Cancer's Curse (The Zodiac Book 4)

by Sating, Paul

  She shook her head. "I'm not a doctor."

  I raised my eyebrows.

  She extended her hand. I took it tentatively. "Tamika Johnson, nurse."

  "You run all this," I said as I gestured at the small room, "as a nurse? I didn't know you could do that."

  "Well, there's a lot nurses can do. A lot we do do, and rarely get credit for. You'd be surprised what we're capable of."

  I shook my head at my inept comment and tried to salvage the conversation. "I didn't mean anything by that. I just wasn't sure you'd be allowed to run this. That's all."

  She wrinkled her nose at me. "Do yourself a favor and stop before I change my mind about helping your soldier."

  Before I stumbled further into a backhanded apology, the squad carried Smith inside. His uniform trousers were now dark with blood and he was still unconscious. It wasn't until they carried him past that I noticed his sleeve was also soaked.

  "Put him over there," Tamika said, pointing at the bed in the far corner. "Keep him away from that child."

  They set Sergeant Smith down as carefully as expediency allowed. He didn't even groan.

  "Now, get out of my way," Tamika said, firmly but not forcefully pushing a soldier away.

  As the team stepped outside, leaving less than a handful of us in the room, she kneeled at Smith's leg, pulling a pair of shears out of her breast pocket and slicing open his pants with skill disguised as reckless abandon. When she had cut them up to his groin, Tamika carefully pulled the material away, exposing the damage done from the bullet. Bilba gagged, Sergeant Rogers bit on his bottom lip and grimaced, looking like he was challenging himself to watch. Ralrek immediately stepped outside. Our NCO's leg was a mess. The sunken flesh. Blood around and coming from the wound. The shredded meat of an appendage. The stench of trauma.

  Tamika remained focus on her work. "If you can't be helpful, get out."

  Sergeant Rogers, paler but finally pulling his eyes away from the wound, said, "We have to guard him."

  Without looking up, she answered in a harsh tone. "And you can do that from outside. There is no other way into the building. He's as safe as any place in Baghdad. This one," she said, pointing at me, "can stay behind since he doesn't seem affected by a little blood. But the rest of you need to get out. Now go."

  Sergeant Rogers did the right thing by not arguing. "Out," he ordered, and the small team spun and exited. The little old Iraqi lady made sure the squad complied, pushing them toward the door even though they were already moving. She was the one to fear.

  "Thanks for letting me stay," I said. "Is there anything I can help with?"

  Tamika's hands were on Smith's leg, around the wound. She did not even pause to shake her head. "Just stay out of my way. I can't be sure I can save him."

  "Okay." I stepped back and watched her care for my squad leader. There was a tenderness in her work, in the way she moved, and how softly she rubbed down his skin with water to clean the blood around the wound; with the way she adjusted and wrapped him, constantly checking in to see if he'd woken. If anyone in Khadra could save him, we'd found her.

  "I'm sorry about last time, about the way we barged in here," I said, trying to find something to fill the quiet. I should have let her concentrate, but it was awkward just standing around not doing anything helpful, especially with the way the old Iraqi human stared at me like a hellhound on a chain, waiting to break free.

  "I understand," Tamika said. "Your unit just rotated in, hasn't it?"

  "We've been here for almost three months now," I answered.

  She kept working, not bothering to look my way. "So you don't really know your way around the city yet?"

  "We know a lot of hot spots. But," I said after a pause when she stayed silent, "I guess we have a lot to learn still."

  Resuming her work with swift movements that convinced me she could provide care like this in her sleep, she spoke, her voice trembling. "I don't fault you and I apologize if I came across too harshly. When you've been here as long as me, you get sick of the intrusions, sick of men pumped up on adrenaline walking around the city ready to kill the first thing that twitches. I can't tell you how many horrors I've seen." Tamika paused, eyes flicking to the little boy sleeping on the bed along the other wall. In that moment, I saw her age a hundred years. "His parents were killed last week, caught in the crossfire between Russians, their insurgents, and your side. It was a quick fight, not even fifteen minutes. And in less time than it takes to make a damn dinner, that little … that little boy lost the rock in his world. Now he has to navigate life, this life," she emphasized, waving a bloody finger toward the street, "all by himself. How is he supposed to do that?"

  I opened my mouth, but my throat was so tight it was a struggle to squeeze out a few words. "I don't know."

  Her shoulders rose and fell. If she was trying to hide how they trembled, she didn't get it by me. "Afra, help me," she said, her voice edged in concern.

  The older Iraqi woman scrambled to the bedside.

  Smith's breaths were shallow now, ragged.

  The nurse was sweating. "Listen, I know this is not your fault. This stuff happens way above your pay grade, above anybody's pay grade. You're just part of a bigger machine, one that doesn't seem to understand the ramifications of its actions. Heaven, for all I know, you might not even want to be here. I've seen that happen too many times, to too many soldiers. But that doesn't excuse people from not being empathetic. Especially to innocents."

  "How long have you been here?"

  "Almost twenty months now." She wavered, not taking her eyes off Sergeant Smith, pointing toward his bloody arm. "We need to get that opened, Afra. Cut the material carefully." She pried into his leg with forceps. I had to turn away.

  "I have to get this out," she told the other woman in Arabic. "Cut as much of his shirt away as you can. See if you can find the entry and exit wounds. I need to know what I'm dealing with."

  "Is he …"

  "I don't know," she snapped, before drawing a big breath, speaking less harshly. "Hard to believe that it's nearly been two years. Best years of my life."

  I adjusted my rifle. "You sound happy with what you're doing."

  "How can I not be?" Her response was immediate, emboldened with passion. "Look at that boy. It's quiet now, but it will pick up again. For every one of him, there are a dozen children out there, somewhere in the streets, who are suffering and I don't even know about them because the Iraqis don't trust me enough because I'm American. Even though I'm helping and have been for nearly two years. It's your presence that keeps them at guard, and the children suffer. They always suffer. So when I do have an opportunity to make a difference, I embrace it. It's the only way I know. So, yes. I have a purpose here. Even the longest, most trying days are still rewarding. There's nowhere else in the world where I get that feeling. Do you feel that way about your military service?"

  Oh boy, that was a rabbit hole I didn't want to go down. I scrambled to think up a believable response. "Not really. I was sort of … encouraged into service because I come from a small town. Not much going on, no jobs, no hope. The military was a way out."

  Tamika glanced at the middle of my chest, at my solitary upside-down v-shaped chevron. Did she understand the rank structure of the American military? Had I made a mistake in my story? I was lax, and it might have cost me.

  "And now you find yourself on the other side of the world, working long hours in a foreign city where someone wants to kill you every time you turn around," she said as she swiftly worked on my NCO.

  I turned and saw Smith's skin now had an ashen tone. He was breathing so fast I didn't know how he wasn't hyperventilating.

  I swallowed. "Yeah, I guess so. But, on a positive note, if I don't wind up dead within the next nine months, I get to go home."

  "And hope they don't turn around and redeploy you," she said heatedly.

  "I hadn't thought about that," I admitted, eyeing the old Iraqi lady as she grimaced when she peeled aw
ay Smith's sleeve. Blood covered any signs of a bullet wound from where I was standing.

  Afra said, "Look."

  Her tone shared an understood meaning. Tamika's shoulders slumped. "Maybe you should think about that … among other things about military service."

  "Like what?"

  "Like why you're here, for starters," she said simply enough.

  "We are here because of the Russians. They invaded, not us."

  She tilted her head to the side as she pulled the forceps out of Smith's leg, bullet pinched between them. She stood and moved around to Afra's side, and the Iraqi woman switched positions and began cleaning my NCO's leg. "Not accurate, but exactly what I expected an American soldier to say."

  Smith's lips were a faded blue.

  "What's that supposed to mean?" I had no actual dog in the fight, and it's not like I was even American. But things had changed in my time in the Overworld. This was the longest I'd ever been here, nearly nine months. Bonds and identities evolved in that time. No mortal was perfect. Heaven, no immortal except for Lucifer and Yaweh were supposed to be either—I was still reserving judgment on that. But my immortal friends and most of my new human ones in the Army were good souls, who believed their actions were just. No one was here out of malice. A civilian might not see that.

  "Just means that fell for the propaganda," Tamika said, feverishly sanitizing her forceps with alcohol pads and glancing at me with sad eyes. For Smith or for the lack of proper medical procedures, I couldn't be sure. "War isn't something you can slice open and tell rot from healthy muscle. It isn't like that at all; take it from someone who's been here as long as I have. Everything is gray. There is no black-and-white. No good guys. No bad guys." She leaned over Smith's shoulder, analyzing his wound. "Do me a favor."

  "Sure. What?"

  "I'm going to try and save your friend here." She pointed at my NCO. "I don't know if I can, but I'll do what I can to make him as comfortable as possible if I can't. But I want you to promise me you'll think about the nature of this war and your personal role in it."

  "My role? You think I'm more important than I am."

  Tamika glanced at me, her eyes crawling through me. "What's important is that none of us ever forget the truth."

  "What truth?"

  She lowered her head toward Smith's destroyed arm, grimacing. "A single person can make a monumental difference in the lives of others."

  11 - Baghdad

  Smith became our squad's first casualty. A somber cloud had hung over the entire team since his death. All the brashness and bravado wiped away, even from the younger, impervious troops, with his loss. I found out that he was twenty-seven.

  Twenty-seven.

  I had underwear that were nearly that old.

  Since his passing, I reflected often on Tamika's last words before she kicked me out of her clinic to rejoin the rest of my crew. I think she knew what was coming and did not want me witnessing the last moments of my sergeant's young life. Maybe I did too much reflecting.

  "You've got to let it go, Zeke. It's getting old." Bilba brushed off the toes of his cattlehide leather combat boots. Silly, since we were on the outskirts of Baghdad, a place of perpetual dust—I was never going to complain about the air quality in the Underworld ever again—but it kept him occupied. "Just relax."

  "I don't know. What she said makes sense," I said with a shrug, thinking back to that lesson Tamika taught me a month ago. "Really, what difference are we actually making here? What are we actually doing that makes the Overworld a better place for them? How is this keeping the Balance?"

  They were hardly fair questions considering the fact we were sitting on bleachers watching a far–too competitive match of tug-of-war between rival units after a long day and longer wait at the mess hall for dinner. The Army team was struggling against their Air Force counterparts. Someone turned the field's lights on as night settled, as if they wanted to highlight the blasphemy of this humiliating loss for soldier-kind. Ralrek was on the Army team and, even in the middle of the desert, at this hour, pulling and being pulled in a tug-of-war, he looked put together with not even a single black hair out of place. The grimace on his face as he struggled to help his team recapture the lost advantage was the least composed I think I had ever seen him. How was this enjoyable?

  Even in the middle of war, soldiers needed to relax. Even after losing fellow soldiers, relaxation was key to sustainability. I got that—an ugly truth of war no one wants to mention. Tug-of-war was ours—I didn't get that. But even in the middle of time I should use to let go of the demands of deployment, Tamika's question haunted me. It had for a month and showed no signs of giving me a break.

  Bilba watched the tug-of-war struggle with only a passing interest. Even at his fittest, he could only dream of tests of strength like this. He was much more likely to be found reading the latest geek news than exerting himself in tests of masculine strength and bravado. Competition was not something that interested either of us, but this sport was, by far, the least interesting of them all. It was like an explosion of testosterone. Thankfully, we sat far enough away to not get any on us if it did decide to blow.

  "We need to unwind too," he finally answered during a break between matches—the Air Force beat the Army team by the way, which resulted in serious shit talking. "We can't patrol all the time. These times are important for our sustainability."

  "Oh yeah, I forgot about sustainability. About our need to be here for a year. Lucifer knows, it's unquestionable that our presence is necessary."

  Bilba rotated on his rear, half cocked on the bleacher seat. "You don't think we need to be here? You don't think we're doing something important for the people of Baghdad? See? That nurse got in your head. She has you thinking all sorts of crazy stuff. What we're doing is important. The Russians and their angels … allies," he said quickly, wiping his mouth with the back of his hands as he glanced around to make sure no one had overheard. No one could. The closest soldiers were in the smoking pit, busy taking seven minutes off their lives with each cancerous stick. "They're not backing down. Heavens, things are just starting to ramp up. Long after we've gone back home, these …" he lowered his voice but only removed a portion of its heat, "these mortals will still be fighting."

  "Over what?" It came out as a growl. I wasn't frustrated with my friend, just with the situation, my recent level of awareness, all of it Tamika's fault. She asked me to think about the nature of the conflict and the role each nation played. And that's all I had been doing, and it was seriously starting to annoy me. The fact I could not let it go only amplified my annoyance each time it crept into my mind.

  This was a human struggle with human motivations and implications, and the only dog in the fight us immortals had was for the sake of the stupid Balance. But what Tamika couldn't know, what bothered me enough to keep me constantly thinking and agitated, was that I didn't see my personal role in this or how my presence made this better for anyone. What was I doing here? I surely wasn't keeping the Balance; I could not stop insurgents from attacking convoys or threatening locals; I could not stop little boys from having their parents killed. This all felt like such a waste.

  A new tug-of-war match started, the opposing teams taking their places at each end of the rope, reviewing tactics and shooting verbal barbs to their opposition. A few chests were beat with fists. These mortals were so fresh-faced; babies, all of them. In relative terms, they were about my age, but I'd lived through thousands of their generations. And they were here, happy to die for a ridiculous aim. Lucifer and Yahweh, pulling strings and moving chess pieces and making the mortals dance for their eternal entertainment. My gut filled with sympathetic grief for them and disgust at our role.

  Damn Tamika for making me think.

  Three months in Iraq and I still didn't feel I'd done anything of significance. A part of me wondered if I ever would.

  "I hope you know that I truly appreciate your friendship," I said, placing a hand on Bilba's shoulder, rubbing it
. "Without you here, I don't know if I'd make it."

  His cheeks puffed when he smiled. "You would."

  I shook my head. "Don't be so sure. You're good for me."

  "And you are for me."

  "Why don't you make out already?" A new voice said, followed by a gruff laugh. Looking into Bilba's eyes, I smiled and leaned closer. He jerked back, almost falling off the back of the bleacher. I broke out into a hearty laugh, as did our new visitor, Ralrek. Having just finished an intense tug-of-war, he looked as fresh as if he had just stepped out of the shower, not a grain of sand to be seen.

  "What's up, asshole?" I stood and grasped his hand, thumb around thumb, palms meeting in a harsh slap. We hugged in the quick way guys do while in public.

  Bilba, now recovered, stepped down the rows to welcome Ralrek. "Where have you been?"

  "Before the match? Inside, watching the movie."

  "Well, Zeke and I are going to chow soon. Feel like going with us?"

  Ralrek's lips pinched. "Not sure."

  "Why, do you have other plans?"

  "Something like that," Ralrek said in a flat tone.

  I watched Ralrek's face. Things had regressed in our time in Baghdad once we fell into a smooth rhythm. The daily patrols off-post and mortar attacks on-post prevented Bilba and Ralrek from talking through the taboo subject that was Ralrek's experience in Germany. The tall demon making out with a mortal seemed resolved back home, though there was always a little underlying tension about the subject, but that was attributable to the incubi not being fully open and raw. Given enough time, things left to simmer boiled. The Army had solved that by turning our lives upside down. But now that we were operating in a flow, we had more time. More time led to us being around mortals in a more relaxed atmosphere. More time around mortals brought back all the unaddressed issues Bilba had with Ralrek's attraction to them. I always attributed it to the handsome incubus being a slut, but Bilba had hangups over the issue and seemed to suspect the taller demon of slinking away to make out with any male who happened by the portable toilet.