The room shifted from light, to dark, and back to light again in the span of a couple of blinks.

The room shifted from light, to dark, and back to light again in the span of a couple of blinks. Matt yawned, trying to rub the sleep from his eyes. He could smell the rich, earthy and spicy scent of the brewing coffee from down the hall and prayed silently that the machine would hurry up and finish.

Clarence droned on about his presentation—something about free-roaming Class IV entities that he’d found some records of in the New York City Public Library—but Clarence was all about research. It was all theories and postulations to him, nothing real, nothing solid.

Nothing solid. Matt snorted at his own joke.

Ray took my internal snort as a outward laugh and Matt felt the blazing eye of SauRay fall upon him. He felt like Sam and Frodo cowering in the plain before the Black Tower. Ray zapped him with question. “You got something to add, Olsen? Or are you just so ready to begin your presentation that you’re ready to interrupt Dr. Valis?”

Matt yawned, stretching theatrically. “Sure, Ray. I can go if you need me to. Clarence was just putting me to sleep, that’s all.” Matt shot a wink to the presenter to let him know that this was about zinging the boss and had nothing to do with him. “But what’s new?”

Ray chomped down on his tongue—a habit so severe that Matt had often wondered if the man would bite his own tongue off one day—and ground his teeth. “You’re up, Olsen,” he spat.

Matt stood and pulled up his presentation with a couple of clicks. “Cool.” A single slide appeared. The slide was filled with images, an artist’s compiled conception of an odd-looking, fantastical creature. It appeared small and vaguely bat-like, but it was bipedal and clothed. All in all, it looked like something that Weta Workshop would have a blast building and bringing to life.

Eyebrows around the room went up.

Matt didn’t even notice. “Goeblins,” the words hit the table like a stack of flapjacks.

“Goblins? Really?” Ray sighed, ripping off his glasses and tossing them on the folder in front of him. “You expect me to send you off on some wild goose chase looking for a goblin just because you dreamed up this goofy image of one?”

“Not goblins, goeblins. And I didn’t dream these up, Ray. This is an image that an eyewitness produced—an artist in Mortain, France—after seeing these creatures first hand. Two weeks ago, a rash of sitings occurred and I have over thirty eye-witness accounts, all pretty much describing the same thing. Swarms of these guys,” Matt jerked a thumb towards the screen, "ransacking small isolated towns, stealing supplies and then vanishing almost as quickly as they appeared.”

Ray was silent now, which was exactly where Matt wanted him. It was time for the coup de grace.

“And here’s the kicker, Ray. All of these reports come from a two-mile radius around an ancient site in France. A site known as the Gap of Goeblin.”

Matt was on a plane headed east two hours later.

Art Source: "enemy_creature_design" (c)/by christopher onciu
Story and Characters: (c)/by Brannon Hollingsworth

#MMWW, #Makes, #Me, #Wanna, #Write, #BrannonHollingsworth, #MattOlsen, #OrbisObserver, #Mortain, #France, #goeblin, #GapOfGoeblin, #Matt, #Ray, #Clarence

I walked in to see rug in the center of the tent filling up with all manner of weapons.

I walked in to see rug in the center of the tent filling up with all manner of weapons. Spears, knives, axes, shotguns, Colt .45's, several pounds of shells and ammunition, even a cross or three. Barnabas and Matt were taking turns throwing weapons into the growing pile and strapping on body armor. I frowned.

"Those are not going to help you" I said, drawing startled looks from the two of them.

"Tenet!" yelled Matt. I noticed his right hand was resting tentatively on the pistol's handle that dangled on his hip.

"Who?" Barnabas asked, his dark face scrunched up into a frown. He, too, was white-knuckling the hilt of a saber that protruded from his gold and black striped sash.

I chuckled and looked Barnabas squarely in his dark eyes. "My name is Tenet and I mean you no harm. However," I motioned to the weapons lying on the sandy rug. "Those are not going to help you against the creature you're hunting."

"How do you know about the ghūl and that we seek it?" still suspicious, Barnabas probed.

"Accept that it is my gift to know such things, just as I know that this creature is not to blame for the horrendous acts you seek to avenge."

Matt and Barnabas looked long and hard at one another. Matt shrugged meekly to his dark-skinned companion and then his eyes again fell on me. Something changed in his face, which was harder than when I'd last seen him. There was a strength about him and deep within his eyes, there was a glimmer of Light. I was glad to see how far he had come since we'd first met, long ago in Southeast Asia.

He approached me and his jaw was set. "I'm not exactly sure what or who you are Tenet, or how you knew we were here, or what in the world we were doing, but I do know that I know a thing or two about things and this thing is evil!"

I nodded. "This ghūl dwells in a graveyard, yes?"

Both men nodded. Barnabas added, "Far from town, there is a tower. It is an ancient thing. The ghūl lives within that tower and comes out at night to feast upon the living and...do worse things." The man's bright eyes fell. His honor would not allow him to speak of such things, and it pained him to even think on them.

This was good. He would need that purity and virtue if he was to face our real Enemy. "And why would such a graveyard exist, so far from town?" I queried.

They were shocked at the question. Neither had thought that the location of the graveyard was important. However, with most things, all of the details are not only important, they are critical to understanding...to knowledge...to Truth.

I continued. "I see. And the graves, they were marked with a symbol, yes?"

At this, Barnabas leaped, as I knew he would. "Yes! They are marked with a single word, in Arabic. 'Iblis' is the word and it means-"

Matt jumped in, "Satan! The closest translation to the word into English is Satan, Tenet! Your Enemy! See, this thing is evil."

"And there were no other marks?" I asked.

Both men looked dully at one another. They had no answer.

I continued, "If you would have looked closer, each stone was marred, the Arabic word scratched through, as if someone--or something--was trying to remove the word from its presence. Also, why would someone mark the gravestone of a loved one with a word that glorified the Evil One?"

The men were utterly silent.

"They would not, as you have ascertained. You see, these stones were not gravestones, they were warnings, placed by superstitious humans that knew no better...much like yourselves. These warning stones were offensive to the creature that lived in that tower, a creature who is, in fact, a Fallen, but has aligned itself with complete neutrality. It wants nothing to do with the Great War, it wants only to be left alone.

"Now, however, you have pulled it into the middle of this conflict. Despite being ignorant of the situation, you two have made it far worse. That is why I am here. Now, gird thy loins, men. We have a battle before us which is against a much greater enemy than this ghūl. However, we now need its help if we are to survive..."

Art Source: "34-PLEASE DON'T TOUCH YOUR UNCLES..." (c)/by mir-ahmad
Story and Characters: (c)/by Brannon Hollingsworth

#MMWW, #Makes, #Me, #Wanna, #Write, #BrannonHollingsworth, #Tenet, #Tenetstales, #ArabianKights, #Barnabas, #MattOlsen, #Matt, #Sector7, #TheOrbisObserver, #ghūl, #Iblis