He’d come home to a country that didn’t understand them. All they’d known was that the First Volunteer had nearly ripped the world apart killing magical Germans at the Second Somme. Some called them heroes, but he could see the fear in their eyes.
Still, he’d tried to help, tried to make a difference. He was stubborn like that. Sullivan had liked puzzles, and what better way to solve puzzles than being a detective? Fixing people’s problems, and occasionally using his Power to right wrongs and take care of the dangerous types, and he’d been damn good at it. He’d fallen in love with a girl who had her own kinds of nightmares, and for just a little while, he’d thought he’d build a life for himself.
That had ended in five minutes of blood, because an innocent person had been threatened, and he was just too damned obstinate to let that slide. He’d killed a crooked bastard, but it had been a crooked bastard of an elected lawman, and that life he’d thought he might build with Delilah had all came crashing down.
Rockville. Six years of monotonous rock-breaking hell, and even in chains he couldn’t stop killing. The hardest of the hard had tried to prove themselves against his reputation, and he’d broken every single one. He never started anything, but he finished everything. His magic had always been strong, hard as his will, as forceful as gravity, but Rockville had given him time to think, and it turned out that was the most dangerous thing of all.
He’d been freed early to be J. Edgar Hoover’s attack dog, and even when he was trying not to kill anybody, they’d left him no choice. Delilah had come back into his life, briefly, until he’d gotten her killed too.
He’d been at war ever since.
The brain of a scholar in the body of a thug with a history so hard it would make an Iron Guard flinch. In another time or other circumstances, he might have accomplished great things with his mind or built great things with his hands. Instead, all he’d done was tear down the world, chipping away, piece by piece, like methodically breaking rocks in a quarry. He could try to hide it in fancy talk, about how he was protecting the innocent from the evil, but those were just words to confuse the issue. Jake Sullivan was good at one thing, and that one thing was killing. Sure, it was always for a good reason, but that didn’t change the fact that he was born to fight.
The Grimnoir oath he’d taken was serious business to a man who always kept his word. There were still folks in need of defending, now more than ever before, so he intended to go and do what God had put him on this Earth to do, and that was to kill a whole mess of people.
Jake Sullivan may have been on the side of the angels, but they were some damned bloody angels.
He woke up lying on his stomach. At first he wasn’t sure where he was. There was a strange noise vibrating through the floor, and then he remembered that was the sound of turbojet engines, and then he remembered that he was on the Traveler, and then he remembered that it was mostly empty since most of its passengers had been murdered in Shanghai. It wasn’t until he tried to move that he felt the pain and recalled why he was lying on his stomach. His back had been the only spot big enough to carve the new spell.
The Healing spells he’d carved on his chest were burning hot, repairing the damage to his tissues. Already the cuts and burns that had been inflicted on him had knotted over into rough scar tissue. He’d thought the others had hurt, but they’d been nothing compared to this. It was fading now, but he didn’t think he’d ever forget that magical fire.
Madi had held the record. He’d taken thirteen Imperium kanji and lived, and as a result he’d been damned near unkillable. Sullivan now had five, though this new one from Sivaram had to be equivalent to several Imperium kanji designs. Sullivan felt for the Power built up in his chest, but then immediately recoiled. It was different than before.
What would happen when he actually used it? Zangara had gone from making firecrackers to artillery shells. Crow had gone from Summoning demons to wearing them like a suit. What would that do to a man who was already a master of gravity? Even as curious as Sullivan was, frankly, he was afraid to experiment with such forces, especially while on board a fragile airship.
He took stock. He was barefoot, wearing pants but no shirt, and he still didn’t know where he was. Last he remembered he’d been in sick bay. He lifted his head from the pillow. There was a small mattress on the steel floor. He pretty much covered the whole thing and then some. He’d never been in this room before, and he’d been nearly everywhere he could fit aboard the Traveler. She simply wasn’t that big of a dirigible.
He realized it wasn’t actually a room at all, more of a space between rooms. The ceiling moved. And then he realized there was no roof at all. It was rust-colored fabric. It was the bottom of one of the hull cells holding thousands of cubic feet of hydrogen. Light was trickling through the gas bag, and it gave the room a sort of pink tint. Always analytical, Sullivan sat up, wondering how he’d gotten to this forgotten corner of the ship and how long he’d been out.
Other than the mattress, there wasn’t much here. A short table had been welded to the floor next to the hatch. There were cushions around it, since it was too small to use a chair. There was a vase bolted to the table, and the vase was filled with flowers. His neck popped as he turned his head. There were lots of little paintings and pictures on the wall, not hung, but screwed, because they would simply fall off the first time the ship banked hard. Then he tensed as he realized there were actually lit candles in the room.
He got yelled at for smoking, but somebody had put candles directly under one of the hydrogen bags? Sullivan crawled toward the candles to put them out, but then stopped when he realized it was a shrine of some kind. There were two photographs placed between fresh flowers, and several intricately folded paper animals, and then Sullivan knew exactly where he was.
The first picture was of a young Japanese man, stocky, muscular, with a big square face and a wide grin. He was wearing a Western suit and proudly holding some sort of academic award or diploma in his big hands. Sullivan would’ve bet money that he, too, was a Gravity Spiker. He just had that solid look about him.
The next picture was of a little baby.
Sullivan pulled away from the candles. He realized that though they were emitting heat, they weren’t moving at all. It was like the flames had simply frozen in place. Even the light coming off them wasn’t flickering. The wicks weren’t being consumed and the wax wasn’t even soft. Of course, Lady Origami was a Torch, so fire would do whatever she told it to do, and it sure as hell wasn’t going to endanger her memorial or her ship.
The hatch opened. Sullivan lurched to his feet on wobbly legs as Lady Origami entered her quarters. She was carrying a pitcher in one hand and a steaming bowl in the other.
“Hey,” Sullivan said awkwardly.
She placed the food down on the table, then closed the hatch behind her. “I am surprised you are awake. Do you feel all right? It looked painful.”
“I’m okay. Why am I here?”
“Sick bay is very full, with the four knights pulled from river. This is a private place, so I offered. It took three big men to carry you here. Your words were upsetting the others.”
“Words?”
“All about killing. Over and over.”
Sullivan looked down at his hands. “Uh, yeah…”
“You scared them.” She came over, touched him on the chin and lifted his head. He was surprised by the physical contact. Her fingers were callused and surprisingly strong. Her eyes were piercing, and he could see the fire inside. “You scared me.”