Windslinger

by JM Guillen

  “What?” the young man two rows in front of us, who had fallen asleep with his lady friend asked. Apparently, Alicia’s cry had woken him. “What time is it?”

  He peered around, realized the time, and cursed.

  My friends and I sat in mute silence as he shook the young lady. She didn’t care to be roused, but he persisted.

  “What. The. Fuck. Was that?” Alicia turned to the rest of us, hazel eyes wide.

  Baxter simply sat and stared at the empty space where the creature had been.

  Rehl placed a hand on Alicia’s shoulder and said something in a low, urgent tone.

  “Sorry,” the guy whispered as he led his stumbling friend past us. “Enjoy the show.”

  “I think they have the right idea.” I gazed intently at Rehl.

  No sooner did I speak, than the world tore itself into rivulets with a resounding CRACK. A maelstrom of muddy twilight and cascading insanity screamed into the small room.

  “What?” Alicia bellowed in full crisis mode.

  The exiting couple vanished before our eyes. A second CRACK resounded, and the darkness fell away. In that fraction of a moment, however…

  The room had completely transformed.

  Gone was the wide screen television and the padded chairs of the anime room—now we were in a rundown theatre, something from the 1920’s. A large, partially torn screen hung in front of us in front of dozens upon dozens of red velvet seats. The entire room stank of mildew and rot. Sable darkness surrounded us.

  I eased into the flow of my breath and desperately sought the tempest of strength within me. After Garret had left, I had worried, so immediately confirmed he hadn’t somehow barred me from the Wind.

  He had kept his word. My connection with that infinite maelstrom thundered back, certain as ever. I cautiously sipped at it, as through a straw.

  Breathe, Liz. As I focused, I remembered Simon’s training—meant just for moments like this.

  “You think some otherworldly crustacean gives two flying fucks about your nerves?” He stood behind my chair and prodded my back with his cane. “News flash, kiddo. Most fights are won in the first ten seconds. If you’re standing there yawpin’, it’s already too late.”

  “Do you truly expect me to see many otherworldly crustaceans?” I rubbed the tender spot he had prodded.

  “Mebbe.” He prodded the other side, and I grunted. “Regardless, you don’t have control, you’re gonna get ’cherself kilt.”

  Not for the first time, I experienced a rush of gratitude for the smacks from that cane.

  The moment I relaxed, I felt the echoes of Wind, quiet murmurs within my mind. They always seemed so much quieter indoors than out, but Simon assured me this likely had more to do with my own expectations than reality.

  “What?” Rehl turned back to me. “Liz, did you say something?”

  “Where are we?” Alicia sounded more angry than afraid.

  “We need to get out of here.” I leaned over and put my hand between a stunned Baxter’s shoulder blades. “Like right fucking now!”

  The ragged movie screen flickered. In that shimmering, static-y light, the spectral thing appeared again. It floated before us, just a few steps away. One emaciated arm extended toward me.

  I marked its position well.

  The flickers stopped. The creature vanished. On the screen, the anime continued, although shakily, with burned spots in the film.

  The corpse of the young, illustrated man stared out at us, his eyes mad with things only the dead could see.

  “Hello, Elizabeth,” the character croaked, squarely at me. “How pleasant it is to meet with you.”

  Reflexively, I stepped backward while my mind fanned through options. I could out run the thing, I felt certain. But what about Baxter? Alicia? I knew Rehl had gotten in shape while in boot camp…

  No. I couldn’t run. I didn’t know that my friends could keep up.

  I needed help.

  “Liz?” Alicia’s gaze wandered from the screen, to me, and back again. “Wh–what is this?”

  “I need you to get up and leave.” I didn’t look at any of them, my focus entirely on the screen. “There’s gotta be a door. If—”

  “It’s folly to assume your friends will be safe,” the young man on the screen leered, as if enjoying a private joke. “Any of your blood or affection are within his grasp. All tokens went on the board as soon as you broke your word.”

  “My word?” A hot flush of anger burned through me.

  “This can be simplicity itself, child,” the creature gurgled. “Abide by your oath and your friends may yet be safe.”

  “My oath—” Panic completely gave way to fury, as if little more than tinder for its flame. I already knew the truth, but I needed to hear it. “You’re here because of Mister Lorne.”

  “At his behest.” The corpse on the screen smiled, its words a rotten croak. The movie flickered again, revealing for a moment the aberrant thing that hung nearby, in defiance of all rules of physics. “I am a courier, little more. It is time you paid your reckoning.”

  “Why aren’t you leaving yet?” I harshly stage whispered to Rehl. “You need to—”

  “We’re all leaving.” He put one hand on my arm. “Come on, Liz.” He started to stand.

  “No,” the corpse jeered. With that one word, something struck Rehl in the center of his chest. Nothing placed the strike, and nothing in the room moved.

  Except Rehl.

  He flew off the ground, tumbled backward over two rows of chairs, and landed with a loud grunt.

  Alicia, Baxter and I stared in mute horror.

  “What?” I gaped. Rehl was a big guy, maybe one of the biggest I knew. He served in the Army Reserves, and three times a year he went off and fought in medieval reenactments with other big guys. As far I could tell, that involved beating each other up with actual fucking swords while wearing heavy ass plate mail.

  Now he laid sprawled and groaning about five feet behind us, amid a tangle of fallen chairs.

  I snarled at the screen and lost all control. As focus fled, the room exploded into a torrent of wind, blowing up from behind me.

  Yet in my heart, I knew the truth. Even if I could fight my way free, I had no way to know if I could protect my friends.

  My choices were slim.

  Simon, I thought and touched my earring. Cobalt shine burst from the tiny inscriptions upon it. Those sigils pulsed with the echo of Wind that capered behind my heart.

  I relaxed into my mind and the tempest that lay there, awaiting me. I had no idea if his trinket would work here in Lorne’s mirror-world or even if the magic could reach him…

  Yet I had few options. Besides, he had told me that he physically felt it when I used this trinket. I didn’t know how that could be possible…

  But I believed him.

  The sigils and Seals on the earing pulsed with that storm, burned and sang. For a moment, it felt hard, as if Simon lay impossibly far away. I frantically hoped it would be enough. Was this even New York still?

  I squinted and bore down on my focus.

  “Simon,” I half whispered, half thought. “I need you. One of Lorne’s creatures found me.” I knew he would be able to feel the fear in my sending, he had told me so before. “I have to do something, and others are here. Innocent people.”

  Briefly, weak wind teased my hair. I heard whispers hidden within it, whispers that I thought might be Simon’s.

  Yet, as always, I could not make out what they said.

  “It knows my name,” I thought to Simon almost reflexively. In my panic, a touch of wind burst through the room.

  Message finished, the slumbering power within the jewelry faded. It fell quiet.

  Baxter gasped, startled at the wind, and then turned to me.

  “Will you keep troth, Elizabeth?” the creature snarled through the screen.

  “Services were not properly rendered.” My tone came out low, calm, but a fluttery terror flittered in my chest.
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  “That is an opinion.” It paused. “Your opinions are not my concern.”

  “How can it—?” Baxter stumbled and almost lost his glasses. Alicia grabbed at his arm and steadied them both.

  The leering face of the corpse flickered upon the screen. I cocked my head at it and Wind, fueled by anger, burst aimlessly through the room.

  “Your talents are impressive, Elizabeth.”

  “Liz,” I growled.

  “Talents?” Alicia turned to me and clutched at her necklace.

  “Liz.” The corpse nodded. “Impressive, but utterly useless. You don’t imagine Mister Lorne would send a courier who could be affected by your parlor tricks, do you?”

  “You can courier my message back to him, but that’s all you’ll take.”

  “I’m not here to threaten you.” The corpse on the screen shrugged, a singularly grotesque motion. “You’ll either come with me or you’ll watch those you care about suffer.”

  “Liz?” Baxter remained adrift in his confusion. “What is this?”

  I didn’t respond to him. I needed to stall. If I could just keep our creepy visitor talking long enough—

  “Let them leave, and I’ll come with you,” I lied. The words felt tight, held between clenched teeth.

  “If you come of your own will, I will harm no one.” The twitching corpse on the screen chuckled. “Of course, I cannot say what Mister Lorne will do. He mislikes loose ends.” Those mad eyes looped around the room, drinking in my friends.

  “These are not loose ends.” I narrowed my eyes.

  “Come then, Liz.” Laughter capered at the edge of the creature’s eyes. “Be penitent and pay your debt. Perhaps Mister Lorne will show mercy.”

  “I don’t—”

  A resounding CRACK echoed from behind us—much the same sound that heralded Mister Lorne’s uncanny nightmares intruding upon my life. The door to the anime room banged open, and brilliant hotel light shone inside. For a moment, everyone stopped in place, stunned.

  Except for me. Victory tugged at the edge of my lips, a sharpened smile.

  An older man stood silhouetted in the door. He wore a battered cowboy hat and leaned on a cane.

  “Naw.” His bass voice rumbled out low and rich as his head turned, and even though I couldn’t see his blue eyes, I felt certain that he winked. “I have an investment in the young lady, see.”

  I grinned widely at him and whirled back toward the big screen. I sipped at the ocean of Wind and called to mind one of the Empyrean Seals that Simon taught me, the same I had summoned while facing Garret. This one, the Seal of A‘Grimm, shaped wind into a fierce torrent, which I often used as a punch, or to hurl knives.

  As the symbols became infused with the power of the Wind, they burst into a circle around me, singing brilliantly, glowing the color of the summer sky.

  Dex check, Liz. With one quick gesture, I reached into my hoodie and grasped my knives. I pulled and threw squarely at the spot I’d marked, the place the creature actually loomed, invisible.

  Along with the blade, I hurled an unyielding, furious torrent of wind. Shaped by the Empyrean Seals and driven by tornado level winds, the blade careened. It sliced through the air with the speed of a bullet, and exploded into the creature who materialized upon impact.

  The horror screamed, a sound that crackled through the theatre speakers. As the screen’s light died, the uncanny wraith hung in the air before us, faint and insubstantial.

  “Heh!” the older gentleman crowed from the doorway.

  “Now,” I ordered and kept my eyes on the screen as I pulled at Alicia, “get Rehl and get out.”

  In the dim half-light, the spectral creature lurched forward and swiped at Alicia, who threw herself sideways to dodge. I pulled Baxter back, but it was difficult to push through the scattered chairs.

  “C’mon,” Rehl whispered, and panic ran through his voice. “Let’s get the party moving.”

  “Foolish child.” The creature’s voice burned through the crackling speakers “Do you imagine this ends well? Our Master will simply send another.”

  “Your Master is a grade-A horse turd,” Simon grumbled as he hobbled forward. “You need to back down, buddy.”

  Instead, the creature leapt forward again and swung one of its claw-like hands at Baxter. He didn’t prove as agile as Alicia and was thrown to the side, against the wall. A loud crunch sounded, and Baxter wailed.

  Then he slipped to the floor, his nose a torrent of blood.

  “Fucker!” I threw my second knife, and again allowed the mini-maelstrom of wind to surge along with it. I missed, however, and the knife buried into the wall distantly behind the creature.

  Shit. The radiance from the Empyrean symbols began to fade. I didn’t quite have the focus for more than a couple of uses.

  “Good try, Sassafras,” Simon chuckled. “Let me have a go.” He strode forward, his gaze squarely on the wraith-like creature.

  “This doesn’t involve you, old man.” Its voice would have been like a blade across silk, were it not for the electronic interference.

  “You bore me, son.” Simon shuffled forward, his eyes on the spectral horror. “I figure we’ll send ya on home to Mister Lorne. Maybe he’ll take the hint.”

  “Fine,” the creature sneered. “Die with them then.” It lunged at Simon and hissed as it swung one of its gangled arms at his head.

  Simon ducked, and held his cane forward. Three small trinkets hung from it, tinkling against each other.

  “Not today,” he snarled and mouthed a word in the Empyrean tongue.

  Reality itself trembled around us.

  Her Name. I smiled in recognition, even though this Name was something I had never been able to truly comprehend. It held light and wonder and sweetness to the ear. It sounded like a great bell, like the first rays of dawn.

  “Beautiful.” Alicia had heard the Name, but not grasped it, I was certain. She gazed at Simon, wide-eyed.

  Thunder rocked the room, a furious rumble as if the entire world trembled. Around us, azure brilliance exploded into cascading song in my mind. It burned and screamed and shone through everything, a light that sanctified us by its presence.

  “Come on, then.” Simon’s deep voice rang with bass sweetness and his words reverberated across all existence.

  She came. Like the primal concept of justice, like tongues of fire, she came.

  Not that one could see her, not really. She whispered like a shadow on the mind, a creature that echoed behind the world. One had to really look to see her, and even then, unless one had been gifted with magical talent, she eluded human imagination.

  Tarahiel appeared, and with her, cobalt, elemental righteousness.

  She stood winged, graceful as a song at the dawn of the world. In her fist, a sword burned with heaven’s first flame. Her eye gleamed perfect goodness, a furious perfection that scathed away all shadows.

  The spectral horror screamed, burned merely by her presence.

  “Go, go, go!” I pushed Rehl toward Alicia and stepped over to Baxter. He still bled, but pushed himself up.

  “Liz?” Drunkenly, he reached for his glasses and secured them on his face. “What’s happening?”

  “I’ll tell you later.” I grabbed his arm and guided him to Rehl. “You need to go now.”

  “Yesh, I do,” he slurred, but he gave me a sideways smile. “I’m bleeding. I think—”

  Sound, like a hymn from on high, shattered through the room.

  “Repent, you lost and forsaken shadow,” Tarahiel cried, her words as pure as the sun’s own fire. She lunged at the creature, which dimmed before her light.

  “This isn’t over, Shepherd!” The creature wailed, its voice crackling. “My master holds legions of servants! Another will come in my place!”

  “We’ll burn that ‘un too.” Simon gave me a wink as I hurried past, pulling my stunned comrades. “Just see if we won’t.”

  “Darkness cannot stand against Truth’s flame.” Tarahiel swoo
ped toward the creature, and her blade burned so brightly I had to turn away.

  “Liz? Come on!” Alicia grabbed my arm and dragged me behind her.

  Lorne’s creature screamed. As Simon followed us, it cried one last time, and fell silent.

  A CRACK resounded in the room, as if some great stone had been rent asunder. In the hallway, the walls trembled and one of the hotel’s generic water paintings fell to the floor.

  Simon shut the door, his eyes unreadable. He gazed at me, and at my three friends, who all had wide, crazed eyes.

  For a long moment, no one said anything.

  “What the fuck was that?” Alicia gave me an accusatory glare, her flaming cheeks nearly a match for her hair.

  “Wanna get a beer, Freckles?” He gave me a jaunty grin. “I know just the place.”

  “Them too?” I jerked my head at my fellow adventurers.

  “Aw, hell.” He shook his head ruefully. “Might as well.” He put one arm across my shoulder. “Let’s make a night of it.”

  “C’mon.” I looped my arm with wide-eyed Alicia’s and raised my chin at Baxter and Rehl.

  “Where to?” Baxter had pinched his nose closed, and Alicia fumbled in her purse to hand him some tissue.

  “Let’s go get a beer.” I met Rehl’s eyes and noted that he seemed the calmest of my friends.

  “A beer huh?” He almost chuckled. “Is the party headed to the tavern?”

  “Something like that.” I sighed and wondered where I would begin. A moment of silence passed before I continued. “We’ve… got some things to discuss.”

  Tavern Scene

  “What should we tell them?” I whispered to Simon as we walked down the street.

  “Ain’t my friends.” Simon chuckled and eyed me. “Not my story to tell.”

  “Geez.” I rolled my eyes at him. “Fine.”

  We stepped into The Waystation, a little greasy spoon bar Simon apparently knew quite well. He nodded at the balding bar man as we walked into the quiet, dim place.

  “Let’s head on back.” He pointed to the far corner, near the pool table.

  “It’s not just so you can sit with your back in the corner, is it?” I teased.