by JM Guillen
“It’s time they knew, Liz.” She put one hand on my shoulder. “It isn’t our first slumber party.”
The guys laughed, and we drove on through autumn’s rain. It took another twenty-five minutes for us to get back to Knucklebones, and the entire way we bantered and japed.
Sometimes, in the wild and uncanny life I have chosen to lead, I would forget exactly how much I missed these guys.
Ability Modifier
Sometime far too early, I awoke.
I had fallen asleep long before Alicia did, and still felt a bit exhausted from the past few days. I had no idea how long she had stayed up to catalog our adventure supplies, I only knew I’d fallen asleep while she still worked.
Now she lay snuggled against me and her red hair ran riot across her pillow. She snored softly, her limbs akimbo.
To look at her, one would never know my curvy friend housed an angelic Watcher from antediluvian times. Instead, they might see a hung-over college girl, sleeping it off.
“It’s good to know I’m not the only one with crazy bed head,” I muttered, and began to slowly ease myself out of the canopy bed. A couple of times she snorted as if about to wake up and I froze in place.
Alicia drifted back to sleep.
Once out of bed, I pulled on my jeans and padded softly over to the cabinet Alicia had showed us, the one with Simon’s odd gear. As always, the light in the attic shone dimly from strings of white Christmas lights, and I wondered idly why Simon had chosen such dim illumination.
I crouched in front of the case and peered at the myriad things stacked inside. Just as before, I saw a small hourglass, as well as a tie pin, and a deck of cards. The ninja star had been placed next to the cards, and I noted it looked more than a little charred.
“There’s the hat Rehl wore,” I muttered and opened the glass. Next to the hat lay the bracer Baxter had worn, though it looked even more burnt than the throwing star. The two chess pieces had fallen over on their sides, and the old silver lighter had been pushed to the back. I saw something that resembled like a dog collar and a small set of candles that leaned against a Mardi Gras mask. A gold ring, an old fork, and a small oil lantern all took up the third shelf.
On the fourth shelf I finally saw what I searched for.
“There we are.” My voice hummed with satisfaction. I reached into the cabinet and pulled out the first magical item I had ever seen in my life.
An old, battered blue baseball cap.
I turned it in my hands and felt for the thin strip of metal sewn within. Simon had told me over a thousand Empyrean sigils had been inscribed on this one piece of metal. Those Seals gave the hat power, magic I’d never truly understood.
The thing was, in all the years Simon had trained me, this ball cap had been the only toy he had really ever let me use. Oh, he had given me the blue jay feather that day in the diner, but that had been more of a one-shot kind of thing.
Then he gave me the Aegis bracelet, and I went and destroyed it in my own personal fractured fairytale.
“So, Simon, I think maybe you should’ve taught me how to use some of your toys,” I spoke to the darkness. “Alicia had to try and wrangle both the boys during the battle in the store. If she has to direct the three of us on how to speak Empyrean in the middle of a fight, that stretches her a little thin.”
If only I hadn’t broken the Aegis. Oh, I had power on my own, power enough to have come out on top in everything that had ever happened before this particular module. But what came next would be different. I had no doubt that without the Aegis, Garret and the Facility Ass-hats would have caught me days ago. I could feel an infinity of Wind within me, but I had ever only been able to draw small amount of it. I always told Simon it felt like trying to drink the ocean through a straw.
If it hadn’t been for the bracelet, I felt certain my friends would be dead by now.
And it was gone.
I sat for a long moment, stared into Simon’s cabinet, and thought. My chest positively ached with loss. I’d put on a brave face with my friends last night, and they’d helped me to smile, but…
Things were about to get horrific.
Mom had been lost for years, honestly, it’d just happened in slow motion. Even though the actual timetable might have been off, it felt as if I’d lost Dad and Simon all within the same few days.
“But Liz hadn’t lost them,” I muttered to myself as I felt the ache in my heart threaten to spill over into my eyes. “She would see them both again. She just needed to do some stuff first.”
Which defined my actual problem. I’d dealt with some pretty horrific things over the course of the last few days, and we’d mostly come out on top. I’d had augmentation, no doubt, but we’d won the day. Yet now, I suspected the future was about to get a bit darker, and quite a bit harder.
And here I sat, Aegis shattered, power dimmed.
If I didn’t figure something out, it wouldn’t just be Simon and Dad. I’d lose my best friends too.
Problem was, they didn’t even recognize the problem. They blindly followed me, and just did what they thought right and best.
They didn’t understand they were about to get themselves killed.
2
I couldn’t say how long I’d sat in front of that cabinet before Alicia slipped up behind me. I heard the creak of an old floorboard, and caught the barest wisp of her reflection in the glass cabinet.
“Hey.” Her voice held a bit of raspiness, as of a person just awakened. “How long have you been awake?”
“I’m not certain.” I stretched out one of my legs and pushed myself to my feet. Alicia stood in front of me, still in the same t-shirt she’d worn to bed. On the front of it, a Wiccan pentacle had been depicted, crafted from vines.
It certainly felt ironic that Alicia had been the one to become the vessel for an angelic force.
“Okay, well,” Alicia glanced at the floor, uncomfortable. “I wanted to tell you I stayed the night for another reason besides cataloging Simon’s toys.”
“Yeah?” I chuckled. “Does Abriel get homesick for Knucklebones?”
“Sometimes.” She smiled. “But I have something for you, Liz, something I think might help.”
“Is it a new Aegis?” I raised my eyebrows hopefully. “Or maybe two, in case I break another one?”
“Let’s go over by the bed. I expected to give it to you this morning, but I woke up and you’d gone.”
Together, we walked back through the shadows. I couldn’t help but notice that regardless of how old the attic floor might be, the boards felt remarkably smooth under my bare feet.
Although they had to be filthy.
“Sit.” Alicia sat on the bed herself and bounced a little. She patted the spot next to her on the mattress.
“The other day you asked me for consent,” I teased. “Last night we slept in the same bed together, and now you’ve asked me back to bed.”
“I have to ask you for consent again.” Her eyes, entirely hazel, gazed up at me. “It’s not I have something for you; Abriel has it.”
“I don’t know,” I said in a lilting voice. “We’re a little too close to the end of the module for another memory montage.”
“No, no more of that,” Alicia said with a smile. “It’s one thing. One thing that might make a difference for you.”
“You don’t have to ask consent, you know.” I spoke softly. “I absolutely trust you, Alicia. I’m not upset you picked up Abriel’s token, not worried about any secrets you might have discovered.” I paused. “I know you just want to take care of me.”
“I hope you know that.” She scratched the side of her face, and gazed down at the quilt. “I hope you know the same is true of Simon. He doesn’t operate like other men, but he always looked out for you.”
“I do know that.” I nodded. “Simon has always taken care of me.”
“I’m glad you think so.” Alicia’s eyes flicked up to me as they began to burn, a white symphony of brilliance. That beauti
ful not-color held a radiant warmth that echoed into eternity. “I hope you continue to.”
She touched my face.
I remembered things I had never known, and things I had forgotten.
3
Time was a mountain, and before it we were specks of nothingness. Yet even in that emptiness, that horrible realization of the scale of eternity, I could find joy.
I found joy when he spoke my name.
“Abriel.” He cast my name across the waters of infinity, creating ripples of moonlight. His speaking of it felt like the first Word of creation, and it blossomed in my heart like a flower of fury and flame.
yes, simon. He sat in a dingy little diner, although not the same one he had sat in with Aiden. One empty plate had been pushed to the edge of the table, and Simon worked on another that held a greasy hamburger. On the side of the table closest to me, a strawberry shake began to melt.
“There’s a little whisper of a girl that’s outside in the alley.” He stopped chewing long enough to show me his clever grin. “I think I got ’er on the hook.”
i know you have been concerned. it would seem congratulations are in order.
“She’s gonna step back in here, any moment now.” He took a bite of the burger and pushed it one side. “I’d like you to hang about. It’s possible I’ll want to leave her a memory of today.”
simply done, simon. I paused. here she is, coming inside.
“Oh.” Realizing Liz had opened the door, Simon inhaled another few bites of his burger, then set his plate off to one side.
If Liz even realized that Simon stuffed his face, she didn’t know it. She walked like a person in shock, her eyes wide. Her dark hair lay scattered all around her head, wind tossed.
In her hand, she held the blue ball cap.
“So.” Simon leaned back in the booth and opened his arms wide. “Did turn out to be a magic ball cap?”
“I don’t know how you’re doing this.” Liz slid into the chair across from him, a tiny slip of a thing. Her normal wit and sarcasm, inherited from her father, seemed dulled by wonder and disbelief.
“Do you want to know?” Simon leaned across the table. “Are you interested in knowing more?”
“Maybe.” Young Liz reached across the table and wrapped her fingers around the strawberry shake. She took a long drink. “But I’m not interested in getting taken advantage of.”
“I understand how scary it can be.” Simon paused. “The feller who first taught me a little bit about all this crazy nonsense had a touch of a poetic bent.”
“Yeah?” Liz took another sip of her strawberry shake, disbelief writ large across her young features. “By ‘crazy nonsense’ do you mean ‘conning teenage girls’?”
***
Later, Elizabeth Shepherd sat in the same booth and held the feather of a blue jay in one hand. She stared at it, as if all the secrets of existence unfolded from the singular point in space. Her hand trembled, and I thought she might be close to tears.
“This wind has danced through the world before humans walked upright.” Simon leaned closer to her and quirked the corners of his mouth. “It is the breath of the world.”
“It’s a thunderstorm,” she gasped and sounded younger than her age. “And it’s inside me.”
“It’s your birthright. It’s power and wonder and mystery.”
For a long moment, the two sat in silence. When Elizabeth spoke again, I thought she might break into tears.
“I—” She shook her head and her dark locks flew around her. “I don’t want this.”
“No one cares,” Simon said simply.
that will break her. I thought. that singular moment.
But no. The two sat and stared at each other.
“It’s a hurricane.” The beginnings of tears threatened. “I can’t hold it.”
“Good analogy. It’s a tempest of force, and you can shape it. I can teach you to master it. Some, anyway.”
“I—” She bit her lip. “It’s way too big.”
“Maybe. But you can command it. Just as easily as you can move your arm.”
“No way.” She shook her head again. Then, almost spiteful, she reached her arm forward. “That’s impossib—”
Before she finished the word, a burst of air, furious and fierce, burst out from her in all directions. Menus, straws, and glasses went sailing. Simon’s empty plate went into the seat. The blinds at the window next to us furled up, and a waitress, almost blown off her feet, stumbled into a man’s table.
“What the fuck—?” A lone diner, across the room, turned to look.
I scowled. That man needed to learn how to properly express himself.
For a long moment, no one in the diner spoke. They all simply stared at each other, with several variants confusion scrawled across their faces.
“Truck went by.” Simon’s voice rang with melody, with conviction and truth.
“A truck?” A man in a plaid jacket glanced out the window, and then to Simon. “Unlikely.”
“That’s what happened.” Simon’s words rang with spell wrought truth.
I didn’t need to look toward him to know what he held. The ace of spades twirled in his left hand, held so it could be seen by the patrons.
Everyone who looked at him had their gaze drawn to the card. Their eyes grew wide, and one of them sighed in what sounded like pleasure.
“Oh,” the young man said.
“Happens all the time,” the waitress agreed flatly. “I need a new job.”
The diners went back to their plates, eyes glazed.
Before she said anything else, Simon turned to Liz.
“Hey there, kid.” He spoke jovially, and caught her attention.
“What—” She glanced at the card at the same moment she spoke. Her eyes grew wide, fascinated. I watched as sleep fell through those open eyes.
A pained expression crossed Simon’s face. He hates using it, I thought.
“A ’course, Munchkin, there’s a coupla things I need you to understand. You listenin’ to me?”
“Yeah.” Elizabeth’s dreamy voice drifted. “I’m listening.”
“I get that the wind is scary. I mean, I don’t get it, I never had anything like it.” He shook his head. “I understand you’re scared, okay?”
“Yeah, okay.”
“Kiddo, I’ve known you since you were a little over knee-high. I watched you grow up. I’m not some strange man to be afraid of. I’m not gonna hurt you.”
She shook her head the smallest bit, as if she tried to reconcile something. “I met you in an alleyway.”
“Well, here’s how I’m going to take care of you.” Simon took a deep breath. “You remember a moment ago, when you felt that tempest in your heart? Remember how vast and terrifying it felt?”
“I still feel it.” Her voice trembled. Of course she did, I realized, she still held the blue jay feather.
That likely accounted for how well she still communicated. I didn’t know if Simon had ever used the card on someone who held Grace, much less someone using their power at the time.
“Well here’s the deal. You are never gonna feel it so large again, never so vast and terrible. Not until I or Abriel say you can. It will never frighten you because of this.”
“It’s too big to hold.” Even while held beneath the power of Simon’s card, tears threatened Elizabeth’s eyes.
“I been told your Grace is fierce, Little Lizard.” He chuckled. “Leapin’ Lizard. That’s funny.”
“Not funny.” Elizabeth shook her head, her voice dreamy and far away.
“As you learn, you’ll start to be able to feel how immense that thunderstorm is, but it’ll be a while. I’ll teach you some exercises that will help you shape it. They’ll make you feel like you’re in control.”
“Can’t control it.” She shook her head. “It’s every wind. It’s every wind that ever blew.”
“You’ll learn to. I promise you.” Simon took a breath. “But until you do, until you
’re ready to master it, you’re never gonna draw on it completely. It’s gonna feel like the wind is a vast and terrible ocean, and you’re trying to draw its power through a drinking straw.”
“Just a little bit of it.” Elizabeth nodded, as if she began to understand. “I can hold a little bit of it.”
“For now,” Simon agreed. “I might make you a trinket or two that will let you feel more of it. I’ll teach you Empyrean sigils that’ll help you shape it.” He paused. “But, Princess, the power is yours. It’s not in any of the arcane things I give you, and it’s not in some angelic language.”
“Mine.” For the first time she smiled. “It’s special isn’t it? My dad will be so proud.”
“Yeah…” I watched worry march across Simon’s face. “He will be proud. But you can’t tell him until I say it’s time. Also—” He seemed to scramble for a thought here. “Let’s not talk about your dad again, you and I. Not your family, nothin’ personal.”
“Why?”
“We’re just gonna focus on your training. That’s what matters here.”
“Okay, Simon.”
“That’s it, then.” Even as he held the card, he started ticking fingers. “You’re not afraid of the wind anymore. You can only access a small part of it, although I’ll give you tools to help grow that.” Two fingers. “If at any point, I or my friend Abriel says you can, you’ll be able to grasp of the fullness of your power, just as you did today with that feather.” He held up the third finger.
“I understand.” Elizabeth nodded, and her tears started to dry.
“Well, okay.” Simon bobbed his head, satisfied. Then, almost frantically he ticked up a fourth finger. “Oh, and if I die you can call upon the all of your strength as well.” He paused. “This doesn’t last forever, is what I mean. No matter what.” Another pause as he thought of something else and his thumb went up. “And you don’t remember any of this. Last thing you remember was me bamboozlin’ these folk.” He gestured toward the diner patrons.