Story #233 - Ryser

Ryser

I moved quickly around the room, scouring it for any sign that I had been there, that I had been present in anything resembling a physical form. Even a sniff of my existence would have the planar-cops in an uproar, and that was the last thing the Guild needed, especially after Alto’s disastrous failure. Security was on the rise in the Guild, handlers more carefully monitoring their Vengers, and those in charge more tightly gripping their power, afraid it would fall away.

As I jogged toward the hallway, I could see the edges of my vision stutter and then begin to blur. Ryser wanted to talk to me, but now wasn’t a good time. I ignored the pounding in my temples and moved forward, deftly cleaning up the tiny, metaphysical messes I’d left behind. Arriving in spirit form was always easy – there was no technology yet that could detect a member of the guild on wing, but once I’d landed there was only one way out, and that was on the stumping legs I hadn’t used nearly enough in recent days.

By the time I was out into the narrow corridor, my left eye was sending spikes of agony into my brain. Ryser didn’t take well to waiting, even when it was for a good cause. I made it into the stairwell before I jammed the heel of my hand hard into the side of my head, and the tall, white-haired form of my handler appeared in front of my eyes.

“Ryser,” I hissed – I could hear people coming up the stairs from below. “What do you want? I’m a bit busy here.”

“Checking in, Sparrow.” He said in the ultra-calm voice that had always irritated me. “What exactly is your status?”

“Exactly?” My voice was louder now. He had a way of getting under my skin with almost no effort. “My exact status is that I’ve eliminated the target, removed all evidence of the action, and am currently in the stairwell not fifty feet from the suite, in serious danger of being caught because you won’t give me the chance to get away.” I saw him frown; he hated when I took an attitude with him, but this time it was warranted. “Did you want me to tell you how I did the job? What his last words were, or what he had cooking on the stove for dinner?” The footsteps from below had almost reached my landing. “Whatever you want to know, you’d better make it quick – this will be our last chat for a while if I’m picked up.”

His frown deepened to a scowl, but I saw the ephemeral version of him reach forward toward me, breaking our contact. I sagged forward, knees buckling and back going rigid against the concrete wall behind me.

“Hey man,” a low voice said, “you OK?”

A male and a female had come up the staircase in front of me, both dressed as though they’d come from one of the high-end clubs in town. The female, a tiny, dark-haired thing, looked strung out, and though them male had sharper eyes, it appeared that he’d also enjoyed his fair share of indulgence during the evening.

“Yeah,” I managed, feeling the strength return to my limbs, “just having a bad night.”

“I hear ya,” the man whispered, leaning in. I could smell the booze on him, along with a number of other unsavory compounds. “I’ve had few of those myself, though tonight won’t be one of them,” he pointed at the woman behind him, who was staring blankly off into space.

I briefly considered killing both of them – two more bodies in the suite wouldn’t make a difference, and I could easily get them inside and leave no trace a second time. Not only would it screw up the investigation for the planars, but it would show off just what I was capable off.

After a moment, I threw the idea out. The stairwell had already proven to be a source of traffic, even this late at night, and the last thing I needed to was to attract the wrong kind of attention after calling out Ryser for his idiocy. I was going to pay for that transgression soon enough, and there was no point in making it any worse than it had to be.

I leered stupidly at the woman across from me, which my inebriated friend took as a sign of my approval. With a slow slap on my shoulder, he led his evening's prize up the stairs to the hallway I’d come from, and before the door closed behind them, I was sprinting downstairs as quickly as I could.

It would be another hour before I could shift again and get out of the physical plane, and so long as I was tied to the world, my strength would slowly be sapped. Within a half-hour, even the users I’d met in the stairwell would be stronger and more coherent than I was. There were a few spots I’d used in the city over the past few years, most of them under bridges or near where groups of transients could be found. Typically, they left each other alone and once it became apparent that I was too far gone to protect myself, it had been long enough that I could plane out, meaning they were never able to get anything of value from me before I went.

The planar cops had been clear, though, that all Guild hotspots were being monitored until the recent “issue” they’d had was smoothed over. I wasn’t privy to the details of the Alto incident, but I’d been told that the cops wouldn’t be looking the other way any more, for any reason, even for jobs like the one I’d just completed. The Guild had given me the papers for this one only last night, leaving me no time to find a suitable place to wait until I could phase back to where I belonged.

I had just turned into the alleyway behind the building, my stride slowing, when I saw the lights.

“Freeze, Meta freak!” A woman’s voice yelled, and I could hear the hammer of a pistol draw back. I went slack, letting my body hit the ground. Ryser would not be pleased.

- D