by J. F. Holmes
“She’ll do her part, but I want her to stay out of direct danger,” said her dad, and there was no mistaking the finality in his voice.
Harley glared at me and gave me both fingers, and I did lose it. I took out my own cell and showed her the pictures I had taken on recon, shoved it in her face. “Do you see this?” I barked, flipping to pictures I had taken of the orcs herding a group of young women towards a portal. It was grainy, shot from a distance, but she could see that they were naked and wearing chains. Behind them stood an Elf noble, arms crossed with satisfaction.
“That’s … that’s photoshopped, The Elves came here to help us, to help us fix, fix the world. To stop our wars.” She was pale, but defiant.
“Do you want me to stop?” I asked her dad, out of respect for him. He shook his head no, and I scrolled to a video and hit play, holding it back up to her face. She tried to turn away but her dad pushed her back around. It was another group, this one of kids. Four of them, surrounded by a mixed orc / Elf patrol, roped by the neck. One of the Elves casually cut the rope of a young boy, maybe six years old, whipped out his sword and decapitated him, then threw the body to the orcs. They took out their own knives and started butchering the corpse.
“Ohmyfuckinggod…” she babbled and then threw up on the floor, weeping and gagging. Her dad put his arms around her and Father Mike handed me a bottle of water.
“Listen, kid. I was there, I saw it. I didn’t stop it because if I did, I’d be dead right now. This is what’s happening in Manhattan and other places. Do you understand me?” I crouched down to look her in the eye and handed her the water. “Because if you don’t, if you really think that the Elves are the good guys, then I have a problem. You and your dad aren’t going to leave this room alive. There are too many people depending on what comes of this, too many lives, for me to let you talk about us.”
“Hey, you need to lay off -” Carlucci started to say, and he found himself looking at the train tunnel end of my Glock. I didn’t need any ‘impress the girl’ macho bullshit and I almost wished it had a hammer to cock back at him.
He put his hands up and said, “Whoa, big guy, calm down, OK?”
Calm down my ass. If it had been Clark here he would have splashed the kid’s brains on the wall for even thinking of interfering. I knelt down in front of the girl. “Do you understand me, Harley?” I asked again. “I’m not trying to BE an asshole; I AM an asshole when it comes to operational security and the lives of my soldiers. Work with me and you can become one of my people, and I’ll lay down my own life for you.”
She sobbed weakly in some kind of affirmation and I stood up. “That goes for all of you. If we’re going to win this war, we’re going to need you.”
The Chinese guy, Dennis, spoke up. “He’s right. I faced them in Chinatown on day two, and barely escaped with my life. And I am no ‘noob’ as you kids say.”
“I’m going to go out and wait in the car,” said Harley’s dad. “The less I know the better.” He pulled me aside and said, “Her mother worked in Manhattan, and we haven’t heard anything yet. She’s in pretty big denial, but maybe she needs this kind of wake up. Keep that in mind. And I don’t want her in direct combat.”
“I will do what I can, but this war is going to make a lot of people grow up fast, Mister Osman.” I said, holstering my pistol.
He nodded, “I know, but she’s my daughter, and all I have left.”
“Best I can,” I said, and meant it.
“What do you want us to do?” asked Hernandez after he left.
I motioned to Father Mike and he dumped out a backpack on a table. In it were about half a dozen items that we had collected from the battlefield at the Brooklyn Bridge. Two wands, a chain with a pendant, a ring and the broken hilt of a sword that still glowed faintly blue. We had been hiding them in a sewer culvert in a sump out on Long Island in case they had some kind of tracking spell, but apparently Hernandez could sense things like that.
“This … definitely magical.” The construction worker held up the ring, “Defensive or something. Not projecting.”
I showed him my ring, and he concentrated on it. “Yeah, it’s the same thing. Same, I dunno, flavor I guess. I’d say it probably does the same thing.” He slipped it on and said, “I feel kinda silly right now, but I’m speaking Spanish.”
“I heard English, but I have my own ring on. I’m speaking Arabic right now,” I replied, and he grinned. OK, another translator ring, which made sense. The chain with the pendant was just a chain with a pretty stone on it, and Vinny made a big show of giving it to Harley, who was still sitting in the corner, knees drawn up and head down. She completely ignored him and he got a pissy look on his face. Thems the breaks, kid, let it go.
“I think,” said Hernandez, holding up the sword hilt, “that whatever this was it’s broken now. I mean, it’s still magical, but pretty much useless.”
“Lemme try this one,” said Vinny with a slick look at the girl, and before I could stop him, the kid grabbed the nearest wand, pointed it and yelled “FUEGO!” or some shit like that. I grabbed Father Mike and Harley roughly and dove to the floor, seeing the reaction on David Cho’s face and his own desperate dive for Hernandez. There was no sound, only a burst of radiant energy that spat out level with the floor, about waist high. Hernandez screamed and grabbed his leg as it froze solid into stone.
“Jesus Christ!” yelled Carlucci, looking down at the wand in his hand as it continued to spit white light. Osman screamed as it waved towards her, and Cho stepped in front of it, arms spread wide in a circular motion. The beam intersected him as I drew my Glock, and I expected Cho to turn to stone also. Instead the spell surrounded him and was drawn inward, though he staggered, and the light went out. Father Mike hit Carlucci in a low tackle, sending him sprawling and the wand flying.
I jammed my gun back into its holster and ran over to Hernandez, who was looking in shock at his leg. Cutting his pants leg off revealed … stone, actual stone. It ended just above his knee, kind of fading and melding into the flesh. Where it did incredible clotting and bruising was showing. Not sure what else to do, I took off my belt and made a light tourniquet mid leg, but not tightening it too much.
Father Mike stood up, walked over to the screaming girl and slapped her across the face, shutting her off abruptly. “Mike,” I said to him, “keep an eye on this. We have to get him to a hospital.” He knelt next to the wounded man and started talking to him to keep him from going into shock. I looked over at Cho, who sat exhausted, He waved me away and pointed to Carlucci, who was sitting, stunned, with his back to the wall. Only it wasn’t the rock star sitting there, it was the same person but he seemed drab, pale with lots of zits on his face, and skinnier. He saw me looking and faster than I could have imagined, bolted for the doorway. I dove at him and went THROUGH him, crashing into the wall, and the illusion disappeared.
“Fuck you, shitbag!” said a voice from over by an open window, and I saw him climbing through. “Let’s see what the Elves give me for this info!”
The window slammed shut on his hands with a whipping motion of the girls’ hands and I heard him yell, then a thud as hit the ground outside. I passed by Harley’s dad on his way up the stairs like a bat out of hell, gun up, but by the time I got around the corner he was gone.
******
“That went well,” said Father Mike as we drove back.
“Ya think?” I answered. We had lost one magic user, albeit a douchebag, and another was probably going to lose his leg. “One MIA, an old Chinese dude who looks like an extra from Big Trouble in Little China, a guy who ‘senses’ things and is going to lose his leg and a spoiled telekinetic brat.”
“David Cho could have, if he wanted to, burned that entire building to the ground. Maybe not in a controlled way, but I’ve been working on it. Raphael basically blanked out that entire meeting from observation while we were there, and Harley, well, when she gets a grip on reality, she has the most potential of any of them for direct action.” H
e seemed very calm about it.
“What about Vinny Goombah? What was his deal?” I asked.
He sighed. “Ah, yes, Vincent. He was an illusionist, and a great one. It was a shame to lose him there, but I could see no other course. We are going to have to be very careful of him in the future.”
I didn’t say it out loud, but that kid had just become number one on the insurgency Most Wanted List. No need to tell Father Mike.
I drove in silence for a bit, keeping an eye out for overhead patrols. There was a dusk to dawn curfew put in place over Long Island but we still had time with the long summer evening. Apparently, Shannon was going to “cook me a real dinner” and I wasn’t sure what exactly that meant. To keep my mind off it I asked him, “What’s next for the Freak Squad?”
He thought then said, “I think, for now, we need to remain in hiding and practice. As you have said, this is going to be a long war.” Truer words were never spoken, as neither of us had any idea how long it would actually become, or how vital a role the Freak Squad would actually come to play.
Chapter 49
From the war journals of Lord Thar Tavan, Head of House Tavor, Commander of the Third Army.
I despise traitors, both to their race and their masters, but they are useful. The human youth that Grimalt brought to me has some talent in the Way, but more valuable, he brought information. A priest assists Kincaid, and the human also brought me a water container that Kincaid had handled. The youth mentioned something about “DNA” that he had
‘swiped from his car’,” but I think he means that we can use his essence to find him. I will have Grimalt talk to him on the morrow, perhaps a round on the rack will make him more understandable.
As for the other, the arrogance of them, the druids, the priests of the Dead God who have inherited the Druid powers, the mullahs of the false prophet, all of them. It was hard to find him through the Way, but easy enough to torture one of his colleagues for the information.
“David Kincaid,” chanted Tavan, kneeling in front of the pentagram inscribed in the floor. “Revenge on David Kincaid,” he said again, leaning forward to watch the red lines start to glow. “Who among the damned still remembers and desires revenge on the warrior David Kincaid?” He held out a sheet of paper with his enemy’s face printed on it and threw it above the symbol where it burst into flames and vanished then followed with the bottle of water.
On the opposite side of the pentagram squatted a demon, a short, troll like thing. At its feet lay the remains of a muscular human, still clad in an army uniform and twitching. The supernatural creature held a quivering heart in its hands and slowly raised it to its mouth, a look of glee on its devilish face, and took a bite. “They will come,” it hissed as it chewed. “The strength of the devoured warrior draws them.”
As if to punctate his words a red mist began to form, dozens of small humanoid figures coalescing into a fighting, swirling mass. As each one was defeated the victor grew larger until there were only two locked in battle, hands around throats. With a barely discernible cry one slew the other then turned to face Tavan, now the size of a large man with a misshapen head. “I will slay David Kincaid for you and feast on his soul in the Inferno,” it growled in a mix of laughter and hiss.
“Go, do as I command,” said Tavan, his heart pounding with fear as the demon across the way stared at him. This kind of magic, this sending, always came with a high price, and he wondered if would become one of these shades to do another mage's bidding when he had perished.
The demon across the pentagram eyed him, blood and viscera dripping from its mouth, its red glare staring at him unblinking. “How goes the war, oh Great Lord?”
“You know as well as I do. The humans still resist as an organized force, though they are failing. Our mages learn to counter their technology every day, and there are no longer any ‘aircraft’ to deal with.” He didn’t know why he spoke with this thing, but after the loss of Ellarissa he had no confidant.
“More souls!” grunted the thing. “You have incurred a debt to us. We will collect.”
“That’s in the future. I will have my revenge now.”
“The future is here and now and past. I have seen your death. Would you like to know?” The demon has a grin that was just a little too wide for its face.
Did he want to know? Tavan shook his head. Maybe it would be the fields of Elysium or the depths of Hades, though he suspected more towards the later. He had his victory, after great loss and so many centuries, and he was tired. “Begone, demon, until I require you to grovel before me again.”
The creature howled in laughter, ripping off the head of the corpse in front of him and fading into nothing. The only remainder was the echoing of the word, “Soon...” drawn out in a long hiss.
Chapter 50
Ok, I admit it. As good as I am with war, I’m a complete moron when it comes to relationships. Until I reached thirty, I pretty much left a trail of wrecks on the side of the road, and there had been no one serious. As I sat across the table from Shannon, I laid out my mental range card and put some virtual claymore mines up. I was NOT going to let her get close to me or talk me into anything. We spent a really awesome dinner of steak and salt potatoes just kind of making small talk about the war and the elves. Comparing scars, really, and it was kind of nice.
“So, Captain America, what do you do for fun?” she asked, a gleam in her eye. “What would you be doing right now if you could be anything besides a soldier?”
“Honestly?” I asked. The War on Terror had been going on so long that I hadn’t really thought much about myself. “I love what I do, I suppose, but … well, this is going to sound silly.”
“No, go ahead.” She reached across the table and touched my hand, and it felt hot but nice.
Well, here went nothing. “I draw.”
She burst out laughing, but it was a pleasant laugh. “Seriously? Mister Blood and Guts? What do you draw?”
“People. In pencil. Portraits.” It was something that I rarely opened up to anyone outside the team, but I had hundreds of sketches. “My favorite is this,” and I showed her a picture I had taken of a sketch. It was of a poor Iraqi boy in Sadr City, getting water with a bucket from a community well.
“Holy shit, that’s good!” she said, taking the phone from me and scrolling through my pictures. Sketches of the faces of my guys getting to breach a door, another of a wounded soldier on a stretcher, Hollis looking down at a sleeping Clark as she was about to pour a glass of water on his face, Garcia undercover as a cartel member.
I was kind of embarrassed, but the attention felt good. Something outside the war. “You know how you have a lot of time just sitting waiting for things to happen? Well, it distracts me.”
She nodded and then smiled mischievously, leaning forward and pouting her lips. “Draw me like you draw your French girls, Jack!”
I was off balance by her smile and I kinda had no idea what to say to that.
“You, soldier,” she said, “need to lighten up.” And when I started to answer, she just reached across the dinner table and put a finger on my lips. Then she took my hand and almost literally dragged me out of my seat. For a little thing, she was strong as hell.
“OK, what now?” I asked. Shannon stood maybe five foot four and in her PD uniform, combat boots and ballistic vest, festooned with gear, she was about as feminine as a bulldozer. Now she wore a simple pair of black jeans, sneakers and a blue T-shirt with the NYPD logo on it. Unlike the first time we met, in the dark in the middle of an invasion, and later in combat, now she was clean and scrubbed and, well, kinda beautiful.
“Now, we dance, idiot,” she said with a smile, and hit play on a CD. I was surprised by what came out, some kind of slow 1930’s dance number. All torch and smoke, something to sway in time with. She put her arm around my waist, grabbed my hand and we started to spin around the middle of the room, to the point where I actually laughed.
“Having fun?” she asked, a mischievous
smile in her eyes. I was, and she felt … really good pressed up against me.
“But we …” I started to say, and again her finger found my lips. Then she let go of my hand, placed it behind my neck, and guided me down to her lips.
Dammit. Right through my perimeter and she took out her target with ease.
*****
It was dark when I awoke. Shannon’s head lay on my chest, and I had a crick in my neck from sleeping on my back. Part of my body felt sore and wonderful, the rest of it just felt sore as hell from where Father Feradach had put a whopping on me. Beside me on the nightstand was the sheathed gladius, and I heard it whisper to me. Danger Danger Danger, over and over.
“Shannon, wake up,” I whispered. “Bad shit.”
Her eyes opened and her hand snaked under the pillow, putting her hand on her P99Q. Then she held absolutely still. I could feel her heart racing through her breasts pressed up against me, and I slowly reached over for the hilt of the sword. I lay there with my eyes wide open, trying to see anything in the faint light reflected from under the door. Then I realized that the light was steadily growing stronger inside the room. It wasn’t an electric light, more like a flickering fire coming from one corner. My hand was on the hilt and I felt an energy run down my arm, like a slight tingling of electricity.
“Kincaid…” hissed something from the corner and I actually felt the hair stand up all over my body. The voice sounded like glass being walked on and the light coalesced into a human sized figure. The head was oddly shaped, the top half weirdly distended, and the eyes blazed brightly. “I will have … my ...revenge!” it hissed. The shape solidified and I recognized the face, even with the damage a .308 round had made from fifteen hundred meters. Julio ‘Buey’ Vargas, a drug lord from Mexico that I had popped in Ciudad Victoria maybe five years ago.
“MOVE!” I yelled, and rolled away from Shannon, whipping the sword forward to throw the sheath off. She disappeared off the other side and I lost sight of her. A raking, burning hand grabbed and just touched my shoulder and pain shot through me, making me scream involuntarily as I dove towards the wall, trying to get my balance. I swung the sword desperately, feeling it cleave empty air. In the demonic light behind me I saw Shannon, gun up, trying to get a clean shot. I doubted her gun would be of any use against this thing and yelled at her to get out. She ignored me and blazed away, the rounds punching right through and into the wall behind me. Then the spirit, or whatever the hell it was, charged at me across the bed.
