CHAPTER Three THE MARRAKESH EXPRESS
Torn and Sir Tvelgar were driven to a sheep pasture where a helicopter, the precursor of whisters, was waiting to fly them to the school outside Berlin. It didn’t take long for Torn to get his nickname. Less than twenty-four hours. He never said he liked it, but truth be told, he did.
Undoubtedly it was partly because Torn was a logical shortening of Torrent, but then there were also the clothes. His jeans had horizontal tears with white frayed edges and skin showing. Of course he’d been given new clothes, but he left them neatly hung or folded and untouched. Except for the shoes. He liked the high tops, but loved the black combat boots and took to wearing them slouchy and unlaced.
He liked the concert tees he’d gotten from people who’d been as far away as Dublin. And he liked his own worn pants. They might not be whole or fancy, but they were comfortable and felt like they fit in more ways than how they draped his body. Just like his new name.
Black Swan did not, at the time, enforce a dress code for students.
So they ignored it.
Until the other boys began ripping slashes in their jeans and wearing combat boots slouchy and unlaced. It seemed that even dominant personalities like Black Swan second sons admired the swagger and self-confidence of the poor kid from Northern Ireland.
The faculty had a meeting to discuss the wardrobe development and decided to let it go, believing that, in the grand scheme of things, it wasn’t much of an issue.
Academically Torn was behind his peers, but with the help of after-dinner tutors, he caught up within a short time. He’d never had friends to speak of, but that changed when he stepped into a new world out of the shadow of Dunkilly small-mindedness, unkindness, and prejudice.
Almost immediately he felt drawn to another kid, Rafael Nightsong, who went by Raif. Raif didn’t talk about who or what he was before throwing in with Black Swan. Torn didn’t either.
Torn was good at sports, good at school, and the other boys quickly learned that he knew how to turn off the anger and turn on the elven charm when girls were around. His looks were striking in repose, but when he smiled every femme within sight stopped to stare. And there was never any shortage of girls when Finngarick was around.
He was liked by the other trainees. It could even be said that he was popular. Being admired by peers instead of shamed was a radically different experience, as was having all his needs met without stress or strain or even the need to give attention to such basics as food, heat, housing, clothing and so on. Food was both fine and plentiful, expertly planned and prepared by others. His apartment was palatial when compared to the abject humbleness of his former residence.
There was only one other elf at the Berlin installation, an upperclassman named Rammel Hawking, who happened to be not only Torn’s schoolmate, but also his prince. He didn’t know Hawking more than the occasional nod. People said Hawking was an outlandish prankster who, like Torn, was a femme magnet. He also appeared to be a regular sort.
In the quiet dark solitude just before sleep, Torn had pondered how strange it was that two Irish elves, a prince and a pauper like himself, might end up being equals in the eyes of Black Swan.
Inwardly Finngarick recognized the opportunity the new situation represented. Luck had put him in the path of Sir Gray Draglanore, who had asked Black Swan to take a chance on a dirty, good-for-nothing alley fighter.
Torn wasn’t lazy. He made an effort to adjust to an environment that was alien to him, rich in comfort, challenge, mutual respect and people who gave a damn about him. He wanted to make a successful adjustment, to be like the other boys, most of whom came from situations where most or all of those things had been true their whole lives.
Outwardly he gave every indication of having done just that; overcome culture shock and adapted to drastically changed circumstances. But the underlying anger that had taken root in his mind and soul when his body was stuck in the little seaside village of Dunkilly had dug in for a deep and permanent residence. It was locked in and completely resistant to tempering, regardless of how things changed for the better.
He got in trouble on a regular basis, but that wasn’t unusual for second sons in training for knighthood. In fact, it was expected. The sort of person who puts his own life on the line for blissfully ignorant humanity, who will never be celebrated publicly for service, is often the same kind of person who has a tempestuous adolescence. Black Swan was so accustomed to acting out that Finngarick didn’t particularly distinguish himself as a bad boy. At that point.
His constant companion, Raif Nightsong, was assigned with him to a team of two veterans in Barcelona. As was the custom, they wouldn’t be offered knighthood until they had shown themselves to be street worthy. The Barcelona post was intended to establish a mutual purpose.
Did they want to accept the responsibility that went with knighthood?
If so, would Black Swan assess them ready to do so?
Those were the two questions at hand when Torn and Raif were called into the Sovereign’s office.
“There’s a team in Barcelona that needs two knights. I’m considering sending the two of you on probation. You interested in being partners? On a temporary basis of course.”
Nightsong and Finngarick, who were both twenty-one at the time, looked at each other. Finngarick read the ‘yes’ in Raif’s eyes as clearly as if he’d spoken out loud. Raif wasn’t a big talker, but that didn’t keep him from being expressive.
Torn looked from Raif to Sovereign Tvelgar. “Aye. We are.”
It took only three words to set the two young knights-to-be on their first adventure.
When they transferred onto the larger Black Swan jet in Edinburgh, en route to Barcelona, Torn gave Raif a look that said, “We have arrived.” He then proceeded to flirt with the flight attendant for most of the trip. Not that his attention wasn’t welcome. Finngarick seemed to ooze sex from his pores when he turned his charm in the direction of a target.
Of course he was a healthy male elf interested in the physical expression of all that it meant to be that, but there was also an element of satisfaction in having his choice of females, given the damage done by the profound social rejection of his developmental years.
Raif’s eyes were closed, but he was smiling.
“Do no’ be feignin’ sleep, boyo. I see you’re livin’ vicariously and perhaps learnin’ a trick or two about interactin’ with the fairer sex.”
Raif cocked an eye open. “You mean pie in the sky?”
“Her name is Amanda.”
“Is it now?”
“’Tis. She might like you better if you gave yourself half a chance. You have the whole exotic look thing goin’ on.”
Raif opened both eyes and cocked a brow. “Exotic look thing? So now you’re attracted to me as well? Or maybe it’s instead. You bi, Torn? I think I should know before I throw in with you as partner. It’s a big step.”
“Great Paddy. You can actually speak words with multiple syllables. Who knew?”
“Interesting. An evasion rather than an answer.”
“No.” Torn chuckled. “I’m no’ bi. No’ even the least little. But I’m no’ blind. You’re good-lookin’ enough for a human.”
“Thanks,” Raif said drily.
“All you’d need to interest women is to be interested in them. Hey. For that matter, between the two of us, seems more likely that you’d be the one to like guys.” Amanda swished up and set drinks down for each of them, lips twitching surreptitiously at the bit of conversation she’d overheard. “Hey, Amanda. Do you no’ find my friend here attractive?”
Amanda looked Raif over, while he flushed at the unwanted scrutiny. “Yes. Handsome.”
Torn barked out a laugh. “See!” he almost shouted to Raif. “Aren’t you going to at least say thank you to the woman?”
Amanda hesitated for a second, but when she saw that Raif was busy glaring at Torn, she went about her business.
Once she was gone, Raif said, “That was embarrassing, you freckle-faced fucker.”
Torn gaped. “How is it embarrassin’ to be called handsome by a beautiful woman?”
“Because you put her on the spot. What was she going to say? ‘That guy? Fuck no. He’s hideous. Why would you embarrass her and me by asking that question?’”
Finngarick shook his head. “Dude.”
“Don’t call me dude.”
“Why no’?”
“For one thing it sounds ridiculous with your Irish accent.”
“Does it? Let’s call Amanda and ask her what she thinks about my accent.” When Torn looked toward the galley, Raif threw a rolled-up magazine at his head. Laughing, Finngarick said, “So you’re checkin’ the undecided box again.”
After a few minutes, Finngarick nudged Nightsong. “How’s your Spanish?”
“S’okay. Why?”
“Why do you think? Because that’s what they speak in Barcelona.”
“Don’t worry about it. We’re not going to talk to vampire before we stake them.”
“Aye. ‘Tis true enough. But I’m thinkin’ more about after hours activities.”
Raif reopened one eye. “Girls. You mean girls. Do you ever think about anything else?”
“’Course. But I am a healthy young elf with a healthy young…”
“Yeah. Yeah. I get it. Young. Dumb. Full of come.”
“You’d best leave the poetry to the Irish. And I resent bein’ called dumb. Who helped you through calculus?”
“Do not get me started on fucking calculus. What a colossal waste of a person’s time and energy. Do you believe we’re ever going to use calculus as vampire hunters?” Torn opened his mouth to speak, but Raif was on a tear and intent on answering his own question. “No. We are not.”
“What has gotten into you? Is the cabin pressure pushin’ words out of your mouth that have just been lyin’ dormant for years waitin’ to be released?”
“Funny.”
“One word. Two syllables. That’s more like it.”
“Maybe I didn’t have anything to say before now.”
“Right. So, who are you?”
Raif offered up a shit-eating grin. “I’m your fucking partner, soon-to-be Sir Finngarick.”
It was the first time Torn had ever heard his name paired with the honorific ‘Sir’. It sobered him for a second, but not longer.
“Aye. You are. Even if you become a nonstop jabber jaws.” Raif grunted. “You’ll still be my man.”
And that was a fact. From then until the time Raif found his lady, an unlikely match in the form of an archeology professor turned vampire historian, the two of them were inseparable.
Knights who couldn’t get along with anybody found their way to Finngarick’s team, which became a perfect symphony of misfits. When it came to vampire hunting, there were none better. It was everything else that was the problem. The four knights assigned to Z Team were considered dregs by the rest of Black Swan.
When they were assigned to Marrakesh, they didn’t protest as every other knight would. Because eventually they’d come to see themselves as undeserving bottom feeders, just the sort who would feel at home in the armpit of the world. Marrakesh was the world’s garbage dump. Every ne’er-do-well who hadn’t done well ended up there sooner or later where they continued pursuit of treasure without toil.
From a certain point of view, Z Team was well-suited for the task of keeping the neighborhood vamp population under control because they understood the hopeless. Gamblers, thieves, ‘sex workers’, sadists. They didn’t exactly thrive in Marrakesh, but they did survive. And it was Z Team’s job to see to it that not all of them were eaten or infected by vampire.
The Marrakesh operation wasn’t big enough to be called a unit per se. It was just the four team members occupying a floor consisting of four rooms above a brothel.
At times Finngarick lay in bed during the day when he was not on duty and wondered how his life might have gone if he hadn’t run into Sir Draglanore that day when he was sport fighting to find a release for some of his adolescent anger. That anger hadn’t gone away. He’d just learned to control it better.
Sometimes he wondered if his teammates had the same thoughts, but he never asked. They did their duty, one night at a time. And, just like him, they weren’t big on sharing their feelings about it. They all knew they’d ended up in Marrakesh for good reason.
The extreme drinking and whoring was frowned upon, but lots of knights spent active duty years with wet whistles and wet wicks. A weakness for whiskey and women that expressed itself on days off was manageable. What wasn’t manageable was provoking fights with other knights.
In normal times knights patrolled three nights a week. They were expected to report for duty sober, alert, and in peak physical condition. They were not expected to squander precious energy fighting with other knights. The provocateur who caused the disturbance was sure to be reprimanded. If the fight resulted in putting another knight out of rotation, even for a short time, it meant the knight responsible was transferred to another unit. If it happened three times, he landed himself in Marrakesh, a virtual penal colony for socially maladjusted knights.
Torn and Raif had managed to stay together. If one was being transferred, the other threatened he’d leave The Order before being separated from his partner.
Nothing in the universe could come between the two of them.
Except love.
They managed to survive a tour in Marrakesh that lasted for four years and set a record, even though that dubious honor was more a testament to their comfort zone being depravity. Oddly enough when Z Team settled into four discredited knights whose team name stood for infamy, they didn’t fight with each other. Go figure.
Perhaps they were irritated by the affable, irked by the well-adjusted, annoyed by the easygoing. For whatever reason, they found a family of sorts in each other.