Dawn of Legacy, page 18
I size him up, steady myself to blink once, and lock eyes with this impressive, clean-cut magic-cop.
“I don’t understand the majority of that sentence, and even less the threat in it.”
My ability to get under the skin of someone was legendary, but even I had to admit that an audible gnashing of his pearly white teeth from clenching his jaw so hard was a new one—even for me. Julian wasn’t doing his brethren any favor by having such an uneven temper, and while I suspected the man could walk my ass up and down the block in a straight fight, I couldn’t help but be unimpressed with the rest of him. Helena intervened with a scalding look, and even with an open desire to test my mettle against this fellow Artificer, I hadn’t any desire to get any further onto her bad side. As he walked to the far wall to await further instruction, I caught a glimpse of a steel gauntlet that hung off his left hip, and more than just taking in the design, I was able to discern some of the craftsmanship that enhanced the spiked, steel glove. It was brilliant, formidable stuff, most of it a collection of strength enhancing, endurance elongating glyphs that considerably reinforced the thing.
It was better in quality than anything I’d done, though it lacked…diversity? Something about the lack of complexity bothered me. Limitations ensured that in a pinch you’d be relying on brute force over cleverness, and as much as I would like to be the heaviest hitter in any of my engagements, to date I’d never been on the winning side of that equation before squaring up with a problem. I suspected the theme was going to be a constant one.
“You like poking bears.”
“I like antagonizing assholes,” I clarified with a flat expression and droll tone.
Helena didn’t bite, and perfectly disarmed me by responding contrary to my expectation. Her expression blossomed into something mildly amused and equally impressive, surrendering some of the posturing that usually went into these back-and-forths, making me feel like a perfect asshole if I didn’t join her in a more civil interaction.
“We’re here to help, Janzen, even if you don’t like me knowing about this curious priest or the reckless ways you’ve avoided all of this from coming undone in the past.”
“Alpha or Delta?”
Helena was a pro, and didn’t give an inch, not even the slightest hint at which of the two had dimed me out about the up-to-now secret resource of the priest from parts unknown.
“I bet you’re a nightmare at a Poker table.”
“Bridge.”
“God, Zachariah must have been putty in your hands.”
“And me in his,” She confessed, even looking a little whimsical in the process. “It was Alpha,” she said; a truce offering. I could tell by the restrained hopefulness in her eyes that she desperately hoped I was going to take it.
“Ah, Alphie… Alphie, Alphie, Alphie.” The tsk-tsk-tsk after was a little heavy handed.
“At least Delta is of the ride or die sort.” I intoned thoughtfully, pausing in my retreat back to my apartment so that Kaycee could join Helena and me.
“They both concealed it as much as I think people like them are capable of, if it’s any consolation.”
“It is.”
Meet people where they are and don’t expect seismic shifts overnight. Sounded like Alpha barely wrote about it and Delta had left the entire bit out of whatever reporting system they had for the Unet Household.
“Who is he?” Helena dropped the question between both me and Kaycee. The half-elf shrugged a little helplessly, for once turning to me for any insight I may not have shared up until this point. Funny enough, I didn’t realize until now that I had made a habit out of staying rather mum about my interactions with the priest. As someone who had the reputation of being able to carry on a conversation with a duck as long as it occasionally quaked back, questions about the clergyman tended to be amongst the select few that would shut me up. Distantly, I wondered if that was some kind of subtle compulsion but disregarded treading into those waters while so much was still on my plate.
“A friend.”
Helena took my measure, and my first inclination was to put on a little show and see if I could get some kind of half-truth by her with a tried-and-true gimmick.
I resisted the urge, and instead asked for her trust.
“He’s a friend, or as close to one as something like him can be. For now I suggest we focus on our own issues and let me just check in on why he’s calling me.”
“Has he ever done this before?” Kaycee asked. While I was away, she had morphed into a teacher, resource, and constant helping hand to our entire community. Even now, as she sought to fill in some of the blanks, she’d waved Grove over and started to inspect some of the gear she’d brought for him. Multi-tasking as only a mother could, it felt like she was actually trying to figure out what it was that I was going to be doing tonight while simultaneously dressing a sibling.
“Justin? No. He’s never even called before.”
Kaycee out-paced some of the gray smattering in her hair in terms of sagacity, and I was fast growing uncomfortable with over-sharing, so the subject was dropped. Helena picked up the context clue and wisely did the same.
I hesitated to speak because of my inclination to start ordering each of them around but Kaycee gave me the kind of support an overburdened leader prayed for.
“What do you need us to do?”
“Use these fancy-as-fuck systems Nicholas put together to do a roll call of all of our people, and once everyone answers bring them either here or to the shop.”
I could see Helena deliberating on whether or not to join in on the offered assistance, and while I liked her a lot and had a deep, fast-growing admiration for the woman, I could see that her stature came with a touch of ego. Luckily, she was the kind of person smart enough to know when and when not to allow pride a place at the table. When we met eyes, I was reassured by her tight-lipped smile.
“There’s a bar - restaurant by the public encampment beside Lake Erie,” When I checked the time it was still mid-afternoon. “Post yourself up there and bring Lurch if you have to. Just keep an eye on the place. It was close to the big tear in this rift, so if something is going on out there, you’ll probably be able to get a sense of it from where you are.” I signaled to her phone, and took it out of her hand and quickly punched my number in.
“Text me on the hour every hour, no matter what.” I glance over at Kaycee. “You too. When I get back from the Church, we’ll for once get our whole tribe read in on this and finally try to figure out how to get ahead of it.” Halfway into handing back her phone I stop myself, exaggerate an eye-roll, and make my inner moody-teenager proud by protestingly putting Julian’s information in my phone as well. Helena caught it and smiled, the glint of approval obvious.
“You really were a pupil of Zachariah’s.”
I gave her a Boy Scout Salute with my fingers as I peeled off to go get my gear. Be prepared always. The old man, who in proper hindsight wasn’t all that old, preached that above all else. Our job was to be prepared, to work out contingencies, and be almost infinitely adaptable. Julian was rigid, and Helena seemed a lot more of a traditionalist; in fact come to think of it so was my mentor, but my experience and tenure under his tutelage was surprisingly loose and dynamic when compared to what I had come to learn about where it was that my mentor had learned, and how his peers had been trained.
***
Helena walked the workshop with me as I got outfitted, interested in the variety and volume of knick-knacks and things I’d built or was in pre-production on. After making sure Johnny would not only stay in service to Gale, but that they both would be helpful with what Kaycee was doing, I showed Julian and Helena where on the map of Lake Erie the incident had taken place, giving them the location of the woods and the previous skirmishes we’d had there, as well as suggesting the cheese fries for consumption so that I could live vicariously through them.
I’d been out for almost a day and a half and all I’d consumed was half a light beer and the decaying waft of a vampire nest. Grove grabbed the lever-action, silver-bayoneted rifle that had served him so well. The bayonet was less a bayonet and more a half-ax, and the lever-action rifle fired low-caliber bullets; the bolt-assembly stamped a sigil on every round so that it had the nasty, searing, and weakening bite of silver on every bullet. I also noticed a less overstated but equally enchanted burnished jacket, a pistol half-concealed on his right hip and a healthy sprawl of neatly filed magazines on his left side.
I’d yet to have an opportunity to really build any new equipment, though I was elated to find that Kaycee had mended almost all my standing stuff. The full-size aluminum bat was staggered with elemental emblems that could contort kinetic energy into any of the corresponding sigils carved into it. My favorite part was the five or so minutes I spent swinging the thing like a madman against the asphalt and brick-wall, effectively charging it; not unlike loading a gun but with a lot more ridiculous-looking cardio. My wooden bat had been cut in half by a Stalker talon and had assimilated the magic that reinforced the biting edge of those malicious claws. Now? The severed bat was as sharp as those claws and served me like a dagger for close combat.
After shrugging into my own, much more overstated jacket, I locked on the leather bracer that I had come to have a lot less embarrassment over and attached a satchel of marbles to my hip. The last piece was an homage to the very mentor who’d been a mainstay in my thoughts over the last few days. The black glove was lined with menacing red stitching, and every digit sported an overlapping of the same three sigils; basic, streamlined and terribly effective. The glove could harness your power and produce a geyser of flames, it could also absorb certain kinds of magic, and with enough practice, you could contour the fire to do a lot more, though my mastery of such a thing was tentative at best.
For good measure I stopped by the kitchen on my way out and grabbed a bag of stale popcorn, dousing it in salt to make it edible, and pouring the remnants of the salt into one of my jacket pockets. Grove once again proved his uncanny ability to forecast needs and handed me a protein bar as I piled into our junker sedan to keep his still-new-smelling truck from what was historically our very destructive outings. My groveling stomach, impossible for him to hear, grumbled in gratitude. By the time we got to the church the first hints of night were starting to wear at the edges of daylight, which admittedly gave the stonework a handsome look. It was an old church, fashioned in tribute to some of the old cathedrals which celebrated the importance and character of the religion.
The location was a little curious; one side of the road was industrial, and the other had a lot of abandoned and discarded properties. It was curious because even though it was archaic, the building itself was a really gorgeous monument to the good old times, and I could imagine how proud the neighborhood must have once been to congregate at such a fine house of worship. I couldn’t recall ever seeing anyone here before me, though quite a few people had come across the place after.
I felt my partner hesitate. Up until now he’d not really met the priest except incidentally, and with everything we’d just learned about what was happening here—the creatures we’d gotten tangled up with and how dire the situation was—it brought a different kind of weight to standing in front of the church as opposed to times past. As much as I didn’t appreciate being watched or having my personal exploits chronicled by what passed as magic’s version of government, I had to admit that for the first time they had me wondering a little bit about what the priest was, even while I couldn’t help struggling with the compulsion to plead for his help.
I wasn’t sure where Father Handy ranked in terms of power, but something told me it was a hell of a lot more formidable than the vehicle he’d been loitering around in would suggest. Whatever theory I was entertaining about the creature masquerading around as a man was usually abandoned whenever we laid eyes on one another.
Groves’ glance at me would have seemed trivial to anyone else, but I could sense the worry in it, so I did my best to reassure him with a half-smile and directive nod, keeping a confident and steady gait up the flight of stairs. The landing at the top was pretty spacious and beside the heavy, carved-wood double-doors was one of those plastic boxes displaying a list of gatherings, sermons and freshly passed or upcoming events. Dawdling on the plateau wasn’t based on unease, and even though I could tell that the priest had something time sensitive to speak about I couldn’t keep myself from taking a quick scan of the block from that vantage.
It wasn’t but three years ago that I had run/stumbled up these very stairs and threw myself through this doorway to try and find refuge from an unstoppable killing machine that not very long ago was the definition of a death-sentence to a lowlife like me. A year and a half ago—almost to the day—we’d escaped a burning building full of night-terrors brought to life as demon-possessed police officers and found our way into this safe haven. Sadly, a precocious girl had lost her second parent in the process, though the wealth spring of her talent was probably one of the first byproducts of the rift energy’s many effects.
As much as I’d missed my people, and even some of the more punchy and zany cohorts of our camp while I was in prison, it was these shared silences with Grove that I had come to appreciate most. It was the utter lack of expectation that made him so easy to be around. In a world where everything seemed capable of winding you up or letting you down, the soldier was as rocksteady as the moniker suggests. Of all the people who’d stepped in to help me endure, survive and navigate this insane hellscape, he’s the only anomaly because of his normalcy. A former public safety officer, and a down on his luck artificer doing the best they could with what they had.
“I can’t believe you agreed to help me after seeing that Stalker back when.” I kept my face aimed at him while leaning into the door. My laugh triggered his own, and he responded with the same nostalgia. “When I found out what a shit wizard you were, what else was I gonna do?”
The inside was warm and reassuring, with neatly lined pews bleeding into a beautifully spread backdrop of candles, carvings and decorative tapestries. Nothing was gaudy. All of it was immaculate and old, and as well made as it was well used. This was a church that was cared for and used by a still faithful community. The reverence for the place was matched by the appreciation of the place of the man beside me. Grove was seeing and feeling it for the first time, and I was learning to process it with a renewed respect for what was being brought to life here.
I caught the glint of a bald head down on the right side in the second to last pew before the Dais, and while I couldn’t make out who he was with, I could tell that he was in prayer with the veiled woman sitting beside him. Tonight the pews held a smattering of people, and I was surprised to find that I was unbothered by the fact, and found it added to the warmth of the place. The quizzical look my friend kept aiming at me was asking who this mysterious theological benefactor was, and when the plainly seen cleric murmured departing assurances to the woman, I could tell that Grove was a little disappointed in the lack of a wow factor.
Justin Handy as I had known him was probably six feet down to the millimeter. If you told me the man was a well-seasoned twenty-eight, I would believe you; and if you told me that he was a fit, ageless wonder in his mid-forties I would believe that too. He was ageless in an incomprehensible way. Those in attendance very obviously knew him, and the clergyman’s robes had an authentic aged quality to them (a fact that seemed to demystify him further to Grove), suggesting that maybe the man was not going to live up to what was becoming a rather far-reaching myth.
“Janzen, my friend.” We clasp hands and almost immediately I relax into the familiar warmth that pervades the man’s very being. Whatever form of magic or omnipotence he possessed, I was grateful for having him in my life. This peace I feel is a gift that I receive with a lot less reticence now, and when we closed in a hug it is impossible to describe how completely OK I felt. I’d missed him. He had been there as my only respite on the worst days of my well tested life.
He was my buddy; he was my friend.
“Father Handy, I would like you to meet Grove.”
“Ah yes. The actual hero of the story, I hear you’re the Samwise to our Frodo.” By the time he’d turned to regard my partner we’d already let go, and so I pivoted to join him side-by-side. His appearance and approach didn’t impress Grove too much, that had been obvious, but the fact that he could hear the priest when he spoke to him had struck him mute. Bewilderment flashed over his historically steady eyes, and while it was a testament to his own constitution how quickly he collected himself, you could feel the reverberations of awe coming off of him at the phenomenon.
“Hey…yeah… th-thanks.” Not really known as the rabble-rouser type, it was nonetheless funny as hell to watch the Christian military veteran almost stutter into silence at feeling the miracle of being able to hear every utterance from this holy figure’s mouth. I reassure him as to how eloquent he’s being by winking and flashing an enthusiastic thumbs up.
“You ought to be thankful you ever lucked into such a friend Janzen Robinson.” It was a lot frailer than when I’d last heard it, but I immediately recognized that voice. The fact I so quickly remembered it felt peculiar to me, given that I’d only heard it once. I knew her as Grandma. The black veiled woman now standing in the aisle was in fact the elderly woman who was the grandmother of the girl we’d rescued from the evidence depot that fateful night a year and a half ago. The girl was named Cat, and she had come to mind as had I walked up the stairway to the church. I was even more concerned now that I found myself in the presence of her grandmother.
“Penny, this is Grove, partner and friend to our own resident migraine, Janzen Robinson.”
Penny, whose name I’d just learned, was now using a cane to help her stand and balance out a laboring stride. When I’d last come across her there was an undeniable spryness to the woman that belied her age and looks, but now it was if it had not only caught up to her, but had fast-tracked her to death’s doorstep, robbing her of what I would have guessed would have been another two decades when I met her eighteen months ago. Grove was still a little stunned by the fact that every time Justin spoke it was as if he’d never lost his hearing at all; luckily after spending a few years with me he’d learned to adjust the limitations of what was possible by quite a bit. His reaction seemed emotional for some odd reason.
