Mystic Wonderful : A Hell Theory Novella Page 2

  They were graves.

  He gulped.

  Beyond, the Rockies loomed like jagged teeth, their snowy peaks hidden in a veil of low, leaden clouds. Lightning danced, far in the distance.

  Francis ducked his head and hurried along beside Rose, toward the gate, and the doors, and – the knots in his stomach tightening an impossible fraction – Tristan Mayweather.

  A young ensign met them at the doors, clipboard in hand. She checked their IDs against her own list, nodded, and led them briskly along a sterile, painted concrete and tile hallway to an office. The placard outside the door read Cpt. Jean Bedlam, and the last name suited her, Francis thought, once he was seated across from her and meeting her steely gaze head-on.

  Though she was stern and unsmiling, frown lines etched at the corners of her eyes, he liked her instantly, mostly because she reminded him of Rose, in a way. She had a distinctive air of no-nonsense. This was a woman used to making tough decisions, and she had no patience for bullshit, he could tell. Neither did she possess any boastful, sales-pitch enthusiasm about the task that lay ahead of them. He found it all very reassuring.

  His first surprise of the evening was the broad-shouldered, handsome Rift Walker who leaned into the office doorway a few minutes after their arrival. Francis knew him at once; had seen his slightly-too-long-on-top for reg dark hair, his dark eyes, his strong jaw in posters and magazines. Lance du Lac, the heartthrob of Gold Company.

  He was even better looking in person; realer, his expressions mobile and life-affirming in a way that made him seem both more commanding and comforting than his awkward, posed magazine shots had suggested.

  And, judging by the shock writ large across his face, he knew Rose.

  He didn’t seem pleased to learn that they would be joining his company – though Francis thought they an overstatement. Du Lac gave him only the most cursory glance, the lion’s share of his attention – and displeasure – aimed at Rose.

  When du Lac had gone, and Bedlam turned them loose, and they were walking down the hall toward the mess, Francis whispered, “Why didn’t you tell me you had history with Lance du Lac?”

  Her expression was stony. “Keep your voice down.”

  He halted her with a gentle hand on her arm, and she lifted a single brow.

  One that didn’t cow him anymore, not after going through camp together. “But why didn’t you?”

  She sighed. “It’s not history.”

  “Well, that’s sure what it looks like.”

  Her jaw worked a moment, and she stared off to the side, at a point on the wall. A group of chatting ensigns passed them. When they were gone, her voice low, she said, “I had a run-in with him. A while back.”

  “Sounds ominous.”

  Her expression darkened. “You know how he was working undercover before he became a poster boy for the Walkers?”

  “Yeah, he busted – no.”

  Her smile was bitter and furious, the hurt glittering in her eyes still very fresh. “There’s only one thing – one person – who kept me from getting sucked down with Beck that night.” From her tone, she didn’t see Lance as her savior.

  She glanced away again, shaking her head, anger tightening her thin face. “He tried to play the white knight.” A humorless snort. “Gold Knight, I guess. He was the one who suggested I join up.” Her lips twisted in an attempt at a smirk. “I think he thought I’d shoot for med staff. A gopher or something. Didn’t think I’d join the Walkers.”

  “Proved him wrong, I guess,” Francis said, and couldn’t quite mask his concern. Rose really was exceptional, but the more he thought of her as a friend, rather than simply a colleague, the more he worried about her. Mentally, he thought she was headed down a dark road, and he didn’t want to have to be one of the people shaking his head sadly and saying I knew this would happen after it was too late.

  “Hm,” she agreed, without any obvious pleasure.

  They proceeded on, found the mess hall, already filling up with soldiers and doctors and tech operators, steam issuing forth from the glassed-off buffet line where staff in aprons, hair nets, and gloves scooped semi-edible smelling food onto trays.

  They took their own loaded trays to an empty end of a table, settling side-by-side, facing the door. He no longer had to ask Rose whether she wanted her back toward the wall; that was just a given at this point.

  Francis loaded up his fork with what was supposed to be meatloaf. “When do you think we’ll meet–”

  Two men entered the mess, and he had a clear view of them.

  “The rest of the team,” he finished in a strangled croak.

  Lance du Lac had just walked in. And beside him?

  Tristan Mayweather.

  Rose lifted her head at the sound of his voice, spotted what – who – he had, and then sighed. “Shit. Don’t freak out on me.”

  Too late for that.

  Rose said something else that he didn’t register, as his eyes followed the two senior Knights’ progress across the mess and toward the back of the line.

  Rose stepped on his foot under the table.

  He forced his eyes to his tray, and put the hovering bite of meatloaf into his mouth. It tasted like cardboard, but maybe that was just his sudden burst of nerves.

  It was fine. He could do this. It wasn’t as if he had to speak to the man yet, or even meet his gaze. Tomorrow, he would, when he and Rose were officially introduced to the rest of the company. But now…now he could chatter and pretend they weren’t all in the same room together, albeit a crowded one.

  “So,” he said, with unfelt enthusiasm. He’d always been good at forced-cheerfulness in the face of panic, a trait he’d developed in early childhood. “What do you think our rooms will be like? Better or worse than the ones back at training? I mean, the private quarters there at the end were a lot better than the bunk room, but–”

  A tray thumped down into the seat across from Rose.

  He lifted his head, and nearly choked on the bite of saltless potatoes he’d just taken. “S-sergeant du Lac, sir.”

  A darted glance to the side proved that Rose was dipping bits of biscuit into the meatloaf gravy, her gaze flat, unflinching, and pinned on du Lac. She said, “Lance,” and Gallo bit his lip, braced for the inevitable reprimand. He admired so much about Rose, but why did she always have to push people like this?

  But du Lac didn’t bow up the way their old instructors would have. He smirked, and, even if it surprised him, Francis had no trouble interpreting the intensity of his dark gaze as it met Rose’s. He was interested. Riveted, actually.

  Du Lac said, “Insubordination on your first day, Greer?”

  Rose’s expression didn’t waver. “No, sir.” She made the honorific sound ludicrous.

  This had all the makings of a disaster, and in front of everyone at the mess, to boot.

  “Sir?” Gallo asked.

  Du Lac and Rose both ignored him.

  “You made it through training, then,” du Lac said, with a nod toward the jacket hanging off the back of Rose’s chair, her Rift Walker wings glinting off the collar.

  Rose popped the bite of biscuit into her mouth and broke off another. “Top of my class.”

  “I don’t doubt it. Why did you want to be a Walker? Because I told you that’s what I was?”

  “No.”

  Gallo, swapping his gaze madly – but he hoped covertly – between the two of them, saw that Rose never flinched, didn’t even blink, but that a quick flicker of emotion crossed du Lac’s face at her denial. He would have sworn it was disappointment.

  “Because it’s the elite branch,” she continued, “and I don’t care about being common.”

  Despite Rose’s stony composure, tension stretched taut between the two, fraught with a tangle of emotions that Rose would have denied, and that du Lac, Francis thought, would have gripped with both hands if given the chance. He hid it fairly well, but Francis had caught glimpses of his own face often enough in the mirror, when he’d j
ust gotten lost admiring one of his posters, to know what want looked like. Longing.

  When it became apparent that Rose wasn’t going to try to diffuse the moment, Francis said, “Rose is really good, sir.”

  Once again, the sergeant didn’t bother to spare him so much as a glance. “She is,” he agreed, eyes still pinned to Rose, the mulish tilt of her chin. His tone shifted, lower, cautionary. “There’s no shame in being a soldier. Being infantry,” he said. “And out here, on the front lines – it isn’t like being in class. It’s dangerous.”

  In a move that would have been intentionally suggestive on the part of anyone else, Rose licked gravy off the tip of her finger, her gaze steely above it. “I’m aware of that.”

  Again, emotion threatened to tweak du Lac’s expression. He blinked a few times, visibly clamping down on it. Took a breath and said, “Listen.”

  Oh no, Francis thought, because somehow he knew what the sergeant was about to bring up, and he wished he wouldn’t do it, not here in front of all these other people.

  “About–”

  “No.” Rose’s expression didn’t alter, but her voice sent chills rippling across Francis’s skin. No, you will not mention him. No, I won’t talk about him. Beck was her religion; the shrine in the back of her mind, always. Francis knew never to prod, that he could only listen, on those rare occasions she chose to share.

  Du Lac stared at her, and, to Francis’s amazement, his lips twitched as if he was about to pursue the matter further. Oh God, Francis thought with a sinking sense of regret. He’s an idiot. A disappointing thing to realize about one’s superior officer.

  They were saved, though – and, in Francis’s case, cursed – by the scraping out of the chair beside du Lac. A tray landed on the table.

  And suddenly, Francis found himself sitting across from Tristan Mayweather.

  Francis didn’t think he could be blamed for his reaction.

  (Not true. He would berate himself viciously later.)

  “The new kids,” Sir Mayweather said, glancing between the two of them, his face utterly impassive. His voice – only imagined by Francis, until now – was low, and rough; a gruff scrape, like he didn’t speak often, tinged with apathy. He didn’t sneer or glare at them; there was no contempt – there was nothing. Not so much as the faintest spark of interest.

  But that didn’t stop Francis’s heart from leaping halfway up his throat.

  Here sat his idol – his fantasy – in the flesh. Close enough to see the faint scar that ran below one eye; close enough to count the silver strands of hair at his temples; close enough to see that his eyes were the color of ochre, and cold as the barren, grave-strewn landscape outside.

  Francis thought he might pass out. Instead, he made a stumbling fool of himself.

  His fork fell from his numb hand. “You’re.” He swallowed with a gulp. “You’re – you’re–” He couldn’t breathe.

  Tristan leaned sideways into his sergeant, and, in a bored voice, said, “Is he having a stroke?”

  “Tristan Mayweather,” Francis finished, pathetically. He could feel how wide his eyes were, how worshipful. He wanted to die. “I mean. Sir. Sir Mayweather.”

  Unlike Sergeant du Lac, Tristan did regard Francis – albeit it with flat disinterest. After a moment, he frowned, and speared a hunk of meatloaf with his fork. “It’s just Tris. No ‘sir.’”

  Tris.

  Tris.

  Francis’s lungs ached.

  Du Lac’s voice intruded, a mean laugh threaded through it. “Are you a fan of Sir Mayweather’s, Gallo?”

  Don’t answer that, Francis’s conscience said, very reasonably.

  But Tristan – Tris – was looking at him, hooded, and dark, and bored, and when he took a breath, I’ve heard of him turned into…

  “Yes. I mean, I’ve been studying the Knights for a long time. I always wanted to join up. And I always wanted to be Gold Company. I wanted…” He bit his lip, and trailed off.

  Tris’s lip curled, and now there was contempt, a trace of it, before his gaze dropped to his tray.

  Francis wanted the floor to open up and swallow him whole.

  “Frank,” Rose said, quietly. “Cool it.”

  “Right.” Face flaming, regret and mortification pulsing through him like a second heartbeat, he dropped his face over his tray, and began to force his dinner down, one painful bite at a time.

  ~*~

  My dad was a Rift Walker. He died before I was born.

  That night, lying in his stiff new bunk, the wall above it bare, and set to stay that way, because he’d crammed his rolled-up posters deep in the bottom of his new footlocker, Francis blinked stinging eyes against the dark and thought of what he should have said at dinner.

  My brothers died in service. But I’m not going to. I joined the Walkers, and I was second, right behind Rose. I know I look young, and too soft; I know I have a baby face. But I’m strong, and I’m smart, and I’m a good shot. I won’t let you down.

  Instead, he’d stuttered, and blushed, and stared like an idiot child. Starstruck and adoring.

  Tris hadn’t spoken to him for the rest of the meal, and he’d left when he was finished eating, without saying farewell.

  Never meet your heroes. That was what people said, wasn’t it?

  But what had he expected? That they would strike up an immediate rapport?

  Francis had read the magazines, had trolled the gossip sites: he knew that Tris was stern, and unforgiving. It was honestly part of the long-distance appeal.

  Tonight had been a wake-up call. One he’d needed. He hadn’t joined up to meet a celebrity crush. He was here to serve; to save lives, and battle back the forces of heaven and hell that threatened humanity.

  He had a job to do.

  And if he proved that he wasn’t a blushing moron to Tris Mayweather in the process, so be it.

  Francis rolled over, closed his eyes, and fell asleep walking through a mental inventory of the weapons he’d carry tomorrow on his first op as a Golden Knight.

  iii.

  Leave it to Rose to turn everything upside down.

  They returned to base with a conduit in tow: a pre-teen girl with pale hair, and huge, glowing blue eyes. One who quite willingly and quietly allowed herself to be cuffed, collared, and led off to a lead-lined cell.

  Captain Bedlam, her face a thunderhead, pulled Rose and du Lac – Lance, none of them stood on ceremony, among the Knights – into her office, and Francis could hear the shouting before the door had latched shut.

  He winced in sympathy.

  “Come on.” Gavin clapped him on the shoulder. “She can shout forever. We might as well clean up.”

  Tris already walked ahead of them, his stride as purposeful and ground-eating as it had been in the field – save for when he moved wraith-quiet, up on his toes, sweeping down the stairwells they’d taken to reach the battling conduits.

  Save bringing a conduit back to base, Francis thought it had been a successful mission, and he was grateful to not be on the receiving end of Bedlam’s ire.

  He followed his new teammates – his fellow Knights, he thought, still with the head-rush of I’m a Knight now – down to the locker room.

  “You’re friends with her, right?” Gavin asked him as they pushed through the swinging door.

  Tris had arrived several paces ahead, and went straight to a bench in front of the lockers, dumping his gear into tidy piles, Francis noticed, before he forced his gaze away. No need to give himself away, especially not in front of Gavin, who was appearing to be the sort of jovial, good-time guy his magazine spreads had suggested. His sandy hair stood up in sweat-damp tufts from his helmet, and his handsomeness was of the sharp-featured, lazy-grinning kind. The sort of guy who could meet a stranger and slide easily into a camaraderie, the sort who seemed to already know all your secrets.

  “Rose?” Francis asked, choosing a bench well away from Tris and starting on his own buckles and belts. “Yeah, we went through training to
gether.”

  “Right, right.” Gavin sat down on the bench opposite and began unlacing his boots. He had an easy, almost negligent way of moving that made him seem, despite quick, sure gestures, lazy. Effortless, maybe. “Is she always like that?”

  “Like what?” He bit back a grin when Gavin huffed in annoyance. Gavin, he thought, might turn out to be someone it was fun to play dumb with.

  “Well, she disobeyed orders, for one. Thought Lance was gonna have a fucking heart attack.”

  Francis nodded as he laid his holsters out beside him.

  “And she just…” Gavin made a sequence of hand gestures that conveyed Rose’s knife-wielding, spinning menace quite well.

  “Did you think she graduated top of our class for nothing?”

  Gavin rolled his eyes. “Overdramatic. All flash, and no bang. And that conduit! Okay, honestly, how did she convince Lance to bring that fucking thing back with us?”

  Francis shrugged. “She made some logical points.”

  But Gavin shook his head. “Logic has nothing to do with Lance letting her get away with all that shit. If you ask me–”

  “About to say something you shouldn’t again?” Tris suddenly stood behind Gavin.

  Gavin, Francis noted with interest, froze, and his expression shifted to worry.

  And Tris, Francis couldn’t help but fail to note, was down to his tac pants and a clinging black tank top, dog tags gleaming under the lights, heavily-muscled arms crossed and on full display. Dark chest hair peeked out of his shirt. A tattoo, what looked an awful lot like a sword amidst embellishment, stood blue-black and faded from time on one thick bicep.

  The image was…a lot.

  Francis swallowed with a suddenly dry throat and very carefully didn’t allow his gaze to linger.

  “No,” Gavin said in his own defense, glancing back over his shoulder at Tris.

  “Hmph. See that you don’t.” Tris walked off to the showers with a last glare of warning.

  “Sheesh,” Gavin muttered when he was gone, and they’d heard one of the cubicle doors shut. “Cheerful as ever. Okay, so.” He spread his feet on the tiles, and wiggled his bare toes. “What’s your story?”