“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.”