“You all are really excited about these tags, huh?”
“Are you kidding?” Danny asked, “This is the moment we become legit.”
“Okay? How’s that exactly?”
“I believe that Mr. Frost’s excitement stems from the idea that getting our dog tags is sort of the unofficial coronation of GHOST Team agents,” Freddy added.
“If they are such a big deal, why did it take so long to get ‘em to us?”
“I’m so happy that you asked,” Freddy smiled, “You see, our tags are carved from Payens’ Plate. An ancient suit of magical armor handed down through the leaders of the Knight’s Templar by their very first recorded grandmaster, Hugues De Payens. While Payens always claimed that it was forged by the hand of god, it was actually created by brother Wizards, Baldwin and Godfrey. These wizards were deeply religious men who believed their magical powers were in fact a gift from god. So, they devoted their entire lives to the creation of armor to be used in his service. It was in their final years, before the armor had yet been completed, that they discovered Payens and the Knights Templar. Believing the cause to be just, they donated their life’s work to his order.”
“Wait, didn’t Kara say that magical items don’t last?”
“You should spend less time flirting and more time listening,” Kara corrected, “What I said was that it would probably take even one wizard their entire lifetime to create something everlasting. In this case, you had two.”
“Fair enough. How long did it take ‘em to make it?”
“Three hundred and seven years,” Freddy smiled, “They say it was Godfrey’s dying words that finished the armor and his brother Baldwin died a day later, after delivering it. These men were extraordinary wizards who devoted every waking moment to their work.”
“Those were some old dudes.”
“Wizards have been known to live for a very long time,” Kara smiled.
“Apparently. And now we cut pieces off of this armor and wear them as dog tags?”
“While a slightly crude way to put it,” Freddy scowled, “That is mostly accurate. The process by which they are carved from Payens’ plate is time consuming and meticulous. In order to preserve the magic and maintain its properties, only the finest masters of magical metallurgy, under the supervision of a wizard, can be called upon to create the tags. This is why it has taken so many weeks for ours to be delivered.”
“Let me guess, ‘masters of magical metallurgy’ means Dwarves?” I smiled, before looking over at Hunter, “No offense.”
“None taken,” he smiled, “I enjoy the irony.”
I was about to ask him what he meant, when Freddy spoke up.
“In fact, it is the noble elves that are more often called upon for the crafting. Few others possess the knowledge and precision to perform the task,” Freddy nodded.
“That makes sense. They do rock it in Santa’s toy shop.”
“Mr. Chang,” Freddy snapped.
I was actually taken aback for a minute. I wasn’t sure I’d ever seen Freddy’s tone change so fast. I could tell from his voice that he was mortified. Sadly, all I could do was hold out my hands and shrug my shoulders, as I had no idea why he was so offended. Freddy was actually turning red and didn’t seem capable of replying. The rest of the team also looked confused and it was the new kid who broke the awkward silence.
“It’s nothing to get worked up about Freddy. I hear those elves have a wonderful sense of humor,” Hunter smiled.
After a few breaths the color started to return to Freddy’s face. He looked at Hunter through a forced smile and nodded thanks.
“I hope so, Mr. Richardson. I hope so,” Freddy sighed.
“How did the GHOSTs get the armor,” Danny asked.
It was then that I noticed Freddy actually had everyone’s attention. Apparently I wasn’t the only one who didn’t know the history of our tags, although I was still the only one who didn’t quite understand how they functioned. I assumed Freddy was getting to that part of the story. Luckily, someone else asking the question helped him forget his anger towards me and get back on topic.
“The armor, yes. Well, Payens’ Plate was lost in the fourteenth century, not to surface again until the Great War. Taken into custody by the French government, the armor was given as a gift to the GHOST organization. France believed that its projectile protecting capabilities could best be utilized by our organization. Since that day, a dog tag has been created for each member of a GHOST Team,” Freddy said.
“Wait. This is ancient armor. So when you say projectile, are we talking about arrows?”
“You are correct Mr. Chang,” Freddy said, almost without an undertone, “While the armor was in fact created to protect against arrows and other similar range weapons of the time, a funny thing was discovered. The spell upon the armor was weaved in such a way as to offer increased-protection in direct relation to the speed of the projectile. The magic uses the velocity and kinetic force of the object to repel the attack. Thus, the greater the speed of the attack, the more protection you should be afforded. The result is a method of protection that actually works better against bullets than it ever did against arrows.”
“So it doesn’t stop arrows anymore?”
“It will still slow an arrow, but due to the nature of our tags, mainly their smaller stature and size as compared to the original armor, we are offered lesser protection. An arrow will still pierce your skin, but this will hopefully prevent it from reaching any vital organs. You should expect little to no protection from knives, swords, or other similar melee attacks,” Freddy said.
“At least it stops bullets. How does that feel?”
“Have you ever been hit while wearing a Kevlar vest?” Hunter asked.
“I’m familiar with the sensation.”
I got a few looks from my team. I wasn’t happy to admit it. After all, Kevlar is very un-ninja.
“Well, this won’t hurt quite that bad, but it’s close,” he said.
“So, expect the wind to be knocked out of you, but you’ll live?”
“Basically,” Hunter nodded.
“Sounds good. What’s the catch?”
“If by catch you are referring to things that you should know about the tags,” Freddy started, “They must be charged frequently. While they should last for at least forty-eight hours, that time can be greatly shortened through use. At each occurrence when the tags are called upon to repel an attack, a bit of their manna is drained. It is here, at the armory, that they can be recharged.”
“Why here? I thought manna was tougher to find in cities, let alone in the middle of an office building.”
“Well, we sort of have a cheat here,” Kara added, “You see, our HQ is located on top of a manna hotspot, a small portal into the Veil that has been sealed and capped in order to utilize it for manna fueling purposes. That’s how our magical alarm system is powered.”
“That sounds safe.”
“It’s guarded by an old hound dog like me baby, so it’s uh, plenty safe,” Elvis said, as he reappeared from the darkness of the racks.
Dangling from his hand were our tags. Aptly named, they looked exactly like military dog tags, except there was only one tag per chain. Each tag had a black bumper and although I couldn’t make it out from here, I could tell that they were engraved. Elvis gave us a big arm roll and pointed as way of presentation.
“Uh huh. Here they are babies. Uh, ladies first,” Elvis said.
Erika and Kara grabbed their tags and the rest of us followed suit. After Freddy’s story I don’t know what I was expecting, but there was nothing weird to note. It didn’t tingle in my hands or glow or anything exciting like that. It just felt like a normal dog tag. I pulled it over my head and held the tag in my hand as it dangled around my neck. It read:
Chang
Bruce T.
G.H.O.S.T.
013-KNT-001
“Okay? Am I the only one that thinks it’s a bad idea to put our names, numbers, an
d the super secret government agency that employs us on something that can be lost? Heck, even our badges only say SIA.”
The SIA stood for the Special Investigations Agency. We are officially GHOSTs, a worldwide paranormal police agency. But in order to deal with jurisdictional issues and keep the GHOST organization off of people’s radar, in the USA we are the SIA. Other countries have similar shroud organizations to keep things looking legit and to prevent the public from ever learning exactly what hides in the darkness.
“While one hopes that you’ll never lose your tag or allow others to read it, your proper name is necessary. You see, when the brothers created the armor they wanted to make sure it would never fall into the wrong hands. In order to guarantee that the armor was used for their intended purpose, they built in safeguards. The first refers to the bearers cause. The armor will only function if the wearer is in fact serving the proper organization. Now the brothers were referring to god and the order of knights, and engraved it thusly, but as we have repurposed the armor, we must list the actual organization that we serve or it will not function. Hence the GHOST organization must be engraved. The magic is more than capable of discerning the false nature of the SIA. Second, is the requirement of your true name. This is the magical link to your person. If someone were to steal your tags and wear them, they would reap none of their benefits. The third and final safeguard is your employee number. While the organization has been able to twist the nature of the three defenses, they cannot remove their intention without destroying the armor’s magic. So your employee number acts as a link between you and the GHOST organization. The original warriors engraved their pledge to their god. In our case it serves as your commitment to the GHOST organization. I assure you that these things are all necessary,” Freddy said.
“Fine. I’ll just wrap duct tape or something around it so at least our organization and everything isn’t out in the open like that.”
“Unfortunately, the magic may act up if the declaration is intentionally obscured in anyway. Some part of the magic that requires those of their cause to be proud of it we believe. However, you may wear it under your shirt. To date this has had no adverse effects,” Freddy smiled.
“Is around our necks really the smartest place to put ‘em?”
“This is also for a good reason Mr. Chang. The magic functions best when it is close to your heart,” Freddy stated.
I couldn’t help but roll my eyes. Dare I ask the next question?
“Please, don’t tell me these are powered by love.”
“Of course not,” Freddy laughed, “But the heart has long been a symbol of ones’ purpose, dedication, and true nature. This belief was instilled into the armor.”
“Okay, wear these around the neck and we get to be bullet-proof for a couple of days. Got it. Anything else I should know?”
“They can also find each other,” Kara added.
“Sorry?”
“If you say, ever did lose your tag, we could use the others to track it down. Because they have all been carved from the same piece of armor, and then linked to our team, they share a kinship of sorts. That link could be used as a crude homing device,” Kara said.
“What the hell. Did you just Lo-Jack me?”
“Not quite,” Hunter laughed, “this is a very passive thing and isn’t giving your location away. It’s more of a compass. One tag will point the way to another.”
“Kevlar compasses. Awesome.”
“BD here won’t even carry a cell phone because he doesn’t want to be tracked,” Danny laughed.
I gave him a look and a fake smile. He just grinned in response.
“There is nothing to fear, Mr. Chang. Only members of Team Thirteen can attempt to locate your tag,” Freddy smiled.
“I wonder who might use that feature?”
I winked at the girls and they rolled their eyes. Kara even went as far as to shake her head and mouth “no chance”. I couldn’t help but smile.
“Besides,” Freddy continued, “the tag only points in a direction. It does not reveal your location.”
“Exactly. For that, some kind of a genius would have to position the rest of your team around the city and then use basic triangulation to find you,” Hunter winked.
“Good to know.”
“Here to help,” he smiled.
I looked back over at Elvis, who was lip-syncing to whatever Presley song was playing now, and paying us no mind.
“So they are fully charged and ready to go?”
“That’s right baby,” he replied.
As his huge weasel-like mouth spoke, I couldn’t help but notice it rise up on his left side, much like the King’s famous lip curl. It was truly a sight. I looked over the rest of the team, each of them wearing their tags and fiddling with them in their hands. Their excitement was a long way from wearing off. Assuming that the team wasn’t going to be much good for anything other than smiling at the moment, this seemed to opportune time to test Hunter’s combat abilities.
“Now that everyone has their toys, how about we go see what the kid can do?”
“Works for me,” Hunter said.
Everyone else took their attention away from their tags long enough to nod an acknowledgement and follow us out. I hollered back at Elvis as we left.
“Stay cool, Elvis.”
“Thank you. Thank you very much,” he replied.
Everyone smiled at that and we headed out.
CHAPTER 6
Directly across from the armory is the shooting range. The kid had a pair of pistols under his arms, so I figured that was a decent place to start. We all shuffled in and stared down the long line of shooting lanes. There were two agents down on the left end, practicing, and a range master who waved a greeting our way. Everyone threw on a pair of earmuffs and glasses and we headed past the sound barrier and into the range. I went to the far right lane, so as to not disturb the other shooters. There was a target already hanging on the line, the outline of a person, backed with a few pieces of tough cardboard to keep the paper target from flapping about. You needed a stiffer target when you used some of our range’s fancy functions. For example, a target could be pre-programmed to move back and forth and even a bit side to side if you wanted to increase the difficulty of your practice. I wasn’t planning to start off with anything that complicated with the kid. For now, I just hit the button, and set the target stationary, about fifty feet down range.
“Okay little man, follow my lead.”
With that I twitched my left arm and felt the throwing star fall from my short-sleeve and land between my fingers for a split second before I flipped it downrange. I mirrored this movement with my right hand, sending another star into the target. Left, right, left for three more stars before I stopped to admire my work.
“I call that my shuriken face.”
All of my stars were sticking in the head of the target, two of them as eyes, and the other three as a smiley mouth. I looked over at Hunter, who was staring down-range at my handiwork. I could see the team behind me, trying to hide their smiles. They’d never want to admit it to me, but they were impressed. I waited for Hunter to say something, but he just turned to face me, his body perfectly perpendicular to the target, and he smiled.
Moving at a speed that even impressed me, he drew a gun with his right hand, pointed it down-range, and fired without even looking at the target. In fact, he kept his eyes locked on mine, smiling at me the entire time. His gun looked like nothing I had ever seen before. It was long and angled, comprised of both metal and wood, and thanks to its shape, I was reminded a bit of the old flintlock pistols. But in contrast to its single shot predecessor, I saw no hammer on the top of the weapon and this gun had a metal bullet drum in front of the trigger guard. The drum was narrow and unlike your standard revolver, there were no grooves to reveal how many bullets it chambered. In fact, it almost looked at if there were two drums, one seamlessly positioned in front of the other. The shot was incredibly quiet and no shell was ej
ected from the weapon. As he stood there holding the gun outstretched, I could see a wisp of smoke rising from the barrel.
Before I could even turn to look down-range, I was distracted by the gasp of my team. I glanced back to see them staring, jaws agape, looking at the target. At that point I turned to see where his shot landed. Considering how my team reacted, I wasn’t the least bit shocked when I noticed the nose he perfectly placed on my “shuriken face”. I smiled at the kid.
“Holy Crap,” Danny yelled, “How’d you do that without looking?”
Hunter shrugged, “It’s all about angles and vectors.”
“Vectors, huh?” I smirked, “Okay, Vector, how about we up the difficulty a bit?”
He actually laughed more than I expected at that, “Really? Is that what you’re planning to call me?”
“It seems fitting somehow, doesn’t it?”
“If only you knew,” he smiled, “But one shot hardly seems enough for a nickname. I’m not sure I’ve earned it yet.”
With that he clicked a couple of buttons in front of us and sent the target moving. The little cardboard man was not only moving further away from us, but also swaying side to side, creating a much more difficult target. Hunter started whistling as he waited for it to get further down-range. When it reached the point he wanted, he spun to face it, drawing his other pistol in a fluid motion as he turned. Again he moved with frightening speed, every muscle in his body seeming to be under complete control. The pistol in his left hand was identical to the one in his right, and it fired first. As he pulled the trigger, the overhead range display read a distance of one hundred and twenty feet.
The shots were incredibly quiet, the guns clearly possessing some kind of incorporated suppressor. But there was a loud “tink” as the round struck its target. Hunter fired again, another “tink” rang out from down range. He made three more shots, each one making the same “tink” sound, before bumping the button with the back of his hand and stopping the target. Timing his shots every ten feet or so, the target now sat still at just over one hundred and sixty feet. He bumped another button with his knuckles, as he was still holding his pistol, and the target started moving back towards us. I already knew what the sound was, but once the target got closer, we could all see that he blasted each of my stars straight through the face. He spun each gun once, like some kind of tiny Wild West cowboy, before re-holstering the weapons and turning to face me.
G.H.O.S.T. Teams (Book 2) Shifters Page 5
