The Mythniks Saga
Page 26
“Have you heard any chatter from the police?” I said. “Do they have any idea what’s going on?”
“I’ve heard the term ‘CDC’ a few times. Center for Disease Control. I think they think Derek had plague or something. What I saw happen had nothing to do with plague.”
“So, so far, our only victim is this Derek?”
“Oh, no. This smoke thingy—whatever it is—has two notches in his belt. About ten minutes before Derek there was the concessions guy. I heard he was running the weenie cart. I wasn’t there. Supposedly, he freaked out all the sudden. Screaming and yelling. Throwing weenies at everybody. Then he just keeled over dead.”
“Not even the weenie man is safe,” Keri said.
I scowled at the teenager. “You might wanna take this a little more seriously,” I said. “This thing we’re dealing with... It gets inside of people and then, depending on what kind of mood it’s in, it kills them. Not a pleasant situation, I promise you.”
“I use gallows humor as a defense mechanism,” she replied.
“Oh!” Chad said. “I do that too! For weeks after my mom died, I joked about getting brain cancer thinking, if I did that, I wouldn’t get brain cancer.”
“Totally.”
“Could we stay focused please?”
By that time. We’d reached the other side of the atrium. A hipster coffee bar that’d clearly only been built within the last couple of years. I’ve never seen so many guys with waxed mustaches drinking small batch artisanal bean juice. As I scanned the crowd, I was on the edge of freaking out. I was on the edge of freaking out because I was about to lay eyes on Elijah for the first time in fifteen years. Can you imagine that? Forget about my long history; look at my recent history. I’d come face to face with gods and goddesses, a three-headed dog, the reaper of souls, one of the worst murderesses in all Greek mythology, and a giant man made of bronze. And here I was about to pee my pants over an old boyfriend. If Chad and Keri hadn’t been there, I might’ve slapped my own face and told myself to get over it. Fortunately, a completely bizarre sight brought me back down to earth. Sitting at a table and waving us over were two bronies—two bronies I recognized. One of them was hip hop sensation M.C. Pliny the Elder and the other was Tiresias, the blind oracle. The very same oracle that’d assisted me on my most recent misadventure. Both he and the rapper were dressed as ponies. Try and take that sight in, why don’t you? A Mythnik of epic standing (and of my long-time acquaintance) having a cup of Joe with one of the biggest names in African American music.
Chad acknowledged the two of them with a return wave, and he, Keri and I went over and sat down. Elijah was nowhere to be seen—which prompted Keri to ask, “Is my dad here?”
“Yes, of course he’s here,” Tiresias replied. “He’s using the lil’ bronies’ room.”
I smirked across the table. “Hello, Ty. Fancy meeting you here?”
The seer squinted at me. “Dora? Is that you, Dora?”
“Yeah, it’s me. On the list of people, I expected to see here today, you were second to last. Last was M.C. Pliny the Elder.”
Ty shrugged his shoulders. “So, I enjoy a children’s cartoon and the good fellowship it brings. Who cares? It’s not like there’s anyone left in my life you could tell.”
I was sitting right next to the M.C. He said, “Yeah, girl. Cut the old man some slack. There’s a lot worse things he could be going and doing.”
I turned to look at the hip hop star. “You know, I wanna say you’re right—‘cause you are—it’s just I’m having trouble right now ‘cause you’re dressed like a chocolate Pegasus.”
He nodded. “That’s right. And I’ve never felt more alive.”
We all looked up when we heard a new voice. “Was anybody else murdered while I was gone?” It was Elijah. To lean on a cliché, my heart skipped a beat when I saw him. He was shocked to see me too. “Dora...” he said, sitting down hard. “What’re you doing here?”
“I’m here because your daughter didn’t know where you were, and she was worried.”
Elijah looked at Keri. “Your mother didn’t tell you where I was? I told her where I was gonna be and what the contact information was and everything.”
The teen shook her head. “She didn’t say a word. I don’t think she even said goodbye before she left.”
Elijah’s head sank into his shoulders. “Fuck. Well, that’s not cool. I’d offer to talk with her when she gets back, but we both know it won’t do any good.” The elder Wiener turned back to me. “God, I’m sorry. I’m sorry we put you out. This isn’t the way this weekend was supposed to go.”
I shrugged. “Now that I’m involved, it’s a good thing. There’s an Evil lurking around this place. As in the kind of Evil that’s my stock in trade. If you haven’t figured it out yet, he’s looking for you assholes.”
Chad, Elijah, Tiresias, and M.C. Pliny the Elder looked at one another, surprised and tense.
Pliny looked at me. “What do you mean he’s looking for us?”
I pointed at him and said, “Cut the shit. Where’re you schmucks keeping Pegasus?”
Elijah was the first one to open his mouth. “We’ve got him stashed—”
M.C. Pliny the Elder cut him off (both verbally and by reaching over Tiresias to swat his chest). “Man! What’re you doing? Did you not hear her?! Did she not say there’s some kinda evil running around this place that wants Pegasus? What if it’s in one of the people sitting near us? Hell, what if it’s in her, and we don’t know it? Use your damn head.”
“Alright,” I said, trying to rein in the panic before it got going. “Pliny’s right. Keep the info under your hats for now. Our first priority’ll be getting out of this place. Then we can worry about... the asset.” I heard Hope coo at the word “asset”.
“Good plan,” Pliny replied. “But don’t call me ‘Pliny’. Not if we’re gonna be friends.”
“What should I call you?”
“My peeps call me ‘P.T.’ But they smash it together to make ‘Petey’.”
“‘Petey’ it is.”
We all stood. Elijah gave Ty a hand. “How’re we gonna get past the cops and the EMTs?” Keri asked. “If they think there’s something contagious in here, they’re gonna keep it locked up tighter than a drum.”
Petey looked at El. “You didn’t tell me your daughter was smarter than you.”
“I never denied it either,” the elder Wiener replied. He came over to stand near Keri and me. It was weird being close to him. He smelled the same.
I scanned the crowd, looking not only for signs of the Kraken, but also for ideas. Keri was right: If anything, there were more cops in the place than there’d been when we crossed the atrium. The sound of static-y communications occasionally broke the near-silence. “We could try going out the way we came in, I guess.”
The teenager pointed across to the food court. Right then, there was a group of paramedics coming through the door we’d used to enter from the rear parking lot. “I don’t think so,” she said.
I led us out of the coffee bar and onto the main floor. Right next to the bar, there was a floor to ceiling window looking down on the building’s front entrance. From it, you could see all the way to the Pacific a few blocks away. On those few blocks, were the most police cars, fire trucks and ambulances I’d ever seen in one place. Good for the city of Santa Monica. They were taking the incidents at BronyKonfab very seriously. Good for their reputation; not so good for our escape plan. “Maybe we should head for the bottom floor. There’s bound to be service tunnels.”
“Wouldn’t those be the first things the police would close?” Tiresias asked. “At this point they don’t know what they’re dealing with. Could be a contagion, could be a crazed serial killer. Either way, they wanna make sure nobody sneaks out.”
I turned and checked out the central area. The one dropping down four stories to the huge lobby below. There were no trees. Some convention centers had live trees which meant the odd bird would sneak
in now and again. But no, no trees and no birds. That meant we couldn’t fall back on Ty’s psychic gift. As cryptic as his pronouncements could be, they were still better than nothing.
“I’ve got a kooky idea,” Keri said.
“I’m listening...”
“You suck people inside your jug, right? What if you suck us in? Then you’d only have to worry about getting yourself out. Once you were out, you could let us loose.”
That gave me pause. Keri was nothing if not an outside-the-box thinker. “That... was impressive,” I said. “There’s only two things wrong with it. First of all, you have to be evil to qualify for... jug suction. Second of all, I can’t kick people out. Only put them in.”
Hope chimed in, startling Petey. “I think you might be wrong about the second one,” she said. “I think I could selectively give people the boot. But, they’d just be spirits. They’d need magic blood to reconstitute themselves.”
“Yeah, that’s way too complicated,” I replied.
“Plus, like you said, none of them are evil. With the possible exception of Mr. Petey.”
Petey sighed. “A young man gets some fame, he gets some money in his pocket, he goes on the road. A young man debauches. It’s an inevitability.”
I raised my hands. “Hey, I’m not judging.”
“I ain’t no saint. But I ain’t no sinner either. There’s just one thing I gotta ask...”
“What’s that?”
“Why do you have a talking flowerpot on your back?”
Tiresias answered for me. “That story is way too long for right now.”
“I’ll second that.”
Before we could spend any more quality time bantering, something weird happened. A waiter in the coffee bar screamed, drawing our attention. He was leaking blood from his eyes and he had as many knives in his left hand as a human can hold. With his right hand, he began hurling them at us.
My reflexes kicked in. I reached over the railing of the bar and grabbed a nearly empty plate right off of a surprised patron’s table. With it, I deflected as much of the airborne cutlery as I could. That translated to three knives before the plate shattered. By that time, I’d already shouted, “Get behind me!” The confused men (and the girl) all did their best to line up single file in my narrow shadow. Unfortunately, before I’d gotten the strap free from the pithos, Tiresias caught one in the forearm and blood was drawn. With my right hand, I caught the jug before it fell. With my left hand, I grabbed a cloth napkin off the same table where I’d gotten the plate. I tossed it behind me. Petey caught it and wrapped Ty’s arm like a practiced field medic. I brought the pithos around, put my hand on the lid and said to the possessed waiter, “Alright, hold still, motherfucker!”
The waiter’s eyes grew wide and he hissed at me, sending droplets of blood in a wide arc in front of him. Then, a gray cloud poured out of the guy’s ears and he fell forward. Fortunately for him, I’d scared the Kraken enough, he’d hightailed it out of his host body without killing it. Meanwhile, the patrons of the coffee bar did one of two things. They either rushed forward to help the fallen waiter or they stampeded out of the eatery like theater-goers after someone had yelled, “Fire!” I tracked the Kraken as he shot into the rafters. I had to hand it to him: he was fast as hell. As I ran in the direction I’d seen him go, I looked over my shoulder. “Stay in a tight group! Only move if you have to! Scream if you see him again!” I then addressed Hope. “Do you got him?”
“I got him! Turn right at the bridge.”
I cut right at the bridge—one of the walkways to the other side of the atrium. As I ran, I looked up. Sure enough, there was an oily gray cloud moving through the shadows. “Can we get him contained anywhere? Somewhere we can back him against a wall and trap him?”
Hope went silent for a moment. She must’ve been scanning the Convention Center for nooks and crannies. “I dunno, Dora. There’s a lot of wide-open spaces in here.”
“Okay, we’ll need—” I was cut off by the sudden appearance of three men dressed as fluffy clouds—part of the brony lore, I assume. Two of them were overweight types, while the guy in the middle was older and shorter. They came up on me fast, and I’d been looking at the rafters until the absolute last second, so I had to hit the deck and slide. The tile floor was very slippery, and I picked up a ton of speed. As I held Hope over my chest, I slammed into the old guy’s feet and sent him tumbling. When I was on the other side, I used my free hand to stop myself and I looked back over my shoulder. The two heavy guys were helping their aged companion to his feet. When he was standing again, the trio turned to me, and all of them were angry.
“Oh, shit!” Hope said, echoing my own alarm.
Two things happened then in rapid succession that undoubtedly saved my hide.
The first thing was the Kraken shooting down out of the overhead shadows and entering into the heavy guy on the old man’s right. As soon as he was inside, he picked up the old man and, I kid you not, threw him at the other husky cloud guy. The left-hand cloud man and the aged one flew into a stand of potted plants. Soil and broken crockery went everywhere. Then, the possessed cloud man looked at me and raised his fist. My hand went instinctively to the stopper on top of the pithos. I knew even as I grabbed it, I wouldn’t be fast enough. Husky cloud man was charging me like a rhino.
That’s when the second thing happened.
The second thing was a bunch of cops to the right of the potted plants seeing the possessed cloud man throw the old guy and charge. This caused more than one of them to shout, “Stop!” and open fire on the possessed fat guy. The possessed fat was rocked by bullets, all of them aimed at his lower extremities. Funny thing was, though, he smiled at me as his host body stumbled and fell. Before it hit the ground, the oily black smoke came out of his ears, nose and mouth and drifted toward the ceiling again.
I would’ve been up and back on the trail had not some of the police run to me and helped me to my feet. As they asked after my welfare and tried to make out what’d happened, the Kraken floated away. Finally, I said, “I’ll give you my statement later!” and ran off. This was, apparently, the last thing they expected since they were too surprised to follow. As I shot by, I saw the rest of the cops helping the old man and the other husky cloud man out of the stand of potted plants. Hope focused my attention where it needed to go. “The Kraken’s headed for the other bridge. He’s running us in circles. Trying to wear us out.”
I know I’ve said it a million times, but, in my fifteen years of forced seclusion, I’d let myself go. I was still in better-than-average shape, but I had a roll around my middle and severely decreased endurance. As we turned onto the walkway between atrium sides, I was clutching my side and panting. The second time I slammed into someone it was not because I wasn’t looking in the right place. It was because of my pulsing tunnel vision.
The second person I bumped into was not old. Also, I was not sliding along the ground, so I did not knock him off his feet. In fact, he knocked me off of my feet and I landed on my ass. Here’s the weird part: he was my tail. The guy from Westwood with the BMW 3. He was sturdy as hell. He wasn’t as huge as the two goons I’d left behind me, but he was in better shape. Right off, he extended a hand to help me up. “Here, let me—”
I didn’t hear anything else he said after that. Behind him, I saw the Kraken descend out of the rafters again. This time he shot into the cosplaying Corgi I’d seen earlier. The little dog looked up and barked like he’d just been goosed. Then his eyes glowed red and he yanked himself away from his owner with much more strength than a normal lapdog would have had. I sprang to my feet and followed after.
I guess I should mention that, between the gunshots and my weird running around, the bronies were in a panic. Unicorns and Pegasuses were shooting this way and that. Most of them were screaming. Here and there, a helpless cop did what he could to defuse the situation (which wasn’t much). Then there was me, bobbing and weaving through the panicked crowd. At one point, I shouted, “Sto
p that Corgi! Tackle that Corgi!” which might be the strangest phrase I’ve ever uttered.
Finally, there was a break in the chaos and I could see the little pooch (who, don’t forget, was dressed as a multi-colored horse). He was running full speed toward the little group I’d left behind. In mid-stride, the Kraken left the dog’s body and shot toward my friends. The Corgi, free of its invader, ran back the way it’d come with its tail between its legs.
The Kraken made itself a missile and its target surprised me. Its target was Tiresias. Specifically, Tiresias’ bleeding forearm. It latched its cloudy self onto the old oracle’s appendage and its color changed from gray to red. Ty screamed and the others looked at him, goggle-eyed. “Get it off of him!” I shouted. “Get it off of him!”
You may wonder what I meant when I said, “Get it off of him”. After all, we’re talking about an incorporeal creature. The thing was, though, as it sucked on Ty, it became more corporeal. Ty was a Mythnik which meant he had magic in his blood. Not as much magic as, say, Pegasus, but magic nonetheless. Within moments, the old man had what looked like a giant leech attached to him, wriggling and writhing. I gotta hand it to my friends. Once the initial shock wore off, they were all in the mix, trying to free Ty from the monster suckered to him. I slid to a stop and added my own hands to the jumble of helpers. What I should’ve done was pithos the Kraken, but I was caught up in the panic of Tiresias’ dilemma. We finally yanked the beastie off our aged friend, but that had less to do with our efforts and more to do with the fact the Kraken had drunk its fill. The leech plopped to the ground and continued to grow. It grew at an alarming rate. Little limbs popped out of its sides and its head took on more definition. It was becoming a real, live Kraken. But not a proper Kraken, more of a mini-Kraken. Like I say, Ty’s blood had the stuff, but it wasn’t as potent as the juice flowing through most other mythological creatures.