I followed Monica up the stairs into the old antique shop. It looked like what one might expect. It was dusty, dark, and full of furniture and trinkets from a time long gone. As we walked towards the back, my lungs came close to declaring war on me, as dust rose up from the old wooden floors and irritated them. The place was empty, eerily so. You could still hear some chatter from the street and the cafe below, but it was muted and muffled by the oppressive interior of the store.
In the back there was a small wooden door, old but extremely sturdy. She opened it up and more or less pushed me inside, and I stumbled into a smaller, more populated room. The interior was not full of old things for sale, but the atmosphere was similar. It was about the size of a small living room, ringed with beaten leather couches.
Next to every couch, and in the middle of all the couches, were small candles. These candles provided all of the room's light, and they all seemed to carry some kind of scent. Some were familiar, and some completely foreign. Combined, they created a strange and incomprehensible scent, that was beautiful to the nose but unsettling to the heart.
There were eight or nine other people in the room, equally distributed around its edges. They were all rather young, most in their late twenties or early thirties. There were one or two that may have been pushing forty, but they were a minority. There was a silence as they all glared at me, surprised by my less than graceful entrance.
Suddenly, a young man bolted up from his seat and looked me dead in the eyes. "Bryce!" Riley yelled. "What are you doing here?" He looked behind me at Monica and pointed at her accusingly. "You. You did this. Why did you bring him here?" She smiled. "You said he was interesting, and I agreed."
"I think Bryce is great, but you know he doesn't belong here. Why would you risk exposing him to this?" She shook her head, forever confident. "I can see things that you can't Riley, you know that." He clenched his fists and did his best to stay calm. "Were you... targeting him?" Monica grimaced and held up her hands defensively.
"Look Riley, I was targeting him, but only because he targeted me first. Not in the same way, but he did." Riley was about to make a dash at her, but soon found himself restrained by the oldest looking individual in the room. He was a shorter, bald, male, with a stubble beard and cold green eyes. What amazed me most was the speed he moved at.
Before Riley could move an inch towards Monica, he had restrained him with inhuman speed, and held him in place with little apparent effort. "Riley. Let's talk this out. Members don't fight, period." "Mr. Everstone, she brought a standard to our meeting, a standard who happens to be a friend of mine. This is a world he doesn't belong in."
"Monica and I discussed his attendance beforehand, and he's more than qualified. He's also not nearly as innocent as you might think." I just kept my mouth shut; as much as I wanted to defend myself and my actions, it seemed like a bad idea to reveal any information to these people.
The older man released Riley and looked me dead in the eyes. He was wearing a full three piece suit, immaculately tailored around his stocky form, and his mannerisms were smooth and urbane. His eyes were terrifying. They were as green as spring foliage and yet as deep and dark as the vacuum of space itself. Even in the dim candlelight the startled me.
"Mr. Perdeno, is it? I'd like to welcome you to the Club of the New World. Before I explain what we do and what we are, would you be willing to undergo a test or two?" I frowned. That was far too vague for my liking. "Do I have a choice?"
He nodded. "Actually, you do. You can leave any time you wish, but you would leave without the answers you seek." He had me in a bind, and I knew it. "Can you tell me what these tests are before I agree to them?" He grinned. "I could, but that would make it less fun." I was unsettled, but I had gone too far to back out now.
"Alright, I'll do it." "Excellent. Let's begin." I was expecting him to start explaining the test I had agreed to, or maybe pull out some old book or ancient relic. Instead, he threw a punch at me, his fist moving at light speed towards my head. The Book tensed in my back pocket, and the hand seemed to move in slow motion, almost frozen in time.
Acting off instincts I didn't even have, I leaned to the left, and time seemed to speed up again as his fist went scorching through the air where my head had been. I crouched down, and he looked at me, surprise infecting his terrifying eyes. I sprang up and delivered a knee to his rib-cage, harder and faster than I thought possible.
He planted his hands on my shoulders and gave me a solid shove, and I slid towards the other side of the room, almost falling over the center table. He held up his hands in a sign of peace. "That's enough son. I just had to see it for myself. Monica said your energy seemed physical and combative. I don't mean you any harm, but that was the best way to test your reflexes.
I stood up straight, gasping for air, adrenaline surging through my body. The Book beat proudly in my coat, and I felt unbelievably alive. The others in the room looked on at me, clearly impressed. They gave me a few minutes to catch my breath and calm down, as I was extremely wound up and unable to have a coherent conversation.
Once stabilized, I sat down, and they began to explain what they were to me. "The world is full of mysterious individuals and objects that defy the laws of science and logic as we know them." As the host of a parasitic book with it's own heartbeat, I couldn't really argue with that. "These people and objects can be extremely dangerous, especially to each other."
"The Club of the New World seeks to bring all of these people and things together. We are not the only organization of our kind in the world, or even in this country. The Club has no overarching goal, no moral imperative. We are not allies, and many of us are not even friends. If anything, we're a non-aggression pact for supernatural entities."
"The Club has different chapters throughout the city, and members host events at the time and place of their choosing. We have no centralized outreach and little in the way of leadership. To join, a Gatekeeper, like myself, must confirm that you do in fact have some extraordinary trait, ability, or object."
"Membership is free, and we have two primary rules. One: you must never cause intentional harm to another member, directly or indirectly. Two: you cannot discuss the nature of this club to anyone outside of it. If you think someone qualifies, tell me or another Gatekeeper in advance and we will test them at a safe, low volume meeting."
It could have been the high from the short fight I had been in, but this actually sounded kind of cool to me. Some of the things he was saying were kind of ridiculous sounding, and sounded like they came from a Dungeons and Dragons game. My curiosity was aroused though, and I was confident in my ability to defend myself against most of the people I might encounter.
But if everyone here had some anomalous object or ability, what did Riley and Monica have? Monica had also said that Laura was in this "recreational club". What was her deal? My mind was spinning with questions, and I tried to sort them out so that I could ask them in a linear and comprehensible fashion.
"Most of us gain our abilities through objects, like ancient relics, or family heirlooms. There are some theories on the nature of these objects, and the nature of magical power. We don't like using the word magic, but it's the best word we have to describe our observations of the supernatural."
"You will never be asked to disclose the source of exact nature of your power; you only have to prove that you have one. If you wish to share that information with us, that is permitted, but you will never be expected to." Excellent. Even though I was technically doing a good thing, I really didn't want to discuss my murders, or admit to the degree of control the Book held over me.
I glanced over at Riley, who looked, concerned, startled, and perhaps even a little betrayed. I would tell him the truth. And Monica too, because I had tried to kill her. In the future, maybe I would be a bit more open, but for now, only those two could know.
My thoughts were interrupted by the Gatekeeper's next words. "So Mr. Perdeno, are you in, or are you out?"