Shadows Creed (Shadows Creed #1)

The Locker

Matt Berry surveyed the silent warehouse, at the rows and rows of amps, guitars and other confiscated musical equipment. There were probably over thousands of drum sets and microphone stands arranged in neat rows along the walls and on large wooden crate carriers. He was responsible for counting every single piece that entered the building, and ensuring that none of it ever disappeared. It was his neck on the line if he missed anything.

The Locker had been built over ten years ago, when the government decided it wasn’t cost effective to destroy all the contraband that went through the system every year. It was situated five miles from the centre of town a massive steel grey complex that was hard to miss. No one spoke of the place, though unless it was in a derogative sense. Some called it the black hole of dreams, the place where people’s hopes were crushed. That is if their hopes had anything to do with creating music other than the approved.

“Fuck, where is it?”

Right now, Matt was searching for a certain custom made Schechter guitar that had been brought in about a month ago. Apparently, it had been relinquished voluntarily by an anonymous source. The Creed had found it at the main entrance to their barracks with a note attached telling them to treat the instrument with the utmost respect. That had confused all of them; however, they had stuck to protocol sending it over to Matt to process and put safely away in the Locker.

Matt had itemised it, giving it a barcode and tag number and he thought he had put it near the back of the warehouse. But it seemed to have disappeared.

“Number 31071981L, number 31071981L...” Matt mumbled to himself as he stalked the rows, scowling in frustration at the many different models he passed. “Number 31...” He paused poking his head over to look at an instrument tucked behind a box. “Nope...that’s not it... 31071981...oh...?”

Something caught his eye from the other side of the building. He pushed his way through a jumble of broken drum sets to a blanket-covered object at the west side of the warehouse.

It looked distinctly guitar shaped...

Whipping away the blanket he blinked at the shiny instrument that was revealed. With black and white vertical stripes running the length of the body it was a classy looking guitar. Unharmed it sat as if that was exactly where it was meant to be. He breathed a sigh of relief, carefully lifting the instrument from its stand.

“Right...need to send this to the Mayor...”

Matt had a habit of talking out loud, to himself. But, considering he worked almost exclusively in the Locker and he was there alone, most of the time it wasn’t all that surprising. He hadn’t been cut out for the Creed itself, unlike his twin. Yet, he didn’t really mind that. He preferred his own company, so working in the Locker was perfect for him.

Humming, Matt headed back to his office, carrying the guitar carefully in his arms. As he approached, his cell phone buzzed in his back pocket. Shifting the weight of the instrument, he tugged it out and held it up to his ear.

“Yeah?” he answered distractedly, until he recognised the deep, husky voice on the other end of the line. “Hey, Shads, what’s doing?”

He pushed open the door with his shoulder and hip, walking in and setting the Schechter down on the workbench. “Really? Where are you? Oh. Say hi to them for me... When you get there. Yeah? You left my brother at the barracks. Yeah, he said you were taking some time off.”

Matt shifted the phone to his right ear as he grabbed a cloth and began polishing the surface of the guitar. “Uh huh. Still checking up on me? Yeah, nothing new. Just doing something for the mayor.” He looked down into the almost reflective surface of the guitar. “Oh, he wanted this guitar. You know the one that was dropped at the barracks. Yeah, that’s the one.”