Warbound: Book Three of the Grimnoir Chronicles - eARC

  “I do not trust Iceboxes. Their magic is . . . hmmm . . . Forgive me. I am still practicing my English. Their magic is incorrect.”

  Of course, to a Torch, whose magic was based in manipulating the consuming rampage of fire, the absence of heat energy would seem blasphemous. If he wasn’t such an analytical man, he might even feel the same way about Heinrich’s Fade magic. But he wasn’t feeling particularly analytical right then though, since huge Power use always left him starved. Going all wispy like that, just wasn’t right.

  Lady Origami didn’t seem inclined to go anywhere, so he just started shoving rice balls into his face. They were either better than expected, or he was just so hungry that it didn’t matter. She knelt there, watching him, and he had to marvel how she was able to sit like that without hurting her knees.

  “How is everybody else?” he asked between mouthfuls.

  “They are fine. That very loud noise is Mr. Talon snoring.”

  “Huh. I thought somebody had parked a truck next door and left it running.”

  “Mr. Koenig was already awake. I think he does not sleep.”

  Sullivan was normally a light sleeper, as were most who survived the Great War trenches. Heinrich’s paranoia made Sullivan look like an ostrich with its head planted in the sand. “Or when he does sleep, he leaves one eye open . . . Heinrich grew up in Dead City.”

  “Ah . . . Then he slept in trees to not be eaten by zombies. I see. You would need to sleep lightly to not roll over, fall, and die.”

  Sullivan had marched to Berlin at the close of the war. He didn’t think they had been many trees left there after the Peace Ray blast, but he didn’t share that, because it was a sad thought, and it didn’t seem fair to share that with the usually perky Lady Origami. “How is Zhao?”

  “The Icebox is still sleeping. He used much Power. Too much exercise.” She gestured at the now hidden scars on Sullivan’s chest. “And he does not have those.”

  Their presence was for the most part kept a secret, but not anymore. “Lucky me.”

  “I thought only Iron Guard wore the magical kanji which made them stronger. At the Imperium schools, they brand the prisoners, testing such things. It usually does not work, so those prisoners are . . . thrown away.”

  “I’ve heard that. Terrible business.”

  “They use prisoners to get the designs correct. They twist metal brands until they are perfect. It takes many, many tries, and most prisoners die after a few tries.” She rolled up one of her sleeves and showed him a terrible burn scar on her arm. Sullivan could just tell that no magic had taken to that mark. He had made a few of those failures on himself. “Once correct, they can use them on their own people.”

  “I’m sorry,” Sullivan said, meaning the whole damn thing.

  Lady Origami put her sleeve back down. “It is fine. It does not hurt so much. They give the prisoners ether, keeps them from squirming. Besides, I escape. I am still alive.” She gave him that innocuous little smile again. “My captors are not so alive.”

  It was grisly, but he was a curious man. “I didn’t think the Imperium experimented on their own people.” She scowled hard. She did not consider them her people, but he quickly corrected himself. “I mean Japanese people. I thought all their Actives got used by the Chairman’s government and they saved the dangerous experiments for the folks they conquered.”

  “Not everyone in the Imperium agrees with the way of things. Some are even brave enough to open their mouths . . .” She looked away and her cheeks burned hot. “Those who speak too much, their whole families are shamed. They are outcasts. They become not-people.” It felt like there was a lot buried behind those words. She hurried and changed the subject. “So how did you learn this Imperium trick, putting spells on skin?”

  “I’m self-taught . . .” He saw that answer wasn’t going to satisfy her. “I figured out how to do a basic healing spell one time after I got shot.” He didn’t add that he’d learned to do it on the fly because he’d just got shot in the heart, because that made for a long story. “I got lucky. The rest were trial and error. I put on more of the healing ones, but each one adds a little less than before, so I started messing around with other Powers. I recognize gravity the best, so that’s the only other area I’ve had any luck with.”

  In actuality, he was probably as talented with spellbinding as anyone outside of the mad Cogs of Unit 731 or Buckminster Fuller, and if it wasn’t for this quest and all the trouble that had come before it, he would’ve loved to devote his life to magical study and experimentation. If only . . . Problem was, he was just too damn good in a fight, and too stupid not to volunteer for one.

  “You have so many scars. You did this all to yourself?”

  Obviously, she meant the new spells, and not the leftovers from the various bullets, knives, or shrapnel he’d picked up over the years. “I was sick of giving up the high ground to a bunch of fanatics.”

  “Iron Guards die too, but because of these, it takes much more work to burn them.” Lady Origami seemed intrigued. “Does it hurt?”

  Cutting your own flesh with a knife, searing it all with otherworldly demon ink, concentrating through the sizzle, and then channeling so much Power into it to try and get it to stick that you had to go right up to death’s door . . . “A little.”

  She did not have to ponder on it for long, which told him she’d probably been thinking about it since she’d first seen them last night. “I would like you to put these spells on me too.”

  “I lied. They hurt a lot.” He was having a hard time imagining her surviving the process. One healing spell had damn near killed that tough bastard Lance, who had been a very pushy volunteer. Though these physical spells were useful, Sullivan wasn’t exactly thrilled with spreading them around. The Imperium troops had them, but only after their Cogs had experimented, working the kinks out, and murdering untold numbers of prisoners in the process. The last thing he wanted to do was accidentally kill one of his associates. However, danger wasn’t the main reason he was hesitant to share them. Rather it was because it seemed, with each spell he’d carved onto his body, he felt a little less. Not just pain, but everything, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to do that to anyone else. “You need to be conscious the whole time or you’ll die, and then you might die anyway when the new magic connects to your body.”

  “I am not scared of pain. Having a baby is pain, but worth it. This is same.”

  “I didn’t know you had kids.”

  “I . . . do not . . . now.”

  There was a long, awkward pause. Sullivan didn’t know what to say to that. He had never been good with words, or women, or people in general for that matter. So he just nodded, and then ate another rice ball.

  “Besides, I knew you lied, Mr. Sullivan. When you lie it shows up on your face. Americans are not so good at lying, but you especially are bad. You are like . . . like an ox. The ox doesn’t lie. It simply is an ox. It works so hard, it does not need to deceive. You are an ox, Mr. Sullivan.”

  In most circumstances he would think being called an ox was an insult, but in this case he figured it was meant as a compliment. “I guess sometimes we lie to try to protect folks.”

  “Yes. Nipponese, we learn to not lie with our faces, only with our eyes. My polite face is the same as my lie face. Make your face polite, and lie to them in your eyes only.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind.” In his admittedly biased dealing with the Imperium, that actually made a lot of sense.

  “For the spells on your body, I am not scared to die. I do it anyway. If it helps beat the Imperium, then I do anything.” That polite face she had mentioned had slipped a bit. Now he could see the sadness kept buried deep beneath, but deeper than that was a core of fire, just waiting to get out. “They take what they want and ruin any who speak against. I would burn them all.”

  “You despise the Imperium,” he stated the obvious.

  “Every last one,” she whispered the Marauder’s slogan. “The Imperium was
my home. I hate it more than you can ever understand.” Apparently the conversation had moved into another area she wasn’t comfortable speaking about, so Lady Origami popped up from her knees. She was exceedingly graceful. “Eat. I will fetch your clothes. Tokugawa Toru is downstairs. Yesterday, he killed many secret police.”

  “How are you handling having him around?”

  “I do not like him. Captain Southunder said he is necessary so I should not burn him . . . yet. Do not trust Toru, Mr. Sullivan. His face does not ever lie. He means exactly what he says. That makes him more frightening.”

  “You are a remarkably perceptive woman, Lady Origami.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Sullivan.”

  “Jake.”

  “Mr. Sullivan.”

  Considering the rather direct circumstances of how they’d first met, this was one odd lady. Direct when she wanted to be, demure the rest of the time, she was probably one of the most important members of the Marauder crew when they got down to business, yet the rest of the time she acted like a servant around them, all deferential and polite. Yet beneath all that, he had a gut feeling that she was wound tight as a spring. “Whatever makes you happy.”

  “Thank you.” She folded her arms and gave him a little bow, then turned to leave.

  “One thing, that little paper frog you made me, I doubt it made it through punching an iceberg and taking a swim. Sorry about that. It was nice.”

  Pausing in the doorway, she gave him a genuinely pleased smile. “It was to bring good fortune. You must have used it up. I will make you another,” she said as she left the room.

  “I’d like that,” Sullivan said to himself.

  The Grimnoir knights and Marauder volunteers who had snuck into Shanghai over the last few days were staying in several different safe houses across the city. It wasn’t smart to have all of their eggs in one basket, and should any one group of them get rolled up by the secret police, the rest still needed to be able to complete the mission. Only Pirate Bob knew most of the locations, and he was back at the Traveler.

  In fact, since they were nominally in charge of this little shindig, Heinrich, Lance, and Sullivan were supposed to be staying in different places, but because of their detour through the river, this hideout had been the closest. It had once been an apartment building for dockworkers, but one of the Japanese artillery shells from a few years before had hit a nearby sea wall, and the building’s foundation and first floor had been flooded ever since. It was now rotten to the core, and would probably fall over soon on its own. Heinrich and a small group of knights had already been here for a few days.

  “It ain’t much.” Sullivan leaned on the balcony railing, but when it groaned and rust began to fall into the water below, he thought better of it and stepped away. His clothes weren’t quite dry from the last swim yet.

  “Compared to where I grew up, this is a rather nice neighborhood,” Heinrich answered. “At least it is defensible.”

  “True.” The only approaches were bridges fashioned from discarded lumber and old sheet metal, so it would be difficult for anyone short of a Traveler to sneak up on them unseen. There were enough of the makeshift bridges attached to other nearby buildings that it would be very difficult to surround and cut off all their escape routes. Plus, he’d been told there were a couple other escape routes available, provided you didn’t mind holding your breath. “Zhao picked it?”

  “Yes. He knows this city like the back of his hand. The young man shows some tactical aptitude.”

  “Strongest Icebox I’ve ever heard of, too. I once took on an Icebox, one of the most wanted fugitives in the country, and he didn’t hold a candle to Zhao. Provided we survive this, the kid’s got a future.”

  “I would say send him away, but I sincerely doubt he would go.” Heinrich shook his head. “In fact, I know he would not. He reminds me of myself at that age, and no matter how lost a cause it may be, your home is still your home.”

  “Even you left Dead City eventually.”

  Heinrich shrugged. “And a lost cause is lost. Sometimes it simply takes longer for some of us to realize it. I come from a very obstinate people.”

  “I know.” Sullivan chuckled. He had gained a lot of respect for Heinrich since he had met the Grimnoir. The German simply did not know how to quit. “I fought in a war against your bunch. Working with you has reminded me of why it was so damn hard to win, you stubborn Kraut.”

  “Why thank you, Jake.” Heinrich took out a pack of smokes and a book of matches and offered them to Sullivan. His had been soaked in the river, so he was glad to see that someone had thought ahead to stash vital supplies. “Speaking of lost causes, Shanghai has suffered greatly under the Imperium’s boot. I have tried to prepare these knights for the presence of our Iron Guard.” There was a sudden crash from inside the bowels of the rotting building, followed immediately by some agitated shouting in Chinese. “And there he is now.”

  “So Toru’s met the Shanghai Grimnoir.” Sullivan sighed as he struck a match and lit up. The hot smoke felt good in the lungs, and as a bonus, Jane the Healer was back in America, so she couldn’t yell at him about emphysema or cancers. “Let’s go keep them from murdering each other.”

  The central area had once been several individual rooms, but someone had torn out many of the interior walls to burn the wood to stay warm. The walls were covered in trophies taken from the Imperium military, broken weapons, uniforms, torn flags, all the sorts of things that a resistance found motivating. In one corner was some of the equipment smuggled there from the Traveler. In the other corner was what passed as their kitchen area, and in it was Toru, standing there all surly, with his arms folded, while some of the local Grimnoir yelled at him. One of them was really agitated, and had picked up a meat cleaver and was pointing it at Toru’s face.

  “Easy there,” Sullivan warned, because Toru would more than likely just take that cleaver away and bury it in the man’s skull. “What’s his name?”

  “I don’t know. It was confusing. Zhao introduced everyone, but everyone in Shanghai seems to have three names each, and I can’t tell which is first, last, or a nickname.”

  “Hey, Meat Cleaver!” Sullivan raised his voice, and since he still had his “sergeant’s voice” when he spoke from the chest, it made the entire building vibrate. “Knock it off.” Either he spoke enough English, or that got through in any language, but it worked, and he lowered the weapon. “What’s the problem in here?”

  “This peasant fool does not realize what he has.” Toru gestured roughly toward one of the captured trophies. “That helmet is incredibly valuable.”

  Helmet? It looked like some weird, stylized, oriental art piece, until Sullivan realized it was upside down. It had big horns, either for decoration or a real nasty head-butt, only the horns had been pounded into the floor, and the interior of the helmet had been used as an ashtray. “Damn it, Toru, I can’t take you anywhere. Let the man have his ashtray.”

  “You do not understand. This is part of an extremely valuable weapon system.” Toru reached for the ashtray, but Meat Cleaver, who was a chunky, red-faced, angry sort, started jabbering again. Toru paused. “Out of respect for our mission, do not make me gut this imbecile.”

  There were a bunch of people staying at the safe house, and every one of them who wasn’t on guard duty had come in to see what the commotion was about. Luckily, Zhao was one of them. The kid looked haggard, with dark circles under his eyes, which was to be expected, because expending that much Power at one time was physically exhausting. Zhao barked an order, and Meat Cleaver, though he was probably twice Zhao’s age, immediately complied, dropped his weapon on the floor and took two steps back. He did not, however, stop arguing.

  “What’s he saying?”

  Zhao looked at Toru with barely concealed hostility. “I would prefer not to translate. It may upset our guest.”

  “He’s my responsibility,” Sullivan said.

  “I am taking this helmet. I do not care what this wr
etched pig-dog has to say—”

  “Shut it, Toru.”

  The Iron Guard clamped his mouth so tight that if he hadn’t had Brute-hard teeth they probably would’ve shattered. It was either that or let out a response that would’ve surely started a gun fight. After a few seconds his jaw muscles unclenched enough for him to mutter, “Fine.”

  “Pang says he killed an Iron Guard in a fierce battle, and he was wearing this armor.”

  Toru snorted. “It is more likely they murdered him in his sleep and stole his helmet. This tub of fat could not best an Iron Guard in fierce battle, especially one wearing Nishimura Combat Armor. The only thing he might be able to defeat an Iron Guard in would be a dumpling-eating contest.”

  “Pang is a powerful Brute,” Zhao warned.

  Pang puffed up his chest and flexed his muscles. It didn’t help his case any.

  “I killed fifteen Tokubetsu Koto Keisatsu yesterday,” Toru stated flatly. “Can he even count that high?”

  Sullivan took quick stock of the observers. There were a few of the Shanghai Grimnoir present, and most had quietly placed their hands inside their clothing, surely to rest on firearms. There was another young Chinaman standing off to the side, and unlike the blustering Pang, this one was quietly confident, watching Toru, surely with some Power ready to go. That one had the stance of a fighter. There were a few Americans and one marauder, and none of them would lift a hand to help Toru out either, so he really didn’t know how stupid their Iron Guard was about to get. Lady Origami had arrived, and she was surely just looking for an excuse to set him on fire.

  “Now, now, my friends. Let us not be hasty. I personally find murdering people in their sleep to be an excellent method, because since they are asleep it is rather difficult for them to retaliate.” Heinrich walked into the center of the room, trying to defuse the situation. “So regardless of how our friend Pang actually killed this Iron Guard, what is this combat armor you speak of?”

  “It is from one of our most brilliant Cogs, the same man who invented the Gakutensoku. It is a suit of battle armor, perhaps the most capable design ever, each one heavily connected to the magic of the user and driven by the Power itself. Very few were ever made. They were far too labor intensive, and each one required so many kanji that they were never mass produced. Just this one piece could add incredible capabilities in battle.”