LANCELOT

by Bernard Lee DeLeo

  “More interesting is my picking this area out for my base after discharge.” Lancelot paused with his hand on the door handle. “I look forward to hearing what the old mage has to say, and how long he’s been set up here. Anyhow, I think the address is downtown by the courthouse.”

  Chapter Eight: Merlin

  Vivian exchanged places with Lancelot. They found the building on Clay Street easily enough, and parked the car in a lot nearby. Lancelot deposited the stocking cap and gloves he had worn in the first waste receptacle they passed. After a pleasant walk along a flower-potted corridor, the pair reached the entrance to the building, which led to a state-of-the-art security desk. A uniformed and armed security guard stood off to the security desk’s side. Another security guard sat at a desk of monitors. He looked up with bored expression momentarily until he saw Lancelot’s imposing figure. The other guard walked a little nearer, his hand resting on a holstered 9mm automatic.

  “Hi, could you direct us to this suite, sir?” Lancelot asked, handing the guard the piece of paper on which he had copied Merlin’s address from the rock.

  “Just a second,” the guard replied, relaxing at Lancelot’s easy tone. “I have to call up there, and see if Mr. Merlin will see you. Who shall I say wishes to meet with him?”

  “Jim Benwick and Vivian Camlann,” Lancelot informed him politely.

  The guard called, reciting the information Lancelot had given him into the phone. He listened for a moment, and then ended the call with a formal “Yes, sir.” He looked up and smiled at Lancelot, gesturing at the bank of elevators past the security desk.

  “Go right up, sir. Top floor.”

  “Ah…do you know the office number?” Lancelot asked.

  “He’ll meet you. Mr. Merlin owns the building.”

  “Thanks.” Lancelot took Vivian’s arm and walked around the armed guard. They entered the elevator, with Lancelot pushing the tenth floor button.

  “This Merlin guy’s set up pretty well,” Vivian commented.

  Lancelot nodded, looking anxiously up at the digital readout of floors. The elevator doors opened. Despite the well-groomed appearance, Lancelot instantly recognized the white-haired and bearded man smiling at him. Merlin wore a tailored three-piece black pin-striped suit, with shiny, loafer-looking black shoes. Vivian had stepped around Lancelot, staring without recognition at the nearly six-foot-tall mage. Lancelot grasped the manicured hand Merlin held out carefully, and shook hands with him.

  “You’re still a damned giant, my dear boy,” Merlin remarked, chuckling, as he looked up at Lancelot. One hand stroked his short white beard. It was a gesture very familiar to Lancelot.

  “I see you cut the wild-ass hair and beard,” Lancelot observed, looking around. “Where’s Arthur?”

  “He’s in school,” Merlin answered, shifting his attention to Vivian. “My dear Vivian, you are radiant. Humanity becomes you.”

  “Yeah. How about letting me in on all this, old man?” Vivian’s tone made it clear she wasn’t there for a social visit. “I heard from Jim here, that you and I were enemies.”

  “Not enemies.” Merlin shook his head in the negative with a gesture of impatience. “We were a part of Camelot’s grand scheme. You allowed yourself to become far too infatuated with Lancelot. Your dalliances nearly put us at cross purposes sometimes. All that is over. Come along, and we’ll talk about it over some coffee.”

  “Don’t you have anyone working with you here?” Lancelot noticed the emptiness and accompanying silence of the huge area.

  “Yes, I have a considerable staff.” Merlin led them into a meeting room with an oblong oak table and leather-seated chairs. He poured them each a cup of coffee from the state-of-the-art service, after which Merlin sat down at the table’s end. He gestured for Lancelot and Vivian to sit down at his right. “I gave my staff today off. I told them to take a long weekend. Friday is a most opportune time for you to arrive. We will have the weekend to discuss our mission. The police are visiting your residence even as we speak. Up to your old tricks, huh, Lancelot?”

  “If you mean killing vermin, yeah, I guess so,” Lancelot answered with a shrug, holding his hands up as if indicating the surroundings. “What about you? What’s all this about?”

  “We gather information. I have a team of top-flight lawyers, and a separate team of computer experts. The support staff here deciphers the information from our gathering process, and acts as liaisons between the lawyers and hackers. With you and Vivian, we have our action team completed. I’ve only been in country for six months,” Merlin explained. “I was awakened from where Vivian entombed me a short while ago.”

  “I entombed you?” Vivian stared at the old man with uneasiness at the news. Lancelot watched Merlin’s face with rapt attention. “If we were on the same side, why would I entomb you?”

  “It is of little importance, my dear.” Merlin’s features betrayed nothing. “You were following orders, I’m sure - as was I. Having knowledge of where a vast fortune lay in England, it took me many months to secure it in the proper coffers, from which I could begin building my database empire. Unlike Vivian here, I have been in full control of my memories and wizardry.”

  “I located Arthur in this country. It only took a matter of money to find a way to acquire him from the foster care system in which he had been placed after losing his parents in a car wreck. He’s only eight, and his memories will not be returned to him for many years…not until he is capable of handling them.”

  “How the hell did you pull that off?” Lancelot anticipation after a thousand years of waiting had already begun to fade.

  “Money, Lancelot, money.” Merlin reiterated the ages old key to most things in life. “I bought a path to the boy in our lineage, and proved to the authorities I was his great-grandfather from England. He had no other living relatives through either the mother or father.”

  “All well and good, old man. What about my memory?” Vivian urged.

  “I can give you your memory back with but a touch, Vivian,” Merlin stated solemnly. “It will not be a help to you. Although a wizard, I was, and am, human. You were nephillim, and very powerful. Since being welcomed into heaven after completing your task with Lancelot long ago, you will never hold the same power again. You are human. Your memory was withheld because you needed to grow and survive without knowledge of what you once were. I sense that you have the power of suggestion. You need not have your memory back to fit in with us. If-”

  “I want it all, old man,” Vivian demanded, breaking in abruptly once more. “No more excuses.”

  Merlin hesitated, but then held out his hand. “Very well. Take my hand.”

  Vivian allowed Merlin to clasp her hand in his. Lancelot watched recognition flood over Vivian’s features, followed by fury. Only Lancelot’s desperate grab kept Vivian from launching over the table to strike at Merlin’s face with hands held out in claw-like form.

  “You bastard!” Vivian screamed, trying to kick free unsuccessfully of Lancelot. “I’ll rip your eyes out of your blasphemous head!”

  “Vivian!” Having shaken her, Lancelot jammed the twisting woman into a seat, imprisoning her hands on the chair arms. “Stop this!”

  Raging emotions warred across Vivian’s features as her eyes stayed locked on the smiling Merlin. “You rotten old cur! This is your fault!”

  “I did nothing,” Merlin disagreed with a wave of his hand. “You froze me in that God-forsaken cavern for a thousand years. You agreed to leave heaven for this next journey. I do as I am bidden. My dabbling in black magic nearly cost me my soul. Did you think I ordered the stripping of your powers? God does not consult with me when He deals with the likes of you.”

  Comprehension overcame rage as Vivian remembered the specifics of why she had been ordered to imprison the mage. She pounded the table in frustration. Heaven had plans for the human mage, and without thinking, Vivian had agreed to anything in order to see Lancelot again. Looking at Merlin with exasperation, she leaned b
ack tiredly in her chair.

  “We were set up again.”

  “This is not about us,” Merlin replied calmly. “I have seen hell, and I’m not going there willingly. All nephillim and their offspring are dust, Vivian. You were the only one taken back. I witnessed your agreement in my trancelike state. The powers wielded by a nephillim could not be returned to you. Whether or not it suited heaven to explain that to you, the decision had nothing to do with me. We are here, and we must make the best of it.”

  Twisting her hands angrily, Vivian turned her attention to Lancelot. “Let me up, you muscle-bound dork.”

  Lancelot grinned in spite of the absolute disdain for himself that he heard in Vivian’s voice. In her cobalt eyes Lancelot saw the real Vivian, not the child he had brought into the room. He released her, and Vivian stood up. She combed her hair back with shaking fingers. Exiting the room, Vivian paced up and down the hallway outside the room, running fingers through her hair nervously. After nearly twenty minutes, she returned to sit down opposite Lancelot.

  “I was a fool,” Vivian muttered, covering her face. “I gave up heaven to return here? What was I thinking? I wasn’t thinking. Monte here screwed my brains out, and I shot my mouth off after returning to heaven, begging to be part of some oblique future mission on Earth. A thousand years in heaven is a glance out the window. Here I am, no powers, no nothing.”

  “It wasn’t any glance out the window down here,” Lancelot remarked with a wry grin.

  “Oh, boo hoo, Monte,” Vivian retorted, gesturing angrily at the smirking Lancelot. “This is about my seducing Lancelot, isn’t it, old man?”

  “Well, seduction and sexual training wasn’t in your original mission parameters,” Merlin answered gently. “Some exception may have been taken to the farewell you gave our strapping young Lancelot when finishing your mission before returning to heaven.”

  “You…you saw that?” Vivian peered up into Merlin’s eyes, trying to gage the veracity of his claim.

  “I saw all, while imprisoned bodily in the cavern under Glastonbury. On a human level, I understood your actions, but when I viewed it from a more heavenly perception, I thought you might be in trouble. It is past, Vivian. Nothing you can do or say will change it now. You see that I had nothing to do with your loss of power, do you not?”

  “Yes…” Vivian granted reluctantly. “It was my fault for ever thinking I’d want a dick between my legs rather than heaven. Thanks a lot, Monte.”

  “You seduced me, bitch.” Lancelot stood up from the table, his hands clenched in fists on the table. Cords of muscle snaked under the skin of his arms, reflecting the anger coursing through him. “I get used like somebody’s ass-puppet and condemned to this purgatory, all the while thinking to be reunited with two people I cared about the most. Instead, I’m blamed for Medusa’s return to Earth. I-”

  “Medusa…” Vivian shot to her feet, extending both hands, murmuring the words of an ancient curse, “I’ll give you Medusa, Knight-Boy.”

  She made a snapping gesture with her hands aimed at Lancelot like weapons. Merlin laughed, but Lancelot engulfed both of Vivian’s wrists in one giant fist, yanking her bodily through the air across the table as she yelped in frustration and fury. He slammed her down once again in the chair near him. Still gripping her wrists, Lancelot cupped Vivian’s face painfully with his free hand, holding her head immobile. He leaned into her face, meeting the look of hatred emanating from her eyes with one of his own.

  “You have no power over me, bitch!” Lancelot hissed through clamped jaws. “I am invulnerable, my lady, but I can spin your head until nothing holds it to your neck but a strand of lifeless skin. Hold yourself in check, and fulfill your promise to Heaven. You may yet gain some peace in torturing my existence, harpy.”

  Lancelot’s rough action dispelled the last of Vivian’s illusion of power. For the first time ever, she knew fear. Unsure whether Heaven would accept her if she perished at Lancelot’s hand, Vivian closed her eyes, relaxing the tension in her arms.

  “Very well,” Vivian acquiesced. Lancelot eased the grip on her chin. “We shall have a truce, you and I.”

  Lancelot released her, stepping back, and folding his arms across his chest. Vivian eased out of the chair. She walked cautiously around Lancelot, and back to her seat across the table. She sat down deliberately as if making a statement of intent. Breathing a sigh of relief, Merlin turned his attention to Lancelot.

  “You know, of course, that you cannot let anything happen to Vivian, Lancelot. Her part in this is vital, and we will not know what part she plays until it happens.”

  “Do not seek to instruct me in my duty, mage,” Lancelot warned. “I will snap both your necks, and let God sort it out in the end.”

  “I…believe you,” Merlin conceded carefully. “I fear you are the most powerful link amongst us, Lancelot. I admit to already having tried some mind tricks and simple suggestive elements on you. It has been decided beyond us who would be the bedrock of our group. After retaining much of my power when awakening to this world once again, I thought I would be the leader.”

  Lancelot overcame much of the rage Vivian’s indifference had brought out in him. He sipped his cooling coffee and considered Merlin’s admissions. “I will not spit on my last thousand years on this earth by sabotaging the very mission entrusted to me so long ago,” Lancelot stated clearly. “We both know I cannot lead in this, mage. You appear to have more of a grasp on this than either Vivian or I. We must carefully forge our relationship. I will not be made light of. I can deal with coldness, name-calling, verbal abuse, and best of all, silence. Question not my honor, and I will tacitly keep my tongue in check concerning yours. Are we agreed?”

  “Delightedly,” Merlin agreed happily.

  “Agreed,” Vivian concurred quietly.

  “One other item before we begin,” Lancelot said almost as an afterthought, staring into first Merlin’s eyes and then Vivian’s. “If either of you are tempted to use me as in the old days, when I find out, you will plead with me for death. I will make your passing a legend in pain.”

  “Of…of course.” Merlin saw black promise in Lancelot’s grim countenance.

  Lancelot maintained his deadly gaze into Vivian’s eyes. So intense was Lancelot’s intimidation that Vivian shivered, turning away from the dreaded knight and cursing the weakness of her humanity. She believed him.

  “I understand,” Vivian said finally.

  “How do you know the cops are looking for me already?” Lancelot turned his attention again to Merlin.

  “I have cognitive abilities in relation to our little band,” Merlin answered. “I can’t predict the future, but I can sense danger as it pertains to us. The rock I gave Vivian in her dreams allowed me to see some of what happened at your house. It absorbs violence, or at least the aspects of the act.”

  “Like Excalibur,” Lancelot inserted tensely, as Vivian withdrew the rock from her pocket. “The damn thing feeds on killing.”

  “Yes,” Merlin contemplated him thoughtfully. “You knew about Excalibur’s power?”

  “I knew it didn’t give a shit who died by its blade. Any death would do.”

  “It sensed weakness,” Merlin explained. “Any self-doubt in the wielder would blunt its power. Had it been in your hands, you would have been invincible.”

  “Giving it up made him invincible,” Vivian argued, shoving the rock across the table surface to Merlin, who pocketed it. “Anyway, what now?”

  “Why don’t we go over to Lancelot’s house, and have breakfast?” Merlin suggested to his companions. “We’ll pick up Arthur when his school lets out. Until then, we’ll give the police a chance to find us together. It may dissuade them from further investigation. I assume that you took rudimentary precautions, Lancelot?”

  “I’m not sure my place would pass a TV series CSI investigation,” Lancelot answered, “but it will probably be okay under a real life look-over – that is, if the police have a warrant.”

&nb
sp; “I’ll take care of any telltale signs.” Merlin stood up. “The police probably left an officer to be there when you returned. Is anything in your car attached to the hoodlums’ unfortunate demise?”

  “Only my clothes, along with a pair of gloves and a hat, which I already dumped,” Lancelot replied. “I used their van to set up my little object lesson.”

  Merlin chuckled. “And a most impressive one it was. You have a flair for this, Lancelot. I hope you will fill me in on your many centuries of adventure later.”

  “I’ll make a note.” Lancelot stood up too, and, with a subdued Vivian alongside, he followed Merlin to the elevator. “What will Arthur’s part in all this be if he’s only eight?”

  “Once we are all joined, he will begin to see cataclysmic events which could plunge the entire earth into a dark age. With our guidance, he will become a great warrior, as well as a politician. We are to groom him for the highest office of this great land, and stave off major catastrophes.”