Pacific Fire (20 page)

Employees
: Work slowly. Think of ways to increase the number of movements needed to do your job: use a light hammer instead of a heavy one; try to make a small wrench do instead of a big one.

Managers and Supervisors
: To lower morale and production, be pleasant to inefficient workers; give them undeserved promotions. Discriminate against efficient workers; complain unjustly about their work.

Deliberate incompetence as sabotage: fiendishly simple to execute yet difficult to detect, and more likely to get under Gabriel's skin than an open air raid.

“Gabriel.” Max stood at the edge of the pool.

“You have news?”

“Yes, but I'll give it to you later. Otis Roth is here to see you.”

“Did you make noise at him about not having an appointment?”

“Yes. Shockingly, it had little impact.”

Gabriel kneaded his eyes. He sighed. “Show him in.”

He fiddled with his valves as Otis entered the chamber. Disappointingly, Otis looked well.

“Are you here to complain about something, threaten me, or both?”

“I don't like to have my options limited. But let's say a little of each. Come on down from your high chair.” Otis stepped to the edge of the pool.

“Sorry, but I'm too busy. I'm a terrible delegator.” He opened another valve that sent water flowing through a newly completed part of the city's mandala. “This is about power, I assume?”

“When isn't it? You agreed to provide Catalina with twelve gigawatts a day.”

“And I'm betraying you horribly by only providing 11.86. That's a lot, by the way. So there's your complaint. Let's move on to your threat.”

“Aw, there's no threat, Gabriel.” Otis sounded a little wounded. “If we're going to run things as a triumvirate, we have to get beyond the old habits of an eye for an eye.”

“Or a dam for a warehouse,” Gabriel said.

Otis chuckled. Because collateral death was funny, Gabriel supposed.

“I'm just asking that you care about the firedrake as much as me and Sister Tooth,” Otis said.

“My first responsibility is to the people of this city and this kingdom, and it's going to stay that way, even when we've established our power trio. I'll try to get some more electricity to the island. Can we please get to the subject of Daniel Blackland, which is the real reason you're here?”

“How did you know?”

Gabriel spun more valves, increasing water flow and traffic speed through the Sepulveda Pass.

“Every time you flush a toilet, I know a little more about you and your activities. You might lay off the fried food, by the way. Daniel visited Sister Tooth. He also visited Mother Cauldron.”

“And he visited you as well,” Otis said.

“He did. He lost track of the Hierarch's golem. He's convinced he's in the city and thought I might know his whereabouts.”

“Do you?”

“Regrettably, I wasn't able to help him.”

“Interesting,” Otis said. In that one word, Gabriel heard a trap snap shut. “The golem must be good at holding his bladder, then, because he's in the city, yet you can't find him.”

“Maybe he doesn't flush. But this is good news, isn't it? You need him …
we
need him … for the big Frankenstein moment when we throw the switch and bring the firedrake to life.”

“Indeed. Which is why, as an equal partner, I wanted you to know that we're all going to be working together to find him.”

“I'll keep an eye on the urinals,” Gabriel said.

Otis began climbing the stairs to Gabriel's throne.

Max stepped out from the shadows, but with a look from Gabriel, he withdrew.

Standing before Gabriel, Otis moved in close. His normally twinkling eyes glinted like polished knives. “I hope you know I'm serious, Gabriel. I want the golem. If you're not telling me something, I worry for our continued friendship.”

“And I'm serious, too, Otis. You're a smart and careful man. If you can't secure Sam Blackland, I'm sure you have a backup plan. Is it Daniel?”

Otis gave him a tight smile. “Who else could it be?”

“I'm not sure that bringing Daniel Blackland down on you is the best idea you've ever had.”

“Angering an enemy seldom is, Gabriel. But sometimes, there's little other choice.” Otis turned and headed back down the stairs.

True enough,
thought Gabriel. It was true with Otis. And if Daniel found out that Gabriel knew where Sam was but kept it to himself, it would be even more so.

 

THIRTEEN

Pelican squadrons skimmed over the harbor amid the squawking laughter of gulls. Cranes lifted containers off ships, while tugs brought in barges piled with mineral ore to be loaded onto train cars. Hundreds of scows backed up to the warehouses lining San Pedro harbor, waiting to deliver cargo all across the realm. The smoggy air roiled with diesel exhaust and metallic aromas.

For this last errand, Daniel came alone. He walked down the train tracks to a warehouse where three guys in tracksuits and gold chains glowered. They crossed forearms the size of hogs.

Daniel sincerely hoped he wouldn't have to break bones. These were just Otis's foot soldiers. He'd practically been raised by guys like this. Some of them had the morals of plywood, but they weren't all bad. They taught him to shave and helped him with his homework.

“I'm Daniel Blackland and I hate it when I have to hurt the help, so may I just come inside, please?”

At the mention of his name, the men went pale around the lips.

Daniel climbed up to the dock and approached the thugs. The top of his head barely came up to the clavicle of the shortest man. They stepped aside for him and he entered the warehouse.

Crates stacked on pallets rose to the ceiling. Forklifts beeped, and people with clipboards called out orders, and the air reeked of magic. In the old days, Otis was a master of hiding in plain sight, and he ran his various criminal enterprises behind a screen of boring, legitimate businesses. These days, as the realm's unchallenged main supplier of osteomancy, he was bigger in Los Angeles than ever, and any question of his legitimacy was rendered moot.

“Otis at home?”

The forklifts halted. The people with clipboards fell silent. Nobody answered.

“That's okay. I'll look for him myself. But you guys have thirty seconds to get out of here.”

He heard the bolt of a rifle.

“Twenty-nine, twenty-eight…” And when nobody moved, he roared in a voice that was everything but human. Clipboards clattered to the floor. Forklifts were abandoned with the engines still running. The retreating footsteps sounded like rain.

Alone, Daniel paced the floor, surprised by a pang of nostalgia. He'd spent so many hours in places like this. Otis hired fugitive osteomancers to teach him what his father hadn't been able to before he died. If they hadn't known his father personally, they'd certainly known of Sebastian Blackland and respected him. Like Daniel, they'd lost homes and loved ones during the Hierarch's purge of rivals. They expected the Hierarch to catch up with them one day, and they expected to die in a glue factory. They predicted the same eventual fate for Daniel and so were kind to him.

He'd hung out with Moth and Punch and all his friends in a warehouse like this. He'd fallen in love with Cassandra in a warehouse like this.

He found a disheveled office with signs of recent occupation. Cold coffee at the bottom of a carafe, an uncapped pen. On the wall hung a framed photograph. It was Daniel's father, neat and trim in a starched white shirt and gray slacks, sitting behind a piano, his marvelous fingers stretched in a keyboard-spanning chord. Daniel's mother leaned on the piano, her eyes closed and mouth open, singing. There was an arrangement of Victory Day candles and palm fronds. Daniel had no memory of his parents like this, singing songs in a house decorated for the holidays. But he must have experienced it, because there he was, sitting next to his father on the piano bench. From his size, he must have been around two years old.

He lifted the photo from the wall, gently, as if it were an ancient artifact that might crumble in his hands, and he stared at it for minutes, examining every detail. Blurred in the background was an achingly familiar dining room table, laden with more Victory Day candles. People sat around it, friends of his parents, he assumed. And there, to the side, almost out of frame, was a large red-headed man, smiling and looking right into the camera. Even blurry, Daniel knew it was Otis.

Otis wasn't a sentimental man. His offices were always decorated by promotional giveaways. Calendars. Notepads. Practical things. He didn't keep souvenirs. He didn't display mementos. The photo was for Daniel's sake.

Daniel placed it back on the wall. With a flick of his Zippo, he set about the business of burning the entire place to the ground.

*   *   *

With black smoke boiling into the sky and burning wood crackling behind him, Daniel returned to his boat. A black van was parked close behind it, bobbing in the oily canal water. Face hidden under the hood of a sweatshirt, a figure leaned against the side of the van. Daniel's heart quickened and his tongue went dry.

“Did you expect to find him at home?” she said.

“I thought there was an off chance.”

Cassandra pulled her hood back, and Daniel experienced a telescoping sensation, as if she were close enough that he could brush his fingers across her cheek, yet so impossibly distant. She was here, a foot away from him, and she was ten years in his past. Even when she stepped forward and gave him a brief, strong hug, her physical presence did little to steady him. He'd spent a decade imagining some version of this moment.

“How'd you know to find me here?”

“Barometric pressure changes when you're around. The birds fly differently. Dogs and cats become unsettled. I just had to read the signs.”

“Moth told you, didn't he?”

She came just short of laughing. “Yeah.”

“And did he tell you I'm trying to track down Sam?”

“He did. But you can stop looking for him. Sam came to see me. He's fine. Both him and the Emma.”

“Oh.” Iron bands around Daniel's chest loosened, and he took his first unrestricted breath since waking up in the Funeral Mountains and learning Sam was gone. “Oh, thank god. Really, he's not hurt or … he's okay?”

She touched his arm for brief comfort, and when she drew her hand away, he felt the faint tingling ghost she left behind. Cassandra wasn't an osteomancer, but she always made him feel as though she were.

“I got the feeling he's been through a lot,” she said, “but he was okay. And that Emma girl he's with is about as Emma as Emmas come. They've got a good partnership. He's a smart kid. A good kid, I think.” From Cassandra, who hadn't met a lot of people she considered good, this was a tremendous compliment. “He seems strong,” she added. “Really strong. Like, almost as strong as you.”

“Yeah?” Daniel said with a twitch of dread.

Cassandra knew him well enough to notice. “Shouldn't he be strong?”

“I think I've been harmful to him, Cass. I'm here in Los Angeles, soaking in the magic, and I feel really good. And mostly, in the desert, I've felt the same, osteomantically. But when I wasn't near Sam…”

“You were poisoned. You were sick. Of course you didn't feel the same.”

“Yeah,” Daniel said. “That sounds good. Okay, I'll believe that.”

“You think you've been using him.”

“Yes.”

“He wouldn't even be alive if it weren't for you.”

“Where's he now, Cass?”

Cassandra answered with a guarded expression. “I don't know where he took off to after he left my place.”

Daniel was sure he was misunderstanding her. He
had
to be misunderstanding her.

“He came to you and then left? Why?”

“Because he got what he came for. Magic and gear.”

“You armed him for Catalina and then let him go? Why didn't you hold him?”

“Hold him. You mean keep him prisoner.” Cassandra's eyes narrowed dangerously. “He's an osteomancer, and his friend is an Emma. How was I going to stop him? I didn't want to get into a firefight in my own house. And if I didn't outfit him, he'd have gone to Mother Cauldron, and I didn't want to be responsible for that. And, in case you need this pointed out to you, I'm not his jailer.”

“I'm not his jailer, either. But I am his protector. And sending him to the island … Jesus, Cassie.”

He stopped himself before saying more. He was being unfair. No, Cassie wasn't Sam's jailer. And she was right. Sam would have gone straight to Mother Cauldron, or even tried to rip off Otis. And then this wouldn't be a rescue mission. Instead, Daniel would be trying to recover his corpse.

“I'm sorry,” he said.

“Forget it.”

“No, I really am. And I'm sorry for always having reasons to say, ‘I'm sorry.'”

Most unexpectedly, the corners of her mouth quirked in a mischievous smile. “Will you quit being morose if I give you a present?”

“I dunno. Depends if I like it.”

She slid open the side door of her van. “Have a look.”

Daniel poked his head in.

Otis sat on the floor. His ankles were bound with leg chains, his hands cuffed behind his back. He was blindfolded. Several strips of duct tape covered his mouth. And even bound up and humiliated, Daniel saw him as dangerous, this man who raised him as surely as did his own mother and father.

Cassandra slammed the door shut. The steel of her van didn't seem thick enough to contain Otis.

“If I couldn't keep Sam safe for you, I figured the least I could do was hobble one of his threats.”

She made it sound so simple. But you didn't just bag Otis Roth and go on with your day. There would be repercussions. She would be hunted. In her own way, she'd done the equivalent of slaying the Hierarch. And life hadn't gotten simpler for Daniel after eating the Hierarch's heart.