by Reed, Annie
He felt like his entire world—the real world, not the world of movies or textbooks or things that happened to someone else’s dad—had just gotten bigger.
It was the most exciting thing Finn had ever felt.
Which was why, he told himself later, he didn’t think twice about jumping into the middle of the fight when the creature knocked the man flat on his back and his sword went flying.
And landed right at Finn’s feet.
3
The goblins could have killed Finn several times over by now. He had no defense against bullets. The fact that he was still alive meant they were playing with him.
Like a cat playing with a mouse.
Finn didn’t like being a mouse, but at the moment he didn’t have much of a choice.
The goblins had pinned him down against the front wall of the processing plant, where he was in clear view from the goblins’ position at the back of the plant. Bullets struck the concrete floor in front of him every time he tried to move. His shoulder throbbed where he’d been shot. His arm on that side—thankfully not his sword arm—was useless, and his head felt wobbly.
He’d never been shot before, but he’d been hurt enough over the years to know his body was going into shock. Even if he could get away from the wall, he wouldn’t be able to run very fast, if at all.
Add to that the fact that the interior of the plant offered exactly zero places to hide, and Finn knew he was in the worst position he’d ever been in since he’d become a Guardian.
He could very well die here tonight, and all because he hadn’t simply killed the creep the moment he’d walked into the processing plant and been done with it.
He closed his eyes for a moment. Thinking about what ifs really would get him killed.
He had to center his mind on the here and now.
Had to get the job done.
Somehow.
At least he didn’t have to be quiet. The goblins knew exactly where he was.
“You invited your friends to the party?” Finn asked the creep.
“Happy coincidence,” the creep said.
Finn didn’t believe it. The creep had been counting on the goblins to show up. That’s why it had been biding its time.
He’d been stupid, all right.
His master had been stupid, too, the night he’d died.
The creep stood up and crushed the remains of its last cigarette beneath one massive foot. It lumbered to the nearest window and began to etch a circle in the filthy glass with its claws.
The sound grated on Finn’s nerves. Worse than fingernails on a chalkboard because he knew exactly what the creep was doing.
It was creating a portal for its master.
Finn had to figure out a way to stop it.
The sound of a heavy body smacking against concrete drew his attention away from the creep.
The goblins were coming through the windows at the rear of the plant.
Finn had never liked goblins. Their greenish-gray skin looked diseased. Their feet and hands were too big for their bodies. Their over-sized, pointed ears stuck out like bat wings from either side of elongated skulls complete with heavy brow ridges and stunted, malformed noses that looked like a human’s nose, only half rotted away.
Maybe those noses were the reason goblins didn’t mind the stench from their unwashed clothes. Or maybe it was the things they ate. Goblins also didn’t care how long the things they ate had been dead.
From where he sat, Finn could make out the strips of colored cloth wrapped around their wrists.
Great. Just great.
Not only were his attackers goblins, they were gang members.
The processing plant must be their territory.
And he was smack in the middle of it without their permission.
Finn wondered what the creep had given the gang in return for allowing it to use their turf to create its portal. Maybe the creep had promised that its master would grant the gang favors once it arrived.
If so, the gang was about to be deeply disappointed.
The Elder Gods did not keep promises made by their minions to vermin that inhabited a world the Gods intended to conquer.
Finn didn’t know for sure that the monsters the creeps served were the Elder Gods of myth. But the more he’d studied the creeps—and the more he learned from the ones who’d begged for their lives before he killed them—he believed their masters were the massive, terrible creatures men mistook as Gods in ancient myths and stories handed down through the ages.
He also believed that at least one of them had made its way through a portal to this world, and found it a tasty treat indeed.
Otherwise why would the monsters keep trying to come back?
The goblins congregated at the far end of the building as if they couldn’t decide what to do. Finn counted nine of them.
On a good day he could handle nine goblins. Even on a bad day he could hold his own against that many with only a few minor injuries and maybe a broken bone or two to show for it.
But never, even on his worst day, had he ever gone up against nine goblins armed with guns.
Steel was poison to fairies and goblins and their kin. Just picking up a gun should have caused the goblins incapacitating pain, much less holding one long enough to fire it with any precision.
And at least one of these goblins was a precision shooter.
The shots that had kept Finn pinned down had been placed in exactly the right spots to prevent him from running for a window or back toward the open bay door he’d used to enter the plant. But none of the shots had come close enough to actually hit him.
Which meant that the gunshot to his shoulder hadn’t been an accident. The shooter had wanted to wound him—to incapacitate him—but not kill him.
The goblins probably wanted him alive so they could present him to the creep’s master.
But then why not shoot him in his sword arm?
He’d gone for his katana right before he’d been shot. The shooter should have known which arm to take out of commission.
Just like the guns, this made no sense.
An eerie green light started to emanate from the circle the creep had etched in the windowpane. It threw a ghoulish aura over the interior of the plant.
“I’ve always wanted to kill a master,” Finn said to the creep.
The only response Finn got was a grunt. Apparently the time for distracting the creep by insulting it or its master was long past.
Too bad. Finn had some good insults lined up.
He watched the creep slice open its wrist. Blood that looked black in the greenish light seeped out of the wound.
The creep dipped a claw from its other hand into the blood and began to draw symbols on the glass.
The goblins hooted and screeched with glee. They must have felt the same energy in the air that Finn did.
The use of dark magic always gave Finn chills, but the goblins apparently enjoyed it. They scrabbled toward the window, all but two of them walking with their backs hunched forward like great, invisible weights were tied around their necks.
The other two had to be the leaders of this particular gang. They stood with their backs straight and looked down their stubby, misshapen noses at where Finn sat leaning against the wall. Both had stringy hair that hung nearly to their waists. Finn was surprised to see that one of them was female.
Both of them held what looked like white plastic toy guns in their hands. Only Finn knew they weren’t toys.
The female goblin gestured at Finn. “Stand up,” she said. “You’re in the presence of Ooveth.”
He didn’t move. “You say that like I’m supposed to be impressed.”
She shot a chunk of concrete out of the wall two inches to the left of Finn’s temple. Her yellow eyes burned with repressed rage.
“I won’t tell you twice,” she said.
Finn stood.
He’d just found out what he needed to know.
Ooveth and the female goblin wer
e the only ones with guns, but she was the one assigned to keep the prisoner in line.
That made her the precision shooter.
The other gang members carried weapons that were more in line with what Finn was used to. Knives with thick wooden handles to keep the steel blades away from their skin. Chunks of concrete fastened to wooden handles, the modern version of an old-fashioned stone club. Spears with obsidian points, the tips no doubt dipped in poison.
If Finn could get to his katana, he could take them all out.
If he hadn’t been wounded.
The female goblin gestured at Finn again, this time with her gun. She wanted him to stand in front of the male goblin.
Finn obliged. No point in getting shot again for no good reason.
The gang’s leader had the kind of face that not even a mother could love. His teeth were too big for his mouth, twisting his lips into a permanent sneer. Chunks of flesh had been ripped from the ear on the right side of his head. Together with his flat skull and dull yellow eyes, the damaged ear made him look like an alley cat who’d lost one too many fights.
A not-very-bright alley cat.
“Ooveth, I presume,” Finn said.
Ooveth hit him across the face. The goblin’s hand was as big as Finn’s head, and the blow hurt like hell.
This night just kept getting better and better.
“You’re in my territory,” Ooveth said. “You will show me respect.”
“You want me to kneel?”
Another blow rocked Finn’s head in the other direction.
Ooveth had anger management issues. Finn might be able to use that if the goblin didn’t knock his head off first.
A deep thrumming filled the building, a sound like a subterranean jet airplane getting ready for takeoff. Finn felt the vibrations in his bones.
An instant later the greenish flight from the window turned bright, hot white.
Instead of filthy glass, the window now framed a rip in reality. Light so bright it hurt Finn to look at poured through the rip.
Something moved inside that light, making it ripple and writhe like a living thing.
The creep had managed to finish the portal. Its master was in the passageway, mere steps from breaking into this world.
Finn was out of time.
“We’re all going to die here,” he said to Ooveth. “I don’t know what kind of deal you made, but the thing coming through that portal won’t care.”
Ooveth wasn’t paying attention to Finn anymore. The goblin was staring into the light. He looked like he was experiencing the rapture.
Instead of responding to what Finn said, Ooveth waved his massive hand at his female lieutenant. “Take care of this annoyance,” he said.
She tilted her head. The intense light had washed out the greenish-gray color of her skin. Except for her prominent brow and misshapen nub of a nose, she almost looked human.
She raised her white plastic gun and pointed it at Finn.
“Duck,” she said.
4
From the moment Finn passed his driver’s test, his dad had told him, over and over again, that drunk driving would get him killed.
“And don’t you let any of your buddies drive you when they’re drunk,” his dad always said. “I used to be a teenager once too, you know.”
At this point in the tirade Finn’s dad would point a finger at him, and Finn would sigh. He knew what was coming.
“You’re just lucky I survived my teenage years,” his dad would say. “Otherwise you wouldn’t be around to look at me like I’m crazy.”
Finn didn’t think his dad was crazy. He also didn’t like thinking about what his parents had done to bring him into existence. He didn’t know any teenager who did.
He always got out of the conversation by assuring his dad he wouldn’t drive drunk.
Too bad his dad never warned him about drunken sword fighting.
When the creature had knocked the long, curved blade out of the man’s hand, Finn hadn’t thought twice about picking it up.
He’d never held a sword before, but this one felt like a natural extension of his arm.
But more than that, it felt like it belonged in his hand.
Whether it was the sword or the beer, Finn suddenly felt like he could defeat anything.
Even the winged creature charging at him.
“Future Guardian,” it said, its gleeful voice raspy but clearly understandable. “Tonight I kill two. What a present for my master.”
Finn had been about to swing for the fences when he hesitated.
What in the world was a future guardian?
That hesitation could have cost him his life if the man hadn’t knocked him out of the way.
“Get the fuck out of here, kid!” he yelled. “And give me back my blade!”
The creature’s claws slashed at the air where Finn had stood a moment ago.
Finn handed over the sword and tried to get out of the way. His feet didn’t seem to want to work right, like he’d lost any coordination he might have once had along with the sword. He fell in a disjoined heap on the dirt floor of the lean-to.
Right next to the raging battle.
Up close, the creature smelled like a combination of cigarettes and the rotten stench of sulfur. The claws on its feet and hands were tipped with razor-sharp talons. Scales that glistened wetly in the eerie light covered its body instead of clothes. It had yellow eyes in a face that looked entirely too human for comfort, like someone had crossed a lizard with a man.
The man could have been a badass fighter in a Shaft movie. He wore a black leather jacket and black jeans and heavy black boots. The backs of his hands were covered with scars, and a long scar ran down one side of his face from his ear to the corner of his mouth. The edge of a tattoo was visible on one side of his neck.
And he knew more martial arts moves than Bruce Lee.
One of those moves brought the sword straight down at—and through—the creature’s arm at the wrist.
Its severed hand hit the ground next to Finn. He scrabbled backwards away from the hand just in case that thing could come at him on its own. It would be about as logical as anything else that had happened to him that night.
The creature bellowed as blood poured from the stump where its hand had been. It lunged at the man, but he slid to the ground beneath it, the sword held up in front of him.
The creature couldn’t stop in time. Even though its leathery wings flapped in what Finn thought was an attempt to put on the brakes, the creature impaled itself on the sword.
The man used the creature’s weight to flip it over his head. It landed in a boneless heap on the far side of the lean-to.
Finn let out the breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. He scrambled to his feet, ready to congratulate the man, when he noticed the creature was getting to its feet as well.
“Not good enough, Guardian,” it said.
The man rolled to his feet. He didn’t look surprised.
The creature lumbered toward him as blood the color of midnight gushed from its wounded chest.
The man didn’t wait for the creature to reach him. He ran toward it, swinging the sword in a graceful, deadly arc.
This time the creature’s head hit the ground next to Finn.
He yelped and jumped away.
The eerie glow in the lean-to winked out of existence, plunging the field into sudden darkness.
Finn stood rock still as he waited for his eyes to adjust. He figured by the time he could see again, he’d be alone in the lean-to wondering if what he’d just seen was a very vivid drunken dream. If that was the case, he might never drink another beer again.
To his surprise, once he could see well enough to get his bearings, the man and the decapitated creature were still there. The quarter moon gave off just enough light to let Finn see the carnage.
“That,” Finn said, his voice a mere ghost of its usual self, “was messy.”
The man nodded. “Cut off the hea
d. Only way to kill these suckers.” He pointed at Finn with his index finger in an eerie but unmistakable impersonation of Finn’s dad. “That’s lesson number one.”
Finn blinked. “Lesson?” he said.
“You saw the green light, right?” the man asked. “Before you decided to go all Dirty Harry on me?”
Finn nodded, even though Dirty Harry used a gun—a big one—not a sword.
“Most people don’t,” the man said. “Or even if they do, they tell themselves they don’t so they don’t have to get involved. You? You waded right on in.”
He took a rag from an inside pocket of his jacket and began to wipe down his sword. Finn heard a cow grunt as it settled down for the night, and one of the neighborhood dogs started barking its fool head off, as his dad would say.
A dose of normal with the weird. Yeah, this night was real Twilight Zone material.
“We got a lot to talk about,” the man said, his attention on the blade. “If you decide to do what you were born to do, that is.”
“You mean, kill those things?”
According to his dad, all Finn had been born to do was be a pain in the ass.
“They’re called ‘creeps,’ and yes, I mean kill them.” The man shrugged, still not looking at him. “Take years of training until you’re good enough. You up for it?”
Finn remembered how natural the sword had felt in his hand, like a part of him that he hadn’t known was missing.
“Will I get my own sword?”
The question earned him a snort and the ghost of a grin. “It’s called a ‘katana,’ and yes. Once you earn it.”
Finn thought about it. Could he kill something? Kill more than one somethings? He’d never gone hunting in his life, and he didn’t like it the one time his dad had taken him fly fishing.
Then again, the fish had never tried to disembowel him.
“Those things,” Finn said. “The creeps. They’re bad, aren’t they?”
“So are the things that sent them here. The worst.” The man finally looked up from the clean katana and stared at Finn, all traces of humor gone from his expression. “It’s a hard life. A lonely life, but I like to think that everybody’s life is worth defending at any cost. That’s what’s at stake here.”