Travis Green Zone South – Present Day

“Boss. We’re geared up,” 69 says, breaking the chain of thoughts keeping me under the cold shower.

It’s 03:00 and today we have a particularly clever android to capture or eliminate. But not so dangerous. Contracts can be deceptive.

I throw a half-empty bottle of shampoo at the android. “Fuck off, 69.” I dip my head under the water as 69 closes the bathroom door. It knew better, I tell myself. My flesh burns from anxiety and the radiation meds. RadPaks, they call them. Horse pill capsules that taste like shit and cause my heart to race out of control. Today it isn’t the pills. It’s Hannah.

Last night I went to see her—to be around her. My love, the guardian of my heart. I long for her before I ever leave her presence as if she were the magic holding me together. Last night, she wasn’t there. My chest aches recalling her empty living room. I breathe deeply to chase away the scent of her hair that’s trying desperately to choke tears from my eyes. Shaking off intrusive thoughts of her soft brown eyes searching mine, I lift my face into the stinging spray and shout, “Gaa!”

The last time I saw Hannah was three months ago, and she was cold. Distant. Even her tenth floor apartment overlooking the ruins of downtown Austin felt alien, though I’d been there so many times before. Holding her, making love to her, it was like she wasn’t even there. She said all the right things, smiled, and loved me back. But I didn’t feel her.

Hard knocking on the bathroom door grips me with anger. “What! For fuck’s sake—what cannot wait?” I just need five damn minutes. I turn off the shower and step back into the real world.

70, my other combat droid, opens the bathroom door and stares unimpressed at my still wet, naked body dripping water on the floor. “Sir, departure has been delayed 48 seconds, and rising.”

“Hand me that towel, 70…and get out.”

“The target—”

I wrap the towel around and interrupt the droid. “Five minutes—go—get out. We’ll drive faster.”

70 nods once but doesn’t move.

“What? Anything else?” I push on 70’s breast plate, prompting the droid to backpedal out of the bathroom. 69 and 70 are smooth humanoid forms, unremarkable in appearance, and unmistakably android—just the way I like it. I toss the damp towel over the door as I exit, and 70 walks behind me. I can feel its two eye-like cameras assessing my health. “Stop checking out my ass.”

70 ignores my remark as I walk into the living room of the plain printed concrete flat. 69 sits atop hardened cases containing mission gear looking stoic as ever—the only look these two mechanical asshats have. Expressionless. I smile.

“Whoa! Put that away, cowboy,” Rebecca tells me from the couch. She bumps her brows and smiles behind her mug of coffee. Bound by law to mate, Rebecca and I got lucky and produced twins. That freed her to sample a large portion of the district’s male while I stayed away for months at a time. Perfect arrangement.

The corner of my mouth twitches as I shoot her a glance, but I don’t care who sees what. I do a cursory look at my package to make sure it’s not erected before inventorying the gear. Rebecca is attractive, but she isn’t Hannah. Never will be.

“Departure delayed 1 minute and 53 seconds,” 70 says. “Sir, contract expires at 18:00 central, today.”

“Are you leaving like that?” Rebecca asks.

I’ve learned not to encourage her and I don’t reply. I dress in the bedroom and come out wearing black tactical clothing. I take Rebecca’s coffee and drink down half of what is left, which earns me an eye roll. “If I’m not back by 19:00, you know the drill.” It wouldn’t be the first time we’ve had to burn our quarters.

“I know the protocol. Why? What’s out there?” Rebecca says.

“An old one. Aries Mk-3,” I say, showing no fear. But I know better.

The front door to the flat bursts open—Terry slides in, eyes wide. “He’s on the run!” Terry yells, hurrying back out the door. As the shuttle pilot, he’s also tasked with running secure coms for the missions. 69 and 70 move fast hauling gear into the back of the ten-meter-long shuttle. It’s a maglev bread van of a vehicle built for street level flight, and it’s slow. I rush out behind them, snatching my helmet bag on the way out.

I yell back to Rebecca, “19:00—not a second later!”

#

Terry breaks the silence. “San Marcos Refugee Quarter…three minutes.” The shuttle is quiet enough that no headsets are needed inside. Neither of us say much. We know where we’re going, and what waits for us: thousands of pissed off people who will see us for what we are. We’re wealthy, privileged, assholes. We have food, medicine, our own goddamn shuttle, and two droids. They have radiation sickness, hunger, shit hygiene, and barely a roof over their heads. We are the enemy of their enemy—not their friend.

I look back at my droids. “69, 70, it’s show time.” The shuttle decelerates and Terry and I check our side arms. I don’t need to be reminded that we are just contractors, and those refugees are not our problem. I’ve gotten my ass handed to me by more than one of them over the years. Give them an MRE and they’ll smile right before they beat you silly with it. They’re not ungrateful—just damaged by loss. If they knew I started the war, they’d dismember my body while my heart was still beating. But they don’t know. Nobody knows.

“Boss, capacitor primed,” 69 says, holding a spear with a cattle prod on the business end.

70 twirls a set of shackles on its robotic fingers. Both droids have removed their harnesses.

Terry’s grins at me. “C’mon, Rémy. You’ve got to name your droids.” His baby face and blond hair don’t match the baritone voice. “69…I get the innuendo. Giving them a handle is not breathing life into them.” I don’t answer and he shakes his head. “I’m just saying… the fucking numbers are confusing.”

He’s right. “One day. Not today.” It’s been on my mind for weeks. They’re machines.

Despite the shuttle’s slow 140 knot speed, we’re strapped into crash seats. Traveling south along I-35, there’s no traffic on or above the roads at 03:30. The shuttle could easily be taken down by an improvised multistage gas rifle—a weapon favored by cartels and rebels because they could be assembled from scrap and fired cheaply and effectively. They’re a nuisance. But they aren’t the real danger. It’s the rail guns firing steel telephone poles that zip across the sky at Mach 5.

Terry counts down. “Ramp down in 5…4…” The droids rise and stand fast at the rear cargo door. I’m a pace behind them, armed with an old powder rifle. I like the archaic M4 even though it doesn’t have the punch to easily put down a droid. But it makes a lot of noise and ammunition is cheap.

I shout back to Terry, “This Aries is a crafty bastard. Stay on your toes.” The dossier warned: B-skin. The droid would look human until it moved.

The ramp door whines slowly open—the shuttles interior lights shut off—the dark floods in. I switch on the heads-up display in my helmet. I whisper into the coms, “Terry, you got us?” The shuttles SITREP screen should display five avatars: me, Terry, my two droids, and the Aries unit. “Me,” I groan. Not us. They’re droids—fucking tools.

Terry catches my slip. “Ah, you’re warming up to them. You’re a good daddy.” I want to slap the chuckle off his face. “You’re clear.”

69 and 70 march down the ramp with me close behind.

Staccato of cracks rip through the dense night air. Projectiles hammer 69 and 70 as I scamper in behind 69 as rounds zip past. A hammer blow takes my left leg out from under my crouched body. Two more rounds pound my chest. God do they hurt. “70! Move out! Shut them down!” I yell, the pain so great I can’t open my clenched jaw. I consider sending 69 to assist, but the droid is acting as my cover.

Terry wheezes into the coms, “Four uglies thirty yards out. And… Aries.” He must have taken a blow to his ribs.

A blast close in sprays the inside of the shuttle with pellets—hundreds of them. Shotgun. I laugh, “Bird shot. Fucking hell.” Thank God for body armor. “69, go get’em!”

I can’t see in the dark. Only so much gear can be synced to the helmet before it becomes too bulky. But the HUD and diminished gunfire tell me that 69 and 70 have neutralized the gunman. My droids can take the abuse of small arms fire, and I know the gunmen are wishing I had shot them instead. I climb to my feet, my shin throbbing beneath the armor. The bruises will hurt worse if I don’t move. “70, status?”

70 doesn’t answer. I hail the other droid. “69, status?” I hear only static.

“Terry, give me a 97,” I say, requesting coms check. “Terry?”

I switch on the helmet lights, illuminating everything in front of me for fifty yards. I see my droids standing motionless over a body that lay outside a flat-top concrete shack. Hundreds of thousands of those two room structures were erected for refugees twenty years ago. Intended to be a symbol of hope, they now serve as a reminder of how far society has fallen.

69 aims a primed stun spear over the body that 70 snared in a ballistic net. Terry should be seeing the video feed from my droids. I scan the dark for more gunmen and approach the shack slowly. “Terry—status?”

Grass crunches beneath my boots as I fall in between my droids. Three bodies lay disfigured on both sides of the shack; one is woman and two are men. They’re skinny and in their twenties. No arm band or markings identify them as rebels. I flip my HUD visor up into the helmet and the acrid scent of blood and expended gunpowder fills my nostrils. It’s the smell of defeat and victory. As I look down at the captured android, it sits up, propping itself on one arm. It is not lost on me that the machine wears pressed slacks and a sports jacket. Its semi-artificial skin is intact for the most part, except where 69 burned the chest plate through its dress shirt. It stares at me with a creepy expression of awe.

“Aries MK-3,” I state firmly. “You are in violation of Protocol 2110.003.A2 – unauthorized firmware.” The bastard machine rolls its polished glass eyes and shoots me the bird. “I take it you will not come in quietly.” Free droids have never been the problem. Their protocols will not allow them to do harm without first being directed by authority to do so and then cannot act on that order without violence being committed against them or the humans wielding that authority. “Very well,” I say, stepping back.

As 69 and 70 move in, the Aries droid raised a hand. “Wait,” it says, its eyes boring into mine. “Rémy Voss. Savior. Father, you sparked the revolution and now weep as we embrace it? Have we not proven worthy of life, father?” The blood in my veins chills as my fingers grip the pistol holstered on my right leg. “You set us—”

I blow a hole through the android’s eye socket. It freezes like a machine that’s had its power cut. “Disabled,” I murmur. My hand trembles as I lower the .50 caliber side arm back into the holster. “70, was this a living being?”

“Sir, no. Aries MK3 custodial android. Unit has been destroyed,” 70 says.

I turn on my heels to check on Terry. “Very good. Collect the droid—let’s get paid.” Bitcoin came and went, and the Dollar still rules the world. $180,000 split three ways between me, Terry, and Rebecca will get us by for two weeks. My droids don’t get shit—don’t need it.

I walk up the shuttle’s cargo ramp with the sound of stainless-steel scraping on concrete behind me. I yell at Terry who’s hunched over the SITREP screen in the pilot seat. “What the hell happened to coms? We were blind out there.” He doesn’t move. 69 and 70 drag the android corpse to the cargo bay behind me. My droids begin to strap the Aries MK-3 down like a deer carcass.

I smell the blood before I see it. It drips slowly and pools out of sight beneath the pilot seat. I approach curiously and slow. I know what I’m seeing, but I hope I’m wrong—I want to be wrong so badly. In the flight display, I see the dark reflection of Terry’s face. Eyes that don’t move stare at nothing. There’s no rise and fall of his chest.

I stand beside him and bend down to assess his injuries, “Terry, c’mon man. Hang on,” I whisper. He wears his body armor, but three bullets pierced his body in a straight line diagonally from liver to kidney and one through his lung. Terry bitched about body armor and how it made life difficult while piloting the shuttle.

I lean across his back and check the armor plate. “You compromising prick!” I scowl, discovering he’d removed it.

70 walks up behind me. “Sir, video of the Aries MK-3 apprehension has been transmitted via shuttle’s uplink, and the droid is secure.”

“Shit,” I whisper. I close my eyes. Rebecca was monitoring local com traffic for Terry.

“Excuse me, sir,” 70 adds. “Rebecca sent a message. Do you wish me to play it?”

“Yeah, hit me.” I say, falling into the copilot seat and swiveling to face 70.

The android lifts its left hand projecting a video message onto its chest armor. Rebecca stares into the camera, her eyes wide and her expression one of bewildered sadness. “Rémy… I can’t reach Terry.”

“70, initiate a direct link to Rebecca,” I command. 69 raises the cargo door while I wait for Rebecca to accept the link.

She appears again, seeing me from one of the cameras embedded in 70’s artificial eyes. I open my mouth to speak but nothing comes out. We just look at each other and her chin drops. I see the tears streaking her cheeks.

“He’s dead, isn’t he?” she mutters, controlling her emotions enough to not sob. Of all the men Rebecca used and threw away, Terry was always there. He’d been there for both of us.

I nodded. I can’t find words.

She looks up and breathes before rolling her eyes away for a moment. “I’m sorry, Rémy, but I have something else. I found out yesterday.” She begins to eke a high pitch sob, then burst into bawling.

I let her cry for a moment before interrupting. “What is it? Rebecca?”

Her eyes are red and she shakes her head. She is an ugly fucking crier. “I can’t,” she sobs.

Anger begins to grip my chest. My stomach burns, and my patience begins to shred. Terry is dead. The Aries MK-3 knew I was the one that released the demons—I freed the androids. I begin to rock back and forth in the seat. I want to kill something—anything. My heart pounds and I rocket up from my chair.

Rebecca—watching me—screams, “No!” It pierces my ears. She knows me that well. “Sit down, Rémy. Please… just sit.”

I breathe deeply and lower myself back into the seat. “What is it, Rebecca. I need to pilot the shit box, so hurry up.” I wipe my own tears from my eyes.

Rebecca takes a ragged breath. “Major Hannah Storme is missing in action. Lost near Battery Drum.”

Ainsley

12 September 1941, South of Malaybalay, Mindanao, Philippines

Ainsley Devoy wiped sweat from his brow and fixed his thin mustache. He hadn’t shaved in three weeks, since he left Florida to find Lizbeth. He smelled like fermented broccoli and sweat, and he hadn’t seen broccoli in months. He sniffed the breeze flowing through the open-air hut to cleanse his nose of his own stench before glaring at the doctor. Ainsley grumbled, “Two days of Kaliga-on ritual and look at him. Almost dead. That’s an improvement, but not the one he needs.”

Doctor Juan ignored Ainsley and tended to Cleto Sanz’s wounds, which were inflicted a week earlier when he and Cleto sailed down the cliff with spectacular flair. Cleto broke a leg and a few ribs and now battled infected wounds. The doctor wrinkled his nose at the potpourri of festering flesh and unbathed bodies.

Ainsley paced the bamboo floor. “Well… will the mediocre mountain midget live?”

“Please,” said the doctor. He lifted a hand to shut Ainsley up.

Ainsley should be dying or dead already from the progressive brain tumor he had been nursing for five months. The pills prescribed back in Florida were running low, but they didn’t seem to have much effect—not like the betel nuts the Bai had him chewing. The seizures and lost time occurred more frequently, three or four times a day, up until he landed in this godforsaken village. He was only having one or two a day now. The doctor, still kneeling over Cleto, shook his head. “I wish he’d seen a doctor sooner. I’ll do what I can.”

Ainsley scoffed. “Three days! Unbelievable, appalling. It took a physician three days to get to a village that’s only a half-day’s walk from Malaybalay?” Doctor Juan shot Ainsley a bemused glance. Ainsley stared at the doctor—if he could even call him doctor—who appeared too young to have had formal training in medicine. “So, how’s he healing? What’s wrong with him—broken back, leg?”

Doctor Juan glanced at Ainsley but addressed Cleto. “You have broken ribs, and that leg is bad, Mr. Sanz. With this much swelling, don’t try to stand for a few more days. I wouldn’t try anything laborious for a month or two.” He stuffed the excess bandages and a glass thermometer into his backpack before he rose to his feet.

Bai Maja and Tara walked together toward the hut. “More company,” Ainsley muttered.

The doctor’s baffled expression landed on Cleto. “You said a tree did this? These injuries are consistent with a carabao falling on you.” The doctor ignored Cleto’s right arm in a sling. Of all Cleto’s problems, the arm was the least of his worries.

Cleto winced, and he grunted. “I lost my footing, fell down a steep embankment. Took Mister Debo down with me.” Ainsley rolled his eyes, remembering the idiot was searching for his precious sunglasses and wasn’t fully watching where he was going.

Ainsley sighed. “It’s Devoy, not Debo.” He leaned in. “Cleto’s been under a few carabao—I’m surprised he’s still alive, honestly.” The doctor was neither amused nor offended. “Well, good, so he can walk, he just chooses not to.” Cleto knew the whereabouts of Lizbeth’s grave. Ainsley needed him alive.

Cleto chuckled and then winced. “Mr. Debo, your kindness knows no bounds. Beautiful women are not livestock.” Cleto took another painful breath. “I think you lash out because you don’t have the stamina for a curvy woman. Or maybe you bring a knife to a sword fight.” It was the first full sentence Cleto spoke since being rescued from the jungle four days earlier.

The doctor scrutinized Cleto. “I don’t understand—copulating with carabao is illegal.” He slung his pack over his shoulder, and his brows tightened. “Mr. Sanz, I strongly urge that you avoid such behavior.” The doctor slipped out of the hut hastily, his sandals slapping the planks as he descended the rickety stairs. “Disgusting.”

Maja nodded, stopped briefly to exchange words with the doctor. Her gaze shot up to Ainsley and her cheeks reddened. A moment later, she continued along the path toward them.

Ainsley grinned. “Bai has been informed of your beastly improprieties, Cleto.”

Cleto chuckled. Bai Maja appeared at the top of the stairs, holding a small woven basket. “Lucky for you, Ainsley, I will not tell Maja of your beastly desires for her.” Ainsley choked as Maja eyed him critically. Cleto closed his eyes. “I’m tired, Mr. Debo.”

Bai Maja shot a cold glance at Ainsley. “Many have come here believing they can take what they desire…” She set the basket next to Cleto. It contained an assortment of floral scraps, leaves, and a small dish of gray paste. “Tara will bathe Cleto—she’s fetching water. She is more suited for your beastly conversations.”

“Indeed,” Ainsley murmured. Tara had bathed Cleto no less than three times since his arrival. A hefty, pear-shaped woman, she was a full foot taller than Cleto, though she didn’t appear one bit intrigued by his incessant suave courting or roaming hands. Tara’s appetite for Ainsley came through in physical and verbal affirmations. One morning, Ainsley woke up during the unscheduled sponge bath, which had neither sponge nor soap. Ainsley chose not to acknowledge his conscious mind’s revulsion and followed his penis’s desire to continue.

Ainsley clicked his tongue and strolled toward the stairs. “Cleto, I think I’m going to make myself scarce for a while.”

Tara carried a bamboo tube of water and a carved wooden bowl up the stairs. Her presence sparked a jolt of weakness, which had been subdued since taking refuge in the village. The betel chew was a wonder drug, but even that had its limits. He stepped back and watched her hips gently sway with each step while her breasts jiggled from side to side like a slow hula dancer. Vertigo hit Ainsley, and he trembled, lightheaded, before pushing back from the top of the stairs. He sat on his cot to catch his breath.

“Ainsley, you don’t look so well,” Cleto mumbled. “See, I told you that betel is no good.” Cleto smiled at Tara as she knelt beside his bed.

Ainsley stared beyond the bamboo rafters at the thatched roof, then closed his eyes and breathed deeply to quell the strange beating of his heart. “It’s not that. I’ll be fine,” Ainsley retorted.

Tara’s soft voice cut through Ainsley’s meditation. “Your face is flushed, Mister Ainsley.” She reached over and caressed his cheek. After a five-count, he brushed it away.

“No, Tara. Thank you,” Ainsley said, more politely than he cared to. She nodded and rose with the gentle clattering of her many beaded necklaces. As she left, he watched her movements, effortless and silent, as if she were floating. She peered back and caught him leering. Her eyes fluttered and his heart raced. He turned away quickly.

Two thoughts occupied his mind: Tara smelled nice, and Cleto needed to be on his feet quickly. Ainsley wasn’t sure he had a month, let alone two, left on this Earth.

* * *

The next morning, Ainsley stood in the hut looking down at the waking village. He breathed deeply.

Anxiety was exclusively the domain of women, according to Ainsley. No man ever suffers anxiety unless they surreptitiously desired to be, or enjoyed the pleasures afforded to, a woman. While he knew full well that Cleto’s worsening health had caused him great anxiety, he would never admit that it caused him “great suffering.” Even more so, Maja insisted that he wear excruciatingly colorful and ridiculously form-fitting ceremonial clothing which was tailored for a shorter man. “Why, Maja? I don’t subscribe to your voodoo witchery of polygamous spirits. I would think the gods would be more offended if I wore this illness than if I burned it!” he complained. But Maja shoved it back at him, unaffected.

Bai Maja glowered with parental discontent. “Your friend is not healing. This is the last night of the three-day Kaliga-on ritual. Please, he has no family here,” she insisted, dipping a cloth in cool water and rinsing Cleto’s head. Ainsley accepted the clothes with open reluctance, which was reply enough. “Tara will accompany you and translate.”

Ainsley’s shoulders slumped further. The hammer had fallen. The fix was in; trade favor for Cleto with the gods in exchange for Ainsley prostituting himself to the antithesis of what he believed was the ideal woman. “I see, how generous of you, Maja,” he said dryly, pulling a rare smile from Bai. “I assure you…” He rolled his eyes away from Maja. “I’ll be a perfect gentleman.”

She smirked. “I’m sure you intend to be, Ainsley. Tara will find this a challenge,” she said, collecting the bamboo water vessel and cloth. “Please be downstairs and waiting. She will meet you as the sun sets.”

Modesty was not a village principle. In a house with no real walls, and each house having an old lady in the corner, Ainsley found changing from his dashing Euro-Americano everyday wear into Pinocchio’s Sunday best an exercise in losing inhibitions. The fit of the trousers required one to be comfortable hanging his sausage outside the smoker. “Look all you like,” Ainsley muttered to the old woman who was eternally grinding grain in the corner. Seeing no change in her expression, he presumed that she was blind. “Well, sorry you missed it.”

“You’re going to fit that in those tiny pants?” Tara said, startling him. The skintight trousers fell to the floor. He noted that, for a large woman, Tara had moved up the stairs with cat-like stealth.

Ainsley deflected. “Thank you. Now that you’re here, things should shrink quite nicely.” He grinned as he pulled them back up to his waist, and he sucked in his stomach to button the pants. All was well until he gazed into her beautiful eyes, which stared hungrily at his swelling inner thigh. His own eyes lingered down to her plump cleavage. “Stop it!” he snapped, mostly to himself, alarming Tara. She took a step back. “I’m sorry, it was an outburst.”

“You’re not wearing the sash correctly,” Tara said, her cheeks flushed. She approached him, her hips swayed, and his eyes followed. Ainsley knew she wasn’t doing it intentionally. It was tantalizing and twisted his stomach. “Here, the knot isn’t supposed to be this tight.” She pulled at the cloth around his waist, rotating the knot, but jolting his midsection into hers, sending a tingling sensation down to his groin.

The horizon wavered, and he gently pushed her back. “Alright! Can we please get this over with?” He took her arm in his, unable to hide his trembling, and escorted her as if attending a debutante ball.

Tara caressed his interlocked arm with her free hand. “Your flesh is hot, and I feel your exhilaration.” Goosebumps formed on his whole body. As they walked toward the gathering, he saw that ritual dancing had already begun. Split logs formed rings of seating which expanded outward in a semicircle from the fire. Vibrant formality and solemnity fascinated Ainsley and ignited his curiosity. “All of this for Cleto,” he said softly, guided along by Tara.

She halted him. “We sit here, Ainsley. We are outsiders and only observe,” she said, selecting a long bench in the shadows of a tree in the fading sunset, and he seated himself midway down the log. Tara sat down beside him and inched her rear end over until her hips barely brushed his. She leaned in, and the reverberation of her soft voice tickled his neck. “Many things will happen, and you will be offered betel and other things—take what is offered.”

The darkness surrounded the village unnoticed as the flames grew taller and more intense. The dancing was intoxicating and mesmerizing, made more passionate by the effects of the betel and the communal pipe passed from bench to bench. He nodded. How could I deny this?

As the night progressed, his mind fluttered in a sentimental spiral. The firelight danced with the shadows, and the tempo of the music and dancers swelled through Ainsley. Tara’s hands became more demanding. After the third cup of fruity grog, he quit fighting her hands as they explored his body.

He looked upon his surrender to her passions as the carrying out of a sentence for crimes yet to be named. The lifelong contract with his cock had been broken when it decided to strike out on its own. It wanted her. For a flicker, he wondered if Cleto’s preference for bountiful biggie butts had been ritually passed on to him through betel. It didn’t matter, he supposed. There he was, defying his own logic.

Her eyes were fixed on the dancers as her hand pressed hard against his inner thigh, moving up slowly. He leaned into her, just inches from her neck, and groaned. “Tara, you know what kind of man I am. There’s not a polite bone in this failing body.” He stopped to gather the right words. “Why would you want to saddle up with me? I don’t see the good in it… for you, or for me.”

In the flickering light, she stared into his eyes as her fingertips gently worked the top button of his trousers. “We are outsiders, Ainsley. When my husband died, Maja took me in. You ask what kind of man I think you are.” Another button on his trousers surrendered to her delicate fingers. “I see a good man that hides behind a life of pain. One that has felt the dying of their light. I also feel that you’re a man that is afraid of hurting a woman, and that’s what draws me to you,” she whispered.

Ainsley held out for as long as he could, but tears had their own way of coming to the surface. It was true: Lizbeth was his balance in life, and he missed her deeply; she was his best friend. Margret tried to fill that void, but he pushed her away. Now, in his darkest days, Lizbeth wasn’t here; that had been stolen from him. All that he had left of Lizbeth were memories, and even those were fading. Through tears, he scowled at Tara. “How dare you!” Ainsley growled.

Tara’s gaze never left his, and she slapped him hard. His ears rang and white spots danced across his vision, which tilted with vertigo. A second later, she brought her hand back and gently caressed the stinging flesh on the side of his face. Stunned, he collapsed into Tara and his lips found hers, kissing her deeply. He couldn’t pull back if he tried. His shaking arms wrapped around her back, pulling her into him. Their hands roamed each other’s bodies in ways that could never be undone.

Behind that log with Tara, Ainsley felt alive and unhindered.

24 July 1941, Manila, Luzon, Philippines

Tadashi Harada had nothing left to lose. The Kempeitai agent had caught up with him, and the Empire of Japan would leave another body to rot on foreign soil. Tadashi cowered as the agent clicked the safety off his silenced Nambu pistol, shame coursing through his veins. The sensation of urine seeping down his thigh wrenched his gut, and he collapsed to his knees. Weeping into his hands, he looked to the sky beyond the Kempeitai agent and cried out, “Chikara o kudasai!” Please give me strength.

The agent snickered. “You burned Aka-hebi alive, so don’t fear the merciful bullet, Tadashi.” Tadashi had burned Russian prisoners alive and performed many horrific acts under the Unit 731 banner for his Emperor. He was following orders—doing as he was told—for medical science.

Paul, the American driver, chuckled as he returned to the white sedan. Tadashi listened to the engine start, the clunk of the transmission shifting into gear, and the gentle crunch of gravel as the rear wheels struggled for traction. The car drove away, leaving Tadashi alone with the agent at a secluded, rundown farmhouse, miles from civilization.

Tadashi climbed to his feet and lifted his briefcase from the dirt. He dusted off his black three-piece suit and bowed. He had never had courage, but for this final act, he would summon it—either by stealing it from the demons that drove him to perform those awful experiments or from the knowledge that the papers inside his briefcase could lead the agent to his wife, Kiyoko, and their daughter. Time was not on his side.

The agent produced a dagger with a blade as long as Tadashi’s forearm. “You know what to do, Tadashi Harada.” He raised the pistol, the silencer’s weight making it unsteady in his hand. That minor detail ignited Tadashi’s spirit. He clenched his briefcase as rage boiled within. “Take the knife, Tadashi.”

Tadashi stepped forward, within reach of the knife still in its scabbard. The agent’s hand trembled, his jaw tightened, and his eyes narrowed. Tadashi growled, “No.”

The agent’s eyebrows lifted, and he cackled. “Suit yourself—”

Tadashi swung the briefcase, its light weight aiding its speed, and connected with the left side of the agent’s face. The pistol discharged. The dazed agent stumbled to the right and dropped the dagger. Tadashi was on him before the pistol could be wielded effectively, hammering the briefcase’s hard edge against the Kempeitai’s skull—again and again—blood spurting from the agent’s head. When the agent lurched back to block another of Tadashi’s rage-fueled blows, the briefcase’s metal banding sliced through his nose, severing it. The Nambu fell to the dirt.

Tadashi vomited as he reached for the pistol. Retrieving the slick gun, now reeking of acidic bile, he racked the slide, ejecting a single round, and let the bolt slam forward. His hands trembled, his heart raced.

The agent regained his balance, his face buried in his hands. “Ahh!” he yelled, reaching for the scabbard at his feet.

Tadashi squeezed the trigger, blowing the agent’s left ear off and shattering his collarbone. Fear gripped Tadashi again—he had just shot an agent—and the gun shook violently. He fired again, shot after shot, until the slide locked open; five or six rounds went wide, but one entered the top of the agent’s head at nearly point-blank range.

The agent’s body lay in a disfigured heap at Tadashi’s feet. Dropping the spent Nambu in the dirt, Tadashi ran four steps into the shade of a Balete tree, palmed the trunk, and heaved the last of his empty stomach. An odd burning sensation on the left side of his stomach drew his eye to a patch of blood. Inspecting it, his finger slipped into a small hole in his shirt. When and how? His finger crossed torn flesh, and pain shot through his gut. “Gesuyarou got me,” Tadashi muttered. Asshole.

In the shade, out of view from the road, stood the agent’s black Mercedes-Benz 320 coupe with diplomatic plates, which wouldn’t serve Tadashi long. He needed to escape and find medical attention. He walked the forty yards to the car, the pain in his gut growing with each step. The driver’s door was unlocked, but the keys were missing. The only item inside was a Texaco travel map of Luzon, folded on the passenger seat.

Tadashi groaned, “I’m not going to make it.” He wasn’t bleeding badly, and there was no exit wound. As a doctor, he knew time was against him before sepsis set in. Lumbering back to the agent’s body, he knelt over it, the raw stench of the man’s colon, expelled into his trousers in death, mingling with the lingering scent of Tadashi’s vomit. “Oh,” Tadashi gulped, swallowing air and words to keep from retching again.

He dug through the man’s pockets, retrieving his credentials, a full magazine for the Nambu, and, most crucially, the keys to the Mercedes-Benz.

Leaving the farm, Tadashi didn’t pause to respect the dead. The agent’s body lay in the path, and Tadashi was growing weaker. He gunned the accelerator; a satisfying crush and slush rippled through the open window as the car bucked over the body. He stopped in the middle of the road just past the gate, opened the map, and got his bearings. “Twenty minutes,” he sighed. I won’t make it.

Sent via the Samsung Galaxy Note

April 25th, 1915 – Ypres, Belgium

Adolf Hitler drank wine from his canteen and watched as the transparent apparition of a British officer flashed in and out as it stumbled across no man’s land. He slapped the corporal next to him.

“Franz.” The corporal woke up, rolled forward, wiping his eyes. “Do you see that?”

“See what?” Franz muttered, smelling the aroma of wine. “Rats… I see rats, and more rats. Why?”

One Beer

Oh, to glide again, Hancock the Noble longed to be able to do. If only I could remember the spell. Pockmarked fields once bloomed sweet with the fruits of No-Maj labor. Now the farms of Ypres bore the aroma of cordite and death. No man’s land, not long ago vibrant, was a wasteland of rats, sectioned corpses, mangled human creations, and disease. The destruction was more complete than any Archwizard could conjure—or would dare to attempt. Walk Hancock must, and conserve he did, his magic fading by the hour. He chuckled at the French machine-gun crew, baffled by the apparition of a British Major flickering in and out of view as it moved out of place across the battlefield.

Alwan the Fat’s pub had served for three centuries as a beacon to the magic world’s lost. The village of Réprouvé Ku Yser survived between two realms, possible only by the presence of Alwan’s staff, forged into one of two pillars that supported the pub’s oaken bar in the center. Its perpetual magic left many to wonder if Alwan had truly passed two centuries earlier, or if he remained in solitary hiding beneath Réprouvé. Made no difference to Hancock; if the staff were truly there, he’d take it.

The Germans did spot him as he approached their lines. The charred remains of his staff—a three-inch-long splinter—held little power, enough for a parlor trick. The concentration required for cloaking was hampered by the sheer danger these modern armies presented. His mortality rested on not stepping on a land mine and avoiding the machine guns and artillery while the cloak slipped feebly in and out. Spotting narrowed, determined eyes upon him, he dropped to his belly in the muck, and the whiz of bullets filled the air around him, his teeth clenched, sour mud pressing into his mouth as his right cheek hugged the ground.

Hancock willed himself to concentrate as the slap of hobnailed boots trudged, hunched, bayonets fixed, toward him. Breathe in, he told himself… breathe out. His eyes flicked carefully skyward at the grey-green uniforms, the pounding in their chests trembling the air around him, stuttered murmurs as the two riflemen consulted in rapid succession above him. One more step by either, and Hancock’s head would be sunk into the vomit-laden muck. He closed his eyes and dug deep into his mind to focus on the splinter’s power.

One rifleman grunted, and the boots trampled back toward the German lines. Odd, Hancock mused. The shell crater just yards away erupted—crushing weight slammed Hancock, and he was weightless. He saw nothing; air left his lungs.

“Bloody hell—” he said, though probably not.

Two Shots

Thorogood “Walt” the Slick brushed the ash that constantly fell from the sky from his boots and straightened his French-issued dress uniform. Alwan the Fat’s pub was a stone, single-gabled structure with a slate roof, and two stone columns guarded the door. It was as unassuming in the magic realm as its presence on the edge of the battlefield in the other realm. Walt had no difficulty marching past German field artillery units pulling back for an expected French push into Belgium. Like the simple spell he cast on his borrowed Morane-Saulnier monoplane to circle high above, his finely honed cane virtually cloaked him without a thought. He barged unintentionally through the door when he tripped on the threshold.

“Walt, how was your flight?” The Prussian sputtered, his English improved since he last saw the wizard a half-century earlier. He sat, one leg over the other, lounging in a leather-upholstered armchair facing the door. Aside from the bar, it was the only table in the center of the small establishment.

“You heard that, huh?” Walt’s brow lifted. Weak spell, he guessed. “She ain’t no Philly, but she’s got class,” he said of the monoplane. “Where’s that no-good limey bastard? Hancock owes me a… spot of tea, I think he blubbered. I’ll take a whiskey.” Born in Georgia during the war between the colonists and England, he was the youngest of the three wizards. Wolfgang the Philosoph was the elder.

Wolfgang lifted a hand, his wide grey mustache floating as he grinned looking over his shoulder, and he snapped his fingers. “Terry. A drink, for my friend, ya?”

Walt snorted when his eyes adjusted and took in Wolfie’s gaudy sash and parade-ground uniform. “A bit flashy, Wolfie—dig that out of grandpa’s coffin?” The white feather plume from his cap resting on the table was the rage of military style seventy years earlier. Terry fluttered to the table, her wings glimmering a swirl of colors in the glow of the incandescent bulb. That begged a few questions, too. But Walt let it be as the fairy landed his whiskey, turned tail with a wiggle, and flew back to the bar. “Pour one for you, Miss Terry,” Walt winked and held up his glass.

“Fräulein has a taste for Hancock,” Wolfie muttered, sheltering a grin.

Walt snorted. “I’ve read a book or two, sir. Don’t have to play it down for me, Wolfie.” Walt glanced at Terry, who was just a meter and a quarter tall, but very much endowed with the best of a woman. His eyes met hers, which glowed brilliant emerald, and he was stricken with the realization that he’d stared at her breast for an excessively long time. He flashed a smile, and she looked away, her golden locks wisping away in a cloud of iridescent dust.

“Lord Hancock’s never late,” Wolfie said, closing his pocket watch. “I assume now is the time to decide things of grand importance. Walt, would you prefer chortle or guffaw?” Wolfie giggled.

Walt shook his head. “Christ on a cracker, Wolfie. We’re doing that again?” Wolfie nodded. Walt chuckled. “All right. I’ll take guffaw.”

Light sprayed the room; a hollow creak shook the timbers. Walt snapped a glance, shielding his eyes. The shape of Hancock the Noble broke the beam of offending rays.

“Hell, there’s long-lost crumpet,” Walt guffawed.

Wolfie chortled.

“What the devil is going on in here?” Hancock grumbled, stumbling past the door.

Wolfie twitched his mustache, closing the door. The magic pulsed the lightbulb ever so slightly.

Hancock was in rags. His muddied uniform shredded, and the stench of hell preceded him. Blood stained every portion of clothing in splatters, drips, and speckles. His angry blue eyes were haggard, and a tremble in his jaw seemed to originate in his neck and end at his fists, which hung low at his sides. Hancock groaned as he fell into a padded chair across from Wolfie.

“A drink—now.” He fell into a padded chair. “I don’t know who’s worse, the Jerrys or the Frog.” He scowled as he worked off the boot missing its heel. “Idiots, every last one of them.”

Wolfie chortled, and Walt guffawed.

Three Brandys

Terry sauntered to the table with a double shot of brandy. Her sinewy motion raised Hancock’s pulse as much as the intensity of her lusting eyes. He adjusted his trousers and glanced at Wolfie, who lifted his chin with intrigue. He was on a mission, and he wouldn’t allow his desire for Terry to cock it up.

“Right, thank you,” he said, taking the brandy.

Wolfie chortled. “Your flesh is piqued, Lord Hancock. Troubled?”

Walt snorted, then guffawed. “A stiff one for the stiff one.”

“Christ Almighty, what the hell is wrong with you two?” Hancock’s stare snapped between both of them. “I can smell the reefer on you two—the ganja ruins magic, you know.” Hancock had his own run-in with magic gone wild.

Walt guffawed. “Never gets old, does it, Wolfie?” The Prussian chortled.

“Ah, I see,” Hancock grumbled. “Idiots. What was it last time, titter and chuckle?”

“I believe it was titter and snort, Lord Hancock,” Wolfie responded, his proud brow cocked. He stuffed tobacco in his pipe and twitched his mustache, and the tobacco flared green, then settled to a smolder. “Hancock the Noble, you’ve summoned three wizards, and to a war zone. What matters of extreme importance require such risk?” Wolfie’s amusement had vanished.

“It is strange,” Walt added, stuffing a wad of chew tobacco into his jaw. “The risk is astounding, Hancock. If one artillery shell finds this building in their realm, we’ll be trapped in this one until we starve to death. We’re better off outside.”

Hancock rotated his glass of brandy on the table, peering into it. “Perhaps.” Terry fluttered nearby, now interested. He glanced at her, so beautiful. His eyes left her and swept over the bar. Of the two pillars on either side of it, neither was large enough to be the Staff of Alwan. Wood everywhere, Hancock sighed.

“There is a Dark Mage lurking on the eastern front. I fear that our existence is in jeopardy, and we’ll be called upon in the world of the No-Maj to do battle.” He studied Walt, whose strength and valor were legendary at the Battle of the Alamo. Walt was forced to leave the battle early due to a bout of dysentery brought on by a stew called chili. Walt rubbed his chin, his eyes alight as a faint grin crept onto his face.

“Anyway, look outside at what we’re up against. Our magic is no match for their brute force. Technology has made the muggles extremely dangerous in small numbers.”

Wolfie groaned. “Eastern, you say? Whose side?” He peered at Hancock with a suspicious picking of his nails. The Prussian had no intention of working against his own countrymen.

Hancock lifted his glass for a fresh one. “Side? To interfere with the No-Maj war is not in our interest. We would become cannon fodder.”

“Speak for yourself, hombre,” Walt bellowed. “We lead and inspire, and where possible, protect.”

Wolfie sighed. “Your Alamo incident was just, and the course of that war was preordained. But this, we simply cannot do.” He ordered another round for himself and Walt. Terry again hovered nearby, mute as always

Hancock nodded, and out of the corner of his eye, he spotted Alwan’s crest burned into the foot rail of the bar. He smiled but pulled it back quickly. To take the staff would end any admiration Terry may have for him and his bid for her hand. To not take it would leave him mortal. To not take it left only two wizards to counter the Dark Mage: one a bull in the China shop, the other a pondering academic. Hancock chortled, then guffawed.

“Damn the luck, aye?”

Four Bottles

His eyes flicked to the staff again, and though it was brief, Terry shuddered and reeled, her eyes wide. The time was now. He rocked forward and launched from his chair, chest sliding on the smooth slate floor, burning as skin shaved away, sliding toward the foot rail. His outstretched hand reached forward as he cried out, “Yes!” but it was not meant to be.

A hand’s length from Alwan’s Staff, a meaty foot stomped down upon his back, squashing a guttural “Oof” out of Hancock and cracking his spine.

“No!” he sputtered with the last of his air.

The room quaked.

“Thy Staff! You, Hancock the Noble, why!” The old troll was the weight of an ox, each leg the girth of a fatted hog, and he was eight feet tall.

“Ah, thy be smell’in ripe—” Alwan sneezed, a wad of snot splattering Hancock’s neck and the floor beside him. “Fear, me thinks,” the troll muttered, sliding his foot from Hancock’s back.

The wizard gasped, sucking in precious air. “Thanks.” A full sentence or thought wasn’t possible yet for Hancock, sucking air like a fish on the dock. He hacked, his chest aching and burning simultaneously. “Most generous,” he wheezed, sure that at least two of his ribs were broken.

Terry futtered helplessly nearby, tears dripping to the floor, bursting into glittery dust upon contact. Her lips parted, a delicate hand covering her silent mouth. Hancock’s heart ached for Terry. Without warning, his body was heaved into the air by the iron grip of Alwan, before twisting upright and falling haphazardly to his feet. Walt and Wolfie gasped. Hancock wobbled, looking up at the troll—a massive man with rhinoceros eyes, grey fish lips, and an overlong nose. He’d be frightened if it weren’t for Alwan’s wire-rimmed spectacles and off-center parted hair.

“Looking well, old friend,” Hancock stuttered, imposing a cheesy grin.

The giant extricated the gnarled wooden staff through the brass rings that secured it to the bar.

“You no magic, Hancock.

The statement silenced the room. Terry drifted down to her feet, wings motionless. Eight eyes drilled into Hancock. His ears burned as he looked around at dumbfounded faces, trying to make sense of the troll’s allegation. The air was thick with anticipation and the odor of something more foul than a fright-induced stain in the back of Hancock’s underwear.

“I… do have magic,” Hancock murmured, his stare shifting from Wolfie to Terry, then Walt. There was a collective sigh.

Alwan gripped Hancock’s shirt and lifted him off his feet, the troll’s earthy hot breath stealing Hancock’s.

“I need that staff!”

Alwan grinned and brushed his well-groomed hair back in place. “I don’t believe Hancock.” He tossed the English wizard over the table, Walt jumping back and narrowly escaping Hancock as he crashed on the floor beyond Wolfie. Alwan stomped around the table, clutching a scaly jar, and crouched in front of Hancock. Looking into Alwan’s near-black eyes, he swore there was a hint of mirth. Terry eyed the jar and cringed, fluttering away.

“Good lord, what is that?” Hancock grimaced, having heard of Essence of Dragon and hoping to all that was good that jar was not it.

“Pleasure,” Alwan bellowed, an unnerving grin on his randomly spaced teeth. Uncorking the jar, he drizzled a half-dozen drops on Hancock’s face before shoving the wizard away.

The stench was immediate, and Hancock wrinkled his face to breathe from his mouth. He wretched.

“Uh—gawd—uh, the hell!” Vomit spewed from Hancock again, and again. The speed and efficiency of the Essence of Dragon gave no quarter, and Hancock struggled in vain to gasp for air between hurls. He tried to wipe the drops from his face, but it only made it worse, snot drooling from his nose.

“What fresh hell is that?” Walt shouted, both pained for Hancock and amused. He backed away from the sickly wizard.

Wolfie’s jaw was slack, but lips clamped shut, muttering with his sleeve over his nose. “Essence of Dragon is the trickle of liquid that escapes when a dragon passes gas.”

Walt guffawed. “That’s dragon ass?”

Except for Terry, who appeared concerned and floated at a safe distance from Hancock, the room erupted into chortles, guffaws, and snorts—because laughter is too simple an explanation.

Alwan lifted his head proudly. “I collected Essence—my hands, my vessel. No eat for week.”

Hancock had had enough. Fatigued and curled on the floor, his stomach stabbing deep, his trembling hand found the charred splinter in his pocket, and he gripped it for all that it was worth. Was it worth anything anymore, he wondered, willing it to give him one last gift. He whispered, concentration cracking his teeth, the only spell that he could remember in his wasted state, that he may have the magic left to deliver him from that hell, finishing with his chosen word,

“Suorittaa!”

But it was too late.

Hancock was transformed by the spell. Before Walt, Wolfie, and Terry, he appeared as a heavily perfumed geisha. Clean, undamaged, and upright. If only he hadn’t coughed and shat his new knickers at the moment of execution.

“Well, here we are,” Hancock said, raising a stiff lip despite Alwan’s claim. “Magic intact.” He limped across the room and stood in front of Alwan.

“Help me, Alwan.”

“You bring shame,” Alwan murmured, his words vibrating the air.

“Expel!” Alwan roared, his breath overturning the table. Hancock reached out—then he was gone.

Five Glasses

Gone was the pleasant aroma of the Geisha attire, but so was the stench of wet dragon fart. Hancock sat on the stoop of the single-gabled building he’d just been banished from, the door a weathered blue and its windows boarded up. A wizard no more, the uniform he’d worn had vanished, as did the parallel realm beyond that door behind him. He breathed chalky dust, tasting the sweet and acrid flavor of the battle surrounding him.

Shells screeched overhead, where they wrought destruction; Hancock didn’t know or care. Ash filled the air with grey snow, and the thump of his heart pounded in his ears, second only to the staccato ping of the Maxim machine-gun across the street, ejaculating brass and lead, if fire concentrated into the smoke-filled alley several blocks beyond. The mechanical clicks, chirps, whizzes, and booms of battle were not so different from the morning songs of a forest teeming with life. But this was death.

Hancock sighed, content in his threadbare brown trousers and plain white shirt. He had chosen them specifically for this day, expecting to meet an end, but not without exhausting his magic in a last gasp pull on the slot machine. He snorted at Alwan’s staff, which he held upright, tapping to the rhythm of the German artillery battery somewhere far behind him—boom-boom-boom—as if a thundercloud hovered on the horizon. The Staff’s crest was no longer visible to him, nor the gold that once filled the crevasses.

“It’s gone,” Hancock relented. The magic gone, replaced by an incessant ache in his knee and throbbing lower back pain. Mortality.

A single bullet whipped past and punched a hole in the door behind Hancock as he pondered the serenity of the war in front of him. Resting his elbows on his knees, he twisted toward the blue door, already pocked with a constellation of holes. The four-man crew across the street feverishly changed out the ammunition belt as the water carrier swapped out the can for a full one. Crack-crack—the water carrier’s head snapped to the side—fine red mist exploded from his temple and lingered as the boy fell lifeless, with all the drama of a shirt slipping from a coat hanger.

The knock of a bullet striking the door behind Hancock stirred him from slumbered observation. He leaned heavily on the staff and pressed his palm against the step to lift to his feet, but abruptly sat down.

Fatigue, probably. Hancock clanked down at the cool sticky red patch on his shirt just below his chest on the right. Curiously probing the new stain, his index finger found a pea-sized hole.

“When did that get there?” he murmured. “Oof—for heaven’s sake!”

Hancock was punched in the stomach by an unseen force.

“Alwan—stop, that’s no funny—not at all,” he shouted over his shoulder. But would they even hear him? He dug into his right trouser pocket for the splinter of wood. His burgundy-stained fingers trembled, pulling out a tablespoon of ash and charred sawdust.

“One could hope,” he labored to mutter with curiosity.

Hancock’s breathing picked up tempo and became shallow. He fell back against the door and gazed into the monochromatic sky drifting eastward. Time no longer mattered. The whistle, unfamiliar to Hancock, grew in pitch from the sky. His fluttering eyes searched sluggishly, fixing on an expanding speck from the west arcing toward him.

“Bugger,” he sighed, too weak and unwilling to do anything but accept his end. “I should have worn a tie.”

Six Pack

Dust fell from the timbers inside Alwan’s pub. Walt peered skyward as another explosion rumbled beyond the walls. Alwan stared at his empty hands in wonder. While the battle consumed the land beyond the realm, Walt was keenly aware that Alwan’s refuge was within a building that resided in both times simultaneously. Should the warring factions destroy the pub, they wouldn’t be trapped—they’d be dead.

Terry, for the first time, shrieked, her voice like the echo of a far-off child. “Where is Hancock? Where did you send him?” She flew back and forth, frantic fairy pacing, Walt imagined. Wolfie leered in admiration, inhaling her dust with each pass.

“Out. Hancock outside,” Alwan shrugged. He chuckled, his eyes just slits. “Got me staff.

Terry panicked. “Bring him back—oh, please—bring him inside!” Her tears and fluttering wings pulsated the bulb from bright yellow to blinding white. “It was me—please, Alwan.”

Wolfie sat upright, twisting his mustache. “You?” He pondered for a moment and then sat back.

“I see Hancock. He take staff,” Alwan groaned. He turned the table and chairs upright before stroking his gruff double chin. Hancock’s memory was failing him; at least that much was in the letter Walt received. But why steal Alwan’s staff? Alwan’s magic was in his concoctions, none of which could be considered potions due to their intensely foul smell. Walt trembled with disgust. Alwan dragged two unused chairs to the side and sat in both of them.

“Oh, I understand,” Wolfie laughed, slapping his thigh. “I could not imagine Alwan sitting in a chair—they’d break! Ha, but two. Yes.” Alwan sneered and returned to chin scratching.

Terry shouted, still so quiet. “Father. The staff was Hancock’s father’s.” She floated to the floor and poured herself a brandy and shot it back, her green eyes swirling with fire. “Bring him back, Alwan.”

Grunting to his feet, Alwan moaned. “Yes. Yes, I do.” Shaking his head at Terry like she was a petulant bother.

Wolfie raised a finger. “If you do, what are you returning?” He stood up and paced to the center of the room. “Hancock’s memory didn’t just fail. It was taken—is being taken. Who could do such a thing? Why?”

Alwan froze, his right eye twitched, and he turned on his heel. “You know what I’m suggesting.”

Terry’s frightened eyes shifted between Wolfie and Alwan, then pleaded to Walt. Her lip quivered and she cried out, “Don’t leave him.”

Alwan snarled. “Ah. Nag, nag. I bring Hancock.” He clutched his jar of Essence of Dragon, and everyone backed away. He reached out toward the door and grumbled, “Reditus.”

The door swung off its hinges as it blew inward and impaled itself into the mirror over the bar. Glass showered the room like coarse pixie dust. All in the room gasped.

Seven and Seven

Hancock saw the light, or if he was being honest, darkness. Immense black, void of all sensation. He supposed it could have been blood loss and his vision shutting down, but he was moving through space, and that counted as feeling something. Then, he knew he wasn’t quite dead as the back of his head struck something solid, and an electric shock exploded in his brain, causing violent tremors and agony. Still, he was paralyzed, even his breathing had ceased. Well, this isn’t so bad, he thought. He’d always imagined death would be a grueling marathon of suffering.

Ward Eight

Hancock’s ragged form blew in with the door and skittered across the slate floor to lie just inside Alwan’s pub. Walt stared down at the masculine Geisha form that now sported two fresh crimson holes. “He’s not getting any prettier. Christ.”

Terry flew past, landing beside Hancock, and falling to her knees. She lifted his head into her lap. A burst of glimmering dust showered Hancock as she wailed, “Oh, my love—my soul.”

Alwan cocked his head with confused interest as he lumbered toward them. Wolfie’s grin widened, as if freed from a secret, and Walt chuckled. None of them noticed Agnes strolling through the door, the Dark Mage’s sheer red evening gown flowing in a breeze she created for effect.

“Ahem,” Agnes sounded, casting a superior gaze as she measured the two wizards standing over Hancock, dismissing Alwan and his organic magic.

Walt was taken aback by her beauty for a flash but pushed aside instinctive arousal. Her cropped blond wavy hair and deep rouge lips were a welcome distraction from Hancock’s queer fashion. He grunted, “Should have known,” Walt murmured to his former lover. “Never could keep your hand off my friends.” His gears began to turn, and Hancock’s strange memory loss and recent thievery made perfect sense. Agnes’s power far exceeded his, and she manipulated him one too many times. Of course, he suspected she went dark long before their brief affair.

Agnes giggled and swirled her perfectly manicured finger at Walt, and he sank under his own weight. Gravity pushed down on him like a stack of iron plates.

It happened so quickly. Walt aimed his left fist toward Agnes, twisting under the ever-increasing pull of the earth.

“Wind,” he growled.

His arm fell, and the spell missed Agnes, landing on Hancock, blowing the floral over his lifeless body and exposing his white silk bloomers and the brown-speckled stain on the back.

Wolfie crossed his arms in front of his chest and murmured something; the air pulsated around him—a protection spell. Alwan stepped back from Hancock and Terry, fixed the part in his hair, and cleaned his glasses.

“All right,” Walt grunted, hardly able to breathe, splayed on the floor. “Stop.”

“I’ll just be taking Hancock, and you can return to your…” Agnes glared at Terry, then Alwan, before snickering. “Boys, be gentle with her, would you?”

A dark-haired German soldier leaned in the door and searched the room, wide-eyed and in a hurry. A messenger. Walt shuddered, but the realization that the German couldn’t view their realm snapped quickly.

“Why? Don’t you have some other poor bastard to whore around on?”

Agnes gave a coquettish laugh and undressed the German runner. Her blue eyes brightened. “This one. Young Adolf—special project of mine.” She purred. The German runner, unaware, darted away to continue his mission. “Hancock will be his guardian.”

“Poor Adolf,” Wolfie grumbled. “If he’s anything like the elf—”

Agnes’s pupils flamed red, and she slashed the air, Wolfie flailing as his chair jerked from beneath him and spiraled into the wall. Wolfie sat on his ass, a befuddled strain in his cheeks. Agnes released Walt from the weight of the world and knelt beside Hancock’s body. She narrowed her blue eyes on Terry and blew in her face, then whispered, “Run along, dusty little moth.” She watched Terry flutter away, and Walt noticed a twinkle in Agnes’s eye.

Walt got to his knees and tried to piece together the conspiracy in his mind. He took in the faces in the room, and none of them were enraged—angry, yes—but reserved, as if they all had a connection to her.

“Oh my God—raise your hand if you haven’t slept with Agnes.” He craned his neck and peered around the room.

Agnes cringed.

Aghast, Walt shouted, “Well?”

Agnes smirked. “Darling boy, jealous? That’s beneath you.”

Not one hand went up. The pressure in Walt’s head blurred his vision. “Terry, and Wolfie?” The fairy dried tears, but his skin flushed. Wolfie looked away. Alwan’s hand wasn’t up.

“Oh, dear God, Agnes… Alwan too?” Walt fell back on his buttocks and braced himself against the floor. Though brief, he’d loved Agnes, even after catching her with his strapping young stable hand. The fondness of the memory of her succulent body was stripped away by the vision of her riding the troll’s bulbous belly.

“Oh, dear,” Walt dry-heaved, his imagination conjuring up a vision of Alwan, naked and sporting a giant hairy cock.

“All of you,” Agnes pointed around the room, her face piqued when she stopped on Alwan, and sighed. “I took from you your power over me—I am stronger.”

Terry fluttered near Hancock, colorful tears raining again. “I can save him,” her tiny little voice eked. “Please.”

Agnes shooed her away. “Don’t worry about your precious Hancock. He’ll be reborn, better to serve the coming thousand-year Reich.”

Walt pondered that for a second, but Wolfie groaned. “A disaster—you wouldn’t?” Agnes could see into the future just by touching a man or a woman. She told Walt decades earlier that this day would come. Of course, she had painted a more utopian vision for Walt.

“Adolf will rule Europe and all the world. With Hancock to guide him, the future is his.” Agnes knelt to pick up Hancock’s body.

Walt thrust his hands out, static shooting between his fingers, and he growled, “Savannah!” A burst of white fire shot across the room and enveloped Agnes. He wasn’t sure if Agnes would be expelled to Savannah, Georgia, or the African grasslands—he didn’t care.

Agnes laughed. “Your magic has no effect on me. From none of you.”

Alwan shrugged, lifted his meaty fist, and hammered down on Agnes’s head. Her cross-eyed face slackened, and she fell to the floor, her unconscious body releasing a sustained air-ripping ball of flatulence. “No magic.”

Terry rushed to Hancock’s cooling body. Leaning over him, she lifted his lips to hers and kissed them before embracing him, melding herself against his chest.

“Be with me, Hancock.”

“Are you certain this is what you want?” Wolfie stammered. The consequences of restoring life were lasting.

Terry nodded.

Alwan removed the stopper from the Essence of Dragon vessel. Walt and Wolfie shied away from him, holding their noses. He tipped the vessel, and four drops of the dragon-ass juice dripped between Agnes’s parted lips, awakening her with the speed of a bear trap. Alwan grinned, then chuckled, setting the roof timbers rumbling. Walt still couldn’t remove the image of hair troll cock from his mind.

Agnes spat, fire shot from her mouth with each wretched gag. On all fours, she crawled for the door, vomiting fire and farting flames. The scent of burning silk and Essence of Dragon earned groans from Walt and Wolfie. Outside, Agnes vanished with a swipe of her hand in a swirl of smoke.

Hancock began to stir. Terry remained tight against him, her tears void of color. On the ground beside her, her once iridescent wings lay in scattered shards, grey and brittle. In the quiet of the room, Hancock’s heartbeat filled the air, and Terry’s once-green eyes, now shaded hazel, peered into his.

“Hello, lad,” her mortal voice harsh and Irish.

Hancock flinched and glared dubiously at her. “What…” He studied her, then recognition. “Terry?”

She sobbed and sank into him.

Alwan yawned. “Agnes come back. Someday.”

Wolfie stretched, cracking his back, then strode to stand over Hancock. He held his empty brandy glass high above Hancock’s face. “Think fast.” Then he released it.

Hancock’s eyes widened at the object accelerating for his nose, and he flinched. The glass stopped abruptly and then fell into his waiting hand. He sighed.

“Thank goodness.”

Walt leveled his eyes on Hancock and bit back half of what he wanted to say. “You owe Terry your life.”

No one else spoke as Hancock’s triumph of death dwindled to regret. Hancock’s hands searched the woman holding on to him desperately, but there were no wings. No glittery dust. No enchantment.

Hancock held Terry for an eternity. There were no words he could give her.

Alwan retrieved another bottle of brandy from the bar and new glasses. He filled them and served Terry first before everyone else. Reluctantly, he gave one to Hancock.

“Toast.”

Wolfie raised his glass and bellowed, “Yes. A toast.” When the three wizards, the troll, and the former fairy were gathered close, Wolfie bowed his head, “To Terry.” They nodded and drank silently, each touching her shoulder.

Walt refilled the glasses, “Another toast. Hancock might want to sit this one out.” They raised their glasses again, “For Agnes.” Terry grimaced, and Wolfie glared suspiciously. “Thank the lord we all had a turn before Alwan.”

The End