"Ma'am, I've killed people. I know why I killed those people. I would like to know why he would do something similar."
"Mr. Rourke, I bought the protection of that man when I was seven years old. I didn't know that's what I was doing at the time. I just thought I was helping a homeless man on my way to school."
"He was slumped beside a bench near my bus stop, and I think he was awful near to death. I walked up to him, and gave him my lunch that my momma had packed for me."
"I bought that man for a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and a juice box."
I smiled as I watched the memories of the girl handing her lunch to the big man.
"Several years later there were a lot of break-ins in my neighborhood. Every one of those break-ins resulted in a death or rape. One morning they found four bodies in the alley behind our apartment building. There were scratch marks on our door. My momma was at work at the Diner, so I had been the only one home. I was twelve."
I nodded.
"Three years after that, I was workin’ the Diner in Momma’s place. She was sick, and we needed the money. There were five of these gangbangers in the diner, and they took a liking to me. I avoided them but they were loud, and very graphic about the things they wanted to do to me. I was not and am not an innocent, Mr. Rourke, but those men were scary."
"I left work and headed home after closing. Almost to my home I heard them coming out of the alley. They were making rude noises and whistling. I know exactly what was going to happen, and I reached in my pocket for the knife I had brought from the Diner. I would not be an easy target for those animals."
"Then the noises became something else, and there was screaming, and a lot of sounds I don't want to think about. After a while there was just silence, and I could see one huge shadow in the darkness."
"I turned toward my door and stopped. 'Thank you, Mr. Khalib,' I said to that shadow and I went home."
"Rumor was those boys were in a certain gang. That gang announced that they were coming to my neighborhood to take me. There had been too many witnesses in the Diner. Over the next week, twenty-three of those gang members turned up dead. The survivors threw away those colors, and no one wears them in Harlem anymore."
"You ask me why he did what he did?" she asked, "All I know is that gang would have killed and probably raped me. Then they were gone. I don't know why he chose to be my guardian, but he did. And I will give him anything it is humanly possible. He's my knight in shining armor, my hero, and my savior. That is enough for me, Mr. Rourke."
"By God, it's enough for me too, Miss Whitaker," I said.
***
I looked out at a crowd of expectant faces. I had no idea what to say. The new recruits were all lined up in the field in front of me. How the hell had I let them rope me into giving a welcome speech?
"I see a lot of new faces here today, and each and every one of you is welcome. We need you. Your world needs you. To join the Soulguard is not something to take lightly, ladies and gentlemen. Be sure of your decisions before you take the Oath."
"The Oath is the most important thing you will ever do in the Soulguard. When you swear it, you are no longer going to consider another human your enemy. To swear the Oath means you will from this day forward stand as I stand. You will stand in that place between the darkness and the light. You will be the first line of defense between that darkness and our world. Always and forever more you will place yourself between Humanity and the darkness. You may serve for ten years or forty, but this never changes. We stand, until the day we walk that road to Paradise, between the Kresh and our world."
"This isn't something to swear lightly. No more do we fight amongst ourselves. When the Oath is taken, we leave our old enemies behind. We declare ourselves as Defenders of all Humanity."
"There may come a time when you have to place that Oath above your own safety, above your very life. There may come the day when the end is come, and there is no hope left. On that day, we will stand our ground, and we will die with honor. We do this because we are Soulguard."
"This is what my Oath demands of me, and what your Oath will demand of you. Do not take it lightly. When you take this Oath, take it with pride, for you join my family. You become my brothers, my sisters. And you will have thousands of brothers and sisters throughout our world who will stand beside you. You will never have to face the darkness alone, and that is why we will win this war. This war we didn't start. This war we shall damn sure finish."
"Welcome."
I turned from the mass of recruits, applause following me as I left the stage, and walked toward the headquarters building. I hope the speech was halfway decent. I hate speeches, and I probably suck at it. All I could do was say what I believed. That’s all anyone can truly do.
I met Rictor as I entered HQ.
"Good speech, Boss-" he said, "-short and straight to the heart of things."
"Thanks," I returned, "and how are things with our Company?"
"They're working smoothly with each other," he said. "We really need some more time working directly with you, though."
"I know," I said, " but I'm having trouble with the time to do everything I need to do. I still have to shield the planes, and that is gonna take a bit of time. Plus all the shit that's coming down after New York. Did you see that news report yesterday?"
"They had the gall to actually say 'the cure could be as bad as the disease.' Referring to us, of course."
"I know we destroyed some real estate when we cleaned the bastards out," I said, "but what did they want? Leave all the buildings intact, and let more people die as we worked our way through them?"
"That's exactly what they want," He said with a frown. "If it had been a little farther south where the wealthy citizens lived, I bet they wouldn't be bitchin so much after we saved their asses."
"Yeah, I'd say so," I said with a touch of the rage surfacing, "and then again, maybe they'd be complaining about how we did it, regardless of how things went. It's the nature of people to armchair quarterback everything."
"True enough, Boss," he said. "Have you put any thought into what you're gonna say tonight at the interview?"
"I'll try to just stick with the truth. It's what I always try to go with. It could get ugly, though. It all depends on who does the interview. I wish Alstead could do it, but she's with another network. We may have to do another one with her to counter this one if it gets too ugly. I'll try my best but I'm not gonna sit and take too much crap for doing our job."
"It's all you can do," he said.
Chapter 42
"The short answer, Mr. Forrest?" I said in response to the latest of the asinine questions that had been thrown at me in the interview. "The short answer is that one single human life is worth more than every bit of property damage that was done in New York. One single life, you sanctimonious prick--even yours. You want me to be held responsible for the damage done in a city under attack by an alien race bent on our destruction. When you can stand on the front lines beside me, I'll put some credence to your opinion. Until then you can shut your damn mouth you useless, sniveling shit. This interview is over."
I stood up and tossed the mike to the side. Then I walked off of the stage to the applause of a pretty large live audience. The cameras followed me until I strode out the door. I was seething inside after Forrest kept digging about the damage done by the Soulguard in the area where we had destroyed the invaders.
We had led them out of populated areas and killed them in a relatively small area. I don't know what else we could have done to clean them out. There's really no telling how long they would have stayed focused on me instead of scattering again. The death toll had been over a half a million people. There had been nearly that many people wounded, mostly from other humans. Demons tended to kill any they actually got a hold of.
The problem had come when the actual property owners had raised a stink. No one who owned property there really lived there, and we had destroyed a good bit of property in the
"kill box". The government was sending humanitarian aid to the people of New York but this wasn't helping the ones who were raising hell about the damage.
I exited the building with rage flowing off of me in waves. Several people simply turned around and headed the other way. Others froze in place, staring at me in fear. I tried to put a stop to it but it was just beneath the surface and I was having trouble pushing it down.
Jesus, I gotta stop letting shit like this get under my skin. There had only been one question that the man had asked that may actually have done some good. They'd probably cut it from the finished product. But the live audience heard it.
"What can the American people do to prepare for another incident such as this?" Forrest had asked.
"Each and every person should get a weapon. Buy a gun and protect yourselves. We will come. We will stop them, but we can't be there until we can get there. Every American, hell, every human being begins shooting the bastards, and they'll have to think twice before they do this sort of thing again."
Not really likely but still preferable to just rolling over and dying. Not everyone is a warrior, but there is one thing about the human race. We are not just victims. We are the top of the food chain for a reason, and we won't fold because another race wants us dead. They'll have to, by God, work for it.
"That coulda’ gone better," Rictor said as I slid into the back seat of the Humve.
"No doubt," I said. "Perhaps I shouldn't be allowed to do interviews anymore."
"Ya think?" Prada asked.
I chuckled. I could feel the rage easing off after I was back with the two of them. They were my friends, and both knew me as well as any other person in the world, except maybe Lyrica. She'd spent a lot of time traipsing around in my head when I was in the Source coma. She hadn't talked to me much about what she'd seen in my head, and I hadn't asked. The things in my head are not for the light of heart. I don't even think what she did would have been possible without the telepathic abilities I had gained from my Demon ancestry. That telepathic link had allowed her truly into my mind.
"Let's get the hell outta here," I said. "When we get back to Kansas, Paige is gonna rip me a new one for that outburst. I keep telling her she shouldn't let me out in public. It's her own fault."
"Oh, so now you're blaming the Archmage for that catastrophic interview on live television? It must be a man thing. He blames you for the circumstance where he throws me out of a plane, and now you blame the Archmage for this interview."
She shook her head, sadly, "Men."
"That was live television?"
"Yeah," she answered, "We watched it as you called him a sniveling shit. The whole damn country saw it. Of course, that's exactly what he is. But you probably shouldn't have called him one on live TV."
"So who we gonna go insult next, Boss?" Rictor asked.
"Probably be safer to just head back to Kansas,wait-" I said and turned my head to the right, "-is that a Checkers?"
It was one of my favorite hamburger joints. They were in the South, and we were in Georgia.
"That's all you ever think about," Prada said.
"That's not all I think about-I think about pizza a lot, too."
"So sad," she mumbled as she pulled into the drive through, "How many do you want?"
"Ten."
"You're joking."
"Nope," I answered, "and get whatever you guys want, too. I'm buying."
"You seriously want ten burgers?"
"I need some for the flight home."
"I'll take two," Rictor said, "and see if they have that Cajun burger. If they still have that I want two of them."
"I forgot the Cajun burger," I said, "so get me five of each. The Checker burger and the Cajun burger."
She shook her head and started ordering.
I ate three before we reached the airport, and took the rest with me on the plane. There were still a couple left when we got off the plane in Hillsboro. There hadn't been an airstrip in Hillsboro until we pretty much took over the abandoned town and made a Soulguard base out of it. It was one of the first things we had added after we got established.
"You got another of those Cajun burgers in that sack?" Rictor asked.
"Yep, you want it?"
"I think I do," he said with a grin.
"I got another one in here too," I said to Prada, "You want it?"
"Yeah," she muttered.
"See, I told ya ten was about right," I said as I crumpled the empty bag up into a ball after giving the last burger to her.
"In the last five hours you've eaten eight hamburgers?"
"I guess I did," I shrugged. "I can't face the wrath of the Archmage on an empty stomach."
"You were right about one thing," she said, "these are definitely the best hamburgers I've ever eaten."
"True," I agreed. "I'll meet you guys later to work off all of ‘em. Gotta meet with Paige and then Marco and Polo."
"Did you just call our two National Guard Generals Marco and Polo?" the voice came from behind me and it was a bit frosty.
"Hi Paige," I said and smiled broadly as I turned around, "how are things on the home front?"
"Just once," she said, "I would love for you to just do what you're supposed to. There's a place for this sort of thing, and it is not on live television. Everyone wants to say that sort of thing, but they don't do it. You cannot be calling people sniveling shits on TV. Or sanctimonious prick, for that matter."
"Ma'am, in Knoxville, we didn't let him out much," Rictor said.
Her glare turned to him and I winced, "Don't you even start. You're as bad as he is."
"I thought you might reign him in just a little bit," she turned to Andrea, "but I guess not."
She turned and stomped away.
"She's so cute when she's angry," I muttered.
"Oh my God!" Prada exclaimed. "That woman could blow up half of the state, and you think it's cute when she gets mad? What the hell is wrong with you?"
"Well, she is cute when she's mad," Ric agreed.
Prada followed after Paige muttering things I don't think I want to repeat.
"Guess I get to go meet Marco and Polo earlier than I was planning," I said.
Chapter 43
"There are two thousand Guards in the four facilities out near the Gate. We have five thousand more here in Hillsboro. Some of those are instructors for the trainees, but the majority of those are troops ready for any action taken. If they hit more cities, we will lose some of those numbers as reinforcements for the local garrisons."
Marco nodded, "How many Mages do we have stationed here?"
"Three hundred, but just like the Guard numbers, strikes in cities will decrease the amount here."
"And are we situated with this Code Alpha thing you've been talking about?" Polo asked.
"Everyone is familiar with the Code Alpha scenario," I said. "It may be hard to actually get a situation where we can use it, but we'll all be ready for it if the chance to use it arrives."
"We need a command staff for this," Polo said. "We can supply Staffers for the campaign, but we need to establish who will be the head of the whole thing. I assume that you intend to be out in the thick of it."
"Yes, and I have someone in mind for that position if you don't have any qualms about your men under the command of a Soulguard. We need the flow of orders to be as smooth as possible. The guy I have in mind has fought more campaigns than any other human being alive."
"You're talking about Jaegher, aren't you?" Marco asked.
"He's truly six hundred years old?" Polo asked.
"Six hundred and forty five," I said. "I'd say there ain't much the man hasn't seen. I'll send him to you after this meeting. You'll need to work with him some to get things flowing smoothly."
"We have seventeen thousand National Guardsmen here, as well, Colin," Polo returned. "They'll be thinner, too, if the Kresh hit more cities. But, at this moment our numbers are close to that. We'll be backing your forces up, and we'll pull ou
t injured as we can."
"I just hope we can hold them in. We've never really had this sort of battle before us. First Kansas was pure luck. If the closing of the Gate hadn't killed them, we would have been bled much worse than we were already. I've never heard of calling the loss of a quarter of your command good leadership qualities."
"From all that we've seen and heard from those of you that were here, Colin, it was amazing that four hundred of you could do as much as you did," Polo said. "I saw footage of the thing in New York as well. I saw one of your Mages in both sets of footage. I was under the impression that you guys are limited in the amount of power available to your Mages."
"Most of us are," I chuckled, "but you must be talking about the Kid."
He looked at me with one eyebrow raised.
"He was sent to Knoxville when I was the Mage Captain there. He was young and untried. We came to an understanding, and he learned to use skills that most of us just don't have. We've called him the Kid ever since. He's a machine, and we keep him protected as he plows a hole in their ranks. But even the Kid can only do so much."
"The footage is pretty amazing," Marco said, "I saw what the two of you Soullords did in New York as well, and it was pretty spectacular."
"They weren't there in the sort of numbers we'll see here," I said. "I think there were just several thousand in New York. The problem was that they were in the most densely populated area in the city. Just the massive numbers will make this hard as hell to hold."
"Have you figured out how to shield the planes yet?" Marco asked. "I hate to think those boys are completely unprotected as they circle up there."
"I've experimented on some small planes," I said, "but I'm having an issue with tying a shield around the moving parts of the plane. I think the best I'm going to accomplish will be to shield the main fuselage and wings. The various moveable parts will have to remain unshielded, unless I figure something out. I may be able to build shields into each piece, but the amount of time will be immense so I may not get the sort of protection on them I want. I'll certainly get as much as I can."
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