G.H.O.S.T. Teams: Book 1 - Magic (16 page)

Erika gave a small murmur of acknowledgement as I left. Freddy had already gotten to his feet and he was leaning against a tree for support. I assumed that Visine had put the makeshift bandage around Freddy’s shoulder to stop the bleeding. As Visine was already heading over to Timothy, I ran to Danny.

Danny’s chest was burnt bad, but I could see it moving up and down in shallow breaths, so that was a good sign. I leaned down and looked him over just the same. As near as I could tell he was unconscious but stable. I heard a few vehicles pull off of the road just on the other side of the trees by where I left Vlad.

“
Backup is here Boss
,” I heard Vlad say in my head.

I could just make out a couple of SIA vans in the background as agents headed our way through the brush. I assumed that Visine had called them and requested medical assistance and a prisoner pick up. I stood and was about to wave them over when I heard Visine call my name.

“Bruce,” was all he had to say.

I rushed over to see him crouched over Timothy. When we first rushed in, I saw Timothy from the back, and even then I could tell that his burns were extensive. But now that I could see his whole body, the damage to his front was ten times worse. The air was permeated with the smell of burnt flesh as the smoke continued to rise off of his body. It was not a pleasant aroma. I leaned down to check the kid’s pulse, but even before I put my hand on his neck, I knew what I was about to learn. Timothy was dead.

“Shit,” I whispered.

“Yeah,” Visine replied softly.

Between getting the Troll secured in the prisoner transport van, helping the team into the medical vans, securing Timothy and the sorcerer into the coroner’s van, and clearing the area for any clues or evidence that we didn’t want left behind, it was about midnight when we finally got out of there. Vlad took Visine and me back to HQ, and I parked him in the spot that played the least havoc with our security systems. I thought about parking him on the street, but I didn’t want my fancy sports car drawing unwanted attention to our little offices. I was informed that Dutton had gone home for the night, so although I knew that I had a ton of paperwork to fill out and questions to answer, I decided it could all wait. First and foremost I wanted to see my team. Visine accompanied me.

We took the elevator down to sublevel two and took the first left into the infirmary. Just before I stepped in the door, I gave a quick glance to my right, towards the morgue. I thought about Timothy’s body lying in there, a stark reminder of just how horribly I had failed. It was my job to keep them safe, even if they were the ones running off on their own. At the end of the day, I should have been there. I tried not to dwell on that thought for now. Morale was important to any team, especially when they were down, so when I stepped into sickbay I did so with my warmest smile upon my face.

It turned out that I didn’t need to put on the fake smile, as they were all asleep. Whether because of medication or exhaustion, I can’t be sure, but they were all out. Visine waited by the door as I slowly walked down the aisle, looking everyone over. They were in real bad shape. Freddy was in the first bed, his broken arm wrapped to his body to keep it immobilized. His left leg was done up in a cast, apparently he had broken it somewhere in the fight. The next bed contained Danny surrounded by a ton of medical equipment. His entire chest was covered in bandages and he had apparently drifted off into a coma. Numerous wires and IV tubes were coming from his body, and I noted the heart monitor showing a weak but steady beat. The doctor on shift was a little guy with bright red hair and a baby face and he let me know that they thought Danny was in the coma because his body needed to heal. The doctor kept his voice low, trying hard not to wake anyone.

The next bed was Kara’s. Her neck was painful to look at. The bruises were so dark that they looked black and you could clearly make out that they were in the shape of the Trolls fingers. I felt anger start to swell up inside of me. I wanted to storm down to the holding cells and beat the creature senseless. But I knew that wouldn’t solve anything. Besides, with his strength he could have easily killed her. I figured I should be counting myself lucky that he held back. Carrot-Top-Doc, as I decided to remember him, let me know that Kara also had several broken ribs and a concussion. Thinking about Kara in pain made me cringe. I know that it sounds sexist, but the idea of the girls being injured upset me much more than the boys. Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t want any member of my team hurt. But something deep down inside of me, something primal, felt like it was still the boys’ job to keep the girls safe. Let’s call it sexist chivalry. I took a deep breath before moving on.

The last occupied bed was Erika’s. She had several pillows tucked under her body and the bed itself was adjusted to an odd angle in order to keep her in that position. Carrot-Top-Doc informed me that she had broken her pelvis, and this was the most comfortable position they could get her in. I reached forward and gently pushed a few stray strands of hair out of her face. It wasn’t a conscious decision and I honestly don’t know why I did it.

As if she was reacting to my touch, she took a deep breath and turned her head slightly to the side, but she didn’t wake up. I took a few steps back, looking everyone over. I couldn’t help but shake my head and sigh. I was really not happy with myself. I stretched my left shoulder, using my right hand to massage it. Carrot-Top-Doc must have noticed the bandage sticking out of my sleeve and offered to take a look. Normally I wouldn’t pay an injury like mine much mind, especially in the context of my team lying in front of me. But thinking about how delicate and sweet Kara had been when she applied my bandage and then seeing her lying there like that, sapped the strength right out of me. I didn’t care about being tough, so I nodded my head and allowed him to sit me down while he removed the old bandage.

My shoulder looked much better than it did earlier. I was sure that Kara’s magical assistance had helped, but as I might have mentioned, I heal really, really fast. Since my team wasn’t blessed with my natural healing ability, their best bet lay in Kara working the magic mojo on their injuries. Unfortunately, I had a feeling that she would need to devote a considerable amount of her attention to herself once she woke up. After which I hoped that she would speed the healing of the rest of the team. With a bit of luck they could probably be back on their feet in a few weeks, no worse for wear. I wanted to let that thought comfort me, but my mind drifted to Timothy. I sat there in silence until Carrot-Top-Doc finished my bandage and then I thanked him before heading out of the infirmary.

Visine was leaning against the doorframe staring at his injured hand. It looked charred, nasty, and completely useless. I asked him if he wanted to let the doc check it out, but he just shook his head and said that he needed food. We walked over to the elevators and parted there. He was heading up to the cafeteria to get some food and I needed to get started on some paperwork. As you might have guessed, paperwork was not my strong suit. But since the regular paperwork crew, my team, was down and out at the moment, it fell on me.

I won’t bore you with all of the details, but needless to say, it took me several hours to complete. I started by filling out all of the paperwork needed to officially check the sword into evidence and get the forensics examination started. Then I filed a report on the battle so that Dutton would have something to read when he got in. There were several forms dealing with detaining the prisoner and preparing him for questioning that had to be filled out. It was about four in the morning when I had finally finished everything up. On the bright side, it took me so long to finish the paperwork that by the time I had finished, a preliminary forensics report on the sword was ready.

I won’t pretend to understand everything that the report said, but I got the gist of it. The sword matched the wounds on Dirk’s body, confirming that this was the weapon that stabbed him through the chest. It was also some kind of a very specialized manna siphon. Apparently the sword’s design allowed the sorcerers to suck the immortal energies out of Dirk’s body, hence the end of his life. The report said that this sword probably took decades to manufacture and they thought it was unlikely that the bad guys had a spare. Good news for Visine, although it didn’t do much to help our investigation along.

I had a feeling that tomorrow, or I guess technically today, was going to be a very long day. So I headed down to the sleeping quarters to catch a couple hours of rest before Dutton got here. I think I managed almost three hours before a knock on the door let me know that Dutton was in his office and he wanted to see me ASAP. Even though the boss was in a hurry, I didn’t think that showing up with bed head was the proper protocol. So I headed to the locker room, took a super quick shower, and threw on the clean jeans and black polo that I had in my locker.

I got off the elevator on the fifth floor and Visine was standing there waiting for me. He had cleaned up and changed his clothes, although I couldn’t tell if he had gone home last night or found an outfit somewhere else. He wore brown corduroy pants over his combat boots and a fresh white tee shirt under the same tan jacket as yesterday. He wasn’t wearing his hat this time but he did have a black leather glove over his right hand. I looked down at it and then back up at him. He caught my unspoken question.

“It works, but it looks hideous,” he said.

I nodded. With Visine’s rapid healing I knew that it was probably only a matter of a day or two before his hand was back to normal. I assumed that his nanites were working in order of priority, so they would start with the underlying muscle and ligaments and such. First order of business was probably to make the hand functional, and then they would finish up with the pretty skin coating. At least that was my assumption for why he was wearing the glove. I’d love to pretend that thinking about his healing hand was fascinating, but the truth is that I knew the boss was about to chew me out and I was stalling.

I figured I might as well get it over with. Letting out a sigh, I started towards the office, Visine in step behind me. The doors opened just before we got there, Mrs No-Nonsense didn’t even look up from her desk as we passed. We stepped into the office, the doors closing in our wake, and Dutton was sitting in his chair facing away from us. Just as before a trail of cigar smoke was rising up towards the ceiling. It reminded me of the injuries to my teammates and of my failure to keep them safe. While I didn’t want to overstep my place, I figured the proper thing to do was to own up to my mistake before the boss said anything.

“You don’t have to say it, I know I screwed up,” I started.

The chair creaked and a large puff of smoke rose to the ceiling as the chair started to slowly turn around. He met my eyes and stayed silent for a moment. I held his gaze, letting him see the shame in my eyes. Visine remained quiet at my side. Dutton laid his cigar in the ashtray on his desk without ever taking his eyes off of me.

“You’re not waiting for me to disagree with that assessment are you?” he asked.

“No sir. They were my responsibility, I should have been there.”

He rocked back in his chair and interlaced his fingers on his stomach. He slowly shifted his gaze over to Visine before bringing it back to me.

“I know that they left without you, and they will be spoken to. But in the future, I will expect you to anticipate behavior like that, Chang. The Knight’s job is to protect the team, even when that threat is their bad decisions,” he said.

I couldn’t help but furrow my brow and let the confusion show on my face. Dutton had made it very clear that Freddy was our leader. Now he seemed to be inferring that I had some type of leadership override power. My face must have been very expressive because Dutton had no trouble responding to my unspoken concerns.

“Yes, as I stated before, Mr. Blair is in charge. But when the shit hits the fan, I hope you know what I expect from you?” he asked.

“Sir?”
 

Dutton leaned forward in his chair, his hands resting on his desk.

“Before you were old enough to vote you had seen more combat than most people could even imagine. But your squad is very green. The top brass decided to build a team on potential rather than experience. They are the best at what they do, but obviously new to field work. That’s why you were put on this team, so your instincts could keep them alive,” he said before picking his cigar back up.

Dutton was right. Me claiming that Freddy was the leader was just an excuse. I knew better in these situations. When danger presented itself, I needed to be the voice of reason, as shocking as that might be. In my past I was used to working alone. But now things had changed. There were people counting on my skills to keep them alive. I had failed once already and I was going to do my best to keep that from happening again. As I was finishing that thought Dutton took a couple of puffs on his cigar before looking over at Visine.

“The team is currently down a member and in need of a tech expert. Mr. Lazarus, I want you to fill that void until I can secure a permanent replacement,” he stated.

The tone of Dutton’s voice made it clear that he wasn’t asking. I know that these two men shared a past, but I still expected Visine to tell him to stick it. Visine shocked me by just nodding in compliance. Perhaps I didn’t understand him like I thought I did. Then again maybe I just didn’t give him enough credit as a team player. Maybe I was the only one around here with a loner spirit who needed to learn to work with a team. Dutton let a thin smile cross his lips before he sent us on our way.

“Now go see if that Troll knows anything,” he ordered.

Visine and I both nodded in acknowledgement before turning and heading out the door. Once we got in the elevator I looked over and tried to understand.

“Did you really just let him order you onto my team?”

Visine let a small smile cross his face. He kept his face forward, not looking at me when he responded.