by Gary Jonas
“Thank you,” I said. I had no other words, but those were enough.
Winslow stood and walked over to us. “I could kill her again right now,” he said.
Ankhesenamun inserted herself between Winslow and Naomi. “You were true to your word, Henry. Two died. One came back. The gods have spoken. Let it be so.”
He gave her a smile. “For you, my dear.” He pointed to Carlton. “Release Shade and Kelly.”
“But--”
Winslow shook his head. “Release them.”
Carlton shook his head. “They are our enemies.”
“They are not a threat. No one can harm me. Release them.” Winslow took a step toward Carlton. “You have the keys. Unlock those chains and let them go. If I have to say it again, I will banish you from the temple and you will die in a few months from the cancer.”
“This is a bad idea,” Carlton said. But he unlocked the chains and let Shade go. Shade pushed Carlton aside and knelt beside Naomi. She pushed herself up and embraced him, her chains rattling.
Carlton hesitated in front of Kelly. “If I let her go, she'll hurt me.”
“Only a lot,” Kelly said.
“Here,” Winslow said and gestured. A light glowed between Carlton and Kelly. “She won't be able to touch you.”
“Why not just magically uncuff her from a distance, then?”
“You could have done that,” Winslow said. “As you only just thought of it, I'd prefer you handle it physically.”
Carlton hesitated but unlocked the cuffs. Kelly shoved against the light, and the light smacked Carlton in the head. He staggered to the side.
“Play nice or I'll levitate you out of here,” Winslow said.
Kelly smirked and pushed Carlton over to Naomi so he could unchain her as well.
Ankhesenamun walked over and touched my shoulder. “You and your friends may go now. Henry and I shall live forever, and as long as none of you interfere, we will let you live out your lives in peace. This I grant you as a token of our friendship.”
“We accept your offer,” I said.
Shade nodded.
Kelly frowned.
Rayna helped me to my feet. “I don't care how old you are,” she said. “I still love you, and I hope you'll find a way to love me back, but if you can't, I will understand.”
“Not sure the equipment is fully functional these days,” I said, trying to lighten the mood.
“There is so much more to love than the physical,” she said then realized what I was doing. “However, I do know a few tricks.”
Ralph walked us to the door. “Henry has real power,” he said. “I'm worried it will go to his head.”
“Then you and the rest of the members need to work to keep him sane,” I said.
Carlton unlocked the doors. He glared at me. “You and me?” he said. “We aren't done.”
“Yes we are, Carlton,” I said. “I don't want anyone else to die. Not even you.”
“You're gonna die soon.”
“Then let me die of old age.”
“I'd rather shoot you.”
Ralph got in Carlton's face. “You're going to back off because I have a team of men watching you twenty-four/seven. If you make any move in Jon's direction, we'll bump your ass off. Got it?”
Carlton opened his mouth to talk back, but Ralph grabbed Carlton's broken nose between two fingers. “Aaaahhh!”
“Got it?” Ralph asked again.
“I got it! I got it!”
If I hadn't been so exhausted, I'd have laughed. All I wanted to do was get out of there, hug the people around me, and sleep for a week.
Winslow cleared his throat, and I turned back to look at him before we left the temple. “I do hope you'll attend the ritual,” he said.
“I think we'll pass,” I said.
We walked as a group down two short blocks. Rayna kept a supportive arm around me.
At the next intersection, we had to wait for two horse-drawn carriages and a checkered cab to go past. Kelly appeared at my side. “Are we really letting this go?” she whispered.
I turned to let her see the look in my eyes.
She grinned. “Good,” she said. “I didn't think so.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
“The man's too strong,” Shade said.
“Dire Straits,” I said. “I like that song. Haven't heard it in fifty-some-odd years.”
We were back at my apartment. Kelly and Shade sat on the sofa, while Rayna and Naomi pulled in chairs from the dining room table for the rest of us. I missed my reading chair.
“This isn't about a song,” Shade said.
“See?” Kelly said to him. “How do you like it when someone tosses jokes back at your every suggestion?”
“I wasn't joking,” I said. “I miss listening to Dire Straits.”
“You don't seem to appreciate the danger here,” Shade said. “This guy has too much power. We couldn't even get close to him, and he knew exactly how to stop me.”
“I totally appreciate the danger. That's why I said not to go fight him.”
“Well, I don't fancy facing off with the guy again. As soon as we walked in, he hit me with a table, drove me back into a fireplace, and had the metal gates wrap around me. I've never felt so helpless. He flung Kelly aside like a rag doll and laughed when Naomi tried to attack with magic. He caught it and threw it back after increasing the power exponentially. He took all three of us down in seconds.”
“That's why I don't want to face off with him directly. I've been trying to get things lined up for more than half a century. The trick was to do some of it where he wouldn't know, which meant keeping things from him.”
“Fat lot of good that did you. Why didn't you kill him when you had the chance?”
“How many times are you going to ask me the same stupid question. I didn't kill him, so get over it already.”
“You damn near got us all killed.”
“I warned Kelly not to go after him.”
“We should have hit him a few days earlier,” Kelly said. “By the time we got there, he was at full strength.”
“It wouldn't have mattered,” I said. “He was already too strong for a direct attack. Makes me wonder when he figured out who I was,” I said.
“Probably as soon as all his aspects combined.”
“I think he might have known sooner. Or at least suspected.”
“Why?”
“Because I tried to have him destroyed, of course.”
“And you think he knew it was you?” Kelly asked.
“He had to at least suspect.”
“I'd have suspected that asshole, Penick,” Shade said. “I'd sure like to punch him again. Once was not enough.”
“Carlton needs Winslow,” I said. “As long as their wants and needs are aligned, Winslow knows he can trust Carlton. Once they perform that ritual, all bets are off. Winslow knows that too. But that doesn't matter since Carlton won't survive the ritual.”
“How do you know that?” Naomi asked.
“He has brain cancer. That's why Winslow chose him in the first place. When Henry and I arrived in New York, we researched everything we could about the immortality ritual. Lots of misinformation out there, but we worked it out, and we knew we needed Carlton too. He had the tablets, so there was that, but he was also dying.”
“The cancer is a key? How?” Naomi asked. “I can see why Penick would want the immortality. He thinks he's going to die, so this could save him. But how would the cancer matter in the ritual?”
“It's a question of excess energy,” I said.
“You lost me,” Shade said.
“Malignant tumors tend to spread aggressively, feeding on blood and nutrients, right?”
“It can,” Rayna said. “But it doesn't always.”
“In Penick's case, it's spreading, and he's holding it at bay with magic.”
“He can't do that for long,” Naomi said. “The mental focus that requires is draining, and if it's in his brain,
he's paying a price for it.”
“Of course,” I said. “When we first met him, Carlton had patience. He studied hard, developed his power, and was willing to play a longer game because he knew success was on the horizon. When the cancer hit, he changed. He was impatient. He wanted everything now because now was all he had.”
“Fine,” Shade said. “I believe you about Penick, but how does the cancer help with the energy problem?”
“The excess energy needs to go somewhere,” I said, “and as Carlton is a wizard, his genetics allow him to use and store magical energy. With a splash of his blood in the ritual, the extra energy will focus in on him and reactivate the cancer in his system because it's being fed magic. Once the magic infuses the cancer, it will eat all the energy as fast as it flows to him. The problem is that once the energy stops flowing, the cancer will have to keep going, and it will eat Carlton alive in a matter of seconds.”
“And you didn't want to kill anyone,” Shade said.
“He's going to die in a few months anyway,” I said. “So he dies a bit sooner. Brain cancer isn't a fun way to go, so in a sense, we're doing him a favor.”
“You'd need his blood to make that happen,” Naomi said. “No wizard in his right mind would allow another wizard access to their blood, and it would have to be given willingly or he could shut it off. After all, it's his blood and intent matters. You can't just cut him and expect that to work.”
I got up, walked over to the Monet I had hanging on the wall, and pulled it outward. It swung open to reveal my wall safe. I ran through the combination, yanked open the safe and removed the vial of Carlton J. Penick's blood. I held it up, balanced between my thumb and forefinger.
“One vial of wizard blood.”
“Penick's?” Kelly asked.
I nodded. “Willingly given.”
Kelly nodded. “We're still in the game,” she said.
“Does Winslow know you have it?” Naomi asked.
“Of course.”
“Shit,” Shade said.
“What?” Kelly asked.
“That means the son of a bitch is going to come here to get it.”
“That's the general idea,” I said.
“You shouldn't keep that here,” Kelly said. “Winslow can just walk in here and take it.”
“Once he realizes he needs it,” I said.
“But you said he knows you have it,” Shade said.
“Henry knows. The Henry I raised. Not Winslow.”
“But he has those memories too,” Shade said. “He was drawing on them as he talked to you.”
“That's right,” I said. “He had to actively draw on them. He didn't live that life; Henry did. He'll pull that memory up when he's setting up the ritual, but he's not likely to think of it before then.”
“But he's going to be setting up that ritual now,” Naomi said.
“Not right now,” I said. “Today is Saturday, the nineteenth of February. Winslow is all about numbers, and his number of choice is three. Three aspects. Three time periods. Nine for the number of the temple.”
“Three times three,” Kelly said.
“So he'll want to do the ritual on the twenty-first. Seven is another major number in magical systems.”
“Three times seven,” Kelly said. “So he'll be here Monday.”
“The ritual will take place at night,” I said.
“Midnight?” Rayna asked. “If so, that would be Sunday into Monday. Right?”
“Probably,” I said. “He'll see it as a new birth, so having it happen as the day is born might be good.”
“But he might do it at 9:33,” Rayna said. “You really don't know for sure, do you?”
“Depends on when he's ready. The time doesn't actually matter.”
“It does to us if he's going to come calling,” Shade said.
“We just have to be ready anytime.”
Naomi stood and put her hands on her hips. “We don't know when he'll begin his preparations, but he'll want to be ready in advance. We all need to get some rest. I'll take the first watch, the rest of you go get some sleep.”
“I can take the watch,” Kelly said. “I can go for days without sleep.”
Naomi shook her head. “Even you are better when rested. Winslow is less likely to come in the next twelve hours. I'll take the first shift, and Rayna can take the second.”
“Jonathan,” Kelly said.
Shade and I both said, “Yes?”
Kelly gave a half chuckle. “The older Jonathan.”
“Yes?” I said.
“You should be the one to hold the vial of blood.”
I shook my head. “No. Winslow will expect me to have it.”
“Then give it to me.”
“You're magically engineered, and he can too easily manipulate you to force you to give it to him.”
“My Jonathan?”
“The second most obvious choice. No. The vial goes to Rayna.” I handed it to her.
“Why?” Kelly asked.
“Because if we can't keep it from him, she can destroy it with her fire,” Naomi said.
Rayna nodded and stared at the vial. “Why don't I just destroy it now?”
I patted the air with my hands. “We want him to come here, Rayna. Maybe Shade and I can capture and hold him for a few moments provided we have some sort of magical prison to throw him into.”
“I say we kill him,” Shade said.
“If it comes to that.”
“That's where it starts, pal. Not sure what happened to the future me to turn you into a pacifist, but some people need to be killed.”
Kelly nodded. “I agree. Lure him in and kill him. Naomi and I will remain with Rayna to protect her. To keep him away as long as we can so she can destroy the blood if he gets through you.”
Naomi shook her head. “We couldn't even get close to him before,” she said. “What makes you think this will be any different? We're better off destroying that vial right now.”
“No. We do not want to destroy the blood. It won't stop Winslow from performing the ritual, and if we can't stop him, I want him to have that vial,” I said.
“That makes no sense,” Naomi said.
“He wants the blood for one reason and only one,” I said.
“Because he can't handle the excess energy,” Shade said.
“No. Because he still sees himself as a good man. That's why he let us go. He wants to keep the death toll as low as he can.”
“I don't get it,” Shade said.
“He's willing to have Carlton die because Carlton will die regardless. That's a fair trade, and he's willing to go that route. That's his first choice, and he will want that vial for that reason.”
“I understand that part.”
“What you don't get is that he'll do the ritual anyway. If he does that, the excess energy will be blasted out into the city, and the resulting death toll will be in the tens of thousands.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Naomi took the first watch.
We stayed up for a time, brainstorming ways to capture or kill Winslow, but we couldn't come up with anything that had a snowball's chance.
When it was time to go to sleep, I showed Shade to my den and told him he could crash on the floor. I sent Rayna to my bedroom. Kelly took the sofa in the living room, and I slept on the floor outside my bedroom. Getting down on the floor at my age was difficult, but getting up was going to be more of a chore. I hated being old.
I couldn't get comfortable. I had a pillow and blanket, but the floor was too hard. My back hurt. I couldn't sleep on my side or on my stomach. So I stretched out on my aching back and stared at the ceiling.
My thoughts drifted from person to person. Shade and Naomi were in love. With my Naomi, that had really been more of a one-way street, but his Naomi really cared about him. I envied him that. I wondered how things had played out for them. He had found a way to save her where I had failed. Maybe that was all the difference it took, but I suspect that
was simply the beginning, and without her parents telling her she shouldn't be with someone who had no magic, she let herself fall for Shade. Who knows, though? Love makes no sense.
Then there was Kelly, who was as true as ever. She was ready to fight Winslow even though she knew he could kill her and had killed my version of her. She seemed to think that with two Jonathan Shades, even with one of us being over the hill, we could find a way to defeat and kill a wizard as powerful as Winslow. That faith was misplaced, but she was stalwart and true. I had to respect that.
That brought me around to Rayna, who still loved me even though I was a far cry from the man she knew. I'd seen too much, suffered more loss than I could bear, and all of it was for nothing. Yet here was a woman who was willing to lay down her life for others. She believed in me, and although I knew I had no chance of surviving what was coming next, she seemed to think we had a future. I hated that I was going to let her down.
I closed my eyes and tried to go to sleep. After a time, I drifted off into dreamland and found myself slow dancing with a beautiful woman as Journey's “Faithfully” played in the background. As we danced, the woman's face shifted as the light struck from different angles. She started out as Talia Johnson, my first crush in junior high school, and when we turned through a shadow, she was Naomi Miller, my first love. For me, she was dead; for the other me, she was his wife. We moved across the floor, and she became Rayna smiling up at me and bringing back my capacity to care, and as I turned her, she became Kelly and the dance floor shifted to the sands of Egypt. One more turn revealed her as the translucent ghost in a flapper dress, Esther, who loved me the longest through all the lonely years, and through all the other women. She pulled away as the song ended and faded into history.
Footsteps sounded in the hall. I opened my eyes to see Kelly standing above me.
“I tried to make enough noise so I wouldn't startle you but wouldn't wake anyone else,” she whispered. She crouched next to me and didn't comment on the tears I wiped away. “Winslow might come in here and decide to simply kill us all.”
“I know.”
“From what little I know about what's happened, you've faced off with him on multiple occasions. If I were him, I'd just kill everyone, take what I wanted, and go.”
