Rites of Passage

by Reed, Annie

  A chill ran down Finn’s spine. Everybody’s life. His parents. His buddies. The girl he wanted to ask to the movies.

  And he could make a difference?

  He could save them from a threat they didn’t even know about?

  And probably wouldn’t believe if he tried to tell them.

  How could he live with himself if he didn’t at least try?

  He felt more grown up than he ever had before, even when he got behind the wheel of his parents’ car for the first time, brand new license in his wallet, without his dad in the car to supervise.

  “Okay,” Finn said. “Count me in.”

  The man held out his hand and Finn took it.

  “Welcome to the Guardians,” Finn’s new master said.

  5

  Finn’s years of training as a Guardian had been long and hard. He’d built muscles he didn’t know he had. Learned martial arts kicks that threatened to split his groin in two. Developed calluses on calluses until his feet looked like old shoe leather, and he didn’t even get a nifty uniform out of the deal.

  But the most important thing he’d learned, especially when he was still an apprentice, was to follow commands without question.

  One of those commands was “duck!”

  When the female goblin told Finn to duck, he didn’t hesitate.

  He dropped to the dirty floor of the abandoned processing plant at her feet, and she shot Ooveth right between his stupid yellow eyes.

  The gang leader hit the floor like a bag of rotten meat. Thick black blood bubbled up from the wound in his forehead, hissing and spitting like his brain inside was boiling.

  “What the hell?” Finn said.

  Lead bullets, no matter how they were jacketed, didn’t kill goblins any more than they did fairies.

  Or creeps, for that matter.

  Finn should know. He’d tried more than once over the years. The best he’d done was blow a creep’s arm off with a .50 caliber handgun. He’d still had to cut off the creep’s head with his blade to prevent it from completing its portal.

  Even a shot to the head shouldn’t have killed Ooveth, but he was clearly dead.

  “Special bullets,” the female goblin said.

  The remaining gang members turned on her. She took out four of them before her gun clicked on empty.

  “I could use a little help here,” she said to Finn.

  He lunged to his feet and drew his katana in a move that wasn’t quite as smooth as it should have been.

  He ignored the floaty feeling in his head. Yes, he’d lost a lot of blood, but he wasn’t finished yet.

  He’d taken out two of the three remaining goblins by the time the female goblin had retrieved Ooveth’s gun. She shot the last goblin in the back of its head as it ran away from her.

  The floor trembled beneath Finn’s feet.

  The creep had fallen to its knees, its head pressed to the garbage-strewn concrete.

  It was in prayer, Finn realized. A supplicant praying to its master.

  Finn squinted at the portal.

  Something was coming through. Something massive.

  A monster from Finn’s worst nightmare was pulling itself through the portal on thick, muscular appendages. Finn refused to think of them as tentacles. They were more than that. They were almost alive on their own.

  The appendages seemed to scent the air. The window frame surrounding the portal. The filthy floor. They left wet, slimy trails wherever they went, and the trails hissed like acid.

  Finn realized he’d stood like he was rooted to the spot.

  Watching one of the Elder Gods being born into this world instead of trying to stop it.

  That was his second mistake of the night. One mistake was all it took to kill his old master.

  But Finn could still stop this. All he had to do to was cut off the creep’s head.

  He tried to run toward the creep, but he’d lost too much blood. The fight with the goblins, as brief as it had been, had taken too much out of him. The most he could manage was a staggering walk.

  He wouldn’t reach the creep in time.

  The female goblin was on her way toward the back of the building. Finn didn’t trust her, but he had no other choice.

  “Could use a little help here!” Finn shouted after her.

  She turned around. He could see the indecision on her face.

  “If we don’t stop this, we’re all going to die,” Finn said.

  He had no idea if she’d heard him. His voice was losing strength too.

  She raised the plastic gun. It made a ridiculously small popping noise when she pulled the trigger.

  A hole the size of a dime appeared in the side of the creep’s head.

  The creep’s body stiffened as the blood dripping from the hole in its head bubbled and hissed just like Ooveth’s had. Its feet hammered at the floor as its wings flapped uselessly, and then it was still.

  She’d actually killed the thing.

  Finn had to get himself one of those guns.

  The creep’s master bellowed in rage. The appendages that weren’t tentacles writhed as the brilliant white light started to dim.

  But the portal didn’t wink out of existence.

  The monster was still coming through.

  Finn summoned strength he didn’t have to spare. He staggered up to the dead creep and decapitated it where it lay.

  His katana rang as it hit the concrete beneath the creep. The cut was straight and true, but the portal still didn’t close.

  One of the master’s appendages reached Finn.

  The monster struck Finn square across his body. He felt a rib break, and then he was sailing through the air.

  Something else broke when he landed.

  He hoped it wasn’t his back.

  One of the master’s eyes was visible now. As big as Finn’s entire body, the eye glared at him from inside the portal with a triumphant, vicious insanity.

  Finn had lost.

  All of his years of training had been for nothing.

  His parents would die. His friends would die. All of the women he’d longed for but never had time to meet would die.

  All because he’d lost.

  He dimly heard the female goblin empty her gun into the monster, but the shots had no effect.

  “Give me your blade,” she said.

  She was standing next to him. When had that happened?

  He looked down at his good hand. He was still gripping his katana.

  “You wanted my help,” she said, her voice a near growl. “Give me the damn blade!”

  He handed it over.

  He thought she’d handle the katana carefully. The sharp steel could kill her just by touching her skin. But she grabbed the long handle with the kind of ease that made her look like she’d been wielding his sword her entire life.

  Goblins were naturally stronger and faster than humans. Finn had always thought they were also far less graceful.

  Watching the female goblin fight the monster, he realized he’d been wrong.

  She fought as well, if not better, than his old master. She sprinted around the edges of the portal, deftly avoiding the grasping appendages and the slime trails on the floor. She hooted and yelled at the monster in a language Finn didn’t understand, and he realized it was her battle cry.

  Whenever she had an opening, she attacked an appendage with the blade.

  Each slice made the master roar. When she finally managed to severe an appendage completely, the entire building shook with the volume of the master’s bellow.

  The monster’s anger only seemed to spur her on.

  Finn lost track of her individual moves. She was a blur against the fading light of the portal, a busy stinging hornet who knew she had her prey on the run.

  She cut and sliced and sprinted away, laughing and chattering at her foe.

  She was magnificent, a warrior like none Finn had ever seen.

  And when she thrust the katana deep into the monster’s mad eye, he
knew she’d done something he never had.

  She’d defeated an Elder God.

  She yanked his blade out of the mess of blood and ichor that had been the monster’s eye just as it pulled back into the portal, drawing its wounded appendages after itself.

  The brilliant light turned sickly green, and then it was gone leaving only a filthy, cracked window behind.

  The goblin trotted across the floor to lay the katana at his side. She wasn’t even breathing hard.

  “You should keep it,” Finn said. “You earned it.”

  She shook her head. “Pretty poison is still poison, but thanks for letting me try it.”

  He got the feeling she liked to try all sorts of things.

  She picked up the empty plastic gun he’d dropped at his feet.

  “What are those things?” he asked.

  “Haven’t you heard?” She gave him a wicked grin as she slipped the gun through a loop on her leather belt. “Human technology. You creatures can print almost anything these days, given the right incentive.”

  Finn thought he understood. “And the bullets?”

  Her grin got wider. “My little secret.”

  One of those secret bullets had taken out a creep. That was impressive.

  He’d always wanted to kill a creep with a gun. Maybe someday she’d let him use one of hers.

  The thought made Finn pause.

  He was getting up there in years. He’d made mistakes tonight. Those mistakes would have been fatal if he hadn’t stumbled into the middle of a goblin gangland coup d’état.

  Or had he stumbled into it?

  What if fate had sent her into this building tonight just like it had sent him to walk through a field on the night he was destined to meet his own master?

  He’d never taken an apprentice before. He hadn’t had the stomach for it after his own master died. It was time.

  Hell, it was long past time.

  She turned away from him. The gun on her hip made her look like a parody of the cowboys in the old Westerns his dad had liked so much.

  “More of those things are out there,” Finn said to her back. “You could learn how to fight them.”

  “Learn?” Her voice had an edge as sharp as his katana. “I kicked its slimy ass, human.” She turned to glare at him. “Better than what you did.”

  “You shot me,” Finn said. “You weren’t exactly seeing me at my best.”

  She stared at him for a long moment. Finn could see her working things through in her mind. She’d killed the rest of her gang. That might buy her respect among the other goblin gangs, but that respect would be short lived.

  “What’s your name?” he asked.

  “Keesa.” She bit the word off like she hated it. “Why?”

  He tried to smile, but he was pretty sure it came out a grimace. Every part of his body hurt. Guardians weren’t super human. He was going to need medical attention, and soon.

  “I’m Finn.”

  “Finn,” she said. “Stupid human name.”

  “It’s what I’ve got.” He held up a hand. “Think you can give me an assist?”

  She started to reach for him but stopped a split second before their fingers touched. “You even think about calling yourself my master, you can forget about the whole thing. I’ve seen those movies.”

  He didn’t let himself laugh. It wasn’t easy.

  “How about partner instead?”

  She pulled him to his feet. He gritted his teeth against the pain, but it all seemed to come from his ribs, not his back.

  She let go of his hand like it burned her. “You assume a hell of a lot, you know that?”

  Finn’s old master had assumed a hell of a lot, too. Not that he’d been wrong.

  Finn didn’t think he was wrong about Keesa. She had all the energy and passion he’d lost during the years he’d spent killing more creeps than he could count.

  His master had been right. The life of a Guardian was a hard life. A lonely life, especially the way Finn had lived it, but maybe it didn’t have to be. Apprentices eventually left their masters behind. Partners didn’t have to say goodbye to each other.

  “You’ll learn to love that about me,” he told his new apprentice.

  She snorted. “Arrogant, too. Have I told you that I hate humans?”

  She hadn’t, but Finn didn’t mind. She could hate him all she wanted. He didn’t like goblins much either.

  Great partnerships had started with far less.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Award-winning author Annie Reed describes herself as a desert rat who longs to live by the ocean. Since she hasn’t yet convinced her family to relocate to a nice chunk of beachfront property, she’s done the next best thing—written a series of stories set in a contemporary Pacific Northwest city where magic and reality go hand in hand. Private investigators Diz and Dee populate Annie’s more lighthearted stories, while denizens of a much rougher neighborhood lurk in her Tales From the Shadows.

  A talented and versatile writer whose fantasy, science fiction, and mystery stories have sold to a wide variety of publications, Annie is also the author of the Abby Maxon mystery novels Pretty Little Horses and Paper Bullets, as well as A Death in Cumberland. Annie’s short stories also appear on a regular basis in the Fiction River anthologies.

  Annie reports that her husband is thrilled that with her contribution to this issue of the Uncollected Anthology, she’s finally written about one of his favorite urban fantasy subjects. After more than three decades of marriage, he says he’s finally brought her over to the dark side. She’s pretty sure that happened when she started watching football.

  For more information about Annie, go to www.annie-reed.com.

  THE UNCOLLECTED ANTHOLOGY STORIES

  Rites of Passage is part of the innovative Uncollected Anthology series.

  Every three months, the talented group of UA authors picks a theme and writes a short story for that theme. But instead of bundling the stories together, each author sells their own. No muss, no fuss—you can buy one story or you can buy them all. (We’ll be honest; we hope you buy them all!)

  This time around we’re thrilled to not only feature a story by guest author JC Andrijeski, but also to welcome USA Today bestselling guest author Kristine Kathryn Rusch as the newest member of the Uncollected!

  If you’d like to keep reading more fine stories with this issue’s theme—Portals & Passageways—click on the following links:

  KIREV’S DOOR

  JC Andrijeski

  (featured guest author)

  Kirev is a seer. Raised in an alternate version of our Earth, where his people are enslaved under human owners, Kirev joins a resistance army of rebel seers after spending most of his youth in work camps and brothels. He wants to help his people, but during his first mission with the seer rebels, Kirev faces a terrifying new future when a voice from his past intervenes and sends his life into a whole different direction.

  ~ A spinoff story from the ALLIE’S WAR series ~

  WAR ON ALL FRONTS

  Leah Cutter

  Tong Yi carries the mysterious message of Zhang Gua Loa back to his boss.

  The immortal had said there would be war. But between whom? And why?

  Huli Transport takes advantage of the situation to become the messenger service of choice in the war zone. They promise to remain neutral, and to deliver messages to all sides.

  In the meantime, Tong Yi has battles of his own to fight, both with his older brother and his own growing understanding of magic.

  But in the middle of a war, is it possible for him to remain neutral? Or has his side already been chosen for him?

  “War on All Fronts” is a sequel to the story, “Dancing with Tong Yi” which appeared in Uncollected Anthology, Issue 1: Magical Motorcycles.

  SAVE A PRAYER

  Dayle A. Dermatis

  Former Hollywood party girl Nikki Ashburne sees ghosts—in fact, many of them are her friends. Okay, they’re kind of her only fri
ends. Most ghosts stick around because they’re happy here and have no desire to move on. So when she encounters a trapped and, quite frankly, batshit insane member of the formerly living, she’s driven to help…even though she hasn’t a clue how.

  “…One of the best writers working today.”

  —USA Today bestselling author Dean Wesley Smith

  THE STREETS WHERE WE LIVE

  Kristine Kathryn Rusch

  When Portia receives a call from an old friend she hasn’t talked to in years, she knows something terrible has happened. But when Portia realizes just how terrible—fifty kids missing from a Chicago theater with millions of dollars in damage left behind—she knows she’ll need backup from her magical sisters.

  Nothing about this latest case makes sense, magically or otherwise. And when she finally starts to discover the truth, Portia realizes that truth might be darker and more insidious than she ever imagined.

  SILVER DUST

  Leslie Claire Walker

  Silver had it all—eternal life, long-term memory, and a real sweet princess gig as the heir to the Faery King’s throne. But then the Faery realm caught a terrible disease, and she tried to save her people by taking the sickness into herself. She ended up banished with a price on her head and only days to live. The cure cost her memory and left her in hiding, a stranger to herself.

  When her one friend in all the worlds disappears while trying to help her find a way home, Silver must come out of the shadows to save him. She must face the danger and the unknown lurking in the Human and Faery realms—and in her own strange heart and soul.

  DARKER STREETS

  Phaedra Weldon

  The Cavanaugh Family is known for banishing the last of the Twelve High Demons of Hell with the help of the magic sword, November.