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A New Jeopardy Part Thirteen
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All of them wet from clinging snow, all of them tired and emotionally frayed, all of them staggered through the doors, laying the wreckage piece with the General on it atop a small counter on the right-hand side of the narrow room. A man wearing a greasy apron looked up from the bacon he was frying. "Welcome to the Night Owl Coffee Shop, " he said, his cigarette ash falling into the pan. ************** In spite of her shivering, in spite of the General's having such a good start toward the white shores, Joimus just did not like the looks of the place. Perhaps it was the long stripe of fresh blood down the aisle, disappearing into a room at the back. Perhaps it was the roundish, dripping blood splat on the wall by one of the booths lining the left-hand side. She frowned. In Pittsburgh they cleaned the blood out of the eating places at least three times a day, more often when necessary.
Annsmac and Berti settled the semi-conscious Terry in one of the booths, his head cradled in his arms on the table top. Berti, too, noticed the unsanitary blood conditions. "What's the name of this town?" she asked the cook. The bacon grease was starting to smoke badly, but he ignored it and, the end of his cigarette bobbing in the air, flicking ash here and there as he spoke, replied, "Los Angelitissimo, West Virgina." Annsmac looked up at Berti. "Did he just say Itsy Bitsy Los Angeles?" Berti
nodded, her eyes narrowing at the man. "I wasn't aware of any
great Spanish settlements in the Allegheny Mountains." The man
grinned, showing a row of discolored teeth, and turned back to his
bacon.
Just then the door smacked open and Bud burst into the room, his eyes wild, his chest heaving. "What are you doing in HERE??" he bellowed. Lachlan, a bit taken aback by the cop's evident horror, replied, "You said ANY place but the Victory Motel, didn't you?"
Stephen, Marti, and Franki brushed past him, hurrying over to where the General lay on the counter. When Bud tried to say more, the good Doctor shushed him, "Not now, Bud...not when there's triage to be seen to." For following him in the door came the rest of the cast, some limping, some with eyebrow cuts, some with various sorts of seat squishings, some bearing suspicious dark stains, and then there was poor Colin. His right sideburn hung, almost completely amputated by annsmac's flying deblunter. Stephen frowned at the blood stripe in the aisle. "Someone throw some sand on that," he ordered. Cort and
Sue were having an especially hard go of it, what with his vest
buttons still firmly entangled in the lacy lining of her leopard
print bodice. It was only with the utmost flounderings about that
they were even able to make it through the door, let alone be seated
at one of the booths.
The most distraught character of all, though, was Teller. He simply could not believe he was on foot in the snowy mountains of West Virginia with February so rapidly approaching. "I'm missing all the pre-production!" he moaned. Himself cocked one eyebrow. "YOU'RE missing it? What about ME?" A huge shiver took him then and he could say no more. Phyllis looked around for a tablecloth to wrap about him, but the Night Owl sported only bare tabletops. Working, then, as well as she could, she quilted paper napkins quickly around his torso, sat him down in a booth, carefully avoiding letting his head touch the round blood splat, and held him in her arms to share her bodily warmth.
Jack and Stephen stood side by side, looking at the General's quiet form on the counter. Helped by Lachlan and a still mysteriously almost frantic Bud, they managed to get the piece of wreckage out from under him. Time, being of the essence, Stephen chose to ignore the muffin crumbs, spilled salt, and ketchup stains that remained on the counter top. Bud took
the wreckage outside by himself, standing there alone in the snowy
night as he pressed his eyes tightly shut, exhaled a long and
requisitely ragged breath, and broke the large piece in twain with
his bare hands. Dropping it, then, into the snow, he ignored the cut
he'd opened up on one palm and turned, staring silently at the sign
above the coffee shop entrance. How had it come to this? HOW? Jack
watched as Stephen's hands moved expertly over Maximus' dented
greaves. He could see by the great gravity on the Doctor's face the
greave gouges were grave, indeed. With great care, Stephen unbuckled
each greave, letting them drop with a clank to the floor of the
Night Owl. Using a knife, Stephen split the fronts of the
rust-colored leggings, exposing Maximus' shins. Jack turned a little
green and held tightly on to the back of a stool.
Her
attention, though, was distracted by Eryn's plea for help. Colin's
sideburn was dangling dangerously now and were it not tended to
immediately, he would surely lose all feeling in it. Unraveling a
bit of thread from her hemline, Franki broke off the curved back of
her left earring, tied the thread to it and proceeded to reattach
the sideburn with great expertise. Colin bit down hard on a dried
bun to avoid screaming during the process. When she had tied off her
last suture and nodded her head in satisfaction, Franki turned to
study who next needed her attention as Eryn wiped the sweat off
Colin's brow. "There now," Eryn said comfortingly to him.
"It's all done." And she leaned close to place the
gentlest of kisses on the reattached sideburn.
Franki
found Nash in the crowd and she could tell by the way he was
circling letters here and there on the breakfast menu that he was
not handling the situation all that well. When she slid in beside
him, he gazed at her with tear-filled seagreen eyes.
"Look!" he said, pointing to the two eggs, over easy.
"The baggage car was full of detonators." Dipping his head
down, he looked suspiciously from side to side. "Where is
Charles?" he asked, his voice low and quavering. "I need
him." "You promise?" "Yes," she said, kissing his brow. "I promise." He seemed to relax at that and so she left him to make sure Jeffrey's back wound was not bleeding more.
Marti had finished with Maximus' face and was working her way down his neck when Joimus said, "Are you sure that is necessary?" It seemed to her that the remaining bits of crispy crust on the rag were more like to scratch than clean. "I've only just begun," Marti replied. "I haven't even got to the interesting parts at all yet." "I think you've gone quite far enough!" Joimus huffed, taking the dishrag out of Marti's hand. "Why don't you go into that back room where the blood trail leads? Maybe there's a computer in there or something and you can make Himself fall on his face again." Marti looked long and hard at the Pittsburgher. "Don't forget 'The Warrior'," she said smugly. "Think what I can do to him," and she indicated Maximus with a nod of her head, "in that!" Turning on her heel, the Queen let her eyes search for her young plumber. She smiled. Surely he had bent a pipe or two in the wreck.
Jack was
swaying slightly, clutching the stool's back in a very Budlian
manner to support himself. Stephen was cleaning Maximus' shins with
a pitcher of hopefully clean water. "They're not broken,"
he pronounced at last. Unlike Franki, he had some actual sutures in
his pocket and so he set to work sewing several long wounds. When he
was done, he looked at Jack. "I need bandages," he said.
Joimus offered her gossamer skirting, but much of that was already
missing and, besides, gossamer was not the best bandaging material.
Jack took off his blue jacket, then his white poofy puffy shirt,
handing it to Stephen, who gratefully ripped off row after row of
front ruffling.
"Thank you," he said appreciatively, handing the deruffled shirt back to his Captain. Round and around he wrapped the ruffled strips on Maximus' legs. "Given time," he said, "I have every confidence he will walk again." Joimus sagged perceptively with relief. "Could you sew his leggings together?" Bud asked, not really liking to see the General with ruffled legs. "Surely," Stephen replied. "Yes?" asked Bunny.
Maximus turned his head slightly and groaned. Joimus brushed his sprigs of black hair back off his brow, whispering soft words of love to him in the second century accent of western Spain. "I didn't know she could do that," remarked Sid. "I told you you didn't know everything," Bunny smirked proudly. Slowly his eyes blinked open and Joimus saw the light of recognition forming in their seagreen depths. "Whatever happens," she murmured, "stay with me. I'll look after you." And, thus, she brought the first sounds of KingSpeak into the shabby Night Owl. Jack smiled
at him. "Breathe the free air again, my friend," he said
affectionately. "If this be KingSpeak," Sid said disgustedly to Bunny, "then I would have them make such an end as to be worthy of total forgottenness." "That was good," Bunny commented. "You're really getting the hang of it."
Maximus' eyes were closing again. "Go to sleep," Joimus soothed. "I am asleep," he murmured tiredly, slightly opening his eyes to smile at her. "This is a dream," she replied, lightly touching his brow. "Then
it is a good dream," he said, speaking Kingly even as he
slipped into the foggy arms of Morpheus.
Teller walked up to the groupling at the bar. "February is coming," he announced firmly. "It usually does," said Jack. "Even in West Virginia," added Joimus. "YOOKS!"
he said too loudly. "Remember the yooks!" Joimus placed her palm on his chest, pushing him back several steps. "You will not disturb the General whilst he rests," she scowled. He was waving his arms in frustration. "HOW am I going to get to New South Wales before February!" "You
may not," Joimus replied simply, remembering all the
tribulations Jim had "The Polar Express was going near San Diego," he moaned. "I would have been closer." "The Polar Express is going nowhere now," Joimus said, "besides, San Diego is still a long way from New South Wales." "Jack
said the Surprise was there," Teller continued, looking out the
window at the falling snow. "I had...hopes." "You mean you wanted us to steal it from the Maritime Museum?" she asked, pleased at the thought of such an adventure. He nodded dejectedly. "Wow!" she said. "I would have liked that!" He looked at her interestedly then. "Really?" he asked. "You would?" "Truly," she said, chuckling. "It would have been...grand." He managed a small smile. "I didn't know you felt that way." "You are new, Teller," she said, "you'll learn." She, too, then studied the falling flakes. "I have no idea how to get you there in time," she said, not looking at him. "I'm truly sorry." She turned, then, gazing at Himself so covered in napkins and with Phyllis' arms around him tightly. "For him, too," she added. "I know he was looking forward to this one." Bunny joined them. "Perhaps...," she ventured, "perhaps there is a Ringish way of doing it...since we are...." Her voice trailed off, interrupted by Biebe's amazed cry, "The EAGLES! The eagles are coming!!"
"Not just eagles!' shouted Bud, appalled by the number of headlights coming up the street past the Victory Motel. "We have to leave here....NOW!" |
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