Sorcerybound (World's First Wizard Book 2), Aaron Schneider [accelerated reader books .txt] 📗

sliding to one side as he continued to scrutinize Milo. “But that doesn’t answer my question.”

“What to do with a useless wizard?” Milo asked with a cocked eyebrow.

“Don’t be dramatic,” Jorge chided as he dropped the butt into the glass. “And don’t pretend you don’t have something in mind. Chafe under Lokkemand all you want, but the man’s reports to me are always thorough.”

Milo’s mind raced back to all those heated conversations with Lokkemand. The shouting and cursing as he demanded to launch an operation against the Guardians, while Lokkemand insisted their orders were to stay put and for Milo to play eldritch tinker. More than once, Milo had threatened to head off on his own, and Lokkemand had made it clear he would put a bullet in Milo’s head if he did. Milo’s first time sneaking out had been a test for running off, but the nightwatch and his lack of focus had seen him gathering ingredients for another experiment. Milo had still harbored, out of spite if nothing else, a hope that he’d get a chance to help the Shepherds and hunt down more Questors.

Especially with his secret project having gained crucial ground.

Milo eyed the colonel warily.

“Are you suggesting what I think you are suggesting?” he asked as he stepped to the desk to deposit the remains of his cigarette in the glass.

“That depends,” the colonel said, drawing out the tin and fetching another cigarette.

Milo noticed the case remained open, but Jorge hadn’t offered yet.

“Depends on what?”

“Depends if you understand what is at stake,” Jorge said, cigarette case between them. “Snarl about Lokkemand all you want, but he’s not the real enemy.”

“I know who my enemies are,” Milo said, a defiant edge sharpening his tone. “That’s what we are talking about, aren’t we?”

Jorge pulled the tin into his lap, his thumb fiddling with the lid.

“That’s not precisely what I am talking about,” the older man said with forced patience. “You’d best listen carefully.”

Milo noted the warning in the colonel’s voice, and, checking his temper, he nodded and slid back to lean against the table again.

“Yes, sir.”

Jorge stared at him long enough to make Milo feel a tickle of discomfort before raising the hand holding his unlit cigarette. Milo, huffing an impatient sigh as he rose, nicked his thumb and lit the tobacco with a snap.

“Thank you,” Jorge said softly as Milo resumed his position against the table.

Jorge took a single bracing toke, then positioned the glowing tip over the glass.

“What I’m talking about is the General Staff,” Jorge said, the words coming with a weighty sigh. “The old eagles are finding themselves coming under more and more pressure, and as they do, they are going to squeeze anything they think might keep them in control. Which means the pressure from above is close to crushing everything we could achieve.”

Milo frowned, the treasonous implication of the words settling like a weight across his shoulders.

“The General Staff is our enemy?” he asked, fighting the urge to check the shadows.

“Those blundering old warhorses?” Jorge said with a bite to his words that never touched his placid expression. “No, their behavior is a symptom, not the disease.”

Milo felt the burden lighten a little. He had no love for the German Empire in general and the General Staff in particular, being a forced conscript under threat of being dissected. Still, he was technically part of the German Army, and being inducted into a war with its entrenched hierarchy compromised at the highest level seemed unwise. Even more so considering the threat of the Guardians.

“So, we are talking about whatever has them under the gun,” Milo said. “And I’m assuming it’s not just the decades-long war effort.”

“You are correct in your assumption,” Jorge said, the barest hint of approval in his voice.

Milo nodded, then chewed his lip for a second. Lokkemand’s sweaty, flushed face loomed in his memory, and Milo remembered a conversation in Afghanistan about changes within the German Army, with men even being willing to defy their orders for charismatic leaders.

“Ritter von Epp,” Milo murmured with a low growl. “Him and his cronies?”

The memory of Lokkemand’s drunken rant about those within the Army longing to remove “impure elements” from among them heated Milo’s blood even as it sent sharp spikes of fear up his spine.

“You are on the right track.” Jorge nodded, settling into the chair a little deeper. “But you’ve got the order reversed. Epp is the crony. He’s too old to be in the inner circle of what is stirring in Germany. His defiance and grandstanding in Afghanistan are either a pathetic and futile attempt to worm his way in or a reasonably clever ploy to make him sympathetic to those threatening to rise up.”

Milo forced down a shiver. The thought of a man like Epp, a man who controlled vast military resources and authority, being a puppet or a stooge for whatever was coming was decidedly chilling.

“Who is the real enemy?” Milo asked, the unspoken “and what do we do about them” hanging in the air with Jorge’s lazy curls of smoke.

“I could tell you names that probably mean nothing: Dietrich, Göring, Hess, and others.” Jorge sighed. “The important thing is that they are veterans of this war, identifying as the Ewiges Reich. A terrible name, but they are gaining more traction every day. In fact, one of their toadies, a particularly loathsome madman named Röhm, just let a significant number of armed men from the Russian hinterland through German-held territories. Seems they are set on a path for a particular German-friendly but neutral nation.”

Milo’s eyes narrowed for a moment and then widened, the periwinkle flashing like winter lightning.

“It wouldn’t happen to be the one we are residing in at the moment?”

Jorge’s smile said everything.

Georgia had been part of the Russian Empire just before its fall, but since the collapse of the empire, the rugged nation had managed to keep its independence, along with a few of its neighbors. The Transcaucasian Federation, as it was called, had managed