G.H.O.S.T. Teams: Book 1 - Magic (21 page)

“What if some of them were working against their will?” she asked.

“You think some of these men are innocent?” I asked.

“Not them,” she spat, looking over the room, “But Be’Nor,” she said sadly.

I let a small smile cross my face. Her earlier hysterics had cautioned me against pushing her too hard too soon. After all, she had been kidnapped, magically rendered unconscious, and for all she knew her husband was dead. So I had been proceeding cautiously on purpose, keeping her calm, at least until I knew she was in fact…

“Gwe-no-teen?” I asked.

Her eyes got huge at the mention of her name. I held up my hands and again attempted to keep her calm.

“Relax, it’s all right,” I said.

“How do you know my name?” Gwe asked cautiously.

“Because Ben-O-rith’skith told us where to find you,” I said.

Her face lit up with hope.

“He’s alive?” she asked.

“Yes. But he’s in trouble. The legal kind,” I stated.

“But, he didn’t want to help them. They forced him too,” Gwe pleaded.

I kept my hands up, a passive gesture to keep her calm, “I know, and as soon as my psychic comes out of his comma, I am hoping to confirm that,” I started, no idea how I delivered that line with a straight face. I sighed heavily before I continued, “In the meantime, the best thing you can do for your husband is to help me. I need information on these people. Will you help me?” I asked.

She eyed me suspiciously, but then nodded and said, “I’ll try.”

“Okay, then. You tell me everything that you know about the bad guys here and I will do everything that I can to help your husband, okay?” I said.

She nodded slowly before she started speaking.

“I don’t know much, they made me sleep a lot,” she started.

“Okay, well just tell me what you do know. Why don’t we start from the beginning, how did you end up here?” I asked.

She started into her tale, explaining as much as she could. It turned out that Gwe and Benny were farmers living in the Veil, the world next door. The sorcerers tried to hire Benny as muscle. Apparently Benny’s breed is the strongest of the Trolls, although they are pacifists by nature. So when he refused, they kidnapped Gwe and used her as leverage. The fact that she was still alive was probably a bit of good luck on our part. I imagined that they were holding on to her until they were sure that they wouldn’t need to control Benny anymore.

According to Gwe the sorcerers had “hired” Benny for a few reasons. The first mission we already knew about, to help take down Dirk and Visine. But now that we had the sword and they were out of Trolls I was hoping that Visine was safe. It was the final task that they had for the Trolls that we really needed to know about, especially if it pointed us in the direction of the big boss. Apparently there was some device that needed to be retrieved in the Veil. Gwe said that they called it an orbus. Once the immortals had been taken out here, Benny and the other trolls were supposed to assist in bringing this orbus device back from the Veil and into our world. Unfortunately Gwe didn’t know if they had the device already or where they were going to get it. At that point in her story I figured that I had gotten all of the useful information that I could out of her. It was time to switch information sources.

I thanked Gwe for her help and promised to do all that I could to help her and Benny after this was over. I also apologized, but with so many unknowns still out there, I had to leave her in the manacles for now. She wasn’t happy about it, but understood. I then got to my feet and walked over to retrieve the silver dagger that I had hurled at the sorcerer. Carrying it back over towards Fangs, I knelt down and checked that his bonds were still secured. At about that time Visine let me know that the troops were pulling up out front.

While we could easily take Fangs and Uzi One back to HQ for questioning, I knew that time was of the essence. According to Benny, whatever was happening was happening tonight. I was hoping that the additional information Gwe gave us might help me convince Fangs that it was in his best interest to squeal. Plus I had already learned that the GHOST interrogators were useless, so no reason to delay any further.

I heard the door open and looked up to see a few standard GHOST security guys walking our way. Visine directed them on where to go, explained Gwe’s situation, and made sure that someone put a set of heavy-duty cuffs on Fangs. We had them take Gwe and Uzi One away and then secure the perimeter so that Visine and I were left alone with Fangs.

I tapped my silver blade on his nose, a small hissing sound accompanying the contact. This was my first time seeing it in action, but it was pretty clear that silver and werewolves were not a good mix. His eyes snapped open and instantly shifted to an amber color. He barred his teeth as his jaw started to protrude forward, his fangs growing in turn. I stuck the tip of the dagger into his throat, holding just enough pressure to cause a small bead of blood to form. Again a small hissing sound was accompanying the contact with his skin.
 

“That would be a really bad idea,” I smiled.

His jaw receded but his eyes remained amber. I kept the blade where it was.

“Good boy. You’re pretty fast at that shifting thing,” I said.

“Alpha,” Visine muttered.

I glanced at Visine while still keeping an eye on Fangs.
 

“An Alpha? Like the top dog of the pack?” I asked.

Visine nodded.

“Does that mean there are more of them about?” I asked.

“Unlikely,” Visine said, looking Fangs over, “Seems like a lone wolf.”

“Okay, so when you say Alpha, you are referring to potential and ability?” I asked rhetorically, “Meaning that Fangsy here is something of a bad ass. You hear that Fangsy, you’re not living up to your potential,” I said in a mock parental voice.

His muscles tensed as he tested the heavy-duty cuffs on his wrists. They groaned from the strain but held. He struggled for a minute before finally calming down. I kept the knife at his neck and gave him my friendly and authoritative smile.

“Let’s cut to the chase, shall we? I need information and you wanna live. What do you say we make a deal?” I smiled.

He stared at me, his unblinking eyes trying to bore through my skull. Unfortunately for him, he didn’t appear to be a kryptonian wolf. I held the knife steady as he leaned into the blade. The knife bit into his throat, a small trickle of blood dripping down as the hissing got louder. He never took his eyes off of mine. I got the impression that this was Fangsy’s way of proving to me just how tough he was. It was wolf speak for “You’ll never break me, copper”. The soreness in my body backed up his tough guy statement, but I would never let him know that.

“Look Fangsy, we both know that you’re tough. Heck, I’d even say you’re at least the third toughest person in this room. So take pride in that,” I mocked, “But there is nothing left to prove here. We just want some information. We already know that your boss is looking for the orbus.”

His muscles tensed up as I insulted him. Then, as he was too busy being angry to keep his facial muscles under control, I saw the slip. When I mentioned orbus, there was the slightest hint of recognition in his eyes. I smiled at the victory.
 

“See, you do know something that can help us. So it’s probably best if you start talking now,” I said.

He broke eye contact with me and looked at his restraints before glancing around the room and taking in his situation. There was a slight sag in his shoulders, just enough to let me see the shame in his body language. I got the impression that it wasn’t any kind of loyalty to his boss that was preventing him from talking, but rather a need to be contrary to the man who defeated him in combat. Pride is a tough thing to fight. He looked up at Visine before looking back at me.
 

“What’s in it for me,” he growled.

His voice now had a guttural quality to it and it was definitely deeper than before. As his eyes were still amber I assumed that it was the silver bringing out his inner wolf. I smiled at him and put the silver dagger away.

“Well first, I stop hurting you. Because friends don’t hurt friends,” I smiled, “Second, you tell us everything that you know concerning your boss and the orbus and I put in a good word for you.”

“Your good word helps me how?” Fangsy asked.

“A possible reduced sentence, maybe even a chance at early parole. You gotta be excited about less time in the kennel,” I said.

I know, I know, the dog jokes weren’t helping. But there were just so damn many of them running through my head that one was bound to sneak out. I watched his reaction, hoping to gauge his interest in talking. The more I watched his body language the more I got the impression that he was just hired help with his only loyalty to the big boss being in the form of cash. But there was still resistance since I had defeated him in combat. No one likes the idea of giving information to a conqueror. I figured if I was just a bit nicer and less condescending he might open up. As time was running short I was really hoping that he cared more about his future and less about holding a grudge against me.

“Look Fangsy, I’m willing to believe that you are just a guy caught in a bad situation. You took a job without fully knowing what it entailed, and it bit you in the ass legally. But now is your chance to help yourself. Just tell us what you know,” I stated seriously.

I didn’t really believe that he was a guy in the wrong place at the wrong time. Although he was basically a mercenary, I was pretty sure that Fangsy was a bad guy and he knew exactly what he was getting into. But there were more important things to do now than worry about the smaller fish in the pond. We needed to find the head honcho and if giving Fangs a light sentence was the way to do it, then so be it. I watched his body relax as he slowly surrendered to the idea of talking.

His nostrils flared as he let out a huge breath, “I don’t know much.”

“Well tell us what little you do know and hopefully it will be enough,” I said.

He nodded his head slowly and he began to tell us what he knew. Our Q&A basically consisted of Fangsy giving a short answer and me having to constantly ask for clarification. It was a very tedious process, but what we learned was this.

The big boss called himself the Servant of the Lady. The name meant nothing to me and Visine gave a non-committal shrug. Apparently this Servant dude left with two sexy ladies in purple robes to retrieve the orbus from a bar in the Veil. And yes, I am still adding the sexy villainesses part. The three of them left about an hour before we arrived. Their destination was the Blue Weasel, a bar in the Veil that Visine had actually heard of. The orbus was apparently some kind of a summoner’s focus. I didn’t really know what that meant and Fangsy really didn’t seem to understand it, so I figured I would ask Kara and Freddy about it before we left.

Once we had all of the information that we thought we were going to get, Visine and I escorted Fangsy outside and handed him off to the security personnel. Vlad was parked right by the front door, so Visine and I sat on his hood, giving ourselves a good vantage point to watch over everything as the prisoners were secured. At about this point a medic, a tall young skinny guy with dark hair, came over and started trying to clean and dress Visine’s wounds. Visine was focused on the prisoners and didn’t seem to pay the medic any mind. As I looked over the wounds in his arms, I noticed that although there was blood everywhere, he didn’t seem to be bleeding anymore. Damn, Visine heals fast.

After several minutes of cleaning, patching, and bandaging Visine’s wounds and immobilizing his right arm, the medic shook his head and begged Visine to go to the hospital. Visine scoffed and when the medic looked over at me for help, I put up my hands and laughed. The medic shook his head in frustration before finally surrendering and settling for explaining to Visine how best to care for the wounds. It was obvious that the advice fell on deaf ears. Before leaving, the medic cleaned up the slash on my cheek from where Fangsy caught me with his claw. I was told that werewolfdom wasn’t contagious, but since I didn’t know how dirty Fangsy’s claws were, I let the medic clean the wound thoroughly. Once the medic left I looked over at Visine.

“You sure you don’t want to go to a hospital?” I asked.

He glanced down at his arm and smirked, “Just a flesh wound.”

I couldn’t help but laugh, “Hey, I’m the one that makes the jokes around here,” I stated.

Visine rewarded me with a small smile as we watched the GHOST’s prisoner-transports drive off. A handful of personnel were still milling about to secure the area for further investigation. My mind wandered as I watched them scurry about and I couldn’t stop thinking about my first chance to visit the Veil.

The Veil, as I said before, is the world next door. A place of myth and legend where all of the creatures from the storybooks are actually real. Fairies, Trolls, and Dragons are just a few of the things that call it home. In order to get there, you have to find a doorway, or more accurately a tear in the fabric of reality. If you locate one of these gateways and step through, you will find yourself literally in a different world. Something to think about the next time you ask yourself how come they can’t track down Bigfoot.

These breach points are actually fairly uncommon. Chicago being the exception, as it’s almost honeycombed with doorways. They describe it as the hub between our two worlds. That is why Team Five is stationed there. Washington DC has a few doorways, several of which have only recently been discovered, hence the creation of our team. As a matter of fact, Rock Creek Park, where we currently were, was now known to possess several doorways. One of which I assume we were about to use. I glanced over at Visine.

“I guess I finally get to check out the Veil huh?” I asked.

“Yeah,” He sighed, clearly not happy about it.

We were sitting inside of Vlad with the doors closed in order to give us some privacy. Although I didn’t really care if the GHOST crime scene personnel overheard us, since I didn’t know who else might be lurking in the surrounding woods, I figured it was best to play it safe. My car has one of those fancy hands free systems that links to a cell phone and lets you hear the caller through the radio speakers and respond via strategically placed microphones. But if I haven’t mentioned it already, I have issues with cell phones. I’m not a fan of anything that can be used to triangulate my position. So outside of the guys wowing me at the car show, the system never gets used. But after Vlad gave the okay, Visine somehow linked the hands free system to the cell grid. A moment later I heard the sound of a ringing phone coming from Vlad’s speakers.