“Figures,” I groaned.
Once we were through the steel door and inside the Wards’ dorm, Kana slammed the door. We were safe from the decrepit but well-armed arms dealer.
A couple of other Wards looked up as we barged in. One of them was Ishmael. His lips curled up at the corners and separated, revealing a mouth full of gold and black teeth. “Slim!” he roared, finishing his snifter of booze before stomping over to us.
“Oh krit,” Kana groaned. “Just what we need.”
“What?” Faustus said. “A raving drunk who moonlights as a nudist? Come on. Let’s try to reach Court before he reaches us. If we’re lucky, Ish will trip and conk himself out.”
“Don’t make him trip, Faustus,” Kana said. “He’ll get us back. He always does.” They gripped my arms to drag me away again, oblivious to the pain they were inciting. The red door leading to Mina Harkers Court was ten feet away. Why were they taking me to court?
“Why are you taking me to court? We need to leave. Ash has probably already—”
“Come for that job I offered you, eh?” Ishmael said behind us. My chaperons stopped and turned. “I knew you couldn’t long refuse my special charm. Few can. So,” he chain-lit a black cig, deposited the spent butt in someone’s glass of water, “follow me and . . . hold the phone. Mina’s on vacation. Which means Waldo is in charge of Court, and seeing as no one has seen him in days, I can’t imagine you’re actually taking Slim here to Court. So—”
Please don’t say it, please don’t know it.
“—You’re taking him out of the City. Damn and blast that’s clever. Going to use Mina’s back door to get out, eh?”
“Don’t you have some ants to burn with a magnifying glass, or something?” Faustus asked.
In response, Ishmael scratched his stones and farted. Then, looking at me, the naked kook whispered, “Don’t let their size fool you, these two manfacs are as dangerous as they come, but that don’t mean you should trust them.”
Did he know what we were up to? “Then who should I trust?” I asked.
Ishmael took a long luxurious drag off his cig and then exhaled perfect smoke rings. “Trust no one, certainly not those in the employ of Arthur King, who loyalty can be purchased for a stipend.” He blew a cloud of smoke into the gingersnaps face. “Welp, buenes suerte my skinny friend. I’m off to bust some Cherries and pop some heads—or possibly to pop some cherries and bust some heads. I don’t know which. We’ll see.”
Kana and Faustus ferried me through the empty Court and through a series of smaller rooms eventually leading to the back door I didn’t want to see.
“We should help him,” Kana told Faustus. “If he’s right, Ash will reopen Mythcorp and then—”
“And then what?” Faustus stroked his ginger stubble with his switchblade. “Maybe it won’t be so bad. For all we know this Ash-hole isn’t the boogeyman Morgan thinks. He might even be what America needs right now. Under the right guidance Mythcorp could be the ace in the hole giving us the edge over those deadheads running the world. What if Ash creates a Weapon X program or restarts Alexander’s old Augmented Soldier Platform.” He was smiling now and I got the feeling he would never stop if we didn’t interrupt him. “It’ll be just like X-Men Days of Future Past, when all the—”
“Okay, we get your stupid point.” Kana said, pressing a finger to his lips. “Maybe Mythcorp should be reopened, but for now, how about we just help unite Morgan with his father.”
The gingersnaps hands went to his hips as he laughed at Kana. “Oh-Em-Gee. You still have feelings for that jerk, don’t you? Man, I knew you had some problems with your M2N chip, but to get all weak in the knees over Knox after what he did to us, and after fifteen years? Oh boy.”
“Better than pining after Emma Frost,” Kana stood on her tiptoes to get in his face. “At least Knox is real. Come on,” to me, “I’ll help you. Let’s leave this scrumbug to his movies.”
“Hold up, hold up. I didn’t say I wouldn’t help,” Faustus said.
“Didn’t you?” I asked, playing Kana’s game.
“No,” Faustus crossed his arms. “And you won’t get within a quarter mile of that building, not without me, I promise you that. So here’s what I want in exchange for my all-important-and-absolutely-necessary help: you go to the Diablo’s and have them forge an Arnold Schwarzenegger Icon, physical age of 30 so he can star in more Terminator movies. They just aren’t the same without him, especially not that goofy T7 with Shia. Deal?”
I looked back at Kana. “Is he serious?”
She nodded. “Probably.”
“Fine,” I agreed.
Faustus pressed his blade to his right palm, looked at me. “Oh, and you’ll also have to forge a James Cameron Icon, you know, to direct the movies. Obviously.” And then he sliced his palm slightly before handing me the blade.
“What are you doing? Are you crazy? Is he crazy?”
Faustus made a fist with his bloodied hand and lowered the knife in his other. “You have to make the unbreakable vow, otherwise it’s just words. Like in The Half-Blood Prince. A vow is useless with sacrificing something.”
“How do you know that?” Kana asked while scratching beneath her left boob.
“Crowley once told me.” He shoved the switchblade into my palm and nodded.
What was I getting myself into? I groaned and, after wiping the knife clean on my pants, cut my palm. We shook. It was disgusting.
I handed the knife back to Faustus while Kana closed my wound with a bottle of 3M Liquid Stitches. “Okay, we’ve made our stupid blood vow, I’ve promised to satisfy your kooky movie fantasies. So now can we please go now?”
For all I knew Ash was already at Mythcorp. If he was, then our extraction of my father might prove somewhat awkward. But at least it would give me an excuse not to forge a clone of Arnold Schwarzenegger. I’d have to somehow retrieve Arnold’s DNA, come up with thousands of dollars, and then approach the Diablo’s gang to have them engineer us up an actor.
Life was so much simpler back at the Home.
Chapter 29
Sanson
I could almost feel the nanites in my system going cold as the cops approached. We all stopped mid-stride and stared. Mr. Montaigne stood behind Ash, sporting a vacant look.
“Good afternoon, officers,” Ash nodded. “How can we help you?”
The taller officer inspected a pic on his FAD and then glanced at me. Without looking back at Ash, he said, “Charles Sanson? Come with us, young man.”
I looked to our tiny leader for help. Ash darted forward, drawing the attention of the officers away from me. Without hesitating he spoke: “Your arrival here is fortunate. Somehow, in all my planning, I hadn’t even considered the matter of transportation. You two officers will kindly escort us to the Mayor’s office and I thank you in advance.”
“Excuse me?” the shorter, slightly pudgy officer said. “We’re taking this young man with us down to the station. We have a few questions for him concerning a Manuel Kant.”
“Oh, that,” Ash never averted his eyes from the shorter officer. “He was doing me a solid.” He stepped even closer to the shorter officer and put out his hands as if to accept cuffs. “I take full responsibility. Arrest me.”
Officer Shorty hesitated. The cuffs slowly came out. As he made to cuff Ash, still moving like syrup in December, the officer could not take his eyes off the littlest Morai. Ash grabbed Shorty’s wrist and drew him close. All the while the taller officer stood like a statue as the other Morai glared at him.
Ash whispered to Shorty. “Please, put those away and take us to your patrol car. After that, you will do everything I say and you will do it without question, because you want to.”
The cuffs went back into their leather pouch and the officers kindly escorted us to their patrol car. Ash ‘asked’ Mr. Montaigne to take Lexi in his car and drive over to the Mayor’s office. And then it was me and the little guy and Lamorak and Agravaine stuffing ourselves into the ba
ck seat of the police car. As the taller cop—Officer Lent—pulled away from the curb, I checked the ambient air temp on my chrono: 76 degrees in the back seat.
That should keep my temp up.
Philicity looks different from the perspective of criminals (as I was coming to view myself and my pale companions). Buildings are a little taller, the sky is a few shades darker, and there is this intense silence; it’s like looking through dead eyes out at a world you are no longer a part of but rather apart from.
My fellow criminals didn’t appear to share my views though. They were joking around and laughing.
“I’m going to be the Vice President,” Agravaine was saying. “The VP needs to be someone who can speak to the press and be intimidating. And let’s face it, you just can’t do either,” jabbing Lamorak with an elbow.
I couldn’t tell if he was being sarcastic or just clowning around, his features are too pliable to be distinctive. Lamorak however took it as a joking challenge. “Oh you’re right, Aggy, except I don’t believe fatness is intimidating. Maybe we should make the sorcerer forge an Agravaine Icon. He’ll weigh the same, but instead of being a fatty-patty like you, he’ll be muscular and actually intimidating.”
“All right guys, let’s focus here. Nothing’s in stone yet,” Ash said with a smile.
They started whispering. Perhaps feeling a bit like a third wheel, I turned my attention to the officers on the other side of the wire mesh. The shorter and older of the two—Officer Graham—raised his hands and glared at them. They were shaking.
At last we pulled into the parking garage in Virgil’s Nave, where hundreds of cars were parked, just waiting for their masters to finish with their boring cubicle jobs. For a few seconds everyone was quiet. Ash broke the silence with a question posed to the officers: “Are you wearing bullet-proof vests?”
“We didn’t think we’d need them for picking up a juvenile from his school,” Officer Graham sneered. “We were just going to scare him straight anyway. No more fighting, you know.”
“Do you have riot gear in the trunk?” Ash asked. His boys sat beside him, quiet and serious.
The officers turned around to look at us. “Will we be needing riot gear?” Officer Graham was careful to keep his hands down. I figured he must be trying to hide them from Ash.
“I suggest you open our doors and then strap on your riot gear,” Ash said softly.
The officers got out, opened our doors, and then popped the trunk. While they strapped on vests and helmets and shin and thigh guards, I pulled Ash off to the side.
“Are we expecting trouble?”
“Oh, you never know,” showing his pearly whites. “It’s always best to be prepared.”
I grunted. “Could you for once drop the Fortune Cookie spiel and just tell me what the hell is going on? Are we going to be shot at?”
He hesitated, watching the officers. “No. We’ll be fine. Those two, on the other hand . . .”
He sauntered up to the officers, fingers entwined as always. “You two will be kind enough to wait here while we go up and speak with the mayor.”
“There’s Mister Montaigne,” Agravaine yelled from over by the exit. “He’s waiting in the park for us. Man, he must’ve floored it to get here before us.”
“Excellent,” Ash declared. He turned to follow Agravaine, but a hand grabbed him by the shoulder and jerked him around. His smile vanished. “Impossible.”
I’d never heard such defeat in Ash’s voice. Officer Graham smirked and tapped the pair of chem-shades resting on his face. Ash snapped his head around and screamed at me.
“Charlie! Take his chem-shades. Take them now!”
I froze. Not literally, but still, I wasn’t much use to Ash. Meanwhile Officer Graham slapped Ash right across his powdery left cheek, a nasty backhanded slap. The Morai fell across the now closed trunk, holding his reddening cheek. That’s when I remembered what Ash had said: ‘We Morai are very fragile.’
This Officer Graham was old; he likely knew just how fragile the Morai were. Perhaps he’d even helped recycle the original Morai back during the Purge.
I dashed forward to rip the chem-shades from his face. Lamorak also sprang into action. He ran right past Officer Lent, who was standing placidly at the front of the car, dressed in riot gear and staring off into space.
SHINK
Beside me Lamorak dropped.
I skidded to a halt and slouched down to check on him. He was unconscious. The tiny silver dart in his neck told the tale. I yanked it out and felt a strange feeling overcome me; I think it was vengeance.
A peak over the car revealed Officer Graham cuffing Ash. I shrank, cowering beside Lamorak. What could I do? What did I have in the form of a weapon? Oh yeah, that’s right. I tore my pack off my back and ripped the hypo-gun out of the case. Loaded it. Hardly the weapon of choice when going up against an experienced and obviously resilient cop, but beggars and all that.
I jumped up and ran straight at Officer Graham, hypo-gun concealed behind my back.
He snapped the second cuff into place and kicked Ash to the asphalt. He was drawing his dart gun when I body-checked him. There was a gush of air and a sort of ‘hoomph’ grunt as my shoulder sunk into his generous gut. In spite of his age, the old fart recovered quickly, grabbing my shoulders and dropkicking me. Now it was my turn to gasp in shock.
On the floor of the garage I noticed Officer Grahams’ bushy gray eyebrows for the first time and felt that all-consuming lust for vengeance resurge. Above me the sound of a safety being clicked off roused me. Charles Henri Sanson was not going to go out that way. I twisted my arm around, grabbed my hypo-gun and pressed it against his calf.
Just before Officer Graham could pull his trigger, I pulled mine.
“Oh sheeit!” he yelped as his leg gave out from under him.
I scrambled on the asphalt over to the writhing crybaby. (Maybe he wasn’t a crybaby, maybe being injected with nanites hurts like a mother and I just never knew it.) We wrestled for possession of his weapon; eventually I, through sheer dumb luck, managed to rip it from his grasp.
I pressed the nozzle to his throat. “Stop moving.”
He stopped moving.
Slowly I reached up and slowly I removed the chem-shades from his face. I was shocked to see that he was crying. Maybe it was the effort required to overcome Ash’s Mesmer, maybe it was the nanites wriggling through his system, or maybe the tears were dribbling out because this cop knew what was coming.
“Stop him,” Officer Graham whimpered. “Shoot him now. This is how it began last time.”
Ash appeared behind me, his innocent face inches from my own. “Thank you,” he said to me. Turning his eyes onto Officer Graham, Ash went into his Mesmer. There’s a faint whiff of strawberries in the air when the Morai do their thing. He stepped forward and reached out with his hands—still cuffed—and pressed them against Officer Graham’s cheeks.
“I forgive you your smidge bout of rebellion. And now, you are going to stay here and wait for our return.” Ash looked back at me, held up his cuffed wrists. “Would you mind removing these?”
I fished around in the numerous pouches on the officers’ belt until I found the keys. After removing the cuffs, Ash told me to snap them around Officer Grahams’ wrists. Officer Graham struggled but Ash bore into his eyes with his own whites and the fight just bled right out of the cop. I cuffed him with his own cuffs, my hands shaking a bit in the process.
Ash inspected the chem-shades. “Why did you even have these in your car?”
“Every squad car in Philicity has two pairs, just . . . in case.”
Ash sighed. “Just in case you stumble on a Morai and need to take him in for recycling? Is that it?” His voice was rising, and for once I thought he might lose it. “Well? Tell me, Officer Graham, what were you planning to do with us once you tranquilized us all? Tell me.”
I pulled him off of the helpless cop. “Easy man. He can’t do anything now. Let’s just go.”
Ash stood and calmed instantly. “You’re right. Thank you. But you need to stay here with Lamorak and the officers. Agravaine and I’ll be back slam-bang quick, I promise.”
With that the little tyke took off for the Mayor’s office.
I dragged Lamorak’s surprisingly light body over to the car and propped it up against the back door. My thermal started wailing as I sat beside him, watching the Officers slide into the front seats in mute obedience.
After injecting myself with a vial of nanites I fingered the chem-shades. They were completely opaque but with a severe dark blue tint. I tried them on. Under their guise the world took on a . . . actually everything looked the same. I’d half expected the world to look like it had been submerged.
I took them off and slid them over Lamorak’s nose.
“What am I doing here?” I asked no one. My sudden fit of laughter spooked even me. “Oh yeah, that’s right. My stupid quest to get my curse lifted.”
It seemed almost impossible that I was a few hours away from getting my biggest wish fulfilled. It seemed equally impossible that I had done the things I’d done. The Ash-zombies sitting in the car had come to arrest me for beating the beejeebers out of a fellow student. I was the bad guy here and Ash’s victims the good guys.
“When did I become the bad guy?”
“The only bad guys are the ones who attack innocents like our parents and Gareth,” Lamorak said. He’d woken up sometime during my soliloquy and had rudely failed to inform me of this.
“Jeez,” I gasped. “How long have you been awake?”
“Long enough to learn that you still have a conscience. Which is good. Ash couldn’t have picked a better normal to help us.” He smiled and turned his head towards me. “But then you’re not exactly normal, are you? And what are these doing on my face?”
“Oh, sorry.” I removed the chem-shades and stuffed them in my bag. Who knew when they might come in handy?
Ash returned twenty minutes later with Agravaine and the Montaigne’s in tow.
He helped Lamorak to his feet. “Did you get it? Did it work?” Lamorak asked, rubbing his shoulder, which he’d landed on after being shot with Officer Graham’s dart.
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