Guild of Tokens_Trainee Read online

  Once, a long time ago, Beatrice discovered that not only did her knife pierce through skin as if it were jello, but also that it had the neat ability to cause the person on the receiving end of the said piercing to turn to stone. Beatrice was as shocked as her would-be assailant was when he saw his forearm turning grey after she had slashed him in the dark alley, but she hadn't had any occasion since to witness what the knife was truly capable of. That was, until the present moment, as Kate held the blade pointed at Beatrice, the girl's hand shaking violently.

  “More. I need more.”

  Kate's voice was barely above a whisper, which gave Beatrice some measure of reassurance.

  “More what, Kate? You know, you could have just called. Now why don't you just give me that-”

  “The buffs. I need more.”

  “Oh.”

  “I made the last one into a powder, so it would last longer and you wouldn't think I was an addict by asking for more so soon. Bought a mortar and pestle at Goodwill. Snorted a little bit to see what would happen and passed out. Woke up, did a little more, tried to finish a paper. Then it wore off again. But not before a thought occurred to me. I needed to inject it. So I went down to the health center, got into the exam room, and then took off with some syringes and tourniquets before the nurse came in. That did the trick. But I only had a little left, so I needed to find you.”

  “Kate, again, you have my number. You didn't need to come down here and-”

  “Wasn't expecting you'd be here. Took me all night at the city records department to find this place. Knew you wouldn't keep the good stuff at your actual apartment. No. You keep your lives separate. Smart. So I'd like the stuff now, if you wouldn't mind.”

  On a normal day, Beatrice would have been able to handle the situation, if it were any other knife. But this particular morning, she was hungover, running on two hours sleep, and facing down the blade of a horrific weapon, and that left her with only one option.

  “Ok. Fine. I’ll give you more. Just put the knife down first.”

  The girl’s brow furrowed and her eyes went from Beatrice to the knife, as if she hadn't realized that she was holding it. With a flick of her wrist, Kate rotated the knife around and presented the handle to Beatrice, who slowly wrapped her fingers around the ivory.

  Beatrice looked down at the point of the blade. It would be so easy to just push it forward, to rid herself of another failed trainee. But as quickly as the thought arose, she quashed it. Too messy, she thought. And in any event, she didn’t have a garden in which to store a statue of poor petrified Kate. No. She would have to figure out another way.

  Beatrice sheathed the blade and put it back in her pocketbook, which she slung around her shoulder. No sense leaving the bag unattended again and having to repeat the whole exercise.

  “Now that we’ve dealt with that little situation, just sit here and I’ll get you what you came for.”

  Kate nodded and went back to staring off into space, as Beatrice got up and walked over to the towering bookcase that stood right next to the couch. Her eyes scanned the multi-colored rows of books until she found the two that she was looking for. Not that she needed to look so hard. She knew where they were by heart.

  With one hand, she grasped the spine of A Tale of Two Cities and with the other, the spine of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe on the shelf above, and pulled both at the same time. A satisfying click sounded behind the bookcase, which Beatrice pushed forward to reveal the hidden second bedroom. This was no bedroom though.

  The musty smell hit Beatrice’s noise as she stepped inside, and she smiled. This was where the magic happened. The far side sported a long table that ran the length of the room, which was partially covered in wax paper. The rest of the walls were lined with shelving and bookcases, holding all manner of jars, books, tools, and other oddities that Beatrice had picked up along the way. Even the windows had been sacrificed on the altar of space, although she had left a tiny sliver of one window uncovered to prevent the room from being completely cut off from the outside world. As much as she wished she could have a nice little cottage out of the city, there was something satisfying about having this hidden nook right here in the Guild’s backyard.

  Beatrice turned around to see if Kate had followed her into the room, but the girl evidently remained planted on the couch. That would make things go smoother. She had hoped one day to show Kate this room, to work side-by-side with someone who could become almost equal to her, but she knew now that her search would have to continue.

  She started walking over to a bookcase on the right side of the room where she kept the full-strength buffs when something on the desk caught her eye. It was the green-tinted mason jar where Doreen’s letter was currently soaking, the second pen from the raid sitting next to it. Beatrice walked over and looked at its contents. The letter was still somewhat intact, but more importantly, a thin black film was visible at the top. A different idea now formed in her head. The perfect way to test the potency of the ink. It would solve at least one of her immediate problems, and if it failed, well...

  No, she thought. She needed certainty, she needed closure.

  Her pocketbook began to vibrate. No doubt it was Garrett, trying to find out where she had gone and whether she would be coming back soon and where did they keep the diapers, and it’s not what you think, I swear, blah blah blah. She’d heard it before, but frankly she didn’t actually care anymore. She had moved on long ago from the idea that her marriage was anything but a convenient front. Still, she needed to send a message to him that she expected a certain level of discreteness. Which brought her thoughts back to the ink. Her eyes lit up. Now there was a good experiment.

  Beatrice opened the drawers in the desk until she found one that had some paper, which she brought over to the jar. Pen in hand, she carefully unfastened the lid and dipped the tip in the black liquid, swirling it around counterclockwise, before withdrawing it. She quickly went to work, dipping the pen back in the jar as needed, and soon, the note was complete. Perfect. She set it down to dry and walked over to the closet, sliding the door open to reveal a pair of mahogany armoires. It had been a long time since she had crafted this particular item, and she hoped it hadn’t lost its potency in the intervening years. Well, only one way to find out., she supposed The bottom drawer on the right armoire held what she sought and she brought the container over to the desk to assemble her little care package for tonight.

  Beatrice emerged from the hidden room a few minutes later with a sealed envelope, and pulled the bookcase back in place. If Kate had noticed her prolonged absence, or even the hidden room, it didn’t register on the girl’s face.

  “Here,” said Beatrice, handing Kate the envelope. Kate stared at the envelope with a puzzled look on her face.

  “What’s this?”

  “Your next task. Make sure this letter gets delivered and I’ll make sure you’re taken care of by the evening.”

  The girl’s expression didn’t waiver as she considered the envelope, and Beatrice held her breath, steeling herself for another outburst. But somewhere the gods of fate and chance were smiling upon her, as Kate stuck the envelope in her pocket and walked out the door.

  The girl was late. Ordinarily, Beatrice Taylor would not have cared, and this morning was no different. The baby was at her mom’s, Garrett’s little analyst had inexplicably been transferred to the West Coast office last week, and one story in the paper had particularly caught her eye.

  “Kate O’Laughlin, 19, found dead facedown in dorm room,” the headline on page 14 read. Beatrice folded the paper and put it on the table, as a chipper redhead ran up the street and sat down across from her.

  “Sorry I’m late! The subway was a complete disaster.”

  Beatrice smiled.

  “No worries. I take it you have the book?”

  Author’s Note

  Thanks for reading Guild of Tokens: Trainee. It means a lot to me because, to be perfectly frank with you, most people wh
o request this free story do the same two things:

  •They download it onto their Kindle, and then they

  •proceed to ignore its very existence.

  And that’s fine. It really, truly is. A lot of people like to accumulate free books that they'll read “later.” I’ve done the same thing. But just by getting to this page, you are in the small percentage of people who actually, you know, read the book.

  And I absolutely adore that small percentage of people. Because I love readers.

  So here’s where I’m going with this:

  Because you finished the story, you’re going to get a special bonus. All you need to do is click here to send me an email to let me know that you’ve read Trainee and I’ll send it to you straight away. This is a special bonus that no one else will get. Not even my newsletter list at large.

  And just in case you were wondering, Beatrice’s story is not over. Not by a long shot. She doesn’t know it now, but she’s about to find the trainee she’s been waiting for. Read on below if you want to meet her.

  Jen Jacobs has it all: a demanding job as a video game developer where her co-workers take credit for her work, vapid friends, and a boyfriend who’s always out of town. But, in the middle of yet another all-night programming binge, she stumbles onto the Quest Board and everything changes.

  * * *

  The rules of the Board are simple:

  * * *

  Complete a Quest, get a token.

  * * *

  The harder the Quest, the more tokens you earn.

  * * *

  Get enough tokens, and you level up.

  * * *

  At first, Jen thinks she’s in the middle of an elaborate viral marketing campaign for her company’s newest game.

  * * *

  But as she traverses New York City fetching random items, slaying dragons (well, actually, sewer rats), and meeting a whole host of Questers, she soon realizes that the Quests are real, the rewards are real, and the danger is unthinkable.

  * * *

  And when Jen learns the true purpose of the Quests, she discovers a hidden world that she could never have imagined.

  Jen and Beatrice collide in Guild of Tokens: Initiate, a unique mix of Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere, Harry Potter, and World of Warcraft.

  * * *

  Get it now on Amazon!

  About the Author

  Jon Auerbach’s love of fantasy began at the tender age of six, when his parents bought him the classic 1977 animated version of The Hobbit (the less said about the recent trilogy, the better). His passion for sci-fi developed from nights watching Star Trek: The Next Generation and from his dad's old paperback copies of Foundation and I, Robot.

  Jon writes in both genres and hopes to pass on his stories to the next generation, including his kids, who have their own copy of The Hobbit that they lovingly call “the Bilbo book.”