by J M Guillen
“Do tell.”
“I wondered, Rehl, if you might know anyone…” I dragged the sentence out to build a bit of suspense. “…who needs a job?”
Ambush
As I stepped out to the sidewalk, the tune I’d been humming blossomed into muttered singsong, “Where did you come from, where did you go— Damn it!” I stopped mid-lyric and stood in place and burst into laughter.
After a half block or so, I found a small deli tucked away into a New York nook. Time for some early dinner. I stepped inside, ordered myself the greasiest meatball sandwich on Earth, and grabbed one of only two booths.
It took some work, but I finally got the folder crumpled enough to fit in my hoodie pocket. Only then did I open the bag and pull out the small box.
“You’re a mystery, aren’t you?” Several obvious seams between the metal and wooden pieces confirmed my suspicion. Dad used to buy puzzle boxes for me when I was young—things meant to hide a young girl’s treasures. This was another one, but I couldn’t see how to open the thing. It might take a bit to sort that out. I placed it back in the bag and pulled out the book.
My father had written it in such a way that few other people in the world could possibly read it.
Slieteri, the language of my father’s fictional snow elves. It happened to be something only a handful of people even knew about.
The idea that he would use it as a code made me giggle.
Only a few pages contained script, and I had to work the code out manually to translate it. It had been years since I even tried to logic out the tongue, so I had to slog through, letter by letter. Fortunately, as time went on it became easier.
Wanderer, it opened, in true fantasy style. Find you here the hidden lore by which your fortune shall be won.
“God, you’re lame.” I took a bite of meatball sub and grinned to myself. “Biggest geek I know.”
All lay before you, yet the veil rests across your sight. This is as was intended, so that the uninitited could not witness the truth.
“I assume you mean ‘uninitiated’ there, big guy.” I shook my head. Sussing this out was a legitimate pain. I didn’t want to spend ten minutes on each page like this.
Within my secret chambers lay knowledge the likes of which few dare seek. It is guarded by a creature from beyond the realms of men. When next you enter my sanctum, use the secrets contained herein. Abriel shall make herself known.
“Abriel?” I cocked my head. I half wondered why this wasn’t some name I knew, my own snow elf character, perhaps.
“Abriel,” I said again, rolling the name around on my tongue. It reminded me of some of Simon’s special Names like Tarahiel.
“You knew Simon,” I mused. “And Mr. Serin knows Simon too, no doubt.” I considered Simon’s words again, how urgently he wanted me to go to my father’s shop.
The shop I’d never told him about.
I turned the page and squinted at the first line of letters that awaited me.
Here lay instances of significance. They will be quite enlightening. Still, peruse these things only after you speak with Abriel.
“Weird.” I skewed my mouth around as I read, trying to figure out the next bit. A list of numbers lay below the line, which were easy to read at a glance. Yet I didn’t see—
“Oh.” I ran a finger down the page. “Dates. Dates and…” I shook my head. “Diary entries? Latitude and longitude?”
Maybe.
“Okay.” I furrowed my brow. “Weird.”
The next several pages were more of the same. Specific times—all in the past—followed by specific locations and long lines of text. I could easily transcribe the numbers, but reading full-on Slieteri took time.
I flipped to the next page. He’d written little text on it, but I couldn’t help but notice the script seemed far more rushed. It ran a bit sideways as well, as if Dad hadn’t even tried to remain on the lines.
Oh. It also happened to be in English, as if the person writing it hadn’t been a lunatic.
Ramble ’neath the silvered moon, twilight cloaked.
“Well, that’s something for later.” I chewed my sandwich, lost in thought. What could that last bit mean? “An anagram?” Dad loved logic puzzles and riddles. But would he seriously toy with me right now, while I desperately tried to find him?
“Yes.” I bit savagely into my sandwich in frustration. Of course he would.
I sighed and decided perhaps I’d wandered off the path set before me. Sure, Dad probably wanted me to do something special with that ‘rambling’ bit, but until then, he had given me a very specific task.
“Fine. I’ll read the rest of you later.” I stood up and tucked the small bag into my hoodie pocket next to Simon’s key.
Might as well keep all my mysteries in one place.
It seemed as if the next part of my quest lay back in the shop. I wasn’t certain what Dad had planned, but the man had always been meticulous. I knew I could trust him to have everything in place.
“Far be it from me to ruin the entire adventure,” I chuckled.
Only the worst kinds of players do things like that.
2
I hadn’t walked two blocks before I noticed him.
“Fuck me,” I swore as I caught a dark reflection in a car window. I picked up my pace, my mind racing. “No.” I fought down panic. “No, no, no.”
Things just couldn’t be easy.
I rounded a corner and stepped up to a trot. Ahead of me shone the wide, mirrored windows of a department store, and I had eyes for nothing else. If it actually were him…
In the reflection I saw the dark suited man make the turn.
The not-so-silent Garret followed me.
“Being a little bit public about it, aren’t you?” I growled as I clutched at my bracelet. I had to admit I hadn’t expected this. When Simon had told me the Aegis would keep me out of sight, I imagined I had seen the last of the Facility ass-hat.
But then, Simon also told me to lay low and not call on the Wind.
I remembered the way Mr. Serin kept peeking out the window after my accidental outburst, and bit my lip in frustration.
My own damn fault.
I turned quickly and sprinted across the busy street. Once there, I broke into a full-on run, not even pausing to look behind me.
I needed to buy time. I needed to think.
When I came to the end of the block, I nearly fell over myself just trying to stop in place.
Across the street sat a sleek black sedan, all midnight and chrome. The passenger side window rolled down and a blonde woman regarded me through it, her eyes focused intently.
I’ve seen her before. This woman had ridden with Garret when I saw him at the no-tell motel all those weeks ago.
I could only see her left hand, but it twitched oddly, as if she wove invisible thread with in her fingers.
A witch. She’s one of their witches!
A low, warning buzz snarled in my mind, feeling like my skull just fell asleep.
I jerked back, as if from an electric shock. I blinked, staggered, and shook my head a touch.
“Afternoon, Liz,” Garret called from behind me. “Care to go for a quick ride?”
I turned, shocked to see that he stood less than five steps behind me. My eyes widened. How could he have possibly—?
“I know it’s sudden.” He smiled as he stepped forward, his hand in his jacket pocket. “But it’s been a few days. I hoped we could talk.”
“That sounds like a mistake,” I blurted.
Garret’s stance dominated my attention. His hand remained within his pocket, just like in my hotel room. That was exactly how he’d stood before he used his… his quiescence to take my gift from me.
Because…
Because something rested within that pocket, something the Gentlemen used to still the knacks of the clever.
Screw that! My eyes wide, I shook my head and stepped back. I turned to the woman, whose hands plucked more quickly and fel
t another wave of buzzing dizziness.
“Um, no.” Without waiting for a response, I turned to my left and sprinted. I practically bowled over a woman carrying shopping bags, and leapt over a man sleeping on the sidewalk.
I ran.
I ran like the Wind itself.
3
I talk often about being built to run or brag about how most of my character points got placed into movement. Truth is, with my clever ‘talent’ I typically don’t have to out-and-out sprint away from something. Oftentimes, I can find other solutions.
Today didn’t seem like an ‘other solutions’ kind of day.
I didn’t so much as glance behind me, instead, I simply ran as if hell itself followed.
“Hey!” a woman sputtered as I blazed past, and jerked her coffee out of danger.
People stared at me, and more than one cuss word floated by as I forced them aside.
I paid them little mind. They weren’t even real to me.
All that mattered was my next step.
When I made the end of the block, I cut right and crossed the street before running down a block of small shops and food carts.
“Look out!” A skinny man adjusted his Thai cart as I plowed toward him.
I dodged left. “Sorry!” I called as I swerved into an alleyway. Only then did I dare to peer behind me.
Garret still came on.
“Fuck,” I muttered quietly, panting. “It would be nice if he were at least winded.”
It didn’t seem as if he ran preternaturally fast, but he didn’t exactly seem tired either.
“Alright then.” I could see down the alleyway to another street beyond, complete with traffic and all sorts of human obstacles. It looked to be busier than the street I had just hurtled along, and perhaps that was a good thing.
Would Garret take me in from a public place like this? My idea of the Silent Gentlemen suggested they didn’t like to be seen. If that held true, hiding on a city bus might be just what I needed. On the other hand, for all I knew, the Gentlemen had Federal ID. No one wanted to mess with anything that looked like “an ongoing investigation,” especially with uncanny men in black.
“All they’d have to do is claim I’m a terrorist,” I grumbled. It’d be all too easy for New Yorkers to turn the other way.
Therefore I chose to keep running.
Once on the busy street, I turned left and hoped my pursuer wouldn’t be able to track me once I left the alleyway. There was a city bus at a stop just down the street, ironically enough, as well as a veritable army of yellow and black taxis all up and down the boulevard.
That might be an idea. I easily had the money for a cab, and it might be nice to have a ride just now. After all, in the movies, a charming young lady can catch a taxi and demand to be driven away, fast.
But… I deflated a bit. I couldn’t trust any of them.
“With my luck, another Silent Gentleman would be in the driver’s seat.” I sighed. It sounded crazy, but Simon had told me some crazy stories.
In the end, I had to rely on myself.
I waved at a dark-skinned taxi driver as I sprinted across the street and slid across the hood of his car. “Sorry!”
I’d always wanted to do that. It cheered me that I could run and check off an item on the old bucket list at the same time.
I wove through three sets of cars stalled in traffic and then vaulted to the far side of the street—without even a glance behind me.
Reaching deep, I poured on the speed.
Catch me if you can, assholes! Grinning triumphantly, I fled, turning down a second street where the traffic wasn’t nearly as congested.
Then I stopped in my tracks, my eyes wide.
“Dammit.”
The midnight black sedan cruised down the street, straight toward me, like a great predatory fish.
“No fair!” I scanned the area to gauge my options. I didn’t want to run back the way I had come, for sure. Yet, going forward meant toward the sedan.
The moment I paused, the first twinges of prickling electricity burrowed into my head. I couldn’t see the witch through the darkened windows, but I didn’t need to see to know she was there.
“Not what I wanted!” I squinted against the sensation, and panic began to overtake me.
On my wrist, the bracelet Simon had given me tingled in a different way, a pleasurable susurrus of sensation. Gusts of sharpened Wind began to course, scattering street trash and detritus all around me.
Breathe. I relaxed, pushing the fear from my mind. I remembered what happened the last time I lost control of my emotions.
But what to do?
Traffic moved ever forward. While I stood there in the middle of the sidewalk, apparently botching my initiative roll, the sedan continued forward. Every foot closer increased the intense buzz in my mind.
For all I knew, I’d smash headfirst into Garret if I backtracked. If I kept going forward, I would only get closer to the witch in her car. And I strongly suspected that whatever hoodoo she was throwing at me would only get stronger as she got closer.
“But…” An idea occurred to me. What if I could get past her? Logically, her creepy witchery would fade the further away I got, right?
I just had to push through it.
“Dammit. Fine.” I took a deep breath and ran up the street toward the sedan.
Like an idiot.
Well, it’s not as if they can turn around in the middle of a New York street…
The sensation built until it became brutal, painful and cold in my head. It fell across me heavy and dark as a death shroud and urged me to fall into blissful unconsciousness.
No. I gritted my teeth and ignored the sensation.
I gulped a deep breath—as much as I could while running—and relaxed into the tempest in my mind. I focused on the feel of my shoes hitting the pavement, one after the other.
I growled through gritted teeth. The static made my brain feel like I’d stuck it to a battery. The tingling burned like elemental ice in my mind; my limbs felt numb and slow.
Until…
I was through.
“Oh God,” I gasped and stumbled. I leaned my hands on my knees and panted. For a moment, I’d thought she’d had me. Yet I had learned something, now that I considered it.
“She has an ‘area of effect,’” I mused. “That’s good to know.”
“Liz!” Garret’s voice barked from behind me, down the street. “I just want to talk!”
Shit. I glanced over one shoulder, where I saw Garret trot toward me.
No rest for the wicked.
“You do not!” I spat petulantly and ran.
I wanted to say more, to tell him how people who wanted to ‘just talk’ didn’t show up with the means to take what they wanted by force.
That was who he was, after all. He didn’t want to ask me for anything; he wanted to take.
“You must accept that I’m going to get what I want.”
Blurred buzzes crackled in my mind, and my vision trembled. I gasped and slid down the wall.
“That’s a fact, whether you like it or not.”
“No,” I muttered through clenched teeth and pumped my legs even faster. “This time the facts are different.” This time, the ass-hat wouldn’t catch me so easily. I wasn’t some helpless little girl he could frighten.
Not that I wasn’t frightened.
Pouring on the speed, I sprinted down the street. Though this kept me in Garret’s sights, it also allowed me to push forward in a straight line.
I glanced over my shoulder and saw him again.
Garret appeared to be almost three blocks behind.
I scarcely had the breath to chuckle, yet I did.
Time to vanish.
“That was the moment Liz realized she would escape,” I narrated between pants. I darted into an alleyway and scrunched my nose against the smell of raw sewage and New York filth.
“Eww!” I tried not to cough and covered my mouth with my shirt.
Three homeless people were draped over the sidewalk, passed out from drink or drugs or both.
“’Scuse me.” I didn’t even glance down as I leapt over them, focused solely on getting to the far side of the alleyway.
As I hurled myself along the pavement at top speed, I noticed two branches sprouted off from the alley, one to the left and one to the right.
I glanced back over my shoulder; Garret and his witchy woman were both out of sight.
“Here’s where I get lost.” I trotted over to the slender alleyway that branched off to the right. It wound between two older buildings and smelled of wet and rot. Several nooks and crannies hid within, large enough for slender me to slip within.
“Perfect.” I smiled grimly as I stepped closer. Perhaps Garret would sprint right past. If I cut through here, I could double ba—
Except a freaking crossbow quarrel buried itself in the solid concrete, right in front of me.
“Um.” I stared stupidly at the silvery bolt, stunned at the way it had just sank in the alleyway. “That’s not possible.”
The small hairs on the back of my neck tingled. Eyes regarded me from somewhere unseen, I could feel them.
Of course there’s a shooter. I turned my face upward.
The shadowed man stood on a nearby roof and regarded me
coldly. He apparently shopped at the same store Garret did, although he’d added a pair of mirrored glasses. Something else wrapped around the back of his head too, something silver with bright blue lights.
“Hi,” I offered lamely while my lungs heaved.
The Gentleman did not respond.
“Dammit.” I frowned. If this one knew my location, I hadn’t made away at all. He’d have already radioed Garret and the witch.
I hesitated, contemplating my options, when an odd crackle bubbled in the air next to me.
I whirled and noticed a tiny mote of furious fire that now hung improbably in the air.
“Oh.” I took a step backward. “I bet this is good news.”