Author's Note: My chapters never go as planned. What I had intended to be
chapter 4 turned into chapters 4 and 5. Here is Chapter 4. Chapter 5 is
in the revision process and could be up as early as tomorrow. Once again I
am sorry for the delay. A small (but completely cured) case of writer's
block and obligations to my comic book are responsible. I'll try not to
let it happen again. Please enjoy! And if you do, please review. Thank
you to all who have reviewed so far. It really keeps me going.
Another Author's note will follow this chapter.
Disclaimer is the same as in chapter one.
"Hostile Takeover": Chapter Four—Two is Company
Piper had forgotten who she was and what she was doing. She had lost herself in the moment, a feeling of deep, soulful recognition. She had reacted on feeling buried deep within her. Memories of journies along dusty roads and overgrown paths scratched just beneath the surface of her consciousness. For this small piece of time she felt the joy of reunion.
But, all good things must end and Sally had endured enough of her friend's intrusion. A now familiar sense of protectiveness over her employer had resurfaced. "Get off of him!" she shouted as she grabbed Piper by the shoulders and pulled her off of Mr. Baggins. She stared at her friend hard waiting for her usual flippant response. Unexpectedly she was silent.
Piper's face held only a half-smile and her eyes glistened with tears. Her body stood, feet firmly planted to the sidewalk but her mind remained in the embrace. Something profound had happened and Sally felt its effect wash over her. "Piper, what's come over you?" she asked.
Piper blinked, a subtle nudge back to the present moment. She turned her eyes away from the car towards her friend and managed a weak smile. "I don't know," she murmured. Her right hand dove deeply into her jean's pocket and retrieved a set of car keys. Without another word, she handed the keys to Sally.
Sally took them hesitantly. "No arguments?" she asked. She watched her friend with concern. Piper was always the laughing one, smiling, joking, never, ever, ever serious. What had just happened to cause this sudden transformation? She feared something dark but she knew that wasn't right. Piper had touched something Sally was afraid to even acknowledge. She wasn't ready to face it so she had to just let it go. She trusted Mr. Baggins. She would have to trust this too.
Piper shook her head. "Nope," she said simply. This time she looked at Sally closely. "You're in deep, aren't you?" she asked. Somehow, without explanations, she just understood.
Sally's eyes widened but inside she felt relief. "Someone's after us," she heard herself say. "Men wearing black. They want something Mr. Baggins has." She had simplified the events of the day into three simple statements. Images came at her in flashes and she looked away from Piper before she made the gravity of her predicament too evident.
"The car's behind the shop," Piper told her. In the recesses of her mind she knew. Like a primal sense she understood their danger. Like a nightmare just beyond her recall she knew what they were after. She focused her attention on Mr. Baggins as he emerged from the car. He seemed strangely out of place in front of the comic shop, like her worlds collided and could not find a way to fit together.
He smiled at her warmly. "Thank you," he said sincerely, "You've almost assured our safety."
Piper shook her head, scoffing at him gently. "Liar," she accused him, "I just bought you a little time."
He looked after Sally thoughtfully as she retrieved their bags from the trunk of the car. "Sally told me I could trust you."
"You know you can," Piper replied, suddenly looking away uncomfortably. "I'm better at keeping secrets than I used to be."
He opened his mouth to say something, some words of comfort, something to acknowledge that she did not suffer the strangeness of this moment alone, but he could not bring voice to the words. Sally thankfully interrupted.
Better left unsaid. She would understand soon enough.
"Piper," Sally called softly, hefting her bag onto her shoulder, "tell Merrick I'll be calling him. I need him to do something." Without warning she hugged her friend closely and Piper returned the gesture. More than a farewell, Sally used the opportunity to whisper into Piper's ear. "Remember the game we used to play?" she asked, "The code we used?"
"High-low?" Piper breathed in a voice only Sally could hear.
"Yeah," Sally nodded, parting from her friend. "I'll be using that when I call him." She looked back to the car only to see Mr. Baggins pulling something out from underneath the back seat. Before she could see the object clearly he tucked it inside his coat.
Piper took her hand and pressed something hard and flat into her palm. "Here," she said in a husky voice filled with emotion. "You'll need this."
Sally opened her hand and saw a credit card. "What for?" she asked frowning.
Piper looked at her incredulously. If they were playing a game, Sally was forgetting the rules. "People are chasing you, right?" she said in a serious tone. "They'll probably be watching your card usage. That's mine, it's new and it's got a $5,000 credit limit."
Sally's eyes began to sting as her fingers wrapped around the card. Fear and danger seemed to matter little to her now. She was leaving and she had not prepared herself for saying good-bye. So much attention had been paid to the act of getting away that she had forgotten the good of what she left behind. She threw her arms around Piper's neck and held her close again. No more secrets to be shared, just a simple, heartfelt "Thank you."
Piper felt the weight of the moment in the tightness of the embrace. They had set events into motion that would change them profoundly. Although they could not foresee them they felt their presence. They did not know how much time would pass and what would happen before they would see each other again.
For once in her life, Piper was speechless as she released her friend.
"It's only fair then that I give you this," Mr. Baggins said, gently intruding upon their farewell. He extended his hand to Piper, concealing its contents in his palm.
Piper reached out and took something from him. She smiled as she looked at the card he had given her. A look of playfulness had returned to her eyes. "Wow, the company card," she laughed softly. "I'll do everything in my power to draw them off your trail."
Sally rounded the corner of the store, down the alley to the rear of the building. She really and truly wanted to stay with Piper. Fear and uncertainty marred her future path and she doubted her courage and strength. She looked back at Mr. Baggins as he followed closely behind. Something deeper than obligation pushed her now. She was afraid of going but staying would be worse than death.
In this one day she had spent more time with Mr. Baggins than all of her past meetings with him combined. Still so much of him remained a mystery. She knew what she saw. She knew what he had told her of his past and had experienced the danger of his life first hand. But something wasn't right. She could not pinpoint the feeling, just this vague sense that she should know him better. He was hiding something much as he hid the object in his coat.
"Sir," she asked tentatively, "I saw you take that…that thing out of the car." Her mind tried to recall the image of the short sword. She did not know what to call it. She felt certain there had to be a name.
"Yes, Sally?" he responded innocently.
She stopped and looked at him uncomfortably. "You know they're not going to let you get through customs with that," she explained.
Mr. Baggins rubbed his chin thoughtfully. That problem had not occurred to him. "What should it be then?" he asked.
"Excuse me?" Sally replied. He startled with her the question.
"How about an umbrella?" he suggested as he reached into his coat and pulled out the short sword. He held it out in his hand between them. "Umbrellas are acceptable, aren't they?"
Sally saw the short sword clearly for the first time. She had never seen anything so intricately tooled and delicately ornate before. She could not take her eyes away from its beauty. Her mind only barely registered his question. "I guess so," she replied. She longed to touch it and she could almost imagine the feel of its weight in her hand.
"Alright then," Mr. Baggins continued, "an umbrella it is." While he held the fine sword in one hand, his other hand reached into the breast pocket of his suit. He pulled nothing out, but only seemed to clutch something momentarily. When he removed his hand from his suit, he held an umbrella in his outstretched hand. The umbrella was small and brown and utterly inconspicuous. The sword had disappeared.
Sally did not know if she had even blinked but her mind did not register the change. He held the umbrella in his hand as if the sword never existed at all. So subtle was the transformation she felt no surprise. She simply doubted what she saw. "What just happened?" she asked.
"I cast a glamour over it," Mr. Baggins answered matter-of-factly as he turned the umbrella over in his hands to illustrate. "It is still what it is but you see it as an umbrella."
Sally could not tell from his words if he had bespelled the sword itself or all who looked upon it. She found this small demonstration of power distasteful and his use of the Ring cast a darkness over him that frightened her. How could he hold an object of such awesome power, use it and not be corrupted by it? "Do you do that a lot?" she asked him. Her voice sounded small and faraway.
The look on Sally's face spoke volumes. She had run for her life with the Nazgul at her heels and had escaped Saruman himself with only her wits to save her but what she truly feared stood right in front of her. He had used the Ring in a cavalier fashion, like an amateur magician making a rabbit disappear. He had forgotten himself and in that moment he had forgotten her too. Centuries had passed since the last time he had used the Ring in the presence of another. He had forgotten to be ashamed of wielding its power.
He had forgotten who he was. He had forgotten who she was once.
His throat tightened and his hands dropped to his sides, nearly concealing the umbrella behind him. "I'm sorry, Sally," he said softly.
Sally shook her head stiffly. "No, it's okay," she replied, turning towards Piper's car, away from him. Her hands fumbled to place the key into the lock of the blue Volkswagen Beetle. She hid her face from him, concealing the feelings that lurked behind her doe eyes. "I just wasn't expecting it," she added.
She hid nothing. He knew it wasn't okay.
Piper had watched her friend walk out of her sight and a feeling of helplessness descended upon her. She had quelled the voice inside her that repeated endlessly, 'Take me with you'. She would have gone if they had asked but they didn't. They left her alone. She turned back to the street and a curious smile stretched across her face.
They had left the company car with her.
She opened the door and climbed into the darkened interior. She smiled appreciatively as she ran her hands along the smooth leather of the seat. In front of her was an array of buttons and knobs to control every aspect of the environment in the passenger compartment. Her hand paused and hovered over a button simply labeled 'screen'.
Once she pressed it the dark panel separating her from the front seat of the car slowly disappeared. She wasn't alone. An imposingly tall, dark- skinned man sat stoically in the driver's seat.
"Do you come with the company car?" she asked coyly knowing that they were quite aware of each other's presence.
"Mr. Baggins instructed me to escort you around the city until his return," the driver replied without turning to face her. His voice was deep and melodic and rich with a bass that she could nearly feel reverberate against her chest.
Piper nodded faintly. He exchanged his car and driver for her car and friend. At least Mr. Baggins told someone he would be back. She just wished she could believe it as well as his driver. "Do you have any idea when that will be?" she asked hopefully.
"No, ma'am," he replied.
"Okay," she said quietly. The question had been worth asking even if she already knew the answer. She had no idea where they were going, no idea when they would come back and only a vague sense of their danger. She needed to find some way to keep herself from worrying. "So what does he call you?" she asked.
"Excuse me?" he called back to her. He had turned his head to the side slightly and she could see his eyes in the rear view mirror, dark and meaningful. He didn't seem to be the type who had personal conversations often.
"Your name," Piper clarified with a smile. "What's your name?"
"Grigor," he answered, looking away from the mirror. Ever the professional.
"Grigor, huh?" she repeated. She reached over and pulled her door shut then fell back into her seat heavily. "Well, Grigor, I have a hot piece of plastic and a really big car at my disposal. Let's go shopping."
TBC
Author's note (part two): To answer Curi's question: No, a hint of how not is in this chapter. An all out explanation will be in chapter 6. I'm stunned that you are the first to ask that.
Chapter 5: "The Ring Goes East": the heavily anticipated October 6 at 35,000 feet. I promise.
Another Author's note will follow this chapter.
Disclaimer is the same as in chapter one.
"Hostile Takeover": Chapter Four—Two is Company
Piper had forgotten who she was and what she was doing. She had lost herself in the moment, a feeling of deep, soulful recognition. She had reacted on feeling buried deep within her. Memories of journies along dusty roads and overgrown paths scratched just beneath the surface of her consciousness. For this small piece of time she felt the joy of reunion.
But, all good things must end and Sally had endured enough of her friend's intrusion. A now familiar sense of protectiveness over her employer had resurfaced. "Get off of him!" she shouted as she grabbed Piper by the shoulders and pulled her off of Mr. Baggins. She stared at her friend hard waiting for her usual flippant response. Unexpectedly she was silent.
Piper's face held only a half-smile and her eyes glistened with tears. Her body stood, feet firmly planted to the sidewalk but her mind remained in the embrace. Something profound had happened and Sally felt its effect wash over her. "Piper, what's come over you?" she asked.
Piper blinked, a subtle nudge back to the present moment. She turned her eyes away from the car towards her friend and managed a weak smile. "I don't know," she murmured. Her right hand dove deeply into her jean's pocket and retrieved a set of car keys. Without another word, she handed the keys to Sally.
Sally took them hesitantly. "No arguments?" she asked. She watched her friend with concern. Piper was always the laughing one, smiling, joking, never, ever, ever serious. What had just happened to cause this sudden transformation? She feared something dark but she knew that wasn't right. Piper had touched something Sally was afraid to even acknowledge. She wasn't ready to face it so she had to just let it go. She trusted Mr. Baggins. She would have to trust this too.
Piper shook her head. "Nope," she said simply. This time she looked at Sally closely. "You're in deep, aren't you?" she asked. Somehow, without explanations, she just understood.
Sally's eyes widened but inside she felt relief. "Someone's after us," she heard herself say. "Men wearing black. They want something Mr. Baggins has." She had simplified the events of the day into three simple statements. Images came at her in flashes and she looked away from Piper before she made the gravity of her predicament too evident.
"The car's behind the shop," Piper told her. In the recesses of her mind she knew. Like a primal sense she understood their danger. Like a nightmare just beyond her recall she knew what they were after. She focused her attention on Mr. Baggins as he emerged from the car. He seemed strangely out of place in front of the comic shop, like her worlds collided and could not find a way to fit together.
He smiled at her warmly. "Thank you," he said sincerely, "You've almost assured our safety."
Piper shook her head, scoffing at him gently. "Liar," she accused him, "I just bought you a little time."
He looked after Sally thoughtfully as she retrieved their bags from the trunk of the car. "Sally told me I could trust you."
"You know you can," Piper replied, suddenly looking away uncomfortably. "I'm better at keeping secrets than I used to be."
He opened his mouth to say something, some words of comfort, something to acknowledge that she did not suffer the strangeness of this moment alone, but he could not bring voice to the words. Sally thankfully interrupted.
Better left unsaid. She would understand soon enough.
"Piper," Sally called softly, hefting her bag onto her shoulder, "tell Merrick I'll be calling him. I need him to do something." Without warning she hugged her friend closely and Piper returned the gesture. More than a farewell, Sally used the opportunity to whisper into Piper's ear. "Remember the game we used to play?" she asked, "The code we used?"
"High-low?" Piper breathed in a voice only Sally could hear.
"Yeah," Sally nodded, parting from her friend. "I'll be using that when I call him." She looked back to the car only to see Mr. Baggins pulling something out from underneath the back seat. Before she could see the object clearly he tucked it inside his coat.
Piper took her hand and pressed something hard and flat into her palm. "Here," she said in a husky voice filled with emotion. "You'll need this."
Sally opened her hand and saw a credit card. "What for?" she asked frowning.
Piper looked at her incredulously. If they were playing a game, Sally was forgetting the rules. "People are chasing you, right?" she said in a serious tone. "They'll probably be watching your card usage. That's mine, it's new and it's got a $5,000 credit limit."
Sally's eyes began to sting as her fingers wrapped around the card. Fear and danger seemed to matter little to her now. She was leaving and she had not prepared herself for saying good-bye. So much attention had been paid to the act of getting away that she had forgotten the good of what she left behind. She threw her arms around Piper's neck and held her close again. No more secrets to be shared, just a simple, heartfelt "Thank you."
Piper felt the weight of the moment in the tightness of the embrace. They had set events into motion that would change them profoundly. Although they could not foresee them they felt their presence. They did not know how much time would pass and what would happen before they would see each other again.
For once in her life, Piper was speechless as she released her friend.
"It's only fair then that I give you this," Mr. Baggins said, gently intruding upon their farewell. He extended his hand to Piper, concealing its contents in his palm.
Piper reached out and took something from him. She smiled as she looked at the card he had given her. A look of playfulness had returned to her eyes. "Wow, the company card," she laughed softly. "I'll do everything in my power to draw them off your trail."
Sally rounded the corner of the store, down the alley to the rear of the building. She really and truly wanted to stay with Piper. Fear and uncertainty marred her future path and she doubted her courage and strength. She looked back at Mr. Baggins as he followed closely behind. Something deeper than obligation pushed her now. She was afraid of going but staying would be worse than death.
In this one day she had spent more time with Mr. Baggins than all of her past meetings with him combined. Still so much of him remained a mystery. She knew what she saw. She knew what he had told her of his past and had experienced the danger of his life first hand. But something wasn't right. She could not pinpoint the feeling, just this vague sense that she should know him better. He was hiding something much as he hid the object in his coat.
"Sir," she asked tentatively, "I saw you take that…that thing out of the car." Her mind tried to recall the image of the short sword. She did not know what to call it. She felt certain there had to be a name.
"Yes, Sally?" he responded innocently.
She stopped and looked at him uncomfortably. "You know they're not going to let you get through customs with that," she explained.
Mr. Baggins rubbed his chin thoughtfully. That problem had not occurred to him. "What should it be then?" he asked.
"Excuse me?" Sally replied. He startled with her the question.
"How about an umbrella?" he suggested as he reached into his coat and pulled out the short sword. He held it out in his hand between them. "Umbrellas are acceptable, aren't they?"
Sally saw the short sword clearly for the first time. She had never seen anything so intricately tooled and delicately ornate before. She could not take her eyes away from its beauty. Her mind only barely registered his question. "I guess so," she replied. She longed to touch it and she could almost imagine the feel of its weight in her hand.
"Alright then," Mr. Baggins continued, "an umbrella it is." While he held the fine sword in one hand, his other hand reached into the breast pocket of his suit. He pulled nothing out, but only seemed to clutch something momentarily. When he removed his hand from his suit, he held an umbrella in his outstretched hand. The umbrella was small and brown and utterly inconspicuous. The sword had disappeared.
Sally did not know if she had even blinked but her mind did not register the change. He held the umbrella in his hand as if the sword never existed at all. So subtle was the transformation she felt no surprise. She simply doubted what she saw. "What just happened?" she asked.
"I cast a glamour over it," Mr. Baggins answered matter-of-factly as he turned the umbrella over in his hands to illustrate. "It is still what it is but you see it as an umbrella."
Sally could not tell from his words if he had bespelled the sword itself or all who looked upon it. She found this small demonstration of power distasteful and his use of the Ring cast a darkness over him that frightened her. How could he hold an object of such awesome power, use it and not be corrupted by it? "Do you do that a lot?" she asked him. Her voice sounded small and faraway.
The look on Sally's face spoke volumes. She had run for her life with the Nazgul at her heels and had escaped Saruman himself with only her wits to save her but what she truly feared stood right in front of her. He had used the Ring in a cavalier fashion, like an amateur magician making a rabbit disappear. He had forgotten himself and in that moment he had forgotten her too. Centuries had passed since the last time he had used the Ring in the presence of another. He had forgotten to be ashamed of wielding its power.
He had forgotten who he was. He had forgotten who she was once.
His throat tightened and his hands dropped to his sides, nearly concealing the umbrella behind him. "I'm sorry, Sally," he said softly.
Sally shook her head stiffly. "No, it's okay," she replied, turning towards Piper's car, away from him. Her hands fumbled to place the key into the lock of the blue Volkswagen Beetle. She hid her face from him, concealing the feelings that lurked behind her doe eyes. "I just wasn't expecting it," she added.
She hid nothing. He knew it wasn't okay.
Piper had watched her friend walk out of her sight and a feeling of helplessness descended upon her. She had quelled the voice inside her that repeated endlessly, 'Take me with you'. She would have gone if they had asked but they didn't. They left her alone. She turned back to the street and a curious smile stretched across her face.
They had left the company car with her.
She opened the door and climbed into the darkened interior. She smiled appreciatively as she ran her hands along the smooth leather of the seat. In front of her was an array of buttons and knobs to control every aspect of the environment in the passenger compartment. Her hand paused and hovered over a button simply labeled 'screen'.
Once she pressed it the dark panel separating her from the front seat of the car slowly disappeared. She wasn't alone. An imposingly tall, dark- skinned man sat stoically in the driver's seat.
"Do you come with the company car?" she asked coyly knowing that they were quite aware of each other's presence.
"Mr. Baggins instructed me to escort you around the city until his return," the driver replied without turning to face her. His voice was deep and melodic and rich with a bass that she could nearly feel reverberate against her chest.
Piper nodded faintly. He exchanged his car and driver for her car and friend. At least Mr. Baggins told someone he would be back. She just wished she could believe it as well as his driver. "Do you have any idea when that will be?" she asked hopefully.
"No, ma'am," he replied.
"Okay," she said quietly. The question had been worth asking even if she already knew the answer. She had no idea where they were going, no idea when they would come back and only a vague sense of their danger. She needed to find some way to keep herself from worrying. "So what does he call you?" she asked.
"Excuse me?" he called back to her. He had turned his head to the side slightly and she could see his eyes in the rear view mirror, dark and meaningful. He didn't seem to be the type who had personal conversations often.
"Your name," Piper clarified with a smile. "What's your name?"
"Grigor," he answered, looking away from the mirror. Ever the professional.
"Grigor, huh?" she repeated. She reached over and pulled her door shut then fell back into her seat heavily. "Well, Grigor, I have a hot piece of plastic and a really big car at my disposal. Let's go shopping."
TBC
Author's note (part two): To answer Curi's question: No, a hint of how not is in this chapter. An all out explanation will be in chapter 6. I'm stunned that you are the first to ask that.
Chapter 5: "The Ring Goes East": the heavily anticipated October 6 at 35,000 feet. I promise.