Keeping The Faith (John Fisher Chronicles Book 2)

by William Lehman

  Then I moved the rug to where someone that fell headlong as they walked through the doorway would land on it, and threw a sleep spell on it. Lastly, I put a spell on the doorway that would let me know if anyone came through. This is one that Lars taught me. It was the same one that let us know that we had unwelcome visitors awhile back. If you read though this, it sounds like I'm some sort of incredible mage: not so much. Mary, Lars, and Robyn have been working on it, but I just didn't have nearly as much innate talent as Mary. Oh, I might be able to make a living at it, if I wanted to, but strictly low-class stuff. Think 'Geek Squad' from Best Buy, vs. Mary as one of Microsoft's blue badgers. I preferred to be a cop. That was something I could be first class at.

  By the time I was done, it was dinner time. Dinner around here was a family affair. The only guys that didn't eat dinner together were the watch, and they ate first and relieved, so that the off-going could eat and warm up.

  At dinner, I was introduced to the group by Teador. In addition to the guys that I had already met, there were eight other wolves, all with service in 'Nam or Korea, and two wolves that served in Delta, they were more recent and almost monosyllabic, a Werepig who caught it in 'Nam off of a VC, another Rat that was the other Teammate, he had gotten out just before I joined. Guy's name was Cadillac. He really should have been in a hospital ward somewhere, this lad was messed up. He was fine physically, but emotionally he was GONE, never spoke, just stared and sometimes cried. A cougar and a Werebear, who had both been furry before they joined. The bear was recruited by the USMC in '65, before it was really legal to do so. The cougar from about the same time period, by the Army Ranger companies, a weasel that was a Marine from the 5th MEF (sf capable) who had seen way too much at Fallujah. (A couple of these guys made me wonder why Sean didn't get that the Vietnam war was not the last time men had fought, died and killed in the US uniform, but then I know he's not all there, so...) And a Lakota Sioux named George Rivers. George wasn't a 'Thrope, he was a shape shifter, sort of like Mary, but without the extra magic and the whole "guardian" thing. George was also the only one that really looked his age. One thing I had learned already, I can expect to live much longer as a 'Thrope. Provided someone doesn't kill me...Teador must have been seventy at least, but looked about forty.

  George also looked like the most high-functioning guy there, except for Yoshi, of course. I asked him later that evening what his thing was. It seems that he had gotten out of the Corps, where they had used his skills rather intensively, in 1973. That was the year of the whole blow up at Wounded Knee. It seems his "brothers" weren't very accepting of a "baby killer", who had 'fought for the white man's war', at the time. I guess he got out of there just short of being ridden out of town on a rail. It messed him up some. He said that he's "gotten over it, but at this time of his life, well, he might just as well die here as anywhere." George was about sixty by my guess, still fully functional, still hard core, but starting to show his age. He had two animals, a great horned owl, and an otter. One of the things about shape shifters is that the laws of conservation of mass are somehow repealed. I guess they get a dispensation from the powers-that-be or something, because they become the size and shape of the animal they change into. Not that he changes much anymore, says he's getting a little old for that. But my talk with George happened after another little talk that I had, with Teador and Yoshi.

  Dinner was finishing up; a dinner noted, by the way, for the glares and recalcitrant looks sent my way by several of the wolves; when they thought no one was looking. Anyhow, as dinner was ending, Teador informed me that I should come to his office after I was done eating, so that he could place me on the watch bill. So I hurriedly finished throwing food in my face and followed him to a section of the mine that I hadn't been in before. This was apparently the working section, as we walked through a small wood-shop (mostly hand tools), an art studio, and then into a damn spartan office. Yoshi was already there, which was odd because I somehow hadn't noticed him leaving the table. The office consisted of an old desk, a couple chairs, a few maps, and a watch quarter and station bill that looked like it had been stolen off an old ship. Probably something picked up as scrap...oh, and there was one other thing the office had...a door. As soon as I walked through it, it was firmly shut by Teador.

  "OK, John, have a seat, and let's get to know each other." said Teador in a deadpan voice. "I'll start. As I told you earlier, I was born in 1924. My family was Romany." I must have looked confused, because he commented "Most people call us Gypsies. It is not a nice name, but that is not important. My family had been Tigers for longer than anyone could recall. We bred true, and bred only within our family. We were performers in a circus, performing with our cats. It was truly amazing the things my papa could talk a tiger into doing. But we never cheated, we never had family pass as real tigers...we were proud of that. When the War came we were in Mulhausen in Alsace-Lorraine. The Circus Master was sure that we would be fine. "After all, even the Nazis like circuses". The pigs may have liked circuses, but they did not like Gypsies!"

  "I had been out, supposed to have been buying food. In truth, I was romancing the butcher's daughter. I came home to find the big top on fire, and my family killed. I slunk away without fighting. If my father and uncle could not win, I was sure that I had no chance; I needed help. By great effort and a little selective bartering." I translated that as stealing. "I made it to England. There I tried to join the Army. I told them I wanted to kill Germans. They laughed at me and told me to "get my Gypsy ass the Hell out of their office." No one would take me to fight, I was too young, or too Gypsy. Finally, I arranged to go to Canada, in hopes that they would take me, and let me kill Germans. No, I was still too young and too Gypsy, so I came to the States. Here I joined a circus for a year. Then the U.S. entered the war after Pearl Harbor. Again I tried to join, to fight the Germans. This time, they let me. I don't know if it was the extra years, or the lack of problems with Gypsies, but the American Army was happy to have me."

  He paused to take a drink of water, and continued in the same deadpan voice. "The Army found out in boot camp that I was a Tiger, but they let me in anyway, because they wanted my language skills, and my contacts in Europe. They placed me in a special unit, the 2671st Special Reconnaissance Battalion. There, they taught me how to kill Germans. They also taught me how to blow up things, how to jump out of airplanes, and how to make the Germans miserable. After that they sent me to England, and then let me go back to Europe and kill Germans. Eventually they brought me back to England, in early 1943. Then I was transferred to the Hundred and First Airborne. I was to be part of their Pathfinders for the first of the Five-O-Deuce. I wasn't the only Beast-man there...I guess that was what they called 'Thropes back in the day...Hell, I wasn't the only Beast-man in the 2671st for that matter. In those days the Allies were taking anything they could get. For that matter, the Nazis were using Beasts too. When I was with the 2671st, we ran into Werewolves quite often. Usually in SS uniforms. I took special pleasure in introducing them to a cat that whipped dogs."

  "We jumped on the night of 5 June 1944. It was every bit the cluster fuck that they probably taught you in the history books. I got shot twice on the way down. Imagine the surprise on that Nazi bastard's face when he shot me and I just grinned! Somehow we came out of it all right. Then we had the long slog through the French countryside, and up into Belgium. I got shot three or four more times on the lead up to Market Garden. The last time, with silver shot. The Nazis had finally figured out that we were using Beast-men. It took me out of action for three weeks. Long enough to miss the cluster fuck that was Market Garden. I got back to the unit just in time to get moved up with the rest when we went to Bastogne. The Nazis had really pulled out all the stops for that one. They had whole units of Werewolves, in American uniforms, speaking English. We had so few Wolves that everyone knew everyone else; and you could smell the bastards a half mile off. Then we moved on into Germany, and we went to a little corner of Hell called MittilBau Dora
...ever hear of it?"

  Well, I admitted that I hadn't, and he continued or tried to, anyway. It took him four or five tries to get it out. "Oh gods, there were CHILDREN, women and old men. Most Jews, but some were Communists, some were Freemasons, some were fags, and some were Rom, Hell there were even some Catholics. Most were dead; the rest were dead too, just still walking. I could smell it for fifteen miles before we got there. By the time we were at the fence, I was puking. Some of the Guards were still there when we got there." He got real still for a moment. "John, I don't remember much about what I did when we found the Guards. The guys told me I went at them with tooth and claw. I dropped my rifle, and I fucking ate them. The Provost said that some of them tried to surrender; I ate them too. I didn't just kill them; I literally chewed their faces off. After that I spent a while in a hospital. Then the war was over; and I came here.

  Teador looked over at me, and seemed to shrink into himself. "John, I did some things that I wasn't proud of, that day. I've done some things that I'm not particularly proud of before and since. But things are a little clearer up here, a little simpler. And at least I escaped the fate some of my friends experienced after the war. Now, Yoshi tells me that a Beast-man Cop with magic has come upon my group. But that it is OK, he's on our side. John, I need to know. Are you on our side? Tell me your story. Because if you aren't on our side, I'm going to have to kill you."

  "Well, when presented with an ultimatum like that, in a situation like that, you tell your story; or at least as much of it as you can. But first I had to ask a question. "Teador, you said something about the fate of some of your friends?"

  He grimaced, and shook his head. "There was a 'cure'" (you could hear the quotes around it). "Something to stop the dreams, the urge to fight or run. But they were afraid to try it on us Beast-men, so instead they "let us escape" to the wilderness as long as we promised to stay away from people."

  Well, this was news to me, I had never heard of a cure for PTSD, or whatever it had been called over the ages..."Cure?" I asked.

  "Yes, they tried using high voltage, and subtle drugs, and occasionally if the person was rich enough or related to someone important enough, they used mages, which did actually work, but was way too expensive for the common troop. Mostly they ended up using "the cure". John, they would put a steel needle behind your eye, into the brain, and move it around. That was their cure."

  Just hearing about that make me want to puke, and to find some doctor/s somewhere and kill him/them. Their cure for PTSD was a frontal lobotomy? Fuck! No wonder these guys didn't trust the government.

  So I told them about my military history, about being infected and then recruited into the Teams. I told them about some of my ops, though not in much detail. I gave them a brief history of going into law enforcement after retiring from the Navy. Then I told them about finding out about my ancestral gift or curse. The Baresark. I explained about how Great Uncle Lars had looked me up, and informed me of my family inheritance, and how he had put me through regression and made me live some of the things I had done while Baresark. I told them about being ambushed on a mission in El Salvador, and changing, then eating a team member who had gone double on us. I told them about several incidents that I'm not too proud of. I explained that they were being framed for the murder of a Marine Corps Lycanthrope who was out to make contact with them, and whose dad was a fucking senator, who just happened to have a huge hard-on for us "Demon Spawned Creatures from Hel". Then, I explained what I wanted to do about it.

  Chapter Fifteen

  When we got done with our conversation, Teador and I had come to an understanding. In part because Yoshi had made it perfectly clear that we would come to an understanding if he had to apply sweet reason to us in the form of a silver sledgehammer upside the head. Teador opened the door and I heard alarm bells in my head. I was out the door and running without any explanation at all. Teador and Yoshi didn't ask anything, they just chased after me.

  As we dashed through the common areas, I saw that Bobby had stopped singing and gone off somewhere. There were a few card games and such going on, but most of the men were just sitting around and talking, or doing some sort of handicraft. When we got to my room, no one was there, and the foot locker didn't look like it had been breached. The rug, though, that was bunched up at the entrance like it had been tossed back in hurriedly. I made a pass in the air while muttering the clearing spell. That silenced the alarms in my head, and turned off the rest of the stuff. Then I went inside to check the box. Still solid.

  Teador and Yoshi were waiting outside my room with matched quizzical looks, Yoshi's left eyebrow, and Teador's right eyebrow were quirked up in mirror image. Teador was the one that broke the tableau. "I suppose there's an explanation?"

  "Yes." I responded "Someone tried to toss my room. They tripped a few traps that I left." From the look on Teador's face, I felt I needed to make a more complete explanation. "Yoshi mentioned that I can do some magic, well, there are some simple spells called cantrips that with a little imagination, can cause anyone that trips them to have a bad day. The sort of bad day that leaves you out cold. I had some of these set on my room in case someone got a little too nosy. The puzzlement is how they got out of my room, and out of sight in the few seconds it took to get here from your office. There was a spell with the cantrips that sounded an alarm in my head when they were set off; it started sounding as you opened the door."

  Yoshi interrupted me at this point "John, this is, I fear, my fault. I too have some magic, as you know. I used it on the door of the office, long ago, to make it impervious. Nothing that I know of would get through that door when it is closed. Until now, I didn't think that it would be a problem."

  I looked over at Yoshi with a sigh. "So, what you're telling me is that they could have sprung the trap anytime while we were in the office, and I wouldn't know about it?"

  "Yes."

  "Well, shit." I grabbed the rug and gave it a sniff. Sure enough "It was Sean. Teador, I need to keep him out of my stuff."

  Teador nodded his head. "I will talk to him. If it is possible, I would like there to be no violence over this."

  I looked at him and nodded, thinking to myself, yeah and I would like to open my eyes and find out that all this was a really bad dream, brought on by too much Mexican food, but I don't think that's going to happen either...

  The next couple days were made up of getting me on the watch bill, teaching me the positions and how to get to them, putting me on the hunting list, and the KP list, and finding me a handicraft to make money. Well, I knew woodwork and carving, and I'm fairly good at it, so that was my craft. Crafts were how the group made enough money to buy the few essentials that we couldn't make ourselves, and a few luxuries, like coffee, and playing cards. The fact that these guys thought coffee and playing cards were a luxury tells you something about how their life was.

  Sean and his four buddies steered clear of me for a day or so, then they were back at it. Not terribly subtle stuff, tripping me or any of the rats as we walked by, veiled comments spoken just loud enough to hear, you know, high school bullshit. I let Teador deal with it for a bit, but I knew that eventually Sean and I were going to go at it; there was a certain inevitability to it. In the meantime, I went about trying to become part of the crew and gaining their trust, so that I could betray it...Nice, huh?

  After the first week I had gotten into a routine, I stood one watch in six, so almost every other day I had a 6 hour watch outside. This gave me ample opportunity to keep in touch with the boss. I would type a report before going to sleep, and then, on watch turn on the "berry and send it out. In between times, I ate, talked to the guys, carved wood, and slept. It was a simple life, but I could see how it would bring you back to yourself. There were always a few that just didn't get with the program.

  Sean was one of those. The four guys with him were just born followers, the sort that some psychologist whose work I read one time called "true believers", they found someone that ha
d a program and bought in to it. The sort that every charismatic leader needs. Take out Sean and they would be no problem...taking out Sean was the rub.

  When I didn't rise to the bait from the occasional tripping, and snide comment, they upped the ante. They tried to get into my room again to do something, gods only know what. I "heard" the alarm while I was on watch, so I couldn't do anything about it until I got a relief up to take over and that took about an hour after I hollered down that I needed one. When I got down, there was no one in the room, but two of Sean's boys had bloody noses, judging by the blood on the floor. Then they started messing with my food. At that point I had had enough. We actually cooked a fairly reasonable diet in the camp, yeah we were 'Thropes and could live off just meat, but unless you stay in animal form, you crave all the foods a normal human wants. Tonight had been chili, and I dearly love a good chili. Jose made some of the best. Sean was pulling KP tonight. Well, the chili hid the smell enough that I actually got a spoon up to my face before the overtone hit me. Chili laced with shit. That did it. I put my spoon down, and looked up the table at Teador. "After dinner I want a full meeting. I'll put up with a lot, but wasting good food, that's over the line."