Table of Contents
Dedication
Intro
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Acknowledgements
About The Author
GREY DAYS VOLUME ONE:
RUN THE DAY
BY
MATTHEW C. DAVIS
All rights reserved © 2013 MATTHEW C. DAVIS
Dedication
To my wife, Serena,
"Thank you for being beside me."
Intro
"Either you run the day, or the day runs you."
Chapter One
Shifting between spectrums isn't the easiest thing in the world to describe.
Mostly because none of it makes sense to begin with. It's one part synesthesia and one part full-blown hallucination. It usually begins with the taste of blood in the back of my skull, and pins-and-needles behind my eyeballs. That's when things start getting interesting, when the Other Side begins filtering its way into things.
It's kind of painful, too.
It's all accompanied by the feeling of a slender blade working its way into the folds of my brain. It never stops hurting; it's just something I've become used to. But it's all worth it; it's what lets me see the stranger side of life.
Take the old Asian guy for instance, sitting by himself near the windows. When I first walked into the cafe and saw him, he looked like a happy, wizened old man nursing a steaming cup of coffee and playing a crossword puzzle in the local newspaper. I got that buzzing tingle in my skull that lets me know there's something Other afoot, switched between spectrums, and the old timer stood out like a very bizarre sore thumb. The proportions, the framework, it was all still roughly humanoid. But now instead of wrinkled brown skin, he was covered in a black carapace that shimmered like an oil-slick. Humongous compound eyes took up almost the entirety of his head, except where a delicate proboscis sprouted from between them. There were two extra arms folded up against his shiny torso.
He wasn't messing with anyone, so I didn't say anything. Most the time, the Others just mind their own business, content to let mankind believe that it is the dominant species. At the counter I rifled through my pockets for change, my craving for caffeine becoming unbearable. I'd run out a couple days ago, and Devlin had better have a damned good reason for wanting to meet at such an ungodly hour.
"Yeah a...coffee. You have coffee, right? Regular coffee?" I said and received a glacial look from the barista.
"Of course we have coffee, sir. Tall, grande, or venti?" The guy asked with dripping sarcasm.
"Small if you can manage."
I heard his teeth grinding while he poured the cup and set it on the counter. I gave him a thumbs up, dumped out a handful of change and walked off with my coffee to a table and chairs secluded in the corner to wait for Devlin. I dropped my bag on the ground and sat trying to not look too obvious as I scanned the room.
Hipsters, fogies, business types, and other random members of humanity. Who knew this many people were actually up and about at six in the morning? It had been so long since I'd last been up at such a disturbingly early time I'd almost stopped believing morning even existed.
That Devlin wanted me to meet him this early, and at a coffee shop full of mostly normal folk meant two things; that it was middling to extremely important, and he was a bastard.
"Thomas! My dear boy, I feared you wouldn't show." A high, clear voice belted across the room, almost giving me a heart attack. I looked to the door, and saw every head in the place had turned the same way.
Devlin Desmund, ladies and gentlemen.
To everyone else in the room he looked just like a kindly old gentleman, somebody's grandpa, complete with thick spectacles, knit sweater vest, and a fringe of cotton white hair slicked down around his head. He shuffled through the door in battered penny-loafers, gnarled walking stick clicking as he went. He smiled beatifically at me as he ambled along. No one would ever guess he was actually the reigning monarch of Hanford's Others, or one of the most powerful. I noticed the elderly bug-man slipping out as Devlin came in. I was still looking between spectrums and ended up catching a glimpse of Devlin's true appearance, which snapped me back to normal and left me with a metallic taste in my mouth and a ringing in my ears. Flashes of manifold ephemeral limbs, and sun-bright globes orbiting a shape that defied geometry burned themselves onto my retinas and I almost dropped my coffee.
"Thomas, you look as if you've had a fright, whatever is the matter?" Devlin asked as he sat down in the seat across from me and laid his walking stick across his knees.
"I think I might have burned out some brain cells but I probably wasn't using them anyways, thanks."
I set my coffee down and looked across at Devlin. He was watching me, looking me over with too bright eyes that were no human shade of blue, smiling a knowing smile. He drummed his fingers lightly on his cane, waiting for me to speak.
"What have you gone and dragged me out of bed for Devlin? Your messenger made it sound awfully important."
"Oh, Thomas, it can wait. How are you? It's been positively ages. All better after that tussle with those Broken Circle ruffians?" Devlin gave a slight laugh as if it were some kind of inside joke, "You do look a bit...ragged."
The Broken Circle. Thinking about that encounter sent an involuntary shiver through me and brought back unpleasant memories of slime and crawling things. I caught a look at myself in the window behind Devlin. He must have been being polite when he said ragged; I looked like a deranged vagrant.
I was buried under an oversized, battered Army coat and hooded sweater that made me look lumpy and I hadn't cut my hair or beard since they had finally managed to grow back. My hair looked like a rat had recently nested in it, and the coarse black beard that hung from my face was wiry and ragged. There were even dark circles around my eyes that looked like bruises. I looked like absolute shit. So I might have become something of a recluse after my encounter with the Broken Circle. I think this was my first real foray beyond my home since that incident that didn't involve raiding the local ninety-nine cent store for supplies. I might have to do some grooming, after Devlin told me what was going on.
"I'm fine, and your precious barony is no longer infested by dimension devouring cockroach worshippers. You're welcome." Hopefully I sounded smug, not indignant.
"My subjects and I thank you, Thomas; we are in your debt," Devlin said.
"Still waiting for a check," I said over the rim of my cup. "Or cash."
"In due time. You humans and your money. Both so sadly transient." Devlin's friendly, paternal smile faded as he spoke. He looked at me with lambent eyes, and for a split second the gravity in the room got cranked up to eleven, "I digress, forgive me. Since pleasantries are apparently done, shall we move on to business?"
"Yes, please."
"I assume you know of the Libro Nihil?"
I rolled the words around in my head; they rang a few bells. I sorted through the library of collected facts and trivia and, dare I say it, lore in my grey matter. My business is information, and over the years I'd accumulated an awful lot to sort through. It took a second, but I stumbled onto the memory.
"A book supposedly penned and enchanted during the First Crusade by an insane ascetic mage of
an unknown order, it gives the wielder the means by which they could contact, summon and compel entities from the Void," I recited the information, staring into my coffee as I spoke, "And I'm pretty sure it's a faery tale."
I looked up at Devlin and something of his playful smile returned, the lights dancing in his eyes.
"And why do you say that?" he asked.
"Because for all that it's been spoken of over the centuries, no source has ever claimed ownership. Even the author's a total unknown. It's all speculation, second and third-hand encounters. It's the god damn bogeyman of evil books." I took a drink of my coffee, my throat had gone dry. It had been a while since I'd spoken to a real person.
Or whatever Devlin was supposed to be.
"You are quite right my boy, for the most part." Devlin leaned forward to whisper conspiratorially, "But what if I told you it wasn't a faery tale?"
I sat quietly a moment, letting his words sink in. It could be true; the Libro could very well exist and just be very well hidden. Stranger things had happened, with shocking regularity. But if it really did exist, how come there hadn't been a higher frequency of invasions from sanity bending gods of nihilism?
"I'd be curious where you got your information."
"My source prefers to remain anonymous for the time being, but I was hoping to retain your services. You've been in the dark too long, Thomas. Come back into the light, help me." Devlin damn near sounded sincere, which was kind of weird.
Of course he would pay, money was a non-object to Devlin and he'd always paid handsomely in the past for any services or information. He had been, in many ways, my primary source of income. The prospect of money was greatly appealing; you could do all kinds of neat things with it, like buy real food that didn't come in cans. And pay looming electric bills. My savings currently amounted to mostly dust and moths.
"What, exactly, is it you want?" I couldn't seem too eager so I did my best to affect a gravely serious facade.
"I want you to find the book, of course. I'm told it has come to the valley, to Hanford no less," Devlin said. "It is of the utmost importance that the Libro Nihil not fall into the wrong hands. It must be acquired so it can be dealt with properly. There are too many Others that call this town sanctuary that would be all too eager to abuse something like that book to malicious ends."
He was right, but I was suspicious of Devlin's motives. If the Libro Nihil was capable of even a fraction of the atrocities against reality attributed to it and someone figured out how to use it, that was bad business for everyone. The Broken Circle trying to spread corrosive spiritual pollution through the city's water supply was one thing, but what we were talking about was several magnitudes of terrible beyond that.
"Alright, I'm in. But I want my full rate for the job, and it'll take me some time to get myself sorted and find out what I can about the book." I said.
"Excellent, most excellent. Contact me through the usual channels should there be anything you need. And please, do be careful." Devlin rose, patting me on the shoulder as he passed by, and made his way out of the coffee shop.
Something had my hackles up about the whole situation. Devlin had any number of sources on the Other Side that he could command to hunt down the book. And speaking of sources, who was the mysterious informant that told him of the Libro Nihil to begin with? That was worth looking into. I honestly hoped I'd end up getting paid to do some research and stomping the streets just to end up telling Devlin it was all a bad hoax.
Things around town were about to get weird, weirder, I could feel it. Hanford's something of a magnet for strangeness, has to do with the confluence of various preternatural energies converging on a node within the valley that has a thinner spiritual membrane between here and the Other Side. Or, seriously, who would expect to find demons and monsters hiding out in Smalltown, USA? Keep a low profile and an extra-dimensional energy parasite could fit right in. There were a lot of theories in the community about what it is that makes Hanford special.
Enough meandering, if any of it was as serious as it had the potential to be I needed to get moving. I shouldered the weight of my bag as I stood and got a refill on my coffee before I made my way out of the shop, cringing at the sunlight. Add sunglasses to the list of things to get when I had money. It had been comfortably dim when I left my hovel, now the sun was rising into the sky in all of its unnecessarily bright glory, and there were people absolutely everywhere. Scads of them all going about and rushing off to normal jobs.
I cut into the alley behind the strip mall where the cafe took up space and started the walk back home. My head was swimming with scraps of thoughts, and I was so involved with piecing things together that I hardly noticed when my brain started humming. A buzzing, grating sound filled my ears and the backs of my eyes itched. Something from the Other Side was close, and getting closer.
I barely had time to shift spectrums and turn around before the bug-guy from the coffee shop was on top of me. Four arms and every one of them were trying to pound me into the earth. I went down with a grunt, coffee went flying and my bag hit the dirt and spilled its contents everywhere.
"You will not have the book!" the bug-man howled in a whining, metallic voice.
I knew I shouldn't have gotten out of bed today.
Chapter Two
There went a rib.
That was definitely a rib. Bugbrain kept swinging, four arms working in tandem to pulverize me. My heavy coat and sweater didn't amount to much in the way of armor, and to make matters worse, Bugbrain's snakelike proboscis was whipping about and making a nerve-rattling squeal. An oily fluid oozed from the pronged mouth at the end, and it was getting uncomfortably close to my face.
He was too damn strong; four hands beating the tar out of you all at once is a lot to deal with. It was all I could do to try to pull myself into the fetal position and give him a smaller target. A drop of viscous saliva from Bugbrain's proboscis fell and landed square on my face and began to burn.
"Bastard!" I shouted and began flailing, my beard smoking and burning, my face feeling like it was on fire. In my thrashing, I noticed something lying in the dirt nearby, a pencil that had fallen out of my bag, and scrabbled to reach it while Bugbrain redoubled his efforts to hammer me to death. I took a couple nasty shots to the head and almost blacked out, but crowed in triumph when my hand clasped around the pencil.
I swung blindly up at Bugbrain and was rewarded with the sickly sensation of the pencil bursting through something right before I was splattered with a gush of foul smelling fluid. Bugbrain flew off me, screaming madly, clutching the dripping ruin where an eye used to be. I scrambled away and got shakily to my feet, dripping with muddy green liquid that smelled as bad as it looked.
I hastily scanned the ground where my bag had fallen, looking for something else to use against Bugbrain, when the screaming stopped. I looked up, and he was gone.
"That's right, jerk," I laughed and immediately regretted it.
I coughed, hacked, sucked in breaths that made it feel like my lungs were full of broken glass. He had really worked me over, standing was difficult and my head was spinning, I dropped to my knees. That way I could collect my belongings, not because I was in a world of pain and about to pass out. I needed help. I picked my cellphone up out of the dirt, a sadly outdated piece of technology, and dialed a number from memory.
"Hello?" A sonorous voice answered.
"Swift, it's Thomas. Thomas Grey. Are you still in the protection business?"
"Thomas? I thought you died. Someone told me that you were eaten by cockroaches."
"It was just one cockroach, but it was really big. Seriously, I need your help; I'm in a bad way." I said, and for a moment the other end went silent.
"You usually are. All right, I'll be there as soon as I can."
I was about to tell him where I was when the line went dead. I frowned and looked at the phone. He'd hung up on me. A fat black crow sitting on top of a nearby dumpster cawed loudly and made me jump. I shot
it a sour look, and winced at the movement when my vision went cloudy. I was still looking at the Other spectrum, which was doing nothing to help make my head hurt less. I shifted back to normal and got busy putting my belongings back into my bag.
Most of its contents were pretty mundane, like the lifesaving pencils and pens, and a number of battered notebooks. There was a much read and worn copy of Frazer's Golden Bough, the spine of it almost falling apart. Some other things weren't quite so mundane. I had a jar full of salt, a handful of various colored chalk sticks, left-over nubs of multi-colored candles, and quite a few other odds and ends. I liked to be prepared. I had just gotten the last of it tucked away back in my bag and was settling down to sit and try calling Swift again when the alley exploded with feathers and wings.
If you call a gathering of crows a murder, what I was looking at was more along the lines of an apocalypse, a great moving, cawing cloud of them, the sound of all those wings thunderously loud. It was stunning. In one singular movement, all of the crows stopped. Each and every one of them landed, perched on rooflines, cables, dumpsters, walls, and they were all staring silently straight at me.
"Well this is unnerving as hell."
"Don't worry about them, Thomas. They were just showing me where to find you," Swift said as he emerged from around the corner at the end of the alley.
He looked like something out of an action flick. From his shiny black boots and leather pants, to the sleek black leather jacket and mirrored sunglasses, he looked like a living breathing caricature of a Hollywood bad-ass.
"And how did they know where to find me?" I asked.
"This one told them, and they told me," he said and stopped in front of the dumpster just across from me, where the fat black crow that cawed at me still sat. The bird hopped back and forth on its feet and made a gurgling noise when Swift reached out and patted it on the head, "And now I'm here."
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