Pacific Fire

by Greg Van Eekhout

  Blazing and happy, he stood and offered Gabriel a rough, freckled hand.

  “Lord Argent, thank you for accepting my invitation.”

  Gabriel didn’t offer his hand in return, because he didn’t want to find it hacked off and pickled for sale in one of the market stalls.

  “I’m not a lord. I’m director of the Department of Water and Power.”

  “Ah, just a humble public servant who oversees a vast network of dams, reservoirs, aqueducts, canals, locks, pump stations, and pipes threading into the tiniest capillaries, all laid out in a thrumming mandala of magical energy. You’re not some clerk, Gabriel. You’re the chief water mage.”

  “You know Max,” said Gabriel.

  “Your hound, of course.”

  “Max is my assistant director, assigned to special projects,” Gabriel corrected.

  Otis gave Max a nod. “No disrespect intended. I admire men of ability, and Assistant Director Max—no last name?—Assistant Director Max still has the reputation for the best nose in the kingdom.”

  Hounds didn’t have last names. They were recruited as children, imprisoned, osteomantically altered, and trained. Whatever they were before was irrelevant. Max could have chosen a last name after Gabriel freed him, but it would have been arbitrarily chosen, and Max was not an arbitrary sort of man.

  Otis’s eyes twinkled. “What do you smell now, Assistant Director Max?”

  Gabriel was about to put a stop to this, but Max obligingly took in a deep, noisy sniff.

  “I smell smarmy.”

  Otis laughed and nodded, as if he’d plotted the course of this small talk to land exactly here, on this note, at this moment. “Would you like to see my most recent acquisition?”

  “I don’t see how I can say no,” Gabriel said, resigned.

  Otis escorted them past the well-tailored henchmen stationed just outside his door, down a hallway lined with more henchmen, and then into a cavernous space of bare concrete floor and concrete pillars soaring to a thirty-foot ceiling. The walls were massive stone blocks, and spelled out on them in black ceramic tile were things like TRACKS 1 AND 2 and old canal names. At the far end of the room was an arched tunnel opening.

  “This was the old subway,” Otis said. “The cars were so red and shiny they could light up the tunnels, even in the dark. I think Los Angeles lost something when she let the water mages take over the transportation system.”

  “I don’t know,” Gabriel said. “You should see the underground waterfalls beneath Pasadena.”

  Otis took them into the tunnel, their footsteps echoing off the walls. The distance was lit with new fixtures and wiring that did little to dispel the sensation of entering the belly of an ancient, calcified whale. There were no henchmen along the route, which meant Otis didn’t fear attack here. More pointedly, he didn’t fear Gabriel here.

  From the tunnel, they emerged into another station. Gleaming brass chandeliers cast warm light, and in what was no doubt a nontrivial bit of retrofitting, a palatial fireplace crackled where the next tunnel opening ought to have been. Above the fire were mounted the twelve-foot-wide antlers of a Megaloceros californis, the extinct giant elk. Most osteomantic bone in Los Angeles had been dug up from the earth and from the La Brea Tar Pits and broken into fragments, ground into powder, heated or cooled and mixed and messed with by osteomancers to leech out their magical essences, and then consumed to transfer those magical essences to whoever ate or smoked them. But these antlers were perfectly intact. Gabriel estimated their value as enough to buy two or three Beverly Hills mansions.

  Otis hung them as decoration.

  Behind a massive redwood banquet table stood Sister Tooth in full armor and regalia. Twin incisors from a griffin rimmed her helmet of polished bone, which revealed only cold stone eyes and glimpses of white cheeks. Her breastplate came from the single scale of a Colombian dragon. At her hip, she wore a dragon-tooth sword. The rest of her armor came from hundreds of linked teeth, from osteomantic fossils and from the mouths of living osteomancers. She bowed slightly in greeting and chimed with tones that made Gabriel’s spine tingle.

  Sister Tooth’s bodyguards, her praesidentum, remained standing in a row behind her as she took a thronelike chair at the table.

  Gabriel knew Max well enough to see how all the magic in the room was driving his senses mad. He pulled out a chair for him, but Max shook his head no. He’d look stronger standing. It would also make it easier to run away.

  “A bone sorcerer, a merchant master, and a water mage walk into a bar,” said Gabriel, claiming a chair. “But aren’t we missing a few players?”

  There were none of Sister Tooth’s rival osteomancers here. No Mother Cauldron. No glamour mages. No representatives from the triads or cartels.

  “We’re at war,” Otis began, as if that explained the absence of others. “And we have been for ten years, since Daniel Blackland killed the Hierarch. No one’s in charge, and the kingdom suffers.”

  “The Hierarch’s rule wasn’t short on suffering,” Sister Tooth said.

  Gabriel laughed at the understatement, but Otis pushed on.

  “There are no big people left in LA. The big people are dead or moved on. And what’s left isn’t power. It’s not control. It’s just people like us now, medium-sized and insecure.”

  “And fewer of us every day,” Gabriel observed. “Your war with the Council of Osteomancers is getting bloody.”

  Sister Tooth narrowed her eyes at Gabriel. “It’s not all due to Otis. The Alejandro drowned in his swimming pool last month. Which wouldn’t be so remarkable if the same thing hadn’t happened to my head of security.”

  Gabriel shrugged. “Swimming is dangerous.”

  Otis folded his hands on the table. “And in retaliation, the Council obliterated La Ballona Dam. How many people died in the flood? And wasn’t your Ivanhoe Reservoir turned to sand last month? And your hydroelectric plant at Pyramid Lake burned to a crisp by salamander resin? You don’t have to call it a war. Maybe it’s just squabbling. Maybe it’s just sport. But whatever’s going on between our organizations, it’s nasty, and it’s costing lives and resources. And while we rip ourselves apart with our internal problems, the outside world is noticing. Our borders used to stretch from Bakersfield to San Diego. We’ve lost territory in the north to Northern California, and in the south to Mexico. We used to consider Japan and China our trading partners. In another few years, we may be their spoils. I’m even hearing of incursions over the Nevada border. However cruel the Hierarch may have been, he was our open paw. Stick a finger too far inside, and he’d tear it off. We need something like that now.”

  Gabriel poured himself a glass of water, and everyone watched him as if he were playing with a grenade. He was only thirsty. “Otis, if you think I’ll accept you as the new Hierarch … Don’t take this the wrong way, but of all the horrible people I’ve met, and believe me, I’ve met a bunch of them, you have to be the fourth worst. I’d elevate you to third worst, but you’re relatively easy to kill. And you, Sister Tooth, as Hierarch? You’re too hard to kill. No. Not either of you, nor any other individual, nor a new formation of the Council of Osteomancy, and unless you’re serious about supporting my proposal for a republic, what am I even doing here today?” He drank. “No disrespect intended.”

  Otis continued smoothly. No doubt he’d expected the nature of Gabriel’s objection, along with its length and pitch. “I’m not proposing a new Hierarch. I’m proposing a triumvirate. The three of us, allied against other rivals, united in mutual interest, and numbered for balance.”

  Sister Tooth seemed unmoved. “We three are powerful, but even if we joined our resources, we’d still be outnumbered. Our rivals will form their own alliances, and they’ll have the power to gore us.”

  Otis leaned back in his chair. The corners of his mouth quirked in amusement. He’d delivered his patter. Now, for his inevitable trick. “Boys,” he called out to the air, “bring in the bone.”

  It took two forkli
fts to bring the “bone” from the tunnel. It was a skull, sleek and streamlined and at least thirty feet long. A high, bony ridge bisected the brow like a sail. The eye sockets were caves big enough for Gabriel to shelter in. It lacked a lower jaw, but the teeth of the upper were fearsome scimitars, built for cutting through griffin hide.

  Max put a hand on the back of Gabriel’s chair to steady himself. His eyelids fluttered. From his reaction, Gabriel knew the skull was authentic, and richly, deeply osteomantic.

  Sister Tooth’s white cheeks flushed pink. “Is that … a Pacific firedrake?”

  “Mm-hmm,” Otis purred.

  The species had been identified by a single tooth said to exist in the Hierarch’s Ossuary. The records that came with it indicated it was a spoil of war, taken from Northern California in the Conflict of 1934. Just one tooth, and the Hierarch’s possession of it was the cause of the War of 1935.

  Except for the lower jaw, Otis had a complete skull.

  “Bribe or threat?” Gabriel asked.

  “Neither,” Otis said, standing with a flourish. “A proposal. A project. A collaboration. One that will give us the strength we need to overcome any hint, any shadow, any whisper of a threat from Northern California or Mexico or South America or the United States or China or anyone else. A weapon. A tool. A power. All the power we need.”

  Now it was Gabriel’s turn to lean back in his chair, though not with Otis’s affected humor. He was genuinely confused. “That’s a very, very fine piece of bone, Otis. It’s honestly the best I’ve ever seen. And I’d love it if someone could get Max some saltines, because it’s clearly potent enough to make him queasy.”

  “I’m fine,” Max said, his voice rough.

  “But even with all the osteomancy packed in this skull, it’s not equal to the power of the Northern Kingdom, not when combined with everyone else who might have a problem with us declaring ourselves the three-headed king of Southern California.”

  Sister Tooth composed herself. “Lord Argent is right.”

  And now Otis allowed a little of his real smile to break through. It was a cold smile, and, Gabriel had to admit, a very winning smile.

  “It is, indeed, a very good bone. And it cost me dearly in treasure and blood. But it’s not my only bone. I have in my stores the makings of a complete Pacific firedrake skeleton. As well as bits of tissue. Armor. Even hide. And what I don’t have, I can make.”

  “More confused now,” Gabriel said.

  “I’ll make it plain, then. I can make a living dragon.”

  “Impossible,” Sister Tooth said.

  But Gabriel didn’t think so. Otis wasn’t the kind of man who’d gather the realm’s most powerful osteomancer and chief hydromancer in a room and unload an avalanche of bunk on them. He must believe he could make a living dragon.

  His need for Sister Tooth was clear enough. She had skill, and she had alliances with other osteomancers, even ones outside Southern California. But what else would it take to build a patchwork dragon? What did Gabriel have that Otis would need?

  The answer was, of course, prosaic.

  “You need electricity.”

  “A lot of it,” Otis affirmed. “Your wave generators can provide it.”

  “Bone, magic, and power, and we make Los Angeles strong enough to control this part of the world. I like it. Audacious yet simple.”

  “So,” Otis said, pleased. “We have an agreement.”

  “The beginnings of one, maybe,” Gabriel allowed.

  “And Sister Tooth?”

  “How can I pass up the opportunity to work with such exquisite magic?”

  Otis called for champagne to toast their new partnership. It arrived on a smart silver trolley that had been readied just outside the room. A white-suited henchman was there with a saber to slice off the top of the bottle. There had been very little risk that the bottle would have to be sent back, unopened, or that the henchman would never get to use his sword. There was no chance that the ice in the bucket might melt because the meeting took longer than Otis calculated. Otis knew what he was selling, and he knew his buyers.

  The henchman struck the bottle with his blade and celebratory foam gushed out. Otis filled the glasses and raised his own.

  “We have a lot of work to do, but before we get too ahead of ourselves, there’s a critical resource we’ll need.” He paused, and Gabriel counted out the beats. “To Daniel Blackland,” Otis said. “And the treasure he stole.”

  TWO

  Daniel pricked his finger with a copper needle and squeezed two fat drops of blood into the Salton Sea. He gazed across the water and waited for the feeble waves to carry his blood away. The water shimmered blue in the distance, all the way to the craggy desert hills on the far shore, but closer up, it was oily brown, like thinned gravy. It stank of chemical fertilizer and bacterial decay. This was not a pleasant place. Few people came here. Which made it perfect for Daniel and Sam.

  His shoes crunched along the white-sand beach, which wasn’t actually sand, but the pulverized skeletons of millions of dead fish. Once, this had been a resort for aristocracy, a Palm Springs with water, an oasis in the middle of the Mojave Desert. Marvelous palaces used to line the shores. Luxury barges plied the waters. Barons and baronesses sipped martinis while being fanned with palm fronds like pharaohs. Now, the sea was a slow-motion disaster.

  The water splashed as the fish fed on his blood. When he arrived here a few weeks ago, the fish were just descendants of the tilapia and corvina tanked in for sport fishing, but over the course of days he’d fed them small bits of osteomancy and transformed them into grakes. The predatory fish had a taste for magic and provided a decent alarm system if anyone came across the sea for him. And if he stayed here long enough, someone surely would. There’d be bounty hunters and leeches and hounds and duelists and assassins and kidnap specialists. There’d been enough of them in the ten years since he’d fled Los Angeles that he considered them inevitable. Their corpses littered roadside ditches and parking lots all across the land. Much preferable to know they were coming and move on before they got too close.

  He was just about to turn from the shore when the whine of a boat engine drifted across the water. He spotted a small craft several hundred yards out. Nothing unusual about that—morning anglers still set out from the trailer parks scattered along the shore. But this boat was surrounded by a glimmer of copper-amber sunlight winking off disturbed water and churning fish. The grakes smelled magic.

  As the boat drew closer, Daniel made it out to be an open inflatable of the sort commandos used for amphibious assaults. The man steering it wore a blue windbreaker, and his single passenger wore a tan suit. Clearly, not out for tilapia.

  Daniel decided to kill them before they reached shore. Blue sparks snapped beneath his fingernails.

  The man in the tan suit stood in the boat and waved both arms over his head.

  It was Gabriel Argent.

  Daniel kept the kraken electricity in his hands.

  As the boat approached, he noticed that Argent’s hair had thinned a little over the last ten years, and the lines in his face deepened, but he looked healthy and prosperous. Power seemed to agree with him.

  The man steering the boat was his hound.

  Daniel allowed them to fetch up on the beach, and the hound, Max, tossed over a barbell weight to anchor the boat while Argent walked carefully along the hull and leaped to the beach, managing not to get his expensive loafers wet.

  “It’s been a while,” Argent said, offering a handshake.

  “You don’t want to do that with me,” Daniel said.

  Gabriel looked to Max.

  “He’s charged with kraken storm,” said the hound.

  Daniel let some tiny blue arcs of electricity dance between his fingers.

  Gabriel pointed to his DWP lapel pin. “It’s a bad idea to attack the director of the Department of Water and Power while he’s standing next to seven and a half million acres of water. Besides, if I meant you ha
rm, I wouldn’t have dumped three ounces of hippogriff-infused tea in the water to warn your fish.”

  “Let’s not be the kind of people who talk to each other more than necessary, Gabriel. What do you want?”

  “Where’s the treasure?”

  “Safe, and none of your business.”

  Argent gazed up at the sky, uneasy. “Can we talk indoors? Some of the LA osteomancers have been working on crows for aerial surveillance.”

  Daniel hadn’t been aware of that. It was a disturbing but useful thing to know.

  “Thanks for that,” Daniel said. “We can talk in my trailer.”

  He took Argent and Max through the dead neighborhood of Bombay Beach. Other than the occasional rusted soda can or discarded television, the timber frames and crumbling foundations of destroyed homes were all that was left of the housing development. Grim faced, Argent took in one of his department’s most conspicuous failures. The desert was never meant to have a permanent, inland sea, despite his predecessor’s engineering and magic.

  The raked earth around Daniel’s trailer was undisturbed, as were Daniel’s osteomantic wards. It had taken Daniel weeks of effort and pain to draw enough fire magic from his bones to craft them, but he’d done good work, and any sorcerer or magic-charged lackey who crossed a ward would die in a swirling inferno.

  The trailer was a 250-square-foot box. The only furniture was a pair of camp chairs, inflatable mattresses, and sleeping bags. Duffel bags sat near the door for a quick escape.

  Max took in quick, short sniffs, analyzing residue magic in the walls and fibers.

  “Home sweet home,” Argent said.

  “Just for the last few weeks.”

  “That’s a long time for you.”

  “My truck broke down. The lady who runs the café down the road took me on as a cook and I stuck around long enough to rebuild the engine. I was about ready to head out again. Now it’ll be sooner, since you found me and I don’t want you knowing where I live.”