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“Next time, Indiana
Jones, it will take more than children to save you.”
Dr. Rene Belloq, Raiders of the Lost Arc
For the second time, Alan and
Everett glared at each other while trying to decide whether or not to
continue the fight. With Marilyn just
a few yards behind Alan’s back, they weighed the consequences carefully.
Finally, Alan stood up slowly,
lowering his sword blade. “Last time,
civilly,” he stated. He turned around
and curtly nodded his head to Marilyn, walking past her without incident.
Everett waited until he was out of sight and
closed his eyes. He leaned against the
doorframe, focusing on just his breathing, trying to slow his racing heart. Marilyn turned to where Alan had
disappeared and back to Everett. “What was that all about?”
“Knight business,” he said sorely. He turned into his apartment. “Give me a minute. I need to make a call.”
“That’s right, Erik,” Everett said as he paced, the portable
phone cocked between his ear and right shoulder. Pacing in front of the dinette set, he
ignored Marilyn as she waited on the couch, watching worriedly as he walked. “He said that Jericho tried to make knights. I don’t know what he was referring to. I think he might be referring to Jericho
using steroids on the Hand of the Brotherhood which is how, I think, he took
control of the Brotherhood of the Sun just before he moved into the
fortress.”
“The one you stormed,” Marilyn said, a
cross edge in her words.
“Please, not right now,” Everett implored, covering the phone’s receiver. He turned back to Erik’s voice. “Yeah,” he said. “Yeah.”
An exhausted expression crossed Everett’s
eyes. “Yeah, right,” he repeated
before hanging up. Thoughtlessly, he
tossed the phone onto the dinette set, its hard plastic rattling the tabletop,
startling Marilyn.
Everett slumped down in the chair opposite the
couch. His head rolled back and he
rubbed his face. “This just can’t get
any more…” His hands fell and he
stared at the ceiling.
“When did you start wearing blue?”
Everett lifted his head up, looking at
Marilyn. She was looking at him, her
head tilted as she admired the blue jeans.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you in jeans, not blue ones anyway.”
Everett closed his eyes and slunk down in the
seat. “That’s a long, long story.”
“I don’t have to go in until one
tomorrow,” she suggested, adjusting her seat to get comfortable. “Or rather than talk about clothes, you
could tell me who that guy was.”
Again, Everett’s
opened with worry. “He was dressed
like you…well, like you used to I’m guessing.
Was he a knight?”
Everett sighed.
“Yeah,” he said. “He’s a
knight.”
“Who is he?” she asked.
Everett was silent for a moment, still watching
the movements of the textured ceiling.
“I don’t really know.” He sat
up, regaining his composure. “His
name’s Alan Vick. He’s
currently…investigating Jericho Kingston’s legacy.”
“I heard you talking about him,” Marilyn said
voicelessly. “He was the leader of the
Hand of the Brotherhood, that weird cult that wanted to stop the Illuminati
or something, right?”
“Yeah,” Everett nodded. “Alan’s…I don’t know, found something about
him that interests him or idolizes him or something. I don’t know what.”
Silence fell over the two like a thin
veil. “This is about you wearing blue
and white now, isn’t it?” Marilyn whispered fearfully. Silence resumed for a moment.
“About a week and a half ago,” Everett confided, “three knights from Europe
came to visit me. They told me that
the European knights are concerned about Alan and that they wanted my, our,
help in stopping him. And, ultimately,
it seemed that the best way, or at least most peaceful, to stop him was to
join with them.”
Marilyn waited for more, not making the
connection. “US knights
wear black and red, but the knights everywhere else in the world wear blue
and silver. Since these guys offered
us to rejoin with them, it involved changing…colors.”
“Rejoin?” Marilyn asked. “When did you leave?”
“We didn’t,” Everett explained with an exhausted
laugh. “The US knights simply, took a
different path at some point in the past and that involved a different color
scheme. Now, they’re looking for
reunification.”
“What do they think Alan’s up to?” she
pressed.
“They don’t know,” Everett said. “Evidence, or what’s passing for it right
now, would indicate that he’s raising an army of knights, sort of like we did
when we faced Jericho,
only for a far less noble and far more permanent reason.”
“Like what?”
Everett was quiet. “I don’t know,” he eventually confessed
with a shake of his head, shifting in his seat. “Alan’s got a crew of knights that are
loyal to him, and that represents a real problem. I want, for all the world, more than
anything, to avoid a confrontation between knights.”
“Why?” Marilyn asked. “I mean, I know nobody likes fighting, but
it sounds, I don’t know, necessary.”
“I don’t know that it is, and until I’m
absolutely certain, I will do whatever I can to keep it from happening,” he
said.
“But you’re a knight,” Marilyn remarked
with a smile, sitting forward on the couch.
Her brown hair fell down around her face, capturing Everett’s attention. “Fighting’s…not what you do, but it’s a
part of who you are.”
“Just because you can doesn’t mean you
should,” Everett
countered philosophically. He thought
for a moment and looked at Marilyn’s blue eyes, seeing her loss. “Can you count to a hundred and
thirty-seven?” he asked quietly.
Marilyn smiled, confused. “Yeah,” she said. “Why?”
“Do you know how big of a number a hundred
and thirty-seven is?” he pressed, a cold cynicism worming through his words. “Have you ever seen a hundred and
thirty-seven anything?”
“Sure,” Marilyn smiled. “I see numbers that big every time I pay my
rent or my…”
“I mean, individually,” he asked. He leaned forward, holding his hands as he
rested his elbows on his knees. “Have
you ever seen a hundred and thirty-seven one dollar bills?”
Marilyn thought. “I’m, sure I have.”
Everett took a long time, breathing deeply. “A hundred and thirty seven people live
inside my mind,” he explained in a cold tone.
Unable to control his thoughts, his eyes began to grow watery. “A hundred and thirty-seven men all died,
in one night, because of me.”
A chill ran down Marilyn’s back. Unconsciously, she moved back from Everett. “You’re talking about when you attacked Jericho’s fortress,” she
concluded. But she smiled
supportively. “A hundred and
thirty-seven men who were going to do bad things.”
“Not a hundred and thirty-seven total,” Everett corrected. “A hundred and thirty-seven, by my hand
alone.” Marilyn’s face went pale. “I killed a hundred and thirty-seven men
THAT NIGHT.” He looked away, his tears
on the verge of breaking free. “So
please believe me when I say that I will do whatever I can to avoid having to
draw my sword again.”
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