Awakening (Birth of Magic #1)

by P. T. Dilloway

  “Where?”

  “Scotland.”

  “Scotland?”

  “The land of kilts and haggis.” I glared back at him. “Something wrong with that?”

  “Well, I don’t know. I just thought—”

  “You’ll be a lot safer out of the country.”

  This finally did it. Beneath the coal dust his face was turning bright red. “This has gone far enough! You’ve kidnapped me and locked me up in this basement for hours. You won’t even let me pay my respects to Celia’s parents. Now you want me to leave the country too?”

  “I’d rather not leave the country either, but we don’t have much choice right now unless you want to end up somewhere worse than a basement.”

  He stared at me for a moment and I thought he might continue the argument. Then he shook his head. “No, I guess not. When are we leaving?”

  “After we go over some ground rules—and you take a shower.” I jerked my thumb towards the stairs. “There’s a bathroom on the second floor. First door on the left. You can try climbing out the window if you want to break your neck.”

  “No thanks,” he said.

  I followed him up the steps, though he didn’t make any attempt at escaping. I figured Ethan was smart enough to know he couldn’t make his break with me right behind him. Before he went into the bathroom, I said, “Keep the door unlocked. I’d hate to have to break in my own door.”

  “This is your house?”

  “My sister’s.”

  “I thought you said—oh. I guess that was all a lie too, right?”

  “Not entirely. I did live on a farm of sorts. A vineyard.”

  “Swell,” he said although he didn’t mean it.

  While he showered—a couple of times to get the coal dust off—I sat next door in my bedroom. There was nothing in there he could connect to the coven or to deduce that I was much older than I said I was. When I heard the water stop, I fetched my jacket from the closet and then stood by the doorway.

  Ethan came out a few minutes later in the suit, his face scrubbed so that it glowed red. As expected, the suit fit him perfectly, as if he’d bought it from Seville Row. With a hat on his head, the brim shadowing his face, it would be hard to recognize him as a modest student of Cuthbert College. “Does it look all right?” he asked.

  “It looks fine.” I handed the passport to him. “From now on your name is Tim Cooper. That’s what I’m going to call you in public and you’d better answer to it on the spot. Got it?”

  “I suppose so.”

  “My name is Elizabeth MacArthur. You call me that when we’re in public.”

  “I will.”

  “You’d better. You slip up and call me Stephanie or Sue and the jig is going to be up.”

  “I understand.” The redness in his face now wasn’t just from the scrubbing.

  “I got some suitcases downstairs in the parlor. You can look those over while I call a cab.” I left him downstairs in the parlor to inspect the items I’d picked up in Edinburgh. I didn’t usually need to call for a taxi, so I had to ask the operator to find a company for me. The dispatcher said they could have one in five minutes.

  I sat in the parlor as I waited. Ethan looked around at the mannequins and semi-finished dresses and suits. “Your sister is a seamstress?”

  “One of the best.”

  “Does she know—?”

  “Of course she does.”

  “You don’t lie to your sister. Just to your friends. If we were ever your friends.”

  I would have answered him, but the cab pulled up to the curb. I let Ethan handle the bags while I told the driver to take us to the harbor. There would be a ship leaving for Ireland tonight. By the time anyone noticed Ethan had disappeared, we would be halfway across the Atlantic.

  That was what I had hoped. It didn’t take me long to realize someone already knew Ethan wasn’t on the train to Boston. A black Packard began tailing us about a mile from the house. The driver was good, but I knew what to look for.

  I leaned back in my seat, trying to look casual, and then said, “Driver, I’d like to make a stop first. Drop us at Executive Plaza.”

  “Sure thing, ma’am.”

  “I thought we were leaving,” Ethan said.

  “Someone’s tailing us.” Before Ethan could turn to look out the window, I grabbed his arm. “Don’t look. There’s a black Packard about three cars behind us. He’s a G-man if I ever saw one.”

  “A G-man? You mean the FBI is following us?”

  “That’s right. Probably got your buddy from the War Department with him.”

  “He’s not my buddy. I never saw him before the other day.”

  I shrugged at that. “How do you suppose he knew what you were doing?”

  “I don’t know. Dr. Kendall—he’s the head of the department—might have said something. He was in the army during the Great War.”

  “That could be it.”

  Ethan’s eyes widened a bit. “Do you think they killed Celia?”

  Again I took the easy way out. “That seems pretty likely.” I hated myself again for lying to him, but there was no way he’d trust me if he thought I had killed Celia. He would never believe I’d done it in self-defense, not even if I could bring her back from the dead to sign a statement for the police.

  “But she didn’t do anything! Why try to kill her?”

  “Maybe they were trying to kidnap her and things went wrong. Celia wasn’t the easiest gal to manhandle.”

  This made Ethan smile for just a moment. “She was pretty spunky.” His eyes began to water as he no doubt thought about her. “Why did it have to be her and not me?”

  I put a hand on his shoulder. “I don’t know. Things just happen that way sometimes.”

  “It’s not fair.”

  “Most things aren’t.”

  ***

  Executive Plaza had been completed just three years ago. The bronze statues of various patriots ringing the central plaza still shone like pennies, not at all like statues back home, which had become encrusted with corrosion and debris. There were plans to put an ice rink in the heart of the plaza, but it wasn’t cold enough yet, leaving a great cement hole instead.

  Ethan and I walked along the edge of the hole, surrounded by thousands of others. It didn’t take much effort for us to blend into the crowd. I hadn’t seen anyone get out of the Packard, but they were probably here somewhere. If not, they would have friends covering the place. “Let’s move it,” I whispered into Ethan’s ear. I planted my palm into the small of his back to give him a slight push. “Head for the Robinson Building.”

  He plowed through the crush of people, towards the Robinson Building that had been finished at the same time as the plaza. It was the tallest building in the world at the moment and probably would be for a while with this Depression keeping anyone from building a bigger one. These skyscrapers didn’t look all that impressive to me, not compared to the old castles like the one the Nazis were using in Germany.

  The rest of Rampart City didn’t feel that way. There was already a tour group in the lobby, waiting to go up to the observation deck. I pushed Ethan towards this group. “Go with them. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

  “But—”

  “And don’t try running off either. I’ll find you.” I locked eyes with him so that he could see I was serious. The way he flinched told me he knew it.

  I went back to the plaza, merging with the crowds again. The stone faces of the G-men stuck out as if they were wearing signs so long as you knew what to look for. There were a half-dozen of them in all, though they probably had backup waiting around if things got rough.

  I walked right past the G-men without drawing so much as a glance. Maybe they didn’t have my description yet. Maybe they didn’t know Celia was dead and they were looking for her instead. I didn’t care; I didn’t want them.

  I found their boss smoking a cigarette in the shadow of the Washington statue. He kept on smoking the cigarette as I
pressed the barrel of my Colt into his back. I whispered into his ear, “Your boys are a lot better at knocking over rumrunners than finding a fugitive, aren’t they?”

  “Where have you stashed the boy?”

  “That’s my business, not yours.”

  “What’s your take? We can probably cut a deal.”

  “You haven’t got anything I want.” I gave him just enough of a shove to knock the cigarette from his mouth. “You mugs stick to what you know. I’ll take care of Fraser.”

  “You’re making a big mistake, lady. We’re the United States government—”

  “And I’m a taxpayer. That makes me your boss. Now beat it.”

  I left him standing there, not interested in his reply. He wasn’t going to have a choice about it, not in a few hours. By then we would be gone.

  ***

  I found Ethan on the observation deck, standing away from the rest of the tourists. The way he stared out the glass, he probably thought he could see Celia if he squinted enough. I let him alone for a minute, taking my own gander at the city. From up here you could see the broad expanse of the city, different from Paris and London but impressive in its own way. I looked past the skyscrapers and office buildings to the tidy old houses like where Alexis and I lived, out to the dirty tenements and warehouses by the harbor. I tried to savor it; this might be the last time I got to see it, if things went badly.

  I put a hand on Ethan’s shoulder, prompting him to jump. “Hi,” he squeaked. “Where did you go?”

  “Taking care of our tail. Let’s go.”

  It wasn’t hard to find another cab outside the building. This time we really did go to Central Station. I studied the schedule for a moment and then whispered to Ethan, “Get us two tickets to Baltimore.”

  “Baltimore? But that’s south of here.”

  “I know. They aren’t going to look for us there.”

  “Oh.”

  I pressed some money into Ethan’s hand and then leaned against him like a lover—like Celia. He winced at this, but to his credit he didn’t make a scene there in the station. I let him do all the talking, like a big strong man should. I listened closely in case he tried to pass along a hidden message, but Ethan wasn’t devious enough for that kind of game.

  The train for Baltimore would be leaving in twenty minutes, not soon enough for my taste. As we sat on a bench to wait, I kept my eyes on the beat cops roaming around. None of them were giving us the eye; the War Department must not have gone that far down the ladder yet. Ethan whispered, “Can you let me go?”

  I figured he meant to let go of his arm, not to set him free. I obliged, though I stuck close enough so we wouldn’t seem like strangers. “I’m sorry about that. I was selling the cover.”

  “Did you kill Celia?” he asked. “Did you get rid of her so we could be together?”

  “Of course not. I’m just doing a job.”

  We didn’t say anything before getting on the train. I didn’t try leaning against Ethan again, content that no one was going to pinch us here. At my direction he took a seat at the back of the car, so that we could make a quick exit if it came to that.

  From the way his face clouded over as the train got underway, I knew he was thinking about the train bound for Boston, the one where he’d lost Celia. I also knew I couldn’t say anything to make him feel better about it. There was nothing anyone could say to make that kind of pain disappear, especially not this soon.

  Rampart City wasn’t so much as a smear on the horizon when Ethan finally spoke. “I don’t understand any of this,” he said. “It’s just an experiment. It probably won’t even work.”

  I shrugged. “Someone thinks it will.”

  “That’s crazy.”

  “It’s a crazy old world.”

  He stared at me for a moment. “I think I liked you better as Sue Johnson.”

  “I liked me better as Sue Johnson too.”

  “If you don’t mind my asking, how did you become a—?” I silenced him with a glare before he could finish it. He got wise and said instead, “Is that what you always wanted to do?”

  “No, but I didn’t get much choice about it,” I said. I would have liked to be a simple farm girl, Madame Deveaux or later, Stephanie Braun. Either would have been preferable to this life. “This is what I’m good at.”

  “There aren’t many ladies in your profession, though, are there?”

  “More than you might think.”

  “Don’t you ever hate having to tell lies all the time?”

  “In this business you have to lie.” I looked him in the eye. “It doesn’t mean I have to like it.”

  We didn’t say anything until the train rolled into Baltimore. And then it was only basic pleasantries. Ethan fetched our bags while I hailed a cab. “We’re heading down to the docks,” I told the cabbie.

  “No problem, sister. Your husband need any help?”

  “He’ll be fine.” I sat in the cab to wait, discreetly looking around for any new tails. So far, so good, I thought with a sigh.

  ***

  We’d been walking the docks for ten minutes before Ethan consented to let me help with the bags. “Where are we going?” he asked.

  “I’m looking for a boat.”

  “There are boats everywhere. It’s the harbor.”

  “Got to find the right one.” Despite that I hadn’t noticed any tails on the way here, I was still hesitant about getting on any of the ocean liners. The G-men weren’t the brightest, but it wouldn’t take them more than a day to figure out we hadn’t left from Rampart City. There were only so many other cities that would make sense, Baltimore among them. That was unless they thought we were heading west or across the border to Canada.

  But in my business it didn’t pay to take chances. The more discreet we were about our transport, the better it would be for us. That meant making other arrangements.

  The perfect vessel was a tramp steamer called the Gardenia. I saw a couple of hands milling around on the dock and nudged Ethan in the ribs. “Ask them where they’re heading,” I hissed.

  “You want to go on that?”

  “It’s not the Queen Mary but it’ll do,” I said. “Ask them.”

  Ethan was a good boy, a college student unused to talking to the kind of old salts who worked on tramp steamers. He tried clearing his throat to get their attention but they didn’t take any notice. “Excuse me—”

  “Beat it,” one snapped.

  Ethan glanced at me, asking wordlessly for help. If I still looked older I would have shouted at the hands in their own language, one riddled with curse words. As a cute young woman, though, I could speak another language entirely. This involved opening my jacket and flouncing towards them, pushing my breasts out as much as I could as I walked.

  This got their attention easily enough. “Could you boys help us? My husband and I just got married and we were planning to go to England for our honeymoon, but the shipping line lost our reservations. We’re looking for another boat to take us. Would you know one?”

  One of the ship hands smiled, displaying only a couple of stray yellow teeth. “This here boat is heading to Liverpool. We’s got room if’n you’s want.”

  “That would be wonderful! How soon are you leaving?”

  “Bout an hour from now.”

  “How much would it cost for two tickets?”

  The ship hand shrugged. “Don’t rightly know. Have to talk to the cap’n bout that.”

  “I see. Could we see him?”

  The ship hand spit out a wad of tobacco and then smiled again. “I s’pose we could arrange that.” He turned to his mate. “Leroy, go see if’n the cap’n’s up yet.”

  Leroy waddled up the gangplank to the ship, leaving us alone with the other sailor. His eyes didn’t leave me, or specifically my chest, the entire time. Though Ethan had protested it earlier, he pressed close against me, probably out of fear this brute might try to rape me right there on the dock. I wasn’t worried about it, knowing a solid
kick to the groin could solve that problem quick enough.

  The captain staggered down the ramp a few minutes later. He had greasy black hair he probably hadn’t combed since the Hoover administration and the smell of whiskey clung to him enough I could smell it from the top of the gangplank. His smile displayed a few gold fillings, like a storybook pirate; he needed only the parrot on the shoulder to complete the illusion.

  “Leroy said you folks were looking for passage,” the captain said.

  “Yes, we are. If you could help us, we would be ever so grateful.”

  “Be glad to help you. Course you know this ship ain’t much for the creature comforts.”

  “That’s fine,” I said. I pressed closer to Ethan. “So long as we’re together is what matters.”

  The captain leered at Ethan. “That’s a good woman you got yourself there.”

  “She is,” Ethan said without any warmth. “How much for two tickets?”

  The captain scratched at his scraggly beard. The price he named was enough for two steerage tickets on a luxury liner; he was savvy enough to know we were desperate to get out of here. Ethan glanced at me and I nodded. “That’s fine,” Ethan said.

  I passed the money to him and he pressed it into the captain’s hand. “Very good,” he said. “This way, if you please. I’ll take you to your stateroom myself.”

  Ethan paused at the top of the ramp, looking back for just a moment at Baltimore and the United States in general. For all he knew, he might never see either again. Whether he would or not would be up to me. I gave his arm a squeeze and then we followed the captain onto the steamer.

  Chapter 11

  The “stateroom” was more like a prison cell. The cells at the Bastille had actually been more spacious, not that I’d gotten much of a chance to measure them during the Revolution. The bunk beds looked slightly more comfortable, though the mattresses shrieked like a banshee when I helped Ethan onto the lower bunk. I got a bowl in his hands in time for him to throw up in it.

  It turned out Ethan hadn’t spent a lot of time on boats. Having grown up in Rampart City, he’d never needed to go out on the water. He needed an entire day to get used to it, during which I spent most of my time emptying his bowls over the side of the ship. This amused the hell out of the sailors, whose only attempt at helping was to suggest we tie Ethan to the stern to cut out the middleman.