Chapter Text
John Watson’s knees cracked as he dropped down beside another wounded soldier. He felt rather than heard his tendons snap; it was impossible to hear anything over the sublimating agony of a hundred wounded soldiers. Their terror was a physical thing, hissing up from their bodies like steam, turning the air above Echo Beach into an opaque and smothering fog.
Ignoring the smell of blood, burning metal, and primal fear, John breathed in through his nose and out through his mouth. The breathing exercises were second nature now. He’d used them since he was teenager to attain the focus necessary to touch the Aura, to channel the energy he found there, to heal and cleanse. He grasped a tendril of that power now, pulling it into him and through him and directing it into the body of the boy in front of him.
Or, he should say, the soldier in front of him. His patient couldn’t be a day over eighteen. What did that actually mean though? No one here could still be called a child.
John laid his hands on the soldier’s torso, framing the hole torn by the bullet. He saturated the area with his power as he looked for the culprit, the source of the blood filling up the soldier’s abdomen, the blood spilling onto the sand. When he found it seconds later, he didn’t bother biting back a curse. The bullet had blasted away half the left kidney. The bloody, goddamn, fucking kidney. He’d hoped for some ruptured blood vessels, a sliced artery, something he could tie off with a twist of power. He wasn’t strong enough to handle something this big.
For the millionth time since sunrise, John railed silently against his own weakness. He’d known Adepts at the Barts Praxeum who could heal this in a second. Who could knit bone and rebuild organs and haul people back from the brink. John could barely channel enough Aura to be considered Adept at all. His training as a doctor allowed him to use what little power he had to great advantage, but at times like this, his best wasn’t enough.
The boy was going to die.
There was no way to fix him here, and there was no way he could last however long it would be before he was loaded onto one of the evacuation boats. Bloody hell.
John rocked back on his knees. He wanted to press the heels of his hands into his eyes until he couldn’t see the haze hanging over the beach, until he could only see white light. But he couldn’t. His hands were covered in blood. He settled for brushing the boy’s sweaty hair off his forehead. At least John could make sure he passed in peace.
“What’s you name, soldier?” John had to shout to make his voice carry over the din. Even then, it took three goes before the boy turned toward him, eyes glassy and distant.
“It hurts.” The kid’s voice was weak, little more than a pained wheeze. John had to lean in close to hear.
“I know it does. And I’ll help you. But first I need to know your name.”
The kid shuddered in pain before he spoke again. “Childers, sir.”
“Nice to meet you, Childers, I’m Watson. Here’s how this is going to go.” John tried to make his voice as authoritative as possible. He wanted Childers to believe him. “We have a lot of people in Calais that need to be evacuated and it’s going to take some time. But the injured have priority. For now, I’ll patch you up and do something for the pain.”
Childers didn’t respond. Taking the boy's silence as consent, John redirected his power from Childers’ kidney up to his neck. John seized onto the bundle of nerves there, the ones responsible for relaying pain to the brain, and pinched. Childers relaxed immediately. His eyes closed.
Once the bandage was secure, John stroked the boy’s forehead one last time. Then he moved on to the next soldier.
This French campaign had been an unmitigated disaster from the start. John understood the necessity of it, of course. Moriarty’s Empire had been threatening France’s eastern border since Germany fell last year. When the Empire had finally moved on France, Britain had been treaty bound to enter the fray. Really, it wasn’t as if Britain wouldn’t have helped France anyway, even without a treaty. An occupied France would mean a constant, solid threat along Britain’s southern coast. As if that weren’t reason enough, if Moriarty got his hands on France, he would be in prime position to take control of France’s Louisiana territory in North America. That would put Britain’s American Colonies at risk, something King William had deemed unacceptable. The Colonies provided more than half of Britain’s raw materials, after all. Not to mention a goodly portion of the motherland’s Adepts.
But the Empire that arrived in France was stronger than anyone reckoned. There had obviously been more Adepts in Germany than their government had let on, the cagey bastards, and Moriarty Collared all of them. With their new, unforeseen power, the Empire had hit France like a hurricane, completely overwhelming and then utterly annihilating France and Britain’s defenses in less than a month. Britain’s forces had been pushed back to Calais where the majority had already been transported back to England. In a matter of hours, the British military would be gone and France would be on its own.
On the heels of that thought, John took a moment to thank God, thank the Aura, thank his lucky stars that he was English. Adepts were treated with respect in Britain and the Colonies. After puberty, those sensitive to the Aura could enter any Praxeum they chose. John had taken his meager talent to Barts, the London medical Praxeum, and then entered the military. He’d always had a thorough understanding of duty. King and country and all that. And, over the past year, many of his fellow British Adepts had joined up alongside him. Nothing motivates like an overabundance of skin in the game.
Icy fingers clawed their way up John’s spine. He honestly couldn’t think of anything worse than the Collar. To have no control over your power, your actions…to be at the mercy of Moriarty. John tasted acid. He’d heard Moriarty’s party line before; that the Adepts had too much power, that they operated shadow governments in areas without Collar Laws. That Adepts were dangerous and needed to be controlled for the good of society. Moriarty held up his own Empire’s relative stability as proof of that.
But John had seen Moriarty’s reptilian eyes glitter darkly on the telly. He’d heard Moriarty’s manic voice pulse with venom and bitter hatred. He’d watched Moriarty caress his Ring, the one linked with his own detail of Collared, as gently as John would a lover. John saw and he heard and he knew in his marrow that for Moriarty, this was a vendetta.
That was fine. It was all fine. Because that meant John knew who he had to thank for this god-awful mess.
John continued to triage the wounded as a round of transports roared off toward England. Long shadows stretched behind the few thousand people who remained, laying a quilted patchwork of light and dark over the blood stained sand. A woman in dirt-crusted combat gear strode up to him, her legs kicking the shadows as she moved. She arrived just as the next wave of transports motored into the shallows. John finished with the shrapnel wound he’d been tending and stood to face her.
She saluted. “Captain John Watson?”
“Yes, Private?”
“Major Perkins needs you straight away, sir.”
John frowned. Something was off. “Fine. I’ll just check on a few…”
“I’m sorry, sir, but I was told to escort you down to the transport line myself. Right now. Absolutely no delays.” She looked deadly serious.
John sighed. He felt exhausted. “Ok, fine. Lead the way.”
Down by the water, the air was lighter. Major Perkins straddled the foamy seam between sea and sand. Perkins was as average looking as John was himself – the Major’s muddy brown eyes and thin, chapped lips almost disappeared into a round, creased face made ruddy by wind and sun. He was surrounded by at least fifteen Adepts, easily identified by the circular Aura patches on their left shoulders. Most were medical Adepts, like John, who’d stayed behind to look after the wounded, although there were a few projectionists in the crowd. At this point, the group, plus John, probably represented all the British Adepts left in France. John felt a whorl of unease in his gut. For all of them to be gathered like this, it couldn’t be good.
Major Perkins cleared his throat loudly. “New orders! All Adepts still left in France are to evacuate on this round of transport. That means you lot. Make sure you spread yourselves out, no more than two Adepts per transport. As soon as you’re in, pull up the gate behind you. The operators have orders to leave as soon as you’re secure.”
A beat of silence followed Perkins’ announcement. Then, cacophony.
“What’s this about, sir?”
“But the injured…”
“The transports aren’t even full yet!”
John didn’t speak. He just stood, feet shoulder width apart, shoulders squared, gaze steady and impassive. But he burned with the same questions as the other Adepts, and the same fear. The only logical explanation for an order like this was that Moriarty’s forces had moved more quickly than anticipated. Again. And those forces were close enough to disrupt the tail end of the retreat. God, if there wasn’t even enough time to finish filling the transports, the Empire couldn’t be far from Echo Beach. They must have had a hundred collared projectionists working overtime to get an army this close unnoticed. How did Moriarty’s troops find them so fast?
As if on cue, a massive explosion blew the top off one of the bluffs overlooking the beach. Able-bodied soldiers ducked for cover behind the morning’s hastily made barricades, training their rifles at the bluffs. Others began dragging the injured toward the transports. Another explosion followed on the heels of first, and another after that, and another. Each one was closer than the one before.
Perkins called for the Adepts attention over the barrage. “Britain can’t afford to have more assets collared! Get into a transport. NOW!”
John’s insides flashed hot, then utterly cold. Oh, God. All the soldiers on the beach. Childers. No time. They were out of time.
But John understood duty. He could not, would not, be taken. He sprinted toward the fourth transport in the line, another Adept close on his heels. The ground was shaking. He thought he tasted sulfur, but maybe he was imagining it. Adrenaline chased itself through his circulatory system, speeding up his heart, bypassing his pain receptors. John reached out to the Aura and directed its power into the muscles of his legs, increasing blood flow and oxygen levels while clearing away rapidly accumulating lactic acid.
Frigid water lapped up his boots before wet sand gave way to the metal ramp of the evacuation boat. He charged up the ramp and into the transport, explosions tearing into the people on the beach. The reinforced steel ramp clanged shut just as the first enemy soldiers crested the top of the bluffs. Bullets began to ping off the door in earnest, chasing the transport into the Channel.
John pressed his back against the wall of the transport and sank down to the floor. He could no longer see what was happening on the beach, but God help him, he could hear. Shame and relief blew through him in equal measure when the vibration of the engines finally overcame the screams of his dying countrymen.
He looked around the transport as the noise died away. It was carrying about fifteen people, including the soldier who’d escorted him to Major Perkins and the other Adept. That was less than half of what the transport could actually hold.
John closed his eyes against all the empty space. He felt guilty. Of course he felt guilty. It was normal to feel guilty in this situation. Even if Britain didn’t have any Adepts to spare, and Moriarty certainly couldn’t be allowed to capture more, he’d still been saved while others had died. He should feel guilt over that.
John breathed in through his nose and out through his mouth, calming his mind, centering himself. But as John used his power to soothe his racing heart, to dispel the adrenaline that lingered in his blood, he was forced to acknowledge a deeper truth, the truth buried beneath, fueling weaponized guilt.
That had been a lot of fun.