vices.' He downed the rest of his whiskey in one gulp. 'Ahhh… That's good stuff. I'll grab Delilah and we'll have a little talk with the prisoner. Socking him in the head will cheer her up.' Lance left as well.
Jane spoke without looking up from her book. 'I've been Grimnoir my whole life, and my parents, and my grandparents before that. They were some of the first founders. I was born into this. I don't have to pretend to be dead, because I've never gotten to really be alive.' She turned the page. 'You have to actually exist first, you know.'
'That's… that's kind of sad,' Faye said.
'Eh…' Jane shrugged. 'You get used to it. This is all I've ever done, so I can't complain. I'm a Mender after all, that's my god-given gift, and I've got no shortage of injured people this way. My friends have left things behind to do this. I never had to, and even if I did, I'd still do it anyway. I'm just glad that I never had to make that choice.'
Faye understood. 'I don't really have anything either. I guess if my Grandpa was still alive, I'd still be there, with him, happy. Now? I think it's awful nice of you folks to let me stay here for a spell.' Faye didn't know what she was going to do next. She was still figuring out what had happened, as secret societies and Tesla superweapons were a bit over her head, but General Pershing had said that she was welcome to stay with them as long as she wanted.
'Leaving things behind is tough.' Jane placed a bookmark to hold her page then finally set her book down. 'You haven't met my boyfriend yet. That's how it was for him. He was a radio star. Had his own show on the American Broadcasting Network and everything, best voice in the world, people used to say. He read the news, he was half the voices on the detective shows. Everyone loved him, and then one day they didn't anymore. They hated him.'
'What happened?'
'People found out he had Power, that he could influence people with his words, get inside their heads. They pretty much ran him out on a rail. It ruined his life.' Jane sniffed and reopened her book. 'Poor Dan.'
'Don't be hasty. Young Mr. Garrett turned out to be one of our finest operatives,' Browning suggested as he rose. 'He would never have met you either, my dear, if he'd continued in the radio business, and I don't believe he would have it any other way.' Jane blushed. 'Now, if you will excuse me, I do have some business to conduct.'
His eyes fluttered, open enough so that he could see who was at his bedside. He made out the scarecrow form and shiny baldness, decided that it was John Moses Browning, and closed his eyes again because any light was particularly painful today.
'Yes, John?' Pershing whispered. 'Did Garrett recover the device?'
'We've not heard anything yet,' Browning replied.
'I see…' That meant that there was another reason for the visit, and Pershing already knew what it was. Browning was his second-in- command, one of his oldest surviving friends, a deeply honorable man, and keeping the truth from him was more painful than the cancers eating his bones.
Browning sighed. 'I'm concerned, Jack.'
'The Chairman's trying to reassemble a weapon that blew a thousand-mile hole in Siberia,' he laughed, but it came out as a painful wheezing noise. 'I'm a touch concerned, myself.'
'That Cog, Einstein, figured that it was such a release of Power that it would have been felt in other realities. Concern is an understatement, but we both already know that…' Browning paused. 'That's not why I'm here. I'm a little worried about your recent recruiting.'
Pershing would have nodded if he could have. 'Please, continue.'
'In the past we have always thoroughly checked people out before we revealed ourselves to them. That's always been the Grimnoir way. That's the only reason we've stayed alive as long as we have. The Chairman's spies are everywhere, and if we brought one of them into our ranks, it would destroy us.'
Pershing knew that Browning was utterly correct. It was the single biggest reason he could no longer even trust his own government or even the Army that he'd helped build. The Imperium's tendrils were deep into everything. 'Our numbers are too few. We've lost so many good men. If we do not increase our numbers, we will fail.'
'I agree, but first it was Delilah Jones. We barely knew anything about her, except that her father was a bitter, miserable crank of a man, who would surely have drunk himself to death if the Imperium hadn't found him first… and she herself is of questionable character, a criminal even.'
'We've recruited criminals before, John. They can go places that others can't. You're just offended because she was a New Orleans whore.'
Browning sighed. 'No need to be vulgar, but yes.'
'She did what she had to do to survive. When she discovered her Power, she turned to more lucrative crime.'
'You say that like it's a good thing. And this Heavy you have running around with Garrett and Heinrich. He's a murderer.'
Pershing couldn't deny that. 'And a war hero.' He knew that if Browning found out the other reason he'd recruited Sullivan, he'd surely think that the Pale Horse's curse had finally driven him mad. 'It balances.'
'Well, we should just take a trip up to Rockville and clean the place out then… Either one of them could have been co-opted by the Imperium. We've not investigated either as we normally would.'
'We can't spare the manpower to investigate anyone.' The American Grimnoir had borne the brunt of the secret war against the Imperium. The international leadership had their own fights, as the Imperium was active in virtually ever corner of the globe, but it seemed to him that all the tough jobs had been assigned to his people, and the Americans had paid for it in blood. As usual.
'And now you're letting this young lady, Ms. Sally Faye Vierra, stay here. Do you plan on giving her the oath as well?'
'Oh, please don't tell me you think that little thing is an Imperium spy?'
He snorted. 'Unless the Imperium has found a magic kanji for channeling the Power of irresistible cuteness, no, of course not. She's a wonderful child, but she's only a child. Consorting with us has put her in danger.'
'I've led men into battle that were younger,' Pershing responded.
'Those were men.' Most of the knights of the Grimnoir were male, most of their female members served in a support or intelligence fashion. Brutes, like Delilah, were historically an exception for reasons so obvious that even the harshest misogynist had to agree. 'You want to start sending women into this meat grinder? Are we that desperate?'
'Look around. We've taken seventy percent casualties over the last decade. We can't protect the honor of the fairer sex if our entire nation is in slavery under the Chairman's heel.'
'It's not right.'
Pershing gave a noncommittal grunt. 'She's a girl, but she's also a Traveler. We both know how rare those are. Think of the possibilities. Look what the Imperium has accomplished with their Travelers.'
Pershing couldn't see, but he knew Browning well enough to know that he would be shaking his head sadly. 'You would turn that little girl into our own personal Shadow Guard?'
The Imperium had a few pure-Active units that they knew of, the warrior Iron Guard, the experimental Unit 731, and the Shadow Guard assassins. They were often referred to by their common name, ninja, and the Grimnoir had lost many to their poisoned blades over the years. 'We're better than them, but we'll do whatever must be done to win. Our way of life, our freedom, depends on it.'
'That's the same thing you said to Traveling Joe twenty years ago, if you recall. And he walked away and never looked back. He'd rather be a farmer than another murderer in the night. At least there's honor in milking cows.' There was a rustle of cloth as Browning got up from the chair.
Pershing had caused quite the stir when he'd been the first Grimnoir leader to invite coloreds into the Society. He doubted anyone would be surprised should he start drafting children. 'Fine. We'll give the young lady a home and a proper education, Lord knows she needs one, and I won't ask her to do anything, but mark my words, her nature is such that she'll want to give some payback to those Imperial bastards.'
