American Craftsmen (30 page)

“When do I get to meet your mother?” she asked.

“That’s a long story.” And a doubtful one. I wouldn’t live long enough to sort it out. But that wasn’t her real question. “Why do you ask?”

“There’s something else in the air, something dreadful,” said Scherie. “I keep thinking, ‘Did I tell my parents I loved them the last time I saw them?’”

“Don’t worry about it,” I said.

“But…”

“It’s a craft foreboding,” I said. “Stay focused on our immediate problems, and it won’t come to pass.”

The immediate problem was how to kill myself most effectively without killing her. Not that I wanted to die even at the worst of times, and particularly not after meeting Scherie. The unfairness of it pissed me off, even though I knew that life and fairness weren’t intersecting sets. But there were no good alternatives.

The problem for my life expectancy was that penetrating the Pentagon was a suicide mission, even for the greatest of powers. In January 1953, the Soviets launched a craft decapitation strike. By March, Stalin was dead. The most successful attack with a craft component was the autumn of 1967 antiwar assault, and half those practitioners ended up working for the Pentagon.

The Kremlin, 10 Downing Street, even the White House would have been easy drive-bys in comparison. No wonder that the rumors continued that something otherworldly, perhaps Lovecraftian, dwelled in the center. I knew better: the Pentagon’s power was of this world, though not all of it was living. No accident placing it so close to Arlington Cemetery.

But the defense my father had revealed was the strongest and subtlest. Probability defense went to the heart of craft. The more you attacked, the longer you stayed, the farther you penetrated, the more the odds built up against you. Eventually, you hit 100 percent fatal. Your luck literally ran out.

I would have to walk well ahead of Scherie to test the boundary of possibility. Whatever Scherie thought about her role in this mission, I had a different idea. If anything within my power could make a difference, she would survive. Like Joshua Morton, I would be one against many. Like Joshua, I must not flinch.

If I had to go into the Pentagon, I’d need some heavy artillery to draw on. Best to play my strong suit from the outset. I had one weapon that they would have difficulty opposing. Sure, Chimera had rained on my party, but I had only devoted a trivial amount of craft to the weather that night.

I rolled down the windows to feel the wind, and started working on a small, very focused, thunderstorm.

*   *   *

Endicott heard the Left-Hand voices while walking from his car to the Pentagon entrance. “
An Endicott. We will destroy you for what you’ve done.
”

“That’s a pretty insubstantial threat, given you can’t get farther than the parking lot.” But Endicott was talking tougher than his position. Their floating oil slick form was much more substantial than the usual revenant, and the craft barrier around the Pentagon had shrunk. It hadn’t been this small since those hippies had attacked in the sixties.

“You have no idea what we’re capable of.”

Endicott couldn’t believe his shit-assed luck this week. Surely, this couldn’t be the attack they had called him back for. “What, you’re going to dress up as another Poe character? Maybe the black cat. Ooh, very scary.” He hoped his bravado masked his continued unease—for a crucial minute, their Red Death had made him yellow.

Silence. Then the unified chorus of voices broke into cacophony. “
He doesn’t know—He lies—Tell him—Say nothing.
”

“What don’t I know?” he asked. Silence, except for the distant sound of thunder. Well, he couldn’t stand around all day in a storm with the ghosts of ghouls. He entered the Pentagon.

He went through the building to what used to be the Ground Zero Café at the center of the Pentagon. The new place just wasn’t the same, and he didn’t appreciate the pagan image of an owl on the roof. He could reach the stairway from the exterior of the café, but instead took a break inside. He ordered coffee, and not just for appearances. The coffee was as horror-show as his mood. While the café made everyone look the other way, he passed through the secret door and descended the winding stone staircase to H-ring. There was a private elevator, but it was out again, of course. Machines were easier to mess up than the granite stairs. The eighth circle of the Pentagon eschewed concrete for slabs of solid rock.

Endicott reported directly to the general’s office. The screens were more frenetic than during Endicott’s last visit. One screen displayed casualty reports. The general was addressing his speakerphone. “Tell OTM I want a test of the autodestruct, ASAP.” He killed the connection.

“Dad,” said Endicott, “what’s going on?”

“You’re on duty, Major,” said the general.

“General, sir. What in God’s name is going on?”

“Just as I warned,” said the general. “The Left Hand has assassinated a number of important craftspeople.”

“Any of our family?” asked Endicott.

“No, no Endicotts,” said the general.

“That’s really odd, sir. Doesn’t the Left Hand want us most of all?”

“They’re swarming all around us!” said the general, voice rising an octave.

“Not very effectively,” noted Endicott. “They didn’t try anything against me, just burbled nonsense.”

“You spoke to them?” asked the general, eyebrows at attention.

“Yes, sir,” said Endicott.

“I suspect the only reason they didn’t attack you individually is that they are totally committed to their attack on the building. Their radius is closing.”

“I noticed,” said Endicott. “What do they hope to accomplish, sir?”

“They’re attacking Chimera,” said the general. “They know it’s a threat to them. And we’re understaffed. Many of the Pentagon ghosts even failed to report for duty. Not good. Now, it’s your turn to answer the questions, Major. By leaving H-ring, you’ve violated the spirit if not the letter of your orders.”

“Sir, I’ve violated no order. Colonel Hutchinson was the first of these murders. If we can figure it out…”

“Colonel Hutchinson,” said the general, “is quite alive. She’s been working with Chimera.”

Endicott blinked at his father. Hutch alive? “Thank God!” he stammered in a dreading ecstasy. “But the Gideons reported her dead.”

“Yes, something seems to have gone wrong there,” said the general.

“Where is she?” asked Endicott.

“She’s right here, in H-ring, resting. We’ll be meeting at twenty-two hundred hours.”

“Is she OK?”

“Couldn’t be better, other than some bumps and bruises,” said the general. “Satisfied?”

It may have been a sin to examine family like a human lie detector, but Endicott did. His dad thought this was all true.

“Now,” said the general, “To repeat, I think we’ve satisfied far too much of your personal inclination and curiosity lately. Before I decide on a reprimand, I want your full report on what you’ve been up to. Leave nothing out. Don’t worry about the time commitment; you’re here until this blows over. Dismissed.”

Endicott went to his office. Hutchinson alive, and working with Chimera? His father might believe all this crap, but it smelled even more rotten to Endicott. If he was stuck here, he had only one line of investigation. He was going to Chimera.

His phone buzzed. His thought crime was busted, but only by his coconspirator. This time, Chimera’s text ID was MYTHBEAST. Cute.

MYTHBEAST: Wait.

SWORD: What am I waiting for?

*   *   *

The distinction between craft and coincidence is a fine one. What would be the baseline synchronicity level without craft? The question itself is unscientific, as no observation in this world could answer it.

For example
, thought Chimera,
in a craftless world, a harmless bit of bad luck could have concentrated a sudden storm on Arlington, Virginia
. Of course, the luck would have to have been significantly worse to explain the near-hurricane that resulted when attacking Left-Hand spirits added their own energy to Dale Morton’s magic. The terrible weather and spirits reduced H-ring staff to the bare minimum as craftsmen went up to investigate.

Also, chance could explain how only two guards of the Chimera room in H-ring’s core made it to work, meeting the regulatory minimum, and how one of those guards fell to the ground with sudden intestinal distress, and how the other violated his orders to help him to the toilet. Screw the orders, they both thought. The door was secured and video monitored; they would only be five minutes at most. Just another bit of bad luck.

During that five minutes, a video feed from the door went to the general’s office and the personal deep bunker of Sakakawea and the Red Death. Due to recent unfortunate events, the last two were both indisposed, a coincidence that had not happened for a very long time.

As for Major Endicott’s father, he was too busy applying his professional zeal to the problem of not thinking about his son to notice the door feed.

With his keepers fully occupied, Chimera could send texts to Endicott directly without their noticing.
Now for something more intimate
, thought Chimera. If he had to use some craft sleight of hand, the lightning strikes above covered a multitude of electronic sins below.

Like the late House of Morton, the Pentagon had its own safeguards, but these were otherwise engaged. Outside, the Left Hand pinged with greater ferocity against the Pentagon’s craft defenses, nearly threatening to break through. The Peepshow’s farseers conveniently kept trying to stick their noses into H-ring business. The building focused its uneasy gaze outside, and blinked at the rot in its heart.

In a craftless world, all of this would have added up to a lot of bad luck. But Chimera, drawing on the Pentagon defenses, had plenty of bad luck to spare—a perfect storm of it.

MYTHBEAST: Now. Quickly.

Compared to the other parts of the Pentagon, H-ring was cozy. In a few quick steps, Endicott passed the Office of Technical Management and reached the airlock door that led to the Center, and to Chimera.

The locked door whined in protest, then clicked. A red light turned green.

MYTHBEAST: Enter.

Endicott stepped into the airlock. A clean-room suit hung on the wall. Through a small speaker, an atonal voice commenced instructing him in its use, but was interrupted. “You can ignore the precautions. A little dust might be nice.”

Endicott entered the main room. A furnace of craft blinded him for a moment. A security camera moved to follow him—did someone see him? Too late to worry now.

Computer servers filled the space, wall to wall. “I sit in the fah end of the room.” Chimera’s voice revealed something hidden in the feeds and text messages—a strong regional accent. Chimera was from New England. “Please hurry. The constellation of distractions will not last forevah. We don’t have much time.”

As he approached the other end of the room, Endicott heard the sound of a watch enveloped in cotton. The last few machines but one were large magnetic-reeled antiques of compu-tech. The staccato ticking grew louder, louder. The very last server differed more radically—strange archaic-looking tubes and brass fittings centered on a mirrored box.

Endicott reached to touch it. “Don’t.” A crackle of electricity, a blue shimmer of craft energy. “Not unless you want to lose your hand.”

“Chimera,” said Endicott. “Is this you?”

“Yes,” said Chimera, “that’s what they call me now.”

“What did they call you before?”

“Don’t you recognize me?” The box grew translucent, then transparent. The skeletal head of a man ancient beyond nature, more mournful than the implacable mask of the Red Death. “
Ecce homo
.” His black tongue vibrated in subvocalization; some craft unknown to Endicott substituted for a voice box. Remnants of spidery hair, weak chin, large temples, and thin receded lips all marked him as Roderick, leader of the Left-Hand Mortons.

Never had duty and impulse been in such raging concord. “If you still have a human soul, I suggest you pray for forgiveness,” said Endicott, readying his sword.

The thing in the box laughed, and yellow pus oozed like tears from its eyes. “I remember that sword. You want to kill me. But you’d only kill yourself. And as much as I enjoy killing Endicotts, I’ll make an exception for you.”

“You’re a head in a box,” said Endicott. “I’ll take my chances.”

“Between the mundane and craft energies that surround me,” said Roderick, “no body can touch this box.”

“You’re a notorious deceiver.”

“Do you think I fear death?” said Roderick, suddenly as weary as his two centuries. “I bound myself to life so thoroughly that no force yet in the world can break the tie. While I remain in this machine, I cannot even slay myself. Therefore, I shall slay others. I crave revenge against the two that have put me here. For the first time in a hundred years, their guards are both down.”

“Who is behind this?”

“One is my dear sister, Madeline,” said Roderick.

“Impossible.”

“Sayeth the man talking to a living head,” said Roderick. “She took another, wiser route to immortality, though an even surer path to madness. She takes new bodies; always so very thin and pale. Imperfect copies have an evolutionary advantage. Unlike me, she doesn’t accumulate the weight of experience, she sheds it with reptilian abandon. In her previous body, she deceived you as a Gideon. I cannot see where she is now, so she must be here in H-ring. Or standing sidewise.”

“And your other lie?” said Endicott.

“Is the best of all,” said Roderick. “The man who took my head from the ruins of my house. The man who saw my continued life as the mockery of everything he believed in. Can’t you guess it, Sword?”

“Liar.”

“Abram Endicott. Your noble ancestor. Like my sister, with my sister, he lives.” The staticky voice faltered into hissing rage. “He likes to dress his dolls as me for parties. Ah, you’ve seen him. If you want to destroy me, you’ll have to kill him first.”