G.H.O.S.T. Teams: Book 1 - Magic

by Bobby Brimmer

  “Natalia you say,” I smirked.

  “Yes I did,” she smiled, “And she is beautiful. So in the interest of your own personal safety, it’s probably best if you two never meet. Who knows what she will do if she gets annoyed by your flirting,” she warned.

  “Yeah, yeah. So what about the other four?”

  “Well two are retired, both having worked for the organization long ago. Of the remaining two, one works for the Chinese Government and the other is for hire,” she says.

  I raised an eyebrow so that she would know I wanted her to go on.

  “Well Tao has worked for the Chinese Government for almost fifty years now. He acts as a spiritual leader and special advisor to all of the top brass in their country. Rumors abound that he discovered the secret of the Terracotta Army and he can animate them at any time if the need arises,” she said with a child’s wonder, “Merc on the other hand, as his name might suggest, works for money. Although that normally means that the highest bidder gets his services, he is very picky about the jobs that he takes. I heard that the US Government tried to hire him for our team, but he declined,” she finished.

  “It’s a good thing, otherwise you never would have met me,” I winked.

  “Lucky me,” she replied.

  So there it was. I had another perspective on the workings of magic and a better grasp of Kara’s mental state. All in all a very good conversation. Now because I am never a fan of things staying serious for too long, I decided to end on a fun note.

  “So just to make sure that I understand everything. Wizards are good, Sorcerers are bad, Witches are slow and Natalia is hot. Right?”

  She shook her head and rewarded me with a slight giggle, “Right, just like that.”

  Chapter 5

  The mood in the back of the van was much lighter now. Her dark past was out in the open and we both knew what would happen if it reared its ugly head again. I understood Kara and her daily struggle to fight temptation. Unfortunately she was very likable. I needed to worry about getting too close. An emotional attachment could slow my hand if the time came to end her life. I’d made that mistake before and I wasn’t looking to repeat it. In the world of assassins, love can be deadly. Leaving the assassin romance tale for another time I wondered if Kara had any means to locate Dirk’s killers.

  “The essence of Dirk, the energy you collected, could you track that?” I asked.

  “What do you mean?” she questioned.

  “I mean if the bad guys stole his power, is there a chance that you can sense it, and track it down? Use that energy to find the people responsible?”

  “Unfortunately not. Even if the Sorcerer responsible kept his energy, which we can’t know for sure if they did, I don’t have enough here to make anything other than a close connection,” she said.

  “How close?”

  “I might be able to push it and give us a two foot range,” she said shaking her head, “It was a great thought, and if they had left me more to work with, I might have been able to make something happen. But as it stands, there isn’t enough of Dirk left to reach out to the rest of him.”

  “Fair enough.”

  I was about ask her if Erika, our team tracker, might have any other tricks to locate the Sorcerer when the intercom turned on.

  “Kara, you were right,” Timothy’s voice said over the speaker, “I found two more murders, almost exactly like this.”

  “Were they in this area?” Kara asked.

  “No, not even in this country actually. The first was in Germany, four months ago, and the second was in Sweden, about a month ago,” he said.

  “And they were drained of their life force just like Dirk?” she asked.

  “Yup, right down to the wound through the chest. Which according to their reports, was caused by a large double bladed sword,” Timothy said.

  Kara turned to me with an approving smile, giving a slight nod as well. I shrugged and tried to look modest. As much as I enjoy being right, I was happier about the fact that Timothy linked this case to two others. The more we knew the easier it would be to track down the killer.

  “Did they have any idea who was behind the murders?” I asked.

  “Team Nine has been working on these cases,” Freddy chimed in, “and as of yet, they have no leads to follow. But if you will forgive my presumption, they were not fortunate enough to be working with a tech specialist as talented as Mr. Tanaka,” Freddy said very proudly.

  “Thank you, thank you, it’s true. There is only one T2,” Timothy joked, “and what I found was a connection between the three men. It wasn’t easy, and it’s probably better if I don’t tell you where I had to hack into to get this information. But it turns out that they were all part of the same secret military unit sent into Korea back in July of 1950.”

  “Well done T2, so what does that tell us?” I asked.

  I know, it was a weak nickname and I shouldn’t encourage him. But if Team Nine had been working this case for four months and they hadn’t found what Timothy just found, then the least I could do was call the kid by his chosen nickname. Although I was pretty sure that the nickname rules stated that someone else had to give you the name? A debate for another time as Timothy, T2 continued.

  “What this tells us is where they might be headed. The unit initially consisted of five men. One of them went missing in Korea, never to be heard from again. The other four returned from the war. When we add Dirk to the two deceased men in Europe, we have three out of the four pieces of that puzzle. I think that the remaining member, whom the government now refers to as Mr. Lazarus, can be found right here in the DC metro area, down in Rockville. How much do you want to bet that he is the next target on their list?” T2 asked.

  “That logic sounds solid to me. Well done T2,” I said.

  “I agree,” said Freddy, “That is why we are heading to his establishment now. Hopefully we will arrive in time.”

  “Did you call him and warn him,” Kara asked.

  “I called the bar, but they said that he was not in. I left a message that it was urgent for him to return my call,” Freddy said.

  “Why are we going to a bar?” I asked.

  “This guy lives completely off of the radar. The only reason that we have any of this information is because of my hack. In the real world, he doesn’t exist. But fortunately for us, he left instructions with a very few high-up government officials on a way that they could contact him if the need ever arose. They were supposed to leave word with the Cold War Corporation and he would get the message. I won’t bore you with the details, but the contact system uses next generation encryption protocols, crazy future stuff, so I couldn’t hack it. But what I did find was this. The Corporation owns a singular piece of property, the bar,” T2 said.

  “So the good news,” Freddy chimed in, “Is that because he is so well hidden, there is a chance that our murderer doesn’t actually know where to find him.”

  “Except that Dirk probably knew where to find him, and they were following Dirk. So if they really wanted to locate this Mr. Lazarus, we should probably assume that they didn’t kill Dirk until they knew where he was heading,” I said.

  “That is a possibility,” Freddy frowned.

  “Hope for the best and prepare for the worst right,” I said, “We need to look sharp people. If Kara is right, and we are facing a Sorcerer, this could get deadly very fast,” I said.

  Everyone was quiet for a bit while my words sunk in. This would be the first time that we rushed into potential danger as a team. I had only known them for half a day and I had no idea how they would respond if an actual threat presented itself. You can practice all you want, but until you are face to face with a real danger, you can never know how you will react. Adrenaline and fear affect everyone differently. Some people freeze while others step up and show you what they are made of. It seems it was time to find out where they all stood on that scale.

  “Well said Mr. Chang,” Freddy forced out.

 
I could hear in the tone of his voice that he was nervous. I was betting that everyone was. The silence hung in the air, and after a minute of no one saying anything, they turned off the intercom. Kara and I sat there in silence, the roar of the sirens barely audible through the soundproofing of the van. I figured I should break the silence.

  “You nervous?” I asked.

  “A little,” she smiled, “I’m sure you’re as cool as a cucumber though, right?”

  “I’m a little worried,” I said, a serious look on my face.

  “Really?” she asked, disbelief in her voice.

  “Yeah, I’m worried that you five retards are going to get in my way,” I smiled.

  “You jerk,” she laughed, “That’s not very nice.”

  “You’re right, I’m sorry. Kiss and make up,” I said, puckering my lips as far as they would go.

  Kara smacked me across the head, and in her defense, I am pretty sure that I deserved it. I smiled and nodded my head towards the front.

  “Come on, let’s get up there. We wouldn’t want to miss it if Freddy has an inspirational speech planned,” I said.

  Kara shook her head as we both stood up. I made a sweeping gesture, telling her to go first, because deep down, I am a little bit of a gentleman.

  “Ladies first,” I said.

  “Why thank you kind sir,” she said, mimicking a southern accent.

  I won’t even begin to try to explain what it sounds like when a woman with an Irish accent tries to mimic an American Southern accent. Let’s just say that it was magical. We made our way up to the front of the van and grabbed our seats. I stared out the window for a bit, letting my mind wander.

  I had spent my entire life as a loner and now Dutton expected me to take five untested people into battle and keep them safe. I had no idea what to expect from them or any clue as to how they would react once a serious danger presented itself. At this point I was just hoping that none of them would accidentally shoot me in the back once the fighting started. Needless to say, that last thought did not comfort me during the ride to Rockville.

  Chapter 6

  We jumped onto the beltway, or I495 if you prefer, and we headed north until we hit 270. Taking 270, a twelve-lane interstate running up to Fredrick, we jumped off on the Montrose road exit and made our way down to the Pike. Route 355, known as Rockville Pike for this stretch, runs three lanes in each direction right through the heart of the city. It is one of the heavier traveled roads in the area, and traffic doesn’t ever seem to let up. Luckily for us we had sirens and lights. The street is blanketed on both sides by strip malls, many of which are two stories high. The occasional office building, apartment complex, fast food restaurant, and/or car dealership sneak in to break up the monotony. We were getting close to our destination, so in the interest of stealth, Erika cut the sirens.

  Rockville is an interesting little city. Although its population is barely a tenth of Baltimore, Maryland’s largest city, it does contain a disproportionately large percentage of Fantasy folk. Part of the reason for this is easy access to the Veil. The city has several openings to the world next door, one of which happened to be pretty close to our destination. I wasn’t sure if that was going to be important or not, but since Freddy had been rambling on about it, I figured I would share. Personally, I found Rockville fascinating for a different reason, because when I was younger, I actually lived here.

  As I looked out the window of the van, I couldn’t believe how much the city had changed. I hadn’t been back in Rockville for well over a decade. When I was a kid, there was a two-year stretch where I got to live with my dad full time. He thought that it was important that I understood what it meant to be a normal kid, so he sent me to public school. Rockville had the best High School in the state, so he sold his condo in DC and bought us a house with a yard. In a funny twist of fate, the school district got redrawn a month after we moved, and instead of the fancy number one school, I went to it’s ugly ducking cousin. Such are the breaks.

  Those two years however were some of the happiest of my life. My father wouldn’t let me go out for sports because he feared that people would realize that I was “special”. But every night, after he went to sleep, I would sneak out of the house and bound through my neighborhood. And when I say bound through, what I mean is that I would jump, fall, spin, and flip off of anything and everything that I could find. Every house, tree, parked car, fence, or random shrub became my obstacle course. Jackie Chan was my hero and under the cover of darkness I was making him proud.

  But I’ll have to bore you with exciting tales of my childhood another time, as we had arrived at our destination. Erika killed the lights before turning left across the Pike and into the parking lot. In front of us stood a two-story strip mall, the structure split down the middle, an archway connecting the two buildings. We drove under the arch, and the parking lot dipped down low behind the buildings. Due to the design of the strip mall, the area behind it remained perfectly hidden until we started down the incline.

  In the very back of the lot, nestled into a bunch of trees, stood a small, inconspicuous looking building. There was a hand-carved wooden sign, the remaining chips of paint long since faded, making it difficult to read. But in the early afternoon sun, we could just make out the words “Cold War” semi circled over the word “bar”. Obviously this was a bar for locals, tucked away to avoid the casual customer. A small blue neon sign illuminating the word “open” was the closest the place came to drawing any attention to itself.

  The trees at its back belonged to the Woodmont Country Club. It was a fairly fancy golf course, sitting on over four hundred acres of land right here in the middle of everything. I’m sharing this with you not because I care about golf, but rather because that is where one of the openings to the Veil is located. Somewhere right in front of us, hidden among the trees and shrubs and beautifully landscaped lawns, was the entrance to the world next door. Hopefully I’d have an excuse to visit soon. But that was a topic for another time, for now we needed to find Lazarus.

  The parking lot was fairly empty, three sedans, a pick up truck, and a minivan were all sitting close enough to the bar to make me think that their drivers were inside. As we stepped out of the van, everyone but me pulled out his or her firearm. As I said before, guns weren’t really my thing, so unless I was told otherwise, I wasn’t carrying one. I pulled a blade out from a shin sheath; it was a nice long, thin, well-balanced thrower.

  Working in our favor was the bar’s location. Due to its hidden nature, six government agents standing around holding weapons weren’t very likely to draw too much attention. The bar itself lacked windows; minimizing the chances that someone inside might notice us. As the six of us looked around, scanning the area, we slowly made our way towards the front entrance to the bar. I looked over at Kara, keeping my voice very low when I spoke.

  “Is there any way that you can detect other magic users in the area?” I asked.

  “Not unless they are actively manipulating manna,” she replied.

  “I could give us a cursory scan, just to tell us how many people are inside,” Danny said.

  “And you can do that without anyone knowing?” I asked.

  “Yeah, it’s super passive,” he smiled.

  “An excellent suggestion Mr. Frost, if you please,” Freddy said.

  Danny closed his eyes and took several deep breaths. He furrowed his brow a bit and as if he had entered REM sleep, his eyeballs dancing behind their lids. After a few moments he opened his eyes and smiled.

  “There are eight people inside,” Danny told us.

  “Okay, how about I take the back and you five head inside. That way if you spook anyone and they make a run for it, I will be out back to stop em,” I smiled.

  “Flush em out the back huh?” Freddy smiled, “An excellent strategy. Kara and Timothy will accompany you, as back up, should you encounter trouble.”

  That wasn’t exactly how I wanted the plan to work, but undermining Freddy’s
decisions at every turn wasn’t going to help us right now. Everyone was already nervous and team bickering would only make it worse. I was thinking that if Freddy and the bunch walked in, dressed the way that they are, our suspect, if they were here, would make a break for the back. Then I would be in waiting, ready to take the Sorcerer out. It kept them out of my way and assuming that this person wasn’t going to start flinging magic around inside of the bar, it should also keep my team safe. Now I would just have to make sure that Kara and T2 stayed out of the line of fire.

  “Fine, but you two stay behind me, okay?” I told them.

  T2 and Kara nodded, holding their guns ready at their sides. The three of us started to make our way around the back while Freddy, Erika, and Danny holstered their weapons and stepped in the front door. I got to the back corner of the building just as Freddy made his entrance. Part of me was expecting to hear a huge ruckus and see some evil villain, dressed all in black, come running out the back door. Instead I got about a thirty-second delay before the back door opened and three men casually stepped out. I heard one of them mumble “Feds” before Timothy, who just lost his nickname rights, did something stupid.

  He stepped around the corner, raising his gun, and yelling, “SIA, freeze,” as he did so.

  Kara and I were right behind him, his dumb move leaving us no choice. The three men looked over at us, a calm expression on their faces. The two on the ends were wearing blue pin striped suits and white shirts, while the man in the middle wore a black suit and light gray shirt. The two blue suits were both Caucasian with blue eyes and blond hair. The taller one was over six foot and lean while the other was just under six foot and a little heavy around the waist. The shape of their faces and the cut of their jaws made me think that they were from Northern Europe. The gentleman in black was Asian, about five-eight, medium build, with his dark black hair buzzed short. Each of them had the same dark, cold look in their eyes. They were all killers. The Asian however, was the first to move.