“Enlighten me on your plan to slay us when we are immortal.”

  “I’ve killed gods before,” I said, “and I suspect I’ll do so again. One thing you morons all have in common is that you believe your own press.”

  A man and woman strolled along the sidewalk toward us. Kelly Two blocked their path, and I knew she was telling them to go around.

  Amenken finally lowered himself to the ground and planted the crook on the concrete. Blue lightning danced around the base of the staff and the hieroglyphs glowed brighter. “Then slay me, Jonathan Shade.”

  I raised the vajra weapon. With my left hand I pointed at Mahu. “Now,” I said loudly. My voice bounced back at me, amplified. I’d know soon enough whether or not the sound carried into the sky. “Round one is between me and your father.”

  “Mahu will not interfere as long as your warriors don’t,” Amenken said.

  He was right about that because Clara had heard my signal and as she swooped down, she saw my finger aimed at Mahu. She unleashed a fiery blast at Manu’s back.

  Mahu screamed and staggered forward, engulfed in flames.

  Clara landed and skidded into him, she snatched him up in her mouth and chomped down hard, breaking the skin and crushing his bones in her powerful jaws. The screaming stopped.

  “Dinner is served,” I said as I switched the vajra to my left hand and yanked my Glock from its shoulder holster with my right.

  Amenken spun toward the dragon, raising the crook. Blue lightning swirled along the staff, and I could tell he was triggering something with his fingers. I knew that blast could kill Clara, but I aimed my gun and fired three quick shots.

  The bullets struck the staff, shattering Amenken’s thumb and fingers. While the bullets didn’t hurt him, they did knock the crook from his hand. Now that he was within reach, both Kellys raced toward him, swords drawn. I fired three shots into Amenken’s chest and mask, but they didn’t have any effect. The crook hit the ground in a shower of blue sparks and slid across the concrete.

  Amenken spun around, saw the swords arcing toward him and he barked a command in ancient Egyptian.

  Time froze.

  Clara halted in mid-chew, the blood hanging from her mouth like a frozen crimson fountain.

  I rushed up to Amenken before he could react, jammed the vajra to his head, and fired. It was a weapon forged for the gods, and the time-freeze didn’t prevent it from going off.

  The jackal mask exploded and the headless corpse of Amenken stood impossibly in one place as the blood and brains and skull fragments hung in the air and didn’t drop.

  I was about to quote Arnold in Terminator 2, but that red and white cloud didn’t go anywhere, and the body didn’t fall, and nothing moved around me at all. I turned full circle.

  Mahu was dead.

  Amenken was dead.

  Time remained frozen.

  “Shit,” I said.

  I looked at Kelly One and Kelly Two. Neither moved. I walked around them, then moved over to Clara. She remained still as well. The blood didn’t drip from her jowls. A droplet of red held steady in the air beneath her head on its stalled journey to the pavement.

  Esther hovered motionless in the air with the glowing collar. There was no wind.

  Leaves didn’t rustle.

  I had killed the Men of Anubis.

  But I was stranded in a frozen moment of time. With Amenken dead, I thought time would restart. But unless a second could tick forward, the world wouldn’t know he was dead, and the magic of the time-stopping spell would never end.

  Maybe I should have thought that through, but I didn’t really think he’d be that easy to kill. Now what the hell was I supposed to do?

  “Fuck me running,” I said.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  I sat on the edge of one of the planters and sang “Ninety-nine Bottles of Beer on the Wall” several times, then switched to “Henry the Eighth” until I was tired of it, then “Wasted Time” by the Eagles, and would have tried “Wasted Time” by Skid Row, but I couldn’t remember the words, so I launched into “No Time” by the Guess Who.

  And in all of that time, no time actually passed.

  I sang “Time” by Pink Floyd, then “Time” by the Alan Parsons Project. I started “Time is on My Side” by the Stones, but it wasn’t, so I considered switching to “Time After Time” by Cyndi Lauper, but I was sick of singing.

  “Okay,” I said. “Thor will bring Chronos, and everything will be all right.”

  Except that Chronos would open his rift to whatever time it was when they arrived, which was clearly after the moment I was trapped inside, so I was stuck here for all eternity except that no time would ever fucking pass.

  I drew a breath, released it. On one level, that was cool because I could breathe. Must have had something to do with the magic that froze time, but didn’t affect me.

  Still, there had to be something I could do. Esther hung in the air, and as I couldn’t see through her, she had to be in physical form. I climbed on top of Clara and tried to reach Esther, but she was too far away.

  Well, I had time. I looked around. The parking garage wasn’t going to be any use. Cars weren’t moving, and the cars in the garage weren’t running, and even if they were, they wouldn’t drive. I needed some way to climb up to Esther. Maybe I could free her. And maybe as a ghost, she wouldn’t be stuck in time. She wasn’t moving, but that could have been due to the collar. Maybe if I freed her from the collar, she’d be able to help.

  It was a long shot, and I knew it, but I had to try something.

  I walked to the bank a half block away. I was able to open the door, and when I let go of it, the door remained open. People stood motionless in a roped off line leading to the tellers in the bank. I wandered down the halls in search of a storage closet. There had to be a ladder somewhere.

  Long story short, I found a ladder in a janitor’s closet, and carried it outside and back to the Center of the Universe. I opened the ladder, steadied it, and climbed up to Esther. I had to stand on the top of the ladder, balanced precariously while I reached up to her. The ladder held steady, and I managed to grab Esther’s foot. I tugged her downward.

  A moment later, we were face to face. Her expression didn’t change. She stared blankly downward, a look of concern frozen in place. I pulled her down to the ground, and she didn’t float away. The collar around her neck wasn’t fastened by anything. It was a solid strip of leather with no seams or buckles. I had no idea what the hieroglyphs said, but it was obviously some kind of magical spell. It was tight, but not too tight. I could dig a finger between the leather and Esther’s flesh. I needed a knife.

  I walked over to Kelly Two. Kelly One would kill me if she thought I felt her up trying to find a knife. Kelly Two would forgive me. I didn’t need to run my hands over anyplace inappropriate. Kelly had a knife tucked in her left boot. I snagged it and returned to Esther.

  The blade sliced through the leather without any trouble, and I didn’t even cut Esther in the process. Mission accomplished. I tossed the collar aside, and as soon as I let it go, it stopped moving and hung in the air.

  Esther didn’t react when I turned her toward me.

  “Can you hear me?” I asked.

  No response. She kept looking downward, concerned.

  “Strike two thousand six hundred and forty,” I said.

  I didn’t want to leave Esther where she was because in physical form, she’d fall over or get smacked by Clara when time started again.

  If time started again.

  I carried Esther to the opposite side of the planter and laid her down so she wouldn’t fall.

  I tucked Kelly’s knife back into her boot, then set out toward the hotel where Club Eternity was once aligned.

  Decima said she was going to realign it, but maybe she hadn’t bothered. After all, I wasn’t ever going back there. Right?

  “Please still be there,” I said.

  I walked to the hotel. I found the door that led to the basement bar. The alcove looked the same, and the glass door remained as it had been. I tugged it open. Inside was a normal bar with a single bartender drawing a glass of beer for a customer. I could stand there forever and that glass would never fill up.

  So Club Eternity really had aligned itself elsewhere.

  Now what?

  Other than Chronos, who did I know who could operate between seconds?

  Sharon? Or was she able to do so only with the help of Chronos?

  Regardless, Sharon was in Boulder, Colorado, and I was in Tulsa, Oklahoma. That was more than seven hundred miles away. Walking that distance at thirty miles per day would take more than three weeks. I couldn’t drive a car because cars were frozen in time. But I could ride a bike. If I could ride seventy miles a day, I could get there in ten or eleven days.

  But what if I got there and Sharon couldn’t see me? What if she needed Chronos to freeze time for her in order to move between the moments?

  Maybe Chronos would still show up here.

  I’d seen a bicycle shop on North Boulder Avenue, so I walked over there. I entered the shop, found a nice brand new bicycle. I checked my stash of cash. I had a couple thousand dollars in my pocket and another sixty in my wallet. I tossed enough money on the counter to cover the price of the bike and a tire repair kit, then I rode back to the Center of the Universe.

  I waited there for hours and hours. Of course, the sun remained in the same spot in the sky. Nobody moved. No wind blew. Nothing changed. No sign of Chronos.

  I lost track of time.

  Easy to do when time doesn’t move.

  What do you do when you have all the time in the world and no way to get anything done? For starters, you take care of bodily functions.

  You want to see and feel something strange? Take a piss when time isn’t moving. You shoot the liquid out, but the stream remains in the air when you zip up and walk away.

  I didn’t want to ride all the way to Colorado. There had to be another way.

  Dr. Ancho!

  He was here in Tulsa. He could open rifts. He had some interesting abilities. Maybe he was able to move between moments of time. He had other gifts, that was for sure. He also had the added benefit of being maybe an hour away by bicycle. I hopped on the bike and pedaled toward ORU.

  I rode around motionless cars and trucks. Drivers with mouths open to sing with the radio, or lips flared back to yell at other drivers, or just sitting still with hands at ten and two.

  There were only a few students in sight on the campus grounds as classes were in session, so I didn’t have to dodge many of them on my way to Dr. Ancho’s building. The hallway was empty, and when I pulled the door open, it remained open as I stepped inside.

  Dr. Ancho stood still at the front of his classroom, pointing a piece of chalk toward his students, most of whom seemed focused. The exception was a guy at the back with his head tipped forward napping.

  As he was clearly frozen in time, I knew I was screwed. I sighed and rested a hand on his shoulder. “Thanks, anyway,” I said.

  “—elson Chapter Two for—”

  I jumped back and he stopped.

  What the hell?

  I stepped up to him again and reached down to touch his shoulder once more. He came to life again, only now he looked up at me. “—tomorrow, oh my goodness.”

  “Hello, Dr. Ancho.”

  I moved to sit down at his desk, but as soon as my hand left his shoulder, he froze again.So I had to be touching him to converse.Okay.I could do that.

  I pulled a chair over to sit in front of him so our eyes would be at the same level, then I reached out and took his hand. “I’m in a bit of a pickle,” I said.

  He started again. “You don’t say,” he said then looked around at his frozen students. “What did you do?”

  “I killed the Men of Anubis, but not before they stopped time.”

  His eyes held mine, and I saw empathy and disappointment and sadness in equal measure there. “You didn’t listen to me. Revenge is not the answer.”

  “Maybe not the right answer, but here I am.”

  “I can’t restart time.”

  “Who can?”

  “Chronos.”

  “Can you take me to him?”

  Dr. Ancho shook his head.

  “Can anyone else take me to him?”

  He hesitated, then nodded. “Why didn’t you listen to me?”

  “About?”

  “The Men of Anubis were not your enemies.”

  “They wanted to kill me.”

  “They would never have found you, Jonathan. Your real enemies are the ones you don’t recognize as such. I would say more, but that would only make things worse.”

  “Worse than being trapped in time?” I asked.

  “You sought revenge.”

  “They took Esther captive.”

  “Because you went looking for them and found them.”

  “Well, yeah.”

  “And you put your friends in danger.”

  “They’re used to that.”

  Dr. Ancho sighed. “No one should be used to that, dear boy. We should endeavor to keep our friends out of danger, wouldn’t you say?”

  “If possible.”

  “You went looking for it. Even after I warned you.”

  “So you’re telling me straight-up now?”

  He gave me a sad smile. “I can’t very well make things much worse at this point.As I said before, Ahogado el niño, tapando el pozo. After the child drowns, they close the well.”

  “So what do I do?”

  “Any path you choose at this juncture will lead you to lose someone close to you, or perhaps even to lose everything.”

  “Dr. Ancho, if you can’t make things worse, why don’t you just shoot straight with me? Tell me what to do.”

  “I said I couldn’t make things much worse, but if I say too much, your path will lead you to lose everything.”

  “I’ve already lost everything.”

  “Your friends will lose everything, too, Jonathan. I can’t say much more without endangering all of them. I tried to warn you, and you were so fixated on hate and revenge that you missed the chance for love and happiness. That door is now closed to you. Do you understand that? I fear that I share some responsibility. I should not have let you go. I should have spoken more to your ghost friend. She adores you in spite of the pain you inflict upon her. My mistake was thinking she was dead and you were alive when the truth was the reverse on a spiritual plane.”

  “I know I’ve ignored Esther, but I’ll make it up to her.”

  He shook his head. “You can never make it up to her, Jonathan.”

  “Okay, I realize she’s frozen in time right now.”

  Again, Dr. Ancho shook his head. “You are the one frozen in time, Jonathan.”

  “Can you come with me and help me?”

  “No. And whatever you do, please don’t move people around in your current state.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because the shock to their system could kill them.”

  “I moved Esther.”

  “She’s a ghost. The harm you’ve done to her is not physical.”

  “Oh no, please don’t tell me that by touching you, I’m killing you.”

  He smiled. “I’m standing in the same place I was, so I can mitigate the damage with magic. I suspect I’ll be sore, but I’ll survive. That holds true for any of us who are more in tune with the world, and have enough power to experience reality in this manner. Have you determined your true enemy yet?”

  I nodded and jammed a thumb into my chest. “Yeah, yeah, I’m my own worst enemy.”

  “That could be said for all of us, and it would be true, but that’s not what I meant.”

  “So tell me.”

  “I can’t do that. Too many people will die, and I refuse to have any more blood on my hands. Ponder this. Who set you on this path?”

  “I did.”

  “For a reasonably intelligent man, you can be monumentally stupid.”

  “I’ll figure it out. In the meantime, I need to reach Chronos so I can get back into real time. Thor was on an errand to fetch him, but they hadn’t arrived when time froze. If I touch Sharon, will she come to life the way you have?”

  “She will. I would recommend a different course of action.”

  “I’ve gone over everyone I can think of and she’s the only one I know who can take me to Chronos.”

  “There are at least three others here in the United States who would come alive at your touch. You have not met them, but all you have to do is find them. They appear to be human, but they are more than that, and as such, they can operate on this level if you touch them.”

  “Finding them would take forever.”

  “You have forever.”

  I shook my head. “I know Sharon can take me. I also know not to trust her. Open a rift for me, Dr. Ancho. I’ve got this.”

  “Impatience in the face of forever,” he said. “I fear you’re beyond my ability to save. But one thing I will not do is speed you on your course to destruction. I will not open a rift for you, Jonathan. You’re on your own. This is my final attempt to give you the gift of knowledge. Please consider what I’ve said.”

  “Fortune cookie logic is not helpful, Dr. Ancho,” I said. “Thanks for nothing.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  It took what felt like an eternity to ride a bicycle from Tulsa to Boulder, but in reality not a second passed.I rode until I got tired, then I found a place to sleep for a while. Sometimes that was on the side of the road. Sometimes I broke into someone’s house and slept on a sofa or in a bed. I couldn’t take showers because the water wouldn’t flow. But I could use a straw to drink water.I ate packaged foods because I couldn’t cook anything. Sandwiches and such. At a few convenience stores, I could eat a hot dog or a slice of pizza because they were hot in the warmer. Once I ate them, my immunity to magic allowed me to digest them.

  I left dozens of piss sculptures hanging in the air between Oklahoma and Colorado, and I spent my time thinking about what Dr. Ancho said. It didn’t help. I knew I’d disappointed him again, and while I certainly understood that I had forever, there was no way in hell I was going to go from person to person in the entire fucking country until I found one who would come to life at my touch. I already knew Sharon would work, so to take another course seemed like a waste of time and energy even though I had all the time in the world. Impatience is a virtue.

 

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