Guardians of the Gates - Part 1, The New Breed by Jeff Schanz (best short books to read .TXT) 📕

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