Free G.H.O.S.T. Teams: Book 1 - Magic by Bobby Brimmer

am pretty sure that I deserved it. I smiled and nodded my head towards the front.
    “Come on, let’s get up there. We wouldn’t want to miss it if Freddy has an inspirational speech planned,” I said.
    Kara shook her head as we both stood up. I made a sweeping gesture, telling her to go first, because deep down, I am a little bit of a gentleman.
    “Ladies first,” I said.
    “Why thank you kind sir,” she said, mimicking a southern accent.
    I won’t even begin to try to explain what it sounds like when a woman with an Irish accent tries to mimic an American Southern accent. Let’s just say that it was magical. We made our way up to the front of the van and grabbed our seats. I stared out the window for a bit, letting my mind wander.
    I had spent my entire life as a loner and now Dutton expected me to take five untested people into battle and keep them safe. I had no idea what to expect from them or any clue as to how they would react once a serious danger presented itself. At this point I was just hoping that none of them would accidentally shoot me in the back once the fighting started. Needless to say, that last thought did not comfort me during the ride to Rockville.
     

Chapter 6
     
    We jumped onto the beltway, or I495 if you prefer, and we headed north until we hit 270. Taking 270, a twelve-lane interstate running up to Fredrick, we jumped off on the Montrose road exit and made our way down to the Pike. Route 355, known as Rockville Pike for this stretch, runs three lanes in each direction right through the heart of the city. It is one of the heavier traveled roads in the area, and traffic doesn’t ever seem to let up. Luckily for us we had sirens and lights. The street is blanketed on both sides by strip malls, many of which are two stories high. The occasional office building, apartment complex, fast food restaurant, and/or car dealership sneak in to break up the monotony. We were getting close to our destination, so in the interest of stealth, Erika cut the sirens.
    Rockville is an interesting little city. Although its population is barely a tenth of Baltimore, Maryland’s largest city, it does contain a disproportionately large percentage of Fantasy folk. Part of the reason for this is easy access to the Veil. The city has several openings to the world next door, one of which happened to be pretty close to our destination. I wasn’t sure if that was going to be important or not, but since Freddy had been rambling on about it, I figured I would share. Personally, I found Rockville fascinating for a different reason, because when I was younger, I actually lived here.
    As I looked out the window of the van, I couldn’t believe how much the city had changed. I hadn’t been back in Rockville for well over a decade. When I was a kid, there was a two-year stretch where I got to live with my dad full time. He thought that it was important that I understood what it meant to be a normal kid, so he sent me to public school. Rockville had the best High School in the state, so he sold his condo in DC and bought us a house with a yard. In a funny twist of fate, the school district got redrawn a month after we moved, and instead of the fancy number one school, I went to it’s ugly ducking cousin. Such are the breaks.
    Those two years however were some of the happiest of my life. My father wouldn’t let me go out for sports because he feared that people would realize that I was “special”. But every night, after he went to sleep, I would sneak out of the house and bound through my neighborhood. And when I say bound through, what I mean is that I would jump, fall, spin, and flip off of anything and everything that I could find. Every house, tree, parked car, fence, or random shrub became my obstacle course. Jackie Chan was my hero and under the cover of darkness I was making him proud.
    But I’ll have to bore you with exciting tales of my childhood another time, as we had arrived at our destination. Erika killed