Chapter 2

The kids are playing outside with their friends, we’re inside doing something. Brian comes in and says Karen fell out of a tree and got knocked out. So we run out to this tree that’s shorter than me to see what happened. Karen was still laying there, at the bottom of the three foot fall. She was a bit out of it, but conscious. Probably hit her head on a rock. We take her to the ER, and they do their thing, while she’s going on and on about being in a big pink helicopter, a circus tent, something about a space ship and an elephant. After a couple hours, she was more or less back to normal. We watched her close for the weekend, and less closely as the week went by. No flashbacks to her concussion. At least that one turned out ok.

“On your feet princess! Get moving!” she yelled.

All I could think as I started waking up but before I was fully awake was ‘Why is Jillian Michaels pissed at me?’ Then my brain started to function and I realized this was my new boss. So I got up.

“I’m Carol, your trainer. You’ve got 15 minutes to pack and be out that door, so you’d better start moving, sweet pea!”

I started to pack up some clothes and personal hygiene stuff. Luckily, I’m low maintenance so I didn’t need to pack much. I was making sure the doors and windows were locked when,

“15 minutes is up precious! Drop and give me 50!”

“Lady, I’m not in the army anymore, so you might as well save the drill sergeant routine for somebody who’ll give a shit.”

That got her to stop yelling. “Look, if you’re going to do this job, you’re going to need to do it right, and we’re going to teach you how. Our way.” I didn’t notice til then that she had two guys with her. “Cause if you’re not going to do it right, then we’d rather have you on the other side. So what’s it gonna be?”

One thing about military training, it teaches you how to shut up and do what you’re told. I shut up and gave her her 50. Good thing I worked out in prison, it kept me in good enough shape that I didn’t have to rest ‘til about 35. I should’ve kept working out on the outside.

“That’s better. Thank you for making the right choice.” That was the end of the no-yelling. “Now let’s go sweetie pie! Out that door!”

We exited, I locked up, and we got into the only vehicle outside besides mine. An old school Jeep. Not a Wrangler, a CJ series. Not stock, either. Some really big tires and a light bar made me suspect that the engine and drivetrain were also different from what the factory installed.

“Hell, I expected you to drive a Hummer.” I said as we climbed in.

“Not a chance! A Hummer’s got nothing on this old beast, I love it! By the way, this is Steve and Erik.” She said, pointing to the other two guys.

“Hey.” Steve said. Erik just nodded at me.

“How’s it goin’?” I said. Then, to Carol, “Really? So the geared hubs don’t give ‘em more ground clearance?”

“Ok, so the stock clearance is higher, but I make up for it with these tires.”

“And the wider wheelbase doesn’t make ‘em corner better than this?”

“Ok, two things a Hummer’s got on my Jeep, but I can go places a Hummer only dreams about!”

“By the way, I do have a job I won’t be at today. I need to call ‘em.”

“Already taken care of.”

We drove off. And kept driving. I was wondering just how far away we were going each time she pulled onto a smaller, less maintained road. Out in the middle of the wooded section of BFE, we came up to a clearing with a small ranch in it. Carol pulled up by the house.

“Home sweet home.” Carol said. “Get settled in, we’ll start the hard stuff tomorrow.” Big shit-eating grin.

We got out, I got shown my room and I put my stuff away. I noticed there were only three rooms, so I wondered if Carol was sharing one with Steve or Erik. Or if Steve and Erik were the ones sharing. Not that it mattered. Carol, Steve and Erik showed me around the house and the property. There was no tv. I thought that was a bit weird, but maybe they keep busy enough that they don’t need one. That doesn’t bode well for me. Lots of books, though. I might find something I could stand to read. There was a barn a couple hundred feet from the house. Bottom floor was stables with a couple horses and typical horse stuff. The loft covered the entire second floor. In the middle was a sparring mat. Along the walls were barbells, cable machines, martial arts dummies, a speed bag, a heavy bag, a pull-up bar, a climbing wall, and other stuff. Luckily, there was also ventilation up here. Without it, I’m sure that a workout in summertime would seriously suck. If I had any doubt that they were serious, it was now gone.

Carol informed me, “This is your new home. For the next few weeks, I’ll be getting you in shape. Steve will teach you to fight when you’re ready, then when he’s done, you belong to Erik.”

On the way back to the house, I saw a little trail going up the hill through the trees between the house and the barn.

“What’s up there?” I asked.

Erik took this one. “Until I decide you’re ready, up there doesn’t exist.”

The next morning, Carol woke me up the same way she did before. Well, not exactly the same, she didn’t shake the bed this time. And she did work me out pretty hard. Seemed like she was taking it a bit easy on me, though. I didn’t guess that from what she had me do, it was her attitude. But she was only like that on the first day. The day went like this, wake up, work out, breakfast, work out, lunch, work out, dinner, attempt to rest, go to bed. That became my basic daily routine, with a few variable details. At least it only took me five days to start getting up before she woke me up.

When Carol decided I was in good enough shape, it changed to wake up, work out, breakfast, train with Steve, lunch, Steve again, dinner, rest some, go to bed. Steve taught me hand to hand. I’d studied some Jui Jitsu and learned a little Tae Kwon Do when I was younger, so I already knew some of the moves, and I’d watched MMA for a while, so I recognized a lot more, but he taught me some that I’d never even heard of. And I learned a lot. I got to the point where I could hold my own against him for a little while before he beat me, and every once in a while I beat him.

It turned out that Carol and Steve were the ones sharing a room. Didn’t think much of it until a day that I thought about Kate for longer than usual. I’d thought about Kate, Brian and Karen every day since they died. Here at the ranch, they’d kept me busy enough that I didn’t think about them as often as I had before, so I supposed I was healing. Every once in a while I’d miss one or both of my kids worse than on a typical day, but this was the first time since I’d been here that I thought this much about Kate. Fuck, it still hurt so goddamn bad. How could I have lost so much at once and lived? It’s like I died but my heart was too stupid to know it was supposed to stop beating. And Carol and Steve were as happy, content, and in fucking love as I was once. A lifetime ago. I was pissed off at Kate for not being there. For being dead. For abandoning me. For forcing me to live a barren life without her. I was never mad at my kids for dying, they missed out on their entire lives, I only missed out on the part of their life they would share with me. I had a huge loss, but theirs was bigger. Kate was missing out on the same thing I was. Our life together and our kids’ lives. She wasn’t missing any more than I was. I almost wished I could hate her. I kept all this bottled up until after dinner. I went to my room and cried like a little bitch. Kept the noise to a minimum, though. And I got over the moment and went back to my routine, still hurting, but dealing with it.

Then came the day that the trail up the hill through the trees existed.

“Time to go for a walk.” Erik said to me.

“Where we goin’?” I asked.

“Just follow me.”

So I did. Carol and Steve followed me. We went up the hill through the trees maybe 1000 feet or so til we came to the top and a clearing with a drop off to the left, a single line of trees between it and the clearing. Erik went to the right. As I was looking around, he was opening a cabinet, sort of a small shed, and placing some of it’s contents on a table next to it. Carol and Steve were totally silent, almost reverent.

“Today you start to learn how to do the job you agreed to do. And this is your main tool.” He said while he pulled a sword out of a sheath. The sheath was scratched, scarred, and worn, while the sword, also looking worn and old, was in much better shape. It had been maintained more carefully than the scabbard. I noticed something odd about the blade of the sword. It was on fire. Small flames licked it’s surface but didn’t seem to mess it up. “I know that a flaming sword is a bit of a cliché for the hand of God, but it was the tool of our trade for quite a while before it became a cliché. This sword has an incredible amount of power in it and I’m going to make sure you can use it responsibly. People’s lives and souls will depend on how you use this, so you won’t get it until I decide you’re ready.” With that he started to swing the sword around over his head, and the flames got longer, stretching out and moving like a whip. He swung it down, and the flames hit the ground hard enough to crush the meadow grass and make an impression in the dirt. Then the flames coiled around some of the longer weeds, pulled them up, and held them in the air. “This sword can do many, many things. It will take you a long time to learn them all. But first-“, he tossed me a kempo stick, “you need to learn its most basic abilities.” And he put his sword down, picked up another kempo stick, and swung at me.

That started a new routine. Wake up. Work out with Carol. Breakfast. Work out with Erik. Lunch. Work out with Erik. Dinner. Relax and do whatever ‘til bed. Next day, work out with Steve before breakfast and Erik before and after lunch. The rest the same, alternating between the two schedules each day. But with Erik every day. He started out with blunt objects. Sticks, bats, clubs, that kinda thing. Then nunchucks, rope dart (a weight on the end of a rope), bolas, sort of advanced blunt objects. Next came knives, then swords. And last…

“Well, you’re finally ready to learn to use this” Erik said as he handed me a sword in a sheath. Same style as the one I saw him use before, but this one was new. I don’t know why I was expecting the sword he showed me before, I should’ve known that one was his. He showed me what it could do. The flames are prehensile. They work like an extendable hand. They can also transfer energy to objects, pretty much like normal flames. But not just heat. And the flames can let me contact a person on a mental level. I just wrap them around the person’s head, and I can see their memories, communicate with ‘em, see their thoughts. Don’t worry, it doesn’t hurt ‘em. And I can’t make ‘em feel or think in a way that they don’t want to, either, don’t think it does that kind of thing. And the most important ability it has –

“I don’t know” Erik said. Before I could reply “What?”, he continued. “The connection between you and your sword is unique. Each one has these core abilities, but each unique connection creates it’s own unique ability. And the only way to find out what it is, is to use it and pay attention.” Leave it to Erik to be so descriptive. After about a month of using this sword, I started to be able to come close to holding my own against Erik. So then we started to go out and do field training. On bums. We wouldn’t attack homeless shelters or anything, not that kind of training. Basically, we’d go out to where homeless people frequent, under bridges, old warehouses, alleys, that kinda place, give ‘em some food, and I’d look into their minds and try to help ‘em fix their problems. After a few weeks of doing this, I noticed something.

We were on our way back from a training exercise and I was still thinking about Harold, the homeless dude I tried to help and had a couple similarities with. He’d lost his whole family in a car wreck, and it destroyed his life. He couldn’t function. So he lost his job, then his house, and everything else. And he was a dick, so nobody would help him out and he became a bum. I couldn’t stop thinking about how close I came to being him. And I was sliding my sword out of its sheath a few inches, then back in, back and forth, when I could feel Harold’s mind with mine. I knew where he was, what he was doing, what he was thinking, and what he was feeling. It was like I was there, still linked with his head. Just like earlier when I was only a couple feet away and could see his head circled in my sword’s flames. It didn’t last long, just a few seconds, but long enough to know what it was. I was about to ask Erik if that was normal, but I realized before I opened my mouth that it wasn’t. It was my sword’s unique ability. I tried to link to Harold again, and after a few tries, I did it for a couple seconds. So I started to try to do it with other homeless people I knew, and I could with some. Some were easier than others. I decided to keep it a secret, and I started to work at it to get better.

Everything was going pretty good, moving along like you’d expect, and then came the day that I met Lisa. Usual day. Going out to train with the homeless. Gave out some sandwiches. Tried to help ‘em cope with their issues. And then I linked up with Lisa. I talked to her, then started looking through her memories. The first one that came up showed her pushing a shopping cart full of her shit near an intersection that I remembered more than I wanted to. And while I was noticing things out of the corner of her eye, specifically the cars in the intersection, she was concentrating on the guy standing near the corner with a sword in his hand. It wasn’t like mine and Erik’s sword, it had a curved blade with a jag in it on both edges. He was holding it like a cane, tip on the ground. No flames, but there was a little fog coming off it. That dude creeped her out. She stopped looking at him when a truck drove through the red light and slammed into a car that I recognized. I recognized the guy that was thrown from the front passenger window before the car was pushed over the dropoff and the truck followed it. I watched this memory again from the beginning. And again. And again. I kept watching this memory over and over. I saw more and more details the more I watched it. Lisa had two toasters in her cart. A Civic cut off a Neon before the truck came into view. The truck’s brake lights were on the entire time Lisa could see them. There were three birds sitting on the powerline. As the truck started to come into view, a line of frost ran along the ground from the tip of the creepy guy’s sword to the truck and followed the truck to the guardrail.  I don't know if I could actually hear my family's screams through Lisa's memory or I just imagined them.  Either way, I heard them.

Chapter 3

Driving somewhere, wife driving, kids in the back seat, Brian behind me. Playing around with the kids. Lean my seat back to squish Brian a little, and put it back. He starts kicking the back of my seat, so I lean back again. He put something in the way so my seat won’t go back very far. I push harder. Playing too rough with my kids, pushed back until what was in the way gave. Then found out Brian had his legs up straight against my seat and his knees bent backwards. I thought his legs were too long for that. He sat in my lap on the way to the ER. Luckily, he was young enough that I didn't do any significant damage to his knees.  I'm such a dumbass.

I don’t know how long I was there watching Lisa’s memory, but the next thing I remember after that was getting into Carol’s Jeep. Carol, Steve and Erik looked a bit worried. I connected with Lisa again to make sure I didn’t hurt her, and she was fine, just a bit creeped out. But I couldn’t stop myself from watching that memory again. And again. And again. After that, I got control of myself and got out of her head. I didn’t say anything to Carol, Steve, or Erik, though. I had nothing to say at the time. Not ‘til we got back to the ranch, anyway. They all got out, but I stayed in my seat. After a minute, they all came over to me.

“So who’s the asshole with the frosty sword that killed my family?” I finally said. They all looked at each other, and Erik said,

“That would be X. We’ve been dealing with him for a while now. He’s my nemesis, basically. And will be yours when you’re ready to finish your training.”

“How do I find him?”

“Most likely, when you’re done here, he’ll find you. But we need to make sure you’re ready first.”

I got out of the Jeep and went to the clearing. Erik followed me. I drew my sword on the way. When I got there, I grabbed a tree in the flames and crushed it bit by bit.

“So what do I have to do to be ready?” I asked Erik when I’d finished venting on the tree.

“Basically hone your skills some more. You know what you need to know, you just need to improve your abilities and get some experience.”

“How do I find X?” I repeated.

“We’ll get into that later.”

“Fine. That’s your position.” And I grabbed him with the flames. Not crushing him, but keeping his hands away from his sword. Now, I looked at his memories.

The oldest memory of X I could find told me a lot. Erik was somewhere, walking up to a homeless guy with someone I’ve never seen before, and the way they were talking, it appeared this new guy was Erik’s trainee. The trainee approaches the homeless guy, bends down to him, and a curved sword comes out of his rags and takes off the new guy’s head. Erik barely gets his sword out in time to block X’s next strike aimed at him. They fight each other for a while, pretty evenly matched. Eventually the fight moves close enough to a place where people have phones that they start to hear sirens. Then they bail.

The next one I found started with Erik hiding next to a dumpster in between a couple of old warehouses. Then he sees X and someone else walking around the corner toward the dumpster. Erik ducks back, and as they start to walk by him, he slams the guy with X into the wall of the warehouse across the alley so hard that the guy sticks to the wall for a couple seconds with his blood and guts.  Apparently Erik took payment of his trainee with X's trainee.  When Erik goes to swing at X, X’s sword is out and he’s ready. Another evenly matched fight ensues, eventually leads to more populated areas, and once again both flee the scene when sirens are heard.

Next, Erik, another new guy, and Steve are below a bridge with new guy training with another homeless guy. From out of nowhere, X swings down on a rope from the bridge and kicks Erik, sending him flying into the bushes. By the time Erik gets back to X, New Guy’s already dead, and Steve is barely holding his own with a baseball bat. Erik starts to contribute and X starts to retreat to the end of the bridge when Erik and Steve start to get the upper hand. Once he got to the end, he sprinted onto the bridge to a waiting motorcycle that was still running. He jumped on and took off.

Then, Erik is sneaking up to an old abandoned looking warehouse window, with his sword in hand. When he looks inside, he sees X and another (presumably) trainee. X seems to be giving him the rules, walking around him, looking tough-guyish, and the trainee standing still. Erik backs away from the window. Then he blasts about a 15 foot hole through the wall, sending the part that used to be in what just turned into a hole right at X and his trainee. He runs inside to see X and trainee getting up, X’s sword in his hand. X apparently drew his sword to reinforce his speech to his newbie and Erik’s attack didn’t catch him off guard enough. New guy draws his sword as E attacks X. Standoff ensues, Erik slightly overmatched with cherry’s lack of skills added to X’s. No sirens this time before Erik bails.

The next one started with Erik talking to a guy about a security system. It looked like they were in the back of a security-type of store or some business that is security related in some way. All of a sudden, the lights go out. Erik draws his sword and the flames light up the room. The guy Erik was with pulls a shotgun from a cabinet by the door and racks a shell. Erik yells,

“Come on out X! I know it’s you and you can’t sneak up on me, so you might as well come out!” After a few minutes, the door opens to a dark, empty corridor. The light from the room that should’ve gone through the doorway into the hall didn’t. The light stopped right at the doorjamb. Erik reaches out with tiny flames into the hall for a moment.

“He’s right there.” He says as his flames make a bullseye on the wall. Security guy lets off three rounds. They wait to hear a groan, a thud, dripping, something. Nothing. So Erik slams the whole wall into the hallway. It’s flat in it’s new position except for a bulge that’s slightly bigger than man shaped. X breaks through it and swings at Erik as Erik charges him. They exchange a couple blows before Security Guy, who’s now changed from a shotgun to a 45 pistol, starts to open fire. You can see X is having a hard time concentrating on both opponents as he blocks Erik’s attacks and sucks the energy from Security Guy’s bullets so they drop to the floor. Security Guy just emptied his first clip when X makes a fighting retreat. He’s quick enough that Security Guy doesn’t get a clean shot at him with his fresh clip when X is through what remains of the door. This time, Erik doesn’t follow him very far, just far enough to be sure he’s gone.

The second to last one started with Erik, Carol and Steve in a service area of a building (the boiler room I guess, if buildings still have those), disarming a bomb in a duffle bag. They grab the bag once they’re done, go into the hallway, and X jumps ‘em from around a corner. The fight doesn’t last long before X realizes that he’s outmatched against all three, so he escapes. I was a bit confused about this one, so I went back a bit to figure out what was going on.

It turned out that when they were watching out for X, Steve had noticed him spending time around a hotel that had a foreign diplomat staying there with his staff. One of the employees used to be homeless and was helped by Erik, so Erik asks him what X was doing there. He didn’t mention him by name, just a description. The ex-homeless tells Erik that he’d seen X having suspicious looking meetings with the diplomat’s #2 guy. He also saw the #2 guy’s main underling carrying a suspicious looking bag earlier that day down by the boiler room/laundry room/whatever room that was in the service area of the hotel. If the hotel employees weren’t supposed to give the diplomat’s staff space to do their thing, he would’ve told somebody, but they were told to keep their distance. So Erik brings Carol and Steve to the hotel and they look around in the basement for a suspicious looking bag. After a about 45 minutes, they found it hidden in a dark corner, pretty close to right under the lobby. It had a bomb inside. So Erik defuses it with his sword, and they make their way out as inconspicuously as possible. But they don’t get very far before X comes around a corner and tries to foil their plan of foiling his plan. They don’t fight for very long before X makes an escape, probably because he was outmatched against all three of ‘em.

Erik manages to talk to the diplomat and tell him what his lieutenant was up to. When their security tries to apprehend the traitor, he’s already gone. However, when the diplomat tries to leave the hotel that day to go to whatever conference or whatever he’s there for, the ex-vice-diplomat is in the parking garage with an AK-47. He’s not a good shot, though, and security kills him before he hits anything.

The last one I saw showed Erik standing on a hill overlooking a T intersection. I recognized this intersection. I fell more and more into disbelief and shock as I saw our car drive into view, the frost come from X’s sword, and the truck start to slide with no reaction from Erik. He continued to stand there with his sword out as the truck T boned our car, I was thrown out, the car went over the side and the truck followed. X left. Then so did Erik.

That one caught me by surprise. I watched it again, then got out of his head.

“You knew X was going to kill my family?” I barely heard myself ask.

Sigh. “It’s more complicated than that, but yes.” I should’ve expected a reply like that.

I couldn’t do anything for a few minutes. Not speak, not let Erik go, not even sure if I was breathing. Then I pushed him away. Hard. As far as I could, basically I threw him with my sword. Wasn’t thinking about how he’d land, didn’t care at the time.

I start walking. Down the trail, heading away, not a planned destination, just leaving. Before I got to the ranch, I remembered through the fog of my mind that I needed my shit, so when I got there, I threw what was handy in my bag and continued leaving. Carol and Steve didn’t say anything. I didn’t see ‘em, but I assume they saw me. Probably the look on my face kept ‘em quiet.

For a while, the only place I was going was away.  By the time I was able to think about an actual destination to go to, I was a couple miles away from the ranch. Still several miles from town, though. I was going to find X. That much I knew. The question was how?