Timeless gods the tenth.., p.11
Timeless Gods: The Tenth Jonathan Shade Novel, page 11
“Woulda coulda shoulda,” I said. “She won’t let us borrow Clara.”
“So what do you suggest?”
I grinned and raised an eyebrow. “How do you feel about stealing a dragon?”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The Steam Room closed at 9:00. We wandered through a hardware store and I picked up a few items that would work as makeshift lock picks. I got a variety of sizes because I wasn’t sure what I’d need.
“Why don’t you just get a power drill?” Kelly asked.
“I don’t want to leave a trace.”
“Because your ex won’t suspect you of stealing her dragon if you don’t drill through her lock?”
I shook my head. “This way is cheaper. And she won’t have to replace her lock.”
“So you’re saving her a few bucks when she’s a millionaire. How nice.”
“I just want to do it this way, okay?”
“You’ve been practicing your lock picking skills and you want to show off,” Kelly said.
“Maybe.”
“Whatever,” she said. “I’m just along for the ride.”
We hit the drive through at Burger King to get some cheap food. Kelly and I ate our hamburgers and watched The Steam Room from across the street in a grocery store parking lot as the last employee closed up the spa and locked the doors at 10:37. By 11:05, we had crossed the street on foot and returned to the back alley.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” Kelly whispered.
“We need a nice surprise for the Men of Anubis,” I said. “Something they won’t expect.”
“Nobody would expect a dragon,” Kelly said.
“Or the Spanish Inquisition.”
She rolled her eyes. She’d gone on and on about the dragon over dinner and in the truck while we waited, so I was tired of talking about it. She couldn’t wrap her head around the concept of a real live dragon. Gods from ancient Egypt were no problem, but a giant fire-breathing reptile was just going too far.
We stuck to the shadows, and tried to be quiet as we approached the rolling delivery door at the back of the spa.
I went to work on the lock box beside the door. It took longer than it should have, but I wasn’t a professional. She was right, though. I had been studying. Just not on this type of lock. It clicked, and I unlocked the door. “You want to do the honors?”
“This whole thing is your stupid idea. Why should I be the one who has to break and enter?”
“Stealing is okay, but breaking and entering is beneath you?”
“All of this is beneath me. Your ex-girlfriend will never forgive you for stealing her dragon.”
“She’s never going to forgive me for being an asshole either.”
I slowly lifted the door.
No alarms.
Good.
Kelly and I slid inside. I used the flashlight on my phone to get the quick layout of the room.
I’d been in The Steam Room many times, so I knew my way around. We were in the receiving area, and several workout machines stood along one wall. Four pallets of boxes sat along another wall. I swept the light over them, then aimed at the massive metal doors in the floor.
“Clara is down there,” I said, keeping my voice low.
“What are the odds the dragon remembers you?”
“It’s from another dimension, so the odds are pretty good. Time will have shifted around her, but as the dragon wasn’t born in our dimension, we should be okay.”
“And if you’re wrong?”
“Then when we go down there, we’ll be flame-broiled, like our dinner was. Dragons like their meals either raw or extra crispy.”
“In that case, before we go down there, I should ask how long it takes to stoke its fire.”
“I think it keeps it stoked, actually.”
“So we won’t have much warning?”
“If it reels back and opens its mouth, we’ll have maybe two seconds to know we’re about to be cooked.”
“I should go back to my truck for my sword.”
“A sword won’t do you any good. Don’t worry. She’ll remember me.”
“So now it’s a she? You’ve been saying ‘it’ up until now.”
“The great Kelly Chan is nervous?”
She glared at me. “I don’t fancy throwing my life away, but I’m not nervous. What are its weaknesses?”
“It’s a dragon,” I said. “It doesn’t have weaknesses.”
“And it’s an it again.”
“She,” I said. “Tell you what. You wait up here. I’ll go down and talk to her. Get her warmed up, so to speak.”
“How are we going to get her out of here?”
“We’ll ride her, of course.”
“Of course.”
I crouched, dug my fingers between the large metal doors and lifted. The doors didn’t budge.
“They must be electronic,” I said. I moved the flashlight over the walls by the receiving desk. A switch box with two buttons was attached to the side of the desk. One button was green, the other red. I hoped it didn’t require a key. “Press the green button.”
Kelly moved to the desk and pressed the button. We were in luck. The hydraulics kicked in and the doors opened up and out. I moved around to the front. A metal ladder led down into a basement. The sound of approaching footsteps in the darkness made me turn the flashlight downward.
“Hi, Clara,” I said. “Remember me?”
The dragon’s gold, green, and brown scales glittered in the light, and her golden eyes gazed up at me. She was bigger than I remembered, and when I’d seen her she was a good twenty feet tall. She rose onto her hind legs and sniffed the air.
She chuffed at me. Her breath was hot and smelled like roasted pork.
“It’s good to see you, too,” I said. “How would you like to fly to Tulsa and burn up some bad guys?”
Kelly tentatively moved over to look down at the dragon. “Holy shit. It’s real. Nice dragon,” she said.
Clara’s eyes shifted to look at Kelly. Again, she chuffed and Kelly’s hair blew back a bit in the hot breeze.
The dragon was loose in the basement. While I couldn’t see it from up top, I knew there was a huge swimming pool with an open shaft in the ceiling above it. Clara breathed fire on the water, turning it to steam, and evidently, there were chemicals in her fire that drifted up with that mist and eased the lactic acid in people’s muscles. So the whole “No pain, still gain,” slogan was accurate.
“Come on up here, Clara,” I said and stepped aside to make room.
Her leg muscles bunched and she folded her wings down on her back. She jumped out of the basement. The bay doors stood open, and she tossed a look at me then padded outside, holding her tail off the ground as she went. She didn’t swish the tail, so I followed her. Kelly walked behind me.
“I think she remembers me,” I said.
“How nice for you.”
“And you thought stealing a dragon would be difficult.”
When I stepped outside, Clara stood with her head low. A shadowy figure stroked her under the chin. The figure stepped away from the dragon into a soft pool of light. She had long dark hair, and an athletic body clad in tight sports bra and yoga pants.
“No means no, Jonathan,” Rayna said. She glanced over at Kelly. “Imagine that, his pet Sekutar crime companion extraordinaire taking orders without question again.”
“Rayna, we need Clara for this. We have a chance to stop the Men of Anubis once and for all.”
“Do it without my dragon.”
“She wanted to come outside,” I said.
“This is the time I normally take her out to relieve herself.”
And on that note, the dragon squatted and released a thick stream of steaming yellow fluid on the pavement. It smelled like rotten eggs.
Kelly and I retreated to avoid the splash back.
“See?” Rayna said.
“Ask Clara what she wants,” I said.
“Don’t be stupid.”
“You keep her locked up in the basement. She’s little more than a slave to make you money. So rather than you forbidding me to borrow her, ask her if she wants to go on a fun adventure.”
“Fun? You’ll get her killed.”
Clara chuffed, and lowered her head to my level. She nudged me with her nose, and blew out a soft breath. The wind was warm, but it was also gentle.
I patted her on the snout. “Clara,” I said. “I think you can understand what we’re saying.”
“She’s just an animal,” Rayna said. “I love her, and I don’t want to see her get hurt.”
Clara swung her head around to Rayna and chuffed. Rayna put her arms around the dragon’s neck as far as she could. Clara pulled away from her and looked at me again. She raised her head slightly.
“Can you understand me?”
Clara nodded.
“Did you feel time change around you?”
She just stared at me.
“Okay, maybe you don’t understand the concept of time. How about this? Do you understand the idea of good people and bad people? People who treat others well are good. People who cause pain and hurt others are bad. Do you understand that?”
Clara chuffed, only it sounded like laughter.
“There are some very bad men who need to be stopped. We can really use your help to stop them. Would you like to help?”
Clara lowered her head and moved close to me. Her eyes gazed deeply into mine and I saw a deep intelligence in her. Granted, we all want to believe such things, and we’ll anthropomorphize pets and animals, but when her head bumped gently against mine, a thought burst into my head.
You are Jonathan.
“And you are Clara,” I said.
That’s right.
“What are you saying?” Kelly asked.
Rayna frowned. “Clara is communicating with him.”
I felt the disruption, Clara told me. It has happened many times.
“The Men of Anubis are doing that. We can stop them.”
I will help you.
I smiled and stroked her chin. “Thank you.”
You must give me three gifts.
“What kind of gifts?”
You must let me fly. You must let me breathe my fire. You must keep Rayna out of harm’s way. She will insist on going with us. You must not allow that. I do not wish to see her hurt.
“You’ve got yourself a deal, Clara.”
“What did she say?” Rayna asked.
“She agreed to help,” I said. “She wants to fly, to breathe fire, and she doesn’t want you to come along.”
“You’re not taking her.”
“It’s her decision, Rayna.”
“If she goes, I go.”
I shook my head. “She doesn’t want you to go.”
Clara moved her head over to Rayna.
“No, Clara,” Rayna said.
She was silent for a moment then nodded.
“I understand.” More silence. “I will abide by your wishes.”
Clara rubbed against Rayna for a moment, pushing her back a step. Then the dragon rose up and stretched her wings.
Rayna walked over to me and glared. “If anything happens to Clara, I’ll kill you.”
“If something happens to Clara, you won’t have to kill me because I’ll already be dead.”
“I don’t ever want to see you again,” Rayna said. “Get the hell out of here.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
What’s cooler than flying a dragon from Boulder to Denver? Flying a dragon from Boulder to Tulsa.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. Before we climbed aboard the Dragon Express, I placed a quick call to Kelly. The Kelly with Thor, that is, not the one scratching Clara behind the ears. This time it didn’t go to voicemail and she answered on the second ring.
“Where are you?” she asked.
“Boulder.”
“What the hell are you doing in Colorado?”
“Smoking weed, of course. It’s legal here.”
“You don’t smoke.”
“We’re on our way back.”
“We could have used Esther’s help earlier.”
“Esther isn’t with you?” I asked.
“I thought she was with you.”
“She was, but yesterday she popped away, and I haven’t seen her since then.”
“We were in Asgard for part of the day, so there was no way she could have found us.”
“Did you recruit anyone?”
“This is where I get to tell you I told you so. Loki refused to help. Odin refused to help. A couple of warrior women were pissed because I was with Thor, and evidently the son of a bitch is still married to Sif, so it was a wasted trip.”
“On a positive note, I got us a dragon, and your time twin.”
“But you lost Esther.”
“I didn’t lose her,” I said. “She popped away. Maybe she’s waiting at the hotel.”
“That’s where I am now. Thor is in the bar trying to pick up a waitress. Somehow, I don’t think the fact that he’s still married will come up in the conversation.”
“I thought you didn’t like him.”
“He almost started to grow on me a bit when we fought a couple of giants, but that feeling faded fast when we got to Asgard.”
“Okay. We have some more info about the Men of Anubis,” I said, and filled her in about their weapons and shared what I’d learned at the meeting with Dr. Ancho.
“He mentioned the Center of the Universe?”
“I think he was talking figuratively.”
“No he wasn’t. There’s a place here in Tulsa called the Center of the Universe. It’s an acoustically arranged area on a sidewalk near downtown where you can stand inside a circle and speak. It acts like a microphone and the sound is echoed back at you louder.”
“Sounds like as good a place as any to die. Can you and Thor go check it out? That may be where we can face the Men of Anubis.”
“We’ll look into it. When will you be here?”
“I don’t know. Depends on the airspeed capabilities of an inter-dimensional dragon that didn’t come from Africa or Europe.”
Clara’s route to Tulsa wasn’t quite a straight line, and her speed varied from forty to fifty miles per hour. She stopped to eat a few sheep on a farm. All in all, the trip took fifteen hours and change. You’d think riding a dragon would be cool, and it is in both senses of the word. In fact, it was downright cold. I liked feeling the rhythmic flexing of the wings beneath me. Kelly and I held tight at first, but as the journey continued, we relaxed, and Clara made adjustments to try and keep us as comfortable as possible.
The most impressive parts for me were in the country beyond the city lights at night. The Milky Way spread out above us, and a dark ocean of grass and rock invisible beneath us. It was like flying in a dream. I’d never seen so many stars.
I knew we were heading to a showdown that would likely cost me my life, so I appreciated the view that much more. I’d lived enough for two lifetimes, and I’d faced things few people would even believe. I’d known good times and bad, love and danger, despair and grief. But overall, I had to say I didn’t have many complaints. I wish I’d been nicer to some people. I wish I’d taken the time to get to know others better. I wish I’d been smarter about how I went about things. Life can change on a dime, and you have to be ready to adjust to those changes.
One minute, things are fine. The next, the country is at war in a foreign land. One moment, you’re driving along an open highway, the next someone falls asleep at the wheel and crosses the center line and you can’t react in time to stop the head-on collision. One day your friends are all living their lives, the next someone is dead and you have an empty space that can never be filled.
We all face those changes. We all react differently to them. Some people curl up and try to hide from life. Others face it straight on and ready for battle. Others just roll with the tide and see where things carry them. Most of us do a little of everything. Some days, we’re ready for the challenge, and others we just want to stay in bed, and still others we face with a sense of ennui.
Fifteen hours on the back of a dragon leaves you time to think. It wasn’t easy to talk to Kelly because of the wind noise, so we tried to simply enjoy the ride, each lost in thought. I don’t know what she thought about me. I wondered if she liked me. How did I compare to the Jonathan she’d known? I know I was more jaded because I’d seen so much more. I know I was less idealistic. And I also know that I was in a place where I didn’t really care if I survived the coming fight. I’d been fighting for so long, and I was tired. I was ready and willing to lay down my life to save my friends. And part of me hoped it would come to that. As long as I could stop the Men of Anubis, and my friends were safe, I’d call it a win.
If anyone died in the coming battle, I would never forgive myself. All of it came back to one decision. I’d been sent back in time to kill a man named Henry Winslow, and because I no longer trusted the powers that be that sent me after him, I decided to talk to him and find out who he was and why he was doing what he was doing. I didn’t trust him, but I didn’t trust Chronos or Sharon either. I’d been betrayed by Sharon. I expected her to betray me again now. I fully expected Chronos to betray me, too. It wasn’t in his best interest, but people get caught up in the way things are, and it’s hard to make big changes.
If I’d followed directions, the Men of Anubis wouldn’t exist. If I’d followed directions again in 1877, my Kelly would still be alive. And I would have faced the events in 1926 in a much different manner.
Of course, if I’d trusted Sharon and Chronos, I’d be floating in a timeless void right now, so there’s that.
But maybe that’s what I deserved.
“Buildings,” Kelly said, pointing.
We’d just flown over a lake, and could see the houses and shops spreading out to the sides of the Cimmaron Turnpike below us. “I think that’s Sand Springs,” I said. “We’re coming up on Tulsa.”
And that meant we needed a good place to keep a dragon until it was time to face the Men of Anubis. Where do you keep a dragon in a city? The answer, of course, is anywhere it wants to stay.
