AN: Title taken from Sara Bareilles' "Once Upon Another Time."
"Once upon another time somebody's hands who felt like mine turned the key…was free." ~Sara Bareilles
The diner was something straight out of a thirties talky film. A yellow and red awning bowed to visitors as they passed the grungy San Francisco street corner.
Curls got jostled in the late March breeze. They fanned over a long double breasted coat unbuttoned like blue monarch wings. The man had shaved, but patches of stubble stained the window of his face—
He'd shaved in a hurry.
He didn't go into the diner, instead jogging to the side of the building where he spotted a taller man leaning against an idling Lexus.
Dylan spread his hands. "What is this Man From Uncle crap? Your letter was in fricking invisible ink."
Thaddeus Bradley smiled. "Good to see you too, Shrike."
"How's retirement suiting you? I didn't peg you for a San Francisco guy."
"Beaches and culture," said Bradley. "What's not to love?"
A tiny grin finally squeezed through the worried lines on Dylan's face. Thaddeus opened his arms and they shared a quick embrace.
"But seriously," Dylan insisted, stepping back, "your message sounded like we're about to die or something."
Thaddeus' face dropped. He cinched his lips. "That's what I'm trying to prevent."
"Whoa. Wait." Dylan blinked. Blinked some more. "We're in danger?"
"I don't know about us old puppeteers, but they are."
Both men sobered. There was no need to say who they were. They were Dylan's whole world. He softened just thinking about them.
He turned his back briefly, rubbing at that stubble while pacing. Thaddeus let him. The butterfly wings of Dylan's lapels went breathless against a drop in the breeze.
"Who?" Dylan finally asked. "Because I don't buy it that some bored law enforcement agency can track us down in London—"
"Ramses."
Bradley said it quietly, with the inflection of someone on death row. Dylan's whole body marbleized. After a furious few seconds, he scoffed.
"Ramses? And I thought we didn't believe in fairy tales."
Thaddeus thumbed at the brim of his hat. "We don't."
"Ramses is a myth!"
"Like the Eye?"
Dylan spun to face him. "Ramses is an organization supposedly made up of the descendants of royalty. Using magic to kill, to sustain personal wealth. They're like...the evil version of what we seek to do. But what am I saying? They've never been confirmed."
"Technically, neither have we."
"Ramses is a bed time thriller my dad told me," Dylan argued. "I'm not running from a ghost."
"How about this?"
Thaddeus removed a manila envelope from his breast pocket. Photo copied surveillance photos were stuffed inside and he handed them to Dylan. They were mostly street shots—Daniel getting into a car, Merritt performing at a park, Alma grocery shopping. But a few were taken inside the observatory—Jack laughing at a joke, Dylan cooking.
The earth grayed out. Sound permeated with an underwater quality. Dylan's hands trembled with a yawning sense of helplessness.
"There's more where that came from," said Thaddeus.
"How did you get these?"
"I've been tracking a post box here in the city. Men come and go, never the same person. Someone shipped this package from London the day I mailed you."
Dylan nodded. Now the lack of a phone call made sense. Who knew what else these people had tapped.
"It's all very cloak and dagger," said Dylan. "Could be Interpol. They don't always trust digital. It would explain why they physically mailed the photos instead of through USB or Cloud."
Bradley shook his head and removed another photo. "I took this myself."
At first the image looked black and white. Then Dylan realized it was raining in the picture. Close up and high resolution, the shot showed a man running down the street, umbrella in hand.
Dylan's mouth went dry. "No..."
"I'm afraid so."
Both men stared at the insignia tattooed on the underside of the man's arm. His coat had slipped down, revealing the Egyptian flail and crook. The sign of cruel dominion and power.
The sign of Ramses.
"It's a coincidence," said Dylan.
"This man picked up more photographs from the post box, just like these. They all showed the Horsemen."
"An interested party, then. Someone who happens to have that tattoo."
"Dylan." Thaddeus' features softened. "Don't put them in jeopardy over your denial."
"Of course we'll take precautions...but I'm not going to start scaring them over something that may not be real."
Bradley just gazed at Dylan.
"Why now?" Dylan wondered. "If it is a rival organization, then why not reveal themselves last year or before even?"
Thaddeus pointed at the photo of the observatory. "Before, your Horsemen were just trying to get enough money to eat. To survive. Make a name. Now…"
"They're successful." Dylan closed his eyes. "They've officially joined the Eye…with all its resources and influence."
"They've aligned themselves with a heavy hitter, Dylan. In doing so, they've made an enemy of Ramses who would support people like Walter."
"You think he was a part of Ramses?"
Bradley's silence spoke for itself.
"Well, that explains a lot," said Dylan. He exhaled a big whoosh of air. "Okay. I'll pack up the gang. Lay low."
Thaddeus nodded. "Be careful, son."
Dylan hugged him again.
"It's probably nothing. We'll be laughing about Ramses in a week, tops."
Thaddeus' hooded eyes followed Shrike across the street.
"I hope so, Dylan. I hope so."
Two days later, Alma and the boys had hastily thrown suitcases together after goodbye kisses from Bu Bu ("we'll stay at the observatory and act like you're still here") and settled into a safe house—
Meaning Li and Bu Bu's cottage.
It sat on the wooded outskirts of Boston. Nobody bothered to ask why the Chinese pair had a house in Boston. It was token with their crazy, beautiful lives now. The thing was all wood, a rustic cabin dumped in a green suburb.
It didn't show up on satellites. There was no house number on it.
The front door opened into a spacious living room and combined kitchen. The ceiling hung low. It felt cozy, even with the eclectic furniture and portraits of Bu Bu with Nelson Mandela and on stage with Maria Callas.
Dylan advised them to think of it like a vacation while they tried to get off the radar of "nosy parties."
"I still say we split up," said Daniel when they finished claiming bedrooms. "Each of us could take a different country. We'd be harder to target. It's the most logical plan."
Jack and Merritt exchanged uneasy looks and said nothing. Two years ago and everyone would have gone in a heartbeat. Now…
"Yeah," said Daniel, quiet, "I don't like that plan either."
"We stick together." Dylan already had something sautéing on the propane stove. "It's the only way we'll make it."
The three men were sober, silent. Coming out of anyone else's mouth, the words sounded trite. After what they'd all lived through, together was the only thing that made sense.
"Together" wasn't a cheesy Hallmark card. It was fear and staunching blood and lying awake next to someone's bed ready to ward off another nightmare and Merritt buying dill pickle dip instead of plain because he knew Daniel liked it.
"C'est bon. Au revoir." Alma finished a phone conversation and switched back to English. "I talked to my contacts at Interpol. They haven't been investigating your cold case at all. Nor has Scotland Yard."
Dylan met her eye. She nodded to his unspoken worry. Alma was the only person Dylan had told about Ramses, something that had slipped out one tear filled night.
Still, uncertainty saturated the air. It was a choking cloud around everything they did for the next five days.
No one turned on the black and white TV. They had left their cellphones in London, so as not to be tracked. Poker nights were hushed. Daniel put up thick drapes over his window when he realized his bedside light could be seen from the road. Jack's sewing leg reached inhuman speeds. Merritt, horror of horrors, had actually gotten decent at card throwing.
It was Alma—blessed, cherubic Alma—who brought their dramatic worries back down to Earth.
On the seventh morning, Alma glanced up from the open fridge, quirked an eyebrow towards Dylan and Daniel at the kitchenette, and said: "We're out of food. We need a grocery run."
Jack, asleep on the couch again because apparently beds were overrated when you grow up living on back alley skids, didn't get to appreciate the glory of Daniel's never-seen panicked face. Merritt stumbled out of the bathroom, shaving cream on his chin. He swore and Jack startled awake.
"Whrsthefire, g'ys…"
"Not a fire," said Daniel, throwing a towel to a gaping Merritt. "Civilization. People."
"Even worse," Merritt agreed.
Jack's bleary gaze took in the room with one sweep. "Oh come on, people. I evaded feds for years. It's easy. Crowds are probably the only safe place, really."
They stared at him.
"We can't go out," said Dylan to Jack patiently. "We'll be recognized, photographed. Then our brief stint of being off grid is gone. I had enough hassle getting fake IDs for flying and shutting off airport cameras."
"Can't the grocery store deliver?" asked Merritt.
"I tried that." Alma sighed. "We're too far out."
And here it was. One problem technology and magic couldn't fix.
"We've been bested by our mortality," Merritt said with a philosophical rub of his wet chin.
"Shut up," said Jack. "We have to go."
"Why?!"
Jack rolled his eyes at Daniel. "Because I'm hungry. The end."
"Jack is probably the least recognizable out of all of you," said Alma. "Up until a few months ago he was dead. He's not even in facial recognition data bases anymore. I checked."
"Thank you." Jack tugged on his boots.
"Hold up." Merritt held Jack's leather jacket over his head. Even Jack jumping couldn't reach it. "What happened to the buddy system? Surely, the two of us are the least recognizable."
Nobody agreed but the fierce light in Merritt's eyes dared them to argue.
"This is stupid," Merritt said. His arms lowered and Jack snatched his jacket.
"So is being hunted half way around the world by anonymous people," said Jack. "But here we are."
"Don't you be stupid," said Merritt.
A brilliant smile lit Jack's face. His brows shot up. Dylan felt lighter just looking at it. "Is that supposed to be an insult or life advice?"
Merritt shrugged. "It is the only good advice Chase ever gave me. Now I bestow it on to you, a young protégé filled with scary life experiences and too much hair product. We only get one life to live and it is like the setting sun, rising even as it falls…"
Suddenly Daniel inserted himself in the middle of the huddle. He slashed his hands to either side. "Enough. Nobody is going anywhere. Not until you—" He jabbed a finger at Dylan. "—explain what's going on. Who is after us?"
Dylan deflated, leaning against the counter. "We're not sure they're real."
"Try me," said Daniel.
"Ramses." It was Alma who piped up, hands on her hips. "They don't even use magic, necessarily, but they're as old the Eye. They…well…they're the opposite of you. They take from the poor to enhance the wealth of an elite few. In ancient Egypt this would've been royalty. They may have been created for the sole purpose of defying the Eye."
Dylan's chest writhed.
Merritt caught his eye. "Walter and Arthur."
Dylan shrugged, shoulders heavy. "We have no proof they're part of it, but even if they aren't the fact we stripped them of status is enough to make enemies with Ramses."
"I thought you said they weren't real," said Daniel.
"Myths don't take surveillance photos." Alma smiled without humour. "We've been tracked for weeks. I even found bugs in our cars."
"It doesn't matter who is after us," said Dylan. "Until we find out their intentions, I'm not taking any risks."
Daniel didn't take his eyes off the floor. "And then what?"
Dylan frowned.
"What happens if they don't go away?" Daniel continued. "What happens if we have to be on the run, in hiding, for the rest of our lives?"
"Wasn't that always our life?" asked Merritt.
"I don't like running," Daniel insisted.
"We didn't have a choice."
Daniel pointed at Dylan. "Because you chose for us."
Alma's eyes widened. She glanced around the room.
"I didn't make you go anywhere," said Dylan quietly. "We have to stick together."
"Guys?" Alma began.
"I agree," said Daniel. "But that doesn't mean we had to panic at the drop of a—"
"We're like a heard of elephants," Merritt interjected. "The four of us may as well wear a sign."
"Guys—"
"This isn't going to last," said Dylan. "Okay? We'll figure it out."
"And what if we can't—"
"Taisez-vous! Taisez-vous tout de vous!"
The three men whirled and promptly did as Alma ordered. Her cheeks were white. The wild rove of her eyes was something they'd never seen.
For all her hollering, when next she spoke, it was in a horrified whisper that raised hairs on their arms:
"Where's Jack?"