“Thank you for your patience.” He took a sip from his flask. “I will keep trying.”
“I know you will. Hey, the black energy you shot at me during the exercise this morning. What was that exactly?” I had an idea from his profile, but I wanted him to explain his magic to me.
“Ah, yes. The Kembo.”
“The Kembo? Is that what you call it?”
He giggled. “Yes, it is a force from the underworld of Dabu. Can hurt body, but also spirit. Do not worry, Mr. Wolfe. The blast I shoot at you this morning”—he shook his head—“not very strong.”
I remembered the nausea I’d felt as the black coils had ripped through the air above me. It would make a good ranged attack. “Can the Kembo kill?”
“With enough power, yes, I believe it can kill.”
“So you’ve never tested it?”
“No, Mr. Wolfe. Not in that way.”
“Not even on an animal?”
“Now why would I want to hurt an animal?” he asked. “What the animal ever do to Yoofi?”
Maybe it was his shocked expression or the perfect innocence of his response, but I began to laugh. That got him laughing too. There was a pureness to the sound that, despite my earlier irritation, was hard not to appreciate. I let the laughter wind down, then turned serious again.
“I respect that, Yoofi. I do. But you understand the purpose of Legion, right? We’re going to be hunting dangerous creatures. Creatures that hurt people. And I need to know that you won’t hesitate to kill them. Because hesitation on your part—on any of our parts—could mean life or death for the rest of the team.”
“Oh, yes, I understand. I understand very well. In my village, people come to me from all over when sick or want to talk to ancestors. But sometimes they come when a nkadi has a hold of their spirit.” When he saw my perplexed look, he said, “A nkadi is a demon. Yoofi hate demon, especially demon that hurt people. I use magic to pull demon out and make sure he never come back.”
“But aren’t you killing the demon then?”
“No, I only throw him down to Dabu.” A shadow passed over his face. “Dabu takes care of him there.” He took a large swallow from his flask, then puffed fervently for a full minute as if to appease the god whose name he’d just invoked. I grimaced as rank smoke billowed around us.
A Centurion agent had learned about Yoofi while overseeing a contract for a refugee camp near the Congolese border. Yoofi’s magic in that region was storied, and refugees were insisting on undertaking dangerous journeys on foot to see him. An evaluation team from Centurion showed up to check him out. Yoofi’s abilities impressed them sufficiently that they made him an offer to join Legion. He accepted, fulfilling his dream of coming to the United States, where his favorite hip-hop artist lived, some guy I’d never heard of named Sugar Nice.
But there was no information in his profile on how he had become a vessel for Dabu’s magic in the first place. I posed the question to him now.
“In my village, there is a long tradition of worshipping Dabu,” he said. “My father and mother were priest and priestess to Dabu. I was their only child, but always in trouble. For tricks on other children, tricks on adults. And I never stopped laughing, even when teachers beat me with the stick. For this, they say Yoofi have a touch of Dabu. But I didn’t want to become a priest like my parents. Then one day, Dabu started talking to me. He let me use his magic, and he never took it back.”
“So you can heal, create illusions, and cast the Kembo. Anything else?”
“With Dabu’s blessing, can protect spaces. Sometimes can divine things, but hard to trust Dabu. Always playing tricks.”
“Did he give you that?” I nodded at the staff he’d set beside his chair.
Yoofi giggled, then said quickly, “No, no, I found it. Want to see what I can do with blade?”
He took a final series of puffs before setting his cigar and flask down and lifting the staff. The sharp blade protruding from one end had been chiseled from black rock, obsidian maybe. Yoofi held the staff toward one of the wooden chairs, eyes narrowing over his clenching cheeks. He wasn’t smiling anymore, and for the first time I perceived something dangerous in his face.
A high-frequency quavering sounded from his blade. I winced and covered my ears. Yoofi lunged forward and swung the staff down. The stone blade cut through the chair like it was paper, and the two halves collapsed to the ground. Yoofi stood back and admired his work. The sound of the blade deepened before falling silent again. As I uncovered my ears, Yoofi’s face relaxed around a giggle.
“You like?” he asked.
“Not bad. Not bad at all. Should come in handy when we start practicing decapitations.” I stood and clapped his shoulder. “Listen, I have a few things to do before I turn in for the night. Don’t stay up too late. Training starts again at 0700, and we’ve got a lot to cover.”
“I’ll be there, Mr. Wolfe. Like Sugar Nice say, ‘Be ready or be deady, bitches.”
“That’s … sound advice.”
I entered the building and made my way down the main corridor. What Legion called our barracks was more like a small apartment complex with private suites. I passed Rusty’s room en route to mine. His TV was cranked to full volume—a professional wrestling match from the sounds of it. I pounded on the door. Something fell over and broke as he stumbled his way to answer it.
Definitely a good thing he’s not involved in combat.
He opened the door a crack and peered up at me. Bits of dried tomato sauce from the lasagna we’d had for dinner ringed his bristly mouth.
“Your volume’s turned up pretty high, and I’ve got some work to do.” I pointed to my wolf ears. “Sensitive hearing.”
“Oh, shit. Yeah, yeah, sure.” He hurried across a living room already littered with clothes and dishware, hopped over the lamp he’d knocked down, and searched for his remote for a full minute before muting the sound.
“Sorry about that,” he said, returning to the cracked-open door. Rusty had seemed to relax around me during the day’s training, but now that it was just the two of us, I was picking up some discomfort again.
“You did good today,” I told him.
The door opened a little wider. “Yeah?”
Part of being a captain was building camaraderie in the unit, and that started at the top. But I wasn’t blowing smoke. He had performed well in the day’s exercises—his love of guns and his attendance at several survival-type schools no doubt assets. And when Sarah’s earpiece had malfunctioned mid-exercise, he had it running again within a minute. We would need that kind of technical expertise in the field.
“You did,” I assured him. “And listen, I’m sorry about our little run-in this morning when you came to get me. I was in a bad mood, and I took it out on you. I shouldn’t have done that.”
Rusty made a pssh sound and waved a hand. “Naw, that was my bad. I’ve never worked in any kind of real military outfit before, and as the missus likes to tell me, the tube between my brain and mouth don’t got much of a filter. What I’m thinking just sort of drops out.”
“Having a werewolf glaring down on you probably didn’t help.”
Rusty laughed. “You’re not kidding. I came this close to dropping something else. You are one intimidating dude.”
“The more you see me, the more you’ll get used to it.”
He gave me a wary look. “I don’t know, boss…”
“You said you have a family?”
“Yeah, back in Kentucky. A big ol’ lady and four kids.”
“Must be hard on them. You being on the other side of the country.”
“For the kids, maybe. The missus?” His lower lip jutted out as he shook his head. “That’s been broken for awhile now. Only reason we haven’t split is on ’count of the kids. Youngest is six.” His face softened. “Little rascal named Hodge. The missus swears she’s walking the day Hodge turns eighteen, so we’ve still got a dozen years to go.” He shook his head. “Long ol’ time. Especially
with the bedroom being a dry county, if you know what I mean.”
“Long time to work things out too.”
“Maybe,” he allowed. “How ’bout you, boss. Got a squeeze box back home?”
“Yeah, a fiancé.” My heart pitched a little as I said it. “Daniela.”
“Does she know you’re…”
“A wolf?” I finished for him. I felt myself bracing against the question, but building camaraderie meant being upfront about certain things. “No. Not yet, anyway. This all just happened.”
“Well, you know what they say.”
“What’s that?”
Rusty looked at me blankly for a second, then shook his head. “Shit, I was hoping there was a saying that sort of went without saying, you now?” His eyes screwed up. “Would something about love being blind work?”
“It could.” But that wasn’t what I worried about with Daniela. She had a saint’s soul; she would love me no matter what I looked like. My concern was for her safety. The Blue Wolf had lost control before—that morning’s encounter with Rusty being the most recent example. It could happen again. Until Centurion restored my humanity, I needed to stay far away from her.
I wasn’t ready to share any of that with him, though. There was camaraderie and then there was fraternization. I wasn’t going to cross that line with Rusty, or with anyone in Legion.
“Hey, do you wanna come in and watch some wrestling?” He opened the door all the way.
“No, thanks. I have my own evening rituals. Don’t stay up too late.”
“Just gonna catch the main event, then I’m turning in. ‘Shrimp Boy’ versus ‘The Anvil.’” Excitement colored his dull brown eyes. “Grudge match, so you know it’s gonna be sweet.”
I grinned before turning away. Rusty was all right.
As I passed Takara’s suite, that grin faded. My hearing picked up a series of deep, meditative breaths. A strange heat pulsed from the door. I raised a knuckle to knock, but then lowered it again. Both my wolf and captain instincts were telling me to leave it until tomorrow.
Just as long as she’s not plotting to kill me in my sleep, I thought as I opened my own door and closed it behind me.
My five-room suite featured a satellite TV, a full kitchen, and an extra-large bed in a back bedroom. Though basic, it was a big upgrade from the tents and trailers I’d grown used to in my deployments. Unbuttoning my shirt, I grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge and carried it to the small office, where I’d set up my assigned laptop. While the computer started up, I removed my boots and flexed my clawed feet. Much like in the military, we could contact loved ones as long as we weren’t in the middle of mission planning. The standard discretion applied.
I accessed the system’s video conferencing app but deactivated the camera. A still headshot of my former self appeared above my name. I selected my fiancé from the list and hit CALL.
“I don’t get to see your handsome face?” she fake-pouted when she answered.
“Yeah, I’m on a different system,” I said, a modulator smoothing out my wolfish voice, “but I can see yours.” As I took in her face, I considered the lie I was telling her by hiding mine. “How’s my wife-to-be doing?”
“Missing you.”
“The feeling is very mutual.”
“Otherwise, life goes on in southeast Texas.” Her eyes brightened. “Oh, Willis brushed his teeth by himself today.”
She was referring to one of the pediatric patients she worked with as an occupational therapist. Whenever she talked about him—or any of them—I could hear her desire to raise kids of her own. I’d promised her three or four, but that was on hold for obvious reasons. I double-checked to make sure the camera was off on my end. “That’s fantastic. He still hitting on you?”
Daniela released a wonderful burst of laughter. “That kid’s a hot mess. He says when he’s discharged he’s going to sell one of his LEGO sets and take me on a date to Chuckee Cheese.”
“Pizza and robotic entertainment. Should I be worried?”
“Oh, you’ve got some competition, mister.”
“Damn. I really need to up my game.”
“All you need to do is take care of yourself,” she said, her lips straightening. “How are things going … wherever you are?”
I thought about Takara storming off following the morning’s exercise and blew out my breath. The others I could manage, but her… “About as well as can be expected at this stage. And don’t worry. Where I am is very secure. And routine. We’re going to be running exercises for a while.”
Even though she couldn’t see me, she gave me her skeptical look. That usually made me chuckle, but now I swallowed hard. “Hey, I wouldn’t be able to call if there was anything serious going on.”
“Any idea of when you might get some leave?”
If the bioengineering division’s next phase of drug testing could buy me hours instead of minutes, I’d be there at the first opportunity. “No, not yet, Dani. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. You’re where you need to be right now.” As I took a sip of water, I watched her eyes darken. “Hey, um, there’s something I need to tell you.”
“What is it?” The odd angle of her mouth sped my pulse.
“I debated whether or not to bring it up, but since I’m asking you to be up front with me, I need to do the same.”
“What is it?” I repeated, fighting to control my voice.
“My parents saw Kurt in town yesterday.”
My breaths turned harsh through my flaring nostrils. Before Dani and I had met, there had been Kurt Hawtin, a nurse from a sister hospital. They’d dated for six months. All softness and smiles on the outside, Kurt turned out to be an abusive asshole. He stalked Dani for weeks after she broke up with him. At one point, he threatened to kill her. All these years later the thought still enraged me. A restraining order had followed. Fortunately, Kurt was already self-destructing. Busted at work for stealing opiates, he lost his license to practice in Texas and eventually left the state. He ended up in Florida, from what Dani had heard. By the time I came into the picture, he was a bad memory.
Lucky for him.
“What’s he doing back?” I demanded.
“I have no idea. My parents didn’t talk to him or anything. They just happened to see him at a gas station. Look, he’s probably just visiting. And I checked this morning; the restraining order’s still in effect.”
“Listen to me, Dani. If you see him out, even if it seems completely accidental, I want you to call the police, and then you call me. Do you understand?”
She nodded. “I will.”
I tried to cycle my breathing back down. “I don’t mean to raise my voice, but men like Kurt are dangerous. Really dangerous. All of that might have happened five years ago, but it’s not like he’s forgotten.”
“I know. I’m taking every precaution.”
“You still have the Glock, right? And your concealed carry is up to date?”
Shortly after we had begun dating, I bought her the Glock 26 as well as a membership to a nearby range, where I taught her how to shoot. Romantic, I know, but with me being overseas for long deployments, I wanted to be sure she could take care of herself. Thanks to the Crash, crime had been spreading as police budgets contracted. But we weren’t talking about random violence now.
“Yes,” she replied to my questions.
I squeezed my fists. Why couldn’t I be with her?
“I didn’t want this hanging over you or your work,” she said apologetically. “That’s the last thing you need.”
“No, I’m glad you told me.” I exhaled. “I want to know these things.”
“I feel the same way. So whatever you can tell me about what’s going on with you…”
“Yeah, I will,” I said, watching the monitor where my monstrous reflection was superimposed over her beautiful face. All I had to do was click the camera icon, and she’d know everything. I cleared my throat. “But like I said, life here is pretty rou
tine at the moment.”
“Good.”
“Yeah, good,” I echoed, but without hearing myself.
I was figuring out what to do about Kurt.
8
I arrived at the conference room early the next morning and found Sarah already there, ticking through a pile of notes. We had agreed to divide the day. She would have the first two hours in the morning and the first hour after lunch to educate us on the creatures and situations we would potentially face, which left me the rest of the day to forge us into an effective unit.
“Any word from Takara?” I asked.
She looked up at me, the fluorescent lights turning her thick glasses opaque. “No.”
She angled her face back to her notes. I took a seat across the table from her. “I looked over her profile again last night,” I said. “At first I thought the issue was a history of operating solo, but she’s worked with teams before. I think it’s more that she’s only faced humans. That kick she nailed me with yesterday…” I moved my jaw around even though the joint had healed within moments of being hammered. “That would have dropped the heavyweight champ. She’s not used to someone standing up to her power and then giving it back. Might have thrown her off.”
“It was an impressive kick,” Sarah agreed distractedly. One thing I’d noticed about my new partner was that she didn’t multitask very well.
I looked toward the closed door. “Hey, you started to bring up something about Takara yesterday.”
She flipped a page over and began marking its backside.
“Something about her had yet to be verified, you said, but before you could go further, she cut you off. Called it a ‘peasant legend.’ Whatever it was, I didn’t see it mentioned in her profile.”
“That’s because it was never verified.”
“Yeah, you said that yesterday,” I growled. “Can you tell me what it was?”
“She asked me not to.”
“Look, I’m not prying for shits and grins here. I’m just trying to do the job I signed on for. I need to understand what kind of baggage she’s carrying. If it’s going to keep her from being effective, she’s getting dropped. I don’t care how powerful she is.”
Blue Shadow Page 5