Hard Magic: Book I of the Grimnoir Chronicles

I am by heritage a Jew, by citizenship a Swiss, by magical gift a Cog, and by makeup a human being, and only a human being, without any special attachment to any state or national entity whatsoever.

—Albert Einstein,

Letter to Alfred Knesser, 1919

Detroit, Michigan

The United Blimp & Freight Michigan facility was the size of a small town, and it did actually have a company town in it. UBF provided housing to its workers, and despite that, communist agitators had still managed to get them to strike the previous summer. Cornelius Gould Stuyvesant could not understand the sheer ingratitude, but then again, he wasn’t in debt up to his eyeballs to the UBF company store. That was his workers’ fault for being greedy. Debt was a tax on the stupid.

His arrival had surprised the management, but they had learned over the years that he liked to drop in on his properties unannounced. He could tell from his manager’s reactions that this visit was slightly off- putting. It was probably because he couldnstop itching.

Ever since the Pale Horse had touched him, he’d felt an unbearable creeping sensation. Spending a fortune in the process, he’d exhausted five Healers, and still he was certain that he was ill. He’d banished his mistresses, afraid that he might catch something terrible from them, since his immune system was in such a weakened state. He had taken to wearing an antiseptic scarf, and had made all twelve of his new security men do the same. The only reason he’d ventured out from the safety of his private floors atop the Sears Tower was to fulfill the damnable Pale Horse’s mission.

The Cog engineer in charge of this project was the only other person in the drafting room when Cornelius unfolded the new blueprints. He’d made the Cog wear a face mask as well. “You can see the necessary changes here,” he said, stabbing his fat finger into the diagram. “This is your number one priority. You will do this with the fewest possible employees, in the utmost secrecy. Make sure they are hand-picked men. Hand-picked!”

It took him a minute to decipher the complicated design. “Uh . . . sir, I’m afraid that I don’t understand. This change serves no mechanical purpose. It’s merely some geometric designs stuck together. It does not even have an artistic purpose, since that’s an interior wall in the bowels of the ship . . . behind a hydrogen piping system, in fact. No one will ever see it.”

“You have,” he pulled out his pocket watch, “twenty-four hours. Then we will be shipping the Imperium their new diplomatic flagship.”

The Cog’s eyeballs bulged over his mask. “That’s impossible. She’s out on trial right now. There’s no way we’ll get the piping system moved in time and still get everything—”

There was no time for this. He could feel the bugs crawling under his skin. Cornelius grabbed him by the protruding Adam’s apple and squeezed. The Cog choked. “Listen, here, boyo, you will get this done, in secret, right now by god, or I’ll have you fired—no, wait, I’ll have you tossed out of one of your own dirigibles from five thousand feet. Can your fancy magic brain handle that?”

The Cog stumbled away, coughing and red. After he composed himself, he replied. “I’ll get right on it.”

“Damn right you will,” Cornelius sputtered, indignant, and then he fled to wash his hands.

Mar Pacifica, California

John Moses Browning knocked politely before entering Black Jack Pershing’s room. He wasted no time and did not bother to sit. The General already knew why he was there.

“How long have you known that the Heavy was an Iron Guard’s brother?”

Pershing coughed, but managed to contain it before it turned into a fit. “Soon after he single-handedly tore through half of our operatives. I requested his records. Roosevelt had three Sullivans under his command. One died, one lost half his face, and the last became a legend. The oldest one stayed in the service, but went AWOL from the expeditionary unit sent to support the Tsar during the revolution. Intelligence from the international leadership suggested that the missing Sullivan had been recruited by the Imperium, and the descriptions matched. I knew it was a possibility.”

“It would have been nice of you to say something sooner, then perhaps our house guests wouldn’t start shooting each other. Have you gone daft?”

“Didn’t see that coming . . .” Pershing answered. “See? I told you the little girl would make a fine assassin. She’s stabbed or shot half the estate by now. How is she?”

“Tied up in the basement until we decide how to proceed. Daniel and Heinrich are convinced she’s a Shadow Guard infiltrator. Francis and Lance were ready to fight them over that conclusion.”

“And you?”

“Oh, I do believe she’s innocent. She’s the only one of us who’s actually seen Madi in the flesh. If I had been in her shoes, I probably would have done the same thing, only I would have used a weapon chambered in a proper caliber and he’d be dead.”

“And his miraculous recovery?”

“As soon as Jane had regained enough Power, she gave him a proper Healing. However he should never have been around long enough for that to have happened . . .”

“So . . . he came back from the dead, and completed the most complicated of physical spells on himself?”

Browning shrugged. “I’m certainly not that good of a wizard.”

Pershing had known that this one was special. “Send him in.”

Sullivan paced back and forth in the guest bedroom, staring at the white wall. Occasionally he would pause, think about something, then make another mark with one of the charcoal pencils he’d found. He was interrupted by a knock on the door. “Come in.”

Browning entered. “Mr. Sullivan, the General would like to . . . oh my . . .”

The furniture had been cleared from one side of the room. The white paint had been covered in marks, notations, and designs from floor to ceiling. Complex geometric shapes were interlocked, and lines led from the shapes to words. Density light—Fade, Density thick—Rokusaburo? all related to Gravitation—Heavy. Electromagnetism—Crackler, Icebox, Torch? Biological positive—Healer; Biological negative—Pale Horse? The Brute seems to be a combination of Biological and perhaps a midpoint of the Density side (intersection of the hexagram?). Mental (didn’t get good look but was it a dodecahedron?)—Mouth, Listener, Beastie? Where do Cogs fit in? Traveler—third corner of the Heavy triangle, unknown, folding space somehow. Is that related to Finders and Summoners? Do the Summoned come from the old world the Power left behind? It went on like that for several feet, packed into tight block paragraphs.

Sullivan stepped back from his work and took it all in. Browning saw that the bullet holes from the day before were now just a series of white blemishes on his back. Jane had done her work well, but she had confirmed that the wounds had stabilized by themselves. “Yeah . . . Sorry about the mess. I needed something big. I’ve got to get this down while I remember it.”

“I have a chalkboard downstairs . . .” Browning suggested. “I take it you did not sleep . . . much?”

Sullivan turned to face him. He was shirtless, corded with muscle, and the bandages had been ripped off and tossed aside. The terrible lacerations and chemical burns from the day before were now a complicated circle of raised, white, scar tissue. He covered it with one hand. “You did good work,” then he pointed at another spot on the wall. “This is what it should have looked like.”

Many of the designs were similar to the designs that the Grimnoir had collected through decades of experimentation into the Rune Arcanium. Browning had always excelled at the study of those, because he instinctively had an understanding of how things fit together, whether made of metal or magic. These designs were beyond even him. “How do you know all this?”

“Long story. I suppose I only want to explain it once. Any chance there’s a shirt around here I can borrow? I’ve been running through those things like there ain’t no tomorrow.”

Sullivan thought about the mark on his chest while he waited for the skeletal man in the bed to address him. The other spots on his body that the Healer had sealed up still ached, but the geometric design over his heart just felt different. He could feel his own Power beneath it, where it had always lived since he was old enough to remember, but this was strange, like a warm weight had been sewn into his skin. Physically, it didn’t hurt at all. It actually felt good.

The Power inherent in the design was nothing compared to what he’d developed over the years, and somehow he knew that this bit could never grow beyond what it was now. Yet he felt stronger, healthier, more alive than he ever had before. His own constitution had been augmented into something more. He could better understand why the Chairman’s men would seek these things out, but at the same time, he now understood that the Power was using him as much as he was using it, and the idea of cutting more spells onto his body left him uncomfortable.

Either way, thinking about the mysteries of the Power kept his mind off of what had happened to his brother . . .

The old man had been propped up with pillows. The General spoke: “Give us a moment, John.” He waited for Browning to leave, studying Sullivan with cataract-filled eyes. Once the door closed, he spoke. “At ease, Sergeant.” Sullivan realized that he’d been standing perfectly straight. Old habits die hard. “In fact, sit. Staring all the way up there is wearing me out.”

“Yes, sir.” Sullivan pulled up a chair next to the bed. “Can I—”

“There’s nothing you can do for me now, unless you happen to come across the bastard that cursed me, and if you do, rip his heart out. Other than that, just listen . . .” The General’s voice was a whisper. Sullivan had to lean in close to hear. “There aren’t many of us left. We’ve always worked in small units, in secret, but we’ve been hunted down like dogs. We’re stuck in the middle of a war. One side’s pure evil, the other side’s too obstinate to realize it’s even in a fight, and is more scared of its own best weapons than the enemy. Do you know who we are?”

“You’re a bunch of mystics that fight evil.”

“Mystic? Sullivan, I’m an Episcopalian.”

“I only know what Dan Garrett told me, and he kept it close to the vest.”

“But you came anyway?”

Sullivan shrugged. Once again, getting involved in somebody else’s fight. “Yeah. I guess I did.”

“That’s because you’re a man with a sense of duty. You do what you think you have to, no matter what. I can tell that about you,” the General said. “Don’t ask how I know. I just know the measure of a man, and I can see that duty in you. It’s like a fire in your belly.”

It was possible the old man’s curse was affecting his mind. Sullivan didn’t think he was anything special, just another guy trying to get by. A curious one though . . .”Why am I here, sir?”

“Jane would be quite cross if she knew I was about to do this, but we’re approaching a time of reckoning. Let me show you my Power.” One palsied hand drifted over and rested on Sullivan’s own, and then he saw—

Macajambo, Philippines

1903

“You are the one they call Nigger Jack?” the weathered old Filipino asked in surprisingly perfect English.

He’d been given that nickname after commanding the 10th Cavalry, made up of Buffalo Soldiers. He held open the flap to his tent. “I am Captain Pershing.” He glanced about the darkened camp and saw that the guards were still at their stations. How had this man come this far into the camp? He placed one hand on his flap holster. “Who are you?”

The old Filipino was dressed rather nicely, with a red silk vest, probably one of the local leadership they’d been protecting from the Moros. “I am the one who has come to teach you about magic.”

“I do not know what you are talking about,” Pershing said firmly. He looked around. No one was close enough to overhear them. Even rumors of being Actively Magical could ruin his career.

The visitor raised his hand. A gold and black ring glimmered in the torchlight. “You have seen this before, yes?”

He had, several times in fact. As a boy, that ring had been on the hand of the man who had stopped a Missouri mob from lynching a child who could make fire with his thoughts. That ring had been on the finger of the man who’d thwarted his assignment to capture a magical Lakota girl. Then in Montana, a Cree medicine man had brought down real medicine and caused a plague to erupt, but they’d been cured by a woman wearing that same ring. In Cuba, a Spaniard who’d frozen them with his breath and shot ice crystals from his hands had been killed by an unknown soldier with a gold and black ring.

All of them had come, whether as enemy or ally, done something to protect a Magical, and then disappeared as mysteriously as they had come.

“We defend those who would be ruined because of their birthright, but we police our own, and will not allow magic to be used for ill. We keep the balance.”

Pershing only had to think about it for a moment. He held the flap open wider. “Come inside.”

Vladivostok, Primorsky Krai

1905

The international observers had been invited aboard the new airship Kurosawa, to watch the bombardment of the Russian fort. Officers from France, Britain, Germany, and the United States were on the command deck, gaping in awe at the destruction. The ocean was covered with burning oil slicks. A giant steel hulk exploded far below them and rolled on its side, breaking ponderously in two and heading for the bottom. The Russian fleet had been totally annihilated.

The United States military attaché removed his pocket watch and checked it. “Fifteen minutes,” Captain John J. Pershing stated.

The Brit, Nicholson, looked like he was going to fall over the railing in shock. The Kaiser’s man was scribbling furious notes. The French major was still airsick. Pershing had to admit that he himself was a little nauseous, though not from the altitude. The Japanese airship creaked and shifted as it turned into the wind and headed for the port city. Already other dirigibles had gathered over the heavily fortified walls and the Emperor’s magical shock troops were leaping down, causing chaos among the defenders. Transport ships were steaming in for an amphibious assault, while the regular army attacked overland. It was absolutely seamless.

“As you can see, gentlemen, the Emperor’s forces are as well trained as I have promised,” their guide said. Today had been the first time Pershing had met the guide. He had been introduced as Baron Okubo Tokugawa, and had recently been appointed as the Chairman of the Ruling Council and chief advisor to Emperor Meiji. He was wearing a European style military uniform, with a chest full of medals, but with the Asiatic touch of a red silk sash and a traditional sword. Pershing’s gut told him that this was the man running the show. “Perhaps now, our nations can come to an understanding as to the Imperium’s natural supremacy in this area.”

The Chairman’s sure enjoying the view. Pershing grunted a noncommittal response. He was no diplomat. What he cared about was how the Japs had integrated magic into their war machine. Incoming shells had been deflected by coordinated Movers on the naval vessels. Heavies and Brutes were storming those walls. Damage control had been conducted by Torches who could put out the most terrible fire just by thinking about it. Hell, they were even riding on an airship designed by Cogs.

This was the beginning of the end. Either magic would be used to conquer the world, or the backlash would cause normals to become so terrified of his kind that they would be exterminated.

“How did you get so many wizards?” Nicholson asked.

“Excuse me?” the Chairman asked, raising a single eyebrow.

“You’re utilizing magic on a scale we’ve never seen before . . . How?”

The Chairman nodded respectfully. “Unlike in the West, here in Nippon, we respect those with such gifts. We take them in as they are discovered and give them the finest education possible. In exchange, they serve a term of six years in the Emperor’s military or bureaucratic corps.”

“Brilliant . . .” said the German.

Pershing gave a bitter laugh.

“Yes, Captain Pershing?” the Chairman asked politely.

“My understanding is that you steal children away from their families as soon as you see a sparkle of magic, and then you put them in a prison where you can turn them into machines. Those who don’t make the cut get experimented on until they’re either useful or dead. The really strong get additional magic branded right to their souls.”

“I can assure you that the Imperial schools are a strictly voluntary affair. It is considered a great honor for a family to send their children to such prestigious institutions.” The Chairman was not easily riled. “May I inquire who told you such lies?”

Pershing turned away from the destruction at the rail and looked the Chairman in the eye. “Maybe I was told by a Manchurian, driven gibbering mad with pain, who escaped from one of your schools with failed kanji branded all over his back?”

The Chairman looked down at Pershing’s ring and scowled. “I see . . . Would you walk with me for a moment, Captain?”

He hesitated. The Chairman struck him as a very dangerous man, but he was on a diplomatic mission. If any harm were to befall him, the repercussions would be severe. Japan was strong, but not strong enough to risk a war with the West . . . yet. They were still modernizing, though at a shocking pace. It would come though, he could feel it. Pershing nodded and followed the Chairman toward the end of the observation deck. Guards with bayonets mounted on their rifles bowed and moved out of their way.

The wind was louder now that they were steaming toward Vladivostok. Pershing could smell smoke and gunpowder on the wind. “You are a knight of the Grimnoir?” the Chairman asked.

“Yes.”

“So the Society plans on standing against me then?”

God, I hope so. “That’s not my place to say. I’m here representing the United States Army. But as one Active to another, what you’re doing here is wrong, Baron Tokugawa. I’ve heard about you. I know you’re like me.”

The Chairman folded his arms. “I am far beyond you.”

Pershing tested his Power. Baron Tokugawa’s thoughts were far too well guarded for him to get even the briefest Reading. “No good can come of this. I’m begging you. If you follow this path, it will change everything.”

“Splendid.” He smiled for the first time. Pershing knew it was the smile of a predator. “The time for change has come. Tell your Society if they want a war, they will surely have one.”

New York City, New York

1908

The last Iron Guard stood at the end of the brick tunnel. Fetid water dripped down the walls and had flooded the bottom foot of the narrow space. The Imperium man balled his hands into fists and they burst into blue flames. The water striking him turned instantly into steam and began to boil around his legs.

“You will not pass!” the Iron Guard shouted in Japanese. “Glory to the Emperor! Glory to the Chairman!”

Ten yards. Pershing leaned back against the damp wall and peered around the corner as he shoved more shells into his Winchester ’94. He worked the lever and chambered another round. Time was running out. The same Geo-Tel that had destroyed a thousand mile swath of Siberia in one stroke was now targeted here and was due to fire any second. They had to get past that Iron Guard. They’d already killed three of the bastards but lost half a dozen Grimnoir in the process.

“Sven, Bob, on my signal, hit him from the left.” Southunder and Christiansen moved quickly through the muck. Browning was still reloading his pump shotgun. “John and I will throw down some covering fire. Bill, you rush him.” The Brute, Jones, just nodded his head vigorously, his courage surely fortified with alcohol.

“What ’bout me?” Traveling Joe asked as the little man squatted behind him.

“Once he’s distracted, you get that device and break it. No matter what.”

He muttered something in Portuguese and disappeared.

The famous Cog, Nikola Tesla, had given them the information about his invention. The Imperium had tricked him into building it, and had kidnapped his pigeon to keep him quiet. It drew the Power itself up from the core of the Earth and spiked it on the surface, drawn to a complicated targeting spell. They did not know where the design was drawn, but they’d been able to intercept the Iron Guards before they could flee with the device from Wardenclyffe laboratories, but rather than give it up, they’d decided to destroy themselves along with it in suicidal fire.

The single test firing of the Geo-Tel had managed to wipe out the entire Cossack army, and now it would slag the Eeast Coast of the United States of America.

Not if I can help it . . .

“NOW!” Pershing and Browning leapt into the tunnel and opened fire. The gunshots were devastatingly loud in the enclosed space. The bullets and buckshot struck, sending the Iron Guard staggering back, but his body was laced with kanji of durability and vitality. He raised one hand and blue fire erupted down the tunnel. Pershing dove into the foul water to avoid certain death.

He was hugging the bottom when the telepathic message from the surface arrived. Blue light growing in the sky. We’ve only got seconds left. Hurry!

Working on it, Isaiah.

When he broke the surface, Browning was at his side shrugging out of his burning coat and holding a shotgun with a wood stock scorched from the heat. The Iron Guard was distracted by Southunder’s rapid gunfire as the other Grimnoir flanked him. The Iron Guard moved toward them, hurling fire, but jerked as the water around his legs was frozen into a solid block by Christiansen.

The Iron Guard lowered his hands, blasting fire into the ice to free himself. Pershing had once been the best shot in the Army and showed it as he snapped the Winchester to his shoulder, lined up the front sight, and drilled the distracted Iron Guard in one eye.

Jones crashed down the tunnel in a wave of water, his muscles driven with super-human strength as he burned his Power. The Iron Guard was snapping around, blood spraying from one socket, kept alive only by kanji spells and fanaticism, liquid flame shooting from his fingers as Jones tackled him with a roar.

Pershing was up and sloshing forward as he worked the lever. The Power was rising up through the ground with a crackling rage. Soon it would supercharge the atmosphere and the resulting explosion would reach from Canada to Washington D.C.

It’s firing!

Jones was on top of the Iron Guard, fists hammering up and down like pistons as he slammed the man’s head into a misshapen pulp. He rose, still bellowing, meat and hair dripping from his hands. “Nobody messes with Wild Bill! NOBODY!” He kicked the body down the tunnel.

We’re all going to die.

“Vierra!” Pershing shouted. “Break it!”

Traveling Joe appeared with a splash next to him, holding a strange mechanical device. It was humming and crackling with Power. “You mean this?” He raised it overhead and slammed it down into the bricks, cracking it into several pieces.

The electric tingling in the air died. The Power was returning to the core.

It’s . . . it’s dissipating. You did it!

“Yes . . . yes, we did . . .”

Paris, France

1909

The international leadership of the Grimnoir Society had come together for the first time in a decade. The meeting room was plain, the building drab, and little would a passerby know that some of the most important people in the world had gathered there in secret.

“General Pershing, we are honored to have you as the newest member of the international leadership. Your bravery has saved the lives of thousands.”

He hadn’t come all this way just to get his ego stroked. “What about my proposal?”

“As commander of the American members of the Grimnoir Society, you are aware of the mighty challenges that face us. I’m afraid that we cannot honor your request at this time.”

Pershing pushed away from the table and stood. “Respectfully, I think you’re wrong. We need to recruit more people. Not just Actives, but anyone who has the courage to stand against the Imperium. The Chairman is our greatest threat. The time to strike is now. The longer we wait, the stronger he becomes. We need to build an army and take the fight to him. We need more knights. There’s strength in numbers.”

“There is more strength in secrecy,” one of the younger Europeans said, his English rough, his pronunciation stilted. “War is brewing here, and I fear that our kind will be drawn into both sides. The Kaiser is already building Active units. I, for one, fear our own governments more than I fear the Japanese.”

“Then you’re a fool,” Pershing snapped. There was a collective gasp. “The Kaiser is a Barnum clown compared to the Chairman. He’s no mere politician. He’s a force. The Geo-Tel events have been blamed on meteorites, but we all know what they really were.”No one in the American government believed him, but these people should understand. They had to. “What if it had been your country that was about to be evaporated?”

“Then I would still listen to the knowledge of my elders,” the European looked to the three men at the head of the table for confirmation.

The elders deliberated quietly amongst themselves for a moment, before the one in the middle finally spoke. “Our strategy remains the same for now. We will contain the Imperium, but we will not risk an open battle. Secrecy is paramount. General Pershing, you will protect the Geo-Tel device in the event that we ever, God help us, grow desperate enough to use it, but I do not ever foresee the need to use a weapon so terrible that its firing would be felt through the very fabric of all worlds. You will report the location only to the Grimnoir elders, in the case that something should befall you.”

“You’re all making a terrible mistake.” Pershing stormed from the room in disgust.

Mar Pacifica, California

1932

Sullivan pulled his hand away as dozens of memories flooded into his mind all at once. He remembered frustration riding in pursuit of Pancho Villa, confusion at the aftermath of Wounded Knee, the bitter soul-crushing sadness of losing his wife and three young daughters in a terrible fire, everything, the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat, and finally three years of unbearable suffering, but those were blurry, and had probably come over by accident. Others had been very specifically stamped into him, as harsh as the light of day. “What are you?”

Pershing appeared even weaker than before, if that were possible. “I’m a very weak Reader. I barely qualify as an Active, but I’ve been saving up a lot of Power . . . I thought it would only be fair to try and answer your questions while I answered my own . . . Thank you. I finally got to see the Power . . . It all makes sense now.”

“You read my mind?” Sullivan asked.

“Yes . . .” he closed his eyes. “I was right about you. And now I must rest . . .”

“Why’d you show me all those things?”

Pershing’s breathing had grown shallow and erratic. “Because . . . someone must know the truth . . . Only a handful of us knew . . . about the Geo-Tel . . . I need you to destroy the final piece . . . Don’t let him get it . . . Because we have a . . . traitor in our midst . . . I can’t even trust people who are like my . . . children . . . Whoever it is . . . they’re too strong for me to Read . . . Because . . .”

Pershing moved slowly, pushing something toward Sullivan. He took it, and found that it was one of the Grimnoir rings.

Because you are the man for the job. Carry on.

Pershing sent that last thought with his Power, then let out his final breath.

“General?”

His chest had quit moving. It was as if he’d found someone to pass the torch to, and had finally moved on. Sullivan sat there for a moment, stunned. Jane arrived a moment later, studied General Pershing’s still form and began to cry.