by Kunego, Chad
“Okay…” she said slowly, “anyway, I have a picture of the person we’re looking for.”
As she said that, she pulled out her smartphone and pulled up a picture of Samuel while he was laying unconscious at the hospital.
“This is a shot of him before he disappeared. We just have a few questions to ask him to clear up something he was a witness to a few days ago. We believe he’s in danger, so the sooner we can find him, the better.”
The librarian gave the picture a cursory glance before looking back at Cora.
“I’m sorry, detective. I can’t say I’ve seen him before. But now that I know law enforcement is looking for him, I’ll be sure to contact you if he comes in to read the latest copy of the Enquirer.”
She raised one of her eyebrows, “Is there anything else I can be of assistance with, detective?”
“No, thank you,” she said as she put her phone back in her pocket, “I think that’ll be all for now.”
Cora pulled out one of her business cards.
“If you hear anything,” she began, handing the card over to the other woman, “please give us a call.”
Reaching out like she was picking up a dead mouse, the librarian gingerly took the card out of Cora’s hand.
“Absolutely.”
As Cora started to turn around to leave, she caught a flash of movement near the back of the library. All she caught was a flash of what appeared to be a black trench coat disappearing behind some shelves.
She glanced back at the librarian again.
“Thank you again,” she said before she hurried back toward the shelves where the person had disappeared. As she reached the bookcase, she cast a quick glance around the corner. She caught a flash of someone turning another corner, dressed all in black and wearing a watch cap. She rushed over to the next isle, trying to catch up with the other person. As she got to the corner, she noticed the person was only halfway down the isle.
She picked up her pace, breaking into a jog. Before the person had a chance to reach the next turn, she reached out and grabbed their shoulder.
“Hey, I wanna talk to you,” she said, spinning the other person around.
“Excuse me?” he said. “Do I know you?”
“Oh… Sorry, I thought you were someone else,” she said as she examined the man standing in front of her. He was dressed exactly like Sybil was, with a neatly trimmed goatee and mustache. She was getting ready to excuse herself when she caught a flash of light from his right hand. Glancing down, she noticed a now familiar looking piece of jewelry. She reached out quickly, trying to grab his hand, but he smoothly moved his hand out of the way.
“What, may I ask, are you trying to do?” he asked, a hint of humor tinging his voice.
“That thing on your hand. Where’d you get it?” she demanded.
“Pardon me?”
“That jewelry, where’d you—”
The sound of a pile of books crashing to the ground caused her to turn her head to look behind her for a second.
“As I was saying,” she said as she turned back, “where…”
The man was gone.
Chapter 13
Samuel sighed. He’d already been up to the food line several times, but he was still hungry. From the feeling in his stomach, he was pretty sure he was getting ready to rupture something, so he wondered why was he still thinking about another trip through the food line?
“He’s stabilized. The EMT looked him over, and other than maybe a few cracked ribs and a possible mild concussion, he should recover fine.”
Samuel glanced up to see Blythe standing next to him. He absently thought about how cute she was with her blond pixie-cut hairstyle.
“I’m glad to hear that. Is he conscious yet?”
“No, we gave him a mild sedative to help him rest and start the healing process. He’s probably going to need a couple days bed rest, but judging from the injuries and marks on him, it could have been much worse. Lucky for him I think, all the extra clothes he was bundled up in helped protect him from the worst of it.”
“Yeah, it looked pretty bad when I stepped in.”
“I know, I kinda caught a little bit of your conversation with Carl. He’s still sitting in his chair with a ‘deer caught in the headlights’ look. How’d you beat them, anyway?”
Samuel looked down at his hands. How had he known he could beat all those guys without getting hurt. It wasn’t anything he’d thought consciously. It was more of a deep-seated feeling. He never doubted he could do it, but he still couldn’t remember why he knew how to fight so well. He glanced back up at Blythe, a slightly puzzled look on his face as he shrugged his shoulders.
“Honestly, I really don’t know. I just felt this incredible rage build up inside me when I saw Hank getting beat on. After that, I just kinda flowed through them all, almost like an afterthought,” he said as he absently ran his left hand through his hair.
“Wow! That’s some serious jewelry. What are you doing here if you got something like that?”
Samuel quickly readjusted his sleeve, self-consciously trying to cover it back up.
Blythe’s face started to go slightly crimson as she watched him.
“I’m sorry, that was pretty insensitive. I didn’t mean for that to come out like that, though. I’ve just never seen anything like that before. I know a few people I cosplay with who’d give up their first-born for something like that.”
Blythe eyes opened up wider for a second before reaching into her pocket.
“I’m not supposed to wear these while working, but I thought you’d appreciate it,” she said, sliding something onto her fingers. When she pulled her hand away, she held the other one up, wiggling her fingers in front of him.
“See, not as cool as what you got, but I like it.”
As she wiggled her fingers in front of him, Samuel examined the jewelry she’d put on. She had slipped on four rings that looked like medieval plate armor that covered the entire finger, except for the tips. Connected to the rings were finely wrought chainmail chains in a four-by-two pattern that ran up her hand and connected to a helm-mail style slave bracelet.
“That’s pretty cool,” he said, gesturing for her to sit down next to him. He took a deep breath before continuing.
“Honestly, I don’t know where I got it from,” he said, turning so he could partially hide his arm while pulling his sleeve up, “I kinda had it when woke up in the hospital yesterday with a case of amnesia. Other than my name, which I’m still not sure about, I don’t remember anything about myself other than I seem to know how to fight really, really well.”
Samuel slid his sleeve back down as he looked back up at Blythe. She had a downcast look on her face as she looked back up at him as well.
“That’s so sad. Do the doctors think your memory’ll come back on it own?”
“They couldn’t say. They weren’t sure what caused it in the first place, and I kinda had to, uh, leave before all the test results came back.”
“You should go back. They can’t keep those test results from you if they’ve already taken them. Maybe they’ll tell you something.”
“I’m not sure. I had to leave under some bad circumstances, so I’m not sure if I want to go back just yet and poke the bear.”
Blythe sat back, looking like she was thinking about something before she leaned forward again.
“I know!” she said excitedly, “I get off work here in around an hour. You seem like a nice guy, so if you want, I can take you to meet some of my friends. They might be able to tell you something about your jewelry that might jog your memory.”
Samuel turned the idea over in his head a few times. He didn’t really have any better leads to follow right now since the jewelry store he wanted to check out would probably closed by the time he found it. Glancing back up, he noticed the cheerful look on her face slowly start to wilt.
“You know what, that sounds like a great idea. I don’t have anywhere else I need to be…” he said
with a smile.
Blythe’s face lit back up.
“That’s great. Don’t go anywhere. I’ll swing back by to grab you before I leave. This is going to be awesome.”
Blythe got back up, practically prancing away. He noticed her stop for a second, almost as an afterthought, to pull her rings and bracelet off, sticking them back in her pocket before she bounced away toward the kitchen.
§§§§§§§§§§§§
Blythe pulled up in front of an old warehouse building in the industrial section of the city. As Samuel looked around, she turned off her car. Samuel wasn’t sure why, but the building seemed familiar.
“I know, it doesn’t look like much, but the landlord is really nice and there’s a lot of space for us to do LARPing.”
“LARPing?” he asked with a raised eyebrow.
She glance over at him like he’d grown an extra eye.
“Yeah, live action role-playing? You mean you’ve never heard of it?” she asked before her eyes went wide again.
“I’m so sorry. I’m such an idiot. Of course you wouldn’t have heard of it. You’ve got amnesia.”
Blythe quickly got out of the car, but not before Samuel noticed her face going bright red again.
“You know, I might have amnesia,” he started off as he exited the car, “but I’m not a kid, either. I’m not going to take offense at silly stuff like that. Relax.”
She cast a glance out of the corner of her eye as she walked quickly to the front door.
“Oh… Uh… Okay…”
Samuel smiled to himself.
This oughta to be interesting.
As she unlocked and opened the door, Samuel could make out the sounds of metal clashing against metal and banging on wood. Blythe reached into her purse, fumbling around for something. As she fumbled, his vision rapidly adjusted to the darkness.
“I’m sorry for how dark it is in here, but the landlord makes us pay for the electricity since he gives us such a break on the rent,” she said as she continued to fumble in her purse.
“I know that flashlight’s in here somewhere,” she whispered under her breath.
Samuel came up next to her, glancing in her purse.
“It’s okay, I can see pretty well in here,” he said as he reached his hand into her purse, his hand lightly brushing against her’s, “but I think this is what you’re looking for.”
She jumped slightly at his touch before replying, “You can see in here…? I can’t even hardly see my own hand in front of my face…”
Her voice trailed off as he placed the flashlight in her hand.
“Um… thank you,” she stammered before clicking the light on and headed toward the noise.
After a few minutes of walking and stepping around pipes and miscellaneous equipment, they came to a large open space. Samuel quickly glanced around, taking in the surrounding area. He realized with a start that he was analyzing the area in case he had to fight there. Looking back toward Blythe, he looked over the group of people she was approaching. A quick mental calculation told him there were thirty people in the group in various forms of armor. As he approached them, he realized a lot of the weapons and armor were props designed to look like the real thing. The three guys who had been sparring when they’d entered had steam drifting up off them in the chill air.
“Hey Blythe, who’s your friend?” one of the women called out as they got closer.
“He’s a guy from the shelter I work at. He—”
“Oh, no! Blythe’s brought home a stray,” one of the guys who was sparring quipped, elbowing one of his partners.
“Ha, ha. Very funny Clifton,” she said sarcastically.
“Damn it Blythe, you know I hate it when you call me that. It’s Cliff, not Clifton.”
“Oh, so sorry,” she said dryly.
“She’s got your number Cliff,” the guy he originally nudged said, returning the gesture.
“Ha Ha. Just for that, I’m not going to go easy on you during our next bout.”
“Sonofa—”
“Joe! There’s ladies present!” Blythe snapped.
Everyone was quiet for a second, then one of the other women quipped, “Yeah, ya ass. There’s F’n ladies present.”
With that, everyone broke out laughing. From the sound of it, it was a well-worn joke.
Cliff set his longsword in a rack and strode over.
“Don’t mind us, we’re just a rowdy lot,” he said as he extended his hand.
Samuel returned the gesture. He could feel Cliff trying to squeeze his hand hard to test him, so he squeezed a little in return.
“I’m Cliff, as you’re already aware of,” he said, rubbing his hand.
“Thanks. I’m Samuel. Nice to meet you.”
He glanced around the room, making eye contact with everyone.
“It’s nice to meet you all, actually.”
“So what brings you amongst us this fine evening?” Joe said with a theatrical bow.
“Uh, Blythe, actually…” he said with a smile. Several people chuckled.
Blythe piped up, “You guys gotta see the jewelry he has. It’s amazing!”
Everyone paused for a moment to look at him.
“Uh, didn’t you say he was from the shelter?”
A girl slapped him in the back of the head.
“John, stop being an ass. That was pretty insensitive.”
“Jeez, I didn’t mean it like that. I just figured that if he was like most of the people at the shelter, he would have sold anything of worth for food or alcohol or something…”
The girl got up, making a point to shoulder John as she moved past him.
“Don’t pay any attention to John. Apparently he was raised by woodland creatures, so he was never taught manners. I’m Karen by the way,” she said as she approached.
“No problem, nice to meet you,” he said as he shook her hand gently.
She looked back over her shoulder, “Look guys, a true gentleman. I think we should keep him around to show you louts how to act around a lady.”
“When we get some ladies here, it might come in handy…” someone piped in from the back.
Karen cast a dirty look at the group before turning back to Samuel.
“So, Blythe says you have an interesting piece of jewelry… Mind if we take a look?”
“Sure, I’m hoping to get some answers about it, actually.”
Karen looked at Blythe, casting her a questioning look.
“It’s so sad. He lost his memory, so he doesn’t know where or how he got it. I told him you guys might some ideas.”
As they were talking, Samuel took off his jack and pulled up his sleeve.
“HOLY CRAP!”
John sprung up and came rushing over, elbowing Karen out of the way as he reached for Samuel’s arm. Everyone else followed and jockeyed for position, trying to get a better look.
“Everyone… Back. Up. There’s plenty of time for everyone to look at it, but you’re going to crush the guy if you don’t give him some room!” Cliff bellowed above the commotion.
Reluctantly, everyone except Cliff, Blythe, Karen, and John slowly wandered back to where they were sitting, casting quick glances over their shoulders. John tentatively reached toward Samuel’s hand again before pausing.
“May I?”
Samuel held out his arm as he nodded.
“Damn! Look at the detail on this thing. If it wasn’t metal, I’d swear it was alive at one point. Look at the realism of those scales.”
“And look at the level of articulation,” Karen said while pointing at several joints, “I can’t even see where the pivot points are. Whoever made this was a master. I’d love to meet ‘em some time.”
She looked over at John.
“Could you imagine if we could get some of their pieces in our bookstore? People would go crazy. I doubt if very many could afford craftsmanship of this level, but even if we just had it as a showpiece, it’d be the focal point of the entire store.”
> “Damn straight.”
Karen looked back at Samuel.
“I don’t suppose you’d mind taking it off so we could take a look at the underside of it?” she asked hopefully.
“Heh, about that, I haven’t been able to figure out how to remove it, actually. That’s part of the mystery.”
“Really…?” they both said at the same time, “you have no idea how to take it off?”
“Yeah… Like Blythe was saying, I really don’t remember how I got it. I honestly don’t remember anything before a couple days ago. So how I got this, or who I am actually, is one big mystery. The only reason I know my name is because someone told me what it was.”
“Man, that’s gotta suck…”
“Yeah, it does,” Samuel said as Karen cast John another dirty look.
“What?” John asked.
“Nothing,” Karen replied.
The two of them spent the next ten minutes examining the jewelry, trying to figure out who might have made it and how to remove it. Finally, Cliff said.
“Okay you two, enough gawking over it. Let everyone else get a chance to look at it.”
“Fine… fine,” he said, waving his hands toward Cliff in a placating gesture before turning back to Samuel.
“If you don’t mind though, I’d like to look at this again after I’m done getting my ass handed to me. I wanna take some notes down. Something about that jewelry looks vaguely familiar. I wanna see if I can figure out where I’ve seen it from. Might give us an idea where you might’ve gotten it from and maybe even who made it.”
As he started to turn away again, he spun back while reaching into his pocket.
“Oh! I’m such an idiot. Hold your arm out again,” he said as he pulled something out of his pocket.
Samuel held his arm out again as John pulled out his cell phone and snapped a few pics.
Cliff glanced at the group before he pointed at Blythe.
“Blythe, you’re up!”
“Aw, do I have to?”
“You know the rules. If you’re going to be here, you need to spar. You managed to skip out last time we got together.”
Blythe glanced back at Samuel before reluctantly getting up and heading over to the weapons rack. She glanced at the arrayed weaponry before grabbing a nondescript rapier off the rack along with fencing gear. Turning around, she headed toward the sparring area.