Hellblazer 1 - War Lord by John Shirley

Sunnis for being Shi’ite; by Shi’ite for being Sunni.
    People just caught in the crossfire.
    “Why are they here?” Gatewood asked. “There has to be some other place for them. Muslim Paradise or something.”
    “They’re stuck,” the ghost soldier said. “Caught here in this world, like lots of ghosts. It’s the trauma does it sometimes, I guess. Me and my friend here, we’re on assignment . . . and here’s Colonel Futheringham . . .” He nodded toward the ghost of the British army officer, with flourishing mustaches and a khaki uniform, strolling up to them. “The colonel and Sheikh Abdul here and me—we’re on a mission,” the young soldier went on. “We gathered up these people to support us. And that’ll help them . . . See, if they do something to stop the killing, somewhere, it helps them let go. You are called to help us, too.”
    “I need to be a ghost?” Gatewood asked, looking down at himself. Maybe he was dead. Maybe someone had shot him and he hadn’t worked that out yet.
    “Not at all, recruit!” the old British colonel said. “We need you alive. Part of a team, eh? A couple of others to round up. You’ve got to come and meet them.”
    “Come—with you? Where . . . ?” Gatewood didn’t feel like he was having a conversation with the dead. He didn’t feel like he was taking part in a supernatural event. It all felt very natural and normal to him. Like this was what he was intended for.
    “You survived, bro,” the soldier said to him. “So now we’re going to show you the way. You got to come with us. You’re one of those who can see ’em. You look around with the heart and here we are. Now come along—you won’t need that gun. We’ll watch your back.”
    Gatewood nodded dazedly. He felt driven by an unknown momentum. He threw his rifle aside, just as Binsdale came out of the house behind him.
    “What the fuck you doing with your rifle, Gatewood! Pick up your goddamn weapon!”
    “You can’t see them?” Gatewood asked, though he was pretty sure of the answer. “All the dead calling to me?”
    “Oh Christ . . . just what I need, another fucking headcase . . . just pick up your weapon and fall in, Gatewood, you fucking—where the fuck are you going?”
    Gatewood was walking on a thin path through the rubble beside the fallen mosque and into the darkness of the city’s outskirts. He was being ushered along the path by the old man with the white beard and the young American soldier, accompanied by nearly a hundred dead people.
    He was being ushered into the darkness by a troop of ghosts.
    “Gatewood!” Binsdale shouted. “Get back here or you’re on report! You want a court martial?”
    Gatewood didn’t even glance back at him. Watching Gatewood going AWOL, wandering off into the dark alone, Binsdale thought maybe he should go after him.
    But there were mines out there, probably. And Gatewood was clearly out of his fucking mind. He might do anything.
    Binsdale shrugged and turned to his men, gathering outside the house. “Fall in, you guys. Pick up Gatewood’s gun, Muny. He’s gone AWOL. Let’s figure out what we’re gonna say to the Lieutenant . . .”
    ~
    The Fedayeen fighter, watching the small group of American soldiers from the dimness of the ruined mosque’s second floor, picked up his already loaded RPG-7.
    “Kill him!” whispered the boy, in Arabic. The Fedayeen had found the boy running aimlessly through the ruins of the mosque.
    Now the guerrilla shushed the boy with a hissed syllable. The boy watched in fascination as the Fedayeen leaned the launch tube of the RPG-7 on a broken crust of wall and aimed at the ground near Binsdale’s boots. In his experience, it was best to use the splash effect of the shell hitting the ground to make sure you took out the Americans, because of their Kevlar vests. He squeezed the trigger and the antipersonnel shell flew down at the perfect angle, arcing only a little, to explode just between Binsdale and Vintara.