G.H.O.S.T. Teams: Book 1 - Magic (8 page)

Kara smacked me across the head, and in her defense, I am pretty sure that I deserved it. I smiled and nodded my head towards the front.

“Come on, let’s get up there. We wouldn’t want to miss it if Freddy has an inspirational speech planned,” I said.

Kara shook her head as we both stood up. I made a sweeping gesture, telling her to go first, because deep down, I am a little bit of a gentleman.

“Ladies first,” I said.

“Why thank you kind sir,” she said, mimicking a southern accent.

I won’t even begin to try to explain what it sounds like when a woman with an Irish accent tries to mimic an American Southern accent. Let’s just say that it was magical. We made our way up to the front of the van and grabbed our seats. I stared out the window for a bit, letting my mind wander.

I had spent my entire life as a loner and now Dutton expected me to take five untested people into battle and keep them safe. I had no idea what to expect from them or any clue as to how they would react once a serious danger presented itself. At this point I was just hoping that none of them would accidentally shoot me in the back once the fighting started. Needless to say, that last thought did not comfort me during the ride to Rockville.

We jumped onto the beltway, or I495 if you prefer, and we headed north until we hit 270. Taking 270, a twelve-lane interstate running up to Fredrick, we jumped off on the Montrose road exit and made our way down to the Pike. Route 355, known as Rockville Pike for this stretch, runs three lanes in each direction right through the heart of the city. It is one of the heavier traveled roads in the area, and traffic doesn’t ever seem to let up. Luckily for us we had sirens and lights. The street is blanketed on both sides by strip malls, many of which are two stories high. The occasional office building, apartment complex, fast food restaurant, and/or car dealership sneak in to break up the monotony. We were getting close to our destination, so in the interest of stealth, Erika cut the sirens.

Rockville is an interesting little city. Although its population is barely a tenth of Baltimore, Maryland’s largest city, it does contain a disproportionately large percentage of Fantasy folk. Part of the reason for this is easy access to the Veil. The city has several openings to the world next door, one of which happened to be pretty close to our destination. I wasn’t sure if that was going to be important or not, but since Freddy had been rambling on about it, I figured I would share. Personally, I found Rockville fascinating for a different reason, because when I was younger, I actually lived here.

As I looked out the window of the van, I couldn’t believe how much the city had changed. I hadn’t been back in Rockville for well over a decade. When I was a kid, there was a two-year stretch where I got to live with my dad full time. He thought that it was important that I understood what it meant to be a normal kid, so he sent me to public school. Rockville had the best High School in the state, so he sold his condo in DC and bought us a house with a yard. In a funny twist of fate, the school district got redrawn a month after we moved, and instead of the fancy number one school, I went to it’s ugly ducking cousin. Such are the breaks.

Those two years however were some of the happiest of my life. My father wouldn’t let me go out for sports because he feared that people would realize that I was “special”. But every night, after he went to sleep, I would sneak out of the house and bound through my neighborhood. And when I say bound through, what I mean is that I would jump, fall, spin, and flip off of anything and everything that I could find. Every house, tree, parked car, fence, or random shrub became my obstacle course. Jackie Chan was my hero and under the cover of darkness I was making him proud.

But I’ll have to bore you with exciting tales of my childhood another time, as we had arrived at our destination. Erika killed the lights before turning left across the Pike and into the parking lot. In front of us stood a two-story strip mall, the structure split down the middle, an archway connecting the two buildings. We drove under the arch, and the parking lot dipped down low behind the buildings. Due to the design of the strip mall, the area behind it remained perfectly hidden until we started down the incline.

In the very back of the lot, nestled into a bunch of trees, stood a small, inconspicuous looking building. There was a hand-carved wooden sign, the remaining chips of paint long since faded, making it difficult to read. But in the early afternoon sun, we could just make out the words “Cold War” semi circled over the word “bar”. Obviously this was a bar for locals, tucked away to avoid the casual customer. A small blue neon sign illuminating the word “open” was the closest the place came to drawing any attention to itself.

The trees at its back belonged to the Woodmont Country Club. It was a fairly fancy golf course, sitting on over four hundred acres of land right here in the middle of everything. I’m sharing this with you not because I care about golf, but rather because that is where one of the openings to the Veil is located. Somewhere right in front of us, hidden among the trees and shrubs and beautifully landscaped lawns, was the entrance to the world next door. Hopefully I’d have an excuse to visit soon. But that was a topic for another time, for now we needed to find Lazarus.

The parking lot was fairly empty, three sedans, a pick up truck, and a minivan were all sitting close enough to the bar to make me think that their drivers were inside. As we stepped out of the van, everyone but me pulled out his or her firearm. As I said before, guns weren’t really my thing, so unless I was told otherwise, I wasn’t carrying one. I pulled a blade out from a shin sheath; it was a nice long, thin, well-balanced thrower.

Working in our favor was the bar’s location. Due to its hidden nature, six government agents standing around holding weapons weren’t very likely to draw too much attention. The bar itself lacked windows; minimizing the chances that someone inside might notice us. As the six of us looked around, scanning the area, we slowly made our way towards the front entrance to the bar.
 
I looked over at Kara, keeping my voice very low when I spoke.

“Is there any way that you can detect other magic users in the area?” I asked.

“Not unless they are actively manipulating manna,” she replied.

“I could give us a cursory scan, just to tell us how many people are inside,” Danny said.

“And you can do that without anyone knowing?” I asked.

“Yeah, it’s super passive,” he smiled.

“An excellent suggestion Mr. Frost, if you please,” Freddy said.

Danny closed his eyes and took several deep breaths. He furrowed his brow a bit and as if he had entered REM sleep, his eyeballs dancing behind their lids. After a few moments he opened his eyes and smiled.

“There are eight people inside,” Danny told us.

“Okay, how about I take the back and you five head inside. That way if you spook anyone and they make a run for it, I will be out back to stop em,” I smiled.

“Flush em out the back huh?” Freddy smiled, “An excellent strategy. Kara and Timothy will accompany you, as back up, should you encounter trouble.”

That wasn’t exactly how I wanted the plan to work, but undermining Freddy’s decisions at every turn wasn’t going to help us right now. Everyone was already nervous and team bickering would only make it worse. I was thinking that if Freddy and the bunch walked in, dressed the way that they are, our suspect, if they were here, would make a break for the back. Then I would be in waiting, ready to take the Sorcerer out. It kept them out of my way and assuming that this person wasn’t going to start flinging magic around inside of the bar, it should also keep my team safe. Now I would just have to make sure that Kara and T2 stayed out of the line of fire.

“Fine, but you two stay behind me, okay?” I told them.

T2 and Kara nodded, holding their guns ready at their sides. The three of us started to make our way around the back while Freddy, Erika, and Danny holstered their weapons and stepped in the front door. I got to the back corner of the building just as Freddy made his entrance. Part of me was expecting to hear a huge ruckus and see some evil villain, dressed all in black, come running out the back door. Instead I got about a thirty-second delay before the back door opened and three men casually stepped out. I heard one of them mumble “Feds” before Timothy, who just lost his nickname rights, did something stupid.

He stepped around the corner, raising his gun, and yelling, “SIA, freeze,” as he did so.

Kara and I were right behind him, his dumb move leaving us no choice. The three men looked over at us, a calm expression on their faces. The two on the ends were wearing blue pin striped suits and white shirts, while the man in the middle wore a black suit and light gray shirt. The two blue suits were both Caucasian with blue eyes and blond hair. The taller one was over six foot and lean while the other was just under six foot and a little heavy around the waist. The shape of their faces and the cut of their jaws made me think that they were from Northern Europe. The gentleman in black was Asian, about five-eight, medium build, with his dark black hair buzzed short. Each of them had the same dark, cold look in their eyes. They were all killers. The Asian however, was the first to move.

As a slight red tinge started around his hand, I knew that he was a Sorcerer and I had to take him down first. I had already started to move forward, hurling my knife underhanded, while I closed the distance between us. As soon as I released my blade I noticed that the hands of the other two men were also starting to glow red. Kara was very clear about how dangerous a single Sorcerer could be, and now I had three to deal with. If they got those spells off, the three of us were in trouble. I had a second, maybe two, to take them all out before it was too late.

I know two seconds doesn’t sound like very long, but when you have been in as many life-threatening situations as I have, things change. It is almost like the world slows down. As if everything is becoming clearer for that instant. I watched my blade spinning through the air, heading for its target. Continuing my charge forward, closing the distance between the sorcerers and me, I kept myself in front of my team hoping to act as a human shield if necessary. I could tell that Kara was unable to react in time and Timothy had frozen. I knew it was up to me if any of us were to live through this. I had to remove the threats.

As my first blade sunk deep into Blacksuit’s chest, I caused four stars to fall from inside of my left sleeve and drop into my hand. I hurled the stars through the air in mid run, sending them slicing through the air towards Tallstripe. They caught him in the arm, shoulder, chest, and neck. I was hoping that they would distract him long enough for me to deal with Heavystripe. I was moving as fast as I could, closing the distance between Heavystripe and me. He was raising his hand up, the red glow becoming more intense. It was going to be close, but I didn’t think that I was going to get to him in time. I figured I might have one shot, so I leapt into the air, bringing my right foot across with as much force as I could muster. At the exact moment that my foot connected, I saw a bright red flash emanate from his hand.

I heard a crack, letting me know that my kick broke his neck, just as a whooshing sound accompanied a burning pain in my left shoulder. A shockwave went through my whole body, causing my muscles to lock up. The blast stopped my forward momentum, my body hanging in the air a moment, before falling straight down to the ground. I was unable to twist or adjust my position in time, which meant that I landed on my injured left shoulder, causing another nauseating wave of pain to flash through my body.

From the angle that I lay on the ground, I was able to see HeavyStripe drop to the pavement with a thud, the life gone from his body. I cranked my neck and saw BlackSuit on his back, my blade deep in his chest, blood pouring forth from his mouth. I then heard coughing and twisted my head in that direction to see TallStripe hacking and spitting blood. I was worried that he would be well enough to continue fighting, but I had gotten lucky with my shot. It seemed that I caught him in the carotid artery. I figured that would keep him from casting any spells until my team got themselves moving.

As the muscle control started to return to my body, I was able to prop myself up on my right elbow. I caught a whiff of burning flesh, tried to forget the fact that it was coming from my shoulder, and did my best to ignore the pain that I was feeling. I closed my eyes, slowed my breathing, took several deep breaths into my abdomen, and calmed my mind. Just as I was taught, I pushed the pain to the back of my thoughts. I kept my breathing steady as I rolled onto my right hand in preparation for standing up.

A shadow covered my face as someone walked over and stood above me. I turned my head up to see Erika staring at my shoulder, a look of pure horror on her face.

“Don’t move. Don’t try and get up. Your shoulder looks horrible,” she said.

I couldn’t help but let out a small laugh. In the future I would remember that Erika was not the one to deliver bad news. She clearly did not believe in sugar coating it.

“You sure know how to make a guy feel attractive,” I joked, “Although judging from how bad it smells, I’m just hoping that I still have a shoulder left,” I smiled.

“It does smell horrible,” Erika stated frankly.

I laughed a little louder that time. The movement of my chest causing more pain to wash over my body. As comfy as the blacktop was, I really wanted to stand up.
 

“For the record, that’s not making me feel better,” I smiled, “Now stop grossing me out and help me up.”

I held up my right arm and she sighed before grabbing it, our hands locked onto forearms. Bracing herself, Erika assisted as I pulled myself to my feet. Pain washed over me, forcing an unhappy expression across my face, which in turn made Erika cringe. I took a couple more deep breaths and forced a smile back onto my face. I gave her a silent nod to let her know I was all right. Reluctantly she released her grip on my arm, but stayed next to me in case I wavered.