Witchmarked (World's First Wizard Book 1) by Aaron Schneider (my reading book .txt) 📕

manner as he slumped against his chair. “Someone get me something to drink.”

“Water for the captain!” Ambrose barked, and one of the typists sprang to the task.

“I said something to drink,” the officer spat weakly, his arms dropping bonelessly into his lap. “Do I look like a fish?”

“You look unwell,” Milo said. “Have you been checked out by a doctor?”

“I said I’m fine,” Lokkemand replied icily, his gaze sharpening to fix Milo with a warning look before he lolled his head against the back of his chair. “Now, where is that damned drink?”

“Why would they want Epp’s career to stall?” Ambrose asked as the typist arrived with a canteen and an unlabeled brown bottle sealed with a cork.

“It’s all I could find,” she said apologetically as she laid them on the map table.

“He’s drunk everything else,” the typist whispered to Milo as she withdrew.

“They want Epp to stall,” said Lokkemand before he knocked the canteen aside with a clumsy swing. “Because he’s part of a growing number in the ranks who are developing rather radical ideas.”

He lunged forward to wrap both hands around the brown bottle as though it were his only security in the midst of a wracking storm.

“Is he seriously about to become even more drunk?” Imrah asked, staring at Lokkemand with shocked, bulging eyes. “While on duty?”

Milo fought back the urge to comment on her father’s predilections and settled for shushing her with a wave of his hand

“Radical ideas?” Milo asked, his brow furrowing even as he felt Imrah’s gaze boring into his back. “Like what?”

The cork was wrenched free, and he got a potent whiff of something whose smell was between alcohol and gasoline vapors.

“Like this war should be won already,” Lokkemand said, grimacing as he put the bottle to his lips. “Like our great and glorious Empire would be victorious by now if not for certain impure elements holding it back. If only the honest and true patriots, good Germans, rose up, we’d have a Reich like none before, a Reich with no end.”

Milo felt a chill run up his spine and twist in his gut. As a Russian born orphan in Dresden, he could hear the silent sirens as keenly as any.

Lokkemand threw his head back and sucked down two mouthfuls of the noxious liquor before coming up for air. The smell of the stuff on his hot, panting breath was not much better than the fumes emerging from the bottle. After the drink, Lokkemand curled in on himself as though bracing under the effects of the liquor.

“They do know that before the Russians fell, the war was almost lost, don’t they?” Ambrose asked, sharp incredulity knitting his features. “The fact that the Germans and the Austro-Hungarians are still fighting is some kind of evil miracle.”

Lokkemand took a few small sips, wincing after each one, before he answered.

“All these bastards know is that they are tired of fighting but can’t stand losing,” the captain muttered, his words beginning to slur. “They can’t admit defeat, but they know thingz don’t look like they’re winning. Zo they cry and beat their cheztz for reform with one hand and work mizchief with the other.”

“If things fail, it’s because the status quo held them back.” Milo nodded, seeing the low cunning of the position. “If things succeed, they’ll claim it is because they defied orders and did what they had to.”

The bottle took several more draining hits as Milo pieced things together, and like a stupefying potion, the bitter tension began to leak out of Lokkemand. He settled deeper into his chair, the bottled-clutching hand resting in his lap while the other hung limp in the air.

“Ekzactly.” Lokkemand coughed, noxious spittle on his chin. “And who do they keep courting, eh? What branch of zervice zitz just outzide normal command ztructurez, with a reputation for zecretz and conzpiraciez?”

Ambrose and Milo exchanged looks, neither needing to say the obvious: Non-Conventional Application of Tactics. These radicals were sniffing around Nicht-KAT.

“What does Colonel Jorge say?” Milo asked, feeling the urge to look over his shoulder. “He has to know, and Nicht-KAT is everything to him. He doesn’t seem like the type to take this sort of thing lying down.”

Lokkemand snorted, then laughed sloppily.

“You really think Nicht-KAT means anything to him?” Lokkemand asked with a giggle as he leaned precariously toward Milo. “Anything compared to you?”

Milo lurched back from the drunken captain, only partly to avoid his reeking breath.

“What does that mean?” Milo snapped.

Lokkemand slouched back into his chair, both arms dangling now, the brown bottle in nerveless, sweaty fingers.

“Maybe we should see about getting the captain to his bunk?” Ambrose suggested, gently placing his hand on Milo’s shoulder. “He’s not feeling well.”

Milo shook off the hand, knowing it was only because Ambrose let him as he moved to stand over the captain.

“Damn your eyes, Lokkemand!” Milo snarled loud enough that every typewriter in the tent fell silent. “What does that mean?”

Lokkemand looked up at Milo, his face splitting into a wide, despairing imitation of a grin.

“It means my instructions are to play the whore with these wolves and cooperate in any way I can, as long as it keeps your operation free.”

Lokkemand let the bottle drop as one long hand snaked forward with viperish speed to snare Milo by the front of his coat. Before Milo knew what was happening, he was dragged down so the captain’s voice hissed directly into his ear.

“He’s betting everything, everything, on you,” Lokkemand gurgled. “Even it means my damned soul!”

Ambrose hauled Milo back as Lokkemand looked on with bright, unfocused eyes, his features stretched into a hideous smile.

“So there it is, Volkohne.” He giggled maniacally. “Welcome back to the world of manmade monsters!”

19

An Understanding

“I still don’t get it,” Milo muttered as he paced the room, boots scuffing the bare floor. “How does any of this make sense?”

They’d been given respectably-sized but utilitarian quarters not far from the main road. The furnishings were spartan or so unfamiliar as to be useless, but none of