by J M Guillen
“Yeah,” Baxter sighed. “As much as I liked the shotgun, public space isn’t the best place for a wide shot.”
For any shots, really. I bit my lip as worry gnawed at my stomach. The closer this got, the more real it became.
The more real it became, the more I thought it might be a bad idea.
I took a breath.
The Wind echoed within me, and I felt peace.
“If we’re done with guns and ordinance, Baxter and I will go look at Simon’s cabinet,” Alicia announced. “Unless, one of you thought about using an enchanted item?”
“I considered that ballcap,” I admitted. “But I’ll probably be just fine on my own.”
There was no probably about it, in all honesty. I couldn’t remember ever feeling so good, so close to the maelstrom within me.
Truthfully, the Wind never stopped singing in my heart. Always before, it had been a matter of reaching for that eternal storm, harnessing it, and bringing it to me.
Now, it was more a matter of resisting it. Confining it.
“No juju for me.” Rehl smiled. “All boom boom.”
“Fair enough.” Alicia smiled and led Baxter into the attic’s shadows.
I waited a few moments and then turned to Rehl.
“So. Is this stupid?”
“Oh yeah.” The tall man grinned. “Completely.”
“No. Not good stupid.” I bit my lip. “Bad stupid.”
“It might be.” He spoke softly. “But there’s not a lot of choice now. Lorne is just gonna keep coming, and he’ll come for us too.”
“There’s gotta be another way. Simon has friends. Maybe Mr. Serin knows some of them. Maybe I can get some kind of help there.”
“If Simon had friends who would help him, why did he go up against Lorne by himself?” Rehl asked.
“I just don’t know.”
“Liz, we may have a decent chance here.” He shrugged.
“I suppose so.” I changed the subject. “You’re seriously going to take that?” I tapped the small bag he had packed and felt the lumpy objects within.
“I am,” he stated. “I don’t think we should play around with this guy.”
“Well, I can definitely imagine one moment when they might come in super handy.”
“Yeah?” Rehl toyed with his goatee’s braid.
“I’ve got some special plans for Mister Lorne’s front door.” I vacillated. “Maybe. If I do that, it might be good if you knocked on the door before I went in.”
“Good idea.” He nodded.
I took a deep breath, then paused for a moment. I’d spent some time trying to figure out how to phrase what I wanted to say next and had decided simple might be best.
“You gotta get them out.” I shook my head. “If it goes wrong. If everything falls apart and I’m stuck in that awful place, you gotta make sure they get away.”
“Of course.” He gave me a winning smile. “We’re all going to get away.”
“We might not,” I said emphatically. “We’ve had a couple of close calls with Lorne’s goons already, and now we’re heading over to his place to cause some trouble.” I met his gaze. “This could get bad.”
“Yeah.” He nodded. “You might end up caught by this asshole. We might end up dead or worse than dead.”
“Right.” I threw up my hands, pleased that someone finally understood. “It’s a huge risk for you guys to take, and I don’t think you should.”
“You know I only met Simon that one night.” He reached down and massaged his leg. “But in the few hours that we talked, I learned a little bit about the guy.” He shrugged. “Simon’s at home in his own skin. He knows what he’s here for, and he isn’t apologetic about being who he is.”
“I don’t believe I follow.”
For a moment, Rehl adjusted his seat, then he gave me a playful grin and deepened his voice, as if playing a different character in a game. “Pumpkin-pie,” Rehl intoned in a rumbling bass, “I don’t know what you think you’re doin’, goin’ after this clown.” He adjusted his shoulders and acted as if he fiddled with a large hat. “I’ve done bit off my own set ’a trouble. You keep clear, and I’ll figure it all out.”
“Oh my God!” I brought both of my hands up to cover my mouth and try to stifle a laugh. “That’s perfect!”
“Isn’t that about what he’d say?”
“It is.” I couldn’t help the broad grin on my face.
“But you’d go anyway. You respect him and you love him. He’s one of your best friends. You’re going to be there for him, and that’s that.”
“Yeah.” The tiniest touch of tears graced the corners of my eyes. “That’s that.”
“Well, we feel that way too.” He shrugged. “That’s that.”
4
Just after sundown we busied ourselves packing everything in Rehl’s car.
“Do you think we’re going to need flares?” I held up the little metal box someone had placed in the trunk. For a moment, I imagined lighting a flare and hurling it at about mach five with the Wind. It’d look like a tracer. Most flares were designed to remain lit in poor weather, after all.
“I have no idea!” Baxter held up both hands. “We still had room in the trunk, and I figured better safe than sorry.”
“I told him to bring whatever he could pick up,” Rehl said.
I shrugged. At this point, I had no idea what we might need. It didn’t help matters that I felt a bit… airheaded.
In less than an hour we had everything ready to go. I had dressed myself in full road regalia: black leather riding pants and motorcycle jacket. I had holstered the Beretta beneath the jacket and placed sheaths for six knives in various places on my body. The walkie-talkie’s headset beneath my helmet had been switched on so my friends could keep in touch with me while we drove across town.
“Okay,” Baxter shut the trunk. “Dinner first?”
“Don’t worry, Bax,” I teased. “No one is asking you to go into battle on an empty stomach.”
He stuck his tongue out at me.
“So, this place is just a few short steps east of Prospect Park.” Rehl stepped outside, map in hand.
“You found Fallen Leaves on a map?” I raised one eyebrow in disbelief.
“No. Just the neighborhood. There’s a few city blocks to cover.”
“That figures,” I muttered.
“Best way is to take the Manhattan Bridge. It turns into Flatbush on the other side, and we can follow it to Lorne’s neighborhood.”
“Okay.” I nodded at him. “Let’s cross the bridge, and we’ll grab something to eat in Brooklyn. Then we’ll start reconnaissance.”
“Is this the same kind of reconnaissance you did last night?” Alicia flashed a crooked grin. “Where you ended up chasing down an otherworldly creature and fighting a fairytale monster?”
“It might be.” I gave her a smile. “What if it is?”
“Oh. Um.” She startled as her eyes flickered lighter. “All right then.”
“Glad you’re on board.” I chuckled. “Turn on your walkie-talkie and let’s hit the road.”
Surprise Round
“You know what Roark Ironhelm would say?” Baxter managed to get out in the middle of burger inhalation. He kept his eyes on mine, knowing I had the answer.
“No battle plan ever survives contact with the enemy.” I shook my head. “You taught me he didn’t say that.”
“Doesn’t mean it’s not true.” He gave me a grin but then grew serious. “Hey, before we go into this, you guys know you don’t suck, right?”
“You only suck a little bit,” Rehl reasoned and scarfed an onion ring. “I hate you. But if you survive tonight, I think you might grow a pair someday.”
“Boys.” Alicia turned to me and rolled her eyes.
I noticed she had pulled her pentacle pendant out from beneath her shirt and wore it in the open.
She noticed that I noticed, and we shared a small smile.
Alicia seemed happi
er, less sullen, than she once had. I imagined Abriel had a lot to do with that.
Here we were, ready to march into what might be certain death, and Alicia had finally seemed to find her stride.
“Ready, wind slinger?” She gave me a playful grin.
“I am.” I chuckled. “Oh, by the way, I have something for you.”
“Yeah?”
“Well…” I shrugged. “Seems like my father and my mentor left the wisdom and power of a bazillion year old angelic force lying around. I said if I ever found any extra magical power I could give away, you could have it.”
“Oh, can I?” Her grin grew wider.
“Happily.” I paused. “Although you might have to give up swearing.”
2
The Wind itself whispered my name as I drove my bike through the evening city streets bringing back old memories. A decade had passed since the last time I’d been in Brooklyn, but I still made out familiar landmarks.
The original Knucklebones had been here, after all, a little out-of-the-way shop in one of the worst parts of the borough. I don’t doubt Dad must’ve taken me there dozens of times, but to be honest, I couldn’t truly remember many of those trips.
But I remembered Brooklyn.
The Prospect Lefferts Gardens—often the PLG—stretched all along the eastern edge of Prospect Park. A lot of ethnicities mixed in the neighborhood, and it remained a jumbled mix of apartment buildings, single-family houses, and small businesses of every kind. Most of the streets had been lined with trees that rustled pleasantly in the October wind, and as evening came on, New Yorkers bustled all about.
“I don’t like the number of people who are out and about on evening strolls,” I stated into the microphone of my walkie-talkie. “I need to feel like these are more ‘commuters’ and less ‘innocent bystanders.’”
“It’s pretty busy over here too.” I heard the slight concern in Alicia’s tone, even over the walkie-talkie.
“Oh! There!” I heard Baxter speak at the exact same time, obviously to Rehl.
“We found parking, Liz. We’re near Fernimore and Flatbush.”
“Tell her about the mural,” Rehl said.
“There’s a mural on red brick right near where we’re parking.” She paused. “It depicts a giant cat. If you have to find the car, you shouldn’t be able to miss it.”
“Copy that.”
“Did you just say, ‘copy that’?” Baxter jeered. “I mean, did you just say ‘copy that,’ over?”
“We aren’t saying ‘over.’” I drove my bike between two stopped cars and took a left onto Lincoln.
There. I grinned to myself. A small parking spot, just the right size for my bike.
“So we can say ‘copy that’ but not ‘over’? That’s madness, Shepherd!”
We were going to die. I felt certain of it.
“I parked my bike on Lincoln, fairly close to Flatbush.” I hopped off the Valkyrie. “I’ll start to poke around this side of the neighborhood. You guys start there, and we’ll meet in the middle.” As I spoke, I unfastened my helmet strap. If I got into a true scrape, I might want to choose visibility over protection.
“I still don’t like that you’re all by yourself,” Rehl growled. “This would make more sense if we split up evenly.”
“I can’t have you three fighting over who gets to be the one to ride bitch.” I walked down the sidewalk and searched for any evidence of an otherworldly shop of despair. “I’m more of a lone wolf anyway.”
Joking aside, I imagined if anyone would ride bitch, it might be a possibly wounded Simon.
“Ha!” Baxter laughed over the mike. “If you were a lone wolf, I think you might have been dead three or four times over the course of the past few days.”
I hated that he was right.
Like so many other streets in the PLG, Lincoln Avenue seemed sharply clean and fairly well kept. To my side, brownstone and brick buildings dominated the street. Some of them were obviously family homes, but more and more apartment buildings had appeared. Small shops sprouted like mushrooms, scattered randomly along the street. I passed a small medical supply store, along with a fairly busy little spot with a sign that proclaimed in loud red and yellow letters: Burrito Joes.
Glad Bax isn’t here to see that. Even though I had just watched him wolf down two hamburgers, I couldn’t help but think he’d want to stop the mission for a burrito as well.
“I wish I knew what the creepy little shop looked like,” Rehl mused. “It would be easier if Mister Lorne took out a billboard.”
“Yeah.” I practically snorted. “Buy or sell gold? Need cash now? Infernal pacts with inhuman creatures? Check out Fallen Leaves!”
“In this city?” I heard the smile in Baxter’s voice. “Who knows?”
I started to retort when I saw something that stopped me dead in my tracks. I cocked my head to one side in my uncertainty.
“Um, guys?” I stepped closer to the closed storefront. It might have been a Thai place at one point. Now a rolling metal door had been closed over the front and a large FOR LEASE sign hung upon it.
Fresh graffiti, stark and brilliant, swam in my vision: ELIZABETH, the words began, IT’S NOT TOO LATE. WE CAN STILL MAKE THIS RIGHT AND YOUR LITTLE FRIENDS CAN GO HOME.
“What is it, Liz?” Rehl’s voice crackled in my ear.
For a long moment, I couldn’t answer. Had I really just wished for a sign? Now that I had one, I wanted to take it back.
“He knows we’re here.” I spun around and searched all about me. Did he watch me right that second? Did Mister Lorne peer down from one of those windows? How had he placed the graffiti right here, exactly where I would find it?
“You need to be a little bit more specific there,” Baxter directed. “Are you already dead?”
“I might be.” I continued to search all around me, frantic to figure out if I had actually been seen. I had kept my helmet on as I walked and just slid the face plate up so I could see out a little bit better. It had been easy to hold on to the hope that, with the helmet, I might be a little less recognizable.
Not anymore.
“Do you see him right now?” Panic made Alicia’s voice turn shrill.
“He’s left me a message.” I continued to walk down the street in the direction I had been going. “Painted on the side of a building.” I repeated the message, as I trotted down the street. When I hit Flatbush, I took a left.
“It blows everything if he knows we’re here,” Rehl grumbled. “He must have people watching, which means there must be people in the crowd that are his.”
“That’s an unsettling thought.” I watched a young couple walked by, seemingly adrift in the small joys of early autumn in New York. Behind them, an older man strolled along, specifically avoiding everyone’s gaze.
“We’re on Flatbush, headed north,” Alicia informed me.
“Same street, south bound.” I peered down along Maple Avenue and tried to see the names of the storefronts down there. I made out a small discount liquor store, but it mostly looked like tenements and apartment buildings, heralded on either side by trees that burst with emerald foliage.
No creepy little store.
I walked past a laundry mat and a sign for an attorney’s office. ‘You DIDN’T do it!’ it screamed.
As people passed by, I tried to watch their faces. Did any of them watch me back or keep tabs on my movements?
They didn’t. For all I could tell, these people were just typical New Yorkers.
I bit my lip and turned my head to gaze at the other side of the street. I couldn’t help but feel frustrated. Surely Fallen Leaves wasn’t right out in the open like a traditional business! Even in Syracuse, it had been tucked into a small out-of-the-way nook.
How was I supposed to find it?
I continued on my way, only to notice the oddest… twinge in the back of my head. I reached behind me and instinctively tried to rub the spot.
But I still had my helmet on. I wriggled my fing
ers beneath it with the thought that maybe a fly or a bee had gotten stuck in my hair.
Nothing. Nothing at all.
I took a few more steps before I felt the sensation again. This time I put my hand to the back of my head and stepped over to the side of the sidewalk to take shelter beneath an awning. I peered around to figure out if someone watched me.
The savage strike came out of absolutely nowhere.
“Arck!” I felt like I’d been hit with a sock full of pennies—even through the helmet. My mind burst with white fireworks of pain, and I couldn’t see anything. I stumbled forward and cursed inarticulately.
A storm of uncanny sunlight seared its way into my skull.
Darkness.
3
“Exquisite.” The older man’s deep voice purred softly behind me, sweeter than sun tea in Georgia. It sounded like warm syrup in my mind.
“Mmhm?” I opened my eyes and blinked fuzzily. “The wha’ now?”
“I said you were exquisite.” His tone oozed possessiveness. “Every inch of you.”
I blinked again, and my eyes strained against the brilliance. Sunlight illuminated each and every leaf on the heavily laden branches that swayed above my head. A thousand shades of green glowed in the too warm air.
Where… Leaves? Staring up, I gawked. Central Park somewhere, maybe near the south entrance? Rehl liked this area, so Dark Thunder often practiced near…
“I see you’re still a bit fuddled.” The gentleman’s voice drifted from the other side of me. “That’s understandable, Ms. Shepherd, but I’m afraid we have some business. I’m going to have to request your attention.”
I pushed up and rested on my elbows as I lay in the cool grass. I blinked again and shook my head.
Not the park… The sunlight streamed through a leaded glass ceiling and limned the well-manicured plants in a rainbow sheen that made it hard to focus on any one thing for long. The scent of exotic flowers hung in the stillness. I took a deep breath in through my nose.
My lungs seemed to take forever to fill. The air itself felt heavy, dense.