“But the second and slightly more fascinating fact about their skin is that those Born of Silver, as they refer to themselves, actually have a telltale shimmer under the light of a full moon,” Freddy smiled.
“Please don’t tell me they are like sparkly vampires.”
Danny and Kara both snickered and Erika even smiled briefly.
“Of course not, everybody knows that vampires do not sparkle,” Freddy laughed, “That would be quite silly. No, the Reds have a subtle shimmer. It looks a bit like light reflecting off of a pearl. There is almost a silver or blue quality to the shine. Their abilities start to manifest around puberty and it is often seeing their skin under the light of the full moon that serves as confirmation of their identity. In similar fashion to the shifters, the gene of the Red seems to skip generations. We believe that the Red organization tracks hundreds of families waiting for suitable candidates to show up,” Freddy said.
“Are they always girls?”
“It would seem so. We believe that the red color was chosen as a symbol of the menstrual cycle and their journey into womanhood,” Freddy said.
“Whoa! Come on Freddy. Dudes do not talk about that stuff.”
“Seriously bro,” Danny agreed.
The girls rolled their eyes and Hunter stayed silent. I guessed he was smart enough to not pick a side on the team just yet. Freddy just shook his head as if we were being immature. In my defense, girly stuff is icky.
“As I was saying, the red is a symbol of womanhood. To date, there have been no recorded sightings of a male Red. Once a young warrior is discovered, a seasoned veteran takes her under their wing. It is in this way that techniques and weapons are passed down through the generations. Currently, we believe there to be less than fifty Reds running around. Their numbers were severely reduced during the Great War,” he said.
“They fought in the war?”
“Everyone fought in that war,” Hunter whispered.
“Mr. Richardson is correct,” Freddy added, “The Great War is called such because it was not just a war of mankind, but a war for all races. Even the Veil was in chaos. It was this fighting that caused several top-secret government organizations to first take notice of the supernatural. In fact, this is believed to be the origin of Hitler’s obsession with the occult. As you know, this led to the official formation of the GHOSTs in the Second World War in order to stop his paranormal forces,” Freddy said.
I glanced over at Hunter, “Let me guess, you were there?”
“I’m not that old,” he said.
“Sorry, the tie throws me off.”
“It does have that effect,” he replied dryly.
I gave him a half grinning nod before turning back to Freddy.
“Well Freddy, I never thought I’d say this, but I would really like you to tell me more about this Great War. However, we should probably save that for another time. For now, let’s stay with the ladies of red.”
“Very well,” Freddy continued, “It is important to note that the Reds and The GHOSTs do not have a working relationship…”
“Damn right,” Erika interjected.
“Yes. I believe that Ms. Blackstone is expressing her distaste for their operational methods. As GHOST agents we police the paranormal and attempt to give everyone a fair shake as it were. The Reds however do not believe in justice or order. They are hunters and have never been known to take prisoners. Their aim is to rid the world of shifters. While there have been a few exceptions, it is rare for one raised by the Reds to possess compassion towards the shifter community. If there are two of them in town, as Mr. Richardson has informed us, then we should be wary. They have been known to treat any in their path as obstacles. We will be viewed in a similar fashion,” Freddy added.
“Yeah, they can be quite a pain,” Hunter said.
“Okay. I assume we can’t call them up and make it clear that they should back off?”
“Unfortunately, they do not operate as an organization in the strictest sense. They use a series of underground channels to communicate, but we have had very little success locating or even intercepting any of their correspondence. From what little we know, they mostly operate as independent agents, only grouping together for larger crises. They have functioned in this way since their losses in the Great War. It is rare to find them in a larger city, such as the District, for very long. I would imagine these two have been drawn here because of the conflict between our local lycanthrope packs,” Freddy then looked over at Hunter before continuing, “Mr. Richardson, do we know anything specific about the two visiting our city?”
“Not really. Team Four stumbled upon some evidence that two Reds left Costa Rica four days ago, heading our way. Even with their aversion to air travel, it seems likely that they are already in town,” Hunter replied.
“Wait, Team Four? Is that the Brazilian team?”
“That is correct Mr. Chang. I consider it a compliment that you would remember that from my briefings on the GHOST organization,” Freddy smiled.
“Duh. Brazil.”
“Don’t get too excited mate, it’s mostly dudes,” Hunter said.
“What?! Well that’s depressing.”
Hunter patted me on the shoulder, “Team Six out of Sydney, all women.”
“I’m so on the wrong team.”
I couldn’t help but give Freddy and Danny a look of disapproval as I said it. Freddy seemed confused and Danny took offense. The girls were looking at me, nodding and smiling. It occurred to me that they might be cheering the idea of no men on their team. Clearly not what I intended.
“Hey now.”
They both laughed and shook their heads at me. Freddy looked a bit flustered as he tried to grasp all the ridiculousness that was flying around the room.
“Perhaps we should get back on topic,” Freddy suggested.
“Yeah, or adjourn this meeting and head down to get our tags,” Danny tried.
“I am excited as well Mr. Frost, but the tags can wait a bit longer. Right now our priority should be in preparing for a very dangerous enemy that we might encounter in the course of this mission,” Freddy replied.
“You mean prepare to wait in the van,” Danny scoffed.
He looked my way after he said it and made it clear that he wasn’t happy with me. I’d offered to train them, however nobody but Erika wanted to put in the time. Although lately, I had been rethinking my approach. While I wanted to do my best to prepare them for combat, I might need to start off a bit slower. In the grand scheme of things, I’d rather they improved slowly than not at all. It was probably time for the baby steps of fighting.
“Look, I might have been a bit hard on you all to start. How about we try it again? I’ll go slower. See if we can get you out of that van.”
“Fine,” Danny said, his arms still crossed in frustration.
“Speaking of fighting, anyone wanna fill me in on what to expect from these Reds?”
“Of course,” Freddy started, “As I said, they have strength and speed surpassing that of normal people.”
“You mean like everything else I have to fight around here? If I ever meet something that isn’t faster and stronger than me, I probably won’t know what to do with myself. What else?”
“While I have heard rare stories of Reds using firearms, their preferred weapon is a crossbow, their signature being silver-tipped arrows. They often use blades up close, but due to their skin’s unusual properties, they are happy to engage in fisticuffs with shifters. It is said that they are masters of hand to hand combat, practicing secret techniques that have been handed down through the ages,” Freddy said.
“Yeah, I’ve met my fair share of ‘secret technique’ folks. I’ll watch out for the crane-kick.”
Danny laughed and the girls snickered. I even thought I caught Hunter smile at the comment. Freddy, however, tried to keep things serious.
‘The Reds are skilled warriors, Mr. Chang. We would be better served if we do not so easily dismiss their tra
ining,” Freddy tried.
“Secret is normally the code word for flashy and overly complicated. I’ve told you all, a punch is a punch and a kick is a kick. What matters is when you use them and where you strike. Overly fancy tends to lead to trouble.”
“You mean like judo throwing a werewolf?” Erika asked.
“That doesn’t count because it was awesome! And let me just say how happy I am that someone saw that. The rest of you can ask Erika how cool I was.”
She shook her head, but I could see a small smile hidden in there. Since it was clear that no one was going to ask for details, I decided to help Freddy out and get us back on topic.
“So, are they known to dip their weapons in poison or anything like that we should be concerned with?”
“Not that I am aware of. I believe they consider themselves purists, not wanting to taint their silver weapons in any way,” he said.
“Got it. What else should I know?”
“Well, they should be easily identified by their red velvet cloaks and black leather outfits,” Freddy said.
“Black leather, you say.”
“Indeed. Our records indicate that this has long since been the traditional attire of the Reds,” he replied.
Erika shot me a look that made it clear this was not the time to joke about them being sexy. Since I was trying to stay on her good side and get her to open up to me, I let it go.
“Okay, should we bother trying to track them down, or is our concern still putting out lycan fires?”
“The Reds are just a result of the bigger problem. Our priority should be to figure out why the packs are fighting,” Hunter added.
“Mr. Richardson is right. The potential pack war is a much more volatile situation. Once the conflict with the lycanthrope packs is resolved, we can devote ourselves to locating these Reds. The pack leaders have agreed to sit down with us tomorrow and my hope is that we can find a peaceful resolution to these hostilities,” Freddy said.
“Is it only the lycan that the Reds hunt?”
“They don’t discriminate. They are happy to kill any shifter they come across,” Erika said.
“Ms. Blackstone is correct. While most Red attacks seem to be on the lycanthrope community, they do not spare the other shifters. But the outwardly aggressive nature of the werewolves seems to quite often put them on the spot,” Freddy added.
“Okay, we should probably warn the shifter community, if we can. Let them know that the Reds might be in town.”
“Don’t worry, they knew before we did,” Hunter said.
I gave him a look and he just nodded. Freddy decided to expand on that idea a bit more.
“While we cannot be positive, I believe Mr. Richardson’s assumption is correct. The shifter community does their best to keep track of the Reds’ movements. It is, after all, a matter of survival for them. But all the same, we will do our best to make it known to any packs or members of the shifter community that check in with us,” Freddy said.
“Sounds like we can kill two birds with one stone. If they track the Reds, maybe they can tell us where to find them. Might be worth asking at that meeting tomorrow.”
“We should be cautious. It’s going to be tough enough to keep things calm with so many werewolves in one room. Talking about the Reds is just going to rile them up,” Hunter added.
“Nothing to fear. I’ll be delicate.”
I smiled but no one in the room seemed to share my confidence. One might think that they didn’t trust me to say the right thing. No idea what I could have done to give them that impression.
“I’m sure Mr. Chang will do all that he can to keep tempers in check,” Freddy tried.
“Thanks Freddy, now would you care to explain why we are all last names all of a sudden? Is this some sad attempt to impress Hunter over here?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” He stumbled, “I have always carried myself in this same professional manner. After the relaxed attitudes in this meeting, I felt that one of us should act properly. They say to lead by example and I plan to do just that. GHOST Teams have a responsibility to be an example to all the other members of the organization. I am sure that Mr. Richardson will tell you that Team Eleven also operates at a high level of professionalism. Isn’t that right?” Freddy asked.
“Um, sure. Absolutely,” Hunter replied.
I raised an eyebrow at him and as soon as Freddy looked away Hunter pursed his lips and gave me a small shake of his head. Like I said, the kid was likable.
“Okay then,” I said to Freddy before turning back to Hunter, “Don’t worry little man, I won’t bother trying to impress you. I’ll just let the awesomeness of me shine through.”
“Something tells me that you couldn’t hide your ‘awesomeness’ if you tried,” Hunter smiled.
There was a bit of giggling from the girls and Danny cracked a smile. Freddy raised an eyebrow in a sad attempt to pretend he understood what was going on. I gave the guy an “A” for effort.
“And on that note, should we wrap this up? Unless there is anything else I should know about the Reds, you all are probably in a hurry to get your tags. Plus we gotta get to the gym so we can see what Hunter here can do.”
“Whenever you’re ready,” Hunter smiled.
“I’m totally going to watch this,” Danny added.
“Count us in,” Kara said.
“I too would welcome the chance to see a member of Team Eleven in action. If Mr. Richardson wouldn’t mind, we would all like to watch the workout?” Freddy asked.
“I don’t mind at all,” he replied.
“Don’t worry kid, I’ll do my best not to embarrass you in front of the gang.”
“I have a feeling you won’t have to try too hard,” he winked.
I couldn’t help but smile, “Two ones you say?”
“You’re damn right,” Hunter smiled.
CHAPTER 5
We all jumped into the elevator and rode it down to sublevel six. Stepping out and taking the first right led us into the Armory. The entrance area wasn’t that big, maybe ten by twenty feet, with boring grey walls. A metal counter ran all along the far side and separated us from a much larger room beyond. Behind the counter were racks and racks of weapons. Any blade, bow, or firearm you could think of seemed to be on display. The room had a cavernous feel, getting dark rapidly as you moved back from the counter. One could almost imagine that the racks went on forever. During my previous visits, I had been unable to discern the room’s actual size as the staff never seemed to turn on any lights when they headed back to retrieve equipment. Rather, they just faded away into the darkness. I didn’t know if there was some weird shadowy cloaking-device or if the staff could see in the dark. It was a mystery that I would care enough about to solve one day, but not today.
I’d been seeing a lot of the armory lately, ever since I began letting them equip me. When I first started with the GHOSTs, I was supplying my own weapons. While I was happy to do so, bureaucracy reared its ugly head. The number of regulations and policies that one had to deal with in order to bring their own gear was staggering. If it had just been a few personalized effects, I might not have minded. But I go through a lot of blades in the course of a day. Most of these weapons get destroyed, through no fault of my own. You’d be amazed what Troll hide does to a shuriken. Those poor throwing stars never stand a chance.
So, in the interest of removing any and all paperwork from my daily life, I started using the armory to equip myself with stock weapons. It wasn’t a big deal. I am not sentimental about blades, especially considering how often I destroy a sword. I care more about craftsmanship and quality. As luck would have it, when it comes to weapons, our armory was top notch. Apparently when you combine societies that have been perfecting melee weapons for thousands of years and give them access to modern metallurgy technology, amazing things happen. Plus, the staff was always entertaining. Our current entertainment was going to be supplied by the guy in charge of the armory.
His name is Elvis and he kind of looks like a six-foot tall humanoid ferret. He is a Zobel, a race of anthropomorphic martens, which I am pretty sure is just a fancy name for weasels. Jet-black poufy hair covers the top of his head and runs down in front of his ears like a pair of sideburns. The rest of his body is fairly uniform, with silver-ish fur throughout. Whiskers surround a black nose, which sits at the end of a small snout. Black eyes stare at you from beneath his round furry front-facing ears. He was wearing a red Hawaiian shirt and a pair of blue jeans, his bushy tail sticking out of the back. The fur on his hands was so short as to be almost unnoticeable, giving his fingers a pinkish tone as the skin underneath shone through. They reminded me a bit of rat hands as he pointed a greeting our way.
“How ya doin’?” he asked.
If you have ever heard someone do a bad impression of Elvis Presley’s voice, then you can imagine what our Elvis sounded like. Since Mother Nature clearly has a sense of humor, this was no impression, but his actual voice. Coupled with the fact that he has naturally occurring sideburns, he was practically destined to worship the King, which he did with pride. Part of that pride meant that he always had the King’s music playing in the background.
“We’re great, Elvis. What that’s playing there?”
“That would be uh, Blue Hawaii. I decided to make things uh, tropical today baby,” he replied.
“I like it. Have you met the kid yet? He’ll be joining us for a bit.”
“We met when he uh, dropped off the tags. Good to see ya again,” Elvis said.
“Good to see you as well,” Hunter smiled.
“And uh, it’s a pleasure to see all these lovely ladies. What can I get ya?” he asked.
“Are our tags ready?” Danny asked.
“Uh huh. They’re uh, in the back,” Elvis said, spinning his arm up in rock and roll fashion before pointing behind him, “Stay cool baby. I’ll go grab ‘em.”
With that he turned on his heels and disappeared into the vast world of the weapon racks. I listened to the King’s soothing voice and watched my team fidget about as they waited.
G.H.O.S.T. Teams (Book 2) Shifters Page 4