Origins

by J. F. Holmes

  I always thought of shit like this on the way into a mission. The wind tore at us, and the ground rushed by, and my mind tried to look at the big picture. Better that than dwelling on the shitstorm we were probably flying into. I loved it though, I really did. You never really knew what was going to be on the door, just like the time in that village outside Kandahar when I was point. Brand new to the Rangers, nineteen and full of piss and vinegar. The shotgun man bapped the hinges, I kicked the door down, rifle up, and charged into Hell.

  We’d gotten a tip that a local Taliban cell leader was running an IED factory, and the regular infantry battalion dudes were on a big sweep, so they grabbed our squad. I’d been on a few firefights before, broken my cherry, and I was hyped up and ready to go, but what appeared on the other side of my red dot had more teeth than a frigging combine back home in Texas. I pissed myself and emptied my magazine on full auto at the same time. Reflex and training took over; I stepped to one side and reloaded as something silver and bloody charged past into the rest of the guys piling in. It was a slaughter, and I couldn’t shoot without hitting Sergeant Stebbins. Instead, I dropped my rifle in its sling and jumped on the thing like it was a wild steer, stabbing like crazy with my bayonet. Cold steel, and when they dragged me off whatever the hell it was, covered in some kinda green blood shit and babbling like a fucking idiot, Sergeant Stebbins was gutted, bleeding out on the ground, the RTO was screaming like a madman into the radio for a MEDVAC, and the QRF truck was hammering fifty cal rounds through the building, fuck whoever was on the other side of the brick walls. That been twelve years ago years ago, and the recruiter for JTF 13 had snapped me up. Shit, had it really been that long? I’d learned a lot about what lay between Heaven and Hell once I’d been brought into the JTF. A lot.

  The sun rose on us as we hopped up and down over ridges, my stomach jumping up and down. Night would have been better, but maybe worse. Bad shit comes out at night, and the sun is our ally, especially against the undead. That and we were up against a timeline; we had to smoke the pinheads before they completed their ritual. Gunny Arsene looked directly at me across the twenty meters that separated the birds and shook his head side to side, then made a cutting motion across his throat. I nodded once in complete agreement, and his dark skin split wide in a smile. If we could take this ad-Din guy alive easily, we would. The second things got tough, though, we’d smoke him. A body bag for him was better than one for any soldier of mine, no matter how important he might be to some intel weenies.

  The pilot leaned out and held up three fingers; I racked a round in and made sure my SCAR was on safe, then held up three of my own for the guys to see. I couldn’t hear over the rotors, but I knew the guys were doing the same, and it comforted me. Because, you know, I was scared shitless.

  We ducked down into a valley, hunting for the LZ. Our contact had a small fire going, and it must have blazed like a bonfire in the pilot’s NODs. This was the most dangerous time to fly for aviators, when your eyes have to transition from the light predawn sky to the still dark ground. Still, these guys were the best, or else they wouldn’t be in the 160th. We dropped short of the designated LZ, hovered for all of two seconds, and then my boots were on the ground. The dust cloud couldn’t be avoided, but we used it to move out into random positions, most facing the LZ, but one MG on rear security. The SF knew their stuff; they disappeared toward the high ground of the ridge that was between us and the target.

  After two minutes of complete silence, I called quietly over the team net, “Status.” Each responded in turn with their number. I was One, Gunny Two, so on down to the Medic, Nine. The two SF guys’ call sign was Joker, and I let them keep it. They didn’t answer; they’d only report when in position. “Moving,” I called, going into a crouch and slowly making my way forward, Dah at my side with her shotgun covering our right.

  Seated at the fire facing us was a medium-sized man, accompanied by one very nervous mangy dog. The dog started to growl, and the old man hushed it, making it fall instantly silent. The shepherd, for that’s what I assumed him to be, stood and showed open palms, and I greeted him in Arabic.

  He replied in accented English, which was good, because I’d exhausted my knowledge of the local dialect. I sucked at languages anyway. “I see they have sent the thlatht eshr shayatin, the Thirteen Devils. How appropriate, I think.” He inclined his head, and Tech Sergeant Dah turned red. She reached up and ripped off the unofficial velcro patch on her shoulder, the Chinese Sea Dragon over the number thirteen.

  I sighed; I’d have to deal with her later, but I knew why she did it. Fear is a powerful weapon, and we had a reputation to uphold. If the supernatural knew we were coming and that made them nervous, so be it. Letting civilians know we were in the area, though…well, no beer for her when we got back to base.

  “Of course,” I answered, “nothing but the best to deal with a Djinn.”

  The man laughed and spit on the ground. “No Djinn, American. You have no idea what you’re dealing with, as I told your CIA woman.”

  “Well,” I started to say, but then stopped. When you’ve spent as much time dealing with the supernatural as I have, you get, I dunno, a sixth sense. A certain way of seeing that lets you get a little past the veil, the glamour the Fae use to blend into the world. I thought for a split second I could feel some kind of supernatural coming off him. He saw me start and smiled, revealing teeth too white for a simple shepherd in the middle of the mountains.

  “Dah,” I said quietly, “if he moves even an inch, blow his head off.” Out of the corner of my eye I saw her bring her shotgun up to level; the AA-12 was loaded with solid steel buckshot that would put a world of hurt on anything, this world or that, within ten feet.

  Our contact, whatever he was, shrugged. “Come now, Master Sergeant Chamberlain, there is no need to worry. We are, if not friends, then at least allies.”

  “My ass,” I said bluntly. “What’s your game, Fae? Why did you bring us here? You know we stay out of your stupid reindeer games.”

  He laughed and answered, “Not a Fae, American, and no game. I am merely a soldier like you, or I once was. Maybe I still am. I heard a rumor of things that once walked the Earth, long ago, even before my time. A god or a demon, it is different things to different people. Inevitably, though the ones who call them think the god is working in their favor, it is ultimately, how do you say in America, a ‘dumbass idea’?”

  I looked more closely at him and started to see him, to really see. I had assumed he was merely an old shepherd, but what I had taken for wrinkles in the predawn darkness turned out to be scars. The longest one ran up the side of face, turning his mouth up in a permanent grin. Others were faded, but there were many, most looking like they were cut by blades. His eyes were blue, which was not so unusual in this area as to be impossible, but his face looked European. I glanced down to where his right arm held the staff and saw a heavy scar that seemed to circle his wrist. Letting out a breath I didn’t know I’d been holding, I nodded. “I know who you are, Roman.”

  “Who or what I am is of no matter,” he answered with a bitter smile. “As night falls, the followers of Ahriman—or so they call themselves—will complete their ritual and unleash the demon upon the world. It has been fed, as you know, by the blood spilled in Syria. It tends to call out the evil.”

  “Don’t I know it,” I muttered. A little louder I said, “Are you going to guide us in there?”

  He laughed and said, “Not my fight, though it’s been a while since I felt cold steel sliding into hot flesh. Maybe another time.” With that, he held out a scrap of paper. I took it, unfolding a crude map and laid it down on the ground, comparing it to our satellite printout. I could see that his provided more information than we had, including outposts and guards.

  Folding it up and putting it in my pocket, I stood up. Dah still had the shotgun aimed at the “shepherd”, and I told her to put it down. “Thanks for the info. Anytime you want to join the JTF, you know where to find us.
”

  “I do,” he answered, with a bit of a laugh. “By the way, Master Sergeant, your ancestor was a hell of a man. I was on the wrong end of that charge.”

  “Huh. Thanks, I think,” I said, but he’d already turned and started walking away. “Ave, Roman, ave,” I said quietly to the retreating man. He looked back, threw a perfect salute, and disappeared around an outcrop.

  As we walked back to the squad, Dah asked me, “What the hell was all that about? Who was your ancestor, and how does some hick-ass shepherd know about him?”

  “My great-great-grandfather, Colonel Joshua Chamberlain. Gettysburg, 1863. Commanded the 20th Maine Infantry Regiment and held the Union left flank. Got the Medal of Honor for it, charging downhill and beating the 15th Alabama.” I said it quietly, though, lost in thought.

  “So, wait, he knew about a civil war battle in America?” she said, puzzled.

  I sighed and said, “Dah, if you keep serving in the JTF, you’re going to see some really weird shit and meet some really weird things. He was there, on the Confederate side.”

  “He was one of the Fae?” she persisted.

  “No, he’s human, and just a soldier, like us. But I figure he’s reenlisted, oh, about a couple hundred times now. First tour of duty, he carried a gladius.”

  “I’m really confused,” she said, shaking her head. “More things between Heaven and Hell, I guess.” Which is what JTF troopers say when we run into shit we just can’t explain.

  “Never mind,” I said, “we have some bad guys to smoke and a demon to stop.”

  Chapter 3

  I hated the waiting. Although it was September and we were in the mountains, it still got damned hot up here when the sun was right overhead. We were in a hide site about a kilometer from the target, waiting for the long shadows of the late afternoon to move.

  The contact’s info had been right on the money, and good thing, too. He’d marked a site where there was a two-man portable surface-to-air missile team, accompanied by a 12.7mm anti-aircraft machine gun. They were high up on the ridge overlooking the site, and could have made a mess of our birds as we came in, even in the darkness. I’d been on a fast rope once when a heavy MG had opened up on us, riddling the Blackhawk and sending me on a drag across a roof in Baghdad. Never again, I hoped.

  I tapped Gunny’s shoulder, and he came instantly awake, holding perfectly still except for his eyes, assessing the situation and then looking at his watch. It was time to move out; we had all gotten five hours sleep, and scouts had tagged each guard on heads-up displays. Technology was useful up to a point, but none of us depended on it once shit kicked off. Supernatural energy often completely wrecked our powered systems, especially in knife-fighting range.

  The approach was tough, moving slowly from rock to bush, listening to Joker calling out sentry movements. There were two, in addition to the anti-air team, one at each end of the valley. That was another reason we operated in daylight; the best sentries were put on night duty, since it had become SOP for Special Operations units to use the darkness. I almost cursed out loud when some huge kind of bug actually bit through my glove into the palm of my hand. I reached over and peeled it off slowly, thanking God it wasn’t a scorpion, and hoping it wasn’t venomous anyway. I was within twenty feet of my target at that point, suppressed .45 out and cocked, and whatever the hell it was just bit right through the nylon. Sometimes I really hated this job, but less than the guy in front of me was about to hate it.

  You never get used to killing a man. Or I never will, anyway. When you’re young, you’re all hyped up on ‘Merika and killing terrorists’, and you don’t think much about the bad guys, especially when your friends are falling around you and bullets are zipping by your head. Fuck them, they shot at ME! The longer I served, though, and the more actual evil shit I ran into, the more I realized, more often than not, the man (or woman) at the end of the gun or knife was just another fool who believed in the bullshit some politician spewed out. Didn’t mean I wouldn’t do my job, because people depended on me, I knew there was evil in the world and outside of it, and every now and then I got to put one into some truly nasty scumbags.

  I spoke into the radio quietly, “Go,” and fired from the ground just as the sentry turned. I saw his face looking out over me, scanning the distance. A harsh cough from the heavy pistol, rocking back, and as he started to drop, another shot, higher, catching the top of his head and lifting off his skull. As his body fell, I pushed upward, something that wasn’t as easy as when I was twenty, but the electricity of killing a fellow man was running through my body like live current. Dah spun around the rock face she’d been hiding behind, and Gunny’s team appeared as if by magic, moving past us in a silent rush.

  They’d take the door to the building twenty meters in front of us, Dah, me, and Sergeant Reynolds watching for anyone approaching from the rear. Our 240s were back another fifty meters, waiting to be called up. There was supposedly an even dozen tangos, and as I heard the booms of the big Barret taking out the other sentry and the anti-air guys, I scratched the countdown to nine. A deafening CRACK, even at this range, as a flashbang went off at the entrance to the house, and Gunny’s guys piled in.

  “MGs up, left and right corners, watch for squirters,” I ordered over the team net. The building was a ratty two-story brick construction surrounded by the ruins of some old city, mostly mounds I knew covered tumbled-down walls. Honestly, with the firepower we were carrying, the squad could have turned the place into a pile of dust, but there was that pesky “wanted alive” thing for our High Value Target. Me, I watched the second-floor windows. There were two in the front, and I looked over the top of my rifle sight, seeking movement. Dah and Reynolds watched behind us. Never trust your count of the enemy; there was always someone in the shitter or otherwise unaccounted for.

  There; I saw a silhouette for a brief second in the left window, a man popping his head out and quickly back in. I tracked left and fired, individual shots into the wall on the side of the window where I’d seen him disappear. The heavy tungsten-cored armor piercing 7.62 rounds hammered into the brick and through it, and after three shots, I stopped and listened. I’d been up against Taliban and al-Qaeda wearing modern body armor; I wasn’t taking any chances. Perfect for crappy brick, too, and I was rewarded by someone screaming in agony.

  While I was doing that, Gunny’s team moved through each of the rooms on the target house, their faint suppressed coughs only matched once by the harsh barks of an AK, a short burst that tore through a first-floor wall. Corporal Hemmingway’s 240 opened up to my right, chewing up a corner or the building, and then walked across a field as someone fled. He caught the man on the third burst and knocked him down.

  “First floor clear, moving to second, going loud,” came Arnese’s voice over the net. No more fucking around with flashbangs, they hurled frags up the stairs and followed them almost before the shrapnel stopped pinging around.

  “LET’S GO!” I yelled, half deafened by the 240, and was followed by Dah and Reynolds through the front entrance. We charged in and swept through each of the rooms again, kicking weapons away from corpses and, in one case, double tapping a man who was trying to shove his guts back into his stomach. Maybe if his other hand hadn’t still had a pistol…but war isn’t a game, and it fucking sucks when you lose.

  “CLEAR!” resounded from upstairs, followed by, “COMING DOWN!” The screaming from the man I’d hit had stopped, but between them Smith and Gandolfini carried a bloody and gagged man with zip-tied hands. They dumped him on the floor and took long drinks of water from their camelbacks; killing was hot and thirsty work.

  “Dah, Reynolds, sweep the perimeter,” I ordered, and the two went outside to check the immediate surrounding area. “Heavies, bring it in and set up on the roof, watch for any counterattack,” I told the 240 team, but they were already moving toward us as soon as they saw the two sweepers come out.

  Next, the snipers in their overwatch position. “Joker, this is Spo
oky One. Building secured, doing a sweep. Any distance movement?”

  “Negative, Spooky. All clear, some normal road traffic about ten clicks out. No changes.”

  “Roger, keep me informed. Out.”

  Gunny was already checking the bodies, comparing them to the picture of our HVT held in his hand. I was assuming he’d already checked the ones upstairs. Looking at the man in the door, he shook his head and went outside to look at the one the MG guys had smoked. Doc Bailey was already treating the wounded man, who had a gunshot wound through the neck, more likely a fair-sized chunk of bullet that had fragmented going through the wall. He was lucky; it was bloody, but there wasn’t an artery or major vein cut. I squatted down in front of him and held up the picture of Murtada Nur ad-Din. Despite the gag and Doc placing a bandage on his neck, the man’s eyes widened. Bingo.

  Oftentimes our raids came up dry, and we’d have to follow up a lead. We weren’t supposed to launch without a target, but the supernatural world, and the humans who got involved in it, were smart and slippery sons of bitches. Often as not it was a step-by-step process to roll up on a bad guy, but his reaction told me we were on the right track. “Smitty,” I said to Sergeant Smith, our Arabic speaker, “see what you can get out of him.”

  Smith was a big man, and he didn’t say anything for a minute, just sat there and looked at the prisoner. Doc’s morphine had started to hit; the man’s eyes were glassy. I’m pretty sure he was headed to la-la land from shock, blood loss, and drugs. Apparently Smith agreed with me, because he stood up and said, “He ain’t gonna tell us anything important, Master Sergeant. He’s a doped-up wounded fanatic.”