Precise oaths, p.9
Precise Oaths, page 9
“John, man, your last e-message said you weren’t in a hot spot.” Pete ran his hand through his wavy red hair. “You said you barely even went outside the wire.”
The injured man’s broad face cracked a smile. “I might have exaggerated that a bit. I didn’t want you to worry. I was commanding a small unit. We…well, everyone made it back at least. My people even got most of me back.” He looked around the room, a vague expression on his face. “It’s weird. I passed out on one continent and woke up on another.” He shrugged. “At least I didn’t get jet lag that way.”
“I heard you were in and out for a day or two, so it wasn’t as fast as all that.”
“But we really are home, right?”
Pete squeezed his friend’s hand, the one that wasn’t riddled with tubing. “Yeah, we’re at Liberty.” He gestured out the window at the gray, drippy day. “That’s genuine North Carolina drizzle out there.”
John chuckled. “Well, that sure hasn’t changed.” He looked out the narrow window at the water dripping in rivulets on the glass. “This is it then, I guess.”
“What do you mean by it?” Pete asked.
“Well, I’m not much of a soldier without legs. Once they get me fixed up…” He took a deep breath like his next words were hard to say. “I’m a civilian.” He swallowed. “Never really thought about that. Always wanted to be career military. No clue what the heck to do now.”
“You’ll figure it out. You’re one of the smartest people I know.”
John shrugged. “I guess I’ve got time to think about it.”
Pete stood. “I’m so sorry. I’ve really got to go. Zoe’s waiting on me to chase down a lead in Raleigh on a serial killer.”
“Stopping a killer? That’s a pretty cool job for a biochemist.” John grinned at him. Then his face turned thoughtful. “Maybe I could do something like that next.” His eyes unfocused, eyelids drooping. “Good seeing you, Pete. Come back when you can.”
Pete stopped with one hand on the doorknob. “Is there anything I can get you?”
“Some good barbecue? The real kind with pulled pork and a tangy sauce, none of that sweet tomato-y crap.”
“Will do.” Pete nodded with a forced smile and left the hospital room.
Sergeant Giovanni waited for him outside. “Your friend okay?”
Pete covered his mouth and gave a laugh that was half sob. “I guess as okay as a guy can be who went from peak physical fitness to double amputee in a day.”
Sergeant Giovanni nodded as they walked past a long desk with nurses and monitors. “That’s a hard change to adapt to.” She stopped at a cooler and got Pete a glass of water.
Pete nodded thanks and gulped down the water. He seemed smaller somehow, like a great weight pulled him down.
She squeezed his shoulder. “I’m all kinds of sorry about Lieutenant Runningwolf, but we have to find our murderer before another body turns up.”
Pete nodded and stood up out of the hunch he’d gone into. “Yeah, I know.” He took a deep breath. “Thanks for waiting while I talked to him. I just heard they were bringing him here this morning.”
“Yeah. I get it. Glad there was someone here that he knew to visit him. Does he have family to call?”
“Like an uncle, I think?” Pete shook his head. “He’s always been pretty much on his own, one of the most independent guys I know. He was so proud when he told me he was on command track.”
Colonel Bennet came around a corner in the corridor and came face to face with them. “He was,” he confirmed. “And he still is.”
Pete looked up at the tall colonel curiously. “Really?”
He nodded. “I’ll need to talk to Runningwolf first. Ask him about it later.” He looked from Sergeant Giovanni to Pete. “Don’t you two have a killer to catch?”
“Yes, sir.” Sergeant Giovanni said sharply. “C’mon, Pete.”
Pete nodded and followed the Sergeant out while the colonel knocked softly on the hospital room door.
Liliana shifted her vision to track the Fae colonel rather than Pete. She wondered what sort of man this handsome colonel was. How would he treat a wounded soldier?
After a soft “Come in,” he entered the room, hat in hand.
“Lieutenant Runningwolf.”
“Sir.” The man in the hospital bed straightened as much as he could against the pillows.
The colonel looked around quickly, standing stiffly at the door. “The Army put you in that bed, Lieutenant, and we’re going to get you out of it. You’ve got my word on that.”
Lieutenant Runningwolf’s face scrunched in confusion. “Not sure how that’s going to work, sir.”
“We’ve got the best cyberneticist in the country at this base. Doctor Periclum has given me his word that he’ll do everything he can to not just get you walking, but running faster than you could before.”
A broad smile spread across John Runningwolf’s face, then his head tilted and his eyes narrowed. “Full cybernetic limbs are worth more than my pay for the next twenty years. What’s the catch, sir?”
“No catch.” The Fae colonel sat stiffly on the edge of the chair that Pete had just vacated. “You can still have a medical discharge, but you’ll walk out of here on two new legs if that’s what you want to do.”
“That is so not what I want to do.” His grin went crooked. “Well, I do want to do the walking part, but not the discharge part if there’s another option.”
“I just want you to know there are no strings on this offer. I’d like you to join my unit, but I don’t want you to think its a condition of getting new legs. I heard a lot about you and your performance as a field commander from your CO.”
John Runningwolf grinned wide. “All lies. Except for the good parts.”
“Then they were pretty honest reports,” the colonel said with a small quirk of his lips. “I heard you lost your legs because you blew the bridge you were still standing on so your unit wouldn’t be overrun.”
Runningwolf’s face twisted in irritation. “Damn remote jammed.”
“Then, while half buried in rubble, you kept firing to keep the enemy pinned until your entire unit was clear. I heard you refused to lie down even when you were pulling out. You were still firing out the back of the vehicle while they were hauling you away with tourniquets on your legs.”
The young man in the bed shrugged. “Not much point in my team keeping me from bleeding out if I caught an enemy bullet with my face.” He sagged a little, dark circles under his eyes more prominent. “Are you getting at something, sir?”
“Yes, I am. I need a good XO.”
“Got it.” Runningwolf nodded. “Captain Carter had no intelligence to indicate an ambush there, and she ordered a retreat immediately. She didn’t leave us hanging, did everything right. She’s solid, sharp, and always looks out for us. She’s a good choice.”
The colonel huffed a laugh. “She is. We’ve worked together before and I trust her judgment. But she’s already got a command of her own. That’s why I want you for the position. She recommends you highly.”
“Me, sir?” Runningwolf glanced at the IV stand. “Maybe they spiked the chemical cocktail on me again and I’m hallucinating. I just made full lieutenant six months ago.”
The colonel glanced toward the door, making certain they were alone. “And you’re a beast-kin. I would like for my second to be Other since a lot of the soldiers in my unit are.”
His eyes narrowed. “I have no idea what you’re talking about, sir.”
“Even if you being tough enough to ignore crushed legs and keep fighting and giving your people smart orders that got them out of a tight spot alive didn’t indicate there was some kind of strong, stubborn beast in you, Carter told me.”
“What would give Captain Carter the idea that I was some mythical...”
“She’s half Fae. Her mom’s a djinn.”
Runningwolf stopped in mid-sentence with his mouth still open.
The Fae colonel held up a hand. “It isn’t going any further. You’ve got my word on that. In the Special Enemies and Tactics Unit, being a beast-kin just makes you an even better asset to the team.”
“Captain Carter’s not a Normal?”
The Fae colonel shrugged with a small twitch at the corner of his mouth. “You’re not the only one who can maintain the appearance of a Normal, even under extreme circumstances.”
“Huh.” The man’s eyes closed for a moment in a long blink. “Captain Carter’s half djinn. No wonder she never noticed the heat.”
“Just out of curiosity, are you wolf-kin? Some kind of big cat? Bear?”
“Badger,” Runningwolf said. “May not be as big, but way more tough and ornery, pound for pound.”
“I’d say you’ve proven that. Carter put you in for a Medal of Honor.”
“Seriously?” His voice sounded half asleep and more disbelieving than excited. He smothered a yawn. “Sorry, sir. They’ve got me on some pretty strong stuff.”
The colonel stood. “Get your rest, Lieutenant. Consider what I said. Doctor Periclum will be by later to assess you for cybernetics. He’s kind of an ass, but he’s the best, so…”
“I won’t take it personally.” Runningwolf gave the colonel a half smile as the tall officer nodded and opened the hospital room door. “Sir?”
“Yes?” The colonel paused, pulling the door closed again so their conversation stayed private.
“Are you seriously offering me a position as second in some kind of elite unit?”
“I am.”
“I accept.”
“Take some time. Make this decision when you aren’t on a pharmacy’s worth of drugs.”
Runningwolf shook his head. “Won’t matter. My mom and dad died in the Energy Wars. My mom got the Medal of Honor posthumously. My uncle raised me. He was Delta Force in his younger days. Medical discharge after he took a bullet in the kneecap stopping a terrorist from blowing up a school. Hell, my grandmother was career military. Being a soldier is all I’ve ever wanted, and you’re offering me my military dream job. There aren’t enough drugs in the world for me to change my mind on that.”
Colonel Bennet huffed a chuckle and nodded. “The job’s yours as soon as you’re ready.” The moment of lightness vanished. “But heal at your own speed first. I’ve got the right man for the job picked out. I’m not looking anymore.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Thank you. There are thirty soldiers alive today because of what you did. We owe you.”
“Just doing my job,” Runningwolf muttered, as his eyes drifted closed again and didn’t reopen this time.
The colonel watched the sleeping soldier for a few seconds. “If I had a hundred like you, I could rule the world.” He left, closing the door quietly behind him.
Liliana tilted her head, watching the colonel as he watched Lieutenant Runningwolf. She hoped the Fae colonel did not want to take over the world. That could cause some serious problems for her little town.
Chapter 10
Nosy Rabbit
When the knock on the door came, Liliana knew it would be her best customer. Not because she foresaw it, but because it was time for their makeup appointment.
Out of habit, Liliana quickly checked to make sure all but her human eyes were closed and pulled her hair forward before opening the door.
She welcomed Janice Willoughby in with a sweeping gesture and her usual singsong speech.
“Oh, Madame Anna, I’m so glad you could see me,” the rabbit-kin blurted before the door was closed.
Janice already knew Liliana was spider-kin, so Liliana opened all her eyes to look at the woman carefully. Janice was an ordinary woman in her late thirties in her human form. She looked exactly like what she was, the harried mother of five active children. In her demi-rabbit form, she was cuter, less careworn, and sleekly furred with large, mobile ears and a twitchy button nose. In her full rabbit form, she looked like an unusually large brown rabbit. “I can see you just fine.”
Janice laughed and waved her hands in the air. “Well, of course you can. I just meant I’m glad I could get a makeup appointment so soon.”
“What has you concerned?” The spider-kin gestured for Janice to sit with her at the round table with the crystal ball in the center.
“A werewolf came to my house!” Janice shuddered as she sat on the edge of one of the three client chairs and dropped her purse in another. “And not just any werewolf, that would be bad enough, but a red werewolf! Right there on my front porch!”
Liliana looked with her fourth eyes into Janice’s recent past and was not surprised to see Pete knock on Janice’s door. The spider-kin nodded while Janice rambled on about being terrified and wondering if the beast would eat her children.
The ball in Pete’s hands brought him to the Willoughbys’ door. One of the new soccer balls with built-in metrics for measuring kick strength, distance, and accuracy. It flashed a light to indicate ideal impact point for various kick angles and sent telemetry data to indicate when it was off sides.
A little more looking around the familiar neighborhood, and a bit further into the past, showed her Pete’s golden-haired beloved living next door to the Willoughbys. She watched as one of Janice’s children playing in the backyard kicked the soccer ball over the fence into the teacher’s yard.
When Pete brought the ball to the Willoughby house, Janice opened the door, smelled the wolf, squeaked in terror, and slammed the door in Pete’s face.
Pete’s shoulders slumped. He lifted his hand to knock again, then let it drop with a resigned sigh. He left the electronic soccer ball on the porch and went back to his boyfriend.
“The red wolf means you no harm,” Liliana told her client.
“How can you be so certain?” Janice chewed on a fingernail and tapped her foot under the table. “Lou saw him at the shop on base too. He’s been there to get his van fixed, so he must work at Liberty. And you know how sharp Lou’s nose is? Well, Lou swears he smelled blood in an old stain in his van!”
Liliana considered blood stains in Pete’s van with her fourth eyes open and saw an image of a much younger Pete gently placing a badly injured Siobhan in his van. “Your husband’s nose is correct. The blood belongs to a fuchsia sprite.”
Janice covered her mouth in horror. “What kind of monster would kill a harmless little fairy?”
“Harmless” was not a word Liliana would use to describe Siobhan. She snorted. The diminutive warrior had very nearly killed her the day before. “The sprite is his friend. The red wolf was taking care of her after an injury.” Her curiosity was piqued, but she would search for more details on Siobhan’s injury another time. For now, she owed Janice her attention.
“Is he a danger to my children?”
For the sake of her best client, she looked and broadened her focus question beyond the red wolf who she already knew would never hurt a child.
Is there any danger to Janice’s children?
She saw some deadly Other predators prowl their neighborhood streets, but the scent of Celtic wolf-kin, the guardians of humanity and servants of the seelie daylight Fae, made most leave as stealthily as they came. A few predators braved the wolf’s scent and met the red wolf himself. That tended to be a violent, occasionally fatal encounter for the predator. “The Celtic wolf loves the Normal man who lives next door to you and teaches at your children’s school on base. The red wolf guards his beloved’s territory from other predators...”
A rare few deadly Others through the past few years deliberately hunted Pete and also met ugly ends, as they should. But while Celtic wolves were strong, there were many stronger Others.
Do any pose a danger to Pete?
Janice hadn’t asked that question, but Liliana worried about the brave red wolf, now that she had begun to know him and saw the dangerous life he led.
It was difficult to pinpoint the moment in time without reference, but the vision was vivid. It had the feel of something in the very near future, within a week or less.
On some overcast night soon, an ordinary-looking man would creep across the Willoughbys’ lawn toward their neighbor’s house, avoiding the light from the windows. He wore jeans and a dark blue jacket and had curly black hair worn long, as was the modern style. Only the black band with an embossed silver crown on his muscular neck marked him as unusual.
The Order of the Wolfhound!
Most of the Wolfhounds were wolf-kin, dog-kin, or some other canine beast-kin, and they were all particularly trained and magically enhanced to kill Celtic wolves. They’d also kill anyone else who dared to stand between the unseelie and their “rightful” prey. Wolfhounds served only one royal Sidhe family. Liliana only knew of two living members of that family. One was Titania, the Queen of Air and Darkness, the most powerful unseelie Fae in the Western world, land bonded to most of Europe. The other was her daughter, Aurore Principessa, who had lived more than three centuries but had not yet been chosen by any land.
The curly-haired assassin hunted the quiet suburban streets of Janice Willoughby’s neighborhood, undoubtedly on the trail of Liliana’s favorite red wolf.
The vision was of the future, but not that far. Liliana held her breath in fear for her new friend. Pete did not have the needed magic to defeat such an enemy. If the Wolfhound found his prey, Pete would die.
Liliana did not have any way to pierce a Wolfhound’s protective magic either. If this assassin sought to kill Pete, Liliana would be helpless to stop him.
Instead of Pete, the Wolfhound met a tall, broad-shouldered man with a familiar, burn-scarred face, wearing a maroon button-down shirt and crisply creased black slacks. Liliana recognized the handsome Fae colonel, even though he wore no uniform. His sharply erect stance and buzzed short haircut still marked him like a neon sign as military. Colonel Bennet stood in the light of a streetlamp on the sidewalk in front of the Willoughbys’ house, tall and regal in the proud way he held himself.
