At Marisa's Pizzaria, a throng of excited and hungry customers--men and women--alike, gathered around a table to catch a glimpse of their favorite new waiter.
"He's working tonight, yeah?"
"Goddess, he's so dreamy. That smile."
"Those arms!"
"That butt...What, I'm just being honest!"
"I heard he used to be a fighter, you know."
Seated at table, by herself, Sandra Iron placed a hand over her pregnant belly and smiled, knowingly. Eight months in, she had started affording herself little concessions to deal with the impending labor. She'd stopped dying her hair, letting the gray-white, curly locks (a by-product of her healing glyph) spring out, cloud-like, from her colorful head wrapping.
Vito, the manager, lazily scratched his beard and flicked through the channels on the TV screen hanging over the bar, while chefs cursed at each other in the kitchen and pulled pizzas out of the brick oven, mozzarella bubbling like white lava.
"The Ruskies are having a meltdown," the grizzly Italian said, watching footage of fires blooming among Moscow's buildings. Rioters held up signs, and bolder sorts (without magick) threw Molotov cocktails at tanks. Those with the privilege of magick, threw balls fire, lighting, ice, or whatever they could conjure. A bunch of Imperial Soldiers harassing an elderly babushka were caught off guard when the selfsafe old woman summoned a flock of angry crows to tear at their faces, sending the Tsar's grunts packing.
"Shocking footage from Moscow as the revolt enters its ninth day," the anchor on TV said. Sandra and Vito could just barely make out his words over the hungry, raucous crowd sitting at tables of red/white stripes.
"Godess save us," Sandra said under her breath, making the sign of the Goddess across her chest. "This world is going crazy."
"Italy all over again," Vito sighed. "These big idiots get in charge, promise you everything, then think they can control you or send their sons to war. Shouldn't be shocked when the people fight back."
Suddenly, a woman at a table across the room placed her hands on her head and fainted, swooning, into her annoyed boyfriend's arms. Her companions piped up. "It's the waitor! You know, the one."
Vito growled. "Ugh. Spike..."
The double doors to the kitchen burst open. Spike, carrying stacks of Pizza's in one hand, and smiling as if he was performing for a spellbreaking crowd, struck a dashing pose. "Did someone order three half peperoni, half mushroom, and..."
Eyes oozing with prettyboy charm, Spike flexed his left bicep--ripping his Pizzaria uniform in the process. "And a centerfold STUD?"
"AIEEEEEEE!!!!" Highschool guys and gals squealed assembled at the table squealed with delight. They weren't just drooling over the pizza. Spike made the rounds, gracefully filling up waters, flirting with ladies, guys, grandmothers, and ensuring he got tipped handsomely by the end of the evening. His success as a waiter had been so great the last month or so that he hadn't even needed to hit up Avery for a photoshoot. Besides, it was better to be among the public, basking in the adoration (and the smell of freshly cooked, brick oven pizza).
"Lighten up on the showboatin', Sammy." Vito said, giving Spike a friendly slap on the back as he passed by the bar. "You ain't a spellbreaker no more."
Sandra saw Spike's eyes briefly dim, he after a moment passed, his smile lit up all the brighter. "Sorry, V! Sometimes I forget."
"Hey, business has been boomin' since you walked your tight, little butt through those doors. You won't catch me complainin', Sammy."
Sandra stirred her orange juice, smirking. "You really know how to land on your feet, don't you, ally cat?"
Spike, shuffling silverware back into place beneath the bar, bit his lip. "I'm..."
What was he going to tell her? That he thought about spellbreaking every single night since he was let go?
"Being the best garbage man I can be," he said.
Sandra blinked. "What?"
"Nothing." Maybe Kengo's advice only made sense in the moment. Spike looked up at the TV set. His shift was ending, anyway. Well time. "Hey, isn't it almost time...?"
Sandra winced. "Oh, you know how it makes me nervous. But, alright. Let's see it..."
Vito understood. He picked up the remote and flicked over to the sports channel. The fight was already underway.
"Aww," Spike pouted. "I missed the entrance."
On screen, Cian Enbarr--muscles building in an emerald green singlet--faced down two masked menaces in contrasting shades of blue and red, Freezer and Burn. Team Freezeburn. Not the most creative name in all of spellbreaking, but then again, the sport wasn't exactly known for its subtly.
The hot-headed of the two baddies charged at Cian with their body aflame. Cian, smiling, surrounded himself with green, luminous wind--dividing himself into two separate hunky clones of himself, causing Burn to run right through and into the ropes. Cian, the 'one man tag team' turned around and grabbed onto Burn, the Irish lad(s) Irish Whipping the hot-head back into his own opponent.
Despite himself, Spike smiled. "Good to see you still at it, cornbeef."
After a brief commercial break (and a drunken restaurant patron asking Spike to autograph his napkin) Mr. Iron came into view. Being somewhat of a vet, his entrances were always simple. He had one of those charismatic presences that made people fall in love with him. Always a big pop from the crowd.
"Man gets handsomer every time I see him," Sandra said to herself, patting her belly. "Surprised this is our first kid."
Spike blushed. Sandra's humor was always refreshing. John Henry had asked Spike to check up on her during his exile back to New York, and the two had become frequent lunch buddies.
Mr. Iron's match was against Rhinosaurus, was a big, singlet-wearing heel with a rhino head, a bruiser who had mangled many a young upstart and ended several careers before taking off the ground. Sandra eyed the brute nervously.
Spike tried to comfort her. "This...is part of the deal? No world saving, just spellbreaking."
Sandra let out a long sigh. "Yep." Shaking her head, but smiling, she explained. "You should have seen us, Spike, when he visited last. Ten years married, and us tripping over our damn selves to see who could apologise more. We were both in the wrong. I shouldn't have hid...well...this," she patted her stomach. "Even though I knew his mission was important. I was afraid that me telling him would make him stop the cause, but he had every right to know. And he should have explained the magnitude of the situation to me more. So, we talked it out. And now, he's out there, throwing men around again."
On screen, Mr. Iron lifted the enormous half-human over his shoulders in a gorilla press, both of his arms transformed into steel.
"Somehow, it's a safer alternative," Sandra said, as on TV, her husband tossed the giant rhino heel clear out of the ring. The audience went wild.
Spike hadn't seen the crowd reach to a spellbreaker like that in a long time. As the ref called the ring out, Mr. Iron's pearly white smile and topaz-colored eyes glimmered brighter than the ring lighting.
"And he's doing a great job of it too! I can't remember when I last saw Mr. Iron...I mean, John, on TV." And racking up so many wins, too. He's probably bound for the world championships at this point.
"Look at him glow, Spike," Sandra said, admiring her husband's charisma (and muscles). "He's found his passion again. I just hope he doesn't get hurt."
Vito nodded to his fellow restaurateur. "When's the kid due?"
"Another month to go. Unless this nonsense with Russia and the world induces an early labor."
Spike bit his lip. While all of his old buddies were killing it at spellbreaking, people were actually getting killed. He had never paid much attention to the news, until John Henry himself had called him out on it. Considering the world championships, in another month or so, were to be held in Russia, it wasn't looking good...
Besides that, last Spike had heard, the International Spellbreaking Commission had 'curiously' turned down their request to investigate Firebird, even after Madame Zorn's mysterious accident at last year's fundraising gala had proven a prime motivator for legal inquiry. Seemed Semyon's connections were a lot more entrenched than anybody had thought.
Sandra was right, Spike thought. The world truly did feel ready to explode...
---
"Samuel Waterford?"
Father Johannes had been handsome, once, Spike thought. Years of work in the slums had carved deep lines and sunken eyes into the priest's long face. As the revered, in gold and white, stood at the door with his arms folded, he looked down at a boy he hardly recognized.
Spike folded his navy umbrella. Spring showers were no joke, especially with their tendency to turn Brooklyn's potholes into watering holes. "Good to see the place is still standing," Spike said, as the priest welcomed him into Saint Magnus' Boys Homes.
Spike caught a whiff of a sharp, clean, scent. He looked the walls. Lot less cracks than he remembered, during his last visit. "Is that a new sheet of paint?" Indeed, many things about the orphanage--which had still seen much better days--appeared 'new'.
The still somewhat perplexed priest examined his old ward, marvelling at how the boy had grown. "Well, yes. Thanks to your efforts with that absurd sport of yours." He said 'absurd', but the Father's amiable chuckle suggested he didn't really judge Spike all that much. "And the efforts of the Ray Foundation, of course. We've set aside their generous donation for drastic improvements. I believe Sister Justicia is working on securing contractors and the like--"
"WHAT!" Spike cut the priest off, and then immediately bowed his head apologetically. He had to have misheard the man. "Did you say...the Ray Foundation?"
The wizened priest, dressed in the whites and golds of the church scratched his head. "Yes. I believe they are in the business of soma refining. India, if I am not wrong, though Mother knows why they'd be assisting a boy's home all the way in Brooklyn. Still, we do not turn our nose up at charity. And so generous too!"
Father Johannes might as well have knocked him to the ground and elbow dropped him. Vahni Rage had done quite the opposite of burn down Spike's old orphanage. But this left Spike with more questions than answers.
Johannes stopped at the staircase (which, to Spike's eyes, also looked brand new). "I imagine you came by to check up on Sister Patience?"
Tearing himself away from Rage's smug expression as he wrote out a sizeable check for a bunch of 'worthless' orphans, Spike looked towards the door of his old room. Seemed another life now. "Yeah," he said, instinctually aware that that last year or so had not been kind to his old matron. Father Johannes seldom made appearance in the orphanage, or so Spike recalled, which suggested to him that the man had begun taking on additional duties.
The priest frowned, but his eyes were understanding. He opened the door. "She's lucid today. She might recognize you..."
Her hair had grayed, and she looked thinner (especially resting in bed) but Sister Patience was still the same lemon-faced nun Spike remembered. However, Spike's old caretaker did indeed have trouble remembering who he was, or his name.
Sister Patience never had problems making Spike feel guilty, but this was something new. He kicked himself for not checking up on her sooner. After several pleasantly exchanged words, mostly on the surface, Spike bid the nun farewell and let one of the nurses attend to her.
The encounter left Spike feeling empty. He thanked Father Johannes for his time.
"Oh, wait, before you go," the priest said. "While the Church condemns violence in all forms, and I myself am certainly no fan of spellbreaking, it would mean the world to the boys if you could perhaps stop by during the daytime and meet with them. They know what you've done for them, I think. I've stopped trying to hide the TV from them during spellbreaking matches." The priest laughed. "You should hear them all when you come out in your silly little underwear. Seems you're quite the hero."
In one moment, all of Spike's failings and misgivings seemed to vanish from memory. Smiling, Spike nodded to the priest, who had no idea Spike had been banished from the GSA. "I promise to get you more money," he said.
And as Spike turned back towards the rainy street, he made a promise to himself: to find his way to the GSA again, somehow.
----
The large man in the tailored suit, with a long braid wrapped in gold rings, went unnoticed by the angry crowd bashing at the gilded gates of the Tsar's palace. Smoke-choked Moscow had become a picture of hell, and many devils moved behind the scenes, orchestrating events, pitting nobles against politicians, and dismantling the tsar's inner circle. Enough rats starved of food eventually feasted on each other, after all.
With this in mind, Salim smiled, watching as starved citizens quite literally tore into young soldiers, the mob moving like an amoeba and consuming (rightfully so, Salim thought) everything in its wake.
It was almost too easy. The fact that the rioters couldn't even perceive Salim, moving too quickly through time, made it even sweeter. Though he relished the destruction, in truth, his heart was with them.
Here, a young son, fighting for his sick mother who could no longer afford the medications the Tsar had levied taxes on, just to keep his war machines oiled. Salim plucked the slow moving bullet out of the air, just before it hit his face. He turned back towards the well-fed soldier who had fired it and place it in front of his head, all of the force of its firing like a rubber band waiting to snap in stilled time.
Salim smiled. "Boop!"
Time resumed its normal course. The bullet entered the soldier's brain, just as the gates gave way, and the crowd roared in triumph.
In the gilded halls, dripping with crystalline chandeliers, Salim yawned as security fired uselessly at him. He didn't even retaliate. He walked through bullet hail as if it was a spring rain, moving in and out of time. On the second floor, magi guard. They were more interesting. They summoned daggers of ice over their heads and shot them at Salim like arrows.
"Whoops," Salim said, crossing his arms over each other, sending the intersecting ice shards behind him and into the guard's two compatriots. "Your aim needs work."
There was no humor behind his words, nor satisfaction. He was pissed. By rights, he should have taken care of the 'Russian problem' a long time ago. But he thought patience, no, time itself, would win out. In almost every timeline, a revolt. Salim had merely added accelerant to the flames.
Like time. Like death. He was inevitable.
Wheel-chair bounded General Bilibin's metal servant, the automaton he controlled with his glyph, proved the most minor of challenges. The damn, mechanical soldier had moved quicker on Salim that he expected, as he walked casually into the audience chamber, whistling 'Peter and the Wolf'. The Tsar (or rather, Tsarina's) right-hand man had decided to go down with the ship, as it were, remained faithful to his Empress til the end. Not even Semyon had provided his erstwhile lover such affection, Salim thought.
Salim clamped his massive hand down on the metal soldier's head, as the thing tried desperate to stab at him with its built-in bayonets. Salim accelerated its natural entropy, the metal servant rusting and eroding in real time, until the Time Magi heard its gears whir to a stop.
"No!" the bearded general, taking a deep breath from his oxygen tank, wheezed. The General's frightened eyes went to the massive, bejewelled egg--the Tsarina's preservation chamber--lurking at the back of the chamber. Stilling himself for what would come next, the General used the last of his breath to wail out a patriotic anthem.
Salim gave him the dignity of allowing him to finish. "Mmmm," Salim said, looking over the tiny man in his little chair. "A bit pitchy, if you ask me." With that said, he ripped the oxygen tubes out of the man's nose and mouth, picked the frail general out of the chair with ease, and threw him clear across the room. He watched him gasp and squirm, for a moment, until he was satisfied.
"Like a damn fish," Salim laughed to himself as he 'felt' the man's life extinguish like a snuffed flame. He approached the Tsarina's chamber. As he did, the cold, misty exhaust from beneath the 'egg' took the form of an angel of ice, the Tsarina's glyph summoning her own warrior servant.
Salim rolled his eyes. "Cute," he said, as he snapped his fingers.
The tightly interlinked molecules inside the ice angel uncoupled, turning the winged soldier into a fine, powdery snow. Salim blew it away and placed his hand on the surface of the egg. He waited. He could wait.
A tinny, mechanical voice came through the phonograph built into the machine. "What right do you think you have to act against an emissary of the Goddess!"
Salim sighed. "Damn, in every timeline you are so damn stupid." He shook his head, looking for the right switch. "So blind to your people, and so blinded by faith you'd give all your powers to a smelly, old magi grifter who couldn't even keep it in his pants. At least Marie Antoinette had an aesthetic. Knew how to throw a mean party too."
Tired of trying to find a mechanism, Salim instead reeled his fist back and threw it into the machine at full force. Its siding shattered, glass staining the ground. Salim ignored his own bleeding hand as his magick sealed up the wound in rapid time.
The hole, the 'crack in the egg', gave him just enough view to see past the birds nest of wires and tubes, at the emaciated, oxygen masked wearing corpse inside the 'yolk'. A few strands of whispy, long hair hung off the shrivelled body of the Tsarina, a living mummy. Still, her sparkling eyes, still young, looked at Salim--pleading for mercy.
He would not give it to her. After all, when had she ever been merciful to anybody who wasn't blood related?
"I'm not going to strangle you, if that's what you're thinking," Salim said softly, brushing a strand of hair from her face. He could hear breathing now, the low, mechanical wheeze, helped along by the machine. It sickened him. "I'm just going to show you something."
The Tsarina's sunken eyes searched Salim's face for meaning. Then, she found herself somewhere else entirely. This wasn't just a memory, for indeed she had never experienced it herself, nor was it a dream. She was transplanted, in mind, to somewhere else--a dark, musty basement. Against the wall. Yes. She was standing upright with her back against the wall, with one hand grasped around Alexi. Olga was in the corner, making the sign of the...no, that wasn't the sign of the Goddess, but a strange gesture, with similar intent. A cross shape. And now there was Nicholas, standing, yelling at the guards with their guns raised. "What? WHAT!"
Then, the loud noise. Nicholas, dead.
No. My husband! MY CHILDREN!
Somewhere, in 'this' world, Salim removed his hand from the shrivelled Tsarina's head as the chamber beeped loudly, the EKG going flat, summoning help that would never come. The one note echoed through the chamber. Only the distant rumbled of angry voices and gunfire, somewhere outside the palace, interrupted this satisfying orchestra, as Salim stood in the center of the room, examining his grand designs.
"Let this be a lesson, Semyon," he said, to nobody (for Semyon's relic veiled him, still, from Salim's sight). "Next time you send someone to kill me. You better not miss."
The words fell upon dead ears. No matter. Salim had prepared himself for this moment. The deed done, and one domino more fallen, the Time Magi prepared himself for his next move...
----
The rain had stopped, a blessing. Spike meandered down the cobblestone path in the park, listening to the sound of crickets and the whale-call of sirens in the distance. He had nothing to worry about, walking in the park alone, so late at night, except maybe gunfire. But danger was not on his addled mind right now, this side of midnight.
Besides, he had walked this path before, many times. He looked for lost men like himself, waiting, wanting, beneath street lamps or near bushes. The attention from the customers was fulfilling, but the nights were lonely. Left with his own thoughts, Spike could not find the comfort of dreaming. Though he and Buck had spent only one night, in total, in each other's arms, even pretending to fall asleep on his chest was no longer enough.
As Spike thought of the GSA, and wondered how Buck, Cian, Mr. Iron, Kengo, and even Colt were all faring, he heard a noise behind him. An opponent, perhaps, or a lover. Spike relished the thought of either. To feel a high, tonight, would be the most welcome thing.
He turned his head towards the streetlight, and even he took a step back. "Holy geez."
The silhouette was massive. Spike didn't even register it as human, at first. It held its hands up to him, open, and calming.
Spike scanned the massive man up and down, then he grinned. "Damn, you're big. You could break me in half." He approached. What did he have to fear at this point, anyway--having lost so muich? He ran his hands through his blonde, feathery hair and gave the giant man a sly wink. "Do you...want to try?"
Spike did not expect laughter. The giant figure shifted on his feet. "Your flirting really needs work, little one."
Damn, that deep, velvety voice! Spike gulped. Maybe this really was too much. "Well, quit being so shy and come outta' the shadows, sexy. But be careful. I used to be a spellbreaker. I might not look like much but I can tie you into knots!" Spike flexed and blew the figure a kiss. "Of course, if you want me to do it to you anyway, you can just ask."
The massive shaped did as Spike instructed, stepping out into the light. Spike recognized the golden robe over the large frame, and the mask.
"Jackal," Spike said, choking on his spit. He'd just tried to cruise an international fugitive. Typical. His heart beating faster, Spike looked to his left and right to see if anybody else was around them. "How...why?"
The giant man stared at him, unsettlingly, for a moment or two. "Certainly not to pick you up at a park, horn dog."
"WELL CAN YOU BLAME ME!"
But the hulking man was done with frivolities. "It is time, Spike. I did what I could to guide you, test you. On your own, you succeeded in every possible measure. I knew you were the right one, the day I first met you. You are one such candidate to help me shape a much better world for us all."
"Honey, I can barely shape my own, damn life," Spike sighed. "Also...whaddya' talkin' bout, weirdo!?" His eyes narrowed. The massive man wasn't threatening him, not exactly, but he didn't like the aura he was perceiving from this strange that had continued popping up at the most pivotal of times.
"What's your deal?" Spike spat back. "You should know, I'm not in the mood right now. My life sucks. I got kicked out of the GSA. I'm nothing now."
"Nothing?" The spectre in gold laughed, deep, hollow, and resonate. "Being a bit dramatic, aren't we, love? Seems like you're living your life as fully as you can, given the circumstances. Are you not the Sailor Boy? Knocked down on your ass is when you do your best. Now, you just need to get onto your feet again, habibi."
Spike stepped back. His heart nearly froze. "Who...are you? Seriously. I don't care how damn big you are--I'll knock you flat on your ass if you keep f***in' with me!"
"Hehe." The man in the gold mask opened his cape, revealing quite possible the biggest, most muscular body Spike had ever seen before. He nearly fell to his knees, in wonder and worship. The man withdrew a golden object, in the shape of an eye, with a dazzling, luminous emerald for its pupil. "Oh, you know who I am. Or maybe, like everyone else, you simply forgot. That would be my fault, of course. I had my reasons for writing myself out of the script for awhile..."
Spike held his head, which had started to spin. Had he been drugged, somehow? "Stop..."
"You're fine," Jackal said, assumingly. "Time is just catching up with you. Quantum entanglement is...well...untangling. I'm just yanking back the wool that's been pulled over your eyes, by both the magick that's tainted this reality since early civilization, and my own doing. Let me ask you, something. What year is it?"
A stupid question, Spike thought. What he really thought to be doing is running away. That would be the sensible thing. But he couldn't. He was compelled for answers. "That's easy," he said, gritting his teeth together. Why was it such a struggle, to remember. "It's nineteen-sixty....nineteen-sixty...." He blanked. "What year..."
Jackal shrugged. "Nebulous sixties setting? Kind of retro futuristic, but not exactly clear on time and place? Sort of like Archer? Great show, by the way. Jessica Walters RIP. Oh yeah, the whammy has been put on this timeline for sure. Now tell me something, Spike..." He stepped forward. Spike was nearly breathless. How could someone that size with that body exist, unless they were truly a god?
"Who is the current spellbreaking world champion?"
By now, Spike had broken out into a sweat. Memories of times and places he knew he'd never experienced came rushing back to him. Or had he merely forgotten them, somehow? "Nobody knows," Spike said. "Nobody..."
Then, clear as clear, he saw it: on TV. As a child. There was Colt the bolt, kneeling--no, made to kneel--in front of a giant, dark skinned man with a long braid sticking beneath his jackal shaped mask.
The name came to him, strange to Spike's tongue but familiar to his brain. "K..."
"Heh." The figure walked closer, but not to intimidate. "That's it, Sailor. You almost got it. I go by many names, of course. Gold Mask to some. Jackal to most. But if you will recall...our little hero--and my good friend--Colt was once humbled before divine excellence. You know my spellbreaking name. The name of the man who defeated 'The Bolt' and won himself the first world championship belt, nigh ten years ago."
Spike couldn't hold it back. He fell to his knees, actually, looking up reverently at the massive, masked man before him, compelled to worship his majesty and might.
"King Anubis."
The man--no--the god, looked down at him. Yet, the piercing his behind his intimidating mask were not cruel. "Very good, habibi. Of course, I think you know me by a much more familiar name. With that, and with all the powers of time bound to my command, I proclaim to you six words of wisdom."
Spike couldn't move, even if he wanted to. He watched, as King Anubis himself--the greatest spellbreaker Spike had ever known, the only one to ever best Colt the Bolt, removed his mask.
At first, Spike was confused. He knew the face. Why didn't it make sense to him?
"...Salim."
Salim Netjeer, King Anubis, placed his massive hand on top of Spike's head, nearly enveloping it entirely in his grip. He smiled, cruel, kind, and cunning, as he proclaimed his wisdom:
"Y'all wanted a twist, eh!?"
To Be Continued...
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