G.H.O.S.T. Teams (Book 2) Shifters (5 page)

“Okay, we should probably warn the shifter community, if we can. Let them know that the Reds might be in town.”

“Don’t worry, they knew before we did,” Hunter said.

I gave him a look and he just nodded. Freddy decided to expand on that idea a bit more.

“While we cannot be positive, I believe Mr. Richardson’s assumption is correct. The shifter community does their best to keep track of the Reds’ movements. It is, after all, a matter of survival for them. But all the same, we will do our best to make it known to any packs or members of the shifter community that check in with us,” Freddy said.

“Sounds like we can kill two birds with one stone. If they track the Reds, maybe they can tell us where to find them. Might be worth asking at that meeting tomorrow.”

“We should be cautious. It’s going to be tough enough to keep things calm with so many werewolves in one room. Talking about the Reds is just going to rile them up,” Hunter added.

“Nothing to fear. I’ll be delicate.”

I smiled but no one in the room seemed to share my confidence. One might think that they didn’t trust me to say the right thing. No idea what I could have done to give them that impression.

“I’m sure Mr. Chang will do all that he can to keep tempers in check,” Freddy tried.

“Thanks Freddy, now would you care to explain why we are all last names all of a sudden? Is this some sad attempt to impress Hunter over here?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” He stumbled, “I have always carried myself in this same professional manner. After the relaxed attitudes in this meeting, I felt that one of us should act properly. They say to lead by example and I plan to do just that. GHOST Teams have a responsibility to be an example to all the other members of the organization. I am sure that Mr. Richardson will tell you that Team Eleven also operates at a high level of professionalism. Isn’t that right?” Freddy asked.

“Um, sure. Absolutely,” Hunter replied.

I raised an eyebrow at him and as soon as Freddy looked away Hunter pursed his lips and gave me a small shake of his head. Like I said, the kid was likable.

“Okay then,” I said to Freddy before turning back to Hunter, “Don’t worry little man, I won’t bother trying to impress you. I’ll just let the awesomeness of me shine through.”

“Something tells me that you couldn’t hide your ‘awesomeness’ if you tried,” Hunter smiled.

There was a bit of giggling from the girls and Danny cracked a smile. Freddy raised an eyebrow in a sad attempt to pretend he understood what was going on. I gave the guy an “A” for effort.

“And on that note, should we wrap this up? Unless there is anything else I should know about the Reds, you all are probably in a hurry to get your tags. Plus we gotta get to the gym so we can see what Hunter here can do.”

“Whenever you’re ready,” Hunter smiled.

“I’m totally going to watch this,” Danny added.

“Count us in,” Kara said.

“I too would welcome the chance to see a member of Team Eleven in action. If Mr. Richardson wouldn’t mind, we would all like to watch the workout?” Freddy asked.

“I don’t mind at all,” he replied.

“Don’t worry kid, I’ll do my best not to embarrass you in front of the gang.”

“I have a feeling you won’t have to try too hard,” he winked.

I couldn’t help but smile, “Two ones you say?”

“You’re damn right,” Hunter smiled.

We all jumped into the elevator and rode it down to sublevel six. Stepping out and taking the first right led us into the Armory. The entrance area wasn’t that big, maybe ten by twenty feet, with boring grey walls. A metal counter ran all along the far side and separated us from a much larger room beyond. Behind the counter were racks and racks of weapons. Any blade, bow, or firearm you could think of seemed to be on display. The room had a cavernous feel, getting dark rapidly as you moved back from the counter. One could almost imagine that the racks went on forever. During my previous visits, I had been unable to discern the room’s actual size as the staff never seemed to turn on any lights when they headed back to retrieve equipment. Rather, they just faded away into the darkness. I didn’t know if there was some weird shadowy cloaking-device or if the staff could see in the dark. It was a mystery that I would care enough about to solve one day, but not today. 

I’d been seeing a lot of the armory lately, ever since I began letting them equip me. When I first started with the GHOSTs, I was supplying my own weapons. While I was happy to do so, bureaucracy reared its ugly head. The number of regulations and policies that one had to deal with in order to bring their own gear was staggering. If it had just been a few personalized effects, I might not have minded. But I go through a lot of blades in the course of a day. Most of these weapons get destroyed, through no fault of my own. You’d be amazed what Troll hide does to a shuriken. Those poor throwing stars never stand a chance.

So, in the interest of removing any and all paperwork from my daily life, I started using the armory to equip myself with stock weapons. It wasn’t a big deal. I am not sentimental about blades, especially considering how often I destroy a sword. I care more about craftsmanship and quality. As luck would have it, when it comes to weapons, our armory was top notch. Apparently when you combine societies that have been perfecting melee weapons for thousands of years and give them access to modern metallurgy technology, amazing things happen. Plus, the staff was always entertaining. Our current entertainment was going to be supplied by the guy in charge of the armory.

His name is Elvis and he kind of looks like a six-foot tall humanoid ferret. He is a Zobel, a race of anthropomorphic martens, which I am pretty sure is just a fancy name for weasels. Jet-black poufy hair covers the top of his head and runs down in front of his ears like a pair of sideburns. The rest of his body is fairly uniform, with silver-ish fur throughout. Whiskers surround a black nose, which sits at the end of a small snout. Black eyes stare at you from beneath his round furry front-facing ears. He was wearing a red Hawaiian shirt and a pair of blue jeans, his bushy tail sticking out of the back. The fur on his hands was so short as to be almost unnoticeable, giving his fingers a pinkish tone as the skin underneath shone through. They reminded me a bit of rat hands as he pointed a greeting our way.

“How ya doin’?” he asked.

If you have ever heard someone do a bad impression of Elvis Presley’s voice, then you can imagine what our Elvis sounded like. Since Mother Nature clearly has a sense of humor, this was no impression, but his actual voice. Coupled with the fact that he has naturally occurring sideburns, he was practically destined to worship the King, which he did with pride. Part of that pride meant that he always had the King’s music playing in the background.

“We’re great, Elvis. What that’s playing there?”

“That would be uh, Blue Hawaii. I decided to make things uh, tropical today baby,” he replied.

“I like it. Have you met the kid yet? He’ll be joining us for a bit.”

“We met when he uh, dropped off the tags. Good to see ya again,” Elvis said.

“Good to see you as well,” Hunter smiled.

“And uh, it’s a pleasure to see all these lovely ladies. What can I get ya?” he asked.

“Are our tags ready?” Danny asked.

“Uh huh. They’re uh, in the back,” Elvis said, spinning his arm up in rock and roll fashion before pointing behind him, “Stay cool baby. I’ll go grab ‘em.”

With that he turned on his heels and disappeared into the vast world of the weapon racks. I listened to the King’s soothing voice and watched my team fidget about as they waited.

“You all are really excited about these tags, huh?”

“Are you kidding?” Danny asked, “This is the moment we become legit.”

“Okay? How’s that exactly?”

“I believe that Mr. Frost’s excitement stems from the idea that getting our dog tags is sort of the unofficial coronation of GHOST Team agents,” Freddy added.

“If they are such a big deal, why did it take so long to get ‘em to us?”

“I’m so happy that you asked,” Freddy smiled, “You see, our tags are carved from Payens’ Plate. An ancient suit of magical armor handed down through the leaders of the Knight’s Templar by their very first recorded grandmaster, Hugues De Payens. While Payens always claimed that it was forged by the hand of god, it was actually created by brother Wizards, Baldwin and Godfrey. These wizards were deeply religious men who believed their magical powers were in fact a gift from god. So, they devoted their entire lives to the creation of armor to be used in his service. It was in their final years, before the armor had yet been completed, that they discovered Payens and the Knights Templar. Believing the cause to be just, they donated their life’s work to his order.”

“Wait, didn’t Kara say that magical items don’t last?”

“You should spend less time flirting and more time listening,” Kara corrected, “What I said was that it would probably take even one wizard their entire lifetime to create something everlasting. In this case, you had two.”

“Fair enough. How long did it take ‘em to make it?”

“Three hundred and seven years,” Freddy smiled, “They say it was Godfrey’s dying words that finished the armor and his brother Baldwin died a day later, after delivering it. These men were extraordinary wizards who devoted every waking moment to their work.”

“Those were some old dudes.”

“Wizards have been known to live for a very long time,” Kara smiled.

“Apparently. And now we cut pieces off of this armor and wear them as dog tags?”

“While a slightly crude way to put it,” Freddy scowled, “That is mostly accurate. The process by which they are carved from Payens’ plate is time consuming and meticulous. In order to preserve the magic and maintain its properties, only the finest masters of magical metallurgy, under the supervision of a wizard, can be called upon to create the tags. This is why it has taken so many weeks for ours to be delivered.”

“Let me guess, ‘masters of magical metallurgy’ means Dwarves?” I smiled, before looking over at Hunter, “No offense.” 

“None taken,” he smiled, “I enjoy the irony.”

I was about to ask him what he meant, when Freddy spoke up.

“In fact, it is the noble elves that are more often called upon for the crafting. Few others possess the knowledge and precision to perform the task,” Freddy nodded.

“That makes sense. They do rock it in Santa’s toy shop.”

“Mr. Chang,” Freddy snapped.

I was actually taken aback for a minute. I wasn’t sure I’d ever seen Freddy’s tone change so fast. I could tell from his voice that he was mortified. Sadly, all I could do was hold out my hands and shrug my shoulders, as I had no idea why he was so offended. Freddy was actually turning red and didn’t seem capable of replying. The rest of the team also looked confused and it was the new kid who broke the awkward silence.

“It’s nothing to get worked up about Freddy. I hear those elves have a wonderful sense of humor,” Hunter smiled.

After a few breaths the color started to return to Freddy’s face. He looked at Hunter through a forced smile and nodded thanks.

“I hope so, Mr. Richardson. I hope so,” Freddy sighed.

“How did the GHOSTs get the armor,” Danny asked.

It was then that I noticed Freddy actually had everyone’s attention. Apparently I wasn’t the only one who didn’t know the history of our tags, although I was still the only one who didn’t quite understand how they functioned. I assumed Freddy was getting to that part of the story. Luckily, someone else asking the question helped him forget his anger towards me and get back on topic.

“The armor, yes. Well, Payens’ Plate was lost in the fourteenth century, not to surface again until the Great War. Taken into custody by the French government, the armor was given as a gift to the GHOST organization. France believed that its projectile protecting capabilities could best be utilized by our organization. Since that day, a dog tag has been created for each member of a GHOST Team,” Freddy said.

“Wait. This is ancient armor. So when you say projectile, are we talking about arrows?”

“You are correct Mr. Chang,” Freddy said, almost without an undertone, “While the armor was in fact created to protect against arrows and other similar range weapons of the time, a funny thing was discovered. The spell upon the armor was weaved in such a way as to offer increased-protection in direct relation to the speed of the projectile. The magic uses the velocity and kinetic force of the object to repel the attack. Thus, the greater the speed of the attack, the more protection you should be afforded. The result is a method of protection that actually works better against bullets than it ever did against arrows.”

“So it doesn’t stop arrows anymore?”

“It will still slow an arrow, but due to the nature of our tags, mainly their smaller stature and size as compared to the original armor, we are offered lesser protection. An arrow will still pierce your skin, but this will hopefully prevent it from reaching any vital organs. You should expect little to no protection from knives, swords, or other similar melee attacks,” Freddy said.

“At least it stops bullets. How does that feel?”

“Have you ever been hit while wearing a Kevlar vest?” Hunter asked.

“I’m familiar with the sensation.”

I got a few looks from my team. I wasn’t happy to admit it. After all, Kevlar is very un-ninja.

“Well, this won’t hurt quite that bad, but it’s close,” he said.

“So, expect the wind to be knocked out of you, but you’ll live?”

“Basically,” Hunter nodded.

“Sounds good. What’s the catch?”

“If by catch you are referring to things that you should know about the tags,” Freddy started, “They must be charged frequently. While they should last for at least forty-eight hours, that time can be greatly shortened through use. At each occurrence when the tags are called upon to repel an attack, a bit of their manna is drained. It is here, at the armory, that they can be recharged.”

“Why here? I thought manna was tougher to find in cities, let alone in the middle of an office building.”

“Well, we sort of have a cheat here,” Kara added, “You see, our HQ is located on top of a manna hotspot, a small portal into the Veil that has been sealed and capped in order to utilize it for manna fueling purposes. That’s how our magical alarm system is powered.”

“That sounds safe.”

“It’s guarded by an old hound dog like me baby, so it’s uh, plenty safe,” Elvis said, as he reappeared from the darkness of the racks.

Dangling from his hand were our tags. Aptly named, they looked exactly like military dog tags, except there was only one tag per chain. Each tag had a black bumper and although I couldn’t make it out from here, I could tell that they were engraved. Elvis gave us a big arm roll and pointed as way of presentation.

“Uh huh. Here they are babies. Uh, ladies first,” Elvis said.

Erika and Kara grabbed their tags and the rest of us followed suit. After Freddy’s story I don’t know what I was expecting, but there was nothing weird to note. It didn’t tingle in my hands or glow or anything exciting like that. It just felt like a normal dog tag. I pulled it over my head and held the tag in my hand as it dangled around my neck. It read:

Chang

Bruce T.

G.H.O.S.T.

013-KNT-001

“Okay? Am I the only one that thinks it’s a bad idea to put our names, numbers, and the super secret government agency that employs us on something that can be lost? Heck, even our badges only say SIA.”

The SIA stood for the Special Investigations Agency. We are officially GHOSTs, a worldwide paranormal police agency. But in order to deal with jurisdictional issues and keep the GHOST organization off of people’s radar, in the USA we are the SIA. Other countries have similar shroud organizations to keep things looking legit and to prevent the public from ever learning exactly what hides in the darkness.