The Tank: The Spell Saga: Book Three, page 1
The Tank
The Spell Saga: Book Three
Cari Z
Warning: this book contains adult language and themes, including graphic descriptions of violence. It is intended for mature readers only, of legal age to possess such material in their area.
This book is a work of fiction. All characters, companies, events, and locations are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, places, or events is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of the author and publisher.
The Tank: The Spell Saga: Book Three
Copyright 2022 by Cari Z.
Cover art by Black Bird Book Covers
Editing by No Stone Unturned Editing
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
About This Book
All Anton Seiber, newly-minted Master Thaumaturge, wants is to use his training to support himself out in the world. Well, that and to see the man he loves, Imperial Investigator Camille Lumière, more than once every six months.
What he gets instead is an invitation to visit L’Institut D’Ingénierie Technologique in Paris, the foremost research institution for thaumaturgy and the arts of war in the world. It’s an offer he can’t turn down…quite literally.
Getting to the Institute is a mess that Anton barely survives, and that’s just the beginning of his troubles. Drawn into a web of lies and betrayals, Anton will have to use every trick he can conjure to survive—and perhaps hand over the most diabolical spell in the world in exchange for saving the life of someone he loves.
Prologue
The closer they got to the cave, the worse the weather became. Weather thaumaturgy was mostly a myth, impossible on a large scale, but perhaps Gerald Montgomery, formerly a nobleman of England and a student at the Universität Zürich, had found the time to bespell his hideout in the foothills of the Apuseni mountains. Whatever the cause, they could not stay in the driving snow much longer, or even Camille’s alpine-hardened troops would freeze to death.
Fifteen men, he had left. Fifteen, of the forty he’d started his hunt with. They were the best of soldiers, loyal and skilled, but six months of chasing Montgomery had taught them all to be wary.
Camille’s second, Lieutenant Romilly, caught the edge of his sleeve. “Shall we follow your protocol and make for shelter, my lord?” he asked in the manner every good underling had, that of suggesting what they considered to be right in such a way as to make it seem like their superior’s idea.
And it was a good idea. It simply wasn’t feasible. “There’s no time, Lieutenant.”
“Lord Lumière, I fear we must make time.” The lieutenant gestured around them with a grimace. “This damned snow won’t let us move with any sort of speed, and Montgomery won’t be able to go anywhere in it either. Best for us to wait it out.”
“No.” Waiting was the one thing they couldn’t afford to do. “I will not have another Vienna, Lieutenant.” Or Sopron, or Ocna Dejului. Following Montgomery hadn’t been challenging, not at first—but catching him was another matter. Camille had underestimated the amount of support the nebulous shadow society of the Dévoué had dedicated to their English turncoat. Montgomery had escaped them at every turn, sometimes narrowly, always bloodily. The number of innocent people caught in the crossfire between their factions was far too high, their blood staining Camille’s hands as surely as they stained Montgomery’s.
The difference was, Montgomery didn’t care.
“My lord—”
“We press on,” Camille interrupted with a slash of his hand. “We will go up this slope and into that cave and take down Gerald Montgomery, Lieutenant Romilly, and we will do it now, before he flees too far east for us to follow. Do you understand me?”
The lieutenant, to his credit, nodded. “The light will fail soon,” he said. “If we are to make it up the slope without breaking our necks, we must go now.”
“So we must.” Camille turned toward the cave, a faint dark hole in the blinding white of the mountainside. “Get me Deschamps.”
Romilly left him, and a minute later Master Thaumaturge Martin Deschamps pulled up beside him, puffing and rubbing his hands together against the cold. Deschamps was Camille’s third thaumaturge since beginning this chase, and no better than any of the others had been.
Uncharitable, he chided himself. Just because none of them had the skill and determination of Anton didn’t make them bad at their trade, just…less effective than he would have wished them. The first had died at Vienna, while the second had broken his leg a month ago after falling off his horse.
Anton wouldn’t have fallen from his bloody horse.
“My lord?”
Camille bit back his sigh and looked at his thaumaturge. “What cover can you give us as we march up the slope?”
Deschamps worried his lower lip between his teeth. “Lord Lumière, I have already cast an obfuscation spell on you and the soldiers.”
“And that won’t do us a bit of good if Montgomery has translated the targeting palimpsest.” It was an open question at this point. Camille had lost some of his best men to impossible shots over the past few months, but they had also quite effectively harried Montgomery into constant movement. Without the time to sit and study the magical booklet containing the details of the deadly spell—cast on a gun, it would ensure every shot hit home—it seemed unlikely he could make use of it yet. Still. “I need something better than blurred silhouettes.”
“Now?” Deschamps squawked. “In this weather? My lord, there is nothing more to be done! Any spell I cast will simply blow away on the wind. It can’t be done, not without more time to work on it, perhaps a day.”
“Insufficient.” Camille looked the shivering thaumaturge up and down. “You have a number of defensive spells on your own person, do you not? Within the amulet and rings that you wear?” He recognized the silver protection triquetra at the man’s throat.
Deschamps’ face took on a hunted expression. “Yes, but these are—these spells are specifically attuned to me, my lord. I can’t simply hand them out to you and your men.”
That was the worst thing about Deschamps—he still didn’t count himself as one of Camille’s men. He had been a late arrival, a solitary source of reinforcement who clearly thought their mission was pointless, and acted as such. But he was Camille’s to use, and by God, he would use him. Camille set a heavy hand on the thaumaturge’s shoulder.
“The time has come for you to step forward and prove your fealty with the strength of your own abilities. You shall lead us up the slope, Specialist Deschamps.”
The man’s hunted expression turned sickened. “My…my lord, I cannot…surely, I’m not…I have not had time to—”
“You sit with your alembics and concoctions each night, layering more and more spells on yourself. You perform mighty exertions on your own behalf, Deschamps. It’s time for the rest of us to benefit from that.” Camille pushed the thaumaturge forward. “And I’ll be right behind you the whole time.”
“My lord, I—I—”
“Move. Now.”
With Camille’s hand exerting steady pressure on his back, Deschamps began to trip up the side of the mountain toward the cave. He had one hand on his pendant, the other frantically drawing glyphs in the air in front of him. The driving snow that had been pummeling their faces vanished.
A sudden crack rent the air, and the shield that Deschamps was maintaining dented in the center. Deschamps squeaked, but the shot didn’t penetrate.
“Good,” Camille said grimly. “Continue.”
“My lord, I beg of you—”
“Keep your focus and work your craft if you want to live, man!”
They made it ten feet. Twenty. Thirty. The mouth of the cave was clear now, but the men within it were still obscured. More shots were fired down the slope, all of them impacting the shield. None of them made it through, but Deschamps was beginning to moan.
“My stores of energy are nearly exhausted,” he whimpered. “I can’t maintain the protection much longer!”
“Fifteen more feet.” They were almost there.
“I can’t possibly—”
The next shot hit the shield, but this one didn’t fall to the snow. It ricocheted into the rocky mountainside, bypassing their protection, and slammed into the line three men back. Its victim died immediately.
Montgomery was making himself known at last. Apparently he’d translated the spell, but only treated his own weapon. Paranoid bastard, but it also meant they still had a chance. “Faster!” Camille shouted, shoving Deschamps ahead of him like a cringing battering ram. “We can’t let him have the chance to reload!” If he was using a pistol, if he had but six shots—
Crack. Crack. Crack! Three more men went down by the time Camille and Deschamps crested the cave entrance. The scene within was far from inspiring—half a dozen men hunkered down behind rocks, the tops of their heads and the barrels of their guns showing.
“Fan out!” Camille shouted, keeping Deschamps right where he was. If his men moved fast, they could find cover of their own and pick their targets.
“Fire on the tall one!” Montgomery shouted from his perch in the back of the cave. Bullets spat at Camille, no longer bouncing off of Deschamps’s shield but sticking in it, like f
“We won’t make it within five feet of him!” Deschamps cried. “He’s too heavily warded!”
Now wasn’t the time to explain why that wouldn’t matter in a moment. “Press on!”
Camille might have been down to twelve men, but they still outnumbered Montgomery’s force. Dug-in fighters who would have focused on Camille were distracted, then taken down, by the grim-faced Lieutenant Romilly and his brigade. Montgomery raised his magical weapon and fired, but despite the weakening of the shield the bullet still ricocheted, this time striking one of his own remaining men in the neck. The fur-covered gunman collapsed, blood spurting like a faucet from beneath his jaw, and Deschamps shrieked as he saw it, his spell dissolving.
Camille pushed Deschamps out of the way and lunged for Montgomery, who was already starting to squeeze his trigger. Camille caught his foe by the hand and slammed it into the rock wall, dislodging the gun just as it fired a final bullet. Again there was ricochet, a new arc of certain death streaking into the air—
A bat, its tiny body practically obliterated by the round, fell to the ground with a splat. Camille smashed his elbow across Montgomery’s face, stunning him, then rolled him onto his stomach. “Resist me and I’ll break your arm,” he told him.
“Forgot about your little parlor trick,” Montgomery croaked, his voice a parody of laughter. “Can’t damn a man to hell who’s already damned, eh? I should have brought a cannon to use on you.”
“Yes, you should have,” Camille agreed. He looked back at his party. All twelve of his remaining men were alive, and mostly undamaged. His thaumaturge was slumped onto his back, staring at Camille with uncomprehending eyes. Montgomery’s supporters were all dead.
And high fucking time. Once Camille delivered Montgomery to the emperor, perhaps then, finally—finally—he could see Anton again.
It could not come soon enough.
Chapter One
Anton Seiber disrobed mechanically, working the heavy graduation gown up and over his head before setting it aside on top of his workbench. His hat lay flat on its mortarboard, slightly crushed beneath the thick blue and white sash indicating Anton’s new status as a graduated Master of Thaumaturgy. The sight ought to have filled him with joy—two years ago, this accomplishment had been all he’d ever wanted.
Now it barely lapped at the edges of his ocean full of dreams.
Anton knew better than to indulge in flights of fancy at this stage in his life. As a younger man he had been overconfident, assured of his place and purpose, and the abrupt drop in prestige and fortune following his father’s death had felt like getting his lungs ripped from his chest. He had survived it—there had been no choice—and recovered his mental equilibrium, but he’d never quite reached those heights of hopefulness again.
Getting to the Universität Zürich to begin his graduate training had been a whole new lesson in expecting the worst—he’d been robbed, beaten, missed his train, and ended up involved in the murder investigation of a member of Napoleon III’s family, led by a mysterious, calculating, and surprisingly dashing lumière. Anton looked back on that incident with a sense of…appreciation. It had been hideous in many ways, and he’d almost been killed several times, but he would never regret meeting Camille.
Even contemplating such a thing felt impossible to him.
Things had gotten better at the university for a while, before becoming much, much worse—a fellow English student aligned himself with the Dévoué, local nationalists bent on rising up against the French Empire. He’d murdered four other Englishmen in Zürich in his quest to find a magical palimpsest that contained a dangerous spell he wanted to acquire. It just so happened that Anton had been the one who had the palimpsest, something he’d taken possession of during his romp on the train, and a puzzle he’d promised Camille he would find the solution to.
Gerald Montgomery took it from Anton, nearly killing him in the process, and it was by the skin of his teeth and Camille’s fortuitous appearance that Anton hadn’t ended as a stain on the university’s cobblestone grounds over a year ago.
The palimpsest was gone, but Camille hadn’t blamed Anton for it. It had necessitated his departure, though, which Anton regretted with a passion. Over the intervening months, Camille had managed to stop by only twice, each time for a single night.
It was not enough. Not nearly enough.
Anton sighed as he finally freed himself from the last few trappings of the ceremony he’d endured. The heavy robe had felt like it was strangling him. Or perhaps he was choking on the realization that, despite his best intentions, he had had a few hopes for his graduation. He’d sent his mother an official invitation along with his last letter home, as well as the money she would need to make the journey from London.
Her response had arrived three days ago, full of regret that she couldn’t make it. Her health wasn’t very good at the moment, and she had an appointment with her solicitor that couldn’t be rescheduled. Anton hoped she’d put the money toward a doctor—his mother had neglected herself far too frequently after her husband’s death, doing her utmost to provide for her son while fending off the creditors who seemed to come out of the woodwork like deathwatch beetles.
As cutthroat as any highwayman, and twice as determined.
As much as he wished to see his mother, there was someone else he wanted to see even more, but there was no way to get a letter to Camille. Anton didn’t even know his real last name. As a lumière, Camille was one of the foremost investigators in the entire empire, a man whom no one could refuse to cooperate with, or they would risk bringing down the heavy hand of the emperor himself. Camille was also in constant demand, searching out those who plotted against the emperor, and there was no shortage of Dévoué these days. The last time Camille had stopped by, nearly three months ago, he’d looked exhausted.
Anton closed his eyes, picturing his lover’s visage in his mind as easily as he could picture his own. A long, handsome face, accented with a well-groomed moustache. Piercing eyes, dark and somehow glittering, as if they held the glare of a dozen candles within them. A surprisingly soft, supple mouth, capable of worship of the most secret, intimate kind…
It does you no good to pine over what you cannot change, Anton reminded himself, forcing his eyes open. He knew he’d never be able to find Camille on his own; even the latest, groundbreaking thaumaturgical tracking methods wouldn’t work on him. Camille had an intellect with few equals, but he had a great disability as well, one that prevented even the simplest spells from working on his person. He could observe them as long as he didn’t interfere in any way, but they would dissipate at his barest touch.
Perhaps if Camille had given Anton the time to experiment, Anton could have come up with a way that would allow them to speak over a distance, but there hadn’t been the chance. Camille was practically unique, and it had been more important for Anton to spend the few moments they had together in mutual comfort than anything else.
I miss him. Anton had never missed anyone quite this much. It didn’t help that he had no one else to turn to, not even as a friend. His mother couldn’t be with him. Caroline, his oldest companion and a fellow thaumaturge, was in London with her husband, last he’d heard. The few acquaintances he’d made at the university had scattered in the aftermath of Montgomery’s reign of terror.
All you need is a position. Find a generous position that will give you both time and funds, and you can travel back to London to see your mother and ensure her comfort, and visit Caroline to boot. As a newly minted Master of Thaumaturgy, a profession in high demand across both the continent and back in Britain, Anton should have been up to his ears in offers at this point.
He wasn’t. His association with Montgomery, brief though it was, had proved to be poisonous. No one in the Empire wanted to hire him because he was an Englishman, the same as “that murderous bastard,” and no one back in Britain wanted to hire him because the Montgomeries and everything that they had ever touched was blacklisted. The Dévoué might flourish on the continent, but not in Her Majesty’s realm, not if the royal family had anything to do about it.
