Going Bovine (28 page)

Gonzo narrows his eyes and tightens his grip on the fork. “I don’t really think you’re in a position to be talking about somebody’s size, are you, dude?”

“It’s not a question of size. It’s a question of stature. In my travels, I’ve learned to speak five languages. I’m versed in science, the arts, music.”

Gonzo stares at him. “You’re a freakin’ yard gnome. Dude.”

“Dwarf,” Balder grumbles.

“Piss post!”

“Ignoble.”

“For Chrissakes, can we just get along and eat in peace?” I say with a sigh. I don’t feel so great. My head’s throbbing and my stomach hurts. I don’t think it’s my CJ, just an old-fashioned hangover. I look down at the napkin, where I’ve crossed out the “K” in Konstant and replaced it with the proper “C.”

“I’ll be right back,” I say.

“Where you going?” Gonzo sounds panicked.

“I’ll be right back. You guys just … get to know each other. Bond,” I say.

Balder offers Gonzo the butter knife. “Perhaps you would like to stab me again?”

“Cameron, don’t leave me with the freaky yard gnome!” Gonzo pleads, but I’m already up.

There’s a pay phone in the way back next to the men’s bathroom. I drop in all the change I’ve got and make the call. It rings four times and goes to voicemail. I hear my mom’s familiar message—“Hi, this is Mary Smith. I can’t come to the phone right now because I’ve probably been carried away by griffins. But if you leave your name and number, I’ll get back to you just as quickly as Hermes would.” There’s a pause, and then she says to me, “Cameron, did I do that right? Oh! We’re still recording! Oh my goodness …,” and her laugh is cut off. That message used to annoy the crap out of me—my mom being all spacey and mom-ish. But right now, hearing her voice is the best thing in the world, like waking up and realizing there’s no school. There’s a beep, and my stomach tightens.

“Um, hi, Mom. It’s me. Cameron. Well, you probably figured that part out,” I say, sounding like the biggest dork. “Anyway, I’m okay. I want you to know that first. And, you know what? Keep grading those moronic English Comp 101 papers, because otherwise, we’re all gonna be getting our gas at the K-W-I-K S-E-R-V and drinking our E-X-P-R-E-S-S-Os at the Konstant Kettle, two K’s. Seriously, the world needs you. You matter. A lot. Okay, I gotta go, ’cause the griffins are here and you know how much they hate to wait. Love you,” I add quickly, and hang up.

I turn and bump into somebody reading a newspaper. “Sorry,” I mumble.

“No problemo,” comes a familiar voice. Dulcie lowers her newspaper. Her bright pink hair has been twisted into short, corkscrew curls that wiggle when she shakes her head. “You would not believe the things people put in the personals these days.”

“Dulcie! Where’ve you been?”

“You said you wanted to be left alone.”

“Yeah.” I trace a crack in the tile with my foot. “Sorry. I promise not to be an asshole from now on.”

“Don’t make promises you can’t keep,” Dulcie says, laughing. Like a pair of excited puppies, her wings perk up and spread out till they touch the walls of the narrow hallway. I glance nervously toward the restaurant. “You might wanna ix-nay on the ings-way?”

“What? These?” She fluffs them so I can see today’s artwork, a mural of rainbows. “Don’t worry—people only see what they want to see.”

Right on cue, a lady barrels into the narrow hallway and asks if Dulcie is in line for the bathroom. Dulcie shakes her head, and the lady goes right on in without so much as an extra blink.

“I’m just curious, what did she see?”

Dulcie shrugs. “Who knows? Everything hunky-dory in Camland? It’s been a while.”

“Yeah. It’s been a weird couple of days.” I tell her about missing the bus, CESSNAB, the party, and Balder.

“I’m special, you’re special,” Dulcie sings.

“How do you know—”

“Must’ve been on a greatest hits CD. Great and special,” she says quickly. “Anyway, I’ve been thinking—I know you said to leave you alone, but I don’t think that’s such a good idea, Cameron. You need me.”

“I need you?” I try to think of a comeback, but the truth is, I’m just happy to see her.

“You’ve got grape jelly on your cheek,” she says, brushing it off. “Oh, also? Something just came in.”

“Came in where? Angel Central?” Dulcie doesn’t answer me. “Wow, do you have cubicles? Is there middle management and one annoying angel who drinks all the coffee but never remembers to make a fresh pot?”

Dulcie gives me a playful punch in the arm. “Very funny, Cameron. You know, I’d love to tell you all about it, but, sadly, then I’d have to kill you. Anyway … this just showed up. It’s recent footage of Dr. X.”

She pulls out an MP7 player and presses Play. Grainy video rolls. A guy in a lab coat in a white room. It’s vaguely familiar. “Wait—I’ve seen this guy before! The night the fire giants showed up, I did an Internet search and it led me to him. It led me to Dr. X.”

“Everything’s connected,” Dulcie says softly, and ups the volume.

The quality’s crap, and every few words are replaced by a mumbly hiss. “… So close to finding the answer … pssssttttt … The passage of time is an illusion; time … pssstttt … does not exist, or rather, we live in all time, always … psssstttt … as if we could reach out and touch what has come before, what is yet to be … pssstttt … and here is the most important thing of all … psssssttttttt …”

Suddenly, the video jumps to something else. It’s like the channel’s been turned and we’re smack-dab in the middle of somebody’s vacation footage—jumpy shots of people in shorts walking around, crowd sounds, chirpy music, furry cartoon characters waving. The camera pans over a gate studded with colorful planets and gears. A sign reads: TOMORROWLAND—THE FUTURE THAT NEVER WAS. The video freezes and a little Play Again triangle pops up.

“What the hell happened?” I ask.

Dulcie sighs. “Sorry. I was lucky to even get this.”

“What does he mean by all that ‘time doesn’t exist’ stuff? I mean, how about, ‘Hey, here’s the cure you need. Oh, and let me tell you how to close the wormhole and save the universe. Just turn left in Alabama and you’ll be fine.’”

“I’m sorry, Cameron. I know this is frustrating.”

“You think?”

“And I don’t mean to make it harder, but I think our clock is ticking a little faster now. If the wizard gets to Dr. X first, they’ll pull him back through the wormhole, and then it’s all over.”

“Great,” I say.

She bites her bottom lip. “Did you get a sense from that? Anything at all?”

I shake my head. “Nothing.”

Dulcie’s expression is unreadable. “Okay. Well, I’m going to see what else I can find out about Dr. X. You keep pushing on, following whatever signs you find.”

“So you’re going again?”

“I’m here whenever you need me.” She breaks into a goofy grin, and I want to tell her not to go, to stick around and meet the gang, have some pancakes. I want to say something cool, something to keep her smiling, but I can’t think of anything. “Você é a vaca do meu contentamento,” I say, quoting a Great Tremolo song.

Dulcie gives me a weird look and bursts out laughing. “You are the cow of my contentment? Wow. I’m speechless.”

“Is that what it says?”

“’Fraid so.”

“I knew that.”

“Course you did.” Her laugh dies. She shrinks back, her eyes wide.

“What’s the matter?” I say, following her gaze to the front of the restaurant, but I don’t see anything unusual. A hostess behind the cash register next to a stack of menus. People paying. A guy in a United Snow Globe Wholesalers shirt wheeling in a dolly full of boxes. A man picking his teeth with a toothpick. Bus boys and waitresses running back and forth with trays and loaded bus tubs. The guy delivers the box, and the hostess opens it up. She pulls out a snow globe, which she shakes vigorously before mounting it on a high shelf above the cash register.

“Dulcie?”

“It’s nothing,” she says weakly. “See you down the road, cowboy. Here’s the paper. And Cameron? Be careful.” And just like that she’s gone.

“Hey, you forgot your player!” I say, but she doesn’t materialize.

I give Dulcie’s paper a quick scan. There’s the usual mess of the incomprehensible mixed in with the ridiculous, but I do see an ad for cheap tickets to Daytona Beach. I take that as a sign we’re on the right path, though truthfully, it’s as right as any other random thing I want to assign meaning to—cartoons, the Great Tremolo, the way Staci Johnson flicks her ponytail. I smooth out Junior Webster’s scrap of a compass—to live—fold it neatly, and tuck it back into my pocket along with the MP7.

When I get to the dining room, some kind of fight has broken out. People are clumped together in spectator fashion, cheering.

“What’s going on?” I ask the guy next to me.

“Some kinda wrestlin’ promo, I think. It’s entertainin’, I’ll say that much. Them little guys got lots of spunk, I tell you what.”

“Little guys?” I croak. Oh no they di-in’t. “Excuse me, excuse me!” I say, pushing through. Balder’s on the table, and people are lined up, throwing whatever they’ve got at him—knives, forks, coffee cups, rocks. One little girl hurls her waffle and it bounces off his round belly like a spongy boomerang.

“Two dollars a shot! All comers welcome!” Gonzo shouts. He’s running between everyone, gathering money in Balder’s Viking helmet.

“I cannot be injured, for I am Balder. …” A knife sticks into his arm, but he keeps going. “Son of Odin …” A fork lodges into his skull. “Brother of Hoor,” he says, pulling them both out. “Immortal.”

“Yeah? Let’s just see about that.” A guy in a mall security guard uniform pulls out his piece and shoots Balder in the chest. There’s a gasp from the crowd. Instead of going down, Balder does a little dance.

“Boo-ya!” he says, and I’m pretty sure that’s the original Norse.

“Well, I’ll be,” the mall guard says. Everyone claps and cheers.

“Two bucks!” Gonzo insists, pocketing greenbacks from the shooter.

“Okay, show’s over!” I announce, running up and yanking Balder off the table. “You’ve been great. Be sure to come out and see our show at the monster wrestling truck arena this weekend. Thank you. Thanks so much. Thank. You.” As the breakfasters settle back at their tables, I level a sharp gaze at both Gonzo and Balder. “Way to keep a low profile, guys.”

“He started it,” Gonzo grumbles.

Balder gives me one of his courtly bows. “I did not mean to cause trouble, Cameron the Noble.”

“When I said ‘bond,’ I meant, like, tell some stories, trade a few fart jokes, draw pictures of the waitress with a mustache. Not cause a scene.”

“Look how much cash we got, though.” Gonzo shows me Balder’s helmet full of green. They’re both so excited, it’s impossible to be mad at them anymore.

“All right. Okay. But don’t do that again. Look, let’s just pay the check and—” I smell an acrid stench that makes my eyes water. There’s something familiar about it. “Do you smell that?” I ask, goose bumps rising on my arms.

“Smell what?” Gonzo asks.

Wispy black smoke slithers across the floor and coils around my legs, and they start trembling. My body feels as if it’s on fire. My throat muscles clench.

“Guys …,” I croak.

“Cameron?” Gonzo asks, his eyes full of concern.

“It’s them,” I manage, just as the kitchen doors are blasted off their hinges with the force of an explosion. The fire giants have found us.

“This part of the wrestlin’ show?” a man at the next table asks his friends.

A second explosion rocks the Konstant Kettle. People scream as debris rains down and flames pop from the walls. But I can see they’re more than flames; they’re ginormous, burning men with black holes for eyes and mouths made of sharp, flickering teeth. They’re fast and determined and merciless, and they bring chaos in their wake. With glee, the fire giants leap from the walls and land wherever they like, smashing tables, kicking chairs, ripping up flooring; everything they touch burns down to ash. Two of the creatures crawl along the ceiling, biting into it with their teeth, tearing huge holes in the cheap white acoustic tiles. The place fills with choking smoke. Mothers grab children; truckers leave their All-U-Can-Eat Freedom Pancake Towers untouched; the waiters and busboys abandon the kitchen and coffee stations and run for the safety of the exits, screaming in panic.

“Cameron! Dude! We gotta get out of here!” Gonzo’s offering me his hand, but I can’t move. My legs won’t work.

The smoke parts, and the Wizard of Reckoning gleams in the firelight like some cyborg knight, a black cape fluttering behind him. He’s added a cape, cheeky bastard. He seems taller and stronger than the last time we met. My brain’s saying run but my body won’t translate the command. The wizard points right at me, and my stomach goes into free fall. Leg muscles jerk and twitch and tighten up completely, and I crumple to the floor.

“Cameron! Get up, dude!” Gonzo shouts.

Using my arms, I drag myself under the table and hug my knees to my chest, struggling for breath. Across the restaurant, the Wizard of Reckoning peels his space suit from his chest. In the center is a big black abyss, and I feel like I’m being pulled in.

“No,” I croak. “Not yet.” I close my eyes tight, trying to resist the pressure squeezing me on all sides.

And then, I feel nothing.

Open my eyes, and I’m lying in the grass blinking against the light of the sun. The choking smoke is gone. In fact, the air smells sweet. Really sweet. Like flowers. I sniff in a big noseful of it.

“That’s lily of the valley you smell. Delightful, isn’t it?”

“Ahhhhh!” I scream. I sit up quickly and scramble backward on my hands, spider style. My eyes do a quick inventory: flowers, grass, paper lanterns, bright sun overhead. And a few feet away is the old lady from the hospital. She’s still in her gown with her tags around her wrist, but now she’s also wearing a wide-brimmed sun hat and a cow-hide-patterned apron. She snips at things in her garden with a pair of long, thin shears.

“What’s going on? Where am I?” I gasp.

The old lady smiles and opens her arms wide. “This is the place I told you about—my house by the sea.”

“What? This is crazy—two seconds ago, I was in a restaurant and it was burning and …” I hear it. The sea. I turn around. Behind me is a two-story farmhouse overlooking a calm ocean. The waves lap the rocky shore, back and forth, back and forth, making me sleepy. Peaceful.