“Right,” I grumbled, thinking that I probably shouldn’t ruin all the fun and tell her that Lew also wants us to nuke the frigg’n thing. “So, does that mean you’ll give it to us now?”
“Well, truth be told, lovie, I haven’t had the Vessel for nearly four decades.”
“What do you mean you don’t have it? You said—”
“I never said it was in my possession. You simply assumed it was. In all actuality, I bartered it away to a charming young time phantom who owed me a favor. But I can tell you where it is. Or more appropriately — when it is.”
“Wait,” Rooster scoffed, “You made a deal for something you don’t even have? That is so freaking typical…”
“I am what I am, dearest. You honestly should have seen that coming.”
“And I thought my family was screwed up,” Erin grumbled, becoming increasingly frustrated with this situation.
“Okay, I give up,” I defeatedly muttered, making the mental note to never ever … ever try to negotiate with Rooster’s mom again. “Where is it, Lil?
“October 21st,” she replied. “1975.”
“I’m sorry, what?”
“A day in time,” Rooster rhetorically said, like he was thinking out loud. “Clever.”
“I couldn’t have it fall back into the hands of your father now, could I, dearest? Unable to destroy it, I took precaution to ensure it was tucked away in the absolute last place he’d ever look.”
“A day in time?” Erin said, trying to wrap her head around the concept. “What the hell does that even mean?”
“And what the frig is a time phantom?” I asked, more than lost with the obscure turn of events. “Is that some kind of opera shit?”
“No. No, it’s not,” Rooster replied. “I’ll explain later.”
Shifting his full attention to Lilith, he asked, “Who is he — Who’s the time phantom?”
“An absolutely strapping young beau named Richard Ronkowski.”
“So, you just gave him the freaking Ark of the Covenant?”
“Of course not, Eóin. We struck a very favorable deal for which I was duly compensated — time and time and yummy time again.”
“And thank you for another visual I’ll never get out of my head,” he nauseatingly grumbled. “So assuming we can even get to October 21st, 1975 — where can we find this Ronkowski guy?”
“No telling, dearest. For that one single day in history, the globe is his playground. He could literally be anywhere.”
“Wait, what? How the hell are we supposed to find him then?”
“That’s the point, silly. No one is supposed to find him. Not even me. It was a contingency of our agreement.”
“Okay, just so I’m clear,” Rooster frustratingly muttered, “You’re saying that to find the Ark, we have to travel back thirty-eight years to a single day in history and then track down some random temporal jumper, who could be anywhere on the entire freaking planet, before that single day expires.”
“Exactly!”
“Ah, mother — That’s freaking impossible. Is this seriously your idea of helping us?”
“Oh, don’t be such a sour puss. I am helping. I’m sure you’ll think of something. You’ve always been so resourceful. Besides, finding him will be the very least of your challenges.”
“There’s more?” He barked, throwing his hands up. “For reals?”
“Just another minor detail, dearest. In accordance with our terms, should Mr. Ronkowski lose possession of the Vessel, he will forfeit his soul — to me. So, needless to say, he’ll be less than inclined to part with it.”
“But, you are going to help us with that part, right?”
After a prolonged giggle, Lil said, “And renege on my side of the pact? I think not, dearest.”
“Are you frigg’n serious?” I grumbled.
“Tell you what, lovie,” she playfully winked, “I’ll think about it.”
“Great. Thanks, mom,” Rooster muttered. “That’s amazing. Like beyond words. Really special.”
“You’re most welcome. Is there anything else I can do to help?”
“No. No, there isn’t, mother. In your usual fashion — You’ve done more than enough.”
“Yay! And please do let me know how you make out. I just adore happy endings.”
“Was I adopted?”
Ignoring Rooster’s snide question, Lilith evidently decided it was time to go and simply said, “Toodles!” while blowing us a series of big, wet kisses. And of course, as she happily danced back toward her arcane portrait, her blood riddled, silken dress melted from existence leaving her, once again, butt ass nakie.
Nakie!
Casually turning and offering me a quick wink, she then snapped her fingers and was inexplicably sucked back into the painting only to resume the sultry pose that we found her in moments earlier.
“Ah, guys,” I grumbled, completely befuddled by the last thirty seconds, “What in the fuck was that about?”
“Which part?” Erin asked, looking like she wanted to punch somebody.
“All of it?”
“Well,” she replied, “I might have missed a few details here and there amidst the psychotically eccentric babble … but, it sounded like Lilith actually had the Ark of the Covenant at some point, but then traded it for sexual favors to a guy who lives in a single day in 1975. And — we evidently have to go back in time to find him before we can ultimately find it.”
“That’s what I thought I heard too. But, that can’t be right — because it’s totally frigg’n insane. Isn’t it?”
“Ah, which part?”
“All of it,” Rooster muttered, whipping out his arcane pad of sticky notes and fountain pen, “But that doesn’t mean it can’t be done. We need to go.”
“Where are we going, Marty McFly?” I scoffed. “Back in time?”
“It’s not like I have a freaking DeLorean with a flux capacitor just sitting around in some random workshop,” he said like I was a total dumbass. “We can’t just up and go back in time.”
“I’m strangely relieved to hear you say that.”
“Time travel requires planning. And resources. And bubble gum … lots and lots of bubble gum. I need to make a few phone calls. Come on, guys, we’ve got work to do.”
Without so much as another word, he then determinedly stepped through the sticky pad portal that casually manifested on the wall next to Lil’s portrait and vanished.
As Erin and I just stood there for an awkward second or two blankly staring at each other, she finally asked, “That was a joke, right? He’s not serious.”
When I offered nothing in response, she said, “Shit. He was totally serious.”
“Not sure,” I muttered, “But, if there is a DeLorean with a flux capacitor on the other end of that sticky note, I’m so riding shotgun. Just saying.”
Chapter 19
With Doc on my heels, we emerged from the arse end of yet another ethereal gateway to a snowy vision of Rooster fumbling around with a large wooden door to a rustic A frame cabin situated in the center of a small cluster of white dusted pine trees. Taking a closer look as I quickly established my bearings, the dilapidated structure appeared to be inexplicably positioned on the literal crest of a big ass mountain — in a much, much bigger ass mountain range.
Absolutely stunned by the sheer grandeur of the majestic landscape, Erin muttered, “Holy shit,” as we both gazed in complete awe at the vast panorama of snow capped peaks forming a mind-blowing three hundred and sixty degree perimeter around us. The afternoon sun was creeping toward the horizon line and the dark blue sky provided an ominous reminder that Saturday night was closing in on us. And we were running out of time.
“Where are we?” I asked, snapping out of the momentary daze as a gust of frigid air belted me in the face; and I instantly became conscious of the subfreezing temperature.
“Montana,” Rooster muttered, clearly frustrated that he couldn’t seem to get the door open, “Tobacco Root M
ountains in the northern Rockies.”
“Rockies, eh?”
“What exactly are we doing here?” Erin asked as she quickly zipped up her black leather jacket in attempt to hold the arctic wind and drifting snow at bay.
“I have some commo equipment stashed inside,” Rooster replied. “If it still works, we can radio the team and hopefully connect a couple dots.”
“So, this shit box of a cabin isn’t a time machine?”
“Nope. It’s one of my old, off the grid safe houses. And for the record — If I was going to make a time machine, I wouldn’t make it out of a shit box cabin. I’d trick out a phone booth. Straight up Bill and Ted style.”
“Excellent Adventure or Bogus Journey?”
“Please,” he scoffed. “Excellent Adventure … Bogus Journey was total crap.”
“How old is this joint?” Erin asked, not appreciating the movie banter.
“Couple hundred years. Me and Caveman built it back in the early-1800s during the gold rush. I call it The Crow Nest.”
“The Crow Nest?”
“Yeppers. It’s a Rooster mountain fortress … and roosters crow, ergo it’s the Crow Nest. Get it?”
“Yeah, I get it. Came up with that all your own, did ya?”
“I can’t take all the credit. Caveman helped. Good, right?”
“Amazing. Exceptionally clever with a detectable hint of dumbass,” I muttered, thinking they should have let Duncan name the joint.
I mean, hell, that could have yielded some absolute jewels like The Pocket Pig Mountain Top Emporium, Lil’ D’s Highland Hog Haberdashery, or even Duncan’s Yellow Snow Swine Chalet.
Could’ve been epic.
But instead, we get The Crow Nest.
What the frig?
“Mountain fortress?” Doc said, clearly unimpressed by the place and the name. “Looks more like an abandoned crack house.”
“Yeah, she’s seen better days. I haven’t been here since the early eighties. And evidently, I can’t remember how to disable the locking wards I set up on the damn door. In retrospect, think I may have gotten a little too cute with the cryptogram.”
“That doesn’t sound like you at all,” I grunted, feeling like my face was about to fall off from a combination of the sub-zero temperature and the persistent pelting of the icy wind gusts.
Figuring a well placed application of brute force and ignorance would more than do the trick, I willed the gauntlets into being and instantly felt them cover my hands and forearms in argent, glinting metal.
“I’ve never seen a lock like that before,” Erin commented through chattering teeth as she studied the medieval looking security mechanism for a few seconds.
“It’s a wheel cipher,” Rooster said, quickly slipping into bloviation mode. “It’s probably coded with a Fibonacci sequence or some variation thereof. That was my go-to for years. Back in the day, I used to pride myself on constructing all manner of unbreakable mystical security measures—”
“Unbreakable, eh?”
“Ah, yeah. The only way to gain entry is to enter the proper sequence on the cipher or—”
Not really in the mood to hear how that story ended, I sunk all my super-natural strength into a crushing right cross and dropped my metal fist squarely into his centuries old arcane gadget.
As it promptly shattered into a gazillion pieces and the door swung open, Rooster grumbled, “Or just fucking smash it to shit. That evidently works too. Thanks, Dean.”
“My pleasure.”
Entering the minuscule backwoods shack to find it furnished by nothing but a dust covered, metal framed bunk bed and a series of Cheryl Tiegs posters thumbtacked to the slanted walls, Rooster murmured a few words in Enochian, and a mammoth fire roared to life in the modest hearth on the back wall.
“That’s more like it,” he said, closing the door and latching it from the inside. “Now we can get to work. You guys hungry?”
“I’m starving,” Erin replied, scurrying to the hearth while rubbing her hands together in attempt to avoid certain frostbite.
“You have food?” I asked, glancing around the absolutely barren, single roomed shanty. “In here?”
“Oh ye of little faith,” Rooster grumbled, reaching down and tapping three times on a crooked board directly under the poster sized cover of the February, 1983 Sports Illustrated Swim Suit Edition displaying ‘Sizzling Cheryl’ beating the heat in Jamaica.
And before I had the chance to dispel a witty comeback, the wooden floor retracted into itself to reveal a set of mammoth stone steps leading to a sizable sub level.
“I keep the good stuff down below,” he said, with a cheesy smirk.
“Sounds like a personal problem,” I grunted, traversing the stairs into the Crow Nest’s secret lair. As several torches sputtered to life upon the snapping of Rooster’s fingers, the dark room was slowly bathed in flickering orange light, and as much as I hated to admit it — it was pretty sweet.
Much like MacCawill’s clandestine Man Cave, the Crow Nest basement seemed to be impossibly cut directly into the surrounding mountain. About double the size of the shit box shanty looming above, the rock walled bunker featured a small, yet impressive array of kitchen equipment and a couple 1960s vintage lazy boy chairs positioned around a big ass old school TV set complete with rabbit ears. Most impressively, set in the far corner were some seriously dated, military spec radio equipment and what appeared to be a Commodore 64 personal computer with a floppy drive and dot matrix printer, infused with some goofy looking Rooster tech.
In fact, the only thing really missing from the place was—
“Beer?” Rooster asked opening the fridge and pulling out a couple silver cans adorned with the signature RoosterBragh logo.
“Does a bear shit in the woods?” I replied, as my mouth started to instantly water.
“Not if it lives in a zoo,” Rooster pontificated.
“Okay, well, does Duncan shit in the woods?”
“Actually, not in a long time. He read that shitting outdoors was uncivilized and indicative of lower life forms. Potty trained himself about fifty years ago. It was a pretty big deal.”
“I see,” I muttered, making the metal note to seriously figure out what that pig’s frigg’n deal was at some point down the road. “Just give me a beer before I get whiny — er.”
“I’ll take two,” Doc said, looking exceptionally perplexed at the thought of a miniature feral hog sitting on a toilet, not to mention using a hoof to wipe his piggly ass.
Throwing us a couple cold ones while firing up a modest kiln and sliding in some frozen pizzas, Rooster said, “Seems like we’ll have to make do with pizza. Caveman must’ve cleaned out the rest of the chow. Either that or he’s been sneaking chicks in here — again. On that note, you guys might not want to sit on the chairs. No telling what those stains are.”
Trying to erase that mental image from my memory banks, I happily cracked open the frosty beverage and inhaled its twelve ounces of liquid nirvana in about two seconds flat.
“Did you even taste that?” Erin asked, chuckling.
“I don’t need to taste it. I already know it’s good. Una mas cerveza, por favor?”
Tossing me another one while plopping down on a metal stool next to his dusty array of eighties electronics, Rooster powered up his archaic computer and began to methodically turn the various and assorted knobs lining the base console of the radio.
“Hello, gorgeous,” he mumbled, running his hands all over the equipment like it was his girlfriend, “Daddy’s home.”
“Yep. Could’ve gone for the rest of my afterlife without hearing that,” I grumbled, draining my second beer. “Whenever you finish tuning up your digitals over there, you think we could have a little group discussion about what exactly you and Lil were rambling on about in her museum penthouse?”
Taking a healthy gulp of RoosterBragh, Erin added, “Like starting with — are we seriously contemplating going back in time to find the Ark of the Cov
enant? And if so — how exactly are we planning to go back in freaking time to find the Ark of the Covenant?”
“Well said, Doc.”
“Sorry, guys,” Rooster said, spinning around on his stool to face us. “I should probably explain a few things, huh?”
“You think?” Erin muttered.
Grabbing another beer from the fridge, I added, “And for Christ’s sake, give us the short version.”
“Short version,” he replied, “I can do that.”
“Pretty sure you can’t,” I grumbled, sipping the frothy goodness, “But go ahead and try anyway.”
“Okay. So, time — It doesn’t exactly work the way everyone thinks.”
“How so?” Erin asked, finishing her beer and crushing the can with the heel of her boot before cracking open another one.
And if that ain’t dead sexy, I don’t know what is. Just saying.
“It’s all about perception. What do you guys know about string theory?”
“I know a lot about string cheese,” I replied. “Stringy. Chewy. Salty. Frigg’n delicious.”
Shaking her head, Erin said, “Are you talking about physics? Black holes and condensed matter? Things like that?”
“Exactly!” Rooster replied, with a shit eating grin, “And yet — not at all.”
“Here comes the long version,” I muttered, under my breath as my enigmatic ginger colleague slipped into bloviation mode again. “Do we have enough beer to endure this?”
“Time itself,” he continued, completely ignoring my snide commentary, “Is not linear. It’s concurrent. It only seems linear because otherwise the human mind couldn’t conceive the difference between order and chaos.”
“So you’re saying,” Erin interjected, “that Einstein was right? There’s no difference between the present, past, and future?”
“That’s exactly what I’m saying. All time exists simultaneously.”
Wrath of the Fallen: The Guild of Deacons, Book 2 Page 17
