by JM Guillen
So many. I glanced around as quickly as I could, trying to track everything.
A creature that looked more fish-toad than human leapt from the side near Garret, loathsome and wet. All scale and flipper and wide, baleful eye, it lunged at him out of dire shadow and—
A slender woman, all but nude, with hair like sable midnight wore only chains and leather. Her glyph shone a furious orange. She held a silver longbow, which she used to attack Rehl and—
A hollow-faced, pale monstrosity galumphed along on three legs. A fungal growth covered the creature, having eaten much of its chest cavity and face. It wailed as it attacked and swung hairless arms that looked as if they belonged on a gorilla.
These and more. They died by Rehl’s bullets, died by Garret blasting huge holes in them. They became trapped in silvery light, fell violently upward, or burst into flames by the large man’s rivet gun.
More. Still. Came.
All the while, the Gaunt Man taunted and teased, yet remained beyond their reach, to toy with them.
“Jasriel, lord of the Watchtower of Flame and Law, hear me…” Simon’s eyes closed, and he traces his fingers along one of the delicate sigils been marked on his left side.
“Come on,” I spoke into the Wind, more thought than whisper. “Just get to us.” I gathered Wind about myself as I waited and readied myself for the coming fray.
Garret waved to let me know he understood. As they ran, the other Asset sprayed his weapon behind him and several more of those odd sliver domes appeared to capture pursuers.
Close. Almost there.
“Clever little Templar.” The Gaunt Man did not move, did not sprint up to Garret. Instead, as Garret ran through one of those midnight shadows, Lorne already stood within it.
The baleful, spectral horror loomed there and stood three times as tall as he ever had before. Every joint of him, every knee and elbow, bent uncannily, which gave him more the shape of a great spider than a man. His eyes burned with corrupt, unclean colors, and his fiendish laugh infected all who heard it.
“Did you believe your life still belonged to you?” As easily as I might catch a kitten, Lorne reached out and the ambiguous shadows of his fingers writhed and convoluted around Garret’s abdomen.
“Arrrrrrrrchhggh!” Garret screamed wet agony as those amorphous fingers closed around him. He squirmed frantically and tried to free his weapon hand.
The Gaunt Man moved with casual, clinical grace as he lifted Garret several yards off the ground.
“Fuck,” I spat and prepared to launch myself forward.
“Wait!” Simon hissed. “If he can’t do anything, neither can you.” He put one arm out in front of me, like a mother protecting her child from a car crash.
“Your life lay forfeit the moment you followed the little bitch into my realm.” Lorne turned Garret toward him and stared squarely into the man’s face.
There, in Lorne’s eyes, those unclean colors burned. They darkled, shining from deep within the Gaunt Man. Whatever forge burned within that lamentation, its light shone with madness, with incomprehensible knowing.
Garret screamed again, this time with broken insanity. He positively frenzied in his attempt to squirm away, and his eyes began to bleed.
Then, with neither effort nor concern, the Gaunt Man grasped Garret’s arm by the bicep. With a sickening, wet POP, he ripped the arm out of its socket, and tore it away entire. He turned toward me, smiled, and threw the arm in my direction.
Garret’s agony wailed throughout the chamber.
“Oh God.” My heart pounded with unreasoning, animal terror and tears streamed down my face. “How did I ever think I could…?” My voice choked off.
“Easy, Liz.” Simon rasped. His eyes were wide and he trembled.
“Fuck!” The large Asset whirled, fury and wrath burning in his eyes. His fingers practically blurred on his keys, and he glared at the Gaunt Man, a snarl on his lips.
WHUF! He shot once, but he hit the inhuman fucker square. For the first time, I realized that he shot silvery spikes, much like the crossbowman.
Lorne reared back from the shot and cried out in fury. He threw Garret, as if the man were little more than a broken plaything.
The spike exploded into white hot flames, burning like a furious and vengeful star.
Lorne screamed again, this time in agony. He thrashed. He gibbered and raged.
“Liz!” Rehl half ran, half limped over to us. “You found Simon!”
My friend looked rough. Blood ran all down the side of his face from some injury on his head I could not see. Part of the skin on his left arm had been ripped completely off, as if he’d been partially flayed.
“Yes.” I put one hand to his shoulder and cupped his cheek with the other as I gazed into his soft brown eyes. I thought I might cry. “I found him. The next campaign goal is to get out.”
“I see Abriel.” He jerked his chin upward, gesturing at the white light that flickered behind us.
“She and Baxter are waiting over there. Let me tell you what we’re looking for.”
The Gaunt Man screamed again, before I spoke four words. That cry oozed into my mind, and echoed with delirium.
“Just go!” Simon clapped Rehl on the back, his eyes glued on the shambling things in the shadows.
I nodded at Rehl, and he at me. His eyes were tired, so tired…
He ran straight for Baxter and Alicia.
As I turned, I saw the hulking Asset stumble toward us. His face was covered in blood, matted into his beard. In addition to the contraption on his back, he also carried Garret, slumped over and unconscious.
I saw where Garret’s arm had been. I literally saw inside his body.
He’s not bleeding. The fact seemed odd, but still true. I actually saw where the socket of his arm fit together.
“You got a way out of here?” The man’s grim voice didn’t hold nearly as much of the southern drawl it had possessed earlier, and his eyes were coals of fury. “’Cause we’re goin. Now.”
“You look like you aren’t playin’ fuck around.” Simon nodded.
“No.” For a moment, the tiniest whisper of mirth played at the edge of the man’s mouth. It quirked up as if the novelty of the odd line amused him. “I’m not.” He continued, “I’m not playin’ fuck around.”
“Okay.” I nodded at him. “Let’s move. It’s toward that light!” I pointed.
The man only grunted, and we set out.
“Tarahiel!” Simon cried, the word both beseeched and commanded. “Come to me now! Make haste and come to my side!”
From behind me, golden light burst into existence, a fire that brought peace, that burned all shadows. I didn’t have to turn to see the moment she unfurled, holding the flaming sword that burned with the brilliance of eternity.
“Jasriel,” Simon called again, belting out the word like a beat poet. “Jasriel come, you who watch the final realm! You who stand as the scales and the judge. Come, and laugh with me at those who stand against us. Come and weep with me at the end of all things.”
I did not like the sound of that invocation. Still, Simon had told me what I was to do.
I ran, and the Silent Gentlemen followed.
I ran into that beatific, perfect light.
10
“Here she is!” Rehl’s voice chimed in front of us, echoing through the aisle of oddities.
As I stepped closer, I saw him as he stood next to a stack of old records and leaned against a pedestal.
“Did you find one?” I practically wheezed. I may have been built for running, but I felt that soon I’d find a hard limit on how much I could push it in one day.
“Easily,” Rehl crowed. He turned and lead the grim Asset and I past a sharp bend in the aisle constructed of old stacked milk crates, two coatracks, and several spears.
“Liz!” Alicia beamed at me and her smile fell only a touch when she saw the lumbering man behind me.
“He looks worse than I feel,” Baxter moaned. “And
that’s saying a lot.”
“Is the party ready leave the dungeon?” I leaned one hand against the wall, more than a little exhausted.
“Where Simon?” Alicia tensed, as if suddenly certain that a horrible thing it happened.
“He’s coming.” I nodded her. “A few of his friends are watching our backs.”
“Alright.” She stared at me for a long time, as if to be certain of something. Then she nodded her head. “Alright.”
“Door.” Rehl knocked upon one of the many doors we had passed on our way in.
I nodded and turned to the Asset. “Let’s get Garret through first.” I nodded at the hulking man. “He’s hurt worst.”
“Through what?” The Asset shook his head. “We done tried door after door. Percept—” He stopped and shook his head. “Larisa showed us where they led—nowhere good.”
“I’d be lying if I said we one hundred percent knew what was going to happen here.” I gestured around the labyrinthine room. “But if we have any shot at getting home, at getting out of here, it’s in this.” I reached into my pocket, and pulled out the black iron key I’d left in there days before.
I still held traces of the Wind around me, and as I pulled Simon’s iron gizmo out, the tiny Empyrean sigils upon it burst into azure fire.
“Okay.” The Asset paused a long moment and then shook his head, as if resigned. “Fine. Whatever it takes.”
I stepped over to the door that Baxter and Rehl had found. Wooden and dilapidated, it looked as if it might have been constructed sometime during the First World War.
I crouched to look at the keyhole.
“No way,” Baxter coughed. “No way that key will just happen to fit one of these doors.”
“This key,” I said, gazing at Baxter, “will work wherever you need it to.”
I pushed it into the keyhole and delighted at the perfect fit. Taking Simon’s advice, I turned the key counterclockwise.
It pulsed warm in my hand.
I took a deep breath and put my hand on the knob.
“Come on,” Rehl breathed.
I opened the door.
Before me lay a small basement, with shelves directly in front of me. Dust covered the shelves, and a crate had been pushed against the left-hand wall. Against the right-hand wall, a ladder led up to a trap door.
“This is a basement in Washington D.C. I believe it may be abandoned.” I turned to gaze at the Asset. “I assume that once you are through, it will be easy enough to contact your people?”
“How did you—?” The man gaped at the doorway, and then at me. “Of all the doors in this place, you happen to know one that would lead you to a basement in Washington D.C.?”
“He doesn’t have time for us to talk here.” I jerked my chin at Garret. “He told me that he needed my help in the future, and after this, I’ll own up to that.” I nodded at the door. “We can talk after we get him through.”
“Yeah,” the man muttered, hefted his friend, and stepped forward. “Of course.”
As he stepped through, I watched the doorway ripple, almost as if they had stepped through the surface of a pond.
“Tell Garret I know we’re not finished.” I nodded at the Assets. “Assuming that…” I vacillated, “he’s okay.”
“Why don’t you tell—?”
Before the words were out of the Asset’s mouth, I slammed the door.
“Liz!” Baxter practically had a conniption. “What are you doing?”
“Taking us home.” I grasped the key and turned it clockwise as I pulled on the knob. I couldn’t help but grin at the warmth beneath my fingers.
Just as had happened all those years ago, the attic of Knucklebones lay beyond the doorframe. Simon hadn’t originally told me that the key had been geared for both safe houses, but it certainly came in handy now.
The sheer luck that I had still had the thing boggled the mind.
“Oh,” Baxter moaned. “Oh yes!”
“You have time to rejoice later, Mr. Ward.” Rehl placed one hand between Baxter’s shoulder blades, as carefully as he could. Slowly, he pushed him toward the door.
“Simon?” Alicia asked, worry painted clearly on her face.
“I’m going back for him.” I nodded her. “Keep the door open, unless something else starts coming through.”
“If we close it, we’ll leave the key on your side.” Rehl nodded. “I’m going to sit right in front of this door with the biggest gun your dad ever bought.”
“Perfect.” I took a deep breath. “I’m going back to Simon.”
“Be careful, Liz,” Alicia cautioned me. “You look exhausted.”
I glanced toward her, and realized that she was bleeding from her side. “Take care of yourself.” I nodded at her wound then at the guys. “Them too.”
“Simon laid down emergency rules for this kind of thing.” She shrugged. “He called them ‘aftermath protocols.’ I’ll get things started on my end.”
“Thanks ’Licia.” I gazed at all of them, as a great weight lifted off the center of my chest. Safe. They were going to be safe.
I, however, had more work to do.
I turned and stepped back into the darkness.
***
The primary downside to the plan Simon and I had concocted hadn’t made itself known immediately. I didn’t even consider it until my friends were safely back in the shop and I tried to get back to Simon.
In the dark.
The flare Baxter had left still burned, and I saw the beatific glow of Tarahiel in the direction I needed to go. Also, battle isn’t exactly a quiet thing, and I could easily hear the ruckus, even from a few aisles away.
Yet that didn’t help me much, as I wound my way past armoires and cedar chests, desks and bicycles and wagons and full knapsacks. The passageway bent and twisted, and I had no doubt that one wrong turn could lead me very far astray.
I couldn’t help but think of Garret, and how he and his party had been “trapped in here for three days.” The very idea made me shudder.
With less than a thought, I allowed my mind to drift into the Wind as I ran. It buffeted around me and cast small papers and knickknacks to the ground as I ran.
Once it truly stormed within me, I called to mind the Seal of Oeriim, with its ever spinning sigils and Empyrean Seals. The power within the Wind touched those Seals and they burst into sapphire flame all around me.
Now I could see.
“Good thing,” I muttered as I came around a small bend. The passageway to the next aisle crept out from behind a large jewelry display, and if I hadn’t called the light of the Seals, I likely would have just sprinted right by.
I stopped upon seeing the passage, remembering it from when I’d passed this way before. However, I hadn’t taken a single step toward it when a somewhat ragged Simon came limping though, leaning heavily on his cane.
“Hurry.” His wide eyes said more than the fear in that single word. “The Watchers stand against the Gaunt Man and his bound creatures.”
For now, he did not add.
“We’re going?” I’d already turned to give him a shoulder to lean on.
“Quickly.” He shrugged me off, apparently faster with his cane. “They cannot kill the Watchers, or at least nothing has so far.”
“They’re undefeatable?”
“No.” He favored me with a sour look, which seemed almost menacing in the dim blue light. “When their strength fails, they recede. Once that happens, I cannot call them again, for a time.”
“Got it.” I moved a few steps in front of him, just to make certain that the way remained clear.
Then, we both felt him, moving like a shadow on our minds.
“Ms. Shepherd,” the Gaunt Man crooned. “Setting out to leave so quickly?”
I whirled, certain he was behind us, right behind us…
But no.
“Don’t stop, Liz,” Simon wheezed. “No matter what. Run.”
“Now, I find that to hardly be friendly,” t
he Gaunt Man cajoled. “Ms. Shephard and I are to have a long and fruitful relationship, Mr. Girard. Surely that will come easier if we can all be companionable.”
“Fuck you,” I snarled as we dodged past several baby buggies. “Companionable is the last thing we are going to be.”
“Stop this needless pettiness.” His words oozed with animalistic obscenity. “We aren’t having a discussion about this, Ms. Shepherd.”
I saw him as I ran, the shadows of him long and large against the floors, the walls, and the things we ran past. I saw those spidery limbs, and the wicked fingers that had so casually dismembered a man, right in front of my eyes.
Panic burned in my blood.
Somewhere in the darkness, I still heard the crash of Tarahiel’s blade, the foul gibbering of whatever creatures Lorne had left to fight her. I felt his oily gaze upon me, all around us, as if somehow by gaze alone, he could claim, could possess.
Then, I heard the scratchy sound of a record player, hidden somewhere in the darkness.
For seven long years I’ve been in prison,
For seven long more I have to stay;
Just for knocking a man down in the alley
Taking his gold watch away.
No. I fought back tears at the thought of being imprisoned in this dark place, waiting here until the shadowy monster came to… use me, however he saw fit.
Yet, we kept going. We ran around one of the aisle’s corners, Simon at the fastest hobble I thought anyone could do. If we hurried—
There. The open door lay in front of us, just yards away. I turned to Simon, the beginning of a smile on my lips.
“Are you certain then?” The discordant, fetid words burnt my ears. “Can we not be as friends?”
“No!” I stopped in place, right next to those milk crates and let Simon catch up. “You lied to me!” Fury and pain both burned in my words.
“So be it, then. Pity.”
Before the last foul syllable came from that darkness, the coat racks next to me fell over, as if moved by some unseen hand. One of the spears that had rested there struck like a serpent. It leapt away from the others and sliced through the air.