Guardians of the Gates: Part 1 - The New Breed **SAMPLE ONLY**

 

 

A novel by

Jeff Schanz

 

Copyright © 2020 Jeff Schanz

All rights reserved

 

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This book is dedicated to my children, Jackson and Lauren.

They did a good job raising their father.

“The darkest demons are found within rather than without.”

Pleonastus, Roman philospher

 

 

Chapter 1

Something moved slowly along the tree line of the park. Salivating in feral hunger, it stalked its quarry with single-minded purpose. The evening was calm and cool, not cold enough for the condensation of breath to be seen far past the mouth. Moonlight filtered through the tree limbs leaving a muted patchwork of night camouflage. The “something” crept methodically, silently, avoiding making sound amongst the fallen brush and crisp winter-bitten leaves on the ground. Nothing crunched or snapped to alert the hunted. No animals flew away in a panic, or swiftly scurried to places to hide from the approaching danger. All the small living things that should fear for their tiny lives had already found safety and were quietly waiting for the hateful thing to pass. The “something” had a unique scent, powerful and foul, that preceded its arrival. It reeked of blood, visceral rage, and rotting meat. It was a harbinger of death and carnage which most anything that had any kind of keen sensory organ knew to avoid at all costs. Everything remained silent as the “something” stepped through each patch of moonlight in the darkened edge of the tree line.

The amber eyes focused on their targets. A base growl rolled through its throat with each measured breath, soft enough that it could not be heard at the distance it now kept from its victims. A bristly, hair-covered foot pushed into the ground carefully. The other foot lifted and was placed ahead of the first. Another silent step, followed by another, and another. The foot had toes like a man, but thick pads like a dog. Its long nails dug into the soil, ready for a powerful spring. But it was not time to spring yet. It took another stealthy step as the edge of the wooded border came closer.

Soon the thing would be at the point of decision, whether to change its tactic in stalking its prey, or to rush out to do what it hungered to do. It had already calculated the easiest ambush path and its prey would not be able to oppose it. Few things would be able to. It knew its strength was immense, its speed was unequaled by anything on two legs, and its claws and teeth could overwhelm any prey. It had no true need to hide and approach in stealth, but the instincts told it to anyway. Use caution and silence, approach unseen, attack swiftly, devour quickly, and disappear. These instincts would serve it well and keep it safe. It cared about its survival, but that was predicated on fulfilling its need, and that need was a mix of savage craving and voracious appetite. But the beast’s craving went so much farther than its instinctual need. It wanted to kill. Like a sex urge to a human, the beast had a carnal lust to kill and eat, then kill and eat more, until it was too gorged to further obey. Only then would it rest. And once rested, it would want to kill again. There was no shortage of prey and hunting was easy. It hunted and devoured the very things it used to be itself, although the irony was lost on its feral mind. All it understood was that it could do whatever it desired.

It hunted two humans.

 

 

 

 

A couple walked along the edge of a pond in the center of London’s Regent’s Park. The petite, reddish-brown-haired woman walked faster than the tall, blond man, the latter rushing to keep up between animated talking gestures. She kept her head forward, hands tucked in her cardigan sweater, steadily outpacing her companion. The man kept pausing to point out sights, like a realtor presenting a house.

“Jill, look at that star, right there. Gotta be Polaris. It’s so bright tonight. It’s beautiful. Come on, please wait a sec,” said the man in a crisp northeastern American accent.

Jillian turned briefly, not interrupting her pace. “It’s Jupiter. It’s bright every night.” Her English accent was the polished dialect of the well-bred and higher educated.

“Well, it’s pretty. It’s… Jill? Jillian! Come on, slow down. Let’s just walk together and enjoy the evening, huh?”

“Frank, I’m cold and I think I’d just rather go home,” Jillian said, without turning to address Frank.

“Jill, Jesus, slow down. Ok, ok, if you’re cold – here,” he said, removing his overcoat. “You can have my coat. Slow down for a sec.”

Jillian slowed, stopped, and sighed. She turned toward him. “I’m sorry, Frank, I really am. You’re a nice guy and I appreciated dinner. I’m just not ready for anything else, and I said I didn’t want to come to this park in the first place.” She sighed again.

Frank posed the coat in front of her, ready to be received. It was a Brioni overcoat that was knee length on Frank’s tall frame. It would’ve hung to her ankles.

“Thanks, but I don’t want your coat.” She smiled politely. “You need it. And I don’t want you to catch cold because of me.”

“Nah, it’s fine, really, I…”

“Frank. It was a nice night.” No, it wasn’t, she thought. “It’s getting late. I thank you for dinner. I’ll see you at work. But I need to go home now.”

Frank smiled, a little too paternally. “Jill, sure, of course, I’ll take you home. Here, take my coat. But, I told the driver to meet us over at the far exit. So – we kinda need to…”

Damn. Jillian turned quickly, without Frank’s coat, and began her speed walk again.

Frank sighed and draped the coat over his shoulders. He gained ground in only a couple of long strides. In two more strides, he was at her left shoulder. “It’s this way, just over the bridge and to the right,” he said, pointing open-handed like a tour guide. “I’m really sorry about this. I thought we could just talk awhile. It was so loud in that restaurant and we never get much of a chance to just talk at work.”

No “we” about it, thought Jillian. You talk just fine. It’s me that doesn’t get much of a chance. “Look, both paths end up at the exit,” she said, “and I think this one is closer, so I’m going to…”

“Nooo, no. That one’s way too dark. Let’s go this way, it’ll be safer. A lot more lights and I know the path better.”

Of course you do, probably because you take girls there all the time. And it’s closer to the pond where you can point more things out for me to stop and look at while you try to hold me and make me “feel the moment” with you. “Thanks, really, but I’m going this way.” Jillian veered right without a pause in speed.

“Jill.” Frank turned and regained his position to her left shoulder. “Ok, ok, you got it. At least let me lead just in case some lunatic is in the bushes or something.”

Jillian thought of something mean to say, then decided it was too mean, which resulted in a tiny smile. Frank had now gotten in front of her, leading the way in a stiff but slow stride, head swiveling to scan the landscaping for possible threats. Occasionally, he would wave his arm to the side, silently informing her it was safe to proceed. Good Lord, what was I thinking, she thought. Yeah, he’s hot, but he knows he’s hot. He thinks he’s God’s gift. And you knew he was a wanker. Ok, you thought he was a wanker and assumed one night away from work would prove he’s really just a sensitive gentleman who was only acting like a gigolo in front of his workmates. Ugh.

Jillian Stewart was wondering why her life lately seemed like a bad BBC drama. She had become desperate and had stooped to hooking up with the workplace Casanova, who probably had lava lamps and sensual massage oils in his apartment, plus maybe a bookshelf with a copy of the Kama Sutra and remote operated music player with Tom Jones in the queue. Oh, that’s brilliant, Jillian. Tom Jones? Really? Shows that I know bugger all about what current singer is supposed to make me swoon into a man’s arms. More proof of how out of the damned loop I am. Tom Jones. Brilliant.

As a welcome interlude from her pathetic life musings, Jillian tried to remember the names of more recent romantic singers as she walked. Michael Bolton? A bit eighties. Was he even still around? Harry Connick? Maybe. Michael Bublé? She had only heard of him and had never listened to his music. She liked old-time singers like Bing Crosby, but couldn’t imagine having sex while he sang. If it were her, she’d put on Norah Jones, but she’d rather listen to the music than make out to it. Now her mind was switching tracks, imagining Frank in a shiny silk shirt, open to the navel, with a large gold medallion hanging down, snug disco pants, and a horseshoe mustache. She was smiling to herself when she nearly stepped on Frank’s heel, who had halted directly in front of her. She quickly side-stepped Frank and passed around him, avoiding his outstretched hand which was meant to block her path.

“Hey, wait,” said Frank, probably noticing that his manly protective ploy might be failing to impress. He caught up in an exaggerated step, but this time stayed at her side, not bothering to lead. “Sorry, ‘bout that. I guess I should stay out of your way,” he said, smiling, but with a poorly hidden edge in the tone.

“Sorry, really,” said Jillian, somewhat surprised at her sincerity. “I’m just done for the evening. No games. I just need to get home, unwind, and get some rest for tomorrow. You understand?”

“Sure, Jill. The exit’s coming up around here soon. I didn’t mean to upset you.” Frank’s tone also sounded more sincere.

She smiled as part of a long sigh. “Ohh, I’m not upset. It was a nice evening, you’ve been very sweet,” that’s too thick, “and a perfect gentleman.” Way too thick. “I really do appreciate the dinner and I’ll see you at work.” There, conversation over. I think I can see the exit, so if we can just manage to keep to ourselves for a few minutes… What in the world is that? They look like eyes.

“Aw, well, thank you. It is hard to be a gentleman around such a beautif…” Frank paused, reading Jillian’s distant expression. “What?”

Jillian abruptly stopped walking, staring at something ahead. Frank’s momentum took him a couple of steps past her and he turned to face her. “What’s the matter now?” he asked, annoyance in his voice.

Jillian said nothing, but her mouth opened and drew in a sharp breath.

Frank turned to follow her gaze. Two amber eyes glowed behind a long row of hedges and trees.

The eyes moved toward them. Frank froze.

Jillian screamed.

 

 

 

 

The creature watched the humans approach his position. They had not seen him, heard him, or picked up his scent. Humans were easy prey. They could not smell him like he could smell them. He could sense everything. They sensed almost nothing. He was aware of most every creature nearby: The birds high above him; the field mouse under a shrub near his foot; a squirrel clinging to a tree. He could even smell a dog in the distance. A wet dog. Humans knew nothing. He might have mused on the fact that he had once been human if his mind wasn’t so consumed with bloodlust and hunger. Nothing remained in him except the hunger.

He readied his legs for the spring. The girl stopped walking. He wanted to kill the girl especially, he didn’t remember why. The man stopped too. They were looking in his direction, and their smell had changed to one of fear. It was a smell he liked because it signaled the beginning of the killing play. It did not matter that they saw him. They could not stop him. He growled in anticipation, then sprang.

He burst from a hedge gap, and, in two strong bounds, he was upon them. At full speed, he smashed his massive chest into the man, simultaneously burying his long teeth into the man’s throat. The flesh was soft and tore quickly away, and a spray of hot blood hit his palette. As the two bodies hit the ground, the creature’s head shook savagely, ripping away most of the man’s neck. The creature ground the squishy mass in his jaws, squeezing the sticky blood deeper into his mouth as the man lay convulsing on the ground in front of him, precious blood pouring from the base of the man’s head. Though the creature wanted to devour it immediately, he was not finished with the killing. The girl stepped backward, shaking, not running. He didn’t understand how humans could be too scared to run, but it did not matter. She would be caught if she ran. He was faster than any human. She would be easier to kill than the man. He turned and brought his feet squarely underneath him, then leaped at her.

Instead of impacting the woman, something impacted him. In midair, something collided with his ribs. He saw a flash in front of him, then felt a sudden searing pain in his left arm. He hit the ground near the woman, the unexpected angle causing him to land awkwardly and lose a moment of breath. But he was fast to recover. It did not matter what had engaged him, he could overpower it. He scrambled on all fours to turn and destroy the new enemy, but one of his hands did not touch the ground. He didn’t have a left hand. The severed red stump clopped to the ground, oozing his blood across the grass. A bolt of pain shot from his wrist to the base of his skull. His teeth gnashed in defiance of the pain, then in rage at the new enemy that he must destroy. A roar boiled in his throat as he turned to face the new hated thing. A man was there. Just a man with a long piece of shiny metal and the smell of wet dog. The creature launched himself at the man.

 

 

 

 

Jillian was choking on her spit trying to scream again. It happened so fast, she barely had time to register what was going on. The thing… creature… whatever the hell it was, had come out of what seemed like nowhere. She had seen the eyes in the bushes, then the thing was on them in less time than it took to turn and see it kill Frank. It tore Frank’s throat out. Christ, it tore Frank’s goddamned throat completely out! This had to be a dream! Her life wasn’t a soap opera, it was a horror flick! One with crazy visual effects where some insane, unnatural animal stalked people in one of the biggest public parks in London. There aren’t any monsters in Regent’s Park! Goddamn it, it’s just Regent’s Park, with swans, picnickers, lovers, sports, tourists... This can’t be real!

The thing had ripped Frank apart before she had even finished her screaming. It shook its immense head, flinging small parts of Frank in the air, and spraying the ground with Frank’s blood. Jillian’s hands went to her face as if they offered some shield to the terror. Her ankles trembled, barely able to keep her standing. Her feet haphazardly responded to her desire to flee by simply shuffling in the general opposite direction. But not fast enough.

The thing turned toward her. It squished some part of Frank’s neck in its jaws, then let the bloody mass fall to the ground with a sickly splat. Her mind raced, wanting to think of options or defenses, or a direction to flee, anything at all that might be helpful, but all it came up with was panic. I’m going to die. Oh, God, I’m going to die! Christ, it’s looking at me. Oh, God. Oh, God. Where... Where…? I’m going to die. Oh, God.

The rest happened in what seemed like slow motion with a high-speed camera, complete with slowed down audio. The thing leaped at her. It was huge! The beast was not recognizable as any animal she had ever seen in her life. Its maw opened and had long blood-reddened teeth projecting from every angle along the jawline. While the thing was in mid-leap, close enough for her to see the bits of skin stuck to the base of its teeth, her foot attempted to step backward to begin a retreat, but it moved even slower than the time-warped scene she was staring at. Her foot hadn’t completed its step when something flashed in front of her.

Her “deer caught in headlights” trance, staring at the slow-motion creature in the air, was interrupted by a figure of a man appearing between them, brandishing something long and shiny. The shiny object slashed quickly and the beast’s left hand separated, exploding red. The man’s body smashed into the beast’s side, driving the beast into the ground to the right of her. Then the strange man stood between her and the creature.

Time suddenly sped back up to normal. The man hadn’t said a word to her, but seemed like he was intentionally protecting her. He stood in some battle posture like a Samurai warrior and was holding what looked like a medieval long sword, waiting for the creature to make its next move. He didn’t have to wait long. The beast charged him, awkwardly without the grip of one paw… or hand… limb, nonetheless, fast. Christ, that thing is fast! But the man was ready.

The creature jumped at the swordsman, who deftly moved left, temporarily opening an avenue for the beast to strike Jillian instead. Shit! But her danger was short-lived. The man’s sword came in an arc from underneath and speared the beast in the center of its neck. Momentum pushed both the sword and the man toward Jillian, whose terror had finally been overcome, and her feet unfroze. She hopped backward, scrambling to the limited safety of a streetlamp. The creature, sword, and man all slammed into the ground, rolling into a tangled heap. Only the man emerged and regained his feet. His sword was wrenched free and he once again did his Samurai pose. The creature writhed and twisted, finding no footing. It spilled blood out of its neck while flailing at the ground, trying to get any purchase for its claws. There was only enough leverage to get its shoulders off the ground, and barely enough angry energy to turn its head toward the man and gargle what should have been a defiant roar. With amazing speed, the man sliced his long blade through the creature’s neck, completely severing the head from its torso.

The amber eyes continued to glow as the head fell away and clunked to the ground, sounding like an over-ripe coconut. It rolled along the concrete and into the grass, where it leaked both crimson and clear liquids into the soil. The beast’s body twitched, but it didn’t get up and start running around chasing them with arms outstretched like Jillian half-expected it to do. It would in a horror movie, wouldn’t it? Apparently, the man had seen those movies too, because he reversed his grip and drove the sword down into the creature’s back, through the heart – if there was a heart. The man let go and left the quivering sword upright, embedded in the creature’s inert body.

Jillian caught herself holding her breath. How long have I been holding it? Have I breathed at all since I screamed? She exhaled loudly. Oh, God. Now what? Is this guy saving me? Is he some kind of lunatic who runs around parks with swords and is going to kill me next? Maybe that thing was his creation. Maybe he’s a mad scientist lunatic with a sword that had a human-animal experiment go wrong and needs another human victim to experiment on… Bloody hell! Stop it, Jillian!

She had no idea what would happen next, but the B-movie script ramblings in her head weren’t going to help. She assumed that whatever did happen next, it wouldn’t be normal. Would the man stomp his foot on the dead beast and pose like he was Captain Morgan? Would he clap his hands together and tip his hat to her and wink? He didn’t have a hat. And he hadn’t looked at her. At all. Damn it, he hasn’t even said a single word to me. Not even a, “Stay back!” or “Look out!” or “Don’t worry, little lady.” And why am I imagining that he’s a pirate or a cowboy? I really watch way too much bloody TV. I need to get out more. She sighed in abrupt remembrance. Sorry, Frank. So sorry. You didn’t deserve this. You were just supposed to be my attempt to get out of my flat and be social again. Well, she was out alright, with a dead monster thing, and a murdered date, and a strange man with a big sword. Although she was fearful of calling attention to herself, she figured there was nothing that could possibly happen next that would be any scarier than the scene she had just witnessed, so she ventured a timid, “Hello?”

The man continued to completely ignore her. Instead, he walked over to the beast’s head, whose eyes were finally dimming their glow. He bent down, not touching it, simply examining it by leaning on the balls of his feet and craning his neck around. Seemingly satisfied, he stood and returned to the headless body. He wrapped his hands around the sword hilt and yanked the weapon free, making a mucky, slurping sound. Ok, he’s either going to put the sword away and come talk to me, or – swing it at my head. “Um, Sir?” she said after a tight gulp.

Nothing. The guy just stared at the beast’s body and ignored her. Worst of all, she wasn’t sure if that was a bad or good thing. But it annoyed her anyway. She released her death grip on the lamppost and took a tentative step in the man’s direction.

He removed something from a jacket pocket and worked it in his fingers. It looked like a little vial. He undid its top and poured it carefully on the sword blade. The streaks of blood on the blade started to bubble and foam, then dripped off the blade and onto the ground.

“Umm,” Jillian started, “Thank God you k…”

The man flipped up his palm toward her, but maintained his focus between the foaming blade and the dead beast. Not even an eye-dart in her direction. Did he just tell me to “talk to the hand?” She finished her step and paused. The man began walking toward the pond, shaking off the foaming stuff as he walked.

Jillian wasn’t sure she actually wanted the man to approach her, or even converse with her, but… bloody hell! The guy saves me from some weird beast, then walks away like I’m not even here? She watched him stoop down at the water’s edge and whisk his sword in the water for a moment. Jillian was utterly confused. She wasn’t expecting a fireworks show for an ending, but she assumed the man would at least ask her if she was all right, or something.

The man started back in her general direction. He wiped his sword off with a dark-colored rag, then lifted it over his back, where she assumed some sheath was there to holster it. Then Jillian stopped her breath short. The man looked directly at her. He approached her quietly, striding purposefully. Oh, dear. Be careful what you ask for. She swallowed, probably too noticeably as he stopped only an arm’s distance from her. Without hesitation or warning, he reached out with both hands and gently grasped the base of her head. He turned her head a little left, right, tilted both ways, and back.

I am going to die now. She told her arms to reach up and slap his hands away, but they didn’t move.

He nodded, seemingly to himself, and removed his hands, only to place them on her shoulders. His smile was thin and clinical. “You ok?” he said.

She stared at him in a stupor, knowing she was being rude and dumb, but for some reason, she absolutely could not look away from his eyes, nor lift her hands to remove his.

He seemed to notice and dropped his gaze slightly. “I didn’t see any cuts or blood splatter,” he said. “So, don’t worry, I think you’re safe from infection.” He paused momentarily, probably waiting for her response, but she was still frozen. He lifted his gaze and said, “Hello? You ok?”

Her swallow of spit was supposed to have been the words, “Yes, I’m fine, thank you.” She recovered and managed to finally say, “Fine.”

He smiled broader, a little bemused, then said. “Ok.” He took his hands back and adjusted the strap that cut across his chest. He had a good-sized chest, she noticed. She blinked back her stupor and felt suddenly capable of handling herself again.

“Umm, yes, I’m fine. Thank you. Thank you very much, for – the…” she gestured toward the creature.

Without following her gesture, he smiled again with that same amused expression. He nodded, stared at her a little longer than she was comfortable with, then turned and walked over to the creature’s body again. For all her fuss about him not looking at her before, she felt better that he was not staring at her anymore.

“Is it – dead?” she asked.

He nodded. No smile this time. “He’s not getting back up without his head,” he said. The man had a calm voice, American, with just a trace of something southern sounding in it. “I got a bead on this piece of sh… this guy a little late. I hoped to get to him before he – uh.” The man paused, grimaced politely, and cocked his head toward her. “Sorry about your friend. I wasn’t quick enough. Hard to predict their attack patterns.”

“Oh, he wasn’t…” …my Friend? It doesn’t matter, does it? “Well, yes, I’m – I’m sorry too.” She really was. Nobody deserved that. Wait a mo. What the hell was that thing, and who the hell are you? “I’m sorry,” she started. “Um, everything’s completely mad, and I probably seem barking,” she said, nervously laughing. He smiled again. He had a nice smile. “But,” she continued, “what the hell was that thing? And – and...”

“Who the hell am I?” he finished. He stood, mashing his lips together in thought. He was tallish, over six feet she’d guess, with dirty-blond hair, and greenish-grey eyes. He wasn’t young, but not middle-aged either. He was wearing some kind of black reinforced jumpsuit, which resembled something Batman would wear, then she recalled seeing similar things worn by motorcycle racers. Or was it ski racers? Several straps, some that held his gear to his back, and some that had little raised pockets for unknown items, cut across the chest, while small leather pouches attached to a belt might store other items. His face was smooth, but his hands were scarred. Or at least they appeared scarred under the combination moonlight and lamplight. His hair was medium-short and fell in scattered directions assumedly from the tussle he just went through. She somehow doubted it had ever been neatly combed. If she wasn’t so concerned with earthly nightmares attacking her, and how this strange man was associated with these things, and how he roamed around killing monsters in public with ancient swords, then he’d probably have turned her head. As it was, her thoughts were preoccupied with other things.

The man turned to the creature once again and stared for another long moment before he spoke. “Well, as for this thing – I can try to explain it, and it would sound crazy. There’s probably a much better technical term for what this thing is, and even though what you’re thinking isn’t accurate, it’s probably the easiest way to describe it.”

“What I’m...?” She stared at the body, then the severed head, then back to the body. With a forced laugh, she said “It, um, kinda looks like a werewolf or something, but...”

He smiled and nodded his head. She wasn’t noticing his nice smile this time though.

“Excuse me?” she stammered. “No. Come off it. I’m not an idiot. There’s no such thing as, umm…” she paused. Big dog-like creatures that stand on two legs, have a body like a man, and attack people? You sure, sweetie? One is lying right there.

She took a step closer and focused for a clear moment to better examine this dead thing that couldn’t possibly be a werewolf. The torso was very man-like and overly muscled like a freakishly hairy bodybuilder. The back of the body resembled the rear of a dog, except that it was elongated like it had been stretched on some medieval torture device. Mottled grey hair covered it, with the hairs being spinier along its back, like a porcupine. No skin showed through the hair except for the one remaining hand and bottoms of the feet. The feet had dark grey lumps like canine pads, and the knees bent backward like a dog. That little feature was a sharp, grounding realization. Not that she had truly believed it, but there was the lingering possibility that this creature was just some psycho in a well-made costume who was trying to live out his werewolf fantasy, or something. Even the best movie make-up artist isn’t going to be able to hide the direction the knees bend on a human. Ok, so it’s… it’s not human. And it’s no animal I’ve ever seen. Brief images ran through her brain of sensationalist shock-shows on TV that advertised real proof of Bigfoot, or Nessie, or aliens, or swamp creatures, all of whom only show themselves to people who never happen to have functioning cameras or stable camcorders with them. She didn’t have a camera either. Damn.

She moved slowly over to the severed head. Something about it made her nervous to approach, like it would jump up and fly at her without anything to propel it. She stood at a distance and craned her neck around to see each side of its hideous face. It didn’t jump up, or move in any way, but it seemed to smile at her. She knew it couldn’t, but she also knew there weren’t werewolves. She tried to ignore the head’s smile.

Though the ears were positioned on the sides of the head like a man, they stood up long and stiff like a Doberman. Its snout was also elongated like the legs, and had no cute button nose like a dog, rather almost slit-like tunneled nostrils like a reptile. The jaws were long and flat similar to a crocodile. Its slate-colored teeth were slender yet solid like steel, and so numerous that she couldn’t figure out if they overlapped like a shark, or were just random and crooked. And the eyes, now dark, were unnecessary to reexamine. Those she remembered all too well. They were burned into her mind when she had watched them come at her in slow motion a few minutes earlier.

It hit her again like a wave of nausea. I’ve been attacked by some insane creature, and it killed Frank. And I’m alive, talking to this man who saved my life with a bloody sword. And he knows what this creature is.

And I’m supposed to believe it’s a werewolf.

She regained her outward composure. “Well, whatever it is, I’m glad it’s dead. Thanks. Thanks, Mister…?” She angled her eyes at him to finish her question.

“No mister, just Sebastian.” He smiled again, albeit forced, and quickly turned his eyes from her. Talking to Jillian, though staring at the creature’s head, he said, “And as to who the hell I am, well, let’s say if you don’t believe it’s possible that this guy is a werewolf, then you probably won’t believe who I am.”

“Uhhh,” she started to laugh nervously. “You’re not a vampire, right?”

She figured he’d either laugh too, or bite her neck. Hoping for the returned laugh, she laughed louder.

“No,” he said, but didn’t laugh. “Just a guy. A guy with a sword and a black suit with gadgets on my belt.” He smiled, politely not genuinely. “I just need a mask and some pointy ears and I’d pass for Batman.”

Batman doesn’t have a sword, does he? “Right, then. Sebastian.” She noticed he smelled like a wet dog. Had he smelled that way the whole time and she just now caught it? It was kind of obvious. She made a face unconsciously.

“Sorry, about that,” he noticed. “Keeps ‘em confused about my scent, so they don’t… never mind.”

Jillian was looking around anxiously as the next wave of shock hit her. Her date was dead, this weird creature was dead, and now what the hell is she supposed to do? She slapped her thighs and blew out an exaggerated breath.

“Well, as I don’t have a camera to prove this thing attacked me, and I don’t have a mobile to call the police...” She stopped herself. Why in bleeding hell did you just tell him that? Now he knows I can’t call the police on him. What if he’s just faking concern for me? Maybe it’s some kind of secret government project I’m not allowed to see and they need to kill anyone who finds out. Dear God, how stupid can I be!

“Relax, there’s no conspiracy going on.” He paused to consider something. “Ok, there’s no conspiracy that you need to worry about.” He chuckled softly.

Carries a big sword and tells bad jokes. That’s just fantastic. Wait. How did he know what I was thinking?

“Hard to get camera proof,” he said. “These guys usually disintegrate pretty quickly. Not sure why he hasn’t started yet, but he should soon.” He looked at her, bemused again. “Thought everybody had camera phones nowadays.”

“I, um, left mine at home,” she said, dropping her gaze back to the purported werewolf. “I was just trying to unplug and be social, you know, get out for a change and have a nice night with no distractions, and – and wait, there are more of these things!?”

Still amused, he rolled his eyes. He walked toward Frank and examined him for the first time. “Yeah, unfortunately, that’s not the only one I’ve ever dealt with. They don’t all look the same, but they’re all pretty much as bad as this guy,” gesturing back to the werewolf-like creature, not Frank. Then gesturing toward Frank, he asked, “Boyfriend?”

“No. We were just, um, no.” She felt the strange need to say something more about Frank, like it was a makeshift eulogy. “We were colleagues at work. Frank was in sales. Global sales. He was very successful. That’s why they stationed him over here. He was just… we were friends.” A little white lie, but it felt better than the things she had thought earlier during their walk.

Sebastian nodded.

She stiffened as something suddenly occurred to her. What if that thing really is a werewolf, and all that other movie nonsense is true, and if someone is bitten they might turn into… oh, my god!

Sebastian sighed. “Easy, Miss. No one’s going to turn into anything.”

Ok, what the hell? And – good, by the way. But, what the hell? Am I talking out loud and didn’t notice?

“No,” he said, “your unfortunate friend – uh, Frank, was it? – is dead for keeps.” Sebastian looked back at the dead werewolf thing and paused for a moment. Though he was preoccupied with the dead creature, it seemed like something else was bothering him. He sighed and said, “And looks like this wolfer isn’t going to disintegrate like he’s supposed to. That complicates things. And I doubt the police will understand what happened, so – we probably need to get moving.”

She nodded, sighed, and hung her head. Her hands went to her sweater pockets and tried to clasp each other through the fabric. In a small voice, entirely to herself, she started rambling. “Great, now I’m running from the police? Some weird thing attacks me, kills my – friend, I get saved by some cowboy ninja, and he tells me I need to get going before the police arrest me.” She nodded again, pinching back the desire to cry. “Sure. Of course, I’ll just go home. I can make some tea, watch the telly, just forget the whole thing. Right? I’ll try some of my new tea and catch up on my shows, just like nothing happened. No one will know. Nothing happened at all. I don’t even know where Frank was tonight. Never saw him. Never saw anything at all. Except… except that everyone knew he was taking me out. He told everyone. Everyone will know. They’ll find him. And they’ll see that he… They’ll think that I… that I was…” Here came the tears. Never looking up, she continued to babble to herself. “Fantastic. Just fantastic. I’m going mad. Mm hmm. I have to go now. Yes, have to get home. I should probably pack. Go somewhere. But I have a presentation tomorrow, I can’t leave. I’ll leave the next day. I’ll say I’m sick and need some time off. Right. I can work remotely, find an island that has wi-fi. But they could find me, couldn’t they? That’s fine, I’ll just say it was a lion. Lions escape from zoos, don’t they? I’ll just stay here and say a lion did it. They’ll believe that, right? Yeah?”

She hadn’t noticed Sebastian approaching her. He placed his hand on her shoulder. It snapped her out of her trance. She wasn’t sure if she was offended or thankful.

“Whoa, Miss,” he said. “I think we’re losin’ ya, here.”

You don’t say?

“You’re just a little – shocked right now,” he said, patronizingly. His eyes stared at her mouth, not her eyes. “It’s ok. Understandable. Not exactly easy stuff to process. I’d buy you a drink but they don’t allow swords in bars.”

More Jokes? Really? Evidently, he noticed and dropped his head and sighed.

“Sorry. Listen – you’ve been through a lot, and you probably need some time to digest it all, so you do need to get home, ok?”

The car. Frank’s driver.

“Frank had a car meeting us at the gate over there,” she said, chin pointing to an area behind Sebastian.

Sebastian cocked an eyebrow.

“I’d guess it’s still there,” said Jillian. “I have no idea what to tell him, if he’d take me home, or… how do I… what am I going to say?”

Sebastian nodded, thinking. “Alright. I got an idea, as long as you promise you won’t freak out if I borrow your friend’s coat.”

She rolled her eyes and was about to tell him she didn’t care when something else caught her attention. “Umm, Sebastian?” She pointed with her eyes to the severed head of the beast. It wasn’t a beast anymore. Still monster-like, but not the same. It was changing. Becoming more human.

“Oh, shit,” said Sebastian, quietly, but Jillian noticed.

Her eyebrows stretched up. This was the freakiest thing she’d ever seen and probably would start going into hysterics any second unless, for some reason, despite the insane thing that was going on now, if this Sebastian person to blew it off and said some nonchalant remark about how it was no big deal, maybe she could keep it together. “All these werewolf guys do that stuff,” he should say. Not, “Oh, shit.”

“Umm, is he supposed to do…,” she started. Come on, say it’s ok. Say it’s fine, let’s get you home.

“Nope,” he said, teeth clenched.

The head had human eyes now. They had lightened to a milky cast with brown irises. The nose was still reptilian, but much shorter, and the ears had shrunk to only human size with a slight point. Its mouth was only half the length it was before, noticeably shrinking at the speed of a snail crawling. Jillian felt sick.

“That,” she stammered, “that, that thing is turning into a, a…” she ran out of breath to finish, then swallowed.

“Uh huh,” said Sebastian. He screwed up his face. “Not good.”

Stay upright. Keep standing, it’s ok, it’s… Jillian’s ankles failed. Her knees had no more stability. She started an uncontrolled lean backward.

“Ohhh boy,” said Sebastian, sliding his hands under her reclined back. “Miss? Miss?”

“Jillian,” she said, blinking rapidly, lids working hard to stay open.

“Jillian,” he said. “Hang on, we’re gonna get you home.”

“It’s fine. Right? Fine?”

Sebastian squinted, then relaxed. “Absolutely.”

Jillian was out.

 

 

 

 

Barton Dunby, “Bart” to his friends, reclined in the driver’s seat of the limousine, eyes flitting over the copy of the Daily Mail he had read twice. Frank had told him to park near the eastern gate and wait. Even though Frank warned him, it may take a while to “chip the frost off this ice-princess,” Bart had expected the couple to emerge a long time ago. The usual objects of Frank’s affection commonly returned to the car, lip-locked with Frank, within a half-hour after they had been dropped off, at which time the plan became to head back to Frank’s flat. Once there, Bart was free to leave them both and go to his pub.

Even though Bart had seen plenty of Americans like Frank, Bart didn’t assume they were all that way. He had driven a cab not so long ago and enjoyed conversing with the clients. Most of the Americans were pretty decent, nice tippers, and very exuberant. They were excited about this city, which he found amusing because he’d been here his whole life and was about as bored with it as can be. All there was in London was worn down, overhyped old buildings, cheesy souvenirs, and a whole lot of foreigners, many of which considered themselves to be British. Keep on believin’ it, ya buggers. You’re all about as British as the plastic bobble-headed doll of Prince William made in China, in that shop over there run by Pakistani’s. They can call themselves British, but at least they’ll never be English.

It was all the same anymore. But as long as the Arsenal football club kept their winning streak going, he didn’t care much. Arsenal’s star striker’s ankle was holding up, even after that Man U gorilla tried to take him down yesterday. It was a crime, that’s what it was. The Man U buggers paid that bastard to do nothing more than take down Arsenal’s striker. Going for the ball, my arse.

Bart was about to reread the article about the Man U thuggery when it started raining. He sighed to himself. No problem really, as long as Frank and his lady friend came out soon. A little water on the seats wasn’t an issue, but if they waited too long and got muddy, then he’d have to clean out the footwells, and that would be a pain. But as he figured it, Miss Ice-Princess wasn’t typical of Frank’s usual suspects, and didn’t seem in lock-step with Frank’s ultimate plans, so he doubted they’d be heading back to Frank’s flat anytime soon. More than likely, Bart would be taking her home, then driving Frank home alone. He could’ve warned his client that he was going to strike out, but it wasn’t Bart’s job. He folded up his paper and tried to remember if he had a towel under the seats.

A figure suddenly emerged from the park gate. Very few folks were out mid-week after midnight, so he assumed it was at least one of his duo, even though the rain obscured his vision. Confirming the assumption, they both came toward him. What the …? The girl was being carried in the man’s arms, limp and seemingly unconscious. Bart started to get out to help.

The man was wearing Frank’s coat, but wasn’t Frank. He came over to Bart with quick yet labored steps. Though Jillian was petite, no human was light, and she was starting to slide in the man’s arms. The man bucked and adjusted his grip on her. He had pulled the collar of the coat up to his cheeks and the collar was darkened with something red. Bart had no idea what to think.

“You, driver!” said the man who was most definitely not Frank, and also American, it seemed. “Call the police. Your friends have been attacked in the park by an escaped zoo lion.”

You’re joking. In Regent’s Park?

The man had a bulge on his back pushing Frank’s coat higher than it should be. Probably a backpack full of rapist gear. “She’s fainted, but I think she’s ok,” the strange man said. “I’m going to get her to the hospital. Frank’s probably dead, throat cut. Need the police and an ambulance, now! Hurry!”

The strange man turned and sprinted off in a labored gait across the street with his unconscious load. Bart wasn’t sure whether he should follow the man and save the girl, or run and see if he needed to save his client. Maybe Frank was dead, and maybe it was a ploy. Whatever the case, he would definitely call the police. Lion, my arse.

Bart long ago mastered the art of mobile phone readiness, flicking the phone up and snapping a quick photo of the strange man as he ran away. He caught mostly just the back and side of the man, and at a distance, but it was better than nothing. Pocketing the mobile, Bart flipped the Daily Mail over his head as a makeshift umbrella and ran toward the park gate to find Frank.

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter 2

 

 

 

Sebastian’s cumbersome trip back to Jillian’s apartment, hauling her unconscious body while trying not to be seen, was an impressive performance. First, he had to fish around in her purse to find her address and keys. His borrowed motorcycle had been hidden a block away from Regent’s park, and he had managed to drive slowly along residential streets with her body draped around him, both of them remaining upright. The cloth belt from Frank’s coat secured her torso to his, and he steadied her with one arm while he drove with the other. A difficult feat on a motorcycle and he was a little proud of it.

Inside Jillian’s apartment, Sebastian placed her gently down on her couch. Opening a pouch on his belt, he produced a small, metal vile and flipped the top open. He had given her a quick whiff of an opposite kind of vile earlier when he had stopped at a corner and noticed her reviving. It was preferable for her to stay unconscious as long as possible. Her fainting had ended up helped matters as he would’ve eventually had to knock her out anyway. The vile he had used previously held a powerful sleep agent that needed only one good intake of breath to work. That one he kept on his wrist bracers. Though he was joking to her earlier about Batman, in reality, he wasn’t that far removed. He just wished he had Bruce Wayne’s bank account.

Jillian’s breathing was calm and even. She wasn’t under very deeply. Likely when she woke up, she’d still be in the same mental state as when she had fainted. Sebastian held an open vile in his hand that was an ammonium carbonate compound, which passed for “smelling salts,” but was a little milder. He waved it under Jillian’s nose and, within moments, she stirred. She scrunched up her face and squirmed on the couch. Sebastian returned his vile to its pouch and stepped back. He didn’t want to freak the woman out, but he did want to ask one or two questions before he “scrambled” her, which would be much easier with her eyes open.

“Uhhnnmm,” she grunted, rubbing her temples and scanning around with squinted eyes. She thought to herself, “Where am I? What’s going on?”

Sebastian concentrated to hear her thoughts clearly, but didn’t need to. She was the loudest thinker he’d ever encountered, perhaps the result of the extreme drama they just survived. He had listened to her unconscious ramblings all the way here, and she was still loud and clear in the apartment. Her mind wasn’t the only one Sebastian could hear. Virtually all the inhabitants of the apartment complex within close proximity to Sebastian could be heard in his head. Though no one was really up at this hour, sleepers’ thoughts and dreams were just as audible to him as people who were fully awake. But Jillian was just plain loud.

She stared at him for a moment. Then as the fog cleared in her brain, she startled into a tight ball on the couch.

“Hey!” she said in a near squeak. “Why are you in my flat?”

He smiled, trying not to be patronizing, though probably was anyway. “Well, I guess I could’ve left you lying there next to two dead people and let the police sort it out.”

“Right,” she said. “Right, ok, then. Well, um, thank you, Mister… Mister…?”

“Sebastian,” he repeated. He didn’t think he had accidentally scrambled her, so he was hoping this was just panic or shock.

“Yes, right, Sebastian, you told me that. Ok, then. Well, thank you, Sebastian, for bringing me home,” she pulled a pillow closer to her chest, “and saving my life, and all that. Very kind of you.” She was staring at the door and was trying very hard to not meet his eyes. He wasn’t sure if she knew not to, it was smart of her all the same.

“You’re welcome,” he said. He didn’t have time to hang around here, but also didn’t want to come across to the cute woman as some maniac if he could help it. He thought... I’m your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man. Except, I dress like Batman and act like Captain America, but definitely have the wallet of Spider-Man. “You gonna be ok?”

“Mm hmm, yes,” she said, quickly and nodding excessively. “I’m good. Quite well, just going to make some tea, read a little, and go to bed.” She thought, “Why on earth did I say tea? Now he’ll want some tea.”

“None for me, thanks,” he said. Her head tilted like a confused dog and he almost laughed. He had to find a little fun wherever he could, even at the expense of poor souls like this one. All in all, he kind of liked her though. Maybe that was why he was here. He could’ve injected a little “scrambled eggs” into her veins earlier instead of reviving her.

“Scrambled eggs” was a concoction his organization had made to initiate a short term memory loss. The effects didn’t last long, only enough to usually confuse or erase a prior incident. But he hated using the stuff. They said the chemicals were safe and it was just temporary effects, but he preferred the natural method, as if there was anything natural in his strange ability to stare into someone’s eyes and temporarily befuddle them. With either method, by the time he was far away, she’d remember it all as some weird dream.

She clutched at her pillow, kneading it with her fingers, continuing to stare anywhere but him.

“Forgive me, I was hoping I hadn’t scared you,” said Sebastian. “I figured that bad boy had scared you enough and I would make sure you were ok before I headed out,” he said, turning to examine the apartment.

Jillian noticed he had mentioned leaving. “Finally. Good,” she thought. “Yes, well, thank you. That was very kind.” She followed his gaze around the apartment. “Luckily the place is clean. And why exactly do I care what he thinks about my flat?”

Sebastian tried to soften his smirk. “Nice place.” It looked clean, minimalist, and probably saw nothing more exciting than an evening book read on the couch, or a TV show watched from the same couch. Poor girl. She was attractive enough, just cautious. Or occupied. Or something. No human mind, even this loud one, was crystal clear.

“Thank you,” she said. “And I do think you’re the only man in this city that’s seen it. My god, how terribly sad is that? And I still want him gone as soon as possible?”

Sebastian was grateful she couldn’t read his thoughts. He had a couple of fleeting notions that wouldn’t have been appropriate, and if he was a weaker man, they would’ve been all too easy to accomplish.

“I’m sorry,” he said, ‘I know you want me gone, and I promise I’ll get out of your hair in just a sec. But since this thing that attacked you was, shall we say, kind of a special thing, and since it’s sorta my job to take care of these special things, so they don’t hurt anyone else, hopefully, you won’t mind just a couple of questions before I go?”

“Um, ok. I guess so,” said Jillian. Apparently, what happened tonight was hitting her again. These realizations were coming in waves. Thoughts were racing around in her head, including the one that believed she was currently dreaming and needed to wake up. And on that note, she was wondering why she would want to kick this good-looking guy out of her flat if it was only a dream.

Sebastian read all her mind’s wanderings and tried to hide his amusement. If it was a dream, I wouldn’t be trying to leave. “Did you have any idea that thing was following you tonight?”

“No. And what was that thing? It looked so – so...”

“Let’s skip the complicated technical explanation and just call him Harry. Ok?”

She hesitated, but said in a faraway tone, “Alright.”

“Good. And if it makes you feel better, I think Harry was just looking for anyone to pass by at the right time and place.” Sebastian had no idea if that was the case, he just thought saying so might make her feel less threatened.

Jillian nodded. She seemed to have grown a little more detached and distant in the last minute. It was likely that the condition of shock was catching up to her.

“Ok. How did you first notice Harry?” he asked.

Continuing her faraway tone, she said, “Saw his eyes. Yellow. Quite creepy.” She turned to him. “You’re American?”

“Me? Yes, ma’am.”

“I like Americans.” She turned away to stare blankly at the floor.

Her thoughts were vague and quiet. She’s definitely going into shock.

“No other warning? No sounds or bad smells?” he continued.

She shook her head. “I smelled dog. Stinky wet kind of dog. That was you though, wasn’t it?”

“Umm, yes, it was. Sorry about that. It hides my scent so he can’t pick me up.”

She nodded, still staring at the floor.

“Have you heard of any other weird things like this happening in the city?”

She shook her head weakly. “Just some things you see in tabloids. But they’re silly, made-up stories most of the time, aren’t they?” It wasn’t a question, just a blank response.

Sebastian nodded, not really an answer. He noticed the clock on her wall and thought he should probably get going before anyone catches up to his movements.

Jillian was still talking. “I guess they’re not all silly stories, are they?” Her eyes and attention were distant and unfocused, like she was inebriated.

“No, I suppose not.” He thought he was done with the conversation, then remembered one more thing he wanted to ask. “Jillian? Did you recognize the face of the man that attacked you – after it turned back human?” It sounded weird coming out of his mouth, but he didn’t have a good way of asking.

She placed her finger on her mouth. Her glazed eyes continued to stare nowhere. “Hmmm. A little. He looks a bit like a man I work with.” She giggled drunkenly. “Except that man has a body.”

Her expression suddenly darkened, though in a clumsy way. She turned and blinked slowly, trying to focus on Sebastian’s face. “You killed the monster-man, didn’t you?”

“Uh, yes, ma’am. He attacked you and Frank. Remember?”

She nodded, keeping her eyes on Sebastian, acting like she couldn’t see clearly. Certainly, she thought she couldn’t. But her head was so drugged with shock trauma, it was hard for Sebastian to make out what was going on in there. “Are you a policeman, or one of those special agent, alien hunters like on Torchwood?”

Sebastian wasn’t familiar with Torchwood, but he got the idea that it was a sci-fi or fantasy TV show, and it wouldn’t hurt to play to her delusions at the moment.

“Sure, kinda like that,” he said, smiling slightly. He had planned to scramble her memory anyway, so why not tell her the worst kind of lie possible: the truth. “You see, I’m actually a field agent for an ancient organization called The Saints. We protect the world from things you’d call supernatural, but which are really entities created by what we call ‘rifts,’ which are tears between dimensions. These rifts can be anywhere in the world. Scary spirits, which we call ‘demons,’ can come out of rifts. Not all demons are bad, but most are. And when demons mix with a human or an animal, it can create strange creatures like the one you saw tonight. Most of those are usually bad too. If we find bad ones, we eliminate them, and you found a bad one tonight.”

There. Full disclosure. And even though I’m about to erase it from her mind, that honestly made me feel better for a second.

She scrunched up her face and looked wistful. “It got Frank. But you saved me.”

“Yes.”

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

“You have pretty eyes.”

Sebastian had a well-intentioned response to that, but he saw that he could be quickly heading down a dangerous path, and the clock was most definitely not on his side if he stayed much longer. Someone would figure out who Jillian was and eventually investigate, and he would have a hard time explaining himself to authorities.

“Well, Jillian. I appreciate your time and I did promise to get out of your hair. So…”

“Would you like some tea?”

“No. No, thank you. So, let me just check to make sure you didn’t get any blood on you. Blood probably isn’t dangerous, but you never know what can happen from chemicals altered by dimensional radiation.” He had already checked her in the park, he just wanted to get her attention. He came over to her and lifted her chin with his hand.

“I just bought some chocolate biscuits,” she said, absently.

“I’m good. Look at me for a sec, let me check your eyes.”

She did. She had pretty eyes too. Brownish green. Good lord, if I wasn’t a gentleman, the things I could do, and no one would ever catch me. He tried to see behind her eyes. She stared at him directly now. The lock had worked.

“Oh, my,” she said, transfixed with his unnatural gaze. Her lips were trying to say what was in her mind, which was, “Your eyes are so beautiful.” But she froze, completely entranced by Sebastian’s very unique irises. Irises that could scramble a memory, or daze someone for a little while, or make them lose track of time. He held her gaze for a few moments, planning to only scramble her recent memory, so she would simply have a lost hour, or so where she could remember nothing from that time. But he hesitated, feeling like he was stealing something. Though that feeling had nagged at him during other scrambles, not as much as at that moment. Why couldn’t Jillian’s memory just be vague? There could be hints of confusing things, but her general memory could stay intact? She didn’t deserve to be blanked. Nobody did. Sebastian held back his concentration. In the long run, there was no telling what mind-scrambling could do to a brain. He always felt his way was gentler than the drugs, though he had no proof. Anyway, Jillian wouldn’t completely lose her memory tonight. It would just likely be very vague, which would hopefully be healthier for her. He blinked and released his eye lock.

Sebastian said, “You look fine. No problems.”

He let her chin drop and she blinked slowly, rhythmically. Her thoughts were completely blank for a moment. Sebastian sighed. It would be nice if she didn’t completely forget me, but I doubt she’ll remember any details. Too bad. It would be nice to talk to a girl for once without it involving scrambling her brain, either intentionally, or accidentally.

He covered her with a throw blanket she had folded on the couch. She sat still, blinking. “Thank you,” she said softly, to no one in particular. “That was a weird dream. I’m so sleepy.”

Satisfied she was sufficiently confounded, he folded Frank’s coat across a chair and headed for the door. As he grasped the handle, he noticed several individually wrapped chocolate wafers in a plastic bowl. She had indeed just bought some biscuits, hadn’t she? He grabbed two of them and quietly said, “thanks” before he walked out.

 

 

 

Sebastian was running on fumes. He had gone to London two days ago to help with a group of wolfers in the English countryside that had given the British Saint field agents a hard time. The wolfers’ elimination took longer than expected. Then, heading back to his hotel already tired, he passed by Regent’s Park and caught the strange, bloodthirsty thoughts of something both feral, yet human enough to speak English in its mind. Quickly changing course, he interceded, tapping into energy he wasn’t sure he had in reserve. It had already been a long two days in London. Killing wolfers in the countryside was exercise enough. Stalking and killing another one in Regent’s Park, plus carrying an unconscious woman to her apartment, not to mention the fancy footwork to sneak her there without being noticed and fingered as some rapist who drugged his date, and then the effort to scramble her thoughts, and don’t forget the jetlag, all added up to one very exhausted Saint. A hungry Saint too. Two cookies, a.k.a. “biscuits,” were not enough to sufficiently replace the energy lost. But energy or not, he had more work to do. No sightseeing this trip, even though he had been at the entrance of the immense British Museum just the other day visiting a very “special” antiques dealer. That antiques dealer had a secret side occupation that was important to Sebastian’s work. And before the evening was over, Sebastian would have to return there as well.

Edwin Fryer ran a very respectable antiques and artifacts shop. He never bought or sold anything controversial, or gained anything from anyone controversial. In essence, he was as clean as a whistle to all the authorities who dig into archeological dealers and their business practices. Probably way too clean for anyone who might be looking for suspicious activity. Sebastian had no idea how Edwin had managed to escape judgmental inquisitors when it was well known that the first rule of good cover stories was to not look too spotless. Whatever. Not my problem. Squire Fryer was as crooked as he needed to be when it came to lending out the essential tools in the Saints’ trade. Sebastian had only met him a couple of times, but was still his favorite supplier. He loved the European medieval gear almost as much as Japanese medieval weaponry. Granted he shouldn’t care as long as it did the job, nevertheless, medieval long swords were as cool as they came. And he still had to eventually return the sword Edwin had loaned him, just not yet. Still things to do tonight.

Next stop: A demon-infused little runt named Nigel.

He doubted he needed the sword for Nigel, but you never know. Nigel wasn’t a typical demon. He wasn’t a typical anything. But he referred to himself as a “reformed demon.” As a rule, it was never wise to confront someone possessed by, or suffused with, demon energy, albeit a “reformed” one, without a stable weapon. Demons aren’t to be trusted, period. But then, who is?

Sebastian’s trip to Nigel’s apartment in Queen’s Docks hadn’t taken long. It was not a difficult trip at this hour, and even easier if you had a motorcycle. Like the sword, the bike had been borrowed off one of Sebastian’s associates. Sebastian loved the simplicity of them when you were traveling light, and it was also nice to be able to weave through traffic. No traffic at this hour to worry about though. All the better for Sebastian’s faltering alertness. Plus, the less time he spent on the eastern side of London, the better. Some pockets of clean living were all around, but they were bordered by some of the scariest city dwellers anyone could find. The food delivery vehicles long ago quit doing any business in Queen’s Docks, as they kept losing money when their drivers were robbed. Of course, the drivers, like all London denizens, weren’t allowed to carry weapons, so it followed that when enough employees threatened to quit, the employers dumped the route. But Sebastian did have a weapon, and he didn’t think a bunch of gangster malcontents were more difficult to handle than a seven-foot croco-wolf-thing.

Sebastian stared at the number on the door. It looked different than the last time he visited. At least, he thought so. Was this even the same place? He knocked underneath the numbers “6” and “9,” which were not consistent with the other apartment numbers. Nigel always had an adolescent sense of humor.

It took almost two minutes and another series of knocking before the door finally opened. Holding the knob was a short, skinny, sallow-faced man who was in his late twenties, but whose body had seen enough chemical infusions to resemble a man much older. His large bug-like eyes closed and he squeezed his lips tight as he recognized his visitor. He quickly regained his composure, or more likely remembered to fake this composure, and smiled broadly.

“Ah, Sebastian, me ol’ sod. How are ya, mate?” said the sallow-faced man. His accent was the clichéd mix of cockney and gutter English. It sounded more like a foreign actor’s attempt at English rather than a genuine accent. If Sebastian didn’t know better, he would’ve accused the man of faking it.

“Nigel,” said Sebastian, with a broad, just-as-fake smile. “It’s been a long time, hasn’t it?”

Nigel examined the air, smile fading slightly. “Weren’t you ‘ere three months ago?”

“Was I? I missed you that much, I guess,” said Sebastian. He stepped into the doorframe. Nigel shifted uneasily.

“Your, uh, brother isn’t ‘ere is ‘e?” asked Nigel.

Sebastian just grinned as he abruptly pushed past Nigel into the hallway.

“Ah, come on, mate. I’ve got…,” Nigel made a meaningful tossing motion with his head. “Guests,” he finished.

Sebastian grinned. “I’m a guest too, Nigel.”

“Yeah, but you don’av tits, do you?”

Sebastian entered Nigel’s kitchen and peered into the small living room. It was furnished with an assortment of outdated paraphernalia like lava lamps, doorway beads, and glow-in-the-dark fantasy posters. Nigel apparently resigned his decorating tastes to the secondhand stores, with the exception of a few recent playmates of the month on the rear wall.

Two ladies of questionable moral character lounged in the center of this retro palace, wearing only their undergarments. Neither looked particularly aware of anything in this room, or in this world for that matter.

“Nigel, you brought one for me? So sweet of you.”

Nigel rolled his eyes and turned on his kitchen light. “Yeah, right. Perhaps you want to tell me what in the bleedin’ hell you want so I can get back to entertainin’ me guests.”

Sebastian smiled and knelt near one of the ladies. Her eyes were about as dilated as possible as she smiled and stared unblinking at Sebastian. He turned to Nigel with an arched eyebrow.

“What?” said Nigel. “They were this way before they got ‘ere.”

Sebastian smirked and shook his head slightly.

“Oi, it’s some shit I got from a bloke in Limehouse,” said Nigel. “Swear it’s straight.”

By “straight,” Nigel meant not from any kind of rift-altered substance, or dimensionally enhanced artifact. Sebastian didn’t really care, and Nigel knew that too, so there was no response to Nigel’s comment.

“Whatever, mate,” continued Nigel, opening his refrigerator for a beer. “What d’you want?”

Sebastian caught a glance inside the fridge, briefly wondering if there might be something in it worthy of eating. But Nigel’s fridge was worse than his own. Nothing but condiments and beer.

“Just some information, if you have it,” said Sebastian.

“Yeah, yeah. Like I’m Deep Throat or something. You Saints think I hang around dodgy bastards all day so I can get enough shit to pass on to you. Just ‘cause me job don’t pay me much, you think I go around peepin’ an’ creepin’. You’re a bunch of lunatics, you are.”

“Never said we weren’t.” Sebastian wasn’t in the mood to be bartered with. He had paid Nigel before, and may even do so again, but he had no cash on him now, and he was very tired. It was true Nigel wasn’t really a player anymore, however, he had associations with many of the very troublesome entities that haunted the earth. Entities that Sebastian and The Saints referred to as demons. Although the term demon was used very loosely regarding pretty much any entity or energy that came out of any dimensional rift, however in Nigel’s case, it fit.

He called himself a “reformed” demon, which he said sounded better than a possessed human. There was nothing reformed about Nigel other than he didn’t get caught doing the shady things he did. Sebastian had heard Nigel’s story about how he escaped some sort of slavery in the other dimension and ended up inhabiting Nigel’s body. The questionable details of the story seemed to change every time Nigel told it, but the reality was that the human part of Nigel did seem to welcome the outer-dimensional entity’s presence. The demon Nigel had a kind of power the human Nigel didn’t understand but wanted. The human Nigel was a lonely and depressed communications technician, the demon Nigel needed a body, and they came to an agreement. Almost like a movie about some schmuck who sells himself to the devil for fame and fortune, Nigel got a demon makeover to become Nigel 2.0. He still looked the same, still did the same stuff (yes, Nigel still actually worked), but he had a strange magnetism that got him what he wanted. Plus a thin moral core which further helped him get what he wanted. And as long as he didn’t call attention to himself too much, he stayed in the clear. The new Nigel craved sex like a man in the desert craves water, and spent most all his days building up to the next great conquest. Tonight looked like a mission accomplished.

The two ladies in his living room were surprisingly attractive. Sebastian doubted they would’ve come here for free. Certainly, they wouldn’t have been interested in Nigel under legitimate circumstances. But the demon had his way of coercing people into things, and Sebastian was sure some arrangement was made with all parties involved. Usually, Nigel’s deals were one-sided, the disadvantage to the other only realized too late. But who knows, maybe this one was a square sale. Possible, but unlikely.

“I don’t care about your guests,” said Sebastian. “And I don’t want a beer, thanks.”

“Wasn’t going to offer you one. Stuff’s for me and me invited guests only.”

Sebastian couldn’t read Nigel’s mind. Nigel long ago learned how to hide thoughts, but Sebastian could still read Nigel’s mood, feelings, and general intent. Nigel took his hand off the second beer can and closed the fridge door.

“Can we talk with a little more privacy?” asked Sebastian.

Nigel rolled his eyes. He stepped over to the archway between the kitchen and living room. There weren’t technically two rooms, so for this kind of small space, some people liked the sense of separating them physically. Nigel pulled a curtain across the span that was printed with sexy angels wrestling with sexy devils, then returned to lean against the refrigerator. He waited in obvious impatience for Sebastian to speak up again.

“London had a visit from a hairy stranger tonight,” Sebastian began. “A kind I have never seen before.”

“Wolfy?”

“Yes. But this one was a little different.” Sebastian paused, not intending to make Nigel say something, but offering a moment if he felt like it. Nigel simply stared back. “I waited for him to disintegrate, but he didn’t,” said Sebastian. “Instead he started to – transform.”

Nigel made an amused face. “Into what? Lon Chaney?”

“Honestly, I have no clue who the guy was. But I’m pretty sure he’ll be identified by tomorrow in the papers.”

Nigel cocked a lopsided smile. “Right. Well, that sucks for ‘im, then, dunnit?” He sucked at his beer and shifted his weight. “Wassit got to do with me?”

Sebastian couldn’t hear the thought, but he knew there was something that just tweaked Nigel’s attention. Unconsciously, Sebastian’s hand fidgeted with some dirty paper plates piled on the kitchen table.

Sebastian said, “I didn’t say it had anything to do with you. But since there’s very few people with your unique associations, I figured you may be able to shed some light on this problem.”

Nigel scrunched his eyebrows down. “Sorry, mate. I’m not in that biz. All I got is the same information you and your ruddy Saints already know. The last thing I heard about was the one three months ago when you was ‘ere before. The stupid bastards that went lit’rally barking mad, ran around thinking they’re some kind of druids, or wha’ever, hangin’ around an old cave, thinkin’ it gives ‘em power. A’course, it was a rift in the cave. They wolf up, and go around chewin’ up some other poor bastards, then spend the rest of their short lives hiding in the woods. Can’t change back. Held up in the cave and some of ‘em die ‘cause their bodies ain’t stable, and the others get chopped up by your Saint pals.” He paused and took another drag from his can. “‘Bout it, mate. Figured this bloke you found tonight was just another wolfie from that lot, maybe just something was off when he started to dust.”

Sebastian was now certain Nigel was hiding something, though he had no idea what. He sat down at the kitchen table.

“I wish that were true, Nigel. But there’s some things that don’t match up. How would a seven-foot-tall wolfer, in full glory, roam around the city and get into Regent’s Park without anyone freaking out?”

Nigel shrugged. “Got me, mate.”

“He doesn’t because he wasn’t a wolfer when he got there.”

Nigel shrugged again and tipped the can of beer to his lips.

Sebastian carefully pushed the remnants of Nigel’s bowl of ramen to the center of the table. Twice he had bumped it with his hands as he talked. “No rifts around here, Nigel. Or is there?”

Nigel looked at Sebastian with a comical hurt expression. “Come off it, mate. I got no idea where rifts are nowadays.”

“No, you probably don’t. Nevertheless, this guy was able to transform, either at will, or very delayed, away from any known rift.” Sebastian stared into Nigel’s eyes, trying to lock in on them.

“Don’t try that shit with me, mate.” Nigel made no aggressive move, but the tone was serious.

Sebastian smiled and dropped his eyes.

Nigel looked right and left, then grinned. “Marcellus ain’t ‘ere is ‘e? He woulda jumped in ‘ere and tried to poke around some.” He shook his finger lightly at his head. “Wouldn’a mattered. Got nu’fing up there to give ya.” He leaned back against the wall and sighed. “Look, ya ol’ sod, I got no idea where this wolfy came from, and I don’t really care. I’m sorry ‘e killed someone, but ’s not me problem. As far as helping you with your ‘information’,” he made the quotes with his fingers, “I don’t got nu’fing more’n what you got.” Nigel slugged the last of his beer, then partially crushed it with his fingers. He smiled a politician’s smile and spread his arms. “Now, why would I lie to you, eh? If I knew why some lunatic was able to transform on ‘is own, why would it matter to me to hold it back?”

“I don’t know, Nigel. I wouldn’t normally doubt your word, but – yes, I would normally doubt your word.”

“Me heart’s broken, mate.”

“I’m sure it is. But I also didn’t tell you that the wolfer killed anyone, did I?”

Nigel was quick to hide it, but Sebastian felt his little twinge of fear before the “reformed” demon answered. “Blood’s on your collar,” said Nigel.

“I’m not buyin’ that. It’s a black collar. Could be water or sweat.”

Nigel blinked slowly. “But it’s blood, innit?”

Nice try.

The girls behind the curtain started to moan like they might have begun enjoying their evening without Nigel. The little demon flitted his eyes in that direction.

“Look, Nigel, just give me whatever you know and I’ll leave you alone with your Siren sweethearts.”

Nigel paled. Considering he was normally very pale, this was a feat. Sebastian only meant his comment as a double entendre joke. But there was a very sudden element of panic in Nigel. What did I say?

Nigel recovered and fully crushed the beer can in his fist. He tossed it into the bin next to him that was stained with a mad scientist’s mixture of rotted foods and chemicals. “Then I’ll need another beer and some more patience because I don’ know shit, ya ruddy bastard.” He opened the refrigerator door again and looked at Sebastian. “I’ll spare one for you if it’ll get you outta here faster.”

“No, thanks,” said Sebastian.

Nigel held out two beers anyway. “Come on. T’s rude not to accept.”

Something was wrong. Nigel was nervous. Something was about to happen. Sebastian glanced again at the beer. What’s wrong with the beer? Nigel did not remove the offered can, rather held it further outstretched toward Sebastian.

“Nigel?”

Whatever bad decision Nigel had been mulling over had finally been decided. Sebastian stared at the can in Nigel’s extended right hand.

Nigel was very fast, abnormally so, as a supernatural being might be. Only Sebastian’s years of martial arts training, and his mistrust of pretty much everyone, (especially twisted souls who intentionally purchase lava lamps) made him fast enough to escape the blast. The beer can sprayed a white gas that plumed where Sebastian had been sitting. Sebastian leaped backward and got entangled with the curtain, which ripped from its fasteners. The dazed girls were still staring blankly and swaying to unheard music. Sebastian came around to Nigel’s right, slapped the fridge door shut, and pinned Nigel’s arm to his back. The demon squawked in pain and tried to pull away, but had very little room to move in his kitchen. Sebastian held firm and slammed Nigel to the floor. Nigel hit with a bounce as the old floor probably didn’t have much sturdy material keeping it stable anymore. Sebastian positioned his knee on the small of Nigel’s back and bent the arm upward.

“Gawwd, stop!” Nigel cried.

“What the hell was that!?”

The demon was no longer struggling. His eyes began to water with the beginnings of tears. Nigel could be pathetic when things went wrong. “I’m sorry! Really. Sorry. It’s just some happy juice, see? Something to… Arrrnnn! Something to kinda convince girls to come with me, see? Argggh! Really! I swear. I made it meself. It’s just a happy gas. I’m sorry, I didn’t want to…”

“Save it!”

“It wouldn’ a hurt you. I swear. Just shut ya up a bit, so I could toss you out, ya know?”

“Nigel, you’re a piece of shit!”

“Yeah, a’know. I’m really sorry. Listen… ahhhkk! Listen, I mean it, I can ‘elp you!”

“You just told me you couldn’t.”

“Well, I was lyin’ then, wasn’t I?”

Sebastian wanted to laugh at that if he wasn’t so pissed off.

“Listen, mate. Let me up and I’ll tell you everything I know,” pleaded Nigel.

Sebastian answered by pulling just a little on the bent arm.

“Ahhh, bloody hell! Christ, mate. I’m not gonna lie to you again. You know I’m straight. You can feel it or some rubbish.”

Sebastian could indeed feel it, or some rubbish. He eased up on Nigel’s back and released his grip on the arm. Nigel was embarrassed, miserable, and somewhat in pain, but didn’t seem like he had another sinister plan. Sebastian stood up and allowed the demon to his feet. Nigel took a pitiful glance at his evening’s entertainment still lolling on the living room floor. Sebastian placed a hand on Nigel’s shoulder to turn him back around.

“Talk fast and you’ll still have plenty of time to maul them,” said Sebastian.

Nigel chuckled. “Ah, they ain’t going nowhere. I accidentally gave ‘em too much juice an’ they threw up before you showed up. I was waitin’ for them to kinda get settled, ya know?”

Sebastian gave a short nod. “And…?”

“And? Well, they ain’t all human, are they?”

Without giving himself away, Sebastian tried to nod again as if he knew what Nigel meant. Though he thought something was wrong with their minds, he figured it was just the anesthetic. There was something else that made Nigel nervous about them. Hoping the information would be offered without a direct question, he waited for Nigel to divulge. And Nigel did.

“They’re Sirens, see? Real ones. I get to play with ‘em as long as I keep me mouth shut. But they weren’t real ‘appy about it, so I had to convince ‘em, right? But I wasn’t sure how much to use on ‘em, see? So they got a little sick.”

“Sirens? What the hell are you talking about? From where? Who?”

Nigel paused and gathered himself. It was obvious there was a big thing he was hiding and would be normally very reluctant to talk about. But the feeling Sebastian was getting from Nigel was that the little demon was on the verge of divulging whatever the big thing was.

“There’s this guy I know, right?” said Nigel. “He gets paid to recruit new members. Brings ‘em in an stuff.”

“In where?”

“Cults, groups, you know. Members. These places ain’t no churches, they got an angle. Maybe the members don’t know it, right?” He slid his wrist along his mouth, trying to address any slobber that had come out while he had been wrestled. “So, they get these Sirens to help, ya know, persuade folks.”

“Literal Sirens? Like from Greek myth?”

“Yeah, kinda. They’re just girls, see, with a little demon inside ‘em.” He laughed nervously hoping that Sebastian would get the inference. “Kinda like bait, or lures, or something. Made of human stuff, but enhanced by – demon stuff. They make ‘em look beautiful so’s to attract men, see? But they’re not dangerous. They’re just slaves like I was.”

Sebastian lowered his brows. “And you took them in since you’re so in tune with their plight?”

“Come off it, mate. You get used in this world, and ya use others when ya got the chance. You’re doing the same to me.”

Point taken. “So, who’s the recruiter?” asked Sebastian.

“Ah, don’t worry ‘bout ‘im. He’s a lightweight. Not even a demon. He’s just paid, see? But it’s who he works for that’s important.”

“Alright, so who does he work for?”

“That’s what they’re trying to keep me mouth shut about.” Nigel’s expression was one of attempted sincerity, with only shades of deception.

Sebastian gave him a raised brow.

Nigel would’ve preferred to not expound, but Sebastian wasn’t going to allow Nigel his usual runaround tactics. “Nah, man, I really don’t know his name,” said the demon. “He’s American, that’s all I know about him. But I heard about some stuff e’s doing, and me knowin’ things is what’s got ‘em worried, see?”

You keep saying them, so there’s something else you seem to know.

“Yeah, I see, mate,” mocked Sebastian. “So maybe I should get the top dog’s name from this recruiter person.”

“Are you mad? Then they’d know who you are and they’d probably come after you.”

“So? I can handle myself. Might be good to shake the nest.”

“You have no idea who any of ‘em are, and they could come at you from all sorts of ways, and you’d have no idea who, or what, to look for. You do that, and you’re the hunted and not the hunter anymore.”

Sebastian nodded and was starting to understand a little of why Nigel was being evasive. “You actually have a point, there.”

“Yeah, I do. I’m not ruddy daft. I stay alive, and I’ll probably be around longer than you.”

“Of that, I have no doubt. And cockroaches will outlive us all, so it doesn’t say much for your company.”

Nigel wasn’t amused, but he wasn’t about to do anything else stupid. In a rare moment of sincerity from the demon, Nigel said, “Sebastian, they’ve found somethin’ kinda big,”

“Like what?”

Here it came. Nigel took a long breath. The girls were still firmly inebriated, but he glanced at them anyway. “They found some kind of stable rift.”

“Where?”

“I dunno, but s’not around ‘ere. Might be in the U.S. Big rift. Something they can actually walk through.”

“You’re serious?”

“Swear, mate. I don’t know much more about it, ‘cause that’s when they caught me and decide to shut me up, see? And since I don’t care about none of that, I gladly take me bribe.”

“That I believe,” said Sebastian, in agreement.

“Sort of an accident that I hear about it. I handle communication lines, and got some chatter from the guy I deal with.”

“Deal with?”

Nigel gave Sebastian a practiced hurt expression. “T’s nothing serious. Just small stuff, not hurtin’ no one.”

Sebastian grimaced, then nodded for Nigel to continue.

“Yeah, well, it was just an accident, right? And he talks to someone, who talks to someone, and they decide I’m no big threat and just buy me off.”

Sebastian wondered why that would be. If the game stakes were this high, why not do what most of these scumbags normally do and just eliminate the leak? Who else was sticking up for Nigel? And how powerful were they?

“Do they know you’re – uh, do they know anything about your history?” asked Sebastian.

Nigel shrugged. “I didn’t ask, but I got the feeling they knew who I was.” He sat down in the chair Sebastian had been in earlier. “It’s why I keep changing me door numbers. I think I’m being watched sometimes.”

“Why the hell would…” he was about to say “changing your door numbers help,” but Sebastian knew that Nigel was serious about these strange actions, even if they were stupid, paranoid reasons, and he didn’t want to upset Nigel any more than he already was. At the moment Nigel looked genuinely pathetic. “Who do you think is watching you?”

“I dunno. And it scares the piss out’ah me.”

Sebastian turned briefly to stare in the direction the door, almost looking through it. It was just a point of focus while he thought.

“Ah, relax,” said Nigel. “They’re probably not around tonight. They figure I’m set for a while with this lot,” he said, gesturing to the ladies on the floor.

“Fair enough. But how can you be sure?”

“Ehh.” He shrugged. “Just a feeling. I get feelings too, ya know.”

Sebastian chuckled. Though that statement could be taken a couple of ways, he knew what Nigel meant. He meant the kind of gut feeling that would be considered extrasensory, though Sebastian did doubt sometimes that Nigel had the full complement of emotional feelings a human was supposed to have.

So, what the hell does all this have to do with a damned wolfer in Regent’s Park? Sebastian had to wonder if Nigel was deflecting the Saints’ focus to thousands of miles away to further protect his territory.

“So, if the shit is going down in the U.S., how does this tie into the wolfer tonight, here in London?” asked Sebastian.

“Dunno,” said Nigel. “All I know it’s all part of the same chatter. These wolfers, cults, and the stable rift.”

“Alright, so what about the cults?” Sebastian wiggled his fingers in a “give me more” gesture.

“Right,” said Nigel, looking reluctant, though understanding he had stuck his foot in his mouth. “Your wolfy isn’t the only one around. But I ain’t heard of none around here besides the one you met. They’re scattered around and they seem to be communin’.”

“Communing?”

“A bunch of them living together, on purpose. What would you call it?”

“Where?”

Nigel shrugged. “Not sure, several places. Different countries, I think.”

“Why?”

“Who the hell knows, mate? World domination? Brutal football team?”

Sebastian almost laughed while trying to keep his serious bad-cop expression. “For someone who claims to not know anything, you seem to know a lot of things.”

Nigel shrugged sheepishly.

Sebastian pushed on. “And yet I’m willing to bet you know even more than that and you’re too scared to say any more. That about it?”

“Piss off. S’not against the law to be scared.”

Sebastian didn’t doubt that Nigel was being truthful about his fears. He was most certainly scared of something. That didn’t mean that everything he worried about was legitimately trouble, but the demon was a survivor. He knew trouble when he sensed it.

“Alright. Let’s say I believe you,” said Sebastian. “And whatever I’m chasing has its source in the US, somewhere. You’re saying there are these same hybrid wolfers over there too?”

Nigel shrugged again. “Probably not the same, but – yeah.”

“And Sirens bring people into these groups?” asked Sebastian.

“Yeah.”

“As what? Volunteers to be wolfers?”

“I don’t know. “

“What happens to them?”

Nigel rolled his eyes to look nearly through his eyebrows. “I don’t bloody know.”

Nigel’s mood was becoming steadily more hostile. Sebastian tried to soften his voice a bit, though he doubted it would matter.

“So, where is this stable rift located? The U.S. is a big place.”

“Sorry. I swear I don’t know.”

“Just somewhere in America?”

“Maybe.”

Now Sebastian was annoyed. “Maybe!? A minute ago you said it was in the U.S.”

“I said I thought it might be. I eavesdrop, ya daft bastard, I’m not in the bloody meetings.”

The last comment had ramped up the demon’s testiness. Sebastian figured Nigel was almost at his tolerance level for intrusive questions. Almost.

“Alright, me ol’ sod,” said Sebastian, mocking Nigel’s mocking greeting. “I’ll leave you to your evening. Only one more thing. I need a name. One that won’t get you in trouble, but might help me find trouble.”

“Don’ be stupid. I don’ like you all that much, but I don’ want ya dead.”

“I won’t be. I gotta give my superiors something besides your word.” Sebastian cleared his throat and began in a voice that was supposed to sound attorney-ish, “They’ll request confirmation of information to commence conference consolidation and communication.”

“Ya buggery ol’ prick,” said Nigel. He probably wanted to laugh, even though he thought Sebastian was crazy. “Yeah, yeah, you an’ your Saints will get together and piss about and make sure you stay safe from all us dangerous types. You’ll end up decidin’ nothing of importance, then go out an’ do whatever you want anyway and tell everyone that you’ve got ya orders.”

“See, you do know way more than you’re telling me,” said Sebastian, slapping Nigel playfully on the shoulder. He wasn’t sure whether he should be pissed off at Nigel, or congratulate him on a concise summary of a typical Saints’ council meeting. Someday he would have to do some heavier squeezing on how this little pervert knew as much as he did without the supposed ties and alliances he denies.

Nigel grinned a thieves’ grin.

“A name, Nigel,” said Sebastian. “And I’ll go.”

Nigel rolled his eyes. Sebastian hadn’t convinced him to say the name yet, but he had worn down Nigel’s patience enough to where the demon would do about anything to make Sebastian leave. It was one of the few incentives that worked with Nigel. “Alright, alright,” said the demon. “Jus’ keep me neck out of it.”

“Yeah, yeah. Nigel’s neck stays safe. Got it.” Sebastian waggled his fingers in a “let’s go” gesture.

“Oscar.”

Sebastian waited for the other shoe to drop. It didn’t. “Oscar, who?”

Nigel shook his head. “I don’t know. Swear.”

“That’s not much to go on.”

“Sorry, mate. I never heard any last name, or other names. Just that one.”

Sebastian thought a moment, considering whether Nigel was lying again, or if the name was more than a name. Maybe there wasn’t a last name because it wasn’t a regular name.

“Could it be a code, or alias, or something?” asked Sebastian.

“Maybe. I only hear this stuff, and I don’t go poking about asking questions an’ risking me neck.”

We’re clear on that. Sebastian considered what the name could mean. “Sounds more likely that it’s a code name rather than a guy who only goes around with one name like he’s in a band. Sting, or Bono, or whatever.”

Nigel waggled his head in semi-agreement. He looked glum, probably worried about the possibility that whoever he was scared of might get word that he had given a Saint some information of importance. That, and perhaps he was worried his evening’s entertainment would eventually come out of their drug-induced trances, and time was a-wastin'.

“Ok, Nigel. Believe it or not, I do thank you. If this thing you’re talking about is as big as you say, then I’ve got a lot of work to do. And I promise I’ll keep your name out of it. Might be a shame though. If your information turns out to save lives, you could be a big hero and no one would know.”

He meant it as a joke, but Nigel seemed to brighten.

Sebastian got up to leave and paused next to a black light poster at the door. “The seventies are over, by the way.”

“Says you. I’m just getting started.”

Strangely, that made sense to those who knew Nigel. Maybe Nigel would get around to the eighties next year and work his way into modern-day eventually. Not all of him started out as a child after all. So, he was living through the historic fads as a very odd adult with a teenager’s obsessions. It was still a free country and bad taste wasn’t illegal yet.

Nigel had already dismissed Sebastian’s presence in his mind and was back to mixing with his party attendees. “Oi, ladies, did you miss me? What shall we do next, eh? I know a fun game we can play.”

Sebastian shook his head and exited the apartment. He looked carefully around the street before he walked to his bike. He wasn’t sure if he’d be able to sense someone watching the apartment, regardless if they were human or alter-dimensional entities, but nothing seemed wrong, and everything was quiet.

Quiet, that is, for anyone without the ability to hear other people’s thoughts. Nothing had ever been quiet for Sebastian in his life.

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter 3

 

 

 

At an early age, both Sebastian and his twin brother Marcellus knew they were abnormal. Although their environment was lacking in much normalcy with which to compare, their uniqueness was evident. They had been abandoned on a monastery doorstep as infants and raised by a combination of monks and multiple foster families. The formal education they received from the monks was supplemented by the mean streets of an impoverished area outside of Atlanta. The brothers possessed gifts, or abilities, or curses (depending on who was judging), that normal human beings did not have. And there was no one that they knew of that had the answer to “why.”

The two boys were fraternal twins, alike only in their ages, dissimilar in both looks and attitudes. Marcellus considered himself the older brother, claiming he was born five minutes earlier, even though no known person had any record of their birth. Marcellus’ special ability was coercing people into things. It was a kind of suggestive power to those who were not strong-willed. He also had a kind of telekinesis, able to push small things with his mind, but not on a level of throwing objects across a room. His abilities were better suited for a circus act, or parlor tricks, except that his tricks were not an illusion. The boys’ only real father-figure, Brother Augustine, called Marcellus his little Jedi.

Sebastian got what he considered to be the shit-end of the twins’ paranormal abilities. When he was young, he thought he heard voices. By voices, it was assumed they were the kind of sinister tongues that the devil and his agents whispered to their minions. At least that’s what the monks, foster families, and social workers thought. As Sebastian got older, he became more adept at filtering the sounds, and he realized he was hearing other people’s thoughts. Eventually, he could distinguish the thoughts of specific individuals. This did not exactly cause a grand reversal of opinion amongst the monks as they could not understand how God would desire anyone to have such abilities. No one outright claimed that Sebastian was the spawn of Satan, but the monks kept their distance nonetheless.

Sebastian’s other ability was even more disquieting. If he concentrated while staring into someone’s eyes, he could befuddle them for a few moments, causing a kind of short term memory loss. Depending on how hard he concentrated, and the susceptibility of the subject, the effect could be either temporary or permanent. Sebastian was ill at ease with that ability, as was most everyone else. Most of the monks would lower their eyes when they encountered the boy. They could greet him, and even talk with him, but not look at him. Only Brother Augustine seemed comfortable in Sebastian’s presence.

Several foster families tried to give the twins a good home, but every attempt failed. They were a constant and severe disruption of the foster families, and because of their destructive behavior and strange abilities, the orphanage, child placement agencies, and social workers were at their wits’ end. The boys were given the temporary names Steven and Michael, but behind closed doors, they were called Thing One and Thing Two. Unadoptable and un-disciplinable. Brother Augustine was the only person that seemed to have faith in them. And in turn, he became the only authority they would heed. This was, in part, because he kept things simple for the boys. Also, in part, because of where he came from.

Augustine chose his monk name from the patron saint of brewers because of his own fondness of beer. He would readily admit to anyone that he was not bred for the robes, so to speak, but came around to his calling from a former life of petty crime, debauchery, and chemical self-destruction. Augustine had seen what the butt-end of the world had to offer and decided to try the opposite end. Remaining a monk for the rest of his life wasn’t a certainty, but he would dedicate himself to that path until such time as it no longer served a beneficial purpose. Though he had no plans to leave, he was not naïve enough to assume things stayed the same forever. In the boys, he saw kindred spirits that needed guiding away from the same mistakes he had made. To do that, he needed to let them discover some things for themselves, instead of bending them to his will. In his younger days, when his own parents forced Augustine to obey iron-fisted commandments, it spurred him to go further in the wrong direction.

Augustine gave the twins honorary Catholic saint names in the monastic tradition: Sebastian and Marcellus. He kept the rules simple for the boys: Do your school studies and chores, and be inside by curfew. If these things were done, the boys got fed. If they were not, they received no meals. He did not admonish them for their earthly sins or daily activities unless the police were involved. The boundaries were simple. Once those boundaries were established, the boys had structure to their lives.

Marcellus was originally the harder of the two to manage. Restless and defiant, he took out his frustrations in fights and confrontations with gangs and street low-lives. He fashioned himself into a con-artist, pilfering money and valuables away from gullible people with his “tricks.” His escape routes were well-planned and he was seldom caught. But on the occasion when he was beaten in a fight, or roughed up from a chase, or even arrested, Augustine gave no speeches or punishment other than to point out the obvious. He also did not bail out the boy. Getting caught and sent to juvenile detention was supposed to be part of the lesson. But Marcellus was not unreachable, and Augustine’s patience eventually tempered the teenager’s recidivist behavior. Time mellowed Marcellus further until the outlet for his adventure-seeking brain became no-more delinquent than sneaking into a second-run theater in town that showed old classic movies, where he worshipped action heroes like John Wayne, Steve McQueen, Sean Connery, Charles Bronson, and Clint Eastwood.

Sebastian was a different animal. He, too, was restless, but because of constant noise in his head, he did not crave the same company and surroundings that Marcellus did. Whenever possible, he preferred the seclusion and relative quiet of the woods, or parks. He did occasionally venture out with his brother and take part in nefarious fun, but he never got the same thrill that his brother did. Reading a book in solitude was preferable to the anxiety of street hustling. Strangely enough, the only real allure of going into town was to get into a fight, which opposed most people’s perception of Sebastian as a quiet, bookish loner. But there was rage in Sebastian. More rage than even Marcellus felt. It stayed bottled up in Sebastian until he required a release, which came in the guise of aiding his brother’s defense against street thugs. Augustine took a similar approach with Sebastian as he did with Marcellus and did not interject himself into Sebastian’s personal affairs. Lessons were learned the hard way. And as long as he stayed up to date with his school and chores, he would eventually end up with the knowledge of an adult. If he managed to stay alive.

Augustine’s hands-off style might be disagreeable to most parents, and probably not recommended in most circumstances, but it was the right formula for the twins. He was the only real father-figure they knew, and only adult they trusted. And their admiration of him did not end there.

Augustine was also a member of an organization called The Saints. Despite the coincidence and the obvious name inferences, The Saints had nothing to do with the Catholic Church, or any religion at all. Religions dealt with ethereal concepts like heaven, hell, sin, and the afterlife. What The Saints dealt with were very corporal and earthbound: Creatures and entities that were not necessarily from this earth, but did haunt this earth. Spirits, monsters, and indescribable things that in many ways resembled the legends and myths of ancient horror stories. Possibly, it was these very same things that spawned those ancient myths. But the world believes these creatures to be fantasy, nothing more than just frightening tales to entertain or excite. And in those same fantasies, glamorous barrel-chested heroes and buxom heroines would be expected to vanquish the evil beasts. These fantasies are only half true. The fantastic creatures do exist, the glamorous heroes do not. And unfortunately, governments and law enforcement agencies have no method or ability to combat things that don’t obey the laws of nature. So, that’s where The Saints come in.

The Saints are an organization that dates back to the Renaissance. They were born from the enlightenment of the scientific revolution when clinical minds began to understand the mechanics of the world, which fostered a new age of thinking and reasoning about life’s mysteries. The Saints are secret volunteers, allegiant to no country or king, beholden to no one but their fellow Saints, and serve only the greater good of man. They are purposefully outside the law and keep vigil over the world against unearthly entities that would terrorize it.

All this sounded too good to be true to a pair of action-starved, rough-neck boys. Marcellus saw the chance to be like his movie heroes, and wanted to become a soldier or a Saint. Maybe both. Sebastian’s hero dreams were a little more complex. His heroes came from the classic books in the library: Men like Sherlock Holmes, John Carter, Hercule Poirot, Odysseus, and Aragorn. He also read comic books and fantasized about being Batman, Wolverine, Iron Man, The Punisher, and Captain America. And the movies he saw with his brother introduced him to action heroes like Bruce Lee, Chuck Norris, and Sylvester Stallone, et al. It was a motley assortment to put together into one package, nevertheless, Sebastian wanted to be all these things. And The Saints looked like the closest thing to the Avengers, Justice League, or X-Men.

Blame the creative minds of filmmakers and writers, but the idea of a secret organization that defends the earth sounded like the ultimate cool to teenage twins. They understandably assumed that becoming a Saint would involve being a part of a crack team of well-funded individuals who dressed in cool leather uniforms, looking like beautiful underwear models, having either supernatural powers or amazing gadgets, or both, and were ready at a moment’s notice to jet off in their super-planes, or rocket bikes, or just jump off the ground and fly (if they already could), and save mankind from sinister forces. The Saints would have an indisputable sense of duty and moral code that governed their actions since no earthly force could stop them. They would follow a well-constructed plan of action from a competent leader who knew what was good for all mankind. And of course, they should receive their own product lines of action-figures, candies, video games, and Halloween costumes.

Reality is not so accommodating. The Saints have always operated in the grey areas of society, which meant notoriety, fame, and fortune were oppositional to their core values. They’ve never had a fortress, or office, or symbol, or been in a textbook. History has utterly ignored The Saints. The History Channel has never featured them as a subject for some misguided group looking for the lost Saint treasure hoard (which doesn’t exist anyway). They don’t meet in grand halls, or have conventions, or rent meeting rooms at hotels. None of them have worn glamorous outfits with capes or cool thigh-high boots. They certainly have never owned a super-jet, or rocket bike, and don’t have fantastical lairs with entrances carved from waterfalls, or made of impenetrable crystal. And unfortunately, they haven’t often had a leader who commands with undisputed authority, moral character, and efficiency. At best, they are a motley mix of volunteers who are trying the best they can to keep the world safe from the terrible things it would not understand. More realistically, they are a network of imperfect people with limited means, who have no grand plan, vague authority, real lives with complications, and the trappings of being frail humans with families and day jobs. In essence, they are ill-equipped for the very duty they have assigned themselves. But despite their limitations, The Saints have done their job adequately for centuries.

The Saints are essentially divided into two groups: field agents and everyone else. A grand majority of most Saint members never do battle with monsters or unearthly entities. Most have normal jobs and contribute to the organization in all sorts of ways, like hacking servers, procuring supplies, booking travel, digging through data, monitoring social media, creating tech, erasing records, experimental chemistry, running think tanks, offering a friendly place to stay, even expunging parking tickets. Despite some banality, every kind of help is welcome to The Saints. Perhaps ninety-five percent of all Saint members fit this category.

The field agents constitute the military might of The Saints. They are usually strong, fearless (or crazy), and have exceptional fighting skill. In days of yore, being a Saint field agent was regarded as a position of honor, much like a modern-day famous athlete or movie star. Though field agents avoided fame, their service garnered unspoken respect, and Saint field agents were characteristically found in the social circles of the power elite. Nowadays, that is not necessarily the case. With so many other equitable opportunities for a physically exceptional person today, being a part of an ancient, dying group that denies you glory or credit for your deeds, offers no salary, and doesn’t even have its own t-shirt logo, has become a hard sell.

Brother Augustine was not a field agent. Like most Saint members, he never sought fame or fortune for his work. He only sought answers for the world’s mysteries. And those same questions, and their even stranger answers, intrigued Sebastian and Marcellus as well. So, like the only real father-figure they ever knew, they endeavored to join the cause. The Saints needed the boys, and the boys thought they needed The Saints. So, despite the lack of cool gadgetry, or outfits, both brothers became the youngest ever Saint field agents at eighteen.

Marcellus joined the Marines at age twenty-two. Although he was only an enlisted man, his ties with The Saints, and his exceptional fighting skill and strategic mind, got him placed into an elite group of soldiers. Their unit was not listed in any file or record, and their job was not printed in any military manual. Marcellus’ squad was a small group of Saint field agents who happened to be U.S. Marines, an “off-the-books” experiment in utilizing legitimate military men to handle Saint business, who miraculously showed up in areas that had paranormal trouble. The men did their job exceptionally well and the government funding benefitted the cause greatly. For several years, it seemed to work as advertised. But the experiment ended after a fateful mission investigating suspected rift creatures where all members of Marcellus’ squad, including himself, were killed.

Sebastian buried his brother in the city cemetery of Savannah, Georgia (near where they both had been living). The loss of the only soul that truly understood him sent Sebastian into a deep depression that lasted for years. The rage and darkness, that he had learned to suppress as a child, grew in magnitude. Sebastian’s side hustle of underground street fighting and cage matches was stepped up in frequency as an outlet for his rage. Though it served to momentarily pacify him, it didn’t ultimately calm his destructive nature. But something else did. His dead brother started talking.

Hearing voices was nothing new to Sebastian, but hearing the dead talk was a skill he didn’t think he had. Marcellus talked openly and often, the lack of physical mouth being no hindrance to expressing his opinions. More or less the same ol’ Mars (Sebastian’s nickname for Marcellus), carefree and cavalier. And perhaps because he no longer had any mortal fear, Marcellus seemed to have even less of a filter for his commentary than he did when he was living. He was far closer to a watermelon-smashing comedian than a somber, chain-dragging spirit. Marcellus freely discussed anything and everything, including his own death, “It hurt,” his funeral, “The turnout was lame,” and his flippant impressions of the afterlife.

Sebastian not only could hear his brother, but he could see him as well. Not just as some wispy energy fluctuation that could be interpreted as the shape of somebody, rather as a full-fledged body that couldn’t be mistaken for anything other than Mars. In essence, Sebastian still had his brother, he just couldn’t touch him.

Sebastian recovered to a sociable state, quit street-fighting, and dug deeper into his Saint persona, dedicating the remainder of his life to destroying the kinds of things that killed his brother. With the money Sebastian had saved up from his street-fighting days, he invested in a small business. Luckily that business was modestly successful and it gave him a consistent (albeit shoestring) budget that allowed him to subsist above the poverty line for a single man. He got a tiny apartment above a bar in Savannah, assuming he’d live there alone, forgetting that a roommate came with him. A unique roommate. In Savannah, a ghost residing in your house is by no means uncommon, but a ghost that watched TV all day, nagged you about personal issues, and complained that you never brought home any hot women, would be strange even to the most avid paranormalists. However, that was Sebastian’s life.

Sebastian was a businessman, a street fighter, a Saint field agent, and roomies with his dead brother.

 

 

 

 

He understood why he joined. Why he stayed was less certain.

Sebastian knew the council of Saint elders would lash into him about the events in London. He had been seen by civilians, he left two dead humans out in plain sight, and he hadn’t followed procedure with Jillian. In Sebastian’s mind, The Saints had become more about staying secret than about being relevant. That wasn’t what he signed up for. But nobody truly knew what they were signing up for with The Saints. There were no real names, no real structure, and very little accountability unless it had something to do with keeping The Saints secret. But somewhere in the chaos that The Saints operated in, Sebastian had found room to do what he needed and wanted to do, and he had flourished. As long as he stayed alive, he could still think of no better job to have.

A few details remained to be taken care of in London before Sebastian could hop a flight back to the states: the return of the sword to Edwin’s antique shop; the return of the motorcycle with an envelope of cash for the trouble; and an Amazon gift basket of teas and biscuits for Jillian from a secret admirer. He dropped an encoded email to the Saint council with an extremely brief and obscure explanation of the mission results (intentionally obscure to be unusable as evidence if it got somehow intercepted and decoded). A detailed debriefing would have to come face to face, as was mandatory with the Saint council, but that would only be by request from them. Hopefully, they would wait a while before making that request, if at all, so he could recover from this plane ride before he got on yet another plane to go explain himself in front of the council.

There was nothing remarkable about the flight back to the states besides the incredible boredom. He was dog tired, managing to sleep some of the way, though he could never find true comfortable and relaxing sleep while being wedged in a seat that was too narrow for anorexic women, and not enough legroom for jockeys. Add an awkward seat neighbor on one side who smelled like sour curry, and a little boy on the other side whose bladder wasn’t able to keep up with his Pepsi consumption, plus the constant “ding” of pilot announcements and flight attendant notifications. The overall recipe produced an extended fatigue that would take days to overcome. If he could manage to keep his car on the road once he got back to Savannah, he’d have plenty of time to snooze away the stress at home.

Well, maybe not plenty of time. There was a possible global disaster to avert, and humankind to save, and all that. But even Batman would require a few hours' sleep for that bill. Of course, Bruce Wayne had Alfred to conjure up revitalizing meals and concoctions to ease his exhaustion, plus the convenience of a custom bat-lab, equipped with expensive electronics, surveillance, and experimental wonders that made government spending look chintzy. Not to mention an enormous mansion to seclude himself from unneeded distractions. Sebastian had a pantry with a couple boxes of cereal, a laptop with slow wi-fi, and the distraction of a bar downstairs that did a fair business until the pre-dawn hours. Sebastian didn’t even have the comfort of the bedroom in his one-bedroom apartment. That was given to his brother. Though Marcellus didn’t sleep, it had the only cable outlet in the apartment, and his brother was a TV-phile.

It was early afternoon when Sebastian arrived in Savannah. The old Jeep Cherokee sat where he left it in long-term airport parking. It managed to stay on the road all the way back to East Bay Street where Sebastian carefully rolled it into a small alleyway, and smaller garage. As usual, the bar music thumped its muffled greetings behind the wall as he ascended the staircase up to his little apartment. The bar downstairs featured a strange mix of old-world Irish folk tunes and modern-day rock from its jukebox. It did contain an assortment of party hits from the ’60s, ’70s, and ’80s, and sometimes the patrons made use of that and spun a more varied playlist. But when left solely up to the proprietor, a steady combination of U2, The Cranberries, Dropkick Murphys, and various fiddle-filled Irish folk tunes were the loop of audio entertainment. The irony, unknown to most of the local stool-warmers and the tourists who wished to soak in the Irish history of Savannah, was that the proprietor wasn’t Irish. He wasn’t even married into it.

Daniel Castelli was Italian by birth and American by swearing an oath as a citizen. He found out that to make it in Savannah with the tourists, you had to ride the wave of Irish nostalgia. His bar, called “Lucky’s,” was bought off a real Irishman, and Daniel retained the intent of selling the sentiment of Irish pride and the stereotyped love of liquor. Any reservations he may have had about that mission statement ended with his first St. Patrick’s Day, when both locals and tourists transformed mountains of green dollars into “the wearin’ of the green,” and poured money into his till while he poured beer into their mugs. After that day, Daniel became “Danny Boy,” and attempted to be the first known Italian to be dubbed an honorary Irishman.

He had an arrangement with Sebastian, who also bought and transformed an existing business. Sebastian’s company operated a tour of the haunted sites of Savannah. Besides the Irish pride, deep-rooted American history, proximity to the beaches, and good old-fashioned southern charm, the biggest draw to Savannah was the attraction of its long-dead residents. Deemed one of the most haunted places in America, Savannah ran its share of successful and charming tours of the best known ghost-infested hot spots. Most of the tour companies had the same general vibe, but Sebastian made a unique arrangement with Danny Boy that gave his business a little welcome twist. He called it “The Spirits of Savannah Tours.” It was a combination of rolling bar and spooky hayride. The haunting spirits were supplied by the afterlife and the liquid spirits were supplied by Danny Boy. Though only a limited bar was allowed aboard the trolley, it was enough to increase the entertainment value. Plenty of doubters and folks who had not the faintest belief in supernatural beings, entities, and happenings would slide their credit cards through the reader just the same as the ghost enthusiasts. In fact, it was more likely that a non-believer would spend the most hard-earned cash on such adventures to playfully mock it as phony. They’d also be more likely to purchase a t-shirt commemorating their completely “false” encounters with the deceased locals. Sebastian didn’t have any t-shirts available, though that idea had been percolating for quite a while now.

He plopped his small duffle on the chair in the living room closet and sat down on his “bed.” His “bed” was just a motel style cot propped against the wall in the kitchen.

“Mars? You here?” he called. No answer. Sebastian suddenly remembered that Marcellus had been sent on a Saints’ scouting mission. Sebastian forgot where, and also forgot when Mars would be back. All the better at the moment.

Jesus, I’m tired. What the hell was I thinking about? T-Shirts? Ehh, later. Gotta rest for a sec.

Sebastian spread out on the cot-bed, careful not to kick over one of his kitchen chairs. His thoughts were scattered, which right then was fine. White noise was his quiet. His whole life, at least as far as he could remember, he had suffered the noises in his head that came from everywhere, including his own mind. It was as if someone turned on the radio and instead of one station playing, you heard all of them simultaneously. Some were stronger signals than others, many of them unclear, all running at once, which had the effect of sounding like very meaty static. Right now, static was good. Static was quiet.

Shoes still on, duffle not unpacked, and lying on top of his sheets, Sebastian drifted off into the depths of a noisy dreamland.

 

 

 

He woke in what seemed like minutes. The theme song from Gilligan’s Island was unmistakable and had permeated through the normal static in his cranium.

Wha? Where? Oh, the TV.

He hadn’t left it on, but it didn’t matter. He knew what had happened. His brother was home. Probably not wanting to disturb Sebastian, he had flipped on TV and was happily enjoying one of the series he recorded. In this case, the misadventures of seven stranded castaways who managed to make electricity out of coconuts and botched ninety-eight chances to get off the island. That damned theme song just had some magical power to cut through all the audio stuffing in Sebastian’s brain. Maybe Marcellus wanted to “disturb” Sebastian after all.

“Jesus, Mars,” said Sebastian, rubbing his temples. “I was trying to sleep.”

“And you were sleeping. Around three hours.”

“Three? What time is it?” He found his bedside clock and flipped the face toward him. It had been just after lunch when he arrived home. Now it was approaching dinnertime. Shit. Well, ok, you were planning to detox a little before you got to researching that loony London stuff. No harm done, and I guess mission accomplished.

He blinked exaggeratedly several times, hoping to clear his eyelids of sleep residue, then focused on his brother sitting in his usual chair in the next bedroom. It was not completely understood why Marcellus didn’t have to project himself, or do anything special, to be heard and seen by his brother. The same was not true to anyone else. Mars’ constant physical and audible presence was just part of the bond the twins shared, and made the post-death relationship easy. It was just like having a regular roommate, albeit one who didn’t eat, sleep, or use a toilet. Although Marcellus didn’t need any physical space, Sebastian gave him the bedroom anyway. Sebastian was rarely home, and even when he was, he was usually so tired that any semi-soft, flat surface would do to lie on. There wasn’t much lounging around that went on his life and he rarely entertained guests. And not that it had happened in a very long while, but should he actually have the chance to bring home a romantic interest, the brothers made a pact that Sebastian would have the whole place to himself. Marcellus was very adept at making himself disappear. After all, he was a ghost.

“You want to debrief now, or do you need a few minutes?” asked Marcellus.

“Gimme a few.”

Marcellus nodded and returned to his show. Sebastian tried to squeeze out the remaining blurriness from his eyes. He focused on the TV. Gilligan had just found some big box washed up on the beach.

Sebastian stood up and stretched. Still tired, but feeling a least a touch better, he went to his refrigerator. Milk, mustard, ketchup, jelly, soda, beer, old Chinese, and older pizza. He grabbed the Chinese and a Coke. He flipped open the top to the box.

Just rice. Damn it. He would have loved to have blamed his roommate for the meager leftovers, but Marcellus didn’t eat. Nor would it be advisable for Mars to grab groceries from a store. Although, that would be a fun exercise to watch. Knowing Marcellus, he’d levitate objects for fun and make spooky sounds while he pushed the cart through the aisles, stocking up on Pop-Tarts and potato chips.

Uninterested in cold rice, Sebastian opened the pantry and returned to the fridge with a box of Raisin Bran in need of milk. Milk located, he noticed the date on the container. Shit. He unscrewed the top and breathed in. Double shit!

“Mars!”

“What?”

Sebastian put the spoiled milk near the sink. He sighed and slid out a chair at the dining table. “I don’t know. We need a housekeeper or something.” He sat down with his dry cereal and crunched it off his fingers.

Marcellus laughed. “Yeah, right. I wouldn’t wish that nightmare on anyone.”

Sebastian shook his head. His dark little hovel was fine for him, and certainly fine for a ghost, but wasn’t going to get featured in Good Housekeeping, or one of those home designer shows anytime soon. Nor did he care. He was just grumpy. Lack of sleep, travel fatigue, mysterious wolfers, and paranoid demons had been his life for the last twenty-four hours. So, go figure why he was grouchy.

He shoveled the last of the dry Raisin Bran into his mouth and pushed the box to the center of the table.

“Ok, I guess we should debrief,” said Sebastian.

“Yeah, ok. Next commercial?”

Sebastian rolled his eyes.

A few moments later, Gilligan and crew had paused their pursuit to get off the island so the “Snuggle” bear could explain how to get your towels incredibly soft. As promised, Marcellus was at the kitchen table. He had paused the program, frame frozen on the bear’s smiling face, so he would miss nothing, including the commercials. Marcellus absolutely loved all TV and especially DVRs.

“Whatcha got, Sebo?” said Marcellus.

“Ok, mine is going to be long, so start with yours,” said Sebastian.

“Sure. As the council requested, I went down to Arizona to check out those crazy guys’ story about the ancient Egyptian stuff in a cave.” He saw Sebastian’s confused look. “Yeah, they were crazy. But I was still interested to see whatever it was that got everyone talking, so I poked around in one guy’s head, trying to convince him to take a trip out there to show me. Didn’t work. I got the feeling they’re not able to go back. I did get to see some of their supposed artifacts though. Bad knock-offs. Whatever got them inspired, they’re making these crappy forgeries to pass off. The only thing that keeps me wondering is where they saw the original ideas for the copies. It wasn’t pure Egyptian, but it wasn’t total bullshit either. Something tells me something is going on there, but it’s not what we think. But I have no idea if there’s a rift involved. And no wolfers or anything that I could tell.”

“Ok,” said Sebastian, who didn’t sound convinced.

“I also tried the Roswell stuff, just for kicks, but they haven’t heard anything new. I think that site is played out.”

Sebastian smiled. “Don’t tell that to the alien fan-boys. They think they see something new every night.”

“Well, they can imagine whatever they want, but I’m getting no vibe off that place anymore.”

There had been a suspected dimensional leak around Roswell, New Mexico, for some time. The actual answers as to whether it spawned creatures that resembled aliens, or attracted actual ones, or simply caused people to hallucinate such things, is still debatable. None of the Saints had recorded any physical dealings with entities there, but it had been a heavily watched spot for some time, regardless. Marcellus had a very good compass for finding and defining rifts, and if he said it was dead, it probably was.

Dimensional rifts tear through our known universe from the edges of other unknown universes. These sudden, sometimes violent pockets can make things disappear, upend deep layers of earth, and transform flesh. A simple leak is slow enough to last for years, and has a magnetism to the more desperate and unbalanced souls, which can lead them to worship it as some kind of supernatural power (which it almost is), and make them believe it can mold them into a god (which it won’t). However, it does twist and rewrite DNA like a master hacker rewrites a program and the result can be monstrous. Especially if the so-called “demon” souls on the other side of the rift are also trying to move into the earthly dimension. The energies that exist in the gap of a dimensional crossover have adapted themselves in horrific ways, borrowing pieces and parts of whatever surrounds them to survive in chaotic and tumultuous circumstances. The spirits, entities, and creatures that may thrive in such a maelstrom do not usually assimilate well into our world, and the combinations are generally volatile. Sometimes the result of combining living things in this dimension with energy from another dimension can be a monster as terrifying as anything fiction has ever dreamt up. They are rarely benevolent and usually violent. And unlike the movies, once someone has been transformed, they don’t change back.

There is the rare occasion when a soul or energy combines with a human and does not change them physically. This symbiosis is difficult to understand, and nearly impossible to predict, but it has happened. Nigel is a good example of this effect and, as it goes with symbiotes, he is atypical of any other.

Of course, neither the monsters nor symbiotes created by rifts would be categorized as typical since most living things that encounter a rift do not live through the experience. Dimensional leaks aren’t stable. No rift has ever been stable. Someone is far more likely to be torn apart and turned into unidentifiable goo if they are caught between two dimensions.

It was the business of The Saints to keep tabs on rifts and the activity around them. Lately, that has been the equivalent of using slingshots to defend against a stampede.

“Ok, then,” said Sebastian. “So, some wackos in Arizona think they have an ancient Egyptian site in a US cave, make forgeries to prove their point, might actually have some interesting artifacts, but aren’t telling the truth. So, what do forgeries get them?”

“Good question, and I’m not sure. They aren’t selling any big stuff. Small-time knick-knack selling isn’t going to move them out of their mobile homes. And selling big stuff would get them in jail, fake or not. So, I got no clue, other than I’d be interested in finding the spot, if there is one, and seeing for myself.”

“Fair enough. I can agree with that. What else?” asked Sebastian.

“That’s all I got.”

Sebastian nodded. He thrummed his fingers against the table, staring at the wall in thought.

“Sooo – your turn,” said Marcellus. “What happened in London?”

After a breath, Sebastian gave Mars the edited play-by-play. Marcellus tried to stop him when he got to the part of the dead wolf-thing’s transformation. Sebastian promised to get back to that. He skipped over some of the Jillian stuff, which seemed lame and personal, even if it was benign. But when he got to Nigel’s part, Marcellus couldn’t help himself.

“Huggy Bear!” he barked. “How is the old sod?”

“What’s a Huggy Bear?”

“You know, Starsky and Hutch? Seventies cop show? Think they made a movie not that long ago too.”

Sebastian closed his eyes and shook his head. He half wanted to inquire about what could possibly be the same about a 1970’s cop show and a paranoid reformed demon, but he knew if Marcellus got on a roll, they’d be sitting there for a very long time.

“Ahh, come on,” said Marcellus. “You know who I’m talking about.”

“Not really. I don’t watch TV anymore, Mars. Can we move on?”

“Fine. Grouchy much?.”

Sebastian was somewhat surprised he didn’t try to toss an “Oscar from Sesame Street” reference at him, but whatever. So, I’m a grouch. I’m tired.

“Ok,” sighed Sebastian. “So – Huggy Bear,” he pronounced it with mocking enunciation, “has a meltdown and tries to knock me out.”

“What?! The little shit.”

“Yeah. Gets more interesting. He’s on the watch list of some big-shot, or so he says, who’s bribing him to keep his mouth shut.”

“Ok. That fits.”

“And he’s being bribed with – get this – Sirens.”

“Sirens?” Mars looked genuinely stumped. “You mean like on a police car, wooo wooo?” Mars waggled his finger in the air and whistled to imitate a police siren.

Sebastian winced. “No, like as in Greek myth. Except they’re real. They’re kinda like demon hostess girls. Except they’re not really demons, just associated somehow, with a little bit of – shit, I don’t know.”

“Alright, alright, I getcha.”

“It all supposedly leads to some bigger big-shot who is working on something I didn’t think was possible. A stable rift.”

Marcellus lifted his brows.

Sebastian nodded. “Yeah. So, Nigel says. And not just a stable rift. One big enough to move through.”

Marcellus blew out a whistle. He mouthed a silent, “Oh, shit.”

“Mmm hmm,” said Sebastian. “And it’s supposedly in the U.S. somewhere. But, the wolfer I killed was in London.” Sebastian sighed and shrugged.

“So, how are the wolfer and the giant rift related, then?”

Sebastian thought for a moment, then slowly dropped his head. He had tried to piece together things on the flight back and got nowhere. It depended on how much Nigel’s information could be trusted. “No idea how yet, but maybe we can put some feelers out and fill in the blanks.”

Mars nodded. “You know, the only wolfers who have ever changed back to human form are the ones from books and movies. They just don’t exist.”

“I know. I never met any either.”

Marcellus had a strange look on his face before he spoke. “This isn’t normal.”

“No shit.”

“I mean, this wolfer doesn’t sound natural.”

“No shit,” said Sebastian, with slight annoyance.

“I meeeeean – he sounds manufactured. Designed,” said Mars, more defensively.

“What?”

Sebastian wasn’t sure where Mars was headed with this, but it had the smell of another one of Mars’ hackneyed theories.

“I’m just sayin’,” continued Mars. “A wolfer transforms close to his victims. No rift around. Seems deliberate. It stinks of technological interference. Somehow the rift energy came to him. You know what I’m about to say.”

Yeah, and don’t say it.

Mars said it anyway. “It’s not bullshit, Sebo. Someone, somewhere, is working on something to move rifts around.”

And there it is. The ol’ portable rift theory. Marcellus’ pet obsession. He maintained that a portal rift had something to do with his squad’s deaths, and he hadn’t let up since. It didn’t matter that every scientist, every experiment, every rational theory had essentially proven that a rift could not be portable.

The idea of a portable rift had begun back in the early days of modern science. A device or object that can somehow not only generate a rift, but can bring that rift with it if it moved, was a theory that had been discussed a long time ago, then dismissed, then rehashed, then rebutted, then mocked, and finally buried. Even in the implausible world of demons, monsters, and dimensional holes, the portable rift theory was considered much more sci-fi than science.

“I know what you’re thinking,” said Marcellus.

Sebastian snorted. “That’s my line.”

“No psychic voodoo necessary. You’re about as unreadable as a stop sign. You’re thinking, ‘Oh, no. Not that portable rift shit again. Poor ol’ Mars is losing his ghost marbles.’”

Sebastian sighed, smiling paternally. “Sorry, but – we have gone round and round with this particular subject before.”

“Yeah, yeah. That doesn’t make it wrong.”

“No. But pretty much every expert says it’s impossible. So – that makes it wrong.”

“Whatever. They’re clowns.”

Sebastian nearly sneezed out a laugh. “They’re all clowns? Every expert, ever?”

A grin teased at the corner of Mars’ mouth. “Nah, just the ones who disagree with me.”

Sebastian rolled his eyes and stood up. He needed a beer to continue this conversation. There were a total of three left in his refrigerator. Note to self, go to the grocery store. He popped the cap and returned to his chair with the opened bottle. Mars shook his head and made a sardonic smile.

“None for me, thanks. That shit goes right through me,” said Mars.

Sebastian tried to keep a straight face. He knew it wasn’t a big deal, but it did bother Mars a bit that he couldn’t consume food or beverages anymore. Especially beer. When Sebastian wanted to annoy his brother, glugging beer usually did the trick.

“Uh huh. Cheers,” said Sebastian, who took a longer than normal pull from the bottle. He swallowed and let out a rolling burp.

“Look, Sebo. I know you think what I’m saying is crazy, but that doesn’t mean some nut job somewhere isn’t trying to create a portable rift. Obviously, some nut job is trying to create a stable one. Maybe it’s the same nut job And maybe he fails, and maybe not. But rift energy is being manipulated somehow to do the things you saw. So – just bear with me for a second – if what I’m talking about was possible, wouldn’t that suddenly make all the crap you just saw make sense?”

Sebastian wasn’t all that interested in pursuing this any further, but he decided to humor his brother. “Ok. For the sake of argument, and my sanity, let’s say you’re right. So, what’s the point?”

“Your wolfer does everything deliberately, right? Transforms near the park, and made it so he could transform back again. Like he’s turning himself into a temporary weapon.”

Sebastian hadn’t thought of it that way. He had never thought that someone could use wolfers as weapons. Or soldiers. None of the transformed creatures he had ever met were intelligent enough to do anything except obey their most animal instincts, much less make a plan and execute it. But if someone could manage to transform just for an attack, and then turn themselves human again, that would be some seriously scary stuff. Despite not agreeing with Mars, the conversation did hold some interest.

Mars continued. “If that’s the case, it sure as hell isn’t an accident. That stuff hasn’t ever happened before. So, someone’s planned this. That takes time, money, patience, and a whole lot of volunteers. Or victims. Or both. Whatever it is, it’s on purpose. And that purpose ain’t for shits and giggles.”

There was something Mars had just said that clicked with Sebastian, though he didn’t want to admit it. He was under no illusion that portable rifts were at the bottom of this mystery, however, that didn’t mean there wasn’t some element of the theory that could ring true.

So, what the hell is nagging at me? Volunteers. Victims. Time, money. Manufactured.

“Sebo?”

“Hmm?” Sebastian didn’t look up. His eyes were focused on a spot on the floor as nothing more than a point of concentration.

“You got something?”

“Not sure. Pieces. Parts.”

“See? Not crazy.”

“No, not crazy. Not all of it. I just can’t fit anything together. It’s all too scattered. And I’m too tired to figure it out right now.”

Sebastian got up and started pacing the kitchen. Considering the minuscule size of the kitchen, that meant two steps and back.

Marcellus also got up shrugging. “We don’t have enough to figure it by ourselves. You should start asking around. And you need to ask the high priests for permission to do whatever you wanna do next.” By “high priests,” Mars was mockingly referring to the council of Saint elders, whom he considered snobbish, slow, and ignorant, as he believed actual high priests behaved.

“Yippee,” said Sebastian, with the enthusiasm of a dental patient.

“I know. Whatcha gonna do. But them’s the rules, so…”

Yeah, but it still sucks. “Batman wouldn’t have to do this crap,” said Sebastian, taking a seat at his office desk in the opposite corner from the room. The office was in what should’ve been the living room, but was instead designated as his pint-sized bat-cave. He propped the screen up on his laptop.

“Batman had piles of money to do whatever he wanted. You have piles of laundry,” said Marcellus. “You need the Saints’ support as much as they need you. Plus, their credit card helps.”

Sebastian shrugged. It was true that The Saints funded the work he did, but he still ended up using some of his own money during his missions. He spent a lot more than he’d prefer, which was partly why his home was a one-bedroom apartment above a bar.

What passed for Sebastian’s bat-computer was an HP laptop with a Batman logo sticker on the back. He figured he’d trade the Batman logo for a Saints’ one if they ever decided to create a logo, though he doubted that even if they made one it would have any resemblance to something cool. It’ll probably be a werewolf or devil silhouette with an “X” through it.

Marcellus went back into his room to watch TV. “Let me know what they say. I’m going to go rot my brain some more.”

“Enjoy,” said Sebastian.

“Just keep in mind, you don’t have to do everything yourself. You’re not actually Batman, as much as you’d like to think so.”

Sebastian didn’t look back, but smirked. “Why not? I just need the mask.”

“If you’re Batman, then that makes me Robin, and I refuse to wear pantyhose. So, drop it, Dork Knight.”

Sebastian smiled, despite himself. He was typing an email that was going to be sent out to a massive amount of recipients. There was a large list of people, companies, organizations, and blogs that had proven to be helpful and trustworthy to the Saint field agents, probably to their surprise. Sebastian figured he’d blast them all with the email and see what shook loose. It was a vague request trolling for hits involving several key factors that stood out to Sebastian concerning the events of the past couple of days. It wasn’t encrypted, rather a code that was better than encryption: Dullness. At face value, it was a boring, plain message about their Aunt who was in an Alzheimer’s ward. The body of the message talked about her incontinence and failure to remember things said two minutes prior. Where the message became coded was in its use of Wizard of Oz terminology. Someone on the receiving end would recognize each key phrase, then translate it with their handy dandy Saint decoder book. The email appeared utterly senseless and dull, albeit on purpose. Nothing the NSA would flag because nobody would care. Nobody except the person receiving the email who happened to “know” Auntie Em.

“Deal with it, Boy Wonder,” said Sebastian, addressing Mars without looking at him.

From the other room, Mars answered. “No thanks. I like to think of us more like Ghostbusters. I kinda always associated you with Dan Akroyd’s character.”

Sebastian stiffened. He wasn’t as big a TV and movie buff like Mars, but there were a few films that he knew well and Ghostbusters was one of them. “Gimme a break. I’m not that stiff.”

Without looking away from TV, Marcellus stretched out his arms in a “so you say” gesture.

Sebastian cocked his head and finished the email. “And I suppose you’re Bill Murray?”

This time, a game-show host’s grin came from Marcellus and the arm gesture got grander.

“You’re closer to Slimer than Murray,” said Sebastian.

“Low blow, bro,” said Mars, feigning offense.

Sebastian chortled. He sent the email, then sat back and waited.

 

 

 

The network of Saint associates is broad, not necessarily fast, so it could be quite a while before Sebastian got his answer. In the meantime, he didn’t feel like watching TV with Marcellus, and his desire to sleep waned. If anything, he now felt restless. Like Sherlock Holmes pacing the floor in front of Watson, he was anxious and agitated. Unlike Sherlock, Sebastian didn’t like mysteries. He just wanted answers. But answers required waiting, and that, too, agitated him.

He went down to “Lucky’s” basement, which operated as the office for “The Spirits of Savannah Tours.” He sifted through the mail and receipts on his desk. There were two desks: one for reception, with brochures, pens, business cards, and receipt booklets; the other for him with the day’s mail, scattered receipts, post-its to remember things, and a notepad for messages. Framed posters lined the brick walls, depicting famously haunted homes. The wall veneer of soot, mold, and grime had been polished by two-hundred years of use, perhaps as a wine cellar, or slave quarters, or an armory, before it finally functioned as the illustrious headquarters for “The Spirits of Savannah.” The office was dark, yet cozy, similar to bar lighting, with warm light from small sources that created atmosphere rather than illumination. Sebastian had a banker’s lamp on his desk that was enough to work by.

Many people had wondered if “Lucky’s” building was haunted too. Like most buildings in the historic section of town, it was centuries old and had stood through The Civil War. Workers in the bar had described several instances where things had fallen over, or lights flickered, or strange sounds came when it was quiet. Sebastian wondered about it being haunted, and luckily he had an actual ghost to tell him if there were other ghosts around. The answer was negative. Just creaky, rickety wood, and shoddy wiring.

Marcellus had reluctantly done some additional ghostly snooping for Sebastian’s company to best set up their tours. It seemed that Savannah’s “nightlife” was as advertised when it came to how many ghosts were around. However, not all spirits were full-fledged ghosts. Some were residual spirits whose souls had moved on and weren’t attached to the long-dead person, functioning kind of like old recordings on a cassette that lingered underneath the new recordings. The spirits’ energies still walked around and slammed shutters, or rocked chandeliers, but they weren’t capable of interacting with anything other than the house. Just a loop of activity that would play as long as the energy remained. It was still a mystery as to how long those spirits would run on their ghost battery. If their soul wasn’t there, what was giving them the energy? No one knew the answer, not even Marcellus. He only knew things according to his own situation.

Besides the residual energies, there were also fully interactive spirits, “lost” between two worlds. Marcellus had located a pair of young siblings, brother and sister, who had died at the hands of a deranged mother who thought the devil told her he had created her children. As it turned out, her tormentor was LSD, rather than Satan. The murdered siblings were a good ghost tale, but since it happened in the 1960s, it wasn’t as sexy a sell to the tourists. And the house was not completely in the historical district either. It was in an old, yet not old enough, section of town that wasn’t as attractive to tour, which had loads of good ghost activity despite its age. That section of town was an unfortunate mixture of poor people, old folks, students, and gangs. Except for the old folks’ property, nothing was kept clean, and besides looking ugly, the neighborhood was somewhat dangerous depending on time of day. The street where the siblings’ house resided was luckily occupied by mostly the old folks and a few students. Sebastian ended up renting the house, had a crew clean it up, and furnished it for what looked like a ready-to-move-in Victorian family. Even though the real family had never been of that era, it didn’t matter. People wanted to believe in the “old” spirits. The most obvious compromise was a room filled with more modern toys for the siblings to play with. Throughout the day, they played and enjoyed their between-world afterlife in that house. And because they were benevolent spirits, it became a sought after destination for ghost enthusiasts to both visit and occasionally spend the night. Sebastian leased out the rights to certain companies that scheduled these visits and he collected the residuals. Marcellus was thoroughly thanked and was awarded a fifty-inch flat-screen TV for his efforts.

Sebastian was perusing one of the income ledgers that included visits to the siblings’ house when Fee clumped down the stairs.

Orpheus “Fee” Franklin was a black man with snow-white hair and beard, well settled into his senior years. He alternated tours with his two sons, driving the horses and trolley through town, plus helping take care of the horses and supervising the upkeep of the trolley. He also had a talent for telling incredible stories. Return customers would usually schedule their tours around the times when Fee was driving. Fee had originally owned the trolley and half the business. It was an authentic horse-drawn trolley, the track wheels long ago traded in for standard rubber treaded ones. Another man had co-owned the business with Orpheus, and when they parted ways, Sebastian took on the former partner’s share and the remaining debt. Sebastian’s new relationship with Danny Boy produced the symbiosis that made the newly named ‘The Spirits of Savannah’ a true profit for the first time in years.

“Mista Jackson! Ih’s good to have you back,” Orpheus said in his slow, gravelly baritone voice.

Sebastian answered. “Fee. Nice to see you. Good to be back, thank you.”

“Jus’ back from a tour. Went good today. Ghosts was actin’ up nice.”

“Glad to hear it.”

Orpheus pulled a well-worn handkerchief out of his pocket and rubbed his eyes. He dressed in grey Dickies overalls, blue dress shirt, and white bow tie. He would change shirts every day, but the Dickies and bow tie stayed mostly the same. He had a supply of the overalls, several the same color, with one or two denim. He wore an old Stetson hat, formerly light grey, now darker grey, that had been passed to him by his father. Fee was an old man with an ancient soul, and despite the stereotyped southern black-man mannerisms, his father had forged into him the respect that a southern man, regardless of skin color, should have. It just so happened that also came with the speech of the undereducated culture of the rural south. Orpheus was proud of who he was, and he was proud to do what he did. He especially loved telling the stories that his family had collected since they had lived for generations in this city.

“Whew. It’s windy out deh,” he said. Winter weather was never consistent in the south. Windy, rainy, cold, mild: could be any one on any given day, and the next day would be different.

Sebastian had been too preoccupied to notice much about the weather that day, vaguely recalling the whipping winds as he had walked outside, and nodded to Fee.

“No troubles?” said Mr. Jackson, aka Sebastian.

“No, suh. Nothin’ wrong all while you was gone.” Orpheus sat down heavily in the chair opposite the reception desk. “Just tired is all.”

“Hear that.”

“You find what you was lookin’ fuh?”

Good question. I don’t have a good answer. “Still gathering info. Got another trip to make here shortly. Probably. Depends on the answer I get from my people.”

Sebastian didn’t like lying to Orpheus, but he wasn’t allowed to tell anyone his real business. He also lied about his name, partially because he never had an official name. The name Sebastian, like his many others, was an alias. An alias that only The Saints and his brother knew. Most Saints had only two names: their birth one and their Saint one. Sebastian had never had a birth name, and the many attempts at foster names only furthered his confusing name predicament. Eventually, the absence of a stable name became an asset to his anonymity, and certain Saint associates could get him numerous official documents that carried numerous different names. Ironically, he always considered Sebastian to be his real name. But for his Spirits of Savannah business, and his Savannah mailbox, his name was Steven Jackson.

As far as Orpheus knew, Steven Jackson worked for a ghost hunting TV show on the side. Sebastian came up with that excuse while watching the TV show “Ghost Hunters.” Or rather, while Marcellus was watching it. There were so many other similar shows scattered all over both the popular and obscure cable stations, so it would be easy to find a show to serve as Sebastian’s ghost hunting façade. Sebastian picked a real, yet obscure, show on an even more obscure cable channel and pretended to be a location scout. That was the story he fed to Orpheus.

Orpheus thought ghost hunting was legit. He also believed it when Sebastian said that he still saw and talked to his dead brother. Fee was the only person besides Father Augustine that Sebastian ever trusted with that information. Orpheus fully believed in everything to do with spirits and the afterlife. He’d often ask if Marcellus was in the room so he could say, “Hello.” Orpheus didn’t know the extent of Marcellus’ communicative ability, and Sebastian wasn’t going to say. And although he trusted the old man, Sebastian never gave out more information than was necessary.

“I don’t know why you lookin’ elsewhere. They’s enough spirits he’ya to hunt for as long as you want to hunt ‘em.”

“Agree with you. But we go where we’re needed. Not everybody is ok with ghosts in their houses like they are here. They hire us to cleanse the houses.”

“Alright. I understand. People is gonna do what they gonna do.” He tucked the handkerchief in his pocket and smiled. “Mista Marcus he’ya?”

“Hmm?” Sebastian was distracted by some notes on his desk. “No, Fee, not right now.”

“Alright. You tell him ‘hello’ for me when you talk to ‘im.” Marcus was the fake name given to Marcellus. Everybody in the Saints had aliases. Even ghosts.

“Will do. You need a Coke or something? You look worn out.”

“No, suh, jus’ the wind. Takes it outta me. But I got some ice tea in my thermos.”

“Ok.”

“My son’s got the next tour. I’m gonna set he’ya and read for a spell,” said Orpheus.

“Sure, Fee. Go ahead.”

Orpheus pulled a twice-folded wad of newspaper from under his arm. Unlike most of the modern world, Orpheus didn’t like computers. But he did watch TV. So, between newspapers and TV, he kept up on worldly goings-on. He also liked some of the supermarket rags that tended to make up ninety percent of their stories. Although undereducated, he was savvy in other ways, and he didn’t trust what he read. But maybe he saw “Men In Black” one too many times and actually believed there was some truth in those papers. Just hidden, if you read it right. He had “The Globe” in his hands at that moment.

Fee laughed. “Another fool tellin’ everyone he done caught him a Bigfoot. Didn’t he get arrested or something for lying bout that last time?”

“Same guy?”

“Think so.”

If it was the same guy, he had constructed a “dead” Bigfoot out of Halloween costumes and butcher scraps. And then charged admission to see the thing. Probably making more money than me.

Orpheus quietly read his paper for a while. Sebastian just made sure the tallies and receipts matched. Which they did. Orpheus may be old-world in his speech and manners, but he did a perfect job managing the books and the math. Sebastian doubted none of it, he was just killing time and doing a little thinking to boot. No new illumination came though.

“Mista Jackson?”

“Hmm?”

“You ever seen any real werewolves?”

Sebastian’s eyes opened a little wider and he turned to Orpheus trying not to seem too interested. “Why would you ask that?”

“They say that maybe one of them werewolves was a’running around a park in London.”

“Really? You sure it’s not one of those made-up articles? You know how those newspapers are.”

“Oh, sure, I know that. Most’a this stuff is fake. But I saw somethin’ on the news about some crazy animal done killed people in that park, and then this he’ya article says the same thing, but it thinks they’s werewolves. So, I’s just wonderin’.”

“Maybe it was Bigfoot,” said Sebastian, trying to sound humorous.

“You know Bigfoot don’t go ‘round England.” Orpheus didn’t always get Sebastian’s sense of humor. “But he’yas why I’m thinking they maybe right. The news says they’s two folks been killed. One got his neck torn up and the other’n got his head chopped clean off.”

Deceivingly smart this man. I can guess where he’s going with this.

“In the paper he’ya,” Orpheus continued, “It says they found parts of the one man in the teeth of the other’n. And it says since t’ain’t nothing lyin’ around that killed the other’n, they think somebody else killed that man. The police says an animal killed the one man, but this he’ya paper says they thinks since da one man done bit the other’n, maybe he’s a werewolf.” Fee flattened the page and held it up for Sebastian to see. “Got a picture he’ya of somebody running away, carryin’ a girl too. Maybe he da one killed the werewolf and saved the girl.”

A picture?! Oh, yay. The council will have a field day with that. Sebastian restrained himself from climbing over the desk to have a better look at the picture. The distance Fee was holding it made it difficult, but Sebastian managed to make out the picture with some effort and a little squinting: A blurry night shot of the back of a dark figure in a dark coat with a woman’s legs sticking out one side. Someone could possibly infer height and the fact that he was male, but other than that, about a billion people fit the description. Still, though – not a desirable development.

“They find any silver bullets?” asked Sebastian, with more attempted humor.

“No, suh. But I heard you could kill a werewolf by a’chopping off his head.”

And you heard right.

“An this’n got his head chopped off. So, I’s wonderin’ if maybe they’s right.”

“Don’t know about werewolves. Sorry. I don’t suppose the picture was on the TV news?”

“Shoot, I don’t know. I wasn’t paying all that much attention to TV this mornin’. It just seemed funny when I saw this he’ya paper.”

“Well, hopefully, it isn’t real,” said Sebastian.

“Eh, don’t matter. Just hopin’ that if’n it is a werewolf, he didn’t go hurtin’ nobody else.”

Me too.

Fee angled the article back to his eyes. “Jus funny is all. Usually them kinda crazy things happen way out in the country. Why this werewolf is in the middle of that big ol’ city, and ain’t nobody seen him, is funny to me.”

Sebastian stretched a little to have another look at the picture in Fee’s paper. Maybe he missed some recognizable detail on his first glance? Maybe his hairstyle? No. He was being paranoid. If he was recognizable at all, Fee would’ve been the first to see it. “Did it say where that guy was from? The guy that got his head chopped off?”

“No. Jus says he didn’t have no family. Only went missing one day. Wonder how he turned into a werewolf?”

Same thing I’m wondering.

Orpheus kept reading. “Says he didn’t show up foh work and folks thought he got caught up in one a’ them cults, or some’m. Maybe ran off and shave his head, start bangin’ on a tambourine, or some’m.”

“Might have. Werewolf thing’s gotta be bogus.”

“Yeah, maybe,” laughed Orpheus. “Only thing his work folks remember is that he come back from lunch one day looking like he seen a ghost, or some’m. Then, the next day he don’t come back at all.”

Sebastian began to try and fit that nugget into his puzzle, then stopped himself. There could be any number of plausible explanations for the guy’s work behavior. Regardless of his eventual transformation, Sebastian couldn’t go interjecting possibilities into coincidences to try and create facts.

“Well, I can’t go solving the mystery for them way over here,” said Sebastian, trying to seem less interested. “He’s probably just some crazy guy on drugs, or worships some weird cannibal cult. Too many crazy people in this world to try to explain all of ‘em.”

But Sebastian was anything but disinterested. That rag shouldn’t have any reasonable information in it whatsoever, yet it strangely had a tidbit he could add to his puzzle. A puzzle that still had no corner pieces yet.

“Yes, suh, I agree with that. Bunch a crazy people in this world.”

Crazy, yes. And perhaps ballsy. Bad guys trying to manipulate dimensional energy, volunteers and victims for – what? Experiments? Sirens to lure the volunteers in? Was the wolfer in the park an experiment gone wrong? Or maybe an experiment gone right?

Orpheus went back to his paper, first checking his pocket watch. No wristwatch for Orpheus. His grandfather had passed down a silver watch chain that had been bought with a year’s worth of savings to make the old man feel respectable. Orpheus wanted to honor his grandfather and used the chain to keep a newer battery-powered pocket watch. He gave up on The Globe, folded it onto his lap, settled into the seat, and closed his eyes.

Sebastian was considering borrowing the folded Globe from Orpheus when his cell phone chimed. The little notification “ding” told him he had en email: “Re: Aunt Em.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

This concludes the sample.

The full version of this book is available at these retailers:

 

Barnes and Noble

Kobo

Google Play/Books

Amazon

 

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Tag der Veröffentlichung: 14.09.2019

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