Piper and I took a cab while Chloe followed us in a cloaked Dragonov from above. I suppose we could’ve taken one of my many vehicles since owning a lot of expensive cars was just a thing that all billionaires did, but I decided that it would’ve ended up left on a curb whilst I went through time, or something like that.
Piper kept the questions about everything we passed to the minimum so as to, I don’t know, not bother me, I guess. Which was kind of relieving but also not so much because I didn’t want her to think she couldn’t talk to me when she wanted.
“What’s on your mind, Piper?” I asked. She was sitting on the other side of the black duffel bag that was in between us. Don’t know how it had ended up there since now that I think about it, it was a tad inconvenient as far as hitting on someone was concerned.
I know what you’re thinking.
But Jericho, how could you be thinking of hitting on someone with your friends lives hanging in the balance?
What can I say? I’m an awesome multitasker. And she looked so different in the 21st century clothes that it seemed a waste just to sit in silence, you know?
You don’t know, do you. Whatever.
She’d changed into a pair of faded jeans and a lime green American Eagle t-shirt. I noticed she was also wearing a pair of blue Chuck Taylors, which seemed to go too well with her top and made me wonder who had actually picked the outfit. “I was thinking how comfortable these shoes are.” She said, peering down at her feet past the broadsword that was riding between her knees.
Wow. The way she was dressed and wielding a sword was something out of my wildest, nerdiest dreams.
“They’re great, right?” I said, “I wore these things long before I bought half the company that makes them. They can’t be beat, really.”
Then I realized that I had probably sounded conceited by the mentioning of buying half of Converse. “You are very rich, aren’t you, Jericho?” Piper asked, looking up from her feet to me.
Great. I knew I’d sounded conceited.
“I get by.”
“How?” She asked.
Opening the small duffel bag, I pulled out the glove that had started it all. “Because of this,” I said, handing it to her. “I use it to go forward a day or so sometimes to predict the future. Apparently it’s a big hit nowadays.”
“And the people of your time don’t know about this?”
“Nope,” I said, glancing out my window. We were almost to the college.
“So you’re a fraud,” Piper said and I noticed it wasn’t a question but her just laying out all the facts and giving it a name.
I bobbed my head in a side-to-side, indecisive fashion before saying, “I wouldn’t say fraud, per sey… maybe just well informed.”
“But you lie when people ask how you do it, right?”
I was starting to not like this conversation very much. “Well, yeah, but only because other people don’t need to go back in time at will, Piper.”
“And you can?” she asked, passing the gauntlet back to me.
I wasn’t ready for this talk with anyone yet. The only two people that knew about me before had been Evonne and Louise and since they were basically millionaires themselves because they worked for me, neither of them had tried to give me the “don’t you think this is a tad shady?” talk.
And here I was, in the back of a cab with a beautiful Viking chic that I was trying to holla’ at, as it were, and she was making me feel like the biggest liar to date.
And yes, whoever you are, I do in fact know that I kind of am the biggest liar to date.
Well, Bill Clinton might actually have me beat but a guy has to keep trying.
“Listen, Piper, I know this may sound lame, but there was a reason I found the gauntlet and no one else did. It was half-buried in the bushes on a nature trail frequented by thousands of regulars every day. Why was I, the man who hates nature trails and was only there to meet a buddy from college, the one to find it? I’m not one to talk about the fates or whatever but if Chloe’s dad hadn’t have hidden it from Klaus the world as we know it would’ve been toast a long time ago.”
Before I knew it, I had grabbed her hand in the vehemence of… I’m not sure… the passion of my own self-denial, maybe? Whatever the cause, I grabbed her hand, “You told me once that none of this was my responsibility and that may be. But if I, the one who found the glove and kept Klaus from screwing up the planet in the first place, don’t try and stop him, who will? And since your time won’t be ruined by Klaus, it’s you who have the best reasons to not be helping me do this.”
Our eyes were locked when I finished and we didn’t hear the cab driver tell us that we were at our stop while we took in each other’s face.
“I really like you, you know,” she said, her mouth curving slightly in a knowing smile when she repeated the words that had haunted me since she’d last spoke them on our frigid fishing trip. “That’s why I’m here, Jericho. Whatever you decide after this is all over, I’m just glad that the great Jericho Johnson took the time to stop by my small village.”
Then she leaned toward me slowly, our eyes still locked, and I leaned toward her slowly, our heads turned perfectly for the long-awaited, time-defying kiss.
But right before the most awesome moment of my life was complete, someone knocked on my passenger door.
I’m not one to stop mid magical first kiss and certainly not one to stop post magical first kiss. But since we did have an evil lunatic trying to kill us on the loose, I did stop, turning to see who the buzz-kill of an intruder was.
“If the two of you are quite done it seems we’ve arrived,” Chloe said curtly from the other side of the window.
Geez. I would’ve preferred Klaus instead of Chloe right about then. God knows it wouldn’t have been near as embarrassing.
I nodded and Chloe turned in her Dragonov and headed up the steps to the college. I went to open the car door but Piper still had one of my hands. Pulling it to her lips, she planted the kiss that should’ve been on my lips on my hand. Then she winked at me before letting go of my hand and opening her car door.
After paying the cabbie, who, as he explained to me after seeing our getup and weapons, was also a fan of renaissance fairs and wished us the best, we climbed the long flight of steps and entered the college.
Since the door had been kicked in I didn’t have to use my keys, which turned out to be awesome considering I didn’t have them on me, anyway. C’mon, Jericho, pull it together, man.
Darkened halls was what greeted us and since I wasn’t in ninja mode I turned on a light every time we passed a switch toward my classroom.
“The better to see him with, my dear,” I told Chloe after she’d given me a questioning look.
“How do you want to play this, Jericho?” Chloe asked.
“What do you mean?” I muttered, checking other rooms as we passed for Klaus just in case.
“We can’t give him the glove.” She said simply.
I stopped walking and turned to the girl beside me in the enormous battle suit. “We also can’t let him kill my friends, Chloe.”
“Fair enough,” Chloe droned, vanishing before me. “I’ll move in when I can.”
The journey to my room seemed to take longer than I remembered it taking when Piper and I stopped at my door. Taking a deep breath, I pushed into the room, with my gun ready.
“Jericho,” Klaus said to me, like he were addressing a long lost colleague, “So nice of you to join us.”
Evonne and Louise were on their knees in front of the madman, a pistol at the back of each of their heads. “Let them go,” I said automatically with Piper beside me ready to spring into action.
Klaus sneered at me. “You had three minutes until you would have found their corpses. Cutting it a little close, are you not?” Then he scanned the room and added, “Where is Beck?”
“She’s back at my house in case you showed your ugly mug back there first,” I told him, edging to my right, my own
pistol still pointed toward him.
Although this sounded like the truth because I had thought about leaving one of the girls behind for that reason, Klaus wasn’t buying it. “You care for too many people in this room, Jericho. Here,” He said, cocking one of his guns, “Allow me to help you think faster.”
Then he shot Louise.
The older black woman cried out, landing on the hard floor. He'd hadn't mortally wounded her, but since she wasn't the youngest of women he probably didn't have to.
Evonne went to help her but Klaus cocked the gun and held it against his head, “Don't even think about it.” He told him and Evonne resumed his kneeling with his hands on his knees. “Everyone else but you out of the room. Now,” he told me.
“Freakin' maniac,” I shouted, stepping closer to the horrifying scene, “She's an old woman, for God's sake!”
Klaus leveled a gun at me this time, “I'm tired of your games. Now you can finally see that I am done playing them with you. The glove, if you please.” He said, motioning the gun toward a desk a few feet in front of him.
“Chloe,” I said aloud, starting for the evil man, “Come out, please, and don't try anything. I don't want anyone else hurt.”
It took a few seconds for Chloe to realize that I was serious and she appeared to my right halfway between Klaus and I.
“Chloe?” Klaus asked carefully.
“There has always been two of us,” Chloe told him, causing any confusion Klaus might have been having right then to escalate.
“Leave,” I told the girls. Piper wasn't thrilled about it but she exited with Chloe tromping behind her.
“A wise decision,” Klaus stated once the door closed behind them, “See? All you needed was a push in the right direction.” Then he kicked at Louise's feet.
“I'm going to kill you, you know,” I muttered between clenched teeth, stopping beside the desk that Klaus had motioned at. “Let Mitch go first.”
“No.”
“Mitch first,” I shouted.
Klaus smiled at me. “Sometimes people don't get what they want, boy.”
“You're right,” I said, placing the glove on the desk and cocking my pistol before aiming it at the gauntlet of time.
“It won't matter. Sparks will just make another once your dead.” Klaus said although he wasn't smiling anymore.
“Is that so?” I said, sounding more in control of my voice now, “Then why didn't he after this little jewel vanished?”
His face darkened and I kept going. “Oh, that's right,” I said, lightly slapping my forehead in mock revelation, “Because there isn't anymore Z-90 to make one.”
Klaus growled low and I saw a muscle jerk in his jaw. Then he grabbed Evonne's shoulder, “On your feet.”
“I'm so glad you're not wearing those heinous wind pants you wore when you visited Nero, master Johnson,” Evonne said, getting to his feet slowly, his eyes on me. “Terribly inconvenient in a tussle, wouldn't you say?”
Klaus' eyes were on the glove beside me and he either didn't hear what Evonne had just told me to do or just didn't care that we were talking.
But I knew what he was trying to tell me.
And all helheim was about to break loose.
Klaus shoved him on his way and after he'd taken a few steps away and blocked me from the madman's line of sight, I sprung into action.
When Evonne and I had been captured and brought before Nero, the crazed emperor thought we were spies and had everyone else leave the room so he could personally question us due to the fact that he didn't trust anyone in his court.
To make a long story short, Nero had produced a sword and tried to make us talk that way. Since we were weaponless and I was completely out of ideas, I did the only thing that I could think of to gain the upper-hand-
I shoved Evonne into Nero. Really, really hard.
I know, I know... It wasn't among the pantheon of all of my normally glorious short-notice plans and it did in fact end with us escaping.
But it was a half-cocked crazy plan that Evonne had made me promise never to do again.
Ha.
I shoved Evonne as hard as I've ever shoved another human being in my life and the effects were absolutely magical, if I do say so myself. Both men ended up barreling over backwards and over the top of the line of desks behind them.
Klaus' gun went off when they landed and a light fixture exploded to my left. Roaring, Klaus went to throw Evonne off of him but suddenly got a taste of what happens when my butler in his sixties get's severely put off. Evonne sat up a tad before swiveling and planted the most sickening sounding elbow to the man's face before rolling off him and prying the gun out of his hands, standing and holding the weapon on Klaus.
I guess he thought I was done and that's why he decided to hold him at gunpoint, so I could take a minute to think and devise the best way to end this drama.
“Get Louise out of here.” I said, slipping my glove back on and mounting the dazed Russian's chest. I grabbed his collar, pulled him to me, and smashed my now metal-clad fist into his face as hard as I could.
Somewhere in the middle of me beating Klaus to a pulp, Evonne carried Louise out of the room. On my seventh or eighth punch Klaus caught my glove in his, jerking me sideways and somehow slamming me on the side of my face on the floor, sticking me with the most painful of jabs in my side.
“No fair, freak,” I growled, swiveling one of my legs and wrapping it around Klaus' head, flipping him over and putting the squeeze on him.
And FYI- the next time your trying to kill someone by choking them to death with your legs scissored around their neck- make sure that the man/woman silently trying to pry your legs away is NOT wearing a scandium gauntlet with razor sharp fingertips.
Just saying.
I gritted my teeth against the agony and possibly might have seen stars when Klaus turned all five fingers to my right leg, biting them deep into my thigh.
And, whoever-you-are, if any wild notion just came to your mind telling you that Klaus only used four fingers and the thumb isn't a finger because it only has two joints-
Shut up.
My vision blurred when Klaus squeezed the points deeper into my thigh and all I could see was my blood going everywhere. There comes a moment in every fight when one of the fighters passes the point of not caring and I have to say that when I turned my body hard just so that my gushing blood would pour all over Klaus' battered face, I was well past it.
Speaking of blood, I'd lost a lot of it judging by my starting to black out. Then my legs slammed together hard, causing blood to spatter. The last thing I remembered was rolling my wobbling head down to see Klaus' bloodied face vanish and Chloe busting through the door and screaming something I didn't understand.
Maybe it was something akin to, “Oh my gosh, Jericho is lying in a pool of his own blood and Klaus just got away again!”
At least that's what I was hoping she was exclaiming in tears as she knelt beside me, shaking me hard by the shoulder with her massive Dragonov hand.
Because that's what felt like just happened.
And maybe a herd of rhinos had trampled me, too, somewhere along the way...
Bleh. I just got sick all over again telling that to you.
I hope you're satisfied, whoever-you-are.
Chapter 33