The Dossiers of Asset 108 Collection

by J M Guillen

  The door to the theater banged open and brilliant hotel light shone inside.

  For a moment, everyone stopped in place, stunned.

  Except for me. Victory tugged at the edge of my lips, a sharpened smile.

  An older man stood silhouetted in the door. He wore a battered cowboy hat and leaned on a cane.

  “Naw.” His bass voice rumbled out low and rich as his head turned. Even though I couldn’t see his blue eyes, I felt certain that he winked. “I have an investment in the young lady, see.”

  I grinned widely at him and whirled back toward the big screen. I sipped at the ocean of Wind and called to mind the Seal of A’grimm. It shaped the Wind into a fierce torrent, which I often used to hurl knives or to buffet my opponent.

  As the symbols became infused with the power of the Wind, they burst into a circle around me, singing brilliantly, glowing the color of the summer sky.

  Dex check, Liz. With one quick gesture, I reached into my hoodie and grasped my knives. I pulled and threw squarely at the spot I’d marked, the place the invisible creature actually loomed.

  Along with the blade, I hurled an unyielding, furious torrent of Wind. Driven by tornado level winds shaped by the Empyrean Seals, the blade careened. It sliced through the air with the speed of a bullet, and exploded into the creature, which materialized upon impact.

  The horror screamed, a sound that crackled through the theater speakers. As the projector’s light died, the uncanny wraith hung in the air before us, faint and insubstantial.

  “Ha!” the older gentleman crowed from the doorway.

  “Now,” I ordered and kept my eyes on the screen, as I pulled at Alicia, “get Rehl and get out.”

  In the dim half-light, the spectral creature lurched forward and swiped at Alicia, who threw herself sideways to dodge.

  I pulled Baxter back, but it was difficult to push around the rows of seats.

  “C’mon,” Rehl whispered, though panic ran through his voice. “Let’s get this party moving.”

  “Foolish child.” The creature’s voice burned through the crackling speakers “Do you imagine this ends well? Our master will simply send another.”

  “Your master is a grade-A horse turd,” Simon grumbled as he hobbled forward. “You need to back down, buddy.”

  Instead, the creature leapt forward again and swung one of its claw-like hands at Baxter.

  Bax didn’t prove as agile as Alicia and was thrown against the wall with a loud crunch. He wailed and slipped to the floor, his nose a torrent of blood.

  “Dammit!” I threw my second knife and again allowed the mini-maelstrom of Wind to surge along with it. I missed, however, and the knife buried into the wall behind the creature.

  Uh-oh. The radiance from the Empyrean symbol began to fade. I didn’t quite have the focus for more than a couple of uses.

  “Good try, Sassafras,” Simon chuckled. “Let me have a go.” He strode forward, his gaze squarely on the wraith-like creature.

  “This doesn’t involve you, old man.” Its voice would have been like a blade across silk, were it not for the electronic interference.

  “You bore me, son.” Simon shuffled forward, his eyes on the spectral horror. “I figure we’ll send ya on home to Mister Lorne. Maybe he’ll take the hint.”

  “Fine,” the creature sneered. “Die with them, then.” It lunged at Simon and hissed as it swung one of its gangled arms at his head.

  Simon ducked and held his cane forward. Three small trinkets hung from it, tinkling against each other.

  “Not today,” he snarled and mouthed a word in the Empyrean tongue.

  Reality itself trembled around us.

  Her Name. I smiled in recognition, even though this Name was something I had never been able to truly comprehend. It held light and wonder and sweetness to the ear. It sounded like a great bell, like the first rays of dawn.

  “Beautiful.” Alicia had heard the Name but not grasped it, I felt certain. She gazed at Simon, wide-eyed.

  Thunder rocked the room, a furious rumble as if the entire world trembled. Around us, azure brilliance exploded into cascading song in my mind. It burned and screamed and shone through everything, a light that sanctified us by its presence.

  “Come on, then.” Simon’s deep voice rang with bass sweetness, and his words reverberated across all existence.

  She came. Like the primal concept of justice, like tongues of fire, she came.

  Not that one could see her, not really. She whispered like sunlight across the mind, a creature that echoed behind the world. One had to really look to see her, and even then, unless one had been gifted with magical talent, she eluded human imagination.

  Tarahiel appeared, and with her, cobalt, elemental righteousness.

  She stood winged, graceful as a song at the dawn of the world. In her fist, a sword burned with heaven’s first flame. Her eye gleamed perfect goodness, a furious perfection that scathed away all shadows.

  The spectral horror screamed, burned merely by her presence.

  “Go, go, go!” I pushed Rehl toward Alicia and stepped over to Baxter.

  He still bled but pushed himself up.

  “Liz?” Drunkenly, he reached for his glasses and slid them on his face. “Wha’s happ’ning?”

  “I’ll tell you later.” I grabbed his arm and guided him to Rehl. “You need to go now.”

  “Yesh, I do,” he slurred, but he gave me a sideways smile. “I’m bleeding. I dhink—”

  Sound, like a hymn from on high, shattered through the room.

  “Repent, you lost and forsaken shadow,” Tarahiel cried, her words as pure as the sun’s own fire. She lunged at the creature, which dimmed before her light.

  “This is not over, Shepherd!” the creature wailed, its voice crackling. “My master holds legions of servants! Another will come in my place!”

  “We’ll burn that ’un too.” Simon gave me a wink as I hurried past, pulling my stunned comrades. “Just see if we won’t.”

  “Darkness cannot stand against Truth’s flame.” Tarahiel swooped toward the creature, and her blade burned so brightly I had to turn away.

  “Liz? Come on!” Alicia grabbed my arm and dragged me behind her through the door.

  Lorne’s creature screamed. As Simon followed us, it cried one last time, and fell silent.

  A CRACK resounded in the room, as if some great stone had been rent asunder.

  In the hallway, the walls trembled, and one of the hotel’s generic water paintings fell to the floor.

  Simon shut the door, his eyes unreadable. He gazed at me, then at my three friends, who all had wide, crazed eyes.

  For a long moment, no one said anything.

  “Wanna get a beer, Freckles?” Simon gave me a jaunty grin. “I know just the place.”

  “What the fuck was that?” Alicia gave me an accusatory glare, her flaming cheeks nearly a match for her hair.

  “Them too?” I asked Simon as I jerked my head at my fellow adventurers.

  “Aw, hell.” He shook his head ruefully. “Might as well.” He put one arm across my shoulder. “Let’s make a night of it.”

  “C’mon.” I looped my arm with wide-eyed Alicia’s and raised my chin at Baxter and Rehl.

  “Whare t-hoo?” Baxter pinched his nose closed.

  Alicia stared at me, then fumbled in her purse to find him some tissue.

  “Let’s go get a beer.” I met Rehl’s eyes and noted that he seemed the calmest of my friends.

  “A beer huh?” He almost chuckled. “Is the party headed to the tavern?”

  “Something like that.” I sighed and wondered where I would begin. “We’ve… got some things to discuss.”

  Tavern Scene

  “What should we tell them?” I whispered to Simon as we walked down the street.

  “Ain’t my friends.” Simon chuckled and eyed me. “Not my story to tell.”

  “Geez.” I rolled my eyes at him. “Fine.”

  We stepped into The Waystat
ion, a little greasy spoon bar Simon apparently knew quite well. He nodded at the balding bar man as we walked into the quiet, dim place.

  “Let’s head on back.” He pointed to the far corner, near the pool table.

  “It’s not just so you can sit with your back in the corner, is it?” I teased.

  “No,” he huffed. “That would be silly.”

  “So you don’t want to watch the door for assassins?”

  “Of course not.” Simon gave Rehl a look, as if to say, “Assassins? Can you believe her?” Then, just like every time he took a seat, he sat in the back corner.

  So he could watch the door.

  I sat next to him with Baxter, Rehl, and Alicia on the opposite side of the table, their backs to the entrance.

  My friends were worried about more than assassins.

  “I don’t care who starts talking, but they start now,” Alicia blurted in a rush. “What the hell was all that?”

  “A mistake,” I mumbled. “I never should have come here. I didn’t mean to get you guys involved.”

  “That’s not very,” Simon cleared his throat and twirled one finger as he searched for the right word, “informative, little bird.” He grinned. “I reckon you oughta start about six years back.”

  “Six years?” Rehl’s incredulity almost made me chuckle. “So, you’ve been up to some kind of comic-book bullshit for six years now?”

  “Maybe?” I furrowed my brow as I thought. “I guess so.”

  “I need a beer.” Rehl turned to look for the barman. “I don’t have a lot of cash, but I can afford one. I think I’m going to need it.”

  “On me. An evening of beers.” Simon pushed himself up. “I’ll go tell Jonathon.” He pointed to me. “You get started.”

  “Fine.” I gave my friends a weak smile.

  “So.” Alicia’s tone wasn’t exactly chilly, but she wasn’t happy. “Six years ago is just after your folks divorced, about the time you left the city.”

  “Yeah, about then.” I nodded agreement. “Mom and I had just moved out to Syracuse, and I was pissed about it.” I grinned and remembered my youthful fury. “I promised myself I’d keep practicing parkour, even if the four of us probably weren’t going to start our own team.”

  “Parkour?” Rehl chuckled. “You mean Dark Thunder, our badass freerunning team?”

  “You chose that awful name.” I stuck my tongue out at him. “But yeah.”

  “How does freerunning figure into—” Baxter gesticulated toward the hotel, several blocks away. “Disemboweled specters who speak through a theater screen?”

  “Parkour fits in very neatly, as a matter of fact.” I paused as Simon returned and helped him pass out the drinks. “You see, Bax, it was about six years ago I discovered I wasn’t actually that great at parkour.” I gave him a mischievous grin. “Turns out, I’d been cheating.”

  2

  June 12, 1991- Six Years Ago

  Syracuse, New York

  “Yer doin’ that wrong.”

  Who—? I stopped mid-leap, frozen in place. I had checked the alleyway only a moment before, and it had been entirely empty.

  I turned and braced myself to run. An older man with a cane stood less than three steps from me. He had long, gray hair, a tarnished bolo tie, and smiling blue eyes.

  “I get why a’course. Pro’lly got used to doin’ it that way. Made it easier,” he drawled in a deep Texan basso.

  “Doing what wrong?” I’d been coming here for a week or so to practice my vertical jumps. The fire escape in this alleyway hung just a bit low, and I’d found that, with some practice and focus, I could leap up and catch it.

  “That jump.” He pointed at the fire escape with his cane.

  “Oh,” I sneered a bit. “You can do better?” I made a point of glancing at the stranger’s cane, then his legs.

  “Nope.” He grinned. “Ain’t about what I can do. Thing is though, you’ve been coming here a while.”

  “Yeah.” I cocked my head at him. “So?”

  “Most little missies won’t stick with a thing.” He rolled his eyes, just a bit. “They’ll bounce to the next shiny bauble just as soon as they get bored. Since you’ve been comin’ a while, I assume you want to get better.”

  “Of course I want to get better.” I fixed the odd man with a skeptical eye.

  “So,” he paused and added almost magnanimously, “you’re doin’ it wrong. If someone doesn’t tell you about it, you won’t get better.”

  “Whatever.” I turned my back to him. “I have a vertical jump of about thirty-five inches, which is considered astounding for my age.”

  “Astounding for any age.” He nodded agreement. “But you’re cheating. I was pretty sure you didn’t know it, but now I’m certain.”

  “Yeah?” I swung my arms, took another leap, and grasped the cool iron of the fire escape. I hung there for a second, dropped, and then did it again. “How am I cheating?”

  “That’s a good question. May I show you?”

  “Sure.” I dropped to the ground and turned to face him again. “You wanna come over here and give it a go?”

  “No,” he chuckled. “My vertical jump might be somewhere around eight inches. Also, I think it might be foolish for me to approach a strange young woman in an alleyway.” He paused. “You might be an assassin.”

  “What?”

  “Here’s what I suggest. I’m going to guess you have made that particular jump a few dozen times today.”

  “I do ten cycles of ten. I’m about halfway done.”

  “Have you missed yet today?”

  “No,” I replied smugly. “It’s been several days since I missed even one.”

  “Here’s what I’m going to do.” The odd man reached into one of the pockets of his faded jeans where he pulled out a crisp bill. “This is a fifty dollar bill. I’m going to set it here, beneath this rock.” He did exactly that, simply bent over and placed the money beneath the stone. Then, he took several steps away.

  “Weird.” I furrowed my brow at him.

  “You say you’ve made dozens ’a these jumps. You also think you’re doin’ it properly.” He raised one bushy eyebrow at me. “I’m tellin’ you right now you’ll miss the next one. If’n you do, you have to admit there might be somethin’ going on that you don’t understand.”

  “And if I don’t?” I couldn’t help the bit of sarcasm tracing its way into my words.

  “If you don’t, if you catch the next jump exactly as you have the last several dozen, you can have this fifty dollar bill.”

  “That’s it?” I shook my head. “Mister, you must be looking to lose fifty bucks.”

  “Show me,” his tone dropped an octave into a commanding bass. “Put up or shut up.”

  What a weirdo. Still, no way was I going to pass up an easy fifty bucks. I took a few extra moments to prepare for this one, rocking back and forth on bit on my knees as I swung my arms like pendulums.

  Just before I leapt, an insectine buzz whirled around my head. I paused just before the jump, swiping my hand frantically.

  “Something wrong?” The man’s deep bass remained but now sounded caramel sweet.

  “No,” I practically spat and swiped again for the bug I couldn’t see. “Just a horse fly or something.”

  “Oh, I thought you might have changed your mind.”

  Could he be responsible? He seemed to be playing ignorant awfully hard. I shot ol’ Tex a dirty look, thinking about the convenience of the sudden distraction. When he shrugged his shoulders, radiating innocence, I turned back to my leap.

  One, two… I rocked myself back and forth, though I knew full well I didn’t truly require it. I had been loosening up for over an hour, and by now this vertical jump was easy—

  Except that I missed.

  My hands scrabbled for the rung, but I got nowhere close.

  “What the fuck?” I stumbled when I landed, stunned at my monumental failure. I must’ve missed by over ten inches!

  �
��Language.” The older man warned. “I know you’re disappointed, but that’s not how a lady—”

  “What the hell did you do?” I whirled on him, my temper already flaring. “How did you do that?”

  “How did I do what?” He bent over to pick up his money. “I was all the way over here the whole time.”

  “That’s just bullshit,” I muttered as I glared at the fire escape. I bent my knees again and rocked myself into position before I took another leap, this time fueled by a combination of righteous anger and a not so subtle shade of teenage embarrassment.

  I missed again.

  “I’m gonna leave now.” I heard the grin in his voice before I turned around. “Good news is, here in about ten minutes you’re gonna to go right back to bein’ able to cheat, just like you were before.”

  “You did do something!” I was still angry, but my curiosity had started to win. “How’d you do it?”

  “Here’s what we’re going to do.” He gave me a rakish grin. “Tomorrow, I’m going to be havin’ lunch at Merkin’s. It’s a little diner over on Fayette Street.”

  “Okay?” I didn’t understand what he was getting at.

  “If you wanna know more, then you should show up.” He shrugged. “I’ll tell you all about it.”

  “Why don’t you tell me now?” It was difficult to keep the irritation out of my voice.

  “Because I don’t have to.” He smirked. “By the way, my name is Simon. Young ladies shouldn’t be meeting strangers in alleyways.”

  “This is ridiculous,” I muttered beneath my breath.

  “You’re free to do whatever you want.” He turned away from me. “I’ll be at Merkin’s at twelve-thirty. If you want your answers, you’ll be there too.”

  3

  September 26, 1997-Present Day

  New York, New York

  “Wow.” Baxter shook his head so hard he had to readjust his glasses. “I remember that girl, all stubborn and grit. I’d bet that pissed her right off.”

  “Oh, it did,” I chuckled. “I stopped training for that day. I walked around for hours, fuming.”

  “I still can’t believe you kept training, even after you moved away from New York.” Rehl encompassed the entire city with one sweep of his hand. “I never guessed you would keep practicing freerunning.”