Wind Raker - Book IV of The Order of the Air (34 page)

Stasi reached for her gin fizz, hoping her hand didn't shake. "And what does that have to do with anything?"

"Now that great fellowship assembles again. It's time to put the world in order."

"Your order?"

"Not mine solely or exclusively." Pelley took a drink. "But a new order. And there shall be no night there." He smiled as she blinked. "I don't expect you know that quote from the Book of Revelations, being a Jew and all. That's not as secret as you think, Mrs. Sorley. Does your husband know?"

She said nothing, and he smiled again, taking a draw from his cigarette. "His business, not mine. But it's time to clean up. A world without night — imagine that! No darkness, no deception, no superstition. Science, progress, order, health — no slums where vermin breed, no dark corners that shelter the prostitute and the homosexual, the deviant and the criminal. No con men and flim-flam artists, no drug addicts and drunks — all rehabilitated in clean, sanitary conditions."

"And what about those you can't rehabilitate?" Stasi asked. There was a lot of gin in this fizz, and that was a good thing.

"Quarantine, of course." Pelley shrugged. "Just like tuberculosis or leprosy. You can't let a few rotten apples spoil the barrel. Restrict the contagion to ten urban centers in North America, ten cities that have proper facilities, and then the rest of the country will be clean. Healthy." He shook his head as though he were a fond schoolmaster. "You can't expect to raise those Gentile children correctly, can you, Mrs. Sorley? They may not be your blood, but what can they learn from you? How to booze it up in clubs and dance the Charleston? How to take people in a con scheme? How to make a living based on your charms, considerable as they are? What kind of mother are you and what are you teaching them?"

She drew in a quick breath.

"Pure sunlight," Pelley said. "Pure brightness. The midsummer sun that illuminates all dark corners, that immolates all impurity it touches. There will be no night there." He put his glass down. "You can serve that light, Mrs. Sorley. That's a choice you can make."

"And if I don't?"

He smiled gently. "Ultimately it will be very sad, just like your friend tonight. He was a great man once, a servant of Impenetrable Brightness. But he fell away from that course long ago, moved by the dying words of a slave woman. It was good poetry, I admit — 'very well, as befits the last of so many noble rulers…' And now — well, you see him, don't you? Boozing it up in clubs, playing dangerous and silly games, frittering away his talent and his life, when he might answer that great call. Now is the time. The horns have sounded, Mrs. Sorley, and either you are with us or against us. If he had come over, he might have been a great force for good. Who knows what he might have done, opening the gates of the Potomac to those who would bring America into concert with great events? He might have led Roosevelt out in chains so that the whole nation could see what happens when you give a Jew-loving cripple the reins of power! He might have met his brothers face to face, a handclasp between those who were meant to fight the darkness of Stalinism together! But instead…" Pelley shook his head sadly. "Instead he's a might-have-been. A man who died in a drunk driving accident in Hawaii without ever having done a single thing of note in his life."

"Not yet."

Stasi spun around.

George was standing right behind Pelley, his white dinner jacket streaked with dirt and a bleeding cut over one eye. Lewis was just behind him, Alma and Mitch bringing up the rear. George grabbed Pelley by the shirtfront, hauling him off the barstool. "Now listen, you little pipsqueak." His voice was low but forceful. "If you ever do anything like that again, I will know. And no matter where you do it or to whom, I will personally find you and break your neck." He lifted Pelley up just a little more than was comfortable as the entire bar turned to look.

"I don't know what you mean," Pelley said.

"You do." George bent close to his ear, a feral smile on his face. "And let me tell you something else. If you happen to get lucky and do me in, my wife won't kill you. She's got something better than that. Are you afraid of the dark, Pelley? If you're not, you will be by the time she gets done. She knows a Hawaiian curse that will shrivel the skin from your bones and consume every bit of meat on you as you scream in pain, splintering your bones very, very slowly over the years while your skin rots and you beg for someone to put you out of your misery. And finally you'll shoot yourself right through the brain, if you've got balls enough to do it. And she'll watch you the whole time, laughing." His smile broadened, showing wolf teeth at the sides. "People make the mistake of thinking I'm the dangerous one."

The bartender cleared his throat. "Hey, buddy…"

George let go of Pelley, grinning affably. "Sorry, old chum. I got carried away there for a second." He brushed his hands off. "Hope I didn't crease your suit."

"He's been in a car accident," Alma said to the bartender. Her voice was pitched to carry to the gathering crowd. "It's been a rough night. Can we use your phone?"

Stasi looked at Mitch, whose expression said clearer than words, I'll tell you later.

Pelley melted away into the gathering crowd, not looking back once, but the chill he'd left on her didn't dispel. Everyone was milling around asking questions.

"No one was badly hurt," Alma said loudly. "Just the car banged up and some cuts and bruises. I think Colonel Patton hit a pig in the road. Lewis and I were very fortunate to be right behind and able to give him a lift back. He's definitely going to need a towing service. But all's well that ends well."

Stasi reached for Mitch's hand, squeezing it once. She had never been more frightened in her life.

Chapter Fifteen

M
itch dropped Jerry and Jimmy at the Bishop Museum the next morning at nine even though it was Saturday. Alma and Lewis were still in bed and Stasi was taming the madding crowd with about fifty pancakes, cigarette in one hand and spatula in the other, a bleary expression on her face.

After he dropped Jerry he started home, then on impulse turned onto Hilea Road to go to the Patton's house instead. He probably ought to see how things were this morning.

The Japanese houseboy answered the door. "Is Colonel Patton in?" Mitch asked.

"No, sorry. He has gone already," the boy said, but Bea came up behind him.

"Mitchell! Do come in," she said.

"There's no need," Mitch said. "I just wanted to check by and see if George was ok after last night."

"He has three stitches, but for him that's nothing," she said, opening the door and motioning him in. "He had a meeting at Hickam Field this morning, and he said he was just fine, so he went on."

"I'm glad to hear everything is ok," Mitch said, following her through the dining room to the breakfast table on the lanai.

"Hardly that." Bea stopped. "The car is a wreck. He was very lucky."

Mitch swallowed. "The pig he hit…"

"He told me." Her voice was brisk. She went out on the lanai, leaning against the rail looking toward the sea. "He told me it was a fetch, and that it was no accident."

Mitch came to the rail beside her, casting a glance sideways. She looked so ordinary in her white shirtwaist dress, graying hair pinned up at the back of her neck, a few years older than he was, a perfectly normal person. But she wasn't, and neither was he. She'd shown that back at Henry's house, when they'd found the iron necklace stolen. It was time to throw the dice. "Beatrice, why does William Pelley want to kill your husband?"

She took a deep breath, not looking at him. "Because of who he was in the past, in a life before this one. As though Pelley were strong enough for that! This isn't the first time he's tried, and it probably won't be the last."

"He tried before?" Mitch frowned.

Bea nodded. "It didn't work because the bones he used weren't the right person. If Pelley was half as clever as he thinks he is, he would have known that the name on the tombstone didn't match the man buried there. He thinks he knows the stories, but he only knows what's in the history books."

And that made sense, a connection suddenly knitting. "My wife is a medium," Mitch said. "Pelley tried to hire her a few years ago to call a man shot in 1815, but it didn't work. Stasi said no, by the way."

Bea's face lit in a wide smile. "That would be it, yes. I'm glad your wife didn't get into it, but it wouldn’t have worked anyway. George wasn't shot in 1815 and so those were not his bones. But I tell you this, Pelley isn't the only one hunting Companions. And he's certainly not the strongest."

Mitch took his time, picking his words carefully. "Pelley told my wife a story about knights, about a group of warriors forever oathbound. Are you saying it's true?"

She raised her hands to her chin, pressing them against her mouth for a moment as though she decided whether to speak or not, and then turned to face him squarely. "My husband believes — I believe — that he has been reincarnated many times. He has fought in many wars in many eras, for good and ill, and because of his karma and his choices he returns to fight again. Sometimes it's been battles you would have heard of, and most often not. There are others who share his fate. Including me."

Mitch nodded slowly. It didn't seem fair, but there it was. "And are you also bound against your will?"

Bea smiled, glancing down at Mitch's left hand where it rested on the rail. "That ring on your finger — is it an oath or a fetter?"

"It's my wedding band," Mitch said. "It's an oath."

"Some men would say it's a fetter," Bea said. "The old ball and chain!"

"That's not what it is to me," Mitch said. "I chose to make that promise to Stasi of my own free will, and I don’t regret it for a second."

"That is what my oaths are to me," Bea said gently. "I took them of my own free will, and I don't regret them either. I don't want to be unbound from the company of those I love. I find my freedom in service, in our shared love for the world, just as you find your freedom and happiness in your marriage. I can see that you love her very much. That binding isn't a loss, but a gain."

Mitch swallowed. "We understand each other," he said. "We're a team. She's the only person who's ever really gotten me, and I think I'm the only person she's ever relied on. She's my freedom."

"And my oaths are mine," Bea said quietly. "This is who I am. Wife, mother, writer, amateur anthropologist. Oracle and eternal Companion."

He put his other hand on the railing, looking out toward the sea. Incredible, but true. He knew it in his bones. What she said was absolutely true.

She watched his face change. "You believe me."

"Yes."

"Most people wouldn’t, even if I told them."

"I'm not most people," Mitch said.

"We're very good at looking normal, you and I. We're very good at passing. You're such a good guy, such a regular fellow, a good pilot who likes football and beer and his family. And I — I am an army wife who dabbles at writing novels full of romance and adventure. You'd never know, would you?"

"No," Mitch said. "We're pretty good at passing."

She looked away, out toward the distant sea. "It's the others I feel for," she said. "The ones who can't. The ones who slip up or who are just too strange. They need too much or they say the wrong thing and they can't survive in the daylight world. And then they lose everything. The best they can hope for is to tumble from grace and the worst…." She stopped, and when she went on her voice was hard. "At the worst, they face electroshocks, medicines…. We're the lucky ones. No one will ever catch us." She lifted her chin. "Dr. Radke has more to be afraid of than we do. He has more to lose, and he looks like an outlaw no matter how respectable his suits."

"Not like a housewife."

"Not like a good old boy." Bea gave him a shifting smile. "But we know who our kin are, no matter how normal we look."

"The night world," he said, leaning his elbows on the rail of the lanai. "It gets pretty strange sometimes, but I never wanted an ordinary life."

"Nor did I," she said.

"Dead people wandering around all the time wanting stuff, strange happenings every month or two, random people trying to kill other random people, weird science, occult conspiracies…. It's like living in
Weird Tales
." Mitch grinned.

"And you love it," Bea said. She pushed her hair back from her face. "And so do I. That's the first thing I say when someone asks me if it's real. I ask them if they want it to be."

"I want it to be," Mitch said. "I want to understand what's going on. Pelley and his Silver Legion — the whole thing makes the hair stand up on the back of my neck. Pelley wants to summon the dead to fight for him."

"Not the dead," she said. "The living. Why not make an army of the greatest military minds of all time? Why not find all of the best, the reincarnations of the most talented and undefeated generals who ever lived, and bring them all to your side to fight for you? Why not bind them to you, one by one? Who can defeat you if you have Hannibal and Agrippa, if you have the Knights of the Round Table and Charlemagne's Paladins and Napoleon's Marshals all rolled up together?"

"Oh damn," Mitch said.

"In a word."

"Pelley calls his inner circle the Marshals."

"It's an easy list to start with," Bea said. "And far easier to find material correspondences for men dead a century ago than those dead a thousand years or more. Far easier to find them. Not that Pelley has the sense to find half of them. He's too fettered by his own beliefs."

"Come again?"

She turned, leaning back against the rail, and it struck him that she was really pretty, compelling in the same way Stasi was. "The soul has no gender or race, Mitchell. Today I'm a woman and you're a man. A hundred years ago you might have been a woman. Three hundred years ago I was a man. Pelley would know this if he read his own apparently Christian doctrine. 'In Christ there is no male nor female.' Galatians 3:28. 'There is no Jew or Gentile, no slave nor free.' We are all one."