Hard Magic: Book I of the Grimnoir Chronicles-ARC

  “Very good,” Garrett said, letting out a puff of smoke. “The personal beliefs of the Summoner tend to influence the form that the Summoned appear in, and they’re not bright enough to tell us about their home. Since ones conjured by westerners tend to look like devils or angels, people tend to make assumptions. So, do you at least have a theory as to where Power comes from?”

  Sullivan chewed his last bite of steak, thinking. “Oh, I do. Don’t mean I’m right, or that I can prove it. I think magic is a force. I don’t know from where. I don’t know if it is alive, or if it’s intelligent, but it picks people here and attaches itself to them. I can’t make heads or tails out of why it picks who it does, but some of us can touch a little piece of it, some more than others, and we can use that little bit to do something to influence the physical world. What we can do depends entirely on what little bit of the Power we can personally reach.”

  The other two shared a surprised look. “Not bad . . .” Heinrich said. “You come up with this on your own?”

  “Yep.” Sullivan didn’t add that he’d figured out a whole lot more than that. As far as he knew, he was the only person who’d put together how a few different Powers were related, and how he’d been able to stretch his into the adjoining areas a tiny bit. But that was his secret. It was time for the Grimnoir men to share some of theirs. “Funny, I’ve been doing all the eating and the talking, and I still ain’t got no more answers.”

  “What if I told you that we know the real history of magic?”

  “I wasn’t born in Missouri, but I’d say show me, Dan.”

  Mar Pacifica, California

  Francis stayed in the back of the room. He’d known General Pershing for most of his life. He was almost like a second father, especially since he’d done a much better job being an example of manhood than Francis’s real father, and it pained him deeply to see the General in his current state. His body seemed to deteriorate a little more every day since he’d been cursed by the mysterious Pale Horse. Jane exhausted her Powers on a daily basis fixing all of the new health problems, and even she had to admit that at this point, Black Jack was living off of sheer determination alone.

  If they could just figure out who it was that had cursed their leader, then the Grimnoir would kill the wretched Pale Horse and break the spell. They all suspected that it must have happened during the Imperium’s attack against their old headquarters. The General had fallen ill shortly after. A Pale Horse had to touch his victim to bind the curse, so it must have been during the chaos of the battle. They’d done everything they could over the last few years to track down the Imperium’s agents, but even after assassinating every one they could lay their hands on, they still hadn’t found their Pale Horse.

  The General’s hands were so paper-thin that sunlight could be seen through his skin. It was hard to believe that those were the same hands that had taught him how to throw a ball, how to ride a horse, how to shoot a gun. It won’t be much longer now, Francis thought, then hated himself for thinking it.

  The girl, Faye, was showing the General her Grandpa’s treasure. Whatever it was had certainly gotten the attention of Lance Talon, and he wasn’t a man who riled easily. Lance had told Mr. Browning what had been printed on the device, and the second-in-command had immediately said that they needed to take it directly to the General.

  The old gentleman, John Browning, had joined them. He stood on the other side of the bed, tall, regally thin, and extremely bald. Nearly eighty, his mind was still the sharpest amongst them. He studied the device with intelligent eyes, obviously worried by what he saw. So that meant that two of the most experienced American Grimnoir were distressed by whatever the presence of the device suggested. The General gestured with one palsied hand, and Mr. Browning lifted the small piece of metal, carefully reading the nameplate again. He let out his breath in a long, low whistle. “I would be forced to say that this is the real thing, General.”

  “I was afraid of this . . .” the General rasped. “I told them that we should have destroyed the pieces when we had the chance . . . The fools thought we might need the weapon someday . . . Who else knows where the other pieces are hidden?” The weakness of his voice made Francis cringe.

  “Only the senior members of the Society,” Browning replied. “The elders of course, it was their order. Here? Only you, I, Mr. Talon—” he nodded at Lance—“and Mr. Garrett. We were all sworn to secrecy. The others that knew were lost in the last attack. Even the knights entrusted with a piece did not know the others’ whereabouts. None of the junior members should know.”

  “The Chairman has found out somehow . . . I feared this day would come.”

  “We thought them finding Jones was a coincidence, that the Imperium ran into him on accident. He had the blueprints for the Geo-Tel, but we thought they’d been burned.” Lance was speaking. “We’ve got to assume that the Chairman has got the plans. I tried Christiansen, but no response on his ring, and he don’t have a phone.”

  “What’s going on?” Faye asked. “What are y’all talking about?” But the seniors were too involved in their discussion of mysterious devices and conspiracies to pay the young lady any mind.

  Francis caught himself staring at Faye, even though she wasn’t his type. He was no stranger to the ladies. That’s what happened when you grew up in a family with money to burn and a line of eligible women who wanted to marry into that kind of money. Then when he’d gone off to school his father and grandfather had encouraged him to sow his wild oats and get such foolishness out of the way. He’d bedded half the lovelies in Boston, all of the reputable prostitutes, and still had plenty of time left over for drinking and gambling, but that was before he’d turned his attentions to the more serious business of saving the world and pissing off his family.

  In comparison to other girls, Faye seemed rather drab, with her simple clothes that only hid too skinny a figure, plain features, and a complete lack of refinement. At best he’d consider her cute. She obviously came from poverty and a total lack of education, but something about her kept snagging his attention, and he couldn’t put his finger on it. Maybe it was those strange grey eyes.

  Or perhaps it was her refreshing directness. “Excuse me, you old mummy.” Faye raised her voice. “That’s my gizmo you’re pawin’ over. My Grandpa died for it, and I came a long way to find out why.” Browning and Pershing ceased speaking immediately. “Thatmore like it.”

  “My apologies,” the General whispered. “Your grandfather was a very good man, and you have my condolences. We are members of the Grimnoir Society, an organization that stands against the darkest magics.”

  “He was once a member and helped in one of our gravest missions,” Browning said. “This item you brought here is a part of the most destructive weapon ever created by the hand of man, and in the summer of 1908, we stopped it from being fired on the United States. Thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands, would have perished.”

  “And now if you’ll let the grownups finish talking, we’ve got to figure out how to keep the evilest bastard in the world from putting it back together and killing us all,” Lance finished. “So shush.”

  Western Colorado

  “So, you’re a secret organization that protects Actives . . .” Sullivan took a long drag from the second cigarette he’d bummed off of Garrett. The train was rolling into the sunset, and the dining car only had a few other people in it, including a young couple, a businessman, an old woman, and the bored waiter loafing at the far side of the cabin. Nobody was close enough to listen in. “And fights evil magic?”

  “Basically, yes.”

  “Define evil.”

  “It’s pretty self-explanatory,” Garrett exclaimed.

  “Dan, one man’s evil is another man’s politics.” Sullivan had once gone to prison for doing what he knew to be the right thing, and that wasn’t too long after fighting in a war where both sides thought of themselves as the good guys, but that didn’t stop them from slaughtering each other by the
thousands with every tool at hand.

  “I can’t define evil, but I sure as hell know when I see it,” Heinrich said.

  Sullivan grunted in affirmation. “And I thought you said Dan was the one that was good with words.”

  “We do whatever it takes to stop those who would use magic to enslave others. On the other hand, we also fight those who would punish all magicals for the actions of a few. There are powerful Actives who would like to put the entire world under their boot. They see themselves as the logical end of the eugenicist’s argument, the answer to Darwin’s theory. On the other side are the normals who are so scared of magic that they would love nothing more than to just stamp us out of existence.”

  Sullivan had smoked the fag down to nothing, and stubbed it out in the ashtray. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. “So if it’s so good, why’s it secret?”

  “Those of us that join the Society must fight in the shadows. There are forces at work, whole nations, and things even bigger than nations that would have us fail. They’d hunt us down, and if they couldn’t destroy us, they’d kill everyone we love.”

  Sullivan pondered Dan’s last few words. He seemed to be telling the truth, or at least he believed he was. “Does the U.S. government know about you?”

  “Parts of it . . .” Garrett said hesitantly, glancing around the room. “It’s complicated.”

  “I’m an American first, Active second,” Sullivan growled. Despite it being run by a bunch of idiots, Sullivan loved his country, and his loyalty ran deep. His older brother, Matt, had often made fun of him for it, but Sullivan was at heart a patriotic man.

  “There are Grimnoir in every country. We’d never ask any of them to do anything that goes against conscience. Listen, I can’t tell you too much. I’ve been asked to make you an offer. Your talents would be invaluable. But if you turn us down, the less you know, the better off you are. You join us and then I can answer all your questions.”

  “What’s in it for me?” Sullivan asked, expecting the usual answers for when someone was trying to hire out some muscle. Cash, booze, dames . . .

  Daniel cleared his throat and leaned forward, looking him square in the eye. “You get to learn more about magic than you ever thought possible and you get to make a difference.”

  That wasn’t the answer he was expecting. That answer felt good, but it also made him suspicious. He checked his head again, but unless Garrett was the best Mouth ever, he could sense no intrusion. But life had bit him too many times to not be apprehensive. “Who runs the show?”

  “What?” Heinrich gave a sardonic laugh. “So maybe when you take that bit of intelligence back to J. Edgar Hoover, all will be forgiven?”

  That was a sore spot. “Screw you, Fade.”

  “So, you’re ashamed that you hunted down your own kind? Aren’t you?”

  Sullivan raised his voice slightly. “I agreed to help the BI, but I only went after murderers. That was the deal.”

  “Like Delilah Jones?” Heinrich spat.

  It was being lied to about Delilah that had sent Sullivan down this path to begin with. “They told me she was a cold-blooded killer. I bought it. How is she?”

  “Alive. Which is more than I can say than if you’d succeeded. All she had done was defend herself from the men that had already shot her father to bits. Good work there. If we had not come to save her, she’d be dead by now, picked out of the jail cell you put her in for the convenience of the Imperium.” Heinrich’s face was getting red. “And you question our honor? Our judgment? I think not, Heavy.”

  Something he’d said had set the young German off. Maybe Sullivan had finally met somebody as distrusting as he was. “Easy, Heinrich,” Garrett cautioned. “I can’t answer that yet, Jake. You must understand.”

  Damn it. He was tired of being lied to, sick of being kept in the dark by everyone around him. His patience was done.

  Sullivan lurched out of the booth, hands on the table to hold himself steady. His body ached beyond comprehension and he was in a foul mood. “I’m not taking a job if I can’t even know who I’m working for. So I’ll just be getting off at the next town. Thanks for the dinner and the duds, but I consider them payback for the ones I wrecked falling off that blimp.”

  Garrett shook his head sadly. “Sorry to hear that, pal. I’d say that this was a wasted trip, but we did kill an Iron Guard, don’t get to do that every day . . . What are you going to do about the BI?”

  “We’ll work something out . . .” Sullivan muttered, dreading the thought of Rockville. He’d need to come up with a story that would satisfy Hoover as to why he’d gone to visit Torrio and then managed to destroy an entire hotel. Easy as pie. “So long, boys. Thanks for helping me ice that Jap . . . And tell Delilah I’m real sorry.”

  “So long, Heavy,” Heinrich said. “I knew this was a mistake from the—” He froze, looking down at his fingers. Garrett suddenly flinched and curled his hand into a fist.

  Sullivan paused, noticing that both men were looking at their rings. Heinrich suddenly rose and swept all of the dishes and cups onto the floor, spilling coffee across the linoleum. The other patrons startled, and the old lady glared at them disapprovingly.

  Daniel jumped into the aisle and shouted. “Attention passengers, everyone needs to go back to their cabins, right now. This is not a big deal, and you will remember being asked to move by the conductor.” The other passengers got up and headed vacantly for the exits. Sullivan felt the words slamming around inside his skull. Garrett’s Power was staggering, and he felt a strong urge to walk right out, but he focused on a spot on the wall until the feeling subsided.

  “Thank you, everyone. Have a pleasant evening.” Garrett made eye contact with Sullivan as he passed, as if surprised to see him sticking around. “Hey, waiter! Lock the doors and get out. You need a ten-minute smoke break.”

  “Right away, sir!” The waiter complied without question. There had been no finesse there, just the Power of suggestion wielded like a club. Garrett may have looked like a balding, nebbishy librarian, but he was one of the strongest Actives Sullivan had yet encountered.

  Heinrich grabbed the saltshaker, unscrewed the lid, and poured it onto their hastily cleared table. He stuck his finger into the pile and stirred, until he’d made a circle four inches across. “Don’t just stand there, Heavy. Fetch me a glass of water.”

  Curious, Sullivan complied, picked up a cup from the next table and handed it over. Heinrich stuck two fingers in the water and swirled it about, then took them out and drew two symbols in the center of the circle of salt. Garrett returned from checking the doors a moment later. “You better get out of here. We just got the kind of signal that means one of those things that you don’t want to know about is going down.”

  “Well . . . now I’m curious.”

  Heinrich said a few words under his breath as he stared into the circle. At first Sullivan thought it was German, but it was something different and unfamiliar. There was a drumming noise, at first indistinguishable from the wheels on the track, but it grew in pitch, until it was just a ringing in the ears. The room seemed to flex, almost like when Sullivan was testing his own Power, and then a white glow appeared as the salt seemed to ignite. It burned brightly, as if it were being fused into a solid object. It floated up from the table, and rotated, until it was facing them at eye level.

  It was like looking at a tiny motion picture, like one of those new television devices. There were people moving in the circle, but they were slightly hazy, and he could see the train’s window through them. “Daniel, Heinrich, this is Lance. Can you hear me?” A face appeared in the floating circle, a blunt-nosed man with a lumberjack’s beard.

  “Got you, Lance,” Garrett replied.

  Injuries forgotten, Sullivan moved around to the side. No matter where he stood, the porthole seemed to turn to face him so he could see the same picture. He couldn’t believe it. This wasn’t a Power that resided inside someone. This was magic on its own, like some
thing from an old fairytale. Heinrich had just cast an actual spell! Which, according to everything he’d ever read, was totally impossible.

  “Do you remember the stories about the Geo-Tel?” the man in the circle asked.

  “Of course,” Daniel replied. “Oh no . . . did he find part of it?”

  “It looks like he got part of the Portagees’ and probably the blueprints from Jones.”

  The Mouth swore under his breath. “This is bad, very bad. Will he be able to build one?”

  “The Geo-Tel? What’s that?” Heinrich asked.

  “No time to explain,” Lance said. “We don’t know if the Chairman’s got enough to figure one out yet or not. Where are you?”

  “We’re on the Pullman, Denver to Ogden, we’re almost in Utah now,” Garrett responded.

  “You’re the closest to Christiansen. Make sure he’s all right. Hold on, the General needs to speak with you.” The view of the circle shifted, careening wildly about, and Sullivan saw several other people, including an old bald man who looked strangely familiar, and a young girl in a rough dress. Then the view seemed to lift, and settle downward, so that it was looking into the face of a man lying flat on his back in bed.

  The man had to be over a hundred years old. His face was like a skull, crossed with purple veins, milky cataract-filled eyes, with grey skin stretched tight over it, mottled with blotches and bruises. Tubes had been run into his nostrils. “Garrett . . .”His voice was almost a whisper and Sullivan was impressed that he could do that much. “Get to Sven as quickly as you can. Recover the device that was in his protection.”

  “Yes, General.”

  Apparently those eyes could still see. “Is this the Heavy?”

  He stepped forward. “I’m Jake Sullivan. Who are you?”

  “We’ve met before, Sergeant Sullivan. Turns out I pinned a Citation Star on you myself after the armistice. It was too bad you served under General Roosevelt, because from your reputation, I certainly could have used a man like you.”