The Dossiers of Asset 108 Collection

by J M Guillen

  “That’s a ‘no’ for me.” I moved into sprint and toggled the button on my walkie-talkie. “Monsters!” I aptly communicated to my friends.

  “Monsters?” Alicia’s tone teased me a bit. “Abriel wishes you would be more specific in your speech, Liz.”

  “Um.” I glanced back over my shoulder.

  The man had vanished.

  “Um?” Baxter poked in. “I’m starting to agree with Abriel.”

  I froze in place and spun around in a frantic search for the monster. Around me, New Yorkers went to and fro on their business, but none of them looked as if their skin had melted off, nor did any of them sing creepy songs.

  “I don’t know,” I whispered into the mic. “I thought I saw someth—”

  The gruesome apparition fell on me from the sky.

  A burst of blackened feathers and razor-sharp talons hit me from behind, knocking me flat onto the concrete. I felt those claws tear into the leather shoulders of my jacket, but the heavy-duty garment saved my hide, as intended, from a wide manner of ill-advised accidents.

  Someone on the street screamed. That cry echoed elsewhere, then another wail. People screamed, and panicked crowds began to move all around me.

  Good. Just what we needed.

  “Elisssabeth…” The raucous voice uttered my name with a little too much sibilance. “You have been unruly.”

  “Unruly.” I pushed myself up from the concrete. “That’s me.”

  I stared back at the creature that had driven me down.

  A kenku?

  It wasn’t, I felt certain. Just another of Mister Lorne’s bondservants, someone who had come to him for a favor and gotten bamboozled into giving far more than expected. However, to a girl who spent most of her life immersed in books about mythological miscreations of all kinds, the similarities were stunning.

  The avian-man stood a little taller than me, wrapped in robes of patchwork leather. A simple rope tied at the waist and several small pouches and odd containers hung from it. Black wings stretched out behind like an angel gone wrong, and in each clawed, birdlike hand, it held a blade like a small sickle.

  On its forehead, a glyph glowed, burning a brilliant gold.

  “It iss foolisshnesss.” The probably-not-a-kenku tilted its birdlike head to where I sprawled on the sidewalk. “The Gaunt Man iss more than you ssusspect. Come with me now. Let me teach you.”

  “I am literally the worst student.” I shook my head. “Last guy who tried to teach me something ended up kidnapped by some skinny asshole.”

  “What the fuck is that?” A male voice, some New Yorker who hadn’t quite seen it all, came from behind me. “Some kinda street theatre?”

  “Do you wissh to presss your point?” The inky black thing scraped its two sickles together. “Here? Sso closse to his plasse of power?”

  “We already went over this.” I shrugged. “Unruly.” I sprinted into the street.

  Traffic had slowed considerably, what with the mix of panicked people running from the demon bird that fell from the sky and the New York gawkers who hadn’t seen the whole thing.

  One taxicab screeched to a stop right in front of me.

  “Hey!” The florid man leaned out his window to yell at me. “You need to watch where the fuc—!”

  A second kenku smashed into the hood of the taxi, leaving a huge dent in the center of the vehicle.

  “Hey!” The man yelled louder now, perhaps upset he’d lost control of the situation. “What are you people doing?”

  I didn’t answer. At the realization that I faced more than one feathered fiend, I threw everything I had into sprinting like a madwoman.

  “Monsters!” I rasped into my walkie-talkie. “Big, ugly, bird monsters.”

  “Bird monsters?” Baxter asked. “How many?”

  “Uncertain.” I dodged around another car and then sprinted straight up the middle of the street. “So far two, which is way too many.”

  “Crap.” I could imagine the scowl on Rehl’s face. “Need help?”

  “I’ll come to you.”

  The situation had spiraled into the worst of all possible worlds. Hidden within my jacket lay the Beretta, along with three extra clips. I had no doubt the gun might ease my escape significantly; however, long term ramifications went with that decision.

  Specifically, New York’s finest.

  While I hauled ass up Flatbush, the tempest boiled and sang in my heart. It felt like I had an additional fierce presence, a wild beast that lurked within my body.

  Creepy as that sounded.

  I hadn’t truly had the opportunity to whip out my Wind-fu since Abriel had given me her permission slip to go all bad-ass. Now might be a perfect time for that, as I imagined all kinds of hilarious consequences as a result of hurling Wind at flying creatures.

  Yet… no good. Oh, I could change minor things, maybe create small shifts in reality, but I couldn’t track how easily the Facility sensed such foolishness.

  One little slip and I might be chased by more than kenku. I could get black-bagged.

  “Elissabeth.” The raspy voice floated down from overhead. “You aren’t thiss sstupid.”

  Yipe! I threw myself into a barrel roll to the right, which carried me across a lane of empty traffic.

  No sooner had I moved than one of the kenku dropped right where I’d been. Behind it, another swooped down at the edge of the street, while a third landed on the sidewalk.

  Three of them. Completely unfair.

  When I saw the fourth, I sighed.

  People had started to scream again, and traffic had come to a complete stop. Residents rushed out onto the balconies of their apartment buildings, and I saw one guy with a camcorder pointed at one of the kenku on the sidewalk.

  I bit my lip. Between the screams of the New Yorkers, the stopped traffic, and the people shooting home movies, this had spiraled way, way out of control.

  Soon, the police would show up whether I fired my gun or not. So much had happened so quickly—

  That might be an interesting point. Was it worth it to keep the Beretta out of play if the cops would show up anyway? Especially if it meant I gained an advantage?

  “Lasst opportunity, child.” The creature’s calling voice sounded neither reasonable nor kind. “Come with me, and you need ssuffer no further.”

  “Oh, someone’s going to suffer.” I stared squarely into the avian black eyes. “I don’t think either one of us has the power to stop that at this point.”

  I drew the Beretta, and I drew well, for all of my lack of experience.

  The kenku blinked with surprise as I aimed the gun at its head and pulled the trigger.

  Click.

  Nothing happened.

  I’d forgotten the safety.

  “Your choissse iss made.” With narrowed eyes, the kenku sprang toward me, its wings thrown wide as those sickles swiped for my face.

  I dove to one side and clicked the safety off. I hadn’t expected the bird to be so swift. As a result, I’d almost lost part of my face to one of those wicked, curved blades. That dodge botched my dexterity, and I stumbled against the hood of a black charger.

  “Hey!” The owner of the car honked, as if that might somehow drive me and the bird-demon away. When he realized what he saw, he screamed, “What the fuck is that?”

  “Not sure!” I didn’t turn to look at the driver, instead I swung the pistol around and fired. I held my arm just as Rehl had taught me, gave the Beretta a double tap, and followed up with two more.

  The beast screamed its fury.

  I had no idea how many of my shots struck, but dark blood and feathers burst into the air. It swung as it came on, and that sickle sang while it sliced through the air.

  The blade bit deeply and tore into the meat of my left shoulder. I cried out and staggered back from avian death, waving the gun wildly in its direction.

  The driver of the black charger decided that was the perfect moment to slam on the gas. His car only had about ten
feet to get up to any speed, but he kept the thing in neutral until his RPMs screamed. Then he dropped the lever and smashed into the kenku.

  The creature went flying and not in the typical sense.

  It landed on the concrete with a wet crunch.

  For a moment, I stared at it, my eyes wild.

  “Thank you so much,” I said to the driver, my certainly wild eyes glued to the broken, winged thing.

  “Bird monsters now?” The guy gestured wildly out his window, and his voice dipped into aggrieved panic. “This city!”

  “I know what you mean.” I glanced over my shoulder to where the other three raven-men had stood.

  Gone.

  They had completely vanished.

  “That can’t be good.” I turned my back on the driver and wove my way through the stopped traffic.

  Once back on the sidewalk, I began to run.

  6

  “Liz?” Rehl’s voice crackled in my ear. “Did we hear gunshots?”

  “I bet you did.” Terrified, I kept my eyes cast up as I ran. One of the kenku could drop on me in any moment, and that sounded bad.

  I hated three-dimensional combat.

  “Were those your gunshots?”

  “Depends upon if the cops asked me that.” I panted as I dodged past pedestrians. It seemed as if the gun in my hand encouraged them to stay out of my way. “But yeah. I’m on the run from bird monsters.”

  “We’ve made the store!” Baxter exclaimed in contagious excitement. “We can see it from where we are.”

  “Made?” I shook my head. “You’ve really got to lay off the pulp noir.”

  “Abriel revealed the store to us,” Alicia chimed in. “It just looked like an alleyway that branched off of Chester Court.”

  “That’s perfect. I’m less than a block from my bike now—”

  A man I was sprinting past whipped his arm outward. It caught me in the throat and clothes-lined me as if I were a wrestler on Saturday night television.

  I went down. I went down hard.

  The gun skittered across the pavement. If it hadn’t been for my helmet, I probably would’ve knocked myself stupid.

  This time, the kenku didn’t waste time with taunts. It shifted from human form as I went down, a blur of melting flesh and black feathers. It held a sickle in one hand, and swept it toward my chest before I fully realized what happened.

  “What?” I gasped as the air burst from my lungs.

  That wicked sickle took up the entire sky. I had no time to roll, no time to dodge in any way.

  It plunged straight down through the air and whistled as the blade sliced into my leather jacket right at the center of my chest.

  CLINK.

  Where it met one of my knives, hidden within my jacket. The fierce strike felt like being punched in the chest. Even though the edge of that blade had been stopped, it still hurt.

  “What iss thiss?” The kenku stared down at me, stunned its strike hadn’t sliced me in half. In that moment of shocked surprise, a stark realization came over me.

  These guys had tried to kill me. They weren’t just taking me into the Gaunt Man, not now. They were playing for blood.

  He raised the sickle high over his head.

  I rolled to one side.

  That wicked blade bit into the concrete, sending up sparks as it struck. The being’s black eyes peered down upon me.

  I saw my reflection within them: blue eyes gone wide. Terrified.

  I twisted and swept my foot out. It connected with the back of Big Bird’s knee. As he stumbled and almost fell, I pushed myself up.

  Gun! Gun! Where’s my gun? I didn’t see it anywhere. As the kenku lunged toward me again, I plunged my hand into my jacket and whipped out the same blade that had just saved my life.

  Without thought, without Wind, I hurled the knife toward the fiend’s face. As I’ve said, Simon made me spend hundreds of hours in practice with the things, before he taught me how I could augment my throws.

  The blade struck and caught the kenku in the side of the neck.

  It gurgled and stumbled back a step.

  I shifted to my right and kicked at its knee. Not much of an attack, as I had to keep my eye both on it and on the sky. But I always liked to aim for any obvious weakness.

  It lunged at me, a snarl on its beaky face. Apparently, that knife shot hadn’t been as mortal a wound as I would have hoped.

  “Liz?” Baxter wailed in my ear, and I realized they had been trying to raise me for a few moments now.

  “Busy!” I called and dodged another of the sickle blows. My arm still bled freely from the first strike, and I had no desire to suffer a more significant one.

  In that moment, I found hope. I saw my gun.

  It lay behind the creature, far back against the wall of a nearby sub shop, impossible to get to, not without getting through my bird-brained friend.

  I took another step backward and tried to gauge the easiest way to get my weapon.

  That’s when I realized the truth.

  I whipped my head south. I had the option to turn and run. My bike lay less than half a block away now. If it came down to it, I could sprint to my bike and take off. I didn’t know if I could outrun run these yahoos, but I didn’t need to finish this fight if I didn’t want to.

  Of course, I would have to leave the Beretta behind.

  Screw that. I reached into my jacket and pulled out two more knives, one for each hand.

  I needed the Beretta. If I had the opportunity, I planned on introducing it to the Gaunt Man.

  I stood and faced the kenku.

  “Iss sshe ready then?” It rubbed one blade against the other to create a skin-shivering sound. “Death comesss only once.”

  “What the fuck is that?” A woman stepped from the sub shop, apparently ignorant of all the shenanigans happening in the street.

  It turned, startled at the sound.

  The moment she set eyes on Birdy’s bird face, she screeched and jerked back inside.

  I leapt, springing to one side.

  The kenku expected me to attack and brought one of those sickles up in order to parry my knives. Its second sickle swung right toward my head.

  At least, where my head would have been.

  I rolled quickly, parkour-ing my way past the asshole. Even as it attempted to remove my head from my shoulders, I side spun, snatched the Beretta, and rolled into a crouch.

  I’d rolled a nat twenty Dexterity check.

  “Trickss!” It lunged toward the street and stretched its wings as if prepared to leap into the sky. Apparently, it felt the gun changed the situation.

  I fired, a neat double tap.

  With an explosion of feathers and blood, the kenku screeched, its back arched into a bow, as it flopped to the street.

  The woman stared at me in horror from inside the sub shop.

  “What is that?” Her voice sounded hollow through the glass.

  “Nothing. Nothing at all.”

  “Bullshit.” She stared at me, eyes wide.

  “Thanks for the assist.” I lifted one hand, nodded at her, and took off in a panicked run.

  Mass Combat

  Less than two minutes later, my Valkyrie roared to life.

  “I’ve got the bike.” I briefly considered fastening the straps on my helmet before I pushed out of the parking spot. I decided against it. I still had no idea if I might need sudden visibility. “I’m on my way to you guys.” I lurched forward. “Stay safe.”

  “You stay safe.” I heard the wry humor in Rehl’s voice. “There’s only so many times we can hear gunshots before we start freaking out.”

  “Copy that.” I waited for the inevitable.

  “Are we back to saying ‘copy that’?” Baxter asked. “Over.”

  I laughed to myself and gunned the motorcycle down the street.

  It only took a moment to reach the obvious conclusion that perhaps I should ignore Flatbush. Thanks to the actions of a murderous murder of crowstrocities,
traffic had come to a complete standstill. Furthermore, the creatures lurked back in that direction, probably waiting to slaughter the cutest gamer girl they had ever met.

  “Smart bet to go back the other direction.” I considered it for a moment. If I went a couple of streets to the east, then cut south, I could ask Rehl for the name of the street he had parked on and meet up with them.

  “Except…” I searched for signs. “This is a one-way street.” I frowned. That took me back in the direction of Flatbush. I could go the other direction, of course, not take the left toward Fallen Leaves.

  But…

  One block past Flatbush, Lincoln Road dipped into Prospect Park. Even if I knew my way around that place—which I didn’t—I felt certain the Department of Parks and Recreation didn’t typically allow motorcycles along their paths.

  As if to accentuate the situation, I heard the wail of police sirens in the distance.

  “Perfect.” It seemed as if I didn’t have all the choices I had believed I might.

  Resolutely, I turned the Valkyrie back down Flatbush and peered ahead. On a typical day, it might be a ten-minute ride.

  This was not a typical day.

  I gunned the Valkyrie but got her less than halfway back to Maple Avenue before traffic had again come to a halt. It seemed as if, in the midst of everything, a couple of cars had crashed into each other up ahead.

  “Great.” I peered down the side of the street. Did I dare cut down Flatbush by slipping down the far right-hand side of the road? If the traffic got too dense, I could always push the motorcycle up onto the sidewalk.

  The illegality of that move would certainly only draw more attention to myself.

  I kept my eye on the sky, I truly did. As far as I knew, at least three more kenku hid out there. Even though one of them had been badly injured, the creature still might fly.

  “Move it!” The taxi driver next to me yelled out his window. “This isn’t the fucking Cineplex! There’s nothing to look at here!”