“Ingrid is a faerie,” I said. “Just what kinds of creatures are you three? And aren’t you breaking the rules by entering the near world?”
“Oh yes, we break rules all the time,” said Skilla, smiling. “Gremlins always break the rules.”
“I see. Don’t you run the risk of facing the wrath of Sentry Witches?”
“Oh yes, of course. But we come into the near world many times a year and we haven’t been caught yet. We’re very fast, you know,” Treeny said.
“Gremlins, eh?”
The three nodded in unison.
“Not that I’m an authority on mythical beings, but aren’t Gremlins supposed to be notorious shit disturbers?” I asked.
The three looked as if I’d just slapped them in the face. Skilla pulled a handkerchief that he’d clearly swiped from the breast pocket of the one and only suit I own, and blew his nose.
“We make mischief,” Treeny recoiled, stung by my comment. “Gremlins always make mischief, Mister Vanguard Man.”
“I kind of figured that out on my own from the look of my apartment,” I said. “What’s all this crap about me being famous?”
Skeets circled her finger through the inside of an empty yogurt container and then sucked off the remnants. “This is quite tasty,” she said. “What do you call it?”
“Boysenberry. Look, what’s this all about?”
Treeny jumped onto the kitchen table, startling Walter, who took off into my bedroom. She sat down and drew her bony knees to her chest.
“You’re famous because you’ll defeat the dark one,” she said, rocking. “He’s not the worst of the dark ones, but with him gone that’s one less soul destroyer to worry about.”
“You’re famous!” Skilla echoed, picking up the scattered peas off the floor and popping them in his mouth like M&M’s.
“Yeah, we already established that,” I grumbled, impatiently. “What’s the message from Ingrid?”
“Tribulation!” the three chirped, almost in harmony. “Yes, a tribulation. All compacts are invalid and the Sentry Witches are powerless now.”
“Tribulation, what the hell is that? Shit, where’s my dictionary?” I said, looking at the overturned bookshelf in my living room.
Skeets disappeared in a flash of light and then reappeared at my feet holding my dictionary.
“We’re very fast,” he said, flipping through the pages.
“Gimme that!” I snatched the dictionary from his hand and looked up the word tribulation. The definition sounded ominous.
“Grievous trouble, a period of suffering and a severe trial,” I read aloud. “Great! So are you guys telling me that even if I destroy Grim Geoffrey, there’s gonna be more of this unseen world crap?”
“Plenty more! Plenty more!” they answered.
“Does Stella know about this?”
“Who’s that?” asked Skilla.
“Wait, I mean Castalia. Is she aware of this so-called tribulation?”
The trio nodded.
“All witches know about the tribulation,” said Treeny. “They’ve worked for centuries to prevent it from happening. It’s why you have witches, isn’t it?”
“Yes Mister Vanguard, there’s been no deception among any of the mystics in the near world,” Skeets added, with an authority in her voice that impressed the hell out of me given that she still looked like a surprised spider monkey. “Their ranks have thinned over the centuries as you humans discarded the old ways. Really, your kind brought this on yourselves.”
She had a point. A damned good one.
It made perfect sense that a world relying almost exclusively on science and technology as its raison d’être would be blind to the supernatural. Five hundred years ago, the known world was comprised of peasants and nobility. The center of our collective universe had been the church, and existence was all about staying out of shit with the nobility and the church. Most people were uneducated and superstitious and it made sense that the church, for example, didn’t exactly go out of its way to stomp out superstition among the peasantry if it reinforced their political power.
I consider myself a reasonably educated man and ever since police found the body of Stephen Hodges, I’d seen things that I believed existed only in fairy tales. For whatever reason, as our civilization became more enlightened, it adopted everthing from the separation of church and state to education for the masses. The shining result is that our collective believe in things that go bump in the night has virtually disappeared. Now the gremlins were telling me that modern civilization was going to be in for a shock and everyone from scientists to theologians were going to have a hell of a time explaining it all away.
I turned to Skilla, who stood frozen, staring at my bedroom door.
“What the hell?” I said, just as the power went out.
“Do not move,” Treeny’s terrified voice whispered in the darkness. “It’s coming in through the bed chamber window.”
“What is?” I snapped.
I’d no sooner finished closing my mouth when my eyes exploded into blue light that filled every blackened corner of my apartment.
“Hello, Vanguard,” hissed the cloaked figure standing in the doorway to my bedroom.
Before I had a chance to respond, it was on me.
Chapter 28
I’d expected the Big Black Book would no doubt draw out Grim Geoffrey’s host—that was a given. What I hadn’t bargained on was the possibility that I’d be an assassination target before Ruby and Stella had a chance to cast whatever spell they were dreaming up. The trio of Gremlins who followed Walter into my apartment didn’t bother to check if someone or something might possibly have been following them. The proof was standing in my bedroom doorway, and it moved so fast that I didn’t get a chance to brace myself against the weight of its body as it charged.
When it connected with my chest, I bounced off the refrigerator and hit the floor so hard that I left an imprint in the linoleum. As I opened my eyes, I tasted the salt and copper flavor of blood, followed by a sharp pain in my mouth. The impact had made me bite off a chunk of my tongue. Strangely, I considered if I should put the piece of flesh in a cup of ice so it could be stitched back on.
Dazed, I looked up at the face of the creature that pinned me to the floor only to see a black void inside its hood. Unable to move my hands or legs, I spat a slimy mixture of saliva and blood into its face. The creature screeched loudly and recoiled enough for me to free my hands.
“Not sure what the hell you are,” I panted, spitting blood. A half inch piece of my tongue bounced off the creature’s chest. “Not going to waste any time trying to figure it out.”
I put my hands together over my face and pushed hard, hoping to get it off my body, and incredibly, they passed right through its chest. What had been solid flesh less than a second ago was now swirling gray vapor that covered my arms right up to my elbows
The creature clawed at its face, trying to wipe the blood from where its eyes should have been. The weight of its body pressed down on my chest and I heard a crunching sound as the plywood floorboards began to buckle beneath the linoleum.
“Shiiiit!” I gushed, the air pushing out of my lungs beneath the creature’s bulk.
“It’s a Minion, Vanguard!” shouted Treeny from somewhere in the darkness. “It has come with only one purpose—to kill you!”
“Ya think?” I wheezed.
The creature threw its head back and laughed. “They told me you were powerful,” it cackled in a voice that made my skin crawl. “Perhaps I’ve attacked the wrong Vanguard.”
Normally I’d have fired back with a snappy comment, but I instinctively knew that I didn’t have a chance to defeat the creature unless I could channel the evil that sent it to kill me. I shut my eyes and imagined my body as a dam of energy, about to release a torrent onto an unsuspecting village. I clenched my fists and channeled every ounce of evil intent lingering in the creature’s soul into a compressed ball of energy, and instantaneously,
I could feel a fire blazing deep in my chest.
“Off!” I roared, my voice shaking the walls, and causing the few remaining items in my kitchen cupboards to roll off the shelves and onto the floor. Chunks of drywall fell from the ceiling as a powdery white dust filled the air, clogging my nostrils.
The creature sailed through the air, crashing through the sliding door in my living room and into the street. I quickly stood up and noticed the power outage in my apartment had extended to the block around my building.
I had to move quickly.
The sound of combat coming from my apartment would have every person in my building thumping at my door. The last thing I needed was for Marnie Brindle or any of my neighbors to walk into my apartment only to find three Gremlins cowering underneath my kitchen table. Or the faceless creature standing in the middle of the street.
I leaped into the sky and rocketed toward a green space about four blocks from my building. I glanced over my shoulder to make sure the creature was following me, and bobbed my head at the last second as a long talon took a swipe at my neck. I spotted the green space about a hundred feet below and dove toward the ground. A cold wind blew against my face, drying the smeared blood around my mouth. The creature was right behind me, swiping wildly, and I stepped to the right in midair to avoid a direct hit.
The force of the minion’s descent caused it to crash face-first into a large oak tree, scattering acorns and broken branches in every direction. I hovered a few feet above the ground and called out to the creature.
“Who sent you?” I shouted, filled with rage.
The minion stood up, unfazed by its collision with the oak tree, and brushed itself off.
“The one you seek!” it hissed.
“I can destroy you,” I called out, unsure if I was bluffing or not. “Grim Geoffrey must be scared shitless of me if he’s sent an assassin to take me out.”
The Minion raised its fists in the air and smashed them into the ground, shaking the earth with a force that blasted through my body and shook my fillings. “Maybe I want to kill you for profit, Vanguard,” the creature bellowed. “Your head will bring a nice reward!”
I sensed weakness.
The Minion had attacked me in my apartment with little warning, but now it stood thirty feet away, the ferocity of its attack reduced. It was sizing me up, trying to discover my weak points. If the creature believed it could overpower me, it wouldn’t be trading barbs.
“Why the sudden hesitation?” I shouted, as I waited for the creature to rush me. “Grim Geoffrey is going to be disappointed with you!”
“You will die!” the Minion roared as it charged at me with blinding speed. Its fury fueled my body with a surge of energy I’d never experienced, and a rush of power coursed through my veins.
My eyes blazed with scarlet rage, penetrating the black void beneath the Minion’s hood. Its twisted face was a mass of open sores that oozed with puss, and dripped onto a set of grinning, razor-sharp teeth. It was no more than five feet in front of me when I clapped my hands together, sending a stream of crimson light, trapping the creature in a ball of liquid energy.
I pulled the shard of Sentient Quartz out of my pocket and flashed it in front of the Minion’s face. “You know what this is, don’t you?” I spat.
“N-No! T-Take it away” it pleaded.
“But you wanted my head,” I taunted. “What’s Grim Geoffrey going to do when he finds that a mere mortal kicked the living crap out of Minion from the netherworld?”
“I am a small taste of what is yet to come, Vanguard,” it whispered, suddenly sounding defiant. “You might destroy me, but there are hundreds of thousands who can take my place.”
“Not if I destroy the one who sent you,” I shot back.
The minion curled back its thin lips and formed a curious smile. Its razor sharp teeth appeared bloodstained as they reflected the crimson light of my eyes. Unsure whether I should destroy the creature, I decided to pump it for information.
“Why does your master wish to enter this realm?” I asked. “Why this place?”
“You already know the answer,” it hissed. “That wretched witch knew this when I communicated with the beacons in her dwelling.”
“Beacons? You mean the spiral engraved rocks?”
“Yes.”
“Where do the rocks come from? Who is planting the beacons?”
“Someone like you—someone in white. But you already know this, you’ve foreseen it.”
“The host?”
“Host?” the creature laughed, as if amused. “The one in white is no host. It is a herald. Its sole purpose is to prepare this realm for the arrival on the longest day.”
“Grim Geoffrey?”
“That is what you call him, but he goes by many names.”
“Yeah, I get that,” I said, frustrated. “He sees me as a threat to his plan, is that it?”
The creature threw back its shoulders and roared with confident laughter. Its voice echoed through the park and sent a chill through my skin.
“If you destroy him, it will not stop the tribulation,” it grinned. “Our realm is home to everything from blood spawns to lycanthropes, each with designs on this place. They are watching him. They wait patiently to see how he will fare against the likes of you.”
“And what happens if I destroy him?” I asked, masking the panic in my voice.
“Time will tell, Vanguard,” the creature’s grin widened. “The magic that has protected this realm fades with every passing day. The witches and mystics who enforced the compacts have dwindled because your kind ignores the lessons of the past, to your collective doom.”
I’d heard enough.
The Minion had just assembled the last pieces of the puzzle that told me my inevitable battle with Grim Geoffrey was the start of something more sinister than simply feeding on fear and devouring human souls. This wasn’t about real estate, as Ruby had suggested. This was about annihilation.
“You will return to your realm,” I said, trying to sound determined. “You will tell Grim Geoffrey that human beings have a few surprises up their sleeves. You can tell him the magic protecting this realm might be weak, but it still exists, and there are those who will try to stop you.”
“As you wish, Vanguard, but remember—Time is short, and your allies are scattered to the four winds, assuming you have any left at all.” It chuckled. “You naively believe that Chieftains and Ushers or those meddling Pathfinders have the capacity to destroy my kind? Look around you! You’re alone! Those with powers like yours engage in misadventure created by humans, not by those who dwell in my realm. You’re fighting countless wars on a multitude of fronts. Your ignorance of the old ways has left your flank wide open, and it is just a matter of time until you’re overrun.”
“That may be so, but don’t believe for one second that humanity will simply roll over and let you destroy us,” I shot back. “Humanity might have several failings, but you’re forgetting one simple fact about my kind...”
“And that would be?” it said, still smiling.
“We know how to fight dirty.”
The creature took a few cautious steps back, as if it was expecting me to attack.
“I will convey your message, Vanguard,” it hissed. “Enjoy the few precious days you have left.”
I watched as the Minion’s body suddenly transformed into a wispy gray vapor. A cold wind appeared out of nowhere, kicking up dust that gathered around its body. A funnel of dirt and spectral energy spun around with blinding speed. An arc of electricity shot through the center of the funnel and crackled loudly as the minion’s body disappeared into the ground beneath its feet, leaving a smoldering ring of burned grass.
“Nice exit,” I muttered, as I started walking out of the park. “If that thing is just one tenth as powerful as Grim Geoffrey, I’m going to be in a world of hurt.”
Chapter 29
When I returned to my apartment, Marnie Brindle was stapling a blanket over the sliding
glass door in my living room.
“Gee Marshall, you know how to throw a party,” she said, suspiciously. “What happened, did a super villain attack you in your sleep?”
I looked around the apartment, hoping the trio of Gremlins had enough sense to clear out when I’d lured the minion away from my building. “I see you still have it in your head that I’m Superman,” I said, relieved they were nowhere in sight. “I suppose you’re not going to believe this was just a smash and grab, no matter what I tell you.”
She stepped over my bookcase and planted herself on the sofa. “That’s right,” she said, still looking suspicious. “The neighbors were going to call the police, but I talked them out of it.”
“Thanks.”
“You ready to fess up yet?”
“Come again?” I asked, trying to sound innocent.
“Are you ready to tell me the truth? You know, about taking off into the sky after you rescued me,” she said, making a flying motion with her hands.
“You honestly believe that I’m a superhero. That I throw on a pair of tights each night to protect Greenfield from guys who shoot poison gas out of umbrellas, is that it?” I wasn’t even trying to hide the sarcasm in my voice.
“Yep.”
“Well, you keep on believing that. I am going to bed, and will report the break-in to the cops in the morning.”
She didn’t budge from the sofa. She had a look of determination on her face that told me she was going to grill me about what had just transpired, and she wasn’t going to take no for an answer.
“This was no break-in!” she shouted. “I was in my apartment watching Conan when the power went out on the whole block, and isn’t it interesting that not one minute after the blackout, all hell broke loose one floor below!”
“Noisy crooks,” I said, calmly. “Not sure why they’d choose my place, I have nothing of any value.”
“Stop lying to me!”
“Who’s lying?” I asked. “If you want to believe I’m a superhero, then go for it. I’m not going to waste my time trying to convince you otherwise.”
Marshall Conrad: A Superhero Tale Page 17