by J M Guillen
“Naw.” I grinned. “Anybody who hears me won’t believe me anyway.”
I let the story rest as we left the car. We laughed as we ran through the rain. Just before I got to the awning in front of the restaurant, Baxter pushed me so I stepped into a puddle.
“Jerk!” I laughed and kicked the water at him.
For a moment, everything was normal. No otherworldly creature hunted me. My friends were safe. The world wasn’t crumbling down around our ears.
It felt nice, just for a moment.
2
We got one of the large round booths in the back that had more than enough room for all of us. Baxter not so subtly stole a shaker of Parmesan cheese from the table next to us, and we settled in as we got our sodas.
“Thing is, I’m being a little bit of a hypocrite.” I stirred the straw in my drink and did not look up at my friends.
“Yeah?” Baxter glanced behind me as the waitress brought our two pizzas.
“We talked about how sometimes it seems as if Simon hides stuff from us, from me specifically. There’s stuff I haven’t told you guys. I don’t just mean secret history or magical powers. I mean there’s stuff that’s happened in the past few days you don’t know.”
“We’ve been pretty busy.” Baxter dumped a metric ton of Parmesan cheese on his pepperoni.
“Maybe, but it’s stuff that matters. Buckle in and don’t eat all the pizza while I talk.”
“No promises.” Baxter grinned.
I started to talk about how I had initially met Mister Lorne, and the deal I made for my mother. It hadn’t occurred to me, but my friends didn’t really know why Mr. Gaunt-And-Ugly chased me.
They had just stood with me. The way friends do.
I segued to my encounter with Garret in the hotel room. I did everything I could to be as specific as possible. I discussed the crazy chase through the alleyways, and the crossbow man who could summon gates of warbling flame. With all that had gone on, I realized I hadn’t told a single person about my encounters with the Silent Gentlemen. After I finished, my audience sat stunned, eyes wide.
“Elizabeth.” Alicia’s tone sounded very far away. “Did you talk about this with Simon? At all?”
“No.” I winced. “I meant to. I really did. Things just got away from us.”
“He would be furious.” Alicia didn’t even glance at me, just stared off into space. “If he knew they had come chasing you…”
“I know.”
Baxter held his head in his hands. “That’s why you were late. That’s why, when I came to look at your computers, you were fast asleep.”
“Yup.” I took a bite of pizza.
“So is that it?” Rehl shook red pepper flakes onto his pizza, a habit I found almost blasphemous. “Is that all the super-secret stuff?”
“I think so.” I took another bite and thought. “Well, there was my meeting with Serin. Oh, and the things my dad left me.” I pointed at Alicia. “You know all about that, but I’ll brush over it again.”
So I spoke about my session with the attorney and how flabbergasted I had been once he revealed my change of fortune. I talked about how I discovered my father’s diary and the odd little puzzle box that, eventually, Alicia had opened.
“And that’s it. At least, I can’t think of anything else.”
“Yeah, well.” Baxter stared down at the table and didn’t meet anyone’s gaze.
“What?” Alicia ducked her head down in an attempt to see Baxter’s face.
“Maybe that’s not quite it.” He glanced up and gave me a somewhat sickly smile.
“Bax?” I cocked my head at him. “You have secrets to add? Have you been running around fighting evil without us?”
“Not exactly fighting evil.” He sighed. “But I might have a thing or two to add.”
“Well, I never would’ve guessed.” I sat back in my chair and folded my arms. “Here you are, stealing all the thunder from my secret stories.”
“No, I’m still pretty sure this is your story.” He took a quick bite of pizza. “I just think it might be a part you don’t know yet.”
3
“Alicia already told you we took turns watching over you while you played Sleeping Beauty. Abriel told Alicia you were simply exhausted, but no one knew how long you’d be out,” Baxter began.
“Right.” I chewed and luxuriated in sensuous, cheesy wonder. My mouth was in heaven. There’s nothing in all the world like a proper New York-style pizza.
“Well remember, I was the first person in the attic besides you. We went up there together, and I dug through some of those old books that seemed like they held nothing but boredom and useless numbers.”
“Right.” I glanced at Alicia. “An illusion Abriel tells us is now dismissed, once and for all.” I shrugged. “Unless Simon returns and we decide to lay down a glamour hammer on the attic again.”
“Well,” Baxter continued, “I sat up there for hours. Up there in the creepy attic with nothing to do but watch you sleep.”
“You should’ve gone downstairs.” I took a sip of my soda. “Do you know how many gaming books I have to thumb through?”
“I considered doing exactly that. As it happened, I sat at your desk and spun around in that rolley chair for a while before I thought maybe I should step down to the shop and get something to read.” He paused, took a quick bite, and kept talking with his mouth full. “Then I saw the books sitting on the desk.”
“I’d been reading when Alicia ran into the shop,” I explained. “You probably saw the puzzle box there too.”
“I did.” He took a drink. “I also saw a book that I didn’t think you were reading. A small leather journal.” He paused. “Written in Slieteri.”
I stopped in mid-chew.
“That was my dad’s journal.”
“I thought it might be some kind of gaming supplement,” Baxter hedged. “I mean, in what world could I possibly guess your dad would use the language of his snow elves to send you secret messages?”
“I can see that.” I spoke slowly, but, in fact, my mind raced. My father’s journal had slipped through the cracks. I’d meant to read it later, but I’d never found the time.
“Of course, after just a few minutes I realized it in no way had anything to do with gaming.”
“I’m just amazed you can read the thing in ‘a few minutes’.” I shook my head. “You always were better with that stuff than me.”
“I honestly didn’t mean to snoop!” Baxter cringed a little bit. “I hope you know that.”
“At this point I don’t care.” I gestured with the piece of pizza I held. “This is where the party shares all their information. Spill.”
“Well, as you’ve said, Simon was occasionally a little less than honest with your dad.”
“That’s a kind way to put it,” Rehl muttered.
“Simon never engaged in any activity that would hurt Aiden.” Alicia gazed around the table, the edge of a glow circling her hazel eyes. “Even if he tends to talk around corners.”
“So in the same way Simon used—” Baxter gestured aimlessly at Alicia, “—Watchers or whatever to record things that mattered to him, your father decided he would keep a record of his own. Just stuff that happened when, say, Simon was off in Syracuse training his wayward apprentice.”
“That one little book?”
“Maybe,” Baxter hedged. “Even though I haven’t found them or even looked, I got the feeling your dad left more than one journal up there.”
“Well, that would make sense.” I frowned. “Although I don’t look forward to translating them.”
“The journal talks about a woman he met. Nothing romantic,” he added hurriedly, “but a woman in the kind of trouble Simon and Aiden tried to help with.”
“Spooky stuff,” Rehl clarified as he toyed with the braid from his goatee.
“Well, your dad helped her take care of a couple of problems. No big deal, really. She’d been trying to get hold of an old book, and t
hat situation led her into some supernatural trouble.”
“And Dad shared this in his journal?” This story seemed like it didn’t mesh with the rest.
“He shared it with you because of what happened after. This lady, Patricia, started to get mysterious telephone calls. They warned her about being watched. That if she wasn’t careful, she’d be taken.”
“Taken?” I turned to Alicia and then back to Baxter. “As in black bagged? Taken by the Silent Gentlemen?”
“Got it in one.” Baxter fidgeted in his seat. “They offered Patricia an opportunity to get away from your spooky men in black. She came to your dad to ask if he had heard anything about this group offering asylum.”
“Asylum.” I wondered aloud, “Someone else acting against the Assets? Just like Simon wanted the Scions of Babel to be able to do?”
“There’s a lot more to it than that.” Baxter leaned forward on the table, and gazed at us, one by one. “You see, shortly after Patricia contacted Aiden, she simply vanished.”
“So… the Silent Gentlemen got her.” My mind raced as I tried to figure out what my dad had attempted to tell me.
“Maybe, but your dad didn’t think so. See, Patricia was thinking about taking these other people up on their offer. According to what she told him, if she agreed, they would make her disappear off the map.”
“That’s a clever trick.” Rehl turned to me. “I mean, I’m new at all of this, but everything you told us about the Assets indicates they home in on your kind pretty quickly.”
“Like nearly instantly.” I nodded emphatically.
“Liz,” Alicia cast her eyes downward. “Abriel would like me to remind you of a few points.”
“Yeah?”
“Earlier when you discussed your experience with the Silent Gentleman in your hotel room, you indicated he wished to work with you. In fact, from what you said, he implied there was an unknown party at work. People who had Grace were being targeted by them.”
“That’s kind of what the journal says!” Baxter tilted his head toward Alicia as if she’d earned a point. “Aiden worried that an organization was targeting people like Liz.” He paused. “You know how protective he gets of his little girl.”
“Oh no.” I stared at the middle of the table. Garret had said someone I know might be involved. “Dad was investigating these people, wasn’t he?” I turned to Baxter. “That journal says the last thing Dad did was to look into this mysterious group.”
“Well, yeah.” Baxter pushed his glasses up on his nose and fiddled with his stitches. “He was poking around, asking questions, trying to find out who they were.”
“And then he vanished,” I breathed. “Dammit!”
“Now, Liz, your dad’s been playing on the spooky side of the street for several years now,” Baxter continued. “He’s made a lot of friends, and he has a lot of contacts. He’s spent a good amount of time talking to people about this group.”
“Any luck?” Rehl had finished eating and was just in it for the story now.
“One guy. Aiden called him Jak or Jax or something. Even so, he thought that wasn’t the guy’s real name.”
“Okay,” I pushed him. “What did this Jax have to say?”
“Well, that’s just it. Aiden says Jax likes riddles and isn’t very straightforward. But he also absolutely believed the guy knew all about this mysterious other group and where they holed up.”
“But nothing more than that? Just belief that this Jax knew what’s up?” I gesticulated with my non-pizza hand. “Did Dad even say where to find him?”
“No.” Baxter fiddled with his stitches again.
Alicia reached out and pulled his hand away from his face.
“Okay, but it sounds as if there’s a reasonable chance this guy knows where your dad is,” Rehl added. “If your dad has other journals, maybe one of them will tell us how to find Jax!”
“Abriel didn’t even know Aiden kept a separate record.” Alicia shook her head. “Even if such books exist, where do we start our search? Have you seen how immense that attic is?”
“Well, there is one more thing.” Baxter smiled sheepishly and added, “I did intend to talk to you about this tonight, but I didn’t know your dad’s journal would be such a big part of the puzzle.”
“You and me both,” I mumbled.
“I suspected we might discuss this stuff, so I grabbed the journal while we were in the attic.” He pulled the book out of a jacket pocket.
“You sneak!” I grinned.
“I didn’t know you took a rank in thief!” Rehl jibed.
“Your dad didn’t say where we could find Jax, but there was one bit I couldn’t make any sense of.” He opened the book and pushed it toward me.
I read those enigmatic words for a second time:
Ramble ’neath the silvered moon, twilight cloaked.
“Yeah.” I shook my head. “I saw this part. I thought maybe it might be an anagram of some kind.”
“Really?” Rehl peered at the words. “Your dad would purposefully make finding him into a riddle?”
“Um, have you ever met Aiden?” Baxter asked. “One time, he asked me if I thought it would be cool for people to have to solve a puzzle before they could get into his store.”
“An anagram…” Alicia reached into her purse and pulled out an old receipt and a golf pencil. She began to scrawl.
“I spent a few minutes working on it,” I groused. “Of course, it didn’t seem like this would be the singular clue that led me to my father at the time.”
“My concern is a little different.” Baxter eyed the last piece of pizza, then decided to eat it instead of just stare at it. “Obviously, if your father is missing, it’s important we find him.”
“Uh huh.” I wondered where he was going.
“But do you think that’s the best thing to do with our time? Don’t get me wrong, your dad’s a great guy. But if we focus on this problem only to have your buddy Lorne send super-powered, cybernetic were-jackals to slaughter us, then no one finds your dad.”
“Also we are dead.” Rehl eyed Baxter.
“And that.”
“There’s too many problems all at once.” I glanced around the table. “This is part of the reason why I got my war-counsel together. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but the Masked Brava is more of a ‘blow things up first and ask questions later’ kind of girl.”
“We’ve noticed,” Alicia confirmed.
“We don’t know where Simon is or even if he’s okay. He said he would be back in a few days, and knowing the man like I do, I’m officially saying he’s late.”
“That’s not unreasonable,” Alicia said. “Simon is meticulous about time frames. He’s been gone longer than he intended.”
“We do know he jaunted off after Mister Lorne.” I sighed and wished for the thousandth time I had never set foot in that creepy little shop. “If what Simon told me is correct, Lorne will have a branch of his malevolent little enterprise here in New York.”
“But we don’t know where that is?” Baxter asked.
“No. We have no idea.”
“Um.” Rehl glanced up at us from where he stared at the table. “Are you certain this is an anagram?”
“No.” I shrugged. “The only thing I’m certain of is my father went out of the way to be a pain in the ass.”
“Maybe not this time. What if, aside from the poetic meter, this thing is literal?”
“What you mean?” Baxter peered at the journal again.
“Well, we’re trying to figure out where this ‘Jax’ character is. What if Aiden is trying to tell us exactly where Jax is?”
“That’s a little out of character,” I mused. “Why would you think that?”
“Because I think the problem isn’t that it’s a riddle.” Rehl gave me a wide, almost goofy grin. “I think the problem is you haven’t spent enough time in New York City recently.”
“What?” Baxter shook his head.
“Think about h
ow the thing’s written. Aiden spent his time creating a journal written in a fictional language. It tells how he delved into some secret investigation, and we know how that turned out.”
“He vanished.” Alicia rolled her wrist, as if to say ‘go on.’
“Yet this last piece, it looks to be scrabbled in here. Other than the fact that there’s some kind of floofy poetry involved, he just scrawled this in. He was in a hurry.”
“I still don’t get it,” I grumbled.
“Liz, New York is a large place, with all kinds of crazy names.” He tapped the journal. “One of these places is named…” He turned to Alicia.
“The Ramble,” she breathed.
“Oh, wow.” Baxter grinned and nodded. “You’re right.”
For a long moment, we sat in stunned silence, reading and re-reading the verse.
“Holy crap.” I shook my head with wonder. “He literally told us exactly where to go.”
Enchantment/Charm
October 3, 1997
New York, New York
It only took us a few moments to decide that yes, regardless of what I had said earlier, we did in fact want to do a little bit of monster hunting tonight.
“Not that I actually expect Jax to be a monster.” I waved one hand. “Maybe I should say ‘on campaign.’ Looks like I’m going to be on campaign tonight.”
“Well, I don’t exactly get to say no.” Rehl flashed me a smile. “I’m on retainer now. I suppose, as a charming, young mercenary for hire, I have to follow Miss Lawson’s desires.”
“Re-heallllly.” I raised one eyebrow at him. “That’s a dangerous precedent, Mr. Parker.”
“That’s me.” He leaned back in his chair and folded his hands behind his head. “I just lead a dangerous life.”
“I don’t have any plans.” Baxter paused. “Well, I have a huge amount of homework, but let’s be reasonable: I wasn’t going to do it anyway.”
“I am free.” Alicia waved one hand, apparently deep in thought.