Note: If someone has a better answer for the algebra problem in this chapter, let me know and I'll credit you. You don't know how much my head hurt after calculating it. I was in remedial math in third grade, so…there ya go. ^_^
The Damocles Solution 19
Janine was forcibly walked down the long, earthy-walled tunnel by Morgan's demonic grip. "You had so much nerve sitting at the same table with us!" she said, flailing her arms and fighting him uselessly as he dragged her along by a wickedly tenacious arm. Every step of the way, as long as her mouth stayed uncovered , she released curses into the air that would make Dr. Venkman give a thumbs-up.
The hallway widened into a well-sized chamber, and Morgan finally set her on her feet.
She pushed herself away from him as soon as she could. "You're nothin' but a damned liar, I betcha!" she roared, disgusted at the cool smile he wore. She prodded a finger right into his chest. "You have no idea where he is! You brought me through the whole house, and-!"
She was silenced by his outstretched palm, which he nonchalantly used to indicate a position on the ground a distance away. She turned her eyes, then her head.
In a small, almost separate area, there was Egon on his back, on the dark brown ground. Unconscious, his head was turned away. He rather seemed like he was lying haphazardly…as if he fell there.
"Oh no…" she kept repeating, and made a lunge, desperately desiring to throw herself next to him.
Morgan chuckled, and returned his gloved hands behind his back.
Closer to him now that she was on the ground, she held out a hand to stroke his hair, with a sigh of his name—
-and yelped in pain. She drew back sharply, and clutched her fingers, grinding her teeth to help her get over the stinging sensation. Cradling them with the other hand for a few seconds, she was sure that her fingers were burned to a crisp. When she looked at them to verify the damage, she gasped. They seemed completely unharmed, and soon, moved as if nothing had ever happened to them.
Confused, she lowered her brow. "It's not an…electrical fence…" she thought at first, squinting hard, even with her glasses on. Looking down at the floor, she could see swirling colors that faded out to clear the further away from the ground they were. "Nah…a demonic barrier!" she whispered.
She tried to get as close as she could without hitting the barrier in front of him. "Egon? Egon? Please, answer me! EGON!"
Receiving no acknowledgement, she snapped her head back up to Morgan. "Put me in there!" she demanded angrily.
Morgan raised an eyebrow. "My mistress said you may have the entire home at your dispo-"
"Put me in there!" she shouted, with tears threatening to break her iron expression. She gritted her teeth. She was going to be right where they wanted her. She couldn't care less. "Now!"
Morgan sighed. "As you wish." He held out a scaled, heavily clawed hand, and grinned. "You'll have to hold it."
Janine's stomach turned, and she slapped her hand into his, nauseated. He yanked her up unceremoniously, then easily stepped through the barrier, seemingly unheeded. Janine, disgusted with having to deal with his serpentine skin again, but knowing it worthwhile to be able to finally touch Egon, gritting her teeth in tow.
She tried to throw herself down next to the unconscious physicist, but Morgan's hand prevented her. "It would be in both of your bessssssssst interests to convince him to assisst us." His grip tightened, and he tugged possessively at her arm.
"It'll be in my best interest to blow you and that crazy lady apart with a thrower at max!" she snarled, snapping her arm back toward her as he broke his grip.
Morgan laughed. "I must go tell my mistress you are here, and just how interesting you are." He stepped through the barrier with frightening ease. "I will return." He disappeared into the dark tunnel on the other side of the chamber.
"So I can make you into a handbag!" she yelled into the tunnel. Riveting a hateful look on the tunnel he disappeared into a few more moments as he left, she caught herself, and made her way next to Egon, stumbling along the way in her haste.
"Egon? Egon!" she whispered to him, throwing away all sentiment of her previous unforgiving formality with him, stroking his damp, unruly blond hair.
Egon's eyes, sans eyeglasses, barely cracked open. A staggered, exhausted sigh escaped his parted lips, and he finally managed to look up, his gaze glazed over. The fire…the paranormal, poisonous fire in his limbs took all his strength to block. He would not let her see it. He would not let it win.
"You look awful," she almost cried.
He slowly focused on her, his awareness now recovering.
"What'd they do to you?"
"Janine?" he murmured. His face grew darker by the second. "Janine!" His eyes shot wide open in horror. Squeezing then shut again, he began struggling against his bindings, regardless of what limbs were damaged, causing him to cry out, half in pain, half in pure rage.
She saw that he was firmly attached to the earthy floor, and also that he was somehow only hurting himself. "Stop! STOPPIT!" she cried, putting her hands lightly on his shoulders.
Her touch seemed to calm him somewhat, and he reluctantly laid his shoulders back down. His eyes, however, remained heated and furious. "I…purposely didn't mention you…didn't want this to happen," he growled, struggling again.
"Egon…stop…"
She noticed small snake heads rising from the sleeve on his left arm near her. They looked right at her, and hissed, almost amused. Their forms led her back to the thin, iridescent-black binds which she soon saw, were actually coils that wrapped themselves around his left arm. And in fact, all his limbs. These were what he seemed to be struggling against when agitated.
When she released, he stubbornly bucked again, and she had to go back to holding his shoulders. Pushing them gently back down again, she was now almost in tears. It all eerily reminded her of the time when he was so furious, he was ready to step out of a moving rollercoaster, high in the air, to give some copyright-violating ride owners a stern talking to.
"Egon, stoppit! How long have you been here? Answer me! What'd they do? You look awful…" she insisted. The laughing little snakes arose again, cackling ever so softly. They annoyed her; she looked back, and began slapping at them, undaunted by their gentle, sickly playful snapping.
He remained now on the ground, but turned his head away. "I haven't been here…long at all," he lied. "I just…tried to move through that barrier to this cell…and they restrained me." He closed his eyes. "That's all."
"I…I don't know if I believe that." She tried pulling again at the coiled binds pinning him to the floor, and finally declared it useless; they were demonic, and were made of stuff surely stronger than tempered steel. Instead, she bent down to his ear, fearful that somehow, they were being watched…even possibly, she considered, by the serpents that held him to the floor. "They stop you from calling?" she said in his ear in the slightest audible whisper, shaking with concern over him.
"Communicator…disabled," he breathed, still thoroughly annoyed at not only her kidnapping, but also the fact she was worried about his condition, and not her own escape.
"Let's see!" she said, plunging a hand in his damp clothes, feeling around for the communicator.
"Not..not in there!" he hissed, now fighting her out of sudden alarm.
She pulled out her hand, and before she could stroke his hair and get him to calm down, she stopped. Looking at her hand, her eyes went wide…her hand was now covered in blood, some rather dark.
She glared at him. "Don't you 'that's all' me!"
Leaning directly over him. she started desperately unbuttoning his vest, then was starting with his dress shirt as he clumsily attempted to hoist himself up on his elbows.
"Stop…Janine…stop it! I'm fine…really. I made…a miscalculation. The barrier…drained me when I stepped through it…"
Janine narrowed her own eyes. He was such a terrible, horrible liar. Thank God. "Miscalculation?" She held up her reddened hand. "This! is not just a miscalculation!" she hissed.
His only reply was, as usual, to retreat into stony silence.
She crossed her arms, racking her brain trying to think of a way to get through to him. "Answer me this, Dr. Spengler! What's…ah… x, when y = …um….the area of an American football field in kilometers, and x equals y times pi cubed….oh gawd…divided by 54 times the square root of 42?"
Janine's temper burned in impatience at Egon's senseless cerebral stubbornness. She wanted to throw something at him. She considered asking someone to calculate a mathematical problem to prove their immediate need of medical assistance beyond stupid and ridiculous. Though, she knew this was Egon that was here, and not, for example, Dr. V. He would have screamed and cursed his way out of here so quickly the walls would melt from that much hot air he'd use. His captors would have no choice but to let him go in an effort to salvage their own peace of mind. But with Egon…everything was a mental battle. Everything had to be proven, everything had to have cause and effect. Hypothesis, procedure, conclusion. Everything.
The physicist fell back on his shoulders, squeezing his eyes shut. The fire would not win. He swallowed hard. He would calculate the answer and deliver it.
"C'mon, boy genius, give me the answer!" she challenged.
His head rolled back a bit, and his teeth ground together.
"Oh please. This is third grade stuff for you!" She put her hands on her hips, glaring at him.
"First grade…actually," he said with a clenched jaw. The fire.
"So then, whatsamadder? Out with it!"
He paused another rather long minute or two
Janine recrossed her arms, thinking it better to keep them there than use them to choke him…which obviously wouldn't help him much right now. "I'm waiting, Dr. Spengler."
Stupid! This is just stupid!
It felt as if every sinew in his body were made of fire and broken glass. "473," he finally spat out, "as a rough estimate…If I had a slide rule…and time to keep the decimal places consistent… I could carry it out to -."
Again she started undoing his clothes, trying to reach the explanation of where blood on her hand came from.
"W…what are you doing? Janine! I gave you the correct answer!"
She continued unbuttoning his vest, then tearing into his shirt, which, if she didn't see the collar beforehand, would have guessed was actually red. "I'm sure you gave me the right answer, and believe me, I couldn't even know if you didn't…but it took you way too long to figure it out. That means there's soemthin' wrong and I'm seeing for myself what it is!"
He looked horrified, then narrowed his eyes angrily…then, she swore she saw a flash of relief across his face as he threw his head back down and turned away.
Finished, she parted his clothes, and her eyes welled up, and a hand covered a cheek.
'Oh…Egon…" she breathed, running her eyes over everything the jet black suit had hidden, and he sighed, now seeming thoroughly annoyed again. Drawing her fingers along the discolored area of his right side, he reflexedly tensed, and quietly gasped, wincing hard.
"Janine…you…" he managed to rasp as he shifted a bit. He was losing the battle quickly, and it was beyond maddening. "The barrier…maybe you can escape when she lets herself in or she—"
"You are not ok," she said, ignoring and interrupting him. "You are…defintely not ok."
He growled through gritted teeth, furious at himself for not being about to keep her ignorant; however, he knew it was beyond ridiculous to think he could. She was too damned smart…and she…she cared too much. He had to admit, though, that a small part of him was relieved that his layers of formal clothes were now open, and he could feel the cooler underground air wick off the heat rising from his torso. "The first…opportunity..you get to escape…Warn Tennent…."
She gasped, laying her hand on his breastbone. "You didn't know? Tennent is dead! It was on the news yesterday morning!"
His eyes narrowed to slits in realization. "Then…she killed him too…!"
The serpents took an opportunity to laugh again. Janine briefly removed her hand from Egon's chest to backhand them, which they easily dodged. She replaced her hand in his breastbone, stroking it lightly.
He didn't need to remind himself that Tennent, he, and the insane woman holding him hostage, were the only three in the world that knew the keys to summoning Ragnarock. No doubt the old woman had a lot of power to enable her to do what she accomplished already-eliminate one supposed competitor, and severely incapacitate the second. However, no matter how strong she was, or which god she prayed to, if Peter, Ray, and Winston were alerted to his trouble, of course they'd succeed in bringing her down.
But, in the end…that would leave…only one.
One versus legions of powers that would attempt to shatter or even take his life, until the day he died…
Inwardly, he shuddered with terror. This wasn't the same fear that summoned the Boogeyman so easily. Now that that was, for the most part, behind him, he wanted to spit on it; it was so childish in retrospect. This was the terror of the impending need, he decided, for involuntary solitude, of martyred severance of all he held dear.
Janine's whispered, frantic train of thought broke through his terror-filled cogitation. "Oh no! I thought you knew. Didn't you—" She stopped herself short in realization. "No..of course you didn't…you don't watch the news!"
He considered the meaning of her information, which put an eerie light now on the events and conversations at the dinner. "And left too early to hear…anything. She asked him here first…he wanted to train students…She gave her so-called prediction at the dinner….she knew…she's trying to eliminate…all competition for Ragnarock. For herself," he breathed in between gasps for air. "We're…the only two left…we're…" whatever he was going to say, the sheer stress of it made it fade into a fit of desperate gasps for air…air his broken side was not willing to allow him to have so easily.
"You've…you've been here since then, haven't you?" she said, returning her hand to stroke his hair. "Since yesterday morning, right?" She knew he wouldn't answer. And she was right-he didn't, as he simply sideglanced her, then shut his eyes again. But still, it had to be said.
She brought her hand down to his face, and stroked his forehead, which was damp, and much warmer than it should have been. In fact, she could feel the heat radiating from him before even touching him. "My gawd…you're burning up," she whispered, feeling his reddened cheeks, "and ya shouldn't be, it's kinda chilly down here."
He winced, turning up a corner of his lip, exposing teeth for a moment. He considered the impending, cancerous dread worse than the chill of the chamber, which he now no longer felt at all.
"Egon…? Are you there?"
He regained control of himself after momentarily having to have to arch his back, and shake the creeping, growing dread away. Opening his eyes, they reluctantly locked with hers for a moment.
Her brow lowered in seeming confusion, or wonder as she traced an eyebrow with her thumb. "Egon…your eyes…they're sorta…greenish…"
Gazing at her simply latched pain on top of dread, and he shut his eyes, and turned away. It was not only in the vain and nonsensical hope that if there were anything different about them, not seeing them would stop worrying her—it was also to shut out his own dread. The dread-that was no doubt the sharpest edge of the sword. There were the wounds, then the poison…then the dread.
She could see a hint of it all etched into every cell of his face, though was unaware of its depths. "I'll…I'll think a' somethin'." She looked around desperately for an idea, then turned to him again. "Egon? C'mon…please stay with me…please. We gotta do something here…where's the communicator?"
Now that his thin veneer of cover was blown, he couldn't fight the battle against the combined effort of the debilitating pain and the fiery, suffoating poison any longer, and the darkening dread threatening to take, and take, and take. Everything was now bursting through with the force of a broken dam.
"Egon?…Egon!"
Leaning his head back, he heard her say his name once or twice, then everything vanished for the next few minutes into the roiling vortex of pain that was there all along.
But he was also intensely aware of Janine holding her head to his chest, and stroking his shoulder just as the wash of agony consumed his consciousness.