No Owner's Manual

By Severine Wolfe

What would you do if you were suddenly given a sword that just magically appears and disappears, but only when you need it to, but you had no directions for using it... No Owner's Manual? Ceilidh Masters has just that happen to her one horrible night when she's 15 years old. She has to learn to deal with this Sword and the compulsion it gives her to eradicate evil. She spends years learning what she can, with no guidance, then she finds a young boy just like her and she takes him under her wing to train him, in the hopes he doesn't make the same mistakes she did.

When her Sword leads her to a high society evil man, she must follow him into the depths of his depravity or the Sword will drive her crazy., Ceilidh must work with a man who was put on her trail and find some answers neither want to face.

It could have all been prevents if there was just a manual for the sword.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Severine Wolfe
• Release date: Dec 14, 2015
• ISBN: 9781310468964

Severine Wolfe

Severine Wolfe is a pen name. It's also a name I've used across the gaming world for nearly 20 years. I answer to, "Hey, Sev!" just as easily as my birth name.I am married and have four grown children and three grandchildren. I love to read and I read everything from treatises on philosophy to theories on the speed of light to the most bawdy of bodice rippers. My interests are varied but reading, knitting and gardening are my top three. Extreme knitting, not for the faint of heart.I've had stories running around my head for years and I'm just now letting them out to put themselves on the virtual page. I hope you enjoy the characters as much as I have over the years. You can contact me at [e-mail].

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Urban Fiction

No Owner’s Manual

Copyright © 2015 by Severine Wolfe

First E-Book Published December 2015

Second E-Book Published November 2018

Cover design by Melody Simmons

ISBN: 9781310468964

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: This literary work may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic or photographic reproduction, in whole or in part, without express written permission from the author.

All characters, places, and events in this book are fictitious or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, actual events, locales, or organizations is strictly coincidental.

License Statement

This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each reader. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

No Owner’s manual

Urban Paladins Book 1

By Severine Wolfe

Dedication

This book is dedicated to my dear husband, Mark, who has not smothered me in my sleep, even though I know he’s sorely tempted most days.

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Martina Farris for her tireless work correcting my grammar, finding misspelled words and reminding me that semicolons, do indeed, exist.

Chapter One

I’ve always thought it odd that we humans fear the dark. We always have. I think it’s because we cannot see well in the dark, and if we can’t see it, it’s evil. Somehow, we have come to believe that evil can only exist in the dark, the night. It’s our blindness in the light that allows so much evil to go on right under our noses. If you doubt me, look at any picture taken from space during a night cycle. We try to brighten the dark and blind ourselves to all the rot that lies just beneath the surface of our so-called social superiority.

I watch it all and wonder at our hubris. We human beings are a prideful lot. It’s no wonder we can so easily be lured or tempted into evil. It’s because we think we are above it all that we find ourselves mired in it up to our necks and then say we have no idea how we got there. I know exactly how we got there. I don’t judge, that’s not my job, I merely carry out the sentence. The guy who judges you? He’s a much higher power, much higher pay grade and I don’t ever try to second guess him. Others do, always to their detriment. How’s that for Word of the Day?

Mom always had a dictionary around and made sure I read a lot. I liked learning and books were new worlds and new words. She’d be proud.

Evil doesn’t always happen in dark alleys or in abandoned warehouses. Sometimes it happens right out in the open on a sunlit, busy street and no one notices it for what it is. For some reason, it’s so hard to grasp something horrible happening right in front of us in broad daylight, so our minds tell us it’s something else and we go on with our lives. Evil not only enjoys that, but it also counts on it.

It also explains why I stand, leaning against a building in full view of God and everybody. I am looking for a particular person, a particular thing.

I’ve often thought my mother misnamed me. Patience would have been a perfect name for me, for what I do. Instead, I’m named after a party where my mom met my dad and got knocked up. She’d been traveling the British Isles, researching for one of her books and met a Highland man with a brilliant smile, charming manner and apparently no name. So, I was christened Ceilidh after a Scottish party my mom once went to and managed to get pregnant at. It’s fun because no one in America can pronounce it or if they just hear it, can misspell it in really amusing ways. Most Americans pronounce it SEE-lid. It’s pronounced KAY-lee, but poh tay toh puh tah tuh. Still, Patience would have been an appropriate middle name if she just could not budge on Ceilidh. Ceilidh Gabrielle Masterson was what I was christened. Ceilidh Gabrielle Joan Masterson was what I was confirmed and shall remain until the day I die. See how I could think Patience would have been more apt?

As I lean against a building, watching the people on the sidewalk across the street, I sometimes look at them without the benefit of my cheap sunglasses. Without the filter of them, I can look at people as they truly are. A great gift was given to me the night I received my Great Commission, as Father Tim calls it. I get to see people as they really are, you know, who they really are when no one is looking. Mystical folk call it their aura. I honestly can’t come up with a better word, so I use it, too. I was once in an occult bookstore, looking for a particular book on symbols when a supposed witch was holding forth on auras. I say supposed because she did not describe the aura of one person in the store correctly and her aura was that of most grifters. I quickly found my books and left the shop. I let people like that just go. For the most part, they are harmless and actually believe the crap they sell to others. However, if they move into the harms others category, then I will watch them closely.

People walk by the big building across the street from me. Some go inside the big glass doors, others stop and get into taxis or hired cars. People come out and walk down the street or get into cars. It’s hot and humid, making it just more miserable. It’s September in Houston, Texas. After a long, hot summer in Texas, folks shouldn’t still be complaining, but they are. I know I am. I’m standing in downtown Houston in a black tank top, khaki shorts and my favorite pair of Doc Martens, which are not my favorite hot weather footwear choice, but Birkenstocks are not my footwear of choice for running and chasing. I’ve got a messenger bag slung across my body, so I look like a messenger taking a break before my next job or waiting on a package to deliver. Considering it’s downtown, I blend. Well.

I keep doing the Prairie Dog thing with my eyes and my sunglasses. Getting short, concise reports of the people on the street. Like the guy getting into a cab right in front of me. He’s got an Afternoon Delight meeting scheduled with a woman who is not his wife. His aura reeks of subterfuge and lust. I hear him tell the driver to get him to a hotel near the football field. I keep forgetting the name. I grew up with the Astrodome. Any other professional sports arena remains nameless to me. I just mentally shrug and hope his wife catches him and takes him to the cleaners. Family courts are just right down the street, off Congress, so it’s not a far commute from his office.

I am looking for someone, but I won’t know who until I see their aura. That’s how my gig works. I recognize them the moment I see them. Back in the day, when I was new at the gig I wanted to take care of them quickly, but I learned to be patient and make sure I learned their entire operation and began shutting them down slowly until it was all exposed and the target disappeared for good. The one thing about the gig is that living in a major port city, I had job security in that I could not possibly shut it down entirely.

Scum of the earth are born every second and sooner or later they always try to profit off the misery of others. Plus, there are always more than enough people willing to profit from the misery of others.

It’s getting close to lunch break, and that’s when the streets will fill up with secretaries and middle management types escaping their towers of air conditioning for a quick bite on the street. I continue to stand against the building, feeling the heat of the stone warming my shoulders and hips. I’ve got one foot up, resting, giving me a completely carefree posture so that no one sees me as anything more than non-threatening. I’m a blonde woman with skimpy clothes on. To some, I look like a victim, but decoy is not my role at this moment in time. I’m here just to observe and learn who my next target is. Patience.

I’d noticed a very dark aura that reeked of misery and sex when I was running a legitimate errand on this part of town a few days ago. The moment I had free time I decided to see if the target was from around here or just visiting the office building I saw the aura at. Auras are distinctive and just as individual as your DNA. No two are ever the same. So, it’s not like I’m looking for one guy and I will manage to get another creeper by accident. If I spy another, then I consider it a twofer.

There is a street vendor setting up his van close to me on my side of the street. The smell of barbecue is maddening. This was not the morning to forego breakfast. I’ll wait until he’s fully set up and grab some pulled pork. The best thing about living in Houston is the food. It’s everywhere you look. On this one block alone, there are four food vans and another 3 food carts selling everything from tacos to falafel. There is a shawarma van that cruises downtown. I’m a huge fan of Eastern Mediterranean food with shawarma being at the top of my list. As expected, the people coming out of the buildings are now heading to the carts and panel trucks selling food and the street has become busier than it is during rush hour.

That’s when my target decides to make his appearance and my entire spirit just sinks. This is not going to be easy or quick. It would have to be a famous billionaire, humanitarian, philanthropist. Not Tony Stark, although, that would be interesting. No, it appears that Cedrick Kane is capable of very dark deeds. Deeds for which he’s been judged, and which judgment will be handed out by me. Nothing that the Occupy kiddies screech about. No, he was far guiltier of things no one ever talks about in the light of day.

Now that I have my target, I have to get to work to find exactly why his aura has that oily sheen you see in puddles on the street after it’s rained during a long streak of dry weather. People assume that evil is black or dark colors, but it’s not, it’s oily and it’s disgusting, almost having an odor of decomposition. At least it does to me. I’ve only ever met one other person like me, so I can only go on what I experience. It’s not like the job came with an operator's manual or employee handbook. Everything I’ve learned has been through pretty harsh experience. I’d put it right up there with the learning curve for a vampire hunter, deadly if you get it wrong, even once.

I grab my bike in front of me. The only way I’m getting home on these crowded streets is to walk or ride a Schwinn. I need the exercise as I’m pretty sure that pulled pork was about twelve million calories. If I pedaled fast enough, I could catch the donut shop in my building and get end of the day donuts for half-price. I should have been a cop with my love of donuts.

Looking up private information for someone famous is like trying to find a particular black cat in a dark room full of black cats. Most everything you get will be entertainment related because of our society’s insatiable fixation on fame. You have to start somewhere. If that someone is as famous and written up as Cedrick Kane, then you go to the financial pages and investment blogs. You can fool some of the people all of the time, but shareholders are a whole different story. Again, the word is patience. The thing I look for is an anomaly. It may take an hour, it may take weeks, but it’s always there, and you just have to stumble upon it. Hiding money always leaves a trail. I learned this from the biggest wealth shelter in the world, the Catholic Church. So, as so many people say in movies, I follow the money.

Later, when I heard the lock turning on my apartment door, I looked up to realize I’d been lost in the murky, and boring, world of financial blogs for hours.

What’s the deal, Kay? That’s my apprentice Martin. He’s 15, an orphan, and got his commission at the tender age of 13 when a monster wished to steal his innocence days after his parents had been killed in a horrible car accident on one of Houston’s crazy freeways. He’d been placed in my tender care by my parish priest, Father Tim, who was not altogether sure I should be mentoring anyone, much less a teenaged boy. My orders come from Father Tim’s superior, so he left the boy in my care. I’ll admit, I don’t know what I’m doing half the time, so I wing it. I make sure he eats a salad once a week and if we have the local pizza delivery place on speed dial, then so be it. The kid has never gotten sick on my watch.

Sorry, Mart, I got up and started putting some cookies on a plate and poured him a glass of milk. That was another thing I insisted on. I’d read an article while scoping out a target on how teenaged boys didn’t finish growing until well into their 20s when they got one last growth spurt, so it was milk and the once a week salad. I was doing some research on a new target and got lost, if not bored into a coma.

Martin looked up from hauling stuff out of his backpack. Who’s the target?

I shook my head. You’re not going to believe it, but I did take a couple of looks just to be sure. Martin stared at me in rapt expectation. Cedrick Kane.

Breath rushed out of Martin’s mouth, and he put a hand on his chest. Damn, Kay, that’s a pretty covered target. This is not going to be easy. He stared out the window behind me, you could see the little wheels in his head turning. I have to admit, they turned pretty fast for a boy whose world consisted of computer games and skateboards. Martin was just 15 and already a world-class hacker. He belonged to a group that seemed hell-bent on discovery by leaking top-secret documents on government wrong-doing and then posting videos on the Internet about it. I used his compulsion at tattle telling my own ends by making sure the IP addresses he allowed to be seen belonged to child porn servers and people who liked to look at it. I’m a full-service guardian.

It’s not going to be easy, but I think we can handle it. I need to bring his entire operation down.

Martin just stared at me. That’s going to be hard, Ceilidh. It’s going to be so hidden… You have no idea how deep he’ll have hidden this.

There is money involved, Martin. If there is money involved, we can follow it. I pushed the small plate of cookies towards him and set the glass of milk by it as he hopped on the stool of the breakfast bar at our island kitchen. I’d grown up in an apartment much like this one. After my mother had died and I’d moved, the building I’d grown up in had been torn down to put up a high-rise office building. Now we lived in a high-rise apartment building in the former warehouse section of downtown Houston. It had been a barrio in the 80s and 90s. Right outside our window, across the street from our building lay a dying community that was being swallowed up by progress again. I’m all for gentrification. Making old things new again is something I like.

Martin was again looking out the window with that abstract look on his face.

We have to get past the hater vitriol. Yes, the kid actually spoke normally like this. I was tempted to ruffle his wildly curly brown hair, but I knew I’d get the look. The one teens give adults they feel are patronizing them.

I’ll look deep and see what I can find out that others have or don’t realize they have. While he was muttering, he drew his laptop out from his backpack and began bringing it up. That was my cue to get back to my business. There would be no conversing with him until he pulled his head out of it.

I went back to my machine and kept digging. Before I knew it, the sky outside my windows was beginning to darken. I looked at the clock I kept on my desk and realized it was way past the dinner hour. I looked over at Martin who was still staring at his laptop screen with his earbuds in and fingers tapping on the breakfast bar. I picked up the phone and ordered some Chinese take-out. I loved the Orange Chicken while Martin was partial to the General Tso’s Chicken. The shop was familiar with us, so the order was quick. I took a break and went to grab a drink. Lemonade or iced tea? In the South, especially during the really, really hot months, June through September, they were almost as good as currency. I poured a glass of tea for myself and opened a can of Coke for Martin. Down here we call everything carbonated Coke unless it’s Dr. Pepper. Dr. Pepper is a Texas creation, so naturally, it’s singled out.

Martin blindly grabbed the can and chugged it down like he’d just come in from the Sahara, and that was the last bit of liquid on the earth. Seriously, the kid could put away soda like no one’s business.

You order dinner yet? He asked without looking up.

Yeah, Chinese. Did you have any homework, by the way? I’m not good at the whole parenting thing. Homework was just a horrible memory to me when I first took Martin in. He always did his lessons, but he was terrible about turning it in.

It’s Friday, he muttered while madly typing. I’ll do it Sunday night.

I didn’t say anything, just nodded. Martin was not a kid you pushed to do something. He was extremely stubborn and tended to dig in his heels when he felt pressured. I had only prevailed in getting him into the local parochial school two years ago by telling him he’d have to go to an orphanage if he didn’t go to school. They don’t have orphanages anymore, and the foster system would have been worse, and Martin knew it. He hadn’t found out about the no orphanage thing until he was entrenched in the school with skating buddies. However, I know that Fate only allows us so much, so I fight the battles I know I can win.

The food arrived shortly after that, and we ate in silence, both pulled into our own worlds. To be honest, Martin and I spent far too many evenings just like this. If we weren’t doing this, we were down in the gym working out or at a local martial arts facility practicing swords and various other weapons.

I clearly remember the first time I noticed Martin. The man he’d come to mass with was a target. The first one I’d ever noticed in church. Proving the church was not entirely peopled by pervs. It was a man in my own parish who was a foster parent. He and his wife were lauded for their generous hearts for taking in these kids and parenting them. I had never had cause to look at someone at church before. You can bet I have ever since.

There was nothing on that man’s face that night I had looked at him and seen the sickness at his center that would indicate what a sick, twisted human being he was. I doubted, for a second, that I’d received the right information. There could always be a first time, right? But then he looked at the boy standing in front of him in the line waiting to receive the sacrament, and I knew without a doubt, I’d received the exact information I needed. I’d never doubted my target assignment since.

I had followed them home and watched. They had all sat down as a family and eaten dinner. It was all very Norman Rockwell, you would have never guessed anything was wrong. The man’s aura was a big gob of tar. The wife’s was very normal, full of pinks and oranges, the colors of nurturing and healing, with just a touch of avarice. Like I said, normal.

I saw the husband get up and get his wife a glass of something and saw him slip a pill into it. That, as you could say, was the final nail in his coffin.

I sat in a tree and watched them through their bay window in their dining room. No one ever seemed to notice me when I was on a stakeout. I don’t know if that is part of the job or what. Like I said, the job doesn’t come with an owner’s manual. Most of what I do know I got from reading fantasy books (they’re very wrong about a lot of things) and questioning my parish priest. Nobody we know really has answers. I’ve spent the past thirteen years making it up as I go along. Just like everyone else.

I watched as the wife yawned and the husband waved her on, and he and the boy gathered up the dishes and began cleaning the kitchen. I watched as the man brought the boy out into the backyard and they quickly set up a tent. The boy seemed very excited. I continued to watch as they were just beneath me where I sat in the tree watching them. At first, the observational part of the job creeped me out in a big way. I mean, nothing screams stalker louder than someone sitting in a tree in your yard, right? That was until I realized no one ever seemed to notice me. You don’t expect to see a person sitting in a tree in your yard, so you don’t.

I heard the voices below me drift off and then nothing, the breathing of the child slowing sleep rhythms. The breathing of the adult showing anticipation.

Revulsion is my bosom buddy. It has been since I was fifteen years old. Sitting up in that tree, knowing what that man wanted to do and not just dropping down and taking him was hard. Something held my hand. I’d learned to rely on that something because sometimes a person could change their mind, even at the last second and freewill saved them. One thing I knew for certain, freewill trumped everything.

I sat waiting. I had been wiggling my toes inside my boots the entire time, trying to keep the blood flowing to my legs. It’s not like you can take a short stroll on a tree limb. It was finally late enough that I dropped my feet over the limb and sat on it, just waiting. Blood rushed to my legs, and it was all I could do not to groan out loud. Just then I heard a muffle, then a struggle, then whispered threats. Still, my hand was stayed. I was getting seriously aggravated, but I knew from past experience, that he could still stop if he really wanted to. It had happened before. Once.

I heard the crying and fabric ripping and the boy cried out again and the man slapped him telling him to quiet down. His voice was mean and angry. He wasn’t going to stop; he was fully committed to raping this young boy. Outrage roiled inside me, demanding an outlet. I opened my hand, and my sword didn’t appear. My jaw dropped, and I know I had to have said What? out loud. But I could hear the struggle continue below. Hell, of a time for my powers to go on the fritz.

I jumped down from the limb I’d been sitting on and walked the few steps to the tent, the anchoring pegs were about to come out of the ground with all the wrestling going on inside. I ripped the tent door open just as the man was trying to subdue the boy. The boy looked up at me, tears in his eyes and the emotions of fear and shame swamped me. I knew his exact feelings and the boy’s hand reached out as if grabbing for offered help and at that moment a sword appeared in his hand, lightning flashing up and down the blade. I don’t know who was more shocked, Martin or me. The man was so rapt at the thought of raping Martin he didn’t notice me or a big sword appearing out of nowhere. He was hell-bent on getting his dick out of his pajama bottoms. As he pressed forward to rub himself on Martin, the sword went through his heart as if guided by the Hand of God Himself. And it was. Martin screamed as the man fell backward, his mouth formed in an O and the breath whooshing out of his lungs. Then his eyes widened just before he burst into a pile of ashes.

Martin had scrambled against the back wall of the tent staring at the pile of ashes in horror. He then turned his eyes on the sword still present in his hand, and he began crying in earnest. I approached him and gathered him into my arms for a hug.

Wh- What did I do? Martin had asked me, in deep shock at this point.

You did nothing wrong, baby, I said as I gently rocked him. It was his evil, not yours.

See, here’s the thing. No matter what happens to kids, they always feel it’s somehow their fault. I think this stems from being so new to the world that if something breaks, they somehow have broken it and then they feel a need to fix it. So, no matter how victimized they are, the poor things always feel it’s their fault. It takes ages and lots of love to show them otherwise. Some never get it. Martin does. Now.

What happened? He was so confused, still so scared. I told him how the sword appearing in his hand like it did made him special and that I was there because it was my job to train him how to do it right. Back then he was still in the comic book hero stage, so I was able to sell it. If it happened now, he would have told me to get lost. I went on explaining what I could, what I thought he would understand, the whole time underscoring how we had to keep this a secret, could not tell anybody. This kid had just held his parent’s funeral days earlier, and now I was here heaping this burden on him. Martin still doesn’t see it as a burden, it’s still cool to him. That part will come later. If I could stop it, I would, but the truth is a huge part of our business, so I don’t hide it.

So, are you one, too? He finally asked me.

Yes, I am a Paladin, I told him quietly. Smart boy that he was, Martin just nodded at me and smiled.

We’ve got to clean up this mess, then, he said getting up and walking out of