The Dossiers of Asset 108 Collection

by J M Guillen

  “Such a clever thing.” I heard the chuckle hidden behind the compliment. “Most young women are far too preoccupied with pageantry and pomp. But you, Ms. Shepherd, understand the value of the subtle.”

  I moved one foot and watched my toes in fascination. Every movement felt sluggish, as if under water.

  “I don’t understand.” My tongue felt thick in my mouth. I glanced around to find the man while struggling to sit up further and make sense of my surroundings. My mind felt pounded into cold mud. “I don’t understand at all.”

  “You will.” The voice came from behind me. “Perhaps some light entertainment will sharpen your humors.”

  The sound of a nail dragged across the back of my skull. Something clawed its way into my mind.

  “Ow!” I squinted and jumped, then pressed my hands over my ears.

  Above the sound of water trickling over a rock bed, came faint, bluesy music, a scratchy recording of some depression-era song, as it drunkenly warbled in the air.

  Sitting alone, sad, all alone,

  Sitting in my cell all alone;

  A-thinking of those good times gone by me,

  Knowing that I once had a home.

  It sounded like something from a cheap haunted house, horrific ambiance. It did not set my humors at ease.

  “Perhaps that will help you gather your senses, Ms. Shepherd.” The voice sounded right behind me, and I heard light footsteps in the grass.

  My head lolled to the side, and I gazed at the man for the first time.

  He stood tall and thin … no, more than thin. More than slender. The man’s emaciated body was gaunt. He strolled languidly along a flower-lined garden path on skeletal, bare feet.

  I know him, some part of my mind insisted. My nerves tightened and my pulse sped.

  “Who—?” I whispered in a mix of awe and surprise. “Don’t I know you?”

  “Introductions are very important.” His lean face nearly leered at me, paper thin skin stretched across his skull. “But I prefer you to have your wits about you, my dear. Our time is limited.”

  “It is?” I gazed up at him as he extended a hand.

  “Indeed. Allow me help you up.”

  I took his hand and he pulled me to my feet, then gracefully led me to a white chair. The world around us had fuzzy edges, as if fog wreathed everything.

  My mouth hurts. I reached one hand up to feel the left side of my jaw, where pain burned brightly.

  I felt a gap in my mouth, far to the left. I blinked slowly and frowned. Where is my tooth? Gone. Am I dreaming?

  My eyes widened. It was the first thing that had made sense.

  The man sighed pleasantly as he settled into a white, cane-bottom garden chair, twin to my own. He crossed his legs. I noted the dirty bottoms of his bare feet.

  “Tea?” He smiled and gestured at the dainty bone china cups and saucers delicately arranged on the glass-topped garden table between us. A phonograph sat behind him, and its crank slowly rotated as more 1920s blues music vacillated its way out of the brass horn.

  I blinked at the emaciated man in his dusty, gray suit.

  “This is a dream, right?” The words felt clumsy on my tongue. That, more than anything, convinced me I must be correct. I often dreamt that everything had slowed, that I could hardly move.

  “It is not.” As the man’s grin grew, it reminded me of the Cheshire Cat. It widened and widened and widened into a macabre caricature of a welcoming smile.

  “I think I must be,” I breathed. Everything still seemed fuzzy, faint at the edges.

  “Let’s not dally, shall we, Ms. Shepherd? Time runs short.”

  “Does it?” I searched his deep, dark eyes.

  “Most assuredly.” That smile grew impossibly larger as he reached into a pocket and pulled out a gold watch. With a flick, he opened the case and closed it again, one smooth motion. “We don’t have long.” His tone chided faintly as he picked up a tea cup.

  This is ridiculous. I snorted. “By all means, let’s have tea.” I glanced down to the tea set, but my own knee caught my gaze.

  My own bare knee.

  I frowned, and my gaze drew up my thigh.

  My naked thigh. My eyes grew wide as my brain caught up to what my eyes had been reporting for some time.

  I could feel the man’s eyes on my body, like dirty silk brushed over my skin. His earlier gushing over my exquisiteness took on a sinister, horrific meaning.

  “No.” A tiny mewl escaped my lips. Where was I? What did he want with me? My pulse drummed with the traces of panic. Why did I feel so muddle head—

  Did he drug me?

  For an eternal moment, the thought pulsed through my body like a hot knife. That had to be it. I had been drugged, and this creep had brought me here, had taken off my clothes—

  I tried to cover myself with my arms and scrunched up in my chair. It took far longer than I wished. Every movement felt slow, and required real effort.

  His eyes scrutinized me, two cool pools of sapphire regard.

  I tried not to gape at them, but…

  Had they changed?

  I peered closer, and the unearthly alienness of the garden fell about me, like phantasmal curtains. The music, the tea, the weirdo in the old suit, none of this made sense.

  “I think I was right the first time.” My voice seemed impossibly soft, but I nodded as truth solidified in my mind.

  “About what, Ms. Shepherd?” His smile seemed oily, sly.

  “Um, about why I’m naked?”

  I hated this dream.

  The man’s head tilted, and his smile faltered for the briefest instant.

  “Are you not… comfortable?”

  “Are you kidding me? Comfortable being naked with a weird old skeleton?” I gestured around us “Having tea? What kind of shitty dream is this?”

  “I apologize for your discomfort, Ms. Shepherd.” The man’s smile didn’t budge. But neither did his kindly, black eyes, which remained locked on mine.

  I found something almost insectine in the proprietorial way he stared at me.

  The song continued to warble in the air, an eerie, haunting sound:

  For seven long years I’ve been in prison,

  For seven long more I have to stay;

  Just for knocking a man down in the alley

  Taking his gold watch away.

  “However, this is not a dream.”

  I shouldn’t have worried about being naked, for just then my skin tried to crawl off my body.

  “Wh-what do you mean? This has got to be a dream! I’m naked!” I gestured to myself, huddled around my knees. “I’m naked in this—this garden I don’t remember coming to…” As I said it, I realized the truth of the statement. I didn’t remember arriving here. In fact, I didn’t remember where I’d been before that either.

  “No.” I shook my head. I’d been with Rehl and Baxter. I knew that. We’d practiced wallruns while debating Dark Thunder as our group name.

  No, that wasn’t right either.

  Liz! Somewhere, hidden within the shadows of my mind I thought I heard my name.

  “You are not in any way dreaming, Ms. Shepherd.” The man leaned forward and placed his elbows on his knees. “We have an arrangement. Do you remember our arrangement?”

  “No…” But as I gazed into his sky-blue eyes, I thought I remembered…

  Something.

  “Why, I saved your mother’s life.” He gave me a tender smile, thin lips wrapped around a skeleton’s head. “Thanks to me, she is guaranteed to draw breath for another twenty-five years.”

  “Mom was sick.” How could I have forgotten? For the past several years she had barely been able to get up and around. She had been thin, so thin.

  “Yes indeed.” The man nodded gravely.

  “And you saved her life.” I nodded along with him. That seemed right somehow.

  “In exchange for such rendered service, you agreed to come and work for me. I needed a series of tasks performed, and yo
u agreed to help me with those.”

  “I did, didn’t I?” The fact that I still sat there, naked, didn’t seem to be such a concern anymore. “But I hadn’t done the first one yet.” I furrowed my brow.

  “Correct,” the man smiled and his grass-green eyes beamed happily. “We agreed your contract wouldn’t start until you had done me the first service.”

  Liz! What’s wrong? A familiar voice asked, somewhere in memory.

  “I’ve had the most devilish time getting hold of you for the past few weeks.” The slender gentleman chuckled. “I had begun to think you didn’t want to keep your promise to me.”

  “Oh, no, sir.” I held up both hands and shook my head. “I’ve just been…” I wrinkled my nose and thought.

  What had I been doing?

  Liz? Please answer!

  “Please, call me Mister Lorne.” He reached into his ancient suit, withdrew something, and held out his cupped hand. “My card.”

  I reached out to take it, despite my nakedness. He didn’t seem to note my body one way or the other.

  I frowned as my fingers brushed something hard and tiny in his hand. What was that?

  I withdrew my fingers a moment.

  A pearly tooth with a long root lay in Mister Lorne’s worn palm.

  My tooth. My eyes widened in horrific realization, and my hand came up to my face. Is that where my tooth went? Why Mister Lorne would possibly have my tooth remained beyond me.

  “Wh—?” My lips curled around the syllables just as Mister Lorne lunged forward and pressed the tooth into my hand.

  My fingers curled around it automatically, but I opened them immediately and jerked my arm back.

  A business card fluttered to the grass.

  I stared at it for a long moment.

  Nothing changed.

  I checked my palm. Though I knew my hand was empty, I just couldn’t help but check to see if it had stuck to my skin.

  No tooth.

  After another long moment, I picked up the card and noted its ivory color. Baroque filigree in a deep sepia graced the corners. It read:

  Mister Lorne

  Fallen Leaves

  Curiosities, relics, books and collectables

  404 Chester Ct. Brooklyn, NY

  “Elizabeth Shepherd!” The voice, niggling behind my mind, burst into a symphony. No one had ever said my name like that in my life. It was gorgeous, as if my very name could be a hymn to the heavens.

  It rang true. It sang with Truth.

  “Wait.” I shook my head. “Mister Lorne?” My eyes grew wide.

  Oh. Oh fuck.

  “Why, yes, Ms. Shepherd.” His creepy smile grew wider, impossibly wide. “I’m glad to see you are awake and with us at last.”

  “Elizabeth Shepherd!” Alicia called my name again, and the sound of it echoed to the depths of my core.

  At the sound, reality rippled around me, like a deep pond.

  “Answer me! Are you okay?”

  “I am not okay.” I stared into the Gaunt Man’s indigo eyes. The entire garden shimmered around us, in the same way a dream might as it began to fade.

  “You are not, and that’s a fact.” He smiled at me, a predatory thing. “I’ll see you soon, Ms. Shepherd.”

  The garden faded, melting into the shadows. I found myself alone in the darkness, and I began to run.

  Running was what I was built for.

  4

  I sat up where I had fallen on the sidewalk. I remained beneath the awning, alone, several feet to the side of the pedestrian lanes.

  As a result, people had chosen to simply let me lie. I might be a drunk, I might be homeless; none of that happened to be their problem.

  This was New York.

  “Liz!” Baxter’s frantic tone crackled in my ear through the walkie-talkie. “It’s too early for you to be dead!”

  “I’m not dead.” I pulled the motorcycle helmet off and gingerly felt the back of my head. No lump there, no wound as if I had been hit.

  Nothing.

  “What happened?” Rehl’s tone conveyed how worried they had been.

  “He got to me.” I bit my lip. “He did something, and I literally passed out on the street. I woke up at some kind of creepy little garden party.”

  “A garden party?” Alicia sounded as if she thought she might have misheard me. “Like with tea and cookies?”

  “Some kind of hallucination… or a dream. But real. He tried to get me to agree I’d failed to fulfill my end of the bargain.” I pushed myself to my feet shakily and started to walk down the street. “I couldn’t remember much of anything, I felt all woozy and groggy.” I walked past two gentlemen who spoke earnestly in hushed whispers.

  “He used… magic.” Realization dawned in Baxter’s voice. “He used magic on you in the middle of the city street?”

  “Something like that.” I shook my head. “I don’t know how it’s possible without drawing the attention of—”

  I stopped mid-sentence. Now that I thought about it, really thought about it, I realized I had made a terrible mistake.

  “Liz?” Rehl crackled through my walkie-talkie. “You haven’t

  disappeared on us again, have you?”

  “No.” I shook my head. “But we are screwed! I can’t believe I didn’t realize it before.”

  “What is it?” Alicia asked.

  “Simon told me, he told me several days ago. After you guys left the bar we all went to.”

  “Spit it out, Liz!” Baxter’s fear made his words sharp.

  “The Gaunt Man’s power can reach beyond the store.” I shook my head, furious with myself. “He can pull his bullshit on us, while he remains safe.”

  “What?” Rehl sounded like he could spit nails.

  “Dammit!” Baxter swore.

  I imagined that Alicia gave him a dirty look.

  “We haven’t come close to finding that store,” Rehl said bitterly. “If he can sit in safety and attack us from in there, then we’re done before we start.”

  I swore myself and stepped wide around a bag of trash left outside a small tire shop. Rehl had it absolutely correct, of course. Without being able to find Fallen Leaves, we remained in the open. We’d somehow lost all element of surprise. And now, the Gaunt Man had eldritch power he could send out on me while remaining safely hidden.

  If only Jax’s sight had been more clear. If only we had any clue at all where the store—

  “Wait a minute.” I stopped in my tracks as sudden inspiration blazed in my mind. “Guys, I know where he is.”

  “What?” Baxter sounded frantic.

  Dammit. I’d been an idiot.

  “When he had me in that stupid little tea room, I saw something.” I paused. “I saw an address.”

  “You remember it?” Rehl’s eagerness came across the walkie-talkie. “Please tell me you remember!”

  “Um, yeah.” I frantically thought, trying to remember exactly what I had seen on that little business card. “Is there a… Chester Street nearby? Maybe forty Chester Street?”

  “We passed a Chester Court five minutes ago.” Alicia smiled; I heard it in her voice.

  “Chester Court!” I practically skipped in place. “That’s it!”

  “We can turn back and head that way,” Rehl said. “It is a dead-end street; it shoots out west from Flatbush.”

  “Wait for me there!” I smiled and turned on a dime. “I’m going to get my bike and park closer. Might be interested in a rapid getaway when this is over.”

  “Copy that,” Baxter cheesed.

  I rolled my eyes, then broke into a mad sprint.

  We might not be out of the game yet.

  5

  Night had fallen across the borough and the autumnal wind turned sharp. I trotted down the sidewalk and jogged north toward my motorcycle.

  My mind spun.

  If the others had it right, we might be able to knock on Mister Lorne’s door in less than fifteen minutes. Once that happened, the situation could bec
ome very unpredictable, very quickly.

  I needed to be the first one in the door.

  Thinking back on some of the plans I had made, along with some of the things I had brought with me, caused me a little bit of concern. I didn’t know exactly how far away Rehl had parked his car, but we might find ourselves on the run fairly soon.

  Nothing good would come from my wounded friends limping out of Fallen Leaves, only to have to sprint several blocks to get their car.

  So much had been impossible to plan for. Now that we approached the final assault, I couldn’t help but feel a little frantic.

  I ran, so caught in my own thoughts I almost didn’t hear the odd song. As I slipped down the street and dodged people on the sidewalk, the barest snatch of it drifted to my ears:

  For seven long years I’ve been in prison,

  For seven long more I have to stay;

  “What?” The warbling tune came from just behind me, as someone sang with a slightly scratchy voice. I stopped mid-step and stared at the person I had just sprinted past.

  I saw a man of middle years, reddish hair sprouting wildly beneath the old-fashioned hat he wore. He also had a thick coat on, hunched over against the wind.

  As I spoke, he turned to face me. He had a ruddy, pinched face, but his dark eyes glinted merrily.

  He continued to sing:

  Just for knocking a man down in the alley

  Taking his gold watch away.

  “Where did you hear that song?” Unconsciously, I took a step back from the man. My right hand crept into my jacket, where both my knives and the Beretta waited.

  The man didn’t answer. Instead, his smile grew wider, and he sang a verse I hadn’t heard before:

  Sitting alone, sad, all alone,

  Sitting in my cell all alone;

  A-thinking of those good times gone by me,

  Knowing that I once had a home.

  I turned from him and strode away, quickly breaking into a trot again. I glanced over my shoulder, to see if the man had continued to walk toward me.

  Instead, I beheld a horror.

  His entire body shook. It trembled with ferocity in ways no human muscle could move. The man’s skin sloughed off and he shook his head. His hat fell to the ground. Beneath the hat, his hair fell to his shoulders, no shock of Irish red, but raven black. It slid around his shoulders, and the same color crept across his body as his bones cracked under the stress of his transformation.