like you.'
Sullivan scowled, studying the diseased face. It couldn't be. The man who had done that honor had been a strong man, and it hadn't been that long ago. 'General Pershing?'
'In the flesh, or what's left of it.'
Sullivan was speechless. John J. Pershing, supreme commander of the American Expeditionary Force in the Great War, had disappeared from public life three years before. This was the greatest military commander alive, the highest ranking general in U.S. history, and they'd even talked about running him for president a little while back. 'Sir, what happened?'
'I've been assassinated. I just haven't given the bastards the satisfaction of dying just yet. Welcome to the Grimnoir, Sullivan.'
'I haven't exactly enlisted yet.'
'Then consider yourself drafted, son. All hell's about to break loose.'
Sullivan hesitated, unsure what to say. 'Sir… I don't-'
'I'm asking you, one soldier to another, for your help. This is not a small thing I ask, and it will be dangerous, and it will be a sacrifice, but it is the right thing to do. It is the right thing for your country, and your people, and your God, and for all that you hold sacred. You have my word.'
It ain't like you've got anything better going on.
'I'll need to get J. Edgar Hoover off my back. I won't be much good to you as a fugitive.'
'Important men owe me favors. It's done… Garrett, bring this man up to speed. Go get Christiansen. Protect that device at all costs. Burn any Imperium that get in your way. Burn them down. Then get back here. Any questions?'
Heinrich and Daniel simultaneously said, 'No, sir.' Sullivan had a thousand questions, but he just nodded.
'Do not fail.' The picture disappeared, leaving a circle of fused salt hanging in the air. The glow dissipated. The circle fell to the table and shattered into bits.
'I suppose that answers my question about who calls the shots,' Sullivan said.
Chapter 9
My cavalry unit was camped eighty-two kilometers south of the Podkamennaya Basin that morning. Despite driving the Green Cossack army back for nearly three months, the Nipponese troops had withdrawn earlier in the week. Their retreat was unexpected, but a welcome chance for us to regroup, tend to our wounds, and fatten our fighting bears on the local reindeer herds. We discovered the reason for the Imperials' retreat around breakfast. A blue light appeared in the northern sky, rising from the horizon as a pillar, until it disappeared into the clouds. Scouts estimated the disturbance was near the position of our main infantry encampments. Kapitan Kurgan had a pocket watch. He said the disturbance started at exactly 7:00. Flocks of birds and large numbers of forest animals retreated past our camp in the direction opposite the light. At 7:05 the light had grown so bright that it was as if there was a second sun. Then the noise came, like the sound of artillery. The earth shook. All of us were knocked to the ground. The sky split in two and the light turned to fire. The fire grew until the entire north was fire and it came toward us. The hot wind came after the thunder, snapping down all the trees of the forest and flinging our tents. The temperature increased until it was unbearable. Our clothing caught fire and our bears went mad from the pain, turning on their Controllers and rending them. I was thrown approximately two hundred meters into the river. The water boiled. That is all that I recall.
– Leytenant D. Vasiliev's animated corpse.
Testimony to the Tsar's Investigative Council on the Tunguska Event, 1908 Ogden, Utah He'd gotten hurt pretty bad back at the cabin, though he was a lot better off than the hired thugs they'd brought with them. Thanks to the Chairman's gifts, his body would be back up and running in no time. The goons would still be dead. Madi shook his head and went back to stuffing his guts back in. The old Grimnoir had turned out to be one hell of a fighter, but Madi had got ten of what he'd been after. He always did.
'Hold still,' his companion ordered in Japanese. Yutaka was the only other survivor of their morning's work, and the Iron Guard was up to his elbows in Madi's blood. He ran the needle back and forth expertly, holding the muscle together with thick cord. The healing kanji etched in scar tissue on Madi's back had kept him alive despite being disemboweled for over an hour now, and the overtaxed Words of Power were burning as hot as the day he'd first been branded. 'This is slippery.'
'It don't have to be pretty,' Madi grunted. The stitches just needed to hold everything in the right place until he could heal up in a few hours. He should have been incoherent with pain, but the more kanji he'd had burned onto him, the stronger he became. Since he was also the first white man to have the honor of being an Iron Guard, the fact that he was the only one of them strong enough to bear over a dozen kanji pissed the other slant-eyed bastards off to no end. 'Hurry up. I don't want to look all busted up when we report in.'
The heat from the kanji was making him sweat. He had them carved into his back, chest, legs, and arms. The downside of so many brands was that he couldn't really feel anything anymore. Madi had taken to hurting himself just for fun. He'd actually enjoyed getting shot on this mission. The brief pain had reminded him that he could still feel anything at all. It had taken forever to drive back to the hotel from the Grimmy's podunk town, and he'd relished the suffering every mile of the way.
Once Yutaka had him closed up, the Summoner prepared a circle, so they could confirm the success of their mission. This was no normal circle either, and Yutaka was having to draw the most intricate of magical kanji in special ink made from human blood and demon smoke on the floor. Telegrams and radio could be monitored, even the best codes could be broken, but nobody could eavesdrop on this communication, plus it did have another added benefit. Madi washed up and put on some clean clothes so he could be presentable.
Twenty minutes later he stood in front of a glowing blob floating in the center of the hotel room. The surface rippled like water, finally solidifying into a view that Madi recognized as the Imperial Council Chambers. Madi marveled at the clarity of the link; it was almost like looking through a door into another room of a house. He had to admit that Yutaka was an artist. Madi's personal gifts tended to be more direct.
Madi was taken by surprise by who appeared in the rift. It was the Emperor's chief advisor, Lord Tokugawa himself, Chairman of the Imperial Council, and de-facto leader of the Imperium. Madi and Yutaka bowed with the utmost respect. Madi had not expected the big boss, and felt a little giddy from the excitement. It was late in the evening in Tokyo, but everyone knew that the Chairman never slept.
The Chairman appeared to be a man in the physical prime of his life, but the word around the Council was that he looked exactly the same when he first arrived at the Japanese Court forty years ago. It was rumored that he did not eat or drink either, but that he was sustained on Power alone. He was regal, handsome, distinguished, with jet black hair, wearing a western suit tonight, but with the red sash badge of his office around his waist. Madi had personally seen the Chairman's displeasure cause his enemies to weep blood. He'd seen the Chairman heal the incurable, kill the unkillable, break the laws of physics, and warp the fabric of reality with his mind.
Madi only respected one thing, and that was strength. You were either weak or strong. Whoever was the strongest was therefore the best, and no one could be stronger than the Chairman. He'd never believed in his father's god, only in the Power. The strongest wouldn't preach about mercy, peace, forgiveness, or any of that bullshit. That was all sissy talk for the weak to pretend that they still mattered. The Chairman was force. He was going to inherit the world, crush the meek, and Madi planned on being at his side when he did.
The Chairman was all business. 'It is done?'
'Yes, Chairman,' Madi answered enthusiastically. Yutaka stepped forward, deferentially, and passed the parcel containing the device through the rift. It flickered, but Yutaka's spell was perfect, and the package landed softly at the Chairman's feet. No living thing could pass through a fold in space except for the wretched Travelers, but a master magician could send through small bits of matter, and Yutaka was certainly a master.
'Very good, Iron Guard,' he said, and Madi felt his chest swell with pride. He bowed again.
Another figure scurried into the bottom of the rift, retrieving the package. Madi recognized one of the Cogs from Unit 731, the Chairman's special science group. Even after all of the things that Madi had done, those weirdoes still gave him the creeps. They'd been the ones to modify his body into the perfect killing machine he was today,
