The Wounded Ones

by G. D. Penman

  “Gentlemen, if you don’t point those somewhere else, I’m going to shove them up your asses.”

  She could hear one of the soldiers snigger but they still waited until their sergeant gave them the signal to lower their guns. Sully gave him a nod as she strode past, but it wasn’t out of respect. Most of the soldiers that the part of America that used to be Nova Europa could field had been on the British payroll until this little coup got up and running. She trusted them as far as she could throw them. Which from this balcony was actually pretty far, so that was a bad metaphor.

  She breezed past the swarming civil servants who were waving papers at her to sign and made meaningful eye contact with the one who had been offered up like a sacrificial lamb as her personal secretary this week. “I have a meeting with the Prime Minister in three minutes. I know that. Anything else I need to know?” The poor woman shook her head jerkily. The tangled bun of gray hair pinned to the back of her head started to unravel. She wasn’t going to last long. None of them ever did.

  In the cabinet room there were already various ministers and lords surrounded by their own buzzing hive of bureaucrats. Most of Sully’s retinue had dropped off at the door, but her secretary still hovered behind her like a mosquito suffering from stage fright.

  Some of the men in this room probably believed in a new American Empire—in equality and fraternity and whatever other nonsense Pratt had had students spray-painting on college walls all those years—but Sully was willing to bet that the majority were opportunists who couldn’t grab onto enough power back in Britain and were here now in America to take a little gamble. They might not have been the majority to start with, but that was the trouble with opportunists and career politicians, they were very good at gaining power and hanging onto it while lesser men got distracted by things like morality and fell to the wayside.

  Sully hated everyone in the room on principle, but the burning loathing that bubbled up in her throat was reserved for Prime Minister Pratt. A man who treated every favor he did as a debt owed and who had blackmailed Sully into her current position with the threat of deporting Marie along with every other vampire on the continent. She tossed herself into a seat by his right hand and smiled at him beatifically when he glanced up from the mounds of paper in front of him. He smiled right back. They sat and smiled at one another while Sully fantasized about hacking him open from navel to neck. The last few stragglers made their way into the room and the meeting started right on schedule.

  About five minutes later Sully started to tune it all out. Her opinion was not welcome on most of the subjects that they were discussing, as Pratt had politely explained after the third time Sully threatened to punch someone in the throat during a taxation debate. She was here to contribute on military and magical matters and to shut up the rest of the time. The conversation swung in her direction before long, as it tended to when the British were bombarding the city. Some lord, an overstuffed suit with a waxed mustache, was reporting on their allies’ preparations. “The United Nations and the Republic of America have worked in conjunction on military matters in the past, so their lines of communication seem to be wide open. Our other allies, who do not share a border or look to benefit from our continued independence, seem a little more reluctant to commit troops. There is much to be said for—”

  Sully spoke over him, “We don’t need every ally to send us an army. The British Land forces are tiny. Their garrisons on mainland Britain are miniscule. They’re spread too thin across their holdings. They have always relied on their navy and their Magi to maintain control. If you’ve got the Natives and the Republicans, we are good to go on an invasion.”

  Lord Wax-Stache blustered for a moment, then admitted. “Well, that is rather the problem. Neither group will commit. They have mustered their forces, but they won’t bring them over until our rather wild promises regarding demonic allies from Europe have been confirmed with some evidence.”

  “So they aren’t going to help until we prove we don’t need any help. Great. Great allies. Just what we needed.”

  Ogden cleared his throat from where he was standing by the door. The demon Mol Kalath hadn’t made it in past the magical protections laid against its kind, but the Magus was still nominally human enough to attend meetings. “Using the information that was provided to us, we have been making great strides toward bringing down the Veil of Tears and unleashing all the trapped demons of Europe onto the British Isles. We have only a few fine details still to iron out in the spell, then—”

  Sully snapped. “So it still isn’t ready and we can’t do a damned thing until you, your Magi and your pet demons are done fiddling with it. This is the same story that we have been hearing for weeks.”

  A muscle in Ogden’s jaw twitched, Sully could see it from across the room. “We are very close now. I would say less than a day of theoretical work remains before we can start the casting.”

  Sully slumped back into the soft leather of the seat with a grunt. After a long moment of silence while the politicians waited to see if she was going to launch into another tirade, they moved on to new business.

  The meeting dragged on for so long that the sun actually set on them, but Sully didn’t give one of the bastards the satisfaction of seeing her bored. She plastered on an attentive face and nodded along with whatever Pratt said like she was his little lapdog. The fact that his lapdog was silently plotting to tear out its owner’s throat wasn’t information that she needed to broadcast to the world. Pratt knew that he was going to get what was coming to him and Ogden probably had an inkling that there was some tension there, but the rest of them would just try to use the information as leverage.

  Sully wasn’t sure exactly when the meeting ground to a halt, but it must have been about dinner time, judging by the grumbling of the stomachs all around her. When the room came back into focus Ogden had vanished, probably not into thin air, and the rest of the scum were starting to drift away, with only a few still lingering to whisper into Pratt’s ear. Sully started to slink out of her seat, only for Pratt to tut at her and shake his head. She sank back down and tried not to grind her teeth. Sully’s secretary sensibly took that as a sign to make a break for it with her clipboard full of notes, although if the woman had any real sense she would quit before Sully’s temper got the better of her.

  One by one the parasites of the upper echelons of American government trickled out the door until finally only Sully and Pratt remained. He gave her an indulgent smile after he had finished signing papers. “Shall we order in some dinner? I hear that an absolutely marvelous little boutique Nipponese restaurant has just opened up in your old neighborhood. Raw fish served on little blocks of sticky rice. I could send a runner down and have us both satiated within half an hour.”

  “I’ve swallowed enough raw crap for one day, thanks.”

  “Perhaps some more traditional fare, then? I believe that there is a—”

  Sully snarled. “I don’t want to eat with you, Pratt. We aren’t friends. I work for you. Can we just get to the point?”

  “Ah, as tactful as ever. I am going to be relying on some of that famous tact of yours in the near future, as a matter of fact. You see, I find myself in need of someone who is accustomed to the vagaries of the Imperial Bureau of Investigation. Someone who might be able to inveigle themselves into an active investigation and report any relevant findings back to me in a discreet manner. Someone who is respected within the IBI, but not beholden to its power structures or its chain of reporting.”

  Sully slumped down in her chair groaning. Pratt could turn a yes or no question into a twenty-minute soliloquy on the difficulty of making decisions. “What’s the case and what do you think they aren’t telling you?”

  Pratt smiled again. “There have been a string of disappearances. No clear connections among the people who are vanishing. No signs of foul play. Just a steady stream of citizens of our new republic who are no longer t
here when someone comes to check upon them. The local constabularies have had no luck whatsoever in identifying the cause, or any methodology involved. There seem to be easily detectable traces of magic at every location. Indeed, there is an overabundance that renders the Schrödinger’s magical detection devices altogether useless, but otherwise no clues are presenting themselves.”

  Sully leaned forward to rest her elbows on the table. She was interested, despite herself. You could take the girl out of the Bureau, but you couldn’t take the Bureau out of the girl. “Yep. That all sounds like a case for the IBI. So why do you want me involved?”

  Pratt glanced nervously at the door. “Beyond my obvious faith in your oft demonstrated investigative abilities, the high levels of magical contamination seem to indicate that it is possible our demonic allies may have been involved in these abductions.”

  Sully whistled. “Wow. I can see why you would want to keep that one under your hat.”

  “Yes, you can understand why this is something of a political hot potato at the moment. Without the demons we lose Manhattan, and without Manhattan we lose the war. On the other hand, we can’t have them roaming around unchecked, feasting on our citizens as they please. This needs to be resolved discreetly, and I believe this may be better achieved through diplomatic channels rather than through the thorough and dogged police work of the IBI.”

  Sully nodded. “All right. What’ll you give me for it?”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “I told you before. We’re not friends. You’re a politician, asking someone else with power and influence to do you a favor. I might not like what you do, but I can grasp it, and if I need to use it, I will.”

  Pratt chuckled and settled back into his seat. “My dear Miss Sullivan, I have no idea what you could possibly want. You know that I cannot offer your dear Marie or her kind any further concessions without alienating some extremely important allies.”

  “I know all that. We’ve been over all that. I want justice. I want Ogden on trial the day that this war is over, and I want him to hang.”

  Pratt blinked. “My understanding was that the two of you had a rather convivial working relationship. Has he done something in particular to offend you?”

  Sully drew in a deep breath and launched into the speech she had been practicing in her head for months. “He is a mass murderer. The stunt that pulled Manhattan back from the Far Realms killed about three hundred people, give or take? I’m not . . . I’m not jumping down your throat for welcoming Manhattan back with open arms. I understand that we need all the firepower we can get. This is wartime, and decisions need to be made based on necessity, but when the war is over, I want him tried. I’m not asking you to round up everyone who followed him blindly. They were desperate people stranded a long way from home, but he was their leader. He led them down that path and a price needs to be paid for it. Ogden should be the one to pay it.”

  Pratt stared at her, his eyes unreadable. “You know, I believe that may have been the most you have said to me since I made you a general.”

  “Have we got a deal, Pratt?”

  He held out hand and they shook on it. “We have a deal, Sullivan. Make this problem go away and I will misplace Mr. Ogden’s pardon.”

  She forced a smile onto her face and resisted the urge to wipe her hand on her trouser leg. “I will get back to you on the IBI investigation as soon as I have something useful.”

  “Thank you, Miss Sullivan. I look forward to hearing your insights.”

  Sully walked out of the building like she was on a tightrope, keeping any hint of emotion from reaching her face. Pratt hadn’t argued about “political realities” or tried to make her feel like a petty idiot for asking for Ogden’s head. He hadn’t tried to explain that he was going to end up with an island full of enraged Magi that he had no real way of controlling without their anointed leader. Even if he had intended to give her what she wanted, he would have let her know how much it was costing him, so he could use it as leverage later. He was going to screw her over.

  November 3, 2015

  The Gobi Grill was a Mongolian joint on Staten Island. Of the different boroughs of New Amsterdam, Staten had always been the wealthiest and the most resistant to what the IBI used to call “foreign influences,” but even here, the Gobi stood out. Amidst French cuisine, Italian pizzerias, Greek salad buffets and stolid British pub food, it was the only place with anything spicy on the menu. Sully had always hated it, which meant that every time it was her partner’s turn to pick a take-out joint, the delivery came from there. On the late nights in the office, there was nothing that Ceejay had enjoyed more than watching Sully eat the spiciest thing he could find on the menu without flinching. Sully had always appreciated his sense of humor, even when she was the victim of it.

  Right on cue at twenty minutes to nine, Ceejay swaggered in through the door in a sky blue Ophiran suit. He spotted Sully sitting by the bar and spun on his heel to walk back out again. He made it as far as the street before Sully’s snort of laughter brought him back inside.

  “General Sullivan! Haven’t you won this war yet? I can’t sleep at night with all the banging on the barrier. You are so negligent. It is amazing that I didn’t steal your job years ago.”

  Sully got up to shake his hand but stiffened as he engulfed her in a hug. Softly he murmured, “It is good to see you.” Then he stepped back and was instantly back to his full braying volume. “Two coffees, please, and four Nai Wong Bao.”

  They settled by the bar after Ceejay had made a big show of yawning and stretching so he could get a good look around the place. There was no breakfast crowd to speak of—a few people were grabbing take-out coffee orders and there was an old Oriental man snoozing over a bowl of fishy soup in a booth. As far as Sully could tell, the Gobi never closed.

  The food was in front of them before Sully could get a word in. Ceejay asked, “You came alone? I thought you would have bodyguards and sycophants dribbling out behind you these days.”

  Sully scoffed, “Like I’ve keep telling you all these years, I can take care of myself.”

  He raised an imperious eyebrow. “I seem to recall your telling me that—just before I had to pull your ass out of the fire.”

  Sully prodded at the gelatinous white lumps on her plate. “What am I eating here?”

  “Steamed buns. They have custard inside. Very British. You should like them.”

  She took a small bite. Swallowing took some effort. Ceejay waggled his eyebrows again. “No?”

  “I didn’t miss eating your weird food.”

  “I’ve missed watching you eat my weird food. Your face—”

  She cut him off. “How’s business? They haven’t kicked you back down to the mailroom yet?”

  Ceejay chuckled. “I think that if there was no war going on, all the polite white people would’ve had me taken out back and shot by now. But since you keep dragging your feet, I get to keep being top dog in the IBI.”

  “Well, I’ll do my best to keep fucking up then. For your job security.”

  He gave a little mock bow of thanks, then tucked into his own buns as Sully tried to wash the texture out of her mouth with coffee. After a moment of comfortable silence she said, “I hear you’ve caught an interesting case.”

  “I catch all the interesting cases. I am like a net that hangs underneath a thousand useless constabularies, catching everything that isn’t completely obvious.” His voice was slightly muffled by the mouthful of food.

  “I was thinking about a specific interesting case. One that is almost as interesting as the one that I had just before I left the IBI.”

  He sighed. “I don’t know why I pretended this was a social call. You are here about work. You are always all about work.”

  Sully stared intently down into her coffee. “When things are settled and the war is over, there will be time to be friends
again. Hell, I might even apply for my old job. You could be my boss.”

  That earned her a belly laugh. “I can just picture it—‘Sully, I need you to investigate this terrible crime.’ ‘Ceejay, go to hell, I am hungover.’” His smile never faltered as he hissed, “Did you check that we are safe to talk here?”

  Sully let her arcane senses sweep out of her body and through the restaurant. She could feel the fire runes in the kitchen like a crackling pressure at the edge of her consciousness, and the alarm charms woven into the doors and windows vibrated softly against her gentle intrusion. Laid over all of it was the sensation of her own magic, an almost imperceptible bubble blocking anyone from scrying on them. “We’re good for now.”

  “No pattern,” he started. “These people, they seem to vanish with no logic at all. They go to bed one night and the next morning, poof. Nothing. It is not isolated to Nova Europa. The Northern provinces of the Republic have been losing people too. I know that the United Nations have lost some, but they don’t trust us enough to even give names or locations. They give me nothing but dates of the disappearances and then they expect everything that we have in return. Pricks.”

  “And the Schrödingers?”

  “They go haywire. Spike off the chart. There is definitely magic at play, but if any of our guys have a clue what it is, they are keeping it to themselves.” Ceejay knocked back the last of his coffee.

  Sully sipped hers. “Any theories?”

  “The smart money is on spies. Everyone knows that the British had them everywhere. Now that the hammer is about to fall, they are pulling them all out. The crazy power spikes may be some sort of pumped up portals to get past the blocks your friends cast.”

  Sully frowned. “That makes no sense .You don’t withdraw your spies when you are about to fight someone, you keep them in place so they can feed you vital intel—troop movements, morale on the ground. I don’t buy it.”