Pacific Fire

by Greg Van Eekhout

  Argent looked a little sad. “I’m not your enemy, Daniel. My mother was an osteomancer, like your father. She was killed in the Hierarch’s purge, like your father. Her magic and her body were consumed by the Hierarch, like your father’s. I successfully acquired power, and so did you.”

  “And you used yours to become one of the great dark powers of Los Angeles, and I take occasional work as a short-order cook. What do you want, Gabriel?”

  Argent fingered the brocade curtain. He seemed nervous. He’d taken a risk coming here.

  “I met with Otis a few weeks ago.”

  “Was he alive at the end of the meeting?”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  Daniel sat in one of the camp chairs. “Then it wasn’t a good meeting.”

  “He’s building a Pacific firedrake. A living one.”

  Daniel laughed. “Shut up.”

  “A living dragon out of patchwork pieces. I’ve seen the skull, and part of a wing he acquired from a dig in Siberia, and a sample of pyromantic essence. Max analyzed it and declared it authentic.”

  “I don’t care what Max smelled; you can’t make a living creature out of old parts. It’s called osteomantic revitalization. It’s the highest expression of the art. The absolute pinnacle. But it’s a dream. My dad spent years on it, and he didn’t even make a dent.”

  “Otis partnered with Sister Tooth,” Argent said, undiscouraged, “and a number of Northern California osteomancers, some defected, some abducted. I’m sure he also has some shadow partners I don’t know about. I’m providing him with power for a facility on Catalina Island where they’re building this thing.”

  “That’s sweet of you. What do you get out of it?”

  “Ostensibly, I get to rule Southern California with Otis and Sister Tooth as one third of a new Hierarchy.”

  “Then when you come up dead, Max will only have to narrow down the suspects to two.”

  The hound, who had been busying himself by sniffing the perimeter of the carpet, seemed to find this funny. His grim visage broke into the beginnings of something that, with work, might be developed into a smile.

  “You know I don’t want to be the Hierarch,” Gabriel said. “The only reason I’m still in charge of Water and Power is because I haven’t figured out a way to give it up that won’t leave the kingdom dry, drowned, and dark.”

  Daniel could have become the new Hierarch himself, if he’d wanted it. But like Argent, his ambitions didn’t run that way.

  “Then what do you get out of it?”

  “I get inside position on the project. I get to help make sure Otis never gets possession of a weapon of mass destruction.”

  Daniel stood up. “Well, that’s a relief. Obviously, Otis shouldn’t be running around with his own firedrake. Looks like you’ve got your work cut out for you.”

  “Show him the papers,” Gabriel said.

  Max handed Daniel a diplomatic pouch. He wouldn’t have opened it, but it weighed more than papers should, and he liked to know what strange things had been brought into Sam’s general vicinity. He unclasped the pouch and tried to cram his eyes back in their sockets. There were stacks of paper currency and rolls of gold and silver coins.

  “A bribe?”

  “Don’t get hung up on the cash,” Argent said. “Have a look at the documents.”

  “There’s got to be at least twenty-five thousand bucks here, and you’re telling me not to get hung up on the cash? Have you seen how I live? I’m not exactly bathing in doilies and caviar candles.”

  As Daniel continued to mutter about the squalid state of his life, he leafed through the rest of the materials. “Plans, diagrams, sentry posts, schedules … You must have some very efficient spies.”

  Gabriel said nothing.

  “So you’re providing electricity. That seems like an underutilization of a great water mage.”

  “The power is just Otis-style pretense. My involvement is merely a tacit agreement that I won’t sink Catalina with a tidal wave.”

  Daniel eyed him skeptically. “You can’t make tidal waves.”

  “No, I can’t. But there was a storm three years ago. It destroyed half the Port of Long Beach.”

  “Yeah, saw it on the news. That was you?”

  “No, but I took credit for it, and now Otis thinks I can make tidal waves.”

  “God, I miss Los Angeles like I miss chicken pox.” He tried to hand the pouch back to Argent, but Argent left it hanging between them.

  “Listen, Gabriel, I’m not kidding, my dad tried to make a living griffin. The Hierarch gave him the best tools and materials, no expense spared. My dad spent fourteen years of his life and a thousand times more money than you’ve got in this pouch. You can sew together all the bones and skin you want, and you can kettle-brew some semblance of dragon blood, but all you’re going to have at the end is an impressive piece of taxidermy. You need a vitalizing force. You need a source of coherent osteomantic energy equal to the creature you’re trying to bring to life. In the case of a Pacific firedrake, it’d take a power equivalent to the Hierarch himself.”

  Argent only arched his eyebrows and waited until Daniel got it.

  “The treasure?”

  Argent nodded. “A source of coherent osteomantic energy equal to the Hierarch. Exactly equal. If you think you were hunted before, that was nothing. You’re not just facing the usual nuisances anymore. Now Otis and Sister Tooth are united against you. You’ve got a whole new concerted effort to find you, kill you, and take the treasure.”

  Daniel looked out the window, across the road, across the ruins of Bombay Beach, out to the sea. The waters were calm and empty, broken only by a squadron of pelicans soaring low in search of prey.

  “Okay, Gabriel, thanks for the heads-up. Good luck with Otis and the firedrake.”

  “Daniel—”

  “That was your cue to get back in your boat and putter home.”

  “You know I didn’t come all this way so you could bury your head in a hole. The firedrake is your problem.”

  “Keeping the treasure safe is my problem.”

  Argent rubbed the bridge of his nose, as if he were developing a sinus headache. The chief water mage wasn’t used to having to persuade people. Usually, he could get what he needed by turning a valve.

  “Do you have people you love in Los Angeles?”

  Daniel didn’t think he meant that as a threat, but he didn’t answer.

  “If Otis and Sister Tooth get the dragon online, they’ll use it to make war. They’ll make war on Northern California. They’ll make war on Mexico. Maybe even on the United States. And they’ll make war against their own rivals in Los Angeles. You know the bombs the U.S. has? Imagine them in Otis’s hands. Thousands will die. Maybe millions. You ate half the Hierarch’s heart, and you have at least half the responsibility to keep the kingdom from burning to ash. If you won’t do it for the kingdom, do it for your friends. They’ll die in the same flames and earthquakes.”

  Argent set the pouch on one of the camp chairs. Daniel stared at it, not sure why he wasn’t picking it up and throwing it at Argent’s head.

  “The dragon goes online in fourteen days. Fourteen days to keep Otis from having his very own apocalypse engine. You’ve got all my intel. The cash is for supplies and operating expenses. Don’t try to contact me. Don’t visit my office. If you need to get my attention, just overwater your lawn and I’ll be all over your ass.”

  “That’s not funny.”

  “Max thought it was.”

  “No, I didn’t,” said Max.

  Daniel kept looking at the pouch, even after the water mage and the hound crossed the road and picked their way back to the beach, and their boat was just a thin white wake dissolving into the sea.

  * * *

  Sam was in a lot of trouble. He was supposed to be in Bombay Beach, washing dishes at the café, but he’d ditched the job, ditched the wreck of a town, and ditched Daniel.

  Taking off from the job wasn’t suc
h a huge violation, since he’d gotten permission from Faith, the owner. She’d even let him borrow her pickup truck, which, unlike Daniel’s, was capable of moving backward and forward and stopping without sounding like a horse giving birth to a sack of gravel.

  From the passenger seat, Valerie pointed into a field. “Park there.”

  Sam did as he was told. He would probably do anything he was told, as long as Valerie was the one telling him.

  She got out and Sam followed. Mounds of lumpy gray mud rose from the earth, some as high as five or six feet. Steam vented from craters, and every several seconds a mound would erupt, sending rivulets of mud down the sides.

  “Well, what do you think?” she asked.

  “I’ve never seen an actual, active volcano.”

  Pretending to give the surroundings a 360-degree appreciation, he performed a quick threat assessment: no other people, no other vehicles in sight. To his back, a few hundred yards of low scrub brush. Not much place for anyone to hide.

  On the opposite side of the field sprawled a shut-down geothermal plant. This, Sam didn’t like. Anyone or anything could be lurking in the maze of rusted pipes and tanks. But to get close to him, they’d have to come over the high chain-link fence surrounding the plant, or come through the gate, which was shut with heavy chains and a padlock. Sam would have plenty of warning.

  He took a deep sniff and smelled no magic.

  The place was safe enough for a first date.

  “Okay, technically, these aren’t volcanoes,” Valerie said. “I might have lied a little when I said I was going to show you volcanoes. These are just mud pots. Telling someone you’re going to show them mud pots isn’t as impressive as telling them you’re going to show them volcanoes.”

  “You don’t have to worry about impressing me. You’re impressive enough.”

  Was that flirty or just lascivious? Sam worried. He didn’t talk to girls much. He didn’t talk to anybody much. And when he did, most of the conversations consisted of things like “Coffee, black, to go” or “Is there a public restroom?”

  Up until this point, Sam had thought the date was going well. Not that he had experience upon which to judge. He wasn’t sure where people his age went on dates or what they did. But there were no theaters, malls, clubs, or restaurants other than Faith’s café around the Salton Sea, so not having a baseline for normal might not be too much of a handicap in these parts.

  And so far, Valerie seemed as happy and interesting as she’d been when he met her yesterday. He saw her coming out of the grocery with a bag of bread and dry pasta and eggs, just as he was going in to buy a little bag of donuts. The first thing that struck him were the freckles on her nose, and then her blue eyes, and then all her nice contours. In a desperate bid to start a conversation, he asked her for the time.

  There was some fumbling with her grocery bags that he skillfully helped her resolve as she checked her wristwatch. After five minutes they knew each other’s names, and Sam knew that, like him, she was new in town, living in Niland with her mom, and that she and Sam shared a hatred of this remote, desolate place.

  A day later, here they were, out on their first date.

  It probably wasn’t a date. But Sam chose to think of it as one so, if he should die today, he wouldn’t have gone through his entire life without ever having gone on a date.

  “Come on.”

  Valerie led Sam into the field. Cracks ran through the dried, putty-gray mud. It got gloopier as they came close to the mounds, splattering his shoes and the cuffs of his jeans.

  “It comes out in the wash,” Valerie assured him, her own shoes sinking in mud over the laces.

  That was good news. He could do laundry when he got back to Bombay Beach while Daniel was working at the café. He’d be in enough trouble for taking off without telling Daniel; he didn’t also want to explain how he’d gotten volcanic mud all over himself, because then he’d have to talk about Valerie, how he met her, who she was, and everything he’d revealed to her. Sam didn’t want to hear another stranger-danger lecture. In Daniel’s mind, the only safe person was a dead person, and he even had suspicions about some of the dead.

  “Watch your step,” she said, climbing the slope of a mound. He followed her to the top, more mud slopping over him. A crater the breadth of a laundry basket vented steam and gurgled. Globes of mud inflated and burst.

  This was one of those places where the thin skin of the earth broke open to reveal secrets from below: long-buried creatures, fossils, essences of magic, osteomancy. Daniel would always tell Sam when he smelled magic. He would suck it in through those thin nostrils of his, tilt his head back in his smug and superior way, and say, “Colombian dragon, remarkable for its armor plating. Its essence imparts imperviousness.” Or “Monocerus, for speed and brute force.”

  Sam didn’t have his nose. He snuck a deep sniff and smelled only sulfur and Valerie’s shampoo. It was enough.

  She wiped her palms on her thighs. “So where are you from? I mean, originally.”

  He automatically began to recite the current version of the cover story Daniel had devised. “San Diego. My dad took off when I was a baby and I never knew him. My mom died two years ago. Ovarian cancer.” He’d learned that if you blurted out blunt details, people would have questions, but they’d usually be the ones you were prepared to lie about.

  “I’m sorry,” Valerie said, with such apparent sincerity that Sam felt like a complete heel for giving her nothing but fictions.

  “Thanks. It sucks, but, you know.”

  She nodded, as though she did.

  “So I’m just traveling around with my uncle. He’s kind of a tramp, but he’s okay. We don’t stay anywhere very long.”

  She was gazing down into the crater and he couldn’t see her face.

  “What about you?” he asked. “Studying volcanology, or just really into mud?”

  She was from LA, she told him, the San Fernando Valley, mom and dad divorced, dad a shit who stopped sending money, mom out of work, friend had a house she wasn’t using in Niland, ergo, living there now.

  “What about school?” he said.

  Sam had never attended a regular school. For him, school was books scavenged from wherever, and lessons from Daniel. The idea of school seemed exotic and scary and attractive.

  “There’s a high school down in Brawley,” she said. “It’ll probably suck, but it’s got to be better than mud and dead fish. I kind of figured that’s where you’d be going. We could be the new kids together, bonded by our outsider status, reviled for not being cool while secretly being cooler than everyone. Maybe there’d be some deep, dark secret being covered up by the community, and we’d be the ones to solve it.”

  She smiled sadly, and Sam’s heart felt like it was swimming in his chest. Were her lips extraordinarily beautiful? Maybe they were just regular, unexceptional lips. Maybe every girl standing so close and crafting a future that included him had those lips.

  He was in love with her, which did not surprise him, because she was pretty and verbal and because he’d been in her presence for over half an hour. Half an hour was not even close to his falling-in-love speed record. There was the girl he’d made out with for two minutes behind the truck stop in Lebec. And the one who’d waved at him through the window of her family’s car outside Bakersfield. He didn’t know her name, but he thought of her as Darlene when he closed his eyes.

  “Maybe me and my uncle will stay longer,” he said. “Maybe I can enroll. I’ve never solved a mystery before, but I’m a fast learner.”

  Sometimes a wish spoken aloud could be a lie, and this was one of those times.

  “You got some mud on your face.” She brushed her fingertips over his cheek, and her lips parted, just slightly. He was crazy to have ever wondered if her lips weren’t the most beautiful lips he’d ever seen. He planted his feet to make sure he wouldn’t slip down the side of the mud pot, closed his eyes, tilted his head, and moved his face closer to hers.

 
; “Sam!”

  The familiar voice came from the roadside, where Daniel stood next to the sad pickup. There’d been no engine noise, no crunch of tires rolling up to park, no door slam. Maybe Sam had been too distracted to hear it. Or maybe Daniel had expended some meretseger magic to dampen the sounds of approach.

  The expression on his face was calm, but that meant nothing. Daniel could keep any amount of sorrow or fury from showing when he wanted to.

  “Your uncle?” Valerie asked.

  Sam grunted. “Let me go see what he wants.” He half climbed, half slid down the mud pot.

  “I didn’t mean to get you in trouble,” Valerie said.

  He stopped and turned to look at her, standing at the top of a runny, muddy mound like some triumphant explorer. He knew almost nothing about her, really. Maybe they didn’t have enough in common to sustain a friendship. Maybe they’d get bored of being school chums and they’d drift apart and things would trickle into awkward waves and nods as they passed each other in the hallways.

  And even that would be okay, because it was better than nothing.

  Sam crossed the field over to Daniel, and Sam saw the way Daniel looked him over, assessing him to see if he was okay, if he was injured.

  “I’m fine,” Sam said, waiting for Daniel’s anger to flare. He’d gone off without telling Daniel where he was going or who he was with. He’d put himself in danger of attack and abduction from leech gangs and worse.

  “I’ll be home in a couple of hours,” Sam said.

  “We’re leaving.”

  “Just like that. Again.”

  “Afraid so.”

  “Give me two hours.”

  Daniel shook his head sharply. “Now. Treasure hunters are coming, and not the usual sort. Your bag’s already in the truck.”

  So, back to measuring life by the rotating digits of an odometer.

  Daniel wasn’t just interrupting a kiss. He was slamming the door on a life that Sam could almost touch, one that promised more than coin-op showers at truck stops and hoping the motel had a swimming pool. A life that included the alien but attractive concept of friends.