1 Knight on the Town

(Music recommendation: "the end is the beginning is the end"  by the Smashing Pumpkins)

The sky was a stark contrast to the street below. While above me was a scene of serene silence, a pale full moon illuminating a cloudless night sky, below was a bustling nightlife thronging the streets lined with nightclubs and bars in a whirl of noise and motion. Concentrating from the ground among the herd was too difficult, so I chose a place in the middle. Eight stories up, I kneeled over the rooftop ledge watching the crowds in all their excitement. A chill wind whipped past me stirring the hem of my long wool frock coat. I leaned into it, pulling the brim of my old derby hat low to block the breeze from stinging my eyes. My hand absentmindedly brushed the ancient silver heptagram talisman on my chest.

It had been nearly two months since the ordeal in the cave where Leo foisted this relic on me. Its influence was... undesirable. The Talisman forced me to see into the Aether space around people, where the evil in men's hearts manifests before my waking eyes. I couldn't control it, couldn't be rid of it. It was an experience I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy.

Weeks prior, under the sway of the talisman, I unwittingly caught the psychic stench of a putrid soul. Driven by malevolent ferver, this brute, a man called Jeb, and his gang of deplorables would take whomever they could for their sick pleasures, a pastime they entertained often. The things I saw in the Aether around Jeb were terrible. Visions that rang with defiant inevitability. I couldn't shake them, couldn't forget. It compelled me to act despite myself.

So here I stood, waiting, hunting... leather gloves creaked over my knuckles as I clenched my fist anxiously biding the time. He would be here tonight, I was sure of it. 

I continued scanning the crowd below when the talisman sent a jolt of epiphany through me. My eyes pulled instinctively to a street corner across the building where I stood. There he was... In an alley off the street along with two others... Jeb was a man in his mid-thirties with a shaved head covered in tattoos. He wore a dirty white tank top under his leather cut, old jeans, and his favorite white laced leather boots; hardly an endearing visage. 

The others were dressed in similarly distasteful fashion, and all three were trying to stay out of sight. Their swaying bodies told me how much they had imbibed already. Greedy eyes lingered on the club doors on the ground floor of the building where I stood watch, sizing up the women coming and going; a pack of wolves waiting for one of the sheep to stray. 

I recalled the flashes I had of his past victims. Jeb would take pictures and expose the women to what they had endured as blackmail to keep them silent, so far it had worked. Having felt inside of his mind I knew the only reason Jeb didn't kill the girls was because it was harder to dispose of a body than it was to instill terror. Especially that many bodies... He and his crew knew who to pick and how to get away. Tonight was their idea of a milk run. 

When I was in the vision, the pain and fear of the women washed over me, consuming me. I gathered several had taken their own lives after. My jaw clenched and my shoulders tightened at the memory of it. Burning anger quelled personal disquiet. 

I monitored Jeb's movements closely until, at last, he perked up. He pushed away from the wall where he had been leaning, his lackeys snapping too. I followed their gaze to a group of young women exiting the club, clearly the worse for wear. They hugged each other laughing drunkenly as they said good night and parted ways. One of them, a brunette wearing a slim, short blue dress, held her heels in her hands as she swayed down an alley along the side of the club where several cars were parked. Jeb and his goons prowled after her, crossing the road and splitting up to either side as they slunk behind cars to get into position behind her. 

The girl stopped near a small silver two-door and began fumbling in her purse, completely oblivious to her surroundings. She had no idea the men had surrounded her. No idea there were no witnesses about, nor that the booming music in the club would prevent anyone from hearing her screams. Jeb moved quickly, lunging out from behind the girl he grabbed her by the throat to keep her silent. His fellow fiends kept watch, cackling wickedly as Jeb pulled her down behind the car licking her cheek and reveling in her expression of shocked terror. My heart leaped into my throat. 

Time to go to work.

However horrible it had been to endure the visions that lead me here, I couldn't deny there were some fringe benefits to these abiitlities. This part, at least, I could enjoy. A smile tugged the corner of my lips beneath my mask as I stood tall on my perch high above the world. I took a breath... and stepped off the ledge. 

The wind whipped up past me as I fell, and I saw the sapphire in the center of the talisman alight with surreal blue light as its power coursed through me. Plummeting down eight stories took mere seconds. I hit the ground behind Jeb with bone-breaking force, sending fractures radiating out into the concrete from the heels of my boots. 

I rose, unphased and at the ready in a swirling cloud of dust facing the chaotic scene. The villains before me stood stock still and wide-eyed, trying to comprehend what they had just witnessed. Even the girl, still held firmly in Jeb's grasp, looked alarmed by my arrival. I broke the stunned silence. 

"Let her go. Now."

I could almost see the cogs turn in Jeb's lizard brain as the shock of my arrival wore off, and my words sunk in. Realizing the threat I posed, his face screwed in a grimace and he tightened his grip on the girl making her whimper. 

"Get this mother fucker" he spat. 

Dutifully minions one and two moved into action, jumping around the car to engage their leader's assailant.

"Alright then." I swept one leg back into a bladed stance and waited.

The first goon was a skinny kid, a pledge no more than eighteen. He stepped up to bat, clearly wanting to impress, and took his best swing. I barely had to shift my feet to catch his sloppy right hook in my hand, returning one with enough force to throw him bodily across the alley. I didn't give thug number two a chance to orient himself, I spun backward and kicked him square in the chest. Ribs cracked as he was flew towards his companion. 

His superior numbers having failed him, Jeb abandoned the girl, throwing her roughly to the ground as he reached behind his back for something. Predictably he produced a handgun and raised it to bare. The confidence in his eyes betrayed his thoughts, he believed the gun was his ace in the hole. 

To be fair, his self-assurance was not without reason. He had me dead to rights, I wasn't carrying a gun and he was out of reach. Tactically the rules say Jeb was the clear winner. but those were old rules. I wasn't playing by those. 

As Jeb retrieved his weapon I was unsheathing my own. Spinning the antique wooden nightstick in my palm, I concentrated on the talisman again. The sapphire in the center glowed azure, and as Jeb raised the barrel I hurled the baton against a neighboring wall. In a flash of blue lightning, it careened off the wall and crashed into Jeb's jaw with terrible force. I slashed my hand downwards and in response to my command the stick changed course mid-air and struck down on Jeb's hand, breaking his wrist. The gun clattered to the ground and Jeb fell to his knees. Before he had the chance to look up I was already airborne. My kick landed square on his face and sent him skyward, falling unconscious atop the heap of his defeated crew.

As our scuffle ended, I looked to the drunk girl on the ground near her car. Mascara streaking and face bruised, she lay there, shell-shocked. "Th-thank you" she sobbed. 

My skin crawled with sudden unease. I held a finger up to my mask, "Shhh", I said, turning from her. Despite how quickly the skirmish ended, something still felt wrong... Someone was watching us.

With a single hand gesture, I beckoned my baton and it flew back in response. Catching it, I raised it high in ready fashion. 

"Where are you?" I murmured, scanning the street. 

Everything grew eerily silent but for the low sobs of the injured woman. It was as though all sound from the surrounding world outside our little alley suddenly muffled. The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end and a chill went down my spine... 

I moved into the alley road between the parked cars, pivoting in circles and waiting. The street lights about us began to flicker causing shadows to quiver until, with a small pop, the lights hanging over the pile that was Jeb and his cronies went out casting them into unnaturally thick darkness. 

From inside the shadows covering the three men something indiscernible began to stir. At first, I thought they were regaining consciousness, but in short order, I realized it wasn't any of the men. The shadows were moving on their own. 

A deep, low growling issued from the darkness and, slowly, a mass of mist-like blackness began to spill out of the dark corner, away from the heap of bodies creeping towards me in inches. It shifted and writhed as it rose, up, up until it towered ten feet above me. The shadow-mist slowed and coalesced into the flesh of a tall black creature made of long limbs and a skeletal rail-thin body. Its head was vaguely human, but for the shapeless black mist where the face should be. That was, until its swirling black face cracked open wide into an eerie, toothy grin. When its body formed completely the creature's head tilted to one side in an unnerving spasm. 

It jerkily lifted its long arms displaying pointed claw-like hands. The creature continued to growl, though it never opened its mouth. It walked towards me in fitful ticking movements, lowering its claws over the roofs of parked cars as it went, gouging them without effort. 

"Oh fuck..."

My eyes grew wide and my hands began to shake. It was a Watcher. Pure evil manifested. These things clung to people and places of despair, relishing in misery. I am sure Jeb had intended to provided much of that, yet I had just interrupted their play.

It stalked past several cars before coming into sight of the girl, now cowering against the alley wall. The watcher stopped in its tracks and cricked its head towards her. The growling turned to a demented purr. 

My goosebumps doubled in size and my knees trembled. Every fiber of my being told me to turn-tail and run. I could feel its predatory gaze on her and knew if I fled, the beast wouldn't follow me. I could be safe. 

But I also knew I couldn't live with myself if I did... So I exhaled my apprehension and stepped between the Watcher and the girl. Planting my feet I held my baton out in front of me en garde. I focused on my talisman, this time waving my hand down the baton's shaft, setting it ablaze with a ghostly blue fire.

In the presence of the Aetherfire, the Watcher froze, transformed into a grotesque statue. It was still grinning at me, its head hanging to one side as though from a broken neck, a clawed hand resting on the roof of a wrecked car. 

I risked a glance back at the girl. she had flattened herself up against the alley wall, eyes wide in horror, gibbering under her breath, "Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god!".

My concern cost me dearly. I turned back to the Watcher and found that terrifying no-face a mere inch away from my own.

 "Shit!" 

Every animal instinct in my body screamed out like a fire alarm. My brain barely processed what I was seeing before it was on me. In one swipe it hurled me across the alley. I landed with a crunch on top of a nearby car, dazed and out of breath.

Fighting blurry vision back into focus, I saw the monster scaling the walls like a horrible spider. It scuttled towards me along the building side, growling again like an infuriated beast. Giddy with fear I leaped to my feetA, raising the Aetherfire nightstick again. 

All I had was a fraction of a second. I took a breath, and shifted my stance. The Watcher shriekd and pounced toward me from the wall, but I was ready. With practiced precision, I stepped to the side and sliced upwards catching the creature in its gut mid-air. 

When the Aetherfire touched the creature's hide it burst into dark flames. Its battle cry changed to a death wail as it fell flailing to the ground. I stumbled back against the wall with the girl and we both watched transfixed in horror as the creature squealed and writhed on the ground in front of us. 

Where the Watcher landed, the road split open beneath it and a sinkhole gave way. The smell of sulfur rose from the unearthly chasm while the very air itself seems to be sucked down into a surreal lightless vortex. The burning monster clawed and scraped at the road, long limbs desperately trying to keep from being sucked into that hole. Ultimately its efforts failed and the Watcher was dragged down screaming into the abyss. No sooner was it out of sight than the broken earth rose back up into place as quickly as it had fallen apart repairing itself completely, leaving no trace of the nightmare behind. 

Lights flickered back on along the road as we rejoined the world hearing once more the muffled booming club music and the rumble of nearby traffic. 

The girl slid down the brick wall and plopped down onto the sidewalk. "What the hell was that!" She gasped. 

***

After the fight ended I stood on the rooftop again. I told the girl to wait in her car for help, not bothering to indulge her curiosities. She did as I asked, clearly too bewildered for anything else. Now I watched from on high as the police talked with her in the back of an ambulance. 

Jeb and the others had already been toted off to the hospital. They wouldn't die from their injuries but they wouldn't get up again anytime soon either. I'd made sure of that. 

This was the terrible purpose of the talisman. To experience the anguish of innocent people set upon by predators (human or otherwise) and be compelled to intercede with extreme prejudice... 

to complicate things, otherworldly creatures, like Watchers, were drawn out of hiding in the presence of the Talisman. So there was no hiding for me, the damn trinket was a shit magnet. 

In my sullen ruminations, I watched the girl down below, finally climbing back in her car to leave the wretched scene behind. I felt the passing Aether wafting off her. 

This night had many evil dealings in store for her, yet she had been spared the worst of it. She was scared, traumatized to be sure, but she would heal. She could go home, which was more than others could say.

... I suppose it wasn't all bad. 

My work done, I stood up and walked along the roof following my path back home. I had only taken a few steps, however, when a nagging sensation at the edge of my mind moved to the forefront. I didn't feel right. My breath wasn't slowing down, my heart rate was still too fast and my vision blurred. I loosened my collar, took off my hat, and pulled down my mask trying to catch my breath. I felt irrationally stifled. My skin began to prickle and grow numb in patches. I walked over to the side of an A/C unit and slowly slid down to sit on the roof. I felt my chest, neck, and head, but I could find nothing wrong with my body. 

"Leo" I called out to the night sky, "Leo somethings' wrong!" 

I was breathing very fast now, the world was spinning. "Leo!" I cried, but he didn't come. Then it dawned on me. Oh no... I knew this feeling. Leo wouldn't come. This wasn't a vision. It wasn't anything supernatural, It was psychological.

Despair washed over me as the realization took hold. I thought back to the moment Jeb pulled the gun and my heart skipped a beat. It brought with it the old recollection of his gun... of her death... the scar on my arm twinged. I buried my face in my hands 

"No damn it, not here, please!" 

I pulled my shaking knees up to my chest, wrapping my arms around my legs like a frightened child. I couldn't stop it, the anxiety, the panic. I never could. There was nothing I could do. So I sat there, huddled on the rooftop consumed by the trauma of old and unhealed wounds, praying for a reprieve I knew would not come. 

This was a fight I had already lost...