Control Point (16 page)

“Gate magic,” Truelove said. “That’s amazing.”

Britton sighed. “Believe me, I’d rather be flying helicopters. That’s what I joined the army to do.”

Truelove’s eyes widened farther. “You were a helo pilot? That’s awesome! What’d you fly?”

“They had me in Kiowas. I wanted Apaches, but I didn’t have enough time in. I Manifested before I could get re-assigned.”

As Truelove interrogated Britton about flying, Downer eyed him intensely. Britton did his best to pretend he didn’t notice and focused on answering Truelove’s enthusiastic questions—covering everything from training to flight mechanics—but the line of conversation frustrated him. He wanted to talk about magic and the Coven and was grateful when Downer cut in.

“You can’t control it, can you?” she asked.

“No,” Britton admitted, “not yet.”

“We go to the SASS tomorrow. Fitzy says we’ll learn there.”

“Suitability assessment,” Truelove offered. “They test your loyalty and teach you to get control of your magic. They
enrolled me when I first got here. Since you’re a contractor, you don’t have to raise the flag.”

“Raise the flag? What the hell are you talking… ?” Britton asked.

A crackle sounded outside, followed by a boom that shook the flimsy plywood walls, resulting in a minor avalanche of license plates.

“Medic!” a voice screamed from outside. “Medic!”

By the time they raced outside, two more booms had sounded, each farther away than the last.

The line out of the chow hall was gone. The front of the tent smoldered gently, melted canvas and plastic sending up wisps of foul-smelling smoke. Dark clouds drifted apart above them, far lower than any cloud should have been. The ground was rent and smoking, a deep, charred groove that ran the length of where the line had been.

Two twisted, man-sized masses lay in the trench, burning brightly. Just beyond them lay a young soldier. Two of his comrades were already stripping off his smoldering camouflage trousers. The bottoms of his boots had been blown off. The soles of his feet were burned an angry red dotted with black.

Marty let out a high-pitched squeak and ran to the man’s side. He muttered to himself in his own language, his long fingers moving over the wounds. The men kneeling at the wounded man’s side paused in shock before the larger one—a navy Seabee with hulking shoulders, reached out and belted Marty across the face, sending the Goblin sprawling.

“Get the hell away from him!” he shrieked. “You trying to finish him off?”

The other soldier cursed and returned to the wounded man’s side. He continued stripping off the burning trousers, revealing the charred and bubbling flesh that had once been a pelvis. “Medic!” he cried again. “Somebody get a fucking medic!”

“He is a damned medic,” Britton said, helping the Goblin to his feet and pushing him forward. “He works in the cash, for chrissakes.”

The kneeling soldier ignored him, but the Seabee took a step forward. Britton saw the anchor pinned on his white hard hat—marking him as a chief, senior enlisted, and not to be
trifled with. “He’s a fucking Goblin, and he’s going to kill him! Hell, he probably called the strike!”

Britton stabbed a finger into the man’s chest, pushing him backward and sending his hard hat tumbling. “He’s not even fucking Latent, you jackass.”

The Seabee surged forward, fist cocked. Britton stepped into the punch, letting it collide with his shoulder and catching the smaller man by the throat. The magic surged along the current of his rage. It came to him wildly, pulsing and erratic. Instinctively, Britton reached for it.

Truelove stumbled backward as a gate snapped opened inches from his face.

“I, on the other hand, am Latent,” Britton seethed. “And I don’t have time to compare dicks with you. This man is dying, and that Goblin can help him. You’re going to let him help or you and I are going to enter into a rather dynamic disagreement.”

The man reached up to wrench at Britton’s wrist, then saw Downer and Truelove standing at his side. His eyes flicked to the ghosted star and moon over their chests, to the shimmering gate, and back. He ceased struggling.

Britton released him and let the Dampener take control. The gate rolled shut, and Truelove exhaled loudly.

Marty scrambled back to the wounded man’s side. He reached beneath his hospital scrubs and produced a worn leather pouch, divided into several pockets. He grumbled to himself, poking his fingers into its depths and sniffing them before he settled on a fine green powder, which he poured out into his palm. He spat in his palm and rolled the liquid in the powder until it formed a vile paste that stank so badly Britton wrinkled his nose. He leaned forward, and the Seabee jerked his chin toward Marty’s hand. “What the hell is that shit?”

Britton looked doubtfully at Truelove, but the Necromancer nodded. “Trust him. Marty’s very good at his work.” The Seabee looked daggers at Marty but let the Goblin apply the paste around the wounded man’s nostrils. He writhed, swatting weakly at the air, and moaning.

“He not die now, soon,” Marty said. “Go cash fast.”

Sirens wailed in the distance, and Britton could see a plume
of fire rising farther out, but still inside the barricade wall of the FOB. Britton and Downer lifted the wounded soldier as gently as they could. He moaned softly, half-conscious, as they carried him behind Marty, who scampered down the muddy track toward the Combat Surgical Hospital. Truelove jogged alongside. The Seabee and the other soldier trailed a few paces back, whispering to one another.

The hospital was overwhelmed. The massive tent literally jumped with activity, the flaps opening and closing so fast to admit new wounded that wind vibrated through the entire structure. Army doctors, navy hospital corpsmen and SOC burn-trauma officers ran to and fro, fussing over a mounting flow of stretchers.

“That was amazing,” Downer breathed.

“That
was
amazing,” Truelove agreed. “But you’re not supposed to use your magic until you’ve been enrolled in the SASS. You could get in deep shit for that.”

“I’m just amazed I could do it at all,” Britton said, the reality hitting him. He had called magic entirely on his own, and it had worked. “The Dampener is incredible. Why the hell don’t they just hand the stuff out?”

Downer sounded peevish. “Against regs,” she muttered.

“And expensive as hell,” Truelove added. “Most in the SOC don’t get it if they can control their magic okay on their own. But everyone in Shadow Coven gets an unlimited supply.”

A SOC Hydromancer appeared at the entrance and recognized Marty, moving toward him.

“Doctor Captain,” Marty said, jerking his hand at Britton, Downer and their weakly stirring cargo. “Specialist Lenko has thunder burn. I give him…bad smell herbs. He needs…”

Britton remembered Dawes’s care and breathed a bit easier. The Hydromancer moved forward and motioned for two orderlies bearing a stretcher. They loaded the wounded soldier onto the stretcher, and he vanished into the hospital, the Hydromancer following close behind.

Marty went after them, then paused, turning to Britton. “Thank you,” he said, his brows arching until the white dots on his forehead were reduced to thin lines. He bowed slightly, tapping his closed eyelids.

Britton realized the Goblin had called the wounded soldier by name. “You knew him?”

Marty nodded. “Specialist Lenko is wise. He dies, I eat his eyes.”

The Hydromancer reappeared in the hospital-entry flaps and motioned brusquely. “Marty! Come on! We need every hand we can get!” The Goblin turned and ran after him, leaving Britton with Truelove and Downer and the steady flow of wounded. The Seabee and the other soldier had vanished. They made their way back toward the P pods in silence.

“Thanks for sticking up for Marty,” Truelove finally said.

“How’d you two get to be such buds?” Britton asked.

“I’ve got some stomach problems,” Truelove said, casting an embarrassed look at Downer, who didn’t appear to notice. “The docs at the cash didn’t really know what to do about it, and the one Physiomancer they’ve got is so overworked, he doesn’t have time for something that isn’t life-threatening. Marty gave me some herbal remedy. It doesn’t fix it totally, but it really helps.”

Britton nodded. “He seems like a good…guy.” In fact, the Goblin’s kindness deeply impressed him. If he’d let that navy chief have his way, Lenko would probably have died while those idiots sat around shouting for a medic.

Downer laughed. “He’s all right. We keep him in sugar, he keeps Truelove from crapping his drawers.” Truelove turned crimson at the remark, but Downer missed it, punching him in the shoulder.

“Did he actually say he’d eat that guy’s eyes?” Britton said, trying to change the subject.

Truelove nodded. “It’s a custom. They do it to honor their dead. They believe that if you eat the eyes of a dead man, you ingest everything he’s ever seen, the sum of his life experience. That way he lives on forever through you. It’s a high compliment. Of course, try telling that to our forward squads who come across Goblins actually doing it. There’s not a lot of patience for the practice around here.”

Britton shook his head and suddenly realized how cold he was. Smoke still billowed in distant columns, flickering red-orange inside. The late-fall chill was intense, the flame-whipped
winds piercing. “Christ,” Britton said, “what the heck is the army doing out here?”

“You haven’t figured it out?” Downer asked. “FOB Frontier is a bridgehead in the Source. You’re in occupied territory.

“We’re conquering the magic kingdom.”

Britton didn’t bother trying to sleep. He lay on his cot, staring at the corrugated metal ceiling and remembering his mother. His mind returned to her eyes, staring at him in horror and realization.

The 158th. His mother. Dawes. He had lost them all. He gripped the coarse blanket, balling it in his fists.

Was this it? Was this his life from here on?
It can’t be. You’ve got to get out of here.

His mind returned to the ATTD, holding him as surely as if he were surrounded by bars.

Find a way. You have to find a way to get that thing out.

As the first streamers of dawn filtered underneath the door, Britton heard the triple succession of booms that marked
another attack. The sirens sounded far away, and he didn’t even budge at the tremors, surprised at how quickly he had become inured.

The next morning, he found the inside of the chow hall was much as he’d come to know from other bases. Long tables backed up to a line of metal trays piled high with steaming slop that could scarcely be called food. The line was manned mostly by Goblins in paper hats who endured the sullen looks of their customers with resignation. Britton got himself a foam tray piled high with a yellow slurry that roughly approximated eggs and some sausage patties as chewy as old spare tires, then sat at a bench that quickly cleared of other occupants as soon as they saw his uniform. A moment later, Truelove appeared and sat across from him.

“Good morning,” the Necromancer said. “You fill out your time sheet?”

Britton paused, eggs steaming on his fork. “Time sheet?”

“You’re not a soldier anymore,” Downer said, plopping down beside him. “Contractors get their time sheets audited daily.”

“Make sure you fill yours out like clockwork, or Fitzy’ll have your ass,” Truelove said. “Apparently there’s a new admin colonel here. He’s a real hard-ass about accounting, and he comes down hard on Fitzy when things slip. Fitzy always makes sure it rolls downhill to us.”

“When do I meet this famous Fitzy?” Britton asked.

Truelove examined his watch. “It’s 0615, which gives you fifteen minutes. There’s a terminal in the MWR where you can do it electronically. Just put in your social security number and eight hours for yesterday. Make sure you do it before bed from now on. “

Britton stared at him, expecting a joke. Truelove didn’t laugh.

Britton sat at the terminal in the Morale, Welfare, and Recreation tent, struggling with the irony of filling out a time sheet in the middle of a war zone. He was still laughing to himself as he stepped out of the tent and nearly bumped into a man who more than made up for his lack of height in sheer muscle. His head was shaved as bald as Britton’s, gleaming in the rising sun as if it had been oiled. A tight moustache was parked on a stern upper lip. Dark, deep-set eyes stared into Britton’s,
showing a hint of amusement. The hard line of a mouth was all business. The man wore a Shadow Coven uniform, the Entertech logo noticeably absent. Instead, the striped bar of a chief warrant officer adorned the peaked ball cap. Britton could feel a slight magical current off him. The Suppressor’s armored fist, gripping its clutch of lightning bolts, marked the left of his shirt. A star crowned the fist, a laurel wreath spanning beneath.

“Morning, Novice,” the man said. “I’m Chief Warrant Officer Fitzsimmons. You can call me God, or sir, whichever is easier. Got your time sheet filled out?”

Britton towered over the man by nearly a foot. “Yes, s…” He stopped himself before completing the honorific. He had been an officer before and was presently a civilian contractor. Thus he was unsure if the man deserved the honorific.

“Sir,” the man finished for him. “You’d better get used to it. You’ll be saying it a lot. Did you fill in the proper task number and authorization account for each day worked?”