Mummy Train
by James Palmer
Josiah Cairn watched the young magician work his magic on a pair of young ladies.
“Legerdemain is one of the most ancient of arts,” he proclaimed, twirling a silver dollar between his fingers with a flourish. It went into the palm of his left hand and vanished; he showed his empty palm to the ladies for effect, and they both gasped. Then, carefully, he reached behind the ear of the woman nearest him and pulled out the coin. They both giggled excitedly and gave muted claps with their lace-gloved hands.
Cairn was bored out of his mind. He had decided fifty miles back that he didn’t like trains, didn’t like the cloying sameness of the cars, and the rhythmic clacking of the wheels on the rails made him lightheaded and sleepy, when he needed to be alert and fixed on the task before him.
He looked out the window. Endless brown prairie rolled past, broken only by the occasional markings of small settlements in the distance, as well as more than a few grey stone buildings fitted with tall towers giving off sparks, electric generation stations planted there by the Cadre. Cairn hadn’t realized the Cadre’s influence had reached this far West. In time, they wouldn’t need to cheat and steal to get whatever they wanted.
They’re going to rob the train.
That’s what the golem Pinkerton man told Cairn before it died. And Shade is going to help them.
The Cadre and Shade, working together. Cairn didn’t like it. Oil and water don’t mix; neither do electricity and magic.
Behind him, the magician did some kind of card trick, daring the two ladies to find the red queen. They were unsuccessful. He checked that his guns still hung from both hips.
Cairn couldn’t figure out what Shade and the Cadre were after. The train wasn’t carrying a great deal of money; Cairn checked. There were some wealthy passengers on board, judging by their attire, but nothing that someone like Shade would concern himself with. The only unusual cargo was a cache of artifacts being transported from back East to a new museum out in California.
“Yes, sir,” the grinning porter had told Cairn, “These come all the way from Egypt, Africa.”
The porter was an older man whom Cairn judged to be in his early sixties, with a potbelly and thinning white hair atop his pale scalp. He was more than happy to discuss the contents of the wooden crates and dusty boxes in one of the train’s several cars, and seemed inordinately proud of the items, as if he had dug each piece from the Egyptian sand himself. He waved a shipping manifest at Cairn as he talked, and kept consulting a gold pocket watch that looked like it had cost more than Cairn’s first horse.
Cairn thanked him for the information and returned to his seat in one of the forward cars. Cairn had never been east of the Mississippi, and didn’t know anything about Egypt, but he knew Shade. The albino lusted after magic, the older the better. And what magic could be older than Egyptian magic?
But how did the Cadre fit into this? Only time would tell. All Cairn knew was that he would have to be ready. He wasn’t going to let Shade slip away from him this time. On this train, Cairn would have his revenge for the murder of his wife, and the Devil would have Shade’s black soul.
Cairn reached into his pocket and pulled out the piece of twine with the lodestone tied to the end of it. He let it dangle in front of him. It rocked with the motion of the train, but he could see the little magnet pull toward the left. So they were still following the path of the ley line in the earth that Shade had been following since they first crossed paths. Cairn thought he could feel it too, a slight tug on his senses, compelling him to move in that direction. Shade’s magic would be strong here, even aboard this moving train of iron. The Cadre could also tap into the ley lines that zigzagged beneath the ground with their be-damned gizmos. They would be something to reckon with, as well.
