blue cross on a white background, as it had been a common sight at San Francisco docks as well.

  “You’re assuming that these Russians are actually serving aboard a Russian ship,” said Ingrid.

  “Stole the words out of my mouth,” said Fenris.

  Ingrid eyed a cluster of trucks on the roadway. Kenji had only described the attackers as large, which wasn’t particularly helpful to identify the men. Many workers at the dock were of hefty build.

  “Most of these ships are managed by Japanese or American crews. With tension as it is between Russia and Japan over Manchukuo, it’s unlikely Russians would serve aboard a ship with Unified Pacific flags. These men sound especially nationalistic, too.”

  Ingrid sucked in a breath as she looked around. “Cy?”

  “I see them.” His voice was a whisper.

  American Army & Airship Corps soldiers swarmed the dock like bees on a hive. They were not in tidy lines either, but scattered as if they were searching for something. Or someone. Ingrid tugged her hood forward and jammed her hands into her pockets. The Crescent Blade was a warm weight between her arm and torso. High security was to be expected here, what with the thefts at the smaller docks around town, but the sheer number of soldiers was daunting to behold.

  “They can’t be here for us?” asked Fenris, voice low. “If they’re here to help look for the boys, they sure arrived awfully fast.” Ingrid, Cy, and Fenris had waited near the auxiliary long enough to see Kenji run into the neighbor woman’s arms before they had dashed off to find a rickshaw.

  “Could be part of a buildup to move against the Chinese,” said Cy. Ingrid felt a pang at those words. Oh, Lee, please be safe. “Ingrid, it might be best to—”

  “I’m not leaving here. I can’t. There are a lot of other boys working here at the dock, but I’ll know the geomancers by their miasma.” She ducked her head lower, going quiet as they passed a soldier.

  Ingrid’s heart thrummed like the engine of the airship above. Please, God, let them be searching for the boys, not me.

  The gray cloud cover darkened as the hidden sun crawled toward the horizon.

  A crowd of sailors forced Ingrid, Cy, and Fenris to walk single file. A stack of crates had been knocked into the roadway, and men had engaged in a shouting match as they pointed at the flow of traffic. Several soldiers stepped forward to intercede.

  Ingrid glanced at the Unified Pacific vessels behind them. One was Behemoth class, the other Tiamat class; both were massive and capable of delivering hundreds of soldiers, though the closer Tiamat was the more likely transport in this case. Behemoths were favored for hauling heavy and large goods rather than people, or for dropping payloads of bombs on enemy cities. Both of the Russian vessels ahead were Behemoths.

  “Listen,” Cy said, and Fenris and Ingrid gathered as close as they could while still slogging forward. “If we’re separated, if any of us is arrested, the others need to make it back to the rink. We all know the local contact addresses from T.R. Keep that in mind, just in case.” They nodded; Cy had insisted that they memorize that information after their reunion the day before. “When we find these men—if we find them—we need to move quickly. That means me and Fenris. Ingrid
, you have to stay back.” Emotion rang clear in his voice. “I’m praying that the men are injured from their scuffles at the auxiliary. Anything to give us an advantage.”

  Through stacks of boxes, Ingrid watched a truck with a canvas cover back up to one of the Russian mooring masts. Cy and Fenris likewise noticed, all three of them simultaneously taking shelter between stacks of crates. Other vehicles and cargo shielded the backside of the truck from the heavy traffic along the embarcadero.

  Sudden prickles of heat flared against Ingrid’s skin. She recoiled slightly as something skittered inside the boxes before her. The whole stack was covered by a grayed and stained tarp, the corner edges revealing that the boxes were only about a foot in diameter. Still, there was no telling what sort of fantastic was inside, and she wasn’t sure if she wanted to find out.

  “Ingrid,” said Cy.

  Her gaze jerked back to the truck. Two men exited the cab and rounded the vehicle. A man emerged from the back hatch and pushed forward a smaller figure. A burlap bag covered the child’s head but that couldn’t hide the unmistakable blue of earth energy that emanated from his body. Another man shoved the child back inside the truck, his arms flailing as he berated his comrade.

  “It’s them,” she gasped.

  Cy leaned close to her. She expected some last words of wisdom, a reminder for her to stay back and safe. Instead, his lips crushed against hers in a hungry, desperate kiss that stole away her breath and made her heart speed up even more. He pulled back, a thousand poignant words shining in his eyes, and turned away with a ripple of wet leather.

  “Good-bye for a short while,” said Fenris, then shrugged. “That seems rather anticlimactic compared to Cy’s exit.” He scurried to catch up with Cy.

  Ingrid hunkered in the narrow gap between stacks. She was relieved that she was well hidden from passing soldiers and other traffic, but at the same time, she was keenly aware that she was cowering. She hated it, this powerlessness, when she knew she could be powerful. Useful.

  Cy and Fenris ducked and weaved among freight parcels that kept them fairly well concealed until they reached the area immediately around the truck. She bobbed to see around the crates and follow their progress. Her heart pounded out a fierce rhythm. The men had vanished from her line of sight.

  She pressed her fist against her mouth, as if she could stifle her panic. She couldn’t stand this. Male voices rang from close by, startling her. She tucked her hands inside her pockets and shrank against the crates. Her fingers found very different kermanite in each pocket—the unfilled rocks on the left, and on the right her father’s strange blemished stones along with the pieces Kenji had filled. Her thumb stroked the cracked, whorled surface of one of Papa’s, then found the filled kermanite. It was warm with power.

  Ingrid focused on the crystal and squeezed as if she could smash it like a tomato.

  A hundred repetitive auxiliary lessons flooded through her mind, about how kermanite worked, how geomancy worked, how energy flowed along specific proven parameters.

  With the pressure of her thumb, she shattered those rules.

  Power eddied beneath her touch, warm as scalded milk, then gushed into her hand, her arm, her entire body. She welcomed the increase in temperature with a small, delighted sigh, even as she told herself that she had to take it slow, she didn’t want to create pain, that she didn’t dare tax her body too much. The kermanite crunched in her grip. She slowly withdrew her hand to shake out a palm coated with splintered and powdered kermanite. Worried, she swiped her hand on her coat, but found that nothing had penetrated her skin. Kermanite could form sharp points, but it seemed that her desire to avoid pain had spontaneously formed a protective barrier over her skin as she took in power.

  Ingrid bit her lip to hold back a delirious laugh. She could pull power from filled kermanite! That meant she wouldn’t need to hurt herself to pull in power, that she could actually steal power from many of the most common machines around. This changed everything—if she could form a protective barrier at will, that meant she could shield herself from injury, too. It made her fully useful again to help Cy, Fenris, and Lee. She could actively assist in saving Mr. Sakaguchi!

  Of course, the back-and-forth flow of magic still claimed a mighty toll on her body. She couldn’t forget that.

  Ingrid peered around the crates but still couldn’t see Fenris and Cy, nor could she hear any fuss beyond the usual din of the port. Power sang in her veins. The energy that had made Kenji energy-sick and miserable for days felt to her like the warm exhilaration that came with dashing up several flights of stairs.

  Heat still radiated from the crates in front of her, too. She wasn’t defenseless now, and she was certainly curious. She eased the tarp up to her eye level.

  Sierran sylphs. Gobs of them. They littered the bottom of the cage like bird dung, their bodies gray and limp. She’d encountered a few sylphs like this once at the Cordilleran Auxiliary. Warden Calhoun had brought them in for boasting purposes. “These sylphs are all the rage in Japan,” he had said. “Drop them in hot oil and they are cooked within a minute. Gourmands say a Sierran sylph tastes like magic embodied in a single bite, quite a delicacy for anyone, especially a mundane.”

  He had made sure that everyone knew his handful of sylphs cost more than what most people made in a month of labor, too, and all for a few bites of food. Sierran sylphs weren’t simply regarded as a luxury item because of their flavor and their magical-sensory effects, but also because it was a challenge to catch them at all. In nature, they often rendered themselves invisible. Sylphs had to be drugged in order to be caught, and they had to be alive when cooked. Warden Calhoun had been rather enthralled by that fact.

  Ingrid regretted what Mr. Calhoun’s murder last week had meant for San Francisco, but perhaps it was fitting that he died an excruciating death by arsenic.

  Some sort of white crust coated the cage bars; it looked like salt. She pressed her fingertips to the coating and sniffed, and smelling nothing, gave it a quick lick. Yes, it was salt. As if the iron by itself wasn’t toxic enough to fairies. She rubbed the bars to take off as much salt as possible and swiped her fingers clean on her wet coat.

  The Russians were loudly arguing by their truck, their words indecipherable. Maybe now they were beginning to realize the errors of their horrific murder spree.

  With an eye to the truck, Ingrid reached into her interior coat pocket. To her relief, the newspaper packet didn’t feel compressed or sticky. With her body bowed to provide cover, the guandao tilting to press against her breast, she unfolded the paper to reveal the intact jamu-pan.

  “I’ll be damned if I let you sylphs be shipped overseas to be some rich man’s snack,” she muttered. She tore the sweet bread in half, taking care to show both halves to the sylphs in the nearest cages. Ingrid had read a great deal about such fantastics in her youth, and knew food was powerful for fairies. Giving the fae too large a portion implied subservience; too small a portion invited offense. Equal portions implied respect and equality, and marked the initiation of a business transaction.

  She took a bite from her half of the jamu-pan, then from the other half tore off a chunk to squeeze between the tightly spaced iron bars. The food landed inside the cage as strawberry-and-yeast-bread goop.

  The sylphs were sluggish to stir. A few fluttered toward the food, then more, then they hovered in the form of a shoe-sized cloud. Ingrid gasped in awe of them as their wings unfurled. At a glance, a fully visible sylph could be mistaken for a large gray moth but for the humanoid body attached to speckled wings. The mob descended on the piece of jam-filled bun.

  Ingrid’s gaze flicked between the truck and more of the cages as she repeated her actions. She rubbed salt from the bars, then made a show of sharing the sweet bread. The captive sylphs gorged themselves on their meager fare. Ingrid licked her fingers clean and wished she had brought more food.

  The sylphs, however, didn’t require much food to be revived. One instant, they resembled nothing
more than ashy leaves—the next, they were a fluttering mass pressed as close to the bars as possible without touching the salted iron. Not a crumb of food remained.

  “I hope that gives you enough power to free yourselves,” Ingrid whispered. “Maybe you can find your way back home to California, or maybe the nearby Cascades will suffice. I haven’t heard of any mountain sylphs here. I know your kind were an invasive species to North America centuries ago, but perhaps you can adapt here without harming—”

  She stopped whispering at the sight of Cy creeping along the side of the truck, a Tesla rod extended in his grip. He dashed at the four arguing men. Even with all the noise above and around, Ingrid heard the crack and smack of a Tesla rod striking flesh. One of the men slumped to the ground like a sack of meat. Cy danced back, his coat flaring as another man lunged for him. With a swipe and an electric flash, that man flopped down, too.

  Ingrid watched, heart galloping, energy surging as she readied a strike of her own.

  Fenris came into view as he clambered onto the truck’s back bumper. The old truck bounced with movement. A boy leaned into view. No bag covered his head, and his black hair stood wild. Cy helped him down, then reached for another child, then another. The boys all looked to be Kenji’s age, each attired in the same green shirts and tan trousers. They teetered in a cluster, the daze they were in apparent even at a distance.

  Fenris hopped out of the truck, lean and graceful. Cy bowed an arm over the boys and pointed, his gestures urgent. Like the sylphs, the boys were slow to start moving, but once they had accumulated momentum, it was crazed.

  “Help! Soldiers! Help!” they screamed and waved as they tore toward nearby soldiers.

  When Ingrid glanced back at the truck, Fenris and Cy were gone. She sank into the gap between the crates, trembling with relief. Thank God, thank God. Now she needed to skedaddle, too.

  Tingles traveled along her spine like the mincing steps of a spider. She froze. A strange, dank smell flashed in her nose, even stronger than the competing stenches of the port. She recognized the odor. Ambassador Blum. It was the scent of the dark Reiki she had used to heal Ingrid’s leg, the magic that the ki doc in Portland had said was still staining Ingrid.