The boy would live, just not as long as maybe he might’ve otherwise. Cal thought momentarily about giving some back to him, at least a few years.
But suddenly there was a new pain in his torso, a searing hit that cracked ribs, punctured his lung, and sent him flying fifteen feet in the air across the forest clearing, slamming him into a tree.
“Agh! Ow, sweet Jesus,” Cal breathed, barely able to talk, his eyes squeezed shut in a vain attempt to somehow make the pain go away. It was like someone had taken a sledgehammer to his ribs.
When he opened his eyes again, he saw a girl crouched over the teenager he’d turned into an old man, no older than ten. She had dark hair and eyes, and a humorless pout on her face. And she was wearing a small, fitted Russian army uniform.
“You gotta be kidding me,” Cal whispered.
The girl stood with a look of pure determination on her face, then strode purposefully toward Cal, pausing only to grab hold of a young tree no more than six inches in diameter.
Her fingertips sank into the bark as if it were a pillow, and she ripped it out of the ground as if she were just pulling a weed. It didn’t even look like she was exerting herself.
Cal coughed, blood coming out of his mouth and dripping down his chin. It was bad. Felt like he was on half a lung. Every breath was an exercise in new agony, and there was already a small part of his soul just looking forward to not having to breathe anymore, Jesus forgive him.
The girl lifted the tree and broke it in half across her knee, producing a club about five feet long and several solid inches thick — with a jagged, pointed tip.
“Eto moy brat! ” the girl screamed, gripping her weapon so tight that the wood splintered around her hand. “My brother!”
Cal thought about getting up for a second, but even thinking about moving his muscles resulted in new waves of pain. So, he just closed his eyes and waited, picturing God in his mind’s eye and praying he’d not done enough bad things to be kept from Heaven for too long.
But… he knew otherwise. The realization hit him like yet another hammerblow, this one to his very soul. All this sneakin’ about, all these spy games they had him doing, they distracted him from using God’s gift for a greater, nobler purpose. And when Cal went to meet the Lord — any moment now — he knew deep in his heart that he would be found wanting, and that the pain he’d endured this day would be a walk in the park compared to what the Devil would conjure up for him in Hell.
Cal was scared. God, he was so scared. He started to cry, to bawl, even as he knew that crazy little girl was about to put a tree through his head. “I’m sorry,” he sobbed quietly. “I’m so sorry.”
Then he heard a crash and footsteps. Was that it? Was dying this painless?
Cal ventured to open his eyes, only to see Maggie standing above him, her hand extended. “Sorry about that,” she said with a smirk. “Didn’t have time to focus as much as I wanted to. Can you walk?”
The existential sorrow that had engulfed Cal sloughed off him like an unneeded blanket, and in that moment, Maggie was the second most beautiful woman in the world after his own wife. “Oh, Miss Maggie… I’m busted up bad,” he croaked, coughing up more blood. “I need to heal up again… before I can get far.”
“What about that teenage boy? He still has some… shit. He’s gone,” Maggie said. Cal peered behind her to see only bare grass and leaves where the recently made elderly man had lain just moments before.
“I’ll be all right here,” Cal said. “Get… INSIGHT. Ellis. Let’s get out of here.”
Maggie nodded and put a hand on Cal’s forehead — a brave thing to do, considering. Cal surprised himself by actually feeling tempted for a moment. Then she dashed off into the woods, loping away like a predator and leaving Cal up against his tree, wondering just how much of what he’d just experienced was Maggie’s Enhancement….
There.
Twenty yards to her right. Two men. Young. One angry but focused, the other fearful and all over the place.
Too easy.
Maggie crouched down amongst the undergrowth, her suppressed pistol at the ready. She was trying to get back to Yushchenko and Ellis but didn’t want to waste the opportunity. Angry one first? He’s the threat. But scaredy-cat would probably shriek like a baby, she thought. Scaredy cat first, then angry one could get off a shot.
Maggie made a mental note to herself that if she made it out alive, it might be useful to start training on two pistols, one in each hand.
The shots came quickly — she’d made a split-second decision to go for the competent one first, hoping that scaredy-cat was more of a deer-in-the-headlights kind of guy. Her first shot entered the soldier’s ear, angling upward due to her crouched position, and ricocheted around the inside of the steel helmet he wore. At least it was quick.
By the time he fell, Maggie’s weapon was already trained on the second target — but he was more competent than she’d given him credit for. He hit the deck immediately, screaming in Czech and firing his rifle aimlessly — in the complete opposite direction from where Maggie was.
Time to go.
Maggie ran off at a ninety-degree angle from where those soldiers were, hoping she wasn’t about to run right into anyone coming to help them. She knew Cal would need at least one or two of them alive and in decently good shape, and she nominated scaredy-cat as her top pick. She’d seen his face and felt his emotions — she’d remember him.
Maggie cast out her senses once more, trying to find more minds out there — minds attached to bodies, bodies that needed either rescue or elimination. There, at the very edge of her Enhancement, about twenty-five yards ahead, were four of them….
And then they winked out of existence.
Not again.
Maggie ran forward, heedlessly, in the general direction that she’d last felt the other minds. Nothing. They were gone. Her Enhancement was gone. Everything was gone.
“Tady! Tady! Myslím si, že člověk je tady!” came a voice from up ahead.
She quickly knelt behind a tree, her gun raised, eyes wild. She didn’t recognize whatever language that was. She couldn’t assess her targets. She didn’t know where they were. How the hell was she supposed to actually fight them?
She stayed as still as she could and was finally rewarded by the sound of footsteps on twigs and leaves — they were attempting to move quietly, but failing miserably. Then there was a brief whisper. And another returned.
Remember your training. Remember it.
Her heart racing, breath short and rapid, Maggie turned from behind her cover and tried to get her targets in sight. But she moved too fast, too urgently, firing at blurs while exposing herself too much, diminishing the element of surprise. She retreated back behind the tree, having missed completely, only to hear more shouts.
“Vot! My nashli yeye! Derzhite podal’she Natal’ya! Privesti soldat!”
Maggie tensed up and prepared to fire again, but before she could, a shot rang out from behind her, up and to the right, followed two seconds later by another round.
Her Enhancement suddenly returned.
Thank God.
She reached out with her mind, pushing hard against the people in front of her — there were four, in fact, not three — frightening them into unconsciousness. One was already injured, scared and fading anyway, and the other three folded quickly enough.
Up from where the shot came out, she felt worry and urgency. Frank.
She turned and took off toward him at a jog. She had a feeling her Enhancement wasn’t going to get blocked out again anytime soon.