The Dossiers of Asset 108 Collection

by J M Guillen

  Together we were so much more.

  yes, simon.

  “This is the day.” We stood outside a large building, where hundreds of people milled about. “Do you remember what we are doing?”

  of course. I found the question a bit childish. i know my place here.

  “That’s what I want to hear.” He smiled briefly and stepped toward the doors. “Let’s go.”

  I couldn’t help but notice how nervous he was.

  By now, I knew exactly what this place was. He’d taken me to this same convention, all those years ago.

  Just as then, all manner of people bustled through the crowd. They wore costumes of various kinds of horrific monsters, robots, and people from the reaches of space.

  I couldn’t help my fascination. I saw no Watchers, however.

  “Okay, he’s already here.” Simon nodded. “Perfect.”

  shall i go to him now.

  “No. He’s still getting set up.” He glanced around. “‘Course, if he’s here, then Liz is already here too.”

  that is my understanding.

  “We’ll wait a bit. Let them get set up. That way, Liz can watch the table while we steal Aiden away.”

  Together, we meandered through the crowd and gazed upon ten thousand wonders. Things existed in this place that seemed impossible to understand, games people played with such ferocity, as if their very lives depended on it.

  When we made our way near the Knucklebones table, both father and daughter had arrived.

  “Perfect.” Simon rubbed his hands together. “Okay, O’ Abriel, drift over to Aiden, and speak to him.”

  understood. I bobbed up and down. Simon had commanded me to speak with Aiden on multiple occasions. what should I say.

  “Tell him that there is an emergency. Tell him you will lead him to me. Tell him I remembered my promise and didn’t want to involve his daughter anymore than I had to, so I stayed away.”

  this is not an emergency. I felt uncomfortable. you plan to involve his daughter.

  “Right.” He shook his head. “Simply tell him I need him. Ask him to step away from the table for a moment because I’d rather not frighten his daughter.”

  you do enjoy the edge of truth, don’t you, simon.

  “Fine!” He huffed. “I need him to come over here,” he said exasperatedly. “Go over there. Say whatever you will in order to get him to come to me. His daughter must remain at the table.”

  understood.

  I floated through the air, dodging people even though it would not harm them if they touched me. It was more preference on my part. One never knew the sin of a person until one came in contact with them.

  Aiden seemed… different. His face haggard, unshaven, his chin sported the patchy growth some men get when they are unable to grow a full beard. His hair hung in lank disarray. Exhaustion seeped from his eyes.

  aiden. I drifted up next to him, on the opposite side of his daughter.

  He simply turned toward me but did not speak. I knew he couldn’t exactly see me, but because he could hear me, he had a general feel for my location.

  simon requires you. I paused and weighed my words. he asked that i come for you. he thought it best if elizabeth shepherd remained at your table.

  That exhaustion in his eyes held a hard edge. For a moment, I thought he might deny me my request, but then he turned to Elizabeth.

  “Honey, I gotta step away.” He leaned closer and gave her a kiss on the cheek. “There shouldn’t be any customers yet.”

  “I know.” She gave him a sunny smile. “Friday at CONsortium blows assholes.”

  “Language, young lady.” Even as he chastised her, he held an indulgent smile.

  Aiden stepped away from the table.

  “This better be pretty fucking important.” His words unfurled like a tightly wound spring of steel. Pain, anger, and frustration lurked behind them.

  i simply do as asked.

  “Yeah.” He glanced over his shoulder to where Elizabeth sat at the table and leafed through a book. “I know the feeling. I wouldn’t even be here this year if I hadn’t been asked.”

  Simon stood closer than I remembered and lurked behind a rectangular pillar, out of direct line of sight of Knucklebones’ table.

  “Hey, buddy.” Simon gazed at his friend with his trademark roguish grin. “Wondered how you were holding up?”

  “No, you didn’t.” Aiden shook his head, irritated. “You wanted to make certain I actually showed up. Even though there are other things I need to do right now, you showed up to make certain I’m taking care of the business.”

  “You know that isn’t true.” Simon rolled his eyes. “The Scions of Babel aren’t gonna fall because you didn’t attend some convention.”

  “Then why did you make me come here?” Aiden waved one hand. “Fuck, Simon, I’m busy.”

  “Busy? Have you gotten any closer to what you’re searching for?”

  “That doesn’t matter!” Aiden hissed.

  “Doesn’t it?”

  “You’re a right bastard, Simon, but you aren’t this stupid. I know you know what it’s like to lose someone.”

  Simon did not respond.

  “You spent your whole fucking life building something that could fill the hole left by Rufus and the D.C. gang. That makes sense to you. You sacrificed. You worked your ass off.” He cleared his throat. “Yet when I try and figure out some otherworldly solution for my wife, you don’t have any help for me.”

  Simon said nothing. He simply stared at his friend for a long moment.

  “I’m—” Aiden blew out a long breath.

  “You’re exhausted.”

  “I’m sorry. That was out of line.”

  “Yes, that’s true.” Simon nodded. “Yet I forgive you. Do you know why?”

  “Why?” Aiden shook his head, only half amused.

  “Because I’m a wonderful person.” He put one hand on Aiden’s shoulder. “I hope you always remember how wonderful I am.”

  “Oh, Christ.” Aiden tried not to chuckle but failed. “What the hell do you want? Is there some kind of nerd-demon planning upon eviscerating the convention?”

  “No. But it was important that you come to this place. Not for the store but for others who will be here.”

  “Yeah?” Aiden asked. “Who?”

  “You should know I have a room upstairs.”

  “I know I just got divorced, but I’m not ready yet.” Aiden wore a weary smile.

  “I’m gonna tell you something, and then you’re gonna want to speak somewhere private. I’m telling you I have a room because, once we’re done here, we have a place we can go.”

  “Are you about to piss me off?”

  “I never know.” Simon shrugged.

  “At least you’re honest.” Aiden rolled his shoulders and popped his neck in the process. Then he took a breath and met Simon’s eyes. “Shoot.”

  “Abriel.” Simon spoke the word like a beat poet, like someone who knew the rhyme and reason of language itself. “Show him.”

  Without hesitation, I dove straight toward Aiden. He couldn’t see me, of course, but the moment I touched him, his back arched, and his arms flew out as if he had been zapped with a live electrical wire.

  We were intimate.

  “You okay, Aiden?” Simon put one hand on his shoulder.

  “I…” Aiden glanced around the con, his eyes wide. Due to the light that burned within me, and now within him, he saw the truths that slept within the hearts of the people. “I think so.”

  “Well, we can fix that.” Simon’s tone was somehow jovial and serious at the same time. “Why don’t you take a peek back at your table?”

  Aiden turned, and I showed him the truth.

  A long moment passed in stunned silence that drowned the background roar of the convention. Fear crept along his scalp.

  “Wha… what is that?” His voice quavered just a touch as he gazed upon his daughter. He turned toward Simon, and his tone dropped
to dangerous accusation. “Simon, what the fuck is that?”

  Aiden now saw his daughter as I did, as I always had. A nimbus of brilliance swirled around her head, concentrated in a star-like shine on her forehead. Not exactly light since it undulated like liquid through the air, yet a shifting, shimmering, radiant power crowned her.

  “That’s Liz.” Simon met Aiden’s flat gaze.

  “What’s that above her fucking head?” A high, panicky waver threaded through his words. Even as he spoke, I felt his chaotic thoughts churn in his mind.

  No. No, no, no. Not her too! Not after Rita… I can’t lose them both…

  “She’s not in any danger.” Simon vacillated with one hand. “Well, not now, anyway. Not yet. That’s why I got a room. I wanted to talk to you in private.”

  “Not yet?” That panicky keen threaded an octave higher. “Do you have a date? Is there a calendar event regarding the day my daughter’s glowing head explodes?”

  “Aiden.” Simon’s deep voice dropped low, flat. “Do you know how long your daughter has appeared like this?”

  “Of course I do,” Aiden snapped. “I’m secretly clairvoyant, you see. I’ve known for years, but I decided to keep it to myself.”

  “Her nimbus shone like that the first time I met her. Abriel could see it all those years ago, the very first day we shook hands.”

  “You knew?” Horror and accusation both cut through those words. “You’ve known all this time, and you’re just now choosing to tell me?”

  “I’d like to invite you to reconsider our first serious conversation.” Simon cleared his throat. “The first day I told you the actual truth about our world and what is in it.”

  “Fuck you!” Aiden’s words were venomous. “You don’t get to tell me I wasn’t adult enough to hear the truth about my daughter! That’s not your call to make!”

  “What I choose to say is ever my call to make.” Simon’s words chilled the air. “I was your friend then. I’m your friend now.”

  “How much time have I lost?” He waved one hand, and behind his mind, I felt the ruminating memories of the wife who had divorced him, who would soon be dead. “If you’d just told me, I could have done things differently. I could’ve spent more time with her.”

  His eyes were wet.

  Simon shook his head. “It’s not like that. Liz ain’t gonna die. Not from this.”

  “But you said she’s not in any danger yet.” He poked Simon in the chest. “Yet.”

  “Your girl’s a bit like Rufus, Aiden.” Simon put his hands in his pocket. “Hell, more than Rufus ever was, if Raziel has it right.”

  “Like Rufus?”

  “I didn’t mean she was sick. I meant she might be in danger.” Simon took the battered hat off his head and scratched. “You’ve seen what’s out there in the world. All kinds of monsters, sure. But also all kinds of cultists and renegade sorcerers.”

  “Yeah?” Aiden didn’t quite follow.

  “Well,” Simon nodded toward the table. “How do you think those people got started? You think they just woke up one day and decided to take a big hit off the crazy bottle? No. ’A course not.”

  “They started out like Elizabeth?” Aiden’s voice rang with realization.

  “Yep.” Simon gave the man a winsome smile. “Thing is, a few years ago I saw this little scrap of a girl. Looked like she might have a pretty significant talent one day.”

  “Did she.” Aiden took a deep breath.

  “That’s a fact. But, her dad was a little bit of a dipshit. He didn’t know the first thing about the crazyness that lurks behind our world.”

  “Okay.” Aiden had begun to catch up.

  “Seemed to me, it might be a courtesy to reach out to such a man and make certain he was equipped to take care of his little girl. I mean, I don’t have no family myself. But it seemed like that’d be about right.”

  “Yeah.” He paused. “It sure does.” Tears ran down Aiden’s face.

  “I got us a room.” Simon put one hand on his friend’s shoulder. “What say we go up there and figure out the best way to make certain your little girl is taken care of for the rest of her life?”

  “That…” Aiden turned from Elizabeth to Simon and then back again. He drew a deep breath. “That sounds phenomenal.”

  Together, the two men went upstairs.

  8

  Alicia withdrew from me then and settled back to the far side of the bed. She gazed at me with eyes that held more silver white than hazel. The shadows of the room loomed around us in the quiet, and I couldn’t even hear any traffic outside.

  It felt as if we might be the only two people in the world.

  “It’s a little overwhelming,” I said and pushed myself up against the headboard, “to think all of this went on all around me as I grew up.”

  “Simon very much wanted to associate with you as you came into your power. Rusiel had shared with him how strong your Grace might be, and Simon wanted to be your mentor.”

  “I can see that. I mean it seems like he spent years setting up the situation.”

  “It’s fair to say he used some amount of cleverness to make certain he could be present when your Grace began to unfurl. Yet, I can state with certainty that he did not manipulate your choice to become his student.” Alicia adjusted herself on the bed. “Choice is a very important thing to a man like Simon. You saw that he didn’t have too much of a problem doing that sort of thing to your father, yet when it came to your scholarship he played you square.”

  “I mean, as far as I know he did.”

  “No, as far as Abriel knows, he did. It was very important to Simon that you make your own choices, that he not coerce you into being his student.”

  “Yeah?” I mulled the thought over. “Why is that?”

  “By that time in his life, Simon had seen a lot. It’s not uncommon for someone to find a young person with a burgeoning talent, then abuse them. He never wanted that. So he told your father the truth.”

  “That’s how we get crazy cultists? People like me who went down the wrong road?” I shuddered remembering Garret’s comment about promising young people exchanged to nameless horrors. “Well, knowing what I know now enlightens me some…”

  “Yet not completely.”

  “Well, I understand where Dad’s mystery money came from. I know why there’s a freaking war room in his attic hidden behind some kind of illusion.”

  “That glamour has ended,” Alicia informed me. “Simon created it to protect the attic from any who might stumble upon it. However, as soon as Abriel’s light shone, the magic was dispelled.”

  “And Mr. Serin told me if I spent time with the books here, I’d understand more about… things.” I gestured vaguely. “Although, I assume I can just ask Abriel what these books are about?”

  “Many record strange, uncanny events. Other tomes discuss various kinds of magical creation or artificery.”

  “So, stuff a person like Simon could learn from. I mean, someone without a knack, er, Grace.”

  “Correct.” Alicia gazed toward the shelves.

  “Handy.” I frowned. “But none of this solves my problem with Mister fucking Lorne.” I pointed at her, and mouthed the word as she said it.

  “Language.”

  A faint smile edged her lips.

  “He’s not gonna stop. He’s already proved he’ll come after my friends to get to me.” I shook my head. “Hell, for all I know, he’s got Dad. That would explain where the old man’s gone.”

  “What about Simon?” Alicia stood and stretched. “Isn’t he investigating that situation?”

  “Sure.” I sighed. “But I expected him back days ago. Like, I expected him to be back before I fell asleep for sixty-some hours.”

  “That’s…” Alicia furrowed her brow. “That is troubling. What are you going to do?”

  “Well, I’m not going to just sit still and,” I made the air quotes with my hands, “play games with my little friends.” For long moment, we sat in
the silence of the attic. Then a slow grin dawned on my face. “We’re going to play to our strengths.”

  “And how is that?”

  “I need to clean up.” I made a show of sniffing myself. The lack of a shower was not something I’d thought much about until now. “Could you call the guys? Have Rehl pick up Baxter and meet us. Tell them there’s going to be pizza. Pizza and planning.”

  “Our strengths are pizza and planning?” Green sparks glinted in her eyes.

  “Yes. Well, no, but if we’re going to go on an adventure, we have to play by the rules. Especially rule one.”

  “Which is?”

  “Rule one, Alicia.” I gave her a roguish grin. “Always keep the party together.”

  Battlemap

  “So, monster hunting?” Baxter cut right to the point.

  “Well, probably not tonight. But I find myself a bit overwhelmed from info dump. I hoped my boon and stalwart companions might help me make sense of things.”

  An hour later, I sat in Rehl’s white 1993 Dodge Dynasty, which was about the least sexy car a person could own.

  “Christ.” Baxter sank back in his seat. “Now you sound like Aiden.”

  “Our new friend Abriel just spent a couple of hours catching me up on the secret mysteries of Liz Shepherd.” I raised one eyebrow at Baxter. “Since it seems as if I’ve made an enemy that doesn’t mind hurting my friends, I thought perhaps we should share all of the in-game information.” I patted my sleeves surreptitiously. I’d managed to stash a couple of my knives up my motorcycle jacket, along with a little something else.

  “That’s not dumb.” Rehl nodded. “We’re going to fight traffic for a little while anyway. If there was a time for you to go all expositiony on us, then I suppose this is it.”

  So I told them. As we drove through a labyrinth of traffic, as autumn rain started to patter against the windows, as mundane life continued around us, I told them everything I had learned upon awakening. I shared the story of my father’s relationship with Simon and how they had formed a secret friendship right under my nose.

  Rehl wheeled into a small parallel parking space with ease. “Is there any part of the story you don’t feel comfortable telling inside a busy pizza parlor?”