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."
"And to think that I'd come up here worried that you were losing your judgment. Rather, it turns out you're as ruthless a man as ever."
"I have a history of winning wars, John. That's why I was given this job."
The door closed and he was alone in the dark. Browning was right to question his wisdom. It did seem foolhardy on its face, but he had his own reasons for bringing in these new people. It was time for some fresh blood.
He no longer knew whom he could trust.
In 1908 he'd led a small team on a suicide mission. The Tunguska Event had been a mere test-firing of Tesla's Geo-Tel. If the Peace Ray was a scalpel, the Geo-Tel was a battle-ax. Only by the grace of God had they succeeded just as the blue pillar was starting to form over the East Coast and the Power itself was rising from the bowels of the Earth. The knights of New York had succeeded only by the narrowest of margins.
He'd been so enraged that if they'd had the ability, Pershing would have turned it around and fired it at Tokyo. With that being an impossibility, he'd wanted the thing destroyed, but the international Grimnoir leadership had vetoed that, in the hope that someday they might be able to utilize it themselves. He'd broken up the device and given it to the surviving members of his team to keep safe. Only the inner circle of the Society knew who had the pieces.
But now those men were dying one by one, which meant that someone had betrayed them. He alone knew where the final piece was, but did not dare tell any of his people. He needed outsiders.
The bedroom door flew open with a bang. "It's Garrett!" Lance shouted. There was a bustle of movement and the nervous voices of at least three people as the focal circle was activated. Of course, Pershing hadn't felt the contact. His fingers had become so arthritic that his Grimnoir ring couldn't be worn anymore.
The flash of white light could be seen through his eyelids, but he didn't complain. He was as anxious for the news as everyone else.
Garrett's voice came through a moment later.
"Christiansen is dead. The device is gone."
Chapter 10
It was nearly eleven o'clockat night-an immensely late hour for those latitudes-but the whole town was still gathered in the Gatlinburg courthouse yard, listening to the disputes of theologians. The Scopes trial had brought them in from all directions. There was a friar wearing a sandwich sign announcing that he was the Bible champion of the world. There was a Seventh Day Adventist arguing that Clarence Darrow was the beast with seven heads and ten horns described in Revelation XIII, and that the end of the world was at hand. A charlatan magician was escorted from the premises for pulling a rabbit from a hat, while nearby a fundamentalist of the Merlin-Baptists pontificated on the epistles of St. Paul while shooting lightning from his eyes and none dared interrupt that sermon. There was the eloquent Dr. T.T. Martin, of Blue Mountain, Mississippi, who had come to town with a truckload of torches (the wooden, not the human kind) and hymn books to put Darwin in his place. There was a singing brother bellowing apocalyptic hymns. There was William Jennings Bryan, followed everywhere by a gaping crowd. It was better than the circus.