Chapter ten: Back in the Future
"I do enjoy this house, Maxim," said Ysabelle. "You really must try the Jacuzzi, it's most satisfying."
"Another time perhaps," Horvath said with mock sincerity. He rolled his cane between his hands.
He was standing in the late Drake Stone's master bedroom, a ridiculously comfortable and avant-garde affair with a huge bed and spacious wardrobe, each outfit gaudier and more leathery than the last. The wall across from the bed was covered by an ornate wooden etching, one of Stone's assorted self-deifying portraits. Sorcerers, true sorcerers are a dying breed, Horvath thought to himself. True, elegant sorcerers, not what passes for our kind these days. Pitiable performers, inhuman monsters, invincible psychopaths and whimpering whelps. Balthazar, you and I truly stood alone, and now perhaps I stand alone in your stead.
"Tell me, do I still smell like smoke?" Ysabelle brushed up against him in a way that would have been flirtatious if it were anyone else. She wore only a soft white bathrobe which had clearly not been tailored to her frame. Her hair was damp; steam still billowed from the master bathroom.
"Yes," said Horvath.
"Good, I was hoping I hadn't washed it off. Natural musk, and all that," Ysabelle moved behind a privacy screen to dress. "You did retrieve the hourglass, correct?" she asked.
"Yes," said Horvath. "We also retrieved the Prime Merlinian's little flame. She's a useful bargaining chip, I've used her before. She's in the spare room down the hall."
"And you left her alone?" Ysabelle peered around the screen to raise an eyebrow, Horvath decided to ignore her bare shoulders. "Not the best idea, I know these plucky girl types."
"Fred is with her."
"I underestimate you again, I must stop doing that, it won't help the day you eventually do try and kill me."
"That warms my heart."
"Anyway," Ysabelle exited the screen. "Hostage, a classic resort. Makes me glad I didn't kill him." She wore clothing adapted from Drake Stone's extensive stores, some of which were surprisingly feminine in tone (it's amazing what company a bit of money can buy). Leather boots, tight dark jeans, and a black tank top beneath a red leather jacket.
"You fought the Prime Merlinian?" Horvath was mildly curious.
"Oh yes, he's simultaneously better and worse than I expected."
"I found that as well. I'm surprised you didn't kill him, I'd think a woman of your specific talents would have a chance against him."
"Certainly," said Ysabelle. "It just didn't feel like the right time. He was emotionally compromised; I was having a wardrobe malfunction…"
"Very well, but eliminating our adversaries should be first on our agenda."
"I agree," Said Ysabelle, "and I've given the matter some thought. The Prime Merlinian knows me now, he hates me, he wants to kill me whatever the cost, and he thinks me invincible. In order to prove himself wrong and save his little girlfriend, he'll play every last card, and I can take it. I'll destroy him."
"I hope you're right," said Horvath, "For both our sakes."
"That's so sickeningly sweet of you, Maxim. No wonder you haven't had a date in ten years."
"I was in a jar for ten years."
"Exactly, and I'd hate to break your record. Oh, and Maxim."
"Yes, Ysabelle."
"My eyes are up here."
…
"Balthazar, I thought I'd never see you again," Dave backed down from a brief and entirely one-sided embrace (his side). Beside them Ben Gates and Abigail Chase gave no sign of letting up so soon.
"The spell must have taken just as Veronica was stabbed," said Balthazar grimly, "So, yes, we're back."
"And very much needed," said Riley. "With both of those crazy sorcerers that Dave can't stop."
"I was trying," Dave shot him a look. "Ysabelle is invincible. Also, she killed my parents."
"You don't seem very upset- Hey!" Riley leapt up as the old wooden chair he was sitting on burst into flames.
"Save it for the woman, Dave," Balthazar warned, extinguishing the flames. "Where is this Ysabelle and Horvath for that matter?"
"I don't know."
"Can you really not do anything without me?" Balthazar raised an eyebrow.
"I'm the apprentice, remember?"
"I've got a place," Riley butted in, "A house. It's recorded as owned by Drake Stone but nobody, and I mean nobody, has gone in there for months. Suspicious, no."
"Yes, let's go," Dave was already moving toward the lab's exit.
"Patience, Dave," Balthazar warned. "You can't risk running in half-cocked again. You lost your parents, Veronica is dying, do you want to lose your girlfriend too?"
"I can't just wait and do nothing!"
"Where is Veronica, anyway, did you take her to a hospital?" Abigail asked.
"They would do little good for someone like her," said Balthazar. "She's unconscious in a storage room, as magically secured as I can make it. Magic is a powerful thing, she may heal."
"So she'll be alright?"
"Probably not," Balthazar's face was as emotionless as his tone.
"Aren't you forgetting something?" Ben asked, "no one's mentioned our, um, guests."
"Right," said Riley. "I really had no idea how to explain them over the phone. Come out guys."
Two figures emerged from the shadows, but they might as well be appearing from an ambitiously illustrated history book. The first was a handsome young man with long brown hair and muscled arms, with a pair of short swords on his back, dressed in what could have clothed a SWAT team had they existed in the ancient Middle East. The other wore layers of increasingly eccentric clothing, from the long coat to the bone that was one of many objects tied into his shaggy hair. There was a sword at his belt (and a scarf, and a compass, and…) and he wore a tricorn hat atop his head. Perhaps what the pair had most in common was a mutual air of nervous confusion.
"Veronica's spell went a little haywire when she was stabbed, these two were in close enough proximity to get pulled forward along with Ben and I," Balthazar explained.
"Captain Jack Sparrow, Mr. Merlinian," said the pirate, doffing his hat.
"Hello," was all Dave could say.
The Persian warrior spoke in a dialect Dave couldn't understand, and Balthazar explained, "He greets you as well, and offers his help in retrieving the hourglass so it can be used to return him to his own time."
"Sure, absolutely," Dave decided just to go with it. Compared to his parents, Becky, Veronica, two stowaways didn't seem all that important.
"We need to recover the hourglass," said Balthazar. "With that artifact, Ysabelle can rewrite history, change the past. We cannot allow her to remake the world in her image."
"Sounds like we also ought to take those two sorcerers down," said Abigail. "Imprisoning them in your stacking doll prison might be in order."
"We need to save Becky, also," said Dave.
"Priorities, Dave," Riley cautioned.
"I will do everything I can to save and protect her," said Balthazar, "But if necessary the rest of the world comes first."
"I feel so lost," Ben looked at his feet.
"Imagine how we feel," Jack told him.
Dastan spoke, and Balthazar translated. "He says 'Could we please depart to retrieve the hourglass, so I might leave this place'."
"I'm kind of enjoying myself actually," Jack admitted. "What do all the metal cones do?"
"Exactly what I want them to," said Dave, and his phone rang.
"Becky?" Riley looked over his shoulder at the caller ID.
"We'll see," Dave answered the phone. "Hello."
"Dave!" it was Becky. "I'm alive. Hurt, but alive. This woman's a psycho. Don't-"
"Well, that's enough of her. Hello Dave," said Ysabelle, apparently taking the phone.
"If you harm a hair of her head I will-"
"Yeah, yeah, heard it all before."
"What do you want?"
"I want you," said Ysabelle. "I've been thinking it over, and you really are a work of art. So many different facets. You pack a punch, you're smart, you do magic without a ring, but at the same time you're a total moron. I absolutely have to kill you."
"Excuse me?"
"We're going to make a trade. You give yourself up. Your girlfriend walks free. You die. We all go home happy, some more existentially than others."
"I don't make deals with murderers. You killed my parents and I'm going to kill you, you piece of-"
"Now, Dave," Ysabelle scolded. "How're you going to become a transcendent Christian archetype if you keep talking like that? Meet me where it all began in one hour."
"Arcana Cabana?"
"No, not that far back; the museum, main hall. One hour or I permanently spoil Becky Barnes pretty face. And arms, and legs and torso."
The click was audible.
"That sounded ominous," said Riley.
"Talking to yourself is habit-forming," Jack warned, "I do it frequently."
"That's a cell phone," Riley explained, "It's like a portable phone."
"That sounds obscene," Jack scoffed, "Please tell me more."
"Balthazar," said Dave. "Everyone. How do I, do we, beat someone who is invincible."
"I can't really say," said his mentor. "I don't feel like I've ever met anyone who truly was invincible."
"It's simple really," said Benjamin Gates. "You have to outthink them."