“The Enemy is real. I knew it.” She glanced around. “How come there ain’t no pictures of it? You’ve got its little helpers and the people it’s twisted up and skinned, but no pictures of the big Enemy.”
“That’s the bad part about my Power being stronger now. I never saw it before. I couldn’t see things without bodies back then. Now? I’ve tried to draw it. Take your pen, jab it through the paper, into the table even, hard as you can, and then start making a circle. You’ve got to cut it deep. You shred the paper. And all you get is ink bleeding out into a bigger and bigger circle. When I try to see it, I have to push so hard that blood starts seeping through my gloves. If I keep going, I start to bleed inside my head and then it comes out my eyes. The blood and the ink, that’s the only way to draw the thing that’s coming.”
Blood and ink… She looked at one of the pictures of Mr. Sullivan, his shirt ripped open and the self-inflicted scars on his chest burning as he ripped an Iron Guard in half. “So the Power’s picked me to fight the Enemy? I know what happens if we lose, Power runs off, and we end up like the Summoned, but what happens if we win?”
Zachary tilted his scabrous head to the side. “That’s entirely up to you. It all depends on how far you’re willing to go and what you’re willing to sacrifice.”
Faye knelt down and reached for another crumpled sheet of paper.
“Don’t,” the zombie warned. “Not that one.”
Faye opened it up anyway. She stated at the picture for a long time. It was the worst thing ever. “I’d never do that. I’d never become that.”
“Then don’t. I know you think you wouldn’t now, but you could. I can see the possibilities, and you can feel the truth. You’ve tasted what it’s like. You’ve taken someone else’s magic from them before and made it your own. You get strong as you’ll need to be, and it’ll change you.” Zachary turned and began walking away. “These are all for you, Faye. It wanted you to have them, to know who can help you, and who wants to hurt you. Learn them. Learn where you came from, and what might have been, and what might still be. I know it won’t take you long. Nothing takes you long.”
“Where are you going?”
“This was what the Power asked from me. I’m done. Now it’s time to make the gnawing stop. There’s a furnace downstairs. I’ve already stocked it full of coal. I plan to light it, then climb inside and burn until there’s nothing left of this damned body for my soul to cling to. See you.”
Faye looked down at the horrific picture in her hands. I will not become the devil. “Thank you, Zachary.”
“Good luck, Faye.”
Chapter 11
They say I’m the best swindler there’s ever been, huh? Then what am I in here for? Most say the best cons are Yaps, Traps, Mouths, whatever you want to call ’em, ‘cause they can change how the mark thinks. Then the Readers, Head Cases, they’re next, ’cause they can tell you what the mark really thinks. Honest truth? They ain’t all that. Magic makes it too easy, makes a con soft. They got no imagination… Fine. You got me. I am the best… But you know what? Don’t take a wizard to clean a mark. You know the real secret to running a confidence scam? Tell them what they want to hear. There’s a sucker born every minute.
UBF Traveler
The Japanese airships were right above them. Harsh rain pounded against the hull with a rhythmic drumming noise. Lightning flashed, seemingly just beyond the glass of the cockpit. It was blinding, yet the afterimage made it so that Sullivan could see the black shapes of the Imperium warships searching for them even with his eyes closed.
They were running completely dark, but that wouldn’t help if the lightning reflected off of the Traveler’s hull. “Think they spotted us?” Sullivan asked.
“If they did, we’ll know when the first shells hit,” Captain Southunder replied, perfectly calm. This wasn’t the first time the old pirate had run a blockade. “We’re practically swimming in Impy bastards.” He looked out over his bridge crew, obviously thinking hard about what to do next, stuck between several choices, all with bad possible outcomes, but sometimes a pirate just had to run on instinct and make a call. “Barns, take us down a thousand feet, nice and slow.”
“Aye aye, Captain.” Barns gently pulled a brass lever on his console.
The Traveler shifted violently to the right. Most of the crew had to grab onto something to keep from losing their footing. Sullivan just planted his feet and imagined that he was anchored to the deck until the tremors slowed. After several seconds of ominous creaking, the Traveler seemed to steady a bit, and the crew of the crowded bridge all got back to work, fiddling with gizmos that Sullivan frankly did not understand in the least. “That was nice and slow?”
Barns grinned. “We’re getting sideswiped with sixty-mile-an-hour gusts. Anything that doesn’t corkscrew us into the ocean is nice.”
“You asked for rough air, Mr. Sullivan. I’m happy to provide,” Captain Southunder said.
“All I asked was for you to get us to Shanghai unseen.”
“Same thing. As sleek as this girl is, anything that’s beating us this badly has got to be hell on those Imperial slabs. Shanghai’s position on the coast means that this area is crawling with ships. Of all the Free Cities, it’s the one I dread visiting the most. I drained my Power to unleash this unseasonable beast in the hope that the Imperium would have the sense to dock their fleet. However, it appears they don’t have the sense God gave a duck. I really didn’t expect to see any patrols this far out.”
“Bad timing, or do they suspect what we’re up to?”
“If they do, then we’ll know when the entire Jap navy is waiting in Shanghai to greet us.” Southunder turned to the teleradar operator. “Mr. Black?”
The pirate’s eyes were glued to a picture tube. “They haven’t changed course.” It all just looked like green haze and glowing dots to Sullivan, but the UBF invention seemed to be working, and whatever it was showing, it was making the operator happy. “Good thing too. From the return I’m getting, one of those airships is a huge multihull. From the size, maybe a Kaga class.”
“Bearing?”
“Seven miles ahead, two thousand feet above us. Bearing north-north-east.”
Southunder rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “How we managed to get along without that marvelous device all these years, I’ll never know. Bless those UBF Cogs and their pointy heads. Bouncing radio waves off of solid objects to see how far away they are… It’s like magic.”
“Says the man who makes hurricanes with his mind,” Barns said as he fought the controls. “That UBF doohickey is just fancy science.”
“Science which I, for one, am happy the Imperium hasn’t invented yet, or our jobs would be far more difficult.”
“The day the Imperium gets one of these radar thingys is the day I give up privateering to do something safer,” Barns muttered, glancing at Sullivan. “Like sword swallowing or lion taming.”
“Lucky guy like you?” Lance Talon chuckled. The knight had come up to the bridge to watch, fascinated by the show. “That wouldn’t even be a challenge. I’ve done lion taming. It’s overrated.”