“Sergeant O’Grady,” she said with an Italian accent. She scanned an open file in front of her. “I am somewhat surprised that you’ve attained that rank at such a young age.”
“I was recently promoted, Ma’am.” It wasn’t difficult for me to fall back into the military discipline I had lived with for ten years in the Hunters’ Guild.
“So I see.” She raised her eyes. “You’re going to be in charge of a dozen witches, all but one older than you are. Are you comfortable with that?”
“Yes, Ma’am.”
She studied me. “Command is a fine line between being firm enough to maintain appropriate discipline and being harsh or even cruel. People follow people they respect far better than people they fear. You’re probably going to be challenged. How you handle those challenges will determine how effective your circle executes. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
“Yes, Ma’am. Permission to speak?”
“Please.”
“I don’t have a need to be right, or to dominate. I’m willing to listen, and I’m willing to admit when I’m wrong. But I’m not a pushover. I’m fairly confident that I can kick ass, or at least hold my own, and I’m not going to back down if I’m right. I might question an order you give me, but once I walk out that door, I’ll make sure my people carry it out or die trying. Ma’am, I’m not a strong or experienced witch, and I’m not going to pretend that I am. But that’s not why I was promoted.”
Dal Corso nodded. “Well, you at least know the right things to say.” She leaned over and punched a button on her phone. “Chevalier Scarpa, please come to my office.”
“Right away,” a woman’s voice answered.
“Your direct commander is Chevalier Scarpa,” Dal Corso said. “She has served with me for several years. If you have any problems you can’t solve yourself, or if you just need some advice, I strongly urge you to lean on her. She was my trainer long ago, and one of the best and most pious Knights I have ever known.”
Delores Scarpa turned out to be Dal Corso’s physical opposite. She was stocky but appeared fit, and the top of her head reached my nose. Her gray hair was cropped short, and her face was lined. In spite of her immaculate uniform, there was something almost sloppy about her posture, and my first impression was of a kindly grandmother. Her Italian accent was also far thicker than Dal Corso’s.
I wasn’t fooled. One of my trainers with the Hunters’ Guild carried the air of a kindly grandmother, and she had almost beaten me to death for mouthing off to her. I learned my lesson and never talked back to any of my superiors again.
Dal Corso introduced us and turned me over to Scarpa. We walked past her office, and she waved at it. “That’s my office.” She didn’t slow down, and we walked out of the building. She gave me a tour of the compound, telling me about the other units billeted there and showing me their barracks. She also showed me the dining hall and the canteen, where I could buy toiletries, snacks, and some other goods. A small chapel sat off to one side beyond the lot where vehicles were parked.
“Most people get three days leave every two weeks,” Scarpa told me. “We discourage going beyond Salisbury. The country is not always hospitable.”
“I was in Liverpool before coming here,” I said. “There were several insurgent attacks while I was there.”
She nodded. “Sadly, there are many infidels who need to be converted. That’s what makes our work here so important.”
We stopped at a fence at the edge of the compound. To the south, we could see Stonehenge.
“Tomorrow, I’ll take you through the complex here. Most of our installation is underground. We leveraged the tunnels and barrows that the ancients left. Now, I’ll take you to meet your team.” She turned to face me. “You’re young, and your file doesn’t provide much confidence in your magical abilities. Starting tomorrow, you will report to my quarters each evening after dinner for instruction in witchcraft.”
“Yes, Ma’am.”
“You don’t have any problem with that?”
“No, Ma’am.”
“Good.”
Chapter 17
My team. For all of my experience in the Hunters’ Guild, I had never led a team. I vaguely remembered Karl and Tiana mentioning that they were inserting me in place of a key member in the Knights’ defenses, but I hadn’t paid a lot of attention. I was a good actress and had played many parts. And although my real job was to lead the team into disaster, I had to hang on long enough to do it.
If that wasn’t intimidating enough, they were witches. It was one thing to have the genetics, but I had never really thought of myself as a witch.
Chevalier Scarpa introduced me and reeled off the names of my team, then stepped aside. I was left facing a dozen strangers in Knights’ uniforms.
“I understand this team has been together for some time,” I started. “I’m going to want to meet with each of you individually to understand your talents, and we’ll be doing that over the next couple of days. For now, I’ll just say that I expect everyone to work hard and keep your noses clean. I’m not the kind of person who’s going to be constantly looking over your shoulders. You’re Knights, and I expect you to conduct yourselves appropriately and take care of business.”
No one’s expression changed.
“Any questions for me?”
A tall man spoke in a North English accent, “Where were you before you came here?”
“In America, stationed in Washington, D.C.”
“Were you involved in that fiasco in Virginia?” one woman asked in a German accent.
The cover story in my personnel file said I was the only survivor of the circle that Ian, Oriel and I had destroyed at the resort hotel.
“I was. And it was a fiasco. We got our asses kicked. As to why it happened, I don’t know. Above my pay grade. I just know that a lot of brave men and women weren’t as lucky as I was.”
“Are you Irish?” the tall man asked.
I spoke so many languages, and had been in so many places, that I tended to unconsciously adopt the accents of those around me. My father was Irish, and being around Ian so much, my speech patterns had fallen in line with his. But I certainly didn’t look Irish.
“Half Irish,” I said. “On my father’s side.”
There weren’t any more questions, so I dismissed them. Scarpa led me back to her office where she handed me a stack of personnel files and briefed me on each of my team. They were an eclectic bunch, but all were experienced, with the youngest having been a Knight for eight years. Of course, that sparked the question in my mind as to why the highest rank any of them had attained was corporal. Five were still squires.
When we finished going through all the files, I said, “Okay, I’ll bite. Why am I in charge of these people? What’s wrong with them?” I held up a file. “This guy has been a Knight longer than I’ve been alive and he’s still a squire.”
Scarpa leaned back in her chair and steepled her fingers, a self-satisfied little smile on her face. “He is a strong witch, and he’ll do whatever you tell him to, provided it’s within his abilities. He isn’t very bright, though, and his capacity to retain knowledge is rather limited. You could never put him in charge of a circle. Without someone to tell him what to do and when, he’d just stand there. Tea?”
“Yes, please.”
She stood and walked over to the sideboard and turned on an electric pot. With her back to me, she put teabags in two mugs.
“The German woman is very smart, very impatient with others, and has a total lack of tact and empathy. If you ever need a bull in a china shop, as the English say, she’s a perfect candidate. Lawrence and Evelyn work very well together, but they are barely functional when they’re apart. They’re twins, you know.”
She went on to document the strengths and deficiencies of the other members of my team. I had learned long before that magical power and ability didn’t require perfectly adjusted personalities or exceptional intelligence.
Liam and Josh were perfect examples. Liam’s autism limited his participation in society, but he was a strong mage and extremely intelligent. Josh was an asshole—though he was gradually getting better—but he was also reasonably smart and an extremely powerful pyromancer. Neither one was leadership material, though Josh would make a good second-in-command.
Scarpa set my tea down in front of me, along with a small notebook. “Your predecessor did a marvelous job of molding these people into a well-functioning team. She left this with me, along with her hope that her successor wasn’t a blithering idiot.”
I opened the book and leafed through it to find it filled with small, precise, densely packed handwriting. In German. Advice on routines, training, and how to manage each person on the team.
“I can translate it for you,” Scarpa said.
“Thank you. If I have any trouble with any of it, I’ll be sure to ask.”
Her eyebrows shot up. Then she asked, “What languages do you speak?” in Venetian Italian.
“English, French, German, and Spanish fairly fluently. Italian not so well,” I replied in my Roman Italian dialect. “I understand some others, such as Venetian, but don’t speak them.” I smiled at her. “Understanding Venetian and Croatian helps to reduce bruises on the backside.” All my Croatian I had learned since the first Knights came to Westport.
She threw back her head and laughed. “Yes, I think you’ll do well, Sergeant. Now, off with you. You don’t want to be late for dinner. You look like you could use some regular meals.”
I spent my time after dinner reading my predecessor’s notes about her team. From what I could tell, she was an extremely competent woman, and the Fae had done a good thing in getting her out of the way. By the following morning, I felt a lot more confident in my role.