Matt Archer: Blade's Edge (26 page)

She scooted and shimmied to get settled behind the steering wheel of her tiny Volvo. “You bet. I can’t say this is the most uncomfortable I’ve been—spending fifteen hours hiding in a muddy ditch behind enemy lines was pretty bad—but I’ll be glad to have her kicking on the outside rather than kicking me.”

“You said her…it’s a girl?”

“Sure is.” Julie got this far away, happy expression on her face. “I can’t wait to teach her to load a Beretta or how to spy on her boyfriend to see if he’s cheating. Oh, and how to read upside down—that’s useful when gathering intelligence.”

“Um…yeah, sounds…exciting.” I turned to look out the window so she wouldn’t see how my eyebrows had shot up. God help this poor kid if she wanted to be a ballerina or a fairy tale princess. “So, where’s Mike?”

“Visiting Major Ramirez. We have him in a private rehab hospital. We’re heading there, then Mike will run you to the Pentagon for the briefing.”

“Aren’t you coming?”

Julie smiled and shook her head. “I’m off active duty for the duration now. The doctor’s concerned about my blood pressure and asked me to lower my stress. I’m bored to tears at home, but what can you do?”

“Too bad I have this cast on,” I said. “I’d ask you to take me target shooting.”

Her face lit up. “That’d be great! Oh, I haven’t been to the range in weeks.” She glanced down at her belly. “Although, I might have to adjust my aim to compensate for the bulk. Hmm.”

“I’m sure you’d still outshoot me. Schmitz said you’re an amazing marksman.”

At the sound of his name, the car got really quiet. A moment passed, then Julie said, “That’s high praise—he was pretty good himself. Good man.”

“Yeah.” Schmitz had been a very good man, and I got him killed. I stared out the window for the rest of the drive, hoping Aunt Julie wouldn’t see the guilt written on my face. These days, it felt the size of a billboard, blinking in neon letters above my head.

We pulled down a driveway lined with blooming cherry trees and lush bushes. A single story building, sitting on a large, green lawn, stretched out in an X-shape from the central drive. The sign read “Terrence Rehabilitation Center.”

Julie parked, then grunted and groaned her way out of her seat, and I walked slow to keep pace with her as we made our way to the entrance. A nurse’s station filled the center of the X just inside the automatic front doors, and wings branched off down four hallways. A security guard stood when we came in, smiled at Julie and waved us through.

“I’ve been coming to see him pretty often,” Aunt Julie said. “I think I know all the guards and half the nurses who work here.”

We made our way down the right-hand hallway, stopping at the room on the end. The door was open; no Ramirez.

A group of men laughed outside, Lieutenant Johnson’s chuckle deeper than the rest. Julie led me through the exit at the end of the hall, and we found the crowd lounging on patio furniture on a tiny deck overlooking a garden. Johnson and Uncle Mike were joined by Colonel Black and Murphy. Center stage? Ramirez, parked in a wheelchair.

It was good to see him sitting up, but he looked so thin. It’d been seven weeks since we rescued him and, while he’d regained some weight, Ramirez’s pajamas and robe still hung on him like they belonged to a larger man. He raised his knife hand in greeting when he saw me. The haunted look in his eyes made me shiver, but his fingers weren’t curled up anymore. That was something, at least.

“How’s the arm?” he asked.

“Itches like a mother—”

“Watch it,” Julie said, giving me the stink eye.

“She’s practicing her nagging to get ready for the baby,” Mike said. “Got the ‘Mom voice’ down pretty good, huh?”

I laughed. “Yeah.”

“You boys behave.” Aunt Julie squatted awkwardly to kiss Ramirez on the cheek. “I’m taking this wide load home.”

She waddled back inside, and the conversation died. The other men kept avoiding my eyes. Murphy’s foot tapped nervously.

“Something’s up, isn’t it?” I asked. “It’s okay, you can tell me.”

After way too long a silence, Uncle Mike said, “Matt, people have started disappearing in Afghanistan again. Apparently the thing you killed in the cave didn’t fix the problem. Parker went back over there last week. When you’re fit, we’ll need you, too.”

That feeling of death in the cave when I sat with Ramirez—it wasn’t just because I’d lost Schmitz and the girl. The Takers’ boss was still out there. Just like the knife-spirit said.

The Master lives,
she murmured.
He won’t stop, so we must stop him first, and all those he sends before him.

I shuddered, remembering Mamie telling me about the dark spirit and its need to destroy the world. “When will I need to go back?”

“Three weeks,” Colonel Black said. “Parker needs some time to do more intel, and we need to wait until you’re fully healed up.”

“We’ll be home for Mamie’s graduation.” Uncle Mike kicked at the leg of his metal patio chair. “We’ll leave right after that, though.”

“Good, ‘cause Mamie would kill us if we missed the ceremony,” I said. That got a half-hearted laugh out of the guys. “What about the baby? Aunt Julie’s due soon.”

Mike exchanged glances with the colonel. “I’m active, Chief. I have to go when the Army says go.”

That sucked, really sucked, and the crowd settled into another uncomfortable silence. To change the topic, I decided it was time to make my first demand. “Will gets to come this time.”

The colonel rubbed his forehead. “If I said no, what would your reaction be?”

I clenched my jaw and glared at him. “I need him at my back. That’s not negotiable this time.”

“That’s what I thought,” he said. “Yes, he can come since he’ll be out of school. We’ll be able to concoct a cover for him.”

Relieved, I asked, “How long is the op?”

“Just four weeks,” Colonel Black said. “That’s a firm timeline.”

“But what if we’re not done in four weeks?”

Uncle Mike leaned toward me, giving me a level stare. “Back to square one. This next mission is all in. If we don’t complete our objective, we need to start over.”

Which was code for “we’re giving up on it.”

I started to ask why when Ramirez stood slowly, moving like an old man. “Would you gentlemen excuse us minute? I need to chat with Matt.”

Chairs scraped the brick floor and everyone headed inside. As soon as they were out of sight, Ramirez sank back into his seat, wincing. I went to help him, but he held up a hand.

“I need to do this myself. The more I move, the faster I get out of here.”

I took a seat on a rickety metal chair, totally ill-at-ease. “So…”

“How’s my hand look?” Ramirez asked, stretching his brown fingers out until they were almost straight.

“Better,” I said. “How’d they fix it?”

“Mild electric shock and physical therapy. It forced the muscles to contract and relax until everything loosened back up.” He shifted in his wheelchair. “I still sleep with the knife under my pillow, though. I don’t feel safe without it close by.”

“Can’t imagine why,” I said. “It’s not like you were kidnapped and held hostage by winged demons or anything.”

A faint smile crossed his face. “Look, the situation in Afghanistan is bad. We all know it, but the general can only throw so much manpower at the problem before Congress starts asking the wrong questions. If the next deployment fails, the team will have to step back, see if there are other places, like Africa, where we can be of more use.”

The hollowness in his voice got to me. “Sir, do you know what else is over there? What we missed last time?”

“Not exactly—the minions gave me hallucinations, so I was never sure what was real and what wasn’t. I’ll tell you this, though. The scorpion was just my guard dog.” He stared at his hand. “She was something, that’s for sure.”

I sat up straighter. “Wait, you saw the woman, too?”

“How do you think they captured me?”

It wasn’t just me. I wasn’t the only one she’d fooled…a grown man had been tricked by her, too. Except there was one difference—I’d gotten Schmitz killed; Ramirez hadn’t hurt anyone but himself. We both had something to live down, but my mistake was worse.

“You tell anyone?” I asked. “About her?”

“Not specifically. Just that I was charmed or something.”

Something cold and ashamed slithered around in my gut. “Me neither. They know about the scorpion, but not her. I just…couldn’t tell them.”

Ramirez watched me, his eyes sad. “Next time we’ll both know better, right?”

Oh, yeah, we’d know. I nodded.

“So back to your question,” Ramirez said, sounding even more tired. “I never saw the leader, but I felt it. Every time it was close, I felt this vacuum, like it was sucking all the life out of the air, full of cold hate. It wanted my knife pretty badly, and it tried hard to get it.” He gripped the wheelchair’s armrests. “I haven’t told the others…but I almost gave in. The knife’s shield started to weaken, and I just wanted the pain to end.”

The shame in his voice made me squirm in my seat, and Ramirez looked away. “You can stop this thing, Matt. Your spirit-bond is the strongest. You found me when the others couldn’t. Maybe you can withstand the void without getting sucked in. Parker will help you.”

I couldn’t tell him about my doubts, not today. “I’ll do my best, sir. Promise.”

He relaxed in his chair, leaning his head back to bask in the sun. “I know you will.”

I slipped inside to let him rest. What were we going to do? What was
I
going to do? The team was counting on me to destroy the Takers’ master, and my head was full of doubt and pain and static. I wasn’t sure I’d be ready.

Uncle Mike stood at the end of the hall, talking to one of the nurses. “Everything okay?”

I blew by him, walking fast toward the front door. “Let’s go.”

Once I was safe in Uncle Mike’s jeep, the comforting smell of gasoline and old cigars helped settle my nerves. I took a deep breath; even if the Jeep lived in D.C. now, it still smelled like home.

Uncle Mike started the engine. “It’s hard seeing a man injured, isn’t it?”

“It’s not that,” I said without thinking.

“I didn’t think so,” Mike said. “You want to tell me, or should I mind my own business?”

I really wanted to talk to him about it. He’d carried my knife—he knew what it was like to be a wielder, to feel that power. But did he know what it was like to fail? To be tricked?

“Just frustrated I can’t be more help,” I muttered. Even though the pain pounded my insides with both fists, demanding to be let out, the truth stuck in my throat and the words just wouldn’t come.

“Anything else?” Uncle Mike asked. He kept his eyes on the road, but somehow I could still feel him looking at me. And that was enough.

“I’m scared I can’t do this anymore. Not after last time.”

Pouring out the story of how Schmitz died was like removing a stinger after a bee sting. Pain, but relief, too. As I talked, Mike would nod, or say “uh huh” every so often. Otherwise he just listened. Telling him about the woman was the worst; guilt ate at my gut like so many of the monsters I’d put down. When I finally finished, I sagged in my seat, exhausted, and realized that at some point Mike had pulled into a convenience store parking lot. I’d been so intent on confessing, I hadn’t noticed we’d stopped

Uncle Mike stared straight ahead, watching a mom guide two little kids onto the sidewalk, each carrying Slurpees bigger than they were. The littlest one—a boy with wild, curly red hair—tripped and spilled his Slurpee all over himself. His mom laughed and tried to scrub away the purple slush staining the front of his light blue shirt with a tissue she fished from her purse.

“Matt, you see that kid? He’s here, spilling his slushy all over himself and laughing about it, because someone he doesn’t even know keeps him safe,” Uncle Mike said, his voice gravelly and fierce. “I’ve lost men in my command, and it killed part of me each and every time. But the alternative is too horrible to imagine, so I keep going. My pain is worth preventing that kid from suffering.”

I turned to him. Veins stood out on his forehead, and he was breathing fast. He got it. He really did.

We locked eyes for a minute, then it was like I melted. I doubled over with my head resting on my arms and knees. Mike patted my shoulders, saying something about how the entire team had sworn to protect the wielders because everything depended on us. That I couldn’t keep blaming myself. I realized then I’d have to work off my mistakes, and it would take a long time, but I wasn’t doing anyone any good wallowing in my own doubts.

Schmitz died to save me; he knew what sacrifice really was, and made the choice anyway. He was Jorge’s definition of a good man.

Sitting up to face my uncle was tough. I did it though, and he smiled. Not a happy smile, or even a grim one. This one said, “we’re the same.”

“Guess Schmitz was right,” I said, wiping my eyes.

Mike started the car and drove us back to the highway’s onramp. “About what?”

“That one day you’d figure out I’m not a kid anymore, and it’d be a shock.”

“Huh. To tell the truth, though, I always thought we’d cross the ‘man-to-man’ bridge with you asking me to buy you beer.”

“I don’t like beer,” I said, hastily adding, “not that I ever…uh…actually drank one.”

Except for that one time last summer when Will and I snuck a six pack out of his old man’s fridge in the garage, along with two of his cigars. After puking up three Sam Adams’ Lagers tinged with stale tobacco, my taste for the stuff had withered.

Mike gave me a sidelong glance, unconvinced. “Uh huh. Let’s see how long we can keep it that way.”

“Yes, sir,” I answered.

We pulled through the gate at the Pentagon and parked. I followed Uncle Mike to the side door and we went through the security checkpoint before being allowed down the long hallway toward General Richard’s command center.

“The briefing won’t take long,” Mike said over his shoulder. “We’re just outlining the plan, so Parker can stage the op before we get there. You figure into it pretty prominently, so we’ll need to talk through logistics to ensure you’re ready to go.”

“I get the cast off next week, so I’ll start strength training again,” I said, feeling hopeful for the first time in a long while. “I’ll be ready when you need me.”

“I think you will, Chief,” he said. “You’ve—”

“Major!”

Lieutenant Johnson ran down the hall, his heavy feet slapping at the hard floor. He looked worried and we stopped to let him catch up.

“Sir, Captain Tannen needs you immediately,” Johnson said. “She’s gone into labor.”

“Wait,” I said, “isn’t it too early?” I didn’t have much of a clue about babies being born, but I was pretty sure this wasn’t a good thing.

Mike’s face turned white. “Yes. The baby’s not due for another six weeks.”