Shadow Ops: Control Point

swatted it aside. The boot tip caught him in the thigh, sending him staggering backward, his aching leg buckling under him.

“You’re fucking dead, you sack of shit,” Fitzy said, advancing. “I tried. I really did. But some people absolutely cannot be taught.” He pumped a right uppercut at Britton’s jaw, but it was a feint. The real blow hammed down from the other hand as Britton caught his right wrist. It collided with his ear, filling his vision with stars and sending him down to the mud again.

Britton kicked out blindly and caught Fitzy’s ankle. Fitzy cried out in pain and dropped, breaking his fall with a sharp elbow colliding with Britton’s ribs. Britton gulped for oxygen, drowning in nausea as he struggled to pull away from Fitzy’s oppressive weight. The chief warrant officer sprawled on him, smothering him with his bulk. His hands, raw and mud-crusted, found Britton’s throat and began to squeeze. Britton locked his hands on Fitzy’s wrists, shaking left and right, but the chief warrant officer’s grip wouldn’t move. The gulping continued, the nausea intensified, the world shrank to a gray tunnel. The vise constricted until his neck registered only a steady fire that vanished beneath the desperate cry for oxygen.

Britton hammered his knee upward, finding soft flesh again and again. Fitzy only grunted, then shouted something to the MPs, and then all sight and sound was gone as Britton’s lungs cried out for air. He’s really going to kill me. He’s really that crazy. This is how I die.

And then, suddenly, the pressure was gone. Pain awakened him. His neck was a ring of fire, his head stuffed with molten lead. Fitzy’s weight lifted off him. Britton’s ears filled with the sound of roaring blood, his eyes with blurry light. He rolled onto his stomach and retched, struggling to his hands and knees as vision returned.

The roaring sound in his ears resolved into words. Fitzy’s voice. “Do you have any idea what you’re doing?”

Truelove answered, stumbling over the words. “I can’t let you do this, sir.”

Britton stood, his vision slowly coming clear. Fitzy had backed up to the corner of the chow-hall tent. Before him, bright tusks glittering, lurched the embalmed corpse of the silver boar from the OC. Truelove stood behind it, hand outstretched. Fitzy kicked at the animated corpse experimentally, then jerked his boot back, the sole gouged by the sharp, metallic bristles.

“You’re an idiot, Rictus,” Fitzy said, extending a hand. “I can switch that magic off.”

“But then you’d switch mine on,” Britton slurred through the clearing fog. He maneuvered around Fitzy’s shoulder, just enough for the Master Suppressor to see him, but not close enough for a strike. “And I will cut off your fucking head just as soon as I can open a gate…sir.” He spit out the last word.

The boar lurched forward another step, shambling on sharp metallic hooves. Its mouth worked, chunks of hardened yellow embalming fluid flaking out of the corners.

Fitzy jerked his head from the boar to Britton, then up to Truelove and back again.

His eyes widened and his jaw trembled.

Fear, Britton realized. Holy crap, this is Fitzy afraid.

Fitzy’s gaze sawed left and right. Britton followed his eyes. The MPs were gone. Fitzy turned to Downer and Richards, standing wide-eyed outside the OC’s entrance. “You two! Give me a goddamned hand here!”

Neither of them moved.

Fitzy’s eyes narrowed again as he turned back to Truelove. “I swear to God you will fucking pay for this. You all will. This is gross insubordination. This is fucking mutiny. You are all going to die.”

Truelove swallowed. Britton felt a cold lump in his stomach. The ATTD throbbed in his chest. He knew it was no lie.

But he would be damned if he’d show that to Fitzy. “That’d be fine, sir. Now you run along and have a great day.”

He motioned to Truelove, who backed the boar off a couple of steps.

Fitzy took a hesitant step away, skirting the boar. He looked back at them, meeting each of their eyes in turn.

“I don’t know what the hell you all think you’ve accomplished,” he said, “but I assure you you’ve just earned yourself a world of hurt.”

He spun on his heel and stalked down the track, leaving Shadow Coven in stunned silence behind him.

They stared at Fitzy’s shrinking back until it was swallowed by the darkness. Then Britton blew out his breath, and Truelove sat down abruptly, the boar collapsing in a broken heap.

“Oh shit,” the Necromancer whined into his hands, “we’re so fucking dead. I can’t believe I just did that.”

Downer stared at him, mouth opening and closing.

“I’ve got to get the hell out of here,” Richards said, and took off after Fitzy.

“You saved my life,” Britton managed. “Thank you.”

“You can thank me graveside,” Truelove said. “Do you honestly think command is going to tolerate mutinous Probe contractors? Oh my God, we are so fucking dead.”

“He was going to kill Marty,” Britton offered.

“Marty’s a fucking Goblin!” Truelove said. “Do you really think anyone cares other than us?”

“Wait,” Britton said, looking around. “Where is Marty?”

“The MPs took him,” Downer said, her voice stunned.

“Took him where?” Britton asked, panic rising in his throat.

“Where the hell do you think?” Truelove asked, tears streaming down his face. “They’re going to fire him. He’s as good as dead. We didn’t accomplish a goddamn thing.”

CHAPTER XXIX: RELEASE

What is magic, really? It is the monkey wrench in the works. It is the great leveler. Suddenly, without warning, the kid who bags your groceries is stronger than an infantry division. The homeless guy you ignored for years has the power to cure your scoliosis. The criminal on death row can stop a forest fire or save a cruise ship trapped in a storm. Magic is the death of social structure. It has taken the completed puzzle, broken the pieces apart, and tossed them in the air. It’s up to us to put them back together again. The new picture they form will be very different from the old one.

— Johnathan Tillich, Magic and Society, Part VI

Public Radio Network

Britton took off running, not looking back.

“Where the hell are you going?” Downer shouted after him.

He didn’t answer. To save Marty. To finish this.

His boots pounded the semifrozen mud toward the cash. The scenery passed on either side of him, a blur of converted trailers, piled sandbags, soldiers turning their heads to take in the Probe contractor hurtling past them.

The cash was quieter than usual, but Britton didn’t fail to notice the MPs patrolling the tent entrance. They noted his hurried entry but made no move to stop him as he burst through the flaps. The cash floor was equally quiet and guarded. Another small knot of MPs stood ready beneath the signs to the dental unit.

That’s over where Marty works. That’s where they took him.

What did he think he was going to do? Charge in there and carry Marty away? They’d shoot him dead. No, my magic will stop them. The feeling of power was heady, he could crush them if he wanted. He really could save Marty.

And drop dead in the mud, clutching a chest that slowly hemorrhaged purple.

The ATTD has got to come out. Therese.

No, she wasn’t ready.

Scylla, then. But how could he?