“I’m sorry, Jane.” I said. “I really seem to have a talent for saying the wrong thing today. You knew Dunkelzahn, I didn’t. . .”
“Null sweat.” she said, her voice quiet. “Sometimes it seems like an age since he died. Other times, it’s like it was yesterday.”
“Look.” I said, “tell Ryan that I’m taking some time off. I need to be alone for a while to think, just to get away from the whole thing and get some perspective.”
“How long?”
“I don’t know. A few weeks, a month, maybe more. I’ll let you know.”
There was another long moment of silence. “All right.”
Jane said finally. “I’ll tell him, but I think you should talk to Ryan yourself before you go.”
“I’m not sure I’d go if I did that. We can talk when I get back.”
“
If
you get back, you mean.”
“That too.”
“Okay, Talon. If you need anything . . .” She left the offer incomplete. That was Jane, always playing the team organizer. It was more than that, though. I think I was one of the few people in the world whom Jane considered a friend. I felt honored by that. Jane didn’t have a lot of friends. Neither did I.
“I’ve got the telecom numbers.” I said and tapped the side of my head. “And I’ve always got access to a phone.”
Jane couldn’t see the gesture, but she got my meaning. “Take care of yourself.” she said and broke the connection.
I glanced over to see the expression of sadness on the phantom figure sitting next to me before she faded out. “You, too, Jane.” I said to empty air. “You too.”
I’m not much of a believer in premonitions, even though I’m a mage. But when I saw a woman sitting in my favorite beaten-up easy chair in my apartment, I just knew she was Trouble, with a capital “T.” Granted, I had just finished a long and exhausting run and a fight with Ryan, and finding unauthorized persons in my home is generally unnerving, but there was something else about her that I found disquieting. Maybe it was the gun she was pointing at me.
She was rather small, actually
,
but the gun made her more than imposing enough. Her long, midnight hair was swept back and caught up in a ponytail that fell over her left shoulder onto the forest green of her shirt. Silver gleamed from the datajack behind her right ear and from the Celtic-style necklace she wore. Black pants, a short black jacket, and black boots completed the outfit. She wore no makeup or other complement to her somewhat pale complexion, and her hooded, deep blue eyes never wavered as she stared at me over the massive barrel of the Ares Predator. It looked like the end of a train tunnel from where I was standing.
“Hello.” she said in a voice as calm and controlled as the hands holding the unwavering gun. “You must be Talon. I have some business I’d like to discuss with you.” Moving slowly away from the door I took off my broad-brimmed black hat and hung it on the door hook with exaggerated care, gathering my thoughts, considering my options. They were none too good at the moment.
“Most people call when they want an appointment.”
I said.
She smiled slightly, but it was a cold smile, without humor. I got the feeling that for all her outward calm, this young woman was feeling cornered right about now. I would have to handle things very carefully so she wouldn’t panic and do something that I would very much regret. “This is a matter of some urgency.” she said.
“So I see. Do you think you could stop pointing that thing at me? I’m willing to talk reasonably, but it’s a little hard to concentrate right now.”
She shook her head slightly. “Not yet. At least not until we've gotten to know each other better.”
Great. Just what I needed, a burglar with an insecurity problem. I’ve had dates that went a lot like this, except without the gun.
“Well.” I said, “as long as you’ve got my undivided attention, why not tell me what this is all about?”
“It concerns a man you knew named Jason Vale . . .”
I took an involuntary step back as the memories relumed in a rush of images and feelings.
“You did know him, didn’t you?” she said and I hated her right then for forcing me to remember.
“Oh, yes.” I muttered. “I knew him.”
How could I forget the night I met Jase, the night I was certain I was going to die? Huddled in a dank corner of an abandoned squat, I didn’t really care whether I lived or not, as long as the strange things I was seeing and feeling would stop. I didn’t know it then, but my newly awakened astral senses were open to all the emotional impressions and ghosts lingering in the Rox, the worst neighborhood in Boston. The place where I grew up. I could sense it all, and I was sure I was going mad.
The images and sensations had been getting worse and worse. The bliss I took deadened things enough that I was able to ignore them, but I was coming down off my last dose and I’d used up all my meager nuyen to buy that. If I wanted any more of the drug—or anything to eat, for that matter—I would probably have to start selling myself down on the Strip or the Combat Zone, like some of the other street kids I knew. I was sixteen years old and completely alone in the world.
As the drugged euphoria faded, it was replaced by a dull, throbbing pain. I could see strangely colored shadows dart and flit through the debris, into and out of sight. A faint glow surrounded my body out of the corner of my eye. I felt sick and started to sweat, despite the late autumn chill blowing in through the cracked plastiglass window. It would be much colder soon enough, but the coming of winter was the least of my worries at the time.
A creak echoed through the squat. Someone was coming up the stairs. My hands fumbled for the rust-spotted switchblade in my pocket, but I couldn’t seem to make them function because of the lingering euphoric high of the drug. It was most likely another squatter, looking for a place to sleep out of the wind, but it could be some chipped-out nutcase or worse. I’d heard, too, that ghouls sometimes came out of the Catacombs at night to hunt and scavenge in the squats and mostly deserted areas of the Rox.
The sound came closer, and I tried vainly to crawl over to the nearest heap of refuse and hide myself. It was all I could do to raise my head and try to look defiant. The door creaked open and a pair of figures entered, silhouetted by the faint light from the hall. I was going to say something to make them back off, but the after-effects of the bliss made my throat so dry that all I could manage was a croaking cough. It elicited a low grunt from one of the figures, like a chuckle.
The figures shuffled closer, and I could just see them through the faint neon and moonlight coming through the cracked and dirty windows. They were both hairless, dressed in rags, with scabrous, rough gray skin. Their crooked hands were tipped with dark claws and their mouths lined with sharp, pointed teeth. Their eyes were dead-white and looked out onto nothing, but they moved toward me with unerring accuracy, sniffing the air slightly. Around each of them was a dark glow that sent waves of emotion battering into me: caution, excitement, eagerness and, above it all, hunger, terrible gnawing hunger. Ghouls. I was a dead man for sure.
They started to close in, splitting up to circle around either side of me. I couldn’t move. I just stared in horror at them. The force of their feelings pinned me to the floor like a mouse facing a snake. A dark tongue emerged from the mouth of one and he licked his lips.
The figures approached and I tensed, waiting for a ghoulish set of claws at my throat. Instead, I heard a voice that rang out in the silence of the squat.
"STOP!” it shouted. “Leave him alone!”
I looked up and saw something that made me sure the bliss was making me hallucinate ... or that I’d finally gone totally wacked. A glowing figure, robed in garments of light and carrying a long wooden staff, stepped through the wall of the room like it wasn’t even there. His presence seemed to light up the room in a cascade of golden light. The ghouls shrank back from the glow and hissed.
“He is under my protection.” the shining man said in a forceful voice. His features were like a marble statue, pure, refined, chiseled, and pale. Even his flesh seemed to glow from within and his eyes were like pits of green fire. He was beautiful. For a moment I recalled everything I’d been taught about angels by the Catholic Family Mission where I’d grown up. Right then and there, staring up at that shining figure, I was ready to believe they existed.
The ghouls were startled by the shining man’s initial appearance, but they quickly recovered. They didn’t intend to be cheated of their dinner, and they started moving toward the intruder. He calmly held his staff in front of him in both hands. I noticed that his feet didn’t even touch the floor. He hovered about five or six centimeters above it.
With a strangled cry, one of the ghouls rushed him and the staff flashed out. The ghoul fell back, screaming in pain. The staff swung again, and again, tracing faint arcs of light in the air where it passed. With each swing the ghouls cried out and backed away from the figure, who glowed like an avenging angel.
“Out!” he cried, and swung the staff one more time. The ghouls broke and scurried away, whimpering and whining. I could hear the sounds of their retreat fade into the distance as I looked up at my shining savior with little or no comprehension of what had just happened. At that point, I still wasn’t sure the whole thing wasn’t just a bliss-induced hallucination.
A gentle hand touched my shoulder and I heard the stranger whisper, “Don’t worry. It’ll be all right. You’re safe now.” He started to sing in a low and quiet tone. As I tried to follow the tune, I drifted off to sleep, feeling very safe and secure.
I awoke with a start, sitting bolt upright in bed. Bed? I was in a bed, a real bed. There was a brightly colored Indian blanket thrown over me. The bliss hangover was gone and I was still weak and sore, but I felt better than I had in weeks.
I looked around the room. It was the main room of a small apartment. Most of the wall space was taken up by rows of bookshelves made of old bricks and scraps of wood and construction plastic. On those shelves were more books than I had ever seen in my whole life, dozens of them. Real hardcopy books, not just optical chips or CDs, although I saw a small stack of those, too, next to a small chip-reader.
The rest of the place was done in soothing tones of tan and brown and gold. There were a couple of chairs and a small table that looked like a desk. The bed where I sat looked like it served most of its time as a sofa.
I began to wonder how I had gotten here, then I remembered the shining stranger and the weird song he sang. I glanced over as the door swung open and a young man entered, carrying a steaming earthenware bowl on a tray.
He was in his early twenties, I’d say, with a thatch of unruly black hair. He had a pointed chin, an easy smile, and a small scattering of freckles across his straight nose that all hinted at an Irish ancestor. His eyes were a shade of sea green that made them seem to look right through you. He was wearing a pair of well-worn black jeans and a white T-shirt with something written in bold red Japanese characters on the front. Hanging from a black cord around his neck was a small five-pointed star within a circle, made of silver.
“Well.” he said, “good to see you up. Try and drink some of this. It will help you get your strength back.” He set the tray holding the bowl of steaming broth down nearby. I looked at him for a moment and wondered if I should trust him. He could be a pimp—someone who picked up squatter kids and then got them hooked so that they would work for him—but this place didn’t look like the kind of doss where a pusher or pimp would live, nor did he really look the type.
“Don’t worry. It’s not spiked or anything.” he said as if reading my mind. “I spent too much effort getting you clean just to try and hook you on something again.” To prove it, he took a sip from the bowl and put it back on the tray. I took the broth and drank it slowly. It seemed like the best thing I’d ever tasted and it did make me feel better. The mysterious stranger just sat silently in a chair and watched me as I finished it off.
“Who are you.” I asked, “and why are you helping me?”
He smiled and leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “You don’t recognize me, do you? But then you probably wouldn’t. I looked somewhat different last night.”
I stared closer at his face and I could see the shadow of the shining man. The hair had been a bit longer, and the face more refined, but it was definitely the same face. He wore different clothes and there was no staff. No halo of light surrounded him, but I was sure he was the same person.
“You saved me from the ghouls.” I said slowly.
“Yes.” he said, making a face. “I don’t like ghouls in general, but I especially don’t like ones who hunt people in the Rox.”
I sat up a bit more in bed and set the broth bowl on the table. “What's your name?” I asked.
“Names have power.” he said sternly and I was taken aback. His expression softened and he smiled again
.
“It’s not always polite to ask someone’s name. Better to ask what they prefer to be called. They call me Jase. How about you?”
“Talon.” I said. At his curious look I quickly added, “Er, Tommy. Talon is just sort of a nickname, I... I don't have a real last name.”
“Okay, Talon.” he said, not questioning me further. “As to why I’m helping you . . . let’s say we’re kindred spirits. I know you’ve been having a tough time with the awakening of your Talent.”