Windslinger

by JM Guillen

  “There is a man who can help me find my father,” I clarified, my mind racing. “If I find him, I find your secretive little group.”

  “We’re worried that they’re not very ‘little’ at all.”

  “Unfortunately, the man I need has been taken prisoner. The creature holding him is the one who sent these—” I gestured wildly in the air. “—things.”

  “Who is it holding this man you need?” Two of the kenku swooped down upon us, behind Garret, where it could not see. The Asset fired in a different direction, paying the monsters no heed.

  Almost without thought, I gestured, releasing a typhoon at the creatures. They spun backward, squawking raucously.

  “Heh.” The barbarian riveter-Asset grinned a wild grin. “Good fuckin’ work.” He turned toward them to shoot.

  “The Gaunt Man! Do you know who the Gaunt Man is?” I gesticulated wildly. “He’s close, and he has the man I need.” I looked at Garret. “Help me, and I’ll help you chase down your mysterious organization. If nothing else, I’ll do it to help find my dad. No foolin’. My word.”

  “Did you say the Gaunt Man?” The soft words came from the witch, who stood just behind Garret. Her long, blonde hair hung perfectly straight, framing her pixyish face as she stared at me. “Just now? Did you say that Aberration 13563 is close?”

  Simultaneously, the heads of every Asset around me twitched violently. It was as if the creatures had all had a nervous tic at the exact same time.

  Shudder.

  Garret turned to stare at me. “Do you know where he is?”

  “I do!” I chuckled as I spoke. “Want me to lead you right to him?”

  “Well, yes.” Garret grunted as one of the kenku landed in front of it and swiped with a quarterstaff.

  That’s odd. I peered at the creature. Why not a sickle?

  Then, the creature slammed the quarterstaff onto the concrete. Force, like thunder, like the blow of a sledgehammer, exploded out from the contact point, along with reddish-black light.

  Garret and the other Ass-hats flew backward, tossed as if little more than pieces of paper.

  Oh. And so did I.

  However, less than two minutes ago I had been injected with what I suspected was something like a ‘fuck-ton’ of adrenaline. As a result, even though the blast was enough to completely rock my world, I sat up almost immediately afterward, perhaps a bit more aware that I would have been otherwise.

  “Ouch!” I rubbed my backside. I already felt covered in bruises.

  I looked around, and realized I was three steps from my Valkyrie. Fast as I could think, I rolled to my left, pulled the bike up, and hurled myself on it.

  Already, the Assets engaged the staff-asshole.

  “Follow me.” I half whispered, half thought to Garret as I revved the engine. The words echoed around me. The Wind teased the edge of my flesh before snatching my words and carrying them to the Facility Asset. “The red building. It’s false.”

  I glanced over to where he stood; he glanced toward me as well.

  He nodded his head in acknowledgment.

  I threw the hammer down and charged for the alleyway.

  “Here I come,” I half whispered, half thought to Rehl. “Knock, knock.”

  As my Valkyrie exploded into the alleyway, the Wind carried my words to him.

  Monstrous Compendium

  The dun-colored brick shop front seemed almost insubstantial under the dim light of the alleyway, but I favored it with a glare anyway. I knew full well the store wasn’t remotely what it seemed.

  “It’s gonna take a lot more than voodoo glamour bullshit to stop me tonight.”

  The alleyway seemed much longer than it had while I fought out on Chester Court. It bent like a quavering whisper. My friends fought down at the end, and held their own against several of the kenku.

  “Not today!” Rehl fired his weapon at one that attempted their shield. The avian asshole jerked as he shot it, screaming in its raucous, rough voice.

  “Damnit.” I had hoped they had made away from the creatures. Now I was tempted to stop and help them hold off the flying fucks, just to make sure my friends were safe.

  That didn’t work. Even though only a few of the monsters capered in the alleyway, a veritable swarm of them still waited out on Chester Court. If I waited until my friends were entirely safe before I assaulted Lorne’s shop, I’d never get it done.

  “No, Liz.” I shook my head. “Stick with the plan.” But just in case one of the kenku got friendly, I drew the Beretta.

  As if to further confirm my thoughts, Baxter lit one of the flares. It burned a brilliant, hellish red. He waved it twice, made certain he had my attention, and hurled it in front of the shop.

  Come on already, I imagined him saying.

  That settled it then. They were ready.

  Rehl made his move. Every time we’d discussed this plan, I couldn’t help but remember the same conversation that had happened days and days before.

  “What, no dynamite?” Rehl sounded confused. “I thought all your plans involved dynamite.”

  “I’m not exactly the Masked Brava.” I stuck my tongue out at him as I walked away. “My plans never require explosions.”

  I hadn’t even made it halfway down the alleyway when Rehl broke off from Alicia and Baxter. While he fired at one of the kenku, he reached into the bag hung at his waist. Then he turned toward the store and threw, hurling the item through a glass window in a side pitch.

  No sooner had he thrown than his hand dipped into the bag again and pulled out a second item. He mimicked the first motion, turned back toward our friends, and dived out of the way.

  Grenades, a couple of the ones I had been amazed my father even possessed, went off with less than a second between them.

  The front of the store exploded and sent glass and bits of wood all out into the alleyway. The concussion thundered down the alleyway, and Alicia’s shield blinked out.

  The kenku, stunned at the attack, pulled back from my friends. They thought it wise, apparently, to be nowhere near if the proprietor of the store stepped out to see what happened.

  I revved up the Valkyrie. Just as I had when I first fought the kenku, I focused on the Seal of Oeriim, which unfurled into sapphire flames around me. I mentally shaped the Wind, and brought up a wedge in front of my bike.

  “Come on, fucker.” I held the throttle down, fear and exultation burning in my adrenaline-enhanced body.

  The thought that I might be about to die only whispered in my mind.

  Before the explosion had even fully died down, I soared into the front of the shattered store, rocketing inside at something like seventy-five miles per hour. The razor sharp wind-wedge sheered into the structure and tore through façade, shelving, and ten thousand different trinkets and doo-dads.

  Glorious, terrible chaos burst all around me.

  I screamed victory, terror, and wrath all in one.

  2

  I stepped into the store.

  That’s not right. I shook my head and tried to track what had happened. Last thing I knew, I had barreled right at the front of Fallen Leaves, a wedge of solidified wind held in front to protect me from ten thousand shattering things. The plan had been for my friends to pour into the store after me and assist Simon onto my bike.

  Yet I walked.

  Wrong. Something went wrong. I had no idea how things had gone this way. I didn’t think it mattered, however.

  I needed to find Lorne.

  A chill silence rippled tension down my back. The scent of dust flooded my nose and fluorescent lights cast a greenish pall over an endless vista.

  “Lights are on, somebody’s gotta be home,” I muttered.

  Furnishings gathered from the 1960’s to the seventeenth century crowded together with knickknacks of every era. Bookshelves spilled over with antique lace gloves, silver punchbowls, wind-up monkeys with drums, and pocket watches of every sort. Buffet tables held golden candelabras, ceramic vases, old typew
riters, and raggedy stuffed bears. Hat racks pretended to outrageous glory, festooned with patchy feather boas and sequined shawls.

  Stunned at the vast collection of junk, I stood for a moment and tried to get my bearings.

  “Where to find the bastard?” My voice sounded muted, almost as if underwater. I peered about, though I doubted he’d come to me even if I screamed his name at the top of my voice.

  I kept walking.

  Only the vaguest sort of organization had been allowed in the Gaunt Man’s place of business. Various collector’s pieces had been gathered in loose little cubicle pods. These three-sided, encapsulated snapshots of salvage had been filled to overflowing with passed down detritus that had landed here like a fly trapped in amber.

  Row upon row of cubicles met my gaze. Stacked within them, sometimes to the ceiling, lay every manner of strange and oddling thing.

  The aisles wound labyrinthine, senseless.

  I sighed.

  Somewhere there had to be a checkout desk, at least. An office, perhaps. The thought made me remember Knucklebones, a lifetime ago.

  “Always stuck looking for the office.” I frowned and plunged down the meandering left hand aisle. “Come out, come out, wherever you are!” The sing-song rhyme seemed to sink into the floor, deadened of any echo, though the immense place had earned one. It went on for what felt like miles.

  He was here. He had to be.

  I sidled through a corridor so narrow I had to turn sideways to avoid brushing up against anything. For some reason, I really couldn’t bear the thought of touching something from that place.

  As I paced along, a plan to make my way around the building, and spiral in from the edges sprang to mind. It made sense to me to have the checkout near the door, but maybe Lorne operated with different sensibilities. Besides, this place had the feel of a giant spiderweb. The spider should be in the middle, I guessed.

  When I passed a mosaic table covered with a variety of ornate, red, glass bottles, movement snagged at the corner of my eye.

  I whirled and came face to face with… a music box?

  The rounded pot body sat on squat gold feet, lid raised to reveal a tiny dancer, one foot outstretched in a classic dancer’s pose. Richly colored paint formed a tiny scene on the inside of the lid, two tall adults and a child in front of a Christmas tree decorated with candles standing around a toy-soldier. The label around the edge read, ‘der Nussknacker.’

  I shivered as if face to face with a hissing viper. Something about that box felt terribly wrong. It felt as if it sought me somehow, as if it hungered.

  Turning away, I resumed my search, but every few feet I had to stop and stare at some new knickknack. Movement pulled at me nearly constantly, but every time I turned I only found some new trinket; a painting, a doll, a mirror.

  I felt like something stared at me, but worse, I couldn’t shake it.

  “Good evening, Ms. Shepherd.” That southern drawl, like rotten honey dripping off the comb, sounded from behind me.

  I whirled and reached into my jacket. When I found nothing there, neither gun nor knives, my eyes flew open wide.

  “You didn’t think I’d let you keep your toys, did you?” Lorne stood behind me, preternaturally slender in his gray suit. A white half halo of hair poofed from the back side of his head, and his eyes burned summer-sky blue.

  “You didn’t think I’d blow out the front of your store, did you?” I snarled. “Maybe you should give me Simon, and I should just go home. Before things get too troublesome.”

  “My goodness,” the Gaunt Man chuckled, a forlorn sound. “You certainly are an optimistic little bee aren’t you? Do you seriously believe you’ve damaged any part of my store?”

  “You know the worst part about this?” I stepped sideways around a hat rack that had been loaded with fedoras and ridiculous frippery. “I honestly believe you possess the power to have made my mother truly well. You could have done it.” I shook my head. “I would have happily come to you. I would have been more than pleased to keep my end of the bargain.”

  “Perhaps you should have been more specific.” Lorne bit off the ends of his words. “Perhaps you are someone who needed a lesson in how power is to be used. Regardless, all things must bend true to their own nature, including me.”

  “Perhaps my true nature is telling you to go fuck yourself.” I did not flinch from his uncanny eyes.

  “You will choose. You will choose to do as I say and complete your first favor to me.” He took two steps to the right and kept his eyes upon me. “Once you have, this will all be over. You shall be bound to me.”

  “You. Lied. To. Me.” Fury and wrath warred in my mind. “I wanted her back, you sick son of a bitch. I wanted to see her smile again. I wanted—”

  “You bore me.” He gave a slender smile that looked like the edge of a knife. “Your bondage need not be wearisome. It may be months or years before I need to call upon you. However, one fact remains.”

  “What’s that?”

  “You’ve already lost.” That horrific smile again. “You’ve come to me, just as you promised you would. Now you will complete one task and therefore belong to me.”

  I stared at him for a long moment and tried to keep the smile off my face. When I couldn’t, and it played at the edge of my lips, I saw in his eyes.

  Worry?

  “You may not have taken everything into account.” I gave him a wide and wicked grin. “I didn’t come alone. I brought friends.”

  “Oh yes,” the Gaunt Man chuckled, and his words dripped with sarcasm. “I am quite aware of your little assault team. You may rest assured each of them shall wander my demesne.” He gestured about. “It is simple to become quite fascinated with the treasures I keep here.”

  Fuck. I fought to keep a straight face. The last thing I wanted was for this monster to see me blink.

  “I find the children to be quite typical, average specimens on the whole.” He peered at me, and those gray eyes shone in the dim light. “Excepting the young lady, of course. I find her very interesting.”

  I ignored all possible permutations of his words in order to push forward.

  “Oh, I didn’t mean those friends.” I waved one hand and gave him a sickeningly sweet smile. “Is that what you thought? That I would come against you with little more than a few of my childhood playmates? No.” My tone grew hard. “I would not come here without the means to. Take. This. Place. Apart.”

  The Gaunt Man stared at me for a long moment and cruel light danced in his gaze. Then, as if he heard something very far away, he cocked his head just the slightest. His eyes grew distant.

  And those changeable orbs widened.

  “What have you done?” His head snapped toward me and sharpness bled from his voice. “Who have you brought into this place?”

  “Don’t you know?” I gave him an ingratiating smile. “Don’t you already know what I have done?”

  In the space of a breath he crossed the distance between us. Drawing back one bone thin arm, he struck me across the face in a fierce backhand. My lips and cheeks exploded with agony and I fell backward into an old chest of drawers. A hat box, precariously stacked on top of it, fell to the floor.

  That one strike cast an infinity of gibbering shadows across my mind. Far more than a physical blow, the contact echoed through me, screamed through memory and hidden, secret things. I felt as if that one touch had been a stone, and it had rippled through the pond of my innermost self.

  Nightmares, buried by the light of day, rolled over in their fitful sleep.

  “You insufferable little bitch,” the Gaunt Man snarled as he stood over me. His soft, cold tone made me shudder.

  “Yeah.” I wiped my mouth, and briefly checked to see if I bled. “I’ve heard that before.”

  “Hope.” The word came out as if his tongue and lips were razors. “Hope that this gambit of yours keeps you free from my service. Hope that in truth, you are never mine.” He crouched, though he still stared down upo
n me. The angular lines of his face made him look like nothing so much as a demonic hunting hawk. His eyes burned into me.

  His eyes… They truly held all colors and none. Those eyes had stared into the furnaces that burned at the heart of hell itself, and they still carried that light.

  “For if I have you,” he continued. “You shall scream for this outrage. You shall scream until your throat runs red with blood. You shall scream until you have no voice and you gag upon your own sorrow.”

  He spat at me.

  The spittle, warm and greasy landed in the middle of my face.

  He stood and walked away as would a man with a purpose. As he moved away from me, the edges of the store darkened and crept inward. My vision began to gray, and all things faded.

  There were only the sibilant shadows of midnight darkness.

  3

  I awoke in a disaster area.

  A few feet to my left, the Valkyrie lay on her side, wheels still spinning. She had smashed into some kind of china cabinet, and the remnants of old oak, glass, and fine plates lay scattered around her.

  Destruction had blossomed all around us, as if a meteor had struck the place. I could peer down a hallway of chaos where the bike and I had torn into the store and savaged everything in our wake.

  I smiled. That felt good.

  Gun. I reached into the inside of my leather jacket and winced a little as I moved the shoulder one of the first kenku had sliced with his blade. I furrowed my brow just a touch as I reached deeper, not wanting to accept the truth.

  I had dropped it. Somewhere I had dropped the gun.

  Fuck! I searched all around me, nudging my foot through the remains of broken record players, a splintered rolltop desk, and an old armoire. A full-length mirror lay on its back, shattered, and a wooden shelf had fallen over, sundering several glass collectibles.

  But no gun. I’d drawn it…

  “Fine,” I grumbled as I reached back inside my jacket. I still had five knives. I hadn’t ever really spent much time learning to knife fight, not in close quarters. Simon’s training had focused upon the ability to throw the knives and use the Wind so one throw would fling a knife from my hand as if from a cannon.