Tattered Souls (Broken Souls Book 1)

by Richard Hein

  “You said we needed to come here for help,” Kate said from the driver’s seat.

  I waved a hand at her without peeling my face from the glass. “I’m talking to myself,” I said with a sigh. “It’s painful coming back here.”

  I heard Kate shift. “A lot of memories?”

  There were. Demons. Angels. Entities for which there weren’t any names, shapeless horrors that infected their prey and spread like disease in the silent cracks of society. It had been dangerous, mind-shattering, wonderful work. I gave the two story steel warehouse a stupid little smile.

  Emerald eyes floated from the pool of memories, and my smile faded.

  I sighed. “Yeah. There always are, I guess.”

  “I wish I could say I knew what that was like.”

  I glanced at her. Kate was staring out the window, eyes lost to the past in a way I supposed mine had been. Except Kate’s glimmered with the promise of tears. Should I reach out and put a comforting hand on her shoulder? I’d only known the woman for a few hours, but wasn’t that the sort of thing you were supposed to do to other people that were hurting?

  “Is everything okay?”

  “Yeah,” she said. Her voice trembled, but she forced a smile onto her face. “It’s… Just trying to think of the past is all.”

  “A lot of that going around.”

  “I thought you liked it here?”

  My hand scrubbed through my hair. “Well, sure. Hindsight makes everything different, though. I loved a lot of it. It was exhilarating.” I took a breath. “It doesn’t change the fact there’s pretty messed up stuff here that most people aren’t prepared to deal with. It all winds up blurring together into a big painful blob.”

  Kate sat in awkward silence. Well, maybe that wasn’t the introduction she’d been hoping for.

  I slunk from the car, crossed to the driver’s side and waited for her to join me. The Cowardly Lion and Dorothy. I wasn’t sure which was which. Maybe I was the Scarecrow. It could be said I was in dire need of brains if I was coming back here.

  Even though we were on the Puget Sound, I couldn’t smell the salt in the air. I guess I’d become accustomed to it. You can get used to about anything, given time. The first time I’d come to the nondescript warehouse, I’d had dreams about it afterward for almost a month. Fast forward a couple of years, and the novelty vanished. It was another part of the everyday. The mundane.

  Kate pressed close as we walked under the anemic overhead light. I kept watch in the growing purple twilight around us, but I doubted her pursuers would come this close to headquarters. Still, it didn’t hurt to be cautious. Well, as cautious as I could be. My buzz had worn off, leaving me feeling tired and cranky.

  I lifted a hand just before the weathered and pitted door, licked my lips, and spared a sideways glance for Kate. “So, uh, just so you know, there’s a tiny chance they might just put a bullet in the back of my head for this. Ready?”

  Kate looked like she wanted to simultaneously flee and slam me against the door and scream at me. “What?” she hissed, eyes widening.

  “Remote chance. Very outside slight chance. Don’t worry about it. Forget I mentioned it.”

  “They might shoot you in the back of the head, Samuel!”

  I shrugged, trying to hide the trembling in my hands. “Could be the front of the head. They’re not picky.”

  I pushed the thoughts aside and pounded three times on the heavy steel door to the warehouse, paused for a few seconds and hammered an intricate series of thumps.

  “The secret society has a secret knock?” Kate asked.

  “No,” I admitted. “Drives them nuts though.”

  Kate frowned at the door, leaning in close to examine it. It wasn’t anything like a door you’d normally find on an average building down near the water. Most of them weren’t reinforced to stop heavy artillery.

  This was going to be fun to watch. As long as they didn’t give me my dose of Vitamin Bullet, this was probably going to be worth the price of admission for me.

  A little slide hatch in the door squealed open, reminding me of a speakeasy from the roaring twenties. I winced and rubbed at my ears. A pair of brown eyes regarded me for a second without surprise. There were cameras secreted around the parking lot and building.

  “You can’t be serious,” Alissa said. My heart did a flutter at the voice as memories of better times came flooding back. A hundred different missions. Vivid images of the time that Alissa, Jack, and I stormed a mold-ridden apartment complex in South America, a swarm of insect-like creatures pouring over us like an unyielding tide… Jack’s laugh echoing from the walls covered in blood and peeling paint… The barriers I’d put up in me wavered. Alissa’s eyes flicked to Kate and back, and narrowed. “You can’t expect me to open the door, Samuel. Banned. Exiled. Pink-slipped.”

  “Come on, Alissa,” I said. I was glad it was someone I knew at least. A small modicum of benefit in my favor. “EDE trouble. Couple of hellspawn have already made an attempt on her today. Don’t be responsible for this nice young lady getting her face eaten off.” I did my best Vanna White impression and waved my hands before Kate. “It’s a rather nice face.”

  Kate grimaced. “I hope that’s not an option here.” She grabbed at the opening and peered in. “You can’t be serious about keeping me out here. If you guys are my only hope, then open this damn door.”

  “Can’t do that.” Alissa slapped at her fingers.

  “It’s either a graceful invitation or I’m going to show you my secret knock with Samuel’s Sentra.”

  I pushed Kate out of the way. “I need to see The Boss,” I said.

  “If she hears you calling her that,” Alissa said with a flash of a smile, “you’ll never get in to see her. You got Daniel stuck on calling her that and when she overheard, he got stuck on imp duty for three months.”

  I grinned. “How is Intern Daniel?”

  “Still an intern because of bad habits he learned from you. Look, let me call it in and see what someone above my pay grade thinks, okay? I don’t want to step in whatever crap you are tracking in.”

  Kate shifted, the frown on her face growing with each passing moment. So much for first impressions. I pressed a palm against the door and pitched my voice low.

  “Alissa,” I said. “It’s me. You know I wouldn’t come within a five miles of here unless it was important. Just open the door, let me bind Kate, and I’ll be out of your hair.”

  The eyes wavered with indecision. I saw her glance over her shoulder, and she swore softly.

  “For what it’s worth, I’m on your side, partner,” Alissa whispered. “It’s out of my hands now.” She vanished from the little window in the doorway. My face pressed up against it, about to shout into the entry hall, but the heavy clunk of the locks opening startled me back a step. The door swung outward, and Kate and I danced out of the way. In the entryway towered a muscular man, a silverback gorilla stuffed into a cheap suit without any of the manners. He looked down on me in a way I reserved for Monday meetings with Grant. He clasped his hands around the butt of a black collapsible baton.

  “Samuel,” he breathed, voice tinted with a heavy accent from somewhere out of Europe. I’d never bothered to ask where. Entire universes of loathing sprang up and withered away around the way he spoke my name. I shivered. God, if there was one thing I hadn’t missed about this place, it was this guy.

  Well, that and the nightmare horrors we’d fought.

  “Hey, Frankie,” I said cheerfully.

  The muscles in his neck tightened. “Seneschal Francis,” Frank said in a voice that could have fractured granite. “Lest you forget, I still have an official title, and while in Sanctuary, you would be wise use it.”

  “You guys have titles?” Kate asked, leaning close. “What was yours?”

  “Uh, Grand Poobah,” I said, waving a hand. I stared at Francis, wondering if I’d heard him right. “You’re letting us in? Not that I’m not grateful, but I was expecting more of a
fight.”

  “Unless my ears deceived me, did I not hear that the young woman has trouble with EDEs? I presume the fracas downtown a few hours ago was something to do with you two?” Francis asked, arching an eyebrow. I wished I knew how he did that.

  “The young woman has a name,” Kate interjected, stepping forward. It was hard to look imposing in that purple dress of hers, but she might have pulled off a lighter shade of annoying. She pushed her hair back behind one ear. “And Kate doesn’t approve of being spoken of like she isn’t around.”

  “She does have trouble,” I said.

  “Then I fail to see the issue here,” Francis said with a slow incline of his head. “She may enter.”

  I deflated a bit and nodded. “Oh,” I said. “Well, uh, thanks.”

  Francis leaned in close enough that I could make out the craters of his pores. “Unlike some, I am capable of doing my job.”

  My hands tightened into fists. Baton or not, I was sure I could get a swing off before he could shut down my nervous system with it.

  Kate, I thought. Help Kate not die.

  My hand unclenched slower than it should have. Demons came in a lot of forms, and not all of them were summoned from outside the universe. I gave him a smile that was all teeth.

  I nodded at Kate, heart crashing against my chest in a cocktail of anger and excitement. Now for the fun part. I reached out and put a hand on her shoulder. My other hand raised and wiggled fingers in a vague pattern before her eyes. Mostly to conceal how much I was shaking from his needling words. Kate blinked.

  “Kate, I’m extending my binding to you, officially, now and forever. Et cetera, et cetera, mumbo jumbo, e pluribus unum, lorem ipsum.”

  Kate staggered, rocked as if violently offended by my nonsense words. Her eyes went wide, and she slumped against the reinforced door frame with a thready groan. Francis scrambled forward and wrapped her arm around his shoulders before she could bounce off and smack the floor. I shared a look with Alissa, who leaned against the wall not far from the doorway, arms crossed and trying hard to look cool for the visitors. We both frowned, a look that said, that was a strong reaction.

  “What did you do to me?” she asked. She slurred her words. I sympathized with the feeling for different reasons. Of course, I enjoyed that inebriated sensation. She straightened, though one hand still clutched at Francis’ arm. “I felt that, Samuel. I feel like you look.”

  “Hey, you wanted to be a part of this,” I said, clapping her on the shoulder. She winced. “I just gave you access.”

  “Why are there a thousand elephants tap dancing in my head now?” she said, pressing a hand to her face. “This is worse than my normal migraines.”

  I paused. “Uh… are you being hyperbolic? Because, given everything that goes on here, I don’t know if you mean you have a headache, or if a pantheon of elephant gods just trampled into your skull. It’s also not wise to mention things in your head with Frankie here ready to crack it open to get to the creamy center when you have an EDE problem.”

  “Samuel speaks wise,” Francis said, though I’m positive he knew exaggeration when he heard it. I mean, I used it all the time, so it wasn’t like this was new territory. “It appears there is a first time for everything.” He was almost smiling. Maybe he’d taken night classes on humor in the past few years.

  Her face went even more pale. She nodded in a sober way. “A little warning for a gal, then?”

  “Consider that a preemptive warning for all future ones. If I have to call out every time things are about to get hinky ahead of time, the sun will burn out before I’m done.”

  Kate’s forehead furrowed. “Hinky?”

  “Technical term.”

  Francis watched with cool eyes, a flicker of sympathy passing across his features.

  “So, does this mean I can bring my friends in?” Kate whispered, rubbing at one temple. “If I had any friends, anyway.”

  “That was a lesser binding,” Francis said. “A Seneschal may extend a binding that does not grant further ones. Only the head of the OFC may grant greater bindings so that others may extend their invitation.”

  “That’s a lot of words for ‘no’,” I said. “You’re the end of the chain. No extra-dimensional keggers for you.”

  Francis waited with patience while Kate composed herself, and once it seemed like she wasn’t going to pass out, he slid out of the way.

  The warehouse was more or less empty, a vast open space of nothingness. There was a bit of irony there, given what lay beyond. A couple of weathered couches sat against one wall, with a single full-sized refrigerator plugged in beside it. A few older monitors glowed with the sights of the parking lot and building, hidden cameras displaying everything for a few blocks around. Aside from the people sitting on top of them, the furniture was the same as it had been three years ago. Of course, the people sitting on them were just as armed as back in my day, the sleek submachine guns slung around shoulder straps and at hand. At their belts hung collapsible batons, which I knew were anything but the mundane weapons they looked to be. I lifted a hand and gave them a wave. None of them returned the gesture. My hand fell limp. I’d pulled guard duty many times in my years with the organization, but I didn’t remember it being so cold.

  “Uh, they have guns, Samuel,” Kate whispered. Her voice echoed in the emptiness of the warehouse, and she winced at the sound of her words swirling back to us. At least the vacant stares didn’t change. I supposed that was a good thing.

  “They don’t store freight here,” I said. All the eyes in the room were watching us, including Alissa’s, though she looked more like she’d swallowed an extra-dimensional frog than being happy to see me. I met each gaze without flinching, though I might have wavered on my feet a tiny bit. “They want a clear line of sight to shoot at the bad guys. Both foreign and domestic. Not every potential threat comes from other realities.”

  Kate pushed her glasses up her nose and nodded, though one cheek twitched.

  “Okay kids,” I said, clapping my hands. “It’s been swell, but Frankie has promised to deliver us to safety.”

  The glare of quite a few eyes lay upon me, but I turned and strode across the bare concrete floor of the warehouse. It was protocol that someone who still worked there open the door, but I had a point to prove. I was bound for life. So was Kate now. The door was mine to open by right, as much as anyone else’s. It was childish, but I wanted them to know that even after the years away, even though I didn’t want to be here, I still wasn’t going to let them lead me around on a leash. Kate fell into step beside me, Francis a few feet behind.

  I ran a hand over the door. It was weathered and well-used. The portal to what I’d once considered my real home. Not that empty shell of an apartment, not even the small house I’d rented when I’d worked for the OFC and had things like a paycheck and job security. Home. It was more than a place to exist, it was somewhere to belong. My heart quickened with a thrill I hadn’t felt in quite a long time.

  Maybe you didn’t get used to everything. I gave Kate a smile, grabbed what should have been the back door to the warehouse, and flung it open.

  Kate gasped, one foot sliding forward along the cold concrete, an anticipatory hunger drawing her along. When I’d been in her shoes, I’d rattled off every expletive I’d known and invented several new ones on the spot, so she was taking it well.

  “Holy crap,” she breathed.

  I turned to stare beyond the open portal and into another universe. Instead of the concrete loading dock you would have expected, a road of perfect granite led away, twisting like a vine with no clear method to the madness. The stone glittered with the cold, ethereal light reflected from the stars above, set in constellations that were alien and unfamiliar. Buildings grew from the ground on either side of the street, looking as if they had formed of melted wax and converted to stone and wood. They towered to either side of us as we plunged into another world. A few of the windows had lights glowing within them. Kate spun in a
slow circle, a smile of childlike glee blossoming on her face.

  “That’s…” she began. Kate swallowed, eyes sparkling. “My God.”

  “Welcome to Sanctuary,” I said. The darkness seemed to pull my words away, sending them tumbling into the vast emptiness surrounding us.

  Her head drifted back. The stars burned cold in the night sky, quiet and intense. Swirls of gaseous color twirling between them, greens and purples and reds all spilled from horizon to horizon, peeking from between the malformed buildings. Kate stared. For long moments I wasn’t even sure she was breathing.

  “We’re not in Kansas anymore, are we?” Kate asked, voice frail.

  “A pocket reality,” I said, putting a hand on her shoulder. I could feel her trembling. “Not even a full universe. The diet soda of realities. They crop up from time to time, next to our own. Cute little suburb dimension.”

  “The original owner of this one was a demigod who based it on 1868 London,” Francis said, clasping his hands behind his back. He took a few steps forward and spun, standing before the two of us like a lecturer, shoulders back and spine arrow-straight. He raise a hand and gestured at the building to his right. It looked light it might have fallen out of a Charles Dickens novel and collided with a Dr. Seuss book on the way through. “A poor facsimile I feel compelled to add. The Entity sought the help of the OFC in defeating its darker half. After a long war we were successful, but the mind of this place fell.”

  “Killed?” Kate said. She looked up at me. “I thought you said they couldn’t be harmed.”

  “Lobotomized, in truth,” Francis said, shaking his head. “Its consciousness wound up destroyed in the ensuing fight, but a fragment of its will, its power, remains to hold the shape of this place. In general, Samuel is correct. An EDE can not be harmed by conventional means when vacant from their home reality.” He turned and strode along the stone street, footfalls empty and hollow in the dwarf universe. “However, there are many non-conventional weapons to aid in a fight.”