Shadow Ops 3: Breach Zone (29 page)

Harlequin shrugged. ‘Sooner or later, yeah.’

‘What the hell am I? Chopped liver? Are you guys waiting for me to make O-8 before you give me mine?’ Bookbinder looked down at his blank lapel. ‘I don’t even have a school pin.’

Harlequin broke out in a broad grin. ‘They don’t have a name for your school, sir.’

‘How is this my fault? I’m pulling rank here. I’m a goddamn general. Fix this.’

Harlequin smiled wider, then went thoughtful. He fished in a cargo pocket, then yanked off a bit of loose thread from his uniform. ‘With your permission, sir,’ he said, sticking the frayed string to a bare patch of Velcro where Bookbinder’s rank had begun to peel off. ‘There’s your pin, sir. I hereby christen you “Binder”.’

Bookbinder looked down at the string. ‘What’s this?’

‘You know, like a rope. For binding things.’

Bookbinder blinked.

‘What?’ Harlequin asked. ‘It fits. And it’ll be easier for everyone to remember.’

‘Binder,’ Bookbinder said, trying out the name. He covered the book in his name tape with a finger. ‘Binder. That works. I like it.’

They had barely reconstituted the perimeter when the enemy came on again.

Harlequin, Bookbinder, and Cormack took up positions in one of the jury-rigged observation towers nestled up against the concrete barricades. The
Gahe
were bolder now, slivers of black mixed in with the field of brown and green that marked the giants and goblins. Small pockets formed around them as the goblins gave them a wide berth, pushed off by the cold.

Shooters in the towers kept the rocs off while the last Fornax Aeromancer hovered above the barricade wall, sending blasts of lightning out whenever the
Gahe
moved forward. One of two remaining Kiowas patrolled the perimeter, fireballs streaking out as the Pyromancer inside did his work. The
Gahe
kept their distance, stutter-flashing back from each flame strike, but where one fell back, another two came forward. The Aeromancer lighted on the barricade wall long enough to guzzle a bottle of water. She bent over, hands on her knees, panted. Two
Gahe
raced for the concrete barriers, flashing against them, long, thin fingers prying at the seams between the T-walls. Where their hands touched, the concrete rimed over with dirty frost. A shout from the soldiers, and the Aeromancer jumped into the sky again, showering them with lightning, driving them back, only to dive back herself as a wyvern swooped in and nipped at her before being chased away by bursts of fire from the towers.

‘You weren’t kidding,’ Bookbinder said.

Harlequin nodded. ‘You arrived just in time. I don’t know how long we can keep this up. They’re exhausted.’

‘Everybody’s exhausted.’

Harlequin shrugged. ‘You sure you can do this from here?’

Bookbinder nodded and waved at the helo as it made its next loop around the barricades. The Pyromancer shifted to the cabin’s edge, boots on the skid.

‘You sure you want me to do this, sir?’ The Pyromancer’s voice came over the radio.

‘I want you to hurry the hell up about it,’ Harlequin said, reaching forward and sending a blast of lightning down at another
Gahe
.

Bookbinder watched as the young man pulsed fire along his arm, then pointed down at the tower. Harlequin tossed Bookbinder a magazine of 5.56mm rounds. Bookbinder caught it, rotated the magazine, pointed it out toward the enemy.

‘What are you doing?’ Harlequin asked.

‘I’m about to Bind Fire Magic into a piece of metal just a couple of millimeters away from an explosive charge. If these puppies go off, I’d rather not be in the way. That okay with you?’

Harlequin smiled, and Bookbinder reached out with his current, feeling for the Pyromancer’s as he Bound the magic and sent the flame roaring down to them. His current interlaced with the Fire Magic and drew it off, weak and halting. The Novice was frightened he would hurt them, holding back.

‘Come on! Pick it up!’ Bookbinder shouted up at the helo. The Novice nodded, and the strength of the current rose, the flame jet thickening. He heard Harlequin curse and leap out of the tower, probably to drive off more of the
Gahe
, but ignored it, focusing on hauling the Pyromancer’s magic in until the magic roared in his veins. He turned the current, funneling it into the tips of the bullets, sighing in relief as the doubled flow poured out of him.

The magazine grew hot, and he cursed, tossing it in the air and catching it again with his hand shielded by a dirty sleeve cuff. The heat was concentrated to one side of the magazine. That was good. It was the most precise Binding he’d done so far, the bullet tips containing the magic, keeping it clear from the powder behind.

‘Get back in the fight!’ he shouted to the Pyromancer. The young man saluted, and the helo spun away, as Harlequin alighted back on the tower platform. ‘Jesus. They’re everywhere.’

Cormack held a rifle out to Bookbinder, magazine well toward him. ‘That looks hot, sir. You better get it loaded.’

Bookbinder rammed the magazine home and Cormack rested one elbow on the concrete of the barricade, where the tower abutted it, sighting down the rifle and keeping his hand well clear of the hot metal. ‘This is hot as hell, sir. Hope it doesn’t foul the weapon.’

‘Just hope it works,’ Harlequin said.

‘It will,’ Bookbinder said. ‘At least, it did with ice-bullets back in the Source.’

‘Here goes.’ Cormack sighted on one of the
Gahe
and fired. The muzzle flash extended, and the round streaked orange flame as it left the barrel. It took the mountain god in the chest, the liquid black surface suddenly glowing with an expanding ball of bright fire. The
Gahe
shrieked and flashed backward, black smoke billowing from the wound, the flames doused by the creature’s freezing blood.

But it was still wounded, and badly. Its shrieks dropped to a whine. Freezing black smoke turned the ground hard, sending the goblins scattering.

Harlequin smiled. Cormack gave a brief shout of triumph. ‘That’ll do it, sir. Let’s get you to the ammo dump. We’re going to need a lot of this stuff.’

‘All right,’ Bookbinder said. ‘You want to call that Pyromancer back in?’

Harlequin shook his head. ‘I didn’t like the way that last transition went. Those things bleed cold, too, might limit the effectiveness of Pyromantic rounds.

‘I’ll come with you. Let’s try it with lightning.’

Interlude Seven

Thus Always To Wolves

People ask me, after I came up Latent, how I could still believe in God. Every time I look into the eyes of someone I know is walking around because of my magic, I think, how could I not?

– Captain Seraph, SOC liaison,
Third Medical Battallion, United States Marine Corps

Six Years Earlier

‘Do it,’ Harlequin said.

‘What if I screw it up?’ Grace asked. They stood in the center of her living room, dark-stained hardwood flooring covered with pools of slime and dustings of desiccated metal.

‘You said you had it under control.’ Harlequin resisted the urge to scratch at the grease paint covering his chest. ‘Do you?’

‘You know that I do. But . . . even people with control screw up sometimes.’

‘Control means real control. I can manipulate a single molecule in a single breath of air. You should be able to rot off this paint without touching my skin.’

She sucked in her breath. ‘What if I hurt you?’

‘Are we in this together or aren’t we?’

She stared, chewed on her lip.

‘We’re sharing this risk, Grace. So let’s share it.’

‘I’ve never hurt anyone with it. It’s never slipped past me.’

‘Great. Then you won’t hurt me. Now, enough of the jaw jacking. Let’s get this done.’

She stood another moment, still worrying her lower lip, arms folded across her chest. She looked so different out of the power suit. In her jeans and white tank top, she looked almost . . . normal. Sharing the secret only made him feel closer to her. No wonder she’d been so familiar, so at ease when they’d first met. She understood what it meant to be Latent.

Most people would have panicked. They would have run, or lashed out. Harmed others, gotten themselves killed.

But this was Grace.

The more he thought about the lengths she’d gone to to find a way, to not give up, to bend what most would see as a disaster into an opportunity, the more it impressed him. She was an amazing woman. Singular.

The kind he could spend his life with.

That was worth the risk.

‘Do it,’ he repeated.

He felt Grace’s current rise, coalesce out of nothing. The high concentration of Dampener gave her such complete control that the current was invisible until she called it. She should have the precision she needed.

Still, he couldn’t keep from flinching as she Bound the magic to the thin layer of paint on his chest. He felt a tingling, gathered his own current, ready to Suppress hers if she began to harm him.

A moment later, the paint began to crinkle, peeling off in layers and crumbling to dry dust that settled on his boots. His chest hair went next, turning slick, then dripping down his stomach, the now-familiar smell of rot wafting into the room. ‘Hey!’ he said. ‘I was using those!’

She laughed, shunting the magic back. ‘Not too bad.’

‘Not bad at all,’ he agreed, ‘though you still need to tweak it a bit, spare my chest hair.’

‘That was on purpose. I like you smooth.’

He laughed at that, his blood racing with the nearness of her. That they shared magic only intensified the feeling. He grabbed her around the waist, one hand cupping one tight buttock. ‘I bet you do.’

He kissed her hard, and she jumped up, locking her legs around his hips and carrying him back a step.

At last they came up for air, and he floated for a moment before opening his eyes.

And saw another runnel of blood, dripping from her nose.

‘Again?’ he asked, putting her down.

‘It happens a lot, I told you.’

‘Grace . . .’

‘It’s not the drug, Jan.’

‘How can you be sure?’

‘Because Weiss is the foremost pharmaceutical mind in the country, because my lab is staffed with the brightest bioengineers that money can buy. Because they have an unlimited budget for equipment and supplies. Because we have been testing this compound for years in a variety of doses, hosts, and environments, and we have never, ever, ever seen nosebleeds as a side effect. I know it makes you uncomfortable, but this really is the function of too much blow in my misspent youth. Just suck it up, okay?’

He opened his mouth to say more, but the alarm on her watch chimed, warning her it was time to refresh her dose, and she stooped to the compartment below her sink where she kept her syringes. He watched as she pumped the Dampener into her wrist.

Morelli sprawled on one of the leather couches in the lab’s break room, playing a video game on a tablet computer. Harlequin and Grace walked past two of Channel’s security guards on the way in, but Rampart was nowhere to be seen. Dan stood against the wall, arms folded, a smug smile on his bearded face.

Morelli looked up and waved. She wore a comfortable-looking sweatshirt and pants, the corporation’s logo emblazoned across her chest. Her gray-streaked hair was clean and drawn back into a ponytail. She looked heavier, better rested. The couch was covered with a light dusting of crumbs, and a small table was set with the remains of a meal. ‘You two are up late,’ she said.

Harlequin felt her current from across the room. It lacked the disciplined feeling of a trained SOC operator’s, was nowhere near Grace’s, but it was firmly in control.

Harlequin stared in silence, in awe of the dramatic difference between the woman before him and the one he’d first taken down.

‘How are you doing?’ Grace asked.

Morelli shrugged. ‘Pretty good, they’re feeding me well.’ She picked up a small dish of custard off the table and pointed at it. Harlequin could feel her magic Drawing and resisted the urge to Suppress her. The magical pulse felt erratic at first, but after a moment it buttoned down, and a short blue cone of flame stretched out from her fingertip. She smiled and waved it back and forth across the bowl until the surface crystallized, tinted a light golden brown.

She looked up at them, smiling. ‘Crème brûlée; I used to be a hell of a cook.’

Harlequin stared, glanced up at Grace long enough to see that she was watching him rather than Morelli. ‘Where’s Rampart?’ he asked.

‘He’s here, sir,’ came the chief warrant officer’s voice as he came in behind them. ‘Sorry. I was in the latrine.’

Harlequin turned, folding his arms over his chest. ‘Leaving her unsupervised?’

Rampart looked surprised. ‘Crucible authorized it days ago, sir. She’s got it locked down. I haven’t had to Suppress her since you brought her here.’

Now it was Harlequin’s turn to look surprised. He turned back to Grace, whose look of anger had melted into smugness.

‘Your control is that good, huh?’ he asked Morelli.

‘Not really,’ she said. ‘I’ve still got a ways to go, but Crucible says they’re going to transfer me soon.’

‘To where?’ Harlequin asked. The only thing he could think of was Quantico, and to the best of his knowledge, they didn’t train Selfers there. He remembered Crucible’s words.
Understanding and controlling magic is one of the biggest priorities on the national defense agenda. Do you think we’re just going to let hordes of legally dead Latent people rot in prison? Or kill them?

Obviously not.

Maybe you can go to Crucible, talk to him about Grace. Maybe she could be . . . repurposed.
The thought sent his stomach into a nosedive. He wasn’t sure how his boss would react. And unless he was absolutely sure, the risk was just too great.

Morelli shrugged. ‘Someplace nice, I’m sure. Watch this.’

She Drew and Bound her magic, and a napkin beside the plate burst into flame. The orange peaks narrowed into a pencil-thin funnel, arcing upward and outward, scrolling through the air over the plate until they formed a crude cursive M. After a moment, the fuel was spent in a puff of smoke and a brief sprinkling of black ash. ‘Isn’t that cool?’ she asked. ‘I just figured it out yesterday.’

‘How are you feeling?’ Grace asked.

‘Great,’ Morelli said. ‘I even got to talk to my kids on video-chat.’ She tapped the tablet computer. ‘They think I’m in the hospital.’

Grace coughed and clapped a hand to her face, taking a step backward. Dan came to her side. ‘Is everything all right?’

‘Fine,’ Grace answered, pulling a tissue from her pocket. ‘Nosebleed. I get them all the time.’

Dan’s eyes narrowed, but he nodded. ‘Maybe go put some ice on it.’

‘Yeah, that’s it,’ Grace said, heading for the exit.

Harlequin went to join her, then paused at the doorway.

‘Can I ask you something, Morelli?’ Harlequin asked. ‘Do you remember when we first met? In the Bronx? When I brought you . . . in?’

The smile faltered, and Harlequin felt her flow spike briefly, but only just. ‘I remember.’

‘What was going on then, Morelli? You knew what the law was, right? You knew you could call us when you came up Latent?’

Her forehead crinkled as she thought it over. Her current remained steady. ‘Yeah,’ she said slowly. ‘I knew that.’

‘Why didn’t you call us? Did you think we wouldn’t help you?’

‘Nah,’ she said. ‘I knew you would. I knew you’d put me in the SOC or whatever.’

‘So, why didn’t you call? Why’d you burn that building?’

She thought longer, her face going slack, the closest he’d seen to a return to how she’d looked when they’d first brought her in. At last, she jerked her shoulders up and smiled. ‘I was crazy,’ she said.

She tapped the fading bruise of the injection site on the inside of her arm. ‘I’m better now.’