Jack of Harts

Some people rage against the darkness. Charles was never one of those people. Firstly, a good Family Man never raged against anything. They coolly and calmly studied the situation and then fixed it. I actually approved of that. He was good in an emergency, you know. Which he ended up proving rather well in time. But the thing that really worked in time, the thing that made him work, and the thing that made us work, was that little something extra he brought. His mission. His plan. He never just stood against the darkness. He lit a candle against it. Yes, there was a lot of violence and foul language involved in making our stand. But he was always fighting for something. For that candle. That mission. That plan. That hope. He made a man want to follow him. Even me. I never thought I’d see a Family Man do that.

Charles was wearing a suit the day I first met him. An Old Money tailored dress suit that fitted him just right. We all got standard issued gear during training, but through some magic I never did understand he made it all look like it was tailored too. Even his PT gear fit better than it had any right to. And his dress whites were perfect every day. And when you bounced a quarter off his bunk, it hit the ceiling. I’m serious. Charles had a century of Family training under his belt before I met him, and he never let anything ruffle his feathers. He was cool. He was calm. And he was always ready to help people with a smile. He made you want to like him just by standing there. Which is why I hated his guts at first. I just couldn’t believe that he was real. It had to be an act. It wasn’t. He was real. Thank God.

I recognized Charles Edward Hurst the first time I met him. Not that I actually knew who he was, you understand. Just what he was. I had seen his type before. The Capital F Family types. Old Money that could buy anything they wanted. They loved to vacation in Northern Minnesota and sample all the delights we offered. And sometimes ones that weren’t for sale. They always thought that money could buy forgetfulness or otherwise leverage matters to get them out of legal trouble. They were right more than I liked, but there were other types of trouble they could get into if they escaped the legal kind. I was good at helping facilitate that. He wasn’t the only one of his ilk sent to the little reserve fighter squadron down in Texas where I met them. I figured the fix was in. It was going to be a show squadron that didn’t do any real fighting. But Charles had other plans.