Blue Shadow

by Brad Magnarella

  That got Sarah’s attention. She raised her face, but at that moment the door opened and Takara appeared. Her dark eyes moved from Sarah to me, but if they were hostile, I couldn’t tell; she wore her expression like a stone. She strode toward the table, her long hair and the same billowy black attire she’d worn during yesterday’s exercise fluttering with barely a sound. She took a seat between us. For the first time, I noticed circular tattoos on her palms.

  “Morning,” I said.

  Instead of answering, she laced her fingers on the table and stared straight ahead.

  Okay.

  Yoofi and Olaf entered shortly. When they took their seats, Sarah handed us each a binder: a catalogue of creatures broken down into classes and subclasses. I was leafing through them when Rusty showed up five minutes late. He gave everyone an apologetic wave. The puffiness around his eyes told me he’d stayed up a lot later than promised. To be fair, so had I.

  After finishing the call with Dani, I’d gone online, trying to learn anything I could about Kurt. I found his arrest for the opiate theft when he was still in Texas. As a first time offender, he’d gotten off with six months probation and mandatory drug counseling. When no other court orders or arrests popped up, I pulled up a white pages site and entered his name. I found addresses for him in East Texas and two in Orlando, Florida, where he’d probably settled. I printed them off as well as a couple of listed phone numbers. Next I went to the professional licensing sites for Texas and Florida. His nursing license in Texas was still revoked, but it looked like he was working under a provisional license in Florida. That relaxed my shoulders a little—his turning up in Texas didn’t appear to be a permanent move. But I needed to dig deeper, and to do that, I needed someone better connected.

  I considered turning to Centurion, but I didn’t want to give them any more leverage over me than they already had. Then I remembered Segundo, my team sergeant and second in command on Team 5. One of his brothers was in law enforcement—even better, he worked in Florida. I fired Segundo an email, attaching the information I’d found online, and asked whether he could have his brother take a more thorough look.

  “I’ll begin with an overview of the material,” Sarah said, returning me to the conference room, “and then we’ll start on Class Is: undead creatures.”

  Despite Sarah’s bland delivery, the two hours went by quickly, probably because the material was unlike anything I’d ever been taught before. Vampires, vampire spawn, and blood slaves. Yoofi alternately oohed and giggled throughout, while Rusty threw in the odd remark, though I noticed he was having trouble keeping his eyes open. Olaf and Takara remained silent.

  As I absorbed the info, I thought frequently of Billy. When it came to vampires, there were fates worse than death, apparently. But the knowledge did little to lessen the horror of that day.

  I paid closest attention to how to kill the creatures.

  When Sarah finished, she signaled that the team was mine.

  Without standing, I said, “All right, we’re going to spend the rest of the morning going back over the fundamentals we started yesterday. This afternoon, I’m going to set up some tactical exercises that I’ll take you through step by step. Rather than throw a ton at you right now—”

  “I want a rematch,” Takara said.

  I turned toward her, one eyebrow cocked. “I’m sorry?”

  “The exercise we did yesterday morning. I want to run it again.”

  “That wasn’t a competition. That was me getting an idea of where everyone was ability wise.”

  “I didn’t show you all I could do.”

  Was that what she had been upset about? Feeling that she’d underperformed? I didn’t know a lot about Japan, but I knew honor was a big part of their culture. “That’s no doubt true of everyone here,” I said. “The idea was to throw you into a situation with little to no preparation. I promise that you’ll have opportunities in the coming days and weeks to redeem yourself.”

  Takara’s neck stiffened, and for the first time, I noticed narrow crescents of red circling her black irises. “It must be now.”

  “Repeating the exercise won’t help the team.”

  “Now,” she insisted.

  I studied her set face. In the military I would never have taken this kind of shit from a subordinate, but I saw an opportunity. I turned to Olaf. “Can you conduct the shooting drills we began yesterday?”

  His pale blue eyes didn’t so much as flicker. “Yes,” he said thickly.

  I nodded at Sarah and Yoofi. “Go with Olaf. Takara and I will be there when we finish.”

  “I’ll ready the weapons,” Rusty said.

  I waited for them to file from the conference room before looking back at Takara. “Okay, here’s the deal. We’ll run the exercise again, but with just the two of us. You attacking, me defending.” Something told me that was what she had wanted, those final moments from yesterday’s exercise back. “But here’s what I get in exchange. Win or lose, you commit to the team. And that goes beyond never walking away again. I’m talking attitude, receptiveness, everything. Those are the terms. You in?”

  The red crescents around her irises began to pulse as she stared back at me.

  “I won’t lose,” she said.

  Twenty minutes later, I stood beside the door to the building that held the flag, the same M4 paintball carbine pressed to my shoulder as yesterday, my nose raised to the light wind. Without Yoofi’s deceptive magic, Takara couldn’t disguise her scent, but I still couldn’t smell her nearby. I tuned into my animal hearing, but all I could hear was the rest of the team firing across the compound and the wind raking the desert sand.

  And then I did pick up something: a flapping sound, coming from the north side of the building across the street. Her attire?

  I listened another moment. No, this was sharper, crisper, like a small tarpaulin.

  If she was attempting to draw me out, no dice. I adjusted my grip while keeping watch in all directions. The flapping continued, but now the tenor changed. Something small and orange whipped from behind the north side of the building and crossed the intersection on the wind.

  There’s no way that was my flag, I thought.

  I glanced toward the open door I was guarding. Almost on instinct, I threw a hand to the back of my neck. Two paintballs thumped my knuckles as I lunged into the building for cover. My flag was still on the wall above the wooden table. Takara had released a spare flag as a distraction and then sniped me from the top of the building across the street.

  Damn, she was good.

  I backed against the wall beside the door and examined my left hand. Red paint matted the fur. She’d hit me twice, which meant I’d just lost the use of my left arm. I lowered the hand from my barrel and let it hang. Sucked, but it was better than being dead.

  Takara had moved silently, using the wind to keep her scent from me, and then employed a decoy to expose me for the split second she needed to get off her shots. The question now was how she intended to finish the job. I had no doubt she’d spent her night planning our “rematch”—and so far, it was going her way.

  I backed into a corner where I had a good angle on the doorway and flag. I eyed the slanted rectangle of light on the floor. The sun’s position was in my favor. Her shadow would forecast any move she attempted through the door. But at that thought, the entire rectangle turned to shadow.

  I fired twice, paintballs exploding around the doorway, before realizing no one was coming through. The sunlight had simply disappeared, as if a shade had been pulled. But there hadn’t been a cloud in the sky a minute before. Had Takara blocked the damned sun? How?

  Doesn’t matter how, I told myself as I calmed my breathing and listened. That she’s taken sunlight out as an early-warning system means she’s about to make her move.

  Something crashed upstairs. My gaze cut to the corner stairwell, but I kept my aim on the doorway. It was a distraction. Had to be. There were no doors or windows to access the upper story. But n
ow I heard footsteps crossing the room overhead, aiming straight for the stairwell.

  Takara didn’t possess the mind-warping powers of Yoofi, meaning she really was up there.

  I started to train my M4 on the stairwell, then hesitated.

  Or was she? I didn’t know the extent of her powers. Her profile was sparse, and then there was whatever Sarah wouldn’t divulge. Could she throw sounds? Create a duplicate of herself?

  The footsteps overhead stopped in the center of the room. They weren’t loud. In fact, I had felt more than heard them: small vibrations through the concrete, like someone trying to exercise stealth. Human ears wouldn’t have picked them up. But was that the point? Selling me on the idea she was up there because of the show of stealth? Or was she actually up there?

  If Takara’s plan is to get into my head, she’s doing a damn fine job.

  For several minutes nothing happened. The building remained silent. I began to pick up traces of Takara’s scent: tea-like and sharp. But were they coming from outside? Upstairs? I was thinking it was more mind-fuckery when the entire building shuddered.

  What the…?

  Dust and bits of plaster sifted down from cracks spreading over the ceiling. Chunks of concrete began to fall next. I leapt into the doorway just as most of the ceiling collapsed.

  A wave of dust filled the room and washed past my visor. I took a quick glance outside. I didn’t see Takara, but I saw what she’d done to block the sun. Atop the opposite building, she’d raised a free-standing screen—something she must have found in a supply room—to keep the sun’s rays from hitting the doorway.

  Is there anything she hasn’t planned for?

  I scanned the destroyed room. A shaft of sunlight fell through the dust above, landing on a pile of concrete blocks. Beyond, I could just make out my flag on the wall. It was still game on.

  I raised my barrel and eyes to the second story. The sunlight was coming in through a hole in the roof. Had she chiseled her way inside? No, all I’d heard was the one sound earlier, the crash, and chiseling wouldn’t explain how she had taken out the ceiling just now. I remembered what I had read about her ability to focus her power. That’s what the meditative breathing I’d heard the night before had been about, I realized. Focusing her power.

  As the dust settled, I spotted her across the room. She was facedown among the debris, her black attire still. I checked around me, then stole forward. My mind screamed trap, but as her captain, I also had to consider the possibility that she went for broke and got herself hurt. I kept my barrel fixed on her. She’d forgone body armor again, so any shot to her torso would be a kill.

  I sniffed. It was her scent. But the closer I got, the more my senses were telling me something was off. The half-buried body looked a little too full in some places, too empty in others. Like it had been stuffed—

  I wheeled toward the stairwell, already firing, but Takara had come in low. A leather-booted foot struck the M4’s barrel from below. The weapon left my grip in an explosion of plastic and paintballs. As I reared back, a second kick caught me in the chest. The ballistic plate blunted the strike, but not the force. I flew the length of the room and slammed into the far wall. The jarring pain was brief as my healing kicked in, but I was out of position.

  As Takara spun toward the flag, I drew my sidearm and fired into her path. She took cover behind a pile of debris that included parts of the wooden table. I covered the pile with my sidearm and rose slowly.

  “I’m impressed,” I said. “I mean that. You were a second away from winning. How about we call it a draw and join the others?”

  “It’s not over.”

  “I caught a glimpse of your getup.” I said, referring to the form-fitting black leather suit. “Unless you’ve got other talents I’m not aware of, there’s no way you’re carrying a weapon. The moment you move or I get an angle on you, you’re going to be covered in paint.”

  “Try me, Wolfe.”

  “Can I ask you a question? What is it about me you find so distasteful?” When she didn’t answer, I gave her some options. “Is it my supernatural strength? That I have rank on you? Or do you just have something against blue-haired freaks?”

  “Maybe I have something against Americans.”

  Okay, that one hadn’t occurred to me. “Can I ask why?”

  She snorted. “Read your history.”

  I felt the hair over the back of my neck bristle in frustration. “The only history that matters is that our countries have been allies for the last eighty years. We have a mutual defense agreement that we continue to honor. Did I miss something?”

  “You missed everything.” Then, as though something had detonated, the debris she was crouched behind blasted toward me in a bright red flash. I threw my good arm up—my left was technically incapacitated—and grunted as chunks of brick, mortar, and wood peppered me.

  She’s making her move.

  I dropped my sidearm and bounded blindly through the dust. A second later, I was through and tackling her around the waist, right below the flag. The building shook as we crashed to the floor. Takara was on her back, teeth bared as she struggled to writhe from under my mass. But I had her pinned across the shoulders with my good arm, and was using my legs to keep her from kicking. She wasn’t going anywhere.

  “You remember the rules?” I said. “One … two …”

  The same red that flashed in her eyes glowed from her clenched fists now. I felt a force growing beneath me, and for a moment I was no longer looking at Takara, but a fiery dragon. Then she was Takara again, and the walls of the building were crashing over my back.

  Holy shit!

  I made a shield over Takara with my bowed body and absorbed the building’s collapse. In the sudden darkness, the fire in her eyes thinned to crescents. I waited for everything to settle before holding her to my stomach and standing. The debris was heavy but not deep. It fell from my healing back. I set Takara outside, on top of the collapse.

  “You all right?” I asked as I emerged beside her.

  One of her hands was clamped to her shoulder where a section of leather had torn away. I glimpsed a patch of her skin. It was warped in a way that suggested intense heat and scarring. I realized that was the second scent I’d been picking up from her. The smell of burned flesh.

  When Takara caught me looking, she snapped the shoulder from view and raced nimbly down the collapse. She crossed the street and disappeared, just as she’d done the day before.

  I looked after her, then at the destruction around me. Was this the ‘peasant legend’ Takara had shut down discussion on the day before? That she could channel the power of … a dragon?

  I thought about the dragon shifters I’d faced in Waristan, but Takara’s powers had felt different. None of it mattered, though. She had walked away again, in defiance of our agreement.

  I dusted myself off and joined the rest of the team at the shooting range. I didn’t volunteer what had happened, and they didn’t ask. Any discussion was going to be between me and Sarah. We’d have a serious talk about Takara after the exercise, where I planned to recommend her discharge from Legion. She’d proven herself a head case who couldn’t be trusted.

  But ten minutes later, Takara strode up in a fresh black suit and took her place among the team on the firing line.

  Her shooting was damn near perfect.

  That evening I opened my laptop and checked my messages. The one I’d been waiting for was at the top—a reply from Segundo. Following Parker’s death and my departure, Team 5 had undergone a reorganization. Which was to say the powers that be had disbanded it and used the members to plug holes in other units around the country. It felt like a disservice to the best team I’d ever served with, but that was life in the military. Segundo had ended up on a special-ops unit outside the capital.

  As I started to read, I couldn’t help but grin a little.

  wolfe! got your message you flea-ridden bastard. good hearing from you. what can i say? new unit isn’t th
e same without you. got a pompous ass for a captain but at least he’s getting us into some action. makes the time till ocs go by faster. and hey could be worse. mauli ended up in balkhar province with team 12. remember the issue they had with food drops last winter? haha! i told him it was karma for rat fucking my care packages.

  My grin faded as I thought about how much I missed those guys, then my face straightened altogether.

  anyway i forwarded your message to my brother and just got word back. said he’ll look into this kurt hawtin creep. i’ll message you soon as i hear something. dude, i would not want to be him. talk soon bro. love ya

  I hit Reply and typed:

  Glad you’re doing well. Just keep your roid rages in check and you’ll be fine ;) Thanks for helping me out with this. I owe you. Will tell you everything next time I see you—hopefully over a shrimp boil and a bucket of Bud. If you message me but don’t hear back, could you give me a call?

  I didn’t know how long his brother would take, and there was no telling where I might be. I typed in the number of a secure phone Centurion had distributed to the members of Legion. Like our laptops, the phones were monitored to ensure we didn’t disclose anything confidential, but I didn’t care. Not when it came to Dani. Anyway, I wasn’t doing anything that breached our agreement.

  Thanks, Segundo, I typed. Love you too, bro.

  9

  By the end of the first week, we had gotten into a good routine. Sarah’s creature lectures were informative and actionable; Takara was participating in all of the drills, per our deal; Olaf was absorbing and executing instructions like a well-oiled machine; Rusty was staying on top of the weapons and equipment; and Yoofi was showing more comfort with the basics.

  We were far from an elite unit—the tactical exercises remained error-filled—but that was the whole point at this stage: to discover our weaknesses and drill until they became strengths. More and more, I would incorporate Takara’s and Yoofi’s special abilities into our strategies. I estimated that by week four we would be competent and by week twenty-four ready for just about anything.