Run the Day

by Davis, Matthew C.

  "That's fucking amazing, man. Think you could help me out? I need to get back to my place but I've recently discovered that my life is most probably in danger, and I'm not entirely sure why. I'd like to live long enough to find out." I looked up at him, shouldering the strap of my bag and rising to my feet on wobbly legs.

  "What are guardian angels for? Of course I'll help you, if only because you always get into the most interesting situations." Swift stepped forward, reaching arms out to steady me, "You look terrible, by the way."

  I frowned and shrugged him off, starting to make my way back to the mouth of the alley. I glanced up as all the crows began departing, flying off in every direction. Swift was a being of many talents, and one of the few Others who I was pretty sure was not a complete monster. I'd known him for years, worked with him a couple times; he's a good guy to have at your back and strangely altruistic, guided by some kind of moral code. The guy actually liked helping people. For free.

  "You're not the first one to mention that today. Are we going or what?" I looked back at Swift. I considered shifting spectrums and getting a look at him but decided against it. I was already getting a tremendous headache, and every other time I'd caught a glimpse of Swift's true form it was…hard to process. Literally. My brain did not enjoy it even a little bit.

  "Sure, my car's parked in the lot on the other side. Do you need a hand?" Swift said as he walked to catch up to me. At my current shambling gait it only took him a few strides. I clutched at my bag strap and kept walking.

  "I got my ass kicked, I'm not an invalid." I may have snapped.

  Swift shrugged it off and walked beside me. We exited the alley and he pointed over to a car parked in front of the coffee shop.

  "Seriously? That's your car? You're an asshole."

  We walked up to it, a solid black '64 GTO that shone in the morning sun like a giant beetle. Even his car looked like something out of a movie. Swift went around to the driver's side and unlocked it; he smiled across the roof of the car at me and slid in. When the lock popped on the passenger side I opened the door and tossed my bag in. I got inside slowly, easing my aching self onto the black leather seats, mindful of Bugbrain's ichor still staining my clothes.

  "Sorry about the mess."

  If it perturbed Swift, he didn't say a word. He turned the key, the car roared to life, and he made his way out of the parking lot and onto the road.

  "Still living in the same place?" Swift asked, face forward, eyes hidden behind his shades as he drove.

  I nodded, sinking into the seat. It was really comfortable, and I'd lost count of how many spots on my body were in pain. It was starting to feel like my entire body was one big bruise. I laid my forehead on the cool glass of the window and stared out at the sky as we drove, thinking about what I'd gotten myself into this time.

  I must have passed out, because the next thing I remember was the car stopping and Swift killing the engine. I was folded up against the passenger door, drooling on the upholstery. I sat up and stretched, things popped and ground into each other uncomfortably.

  "Home."

  My head was starting to feel like it was stuffed with cotton. I grabbed my bag and practically spilled out of the car when Swift came around to open the door but he caught me, propping me up until I could stand on my own two feet. I nodded at him and took a step away, slowly, looking up at my humble abode and digging through a pocket for my keys.

  "You really live here?" Swift asked, standing back and staring at my house with a questioning look. I guess from the outside, it might look a bit ramshackle. I lived out on the very outskirts of town, near the easternmost city limits, where business and suburbia faded away into fields and dairies. My house sat in the middle of what used to be multiple acres of orchard, but was now just lots and lots of dirt. Plants refused to take to the soil, the unfortunate by-product of an early dabbling in conjuring that ended in spectacular failure. The only thing that still grew was the massive old ash tree my great-grandfather planted when he built the house.

  Heinrich Geirtyr, a mage of some repute in his time, had arrived in America and made his way to California at the dawn of the last century after migrating here from Schiltach, Germany. He never told anyone what it was that made him pull up roots. When he showed up in America, the man at the Immigration Department heard the family's original surname and slapped 'Henry Grey' on his papers. He eventually settled down in the central valley of California and built what would become the home to many future generations of the Grey family. Old Heinrich would die of shame, if he weren't already long dead, if he could see the place now.

  It was two-stories of grey granite block capped by a heavy black tile roof; Heinrich had built things to last. But it had seen hard times and now the roof sagged in, it was missing whole patches of tile; the rugged stones of the walls were stained darker with age. There were a number of windows boarded up, those were my additions. The whole thing looked like it was ready to call it quits and collapse under its own sad, ponderous weight. What was I supposed to do? It's only me, and I'm barely able to keep the electricity running consistently.

  "Yeah Swift, I live here." I said tiredly as I pulled the key-ring out of my pocket. I went through the half dozen keys and the half dozen locks that studded the heavy steel security door. You can never be too cautious. It groaned open and I turned to look back at Swift, "It's totally safe, promise. I'm pretty sure I exorcised the last of the murder ghosts."

  "The what?" Swift cocked an eyebrow as he walked up behind me.

  "Kidding, kidding." I said and walked inside, hand smacking out and flipping on the lights, "I might have missed one or two..."

  I didn't catch whatever Swift mumbled as the lights sputtered on. Somewhere down the hall a bulb popped. The inside of my house was in about as poor condition as the outside, but it was harder to tell what with all the stuff crammed into every corner of it. The front door led to a long hallway, every available inch of wall space loaded down with bookshelves. Each one was itself crammed to capacity with books, some paperbacks, some novels; leather bound texts with no discernible title stood side-by-side with books on theoretical physics. As we walked further into the house the tread of Swift's boots on the hardwood floors was oddly loud.

  "I've never actually been in here," Swift said, "You live in a library."

  "Something like that, yeah. Knowledge is power," I replied and continued down the hall.

  We cut a corner down the hall and entered the conspicuously bare kitchen, a dusty wooden dinner table surrounded by a half-dozen hand carved chairs, all similarly covered in a thick grey coating of dust. The hanging cabinets, the fridge, the counter top, everything was grey with dust and cobwebs. I pretended not to notice things scuttling into the shadows when I flipped on the light. I don't cook a lot. Or entertain many guests. A family hadn't eaten here in years.

  "Sorry about the mess, I gave the maid the decade off. Wait here, I need to clean myself up." I told Swift, he stood in the middle of the kitchen, hands tucked away in his pockets. He still wore his sunglasses, and was looking around at the room like he expected something to jump out at him.

  "What is it exactly you need protection from this time? I thought you mage types were forces to be reckoned with," Swift said and turned to look at me, "Though there are apparently exceptions."

  "You should know better. It depends entirely on the mage in question. Offensive magic and such isn't really my specialty. As the recent ass-whooping I received shows."

  I shrugged and turned out of the kitchen, going down the hall to the stairs that led up to my room. I was definitely not your typical will-worker by any means; flashy bending of reality wasn't my style. My talents tended to lean to other things, subtler things. I can make some truly wild shit happen, but the force most people collectively call magic is a lot different than some books about wizards and schools and such have led the masses to believe. Which is great, really; it makes it easier for people like me to go unnoticed.

  I pul
led myself up the stairs and entered the second story, passing down a hall of closed doors. It was dark, but I'd walked the way so many times the path was pure muscle memory. I pushed the door to my bedroom open, tossing my bag and coat down, and made my way across the mess of it to the tiny bathroom, cranking the water to scalding in the shower. The pipes rattled and moaned, spitting out a stream of mostly clear water. I undressed and took a look at myself in the mirror.

  "Oh holy shit that's not right."

  Swift had neglected to mention the swath of beard that Bugbrain's acid mucous had burned off, leaving a patch of red and blistered skin behind. I had a decent sized goose egg rising up on the back of my head when I ran my fingers through my hair, and a dark purple bruise was spreading over my side and ribs. The unfortunate truth is I've been, and looked, worse. For a guy who goes out of his way to be a scholarly hermit, I ended up getting into an entirely unreasonable amount of trouble. Grandpa Grey said that a mage attracts trouble like horse shit gathers flies, and he was right.

  Pain was a part of life.

  I dug around under the sink for my electric clippers and plugged them in while the bathroom was filling up with steam. Mages and the like have a regrettably high mortality rate, usually killed off in spectacular displays of power, eaten by a nightmare from one of the realms beyond the Other Side, or any number of atrocious fates. It's a large contributor to why there's so few of us to begin with, and why we're spread so thin. All that amazing power, but we're still only human. I worked the clippers tenderly around my aching skull and watched the patches of ratty black hair and beard fall. Toying with the forces of Creation had contributed to the untimely demise of my entire family, in one way or another, and was more than likely going to be what did me in someday.

  Hopefully not someday soon. Knock on wood.

  Sheered and looking like a naked rat I stepped under the scalding water of the shower with a hiss. I needed to wrap my head around this whole situation, figure out where the hell Bugbrain had come from and who he was working for, track down any leads I could about where the Libro Nihil might be. That would more than likely require a fair bit of work, and pumping some questionable entities for information. And I still had the nagging feeling that things were just going to get worse.

  The thing about being paranoid that reality's out to get you and the shadows are full of horrors isn't delusional.

  In my experience, it's a survival mechanism.

  Chapter Three

  After the shower I felt almost sub-human, and entered the comfortable darkness of my room. I clicked on the lamp on my desk and winced at the sudden light. My room was much the same as the rest of the house, cluttered, the floor hidden under piles of books and boxes containing things that looked like they belonged in a museum, or lab. The bed was a nest, heaped and piled with pillows and heavy blankets, and there were clothes thrown about everywhere. I snagged a pair of pants, a black t-shirt that smelled mostly clean, and my trusty coat then made my way to my desk.

  In the chaos of the room, my desk was an altar of austere order. The top was clear of clutter and debris; the only things on it were a computer tower and monitor, along with a care-worn keyboard and mouse. The evolution of the internet has been an amazing thing, with a kind of magic all its own, and was as much an invaluable tool to my work as the ancient grimoires and eclectic relics I'd stockpiled over the years. I pressed the power button on the monitor, and it glowed as it came to life.

  The screen opened up to my email, showing a metric ton of new messages. I perused the senders and came to the conclusion that I really needed to stop visiting certain more questionable sites, but stopped when a certain name stood out from the rest. Hack Spencer. That was weird, I hadn't heard from the old man in years, ages even. Hack was an old friend of the family, as in he was friends with my great-grandfather Henry. It was Hack who took care of me and fostered my talents after my parents died almost twenty years ago. He was like another grandfather, but we'd had a falling out a while back and hadn't spoken since.

  That he had reached out to me after all this time got me curious, and a little worried. He had made it abundantly clear that he wanted nothing to do with me, and that was that. I had made some stupid, selfish decisions, decisions that could have had some truly cataclysmic repercussions. If Hack was contacting me something had to be wrong, and the subject line on the email confirmed it, Red Sky at Morning

  . Sailors take warning.

  Hack used to say it when times got bad; it meant a storm was coming. If it was bad enough for him to start talking to me again, it had to be pretty damned bad. Hack was a survivor, I'd never figured out how old exactly, but any mage who had survived as long as he had was a real magical bruiser.

  After getting dressed, I clicked the message open and grabbed my boots off the floor, lacing them up as I read it.

  Tommy,

  I hate these stupid machines.

  Sorry it's been so long, boy. I wish I had more time to explain things to you but time's the one thing we're all in short supply of, just please believe I'm sorry for everything.

  Something's come to the valley and it's bringing doom with it, for the whole damn world. I can't stop it myself; it's just too damn powerful for me to take on alone. I need for you to come and meet me as soon as you're able; I'm back in Hanford, I'll be waiting at Grannok's Cell.

  Time is of the essence my boy, please, come quickly.

  The Sleeper Awakens.

  - Hack

  Well that was properly ominous.

  Last I knew Hack had been roaming the West Coast, doing who knows what. And I'm not much of a fan of anything that brings doom. Hack wasn't the kind of guy to bullshit or embellish, which made the bit about the whole world a touch unsettling. And what the hell was the Sleeper?

  More and more I was beginning to regret even getting out of bed today, but Devlin and his sweet, sweet money had been too damn tempting. Things were starting to pile on thick, and I still had no idea where to even begin. I needed to find out what I could about the Libro, but if Hack was really in danger I owed it to him to meet up, if only for old time's sake. It was still early; I had lots of daylight left, which was a concept that would take some getting used to.

  I shut down the computer, snagged my bag, and stomped my way downstairs, meandered through the halls and made my way back to the kitchen where I'd left Swift. Strangely, he was standing much the way I'd left him. As if he hadn't moved the entire time.

  "What the hell are you doing?"

  A shiver ran through his body and he slowly turned to face me, like he was coming out of a trance. He shook his head, reached up and took off his glasses. He rubbed at his eyes with the heel of a hand, and I gawked. White, they were solid white. Swift caught me looking and replaced his glasses, frowning.

  "Just thinking. You look less terrible."

  "Right, okay. Thanks. What in the hell is up with your eyes?" I stepped closer and asked.

  Swift stood up straighter and folded his arms across his chest, which made me notice how much larger and imposing he was. He frowned down at me, letting his sunglasses slip down his nose some to expose a glimpse of his eyes, which were now a perfectly normal shade of hazel.

  "What are you talking about?" Swift asked.

  What the hell? More hidden depths to the enigma that was Swift, I'd get to the bottom of it, but there were more pressing matters at hand.

  "We have to go; I need you to take me to the Bastille." I said.

  "Why do you need to go to a club at not even nine in the morning?"

  "Something about the end of the world, I'll fill you in on the way." I said and walked out of the kitchen.

  I was still stiff and sore as we made our way out, but I was mostly functional. We stepped outside and I slipped into my coat, the morning still hanging on to the autumn chill.

  After we'd gotten into Swift's car and were heading down the road back to town, I told Swift about Hack's letter. He listened without saying a word, eyes straight ahead t
he whole time.

  "And what exactly is Grannok's Cell?" Swift asked when I was done.

  "Abel Grannok was a farmer around a hundred years ago. He also happened to be a mage of some talent, and a psychopath," I said. Swift perked up at that, but kept his eyes on the road, so I continued, "He had been communing with some of the uglier denizens of the Other Side for a while, and working on ways to bring one over and devour its essence. He thought he could achieve apotheosis, godhood, by consuming one of the elder powers. My great-grandfather Henry, along with Hack, went after him when people around town started to go missing.

  They found him at his farm in the middle of opening a portal to one of the more hideous parts of the Other Side, surrounded by the ritually slaughtered remains of some twenty victims. The entity was already making its way through when Henry and Hack disrupted the ritual, closing the portal and binding Grannok, but the reflux of energies fried Grannok's mind and left him a gibbering idiot. Back then, the Bastille was an actual prison. Bastille's French for prison, see? Hanford's classy. Also explains all the brick and iron architecture. Anyways. They locked Grannok away in one of the cells, but one night an angry mob of townsfolk broke in. They believed Grannok had been possessed by the Devil, and went in loaded down with pitchforks, torches, and the like. They were furious about all the victims.

  So, right there in the cell, they strung Grannok up and hung him, beat him, then lit him on fire. There wasn't a damn thing he could do about it, the man's mind was gone, but the people didn't care. They just wanted justice, some kind of closure. I can't really blame them. But, long story short, the reason it's called Grannok's Cell, is because his ghost still supposedly haunts it."

  I took in a deep gulp of air after I finished rattling off the story. Grannok's Cell under the Bastille also happened to be where Hack used to take me to practice some of the more dangerous aspects of being a mage, once upon a time. Evocation, lethal forces, stuff like that. He used to say it was shielded from outside influences, or something. It was probably why he wanted to meet there.