Breath of Earth Read online

  Mr. Augustus nodded. “Reinforced walls in here, which Reddy checks for whirly-flies and whatnot. The rice paper looks thin, but there’s orichalcum in there to slow a bullet or two. Of course, we can only do so much about spies in the dining rooms. That’s the weakness.”

  Ingrid lowered herself to the zabuton across from Mr. Augustus and tucked in her skirt. Reddy was the only one to remain standing.

  “So many defenses against your best customer,” she said.

  “I took on the family business, thinking I could save the world,” said Mr. Augustus. “Older I get, the more I’m worried about saving my soul. I—I don’t control much of the company now. The board’s nearly booted me. I don’t mind that much. War’s never pleasant, but things have changed these past few years. Conquering a people is one matter, extermination is another.” He studied Cy. “Then I have two brilliant children who inherited our family knack, to my grief. Bart—I knew Bart wanted out.”

  “Maggie never changed her mind?” asked Cy.

  “No. But I knew she wasn’t happy either, at the end. I . . . I was asking too much of her, wanting her to take on more of the business side. She wanted to invent, to meddle.”

  “Always,” Cy whispered.

  Ingrid looked to the clock on the wall. “I hate to hurry things, I truly do, but we can’t stay long. We need your help.”

  “I need your help, too, ma’am. What truly happened at the Cordilleran? No one at the UP is talking about it, and there’re mumblings about an Ambassador being involved. Where’s Mr. Sakaguchi?”

  Ingrid and Cy shared a look. Where to begin? She rested her hands on her lap. “I . . . I don’t know right now, Mr. Augustus. I wish I did.” She took a deep breath. “What do you know about the Gaia Project?”

  That clearly caught him off guard. “How did you ever hear about that? It’s about as top secret as a project can be.”

  “We know it involves kermanite,” said Cy.

  “Well, yes, in a way. It was a project to create a kermanite-powered weapon to resolve the war in China, but it was scrapped in the early stages. Nothing ever came of it.”

  “The project is going on right now. My . . .” My father, she almost said, but couldn’t manage the words. They felt too strange. “My understanding is that it caused those earthquakes in China earlier this year.”

  “The earthquakes? There aren’t any Chinese geomancers left. Of course there’d be bad earthquakes.”

  “How long ago was the project scrapped?” asked Cy.

  “Late last year. I was told I’d be consulting and to expect blueprints, but they never arrived. I reckoned the whole thing had been some general’s fancy.”

  “Pardon me, sirs, ma’am, but can I get drinks or food for anyone?” asked Reddy.

  “Tell Don we want the ’39 La Fayette,” said Mr. Augustus. “I’ve been wanting—”

  “No.” Cy’s voice was so loud he seemed to surprise himself. “There’s no time for that—that kind of celebrating.”

  The two men shared an unreadable look. Ingrid recalled what Cy had said about his father and the drink.

  Reddy was quiet for a moment. “I’ll see about some water, then.” He exited the chamber. Ingrid heard the click of a lock. Despite Mr. Augustus’s assurance, the walls still looked terribly thin. She wondered if the sliver of energy she held could tear apart a structure reinforced by orichalcum.

  Orichalcum was likely to be used in this Gaia Project weapon, too. This whole thing was in the works before the Unified Pacific even had Papa in custody. Maybe he wasn’t part of their original plan.

  Tension lingered between the two men. Ingrid coughed politely. “Mr. Augustus, how big a piece of kermanite did this war-ender weapon need?”

  “Well, that I do know, and that was why it seemed so fanciful. It required a massive piece. Solid. Nigh impossible, of course, with how it fragments.”

  Ingrid looked across the table to Cy. “I didn’t tell you everything about Captain Sutcliff’s arrival. Down in Boron, they retrieved a piece of kermanite as big as a horse. A standing horse, to the withers. And it vanished.”

  “Vanished?” Cy arched an eyebrow. “How does something like that vanish?”

  “In Boron? We own a major stake in that mine. I have people there. How did we not know?” Father and son shared a perplexed expression.

  “Captain Sutcliff said the kermanite was stolen and the trail led him to San Francisco. He thought the auxiliary was somehow involved.”

  “That makes no sense at all,” murmured Mr. Augustus. “Kermanite as big as a horse! How would you even move such a thing? It’d be so fragile! Why would he think the auxiliary was involved?”

  She dismissed the question with a flick of her wrist. No need to bring up the drama with Captain Sutcliff, Papa, and Mr. Sakaguchi.

  “My people aren’t my people anymore. I’m too old for these games.” Mr. Augustus rubbed his jaw. “Ten years ago, I had absolute control. I knew my agents. They knew me.”

  “You had Maggie with you then,” said Cy.

  “I also had you way back when, Barty. Don’t sell yourself short. These days, victory in China looks inevitable. Britain’s about ready to crush India, though the Thuggees will make them bleed. But using earthquakes as the weapon. How? Is this some perversion of geomancy?”

  Ingrid masked a cringe at his choice of words. “Yes. We’re not sure exactly how, though. We hoped you’d know.”

  “If only I’d seen the blueprints! If I knew more, I’d gladly tell you.” Mr. Augustus’s broad forehead furrowed into deep lines. “Lordy, Lordy. What about Vesuvius? Could a weapon have caused that?”

  “I really don’t know,” Ingrid said, a pang striking her chest. The council had spent hours debating that matter of Vesuvius, and at the time it had felt like such a distant event, physically and emotionally.

  If her pain could cause an earthquake, could rile Hidden Ones in such a way, she might be capable of causing a volcanic eruption as well.

  Reddy slipped inside the room again, locking the door behind him. “Mr. Augustus, sir, there are soldiers at the front door of Quist’s. The attendants are delaying them.”

  Cy rushed straight to his father. The men stood together in an embrace so painful that Ingrid looked away. She edged toward the door and slipped on her shoes.

  “Reddy,” she asked, “what’s the best exit from here?”

  “The kitchen is fastest, ma’am. Goes straight to the back alley.”

  “Barty, I don’t want us to part like this.” Mr. Augustus wavered on his feet. “This is too fast. I need—I need to do more. Know more. In my room upstairs, there are things I can give you. Money. Jewels. I want to help you somehow.”

  “There’s no time, Father.” Cy took a step back but still didn’t let go of him.

  “Reddy, you can take him up the back way to my room, can’t you? Quickly?” Mr. Augustus’s voice quavered, and he paused for a deep, hacking cough. “I’m old, but I’m not entirely useless. I can distract these soldiers.”

  “Certainly, sir,” said Reddy.

  “Father—”

  “Don’t argue with me. Don’t you dare. I wish I could go with you. I wish I had your spine. Whatever you’re doing, whatever this fight is, let me help. Please. For you, for Maggie, for your mother.”

  “Cy, we should split up,” said Ingrid. Maybe the soldiers had descriptions of both of them from the opera, but she knew for certain they’d look for her.

  He nodded. “Right. Meet in front of the barbershop with the cigar-store Indian just a few blocks away.”

  “I know it.” She wanted to kiss him right then, crush their lips together, absorb his heat and scent and everything else about him. Instead, she cast him a desperate look, grabbed her purse from the table, and she fled.

  She flew down the stairs and made a sharp left toward the kitchen. The luscious scent of sizzling meat and peppers flavored the air, as if she could breathe and chew at the same time. She spun to dodge a laden waiter.
Steaming trays lined an open counter, and she caught a glimpse of chefs in white hats, yellow bandannas tied to their sleeves. Voices muttered in heavily accented English.

  The hallway turned. Ahead of her was a flash of brilliant red skirts. Ingrid stopped, recognition instantaneous.

  Victoria Rossi.

  Several signs marked the hallway ahead. Going straight led to the alley and escape, but Miss Rossi had gone right, toward an access to the flats above. Ingrid gnawed her lip and followed. Up ahead she saw a sinuous curl of black iron railing: a staircase.

  “Damn it all, but you had me worried.” A man’s voice was faint. “Soldiers are trying to get in here.”

  “Oh, as if they’ll know you, looking like that. A beard does suit you.” That was Miss Rossi. “Business like this, with such hoity-toity people, they will keep the soldiers out. Besides, you’re the one who wanted to come here a last time. The steak was tasty, yes?”

  Whoever Miss Rossi was meeting, they’d probably try to escape through the alley, too. Ingrid looked in the next open doorway—a broom closet. The harsh scent of ammonia stung her nostrils as she ducked inside. She pulled the cord for the light and shut the door behind her. In the back wall, water roared through pipes, a waterfall in an echo chamber.

  “We can’t afford to dally.” The voice was so muffled that Ingrid had to focus to decipher what he said.

  “I like it when you take risks.” Miss Rossi’s soft voice was even harder to understand. Ingrid scooted a stool closer to the shared wall and stepped up so that she could press her ear against a vent.

  “Did you take enough of your pretty pictures?” the man asked, scarcely louder than before. He had an accent. British, perhaps.

  “My pretty pictures. You say it like they’re so . . . so minor. My photographs, they are important! I have spent these three days walking the entire damned city. I thought I was supposed to have months to do this!” Ingrid frowned as water continued to flush through the pipes, making it difficult for her to hear.

  “I told you from the beginning that we may have to be flexible.”

  “Flexible. Feh.”

  “You’ll make your money. You can buy new shoes to ease your sore feet.”

  “Money. It’s never been just about money.”

  “No, hatred is a much better motivation.”

  It took Ingrid a moment to realize Miss Rossi was laughing. Only the highest pitch carried through the vent. “Oh yes. I will love to see this city fall into dust. I would love to see Butterfield’s face when he wakes up in his soft feather bed and silk sheets and realizes what is happening. If he wakes up at all.”

  “Ah, familiar with Butterfield’s bed, are you?”

  “I should slap you for that.”

  “Hardly worth slapping someone over the truth, is it?”

  “I just wanted my studio. To take my pretty pictures, as you say.”

  “Sometimes we don’t get what we want.”

  “You have what you want now, don’t you? That auxiliary is rubble. I like that my old studio collapsed in the explosion. Very nice touch. Oh, look at you. Sad-faced. Do you feel guilty? You shouldn’t. This is war, yes?”

  Ingrid gasped and covered her mouth even though she couldn’t be heard from the closet. Miss Rossi’s studio had been right next door to the Cordilleran Auxiliary. They were talking about her building. They caused the explosion. They murdered all the wardens and adepts and little boys and maids. Why? What could they gain from murdering the region’s geomancers?

  “Yes.” The man’s voice softened, and Ingrid strained to hear. “Sacrifice is necessary.”

  “Some Thuggee you are. What would Kali think, you with tears in your eyes?” Miss Rossi spoke of the Hindu goddess of time and change, a complex being often described as a Hidden One of old.

  “Don’t believe everything you read in the papers, that feculence. As if Hindus are the only ones fighting for the sake of India now. Christian, Muslim, Jain, Sikh—we are all in this together.”

  “A shame. I should like to take pictures of this Kali.”

  The man barked out a laugh. “You’d ask the devil himself to pose for a photograph, if you could. We should go get some sleep. We’re due to meet the others at Mussel Rock at dawn. Tomorrow . . . tomorrow will be busy.”

  Ingrid knew Mussel Rock. The wardens would take students there on day picnics to pull in energy and fill kermanite, even as they played baseball and practiced sumo wrestling.

  “Sleep? I can think of better things to do than sleep. Oh, not just that.” There was another pause. “Let’s hit the Barbary Coast! Go to Kelvin’s or the Anastasia. This is our last chance. None of this will be here tomorrow.”

  “Are you sure you don’t want to take more pictures?”

  “I might take a few, but I am low on film, and I’ll need it tomorrow, yes? Especially if we have a sighting.”

  “You and your damned monsters.”

  “Fantastics aren’t monsters. Men. Men are better monsters. Maybe we go upstairs first? I bet there are empty rooms. I can pick a lock.”

  “Oh, can you? A woman of many talents.”

  “You don’t even know.”

  Footsteps echoed in the chamber of the stairwell and faded as the two ascended. Ingrid braced herself, biding her time as the couple departed. She had to get to Cy and Fenris. The airship was ready. They had to make it to Mussel Rock to stop the assault, whatever it was.

  Ingrid staggered from the broom closet and back to the main hallway. She ran to the exit, her shoes half sliding on the slick floor, and shoved open the door. Momentum carried her forward and directly into the double row of gold buttons lining a dark uniform.

  “Well, hello,” said a deep voice with a laugh. A hand clamped down on her narrow wrist, and twisted. The purse clattered onto the asphalt.

  She looked up at Captain Sutcliff’s rather equine face.

  “Pick it up,” he snapped.

  Soldiers surrounded her. One stooped to pick up her purse.

  “Thanks for grabbing that for me, sir,” she said. “Now, if you’ll pass it here, I’ll move along—”

  “Miss Carmichael, I’ve spent a great deal of time and fuss looking for you the past few days.”

  “Should I be flattered?”

  “Sir!” It was the soldier with her purse. “There’s a pistol here, sir.”

  Captain Sutcliff tilted his head to one side. “Anything else?”

  “Stubs for Lincoln, sir, and a comb.”

  The captain returned his cool gaze to her. A light cast his face in bright yellow the same shade as his hair. “What did you have in mind for tonight, hmm?”

  “Isn’t it obvious? I planned to brush my hair.”

  Captain Sutcliff sighed. “Really, are we playing this game? Where’s your boss, Miss Carmichael? Where’s Mr. Sakaguchi?”

  “I honestly don’t know.” She thought of him and felt an extra twist of anxiety. “I’m not the one you want. I just overheard a man, a Thuggee, speaking with Miss Victoria Rossi. They’re plotting a new attack.”

  “Really. You think I’ll be so easily distracted?”

  “It’s not a distraction!” snapped Ingrid. Heat curdled on her skin, and she gritted her teeth. “They are plotting some kind of attack on San Francisco. Please. If you search the upper-floor rooms—”

  “Do you realize how many apartments are up here? Come now, Miss Carmichael. I’m not going to be led on any Sasquatch hunts. Who is your partner in this endeavor, the man with the glasses? Did he kill Mr. Sakaguchi?”

  She gaped at him. “Of course not!”

  “There was a lot of blood in your home. I’m surprised you didn’t use poison again.”

  Ingrid shook her head. “Your gasbag’s gone flat. I don’t even know what you’re talking about.”

  “I see. So we are going to play this game.” Captain Sutcliff sighed. “Let’s enjoy more comfortable surroundings, shall we?”

  CHAPTER 15

  Ingrid had passed the pol
ice precinct for years but rarely cast it a second glance. The structure was of tony red brick, quite stark and Federalist. A United States flag with its forty-five stars draped from a flagpole over the door, with a rising-sun flag slightly lower on the left side.

  Across the street was a barbershop with a striped pole and a cigar-store Indian.

  She made a special effort not to look directly at Cy. He slouched in the doorway of the shop, his posture reminiscent of Fenris. His head rose slightly, and with a glance at a nonexistent watch on his wrist, he casually walked down the street. Captain Sutcliff never looked his way.

  It broke her heart to see Cy leave.

  Not as if he could have done anything, of course. He was a pacifist, not an idiot. Ingrid was surrounded by five soldiers and Captain Sutcliff. The soldiers hadn’t bound her hands or arms, but they walked in tight formation around her, firearms at the ready. If she tried to run, she had no doubt that they would shoot her. Probably someplace nonfatal, like the leg, though the ripple effects of that would be disastrous.

  That fear prevented her from knocking them down with a pressure wave. Even if she did manage to topple the soldiers, they were bound to be crack shots. They were trained to roll off a downed horse and come up shooting, and did target practice from bobbing airships in windy weather. She wouldn’t underestimate them.

  She was suddenly put in mind of the game of kitsune-ken, as if she had made the motion for the hunter and lost to the higher-ranking village chief. Well, as far as Ingrid was concerned, the shamisen would play on. She refused to concede defeat.

  They entered the building. A police officer in light blue stood behind a heavy counter, his salute crisp.

  “Captain Sutcliff, sir, our captain has given you full use of our facilities, sir. We also have celled autocars available if you need transport to the Presidio or Fort Monroe, sir.”

  “I will question the young lady here for now, thank you, Lieutenant.”

  The captain guided her into a high-ceilinged chamber painted in ghastly sea-foam green. He motioned her to a wooden chair by a table. He sat in a cushioned seat across from her. The table legs were bolted to the marble floor. Two soldiers flanked the door, with another one behind her, and the others visible in the hallway.