Sorcerer in the Marvel Universe

Melinda’s grudge had apparently reached critical mass.

For a full minute, she bombarded the warehouse where Johnny Blaze was hiding, venting enough frustration to level what was left of the building.

Unfortunately, the motorcycle that had carried Johnny across an ocean and survived the entire miserable journey had not survived Melinda.

It was now a collection of broken metal. The handlebars had somehow been snapped into three separate pieces.

If Johnny had been transformed at the time, things would have been different. The Hellfire could repair the bike even after catastrophic damage.

The problem was that it had been broad daylight when the bombing started.

The Ghost Rider might not die from ordinary violence, but apparently even supernatural vengeance had its limits when it came to walking.

"Sometimes you can prepare for everything and still get blindsided," Evenson said with a helpless sigh. "At this point, we should just focus on doing our jobs."

He turned toward Rumlow.

"We know which direction the mother and child escaped. So..."

He paused.

"We have the make, model, and license plate of their vehicle, right?"

"Yes, sir." Rumlow nodded. "The local police already sent us the complete report."

"Then start there."

Evenson slumped against the table.

"If we can’t find them with that much information, SHIELD might as well let half its satellites fall out of orbit and become space junk."

"Don’t worry, sir," Rumlow assured him confidently. "We’ll find them soon. Assuming they’re still on Earth."

"Hmph."

Melinda glanced at Evenson’s thoroughly defeated expression.

For once, she actually smiled.

"Not used to it?"

"What?"

Evenson barely lifted his eyelids.

"Juggling everything at once." Melinda leaned over the table, bracing both hands against it. "Chasing a target from place to place. Getting excited because you finally have a new lead, only to discover thirty seconds later that the lead is already worthless."

She gave him an understanding look.

"Pretty frustrating, isn’t it?"

Evenson sighed.

"Yeah. I’m not used to it."

He wasn’t exactly new to SHIELD operations, but his previous assignments had been straightforward. They usually gave him a location and a target. Show up on time, deal with the problem, go home.

This was different.

This time, they were being dragged around by the nose.

"But honestly, I expected you people to be more efficient." He glanced at her. "You are SHIELD agents, after all."

"Agents..."

Melinda brought up a virtual interface and began configuring a monitoring program for the route the mother and child had taken.

"When you’re a teenager, everyone dreams about becoming a secret agent. Tight leather suit. Sunglasses. Cold expression. Then you tell someone, ’This is classified.’"

She tapped through another set of options.

"Or you wear a trench coat, carry two tiny pistols, burst into some cramped room, shoot a bunch of terrorists, and save the world before lunch."

She sighed.

"That’s how Peggy Carter recruited me. If she hadn’t, you’d probably be watching me stand on an Olympic figure-skating podium right now."

Evenson gave her a sidelong look.

He had to admit, he could actually picture it.

At least the women’s figure-skating champions tended to be... streamlined.

He wisely kept that thought to himself.

"But once I actually started doing fieldwork, I realized the job was nothing like I imagined."

Melinda finished entering the parameters.

Her eyes stared blankly into the distance as old memories surfaced.

"You spend endless hours crammed into some tiny space. You eat stale sandwiches in a surveillance van. You spend half your life waiting for someone to shoot at you. You learn how to use a bottle while riding in a speeding car..."

She suddenly stopped.

Her expression tightened.

She clearly decided that particular memory was better left buried.

Evenson, unfortunately, had no such survival instinct.

"You even learned that?"

Thwack!

"Ow!"

Evenson rubbed his aching nose.

"Okay. Apparently we’re not that different."

He straightened.

"When I was fourteen, I found out I could learn magic and become a Warlock. I thought that meant I could do whatever I wanted."

He sighed.

"Reality had other plans."

He shook his head.

"If I keep talking, I’m going to start swearing."

Rumlow, who had been listening from nearby, suddenly looked equally traumatized.

"I was a member of a shooting club before SHIELD recruited me directly into an operations team," he said. "They trained me as a sniper."

He shrugged.

"Not exactly a bad career, right? Killing someone from a mile away. Disappearing into the shadows with an explosion behind you."

His mouth twisted.

"Sounds damn cool."

Then his expression darkened.

"But my first assignment..."

Rumlow looked as though he had just opened a door he’d spent years trying to keep locked.

"It was an assassination mission in the South American jungle. My spotter and I finally reached the firing position and got everything set up."

He held up a finger.

"Then we discovered SHIELD’s intelligence was wrong."

Evenson waited.

"The warlord wasn’t coming for another five days."

"...Five days?"

"Five."

Rumlow’s right hand began trembling at the memory.

"Think about that. Five entire days lying perfectly still in a tropical jungle during summer."

He started counting the suffering off on his fingers.

"The rain? Manageable. The heat? Manageable. The animals? Also manageable."

He stared into the middle distance.

"The mosquitoes were not manageable."

Evenson said nothing.

"They could practically eat a man alive. And on top of that, I had to deal with every other creature in that jungle crawling over me."

Rumlow grimaced.

"And when nature called, let’s just say there wasn’t exactly a convenient restroom nearby."

He shuddered.

"Five days. Five miserable days. It was hell."

Evenson raised an eyebrow.

So that was SHIELD’s intelligence failure.

Rumlow had spent five days hiding in a jungle because someone had gotten the schedule wrong.

Was that really the reason he eventually betrayed SHIELD and joined HYDRA?

Probably not.

But Evenson wasn’t about to investigate it right now.

He sighed and put an arm around each man’s shoulder.

"Life’s unpredictable. Nobody has it easy."

He gave them both a sympathetic pat.

"You don’t really understand how hard something is until you’ve done it yourself."

Nearby, Clea puffed out her cheeks.

She had absolutely no sympathy for them.

These three idiots simply hadn’t understood what they were signing up for.

When she’d first started performing rituals, she’d never imagined she’d be standing safely in the distance firing magical attacks while someone else did all the work.

She’d trained her body, learned the hard parts, and never complained.

At least, not much.

Before she could point that out, the virtual display on the table suddenly flashed red.

Melinda’s monitoring program had triggered.

She immediately brought up the incoming footage.

Her expression hardened as she studied the screen.

"We found them."

Everyone’s attention snapped toward her.

"The mother and child?"

"Yes."

For all the ways an ordinary SHIELD agent’s life differed from the glamorous fantasy people imagined, tracking a single mother with no professional training and almost nonexistent counter-surveillance skills wasn’t particularly difficult.

Melinda brought up several more feeds.

"But they may have a problem."

Three SUVs appeared on the screen, following the mother and child from a distance.

"Someone’s following them."

She quickly cross-referenced the vehicles and faces.

A few seconds later, she had an answer.

"It’s Carrigan."

The name immediately changed the mood in the room.

Carrigan.

The mercenary who had somehow managed to become a disgrace even among mercenaries.

The man now working for Locke.

Melinda grabbed her communicator.

"Change course immediately. We’re heading to the target’s location."

Then she looked at Rumlow.

"Get your people ready for a fight. It’s time we taught those bastards some manners."

Moru had already noticed the change in the situation and hurried over.

"We need to move. We can’t let that child fall into Locke’s hands."

"Wait."

Evenson’s voice stopped them.

Everyone looked at him.

"What are you planning to do?"

He pointed toward the tactical display.

"We still need Carrigan to lead us to Locke."

His eyes narrowed.

"If we take Carrigan out now, aren’t we jumping the gun?"

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