A Journey of Black and Red - Chapter 131

Our return to Boston is triumphant, and Sephare throws me a bone by publicly announcing that my contribution to Bertrand’s capture was decisive. Since she alone was the artisan of our victory, the exaggeration becomes public truth. Constantine, the only person apparently in the know, supports her version. I am nominated as coordinator for the Union war effort for both my service and the high contribution I already make by supplying most of the Union’s artillery guns. Although the vampires’ main concern now is the immortal war, I am given a contingent of Courtiers to work with and access to a treasure trove of information, including Sephare’s own network.

I am left with an ambivalent feeling about the whole affair. On the one hand, I survived Bertrand. On the other hand, I did not win against him, and so I did not claim his essence. It felt wrong. On one hand, I was once again used by Sephare, as Melusine had warned me. On the other hand, I had to commit to that last plan and I am satisfied with the result. It serves no purpose to rebel against my own side when my survival is at stake. On the one hand, I have been hurt, on the other hand, I have been rewarded. The results are quite grey.

January 1862 brings a few major events. First, the Union wins its first major victory at the battle of Logan’s Cross Roads, in Kentucky, halting a Confederate offensive. Although the battle is minor in the grand scheme of things, the success of General Thomas over a superior rebel force is vastly advertised in the newspapers, with a little bit of help from us. I remember young George Thomas from the Mexican war back when I was protecting my nephew. He had been instrumental in making the American artillery effective, and the artillery had been instrumental in several major victories, including Fort Brown and Resaca de la Palma. He is a good lad! I hope he can do well now too. The Watcher knows that the other side has its fair share of competent officers.

I am myself not idle. I spend a lot of time and effort securing, organizing, then latching our information system to the Union’s spy network, feeding them the right information and purging their ranks of a few double agents. In the meanwhile, Melusine proves her expertise as a Lancaster by proving a deep understanding of humanity. My various weapons manufacturers are merged and rebranded as Illinois’ Guns of Liberty with my approval. Melusine selects an eagle bearing down with its talons extended as the company’s image, with the logo ‘arms of victory’ under in nice letters. I work with the Dvergurs to design a water-proof, standardized and easily recognizable crate to contain the paper and metal cartridges we will provide to the fighters. Then, she works her magic.

Newspapers, announcers, and even artists sway the public in vast propaganda campaigns aimed at identifying our product with the patriotic love of the Union. Ferries and caravan masters everywhere find room for crates in their many containers, while trains soon come laden with wagons filled to the brim with ammunition at a nominal price. The effort of the whole populace of Illinois comes to bear as unseen-before amounts of powder are channeled south to the troops that need them, turning their winter quarters into training camps over which tangy clouds of spent powder hang like vultures. War fervor spreads everywhere the avian claws of IGL can reach, much to Melusine’s amusement as she no longer has to sustain the fires of mankind’s wrath. They manage that themselves.

January also sees the launch of the first Ironclads! So far they are ugly things, slow and ponderous, but I anticipate the time when new designs will launch ships made entirely out of metal to ride the waves, carrying enormous guns with them. What fun it will be.

On the diplomatic side of things, I manage to bring the White Cabal on board. They live in the north, hire dark-skinned mages as easily as the others, and dislike slavery in general. As a result, it only takes one polite speech before their council to obtain their support. Although they do not intervene directly, I successfully convince them to bring some medical support to the back lines to prevent additional losses of life and amputations. Rescued personnel can return to war, bringing their experience with them.

By February, the resupply operation is in full swing. It will take some time before the abundance of bullets translates into real effects, but we are in luck. Still on the western front, a general called Ulysses S. Grant takes two Confederate strongholds on the strategically significant Tennessee river. He even captures fourteen thousand men in his efforts, a resounding triumph. Although I have little to do with it, the success casts a favorable light on my leadership, a needed boost to our morale. Indeed, a few nights later, Consantine leads our army to recapture Charleston, and fails.

There are only a few casualties, mostly unfortunate Masters who died from grievous wounds, but it was all due to Constantine and our battle lords’ contribution. The plan was simple and the European forces were attacked by surprise, but they were rallied by one of Bertrand’s lieutenants, a patient and deliberate Lord by the name of Orpheus. There, the gap in experience was made manifest when their squad rallied and stabilized in mere moments while ours struggled to coordinate. Only a fighting retreat preserved the bulk of our forces. The conflict highlighted how inadequate our fighting force was compared to the European one, but also helped us obtain much-needed experience.

In the wake of the defeat, the Accords leadership dissolves subpar squads and forms new ones, while the more successful groups now take part in large-scale exercises. Time is on our side now, and underhanded tactics delay the European movements by denying them the support and intelligence they need to progress safely.

I also keep an eye on the Union leadership. Sola makes a discreet visit to the president’s house to save his son Willis from a fever. It would not do, to have the mortal head of state distracted by the death of a child.

Towards the end of the month, I receive word of a Confederate victory in the New Mexico territory, as well as skirmishes everywhere. The entire country is at war and frictions happen all across the new border. However, victory will be obtained in the east, and so it is there that I focus my efforts. Under the advice of the infamous Black Dog, head of the White Cabal security, we improve the Union’s communication line with the clever addition of a few mages capable of long-term communication, especially between telegraph posts and large mobile forces.

Early March brings a surprise. As I am back in my domain of Marquette, I feel Ollie coming with an interesting, eclectic group. The Dvor essence brings me a slight boost in abilities as long as I am within my territory, with the most interesting one being intuition. I find myself capable of guessing things with greater ease, something I use to hold my own at cards when I play with Urchin.

Ollie knocks and I allow him in. He files in with one of his seconds, but also a mundane officer in a cavalry uniform, and more interestingly, a werewolf. One of Jeffrey’s more stable minions.

“Welcome. Please, sit down,” I offer, and they take seats from my large working room to form a half-circle in front of my desk.

“We have come,” Ollie says in an unusually formal voice, “to announce the creation of the Red Cabal as a formal entity, with a statement of purpose as follows.”

He cleared his throat.

“We, the people of this world, in order to keep darkness at bay, and establish a sustainable alliance to that effect, do agree to the formation of the Red Cabal. We recognize that peace, progress, and safety, are at risk from a variety of enemies regardless of species. We recognize that the safeguard of the world forms the core of belief of many individuals regardless of species. Finally, we recognize that intent more than nature determines one’s actions. As such, we formally declare an alliance between such like-minded individuals so long as they obey our most basic tenets, so that we may all together work for a better tomorrow. From many origins, one purpose, and may the blood we share together protect our posterity.”

Huh.

Not bad.

“As the local representative of the vampire faction, I would like to formally offer my support.”

“That’s good because we’re broke,” the werewolf adds helpfully.

They tend to simply eat their production surplus.

In the end, we spend a few hours working on logistics and preparation. The idea is to have teams of mundane humans, mages, and werewolves working together to rid the world of threats by employing each species to their strength. We vampires would intervene when they need heavy support.

I admit to loving this idea. My little minions, keeping my territory clean of their own accords.

In the end, we end with a toast and a group picture.

The picture returns a night later. My form is blurred and unrecognizable.

That… might become a problem if photography becomes more popular.

Unfortunately, there is little I can do at that stage. I must focus on the war. The positive side is that I have, I think, achieved one of the hallmarks of good leadership.

Competent underlings.

***

The Ranger’s Tale

Illinois, vicinity of Springfield.

It was cold.

The shy sun of early March cast its rays on the land, providing light but little heat. Nature quietly slept away the cold season, and ice coated the branches like glassy ornaments. The cabin was exactly ten miles away from the main road. Only a path, barely more than a trail, linked the two, just the way the Gages liked it. If they wanted people to come on their lands, they would bring them themselves.

Just now, Harry Gage, the eldest brother, had walked out to relieve himself. His glare went over the familiar landscape. There were leafless skeletons that would sprout leaves soon enough, rusted pines in the distance, and a large pond to his right that produced the occasional fish. He passed a hand through his dark, scraggly beard.

Something was wrong.

Just then, he heard it. A horse was making its way down the path to them at a leisurely gait. Harry could see signs of movement through the white and brown of the surrounding vegetation. He felt… violated. No one came here without their approval. No one. Not if they had a lick of sense.

Harry turned and banged the door.

“Come on out, we have a visitor!”

Curses flew through the thick partition. Only a few seconds later, it smashed against the far wall, and his three brothers spread around the railing surrounding their house. The cabin was built high and away from the wet ground.

Gus, the fattest of them all, handed him his musket. It was fortunately loaded. Gus himself had an axe while Jeb frantically loaded an antique pistol. Lucius, the youngest, stepped to the side and disappeared in a shadowy corner with his “liberated” repeater.

Not a moment too soon. The intruder cleared the edge of the forest and moved forward on a very tall brown stallion. Handsome beast, that. Could sell for quite a lot.

The man himself wore a very neat jacket, waistcoat and even a tie in shades of white and blue. He was all clean and proper and slightly intimidating in a rich folk kind of way, but the most curious thing was the hat. It was a wide-brim affair that cast a shadow, masking his features. Harry found the sight mildly upsetting, and just like every time something upset him, he turned it to anger instead.

“This is a private property, stranger. You have no business here,” he declared with confidence.

A white-gloved hand reached through the cloak to grab something in the man’s inner pockets. He used a match to light a thin cigar. For a moment, the flaring flame showed them a trimmed moustache and judgemental brown eyes, then the fugacious image was gone, and only a red, smoldering ember remained.

“Y’all took two crates of IGL ammo from Chicago with a promise to deliver them to Louisville, Kentucky, against payment. The crates never arrived. I’m here to retrieve them.”

Harry froze. A complex mix of emotions twisted his face but in the end, anger won.

“Yeah? I say we didn’t.”

“Y’all are the Gage brothers and you did. Signed for it too. Everyone knows you took the crates, boys, stop wasting my time.”

Fists tightened over weapons. The brothers had rushed out from a toasty inside and they did not wear enough. Their breath formed white cloud in the frigid air. Tension rose.

“I’m getting those crates back, one way or another,” the man added with terrible finality.

Harry spoke between his teeth.

“As I said, this is a private property old man, and you can’t come and tell us what to do.”

In answer, the man pulled on the left side of his jacket to reveal a shiny silver star. It caught the afternoon light with a strange red hue.

“Badge here says I can.”

“Fuck your badge. On this here land, I’m the law, and I got my brothers to back me up. It’s four of us against you, asshole.”

The rider’s eyes shifted to the corner where Lucius was hiding. Poorly. His breath had revealed him immediately.

Slowly, he pulled the other side of his jacket. The thick fabric withdrew like a curtain to reveal a revolver in its holster.

It was, they could see, a nice gun.

It looked like a Colt 1860 in the same way that a timber wolf looked like a cocker spaniel. The big iron was customized to the gills. Its grip was engraved bone that showed much use, and its barrel was long and heavy, the muzzle pointing out of its sheath. Minuscule decorations bent the light in a disturbing way.

Harry, who was positioned to see it fully, noticed that the gun’s maw had a different color, as if it had been fired a great many times, and the paint had been twisted by countless clouds of overheated salpeter.

“Got enough for two more right here,” the man said uncaringly.

Then, he fell silent. He had said all he had to say. The ember of his cigar shone rhythmically with his breath as he waited.

Harry’s breath turned fast and deep. Blood flushed his body. He was practically fuming.

A glacial wind blew over the plain. It brought with it the crisp scent of pure air. None of the statuesque trees moved, frozen as they were, and their immobility gave the scene a feeling of suspense as if the world held its breath.

Harry sighed.

“Of course, let me just—”

Things happened very fast.

With a cruel rictus, Harry twisted and aimed his musket. Caught by surprise, his three brothers still raised their weapons with commendable speed.

A massive boom shook the very earth and Harry’s chest bloomed in a crimson flower. The rider leaned right on his saddle. He moved his gun in a smooth arc that went from brother to brother.

Lucius was next. Another boom, and a hole appeared in the barrel that he had used as a hiding place.

The rider’s horse twisted to the side. He was almost parallel to the ground now, and the shift of his mount gave him a clear view of his last target.

The top of Jeb’s head disappeared and a shot went off. The bullet dug harmlessly into the ground.

Time ran again.

Harry fell back. Lucius collapsed against the barrel, gurgling his lifeblood away. Jeb’s beheaded body crashed down like a puppet with its strings cut.

Gus bellowed, hands still grasping the axe. He had barely had the time to move.

The rider calmly sat back in his saddle. He still held the instrument of death. It smoked like the mouth of hell.

“Noooooooo! You killed them! You killed them all! What am I gonna tell Ma?!”

The rider stepped down unhurriedly while his stallion snorted, unamused by the sudden noise. He walked with no rush and no remorse, cigar still clinging to his lips.

“The crates,” he said with no emotion.

“Fuck! Why did you have to go and kill them…”

For the first time, the rider showed a modicum of emotion.

It was rage.

He threw a mighty hook into the fat man’s belly, bending him over in one blow. Gus fell to his knees and gasped, then shrieked when the rider placed the still-smoking muzzle of his pistol against his ear. It burned.

The rider removed the gun and hissed.

“You listen well, boy. You see them dead and think it’s tragic. I say they’re lucky. I’ve seen things you wouldn’t believe. I’ve gazed at what lurks in the valley of death. We are at war with more than you know and we, the humans, we ain’t winning. I need my side to work smoothly and that means those crates going to where they need to go, even if I have to wipe out every last degenerate in-bred on the way, one family at the time. Now, boy, you got two knees and I got three bullets. Where. Are. The. Crates?”

“At the back, Jesus!”

The rider pistol-whipped Gus, and he fell to the ground insensate.

Silence returned to the clearing, until a young woman stood up from a nearby ditch. She wore brown forrester clothes and a metal gauntlet on her left hand. In the other, she held a fancy short rifle.

The woman pushed back her hood to reveal light brown eyes and hair. They had a strange radiance, as if they were on fire.

“Aw man, now we have to carry the crates ourselves!”

“You stay right there, Daisy, I got it. Bring the carriage forward.”

She whistled as the rider walked into the empty house.

***

The Gambler’s Tale.

April 8th, 1862, Shiloh, Tennessee.

The night had fallen on a battlefield that had seen the death of five thousand men. In some places, a soldier could walk from one end of a field to another without stepping foot on the ground, so thick the dead lay. On the south of Pittsburg landing, some enterprising soul had set up a temporary bar for officers to drown their sorrows. Most of them had given a good account of themselves on the previous day, but there were memories that only the blurry haze of liquor could dull.

Such was not the case for the man in a bottle-green coat. He was a reporter, and had not stepped a foot near the frontline. He was, in addition, quite satisfied with himself. He and some of his colleagues had managed quite the coup. They had reported that the surprise attack on Union line had nearly succeeded, because their commanding officer, Hiram Ulysses Grant, had been drunk. Drunkenness was a common character flaw in the leadership of the war, and that rumor was like a wine stain, easy to inflict and impossible to remove. That would show the young upstart. His successes at Fort Henry and Donelson had made him too big for his shoes, the man thought.

There were rumors that parts of the line had dug in because some mysterious, last-minute informers had betrayed the Confederate approach. He gave no credit to those. Transfer of information was notoriously hard in those wooded, untamed lands. It would take a level of organization that neither side had.

Just then, a man opened the door and walked in, and the reporter turned to take his measure.

It did not take a genius to see that the newcomer was not an army man. He wore an impeccable suit in tones of charcoal under a heavy black coat of excellent make. The temperatures were still frigid, but his face was not flush.

The reporter saw peculiar features under a suspiciously clean bowler hat. This curious man could certainly not be called handsome by any stretch of language, but he had about him a sort of rakish charm, a vulgar magnetism that caught the eye. He immediately noticed the reporter’s attention and tipped his headdress, sending water to drip on the wooden boards below.

“Some night, heh?”

Once more, the man’s accent was difficult to place. It was some sort of northern slang that evoked ships and docks and crates loaded in the dead of night. The reporter watched, bemused, as the man took the stool by his side. He ordered a whisky, double. A silver dollar appeared from out of nowhere and flicked from knuckle to knuckle in a mesmerizing dance. More curiously, the reporter could not see the dollar pass from one hand to another. That was some trick, alright, and no mistake.

“We all need a little pick me up,” the man continued, “a night like this can drain all the warmth from a red-blooded American. Say, stranger, how about a wager to make it memorable? I bet ten dollars against an answer that you can’t figure out my little mystery.”

Ten dollars? Ten dollars?! Was the man so loaded?

The reporter frowned and passed a hand over his Van Dyke brown beard. His instincts warned him of a scam, for the slick stranger certainly had this sort of air. However, the reporter was not too worried. As long as he himself did not bet money, he would be fine. Besides, it was getting tedious. All the officers around were deep in their drinks in the dark recess of the makeshift tavern. They would not talk to him.

“Alright, you got me. Lay it on.”

The stranger gave a lopsided smile, and poked the hastily nailed wooden plank on which his glass was resting. The light of a lantern cast interesting shadows on the irregular surface as the stranger’s fingers started a little jig.

“A friend of mine mentioned an interesting theory. A correlation, if you will, between human traits in a subject, and empathy towards said subject. Now imagine this. On a vertical axis, we have empathy, and on the horizontal axis, we have a degree of resemblance to a human. At the lowest point stands, let’s say, a worm. Who feels sympathy for a worm when they attach it to a hook?”

The reporter hesitated.

“Err, no one?”

“Exactly!” the man of the bowler hat said, pleased, “only the most bleeding hearts would feel sorry for a worm. How about a fish then? A little bit closer to us because it has two eyes and one mouth. Still low eh?”

“I suppose?”

“But if you see a fish flopping on the ground, opening its mouth because it is quite literally choking to death, you would consider it, at least, while nobody cares about a worm.”

The reporter frowned. Perhaps it was also because a fish was bigger? It was difficult to tell.

“But anyway, still low, still low… but what about a cow then? You can grow attached to a cow if you raise it for a long time, even if it’s technically food. It has two eyes, four limbs, it can understand you. It can recognize you.”

“I would still not hesitate to kill one for a burger,” the reporter added. He was invested now, though he was not sure why. It had turned into a debate.

“Indeed. Still low, still low. But a dog is a bit higher. A dog shows loyalty, understands obedience, and those are traits that we like in others, do we not? And those cute little eyes when they beg…”

The reporter frowned. He was still not entirely convinced about the theory, though it certainly had merits.

“I will grant you this point.”

“Much obliged,” the stranger answered pleasantly. “Now, we are pretty high in the list. It might be even more primates like monkeys, though I am not sure myself. But plush bears, puppets, drawings of humans, they are very close to us, and we can identify with them. We recognize cute puppets as representations of people, and we can feel emotions watching a good, well-planned puppet show, can we not?”

“We certainly can! Why, I remember when I was young…”

“I am delighted that you would see my point,” the stranger interrupted with a light smile.

The reporter blinked. Yes, it made sense. The representations of humans, even if they were approximative, could garner empathy from any viewer.

“So we are here on the chart, yes? High resemblance, high empathy. But what happens when something is almost human, but not quite?”

The reporter blinked again. He had liked the theory so far. It was something light and harmless you could share in good society, that would provide insight, and give the speaker an aura of brilliance. There was still more?

“Let’s say, someone who looks human, but with erratic movements. Like a man suffering from convulsions. There is something intrinsically disturbing about such sights. Or a human with a missing jaw! As long as something is at the very edge of humanity without quite fitting, suddenly, their view horrifies most witnesses. Have you ever noticed?”

The reporter frowned. At the edge but not quite? For some reason, he was reminded of one of the memories of his youth. There had been a book, he remembered. On the cover, a tiny gnome was depicted sitting on a mushroom. One fateful night, a thunderbolt had struck nearby and the brief illumination had played tricks on the child’s mind, turning the fairy’s smile into a forest of jagged edge angled inwards, those mad eyes looking at him, ready to jump from—

“You have noticed, then.”

The remark woke the reporter from his daydreaming.

“Yes. Some… some dolls are like that.”

The stranger was closer now, and the reporter felt pulled by those amber eyes. The room closed around him, and the others ceased to matter, to exist even. There was just the stranger and the theory.

“Exactly. Here, just at the edge of humanity itself, the curve dips precipitously. And completely. It even goes into the negative! Interesting, is it not? Here is the kicker though. All human instincts have a cause, yes? Bad smells prevent the ingestion of rotten foods. You turn when something moves at the edge of your vision to protect you from attacks. Why then, does that instinct exist? Why does the sight of otherness in the familiar lead to such a visceral, horrifying response?”

“I don’t know?” the reporter breathed.

The stranger smiled, eyes half-lidded.

“Tut tut my dear, this is the subject of our wager. Give it a try.”

But the man could not. Would not. He wanted to know.

“Just tell me why, man, I grant you your question.”

The stranger chuckled then.

“Not everything is as it seems. Too much was hidden that should have been remembered, and too much dismissed that used to be common wisdom. In a darker age, the ability to see the stranger knocking at your door for what he was could have saved your life, for the world was, and still is, vast, and filled with cruel things.”

It started slow. The reporter’s captured gaze traveled down, and down, from the stranger’s liquid eyes to the deathly pale skin of his cheeks, then to those teeth now revealed and the fangs that were there. The reporter tried to scream then, but he found that he could not. Only a wheezy moan escaped his lips, but inside, his heart beat a maddening waltz. In vain. He was already taken. Tears of terror rolled down his face in warm trails. No one saw a thing. The susurrus of conversations had blanketed the room, hiding the monster within.

“My question then,” the stranger said, “would you like to live?”

The reporter clawed at that lifeline with frantic hope. The stranger leaned forward and whispered in his ear. His breath was cold, and smelled faintly of blood.

“The strands of fate have been disturbed by shameless fabrications, and we are most upset. Your article has been lost somewhere along the telegraph line. Tomorrow, you will send another and it will be truthful, or I shall return and silence the voices of discord. Forever. Do we understand each other?”

“Y—yes…”

“Good.”

The reporter let out a heart-wrenching sob and closed his eyes. When he opened them again, the lantern had dimmed. Most officers had left. Of the stranger, there was no trace.

The reporter felt something in his right hand. He opened it and the silver dollar fell down from it. It was still cold.