Last Call

by Lloyd Behm II

  “It’s a spell…from a game I used to play,” Padgett said.

  Golden Circle raised a hand. Above it floated a small, luminous orb.

  “Now if you can get that to explode, spattering everything with fire, you’ve got it!” Dalma said.

  Golden Circle gestured to Call of the Sun.

  “I agree. That would not be a good idea here,” Call of the Sun said. “Is there somewhere outside where Golden Circle could demonstrate the spell?”

  “The grenade range is…about a klick that way,” Johnson offered.

  “That would probably work,” Call of the Sun said. “If a klick isn’t far?”

  I laughed, walking out the door. “A klick is a kilometer.”

  “Sorry, that’s a holdover from my days in the service,” Johnson.

  “I see we have much to learn if we are to be up to the task of serving as your allies,” Call of the Sun said, following me out the door.

  “Call of the Sun, slang has been the death of me,” I said.

  It was a pleasant walk to the grenade range. Everyone went through a refresher course on what Jesse called “the care and feeding of grenades” at least once a year. There were also ruined vehicles that served as targets for personnel qualifying on grenade launchers and other specialty weapons.

  “How does this work?” Call of the Sun asked. “Our training areas are a bit more freeform.”

  The elves had drawn attention, and personnel who were not working had clustered in the observation area.

  “Johnson? I believe you’ve run the course before?”

  “Yes’m. If you would follow me?” Johnson asked, leading the two mages down into one of the firing pits. Once the elves were inside, he paused a minute and said something that the wind ate. He then waved to get my attention and signaled for me to put my earpiece in.

  “Should have thought about that before we got down here,” he said.

  “It is all right. You had a question?”

  “Yes’m. Call of the Sun says Golden Circle can hold the spell for a bit, and he’d like to show you a spell or two of his own. Is that ok?”

  “Whatever they think best,” I replied.

  “Also, ma’am, Call of the Sun says he needs to stand on the blocks to best show his magic. It’s against the rules, and you know the range officer.”

  I waved that worthy, a Brit named Osbourne, over.

  “Hold one.”

  “Holding.”

  “Mr. Osbourne, I have a bit of a conundrum for you,” I said after shaking his hand.

  “Mum? Please explain.”

  “I have two new team members whose abilities I need to assess. However, to do that, I need to break one of the range rules.”

  “They’re not planning on running across the range or anything silly buggers like that, are they?”

  “No, my understanding is one of them needs to stand on the wall at the front of the pit.”

  Osbourne mulled it over for a bit. Finally, he said, “Mum, they’re elves. If they say they’re safe from their own magic, well, it’s their own lookout, no?”

  “Thank you, Mr. Osbourne.” I keyed my mike. “Johnson, you have permission for Call of the Sun to do what he needs to do. Just no silly buggers.”

  “Right, ma’am. Johnson, out.”

  Call of the Sun rose to the top of the block wall at the front of the pit, landing lightly. His right hand snapped up, and three bolts of light struck a ruined car on the forty-meter line.

  “Magic Missile for the win!” Dalma shouted.

  Call of the Sun turned his attention to a cinder block half-wall about three meters from his position. He touched his thumb tips together, and then spread his fingers wide. Flame shot from his fingers, engulfing the wall. Call of the Sun moved his hands apart, and the fire stopped flowing. The aggregate in the block went from yellow to white, and the wall collapsed.

  “Wow,” someone in the crowd said.

  “Ma’am? Call of the Sun says Golden Circle is going to hit the truck out on the thousand-meter line.”

  The truck, a wreck QMG had purchased from a junk yard, was usually the target for teams testing AT-4s or M67 recoilless rifles.

  “Roger.”

  Golden Circle repeated Call of the Sun’s rise to the top of the wall and paused for a moment. He made a quick throwing motion. The fireball swelled as it raced down the range, engulfing the truck and setting fire to the steel.

  “Impressive,” I said as the mages and Johnson returned from the grenade pit.

  In the background, there were detonations as dud munitions burned in the fire from the truck.

  “Will that burn long?” Osbourne asked.

  Call of the Sun and Golden Circle exchanged hand gestures.

  “He says the fire will go out when it has consumed all the carbon in the steel.”

  CRACK.

  “Ah, well, good,” Osbourne replied. “Looks like it’ll clear some of the UXOs out there.”

  ‘Excuse me, Mr….”

  “Osbourne. William Osbourne, sir.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Osbourne. What is a UXO?”

  “Unexploded Ordinance,” Osbourne said. There was a second sharp CRACK, and several muffled THUMPs. “Some of the weapons we use are…the ammo for them is older. That’s why we test it first on the range—last thing anyone wants is to go up against a bloody ogre and have a bunch of dud rounds.”

  “Thank you. May I ask, does this happen often?”

  “Not as much as it used to, now that we’ve gotten new production for the recoilless rifles, and I’m monitoring the conditions in the ammo supply point. Some of the older rounds for the guns were a bit of a dog’s breakfast—the brass was green with corrosion.”

  “It is good to know our allies show such concern for their weapons,” Call of the Sun said after shaking hands with Osbourne. “Is there anything else you would like us to demonstrate?”

  “No,” I said. “Tomorrow, however, we’ll replace your UMPs with ones drawn from the armory here and give you time to sight them in. After that, we’ll run through the shoot house a couple of times so we can see how to integrate your team with ours.”

  I happened to look up and catch sight of Tatsuo. She was doing something Holt called the “pee-pee dance” while we watched footage of drunks stumbling out of bars on Sixth Street, looking for evidence of vampires.

  “If you will excuse me a moment?” I asked Call of the Sun.

  “Certainly.”

  I strode quickly to Tatsuo, who flashed a smile and led me into the facilities.

  “I never have understood this modern fashion of women going to the facilities in pairs. Out on the plains when I was growing up, yes, going alone could be hazardous to your health. Now?” I said while she checked that we were alone in the room.

  “Foreman, there’s something I must tell you,” she said.

  I looked around the room once, then stepped to a sink and rinsed my hands.

  “You need to tell me that Golden Circle is female,” I said.

  “Golden…wait, how did you know? I could smell the difference, but you, you’re human.”

  “You weren’t at the meeting,” I said, drying my hands and disposing of the towel. “I met Call of the Sun just after the nineteenth century became the twentieth, at a celebration in Paris.”

  “What kind of celebration?” she asked. I could see the tales of Pre-Great War Paris in her eyes.

  “He was in Paris representing his Enclave to the French government. His primary wife had just given birth to his heir.”

  “Golden Circle is his heir? I thought elvish society, hmm, restricted the role of females.”

  “Tatsuo, have you ever considered a job in politics? That is a very polite description of a social policy that reduces females to chattel slavery,” I said. “Even the British weren’t that bad in the nineteenth century.”

  “So if she isn’t the heir, who is?”

  “His son and heir is known as ‘The Golden Child who Brings
Light to His Father.’”

  “So they have similar names?”

  “Yes. Although if we are correct, Golden Circle is not her full name.”

  “What do you think it is?”

  “Probably something along the lines of ‘The Golden Child who will in the Circle of Time Bring Honor on her Family,’” I said with a small shrug. “She would bring honor by giving sons to her husband.”

  “Even dragons don’t restrict their females as much as elves,” Tatsuo said, shaking her head. “Dragon females wouldn’t put up with that kind of shit, honestly.”

  “No, they wouldn’t. However, there is one thing we must discuss,” I said.

  “I cannot let anyone else know that she’s a she.”

  “Correct.”

  “Do you know how boring that is?”

  “Yes. What do you think Dalma would do?”

  Tatsuo paused in thought. “I haven’t known Dalma all that long, but I think Dalma would try to convince her to escape that life. That would cause issues with the elves.”

  “The last thing we need is to cause the end of the world because we have upset our allies,” I said, opening the door and walking out into the coming night.

  * * * * *

  Chapter 19 – Jesse

  Observe, devil, and learn how one truly tempts humans…

  * * *

  “Wake up, sleepy head,” Mel said.

  I sat up on the couch. I needed to put a board in between the folds on the mattress of the sleeper, it was a little rump sprung, and the couch was lumpy. The TV was on—I’d passed out to news coverage of the war in Afghanistan, again. Mel grabbed the remote and dropped into my lap, kissing me soundly.

  “Any mail?” I asked when she came up for air.

  “Yes, bills mostly,” she said, dropping them in my lap. “I got a call back from PharmCo. I start Monday.”

  “Sweet.”

  Mel and I had started school together, but she was ready for graduation. I kept failing Chem.

  “What do you want to do for dinner?”

  “I thought,” she said, lowering her eyes and looking at me through her bangs, “we could go to College Café on the Square and grab burgers. You know, celebrate the new job.”

  “Yeah, we could,” I said. She used that look a lot, because I found it hot. Woman knew how to work me to get what she wanted.

  “The bills are paid, there’s food in the kitchen, and I want to spend some money on my man,” Mel said with a laugh. “Get dressed, and we’ll go out.”

  “Sure thing,” I said.

  One of the nice things about our place was it was close enough to walk down to the Square. The weather was nice, so we took our time getting there. San Marcos was in its slow period, the fall semester had ended, and all the graduates had left, to either go crash at home, look for a job, or to whatever the next step was, like Mel. Me? Yeah, I’d gotten the word earlier in the week—I’d failed Chem again, and Professor Moon was suggesting that I either take a semester off or go home and pick up some remedial chemistry classes at the junior college level. His other suggestion was changing majors to something that didn’t require chemistry beyond the class everyone had to take. That wasn’t an option—Mom and Dad had big plans for their little boy as a pharmacist, and that required Chem.

  Mel was bubbly—she’d graduated last spring and hung around, for some reason, looking for a job that would put her business degree to good use so she could get an MBA. Working to make money to go back to school to make more money didn’t make sense to me, but it made Mel happy, so I figured what the hell. We’d been together since we took English together—our relationship had been sooo 1950s, studying together led to grabbing a bite in the cafeteria, which led to late nights studying at the Kettle, then catching a movie to celebrate passing a test, and so on and so forth. Robert was the first one to point out we were going “steady,” the ass.

  We followed the kid from the front to a table—it was slow since San Marcos was dead.

  “What can I get you to start?” asked Sarah, the waitress. “Your usual?”

  “Beer. Bring me the Beer List!” Mel said. “We’re celebratin’ tonight!”

  “Oooh, you big spenders,” Sarah said, pointing. “It’s the same place it’s been for the last year y’all’ve been coming in here.”

  Mel and I were working our way down the list of beers they brewed in back.

  “We’re up to P,” Mel said.

  “Nah, I’m good right now, but you go if you need to,” I replied.

  I could hear her eyes rolling in her head.

  “Two porters, Sarah.”

  “You know what you want to eat, or y’all need time to think about it?”

  “Cheeseburger and fries,” Mel answered promptly.

  “Jesse?”

  “Sounds good.”

  Sarah walked over and put in our order, then brought back chips and salsa. I waited while Mel went through the ritual of salting the chips and then dug into the salsa.

  “You know one of the things I love about you?” I asked.

  “What?”

  “You don’t do that ‘oh I’m not hungry’ game and then eat off my plate,” I said.

  “Never saw the sense in it,” she said, waving to some girl who came in the door.

  The girl waved back and then followed the hostess over to a table near the bar.

  Mel gave me her serious look—head level, shoulders back, with a feral glint in her eyes. “You’re good with me taking the job, right?”

  “Are you kidding me? Now you can keep me in the style to which I long to become accustomed,” I replied.

  “You ass,” she replied, taking a long sip off her beer. “So that’s a porter, huh?”

  I sipped from my glass. “Yup. Nice and chewy. That’s new.”

  “What’s new?”

  “Look at your glass,” I said, pointing. “The blue jay on the side. It’s new.”

  Both glasses had blue jays painted on them.

  “You like those, huh?” Sarah asked, dropping our burgers off. “Don’t get used to them; they were a mistake from the supplier. We’ve only had them a week, and we’ve already broken about half of them.”

  “It’s pretty, though—wonder what it looks like against a lager?” Mel said.

  “Honestly?” Sarah asked making sure no one else was in hearing range. “On a lager they look like the bird’s drowning in horse piss.”

  She’d timed the delivery just right—I had to turn my head to avoid bathing the table in beer.

  “Another round, and a glass of water to rinse out my sinuses, please,” I said.

  “Sure thing.”

  We indulged ourselves in people-watching and eating dinner. Finally, after the last fry was gone and too many beers, we stumbled home, arm in arm.

  The wind was a bit sobering, and I was glad I’d brought a jacket.

  Mel, naturally, had her arms under it, in part because she’d ignored my advice about bringing a jacket of her own. Her hands were cold on my back.

  “Jesse, you’re really good with me making more money than you?” she asked at one point.

  “Yes,” I said, stopping and taking her hands. “You’re probably going to be making a lot more money than I am for the foreseeable future.”

  “It’s just Chem, honey. We can get you a tutor or something. You graduate, we get married, and you go to pharmacy school at UT. Easy-peasy.”

  “About that,” I said. “I…I made a decision. I’m not going back to school in the spring.”

  “Okay. Why not?” she asked as we started walking to our apartment again. “Or are you going to lay off for a semester and work full time?”

  “I’m going to be working full time, yeah,” I said, unlocking the door. “I just won’t be around here.”

  She stopped in the door. “Are…you’re…what the fuck, Jesse?”

  “I’m not breaking up with you—well, unless you want to break up with me after I tell you what I’ve done,”
I said.

  “We’ve had that discussion,” she said coldly.

  We had. She’d told me the only way I was getting out of our relationship was feet first—after she’d smothered me in my sleep.

  “Look,” I said walking her over to the couch. “I talked to the recruiter this morning. I go for my physical in San Antonio next week, and if that’s good, I go to basic after the first of the year.”

  “What’re you going to do if you fail the physical?” she asked.

  “I won’t. We both know that, hon,” I said.

  “You could,” she insisted. “I mean, if you really wanted to, you could do something like…”

  “Like that anthropology professor who only ate lettuce for months before his draft physical? Too late for that, Mel.”

  “This is just…I mean, we had plans for Christmas!”

  “We still do. I’m not going to basic until the second week in January. We’ve got time to tell your folks, and my folks, and even spend some time together before I go.”

  “If you say so,” she said. “Why don’t you go lay down; I’ll be in later.”

  “Alright,” I said, walking into the bedroom.

  * * *

  I do not see how this is tempting him…you’re just replaying what happened from his memories…

  Patience, devil, patience…

  * * *

  “We’ve got ten days,” Mel said, dropping onto the motel bed.

  She’d come out to graduation with my folks. Her company had given her three weeks off with pay so we could be together—her boss had been a pharmacist’s mate in the Navy. Not that she hadn’t earned the time off. Knowing her, she was working eighteen hours a day.

  “What do you want to do?” I asked.

  “Well, you know…”

  “That was fun,” she said about twenty minutes later.

  “Yeah, sorry about that,” I replied. “It’s been a while.”

  She rolled over and put her head on my chest. “Do you have to stay in San Diego for your entire leave?”

  “Mexico is off limits, but we can go anywhere else you like, as long as I’m back before my leave is up.”

  “What about Vegas? We could do a little gambling, get married…”