by Gary Jonas
I glanced at my wrist. The damn bracelet from Club Eternity was a bit too shiny, and looked to be made from actual silver.
My options were limited. Six men against one. In the narrow area, they couldn't come at me all at once, but it also limited my movements. If this was going to get violent, I wanted some space, so I moved toward the four men who waited in the alley.
“We don't have to do this,” I said. “I don't want to hurt you.”
They positioned themselves to prevent me from running away. One of the men spoke, but I didn't understand a word of what he said.
I glanced briefly at the men closing in behind me.
I didn't have any weapons.
So far, they hadn't displayed any, either.
If they wanted to go hand-to-hand, I was cool with that. But to deal with six men, I'd need to move quickly and unexpectedly. I made placating gestures and kept my hands up where they could see them. I tried to look nervous, while I scanned the area for anything that might prove useful. There were two small rusted cars parked alongside a curb. Traffic moved by on the street to my left at a steady clip. I didn't want to go that way.
Six men.
I needed to cut that down a bit.
“Sorry, guys,” I said, knowing they wouldn't understand. “I'm a stranger in a strange land here,” I continued, because I suspected I could catch them off guard if I attacked them while I was speaking.
When bad guys approach, they all have a sort of interview process to see if you fit the role of victim. If you're an easy mark, and you lack situational awareness, you're going to always fail that interview. And if you're one guy against six, you're not likely to pass the interview unless you pull a weapon. They'll normally distract you a bit and then move into a shock and awe mode.
I went there first.
“We can all get along here, right?” I said and threw myself backward. I slammed into one of the men behind me and smacked my head into his face, breaking his nose. His buddy tried to grab me, but I launched a snap side kick to his kneecap. He went down in agony, clutching his shattered knee.
Four healthy men, two injured, one definitely out of the fight.
The final four tried to close on me, but I ran toward the parked cars. When I reached them, I shoved my hand into my pocket and pulled out a handful of coins. I spun around and threw the coins into the face of the closest guy.
Cheap distraction. He tried to cover his face, but that left him open. I punched him hard in the gut then grabbed a fistful of his hair and yanked his head down as I raised my knee. The solid impact felt good. He dropped like a sack of potatoes, and I moved to the side of the first car.
Three men remained.
Two of them were more hesitant because I'd taken out half of them in a few short seconds. That wasn't part of the bargain. Victims are supposed to be easy.
But one of the men, a wiry guy with a pockmarked face and shark eyes didn't slow down. He came straight at me and caught me with a haymaker before I could disengage with his buddy. He tagged me again, splitting my lip and I crashed against the car.
I did a shoulder roll over the hood of the car to get away from him, and he pulled a cartwheel flip over the roof of the vehicle to land behind me. He belted me so hard in the eye that I knew it would leave a mark. I finally managed to block one of his punches only for him to catch me in the same eye again with his other hand.
I tried to sweep his feet, but he stepped over and grabbed for my wrist as the other two men approached. This needed to end quickly or I'd find myself in a hospital or dead. There was only so much damage I could take before I could no longer effectively fight back. This was especially true against multiple attackers.
I let the wiry guy get a grip for a moment, then did a quick move inside to get closer rather than trying to get away. I elbowed him in the face moving through him, then smacked him in the ear as I brought my elbow back. He fell to the side and hit the pavement.
“One concussion to go, please,” I said, as I turned on the last two men.
They took off running.
I brushed myself off. When I touched my lip, my fingers came away bloody, and I could feel my eye already swelling.
“Thanks for the workout, guys,” I said and continued on my way.
CHAPTER TEN
Victor was nowhere to be seen when I returned to the market with a black umbrella. Farrukh told me he'd seen Victor move into the restroom, so I went there. I pushed the door open. It was a small room with a urinal and one stall. The stall was empty and stood in shadow because a bulb hanging from the ceiling in a broken fixture gave off the only light. The wire looked old and brittle, and the light was dim.
The urinal had tape across it with a sign I couldn't read, but probably read Out of Order because what else could it have said? Don't Pee Here?
So I tucked the umbrella under my arm, went into the stall, lifted the lid with my foot because someone had smeared crap on the seat. I took a piss then went to the sink, washed my hands, and checked myself in the mirror. My right eye looked red and puffy, and my lip didn't look much better. I cleaned myself up as best I could and stepped out of the restroom. I moved down the hall to return to the market, but the restroom door opened behind me so I spun around.
Victor exited the men's room.
“Where did you come from?” I asked. I'd just been in there and the room was empty.
“What happened to you?” he asked.
“I asked you first,” I said.
“But you look like you just stepped out of the ring with Rocky Balboa.”
“It's nothing,” I said. “Crime of opportunity didn't work out the way some guys thought it might. Here's your umbrella.”
He accepted it and thanked me. “How many men attacked you?”
“Six. Well, two ran away, but that's not important. Now where were you? I was just in the restroom and it was empty.”
“A more important question is this. If you were beat up by a few regular humans, how are you going to face off with the Men of Anubis?”
“I took a few shots, but my ass wasn't kicked,” I said, knowing I owed that to the fact that two of the men were afraid to jump in because I'd taken down several of their buddies so quickly. If they'd attacked while wiry guy was hitting me, I'd be telling a different story right now, if I were telling it at all.
“This does not fill me with confidence.” He walked past me without answering my question.
I went back to the restroom, pushed the door open and didn't see anywhere he could have come from. It was the same small, shadowy bathroom I'd just used. Weird.
***
When we met up with Kelly and the others that afternoon, the first thing out of Victor's mouth was, “Do you vouch for Shade's ability when we go into battle?”
“What kind of question is that?” I asked.
“A pertinent one,” Victor said, looking down his nose at me.
We were in my hotel room at the Vefa Center, and the son of a bitch had been perfectly cordial while we chatted about this and that, but as soon as Kelly got there, he pulled a one-eighty on me.
Kelly frowned when she saw me. “Did you get your ass kicked again?”
“There were six guys,” I said. No way in hell was I going to tell Kelly that two of them turned tail and ran.
She shook her head and sighed. There might have been an eye-roll in there, too, but she turned away from me to talk to Victor so I can't be sure. Mostly sure, but I can at least hope she didn't go that far. Right?
“Regular humans,” Victor said. “If I'm sticking my neck out for a battle with beings who can go back and change time, I want to know he can hold his own. Otherwise, it might be smarter for me to simply kill him and avoid any unpleasantness with the Men of Anubis.”
“Hey, who bought you an umbrella, asshole?” I asked.
“If I'd known you'd get hurt shopping, I would not have accepted your offer.”
“Fuck you.”
“Boys,” Brenda said.
“That's enough.” She looked at me. “You're going to have quite the shiner in the morning.”
“Six guys,” I said.
Esther moved over to stand by me. “It's all berries, Jonathan, I still love you. They were big guys, right?”
“You too?”
“You're still tired from the flight,” she said. “That must be it.”
“He's been lounging on beaches for a few weeks when he should have been training,” Kelly said.
“Should I kill him and forget this crazy plan?” Victor asked.
“Tempting,” Kelly said, “but I'd get bored. If we have to climb a mountain to find Indra, I'll have some time to get him whipped back into shape.”
“Provided a few little girls don't seize on a crime of opportunity to roll him in the street for a few coins.”
“You're not funny,” I said.
Victor darted over to me so fast I didn't have time to react. He grabbed me by the throat, jerked me from my chair and slammed me against the back window. The glass shattered and he pushed me outside. I grabbed the curtains, and the rods popped off the wall. Next thing I knew, I was hanging ten stories above the ground. I clutched Victor's arm. His grip was tight, but fortunately wasn't blocking my carotid artery. It hurt, but I wasn't going to pass out.
“Bring him back inside,” Brenda said, pulling off her white gloves.
Kelly reached for him, but he turned to face them. “Lay a finger on me and I'll drop him,” he said. Kelly backed up a step. He turned his attention to Brenda. “And if you touch me, I might be a stone, but he'll be dead because I can release him faster than your magic can entomb me.”
“This is very simple,” Kelly said. “If you kill him, I kill you.”
“You don't get it,” he said. “He thinks that being immune to direct magical attacks is enough to save him from the Men of Anubis. They can rewrite time! They can wipe all of us out!”
As he spoke, Esther popped into the air beside me. “Don't let him give you the bum's rush, baby! Get in there and give him what he's got coming! Sock him in the jaw! Knock out his fangs!”
It was a straight drop to the concrete below. The building was smooth glass without any balconies. Nothing to grab. But I couldn't just hang there. The surprise and the pain made me sluggish, and I thought Kelly might grab him and pull him back, bringing me in with him, but this was my dance, and if I didn't take the lead, I wouldn't be following, I'd be falling.
All of this happened pretty much at the same time, but time has a way of slowing down when the shit hits the fan. I kicked my legs up, and brought them down on Victor's forearm. That bent his arm enough for me to adjust and get a better grip on his hand. I dug my fingers into his flesh as I twisted my body around to throw him off balance.
He staggered to his right, hit the edge of the window, and I pulled my neck free of his grasp. It hurt, but I'd have to deal with that later. He tried to right himself and that brought me close enough to grab the window.
Unfortunately, my left hand went down on broken glass and Victor didn't have hold of me, so I started to fall, hanging on as the glass cut through my flesh. I couldn't hold on.
Brenda shoved Victor aside as Kelly raced forward and as my hand slipped off the glass, Kelly grabbed my wrist.
“I've got you,” she said.
“Who's got you?” I said.
“Very funny,” she said and pulled me inside. “Brenda, check his hand. It looks bad.”
“I'm on it.”
Kelly grabbed Victor. “Let's see how you like it,” she said, and tossed him out the window.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
A visit to the Medical Clinic left me owing Kelly even more money as we had to pay up front to get service. The doctor spoke enough English to handle the basic conversation, though I really only had to hold out my deeply gashed hand to show him what was wrong.
With my left hand stitched up and bandaged, I rode with Kelly and Esther back to the hotel. My neck was scratched, but not badly enough to need stitches or bandages. Oddly enough, my neck hurt more than my hand. The sun had set and while I didn't make it to the meeting with Farrukh, Brenda did.
“Any sign of Victor?” I asked as we rode along.
“Don't even talk about that flat tire,” Esther said.
“He wasn't on the ground,” Kelly said. “So we should assume he's still alive, but if he puts in another appearance, I'll kill him.”
“Be that as it may, you're thinking he's right about me.”
“Wrong. I think you underestimate normal people, but when the shit goes down with wizards, creatures, zombies, and what-not, you handle yourself just fine. And you survived your confrontation with the Men of Anubis, so I know you won't underestimate them. I just don't think we should be seeking them out.”
“They're onto us.”
“Which means we steer clear of Victor and lay low.”
“I thought you'd relish the fight.”
“If it was a fight I thought we could win.”
“You didn't argue about it on the way to Tajikistan.”
“Victor talks a good game, but he turned on you the first chance he got. If we're going to face off against the Men of Anubis, we're going to need a team of powerful players.”
“So what do you want to do?”
“Kill Victor for starters.”
“I'm down with that.”
“Then because we're here, we should see about getting that weapon, but only if it doesn't cost us any lives. If it's too dangerous, I'd rather lay low and let the Men of Anubis move on to whatever grand plan they have. It's not likely to pay off during our lifetimes. They're playing a long game, so as long as we don't mess with them, they won't mess with us.”
I examined my bandaged hand. “Getting the Vajra weapon will take weeks. We need to get acclimated to the elevation, then climb a big ass mountain. I don't know about you, but I've never gone mountain climbing.”
“Neither have I, but I know I can do it. I'll admit I'm more concerned about you now that your hand is damaged.”
“I think we should all scram,” Esther said.
“Brenda thinks this is a fool's mission too,” Kelly said. “We bought all the gear, but she's afraid we'll be killed.”
“They could easily erase her, so I understand her worry.”
“They could easily erase us,” Kelly said.
“It's not worth the risk to them to find us and kill us in the short time we were together in the twenties. Before the void.”
Kelly shook her head. “It would be easy. They could just appear and follow you back to me before I left to wander the world and before we reunited to go back to our own time.”
“Well, we're still here now,” I said.
And at that moment, Kelly disappeared.
One second, she was sitting beside me in the back of the cab, and the next she was just gone. Erased from time.
“What the--?”
“Kelly!” Esther yelled.
I looked around, expecting to wink out of existence myself. And sure enough, ten seconds later, I popped out.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Not a whole hell of a lot of suspense when I'm the one telling the story, is there? I mean, the fact that I'm writing it all down tells you up front that I survived the whole mess. It's not like I'm dead or anything, so yeah, we didn't actually pop out of existence. The Men of Anubis didn't go back to the twenties and squash us before we met up with Sharon and Chronos. But we did get snatched out of the backseat of the cab in Dushanbe, Tajikistan.
It's just that we reappeared in Club Eternity. I'd say we were back in Tulsa, Oklahoma, but I wasn't sure where the initial entry door stood in our world at that particular point in time.
So I fell into a leather chair in the corner of the bar. Kelly sat doubled over in a chair next to me, and Damon Nomad sat with his hands tied behind him on a tall barstool. He no longer had a mouth, just solid flesh from nose to chin. A table stood in front of the chairs, and glasses filled with ambe
r liquid rested on napkins on the top. An ashtray with a burning cigarette was on the far side of the table, and through the haze of the smoke, a large, bearded man in white robes glared at me.
I wanted to make a wiseass remark, but my stomach turned flips and I fought to keep from vomiting all over myself. I leaned forward and managed to keep everything down.
Kelly sat up a few seconds before I did.
“Thank you for not making a mess on the table,” the bearded man said. His voice was thunderous, deep, and confident. “It may be the only mess you haven't made.”
“Who are you?” I asked.
“I'm known by many names, but you may call me Zeus.”
“I'm--”
“I know who you are,” he said.
“I wasn't going to introduce myself,” I said.
“You're not going to say a damn thing. Taste the Soma before you, Shade and Chan. It will settle your stomachs so you can pay attention to what I have to say.”
We did as he said. The Soma went down smooth and easy, and within a few seconds, coated my stomach lining and settled my nausea.
“Thanks,” I said.
“Don't thank me, you ignorant little pissant.”
Zeus drummed his fingers on the tabletop and as his fingers hit the wood, lightning sparked and left little burn marks in the finish.
“Sorry,” I said.
“I came into the club tonight to show off a lovely Swiss girl I met at a spring bath in Leukerbad, and this jackass mentioned he'd given you some information about Indra and the Vajra weapon.”
Damon's eyes were wide and sweat beaded at his temples.
I shrugged. “If it helps, I forced the information out of him.”
“It doesn't help, and I didn't give you permission to speak.”
“I didn't ask for permission.”
Zeus rose from his chair. He was a lot bigger than I thought. “I can rip you limb from limb, human. Or I can blast you to pieces with my lightning bolt.”
My heart pounded, but I forced myself to not back down. “That wasn't on your itinerary,” I said, trying to sound braver than I was. “Otherwise, you'd have already destroyed me.”