“This isn’t over,” the Lady said as she closed the door.
Visine raised an eyebrow at me in response. I knew what he was thinking and he was right. Dutton was not going to be happy that I threatened the interrogators. But we had a case to solve and they weren’t getting anywhere. I figured a successfully interrogated troll would trump any discipline that was going to be handed out to me. Dirk and Timothy were dead and my team was laid up in the infirmary. I wasn’t planning to let anything stand in my way as I brought those responsible to justice.
I walked over and took the seat in front of the Troll, Visine standing by my side. I looked the creature over and couldn’t get past the sense of hopelessness about him, as if he had already been broken and given up. He refused to make eye contact with me, instead keeping his gaze down on the table. If I didn’t know any better I might almost guess that he was on the verge of crying. Something wasn’t adding up. This was more than simply being captured.
The interrogators had left a folder on the table in front of me; it had the Troll’s name on it. I attempted to pronounce it as written.
“Ben-O-rith’skith?” I tried, “Yeah, that’s a mouthful. How about I call you Benny? Would that be alright?” I asked.
Again the Troll sat there unmoving. I thought back to the fight last night and how everything had turned out. It was clear that the sorcerer was playing for keeps. He was trying to kill everyone in his way and he succeeded with Timothy. But the Troll, while fighting viciously, managed to get through the fight without killing anyone. It didn’t make sense. Sure we almost lost Kara when he threw her into Erika, but that didn’t feel intentional. Especially when you consider that he had Kara in a death grip. With his incredible strength it would have been easy for him to finish her. I was very thankful that she was alive, but there still had to be a reason that he let her live.
“Okay Benny, just one question. Why didn’t you kill her?” I asked.
There was the smallest of shifts in his body, almost unnoticeable, but I could tell that he didn’t like my question. He smacked his lips, as if his throat was dry, and his huge tusk like teeth shifted in his mouth. He was an imposing sight. But I had a murder to understand and some psychopaths to catch, so there was only one way that I was letting this end. He slowly looked up from the table and met my eyes. I was already getting more of a response from him than the interrogators did. I wondered if the fact that Visine and I were the ones that took him down had something to do with it.
“I’ll ask again. You had her throat in your hands and all you had to do was squeeze. You could have snapped her neck like a twig. With your strength it would have been easy. But you didn’t do it. Why?” I asked.
He was giving me the angry frown, but slowly his huge mouth opened and he spoke.
“Not a killer,” he snarled.
“Right. You just help killers,” I sneered.
He huffed a few times, his chest moving with each breath. For a moment his expression turned angry before immediately shifting back to what I thought was sadness. He hung his head again as he responded.
“No choice,” he said.
“Exactly,” I smirked.
The Troll looked up at me, confusion all over his face. His eyes started darting back and forth between Visine and I, clearly looking for an answer. I let the silence hang in the air a moment, giving him time to worry about how much I knew. Then I leaned back in my chair, put a foot on the table to hold myself there, and looked Benny right in the eyes.
“See Benny, that is what’s been bothering me this whole time. You didn’t kill Kara when you had the chance. And in this room, everything about your posture tells the same story, like you’ve lost something. Like you’ve failed. At first I just thought you must have felt bad for failing your boss. But I don’t think that’s it. Which leads me to believe that you failed someone else. Care to tell me who?” I asked.
Benny’s expression turned from confusion to fear. He started to breath rapidly and I wondered if a Troll could hyperventilate. He answered between flaring nostrils.
“No,” he said.
His reluctance to share let me know that I was on the right track. Whatever they had on him, he didn’t want me to have the same leverage.
“Because you’re afraid I’ll use it against you?” I asked.
His body language answered in the affirmative long before he could even think of responding.
“Thought so,” I said before turning towards Visine.
“Do you know anything about Trolls?” I asked him.
“A little,” Visine responded.
“Are they normally violent?” I asked.
“Not this species,” Visine said.
I turned back to Benny, who had stayed quiet and pretended not to care about the conversation that Visine and I were having. I smiled at him, trying to look friendly.
“Okay Benny, let me tell you what I think is going on here. I think your boss, whoever that might be, has something on you. I think you’re working for them because you have no choice.”
Benny’s whole body slumped and it was clear that I hit the nail on the head. Whatever they had, it was good. Benny looked as if his life no longer had meaning. Like he had already lost the most important thing in his world. I could relate to that. Long ago something made me go against my better nature and now I was wondering if Benny had been dealt a similar hand. Perhaps I was recognizing something of myself in Benny. Although as far as I knew, he stopped himself before he took a life. If only I had been that strong. So I made a guess as to what leverage they had on Benny.
“Family,” was all I said.
Benny’s slumped forward so much I thought his head was going to hit the table. He was taking huge slow breaths and if I didn’t know any better I would have guessed he was about to cry. I had no interest in experiencing Troll tears so I tried to keep him focused.
“Don’t fall apart on me now Benny, talk to me. They have your family? Your parents, or your kids, or your wife?” I asked.
That was it. His body went rigid at the mention of the word wife. I kept my voice as low and soothing as I could.
“Benny, tell me where they are. If she is still there I will save her,” I stated.
“Said they kill her,” he sobbed.
“You mean kill her if you didn’t do what they wanted?” I asked.
He nodded. I glanced over at Visine and he was just watching with interest. I guess if he thought of anything to add he would. I took a deep breath, keep my voice soothing and spoke softly as I talked to Benny.
“Benny, there are only two possibilities here. If she is still alive and you tell me where they are, I will do everything in my power to save her,” I started.
He looked up at me hopeful. I could see how hard he was trying to believe that she was still alive. But as much as I wanted to leave him with hope, I needed to present the other possibility. Especially if it helped me get the information I needed.
“But,” I continued, “If you tell me where they are and I’m too late to save her, I promise to bring back the people responsible and let you share a cell,” I stated seriously.
It took him a minute to register what I was saying. Then I saw the light bulb go off in his head. I was offering him a chance at revenge. If they took his wife, he would at least have the chance to face the people responsible. That was where my mind went so many years ago, and as much as I hated that part of myself, I was counting on Benny to think the same way. We are after all just a bunch of emotional creatures. His huge mouth twisted into a smile, anger filling his eyes.
“Your word?” he asked.
“Yup,” I said.
At that point Benny started spilling the beans. He told us that they were holed up in an abandoned government building in Rock Creek Park, right off of Oregon Avenue. We had him confirm the location on a map before moving on. He also told us what kind of opposition we might be facing. There were apparently five sorcerers, or spell slingers as Benny called them, and tha
t wasn’t counting the big boss. Since I already had a three count and Visine got one last night, we were down to one spell slinger and the boss. There were also a handful of hired guns and a pair of sexy priest women working with the boss. To be fair Benny didn’t use the word sexy, but in my mind that was how I pictured them. Benny was one of three Trolls that they used for combat and manual labor. But Dirk had left his mark on their forces and killed the other two when they attacked him. Since Benny was in custody it seemed very unlikely that we would have to face anymore mammoth-muscle. I noticed a small smile of pride on Visine’s face when Benny mentioned Dirk taking out the two trolls.
From the rest of the information Benny gave us, there were only two more things of interest. The first concerned the method by which the immortals were killed. The Trolls were primarily used to battle and subdue the subjects until the target could be magically immobilized. Apparently the big boss, along with the sorcerers, combined their energy in order to siphon the immortal power out through the sword. Once the target was made mortal, the boss then drove the sword through the body, finishing them off. While I considered them all guilty in this case, Visine was very interested in who actually made the killing stroke.
The second and more pressing bit of news was in regards to a time frame. Apparently the whole shindig went down tonight. Benny had been told that after tonight they wouldn’t need him anymore and they would release his wife. It seemed that time was certainly not on our side. But at least now we had a place to start looking. Once we were sure that Benny didn’t have anything else important to share, we helped the guards get him back into his cell. The whole time he kept begging me to save his wife. Visine and I stayed silent until we got back inside of the elevator.
“We have no idea if we can trust Benny’s info,” I started, “But it’s our only lead, do we have much choice?”
“No,” Visine said.
“I guess we head out there and if it’s a setup, we hope that we’re good enough to spot a trap.”
“Good plan,” he smiled.
“And I got an even better one. Since he likes you so much and I’m probably in trouble for what I pulled back there, how about you go tell the boss what we’re up too and I’ll fill Freddy in?”
“Fine. Meet you at the car in fifteen,” he replied.
I gave him a smile and thumbs up. Visine waited for the elevator and I took the stairs. No sense in waiting around long enough for him to change his mind.
Chapter 16
Freddy told me to check in early and often, Kara managed to give me a smile, and Erika punched me in the hip and told me to be careful. All in all, a good team meeting. I met Visine in the garage and we jumped into Vlad.
“What did Dutton say?”
“As expected. Doesn’t trust the Troll, but wants the lead checked out,” Visine explained.
We ended up taking Connecticut Ave, up to Nebraska Ave, and turned down Utah Ave before taking North Hampton Street over to Oregon Ave. It was a lot of avenues. I made a right turn onto the service road and parked just past the walking trail, well out of sight of our destination. There was one other car parked there, and as I didn’t see anyone around I assumed that they were somewhere on the trail. We were surrounded by lots of trees, their thick green leaves creating a nice shaded canopy. Low hanging branches and a ton of foliage completed the dense woods feel. A tiny area by the road had been cleared and turned into a colorful community garden. But other than that, visibility was mostly reduced to the beautiful greens of nature.
We turned and started walking down the service road towards the building. As you might have guessed from the aforementioned green nature, we couldn’t actually see the building from here. While not being able to see the target isn’t a good thing, it did mean that our own approach was going to be fairly stealthy. As we continued up the long service road, we passed two “do-not-enter” signs and it was at that point that we could just start to make out the building in the distance. The signs reminded me to add trespassing to the list of crimes that the bad guys were guilty of. If I was going to get stuck writing paperwork on this mess, those were the little things that made me smile.
Stepping off of the road, we allowed the trees to cover our approach. We made our way through the brush and stopped just short of the cleared area that surrounded the buildings. Since we were still nicely hidden in the woods, it was a great time to look things over. The main building was an ugly light brown color and it reminded me of a large barn. It was a big and boxy structure and to its right was a small maintenance shed. There were two unmarked white vans in front of the building and no signs of activity outside. I was planning to move closer to get a better look at things when Visine stopped abruptly and slapped his arm against my chest to prevent me from moving forward. I stood perfectly still, opening my senses to the world around me and searching for any hint of danger.
Since I wasn’t sure what had spooked Visine, I was scanning for anything and everything out of the ordinary. I didn’t spot any cameras, trip wires, motion sensors, or booby traps. The lack of sound or movement made me discount a roving security patrol. I was about to ask him what he was stopping us for, when I noticed the hairs on the back of my hand standing up. It was almost like there was a static charge in the air. I looked from my arm to Visine and he nodded in agreement.
“What is it?” I whispered.
“Magic alarm,” he replied softly.
“Great. Obviously this is Kara’s area of expertise. I don’t suppose you have any idea how to disarm it or get past it?” I asked.
“Sure, we need a witch,” he smirked.
“Ha, ha. Let’s see how high it goes? Maybe we can go over it.”
Using his absurd strength, he lifted me up above his head and I stood on top of his hands like some kind of circus acrobat. Reaching out as far as I could, I noticed the same static charge type feeling in the air. I dropped silently back to the ground.
“Okay, I am guessing it’s like a dome and we can’t go over it,” I told him.
Visine looked up at the main building and I could see that he was calculating something.
“You got an idea?” I asked.
“Make a break for it?” he offered.
“I wouldn’t want to chance it, especially if they have a prisoner in there. Assuming of course that Benny was telling the truth,” I replied.
He shrugged. I looked up at the house and suddenly an idea occurred to me.
“Or…” I started while looking the building over, “Do you see anyone watching the perimeter? Any eyes anywhere?”
Visine looked around, his eyes occasionally glazing over as if he was seeing something other than what was in front of him.
“Looks clear. No electronic surveillance either. Why?” he asked.
“I was just thinking that I know someone who is really good at setting off magical alarms,” I smiled, “We have Vlad take us through the barrier. We jump out on the other side, unseen, and Vlad drives away once the bad guys come out to investigate. Hopefully they won’t realize that we are inside of the perimeter,” I said.
“Assuming it’s just a perimeter sensor,” he said.
“You think it’s more?” I asked.
Visine shrugged, “Probably not.”
I smiled and touched the leather band on my left wrist.
“Vlad, meet us by the do-not-enter signs, we got a plan.”
“Got it Boss,” Vlad replied.
Visine and I backtracked to the service road, careful to remain behind cover the entire way. We met up with Vlad and jumped inside.
“Okay pal, here is what I need you to do. Drive up past the service shed. The curve of the road right there should provide us a moment of cover. Visine and I will leap out of the passenger side and you close the door and keep moving. Once they come out of the building to investigate, then you hit reverse and get out of there. Hopefully it looks like you never stopped moving and you ran once they came outside. If we’re lucky, no one will guess that you d
ropped us off. If we’re lucky,” I finished.
“Sounds simple enough boss, what happens if they don’t come out the door,” Vlad said out loud for Visine’s benefit.
“They’ll come out. I am guessing that this alarm only reacts to a certain level of consciousness, otherwise every deer and squirrel in the area would set it off. If the GHOST HQ alarms are any indication, you should definitely send a signal that will make them wanna investigate,” I smiled.
“A lot of maybe’s in this plan,” Visine mumbled.
“More fun that way.”
Visine rolled his eyes.
“And keep your windshield dark enough so that they can’t tell that you’re on autopilot pal. Plan falls apart if they realize that you’re self driving,” I added.
“Check and check,” Vlad replied.
“Okay, operation Trojan Dragon is a go.”
Visine gave me a look that made it clear that he didn’t appreciate my humor. So I tried to reassure him.
“Don’t worry, if this doesn’t work, I got a plan that involves a large wooden badger,” I said patting him on the shoulder.
I crouched on the drivers seat, getting myself in a position so that I could dive across the passenger seat and out the door. Visine got in and sighed. I let a small smile cross my lips and I hoped that we had a little Greek luck on our side.
“Okay, let’s do this. Vlad, once you take off, hide around the block somewhere. Far enough away that they won’t notice you, but close enough to return if I need you,” I said as we drove up.
Vlad pulled up the road, passing slowly through the magical sensor. I could see a light blue haze around his hood as he drove through. Once the haze passed the doors and Vlad turned towards the right, Visine and I dove out the open door. The door quietly slid up into place behind us and Vlad continued his slow drive towards the main building. It didn’t take long for them to react. The front door flew open and two dudes, wearing white overalls stepped out. They each had a hand behind their backs in a sad attempt to hide the weapons that they were carrying.
G.H.O.S.T. Teams: Book 1 - Magic Page 14
