Order of the Air Omnibus: Books 1-3 (19 page)

Alma gestured toward the back of the plane with her head. “The roundel on the tail. It’s a protective sigil. Gil and Jerry worked it out and painted it on all the Gilchrist planes. It’s on our business cards and stationery too. And on the sign on the hangar.”

“Oh.” He thought for a moment. He supposed there was no harm in painting a protective sign on a plane. That wasn’t witchcraft. More like wearing a St. Christopher medal. “What’s the Bible verse?”

“They have pierced my hands and feet. I can count all my bones,” Alma said promptly.

Lewis blinked. “That’s depressing.” He looked at her sideways. “Why the hell would you paint that on an airplane for protection?”

“Don’t ask me,” Alma said. “That was Gil and Jerry.”

T
hey came down the eastern slope of the Rockies into the mail field at North Platte in the declining light of the early evening. Lewis climbed out to stretch his legs while Mitch supervised the refueling, and walked along the length of the runway past the old gas beacons, metal pots half as tall as a man squatting on wheeled trolleys, ready to be lugged into place. He’d landed with worse light back in the war —he’d landed more than once by the light of a dropped flare, heart in his throat and an Act of Contrition on his lips. He’d been lucky each of those times, lucky and good; North Platte to Iowa City — another lighted field, a night stop for the mail planes — was nothing in comparison. It would only be an hour past sunset by the time they got to Iowa City. And Mitch would take the last leg into Chicago’s Municipal Field. He walked back toward the Terrier, stretching carefully. He’d only taken the controls a couple of times, but it was easy to tense up as though he’d been flying, particularly in the mountains.

Alma and Jerry were nowhere in sight when he got back to the plane — in the end of the hangar that served as a control center, probably — but Mitch was sitting on the cabin steps, smoking. The fuel truck had pulled away, and Lewis frowned.

“We’re not using the supplemental tank?”

Mitch shook his head. “No need. I hate the way she handles with it full, anyway.”

Lewis paused. “We could probably make Chicago in one hop with it full. Cut out the ground time at the very least.”

“You’ve got guts,” Mitch said. His smile softened the words. “I thought about it, but we’d be cutting it awfully close. I just don’t see the need to take that much of a risk. Especially since Jerry hasn’t figured out what to do yet.”

“These — sigils,” Lewis said. He pronounced the word carefully, tasting it on his tongue, trying to decide exactly what he wanted to know. “Will they really keep this — is it a demon? — from possessing any of us?”

“That’s the plan,” Mitch said. “Technically, I don’t know if this thing is a demon, exactly, but it’s certainly not a creature of Light.”

Lewis blinked, not sure if that actually answered his question, or just raised more, and Mitch pushed himself to his feet.

“I wish I knew what it wants — but maybe Jerry will have figured that out, too.” He ground out his cigarette and started for the hangar.

Lewis ran his hand through his hair, wondering again just what he’d gotten himself into. Demons, possession, magic…. Alma. He supposed that was what it came down to: this was Alma’s world, and he wanted to be part of it. He reached into his pocket, found the half-empty packet of cigarettes and lit one, inhaling the familiar tobacco. He had choices, he couldn’t kid himself there. He could walk away — Ok, maybe he couldn’t actually do that, or at least he didn’t want to, didn’t want to leave Alma, but he could say to her, Ok, this is too strange for me. I don’t want to be part of this magic, this lodge business. She’d made it clear that it had to be his choice, and Mitch had pretty much said the same thing: he had to choose, not just follow because Alma wanted it. She would keep him on as a pilot, as her lover, it would just mean he wouldn’t be part of things like this…. And that wasn’t good enough. Whatever happened, he wanted to be with her. To be at her side.

“I wish I knew what I was doing,” he said, and rested his hand against the Terrier’s aluminum skin.

Mitch and Alma came back from the hangar together, Alma with a paper bag in her hand that turned out to contain more sandwiches. It was cooler under the shade of the wing than in the cabin, and Lewis wolfed down half of one while they waited for Jerry.

“I got the control tower to radio ahead to Iowa City, let them know we’d be coming in after dark,” Mitch said, “and they said they’d have the field lit for us. They wouldn’t radio Chicago, though, said we’d have to do it from Iowa City.”

“I suppose I understand it,” Alma said. “Most people aren’t going to want to make a night flight. But —”

“We’ll be into Iowa City around ten,” Mitch said. “The tower will still be open at Chicago, and they’ll wait for us. Not to worry.”

“I’m not worrying,” Alma said.

Mitch lifted an eyebrow at her, and, reluctantly, she smiled.

“Ok, maybe I am, a little.”

“We’ll be fine,” Mitch said. “Lewis will take us to Iowa City, and I’ll get us to Chicago.”

Lewis nodded his agreement. He would have liked to add something, but there really wasn’t anything more to say.

“Right,” Mitch said. “Now — where’s Jerry?”

Alma looked over her shoulder, and Lewis said, “There.”

Jerry was limping toward them as fast as he could, his artificial leg dragging awkwardly in the clipped grass. “I got hold of Henry’s hangar manager at Chicago,” he called. “I told them we were doing a test flight, that we’d need to use their shop when we got in. They’ll leave the key for us at the tower.”

“Nice work,” Mitch said.

Lewis nodded agreement. That would make things easier, all right. He’d been imagining something out of Black Mask magazine, picking locks — or, since he had no idea how you actually went about picking a lock, climbing in through a window or something — and not having to worry about the night watchmen or the police was definitely a relief. “Are we ready, then?”

“I’d say so,” Mitch answered, and looked at Alma.

She nodded. “As ready as we’re going to be.”

Lewis settled himself into the cockpit, Mitch in the copilot’s seat to his right. They ran down the checklist — Lewis was pretty sure he had it memorized by now — and the flagman waved them out onto the grassy runway. There was a nice gentle breeze, just enough to lift the windsock on its pole outside the hangar. Lewis pointed the Terrier into the wind and opened the throttles.

He had to admit that the Terrier was much easier to fly without the weight of the supplemental tank. She climbed easily past 6500 feet, low enough to see the landmarks in what was left of the daylight, and Lewis leveled out, adjusting the fuel mixture as they reached a cruising altitude. There were clouds on the horizon, blending into the deepening dusk, and he glanced at Mitch.

“Did we get a weather report?”

“Alma did,” the other man answered, and twisted in his seat. “Al? Weather report?”

“Sorry.” Alma scrambled forward, handed the typewritten sheet to Mitch. “High clouds, maybe a little more wind, but otherwise it’s still fine. Tomorrow and the day after — that may be another matter.”

“Thanks,” Lewis said.

“With any luck at all,” Mitch said, “we won’t be flying then.”

Lewis looked for wood to touch, but there wasn’t any, and contented himself with tapping his own head.

The clouds were definitely closing in with the night, gray hummocks and rills filling in the sky around them, sheets of pale haze that thickened as he watched. The air would be smoother above them, Lewis knew, but he didn’t want to be landing through the cloud deck in the dark when he didn’t have to. He pushed the wheel forward just a little, letting the Terrier descend decorously, a hundred feet, three hundred, a thousand, and leveled off again when he thought they were well below the clouds. The sun was low enough behind them now that it was below the clouds, too, striking last flecks of reddish light from the landscape below. Mitch checked his notes, gave him the compass reading, and they flew on into the deepening night.

The air was a little choppy, just enough to require attention and strength to keep the Terrier mostly level. Lewis thought the weather report was probably right, there would be weather coming in behind them, sending out feelers ahead of the storms. Below them, the countryside was mostly dark, a cluster of town lights occasionally passing beneath the wing. That, at least, was nothing like France, where the night flights had been broken only by the flash of artillery, and he was grateful for it.

“Keep an eye out for the beacon,” Mitch said. “We should be seeing it pretty soon.”

Lewis nodded, his eyes flicking from the compass to the invisible horizon and back again. For a few long moments, there was nothing but darkness and the drone of the engines, the instrument panel glowing softly, the dimmed lights of the passenger cabin barely passing the cockpit door. And then, so faint at first that he thought he’d imagined it, he caught the first flash of the beacon, the edge of the beam sweeping out into the night. They’d barely been off by three degrees: he smiled, and steadied the Terrier on the new heading.

Iowa City was waiting for them. The lights came on as he made his first approach, circling over the beacon to get his bearings, and it was easy enough to let the Terrier down onto the well-manicured runway. He taxied to a stop beside the hangar, and they climbed out again so that they could top up the main fuel tanks as quickly as possible. Lewis lit cigarettes for himself and Alma, and stood for a moment letting the night breeze play over him. It had been a hell of a long day, and it looked like it was going to get even longer. Maybe he could catch a catnap on the way to Chicago….

“Nice landing,” Alma said, and exhaled a plume of smoke. “I still don’t much like night flying.”

Lewis shrugged one shoulder. “At least we have lights.” And nobody’s shooting at us, he added silently. The way things were going, saying it aloud felt like tempting fate.

I
t didn’t take long to finish fueling and to radio Chicago to tell them they were coming. Alma settled down in the seat in the back as Mitch prepared for takeoff. She didn’t even need to have a look at him. The Terrier was his baby, and he had the smoothest hand with it of all of them. Jerry didn’t look up either.

“So, Jerry,” she said. “How is it?”

Jerry folded the book down. “It isn’t,” he said quietly. Certainly his voice wasn’t audible in the cockpit over the engines. “I’m not sure this can be done, Al. Not with what we have and the time available. I’m not sure I can design something that’s actually bombproof that’s small enough and that we can make with the materials we can get and that we can do in a couple of hours. And if it doesn’t work….” He shook his head.

Alma frowned, leaning forward. She knew she couldn’t be heard in the cockpit either. “Look, resisting possession is about will, right? That’s what it comes down to in the end. It’s about knowing you have sovereignty over your own body, and having the will to make it so.”

Jerry let out a long breath. “Of course it is,” he said quietly. “But do you think most of us believe that?”

“Jerry….”

“We don’t believe that we have that kind of control. We don’t believe we have the right or the strength or the ability to say no to a demon. And so it controls us.” Jerry ran one hand through his hair. “We call upon external aid. We ask Diana or St. Christopher or whomever to help us. We say, I am weak, my dear, carry me. I am lost. Find me.” His blue eyes met hers. “Everyone needs it sooner or later, Al.”

“I know,” she said. “I have.”

He reached over and took her hand, folded it in his. “I know you have. And I’m glad I could be here.”

She squeezed his fingers. “I am too, Jerry.”

He looked away. “You know, after the war, you and Gil….”

“You don’t need to say it,” Alma said.

“If you and Lewis work out, I couldn’t be happier for you.”

Alma searched his face, and then nodded slowly. “Thank you, Jerry.”

He drew himself up with effort. “So. About these sigils….”

“It has to be strong enough for us to believe in. That’s the important thing. Not being consecrated at the right hour of the night in the right phase of the moon. All of that is secondary to belief.”

Jerry sighed. “I think a sigil of Sagittarius on one side and the crescent moon on the other is the best we can do given the constraints. That’s probably simple enough for Lewis to engrave on a small piece of metal.” He shook his head. “I’m giving up on the quill taken from the left wing of a male gosling and the virgin parchment….”

“Or any other kind of virgin,” Alma said.

Jerry gave her a quicksilver smile. “Or any other kind of virgin. Consecrate the burin with perfume of the art…. I don’t suppose you have any perfume?”

“Not with me.” The plane had leveled off, and Alma turned and called to the cockpit. “I don’t suppose either of you have some cologne?”

Mitch didn’t look around but shouted back. “I’ve got a bottle of Musgo Real after shave in my kit. If you want that.”

“What’s in it?” Jerry called.

“I don’t know.”

Alma rolled her eyes. “I’ll find out,” she said, undoing Mitch’s case. She found the bottle and unscrewed the cap, taking a deep sniff and handing it to Jerry. “Vetiver,” she said. “Sandalwood.”

Jerry sniffed and nodded sharply. “That will do. Musgo Real it is!”

From the cockpit, Lewis could be heard querying Mitch, “We’re going to do a magical thing with Musgo Real?”

“Better than Burma Shave,” Mitch said.

T
hey followed the Chicago beacon into the Municipal Airport, the rotating beams of light like a landlocked lighthouse. Mitch brought the Terrier down between the lines of boundary lights, his eyes roving from the instruments to the barely-visible field and back to the instruments. His gut shrieked that they were turning, right wing pitching up, but he ignored the sensation, focusing on the turn indicator. It showed straight and level: his body was lying again, no surprise there. He stole a glance at Lewis anyway just to check, saw him relaxed and easy in the copilot’s seat, and then he was below fifty feet, the ground rising to meet his wheels. He let the Terrier stall, and dropped neatly onto the runway.