by T S Paul
“Afghanistan.” The sergeant took a deep breath. “Kipling had it right when he wrote, ‘When you’re wounded and left on Afghanistan's plains, and the women come to cut up what remains. Jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains.’ Of course, his was a much later time than ours, but the sentiment is there,” Adams eyes were clouded over in remembrance.
“That sounds horrible, Sergeant Adams,” I said.
“Mmm, it were an experience. I recommend having them. It builds up your character,” he replied.
Zee sat up, brushing her clothing off. “How many of your men did Owl bring here?”
Adams turned to look at her. “Didn’t I say? The regiment was wiped out to a man. History says that only two survived. But from the final retreat and the battle of the pass, it was only I. Come now. We’ve lollygagged enough. Much more training to do.”
And that was just our first day. We were introduced to the rest of what was to be our training cadre. All were survivors of units destroyed to the last man through more than fifteen hundred years of history. They really were the Legion of the Damned. Damned to remember those they lost.
“What do you think?” I asked Zee after we were shown to our barracks room.
The Russian girl cocked her head and considered the ceiling of the room for a moment. “They have much to teach but I wonder about the goal.”
I nodded. “Exactly my thought. They keep saying we have a destiny, but they haven’t explained exactly what that destiny is.”
“Destiny is funny. My grandmother says that if you know your own you are tempted to change it. Better to not know,” Zee replied.
“I can see that, I guess. This grandmother of yours, is she teaching you Magick?” I asked Zee.
“Some. Is more job of ghosts,” Zee explained.
“Ghosts? Real ghosts?” I asked. That totally tripped me out because most Witches don’t believe in ghosts. “That’s pretty cool.”
Zee nodded, her eyes starting to tear up. “They live in ruined city. I go there to learn to protect my people. I need to learn better Magick.”
I frowned. “What sort of Magick are you learning?”
We talked Magick and grandmothers into the wee hours of the morning. I planned to fix her magical issues the next day.
Chapter Eight
Learning a new Magickal system practically overnight is extremely hard. Throw in gunfighting lessons, tactics, and personalized instruction and it’s insane! But that is what we started to tackle the very next day.
Zee and I had several hours to ourselves that we took advantage of after our morning calisthenics.
“Let me see your best fireball spell,” I said.
Taking a fighting stance, Zee summoned a basketball-sized ball of flame into her hand. She flinched back from it like it was attacking her.
“Don’t pull back, Zee. The fire came from you. It’s yours until you release it. You cannot be burned from your own flame,” I explained. I held out my hand and summoned my own flame. Mine was much smaller and more controlled. Demonstrating, I rolled the ball across my arms and even cuddled it up to my face like a kitten. “Fire is one of the elements that all Witches have an affinity for. You just have to trust in your own power.”
Cautiously Zee reached out with her other hand and stroked the flame. When she wasn’t burned, she leaned in closer. “It’s not hot!”
“No, but it is death to the one you throw it at. Always respect the fire and it will respect you. Take my advice to heart, Zee. Your Magick, your power. Don’t let others beat you down. You are the one in charge of your own Magick,” I demonstrated to her how I made smaller fireballs. “I use these instead of my gun.”
Taking aim at one of the rows of targets, I started tossing fireballs. As soon as one left my hand, another would form. The targets were man-sized but made out of wood instead of the metal I would use on most FBI ranges. “You have to concentrate. Visualize where you want them to go, and if you are able, direct them with your mind magic.”
Zee stepped closer to me and concentrated upon her hand. I could see a faint glimmer as a much smaller fireball formed inside of it. “I did it!”
“Now try tossing it and forming another,” I directed.
For more than an hour we threw fire at the targets. Zee mostly stuck to the new size with only a couple of throws being the much larger balls. “It just takes practice,” I said.
“What can I help you with?” Zee asked me.
Fergus and Dee, her cat, had been watching us and talking to each other the entire time we’d been working. With my Mage sight I could see a sort of interaction between Dee and Zee that I didn’t have with Fergus, so I asked about that. “Familiar Magick. You and Dee have something that Fergus and I don’t have. Or maybe we have it, but we don’t know how to use it.”
Zee looked at her cat and smiled, “Dee is special. I’m the first in many years to have a familiar. She came to me when I was sleeping one night. We are a team. She taught me how to link and share. Is very simple.”
“Maybe for you. I’ll bet yours isn’t the most irritating creature on the planet. I made him indestructible, did I mention that?” I told her.
Zee smiled and let loose a giggle. “He does seem temperamental. But he stuck with you. He could have left you if he’d wanted to. Have you asked why he stayed? Sharing is part of the relationship. You have to trust each other. You are very powerful but with his help you could move mountains.”
I pursed my lips and looked back to where Fergus was bouncing around. We were lifelong friends, but did he truly trust me? Grandmother had told me she spoke to him, but I didn’t know what she said. It sounded like I had a conversation coming tonight.
“You ladies ready for your next assignment?” Sergeant Adams yelled from the edge of the field.
Looking toward the sound of his voice I could see the Englishman standing with two new men. Both were dressed as if they were going to church, in antique three-piece suits. One even sported a bowler hat. As the men approached, I could see they each had gun belts slung low across their hips. The sight of the six shooters made me smile. Target practice with handguns was hard.
“Magick is one thing but nothing beats a gun in hand for putting down threats.” Adams waved toward the ceiling. “If the other realms still used flintlocks, I would be teaching you myself. Instead I brought you a couple of wild fellows. Harry and Robert here are going to show you a few things and give you some pointers.”
The two dandy looking men frowned and looked at each other before laughing. Whipping off his bowler hat, the man on the right smiled at me. “Don’t listen to the limey, only my mother called me Harry. My name is Sundance.”
Robert smiled as well and motioned to his friend to start. “Go on with it boy. Show them what’s what.”
Shaking his fist, Sundance glared at his partner. “Who you calling a boy? You’re like a whole year older than me.”
“I’m older in experience. We both know that,” Robert started to explain. “and the name’s Butch, get it right.”
Sundance snorted, ignoring the name comment. “Just because you bought a ranch and sold horses doesn’t give you more experience than me. I actual traveled more than you. Wanna bet Canada is still really nice?”
“Better than Bolivia, for sure. Just teach the ladies. I’ll jump in if you get into trouble. Does that work for you, Sundance?” Butch asked.
“Sure.” Sundance pulled out both his guns and gave them a spin. Barely taking aim, he started shooting downrange at the targets. “The trick to gun fighting is knowing for a fact where your bullets are going to be when you fire them. Trust me on this. Until I arrived here, I never killed a man.”
In the FBI they taught me to shoot straight as I could direct my aim with my Magick. Doing that took concentration though. Sundance’s approach was completely different than that.
“Aimed shots are fine but in an emergency, or if you’re being attacked, you need to be able to use your gun as if it’s a part
of you. Ever aware of it and what it can do for you.” Butch quickly pulled his six shooter and fired a single round.
“I might not have the experience that Butch claims to have but I know how to sling a gun. What sort do you use back in the world, Agatha?” Sundance asked me.
“The FBI issued me a Glock 22, but I rarely use it. I qualified just enough to be able to carry it daily,” I explained.
Sundance shook his head. “That won’t do, little lady. You need to be so acquainted with your iron that it has a name. A powerful name that your life might depend on one day.”
He looked over at Sergeant Adams and said, “We have a couple of those Glock things for them?”
“We do. I anticipated the need for them today.” Reaching into a rucksack I hadn’t noticed before, the British soldier presented a case to us. “The Glock 22 is standard among American law enforcement. Depending on magazine length, it can possibly hold as many as twenty-two rounds at once.”
“That many? If you need that many shots to kill something, you shouldn’t be hunting it!” Butch stated as he gave his gun a spin.
“They often engage forces similar to those that breach our gates. Owl thought they could learn much from us,” Adams informed him.
Both Zee and I took one of the offered guns. Like Adams has said, they held the extended magazines. Despite their ages, the two men were very knowledgeable about how and when to shoot. They trained the both of us in everything but trick shots. Not something a serious person would worry about, they said.
As we were wrapping up our session, I just had to know, so I asked the question that had been bothering me for hours. “Didn’t you two die in Bolivia?”
Both men looked at me for just a moment before answering.
“You’ve seen that stupid moving picture, haven’t you? The one where we jump off the cliff? Do you know how crazy that is? I can’t swim a lick,” Sundance cried out. “We went to Bolivia to try and shake those Pinkerton boys. You have no idea how it is to be tracked across half the known world by a bunch of pantywaists in smart suits. We were going to hit that bank while we were there but one night got so drunk on local tequila that we woke up in an alley. A couple of mineworkers rolled us and took off. By the time we caught up to them, the bank was taken and the army was moving in. We took that as a clue to leave but then we ran into a giant talking owl. I should've said no and just shot the blasted thing.”
“Partner, you don’t mean that, and you know it. Those boys are all dead. We’re not. It was a good deal after all. Where else do you get three squares and all the demons you can kill?” Butch explained.
“Nowhere, but I wish Etta had made the trip with us,” Sundance reminded him.
Butch shook his head. “She wanted different things than us.”
Sergeant Adams had vanished during training but reappeared and interrupted their story. “Well?” he asked. “Did they manage to teach you anything?”
Chapter Nine
Zee and Dee didn’t move on to tactics with Fergus and me. We were comparing notes on Magick and its uses with guns when Mack showed up at the door to our room with a message from Owl.
“Zee? Owl has gotten word that your Grandmother and your village back in Russia need you,” Mack started to say.
Zee jumped up out of her chair, ran to Mack and started yelling at him.
“Is she hurt? What happened? Is it the other faction? Did the village blow up?” Zee was frantic. She grabbed hold of Mack and hugged him to her. Dee jumped down from the table and wound her body in and out of Zee’s legs in an attempt to calm her.
Mack made calming motions with his hands and carefully pried her from around his body. “You need to speak to Owl. All I can say is that they have opened the Portal for you. As soon as you are ready, you may go.”
Zee nodded and took off running toward the Library entrance. I turned to Mack and asked the obvious question. “Is it really bad?”
Mack shook his head. “Not really. She and her familiar are just about to enter a new reality. Around here we trust in two things: the Gods, and Owl. In some ways they are the same thing. Zee and Dee or whatever their real names are will end up where they are supposed to go.”
I nodded and thought back to our conversation the night before, when I had asked, “Zee you live in Russia, so I might never see you again. Is there any way we can stay in touch?”
Zee had looked at her cat for a moment and then shook her head. “Nyet. I mean no.”
Searching my pockets, I had pulled out an American quarter. Concentrating for a moment I had put a spell on it, a spell similar to the ones my team members have. Zee had watched me with surprise on her face. Handing over the coin, I had explained. “Keep this on you at all times. It will monitor your health and tell me if you are ok. If you truly need me, and I mean life or death, use it to call me. If I can help I will try to.”
Wordlessly Zee had taken the quarter and examined it before tucking it away inside her shirt pocket.
Now, I tucked the smile she gave me away in my memory.
If she truly needed me, I would know. Hopefully in my position with the FBI I might be able to help, but in the eyes of my government she was a foreign national that I was not supposed to have any contact with. Mentally I wished her luck in her journey home.
“And then there was one,” Sergeant Adams remarked as he examined my face. “I have a small unit tactical instructor lined up for you but I’m not so sure that you need him.”
I frowned. “Maybe? Even though most of us went to school together, I have a newly trained team. Our technician and public affairs officer are the most experienced even though I’m ultimately in charge. We aren’t military, but we do have to take down things more powerful than us occasionally.”
“Trust the Goddess then, because it was she that selected this man for you.” Adams waved a man dressed entirely in green over to stand beside him. “Meet Lieutenant Allen Grant.”
“You brought me a Leprechaun?” I asked.
The man dressed in green started laughing with the Sergeant but almost instantly the smile dropped away and he was all business. “No. I served from 1758 to 1763 with one of my time’s greatest experts in small unit tactics, Major Robert Rogers.”
My grasp of military history isn’t all that sharp, but I did know about the French and Indian War and how it related to Maine. And Roger’s Rangers were very prominent in that history. I explained all of that to the man in green, then said, “Sorry Lieutenant Grant, I misunderstood.”
The smaller man cocked his head, clicked his heels, and said, “Understood. Nice that we are remembered. I was with the Major for almost the entire campaign and as an officer, I was privy to all command decisions and planning. Since joining the Legion, I have made a study of other conflicts including the World War, the Demon conflict, and many, many others. Small unit tactics is a unique skill that few understand and can plan in advance for. Your constable service, this FBI, do they teach unit cohesion?”
“They do,” I said, “but it’s more of an advance class taught at the other Academy.” I carefully explained about how there were two Academies.
“Interesting. Your people are handicapping themselves by keeping those you call Paranormals separate from the others. So much to learn and so many talents are being wasted. I have sand tables set up inside for you. We will game the battles and you will learn.” Grant pointed toward the barracks.
Very quickly, I discovered that the Legion was made up of a wide variety of warriors. For the next week I learned about conflicts I never knew existed as more than a dozen men battled against me. Grandmother home schooled me, and warfare wasn’t one of the topics she thought I should know. Even the FBI glossed over the basics. I was now learning that the art of war was so much more than I thought it to be.
“Think of this as a test,” Lieutenant Grant said as he laid out a table. He placed a large wooden block in the middle with unit figures surrounding it.
“Modern tactics. This is the
high ground, a very large building with multiple floors. The top levels are still under construction and can be accessed from the roof. You have less than a dozen men, but all are heavily armed. There is an unknown number of hostages as well as an enemy infiltrator amongst them,” Grant explained to me.
I studied the board carefully, mentally placing my units. “What is the opposite force?”
“Paramilitary units with a single armored car. Their mission is to save the hostages and kill or capture you. They have little to no intelligence about your group,” Sergeant Adams pointed to specific figurines.
“Goals? Or is this just a terror tactic on my part? Do I have an exit strategy planned? And what about the infiltrator, is he feeding intel to the paramilitary or is he a random element?” I asked.
Adams glanced at the Lieutenant and smiled. “The infiltrator is random. We can tell you the op force is aware of him but don’t believe anything he says.”
“What is my ultimate goal here?” I asked again. Just defending the building made no real sense to me.
“There is something of value in the building and you have to steal it,” Adams explained.
I nodded. “Understood. That makes more sense now. Give me a moment please.”
After studying the plot, I looked at the Lieutenant and said, “Two things come to mind. Either leave by helicopter or walk out the front door.”
“How?” Sergeant Adams asked.
“Convince the opposite force to attack but use them as a diversion. Either bring in a helicopter or convince the enemy that you and your men are among the hostages and allow them to rescue you,” I explained.
“What about the infiltrator? He could spill the beans about your plan?” Grant asked.
“If he came in at the top of the building as you suggested when you said it was under construction, then you try and keep him up there as much as possible. He would be unable to see any hostage replacement plans and anything he could pass along. Even though the paramilitary group doesn’t believe him they might start to,” I pointed out.