by B. L. Morgan
Jeanette told me she'd been dropping by and paying my phone bill for me by using the spare key Johnny had in his cash register. The bill wasn't much. No one was making any calls.
"It is the least I could do," she said. "Since I knew you were going to bring my grandson home."
In the limo I asked Sherry if she knew for certain that her apartment would still be waiting for her. My arrangement with my landlord is that when he needs someone evicted, I do it for him and when I'm gone he lets the rent slide till I get back. This five months absence is a lot of sliding but I know he'll stick to it because he knows I'll break his neck if he doesn't.
"I don't have any problems with everything being in order for me," Sherry said. "My bank pays my bills for me and, I don't let it be widely known, but I own the lion's share of Patty's Kitten House. The other managers would run it as usual without me being around. There may have been a little dipping in the till, but nothing a good talking to won't cure."
We rode on to Sherry's place.
* * *
There was a new muscle-head guarding the front door to the Blaine Building when we arrived. We passed by him and pressed the button for the elevator. Something caught my eye about the guy.
I can't say what. There was just something about him that I didn't like. I walked back to him and jerked the 9 mm out of my holster.
He put his hands up.
"Your ID, out now!" I told him.
Sherry walked back to us as the guy slowly took out his wallet.
"Give them to her," I told the burly door man.
He did that.
Sherry looked at his driver's license and other IDs.
"Carl Jensen," she said, "From Belleville, Illinois. He even has a Belleville Area College ID and a Belleville library card."
She handed them back. I put my gun away.
"Sorry," Sherry said. "I'll explain later."
The elevator came. We entered and rode to Sherry's floor.
We stood outside Sherry's door and she unlocked her apartment. She opened her door and looked up into my eyes.
"Thanks," she said and I figured my moment had come, so I reached down, took her face in my hands, and bent to kiss her lips.
Sherry jerked and pulled away from me.
"I suppose I'll see you at work," Sherry stammered. "But of course if you need some days off, just let me know and I'll make arrangements." I could tell she was embarrassed by me coming on to her.
"Do you think I came after you because it was part of my job?" I asked her.
Her mouth dropped open. She clearly didn't know what to say.
To tell you the truth, neither did I.
"Well, fuck this," I told her. I turned to walk away and punched the button for the elevator. "I'll have to check my job description and see if it includes gladiator fights, killing mother fuckers and time travel."
I got on the elevator and rode down. Maybe I was being too hard on the woman. She'd been through a lot. And maybe I just didn't give a shit either.
CHAPTER 54
Going Home
The limo was waiting for me when I stepped back outside the Blaine Building. The driver got out and opened my door for me.
"What the fuck are you still here for?" I asked.
"When Miss St. Clair called, she said after I brought her here I was to wait, then take you anywhere you wanted to go," he answered.
Ain't that a bitch, I thought, Sherry never had any intention of doing the dance of the long dong tonight. Shit!
"Take me to mother fuckin' Mexico," I told the driver. "I want to suck down some cerveza's while a senorita is sucking down on me."
The driver smiled. "I've got a hundred mile radius," he said. "That's as far as I can take you. Sorry."
"Well, fuck it then. Take me home," I told him. "Go to the place where you picked us up. I live about a block from there."
* * *
I got out at Johnny's Bar and Grill and walked across the street. The freezing rain was pelting me in the face with bits of stinging gravel-like ice. The smell of the city of East St. Louis hit me like a bag of cement.
The smell of an American ghetto, discarded food left to rot, newspapers molding and the vague stench of street people's piss and shit and vomit. It was not a great smell, but it wasn't as eye-wateringly bad as the cities of Micea and Rome had been. At least we treated our sewage.
But this bad smell I could put up with because this was my city. East St. Louis is my home. It may not be paradise but it's pretty much where I belong.
I crossed the soggy slick street and watched the headlights of cars a block away create laser beams of white light off the wet pavement.
Four guys came around the building at the corner. They were slapping each other on the back and laughing at a joke or something else.
My hand went to my holster. I grabbed the pistol grip then thought, "What the fuck am I worried about. These are just some fucking idiots out getting a buzz, trying to get laid."
I dropped my hand to my side and stepped up the stairs that lead into my apartment building. I turned my back on the four guys as they passed behind me. The only person I should be worried about, I thought, is over a thousand years away from this time and place.
That was when two of them grabbed me by the arms and a third clamped his arm around my neck. The fourth shoved a rag wet soaked with a foul smelling chemical in my face.
I fought like hell but couldn't get loose.
Black spots danced in front of my eyes.
The last thought that went through my head was the old saying, "Just because you're paranoid, doesn't mean no one's out to get you."
I should have listened.
CHAPTER 55
Nostalgia
I came to as a fireball hurtling through the space between worlds. It's not my preferred way to wake up.
Two guys had me by my arms and another had me from behind by the hair of the head. I assumed the two guys were the same two that grabbed me outside my apartment building, but through the flames that enveloped all of us I couldn't tell who was who.
Someone was flying ahead of us toward our destination wherever the hell that was.
One thing was different about the way I was flying through space with these guys as opposed to the way me and Johnny and Sherry had been tumbling between the worlds. We weren't tumbling this time. We were just gliding along. Evidently these boys had this space jumping shit down pat.
We moved through space like we were on an escalator. Intergalactic tourists is what we were, just checking out the stars, gliding along smoothly.
The guy in front of us came to the black doorway and calmly stepped off into it and vanished. When we got there the two guys carrying me and the guy who had me by the hair did the same.
My ears popped as we left space and entered a huge torch lit chamber that was strewn with the bodies of sacrificial victims whose hearts had been ripped out.
The first thing I checked out about myself was what I was wearing. If I was anywhere but the twentieth century I would expect to be wearing the clothes of that time.
I still had on my same old East. St. Louis duds, so I figured we must still be in the same century.
The second thing I checked out was the four men who were waiting for us and were pointing what looked like M-16 rifles at me.
"Have any trouble?" A fifth man asked and he looked vaguely familiar but I couldn't immediately place where I'd seen him before. He looked to be in charge of this little gathering.
"No problem at all," the guy who'd come through in front of us answered. "They said this guy was a bad ass. Most women we snatch give us more trouble than he did."
I took a look around me and this ceremonial chamber was like a memory out of my past, but I just couldn't place it. The same way I couldn't place the face of the guy who seemed to be in charge.
The man in charge spoke to me then. "We're going to walk you up some stairs," he said. "You'll be covered the entire way. If you run, we'll kill you
. If you don't, at least you'll have a fighting chance." He said to the guys on my sides and the one holding me by my hair, "Let him go."
They did. I was glad to have that damn hand out of my hair.
Behind me was the stone oval we came through. This one looked like it had been pieced back together and patched with cement. The statue behind it was missing one of its six arms and one of its horns.
They marched me to a large steel door.
When it opened, and I gazed up a long flight of stone stairs that led upward into darkness, I realized where I was. I was back in Viet Nam and the man who was in charge was none other than Colonial Ray Sharp.
It had been a long time since I'd been here and I'm not too keen on nostalgia. If there was a part of my Special Forces life I'd like to relive this wouldn't be it. Maybe fucking that Vietnamese nurse again would be all right. But they could keep this little adventure in the past.
* * *
They marched me up that long flight of stone stairs and when they pushed the trap door open we came out into bright sunlight. Back in East St. Louis a freezing rain was coming down. It was cold as hell there.
Here it was the exact opposite. It was hot, steaming hot, probably somewhere around ninety-five or a hundred degrees. Maybe it wasn't that hot but it sure as hell felt like it was. The humidity in this jungle was off the scale.
The truth is that I really didn't care what the actual temperature was. It was fucking hot. It was about to get hotter.
A few of the huts that our guys burned down in my last visit here had been rebuilt. Most had not been. Twenty years had just left open spaces on the ground where either supply tents were pitched or tall grass had grown.
A group of soldiers that didn't look like they were a part of any particular army were outside and waiting for me to show up. These guys looked like mercenaries and cut throats.
The soldiers made a large circle and I was ordered to the center of that circle. Somebody ran to the rebuilt commander's hut and went inside.
A moment later, wearing combat fatigues and carrying his Roman short sword, Caesar Lanista came striding out.
Why did this not surprise me?
CHAPTER 56
Kill Me
Lanista shoved his way through the circle of men. He stood in front of me and smiled that evil grin of his.
"I told you once that you were mine and you still are," he said.
He was walking around and strutting for his men.
"Just fucking do it!" I told him.
"You do not give the orders here," he stated. "You are nothing but a simple annoyance that I will now remove."
"Just fucking do it!" I said again, this time I shouted it at him. I was getting tired of his entire fucking game. The way things had went for me I was at the point where it was either kill me or I go the fuck home and get drunk till I pass out.
"You didn't have the balls to fight me in Micea, in your own goddamned territory. So just use a gun, like the little fucking bitch coward that you are and fucking kill me. Big fucking gladiator warrior, my ass, you ain't shit!"
"You will not speak to me like this," Lanista roared at me.
"And there ain't shit you can do to stop me," I told him. "You ain't got the balls to fuck with someone like me."
I waved my hand at all the mercenaries around us, "You all do know your fearless leader here isn't really named Caesar right? There's some rich bitch back on Rome that leads him around like her fucking lap dog."
There was a snicker from a few of the mercenaries.
Lanista wheeled and pointed his sword at the spot where the snicker came from.
"One more sound," he said, "and I'll cut you in half!"
The two mercenaries who snickered smiled and cocked their rifles.
"Good job Bubba," I told Lanista. "Showed them who's boss. We're in the twentieth century now boy. Nobody is a slave any more. You're gonna have to prove you deserve to be the man."
"I will kill you," he said and stepped forward raising his blade.
I'd pissed this boy off just like I'd wanted to. Problem was I didn't have a sword to fight him with. Hell, I didn't even have a rock.
Now was when Colonial Ray Sharp stepped in. He held a hand gun. "All fights are equal," he told Lanista. "We fight here by the gladiator's code. Either we give him a sword or you drop yours."
"You do not order me," Lanista told him.
Sharp raised his pistol. "Make your choice," he said. "Drop it, or I drop you. We do this the right way."
Lanista smiled. "Of course," he said. "First I will kill Dark with my bare hands and then we will fight a second duel and I will kill you."
He threw his sword in the dirt.
CHAPTER 57
Serious Knuckle Dusting
Lanista came at me in a rush. He wanted to overwhelm me with his greater size and strength.
He damn near did it too.
He rushed in and caught me with a good hard jab and missed with an overhand right, then body blocked me and knocked me off my feet. Lanista actually body blocked me too well.
I flew for about four feet before I hit the ground so he had to chase me a couple of steps before he could dive on me. That gave me the time to roll and he missed his dive.
I got to my feet and was ready for his next rush.
When Lanista came at me the second time I moved to the side and caught him with my own sharp jab and moved away.
"Come on boy," I yelled at Lanista and even though I could tell I'd gotten underneath his skin, I knew he wasn't out of control. This was a seasoned warrior. He wasn't going to rattle easily.
He did come at me but this time it was more measured, more controlled. He used a pawing jab and did catch me with one of those but I paid him back with a counter right for his trouble.
We went on like this for a few minutes, just sparring. I quit taunting him because he was expecting it and I would just be wasting my breath.
One other thing was I was starting to tire fast. I hadn't even thought about it but this had been one hell of a long day for me. I'd been in a riot, fought the guards to get Sherry out, with Johnny and Sherry fought our way across the city of Rome, time hopped, fought a big ugly spider, time hopped again, got turned down by Sherry, (that would really have recharged my batteries having her blow my fuses), got drugged, time hopped or at least space hopped yet again and now I'm fighting again.
Shit, I should be hot tubing it with Sherry right now, soaking my tired-ass bones, not tangling with this Roman idiot. This is a fucked up life.
After Lanista made another move to try to tackle me, my foot slipped on a rock and to keep from being taken down I turned my back and skipped away. The lunge that Lanista made at me with my back turned was instinctive and I remembered something they tried to drill into us in that gladiators school, a basic belief of the Roman fighting man.
Never turn your back on your enemy. Turning your back means surrender. When your opponent turns his back, you can end the fight immediately by killing him.
I hadn't hurt Lanista with any of my punches. He'd eaten enough of them so he knew better than to just rush blindly at me. He came at me, but it wasn't very fast, so I started tossing in kicks to his left leg whenever he was close enough to even think about punching.
It worked like a charm. I was retreating while raising lumps on his lead leg.
Lanista got me with enough shots so that my nose was bleeding and my left eye was swollen and it was getting hard to see out of that side. Blood and swelling are no big deal to anyone who's spent much time in a boxing ring. It goes with the territory. What was worrying me was that I was breathing heavy and Lanista wasn't.
The time to make a move was now.
I pretended to stumble and turned my back on Lanista. He lunged in at me.
I bent over, chambered a kick, and without looking slammed it into his gut from behind.
The unexpected kick knocked the air from Lanista's lungs and put him on all fours where he was stunned and gaspi
ng for breath.
I leaped on his back then and, like I'd been taught in a Jiu-Jitsu class we took in the Special Forces, I applied a guillotine choke.
With my arm around Lanista's throat he fought like a madman. He stood up and dropped backward down on top of me. But I had my legs wrapped around his stomach and my arm around his throat and I wasn't letting go.
He was struggling like a pissed off bear trying to claw me off of him, then all at once, went limp. I knew he was out. His brain hadn't been getting oxygen for too long. He was gone.
I held the choke for an extra few seconds just to make sure. Then I let go, rolled him off of me and stood up.
As I was dusting myself off, Ray Sharp came out to me. "You are free to go," he told me. "The gateway will take you back to the same place you came from."
"What about him," I said pointing at the still unconscious Lanista.
"He'll probably come after you again," Sharp said. "I'd suggest you be ready."
I was lifting the trap door when Lanista came awake. He jumped up off of the ground, backhanded one of the mercenaries, and grabbed his rifle from him.
I was ready to dart down the stairs when Sharp drew on him and put his gun to Lanista's head.
"Put it down," Sharp told Lanista. "He won. You lost. It's over."
"I make the decisions and he dies!" Lanista shouted.
"Looks like it's time for me to take over the business," Sharp told Lanista and pulled the trigger, spraying Lanista's brains, blood, and chunks of his scalp into the air.
CHAPTER 58
Who's Worthy?
I took a taxi home from the Cahokia Masonic Lodge.
It'd been so long since I'd been home I was actually looking forward to it. Home is a place where at least you can rest. I sure as hell needed some rest.
At my place I unlocked the door and found that it was cleaner than I'd left it. Rosa must have kept coming by even though I didn't come home for quite a few months.
Christ! I was way behind on paying her. She'll probably want to kick my ass. Come to think of it, she always wants to kick my ass so it doesn't really make a difference.