Noir: A Crimson Shadow Novel

by Nathan Squiers

  you got home and found you a snack in the

  backyard after you left.

  Stan

  P.S.- hope you had a good time.

  ****

  Stan was waiting in the living room—standing beside the fireplace—when Xander woke up. He explained that the time had come to learn how to control his aura.

  “I was wondering…” Xander started, a burning question nagging at him.

  “Hmm?” Stan cocked his head, curious.

  Xander held up his left hand, wiggling his fingers to call attention to his new jewelry, “I need to know what these are for.”

  Stan nodded and sat down, producing a cigarette for Xander, who accepted it. Lighting his gift, he leaned back and breathed in before starting, “I know you never got to meet your father, much less see him and your mother together, but he loved her more than words can ever express… and more than telepathy can justify.”

  Xander frowned, looking away when he heard mention of his mother.

  Stan went on, “The Odin Clan had been trying to take in smaller guilds and families that wanted the protection and honor that came with the territory. Other clans were against their motion to protect these ‘lower’ groups and turned to destroying them before the Clan could move to protect them.”

  Xander frowned, “Why would they be against it?”

  Stan shrugged, “You have to realize, Xander, you were brought in by one of the best. Your father and Depok put a great deal of effort into creating a clan that housed both aurics and sangsuigas; something that is—for some—still frowned upon in our world. He—your father, I mean—had gotten the ring that you now wear on your pinky for your mother, but he was called to protect a sangsuiga house before he could give it to her. He left it and his own family band—which you’re now wearing on your ring finger—with Depok in case he did not return,” he shook his head and frowned, “It had become a habit of the two to pass over anything they wanted to keep safe in the event of the unimaginable.

  “When you were born, Depok attempted to hand-deliver the rings, but your mother, as Depok told me, had tearfully turned him away saying that his lifestyle would not be yours.”

  Xander shivered despite the warm fire and he tightened his throat, fighting the knot that was forming with fleeting desperation. He looked at the ring that Stan had just identified as his family crest and he let the light catch the engraved markings, which flashed like a lightning strike.

  Stan could see the struggle to stay strong and smiled, “The ring on your middle finger is the Odin Clan’s band. Every time a new member joined or was turned within their walls they were presented with it. It is the act that completes the ceremony. I found it in Depok’s study the night I found you.”

  Xander nodded and finally coughed a dry cry out, turning red in anger at having shown weakness. Never before had he illustrated his own frail humanity than the past few weeks, when he’d been taken from the human world.

  “Why did you want me to have these?” Xander asked through a dry and chapped throat.

  Stan’s smile remained, “You need to be in the right mind to accept the training I have in store for you. Typically, like with Marcus, the act involves repetitive action and strengthening, but for this I needed you to have something you could look at and feel to bring the knowledge you already have in you to the surface. The next few weeks will not be about training you so much as it will be about awakening you. Once the natural warrior inside of you comes to surface, you’ll find the rest comes naturally. Besides,” Stan groaned as he rose from his seat, “it’s nice to have a way to remember those who mean the most to you.”

  ****

  The rest of the week was dedicated to showing Xander how to control his aura; guiding it like a straw to absorb energy until he could reach inside the neighboring house and feed from their dog. Xander’s curiosity had compelled him to reach further into the house, “seeing” the family’s teenage boy discover his father’s porno collection and the husband strike his wife in the other room for coming home late and drunk. He was captivated by the wave of energies that swirled about the household, but nevertheless recoiled, not wanting to be a part of it anymore. Stan had laughed at this, explaining that he had discovered his “mind’s eye.”

  When he had mastered control of his aura for feeding, Stan taught him to use it as an invisible limb. Though it was easy for him to learn how to pick up a pack of cigarettes, the idea of lifting himself off the ground or cushioning the blow of an attack seemed impossible. After several days, however, he was surprised to find himself deflecting tennis balls as they were hurled at him. Soon after he was practicing performing multiple tasks with his aura, catching several thrown objects at once while relying on his eyes to block a rapid set of punches from Stan. This particular exercise took several weeks of hard practice before he and Stan felt he had perfected it.

  ****

  It was on the eighteenth night that the two got down to what Stan had called “the awakening.”

  They took their positions on the floor—Stan staring up at the shadows on the ceiling cast from the candles that lay about the room and waiting while Xander leaned against a wall in an Indian-style fashion. A strong, hallucinogenic tea had been consumed and Xander was struggling to keep his mind focused while staying on the same energy plane as Stan, who sat cross-legged across from him and kept track of his pupil’s progress with his auric probes. Xander was unnerved about taking drugs while sitting in a candle-lit room with a teacher who used the term “probe,” but stifled his laughter that threatened to throw him off and placed the blame on the tea.

  When Stan was centered on Xander’s auric field, he instructed him to look at the family band and remember anything he could about his father.

  “But I never met—”

  “Shh! Just concentrate,” Stan instructed, his unblinking eyes open still focused on the ceiling.

  Xander stared at his family crest and looked back at his time with Mind-Trepis. The being had been a constant voice in his mind, always talking to him when he needed a companion.

  A father… of sorts.

  Though he did not recall shutting his eyes, Xander was suddenly aware of being in complete darkness, and a man with thick brown hair and the beginnings of a beard stood in front of him with a smile.

  “Hey, son,” the figure said as it took a seat beside him.

  Hearing that, Xander knew that for the first time he was being identified correctly and he forced a sad smile, “Hey, Dad.”

  The man was tall, several inches greater than Xander, and he glowed with a brilliant blue-green; his entire form shaped by auric energy. He smiled and Xander felt his eyes burn through the resulting glare, like headlights in his vision, and his eyes watered.

  “Come a long way, I see,” Joseph said.

  Xander nodded and sobbed, feeling that he was finally with company that would not call him “weak” for it, “But I’ve failed so many times along the way!”

  Joseph shook his head, “I’ve watched you, Xander. I’ve seen the events that shaped your life. You’ve survived darker horrors than many I could have lived through. I always knew you were stronger than you believed you were.” He smiled over at him, “Why do you think I never took control to stop you during your ritual?”

  Xander smiled and looked away, wiping his eyes, “Guess I thought you just wanted to let me play it out on my own.”

  “And I did. Every single time. Trust me, Xander. Watching my son stick a gun barrel in his mouth on a nightly basis and not doing something about it took a great deal of faith on my part.”

  Xander cried harder when he heard ‘my son’, “What if I’m too weak to move on with what needs to be done? What if I let you and Mom down?”

  His father’s ghost shook his head and patted his shoulder. “You’ve come this far and you’ve tried this hard already. If you were to drop this very minute I don’t think either of us could accuse you of not trying. But you don’t have it in you to quit that easily,�
�� he smiled and Xander felt the confidence rush through his mind as warmth emanated from his left ring finger, “do you?”

  Xander clenched his eyes shut and looked down, the one question he feared most to ask seemed to flow from his mouth without his permitting it, “But am I strong enough? Do I have what it takes to be a warrior?”

  There was silence, and Xander was afraid to look up and see disappointment in the ghost’s eyes. At last the voice spoke up: “Xander, I am almost frightened to tell you that you most certainly have what it takes to succeed. No father truly wants to see their little man run off into a fight, let alone do so in a world like the one you’ve come to be a part of. But you are a Stryker, and you are my son. And that, Xander, means that you will succeed.”

  His eyes were closed as the final words entered his ears and he bit his lip hard and let the blood run down his chin and flood his mouth from the other side. Swallowing hard, he looked up, “Dad…”

  But when he opened his eyes, the figure was gone, and he was sitting back in Stan’s living room. His old friend looked at him through tear stained eyes, having been moved by some memory of his old friend as he’d helped push Joseph Stryker’s consciousness into his mind.

  As he took a deep breath and fought to chase his sobs away, he felt the warmth grow and pulsate within him. He felt his mind expand and soak in white light and, at that moment, he felt whole.

  When he looked up again, Stan nodded.

  “You’ve awakened.”

  ****

  For several days after Xander’s conversation with what Stan had referred to as an “auric reflection” the two practiced.

  Xander was amazed at how much his skills had increased since the experience, utilizing skills he somehow knew he had but had never before learned to control or even known existed. He and Stan were both amazed when, while sparring in the house, Xander had released a wave of energy that had left half of the dividing wall between his living room and the garage in rubble.

  The night finally arrived when Xander awoke—the month of training over—and found Stan getting dressed, instructing him to do the same.

  “What’s going on?” Xander yawned, stretching.

  Stan smiled, “It’s time to visit The Gamer!”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  The Gamer

  Upon further inquiry as to exactly where they were going, Xander finally got an answer.

  “The Gamer is a friend who handles weaponry as well as giving tips on situations that call for a strategic mind.”

  “Is that why you call him ‘The Gamer’?” Xander asked.

  Stan frowned as he steered through the city, “I’m afraid not.”

  As it turned out, The Gamer was short and fat with a tuft of wiry hair the color of greased copper. His “headquarters”—as he’d referred to it upon their arrival—was a local videogame and roleplay gaming shop that advertised itself as being the best in the region; a bold statement coming from the only in the region. The store was empty, housing only shelves of merchandise as well as walls that were decorated in “Final Fantasy” and “Halo” posters.

  The portly man was sitting behind the counter with a Penthouse open to a centerfold beside the register. He scanned the porno for a moment before referring back to a copy of Game Informer. Stan pulled him from his task, nodding and showing a great deal more patience than he deserved as he explained that he wanted to confirm a rumor he’d heard that May of 2008’s body-type had been used as a reference for a character in some upcoming project. After another moment, he set aside the magazines before declaring that it wasn’t before turning his full attention to them.

  “And this must be the big-deal that had me working in the shop almost every night for the past month and a half,” he condescended to Xander as he rolled from the seat behind the counter and waddled to stand beside the two. “I must say, you’re shorter than I would have thought.”

  Xander forced a smile and wondered when they would get around to the point of the visit. He was already growing tired of the stale smell of old hot pockets and cheap cologne covering up the man’s flatulence.

  The Gamer lingered on him a moment longer before finally turning away heading towards the back of the store. They stepped through an entrance that separated from the rest of the store from a doorway that read “Authorized Personnel Only.”

  Past this was a small kitchen which Xander saw was in need of at least several hours of hard manual labor before it even looked somewhat prepared to cook a sterile—let alone decent—meal. The Gamer turned away from the mess, not seeming to notice the mess or the disgusted looks it was receiving, and started down a flight of stairs.

  Xander stayed quiet and kept pace behind Stan as they made their way into the basement, which had been gutted to serve as both a bedroom and a workshop, where a variety of guns and other weapons hung on the walls in a decorative manner. The “studio,” which consisted of a messy computer desk and a large table, took up the far side of the basement. The table housed a combination of bits and parts of guns as well as several different sized blades that gleamed under an over-head work light. Next to this, several clips of ammunition and some stray bullets rested in a small plastic bin beside several disassembled handguns.

  “Now, about your toys,” The Gamer wheezed in delight, “Marcus told me a simple cleaning and a few dozen custom rounds would do the trick just fine. But then he drops this case in my lap containing the most spectacular set I’d ever seen and I said ‘what the shit!’ and decided to do a full overhaul.” He tugged Xander’s shirt collar and laughed like a choking infant, “‘You oh-ficially been pimped!’“

  Xander frowned, beginning to wonder why a routine cleaning and a few “custom rounds” should take a month and a half. Realizing that he wasn’t going to like what this man had done, he narrowed his eyes, “What exactly have you done to ‘pimp me’?” he asked.

  Misinterpreting his tone as a sign of impatience, The Gamer began heaving excitedly and hurried to pull two cases down from a shelf that hung over the table. One of the cases—the larger of the two—Xander recognized as his own. The other, though smaller and newer-looking, was similar in design. The Gamer snorted again, his excitement boiling over and his reddish-brown aura bubbling with the same ferocity, and set it down just out of Xander’s reach, “I very rarely get a project that leads to this kind of inspiration. I mean, before this I simply dabbled in the custom jobs”—he smirked, his face beaming with pride—“but now I’d like to consider myself an artiste.”

  Xander, seeing no way to get the fat man to hurry things along, looked at Stan, who looked like he’d been in this position before. He shrugged and gave him a hopeless look. The Gamer, they realized as they turned back to him, hadn’t paused in his ramblings:

  “… and I thought to myself: ‘self, you can do that,’” he grinned, exposing teeth that were laced with what Xander hoped were pepperoni fragments, “And put a little Gamer spin on it.”

  Stan sighed again, loud enough to get the man’s attention. “We do need to wrap this up before sunrise,” he pointed out.

  The Gamer frowned but nodded and glanced at Xander with a sneer, “Vampires:”—he muttered as he turned back to the cases—“so needy.”

  Grabbing the larger box and setting it in front of his guests, he undid the polished clasps and opened it. To Xander’s relief, the twins, aside from looking a lot cleaner, were unchanged.

  “While faced with Marcus’ request for ammo,” The Gamer began again, “I thought that simple rounds weren’t nearly fun enough and basic hollow points were just too damn boring for the son of Joseph Stryker. So I go through my stash and begin to brainstorm.” He reached for another box that was waiting under the work station and opened it next to the revolvers and pulled out two different bullets, “This one,”—he motioned to the first with a sausage-link finger—“follows along the same principles of a hollow point, but halfway through the shell I laced it with some personal Gamer magic that will increase the stopping po
wer ten times over!”

  Xander did a double-take at the mention of magic; what could a nerdy videogame merchant know of the arts?

  “Now this one”—The Gamer lifted up the second—“is an explosive round that I added some concussive spells to.”

  Stan nodded, impressed.

  Xander forced another smile, turning his attentions back to the revolvers and running a finger across Yang’s shiny barrel, “So are we ready to go then?” he asked.

  The Gamer looked at Xander with something that was both a glare and a pout, “Wait!” he said, scrambling to get his bulk to twist in order to retrieve the second case. Xander sighed, seeing no apparent end to the discomfort of the visit and leaned against the work table, folding his arms across his chest. The Gamer’s excited snorts and wheezing laughs started up again, “I’ve saved the best for last!”

  Xander frowned and glared towards Stan, “The best?”

  Stan shrugged.

  The Gamer let out another excited snort and unlatched the clasps on the smaller case and flipped it open, revealing a similar lining as the original, except instead of hugging a set of twin revolvers, there was a twin pair of pistols that followed the same white-and-black design.

  Xander stared at the weapons, astounded.

  The Gamer beamed, “I went with the same general design as Marcus’ Berretta, but I guarantee you won’t find anything like these on the streets.

  “Now, I’m not sure how the original set was made, but there is magical residue on them, which is what inspired me to form, mold, and color the alloy through molecular manipulation.” He wheezed and smiled at Stan and then at Xander, looking for praise. When none was issued, he went on, “That alone took four weeks!”

  Xander, though he refused to show it any further than he already had, was impressed, but something deep inside of him felt enraged by the sight. “I don’t want them,” he said in a low tone.