Aeon of Horus

by Paul Neuhaus

  Quinn took in a sharp breath. “Alright, Mrs. Batman. Welcome to the Adventures of Batman planning committee. You have all the facts. What should I do?”

  Molly crossed her legs and unfolded her arms. “Well, I was just thinking about that while I was saying all that shit about Bruce Wayne and Daphne and Thelma. It’s off-the-cuff, so tell me if it’s bullshit.”

  “Fair enough.”

  The brunette paused for dramatic effect. “Give the statue to Ephraim Zilberschlag.”

  Henaghan leaned in, expecting more. “Is that it?”

  “Yes. Give the statue to Zilberschlag but first tell Simone, and Matt, and the little creepy guy that you’re gonna do it. Tell them you’re gonna do it, and say, ‘May the best man win’. Then they make mincemeat of Zilberschlag and, I assume, David Olkin takes over as head of the Guild. That would solve your money problems.”

  “Okay, sure, but then either Simone or Matt or the little creepy guy end up with the statue. That can’t be good, right?”

  “Ah ha! So this is what you do beforehand…”

  “There’re a lot things here I’m supposed to do beforehand.”

  “Bear with me. This is a work in progress. We can make flashcards when I’m done.”

  Quinn sighed again. “Okay.”

  “Beforehand, you find out where the statue of Set’s being held. From one of those weird loiterers in our parking lot. Then you like teleport in and grab it. That way the bad guys’ve got one statue but not the other.”

  Henaghan scratched her head. “There’s a lot in there I’m not sure about—although I like the part where Zilberschlag gets fucked. What makes you think Ferley or Nate would tell me where Set’s at? Also, don’t you think they’ve got safeguards in place at Resolute H.Q. to keep Set under wraps?”

  “Yeah, but you’re Batman.”

  “I am Batman, aren’t I?” Quinn replied, feeling self-satisfied. “But here’s the big one: If I just swap one statue for the other, doesn’t that put us back at square one? Where we have something a bunch of assholes want? We gotta make this a clean situation where we’re free until a new bunch of assholes come along and want something else. Also, if we liberate Set, that means both statues are out in the wild which increases the likelihood of a Murphy’s Law scenario where the assholes (the current assholes, not the future assholes) get Set and Horus and slap them together.”

  Molly uncrossed her legs and put her elbows on her knees. She rested her chin on her fists. “Being Batman’s a bitch.”

  “I think you’re right.”

  “And now I’m hungry.”

  “You just had like three doughnuts.”

  “I know, but I’m a seacow.” Barry Faber’s old nickname for Blank. Quinn thought about saying something, but she decided to leave it for Molly’s future therapist.

  Things had gotten complicated and Quinn was angsty. Needing answers. The time had come, however, for she and Molly to meet Darren’s daughter. Glen, despite being belligerent and coarse, was at least prompt. He showed up right on time. With him was a beautiful little girl of about eleven years. Holy shit, Henaghan thought. She’s still an infant, and look at her!

  “I really wanna thank you for doing this,” Glen said. “I know I was kind of a dick to you.”

  “You were a massive dick to me, but I thought it was hilarious. At the time, I didn’t know Darren had that side.” She ushered her two guests over to the table where Molly had a spread of beverages and pastries waiting.

  Glen smirked. “I could really tell you stories…”

  Quinn smiled. “I wanna hear those stories.”

  The man then spoke out of the side of his mouth. “I’m not gonna tell any of them in front of Josie.”

  Josie had already met Molly. The older woman had approached the little girl, shook her hand and provided her with a cherry Danish. Eating her pastry, the tween-who-shouldn’t-be-a-tween looked around. “What’s with all the extra furniture?” she said.

  Quinn and Glen sat down with the other two. “Well, sometimes, when two mommies love each other…”

  Molly reached over and flicked Quinn’s earlobe. Quinn cried out and held her ear. Josie laughed. “So… You guys’re thespians?”

  Blank smiled. “I was a thespian for a while. I was on a really terrible TV show.”

  Henaghan rubbed her ear. “Actually, the word is ‘lesbian’.”

  The little girl nodded. “Oh, I know. I say ‘thespian’. I don’t know why.”

  “Go with your gut,” Molly said.

  “This is nice,” Josie said. “Sometimes we visit Uncle Glen’s friends. They don’t have snacks and their houses smell like beer and farts.”

  “We don’t have any beer, but we’d be happy to fart if that’d make you comfortable.”

  The girl laughed, flipping her blond braid from her shoulder to her back. She had hair the color of straw like her dad.

  Quinn turned to Glen. He hadn’t changed. He was still bald, had a dad bod and one lazy eye. “You told me she was like a goblin or something. She’s the most un-goblin-like little girl I’ve ever seen.”

  Josie shoved her uncle’s shoulder. “You told them I was a goblin?! What’s wrong with you?!”

  Glen grinned at Quinn. “To be fair, she seemed like a goblin when she was a baby.”

  Henaghan still couldn’t get over the fact Josie was, according to the standard human stages of life, still a baby. Magic could do fucked-up things. She wanted to ask Glen more about it, but decided it would be rude with Josie right there. She shook it out of her mind and leaned it, deciding to broach the reason for the girl’s visit so the girl wouldn’t have to. “So… Glen says you wanted to ask me about your dad.”

  Josie looked at her uncle and Glen nodded. “Yeah, you know. If you could just tell me about him a little. Were you his girlfriend?”

  Quinn threw her head back and laughed. She clutched her stomach. “No, it wasn’t like that. Your dad wasn’t my type.”

  “Well, yeah,” Josie said, looking embarrassed. “Dumb question I guess. He was a boy.”

  Molly looked at Quinn and smiled. Quinn pressed on. “Yes, that’s the reason. Because he was a boy.” Henaghan picked up a pastry of her own and put it onto a paper plate. Blank poured her some O.J. “Here’s the deal,” she said. “I knew your dad for a long time, but I didn’t know him. He was just the grouchy guy who worked at the bookstore. But then he became my teacher and, in a short time, I got to know him pretty well. He did a lotta dumb stuff—like most stupid boys—but I really liked him. He was a good teacher and he was nice to me. He taught me a lot and he was decent and smart.”

  Josie had eaten into her Danish to get to the cherry part and she discarded the rest. “I only like the sugary bits,” she said. “I love sugar.” The girl grabbed a napkin and wiped the red jam from her fingertips. “Do you think… that the part of me that’s him will turn out okay?”

  Holy shit! Henaghan thought. That’s an insightful question! She knew right then that she liked Josie a lot. She nodded without hesitation. “I don’t think it. I know it. Don’t let anything Uncle Glen says tell you different.”

  Josie looked at Glen who managed a lopsided grin. A heavy weight seemed to lift from the little girl’s shoulders. “Thank you for telling me that,” she said. “Sometimes I worry about stuff.”

  “Weird,” Molly said. “That makes you just like every other little girl ever.”

  The pseudo-tween smiled then, relaxing. “What did my daddy teach you?”

  Quinn saw no reason to sugarcoat it. She assumed since Glen was a Channeler and Josie herself was an eleven year old toddler, Josie hadn’t been shielded from the subject of magic. “He taught me how to understand my powers. How to do spells.”

  “Aja,” Glen said with a teeny bit of irony.

  Henaghan scrunched her face. “Don’t call me that.” A thought popped into her head then. Women generally couldn’t Channel, but Josie was an unusual female. “Can you do magic, Josie?”

>   Josie squirmed in her chair, unsure of how to frame her answer. “Kind of,” she said. “I mean I can but it’s freaky magic.”

  Glen smiled. “Right. Not like your everyday, boring ol’ magic.”

  Quinn took a swig of her orange juice. “Do you think maybe you could come over one day and show me some of your magic?”

  The little girl’s eyes lit up. “Fer reals?”

  “Fer reals. I’m wicked curious.”

  Josie was over the moon. “Okay, how about this…? I’ll be me and you guys’ll be my funky aunts.”

  Quinn and Molly looked at one another. “It’s a deal,” they said together.

  Quinn walked Glen and Josie out to the front porch. Glen told Josie to run down to the car then he turned to Henaghan. “Do you keep your ear to the ground much?”

  “What do you mean?” the redhead said.

  “As in the community. The magical grapevine.”

  “Oh, God, no. Why would I do that?”

  Glen shook his head. “Mmm. You might wanna start. You and I have talked, and I think you know I’m not one for gossip. Still, as in all things, you gotta get in there and separate the grapes from the—well, things that aren’t grapes.”

  Quinn smiled. “What’re you getting at, Uncle Glen?”

  “Unbeknownst to you, apparently, you’re becoming a celebrity. Actually, not a celebrity so much as a totem. Since you’re not in there, getting your hands dirty, people are making up stories about you, adding their own cultural and political biases. You’re a walking, talking Internet meme. I think that’s a dangerous thing. When you surrender control of your own image, you lose a lot. And, with tensions brewing between the Tilted and the Resolute, that loss of control could put you somewhere you don’t wanna be.”

  “Well,” the girl said. “Since I’m not an insider, tell me what this tension thing’s all about. Darren never mentioned it.”

  Glen snorted. “What Darren knew about current events could fit on the head of a pin.” He took a deep breath. “Go ahead and paint me with the Partisan Politics brush for what I’m about to say. I’m Jihma, and I admit it. That said, the tensions are all the Dharmin’s fault—and many Dharmin would back me up on that. There’s a wave of extremism sweeping through the Resolute now. A denial of history. A dismissal of facts. Propagandizing. Oversimplifying. Villainizing. If things keep going the way they are, they’ll be handing out armbands at the next company picnic. Current Resolute leadership seems to be keeping a handle on it, but leadership changes. Sometimes in a hurry. It’s all part of this whole thing you need to be paying attention to.”

  Henaghan nodded, impressed with Glen’s analysis. “Makes perfect sense. Is this a sample of the kinda wisdom I’d’ve gotten if Taft hadn’t knocked-up your sister?”

  Glen grinned. “Oh, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet.” He turned and headed for the stairs. Without turning, he said, “Keep your head on straight, Quinn Henaghan.”

  After Josie and Glen left, the two women tidied up and Henaghan put them back on track. “We gotta go downstairs and confront Simone,” she said. Molly reluctantly agreed, but she also couldn’t stop expressing her desire to adopt Josie and spoil her rotten. Quinn was onboard for that plan. She’d taken a real shine to the little girl.

  With Molly in tow, Quinn went down and knocked on the door to Simone’s apartment. Simone answered, opening the door a crack. “We need to talk,” Henaghan said.

  Gros looked back into the dwelling before answering. “This isn’t a good time, dear,” she said.

  “No. This is the perfect time.” She brushed past the larger woman, pulling Molly along by her hand. Sitting at Simone’s dining room table was Pietro Laskov and Arnold Ristich. They both had whiskey. A third glass, Simone’s glass, sat unattended. Laskov stood, both because he was under the impression he had been discovered as a coconspirator and because he was afraid Quinn might teleport him somewhere either dangerous or embarrassing. “Easy, everyone,” Quinn said. “I saw Pietro and Simone at Starbucks together, and I saw Arnold talking to Abrigo in our parking lot. Is Matt here too? That’d make this conversation easier.”

  Simone sighed and closed the front door. “No, Matthew is not here. You’re a resourceful girl,” she said. “And we’re… Well, we’re woefully poor at surreptitious behavior.” She sat down behind the neglected whiskey and said, “Please. Sit down.” She looked up at Laskov who was still standing. “You too Pietro,” she said with obvious disdain. “Bloody swish.”

  Henaghan drew Molly over to the couch and the two of them sat facing the others. Molly was wide-eyed. She was frightened, but she’d insisted on coming along. Quinn squeezed her hand before looking at Ristich. “Put your gun on the table.”

  Arnold glanced at Simone, who nodded. He removed his gun from his shoulder holster and placed it on the table next to his whiskey glass.

  Quinn raised her hand and the gun flew from the table into her grip. She placed the weapon on the couch between her girlfriend and herself. She turned to Pietro. “What about you? Have you had a chance to rearm yourself?”

  “No,” Laskov said. “The gun you so callously disassembled was my father’s. And his father’s before him. An heirloom.”

  “That’s too bad,” the redhead said, not meaning it at all. “Alright. Let’s talk. Taking all of you (including Abrigo) as a group, I have three parties interested in the statue of Horus. Ephraim Zilberschlag—whom you may or may not know—wants it, the Tilted slash Resolute want it, and so do you. Zilberschlag is, in a business sense anyway, Reginald Verbic’s heir apparent. As the head of Fleur-de-lys, he’s responsible for Horus being in Los Angeles in the first place. Either that or Verbic arranged for it to come here before he died, but that’s not relevant. Leaving the Tilted and the Resolute out of it for the moment, Ephraim has, as near as I can figure, the strongest claim to the dingus. Why should you Johnny-come-latelies even get a shot?”

  Simone Gros flashed a predatory smile. A side she had not revealed before. “If that’s what you think, why’re you here? Why not just go to Mr. Zilberschlag and give him the statue?”

  “Because, this is a complicated issue. I need a solution that not only gets you out of this apartment but out of Los Angeles altogether.”

  The heavy-set woman looked at her companions then back at Quinn. “That’s an easy one. Give us the statue and we’ll leave. I hear San Francisco’s nice this time of year,” she said to her compatriots.

  “Right. About that…” Henaghan leaned over and whispered something in Molly’s ear. Molly nodded and got up from the couch. She exited the apartment.

  “Where is she going?” Laskov asked.

  “Nowhere far,” Quinn said.

  The two parties remaining waited, looking at one another with mutual distrust. Finally, Blank returned. With Nate and Ferley. “Have you guys met?” Molly said, meaning Simone’s group and the two men from the home office.

  Gros crinkled her nose as if she’d smelled a horrible smell. “We have not. Although we are, of course, aware of not only their presence but their frightful lack of commitment to their job.”

  “We look like heroes to you?” Ferley said.

  Simone smirked. “You most certainly do not.”

  Ferley shrugged. Neither he nor Nate were offended.

  Molly sat back down on the couch next to Quinn. Quinn turned her attention to the two newcomers. “You guys’re more or less up to speed on this whole statue business. Me, I’m just looking for a way out.”

  “Fuckin’ A right,” Nate said. “You don’t need this kinda bullshit in your life.”

  Henaghan sensed that Nate was applying his own attitudes toward the bullshit in question, but she was okay with that. “One possible solution of many is that I just give Horus to Ms. Gros here. She’s already indicated that, were I to do that, she would make a beeline for San Francisco where, no doubt, she believes the statue of Set is being held.”

  Ferley nodded. “Makes sense.”

  “That’s probab
ly what I would do,” Nate agreed.

  “What kind of resistance do you think she and her friends would encounter in the city by the bay?”

  Ferley shook his head. “I take it you mean Ms. Gros is gonna try and snag the other statue. Well, if you think we’re gonna lay out security protocols for you, there’s something you should know: Even we’re ain’t that dumb.”

  “No, of course not. You don’t have to lay down specifics.”

  Nate lit a cigarette. Simone said, “Don’t smoke in here,” but the man ignored her. Dispersing the cloud around his head (no doubt so it’d become more available for inhalation by everyone present), the black man said, “It goes without saying Resolute headquarters is wrapped up tighter than a drum. Magical traps within magical traps. I suppose there’d be sneaky ways of getting Set out, but they’d take real work and real time. I don’t know who’ve they’ve got watching over it, but that’s what I’d work on. If he’s a he, maybe he’s a gay. If he’s a she, that’d be optimal. What I’m getting at is, either way, I’d put Johnny Handsome on it. The Hexenjäger kid. Speaking strictly as a heterosexual, I’m gonna say that boy is, in fact, all that and a bag of chips.”

  Ferley nodded. “Nature was kind to him, that’s for damn sure.”

  “Anyway,” Nate went on. “That’s just me speaking in a sorta armchair Ocean’s Eleven kinda way. Suffice it say, laying hands on Set would be a bitch.”

  Simone said to Quinn, “All well and good, but, if you give us Horus, we promise not to make you worry about it.”

  Quinn was still addressing Nate and Ferley. “So, if I give them the statue I have, I can wash my hands of it, but I gotta factor in they might someday lay hands on the other one.”

  The white man nodded. “It’s a million to one possibility. I’m not sure I’d even worry about it. Give them your statue and take yourself out of the equation.”

  “On the other hand,” Henaghan said. “I have another interested party who’s promised to set me up financially for the rest of my life if I give him Horus.”