“The fuck for, you already recruited me.”
“Sure, but we don’t have to keep you.” He held up a hand to stay her burst of outrage, grinning again. “I just wanted to see if you went for hardware or magic first.”
“Did I pass?” She felt the twist of her mouth that reminded her of a teenager, not the twenty-five-year-old military professional she was supposed to be. This guy really put her on edge.
“You went for a gun, then a maged weapon, then called your familiar. Perfect response sequence, really.”
“Being in the army taught me to rely on mundane gear first, and only, if I could. Otherwise too many questions got asked.”
“Exactly, and that applies here too, even if I did see your power and invite you in. So, you ready to meet the Squad?”
She shook her head. “You’ve hardly told me anything about this lot. You don’t have to keep me, you said. Do I have to keep you? I want to know more.”
“If you don’t ‘keep us’, it’s right back to the brig for you.”
She shrugged. “Might be a better option.” She didn’t believe it for a second, but he didn’t need to know that.
“Fair enough. I like your attitude. Come on, I’ll talk on the way.”
Outside the door was another man, clearly waiting for them. He was nearly as big and wide as Boss, his dark skin almost ebony in the low light. His head was shaved bald, glistening, and his smile as wide and welcoming as Boss’s had been.
“This is Smoke,” Boss said. “He’s my right hand man. We started Dark Squad together after I spotted him doing some freaky disappearing act in a rat-infested Middle-Eastern shithole.”
“We’d both had enough of orders and military discipline,” Smoke said. “And we began to question our directives. I was a Marine, Boss was SAS, we saw a kindred spirit in each other.”
Raven walked between the two of them, feeling like a child. She didn’t reach either man’s shoulder. “But this isn’t military, you told me.”
“Not officially, no.” Boss gestured into a side room off the corridor and she went in. Comfortable sofas and armchairs littered the space, a large screen TV was turned off in one corner. A tall guy with sandy hair and piercing blue eyes sat reading a book. Though nearly the height of Boss and Smoke, he was skinny as a rake handle, but exuded taut strength. He looked to be maybe late-twenties.
“That’s Taipan,” Boss said.
Taipan looked up, nodded. “G’day. Good to meet ya.” His Australian accent was unmistakable.
“You people really say ‘G’day’?” Raven asked.
“Not at night so much.” He grinned and went back to reading.
Raven thought these people all grinned too damn much.
“And I’m Jet.”
Raven turned. Jet was not as short as Raven, but not a giant like the three men. Muscular, solid, with short black hair, olive skin and narrow eyes. She maybe had a decade or so on Raven in age.
“Don’t let this cockforest intimidate you.”
“I’m not easily intimidated, but I’m glad to see another woman.”
“We’re all ex-military.” Boss pointed around at each of them. “Australian Army, Israeli Special Forces, you already know I was SAS and Smoke was a Marine.”
“Hoo fucking rah,” Smoke said, and slumped into an armchair.
“Makes my time seem paltry,” Raven said.
“No way, you went into the US Army as a teenager, you’ve got quite a few years of training, and a hell of a record. That’s what we want.” Boss sat and gestured for her to do the same. “You see, after Smoke and I started Dark Squad, we were noticed by a global organisation called Armour. I’m not going into the long boring story now, but the short version is that Armour exists to take care of magical, unnatural, supernatural, etcetera threats to the non-magical, unsuspecting masses. They’re like a global magical army, outside any government. Because we have the crack skills with military hardware and the mad magical chops greater than most, and because our little Squad started making waves, we got pulled in as Armour’s special ops team. We’re their black ops, doing all the direct infiltration and wetwork they don’t want to see.”
“Along with our military and magical skills, we’re also all a bit behind on our anger management classes,” Smoke said with a wry twist of the mouth. “We work best when we’re allowed to kill the bad guys without too much supervision, you get me? But Armour decided we were best off with them instead of maybe, at some point, against them. It’s worked well so far.”
Raven frowned. “So Armour is a secret organisation and you’re a secret within Armour?”
Boss smiled. “Black ops within black ops.”
“The blackest ops,” Smoke said.
Taipan laughed. “None more black!”
Raven frowned. “Why do I suddenly feel like this outfit’s ill-fated fucking drummer?”
Boss shook his head, his face growing serious. “We’ve long established that five works best, it’s an occult number, you know.”
Jet waggled her fingers like a sideshow magician. “The points of the pentacle!”
“Stow that shit, Jet. Truth is, you’re replacing a dear friend called Blinder, who we lost on the last mission. He’d been with us a long time.”
Raven laughed, but there was no humour in it. “No pressure then. Dead man’s shoes?”
“You’ll be fine. I know how to pick my operatives. We’re dealing with the loss of Blinder, but the Squad comes first. And the fact you were prepared to be cut off entirely before you knew the real details of this permanent commission speaks volumes.”
“It’s not like I’m giving much up,” Raven admitted.
“Well, you’ve gained a lot, trust me,” Boss said. “But enough history, we have a pressing mission, which is why you’ve been called in now. It would have been nice to break you in gently, but there’s something to be said for hitting the ground running, yeah?”
“I’m ready.”
“Good. This one comes from Commander Giraud in the Paris Armour HQ.”
The others in the room switched, their attention total and serious in a moment. Raven smiled softly to herself. They might be a rag tag bunch, but they were tight and focussed. The smile faded as she wondered how long it might take her to fit in. Or if she ever would. Regardless, despite what she’d told Boss, she didn’t want to go back to the brig and serve out five years for assault of a fellow soldier. That dick had deserved it, though that was old news and no longer relevant. But she couldn’t be locked up, she’d go mad.
“We going to Paris?” Jet asked.
“No, that’s just where the orders are from this time,” Boss said. “Our target is a necromancer.”
And the full weight of her new position fell on Raven like a wet mattress. After a life hiding her magical powers, thinking she was a freak, she found herself surrounded by others with unnatural skills of their own who talked about it openly and without derision.
“Seriously?” Smoke asked.
“Seriously. He’s been raising rezzers and placing them in various positions of power, slowly securing all kinds of advantages in business and politics. He’s got them in a couple of European governments, several places of power in the Middle East, the CEOs of least three major US corporations that we know of. He’s getting way too much influence, playing both sides of wars, collecting huge sums of cash from dozens of conflicting interests. Clever bastard.”
Taipan held up a hand. “Wait. What’s a fucking rezzer?”
“Resurrected human.”
Taipan’s eyebrows shot up. “Zombies?”
“No, resurrected humans.”
“There’s a difference?”
Boss sighed. “They don’t teach you much in Alice Springs?”
“You know I’m from fucking Melbourne.”