No Deadly Thing

by Tiger Gray

  No Deadly Thing

  Tiger Gray

  No Deadly Thing is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2012 Tiger Gray. All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by Hard Limits Press, LLC. www.hardlimitspress.com.

  Editor: Vivien Weaver

  Copy editor: Sarah Kellington

  Cover: Dustin Ache

  For the members of the Azure Order.

  Special thanks to Sarah Viehmann, Shelby Moline, Robert Lashley, Miriam Smith, Aaron Sheehan, Andi Harland, Kevin Bartos and, of course, the author's family. The staff of the Seward Park Caffe Vita likewise deserve special mention.

  Against cruelty make a stand.

  --Zoroaster

  They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.

  --Mark 16:18, KJV

  CHAPTER ONE

  The outskirts of Tikrit.

  The incongruity sickened Ashrinn like it always did. He and his Unit team had been locked in combat maneuvers for a long time now on the perimeter, and yet the shock of people killing each other in the shade of swaying palm trees never faded.

  Too sensitive, Ashrinn. This is why they think you deserve that Section 8. The dreams are bad enough.

  He shut himself up with a swift mental denial. No time for that kind of talk, not when his team had an objective to complete. Now that they were going to thunder into the city itself, the three men under him had a certain kind of light to them that only men getting ready to risk their lives had. Excitement and nervousness showed through their game faces. Instead of wasting energy on a futile effort to be heard over mortar fire, Ashrinn knocked his fist against his flimsy helmet. His team mates grinned, the three of them lined up shoulder to shoulder in the predawn gloom. The shorthand --- sitting ducks, right boys? Wouldn't stop a foam dart --- gave them a moment of much needed levity.

  The signal rippled down the chain of command. He and Malkai Tielhart, his second, low-fived each other. Malkai's lightning-colored eyes flashed in the shadow of his visor; Malkai was lean and hungry for battle the way a coursing hound wanted the track. Good. He and Malkai had been watching out for each other for almost two decades. No reason to doubt him now. Masters and Chavez gave him the thumbs up.

  All this for a hole in the ground.

  Into the city itself. The rumor that Saddam had been killed and buried somewhere inside lurked at the forefront of Ashrinn's mind. His breath burned in his lungs as he and his men pounded through the streets, RPGs crashing to earth around them as though an angry God were bringing his fist down again and again.

  Ahura Mazda, he prayed despite not being much of a believer when people weren't trying to kill him, now would be a great time to send us some benevolent spirits.

  Adrenaline goaded him forward with its sharp point, down the streets, through back alleys. His men responded without his explicit direction. They were so highly trained that sometimes it seemed as though they could read his mind. Monuments loomed up from every side, the beauty of the city lost in combat. The Marines must have been coming through the front gates, rousing the locals. Haji rose up in an amorphous blob, figures half-glimpsed before they hid behind statues and in alleyways. The hard shapes of stolen weapons, gripped in enemy hands. The crackle of bullets.

  Ashrinn dropped to his knees, using a broken wall for what little cover it afforded. He hit the ground hard enough that he skidded on his knee pads as he lifted his M4, aimed, fired. A dark shape jerked and fell from the nearest statue. There was a smattering of loud and very unflattering Arabic. Ashrinn spat a truncated answering sentence about their mothers being pigs, slipping into his native Farsi to drive the point home. He swung around to find the next target, with Malkai beside him guarding his flank. Masters shouted a warning. As Ashrinn killed a second man, a group of enemy reinforcements came running into the square, ready to spray them with a death blossom of bullets. Haji were hardly ever decent shots, but a rain of ammo could kill him and his team no matter if the gunmen had skill.

  A series of hand signals to Masters and Chavez, running up from behind ---  --- go! Get to the objective! --- he and Tielhart laying down covering fire as their two teammates ran like hell across the square. He put down answering fire, pinned down behind the wall, M4 spitting and jumping in his hands as though alive. A bizarre euphoria suffused him, and while he was not given to fear in combat, this time he felt absolutely none as bullets whizzed by him in an ever expanding cloud.

  "You're going to get us killed!"

  Tielhart dragging him back into the alleyway. Shaking him for good measure.

  The dreams! Maybe he had made this all up, drawing forth the conflict from some dark subconscious place. He wasn't given to grandstanding, either, but right now he felt invincible, like he could rush the crowd out there and the bullets would just bounce off of him.

  The enemy coming at them from the other side of the alleyway filled him with primal joy. He rose to his feet roaring, the man so broken as to need a psych discharge very far away at the moment. He gunned down who he could, but soon the enemy surrounded them, making their M4s better bludgeoning tools than guns. Ashrinn let his weapon swing on its strap and pulled the combat knife at his belt. It took him a moment to realize the man rushing him had one, too; a blade wasn't a usual weapon for Haji. If this guy wanted a knife fight, though, Ashrinn would damned well give it to him.

  The enemy fought with the passion of those willing to die. People who had never faced zealots simply did not understand the power true belief gave a man. Back to back with Tielhart, Ashrinn could feel his team mate move, club someone with his M4, turn to open another enemy's belly with his own combat knife. Ashrinn tensed to do the same, forcing his opponent down the alleyway as weapons fire and screaming alike ripped at the dawn air.

  Scrambling sounds, harsh breathing. Ashrinn heard everything perfectly despite the din, fire still in his veins, molten gold. He paused, caught by some indefinable instinct, and turned.

  A sniper, crouched on the rooftop above them. Tielhart --- Malkai! --- fighting off two men at once. Ashrinn didn't feel the blade slip into his guts, not yet. He couldn't focus on anything but his friend. Malkai lifted his M4 to fight back but Ashrinn could see it in his face, the horrible certainty that he couldn't ready the gun in time, that he was going to die. The look in his eyes seared itself into Ashrinn's brain.

  The euphoria became a black killing fugue. Ashrinn put his knife through the throat of the man that had stabbed him and flung his free hand upwards. Energy surged, power that had no earthly counterpart. Even the bullets in his chest and leg registered only as annoyances, the agony crushed under a golden wave of destruction. The pure force he'd called took chunks out of the building and the street, obliterating the sniper as well as the stones beneath the man's feet.

  It left him and he crumpled. Things were quiet now, muffled and peaceful. Malkai, crouched above him, lightning-colored eyes bright with fear. Blackness.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Ashrinn climbed towards consciousness, haunted by the auditory specters of what had happened days previous. At least, he guessed it had been days. He recalled visual fragments now, Masters's broad face looming over him like an eclipse, Chavez pressed up next to his team mate, features pinched with worry. Malkai with blood all over him, stained hands shaking.

  Despite how real the sounds and sights of combat seemed, he wasn't in the field. It took him a moment to accept that he'd left the broken alleyway behind, but then he recogn
ized the dull green ceiling of one of the infirmary tents. The trauma bay to his left confirmed it.

  He'd been in that trauma bay not so long ago, swarmed by medical personnel. The memory overcame him and he felt the searing knife blade, the hot bullets, the sheer misery of trying to breathe. The injuries had been only a little more painful than what had been done to keep him clinging to life.

  Nausea sprang up like poisonous flowers in the cold field of his intestines, shaking their virulent seeds all over. He swallowed hard and fought the need to vomit The morphine drip in his arm didn't help, drug sludge sitting heavy in his belly.

  To his intense relief the urge to rid himself of what little there was in his stomach passed. He relaxed back into the thin pillows as best he could. Might as well try to ride the morphine wave for all it was worth, despite the sour stomach. The medicine blunted his emotions, but the awful knowledge that he would be sent home for sure with wounds like this burdened him with sorrow as real and cumbersome as his full battle rattle. The fact that he could maybe avoid the embarrassment of a psych discharge made a poor sop for his feelings.

  He lifted his blankets. He needed confirmation, something to make it real. He saw what remained of his left knee swaddled in bandages, the chest wound likewise packed and wrapped with gauze. He would have sobbed, but the pain doing so would cause made him think twice. All the better. He didn't want anyone to see him have a hysterical fit, didn't want to confirm all those rumors about him being barking. Body or mind, he was done.

  He would have to go home for good.

  Whether it was the drugs or the emotions, he didn't know. Either way, he didn't notice the man at the foot of his bed at first. The man wasn't wearing a uniform, but then again a lot of Unit guys didn't. Nor did he recognize this fellow, but then again he couldn't exactly be counted on for flawless recall at the moment. The man had the immaculate silver hair of a career officer, though, and sharp blue eyes. He certainly looked the part, walking with a gravitas that bespoke a long and disciplined life.

  You'd recognize one of the brass though, wouldn't you?

  He wondered, hoping he could will himself into putting one logical thought after the other. Belated alarms went off in his head and he fumbled for a combat knife that wasn't there. Whoever this man was, he didn't belong here.

  The ridiculousness of trying to grab a weapon that didn't exist caught up to him then, and he had to settle for scanning the space as best he could, hoping for some clue as to what was going on. Two rows of beds, all empty, metal trays at the foot of each. A makeshift shelf crammed with medicine vials. The single nurse dozing in a metal folding chair.

  "Ease up, Ashrinn," the man said, "What are you going to do? Attack me?"

  Ashrinn couldn't detect any threat to the words. He thanked the morphine for making this more tolerable. He supposed he could have hallucinated worse things. He forced himself to focus. The man stood over him now, though the look in the man's eyes had a benevolent quality. Ashrinn drew a sharp breath. The man looked so much like his paternal grandfather it was eerie. He felt reassured despite himself, comforted by hazy childhood memories.

  "I don't know. If I'm already dead it hardly matters."

  "Nothing so simple, I'm afraid," the man said, "I've come a long way for you."

  Better and better. He really had gone crazy. Brass had been right all along. He squinted. The man had a strange fuzzy outline.

  "What do you mean?"

  "Why don't you tell me how you ended up here?"

  Ashrinn squashed the angry retort he'd almost voiced, but what he did say wasn't exactly friendly. "I got shot. Oh, and stabbed. I should think that would be evident."

  Despite the acerbic tone, the man didn't seem at all put out. In fact, Ashrinn could have sworn that he smirked.

  "I mean what happened in the city. Other than that."

  "Look, just give me the courtesy of a physical discharge," Ashrinn tried to avoid sniveling, "if this is some kind of test and you're trying to get information on just how crazy I am, give it up. I'm going home no matter the reason, so at least let me keep some sodding dignity." He didn't want to think about having to live in the cramped condo his wife had rented in his absence. She hadn't consulted him about it, either, though he supposed that shouldn't surprise him at this point in their marriage.

  "That's not why I'm here."

  "So what, you found something to court martial me for, too?"

  Now Ashrinn could make out the single insignia the man had, over his heart. A white eagle, but it wasn't the screaming eagle. It wasn't even the U.S.A. eagle. It wasn't an emblem he knew at all. The previous alarm turned into a vehement and inadequate denial. He felt the same way he had as a small boy, refusing to go into the basement alone lest hordes of unseen daevas eat him. Even now he still believed in spirits, much to his embarrassment, so wasn't it a possibility...?

  "Have you figured it yet?"

  "Come off it, I'm obviously hallucinating."

  No. A dream man. That's all. Not real.

  Or so he told himself.

  He glanced over at the nurse. Still asleep despite this totally barmy conversation. Definitely a hallucination. He thought about calling for her, then reconsidered. What would he say? Ma'am, I appear to be having a conversation with someone who doesn't exist. What do you recommend?

  "If I'm a hallucination, it won't hurt to tell me, will it?" For someone crafted from whatever debris happened to be lying around his subconscious mind, the man certainly had a way of making far too much sense.

  "I know you did something extraordinary out there."

  "I'm from the Combat Applications Group," Ashrinn growled, cautious about revealing his real designation even when on drugs and torn up. "It's my job to do ridiculous things under extreme stress."

  Resentment for his injured body lodged in the back of his throat and smoldered there. The pain gripped him like a forest of rough hands, pinning him down and pulling at his stitches. Fine. If he had to be a captive audience, he would. He'd just try and get through this without losing his mind. Any more of his mind.

  "I have nothing but respect for your mundane heroics, but I'm talking about something that by your understanding ought to be impossible."

  Ashrinn opened his mouth to say something smart, but the resurgence of memory stopped him short.

  Mortar fire. Angry Arabic. The strange combination of exhilaration and tension as he bolted down the street, men hell bent on killing him on all sides. Even so, he hadn't felt fear. Not until he'd seen the look on Malkai's face, that moment where his team mate had lifted his weapon to fight despite knowing it was futile. The power, the sheer force, slamming the sniper to the roof with nothing but the concussive might of his will.

  The images had a lurid quality, though the echo of what he had done then gave him a false sense of vigor for a moment. The need to know what he had done overrode his disbelief.

  "Tell me." he said with all the passion he could muster, willing to believe now if only this spirit would explain what had happened to him. "Tell me how it's possible."

  "People like you and I always experience a moment, like the one I'd guess you're remembering now. Where we call out to that which is greater than us, and it answers."

  "I haven't been to church since I was a child," Ashrinn said, divining the man's implication, "I've no use for religion."

  Faith, maybe.

  The man's expression turned from subdued amusement to something more serious. Sadness? "Not religion. Divinity. The two don't always go together."

  "What are you trying to tell me?"

  "The divine has greater plans for you, Pinecroft." The dream man put his hand on Ashrinn's shoulder, but he could barely feel it. The hand itself glowed. "You'll be seeing me again."

  Skepticism warred with his feelings once more. Had he really gone this far? Was he really so frightened at the notion of being put out to pasture that he would hallucinate his grandfather, come to tell him he was special, that he wasn't done yet?<
br />
  The apparition turned, took a few steps, and disappeared.

  CHAPTER THREE

  "Dad!"

  Being discharged still didn't sit well. Even his clothing felt unfamiliar and restrictive. He and his Unit team had enjoyed a high level of autonomy and had often done away with uniforms all together, but this felt different. It felt like wearing a chef's jacket yet having no idea how to dice an onion.

  Coren's delighted shout helped ease his emotional wounds, soothed the anxiety that had been his constant companion since he'd stepped aboard the plane home. He couldn't shake the notion that maybe there had been more to his dream than simple wish fulfillment.

  Coren ran at him from across the terminal.

  Convoy. A gangly child, running at him. Lifting his weapon in response, without thought. Sighting along its length.

  Coren hit him at speed and Ashrinn caught him in an automatic embrace, dropping his bag. For a moment the remembered gunshot blocked out the sounds of the airport, before he stuffed it into the mental lock box he kept for such things. He managed a breathless laugh as he wobbled on his good knee.

  "Sorry, Dad! You're better now, aren't you?"

  A miserable jolt of regret hit his system like bad drugs when he realized that Coren stood as tall as he did now. He caught a glimpse of Kiriana, hanging back to give him his moment with Coren. He focused on his son again, grateful.

  "Just a bad knee." He untangled himself from Coren and held him at arm's length. When last Ashrinn had seen him, his son had been barely old enough for high school. He looked damned near a man now. Coren had inherited his rangy build and black hair, but the boy's violet eyes, now big with excitement, had come from his mother. Good thing Coren didn't have much guile, or he'd have left quite a trail of broken hearts on the power of those eyes alone. Ashrinn made a mental note to grill the boy about responsibility as soon as possible.