The Wounded Ones

by G. D. Penman

  Sully lay still and listened. “Well, she sounds English, but so do you, so that doesn’t prove shit. The numbers aren’t random . . . there is definitely something linking them together, I can feel it in my teeth.”

  Raavi giggled. “Radio transmissions directly into your fillings, eh?”

  “There is something there. Some connection.”

  “I have got so many message boards for you to visit.” Raavi looked so giddy when he popped back into sight that Sully couldn’t help but return his smile. “Maybe another time. What do they think about it upstairs?”

  “They think that I need to stop bothering them with paranoid conspiracy theories when they are trying to do real police work, apparently. Right, leg is done, up you go and I’ll clean up the rest.”

  With his help, Sully was hauled into a seated position. She blinked until the sparks at the edges of her vision faded away. “So what is up with the wood?”

  “Ugh,” Raavi cast a despairing eye at the state of his lab, “This is the new big case everyone is losing their mind over. People vanishing. Lumps of wood left behind. No logic. No pattern.”

  “I hadn’t heard anything about the wood.”

  Raavi’s eyebrow quirked up. “But you have heard about the case. Making some waves up there at the top of the food chain, is it?”

  Sully hissed as he dabbed alcohol across one of her burns. “Pick a metaphor and stick with it, will you?”

  Raavi smirked. “Well, upstairs think that there is no pattern . . .”

  Sully caught his hand. “What have you found?”

  “I’ve been documenting every lump of wood as it came in. Blew out two Schrödinger’s before I realized the magic saturation was off the charts. Weighed them. Measured the depth of the carvings. The magic levels stay about the same, but the carving has been getting consistently better each time a new victim is taken.”

  “The weight?”

  His grin threatened to take the top off his head. “The weight was all over the place, no logical progression. Until you compared it to the weight of the missing people. Then you discovered that it was a perfect match each time. If one hundred and sixty pounds of Jeff Milquetoast went missing, then one hundred and sixty pounds of weird white wood was left in his place. And before you ask, no, nobody is being turned into wood. The Magi have searched for any trace of transmogrification and found nothing. Somebody is taking people and leaving their weight in wood.”

  Sully laughed despite herself. “That is really bizarre.”

  “Does it help?”

  She caught the sly grin on his face. “Everything helps. And no, I am not investigating this. So keep your insinuations to yourself.”

  The next half hour went by quickly. Raavi caught her up on the latest office gossip—which she hadn’t cared about even when she worked there—and on the progress of their bowling team, which she still vaguely resented having to give up despite being one of the worst players. He was just starting in on his appalling love life when he realized that he had run out of injuries to attend to. Whatever narcotics he had jammed into her leg were starting to wear off, leaving Sully listless and queasy. “You need to sleep that off now. A good twelve hours of sleep and you will be right as rain.”

  She blinked at him. “Chance would be a fine thing.”

  He took her by the arm and helped her back onto her feet. A few staggering steps later, she felt sure that the stitches were going to hold and clapped him on the back. “Thanks, Raavi. You’re one of the good ones.”

  “Pfft. I am the best one, thank you very much.”

  She paused at that and glanced up at him with an enigmatic smile. “You are, actually. You are the best man I know.”

  He had the good sense to look nervous. “Sorry?”

  “I’ve got a party coming up. Just me, Marie, and some of our nearest and dearest. I was wondering if you fancied coming along, maybe holding a ring for a while.”

  “Sully, you dark horse! You’re finally settling down? Of course, I’ll be your best man! Oh my goodness, I just realized I have to organize a stag party for the biggest lecher on the East Coast. I’m going to have to hire every stripper from here to the Northern Territories.”

  Sully held a finger up to his face and a flicker of spellfire leapt up to singe the tip of his nose. “No strippers.”

  “No strippers.”

  With a little bit of help from Raavi, Sully made it out to a taxi and headed for home. It was only when the evacuation notices came into sight that she realized she had sent the driver to her old address. She corrected herself and when they finally arrived at the right apartment, she paid him double the fare to make up for messing with him. Still, though, it left a cold weight of dread in her stomach that she had—at least for a moment—forgotten where she lived. Normally Sully took doctor’s orders as mere suggestions but after the day she had just suffered through, she was more than happy to slip into the big empty bed and breathe in the faint perfume that Marie had left behind on the sheets.

  March 3, 1986

  The first week after the British had surrendered, Iona drank. She didn’t mean to, but the state dinners dragged on for so long, and if a little whiskey made the time pass quicker then a lot of whiskey could reliably turn the whole thing into a blur.

  On the second week, her long overdue honeymoon started. Ayomide took her through a portal to Ophir to finally meet her parents, but the conversation had been so stilted and awkward that Sully started to miss the state dinners. They’d lasted only one night in the sleek white stone buildings of Kinshasa, trapped in separate rooms, before they moved on to the next leg of their journey. Maybe in the years to come Iona could make friends with her in-laws, but for now the hurt was still too raw. She’d taken their precious daughter away from them and there was no turning back the clock on that.

  They took a cross-country bullet train to the Egyptian Congo, basking in the lush green of one of the last true jungles on earth, listening to the chiming birdsong from the sweat-soaked sheets of their sleeper car. It was as close to heaven as Iona was ever liable to get.

  On arrival, their cabin with a view turned out to be more of a treehouse, but neither one of them gave a half a damn about a ladder. They had magic, they had each other, and they had all the time in the world.

  Iona was bored within three days, though she wouldn’t admit it. After a lifetime of dedication to a singular cause, having that focus taken away from her was troubling. She should have been ecstatic, but nobody had informed her emotions of that fact. She still snapped awake at the break of dawn, ready to pull on her boots and head into the field. She still lay awake at night, listening for Redcoats that were never coming. If Ayomide had expected her to open up and relax now that the war was done, she gave no indication of disappointment. From the moment that they met, she had known Iona better than Iona knew herself. If Ayomide wasn’t worried, Iona wouldn’t be either. She’d heard that time healed all wounds, she had enough scars across her body to prove the truth of it too, so the waiting game began.

  On the third week, Iona and Ayomide came home. Their honeymoon had been short and sweet, still feeling languorous and indulgent for a relationship forged in the heat of battle, but by the end, Iona felt like she was hiding out, so they caught the next portal back to Ireland.

  She had expected a heap of demands to be waiting in her office, but what she found was polite invitations. Weddings mostly. A few remembrance vigils for the veterans of the war that never made it across the finish line. She took Ayomide to as many of the weddings as they could manage: Iona in her best pressed uniform and Ayomide in dresses so bright and beautiful they put the brides to shame. She went to the vigils alone, incognito. The other players in the war were parlaying their success into political positions and fame. Neither held much appeal for Iona.

  It was now rolling into the fourth week of Irish Independence. Ayomide
was interviewing for a post-graduate position at Cork University, finally bringing her carefully constructed technomancy out to be torn apart by the world of academia. The day seemed to stretch on and on without company.

  There was no wedding invitation waiting in her office this time, only Leonard Pratt, reading a book in the corner and waiting patiently. “My dear Mrs. Sullivan, what a pleasure to see you again.”

  “Pratt. How are you?” She had long since stopped being surprised by his appearances.

  “Quite well, thank you, and your dear lady wife?”

  Iona couldn’t conceal a smile. “Perfect.”

  “Ah, grand. I am so glad to learn that even in troubled times, love finds a way. I only regret that I could not be here for the ceremony”

  Iona perched on the edge of her desk. “Hard to get an RSVP when you’re in a warzone.”

  “Yes, quite. Quite.”

  The pause only stretched out for a moment before Iona filled it. “I don’t have any soldiers for you Pratt. I already told you we aren’t getting dragged into America’s war.”

  “My dear Mrs. Sullivan, nothing could have been further from my mind.” He pressed a hand to his chest in mock dismay. “Rather, I was hoping that you might help me with a work related matter rather than assisting me in my extra-curricular activities.”

  That piqued her interest. “You’re here curse-breaking?”

  “Yes indeed. It seems that one of the British billets was discovered to have been furnished in a rather abnormal manner, and a request was made for me to lend my talents in deciphering the particular curse that was used.”

  “The human furniture in Tulsk?”

  “Ah, the matter has already attracted your attention?”

  Iona cracked her knuckles. “I’m the one who found them like that, after I’d killed the piece of shit who did it to them.”

  “While I am sure you were thoroughly morally justified, I must admit that the caster’s demise has made my job rather more difficult.”

  “Well the prick was trying to make me into a chair at the time.”

  “Morally and aesthetically justified. Whatever your virtues, I do not believe that anyone could be convinced that you would make for good decor.”

  “The hair, right? Clashes with everything.”

  She caught the flash of Pratt’s smile before his good manners could stifle it. “Would you countenance a field trip to examine the afflicted with me?”

  “If you think I’ll be useful.”

  He rose from his seat with a minor tectonic shift of gut providing his momentum. “My dear Mrs. Sullivan, you always have been in the past and I see no reason you cannot continue to be in the future.”

  Traveling spells were only meant for one person, but Iona’s workaround had been adopted world-wide after it was seen in use on the battlefield. Sure, technically Pratt was dead for about a second while they traveled but there was no denying that it was more efficient than portals.

  While Pratt got his breath back and his palpitations slowed, Iona found the constable in charge of the warehouse. He was in the area where the younger and more attractive folk of the town had been stacked under dust-sheets. There had been some notes and books about how this had been done in the Redcoat’s little laboratory, but what hadn’t been destroyed, had been lost in the fight. Pratt had nothing but his own expansive mental library to draw upon.

  He whistled while he worked. Cataloging in a little moleskin notebook the different transformations and the likelihood that certain spells were involved. Boredom took hold of Iona once more, and she dithered between the rows, only startling out of her reverie when one of the nesting tables blinked at her.

  By the time she returned, Pratt was standing beside a human being who still had a paper tag with his name and address dangling from his wrist. The boy seemed to be struggling to talk, but too much time as an ottoman probably did that to you. He embraced Pratt, then ran for the door. Iona moved to stop him, but Pratt halted her interception with a barely perceptible shake of the head. “Let him go. He has a family to go home to.”

  “You’ve cracked it?”

  Pratt moved to sit on a loveseat then thought better of it at the last moment. “It is all rather uninspired really. Fairytale ideology. True love’s kiss.”

  “I didn’t know you and the ottoman felt that way about each other.”

  Pratt chuckled. “Picture your darling wife. Imagine that you are pressing your lips to hers, then plant them on that cupboard and we shall see if it works.”

  The cupboard in question became a pretty young blonde with admittedly broad shoulders. She managed to mumble out some thanks before shuffling awkwardly to the door, swinging her hips with each step.

  “Nicely done.” Iona put an arm around Pratt’s shoulders and then, because she couldn’t help herself, said, “You’d better not have been thinking about Ayomide too.”

  “There was a young street wizard, once upon a time—several years back, during the brown-outs in New Amsterdam. We worked together to break a curse that was destroying so many young lovers that it seemed almost like a plague. In the end, he expired in the spellwork. But I shall not forget him anytime soon.”

  Something in his voice brought Iona up cold. Pratt had always kept to himself. The world that he lived in, full of backstabbing politicians and conniving academics, took anything he said and twisted it into a knife. He’d trusted Sully with something that could sink his career. Sully tightened her grip on his shoulder. “I’m . . . sorry you lost him.”

  “It would never have worked out in the long run, but it is sufficient for our purpose today.” He gave the loveseat a peck on the cushion and it immediately started bucking back into human shape. “Come along Mrs. Sullivan, do not leave all the work to me or I shall have chapped lips by the end of the day.”

  They must have spent hours kissing their way through all the furniture in the warehouse, but when they were finished, neither one could complain about the results. Word had spread, and the town had gone from silent on their arrival to an overjoyed carnival atmosphere by the time they emerged. When Pratt tried to beg off, claiming exhaustion and indisposition, Iona dragged him into the street party. Music filled the air, a bonfire burned bright against the night sky, and there was a drink being pressed into the heroes hands every time they turned around.

  At some point after midnight, Iona and Pratt found themselves sitting on the grass, probably ruining Pratt’s suit in the process, and staring up at the stars. “You did good today Pratt. You made things better.”

  “Your company was much . . . appreciated Mrs. Sullivan.”

  The screams were so distant through the whiskey haze that Iona didn’t even realize what she was hearing. In the sky above them, the stars blinked out in a wave.

  “What?”

  The same dark void was rushing toward them across the town. Already the warehouse, bonfire and revelers had been swallowed whole. Iona stumbled to her feet, fumbling through a protection spell, but it was already too late. The darkness swept over them, and they no longer existed.

  November 6, 2015

  The hammering in Sully’s head matched the sound from her front door and was a subtle hint that she had not slept as long as she needed to. She was halfway across the living room before she thought to check that she had clothes on and she was relieved to find that she still wore her bloody and tattered rags from the night before. Ogden was rocking on his heels outside and he looked furious. “What in the hells happened?”

  Sully yawned and beckoned him in and he stomped right across the rug with his muddy boots. “One minute you are flying off to war, the next we have messengers screaming that you were killed, that the British can repel demons, that they have their own demons. What is going on?!”

  Sully pointed at the couch, and with all the grace of a child in a tantrum, Ogden threw himself down on
it.

  “The British knew that we were coming. They had been preparing for it. There was artillery set up along the southern border. They’ve made a wish that demons can’t come onto British territory. Somehow.”

  Ogden cursed. “Well, General, what do you plan to do about it?”

  Sully licked her cracked lips. “I plan to have a coffee. Take a shower. Put on clothes that are still clothes, then go get screamed at by Pratt for an hour before I lose my temper and blow him into the Atlantic.”

  With the bandana stretched across his face, it was hard to tell when Ogden was smiling. You had to watch the corners of his eyes for wrinkles. “And in the long term?”

  Sully stalked off toward the bathroom. “Maybe breakfast? See if you can make the coffee machine work. It’s too new for me to work out, but I’m no super genius Magus from another world.”

  He had managed to brew two cups of coffee by the time that she was dressed, but it was so atrociously bad that Sully poured it down the sink and bought some on the street corner for both of them. That was bad, too, but Sully judged coffee on a sliding scale and at least this cup tasted recognizably of coffee. Before Ogden had the chance to take flight, Sully flagged down a taxi and bullied him inside.

  “I do not understand why you insist on traveling like this.”

  “Because I’m still tired as hell. If I nod off here, it is embarrassing. If I nod off in the sky, they have to pick bits of me off the street. Besides, we need to talk.”

  Ogden peered at her imperiously. “Is that a fact?”

  Sully cast a quick glance at the back of the taxi driver’s head. Loud African rock was thumping out of the car’s speaker and he was bobbing along to it, oblivious. “Has Pratt asked you to kill me yet?”