“No, and I’m not going to. I need him, and so do you. There’s much more going on than we ever suspected. Should we go through this in front of Arthur?”
“It can’t be helped. Arthur knows when to keep his mouth shut.”
“No worries, Shrek,” Arthur piped in. “You should have seen the vampires trying to get at us last night. I wish you’d been there.”
“Me too, kid.”
“Merlin said you and Vicky were attacked too,” Arthur continued excitedly, his hands waving in the air. “You kept one, huh?”
“His name is Serge Balkovitch. He is a trusted comrade of mine from long ago,” Lancelot answered. “You will meet him later, but keep a civil tongue in your head, boy.”
“You bet I will! Wow, a real vampire!”
“I can’t allow this. It’s too dangerous.” Merlin dismissed the notion with a wave of his hand. “He could rip out Arthur’s heart faster than we can think.”
“No, he can’t, nor would he try. We have another couple of puzzle pieces which will interest both you and Vivian,” Lancelot said. “Serge and I went over to a warehouse near the Oakland Airport to retrieve his casket. We killed five shape-shifters, another vampire, and the human guard. Modred was there, and so was Morgan Le Fey. Modred’s dead. Morgan’s a vampire, and in a coma-like state in my cellar.”
“Jesus H… Shit, Monte,” Vivian said angrily, “you had me put a detaining spell on that fu… I mean, that witch Morgan? What the hell is going on?”
“You…you killed Modred?” Merlin’s face turned the color of paste.
“Yeeeeeeessssssss…” Arthur pumped his right fist. “Way to go, Shrek. You nailed the future guy who probably would have taken me out. High five!”
Lancelot slapped Arthur’s hand, laughing at the boy’s correct assessment of the situation. “At least you perceived Modred’s part in this correctly.”
“You couldn’t…I mean…how could you have killed Modred?” Merlin asked.
“Right, old man,” Lancelot whispered, “I couldn’t kill him. He was invulnerable, but not to a vampire. I had Serge rip his black heart out.”
“Tight!” Arthur gasped. “You are the man, Shrek! I’ve got to meet Serge.”
“I pissed all over your plans, huh, Merlin?” Lancelot continued, with menace so plain in his voice that Vivian pulled Arthur over next to her, across from Merlin, and watched the two men closely. “You knew Modred was around. Maybe I ought to rip out your black heart.”
“I suspected some similarities to present fulfillment from a past legend,” Merlin admitted.
“Morgan thought so too, only she figured Modred would come out on top and the world would plunge into chaos. How did you have it figured?”
“It would have been a struggle as before, with many of the same elements involved in birthing a new legend: one powerful enough to protect Western Civilization for another thousand years. You don’t know what you’ve done.”
“Yeah, I do.” Lancelot smiled over at Arthur, who hung on every word. “He and I are going to write a new legend, and God help the man or beast who gets in our way.”
“Legends as powerful as King Arthur, the Knights of the Round Table, and Camelot are written in tragedy and blood, not little league baseball. This is not what you think, Lancelot.” Merlin leaned forward and spoke earnestly. “The tales of honor, passion, love, betrayal, and final battle made up the ingredients for salvation lasting the ten centuries since you fought at Arthur’s side at Camlann. They inspired common people to greatness, and saved Christianity. The tragic ending to Camelot lived on as a beacon against complacency.”
“Are you in or out, Merlin?” Lancelot asked calmly. “Arthur gets his shot this time at a real life. He’ll have the Boy Scouts, little league baseball, girlfriends, school, college, and any other commonplace human event. If I have to rip the foundation of hell apart to give him the chance, then so be it. Choose, old man. Arthur’s grown fond of you, Mage. I can see it in his eyes. That’s the only reason you’re not a corpse already.”
Merlin met Lancelot’s piercing gaze without flinching. Finally, he smiled and nodded. “I would have liked to have seen that arrogant piece of human excrement’s face when the vampire ripped his heart out. Gods, but it must have been a sight!”
“He was surprised,” Lancelot asserted, grinning, “and so was Morgan. If I had nothing more to show for my thousand years, the sight would have been enough.”
Merlin sighed, leaning back in his seat. “We’ll need a new plan. There will be other players to be dealt with.”
“Do…do you mean it about the Boy Scouts?” Arthur asked Lancelot.
“Every bit of it, I promise. We’ll get Lady Vivian here to volunteer for the position of Cub Scout den mother. Cub Scouts is the first step,” Lancelot explained, watching Vivian’s face. How about it, my lady?”
Vivian sat in stunned silence as the conversation had shifted from ripping Merlin’s heart out to her being a den mother to a bunch of pre-pubescent boys. “I have a better idea, Monte. Just rip my heart out, and free me from this-”
“C’mon, Vicky, it’ll be fun.” Arthur shook her by the shoulders with his small hands. “It’s time to give up street-walking and get a life. Shrek’s giving you a chance to be somebody. C’mon…please?”
“If I agree to this travesty,” Vicky said, looking around, “what’s in it for me besides losing my imaginary life as a hooker?”
“My man Shrek will never leave you, right, Shrek?” Arthur stated solemnly, gesturing for Lancelot to back up his statement.
“As long as I live, I will never leave you, my lady,” Lancelot promised, confirming the boy’s boast.
Vivian blushed at the intensity of Lancelot’s voice and expression.
“It would be enough,” Vivian conveyed her assent in a hushed voice, holding Lancelot’s gaze for a moment before turning to wag a finger at Arthur, “but no more disrespect.”
“I have to take a few shots, here and there, Vicky,” Arthur protested as he hugged her.
“Well, okay,” Vivian conceded, hugging the boy back, “just a few.”
“For the record,” Lancelot said, turning to Merlin, “I’m glad you’re on our side.”
“You were again inserted as the wild card, Lancelot,” Merlin replied, holding out his hand. “I believe that somewhere in creation, the great God Almighty’s shaking his head and whispering ‘free will’s a bitch, and unintended consequences is her bastard child’.”
“Since you don’t know the particulars, we’ll have to question Morgan carefully.”
“That witch and I go back a long way,” Vivian broke in. “You’ll never be able to trust whether she’s telling the truth or not.”
“Serge drained her into a coma state. He told me that once a vampire feeds on another to the point Serge did to Morgan, she’s his bitch.”
“She’s in his thrall,” Merlin finished. “Serge is right. He may be very useful. Morgan would be in the upper hierarchy of all this, for certain. She may know all the other players.”
“We won’t have to cut short our baseball game, will we?” Arthur asked.
“Not a bit,” Lancelot replied.
* * *
“They’ve locked the gate,” Merlin called out as he and Arthur stood outside the caged-in playing field near the San Leandro elementary school.
Carrying the equipment bag, Lancelot, with Vivian next to him, walked up and put the bag down. “Zap the lock, Merlin. These clowns don’t have the right to lock up playing fields we pay for with our property taxes.”
“I tried. My old magic doesn’t work so well with new metallurgy. Do you have anything, Vivian?”
“I’ll try, but I don’t know any spells other than the ones you taught me long ago,” Vivian said, gripping the lock with both hands and closing her eyes.
“I never taught you any detainment spells such as the one you used on Morgan’s coffin,” Merlin pointed out with a smile. “You surprised me.”
Vivian smiled, her eyes remaining closed. “I was hoping I hadn’t lost the ability to at least weave a few spells. Let me concentrate.”
The lock glowed a little. The radiance was visible in even the bright daylight. Vivian let it drop from her hands after a moment, as the lock popped open. She pulled the chain free from around the metal fence post, and opened the gate. Merlin looked at her questioningly.
“I concentrated on the lock, rather than on the chain,” Vivian explained, answering Merlin’s unasked question as she opened the gate. “We probably should have let Monte pull it apart.”
“You only say that because you don’t have a clue as to how much pulling apart chain links hurts bare hands,” Lancelot growled even as he grinned. “Let’s play ball.”
Lancelot went through the basics with Arthur of swinging the bat, fielding, and running the bases. To his credit, Arthur remained quiet throughout his mentor’s instructions. He practiced his swings, with Lancelot adjusting the boy’s stance a little and moving Arthur’s hands up slightly on the bat handle.
“We have a dozen balls, kid. Why don’t I just pitch to you, and we’ll play it by ear.”
“Sounds good, but don’t underhand them to me. Just pitch to me overhand,” Arthur insisted.
With Lancelot pitching, Vivian and Merlin fielded the balls that made it past Lancelot. Arthur hit more and more of the pitches as he began to fall into a rhythm. When he began smashing line drives, Lancelot directed him to run the bases. The fielders threw Arthur out at first, second, third, or home, according to how long the relay throw took to arrive in Lancelot’s hand. They were all laughing, as Arthur alternately complained about the calls and heckled the adults when they missed getting him out.
Lancelot took to hitting soft grounders, so as to give Arthur practice fielding the ball. He ran the bases with every hit, directing Arthur on relaying the ball, or where to go with it. Again, as Arthur began competently to throw Lancelot out, the boy taunted him. Lancelot hit a hard grounder to Arthur, which went through the boy’s legs and into the outfield. Lancelot streaked around the bases, laughing at Arthur, who ran after the ball. As Lancelot rounded third, with Vivian slow to cover home plate, Arthur pegged his former First Knight in the back of the neck. This provoked wild laughter from the participants. Lancelot limped around, bent at the waist, with his hands around the back of his neck as if badly injured.
“Shake it off, Shrek, shake it off,” Arthur called out.
Vivian caught the movement from the corner of her eye, past the caged-in backstop, a hundred yards to the right, where the enclosed field was bordered by a fenced-off aqueduct. The huge beast vaulted the eight-foot fence effortlessly.
“Shit…look out, Lancelot!” Vivian screamed. Speeding towards Arthur, she grabbed him up, and then ran for the gate.
Chapter Fourteen: Attack
Lancelot saw the monstrous werewolf loping across the open ground. He ran over to the gate, and as Vivian hustled through the opening with Arthur in her arms, Lancelot tore the gate free, snapping its metal hinges. Merlin turned with Lancelot to face the beast. The old mage hurriedly called out spells, to no avail. The werewolf never slowed. Lancelot waited until he knew that the thing had no chance to leap, and then ran straight into it brandishing the torn-away gate. The impact tossed the werewolf up into the air. Lancelot drove it backward and leapt, pinning the huge beast to the ground.
“Where’s your silver knife?” Vivian screamed over the cacophony of growls. Having given up on the spells, Merlin herded Arthur toward their limousine.
“It’s…it’s at the apartment!” Lancelot called back, struggling to keep the gate pinning the crazed werewolf.
“That’s a good place for it,” Vivian muttered.
“I…heard…that!” Lancelot yelled through clenched teeth.
Vivian spun around from the scene. The limo driver, witnessing the attack, squealed out of the parking lot, leaving his employer and Arthur yelling for him to stop as they ran. Giving up, Merlin clutched Arthur in his arms. He grabbed Arthur’s chin in his hand, directing Arthur’s terrified gaze to him.
“Listen. I have to join in with Vivian, and try to work some magic on our aluminum bat. Can you stay here, and be brave? If you take off running, this won’t work. The creature will simply bypass us and run you down.”
“I…I won’t run,” Arthur promised, his lips clamped together to keep them from trembling. “Go on…help Shrek.”
Setting Arthur down, Merlin ran to grab Vivian’s hand and pull her through the gate. “C’mon, this will take both of us. We’re going to change aluminum to silver.”
“Oh, boy…is that all?” Vivian asked, looking doubtfully at a struggling Lancelot. “Maybe Monte can take the thing.”
“We have to give him an edge!” Merlin grabbed up the bat, placing it between Vivian and himself. “He’s all we have. The damned thing will slice through us like cheese. Grab hold and concentrate. Lock your hands around mine.”
Behind them, Lancelot had begun striking the fence over the werewolf’s head in rage, busting the howling creature’s snout to bloody pulp. The thing healed nearly as fast as Lancelot wounded it. Sweating in spite of the cool temperature, Lancelot shifted his feet and arms rapidly, his mind racing. As he took a deep breath, psyching himself up for battle, Merlin thrust the now-silver bat where Lancelot could see it.
“We did it! The bat’s silver!” Merlin shouted over the creature’s howls.
Lancelot’s face lit up. He snatched the bat from Merlin’s grasp, quickly returning his weight to the gate, while holding the bat in his hand. “Take…Arthur…and go directly behind the cage.”
“God be with you, boy,” Merlin said, nodding. He and Vivian hurried out the open gate. They guided Arthur behind the larger curved fence behind home plate.
“We’re back here, Monte,” Vivian called out.
“Get ‘em, Shrek!” Arthur yelled, cheering Lancelot on by pumping his fist.
“Batter up,” Lancelot said, leaning down to look into the werewolf’s eyes for a moment before jumping back off the gate.
The werewolf sought to reverse their positions by immediately trying to jam the gate against Lancelot. Lancelot dived to the side. He came up swinging from behind the wolf as it pitched forward with the gate. Swung with the accuracy Lancelot had developed for centuries with swords, the silver bat smashed into the werewolf’s spine with such force that its spine shattered at point of impact. The skin and fur smoked where the silver bat had struck. The werewolf lay howling in misery on the gate, bent grotesquely and unable to move the lower half of its body. The next blow, wielded with all Lancelot’s strength, pulped the creature’s head like an overripe watermelon. Brain-matter and skull fragments splattered. Not taking any chances, Lancelot drove the thick end of the bat sickeningly through the creature’s chest, caving in its rib cage and smashing its heart.
The first sound Lancelot noticed as he straightened was the howling of dogs all over the quiet neighborhood. He glanced around, looking for witnesses to the incredible battle. Only a car driving on the road bordering the park showed any movement in the area. When Lancelot looked down, the bloody corpse of a huge, black hairy man lay on the gate.
Having run in leaping bounds around the fence, Arthur hugged Lancelot.
“C’mon, boy, we have to get the hell out of here,” Lancelot said. “Help me gather up our equipment.”
“You bet!” Arthur said excitedly. “Man…I thought you were dog food.”
“Nicely done, Lancelot,” Merlin complimented him as he and Vivian pitched in to gather their equipment. Merlin took a cell phone out of their bag, and called a number. Angrily, he ordered his driver to return to the park.
“I’m surprised that he answered the phone,” Vivian remarked with a smile.
“So am I,” Merlin admitted, taking a deep breath. “We’ll have to take the corpse with us. I have a blanket in the trunk of the limo. He’s only five minutes away. I hope we don’t get a crowd before
then.”
Lancelot picked up one end of the gate and dragged it back in the direction from which the werewolf had come. Having dropped it near the fenced aqueduct, he walked back. He and his companions made sure they had all their gear before walking toward the parking lot. The driver entered the long driveway as they neared the parking lot. Pulling up near the curb bordering the grassy area leading to the ball-field, the driver leaped out of his side.
“I’m…I’m sorry, boss…I-”
“Forget it, Charlie.” Merlin waved him off. “Pop the trunk.”
“What the hell was…” Charlie began.
“Pop the trunk now, Charlie!”
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