1976-

Cassie Troy sat down on a stoop. Her face hurt. Tears dripped down her cheeks. Her

dark hair fell to her neck in straight lines. She had taken a hit from a fist that had

blotted out her vision long enough for the goons to take her friend, Hector. She

wasn’t quite sure what she should do.

“You okay?” A man in a rumpled raincoat sat down beside her. He produced a cigar

and lit it. He puffed on the foul smelling thing with a face of contentment. “Boyfriend

leave you?”

“These guys grabbed him.” Cassie looked at the stranger. “I didn’t have a chance to

do anything before they blindsided me.”

“Going to call the police?” The stranger puffed on his cigar as he looked at her. One

eyebrow seemed higher than the other to emphasize his harmlessness.

“They wouldn’t believe me.” Cassie wiped her face with the back of her hand. She

frowned at the stranger. She usually had feelings about people. The only thing she got

from this guy was he was only interested in her if she went along with his program.

But he didn’t actually care if she went along. She was a cog he was fitting into his

machine and nothing more. “You don’t really care, do you?”

“I have a responsibility to help people help themselves.” The stranger looked up at

the sky, holding his cigar. “It doesn’t seem like much, but I can’t do anything until

somebody decides they need the help.”

“I need the help.” Cassie got to her feet. “What can you do for me? Can you help save

Hector?”

“I can show you where they took him.” The stranger got to his feet. “After that, it’s

up to you what you want to do.”

“You’re kidding.” Cassie glared at this pain. “You can show me, but you can’t help

me with anything else.”

“I’m just a nobody.” The man stuck his cigar in his mouth. He hunched down in his

tan coat. “And nobodies don’t get involved if they don’t have to.”

“Is that how you justify things?” Cassie grabbed his arm. She reeled from the

impression of age and experience. Places and people flashed through her mind. She

sat down as her brain stopped working for a moment. “What are you?”

“I’m a nobody who thinks you can be a somebody.” He held out a hand. “You want

to help your friend, don’t you? I’m going to get you there. You’re going to have to

do the hard work after that.”

“Seriously?” Cassie pulled on his hand to get back to her feet. “You can’t do anything

beyond that?”

“It’s not my place, Cassie.” The stranger waved for her to follow him. “You guys

don’t need much help any way. You’re heroes when you need to be. It’s in your

blood.”

“That doesn’t make me feel better.” Cassie spotted a glint on the sidewalk as she

walked behind the man in the coat. She knew she could trust him up to a point, but

her talent moved in different directions whenever she looked at him. She examined

the glint, and realized it belonged to a knife that had fallen on the sidewalk. She

picked it up and tucked it in her belt.

The man in the coat led her down several alleys and across streets until he paused at

a church. The building seemed to be in a dead zone. No one had worshiped there in

a long time, and was likely not to with the dark aura it gave off. Even normals would

cross to the other side of the street to get away from that thing.

Cassie spotted the car that had grabbed her friend. It had been pulled off the street and

on to the sidewalk next to a side entrance. Whatever was going on was going to

happen in the back of the building.

She looked at the front door. It opened for her hand if she wanted to use it. She

decided that was the way to go. The man in the raincoat had vanished while her

attention was on the building. She shook her head. He wasn’t going to help her. It

wasn’t his job.

Cassie entered the church. The pews would never have another crowd to fill them as

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far as she could see. She made her way to the back of the room. What she wanted was

down in the main body of the church. She had to hurry if she wanted to make a

difference.

Hector didn’t have a lot of time.

Cassie headed downstairs, listening to chanting in the air. She saw something forming

in the future. She didn’t like the looks of things. She closed her eyes. She had to

ignore the potential for disaster. She had to get in there and save Hector. The future

was telling her that it was reaching an end for her if she didn’t do something in a

hurry.

She slipped into the room. Hector had been chained down to a table. He pulled

against the chains, but his slim body didn’t have a chance against steel. They were

going to kill him to make their circle work to call their patron to Earth.

How did she stop them?

She could stop everything if she could kill the leader. If she could do that before he

killed Hector, she ruined his chances to call his patron. Then she had to worry about

getting away before the men in the room tried to take revenge.

Her talent flared as she searched for options. It showed her paths that she could take

to get what she wanted. She smiled. She could do this.

Who needed a nobody anyway?

Cassie walked around the room, knife in hand. She stepped inside the circle,

appearing out of a shadow almost silently. The cultists pointed at her, but didn’t stop

their chanting. The leader intoned the words of command to summon the dreaded

being that would grant them power over their fellow humans.

She intoned the words, reading the future to get the pronunciation. He looked at her,

eyes going wide. He pulled back the white sword in his hands to do the deed. The girl

flung her knife at the closest cultist with as much force as she could muster before he

could bring the sword down. The man went down with the knife in his chest. A cloud

started forming above the circle. The cultists chanted more to open the rip in the air.

Cassie chanted as she pulled the knife from the cultist’s chest. Her talent had guided

her throw. This was one man who was not going to get up and harm anybody else for

a monster’s favor.

The cloud opened as she went to the table. Hector was not going to be given to this

thing emerging out of the cloud. She saw the head cultist laughing. She saw him dead

sometime in the future. She smiled at him. He stopped his chanting at that.

“Cassie.” The stranger in the coat stepped into the room. “What are you doing?”

“You?” The voices from the thing in the cloud gave Cassie a headache. “You!”

“Me,” said the man in the coat.

“Me too.” Cassie stabbed the thing in one of its eyes, shattering it with the knife. She

struck again and again before black bodily fluids washed over her hand and knife.

She dropped to the floor with the pain. Her hand felt like it was on fire.

“Oh, Cassie.” The man in the coat walked forward. He dropped the stub of a cigar that

was in his hand. “You shouldn’t have done that.”

“I’ll kill you, human scum.” The thing in the cloud extended tentacles to grab Cassie.

It would do things to this female to teach it to never interfere with its betters. It would

be the first human of millions to satisfy its thirst for revenge.

“I don’t think so.” The stranger extended a hand. He twisted his wrist. The cloud

snapped closed, slicing through the tentacles. The air in the room lightened instantly.

“You didn’t need me to do that.” Cassie examined her hand. It was withered and

missing part of its skin. She would never be able to use it for anything again.

“You called me.” The stranger looked around. The cultists fled from him, heading for

the doors. “That was a stupid thing to do, Cassie.”

“You think?” Cassie gritted her teeth to keep from screaming. The future of her

surroundings poured through her mind. She closed her eyes against the visions, but

that wasn’t working.

“Let me look at your hand.” He held his own hand out to take hers. “I can do that

much for you.”

She gave him her hand with a lot of pain. She didn’t open her eyes. She felt a chill

seep into her flesh. She sighed. The chill washed the pain away.

Cassie opened her eyes. Her hand looked bad, but not as bad as it had when the acid

blood had washed over it. She flexed her fingers. They looked more like talons now,

but they worked.

“It’s not perfect.” The stranger stood up. He handed her the knife she had used. The

blade glowed in the ambient light drifting through windows high up in the walls. “But

it’s better than what it should be.”

“They’ll try again.” Cassie clutched her hand to her stomach. She couldn’t find the

strength to stand on her own. She needed a second to catch her breath.

“Doesn’t matter.” The stranger waved his hand. The locks on the chains came loose

so the links fell to the floor. “That one guy is holding the sword of the King.

Eventually the two always get together. That’s his destiny. So sometime in the near

future, the King will arrive to take his sword back. That usually puts a stop to any

problem when that happens.”

“The King?” Cassie got to her feet. She felt better. Her hand ached but it was bearable

for the moment.

“You’ll know him when you see him.” The man in the raincoat handed her the knife.

“Let’s get your friend out of here. Someone else can worry about the man you killed.”

“That thing knew you.” Cassie stuck the knife in her belt. She hefted Hector over her

shoulder. He was heavier than he looked. “You want to talk about it?”

“No.” The man in the raincoat lit another cigar as he led the way from the scene.