Rummage Sale Stories

Spirit Warrior

Spirit Warrior

Night was falling over the city, her city. She'd explored every aspect of it over the years, watched it grow and mature into the home of shadows, whispers and forgotten dreams. She'd tended to those nightmares, those fleeting fears and hidden desires, helping them to grow and wrap their tendrils over the dark decaying buildings.

Dierdre pulled her goggles down over her eyes, giving her the gift of second sight. With them she could see more than just the slinking shadows and common people of the night. Spirits and creatures that slipped between this world and the next came into vivid view, glowing reds, blues and purples. They shone like beacons and her hand went to her sword hilt in anticipation.

She relished a good fight, for little other purpose than the bloodletting. Creatures of the night, grown too strong, too greedy, too ravenous for her city to support were her favored prey. She only had to find the glow, the pulsing, throbbing beat of an old beast.

Her silvery gray eyes searched over the horizon through the tinted, multifaceted glass of her goggles. Nothing. She turned, scanning the city scape behind, below. Still nothing. Her hand released the hilt of her blade reluctantly and she stood, stretching.

Perhaps she'd been over vigilant of late. Though the landscape glowed heavily with the pulsating glow of those lesser demons and creatures she fed, none had grown to the scale worthy of her blades. She would have to content herself with other things this evening.

And so, she slipped from her rooftop perch, climbing down the side of the decaying brick building with spider-like ease. Touching down, her thick soled boots made a faint splash. The streets were potholed, muddy and dank. She inhaled, taking in the scent of mold, fear and decay.

A streetlight in the distance flickered along one of the few thoroughfares that were still lit. The infrastructure of the city and many around the world had been falling into ruin. Such was the way of the world.

Diedre splashed ahead, towards the light, wondering who or what she mind find on the streets at this late hour. Rats scurried and chittered in her wake, and she kicked a pile of trash for good measure, sending the creatures flooding out into the street. She pushed her goggles up onto her head, watching the all too mortal, all too normal creatures slip back into the shadows.

She made her way down the vacant, lit street, considering that perhaps tonight was meant for little more than a drink and a bit of company. She couldn't help but wonder if the old tavern was still open. She'd not visited her favorite haunt in... well, she couldn't remember.

The constraints of time and mortal needs were none of her concern. She woke when she was needed, when she felt the pull of the moon. It was on those nights that she would wander. Tonight, she'd been called to wake, though her purpose was not evident.

She found the hanging sign with relative ease, though it was worse for wear, hanging crookedly on its rusted chains over the door. Dierdre'd always rather liked the old world charm of the hanging wooden sign amongst those shops and pubs that still sported the plastic and neon of the times before the fall.

She grabbed the handle, pulled open the heavy door, and was all but assaulted by the pungent air, heavy with pipe smoke, the scent of slow cooking meat and baking bread. Her stomach rumbled she patted it with a chuckle.

“Now, now,” she told her treacherous belly. “You know you don't need any of that.”

“But it remembers,” said a man she didn't quite recognize. He was old and bent, his hair graying at the temples, his bright brown eyes crinkled at the corners with a network of crows feet. “The pleasantries of my old pub.”