The False Chronicles
Chapter Five – Masquerade
By Nabiki GMYW
Summary: Old records gathering dust in an office mark the end of the masquerade. To say all is not what it seems is an understatement. Dennis will be unpleasantly surprised. Chapter 5 (of 8) – Masquerade
Disclaimer: Gargoyles belong to Disney. Everybody else belongs to moi. Email me at paganj@caribe.net for comments, questions, tarot cards reading… ok, scratch that last one. Comes after Chapters 1-4 so if you're new at this, ye better go back, m'lad.
That Morning
Morning caught him still handcuffed to the bed.
He bitched. He whined. He sunk to the depths of despair and rose to the clouds of anger. He pleaded and threatened (to those he knew were listening through the well-hidden cameras they had no doubt on him —or so thought his paranoid little mind) to let him go. He even tried to use a pen to jimmy the lock on the handcuff, but to now avail. And when he found he couldn't he almost had a small nervous breakdown. But that too had passed.
Now… now Dennis was just plain bored.
How cruel David Xanatos could be; that he left Dennis cuffed to the bed and bothered not with leaving a magazine. If you were going to leave a guy tied to a bed, please, please leave him a magazine. Or at least a TV. No cable was necessary, local channels would do. Even the Home Shopping Network would've been preferable to this. They had only tied his left hand, which in theory would've allowed the free right hand to channel surf at its leisure.
Oh, and he also had to go the bathroom.
Of course, not only did he have to deal with the boredom, there were those creepy messages written in red all over the room. I BIND THEE, they read. It was like a bad Stephen King novel. He half-expected to see REDRUM somewhere too.
Oh, yes. He also didn't know what happened to him last night.
He remembered the bright lady asking him to get the mad magician's magic scythe before his memory faded. Even thinking about it made him feel ridiculous. Ten years of med school, and he had been talked into fighting the entertainment of a ten-year-old's birthday party. Then there were those gargoyles. For some reason, they always slipped out of his mind.
He didn't know what was happening, and he was beginning to not care whether he found out or not. One thing was sure: the second David Xanatos peeked his head in, he was going to tell him he was going to quit his hateful job and call the police and give him a piece of his mind, though not necessarily in that order.
I quit. I'm defeated. I don't want to do this anymore. I want to go home. I'm sick of this game. Enough is enough. I've had my share of fun and monsters, so it's time to call it quits and just…leave.
Just want to go home. I just want to go home.
PART ONE
Last Night
Doped up on morphine, Angela was out of it in Wyvern's medical bay. When she wakes up —and by the rate of this, maybe tomorrow night's sunset— she will be very much surprised on finding a cast in her right arm. Granted, that is, the cast survives her awakening. Even if it didn't, the arm their enemy had snapped in two would've been stoned-healed and she wouldn't need it anymore.
Sunrise was two hours away, and Brooklyn wished it would come faster. He chose not to accept the help of the bewildered doctors Xanatos had summon at the whisk of a cell phone. Brooklyn, though battered, didn't need anything, but a long, long nap. His tiredness was nothing stone-sleep wouldn't cure, although he was sure he'd be feeling the little aches all week.
Xanatos had offered them the castle, so that they could crash for the day. "Then I expect you'll feel better at sunset and we may sort of what happened tonight."
"What about Angela?" Broadway asked, still holding on to his mate's good hand. She was lying on the bed asleep, occasionally mumbling nonsensical songs, which would've been amusing under other circumstances.
"She's in a far, far better place…" Xanatos couldn't help but smirk. "La-la land, where everything's made of chocolate and pink elephants dance tango." He chuckled softly and added, "She's just on morphine for the pain. As for the arm, I think you guys know better than me."
Hudson, admirably battling the yawns, said, "Ack, the lass will be fine with the sun. A scar, I wager, nothing else."
Still, none of the gargoyles left Angela's room, ready to spend the day in the infirmary, much to the future bewilderment of the doctors that would soon take a peek inside the room to check on the patient and find lawn figures instead.
Xanatos left them there. They were no different from a typical family hanging around a sick patient, even though there was nothing much they could do. He expected them to ask about the coffee machines soon.
Instead, Brooklyn asked him to step outside for a moment, so that they would talk. The leader closed the door behind him and leaned against it with crossed arms.
"You've got a lot of explaining to do."
"I do, don't I?"
"You knew who the key was all this time."
"I didn't know. I suspected."
"Who is that guy and how come I've never seen him before?"
At this Xanatos sighed heavily. "Basically, he was hired to replace Owen. But there's more to this story than meets the eye. All you need to know is that his name is Dennis Anderson and he's a very peculiar young man."
"I'll say. Floating six inches above the ground, leveling an ancient monastery with blue light, calling himself 'Seres' and proclaiming that the 'trial' had begun… yep, peculiar indeed…" Brooklyn trailed off for a moment. "And… how's Puck?"
"He's fine."
Brooklyn felt like pushing the subject, but chose not to. He had no idea what sort of relationship those two had, and he wasn't about to pry yet. If anything, he had gotten increasingly uncomfortable hanging around Xanatos. It felt familiar, but he couldn't place the feeling anywhere. Xanatos was being cordial, almost too cordial for him. So it was kind of… creepy.
He knew something had happened between those two, something very important judging from what he'd seen, and Xanatos seemed strangely aloof about it. But it wasn't like now it was the time to ask.
"Well, what are we going to do about this Seres person?" Brooklyn continued, changing the subject.
"I don't know about 'Seres'," Xanatos replied, "But 'Dennis' is still unconscious in the guest room."
"We should do something. Tie him to the bed, maybe. Do you have rope?"
Xanatos blinked. "That's a little cruel…"
"You picked the worst time to grow a conscience, Xanatos…" Brooklyn continued, "I don't know what your boy has been telling you, but he wasn't exactly a helpless sheep when he did his pyrotechnics display."
"Look, you don't know him. He's just…" Xanatos seemed to have a bit of trouble putting what he wanted to say. He wanted to say 'hopeless', but it wasn't quite right. "Way out of his league. He's a nice guy. Worse, a nice guy in the wrong place at the wrong time. He's not exactly god-of-wrath material. His scariest attack could a good lawyer. He's more likely to think we're some kind of crazy satanic cult out to offer him for human sacrifice. The whole 'a thousand years ago, we all lived in Scotland' routine is going to sound like a lame excuse for a group of psychos in Halloween masks…"
"Hey, you yourself found those weird gaps in his records…"
"Yes. And if it weren't for the gaps, I would've said he's a perfectly good unemployed scientist like thousands of others in the city."
"But he isn't."
At this, Xanatos sighed deeply. "Yes… I guess he isn't. Very well, I'll see what other things I can come up with. The company he used to work for merged with Gen-U-Tech some time ago, and hopefully, we still have some of those old files somewhere. Maybe I'll find something."
Brooklyn looked at him crossly, "Why not just ask him? It's pretty clear somebody's lying here."
"Maybe…" Xanatos admitted, "But I can bet my castle it isn't him. He doesn't look like the type that can get away with blatant lies. I doubt he even knows he's a puppet."
"And who is the puppet master?"
The billionaire was very frank on this. "Titania, who else? Sure, I believe Lester as far as I can throw him, but I think he's right. Titania's the puppet master. I can just see her out there, moving us like chess pieces…"
"But for what purpose?" Brooklyn interrupted impatiently, "Was Lester right about? About all this having to do with the fate of the universe or some holy crusade like that?"
"…I hope not…" Xanatos replied, a little distant, "…I sure hope not…"
"Anyway, I want to talk to Lester again. See if His Bastardness can shed a little light on the subject. Is he awake?"
"Yep. He's been bugging the guards to get him snacks from the vending machines."
"Let's go bribe him with Twinkies then."
* * *
"Let me get this straight…" Lester sighed melodramatically. "He's the creature descended to destroy the world if he finds it unworthy… and he still gets the guest room?"
"I have to warn you…" Brooklyn said. "Fang pulled a routine like this before. He did it first and he did it better."
Lester snorted, but didn't get up from the small, poor excuse for a bed in a little cell somewhere in the bowels of the castle. Lester had no reasons to complain. This so-called dungeon could've been mistaken for a very cheap, albeit slightly creepy motel. Throw some wallpaper in the walls and you could be in business.
Trust Xanatos to put air conditioners, fluorescent lights and have the floors of a medieval torture chamber smell a soft scent of pine.
Had these being the old days, Lester would've been hanging from the ceiling upside down. Brooklyn sighed wistfully… sure, it was barbarous, but it would've put the fear of God in insolent creeps like Lester.
"Well, what the hell do you want? I tell you the secrets of the universe and what is my reward? Humiliation. Stubbornness. Hunger. When is breakfast around these parts?" He spoke these things to Brooklyn, but in the last question, his eyes drifted to Xanatos. "Or is the poor waif so ill he can't make a descent pair of toasts anymore?"
The millionaire, however, arched an elegant eyebrow and refrained from answering to Lester. Instead, he turned to Brooklyn. "I'll go check on the others. You handle him."
Brooklyn wanted to say something, but wondered if there was anything to say at all. Not my business, he concluded. But he couldn't help but notice Xanatos didn't seem too angry when he came down here like he had expected him to be. Honestly, Brooklyn would never figure him out.
"Ok…" Brooklyn sighed as he turned to Lester. "Talk to me about Seres. What do we do now?"
Lester chuckled. "What else is there to do? Kill him before he kills you. It's not a science, Brooklyn, my man. It's a fact of life."
"But you said that all was not lost…" the gargoyle complained, "that we could convince him to…"
Brooklyn ran out of words and Lester immediately leapt to his feet. He approached the cell bars and casually leaned against them, face to face with the gargoyle. "To what? Go ahead, say it. To save us? How likely is that? We're a mistake, buddy. This whole timeline is bonkers. And the universe does not look kindly at unnecessary duplicates."
"Duplicates?"
Lester grinned like a cat. "What a short memory you have. I told you once that in another life, the 'Big Guy' is still alive. You should see him, Brooklyn. How his face lights up when he walks with Detective Maza, arm in arm. Parallel lives, parallel universes, all that sci-fi crap."
"I know what you want, Lester…" Brooklyn growled softly, but softened as he spoke. "But even if this so-called judge is biased, I just can't… I just can't kill him in cold blood. It's not honorable…not… not the gargoyle way."
Lester rolled his eyes and groaned loudly. "It's always the same thing…! People would rather stick with outdated ideals and face extinction than to change and grow up!"
The gargoyle growled softly and armed himself with courage. "Your memory is also failing you, Lester… you also asked me whether one should die to save us all. That's a pretty idealistic question, so why don't you answer it?"
"Oh, no, you misunderstood me…" Lester sneered. "Maybe a more intelligent phrasing would be: should many die to save one?"
"What do you mean?"
"A common fact of astrophysics…" the demigod went on. "Parallel universes do not connect with each other. In other another place and time, Goliath and Elisa will ride off into the sunset whether this timeline exist or not. They don't know we exist. We don't affect their outcome. You still get whisked off by the Phoenix Gate, in that so-called correct timeline. We're irrelevant… and this was Titania's major flaw." He leaned against the bars and whispered, "She's not doing this to 'fix' us. She's doing it to make herself feel better. She plans to destroy us so that favorite line of hers remains. Even if she doesn't live to see it anyway. She's a bit odd in the head, you know."
"That's…"
Lester blinked innocently. He could practically see the gears turning in the gargoyle's head. "You do understand what I'm saying, right? That reality she dreams about already exists. Destroying this one is just that: destroying this one. Life goes on in A no matter what happens in B, get it? We won't be picking up the train and setting it down someplace else and it always being that way. We'll just die. Die, Brooklyn. With a big 'D'. Kaput! Somewhere, life will go on while we are obliterated into nonexistence. Either way you cut it, your Titania doesn't win. She kills us all. And some other Titania in some other godforsaken parallel universe will be oblivious to her pain and our lives."
"Then… what are we supposed to do?"
At this, Lester merely smiled. "Fight it. That's all I can tell you. You can't allow yourself to be destroyed for some parallel-you's sake. As I said, in another life, you're perfectly 'fine'… whatever that means… and you will be fine whether this you lives or not. We live the life we were given. Personally, I can't go on living my existence wondering how different my life would've been if I had married that girl from High School. 'Cuz I'm here. Single. Flawed as it is, it's my life."
"But the trial…"
"Is about whether our lives are worth beans after all," he said sarcastically. "As I said, we're irrelevant. And why should the gods bother with something that only takes up space in their divine closets?"
"But that's not fair!" Brooklyn complained. It was very unlike him to speak without thinking, but still…
"It is, isn't it? But those were Titania's arguments to the gods. They never act rashly… so they set a trial. But I must tell you we're playing with a handicap. There's a very, very real possibility we could lose…"
Brooklyn worked hard to take it all in. One thing still bothered him. Slowly he began… "If all of this turns out to be a mistake; that it wasn't worth it after all… why did they do it in the first place? Don't they know everything? Don't they know the outcome of this trial? If it's all going to be wiped out from existence… why bother in the first place?"
Lester couldn't help himself. "That's the question that has plagued mankind since we've had enough brains to ask it. Seres itself has no idea. I don't pretend to know why they do these things. Everything, they say, has a purpose…" he said, somewhat aloofly, "and finding out is a bitch. But it makes you wonder though…" His voiced turned into a whisper, "…why they chose Seres to be him…"
Lester wanted to add something else, and his face looked grim and grave. This discussion was the only thing he had taken seriously in a long, long time. He looked about ready to say anything, reveal all. But Brooklyn didn't see it.
"Seres is human?"
The spell was broken. Lester returned to his crass self. "Seres is nothing. Call him Atropos, call him Maktub, or call him Seres, like Titania named him. That's just three of the many names some have used on it. Basically, it's a personification of power. But he can't act on his own, that's not his realm. He's always bossed by someone or something else. Always needs someone to order it around. He has sentience, which allows him to take some degree of control on whoever uses him, but it's not significant. Basically, he acts when he feels its necessary, which —thank whatever gods you believe in— isn't often. Mostly, it depends on the personality of the user.
"Power is neither good nor evil. That's why it makes him a delightful weapon of mass destruction. It's the talking nuclear warhead ready to go boom when ordered to. As a weapon, he can be used for good or evil. Which is a paradox… the nature of guns is to hurt people. Seres is destructive by nature, so even when it's used for good, people get hurt as casualties of war. Worse, it's his nature to be someone else's toy. See the danger of falling in the wrong hands?
"That's not to say he's completely defenseless. He has a sense of right and wrong. He's not an evil creature… he tries to do things the easy way at first… and when that doesn't work, he begins his fire and brimstone routine. He can't help it, it's what he was made to do. By nature, he's one of the death gods. He could end up sinking a small island in the sea just to carry out his orders —and that's when it's in a good mood and tries to do it for your own good. When he puts the stamp of evil, you're totally screwed. That's why he can be as stubborn as a mule sometimes."
"And the guy…"
"… is the unfortunate human who wields Seres."
"There's still something I don't understand…"
"Surprise, surprise."
"… How do you fit into this?"
Lester grinned maniacally. "You're looking at the rejected Seres! Seres does get to choose his owner, choose a hand to wield him, and I'm sorry to say we didn't see eye-to-eye in many things. I'm just an outdated OS. Windows 95, baby. Evil, unreliable, likely to destroy your thesis when you least expect it! Master of the Blue Screen of Death! Destroyer of floppies! Collector of viruses! Minion of Bill Gates!"
Brooklyn rubbed his chin thoughtfully and couldn't help saying with a little smile. "I see… two stubborn mules just can't get along…"
"Yes, sort of like… Hey!"
Before Lester could complain, Brooklyn quickly asked, "What about the 'other' Seres?"
Grumbling, Lester replied, "The new guy…? He's a Mac. Prettier, but without spark. Windows is bungee jumping. There's always the sense of adventure, of knowing that anytime now the system could crash. It has excitement. Kinda like playing Russian roulette. The new guy is a Mac… no danger involved. Safe. Boring. Like quilting."
"So…basically…" Brooklyn summed up. "You're telling me Seres is only as good as the person who…'handles it' or whatever."
"Of course. Aren't all weapons like that? Both capable of great good or great evil. I suspect the new guy has Seres docile, as he wasn't a violent person to begin with. Seres is so much nicer when it is inside nice guys."
Brooklyn stared at him and something clicked. The way Lester talked, it seemed like he knew quite a lot about 'the new guy'. He didn't waste time and asked, "Do you know the new Seres? Do you know Mr. Anderson?"
Lester blinked startled. He hadn't expected the question. He had been oblivious to those Freudian slips, calling it a 'him' all the time, saying he was a 'nice guy'. But for some unfathomable reason, Lester denied knowing him.
"Don't be ridiculous. I'm just guessing here. The only reason why I think Seres is being handled by a nice person is that we're still here. If Seres had remained in me, for example, I could easily overwhelm it and make it do whatever I wanted. Not only would I have not cared one bit about the trial…" He smiled and said, more to himself than Brooklyn. "Lester Kramer, president of the USA. What a nice ring to it… Among the first things I would do is abolish the constitution, declare myself emperor and set a harem in the White House."
He noticed the gargoyle's hard stare and said, "I'm joking, Brooklyn… besides, why settle with this when I could have Avalon?"
As usual, Lester deflected Brooklyn's questions in his typical ill-mannered way. But Brooklyn was aware that Lester was aware that he really knew that 'new guy'. The gargoyle didn't bother to question him further; he would never get a straight answer.
The question was there, though. Just how did he know Mr. Anderson? He knows him well enough to say he's not a violent person…Brooklyn thought. He chose to change subjects anyway. "Guess I should be thankful you got rejected…"
"Maybe. But he is still Seres, whether he knows it or not… The new guy may have toned him down, but a weapon is still a weapon. He was created to be a weapon of mass destruction. If we lose the trial, he only needs to summon the right spell to make the world go boom. So, really, don't shoot yourself in the foot." He paused for a moment. "It would be wise to take… precautions. You have to make a decision soon. I bound him with a spell, but it won't last. Seres will wake up. It's a matter of time. And you might want to come up with some sort of plan…"
He felt a little sick about admitting it to Lester, but Brooklyn knew he was right. "We do need time…"
"Then give me the cards! I can whip up something with them!"
Brooklyn's expression immediately dropped. "Give me a break…"
"What?" Lester said defensively. "They're my cards! Don't think I should have them back?"
"No," Brooklyn said, loading the word with all the sarcasm he could muster. "You tried to kill with those stupid cards! You transformed them into a stupid scythe that almost lopped my head off! Get serious, will you?"
It's not like Lester could deny he had tried to kill them all. It was fairly obvious how he let loose some sort of evil Goliath clone and tried to take out the building with everybody inside with those magical cards. So Lester didn't even bother.
"Very well," he said with a snort, "You're not as stupid as I hoped you'd be."
"Gee, your wittiness is killing me…" Brooklyn continued rather annoyed, "Well, what is with the cards? Did you really transform them into that…scythe?"
Lester sighed heavily. "Ok… how do I explain it…? They or it are not really cards or a staff. It's Seres' weapon. It can look like a teddy bear if Seres wants it to. But the scythe is more… metaphorically accurate. It is energy that tears through the fabric of space and time. Its real form would melt your eyes, drive you insane and incinerate you in a second. But in this plane, it looks like a farmer's scythe. Different perceptions. Go figure. But whatever you do, you must not let him see it or touch it. That would be extraordinarily dangerous. And since I don't want him running loose in the city, pick a blank card from the deck and write 'I Bind Thee' on it. Stick it the door of his bedroom and he won't be able to leave. To really make sure he stays put, write that same thing everywhere in the bedroom. That oughta hold him."
"How the hell is that supposed to help?"
Lester gave him a snobbish look and cleared his throat. "Everybody who's a demigod in this room, please raise your hand!" Naturally, Lester raised his own hand.
"Fine," Brooklyn muttered. "I don't have time to play twenty questions with you. I'll be back after sunset."
"Remember not to let him see them! You should probably get them out of the castle." Lester replied, matter-of-factly. "They shouldn't even be in the same building, you got it?"
"What do I do with them?"
"How the hell should I know? Eat them or something. And speaking of food, when's breakfast? Summoning evil creatures and binding pissed angels take a lot out of me."
Brooklyn groaned. Lester was getting cranky again, he wouldn't be of more use tonight. He tossed him a pack of Twinkies he had gotten from the vending machine. "Bon Appetit."
* * *
The gargoyle left the dungeon and almost jumped when he saw Xanatos waiting for him, leaning against a wall with his arms crossed. Oh, so he hadn't left after all.
"What did you expect me to do? He was going to be too busy shooting darts at me than answering your questions."
"Hey, I didn't say anything…" Brooklyn muttered quietly, trying to read what his actions meant. Or maybe there wasn't anything to read at all.
"I heard most of it. Got the cards."
They had picked them up from the two unconscious men back in the monastery. Xanatos had insisted on keeping them and Brooklyn hadn't felt like arguing with him.
Upon close inspection, they were unpleasantly surprise. At that moment, they looked like Tarot cards, although it was strange, because Xanatos could've sworn they were normal playing cards. As it turned out, all of them saw the cards differently in the battle, either as Tarot cards or playing cards.
Right now, they looked like the Tarot, albeit the weirdest ones anyone had seen. The minor arcana was missing, they had blank cards in their place.
"Half the deck is blank. But look at the major arcana… the wizard, the fool, the sorceress, death… all the important character cards are in place…" Brooklyn pointed out.
"I've been meaning to give them to Puck for him to check out…" Xanatos said, "…when he wakes up, that is."
"But what's with the blank cards?"
"I don't know much about these things, but as I understand it, the minor arcana aren't that important… and look at the sorceress…" the millionaire said, "Doesn't she look familiar?"
Brooklyn stared at the card. She was as green as a certain fey queen, but the face was different. "Maybe it's coincidence?"
Xanatos gave him a look. "There's no such thing as a coincidence, Brooklyn, you should know that by now. Look at the death card… doesn't it look like Lester's scythe?"
Brooklyn stared at it for a moment and bit his lower lip. Xanatos was right. Death was holding the scythe up high. He held an hourglass with the other hand and a black crow was perched on his shoulder. What did Lester say? Seres is a weapon, and weapons naturally hurt people…
"What does it mean?" Brooklyn whispered. "Seres is Death? Our death?"
"Actually…" Xanatos interrupted, "If you want to get historically accurate, the scythe was wielded by Chronos, the god of time. This is Greek mythology. You know how grain was important to those people. Life and death was compared to harvest time. You know, death and rebirth of your food. It has to do with time and such. But the mythology changed and now we have the Grim Reaper and Father Time as two different entities. The Grim Reaper is a scary thing… but it shouldn't be. It's just a side effect of time."
"Greek mythology… can you look up the name Atropos? Lester said one of Seres' names was Atropos. The other was Maktub. I think they're supposed to be symbolic, but it might give us a hint about what Seres is supposed to be."
"Sounds like a plan… Well, did he tell you which card we should write 'I Bind Thee' on?"
"Yes, in one of the blank cards. And that we should write the sentence all over the room."
"Yeah, great way to get on the judge's good side… scare the crap out of him when he sees 'I Bind Thee' in the mirror when he wakes up…" Xanatos replied. "And just in case that doesn't work, I've got specially crafted iron handcuffs, 'cuz you never know when mad fey drop in your life."
"Seres is weak to iron? Like the fey?"
"Dunno. I hope so. It wouldn't hurt to try."
"Then do it. The sun is coming up, so we'll pick it up tonight. You said you would look for more information?"
"Yes, see what comes up."
* * *
They returned to the infirmary, where the clan was ready to meet the sun. He wished he could drop by and visit Elisa, but he didn't have time. The sun was less than half an hour away. He had pretty good idea of what was going on with her. Love liberates, but also cripples. If he could only visit her…
Brooklyn had nearly suggested Xanatos to phone Elisa and ask her help looking in police records, but that would be adding gasoline to a fire. It wasn't like Elisa had made herself available. She hauled ass and went home without a word, without even an 'I'll-see-you-later' or an 'I-hope-Angela-gets-better'.
He thought those things when he stood by Xanatos as he stared at the sorceress card, with his eyes a little unfocused and dead to the world.
Then Brooklyn could identify this feeling he had had around Xanatos all night.
It's just like Elisa, he thought with absurd amazement. I just can't talk to her anymore… and it's gotten so much worse tonight…
Tonight, Elisa had been acting so…
He tried to focus on one person at the time. Not like he could do much for either of them anyway. Nevertheless, he was struck with an unnatural fear that it had something to do with his assistant. What the hell is going on with those two? Xanatos wore that dark aura, so similar to Elisa's, like a jacket and a pair of pants.
They both acted like something very dear died again. Only nobody died tonight. He had told them Puck was fine, that he was just a little sick. Brooklyn saw him for a brief second, and he looked well enough. He looked a little strange, but it was very dark, and his eyes played trick on him sometimes. After all, the fey were supposed to be beautiful all the time, and Puck… Surely, his eyes were playing tricks on him.
Be that as it may, all of them, gargoyles and humans alike, instinctively knew something had just ended for all of them, and something new, strange and confusing took its place, and they didn't know whether it was good or evil.
It was, at least, what Brooklyn felt. But instead of feeling dread, Brooklyn felt a little exhilarated about it. They're moping around like the world already ended…and I the only one here who can see the light at the end of the tunnel?
Whatever was happening, the quarrel between Elisa and Xanatos hardly had anything to do with gods of wrath or cosmic balances. In a typical manner of lesser beings, the world was standing on the edge on a knife but they were too wrapped up in their personal lives to notice.
Did they even understand what was at stake? Did the talk of astrophysics go way over the clan's heads? Were Xanatos and Elisa too wrapped up in their hissy fits to pay attention to what Lester said a few hours ago? They were shooting dirty looks at each other all night.
In the end, when they all met in the parking lot, Matt commented to Brooklyn that "I thought I saw her smile when Xanatos dragged Mr. Burnett out of the place…it was like… like she was gloating or something…like a person you hate falling down the stairs and breaking something…that same gloating smile…"
The more Brooklyn thought about it, the more he thought it would be up to him to take care of business. He couldn't possibly play psychologist with Lester breathing down his neck about Seres trying to 'eliminate' them.
Brooklyn could only sigh. Save one world at the time. We can all go back to hate each other after this whole business is done.
Again, Brooklyn felt tempted to say something, anything to the millionaire, but couldn't settle on what. He didn't even have the strength to say "I think I understand now. I hope he gets better, because… because everybody needs somebody to talk to, and we just can't—"
We just can't talk to you anymore. What could he say? To him or Elisa? It's been a contest since day one, since Oberon started it all, and the clan refused to participate in that sad little game of out-humiliating each other. All they were doing was burying themselves even further, it was a game neither of them could win. Worse, they risked alienating everybody else.
They used to be even, but then he showed up and tipped the balance… 'Ha-ha, your lover is dead and mine isn't.' But the balance had shifted to Elisa tonight, 'ha-ha, look at him now'. Brooklyn had a feeling neither Xanatos nor Elisa were the victims, only the clan who took her in as their own and the fey who served as a substitute…family.
Brooklyn suddenly couldn't help but ask, "Is it true? The deal between Puck and Oberon?"
Xanatos looked at him and then took a slow methodical breath. "Yes, it's true. If we don't find Titania, he's getting dragged back to Avalon. That is, if Oberon ever had any intention of sticking by his deal in the first place."
"When the time comes…if it comes with everything that's happening… you just say the word. Just say it and we'll be there."
At this, Xanatos had to chuckle. "Didn't our last skirmish with Oberon teach you anything, Brooklyn?"
The gargoyle shrugged slyly. "What can I say? I'm a slow learner." And even though his common sense begged him not to ask it, he asked it anyway: "And… what are you going to do if… we lose again…?"
"I don't know…" Xanatos whispered to himself rather than Brooklyn, "…I really don't know…"
Brooklyn slowly nodded. "It's bothering you like heck, isn't it?"
"…don't worry about me…" the millionaire replied with a deep frown but a distant look, "You saw him, Brooklyn. I don't need to tell you which one of us is in more trouble here…"
Yes. Yes, he did saw him. The Third Race was supposed to be always beautiful.
Brooklyn was thinking those things when the sun came up and he petrified. His mind mulled over that conversation over and over again, until much later that day. No plans, no judgment, but just a lot of thinking and pondering about it.
PART TWO
That Morning
Elisa Maza was tired as hell. All she wanted to do was go to sleep and be left alone by… everybody.
Matt didn't get the hint. He was still hanging in her apartment for some reason. Perhaps she should treat him with a cup of coffee? It was still very early, the sun had just come out. No, she decided not to. She was very comfortable in her sofa.
"We should've gone with the others, check if they were treated right," Matt commented, as he sat down in the loveseat.
"If you wanted to be with them, then why did you follow me home?"
"It wasn't like I had a choice. You were my ride."
"You could've gone with Xanatos in his car."
"I didn't fit there. Besides, I thought you were going to follow them."
"Well, I didn't."
Matt sighed and stood up. "Well, where's your phone? I'm going to call a cab."
"Where are you going?"
"To check on the others."
"They're stone already. It's pointless."
"Yeah, well, somebody got to look after them. Plus, I hear Xanatos has some juicy information on Seres. I'd rather hear it first hand. Wouldn't you like to come?"
Elisa looked at him. She couldn't care less about demi-gods trying to destroy the world. She felt a bit sorry for the guy, she had met him four days before. Told you to run away, didn't I, Mr. Anderson? I bet it sucks to be you right now…too bad. You looked like a nice guy…
"I'm not going. I'm tired."
"You mean you don't want to."
She stared at him coldly. "The phone is on that table over there."
Matt grunted something and called his cab. In less than ten minutes, he was gone. "I'll call you if I find anything interesting," was the last thing he said before he disappeared out the door.
Elisa was alone at last. She meant to have a shower and change clothes so she could have a comfortable nap, but she drifted off there on the couch. But she couldn't stay asleep for long.
Instead, thoughts of Goliath kept intruding her dreams, jerking her awake. And she found herself thinking of Mr. Anderson. He looked like such a nice guy. But he was just another victim, wasn't he?
They were all victims.
She couldn't help but chuckle. They were all victims of themselves, they were their own worst enemies. Anderson, or Seres, or whatever he called himself, was just another name in the long list of masochists somehow related to Eerie Building.
Too bad. He was such a nice guy. She used to be nice too. Once. Hope it works out for him. Because she was already screwed. She had already lost the game. Because he came back. She knew how Xanatos looked at him. She lost the game. It was as simple as that.
Now he could rehire him or fuck him or both. But she was still out in the cold, because Goliath was still dead. Quite dead.
The gears in Elisa's head started turning. A thought occurred to her. So, Mr. Seres is the one who gets to pick who lives and dies. Perhaps that's a good reason to wait for Matt's phone call.
He was a good guy. He just needed a good nudge the right direction.
And she waited for that phone call.
* * *
The sun rose and Xanatos found himself in the medical bay surrounded by stone statues. He was sort of tired, although he had had a few catnaps through the night. Still, he had too many things to do to sleep. It was ok. He promised himself not to close his eyes again until the world was saved or destroyed.
Just a few hours ago, Lester Kramer, self-proclaimed demigod claimed that somehow their lives had gone wrong. They were all puppets, weren't they? First to Titania, and now to so-called divinities telling them that their time was coming. A trial was coming.
Lester spoke of timelines, fates and gods, and David Xanatos wasn't sure he understood all of it.
He did, however, have a damn good scare last night.
After he had said his goodbyes to Brooklyn and the sun had risen, he dropped by the Puck's room and was finally allowed in. The latter had looked up from a mess of papers, then quickly looked down again. "I've been expecting you…" he whispered.
Puck was obviously feeling livelier, and he had already pinked up from that deadly gray from before. His face was back to normal too. He was a very odd picture, with Owen's blue pajamas several times his sizes and his whole mop of hair tied up in a ponytail. He looked better. He looked immensely better.
He didn't know whether it was the electric jolt Puck received, or the sheer scare it had given Xanatos, but they continued what had begun the minute Owen Burnett returned. Lester's little trick left him completely unconscious and Xanatos' had the devil's time trying to wake him up, and for a moment, just a moment—
But then he finally opened his eyes and there was finally release from that gripping pressure in the mortal's chest. The ceiling was about to cave in and there wasn't any time to do anything at the moment, but had they had a couple of minutes, just a couple of minutes, if he could tell him, nay, show him that—
Well, ultimately, there wasn't a lot they needed to tell each other anyway. Words weren't necessary or remotely appropriate.
Of course, they couldn't quite look at each other in the morning.
Xanatos had been mulling over it, over everything that had happened to him these couple of months, about how he ended up in such a tangled web, about however he managed to weave Owen's name into it. It was an interesting but damn bewildering situation.
"…Running a search program…" Puck was saying, though Xanatos merely half-listened, "Looking for information on our new friend….linked up with the computers in Gen-U-Tech. I should probably talk to Dennis as soon as possible."
There were several printouts and folders scattered in the floor; papers that Puck managed to gather before Xanatos dropped by. His laptop, neglected, was also turned on stand-by mode. But the millionaire couldn't take anything seriously at the moment, and he barely listened, wondering about so many things like himself, like Puck, so many things he couldn't possibly put them in correct order.
He was certainly wondering about how wise was weaving this web between the two of them. For the moment, he found no reason to regret anything. But he was sure reasons would pop up soon enough.
"Now who's drifting off into private little words?"
Xanatos blinked. He realized that he'd been quiet for a long while.
Puck merely looked at him. "Stop looking at me like I'm about to snap in half."
"Yes… well… you scared me. You weren't breathing."
"It was just a little shock. I wasn't dying."
"Well, I don't recall you telling me to stop."
"I was…scared and disoriented."
Xanatos choked the urge to laugh. Puck mumbled something about business, and Xanatos felt tempted to tell him to shut up and… what?
He wished he could tell him how very content he was, but he wasn't sure why, so he didn't say anything at all. Content. What kind of word was that, anyway? It wasn't quite what he meant to call it, but it would have to do. Or maybe it really was the correct word to use. Yes. He was content.
And he was also rather worried about how long it would last.
"You know it isn't over." Puck was saying, "If Dennis… if Lester is right, everything's going to… go wrong."
Xanatos sighed gravely. Of course he knew. Of course. "You mean to say… that if we don't find Titania, Oberon's going to drag you back and you might as well be dead. And Dennis might be the key to find her."
Puck blinked. He hadn't expected Xanatos to be so blunt about it. "Yes… that's… part of it too…"
"Makes you wonder… why we don't let Dennis destroy the universe and leave it like that…"
Their eyes met for a moment and the human was the first one to look away. Xanatos didn't have to say anything for Puck to catch that look and interpret it for what it was. "I know you are scared…" he said in a hush, "And I wish you weren't. We have a battle in our hands and we still have hope of winning." He trailed off and changed his mind about what he wanted to say. "So we're safe. For the moment."
"You know that I—"
"Please, David. Let's spare ourselves the Hallmark moment."
Xanatos looked somewhere between miffed and frustrated. But Puck hadn't said it with meanness, only with very bright sapphire eyes. He knew enough. And Xanatos decided to drop the subject. Why spoil it? Really, why spoil it?
In a second, Puck was all business. "So, where is our new friend?"
Xanatos explained that the unlucky Mr. Anderson was sleeping soundly, tied up to the bedpost. The millionaire pointed out that he couldn't guarantee the cooperation of the subject when he woke up as a prisoner.
"You know what they say…" Puck sighed. "Shit happens." He leaned back against the bedpost and sighed heavily. "What I can't believe is the amazing power Dennis might have. Sure, we've suspected for some time that Dennis could've been involved… but having him switch personalities and name himself 'Seres' doesn't make me feel warm and comfy."
"Do you know what Seres is?"
"Besides that he's supposed to be some kind of judge that could destroy existence…? Nothing at all. When Titania said that she wanted to fix things… well, honestly, I thought it was about family therapy or something."
"Perfectly understandable. How could we have possibly known she was talking about rearranging the cosmos? I mean, really, how could we have known?"
"I don't know what's scarier… the mere concept or that she's actually serious about this and found a way to carry it out."
"You really believe Lester?"
"Well, the proof is tied in our guestroom. I have to believe. And I must admit…" Puck sighed as his tone dropped a few decibels. "How very terrified I am of it all. Have you thought about it? About all the consequences, about the weight everything Lester's told us and how it can affect us?"
"Frankly… I'm not sure I believe in the first place. The idea we're living a time traveling screw-up that needs to be fixed is pretty far-fetched. And even if it was all true, it would be—"
"Terrifying." Puck finished dryly. "Because if Lester is right about everything, it really doesn't matter what you or I feel, because eventually… you and me, all of this… is so irrelevant that it's going to be destroyed. David… Lester has just told us our lives are simply not worth living." He smiled a little bitterly, "And that's a pretty terrifying thought, don't you think? If this is some sort of cosmic mistake, that none of it is real, because it'll be erased and… well, everything is pointless, if you think about it. It's… it's meaningless. Don't you know how horrible that is? Have you really thought about it? Why did this happen? If we're all going to be deleted or dissolved or discarded, then why did I have to…" He drifted off for a second. "…I don't see the point."
"But maybe the point…" the human said, very softly, "…is that there is no point…"
The fey looked at him, and his eyes were still pretty and bright, but very enraged. "I can't accept that," he said with tangible determination. "I really can't. I refuse to act like a hapless victim anymore. I'm sick and tired of that. I refuse to believe I worked so hard to get out of that island only to be told it wasn't necessary."
"Then what do we do?" Xanatos whispered back. "Fight it?"
He earned a very surprised look from Puck's eyes. "Were you considering not fighting it?"
Xanatos opened his mouth. And closed it. After a few uncomfortable minutes of silence, he still hadn't found the words.
Puck put aside his pillow and faced him. "Do you mean to tell me Titania's proposal to destroy our lives is… okay?"
With those blue eyes on him, Xanatos couldn't lie. "It's just that… if this is really some kind of weird paradox thing… shouldn't we… I don't know… help fix it?"
The fey stared at him aghast. "This is precisely why I hate it!" he exclaimed, "What about me, Xanatos? About everything I went through!? After all… after a damn week in that godforsaken… I don't want to fix it! I want to be rewarded! I want to know that everything I did had meaning and weight and that it mattered! That everything happened for a reason! I don't want anybody telling me that it wasn't necessary. It's my mess. I want it. Because I wouldn't be here and I wouldn't be who I am if it wasn't for that. Sure, it may not be much, but to pretend it never happened is an insult to my intelligence. I didn't run all this way just to die in the finish line, swim like hell to drop dead on the beach… Put up with this bullshit, only to die because Titania felt it was her solemn duty to re-arrange the cosmos! She screwed our lives, and she wants to fix it, and that would be fine and well if it didn't get us killed in the process! So screw her plan, ok!? I don't need anybody to 'fix' my life. Not you, not Titania, certainly not Seres, will have a hand planning my future, my destiny or my life. Is that understood?"
"But our future…"
"…is not written yet. Try to see the principle, David. It's my life, my rules, my freedom. And I shall give my life my own meaning. Don't tell me you've given up so easily!" he said, incredulous, "I mean…" he continued, somewhat disappointed, "Aren't you happy I'm here? They say… the past doesn't matter as long as we make the best of the present… right? That's what you humans say… right?"
And somehow, they had just worked out a private pact.
Xanatos could only dimly understand the philosophical currents behind everything Lester told them. But Puck seemed to have a firm grasp of things and he trusted his judgment because of the feral affection he felt for him.
If everything else turned out to be a trickster god's elaborate farce, a false life that time wants to unmask, at least this one moment in time was absolutely real. A moment that made the whole subterfuge worth living.
And he gave Puck what he wanted to hear. "Of course it is. You're absolutely right." And he said it, not because he believed it, but because Puck was usually right about these things. "It's just that… you know, I get depressed sometimes."
Puck, probably having at least an inkling of his thoughts, merely smiled. "In old Roman times, an empress told the emperor, in the middle of a revolt, that she'd rather die an empress than run away like a thief. The emperor stood his ground and saved his throne."
And Xanatos realized that instant that there was no way they could lose this trial. Not when so much… so much love was at stake. Yes, love, the one word he'd been searching for all day, always at the tip of his tongue. He couldn't give up because so much crystalline love was at stake, love that was very different from the cheap romance novel that plague mankind these days.
Love, like so many emotions reduced to words, was among the most misunderstood phenomena in the history of Man. Humans got it so wrong sometimes. They cheapened it. Made it mundane. They couldn't see it all the way to the end of the masquerade.
Softly, the computer beeped. It did not startle them.
At a leisure pace, Puck moved slowly away from him, without interrupting the way their sight met. He turned to face the laptop and hit enter. And his eyes sparkled back to life. "What the—"
* * *
Even the jaded Elisa found herself mumbling "What the—"
She had never left the apartment. She had no reason to. Since she usually had the daylight hours off, it was her custom to stay in and leave only to buy food. But she had plenty to eat today, so she had no intentions of getting her butt off the couch for Chinese, much less visiting enemy territory.
Matt had provided the only thing that warranted a visit to the castle. And if he hadn't brought her the copies, she would've definitely gone to the castle, megalomaniac millionaires or not. The information was that head-turning.
She let go for awhile of her inner demons and read the papers Matt had brought like a wide-eyed wanderer that stumbled upon ancient ruins. She didn't know what to think. It was… something else.
Matt sat next to her and sorted through the files in the table in front of them. "Directly from the desks of Gen-U-Tech and David Xanatos…" Matt said with a certain dramatic flair. "Life and Work of the one and only Lester Kramer… and his associate."
"…the unlucky Mr. Anderson." Elisa finished. "Born on 1964, in Boston, Massachusetts, young Dennis Anderson was a really bright student who went on to get a doctorate in genetics. The poor guy had his career made until an unfortunate accident in late 1995… and his untimely death."
"Lab blew up with him inside," Matt commiserated. "He never saw it coming. And I don't he still has."
It was all in the files Xanatos had to unbury from hard disks that no longer saw the light of day. Stuck in the basement of the old labs of Ulead, they gathered dust and hid their secrets until the dead unwittingly reclaimed them. And they soon found out that one dead scientist and one very live demi-god happened to be two sides of the same quarter.
"It's all here. I can't believe Xanatos missed it…" Elisa was saying. "The police reports, Ulead Genetics internal reports… it was ruled an accident. Loose wiring and really atrocious luck killed three of their top three scientists. Dennis Anderson, whom we've known all too well, his fiancée Mary Arden, and…"
"Lester Kramer. Whom we all wish he stayed dead." Matt interrupted.
How do you deal with two demigods that appeared to have died a year —hell, less than a year— ago? Five months before the Gathering. And just five months after they died, when their corpses were still warm in their grave, Titania… what? Brought them back?
Oh, God, you poor guy, Elisa found herself thinking with true pity. Do you even know how deep you're in our mess? You don't, don't you? I told you to run away, I told you— and now you won't ever get to leave.
The cause was painfully obvious. There were no coincidences in their world. They just didn't happen to work for the company Anastasia Renard had created. She knew those men and she was the only suspect with enough magical power to do bring them back. And even then, Elisa thought back to adventure in Egypt. She remembered Anubis and his grim pronouncements that death could not be undone.
Elisa had to wonder how she did it. What force, holy or unholy, she had used to bring them back and how 'Seres' fit into it. What spell? What loophole?
According to Xanatos, Mr. Anderson had been restrained in the castle. Once more, she didn't envy the millionaire's lot in life. After all… how do you tell a man he's supposed to be dead?
"Maybe it's a hoax?" Matt offered. "Maybe it was all a conspiracy. Maybe they didn't die after all. I mean… suggesting that these two were brought back from the dead is… well… those are fighting words, if you know what I mean."
"But if these files are right…" Elisa continued, "Their deaths took place five months before the Gathering. I don't think Titania has so much foresight to make up this… elaborate plan. She didn't know things would go sour. Whatever the hell she did to these people happened afterwards." But even she had to admit certain things. "Wow. Brought two guys from the dead in just four months after the Gathering… the things you do when you're desperate…"
Something creepy crossed Matt's head. "They don't have a clue, right? I mean…if I knew I'd died I'd be…"
"Traumatized?"
"For starters."
Elisa bit her lip and looked at the papers. Mr. Anderson looked mercifully unaware of everything, but she wasn't sure about Lester… She thought back to their first meeting, when he showed up as a mundane murder suspect. He refused to say his name, didn't he? He told them almost three days later…
Her eyes widened as she realized the truth. He knows, oh God, he knows. He refused to say his name, because he knew Xanatos was powerful enough to find out all of this. But something still nagged her. No…wait… There was no way Xanatos could've known he worked for Ulead. He looked into Ulead because of Mr. Anderson, not because of Lester…finding out he also used to work there was just a coincidence.
Elisa couldn't help but chuckle. Life was so absurd sometimes.
If Lester hadn't showed up yelling that the sky is falling and that a judge existed, it was very possible none of them would've ever known. And if they didn't know, they wouldn't have had a reason to research Mr. Anderson's odd records. And if Lester hadn't been so hell-bent on looking his key, the key wouldn't have woken by itself last night, would it? He woke up because Lester practically forced him to by raising that ruckus.
Dammit… what kind of crazy life are we living, anyway!? Lester practically brought upon himself this whole shebang! He kept complaining that he had a vision of his own death and he worked hard to avoid it…but what if he set his own chain of events? And if all of this is a chain of events of his actions…
"…what about my actions…?" she whispered.
Matt perked up for a moment. "What was that?"
"Oh, nothing…" Elisa replied, this time with a weary sigh. The humor she found in the whole situation died quickly. "It's just…this. That the coincidence of finding out these two knew each other… must be astronomical."
"Not exactly. Titania was just sloppy. She wanted somebody to be this Seres thing and picked the first names to cross her mind. Probably searched through some old records and said, hey, this guy looks like a Seres!"
Elisa stared at him blankly. She hadn't thought about it from that perspective. It was so…what? Unromantic?
"But it's so unbelievable…"
"You think? Compared to what I've seen with you and the guys, I think its small potatoes," Matt said with certain callousness.
She wanted to tell him what she thought about all of this, but now wasn't the time and she was beginning to doubt herself. "Must be reading too much into it…"
Matt merely shrugged. "Whatever. What I can't believe is that they were friends. Dennis and Lester. They just don't seem the type to be…friendly with each other. Which is more unbelievable, that they've come back or that they used to be friends?"
He handled old photos to Elisa. They were still on their stands. They probably used to adorn the trio's desks. And when they cleaned up their things, there was nobody to reclaim them, just cops almost ten months later.
"Yet they have and they were," Elisa said, picking up the old pictures. "Judging from the photos, they were quite friendly too. The real problem is how she did it. I met the god of death, Matt. He said reviving people was a big no-no. When the god of death says no, it's pretty final… But although he said that there was no escape from death, look at them… It's like Titania found a way to… cheat death. A loophole."
"But if she found a way out, then why not bring Fox and Goliath back? It would've been so much easier that way."
Elisa bit her lip and mumbled, "I'm…not sure."
Elisa relaxed and tried to focus as she would when she tried to crack a murder case. But felt like she was trying to figure out how she would do the crime. If I wanted to change time, what would I need to do?
Motive is easy: she needed to…fix time or something. Regardless of the feasibility of such endeavor, there was the matter of weapon. She supposed Seres had something to do with that. But what need does she have of reviving two guys, two strangers?
She spread out the photos in front of her. Everything a detective needs to crack a case is in the police files. With that in mind, she stared at the photos, looking for anything. The one photo that caught her attention was of a blonde woman, probably Mary, holding onto a Dennis that had a resemblance to the one they knew, and Lester, who didn't seem to be such… an asshole… sitting in a bench on the park, goofing around.
But the two men seemed wrong somehow.
"Look at them…" Elisa whispered. "They must've been some sort of dream team. But they're all wrong. I don't know Dennis very well, but Lester looks so…" she found it difficult to even say the word. "Innocent. He doesn't look like he's… angry and unhappy as he is now."
"And Mr. Anderson does look a little… happier there. He was a little scattered-brain when we met him."
She stared at the picture some more, then at the other photos. The Lester she knew was usually well dressed; this guy in the photo seemed more…relaxed somehow. Less showy. Present day Lester was the evil twin of someone that was declared Employee of the Year once according to his files.
"He also used to plan the Christmas parties and organize the charity things…" Matt idly commented. "I guess that's where his authoritarian streak comes from, only now it's gone horribly wrong. Think Mr. Anderson is also… changed as dramatically? Well, I guess it doesn't matter what they were like."
"It does matter, Matt, if only to find out more about the 'Seres' thing," Elisa said. "It doesn't take a burst of genius to know that… it… is involved. Lester called it a weapon. If we found out how it works, what you need to make that weapon work, then maybe…"
She trailed off when she focused on the picture in the park. It was taken in autumn and everything was a golden shade. In the back, deep in the background, was a large flock of birds…
"Oh, I see… because she couldn't bring Fox back per se… just someone that looked like her."
Matt perked up. "What?"
"The loophole. They're not the same persons from the photo, Matt. I don't know if Titania had to deal Anubis at all, but it's obvious they are not the same two men that died. She didn't bring anyone back. The guys in the photo are still dead. For all practical purpose, the ones we know are just… a cover version, a faded photocopy. If you look at Lester, he used to be a model individual. His personality did a 180. She needed someone… anyone… to be Seres. It didn't matter who they were or the quality of the copy." She tilted her head and whispered, "But it went wrong, didn't it, Titania? Lester's new persona was too hot to handle. He was not the sheep you wanted him to be. So you chose another. One that doesn't remember, like Lester has."
"Lester knows he's… revived?"
Elisa looked up at her partner. "Not only that. I think he does remember. Everything. Even… even the fire."
Even Matt had to shudder. The truth clicked in his mind and he couldn't help but say, with a sense of wonder, "That explains a lot, doesn't it? Everything he's done, how he talks dirt on Titania. He's pissed. But Anderson, I assume, doesn't remember?"
"No, he doesn't. He would've said something, given us an indication. He's been too clueless. Either he's a hell of an actor, or he doesn't know what's going on. Maybe he could have a few false memories. The Queen of Avalon can certainly be capable of that. Maybe he's under a spell to make him forget. It could happen. The Seres thing could've played a really big part on that."
"I think I see where you're going with this…" Matt interrupted. "How's this theory? Lester changed because of Seres, and when it left, it left him scarred. He may have the original Lester's mind… but it's mutated somehow. He's become an angry asshole with magical powers to boot. It's safe to assume that the Mr. Anderson in the photo both is and isn't the one we've met."
"But he hasn't fallen as Lester has," Elisa said with wonderment. "Because he doesn't remember. That's why Titania hasn't allowed him to remember…" The detective frowned and added, "She wants a judge that's on her side, not a vengeful one that's angry for being brought back."
Matt listened to her mumbling and found himself agreeing with her. "So much for the divine, impartial judge ideal. Seres is less than the perfect judge he's supposed to be."
Elisa blinked her way back to reality. "What?"
"What Lester said last night. He said the key was a judge. And he made it sound like a normal trial. Don't look at me like that, just hear me out…" Matt paused when he saw that look on her face. He went on explaining. "It's like a normal trial in the sense that you have a plaintiff… in this case, Titania… who is complaining to the government… the gods, I guess… to review her 'case'. Sort of like saying 'you judged that my daughter must die and I say you're wrong. So I'm appealing.' And so this 'trial' thing with a judge and everything. Kinda profane if you ask me."
"Why?"
"Isn't it kinda obvious?" Matt replied. "Because Seres is a human, sort of. Human judges have proven themselves less than perfect since the concept of 'law' was discovered. Seres is as easily influenced as anybody. It makes sense that Lester was… stripped of the judge function, I guess you could call it… because he remembered and his utter hatred of Titania doesn't allow him to be a good judge. To put this power in his hands…it's scary. But she didn't just screw up with Lester. She's screwed the whole trial. The whole process is flawed. The trial thing puts everything in the hands of a fallible human being. And all human beings are equally fallible. It's a design error that can't be rectified. Mr. Anderson looks like a nice guy, but you never know…"
Suddenly, Elisa was stumped. "So… if Titania's true purpose was to… I don't know, destroy this reality or whatever… she chose the wrong way?"
"Well, not exactly. It's actually a good way to do it…" Matt replied. "A smart judge like Lester is Titania's worst nightmare. An ideal, clueless judge like Mr. Anderson, however, can be silly putty in her hands. Mr. Anderson doesn't know any of this. Hard to make judgement if you're hiding evidence, after all."
Matt's analysis of the situation was quite unnerving and it truly made her think. Suppose there's really a court of gods out there that knows everything and controls the cosmos… why did they let this happen? Why a human judge, if Titania could manipulate him? Hell, why did Goliath die in the first place, why this whole sci-fi parallel universe crap? What's the point?
Elisa looked away from her partner and down to the photos. She didn't know what to think, other than 'poor guy'. He had no idea, no clue. You really do hold our destinies in your hand… but nobody asked you. When you learn about that responsibility, will you be happy or sad?
And how can I make it work for my advantage?
"It's a very dangerous situation, you know. If I were the Big Boss…" Matt casually commented, "I'd cancel the whole trial. Who knows what dirty tricks Titania had in mind?"
Elisa said nothing.
PART THREE
Those two were acting creepy when they finally dignified him with their presence, or so he thought. However, he had spent half a day handcuffed to the bed, terrified that they were going to kill him, so it was his fear speaking. He was biased.
Mr. Xanatos looked like he hadn't slept for days, and Mr. Burnett was so pale he looked like a ghost in an Armani suit. Dennis looked at himself in the mirror and compared himself with them, but he hadn't been allowed to move for hours, so he was still relatively decent-looking. Again, he was biased.
He did notice that those two were unusually close together. Xanatos looked at Burnett worried most of the time; who had to sit down on a nearby chair, and often put a hand on his shoulder. He recalled the words of that mean-spirited sorcerer guy about these two…
Now that's just fanciful speculation, Dennis scolded himself, and nothing to do with me. Although you'd have to be deaf, blind and stupid not to speculate at all…
The good news was that they let him loose from the bed and they had yet to show intentions of murdering him. "Thanks," he said acidly, as he rubbed his shoulder.
Xanatos began to speak in his default smooth-as-ice-cream tone. "I'm sorry we had to do this, but it was for your own protection. We didn't expect you to follow us to the Cloisters, and we didn't know how to deal with you, except that you had to stay."
"I bet…" Dennis replied morbidly. "And you know what? I think I'm going to make it even easier for you guys."
Burnett and Xanatos exchanged looks, but allowed him to continue.
"Look, it's patently clear I'm not wanted here. And that's ok, it really is. I'm definitely not cut out for this stuff. Just let me out of this castle and I'll be in California first thing tomorrow morning. I'll just pretend this whole night never happened and you'll do your thing and I'll do my thing, and we'll all be ok. I give you my solemn promise I won't show up in a tabloid talking about your connection with the gargoyles or your—" he was going to say 'turbid love life', but he stopped himself, "—life."
Xanatos stared at him with curiosity. He tilted his head. "You've given this a lot of thought, I see."
"Ho! I've had four hours to think about it!" Dennis snapped sarcastically, waving the iron handcuff to his face.
The millionaire took the handcuffs from him, but smiled that slightly patronizing smile that started to get Dennis nervous. He sat in the bed next to him and said, "I understand what you are trying to do. I've had many employees ran to the hills when faced with responsibilities lesser than yours. I'm surprised your will to play game lasted as long as it did. But as much as I'd like to send you to Hawaii with a big fat check that'll last for the rest of your days… I cannot do that."
At this, Mr. Burnett spoke up. He had sat silently in his chair, as if standing up for too long hurt him. Dennis couldn't ask about that, and didn't care. "Mr. Anderson," he said, "What were you doing spying on us last night?"
Dennis swallowed hard. He tried to think of something, but he was a lousy liar. It had never crossed his mind that they should ask, but it was an obvious question. What could he say that they didn't know? Might as well cut through the shadow dancing and just say it.
"Because I know the killer guy was after me. And I went there for answers. The only thing I learned was that he had magic powers. So the question is: what does a killer/sorcerer want with me? Bad enough he's a murderer, he can also levitate a car. So don't look at me like that, Mr. Burnett. In any case, I have more right to ask than you, and I'd rather not. All I'm asking for you to let me go."
"That's debatable, Mr. Anderson, but we'll get there eventually," Xanatos interrupted. "How did you know that the killer was after you?"
Dennis felt a little sheepish about admitting it, but said it anyway. "I spied. You left the security camera office open and I happened to look inside. I know it was wrong, but you too would've done it if—"
"If what?" Burnett asked, as he leaned forward in interest. "Why did you do it?"
He shouldn't have said that. He really shouldn't.
"Mr. Anderson…" Burnett insisted.
Dennis mumbled his answer.
"What? I didn't hear you."
"…I said a skimpy dressed green lady with shocking pink hair told me told me to…"
He held onto a pillow and waited for snorts and guffaws. They did not come. Instead, Burnett and Xanatos stared at him in quiet horror. "Titania…" the millionaire whispered.
Dennis blinked and exclaimed, "You mean she's real?!"
It was Burnett's turn to look surprised. "You didn't think so?"
"Well, no!" Dennis complained. "I mean… she was green, for goodness' sake!"
The other two men groaned loudly. "That little bitch has been moving us like chess pieces since day one!" Xanatos growled.
Ignoring him, Burnett continued asking Dennis more questions. "Why didn't you come to us? Why didn't you say anything?"
"What? You mean I'd tell my new boss I'm having visions about a green lady and a white-haired kid? Or better yet, that the other night I went into some sort of trance and woke up with notebook papers glued to every inch of my living room, with the same poem written in twenty languages? Would you have believed me?"
"We would've. Trust me, we would've." Burnett said seriously.
"I hate to break this to you, but you don't exactly inspire that sort of confidence." Dennis replied, deadpan. "A month into the job, you landed on the patio with a baby, Mr. Burnett. I've always known those nightmares were related to this castle, but frankly, I couldn't tell whether you were the enemy."
"I don't believe this!" Xanatos replied, "We've been nothing but honest to you!"
Dennis' eyes narrowed and shot him a deadly look. "I'm not stupid, Mr. Xanatos. I can put two and two together. You're not exactly a saint. Learning about the mutates or how you like to piss off the authorities didn't win you any brownie points. And then there's the matter of locking me and tying me up to the bedpost…so pardon me if I don't trust you wholeheartedly."
"All right…" Xanatos began, this time with a look of doubt on his face. "I admit this looks bad. But you've got to believe…" he said, turning sincere, "…that I'm trying to make amends."
Dennis looked at him puzzled. He looked sincere for a change. He looked at Xanatos, then at Burnett, then at Xanatos again. "Then I'll assume you'll answer my questions?" Dennis continued, "Truthfully?"
"Yes," Xanatos said clearly. "If you answer ours."
Dennis knew that was it, take it or leave it. The first thing he wanted to ask was what was going on with him and Burnett, but decided that was just to satiate his morbid curiosity. Instead, he asked, "All right… then who is Titania? It's the name of the green lady, right? I've only seen her twice. The first time I saw her, she was green. There was a white-haired kid with her. The second she was human… sort of."
"Where was she human?"
"In the Cloisters. But who was the kid?"
"I am."
Dennis' head snapped sharply to the right. He didn't know that voice. He didn't—
"Hello, Dennis," a white-haired lad with colorful clothing said as he stared back at him. "It's me."
Dennis blinked. There was a white-haired boy sitting in a chair where Mr. Burnett had been sitting a fourth of a second ago. "Who's… me?" he idiotically mumbled.
"Maybe you should ask where is Mr. Burnett. The answer is that I am Mr. Burnett. Only that in this body…" the strange little man trailed off for a second as he melted into a charming smile, "…they call me Puck."
Dennis just stared at the boy. What the hell just happened!? He thought things were finally getting easier! He thought he finally figured it out! Goddamit, he thought he'd gotten pass the magical shit part already!
"Oh…boy…" he said miserably.
* * *
The little man zipping around the room was getting on his nerves. Although a little shorter than Dennis, he seem to float without care, as if his legs and arms weren't as clumsy as they looked. Superman was stiff as a board when he flew. This Puck had more style.
"Third…Race?" Dennis repeated. "Fairies. The fairies are real." He choked the urge to say 'What will they think of next?'
"The politically correct term is Third Race or Children of Oberon." Puck explained, as he hovered just above Dennis' face, forcing him to look up.
"And he was the guy in the infirmary? Your father?"
Puck flinched when he said that. "Hearing those two words together will give me nightmares for a week!" He exclaimed. "I hope you meant that in the platonic, historic, founder-of-our-race sense… the alternative is terrifying!" Then he mockingly shuddered.
Dennis then looked down at Xanatos. "And Titania and Oberon are your in-laws?"
Xanatos flinched too. "Not so loud, please. I've been trying to block it out of my mind for months."
"Fairies and gargoyles…" Dennis mumbled absentmindedly. "My weekend is complete."
Gee, where to start? Ok, so the queen of the fairies marries a human and they have Fox, who married Xanatos, who has Alex. Fox was half-fairy and Alex is a one quarter fairy. So far so good.
Then when the child is born, there's some sort of custody battle and Fox and the purple gargoyle died and the in-laws take the child away. They also drag away Mr. Burnett, because he was on earth without permission.
God…it's like a paranormal soap opera, Dennis thought as he rubbed his forehead in frustration. And lucky me has landed a guest-starting role, jolly-joy-joy.
Neither Xanatos nor… Mr. Puck?… seemed to catch the irony. Inside the absurd situation, these people got hurt. And Dennis knew now how bad it was, although those two teamed up to put on a happy face.
I know this must've been a very traumatizing experience to both of them, but I just can't help but feel I'm stuck in the WB prime-time line-up…when did my life become a teeny-bopper's watered-down X-Files knock-off?
"Now listen to me…" Puck continued, getting serious. "Titania was really very sorry for what she did and she wished she could… change things."
Dennis was almost afraid to ask. Feeling that things were about to get even more bizarre, he asked with certain doom in his voice, "Change them how?"
"We don't know. But we do know she was so… destroyed that she could've done something very insane and dangerous… and that it may have worked."
"Like what? Kill your…" Dennis almost said father. "…King?"
Puck looked at him, as if considering the best way to approach an answer. "No," he said, "Changing time."
"Change time?" he said incredulously. "That can be done?"
"Titania seems to think so." Xanatos spoke up as he began to stroll around the room. "Hard to believe, I know. It's a preposterous and ridiculous idea. But the problem is that the killer believes it wholeheartedly. He's looking for the one… weapon… that can do it."
"And…" Dennis began, "That weapon truly exists?"
"Something was definitely built," Xanatos explained, "But for all we know, Titania's cracked and it could be a little pointed hat made of aluminum foil. You know how UFO fanatics build all sorts of junk they really believe will take them to Mars. You shouldn't take it too seriously."
"Well, what does that have to do with me?"
The other two silently looked at each other. Then Puck crossed his legs and floated to eye level with Dennis still sitting on the bed. As a result, Puck seemed to be sitting in thin air. "It seems…" he began, "that Lester thinks you have that weapon." Puck smiled a little. "Isn't it crazy?"
"Yeah!" Dennis agreed. "What would he think that?"
Puck gave it a dismissive shrug. "Really, who knows what these loons think? We believe that Lester used to have the weapon, but it was taken away from him, basically because he was unstable. Nuts."
"And who has it now?"
"He thinks you have it…" Puck replied, accommodating his legs a little better in his invisible seat. "Or may have seen it."
"Because I used to work for Mrs. Renard… Titania… or whatever?"
"Yes, precisely," Xanatos encouraged. "So it helps if you tell us everything you remember since you worked at Ulead, say… nine months ago?"
"The weapon had an odd name…" Puck added, "Seres. Does it ring a little bell?"
Then they stared at him intensely.
He wasn't sure what they expected him to do, but he tried to remember. There were so many projects…
"Seres?" Dennis said, "I do remember something about it, but it was scrapped. Never got off the blueprints. It had something to do with cloning, but it was considered to be too fanciful, impossible with the current technology. The government raised a ruckus because they considered it unethical. I don't remember the specifics, but it included human subjects. I really don't know… but that's really old, from 1988 or 89. Never heard from it again until now. I thought all those documents were lost in the fi…" He trailed off for a mere second. "…fire…"
He got the oddest feeling…
"What else do you remember about that?" Xanatos insisted.
The feeling went away and Dennis continued without a missing beat. "That it was impossible. Nobody believed in it. Not even Mrs. Renard. She said…" he chuckled softly, "It was stuff of gods. The guy who made the proposal died a few years later. Dr. Targus or something. Nobody spoke of it again."
"But you don't know the details?"
"No. I began working in Ulead around 1991. I'm only telling you what I heard around the water-cooler. Really, it was before my time. Mary once read it and she told me that it was impossible, to not even bother. So I didn't." He looked up to them and said, "But that had absolutely no idea with 'changing time'. That was genetics, this is… I don't know what the hell this is. Seres, if I'm right, is Spanish…" he continued, "it means 'many creatures'."
"It's a verb," Puck pointed out. "For 'to be'. But it's in plural, and used the same way you say 'human beings'. So a more literal translation would be 'many beings'."
"We didn't find anything called like that," Xanatos replied, not to him, but to Puck. He spoke urgently, for a moment ignoring Dennis was there. "Maybe they were really lost for good. But Titania would remember them… and years later she could've done something with her magic. She had the blueprints to what she had to do. So where science failed, magic took over."
"But… changing time?" Dennis kept asking. "It has nothing to do with biology. That must be cosmology or something."
"Don't underestimate my kind, Dennis," Puck pointed out, "We have a knack for mixing science and magic to create… something else." He smiled at Dennis again. "Vessels for gods, for example."
Dennis had the disturbing feeling he was missing in on a whole layer of context, but didn't dare ask.
Very sweetly, Puck continued. "Why don't you show me that… poem… you said you wrote in a trance?"
* * *
While Dennis was busy looking through his backpack, Puck whispered to Xanatos step out of the room for a moment. "I can't believe Sevarius' tentacles reach back so far."
"What does he have to do with anything?"
"Really, David, how many people do you think were talking about cloning back in 1988? And who did Sevarius work for before he deflected to Xanatos Enterprises?"
"…I'll be damned…"
"And damned you are. I distinctly remember the incident that speeded up his departure from Renard's services: his three colleagues murdered over the course of one month. Targus was one of them, I think."
"But that was almost eight years ago and Titania doesn't know that Thailog exists. The information in her hands is obsolete. And Dennis looks… normal. Not weird pigmentation or anything."
"We're way pass the mere concept of cloning, David. He's a vessel, created for something else and she used heavy magic on him too. That's a big difference. Man, I wish we had those original files. Just look at the name… Seres, 'many beings'. It had something to do with mixing living things, I'm sure of it. For all we know, that Seres proposal could be the great-great-great-great grandfather of the mutate project. Only she didn't do it with animals, but a spirit she renamed Seres after the original proposal. She only needed the theory, and maybe some DNA, I don't know. She took care of the rest with magic. She cheated. There was no other way she could create a vessel, no, two vessels in just three months. Never underestimate the brilliance of a suicidal, desperate scientist."
"And that makes her…what? The Frankenstein of the Third Race?"
"Actually…yes. Pretty accurate description. Who knows what she pulled out of her sleeve to make them? Probably everything she could lay a hand on. Genetics, fey magic and very likely human sorcery too. Both Dennis and Lester are brilliant creations, partly because their creations consisted of who-knows-how many spells and science books. She threw everything in a big pot and let it boil."
"But I thought mixing magic was dangerous. She's not supposed to survive."
"Who says she did? Very likely, it cost her life. No doubt fey magic is what are keeping their chromosomes together… and Titania herself had to provide that energy, her own magic. She's either so wasted she can't move or she's dead. She could do it once with Lester…but I'm sure she couldn't do it twice for Dennis."
"Now what?"
"Now… we try to uncover the secrets inside Mr. Anderson's pretty little head."
* * *
Fire. Why did he keep thinking about fire?
Dennis had kept the little poem and a few more copies in different languages just in case. He considered giving Mr. Puck the English version, but changed his mind. No, Dennis needed that version. Why not make Xanatos work a little? He stuffed the original in his pocket and decided to give them the Spanish one. In the end, it was the same poem, right? Language was no barrier.
Again, he thought about the fire.
Mary died in the fire, didn't she?
Why was he thinking about Mary and the fire now?
He had started to avoid thinking about Mary lately. It made his mind… foggy. He couldn't quite recall what happened after she died. He silently wondered what state of mind he had been that every time he thought about those days, his mind just… became dense. And rather than give in to the fog, he chose not to think about her at all.
Mr. Xanatos and Mr… he didn't know what to call them (if it was a 'them') and he settled with Mr. Puck.
Well, Mr. Xanatos and Mr. Puck returned, and the latter took his sitting-in-the-air position that became creepier every time Dennis looked at him. He handled him the note. "Uh, they were all in different languages that I…don't understand. Do you know what it says?"
Puck looked at the paper and read silently. He looked up at Dennis, then at the paper. And he said, "You know, I really don't know much Spanish. We'll have the note checked by professionals and get back to you on that."
He folded the paper in two and handled it to Xanatos, who tucked it inside his jacket's pocket. Dennis nodded, very interested in that action.
"Now!" Puck exclaimed as he clapped his hands together, "We're going to do something a bit… different." He flopped in the bed next to him and said, "I'm afraid we're going to need a bit more information."
"But I don't know anything."
"Not consciously," Puck replied. "What I'm going to do is take a quick look inside your mind. In your memories, I might see something you've taken for granted or notice a detail that might mean something to me but not to you."
"You're gonna read my mind?" Dennis retorted, more high-pinched than he'd expected to be.
"If you don't want to, I won't do it," Puck said. "And we won't hold it against you."
He looked at Mr. Xanatos, then at Mr. Puck. Well…now what?
Dennis chose the chicken-shit way out first. "Look, can I think about it? I'm hungry and I haven't had any breakfast, so it would be better that I ate something. I hate thinking on an empty stomach."
"Oh…" Puck stuttered, "Well, ok. Uh, I guess it doesn't have to be right now."
His eyes met Xanatos' and the latter immediately said, "Right, uh, breakfast?" He exchanged bewildered looks with Puck and awkwardly asked, "Well… what'd you want?"
PART FOUR
"Eggs over easy. The horror."
Elisa groaned. Half a day, and those two at the castle didn't have anything important to say besides some interesting bits about Ulead's old projects. So the immortal terror wants marshmallows in his hot chocolate. Some judge he is, Lester. I cower in my kitchen.
The more she thought about it, the less she understood the whole process. What Matt said still nagged her —if this was supposed to be some sort of divine trial, then why make the judge so…fallible?
But at least she thought she understood where Titania was coming from.
All or nothing. Who knows how much those two have changed? Totally distinct personalities for all we know. Would I have accepted a Goliath knock-off? Am I that desperate?
Was she that desperate?
The truth in her heart was that she would've probably accepted it. She would never admit it out loud, she wasn't even aware of it, but it was very likely she would've run to Goliath's arms —or some thing with his face— if only to say what needed to be said. He didn't have to be her Goliath. He just needed a Goliath to smile, nod, and tell her he loved her too.
It didn't have to be real. She just needed to hear it; that's all.
If Lester was right, that the sci-fi was real, a Goliath was telling an Elisa how much he really loved her in some other bizarre parallel universe. The thought truly warmed her heart. Somewhat. Alas, this was not that perfect world, and she didn't have that luxury.
Made her wonder what the point was.
The question, then, was whether some intangible heaven was enough for this current Elisa, the one who lived without a Goliath.
Well, Xanatos seemed ok with it. Of course, he also had his little assistant. It was a different situation, you see, because while sex doesn't mend broken hearts, it can tape them together just fine. Good old Owen will probably get a raise out of it. She was mildly curious about what Fox would think of it. Probably cheer them on. Hopping on board was even more likely.
So, was she willing to sell out? Give up on Goliath? Move up to Brooklyn? Screw Matt, maybe? Pay an employee for nights of passion? …Yeah, there's a good way to get your brains fucked out on a daily basis.
But it's not love. That's desperation, maybe confusion over what friendship really means. She understood Titania perfectly well in that she'd do anything for love's sake. Love can be fire; it has the ability to incinerate with its touch.
She honestly admired Titania. She was willing to move heaven and hell for her daughter's sake under the powerful Law of Love. The type of Love that turns everything upside down and defies the gods' altars.
But she did have to wonder… was love being true to itself in both cases? If love created the world, is it so unreasonable to think love can also destroy it?
Maybe some altars shouldn't be desecrated. Maybe the things people do in the name of Love should have limits. Maybe Love itself is another death god when the moon is not rising. Or maybe Love is destructive and subversive by its very nature. Maybe there is no masquerade and this is it, warts and all, cheap porn and dildos, pop love songs and roses bred by the thousands to sell in Valentine's Day. Love is a book of sex positions, a long list of how-to's. Maybe there's nothing behind the curtain. Maybe it's only a book of poems or a greeting card you buy in the market. Or maybe it's a guy that thinks that girl is really hot or that girl with three boyfriends she can't dump 'because I love them SOOOOO much…'
Titania's love dared to go against the very heavens and They allowed it to wreck havoc, all in the name of love, even if it has terrible consequences. Maybe because Love itself is a force of havoc. Love is a death god when there's a crescent moon.
But she didn't wish death and destruction. Elisa Maza merely wanted to summon the illusions that people freely enjoy, ignorant or simply ignoring that it's all made of fluff with the same nutritional value of frosting on a cake.
Could they grant a simple wish to a mere mortal under the ever-effective, always reliable, good ol' Law of Love?
* * *
Dennis didn't want to appear like a coward, but the whole idea bothered him like hell. "What exactly do you mean to achieve by poking around in my head?"
Mr. Puck chuckled delighted. "What? Do you have any perverse sexual fantasies to hide?"
"No! Of course not!" Dennis snapped, but it only made the fairy laugh harder.
Dennis settled back in his chair, grumbling. They were in the kitchen, where he had just laid waste to the fridge. It was strange, he hadn't felt hungry enough to eat a loaf of bread, three bowls of cereal, eggs over easy, half a gallon of orange juice, waffles with cherry syrup and whipped cream, hot chocolate and two sandwiches. He ate it all, and still there was room for more.
Xanatos was very impressed. "When was the last time you ate, anyway?"
He was more worried about the spell, not because there was anything to hide, but because… everything was too well hidden. He grew increasingly worried about the memories after Mary's death. They were there, just below the surface, but no matter how much he reached, he couldn't grab them. It was like a word at the tip of your tongue, or the name of someone that you just couldn't remember. It was there. He could almost touch it.
Dennis sighed and ended up giving in to Mr. Puck's proposal. "Ok. Let's get this stupid thing over already." He saw Xanatos and Puck exchange those looks again, and wondered whether this was the smart thing to do.
They removed to the library.
Puck made Dennis sit on one of the comfy seats near the fireplace. Xanatos flicked a switch and the fire sprinkled to life while Puck pulled a chair near Dennis'.
Dennis seemed somewhere between incredulous and worried, like he wasn't sure what was the point and the whole idea was stuck between really creepy and somewhat stupid. 'I-can't-believe-this-is-actually-happening-to-me/what-did-I-do-to-deserve-this?' were thrown in for good measure.
"So I'm stuck in a comic book. Should I laugh or cry?" he said.
Puck got a feeling that if Dennis had been stuck in Luke Skywalker's role in Star Wars, and two droids just asked him to save a princess, he'd take a pass and spend the rest of his days pretending it never happened. The world would never have an 'Empire Strikes Back' or a 'Return of the Jedi'. On the flip side, they'd never have a Jar Jar Binks. "Hmm…" Puck considered.
Puck shook his head to clear away those ugly thoughts. He sat opposite of Dennis. "Relax…" he said with a grin, "It won't hurt… much."
Puck moved his hand near his face and blew a strange green cloud of magic towards Dennis.
He saw something…it was so unexpected. It was a great gray…wall?
The young man made a strange gesture and his eyes watered. In a second, he started sneezing uncontrollably. Waving his hands around to clear the smoke, he exclaimed, "What is this, pixie dust!?"
It wasn't exactly what Puck was expecting. Wide-eyed, he cried, "Don't you feel anything!?"
"No!" He said, trying to cover the lower side of his face with his shirt.
The fey was somewhat upset. He hadn't expected to encounter a barrier so soon. He hadn't even begun the spell when he slammed against the wall. It was disturbing. It meant that it wasn't going to be as easy as he'd thought.
Puck scratched the back of his head and tried to think. If he was right, and Titania had used every magic she had available, then he could be facing layers upon layers of spell in this guy's head. Puck had to grunt. Trust Titania to make things difficult for him.
Dennis was still sitting there, though this time he crossed his arms and said, "Well?"
"Don't push me! I'm trying to think. Your head's thicker than I thought…"
Dennis had a hard time figuring out whether that was a fact or an insult. "Am I supposed to do something?"
Puck considered it for a moment. "No. In fact, don't do anything at all. Just be yourself. I think I should try a more novel approach…"
Instead of merely focusing on Dennis, he chose to tune his metaphoric radio to pick up everything in that room. Puck limited himself to close his eyes and just… listen.
He could hear Xanatos, standing quietly in a corner, watching him with great interest. He heard things that he'd suspected, and even flattered him, and made a mental note to probe him further one on this days, because he was just so fascinating, so interesting, that Puck realized how much he couldn't get enough of him, how deep he was, how much he overwhelmed him, how easily he could lose himself with him, and how great it would be if only he could have him every day just like this, and he could tell, he could always tell, that he also would've liked it, and then he realized he wasn't sure who's idea it first was to—
Puck's eyes snapped open. He had let it go a little too far. He closed his eyes again.
Dennis was mostly confused about all of this, and still a little unnerved. But that was surprisingly superficial emotions, because beneath that layer feeling was the Wall. His current thoughts were merely icing on a cake or paint over concrete.
So while he could very well perceive the depths of Xanatos' mind, he couldn't even begin to scratch the surface of Dennis'.
Every time Puck tried to take a peek inside, he only saw a great gray wall stretching towards eternity. Dennis wasn't really there, sitting in the love seat. He was behind the wall, and this one here was but a small extension of him.
Puck tried to test the Wall, for a crevice or a weakness, when somebody whispered, "What do you think you are doing?"
* * *
It was creepy to see Mr. Puck sit there and slump in his seat as if he were sleeping, but it gave Dennis a great deal of comfort that he didn't have to do anything beyond sit and stay quiet.
He was mildly curious about how powerful a mind reader a fairy could be, but now was certainly not the time to ask. He occasionally exchanged looks with Xanatos. He meant to say something, but the millionaire silently gestured to keep quiet.
Sighing, Dennis slumped in his seat, wondering how long this was going to take.
Puck woke up suddenly. "Dennis, did you say something!?"
"What? No, of course not."
* * *
"Of course he didn't say anything," the voice whispered back. Was it the Wall speaking? It sounded… bored. "What do you think you are doing?"
"Are you Seres?"
"Seres is so intertwined with old memories they are barely indistinguishable. Both locked in the same basement, as it were."
"And that makes you…?"
"None of your business."
"I demand to see what's inside this mind!"
"Very well. To break my spell, you only need to ask him. He has the key to his own basement. Problem is, nobody has ever told him. So many subterfuges, my dear Puck. Why not be honest for once? Why not ask? Go ahead. I encourage it. Let's finish this once and for all."
Puck woke up in a startle and with a gasp. "She…!"
The two spectators started to get nervous. "What happened?" Xanatos was asking, "What did you see?"
Puck's expression hardened and he muttered, "Titania's echoes have prevented me from to see the truth. But she also wants me to unravel it…and I don't know if that is wise."
"Do it," Xanatos replied. "We can't go on shadow dancing forever."
Dennis, who had just begun to relax, got tense again when they started speaking as if he was not there. "Now what?"
Puck turned to face him. "In the end, I guess I'll be doing you a favor. I think its time to get this stupid trial properly started. And you, Dennis, have the key to your own memories. Because you really don't remember, do you? I bet you don't quite know how you ended up in Eerie Building's doorsteps. Tell me, Mr. Anderson… what happened after your girlfriend's lab coat got fire?"
Dennis blinked. "Excuse me?"
"You heard me…" Puck said, unusually cold, "What happened between your death and your revival? Are you even Mr. Anderson? Or were you always Seres and simply forgot about it?"
Faced with the sudden iciness in Puck's tone, all words suddenly escaped Dennis. He looked at Xanatos, who was just as surprised as he was, then at Puck, who seemed very determined.
The situation struck him as so absurd, so wildly inappropriate, he let out a surprised gasp, "What does Mary have to do with anything?!"
Except that he had always known.
"No…"
Like it had happened a few hours ago, the truth was amazing because it was so simple he couldn't believe he ever forgot in the first place. It was finding out the correct spelling of a word that for a few moments had confused the hell out of him.
How could he possibly forget that after the explosion, the ceiling began to cave in and the electric system started to short out, and that when Mary's lab caught fire, he had stood there dumbly as she jumped, almost danced, in panic, that the sprinklers had come on line, and just when he snapped out of it, when he was about to run to her, the ceiling gave in and a particularly large block landed on him… possibly his head, he wasn't too sure… and he was sunk into oblivion…
…until one day he woke up and there was this beautiful lady with green skin and pink hair waited for him and he said, "I'm back." And she said, "Welcome back."
* * *
Detective Elisa Maza wasn't sure what she wanted to achieve. She had just grabbed her car key, left her apartment and climbed on her car, seething in righteous anger, with no idea, no clue as to what she wanted to do.
The pondered these things in the middle of the traffic jam. If anything, the long congestion of cars of the thirty-fourth street gave her time to think, to plot, to figure out to say.
She didn't even know what she was feeling. How, then, could she put it into words? How?
Soon she discovered she had just been given the perfect reason when she noticed the pyrotechnics coming out of the building that towered the world. It was plain daylight. People were getting out of their cars and staring up and very slowly inching away, ready to leave the cars if they needed to.
Elisa stared up and realized she had just been given more time to answer the test. Her driver instincts kicked in, and she knew that she needed to get to Eerie fast, even if that meant driving in the sidewalks, almost running over pedestrians and crashing more than one fruit carts and newspaper stands.
* * *
For a very brief moment, Dennis couldn't think straight.
"Dennis, I know this is probably very confusing to you…" Puck began, as he stood up very warily and approached him, "…but if you'll allow me to explain, I'm sure you'll understand."
Dennis looked at him like it was the dumbest thing he'd ever heard. He couldn't believe he was there, talking to the richest man in the world and his all-powerful fairy assistant, while a pack of stone animals were posing somewhere inside this very castle, and his weapon…oh, gods, he couldn't believe he was calling it that, his weapon… was quietly telling him it was in Xanatos' office on the desk's drawer so that they could finally start deliberation of the trial
(what trial? Oh, wait, that trial, because he was the judge who was supposed to choose who lived and died)
Come and pick me up, the weapon said, because I am your property. I'm really very sorry we had to meet like this, but you see, we're the ones who get to choose, you see, because we're being asked to judge this timeline
(what Timeline? Oh, yes, now he remembered, this world was just one of many worlds, like threads that made a dazzling pattern God's carpet, stretching at far as the eye and mind could see)
It's really too bad you had to learn about it like this, but there was no easy way to tell a guy he's supposed to be dead, burnt to a crisp, and, you see, you just can't sugar-coat telling him that he's supposed to be the judge, you see, its too bad, so sad, but that's the way it is.
There is another one in the dungeons, you see, and you should probably kill him, but first things first, first you find me and then we'll talk although I think you know enough, more than you wanted to know, because I'm feeling pretty angry right and pretty confused and I just don't want to be the judge right now, and I don't want Mr. Puck telling me to calm down, because I can't calm down, and if he could only shut up, just shut up…
"…Dennis, are you listening me? Who are you, really? Are you Dennis or are you Seres?"
He stared at Puck like he was talking to a retard. "I'm both," he said sharply, and he stood up. "And I…want…my property…back."
Now Puck was getting scared. "I'm afraid…" He took a few steps back, knowing very well Xanatos had a gun inside his jacket and he was reaching for it right now. "…that isn't possible!"
Xanatos whipped out his gun, but it only earned him a good electric shock. He screamed in pain and collapsed into the floor; Puck ran to his side in worry.
"I've had it!" he started screaming, unaware his mere voice was shattering everything made of glass in that castle, "I refuse to believe that! I can't be dead! I don't want to be the judge, I don't want to be here, I don't want anything to do with you! You're freaks! You're all crazy, you're all nuts! I don't want to be here! I want to go home! I wish none of this had ever happened! Damn you and your gargoyles, mortals! This is nor fair! This is NOT FAIR! I want my life back! I don't deserve this! I want my damn life back!"
He didn't need this. He only gotten involved because weird things had been happening to him… but this? To be told he was the witch-queen's personal little zombie? He just couldn't believe his own memories; he couldn't believe he died.
He knew then that it had always been out of his hands, that he had been manipulated into this, that his choice was really no choice at all, that he had been fooling himself if he thought he could simply drop everything and go to California or stay and date Tiffany.
In short, he had been somebody's puppet since day one for a situation he still couldn't understand, and it was ironic, because he could understand just about everything else, he could understand what Puck was doing, what Xanatos was doing, how a black hole works, how to get a ketchup stain out of a white shirt, how to start a car without keys, in short, he knew just about everything except what the hell he was doing here and who the hell did Titania thought she was and why, oh, why was he supposed to be that stupid judge in this stupid trial and why did this all happened in the first place.
Dammit, he understood the fabled Theory of Everything that explained how the universe worked, yet he still had no idea about what was his place in it. He saw the whole picture, and it was beautiful, mind-bending, it explained so much and it was so simple, he could publish and revolutionize astrophysics and wow Stephen Hawkins.
He understood perfectly well the mathematics behind this world they were living, and he knew very well how he could change it if he tugged a string here and rearranged a few things there, if he just grabbed a line and shifted it a little he could get the desired effect (and the effect was the complete and utter destruction of this world, it was her wish, her Holy Grail) and that time was probably the most misunderstood phenomenon, that they all had it wrong, that the theory did allow for this horrendous situation to happen.
Time was no river, time was a damn thunderstorm, a self-fulfilling prophecy, a whirlpool, ten thousand rivers crisscrossing each other, and that if you knew what to shift you could do anything you wanted, something unfeasible by any mortal, but theoretically possible. It was the stuff the multiverse was made of and the multiverse was such a weak and fragile thing, and everything could collapse and end if you just changed the gravitational constant of the universe or the number of electrons in hydrogen or the expansion rate of the cosmos by a ¼ of a second.
Then there are people constantly mucking up the equation, making choices, trifling with fate, and the decisions of men and destiny became so intertwined, so woven together, one couldn't really say where destiny ended and individual decisions began. It was a big old mess of people contradicting each other, doing one thing and later doing other things or doing all things at the same time, or opposite things all the time, and it was so confusing, so hard to keep track of…
So there was no way he could've known what he was doing here, why they allowed this to happen and what should he do next, because the sheer wildness of the cosmos.
Uncertainly Principle. You can tell either the velocity or the position of a particle, but not both things at the same time.
And it angered him immensely.
He knew Puck meant to tackle him before Puck knew it himself. So he chose to shock him with everything he had short of killing him, and the fey let out a quick little shriek until he finally passed out.
The alarms were blaring loudly, and without having a concrete idea of what he was doing, he somehow knew he needed to get his property back and leave as soon as he could, because he could feel them, yes, Bruno and the Goon Squad, gearing up in security, grabbing their weapons, adjusting their masks, and he was surprised he could know every single thing they did, but he simply didn't have time to deal with them.
He found himself in Mr. Xanatos' office and he chose to blast the dark ebony desk to splinters rather than to look for the drawer's key. And in the sea of wood splinters floating peacefully in thin air, the scythe —his scythe— floated towards him and he grabbed it and he ran away.
The Good Squad was waiting for him in the elevators and he melted through the floors instead. He didn't know he could do it, yet he had always known he could do it.
And he chose a faster way, he wished to be in the lobby, and it was so easy to look around and see he was in the lobby already, no fuss, much to the bewilderment of the security guards behind the front desk.
Better yet, he knew that red car coming, the car of the pretty detective, that for some reason, fate or dumb luck, was coming this way, either a gift from father Chronos or just plain old chance, (though the two are different yet the same, as strange as that might sound).
He ran out the revolving glass doors, still gripping his scythe, which weighted next to nothing in his hands.
The detective's car screeched to a stop next to him and she leaned over to swing open the door. "Need a ride?" she said with a triumphant smirk. "It's me or them, buddy!"
He tossed the scythe in the backseat and jumped in unquestionably.
When the car speeded away from that cursed building, he knew the Goon Squad wouldn't follow and he allowed himself to breathe for the first time in the fifteen minutes it had gotten him to run away from the library and end up here with Detective Maza.
He had understood many things in one flash of light, but mortal minds weren't made to handle such knowledge, and he forgot many things save the most important things; that he was judge in a strange and flawed trial and that he had been given the power to carry out the sentence.
He was crying bitterly all the way to her apartment.
* * *
In the pine-scented coldness of his dungeon turned semi-motel room, Lester Kramer, rejected demigod, sat and listened angrily to the trouble upstairs.
Damn that Xanatos and his doormat fairy. They'd just unleashed the beginning or the end.
I'm back… he heard a little voice whisper.
"Welcome back," Lester replied in a dead monotone.
TO BE CONTINUED…