I showed up at my team leader’s office bright and early a day later, sitting in the reception area across from the door, so I would be the first thing Randy saw when he walked in.
Randall arrived and gave me one of his almost smiles. He was wearing slacks and an ordinary golf shirt, the first time I had seen him completely out of uniform.
“Tim Kovak,” he said. “Early as always. How long have you been sitting there?”
“Just twenty minutes. Watching some Oleg fights.”
Randy did finally smile at that one. “I’m not your high school principal, Kovak. You don’t have to impress me with how you’re doing your homework.”
“Yeah, you kind of are, and yeah, I kind of do.” I stood up and followed him into his office. “Any chance you can get me on another team when Carter comes back? Or maybe even keep me on this one?”
“Kid, unless you fuck up in the next few months, I am gonna fight like hell to keep you on this team, even after Carter comes back. With his experience and your raw power? I can’t wait to see you guys together.”
Randy took a seat behind his old metal desk and saw me grinning like an idiot. “But don’t get ahead of yourself. You’ve got months of probation and training sessions ahead of you, even after you get done with me.”
I wiped the smile off my face and sat down. “You’re my last local eval, right? Where do you need me today?”
“Technically, neither one of us is supposed to be here today, and if anybody asks, neither one of us was. This isn’t team business, Kovak. I called you in because I need a favor, a personal favor, and I want you to know I won’t hold it against you if you say no. Don’t just agree because I’m your team leader. We’re not exactly friends, but I’m about to ask for a big favor.”
“Maybe I get to decide who my friends are, sir.”
“I’ve got a friend in VA hospice care. Vinny’s been there for thirteen years, and he’s probably gonna die there, but after what I’ve seen you do, after everything you’ve told me, is there anything in your magic book that can break curses?”
“Tobias did it, my ancestor who was in to healing stuff. He had a ritual that could supposedly push demons and hostile spirits out of people, but I’ve never used it, I’ve never studied it, and I can’t make any promises. Is your friend possessed by a demon?”
“Demons don’t possess people anymore,” Randy said. “Easier to just come here in their own physical bodies, now that the gates are open. Vinny is possessed by a loa, a vengeful spirit drawn from the Earth.
“Vinny served with me, before the higher ups realized I had powers. We got jumped by a bunch of corrupted animals, animals possessed by spirits, and Vinny ended up pinned by a tiger that was trying to tear his throat out.
“But Vinny was good with a knife and managed to kill it. Most of these spirits who corrupted animals couldn’t jump to a human, but something about the way he killed it, in close combat, with a knife… I think he got some of the tiger’s blood in his mouth, and the spirit was able to jump inside him.
“It’s been there ever since. Vinny’s been strapped to a cot or a bed or a stretcher for thirteen years, completely out of his mind, while this thing tries to lash out and kill anybody who gets close.
“They have to sedate him to change out his feeding tubes. This spirit came from an animal, and it’s turned him into an animal. You can’t talk to him; you can’t reason with him. I’ve been visiting him for years, and I’ve never seen one lucid moment in his eyes. He might not even be in there anymore, but if you’ve got a spell, if there’s a chance, any chance at all, I want to take it.”
“Of course, I’ll do whatever I can but I’m the wrong guy for this job. You need an expert to do shit like this, a witch or a priest. Why can’t we just call Cecilia Hardy?”
“Faeries don’t fuck with spirits like this. Even demons refused to interfere in the African War. These spirits, this shit that Sembala drew out of that land and set free, this is powerful shit. Scary, powerful shit that even the angels are scared of. You’re my last hope, and I’m hoping you’ll be willing to do it, since you’re not affiliated with any of these factions that have turned me down. I’m not expecting a miracle, but will you please try?”
Of course
* * *
The Brockton VA Medical Center was incredibly depressing. Not because it was bad, or cheap, or cruel to patients. Far from it, the staff seemed competent, professional, and kind, but when the nurse led us to that tiny little room, when I saw a human being strapped down to that narrow single bed, screaming and thrashing so badly he was threatening to tear out his feeding tubes, I almost had to turn around.
The thought of dying alone, in a room like that…
His old friend was clearly out of his mind, but Randy talked to him like it was just another day. “Hey Vinny, I brought you some help. This is Tim. He’s one of my guys, and he’s gonna try something new today.”
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Randy grabbed an old-fashioned interface pad from the top drawer of Vinny’s nightstand. He pressed his thumb to it and spoke like it was recording a voice print.
“This is Randall R. Randall, exercising power of attorney for Vincent Stryker. I am supervising Tim Kovak, probationary member of Bluestar 7. I hereby consent to magical healing and waive liability for Tim Kovak and all Brockton medical staff. I have notified the nurse’s desk and Vincent’s primary physician. Mr. Stryker has no living family and recorded no religious affiliation in his military records.
“Kovak, lean over here and give your voiceprint and Bluestar PIN.”
I leaned over the pad and cleared my throat. “This is Timothy Erin Kovak, Bluestar ID 0413.”
“Signed and recorded,” Randall said, sliding the pad back in the drawer.
“All right,” he said to me, “Do your thing.”
I hesitated. “Randy, you know this might not work. I’ve never tried this, and I’ve got no way to test it first. You understand the risk here?”
Randy nodded. “Look at him, Kovak. Look at him and trust me, Vinny would try anything to be free of this.”
So, I brought up Tobias’s purification spell and had Jeeves guide my eyes through it, just like I did when I healed Luther, and just like with Luther, I said a silent prayer first, in case there was still a God up there to give a shit.
The spell was almost as complicated as the long form healing one, forty symbols, but a lot of them were the same as the healing spell, so it felt a lot easier to cast.
I got about halfway through before Vinny’s body started to glow, and the spirit realized what I was doing. It started to twist him around on the bed, arching his back and releasing a terrifying scream of pure anguish until the poor man’s throat gave out.
And still I kept on.
I’m not sure at what point I realized it was working. Vinny had stopped thrashing and started to cry, sounding more human and less animal as I felt something push against my spell.
And something about that, feeling like I had my hands on something that I could push against, finally had my spell wrapped around something I could hurt – righteous anger surged through my body and came out as magic. Fuck this thing. Fuck this thing and all its little friends. I was gonna save a soul today.
I poured the power in, and the tone of Vinny’s screaming started to change. This wasn’t the dumb thrashing of an animal or the deep moan of a desperate man, this was a man in physical pain.
The spirit knew it was losing, and it was determined to kill Vinny on the way out. The magic flickered as I hesitated, and Randy yelled, “Finish it! Whatever it takes, finish it!”
And then I realized the truth. Randy hadn’t brought me here to save this man’s life. He brought me here to set him free.
I pushed the spirit out and watched blood spurt out of Vinny’s mouth as the loa crushed his heart. The screaming stopped, his muscles relaxed, and after thirteen years of agony, this poor man was finally at peace.
Randall was in tears, but not sobbing, holding his hand. I thought everybody was out of danger, but my vision snapped into the gray, and I saw a shadowy tiger shape rise up from Vincent’s bed and try to jump into Randy.
But Randall wasn’t like his friend. He wasn’t a lonely, scared kid in the middle of nowhere, abandoned by his family and friends, so desperate to get away, he volunteered for a combat unit just to stay out of jail.
Randall had a wife, and kids, and a grandma who raised him to believe in God, so when the spirit came for Randy, it found nothing to latch on to, no weakness it could use to force its way in. The tiger spirit failed, and was too weak to try another jump, so it just howled in rage, and sank back into the Earth.
Randy and I were both crying, staring down at this man we could not save.
“I’m sorry,” I said, “Maybe if I had studied more, maybe if I had more time…”
“Stop,” Randy said, putting a hand on my shoulder. “Kovak, this is what he wanted. This man was closer than family to me and I can tell you absolutely, he would rather be dead than be possessed by that thing. You didn’t fail him, you spared him forty more years of agony in that bed.
“And Kovak, of all the people I’ve asked for help since we got back, all the shamans and witch doctors and Bluestar wizards and faerie witches – of all the angels and priests I’ve begged for help, you’re the only one who even tried.”
* * *
I lingered in the waiting room while Randall handled the bureaucratic consequences of his friend’s death, and then, on the way back, I figured this would be the best chance I would ever have to ask about a mystery that had been bugging me for weeks.
“Randy, how did Oleg die?”
“Suicide. That’s why we never talk about it. Took us forever to figure out the whole story, but it turned out to be a faerie thing.
“Average faerie is about as powerful as the average demon, but their methods and motivations are entirely different. A demon might kill your family and burn your house down, but to demons, it’s all just business. Demons are like the mafia, fighting to control territory.
“To faeries, it’s personal. Faeries want humans to suffer, to punish us for what we’ve done to the Earth. And where demons are pretty straightforward these days, faeries are sneaky and smart. They like to hang out on playgrounds and wait for a child to cry.
“Faerie magic is a thousand times stronger when they’re granting a wish, so they like to make friends with children, and trick them into wishing for things that can hurt a lot of people at once.
“Faerie made friends with a local kid at some fancy school and encouraged the kid to tell her all about his bullies and why he hated his parents. And this is what makes faeries different from demons. A demon would have started a fire or paid a visit to scare each kid individually, but that’s not good enough for a faerie. To a faerie, hurting people is like poetry, and they need our suffering to rhyme.
“So, this faerie listened to all his problems but didn’t have the kid make a wish right away. She waited until the class got to go on a field trip to Berkeley Street, to meet a real live superhero. The rest of us hate these, but Oleg was so good with kids.
“He played with them and did tricks for them and gave them all action figures. Then, when the trip was over, the faerie told her kid to hang back and hide. Told him all his bullies were on that bus, and this would be a great time to make his wish.
“The faerie mind-controlled Oleg and had him dump a bus full of kids in the river. DMA saved most of them, but four kids died, and Oleg couldn’t live with it.
“The rest of the team was in Chicago a week after. He was home on administrative leave when a monster came out of the river, but instead of calling for backup, Oleg went out to solo it, and let the monster kill him.
“DMA covered it up, and we tell people he went out like a hero, but Oleg is dead because faeries drove him to suicide.
“I can stand there and shoot demons all day, then go home and sleep like a baby, but if I see a pair of faerie wings fluttering outside my window? I call Cecilia Hardy and hide under my fucking bed.”