by JM Guillen
“Sure.” I grinned then turned away, and the smile fell from my face.
The upstairs level held massive wall-to-wall shelves, filled with records of all sorts. The floor had been done in a cheap brown carpet so thin I felt the concrete beneath, even through my shoes. In the corner, a small camera had been installed. Below it a poster board sign read ‘Smile! You’re famous!’
“Not helpful,” I muttered. I took a few steps forward and trailed my fingers along racks of old records. After a few moments, I came to a small nook.
“Listening stations?” I quirked my head to the side. In the center of the nook resided several plush chairs, each with a record player and several high end headphones next to them.
Another stairwell continued up.
“Okay,” I peered around. I had never really been a record girl. I once had a boyfriend, Keith, who owned a small record shop on the west side, but that hadn’t worked out.
Even though I tried.
As a result, I felt fairly ambivalent toward the medium. I’d spent a few too many hours listening to rants about how records captured the purity of sound, and how anything else sounded barbaric in comparison.
Still, maybe they could be a good distraction while I hid—
DingDINGdong
I stopped in place at the sound of the bells on the door.
Garret? My heart thrummed in my chest.
“Welcome to Spin-Again.” I heard Saul’s smoke-roughened voice drift up from below. “Let me know if I can help you find your groove.”
No response. Sharpened silence.
I froze in place, and thought about all the reasons my pursuers had been named ‘The Silent Gentlemen.’ Honestly, Garret had been the first I had even heard of who spoke.
“Can I help you with anything?” I heard the wariness in his voice, even though I thought he might not know why he needed to be careful.
“I am only shopping.” The soft, feminine voice paused. “For a record. I am shopping for a record.”
“Well, you came to the right place.” Saul’s voice relaxed, which I thought was stupid. Who walks into a record store and says ‘I am shopping for a record’?
“Thank you.” I almost couldn’t make out her quiet words, she spoke so softly. “If I happen upon a record I wish to purchase, I will bring it to you.”
“That’s how it’s done.” A touch of suspicion edged back into Saul’s tone.
I had far more than ‘a touch.’
It’s the witch. I knew it in my bones. She can track me somehow. Ice trickled through my heart at the thought.
Yet it made sense. Simon had taught me that the Silent Gentlemen knew when someone with a special little knack made alterations to reality. The thought that it was their witches just made sense.
“Which means Liz needs to run.” I had no doubt what would happen as soon as I got too close to the witch; that droning buzz in my skull would be simply intolerable. Too much and it seemed to knock me right out. After all, back in my hotel roo—
I stopped in place and my mind whirled.
“Wait a minute.” I had assumed that the painful static in my mind and the missing time had all been something Garret had done. But had it? Could there have been, say, an inhuman horror of a witch just outside my door?
If so, Garret might not be as otherworldly and powerful as he had seemed.
“Doesn’t matter now.” I shook my head. “Game face, Liz. Think.”
I needed time. Space too, honestly. Whatever weird mojo Brunhilda down there wielded, it had some kind of spatial limitation. I had learned that much when she drove the car; as soon as I got far enough away, it faded.
“Without another thought, Liz sprinted up the stairs.” I paired the action to my narration.
The next room was almost an exact copy of the last, although management had done away with the threadbare carpet. The air smelled a touch mustier than it had in the previous two, apparently from the dust on the record shelves. A door to an office waited off to the right and a hawk that had been mauled by taxidermy, glared at me from a small table near it.
Also apparent was the FIRE ESCAPE sign, which blazed with cherry red letters from the back of the room.
“Hot damn.” I grinned as I trotted toward the sign. I hadn’t wanted to step back outside—not yet—but at the moment it felt like the best option.
The narcotic buzz settled uncomfortably into the back of my skull, more a caress than the hammer it had been earlier.
Oh no. I whirled around.
The inhuman creature stood in the stairwell and stared at me with eyes as blue as river ice. Each of her hands twitched and twisted, weaving my fate on a loom I could not see.
“Oh.” I took a step backward. I needed to run, I knew I did. The fire escape would lead back to the street, and from there I could—
Could…
The creature’s eyes turned black then, as if liquid pitch ran over them. At the same moment, she pulled a string I could not see and that awful, caustic sensation fell over me like a shroud of angry hornets.
I stumbled.
No. I took a step back and drunkenly stared up at her, doing my best to seem defiant.
The tiniest whisper of a smile touched the creature’s mouth. She fixed my gaze with hers and the droning, snarling sound redoubled.
She took a single step forward.
5
Whispers, words I couldn’t quite make out, echoed from very far away, cast over a distant, infinite chasm. I shook my head at it, as if buzzed by a mosquito.
A breeze touched my face.
My eyes felt heavy. I wanted nothing more than to simply collapse. The weight of everything, of every sorrow I’d ever felt, crashed over me.
Wind coursed around me again, teased at my hair and clothes like a child trying to awaken a hung-over parent.
“Wh-uut?” I complained, as slow and thick as if I pushed through a wall of cold honey.
The witch took another step forward, inhuman grace in her every motion. Every inch closer, the murmuring buzz delved deeper into the core of me. Each time she pulled at her invisible strands, a tiny discordant chime sounded within my heart.
I swayed on my feel, my limbs leaden. My eyes drifted…
And then I gasped. The wind became sharp and sliced cold against my face. I staggered just a little, shaking my head.
Awareness poured into me like molten lead, I stumbled two steps back, then another.
I was almost gone. My eyes met those of the witch, only steps away.
“Oh, fuck!” I scrambled backward and fell flat on my ass. “No, just NO!” I gestured wildly.
The Wind answered. No Empyrean Seals, no shaping it via my will.
It is simply struck.
It came in a slicing torrent, cascading forth in rivulets from my outstretched hand. The bracelet sang as it poured and the charms clinked against one another.
The Aegis of Dudael gleamed with eldritch half-light.
The force of a tornado careened forth from me, compressed into the space of a punch. It struck the witch squarely in the chest and hurled her backward down the stairs.
I heard her strike the floor with the bone-wrenching organic thud of a body. As she sailed away from me, the buzzing sensation vanished entirely.
“Ladies?” Saul called up the stairwell. “Is everything okay?”
Um… Umm, um… I stared at the bracelet. That strike had been exactly like one I commonly used, like the same seal I used when directing my knives.
Only I hadn’t done the shaping.
“Terrorist!” I blurted, able to think of nothing except the idiotic reasoning I’d used earlier. Stupid it might be, but it remained fresh in my mind. “Call the cops!”
“What?” Saul didn’t seem to be the shiniest penny. “Like a bomber?”
I didn’t have time to explain my idiotic, hair-brained story. Instead, I sprinted toward the fire escape.
Maybe I could get away before the spooky bitch stood up.
Outside, the sun had already set. The first shadows of twilight had stolen their way across the city, made all the darker by the cloud cover overhead. I stepped out onto the iron fire escape and peered down into the alleyway below.
Where Garret awaited me.
“Hey there, Liz,” he greeted me affably, as if he hadn’t just chased me across several city blocks. “What’s new with you?”
Fuck! I glanced behind me to make certain the witch hadn’t begun to slip up behind me for a sneak attack.
Not that I wouldn’t feel her. I bit my lip. That remained the one good thing about her witchling powers—I could feel her coming a mile away.
“I wish you’d take a moment to speak with me,” Garret continued as he walked forward. He seemed alone in the alleyway below; his crossbow-wielding buddy nowhere in sight.
“Is that really what you want? Just to talk?” My pulse pounded in my ears as I searched for options. I couldn’t go back—not unless I absolutely knew the witch was off the board. The nearest rooftop looked to be about twenty feet away—which might as well be a mile off. The fire escape didn’t go up to the roof, which only left down.
Garret stood below, his hands in his pockets. He stared up at me, and a shit-eating smirk teased the edge of his lips.
Fuck. I was trapped.
“It is. I know you don’t believe that, but it’s true.” He didn’t take another step; did nothing to seem even a bit threatening.
“You might understand why I have a hard time believing that.” I glanced behind myself again, even though I didn’t feel the witch’s approach.
“I do.” He shook his head. “It’s ironic, you know? Usually the reputation of the Facility works in my favor.”
Keep him talking. My mind raced, sought any possible way out. Yet no matter where I looked, what I thought of, I kept coming back to the same place.
Trapped.
“So I get it.” He seemed almost sheepish. “You’ve probably heard a thousand stories about the big, bad Facility, and how they deal with situations like this.” He shrugged. “Yet this is different, Liz. No foolin’.”
“Right.” I couldn’t keep the sharpness from my voice. “Every person who knows about your kind has horrific stories. Innocent people taken—or killed. Black bags put over their heads before they’re vanished.”
“What if I told you those people weren’t innocent? What if I told you there is literally nothing more dangerous than the people we go after?” He seemed genuinely concerned, as if I might believe him.
Not him. It. I frowned down at Garret. It isn’t human, don’t forget that.
“What if you did?” I called. “One hundred percent of the times I’ve dealt with you, shit’s gone bad. You snuck into my hotel room; you stole my power.” I paused to gauge its response. “Now, you’re chasing me through the streets with two of your friends. That isn’t the behavior of someone who actually wants to be my buddy.”
“You don’t know what I’m offering you, Elizabeth.”
“Liz!” Its use of my name only made me angrier. “And you’re right. I don’t know what you’re offering.” I paused for effect. “Because you won’t just tell me! You’d rather play all mysterious man in black. You’d rather frighten me and tell me how I have no choice.”
“You’re in danger, Liz.” Its words didn’t seem to be a threat, but a simple statement of fact.
“From people like you,” I snarked.
“No.” He waved one hand, seemingly exhausted. “Not from people like me.”
“Because people like you don’t put black bags over people’s heads?”
“Liz, there’s a third player.” His words dripped sincerity. “Irrats—people like you—people we’ve had our eye on, they’ve gone missing.”
“Doing your job for you?”
“Listen to me,” it pleaded. “Come down. Just talk with me.” The creature beckoned with one hand. “I’m trying to help you.”
“You’ll forgive my disbelief,” I sneered. “The very first time we spoke you told me you were going to get your way no matter what.” I shook my head. “That’s not what a friend says, Garret.”
“I understand.” It sighed. “And I wish I could take it back. You need to understand, this isn’t exactly my bailiwick.” It paused. “I’m unaccustomed to dealing with Irrats—with gifted people—in a way that isn’t in accordance with protocols.”
Somewhere in that sentence, maybe around the time he said the word “people,” I felt the narcotic buzz touch the back of my mind again. A soft, subtle touch, but completely unmistakable.
The witch was back in play.
Shit.
“You can tell your witch to back off.” I shot at him. “That’s the kind of thing a friend might do.”
There came a pause, short but unmistakable. When Garret spoke again, his tone seemed subdued. “There.” As he spoke, the sensation faded. “Is that enough for you?”
The tingling sensation faded. It didn’t vanish—I assumed that would be too much to ask. Still, it drifted down from ‘electrified thorns’ to ‘numbing icicles.’
“Well,” I raised my eyebrows, a touch surprised. “It’s a start.” Yet before I finished the sentence, I saw a silhouette slip up behind Garret. I couldn’t possibly mis-guess who it might be; the figure held a crossbow-shaped device, and something glowed blue around its head.
“I never wanted things to get this far,” Garret said, almost sheepish. “But you vanished, Liz! We had a nice conversation, and then you went dark.”
“You’ll have to forgive me.” Sarcasm dripped like venom. “I was a bit tripped out from the man who knocked me unconscious in my hotel room.”
“You didn’t know what you were facing!”
“I still don’t!” I waved one hand. “Other than a mysterious third party that, as far as I can tell, you’re trying to convince me is somehow worse than you guys!”
“They’re taking people,” the creature said, tone grim.
“You take people!”
“They leave corpses.” The creature’s words were like cold iron, resolute. “Or else shells of people. We’ve found them, their gifts shredded from them. We have a small collection of victims barely able to speak, their minds broken.” The creature stared up at me, and in that moment, I thought it might be sincere.
That… that sounded horrific.
“That’s why we need you, Liz.” Its words bent toward reasonable. “We need to work with someone they’d want to take, someone that might be attractive to them.” It shrugged. “Perhaps we can learn more about them.”
“You want to use me as bait!” I couldn’t keep the horror from my voice.
“No.” Garret shook its head, and then reconsidered. “Well, yes. But we’d be watching. We have the means to track you, find out where they take you.”
“There must be hundreds of people like me.” I threw my hands wide while I tried to track what the creature said. “That’s what I’ve been told, anyway. A person like me comes along something like once every few million. Why does it have to be me?”
“There are a few reasons,” Garret responded. “For one, we think someone you know may be involved. Also, you’re a Varia—” The creature stopped, as if reconsidering its words.
“A what?” I peered at it.
“Very special example, Liz. We haven’t found another. You’re perfect.”
“What if I’m not interested?” My words quavered, and felt certain he heard the pulsing thunder of my heartbeat. Did he think Simon was involved with this third party?
“That’s not really a choice.” Garret seemed legitimately sorrowful, despite its words. “We’ve searched for someone like you, Liz. We’ve actually looked for a while. We need someone we can work with to bring these guys down.”
While he spoke, the buzzy drone reared up in my mind again, like a serpent prepared to strike. I couldn’t help but stumble from the sheer force of it.
“This is about the greater good,” it
continued. “It’s about protecting more than just you.”
Gotta run. Of course, escape didn’t seem to be in the cards, not now. I peered behind me, wondering if I would again see the inhuman witch as she stood there with her oil-black eyes.
No. I still felt her, like the sensation of a vibrating spider in my head, but she hadn’t come back upstairs.
“Come down.” The creature glanced up at me and gave an approximation of a boyish smile. “We can at least talk.”
Behind him, the suit-clad crossbowman hefted his weapon to a ready position. The sky-blue light that hung miraculously at the back of his head shone brightly for a moment, almost as if eager.
The whispering wind danced around me, echoing and cavorting in the alleyway. A brisk, frigid burst hit me, as if it had blown across the land of the dead.
A warning if I’d ever felt one. However, just that touch had been enough to give me a crazy, completely idiotic idea.
“Oh, fuck,” I breathed as I realized the stupidity about to ensue.
Simon would kill me.
“How can I trust you?” I looked behind myself again, and then scanned the area for some unseen option.
“We could bring you down ourselves.” His words turned just a touch surly. “You know I have an Asset behind you; she can render you unconscious by herself.” He paused, as if I hadn’t already thought about it. “You might consider it a gesture of good faith that I’m giving you some kind of choice in the matter.”
“You’re a peach.” I turned my head up toward the roof of the building. It had to be a good ten feet up—not out of the question, but something I’d have to “cheat” to reach. Yet even if I did… where would I run next?
“Let me make this simple for you.” Garret’s inhuman friend stepped forward. With an uncannily swift motion, he brought the crossbow up and fired.
The silver quarrel sliced through the air, less than a foot from me, and buried itself in the red brick at my back.
“Just come down.” An odd crackle came, a dangerously familiar warble in the air next to me. As I watched, a tiny mote of furious fire appeared from nowhere and hung near the quarrel. The spark grew wider, and again became a gate of flame and haunted song.