by J. X. Evans
“Wow, I haven’t heard of a minotaur sighting in a long time, like anywhere on earth. Shame about killing it. It seems like I owe you 50 bucks?” Perry said in a bitter tone, the last part kind of under his breath.
“Yes, you fucking do!” Rob chuckled.
“You got lucky you old bastard. I cannot believe I lost this one.” The two of them sometimes discussed the identity of an unknown monster and sometimes when they had a strong disagreement, they betted on it. Perry had smartly betted on the usual suspects, and Rob had betted on everything else. It was kind of cheating though since Rob had some more information under his belt on this one. But well, Perry should have trusted his initial instinct, instead he had walked into a seemingly already won bet like a first timer.
“Anyway, how am I supposed to come all the way out there? On my magical broomstick?”
“Use Betsy!” Rob declared excitedly. Betsy being an even older pickup truck, older than the now destroyed Nissan truck. And Rob was continuously repairing it as a hobby for a number of years.
“You are kidding, right?” Perry asked nervously in a half-amused tone, not quite believing what he had just heard.
“Come on, Betsy is a beast. She can go the distance, don’t worry about it. I am sending you the coordinates. If you get lost give me a call. And bring the trailer as well, this thing must weight around 3 tons.”
“I see,” Perry sighed, “50 bucks says Betsy will not make it.”
“It is on. Also, please call Serbia on your way here and let them know that we have a specimen for transport to Central.” Rob said before hanging up. ‘Freaking Serbia…’ Rob started making his way back to his injured companion. He reached Mark and despite the bad lighting, the lad looked considerably better. Extremely fast and efficient healing was after all one of the perks of being a Knight of the Order. That and superhuman strength, speed, longevity and the ability to harness and use some magical power by concentrating ones energy into certain gems. Nevertheless, Rob cleaned the blood from Mark’s head wound and his face and stitched the cut to aid in a faster recovery.
A couple of hours of searching for scattered equipment, eight phone calls from Perry about getting Betsy to turn on and directions about where the heck they were exactly, and six of levels of ‘Bad Piggies’ on Rob’s cell later, Perry found them. He parked the noisily, rattling and fuming truck on the dirt road above the hillside, roughly at the spot where the minotaur first charged them, and he got out without turning the engine off. It would be hilarious if it could not start back up again and it would help Perry win the bet, but in a sad kind of way.
“Good thing you were not by the side of some unknown goat trail in the middle of fucking nowhere or I might have gotten lost and not found you” Perry half-yelled, slamming the driver’s door in annoyance and only a little bit of justified anger.
“Stop complaining and come help move the body. I am fucking exhausted.” Rob answered, putting his phone back into his pocket and moving towards the big heavy corpse lying on a pool of blood on the ground. All this blood, the sword must have slit the beast’s hard open.
Perry got down there and grabbed a large hoof. “What’s with him?” He said, nodding at Mark.
“He got a boo-boo.” Rob answered, grabbing both of the minotaur’s heavy arms.
“Fuck you too guys.” Mark mumbled, grabbing hold of the other hoof.
All three of them started lifting and moving the heavy body to place it on the cargo trailer that was connected to Betsy’s rear. Huffing and puffing they managed to drag it up the small hill and after some trial and error finally stuff it in the relatively small and tight trailer.
“Let’s freeze it and go home.” Rob said.
“Wait, I, I can’t fit the leg in.” Mark grunted, trying to shove the hoof inside. He tossed it in and closed half the door to keep it from falling out again. “Ok, done. Let’s do it.”
They all stood in front of the open door, aiming palms towards the fresh, bad smelling corpse that had been folded worse than a Kama sutra practitioner. Little diamonds on slim golden chains started gleaming, emitting a pale white light that illuminated the dark trailer, and ice started engulfing the dead minotaur in layers, one on top of the other, as the temperature of the cold winter air dropped even more. Thin layers of clear transparent frost were also starting to form on the hands and forearms of Rob, Mark and Perry, starting from their bracelets and expanding towards their palms and up their arms, towards their bodies.
“That will stop the decomposition process, it should have been done immediately but then it would be impossible to lift the corpse encrusted in ice.” Said Rob rubbing the back of his head saying out loud something they all already knew. The ‘fresher’ the tissues, the better they were for tests. But practice is for the real world and theory is for the books.
“Well its cold either way, so I don’t think it will matter much.” Perry said, closing and locking the door of the trailer, which was now resting a lot closer to the ground than it did a couple of minutes earlier.
“Do you think that…I could maybe slice the horns off? Put them in a wooden board against a wall somewhere?” Mark asked the other two.
“Nah, they will want the whole package, and he is already missing a ball sack.” Perry answered.
“Well, I don’t think it will matter too much and it is kind of once in a lifetime encounter, it would be like a trophy. We could always say that it had none to begin with, or that they broke off against a rock or something.” Mark responded in a conspiratorial manner.
“Number one, trophies are stupid. You can make a request if you want and be ridiculed to the whole Order. Number two… we just froze him, what is wrong with you?” Rob said moving to the driver’s door. Mark let out a mildly saddened scoff… “Yeah, yeah.” he mumbled under his breath.
They all got inside the truck. Rob was driving. Perry riding shotgun. And Mark, being the youngest part of their little family, rode in one of the two uncomfortable, small back folding seats.
They drove, being one of the few cars travelling at 2 am on a cold (for Greece’s standards) Sunday night, and Betsy did not have an air conditioning system. But they did have their leather dusters on and it was more than enough to keep the body temp high. The downside was that if a cop randomly stopped them on the road it would be nigh impossible to convince him that they were not a trio of drug dealers, and what he would find in the trailer if he decided to search, would be even more awkward than drugs to explain.
Rob was thrilled was Betsy’s outstanding performance and he did not, or could not stop talking about engines and cylinders and radiators and distributors until Mark got bored to sleep and then Rob talked some more. Rob’s excitement turned into worry and sour disappointment though, just as they were entering Athens. Betsy fought bravely through all these harsh miles (not many at all actually), but alas the engine started thumping and kicking, and the indicators on her dashboard started complaining all at once. Like a squad of angry babies when if one starts crying, the others compassionately jump in to help make its request known. One worries for a reason and everyone else panics for support. Fortunately though Betsy did not surrender without a fight and brought her task of returning her three unfashionable passengers safely home to an end. Well…almost.
The truck came to a stop and Rob got out of Betsy and opened her hood and a cloud of hot smoke greeted him eagerly, before it was carried away by the freezing breeze. The engine was red from overheating and gave out a hissing sound as the excess thermal energy diffused into the otherwise silent night, bringing up the temperature of the surrounding air by a meager centesimal. Rob crossed his arms at his barrel of a chest, gave out a heavy sigh and shook his head lightly in pride and sorrow. Well, the bright side of the unfortunate event was that he could start fixing her again right away. One should always try to look at the bright side of things whenever possible.
“I guess she technically made the trip?” Perry said, walking up to Rob’s side and staring at
the steaming engine, feeling sincerely sorry for winning that bet. It almost felt like cheating.
“You’ll get your money you greedy craw. Sheath your talons for now!” Rob said and Perry chuckled. After all, he was kind of guilty for taking advantage of him on the whole minotaur thing. Rob stepped slowly to the small backseat window and gave it a couple of rattling slaps from the outside. As a result, Mark, who was sleeping with his face leaning heavily against the window, jumped upright and lightly hit his head against Betsy’s low roof.
“Come help!” Rob asked of him, opening the door to let him out.
All three of them started pushing the fallen truck and the heavy cargo trailer for the last kilometer or so towards home. And fortunately for them, there were not many ups and downs on the road.
A while passed and they reached home, hearts pumping faster and muscles burning. It was a two story building with a huge basement that was used as a garage, equipment and provision storage space. There was also a medium sized carpeted corner that they used for sparring and training. The first floor housed the café that Rob and Perry were operating for a living, and the second floor was where they slept and did all other kinds of things that normal people generally do at their homes.
They settled Betsy to her usual spot, next to the empty parking space left by the destroyed Nissan pickup truck. They placed their equipment to its usual place, behind a sturdy wooden door disguised as a tool wrack. The room was filled with rifles and pistols and shotguns and swords and pikes and various other weapons, meticulously polished and placed neatly on wooden frames on the walls; Rob’s own handiwork. Though not all equipment went on the frames, most times they would carry their preferred weapons on them, or store them in their bedrooms. It was easier and more practical that way.
“Do you need me to do anything else?” Mark asked after he was done with tidying up his share of the equipment, and when Rob said that everything was under control, Mark started climbing up the stairs to the top floor, stopping only to hand his leather duster over to Perry, grab him by the shoulders, forcibly drag him closer and give him a peck on the chick, startling him. Rob laughed in mild amusement, his pain from Betsy’s injuries softening as he saw Mark going up the stairs, hanging his tongue with a disgusted expression painted on his face. Perry seemed confused and the butt of a joke he had not understood. His confusion passed though moments later, turning into disappointment and a bit of anger when he gently felt the duster with his fingers and found out that the tiny citrine gem armor that he had painstakingly crafted on the inside of the duster’s leather was pummeled to dust. He started shouting up the stairs about the money and time and energy it would take for him to repair it.
“How did this happen? Was it at least a heavy hit? Hey!?” But Mark was too tired to understand anything more specific than incoherent bubbling at the moment and far too tired to have any kind of conversation with another human being.
Mark climbed up to the dark coffee-shop floor, crossing its length and then climbing up another flight of stairs to their living quarters. It included three small bedrooms, a bath, a kitchen and a small living room, all of them decorated with plain furniture and appliances, if one disregarded the more than adequate gaming PC in the living room. Mark loved to use it whenever Rob would get his heavy ass off the comfy armchair in front of it.
Mark turned on the water heater and got into the bathroom. He tossed the muddy, heavy boots from his feet and got undressed. He sleepily brushed his teeth and took off his brown colored contact lenses, an important apparel for every Knight of the Order. Every child in the Order around the age of seven starts developing a set of pale violet irises. It generally marks the time when their powers start appearing and they have to be sent to Central HQ, in France, for sixteen years of hard training, physical, mental and educational. But most humans do not generally consider violet eyes all that common, they tend to stare and pay too much unwanted attention. And thus the need for regular color contact lenses; which were provided from the Order according to eye color statistics for the area each Knight was occupying or was allegedly originating from. Red or yellow would be cooler, but would be a bit more head turning than violet now, wouldn’t it? And it would kind of beat the point of wearing contact lenses in the first place.
Mark took a cold shower, and since the water heater was turned on for only about two minutes, he got out regretting his decision. The water would be hotter for the other two though. He put on his sleeping clothes, which were not pajamas but a set of comfortable regular clothes he generally wore around the house on slow days. He dried his long hair with the loud blow dryer he had. He went straight to bed, dragging the uncomfortably cool bedsheets and the cozy warm blanket over him, drowsing off to the sound of the other two slouching around the house, going through the mechanical motions of preparing for sleep.
3. THE BRAKAS’
It was late in the afternoon when the power went out in Mr. and Mrs. Brakas’s home, “John, you paid the bill this month didn’t you?” Mrs Brakas yelled from across the kitchen to her husband. She was preparing a lovely dinner, like every Sunday they ate together and watched a movie with their daughter, but now the chicken with orange and potatoes in the oven might not be cooked in time.
“Mommy? Why are the lights out?” asked little Kate who was, up to that point, coloring her coloring book at the kitchen table.
”Don’t you worry sweetheart. Come help mommy light some candles.” Mrs. Brakas said, taking her iPhone out of the shallow pocket of her apron to light the dim room. She knelt down to pinch Kates pudgy chicks and run a hand through her long black hair.
“Can I light them?” Kate shouted in a squeaky excited voice jumping up and down in excitement.
“No, but you can help me place them in the candle holders.” Mrs. Brakas said in a calming authoritative voice, grabbing Kates little arm and guiding her out of the kitchen to a big living room with the flashlight of her phone on.
“Ooh” little Kate said in a disappointed manner. The kid always did have an unhealthy fascination with fire, staring at the fireplace on cold winter days with a little too much attention to be healthy. But she followed her mother without further complains.
There was a flushing sound that grew louder when the bathroom door opened “Honey? The lights are out. And before you say anything I did pay the bill in time this month, I did not forget. Is it only our home?” and Mr. Brakas stumbled down the hall and into the living room to find his family, evidently without washing his hands since there was no sound of any faucets turning on anywhere in the house “is it a power outage?”
“I don’t know. Go outside and check please, I’ll go ahead and light some candles.” Mrs. Brakas said buried deep in a cupboard trying to find the candles.
“Ah, will do, honey. Right away.” John Brakas said, and he moved to the door while putting on his coat which was as always laid on a chair in Mrs. Brakas’ sparkling living room; despite her constantly placing it in their closet.
Ulrik, a huge blonde guy with blue eyes so pale they were almost white, stood in front of Mr. and Mrs. Brakas’ house. Waiting outside the door of their beautiful front yard. He was wearing an unbuttoned leather jacket lined with fur, and a tight, not quite fitting, slightly dirty overall uniform that spelled D.E.H. on the front, in white letters (standing for public electricity corporation in Greece) and holding a folder packed with papers. The man came out of the house and Ulric waved a greeting at him with a smile and pointed at the locked metal gate. John Brakas closed the house’s main door, to keep the cold out, and walked over to the D.E.H. employee.
“Good evening sir. I am sorry for the inconvenience, we are performing some construction work and it seems like the power will be out for a couple of hours in your neighborhood. We are really sorry.” Ulrik said, his smile so wide it was a miracle the corners of his lips were holding together.
“Construction work…at this hour? On a Sunday?” Mr. Brakas exclaimed, walking over to the gate, thinking of the chicken
he would not eat tonight and rubbing his hands together to warm them. He always did have cold extremities. Maybe they would order Chinese for dinner?
“Yes I know. Trust me I don’t like it either but I am afraid it was urgent. I was charged with checking the block’s landlines for any signs of damage”, Ulrik said taking out a Voltmeter from the satchel hanging across his right shoulder, “may I?” he said, pointing to the door with the Voltmeter, smiling all the while. Of course that sentence made no sense at all, but Mr. Brakas knew almost nothing beside about electricity and technology. A fact that Ulrik figured out for himself a previous day he was lurking around watching the house, when Mr. Brakas called his electrician to change a freaking light bulb.
“Can I see some identification?” Mr. Brakas asked.
“Of course.” Ulrik responded and handed over the fake ID card and some papers that proved the legitimacy of his claim.
“Nice, nice, I don’t see why not” Mr. Brakas said, smiling politely and unlocking the door before handing back the papers. They crossed the little yard and Ulrik complimented Mr. Brakas on the beauty of his garden. Mr. Brakas puffed up with pride, like he always did when the beauty of his garden was being exalted.
Mr. Brakas unlocked the front door of the house and stepped in, whipping his feet on the doormat. “It’s right over here, follow me please. Oh, and wipe your shoes. My wife will kill me otherwise.” he closed the door with a polite laugh hanging from his lips and turned his back to the ‘technician’ in order to guide him to the phone. “It’s…” The sentence was cut short as he felt a light sting on the side of his neck. The D.E.H. guy was sniffing his cologne? What the hell? He was going to kick the sick son of a bitch out of his house… In a little while though, at the moment he was feeling… kind of dizzy… His eyes started blurring and his gaze turned upwards, ‘when did we paint the ceiling?’ he thought, just before he started falling, hitting the floor like a sack of potatoes.