Gideon Smith and the Brass Dragon (18 page)

“Father?” she said hesitantly. “Was there bad news at Nuevo Laredo?”

“There is always bad news at Nuevo Laredo,” he said, slurring. “Bastards.”

Inez was shocked. She had never heard him speak like that. He gestured toward the papers scattered across the floor. “They are raising our taxes. They are reducing their supply runs to us to once every two weeks. The garrison they have been promising for a whole year now will not materialize at all. Ciudad Cortes is increasing
their
taxes and cutting
their
supplies, so they do the same to us. Madrid wages war with France, so Ciudad Cortes feels abandoned. It goes right down the chain until it stops with us, and there is no one for us to raise taxes or abandon. They wish to forget about Uvalde. They wish us to disappear from their concern forever.” He pinched his nose. “When places feel abandoned, they draw in their borders, wish to feel more protected. I heard at Nuevo Laredo that some Indian trading party was slaughtered by Texan raiders just a few miles from the garrison.”

Inez gasped, and before she could stop herself, she had already murmured, “They would not have done this to Don de la Garcia.” As the words left her lips she tried to reel them in, but it was of course useless.

Her father's red eyes blazed. “Don de la Garcia! Don de la Garcia! I am sick to high heaven of hearing of Don de la Garcia! Let his name never be uttered in this house again!”

Then, so shockingly that Inez could barely believe she had heard it: “Bitch.”

She gaped at him. “Father?”

“You heard me,” he said. “You think Don de la Garcia cared so much for Uvalde? Then why is he sunning himself in luxury in Madrid, hmm? Answer me that!”

Inez's head swam with the insult. But she rallied and said, “You know he was summoned back. He had no say in the matter.”

Even as she spoke, her father's venomous words tolled in her head.
Bitch. Bitch. Bitch
.

“Did I want the job? Did I want to step into Don de la Garcia's oh-so-polished boots? No, I did not. But someone has to run the affairs of Uvalde. Someone has to keep this place from disappearing beneath the sands.”

“Why did you call me … that word?” she asked quietly. “What would Mother say?”

Don Juan Batiste stood unsteadily and weaved toward her. He sneered. “She would say, like mother, like daughter.”

Inez felt the blood pound in her ears. “How dare you! How dare you speak of her in those words! She was my mother. Your wife.”

“Your mother, my wife,” he echoed. “But that does not make you my daughter. You are old enough to know the truth now, Inez. You are not mine. That … that
whore
got herself caught out after spreading her legs for the ever-so-perfect Don Sergio de la Garcia. And I rescued her from penury and shame, took her little bastard on as my own.”

Batiste brought his hand back and swiped it across Inez's face. She was smaller, faster, and lither than her father. She could have dodged the blow. But shock kept her rooted to the spot. As the sting of his palm reddened her cheek, she vowed to herself that no man would ever touch her in that way again.

“What do you think to that, hmm?” spat Batiste. “Don de la Garcia didn't just abandon Uvalde. He abandoned his daughter, too.”

But Inez had already clamped her hands to her ears and fled.

*   *   *

Inez sat on the flat roof of the casa, her refuge since she was a small child. Now her childhood hung off her in tatters. The man she had thought of as
father
had never been close to her, never loving, but she had convinced herself that that was merely his character. Don Juan Batiste had been the Deputy Governor of Uvalde since before she was born, and now she knew that every day he must have looked upon his superior, Don de la Garcia, with his own wife and two daughters, knowing that his own child was really the governor's.

Inez's mother had died six years ago of cholera, and she had taken the secret with her to the grave. Inez truly did not know how to feel. On the one hand, it all explained—and perhaps allowed her to forgive—Batiste's aloofness toward her over the years. A part of her felt almost sorry for him. On the other … he had taken in Inez's mother, heavy with child. It would have cost him nothing more than it already had to love them both unconditionally, rather than nursing the resentment that had suddenly burst forth. A bigger part of her, she decided, hated him.

And she could not shake a tiny thrill at the thought that the handsome, dashing, courageous Don de la Garcia was actually her very own father.

Night had fallen over Uvalde, and the lanterns brightly lit the town square beneath the casa. She had brought three oil lamps to illuminate the roof, and from within her cocoon of pale light she watched the market stalls being packed away, the cafés and tapas bars opening up. Cicadas chirruped in the darkness, and she closed her eyes and inhaled the faint aroma of pine from the plane trees in the dusty streets around the square.

Pecan, and the scent of Chantico. She didn't know why, but after fleeing her father's study she had riffled through her bag for the stupid El Chupacabras costume he had made, and slipped into the tight trousers and black shirt. She hadn't bothered retrieving his makeshift blade, instead grabbing a rapier from her father's cabinet in the hallway. She really must teach Chantico some proper blade work, the true art of
La Destreza
. Stepping back from the raised edge of the roof, she hefted the rapier and assumed the guard position, giving her imaginary opponent the courtesy of a brief nod before dancing forward into the line of his invisible blade,
stesso tempo,
parrying his thrust and fluidly transforming her defense into an attack that swiftly finished off her enemy. Since the age of seven she had been a fencing expert. Perhaps she also had something of El Chupacabras—wherever
he
had gone—within her, as well as Don Sergio de la Garcia.

A commotion in the town square suddenly brought her back to her body, and the gunshots that rang out had her ducking low behind the rooftop ledge. There were half a dozen horsemen galloping around the square, the stallholders scattering with yells and screams. She peered over the ledge at the men.

They were Texans.

She cursed herself for giving her name to those Steamtown
banditos
at the abandoned mine. The one the Nameless had sent back to his bosses had evidently delivered his message … and Steamtown had decided to retaliate against Uvalde if it couldn't touch the Nameless directly. Shock caused her to stumble forward as she recognized the lead horseman in the dancing lamplight: the one who had thought to assault her.

The rider took up an oil lantern from one stall and smashed it against the canopy of another, the flames quickly taking hold and spreading. This was why her fath—Don Batiste was a weak man. He left Uvalde open to the attacks and bullying of others. He had failed to secure a garrison from Nuevo Laredo, and once word got out, the town would be at the mercy of thugs like these forever. Nuevo Laredo, and Ciudad Cortes, did not care about this little border outpost. They would probably rather it wasn't here at all. A few more raids like this, and they might get their wish.

The Texans didn't look as though they were on a kidnapping mission, thank God. And they were firing their guns into the air, not at the townsfolk. It was a message, then, that Uvalde had better watch out.

Anger boiled Inez's blood.

Why weren't the townsfolk fighting back? Why were they fleeing like rats? There were only six of the Texans. Was this what Uvalde had become? New Spain's dirty little secret, a nest of cowards led by a weak-willed man who was only comfortable bullying young girls?

Where was Don Sergio de la Garcia? Where was El Chupacabras?

Inez looked down in fury at her leather-gloved hands, at the sword in her right, the silly little flour-bag mask dyed with juniper berries in her left. Where was El Chupacabras? Why had the masked hero of the prairies deserted them?

Perhaps he hadn't.

Before she knew what she was doing, Inez had pulled on the mask. She leaped to the ledge and held her sword aloft. Then she cried, “Uvalde!”

The Texans looked up and paused, pulling up their horses. The townsfolk slowed then stopped, looking up at her, bathed in lamplight and the dancing shadows from the burning market. The bandits glanced at each other, uncertain. A child, hiding beneath an upturned fruit stall, crawled out onto the cobbles and pointed at her.

“El Chupacabras!”

The name rolled like white horses on the crests of waves around the suddenly still town square.
El Chupacabras. El Chupacabras. El Chupacabras
.

Then, as one man, a huddled group skulking in the shadows of the tapas bar surged forward, causing the nearest Texan's horse to whinny and kick up on its hind legs, shedding its rider. They fell upon him with punches and kicks, and the crowd reversed its flow away from the square and back into it, taking up chairs and sticks, unsheathing swords and guns, and taking up the cry “El Chupacabras! El Chupacabras! El Chupacabras!” as they launched themselves at the remaining invaders.

Inez watched them for a long moment, the fire below reflecting in her shining eyes, then stole away from the rooftop and back into the casa.

*   *   *

Early the next morning she found Batiste still in his study. He had not been to bed. He looked at her with red-rimmed eyes and croaked, “I am sorry. Can you forgive me?”

Inez shrugged. “In time, perhaps.”

He looked at the three heavy carpetbags she carried. “Where are you going?”

“I am leaving. There is nothing for me here.”

Batiste fell to his knees and began to weep. “Please, Inez, I am sorry.”

She gave him a tight smile. “Me, too. Take care of the town, yes? El Chupacabras won't be here every time you need saving.”

Then she saddled up her horse and took to the trail, and with every step her horse took her closer to Chantico, she felt her heart might take flight.

*   *   *

Haruki Serizawa pinched his nose tightly. His eyes felt tight, and his back hurt from hunching over the roll of paper on which he had been scribbling formulas and calculations for eight solid hours. It was getting dark outside; he should think about finishing and getting home to Akiko and Michi. Those leg servers just would not hold, though. He thought he might have found a way to strengthen the joints, and during testing at the warehouse yesterday they had seemed to hold, but he could see that there were stresses forming in the long brass plates that simply did not show up in his calculations. Perhaps the thing was just too tall after all. Perhaps there was only so big you could go.

He rolled up his papers and took a small cup of tea from the pot on his countertop that had long since gone cold. He would sleep on it. Perhaps the mistake was in trying to ape the human form too closely. That might be it. He would sleep on it and come back fresh tomorrow.

The screen to the laboratory slid back, and Science Officer Morioka stepped in. Serizawa bowed, wincing as his stiff back pinched him.

“Come with me,” said Morioka without ceremony.

Serizawa followed him down the corridor to Morioka's office. A clean table holding just a single bonsai tree and a thick envelope awaited them. Morioka sat down in his chair and invited Serizawa to take the other seat.

“I have had an idea for building up the supports on the upper legs,” began Serizawa, but Morioka cut him off with an impatient wave.

“The time for ideas is past. Now only action. Swift action.”

Serizawa sighed; he could see where this was going.

Morioka tapped the envelope with his fingers. “I told you that the British had been sighted in sector thirty-one.”

Serizawa nodded.

“Our investigations have proved that they did, in fact, breach the defenses. With the worst possible consequences.”

Morioka opened the envelope and withdrew a stack of photographs. “These were taken yesterday in sector twelve. There is an observatory and watch base there. It is only a hundred miles from Nyu Edo.”

He pushed the photographs across the desk and Serizawa took them. The first showed the observatory; it was wrecked, the dome smashed, the large telescope lying on the ground like a felled tree. The second was of the dormitories in which the soldiers who manned the watch base presumably slept; they too were smashed, the bedrolls and clothing strewn on the rocky ground.

“A typhoon? A tsunami?” said Serizawa.

Morioka smiled tightly. “Continue.”

Serizawa turned to the third photograph and blanched. He had not eaten all day, and he had been looking forward to noodles and beef when he got home. Now his appetite fled. “Is that a … man?”

“It was,” said Morioka. “Look at the next.”

Serizawa flicked through the remaining photographs then placed them facedown on the desk. He could look no more. Those poor men …

He asked, “How many dead?”

“All of them,” said Morioka. “Twenty-seven. We lost touch with the base on sector twelve two days ago. They were due to send a boat with the month's reports. We sent a gunboat out to investigate. This is what they found. Every building smashed, every man dead. This was no typhoon, Serizawa. No tsunami.” He leaned forward. “This is what we have been waiting for. This is what we have been preparing for.”

Serizawa felt sick again, but not just because of the photographs. He felt sick because his work was nowhere near ready. Morioka said, “So, no ideas. Action. Swift action. I want us to be ready by the day after next.”

“But, Science Officer Morioka…”

“No buts,” said Morioka. He gestured at the photographs. “You want this for Nyu Edo? You want this for the people of the Californian Meiji? Your own wife and child?”

“Of course not!” said Serizawa, shocked. “But … it might not come here. Sector twelve is a little to the south … it might make landfall elsewhere.”