Ace gave him a sharp look, evidently made a decision, and pulled a pair of mirrored aviator shades from where they were hanging on the neck of her T-shirt. Slipping them on, she turned back to the parking lot. She gave a low whistle. “Yeah, that does appear to be a jet engine.”
“What are those glasses?” Steve asked. “And I don’t mean, ‘Are they Ray-Bans?’”
Ace pulled off the sunglasses. “It’s easier to show than tell. Here, look through them.”
She held the glasses up before his eyes. Outside, he could see that the cars were all intact because there was no enormous jet engine on top of them. He pulled the lenses up on his forehead and the smoking jet engine was back. He tested it several times. Down, undamaged cars. Up, lead story on the evening news.
“In most cases, these allow people to see things that aren’t there.” Ace plucked the glasses out of his fingers and slipped them back in her T-shirt. “In your case, I think you already see what isn’t there, so they work in reverse.”
“That doesn’t make any sense at all.”
“Yes, sir. Whatever you say, sir. I’ve been told that they won’t work for much longer, anyway. They were designed for an environment we no longer enjoy.”
“What environment was that?”
“Reality,” she answered. “Are you ready? We need to go now.”
When they reached the door of the apartment, Steve heard his phone start playing the eerie falling minor chords of P!nk’s Please Don’t Leave Me. “Who the hell is calling me?”
“Your phone is.” Ace looked baffled. “Can’t you hear it?”
“I know it’s my phone. I also know I never put that song on it.” Steve walked back and picked up the smartphone from the bed where he’d left it. The music stopped instantly. He looked at the face to see who had called, but there was only an animated cartoon of the gloved hand–now wagging a warning forefinger. “Something must be wrong with it. It’s showing me cartoons instead of keeping track of missed calls. Maybe I should just toss it and pick up another one somewhere.”
The phone vibrated violently and Steve dropped it on the bed in surprise. He felt a presence at his side. Ace was standing right next to him, evidently having crossed the room without a sound.
“Sir, if you’ll take my advice,” the woman looked at him gravely, “I’d be very careful of that particular unit. It’s already saved your life once today.”
Steve stared at her.
“Let me make that a bit clearer for you.” She said in that tone that only drill instructors and the football coach on Friday Night Lights had ever truly mastered. “Pick. Up. That. Phone.”
Without a word, Steve grabbed the phone and put it in his shirt pocket.
Ace looked at him critically. “Don’t you have a cover for it?”
“No. It’s just a phone. For that matter, it’s only a cheap knockoff.”
“No sir, it’s not ‘just a phone.’” Ace shook her head, wisps of short blond hair emerging from under the baseball cap. “We’ll need to pick up a milspec case: unbreakable, waterproof, and with a battery extender. Perhaps solar power.”
He repeated, “It’s just a phone.”
Her voice went back to that sharp, severe command level. “Do not say that again, sir.”
Steve was getting a bit tired of being pushed around. “It’s. Just. A....”
The cell phone was clearly malfunctioning–his breast pocket was on fire, with smoke rising in a small column. He reached to pull it out before it exploded but found that Ace had grabbed his wrist. “Damn. She’s got fingers like a bear trap,” he thought as he sucked his chest back from the shirt to lessen the pain and struggled to free his hand.
Neither effort had the slightest success.
The pain in his chest continued to increase and he thought he could smell burning flesh–at the least, the smell of singed chest hair. Then a pistol simply appeared–aimed squarely at the bridge of his nose. His eyes crossed as all his attention was suddenly focused on the hole at the end of the black muzzle. Ace released his wrist, used that hand to pull back the slide, and, with the light behind him, Steve could see a coppery shine appear deep inside the spiraled metal barrel.
“Sir, I have been told that you are a crucial resource and that I should defend you with my life.” Ace spoke slowly and extremely clearly. “However, I should tell you that my orders state that this particular telephone has the potential to play an extremely important role. The optimum result of my mission is to return with both you and your phone. However, the minimum acceptable outcome is that I return with just the phone.”
There was a pause. The pistol didn’t move–nor did Ace’s blue eyes. “Are we clear on this, sir?”
Steve nodded. The sensation of heat and pain against his chest just stopped, the smoke vanished, and the pistol moved up and away from the bridge of his nose.
Ace said. “Good. Now let’s get out of here.” She holstered her weapon–or at least that’s what Steve assumed happened. As far as he could tell, it just disappeared somewhere in the cargo pants.
Ace reached for the front doorknob. There was a tremendous slamming noise and she snapped her hand back as the metal door bulged inward. Steve thought he could make out dents from an enormous skull and curled horns stamped into the steel.
There was a second impact and he was certain of it.
CHAPTER FOUR
The pistol reappeared as Ace snapped into a perfect Weaver stance and put five quick shots into the center of the door. They didn’t appear to have any effect, and a third blow struck the door. Watching the hinges twist against the frame, even Steve could see that the door wasn’t going to hold much longer.
Ace spun, grabbed Steve by the arm, and asked, “Do you know how to fly?” before propelling him back across the apartment towards the balcony. Steve had no problem being shoved–especially as the door took another blow–but he was sure he’d misheard her last question.
When they reached the balcony, he asked breathlessly, “What did you say?”
With a note of exasperation, she asked again. “Do you know how to fly?”
“Not without an airplane. And a pilot.”
“Crap.” She looked out over the railing. Steve joined her and gazed down at the pavement four floors below. He thought of what the heroes of action movies would do and looked for other balconies that they could jump to or hang from.
Unfortunately, the guys in adventure movies obviously had better architects. The artistically staggered design of the apartment complex meant that the only balcony he could reach was three floors down. The rental agent was quite proud of this, he remembered, saying it was an intentional protection against robbery.
It had seemed a good idea at the time.
Another enormous slam echoed from his front door. Steve took a quick look and saw two of the three hinges hanging loose and the latch plate almost out of the frame. It wasn’t going to survive another–slam.
Now, the dent in the door was so deep that Steve could make out the curl in the broad horns above what looked like a bull’s snout.
Ace snapped her fingers in front of his face, drawing his eyes back to the long drop. “OK, it wasn’t in the original tactical plan, but you’re going to have to get us out of here.”
“Exactly how do you suggest I do that?”
She had switched her pistol to her left hand and was using the right to dig for something in a cargo pocket low on her thigh. Steve had the odd thought that there seemed to be far more in her pants than he’d ever guessed from her silhouette. She pulled out a silver- colored metal case and hinged it open carefully, revealing a pack of cards.
“We going to draw for who gets to jump first?” Steve asked. “I’ll take low card. Maybe I’ll land on you.”
She shot him a scornful look and then fired another five shots at the door. Steve cringed from the noise next to his head and half turned. He could see that she placed her shots so that they didn’t hit the door itself but zipped through th
e open spaces where the door had been wrenched out of its frame.
There was a tremendous bellow from the hall.
Flicking through the deck with one hand, Ace pushed out a card with her thumb and held it out to Steve. He took the card and then cringed again as she rested her hand on his shoulder and fired again. There was another, higher shrieking roar from the hall.
“The second half of the clip is always loaded with OTN-4 rounds.” Ace said. “That should slow him down for a minute.”
“You mean, in a minute, Bullwinkle the Hammer is going to get in?” Steve shouted over the ringing in his ears. “We’re going to die!”
She nodded her head at the card in Steve’s hand. “Not if you can fly using that card the way you’re supposed to.” While she spoke, she dropped out the empty clip and rammed in a fresh one from yet another pants pocket.
For the first time in his long career, Steve was too stunned to ask a question. He turned over the card and recognized it as one of those tarot cards that fortunetellers used. The picture was of a somewhat gay-looking teenager with a flower and an old-fashioned bindle on a stick over his shoulder. He was looking up–at an empty sky, apparently–and his next step was going to take him right off a cliff. There were no secret flying instructions that he could see.
Steve looked at the back. Nope, no “Guide to Flight” there, either.
He shook the card at Ace. “What the hell is this?”
“That’s the Fool.”
“Really?” Steve pointed at the bottom. “Probably why it has ‘The Fool’ written on the bottom. Let me be clearer. What good is this dumbass tarot card?”
She looked at him sharply. “So you know the tarot?”
“Old ladies on the boardwalk peddle this–it’s a crock.”
She shook her head, fired a couple of quick shots at the door, and then said, “You really have to stop dismissing things you don’t understand. The Fool is one of the most powerful characters in the Major Arcana and–among many other things–controls the power of flight.”
“You are shitting me.”
“No sir. I do not shit you.” She fired at the door again. “It’s in Manual S-O slash O-T-N, Section one five three dash zero, and if it’s in the Manual, it must be true.” She said this as though it proved her point beyond any shadow of a doubt.
Steve could only stare at her. She was beautiful–it was a pity that she was dangerously insane.
She shot him another look–blue eyes as direct and grave as his third-grade teacher. “Here’s what’s going to happen, sir. You’re going to stare really hard at that card and figure out how to use it.”
“What?”
There was another tremendous bang on the door. This time, it was followed by a grating crash that Steve assumed was his front door ripping out of the frame and spinning across the room to smash into the opposite wall. He automatically began to turn his head to look, but Ace gripped his ear and pulled to keep his eyes locked on hers. She pivoted so her back was to the railing and he was facing four stories of exceptionally empty air.
“This is no time for playing tourist. You need to concentrate.” She fired three quick shots over his shoulder. There was another furious roar, but Steve thought he could hear enormous hooves smashing into the broken glass through the ringing in his ears.
“OK.” Steve swallowed hard. “How does this work?”
“I have no idea, sir. I’m not the Fool. You are. It’s your card.”
“Great. How long do I have?”
Ace fired another couple of rounds, elicited another shriek, and holstered the pistol. She looked down at the ground. “I’d say about four seconds.”
She wrapped her arms around him firmly and threw both of them off the balcony.
CHAPTER FIVE
Steve stared at the card–it was better than watching certain death arriving at Newton’s thirty-two feet per second per second.
Beg?
Pray?
Demand?
Kiss?
Rip?
Possibilities flickered through his mind–they weren’t coherent enough to be thoughts. In a fraction of a second, he settled on doing what he did best–his primary skill as a journalist.
He Studied the card, trying to identify all the odd elements separately and grasp it as a whole at the same time. He considered the relationships between the young man, the little dog, the sun and the moon in the sky, and the cliff before him that clearly was going to result in certain death unless….
There was a terrible ripping pain that flashed across his chest and a crushing pain in his head. Everything went black.
“Oh, shit!” he thought. “I’ve hit the ground. At least I’m not in pain.”
He considered that for a second. He shouldn’t be able to think after he was dead. He shouldn’t have been able to consider anything–not even for a second. For that matter, he thought it was doubtful that “considering” was on the list of potential post-death activities.
“Nicely done, sir. We still had six inches to unfuck ourselves.
Not bad for the first time.”
Certain that feeling Ms. Morningstar’s arms around him was definitely not in the category of Things You Can Do in Bowie After You’re Dead, Steve opened his eyes. They were hanging above the pavement–four floors beneath his balcony.
As he stared at his feet, they gently dropped the remaining distance to the ground.
After a quick assessment, he was forced to accept the fact that he was unharmed.
Unharmed! In an almost-spontaneous celebration of life, he put his hands on Ace’s cheeks and leaned in for an exultant kiss.
Snick. Snick. Wham.
Steve looked up from the pavement.
Ace had released her hold around his waist, shot both hands up between his arms, wrist-snapped his hands away, and then nailed him with a roundhouse punch to the side of his head that had spun him all the way around before he hit the ground. This time, the impact with the ground was hard, painful, and much like all the other times he’d been knocked down. As he rubbed his cheek, Steve reflected that while it had been an open-handed blow, it sure as hell hadn’t been anything he’d describe as a slap.
Ace was leaning over him, her face only inches from his, and pale with fury. In a low, hissing whisper, she said, “Listen very carefully, because I’m only going to say it once. I am a Navy SEAL, a veteran of four combat tours, and a rated expert in all weapons and tactics in the US Special Operations manual as well as those of fourteen other nations–both enemies and allies. My rank is Special Warfare Operator Master Chief Petty Officer. ‘Ace Morningstar’ is just an alias–you will never be cleared for my real name. Morningstar is a translation of ‘Lucifer.’ I’m named for the Devil because ‘The Devil of Ramadi’ was what the hajjis called me after my fortieth confirmed kill. ‘Ace’ is the nickname my squad gave me because I wouldn’t answer to ‘Lucy,’ and ‘Lucifer’ was just silly. You will never ever, ever attempt to kiss me again. Do you understand?”
Steve nodded his head slowly. “Now, are there any questions?”
"Yeah. I thought Chris Kyle was the 'Devil of Fallujah'?"
"No, he was the 'Devil of Ramadi'. People make that mistake all the time."
“When did they start training women to be SEALs?”
“They don’t. I had enough juice to convince people that I was a swinging dick like all the other recruits, and then I basically worked twice as hard to get through.”
“Juice?”
She sighed and stood upright. “Mojo. Talent. Black arts. Voodoo.” She offered her hand and pulled him to his feet without any evident effort. “Magic. I wanted BUDS so bad that I went to a bruja in a small botánica santería just across the line from San Diego and she brought out what little juice I had. Everything was fine until last year, when I ran into a Seer and he spotted me as a woman.”
She shook her head. “Just my luck. Only four Truthspotters in the entire US military and one of them just had to walk past wh
ile I was doing PT.”
“Why don’t I see you as a man?” Steve asked as he continued to rub his cheek. “Not that I would have ever figured it out by the way you hit.”
“Because that was back when things were normal and a small number of people had tiny amounts of juice. The higher-ups think that the jet plane that either did or didn’t go over your head was a suicide attack by a mystical terrorist group and it forced a Change. Now I’ve been told that those of us who had any Other Than Normal powers before the Change are powerless. Evidently, the terrorists intended to benefit from the Change but we’re not sure if they just managed to keep the powers they had before from disappearing, or gained significant new ones. One guy–his name is Barnaby–thinks that the Change will mean that a shitload of new magic will affect just about everyone in one way or another.”
She shook her head. “The fact is that no one really knows anything except that it’s a new normal and we need to learn how to deal with it fast.”
She added thoughtfully. “Or possibly it’s a new abnormal.” Then she was back in his face, almost spitting out her words.
“However, this does not change some basic facts. I can still execute as efficiently as anyone else who lived through the Basic Underwater Demolition slash SEAL training facility at Coronado Beach–which means I can break every bone in your body before you can pick your nose. Since my current assignment is to keep you alive and functional at all costs, my options are limited, but I need to make sure you understand that ‘functional’ does not mean ‘pain-free.’ Nod your head if you are entirely clear on this.”
Steve slowly and sincerely nodded his head.
Ace stepped back and took a deep breath. “OK, that was a mistake you were going to make at some point, and it’s best to get it straight right off the top and not regret it later.” She looked up at the balcony. “Now that that’s clear, we need to get moving before that gentleman upstairs gets over his fear of magic bullet holes and comes over the balcony.”
The Last American Wizard Page 3