Chapter 33 – The Big Bad
North Toronto, 8:30am Eastern Standard Time
Three of the most powerful Fae in North America – The Blood King, The Ash, and The Morrigan – along with a convoy of vans filled with Light and Dark soldiers, pulled into the parking lot of a huge building on the north side of Toronto. Armed to the teeth with weaponry, prepared to do battle with a legendarily powerful foe, they exited the vans en masse and strode purposefully toward their final destination.
The Walmart Supercentre.
Thirty six leather-clad Fae warriors and their leaders moved through the lot like a small army. A harried woman with two shopping carts and six screaming children paused briefly to look at the group. So shocked was she, that she lost track of one of her kids. A four-year-old named Jeffrey, mouth and hands covered with the chocolate and multicolored candied remains of half a bag of M&Ms, slipped away unnoticed. A curious, if poorly behaved child, his attention had been caught by a woman's sparkly silver dress. "Shiny," he giggled as he jogged.
"I can't believe I've stooped this low." The Morrigan shivered. "A Walmart. A WALMART. I'm drowning in an ocean of rednecks. I can feel my IQ dropping as we speak, just from breathing the same air."
Val rolled her eyes. "Walmart is a viable budget alternative to other stores. Plenty of highly educated, normal people shop here."
"Not today, apparently." The Morrigan flinched as a mulleted, bearded man brushed past, a cigarette poking out of his mouth and a horrible odor emanating from his sweat drenched tank top.
"I don't understand why the Garuda would be here," Val said.
"Because Walmart is where hope and joy and happiness go to die."
"A little overdramatic, don't you think?" Val snickered.
"I mean it. What better place for a Garuda to feed on human discord than a place where everyone is miserable?" Out of the corner of her eye The Morrigan saw movement, and spun quickly to face her adversary.
Jeffrey grinned and giggled. "Hi hi!" He shouted, never stopping, palms outstretched, melted chocolate slathered over his hands like a pair of edible gloves.
The Morrigan didn't realize what was happening until it was too late.
"SHINY!" He shouted, reaching out and wrapping his arms around The Morrigan's legs…and her shimmering, fringed, 21,000 dollar Versace dress. The Morrigan froze as Jeffrey giggled and pulled away, leaving two perfect chocolate handprints on the dress – one on each hip. Having accomplished his mission – touch the shiny thing – Jeffrey happily giggled and ran back to his mother, chanting 'shiny, shiny, shiny' all the way.
The Morrigan stood stock still, fuming. As her fury rose, every single human in the parking lot was hit by a sudden, mild hot flash and the rather odd sensation of having their insides slowly sucked out. Some became alarmed. Others mistook it for indigestion, and kept going about their business. Val put a gentle hand on The Morrigan's shoulder.
"Evony? Relax, ok? He's just a child, and we have bigger things to worry about. You can take it to the cleaners when we're done. It's chocolate, not acid."
Her words didn't seem to have any effect. The Morrigan, furious beyond reason, appeared to want to take her anger out on the entire human population of Toronto. Trick, sensing this, cleared his throat. "The sooner we get in there and talk to the Garuda, the sooner we can leave."
That seemed to do the trick. The Morrigan loosened her grip on the humans. Instead she took a deep breath, lifted her face to the sky, and screamed as loud as she could.
A half mile away a flock of birds, startled by the noise, lifted off and took flight. All the squirrels within a mile radius sought refuge in trees and grates and dumpsters. A dog in a backyard adjacent to the Walmart howled back, certain he had finally found his soulmate.
Inside Walmart, the Garuda grimaced.
He knew that this day would come, eventually. He was certain that he couldn't hide forever. After decades – centuries of anonymity, the jig was up. He thought about trying to run away, but chuckled to himself and shifted uncomfortably in his chair. No. Running was clearly not an option.
The Congo Rainforest Canopy – 6:30pm West Africa Time
"Did you ssssssee that?" The Pain Eater put down his binoculars and turned to his teammates. They were huddled up in the canopy of the rainforest, several hundred feet above the forest floor. It wasn't exactly the most convenient method of travel, swinging from vine to vine and leaping from branch to branch like three bonobo monkeys, but it kept them out of sight. Their mission, for now, was simply to follow and observe.
And the three of them had just observed something very strange indeed.
"I thought the Doctor was human?" Serena turned to Vex. "How the hell did she fight off twenty Congolese vampires?"
"Been eating her Wheaties, clearly," Vex snarked.
"One serving of bran cereal a day doesn't make you that fast or that strong. I don't care what the commercials say."
Vex sighed. "It was a joke, hothead."
The Pain Eater tapped his fishbowl helmet with a long fingernail, deep in thought. "Sssteroidsss?" He wondered.
"You know mate, sometimes I think you pick your words just to see how many 's's you can work into a conversation."
"Sssshe ssssellls sssea ssshells by the sssea-OUCH!" The pain eater grimaced, extracting his fist from his gut. Vex wriggled his fingers and grinned.
Serena bit her lip. It was rare for her to show nervousness, but she didn't like facing the unknown. Serena was the type who liked to plan for every possible contingency. It had served her well as Head of Security for The Ash, until she was unceremoniously fired from the position in favor of a Santiago family friend. "The boss told us to watch out for her, but he never said why. Do you think he knows something we don't?"
"I think he knows plenty that we don't," Vex muttered. "How do we know we can trust him? We've not even seen his face."
"Maybe not, but we've certainly seen an exponential growth in our bank accounts," Serena replied. "And that makes up for most things."
"Good point."
"And he's promised us positions as The Ash and The Morrigan, when the dust settles."
"Also a good point. I'd love to crush that bitch Evony under one of her own high heeled boots. I've got the legs for it."
The Pain Eater took time from monitoring the Doc Squad to surreptitiously check out Vex's calves. 'Meh,' he thought to himself.
Serena tightened the shoulder straps of her pack, and stood up on the thick tree branch. The Doctor and her friends were moving again. "Still. I think it's bull shit that we don't at least have a way to contact him. I'm sure he'd be interested to hear about this new wrinkle in the plot."
North Toronto, 8:35am E.S.T.
The combination Light/Dark fighting force entered the Walmart. "Fan out," Val gave her team orders. "I want all the exits and entrances covered. Reggie, do your thing." Val pointed to a short, hooded Fae. He yawned, nodded, pursed his lips together and let out a shrill whistle. Reggie, a Greek Hypnos, had the ability to put any human being to sleep. Within seconds, every man, woman, and child in the entire store was down for the count. The only remaining sounds were the footsteps of the Fae as they spread out across the store…and a weird mechanical whirring approaching them from the direction of the underwear aisle. As the whirring drew closer, it was joined by a pronounced inhale and exhale noise – like an air pump for scuba gear.
Having seen the security footage of the Garuda, Val already knew what to expect. But it didn't make it any less of a shock when the mythological monster of her childhood nightmares emerged from behind a rack of women's pajama bottoms.
"My gods," The Morrigan whispered.
Thirty feet away from them, and inching ever closer, was a morbidly obese middle-aged man atop a motorized scooter. He must have been 500 pounds, easy. His sausage-like fingers gripped the handlebars; his massive buttocks spilled out over the edges of the chair. A respirator sat in the front basket of the scooter, attached to a tube placed in each of the man's nostrils. His forehead was slick with sweat, as though the simple effort of steering was causing him great difficulty. He pulled within twenty feet of the Fae, and stopped.
"I. AM. GARUD-ack blech kfreck ble blach hack…" his dramatic entrance was spoiled by a massive, extended coughing fit. After a few pathetic wheezes, he finally managed to get out a few more words. "Oh hell, you know who I am."
"I'm…not…so sure that we do…" The Morrigan stood, mouth agape. "Are you sure you're the Garuda?"
"The one and only. Last of my kind. Great and powerful beyond your wildest nightmares." He pointed a fat finger at the Morrigan. "You have stains on your dress."
Val gripped the Morrigan's arm before she could do something stupid.
Trick cleared his throat. "How did you manage to survive so long, when all the others passed into legend centuries ago?"
The Garuda grinned, cheeks bulging. "I adapted. The Fae may have evolved and in so doing defeated us, but the humans' strife and warring are eternal. I changed food sources, while the others did not. The flavor took some getting used to…but humans are just so convenient. Horrible for the waistline though." The Garuda tapped his protruding stomach.
"Like a gas station hot dog," one of the Morrigan's nameless minions chimed in. Everyone looked at him with disgust. "Not that I know what those taste like…"
"If we could keep this moving," the Garuda insisted. "Maybe you can tell me why you've interrupted my mid-morning brunch?"
"Would you excuse us for just one second?" Val asked politely. She pulled Trick and the Morrigan aside for a whispered conference.
"This is the big villain?" The Morrigan hissed. "This is the guy we've been afraid of? This is what the whole story of the stones and the deaths and all of it has been leading to? This guy? Talk about a letdown!" The three looked back at the Garuda. He had erupted into another coughing fit, and was wiping the phlegm onto his sweatpants.
Trick shook his head. "It can't be. There's no way he could have gotten into The Morrigan's apartment or the Santiago Mansion unnoticed. Arthur Naia was found dead on a flight of stairs…I'm sorry to say that managing stairs may be a bit beyond the Garuda's current capabilities."
"So what now?" Val asked, a sense of helplessness creeping in. "If it wasn't the Garuda, who the hell was it?" She turned back to the man in the wheelchair. He tapped his watch impatiently. She stood up straight and looked at him. "How long have you been alive?"
"Oh, I don't know. Eight millennia? Nine?"
"Have you ever known another Fae to possess the sort of capabilities that you have? Specifically, with fire?"
The Garuda scoffed. "Why should I cooperate with you? You barge into my place of business with weapons drawn; you treat me like a criminal when I have done nothing to your kind in all of your lifetimes."
"Because if you don't, we'll kill you." The Morrigan stated, simply.
"How DARE you speak to Garuda that way!" He tried to work himself up an impressive burst of flames, to burn the impertinent bitch to the ground. But all he could manage was a weak flicker no brighter than a candle. "Damn it," he muttered.
"Start talking," The Morrigan ordered.
The Garuda sighed. "I had a living companion in the early 19th century. He had come to me from the employ of another – he had been treated terribly, and was full of rage toward all Fae. His kind tends to be meek. Not many would take him seriously, at first glance. But I could feel the anger burning inside him – and I taught him how to make that anger burn outwardly. I trained him. He returned to his former home, and took revenge on his previous employers – residents of an island called Sumbawa in Indonesia. The result was the eruption of Mount Tambora – the largest and deadliest volcanic disaster in recorded history."
"You're lying. Sumbawa was destroyed by a Cherufe…the same as Mount Vesuvius and Pompeii," Trick said.
"Mistaken attribution." The Garuda shrugged. "Any time a volcano blows, someone blames it on a Cherufe. Regardless, my companion returned, victorious, from Indonesia. But it wasn't enough for him. He vowed to take vengeance on behalf of all members of his kind, who had been mistreated, disrespected, and belittled by the Fae for centuries. I've never known anyone so volatile – crossing him would be the biggest mistake any Fae or human could make." He paused for another coughing fit. The Ash waited, impatiently, for him to finish.
The Congo Rainforest Canopy, 6:45pm W.A.T
"Maybe we can conjure him?" Vex chuckled, as he leapt from one tree to another. "Heeeere bossy bossy boss."
"We could sssay hisss name three timesss. I've ssseen that work before."
"Except we don't know his name, dumbass." Serena rolled her eyes.
"Oh enough already!" A voice shouted, startling the three Fae. Two fireballs erupted on Serena's palms as she whipped around to see who the voice belonged to. "Put those away my dear, before you hurt somebody."
"Who the hell are you?" She sneered. The man in front of her seemed extremely out of place in the jungle. Short and effeminate, with a lilting accent and a bowler hat, he seemed better suited to a Victorian Era gay bar than the Congo.
"I would be very careful about how you speak to me, miss." The man snapped back.
"Wait." The Pain Eater's eyes narrowed. "I know what you are. I've ssseen your kind before, working at my uncle'sss manor houssse. Why don't you go home and do sssome laundry, little man?" The Pain Eater chuckled dismissively.
The man's eyes blazed red. Before anyone knew what was happening, a blast of pure heat erupted from his small frame, encircling the Pain Eater in a ball of white hot flame. He managed to get off one loud, pathetic 'SQUAWK' before falling through the branches of the canopy and onto the forest floor. Dead. Nothing remained but a charred husk and the melted glass from his anti-humidity helmet.
"Jesus CHRIST on a STICK." Vex whispered, turning fearfully to the man…who was wiping his palms together as though nothing had happened.
"Now." The man calmly straightened his hat. "What did you fools need to speak with me about?"
The Congo Rainforest Floor, 6:45pm W.A.T.
Lauren turned her head, upon hearing the deafening SQUAWK from the south. She was not the only one.
"What was that?" Kenzi wondered aloud. "A screech owl mating call?"
Ciara shuddered. "More like the last gasp of a creature meeting a horrible death."
"Definitely." Hale nodded. "Something nasty in these woods."
"Yo Doc!" Kenzi shouted ahead. "Let's pick up the pace, yeah? I'm too young and sexy to die a horrible death."
"Don't worry," Lauren assured them. "We're almost there."
North Toronto, 8:46am E.S.T
The Garuda took a deep, wheezing breath. One of The Morrigan's minions handed him a tissue, which he accepted gratefully.
"Now," Val insisted. "You were about to tell us who you trained to fight with fire? This guy who is so dangerous I shouldn't even look at him the wrong way? The guy who is one stone away from having the ability to destroy us all?"
The Garuda wiped his mouth, and sighed. "Yes. The one you are looking for is a Brownie. Named Mumphert."
A/N - Thanks for being patient, everybody! And as always thanks for the reviews - you have no idea how awesome it is to know that the stuff I write makes people laugh. :-) And no, Lauren won't pissed off at Bo forever. Or will she? ...stay tuned. As for me, I finished my first marathon (In the slowest time in human history) and had so much fun doing it that I already signed up for another one. Thanks for the support and again, thanks for your patience!