Anything but Ordinary (20 page)

Cindy snorted derisively. ‘
You
,’ she cried furiously. ‘What the hell do
you
know about it? When was there ever
anything
you wanted that you couldn’t have?’ She looked at Denny again just to make sure her point was taken.

‘You mean apart from my freedom for five thousand years?’ retorted Tamar, stung into sudden anger by the unfairness of this remark. 

‘Steady,’ said Denny putting a restraining arm on her shoulder. Unfortunately, this was the worst thing he could have done. Up until that point there had been a chance, however slim, of reasoning with Cindy. But not now.

‘Power lasts longer than love,’ she declaimed impressively. ‘I hope he’s worth it,’ she sneered at Tamar. ‘Personally, I’d rather have the power.  The power of the gods.’ and she put on the ring.

‘Everybody
down
,’ yelled Tamar falling flat on her face and pulling Denny down with her.

Luckily, everyone followed suit immediately as Cindy was enveloped in a bright golden light, which beamed out in all directions like a supernova flattening trees and turning the world white. Even with hands over their heads, the light seared into their eyeballs painfully, and the ground shook.

Then after an eternity of seconds, it was over. Everyone stood up shakily; even Tamar was not quite as steady on her feet as she would have liked.

Cindy treated them all to some more cold laughter. 

She looked different now, although it was difficult to put your finger on it. She looked somehow, more beautiful and yet harder, like a perfect statue. The fire of humanity at her heart had flickered out, bounded by an encroaching frost.

‘We could take her out,’ muttered Denny.

‘But we won’t,’ said Tamar. ‘And she knows it. She’s counting on it.’ 

Cindy came forward slowly, smiling triumphantly, an icy, silvery glow surrounded her and her eyes flickered like a blue flame. 

She stopped in front of Denny. ‘You know,’ she said taking him by the chin and forcing him to look her in the eye. ‘I wouldn’t care now if you died. I could crush you like an insect without a second thought if I had to. But … I still don’t want to. I still find you attractive. Strange.  She looked reflectively at him for a moment then her face darkened. ‘But don’t try me,’ she added threateningly. Then she vanished in a shower of sparks.

‘Ah shit!’ said Tamar again.

~ Chapter Twelve ~

‘I
swore I wasn’t going to ask,’ said Tamar to Denny as the last sparkle faded, leaving the shell-shocked mourners standing in comparative gloom. She thought about it for a minute. ‘And I’m not,’ she added firmly.

Denny bit his lip. ‘I will tell you if …’ he began.

‘I don’t want to know,’ she cut him off. ‘Ever.’

They had now lost both Melissa and Cindy from their ranks in one day, but while Melissa’s loss was a sad one, at least it was over and done with. The loss of Cindy was a lot more worrying.

‘We’ve lost her,’ said Tamar, when Denny suggested trying to help her in some unspecified way. ‘She’s gone. There’s really nothing we can do except be on our guard, because she
will
come after us – especially you,’ she added.

‘In the meantime,’ said Denny, ‘we still have Loki to deal with.’

‘Gosh,’ said Tamar sarcastically. ‘I almost forgot.’

‘And that’s it?’ said Slick disbelievingly. ‘I thought she was your friend.’

‘She was,’ said Stiles. ‘
Was
, being the operative word, or weren’t you listening? We’ll mourn later. Right now, we have other fish to fry.’

Slick looked mutinous. ‘Seems like you don’t care,’ he muttered.

‘We care,’ said Tamar. ‘We care very much. But we can’t help her no matter what we do. She made this decision for herself. Only she can undo it. It’s not like alcoholism or something. An intervention’s not going to do it, do you understand that?’

‘Sounds like you know all about it,’ he said.

‘I-I’ve seen this before,’ she admitted, ‘a long time ago.’

‘What happened?’ asked Stiles.

‘You don’t want to know,’ said Tamar. ‘Look,’ she addressed everyone. ‘Cindy will be back for us. There’s no way of knowing when.  It could be years from now, or it could be next week. But she
will
be back. You all need to understand that she’s not who she was anymore. When she comes … well it’ll be bad that’s all.’

‘Vengeance,’ muttered Denny remembering what Tamar had said – “Especially for
you
!”

‘For now, we have to concentrate only on finding Loki and stopping him,’ continued Tamar in a lecturing tone. ‘And fortunately I now know exactly how to do that. If I hadn’t been so stupid before, we might already have him.’

‘All the wrong answers …’ muttered Denny consolingly.

‘You said something about the Rhine maidens,’ said Stiles encouragingly, as Tamar had stopped with a self-condemnatory frown. ‘Where are they anyway?’ he added.

‘Gone,’ said Tamar. The Rhine maidens had slid back into the water at the same moment that Cindy had put on the ring, but only Tamar had had the presence of mind to notice this.

‘It doesn’t matter,’ she added. ‘We don’t need them.’

Tamar raised her voice so that everyone could hear. ‘The fact is,’ she said. ‘We don’t need to find the particular body of water that Loki is looking for.’ She pointed to the lake. ‘It’s in there – somewhere, just as the Rhine is. And all bodies of water come to that. All the waters of the world are a tributary to the one source and all lead to each other. That’s how the Rhine maidens got here. If it’s water, they can travel within it. To any pool, pond, lake or river that exists. And not only the Rhine maidens, the Lady of the Lake travels the same way, (I
knew
something about that was bothering me.)  It’s all connected, you see. And we can do it too.’

A flabbergasted silence greeted this pronouncement. The truth was, only Denny believed her. Everyone else was shaking their heads doubtfully.

‘You all saw the Rhine maidens,’ Denny pointed out.

This was indisputable.

‘How will you find it in there?’ asked Stiles doubtfully.

‘I’ll
look
for it,’ said Tamar crossly. ‘It’s like teleporting. It’s a different plane. There’s no time, so it doesn’t matter how long it takes me to find it. It’ll still be now when I emerge. This is the quickest way in the long run.’ she finished confusingly.

‘But you don’t know what you’re looking for,’ pointed out Slick.

‘No, but I know what I’m
not
looking for,’ said Tamar obscurely.

‘Well, I suppose you know what you are doing,’ said Hecaté. ‘You usually do.’

‘But … I’ve written a program.’ blurted out Ray. ‘I mean, I’ve already found it. Sort of, I think.’

‘What do you mean?’ asked Denny at the same moment that Stiles chose to say. ‘And you’re only just telling us this now?’

Ray ignored Stiles. He was still angry with him for one thing and, for another, it was clear that Stiles already knew what he was talking about and Denny did not. He explained briefly how he had made a program for finding the mythical places that were not filed.  And how, after he had sent Stiles and Melissa to Shangri La – here he choked a little on his words – he had realised that he could do the same with the place where Loki had reportedly lost his powers, by using the available material on the story to create a file that they could save to mainframe and enter in the same way. Material was in short supply and no names were given, as they already knew, but he was sure he had created a viable file that they could use.

‘Bloody hell, that’s clever,’ said Denny genuinely impressed.

Tamar was nodding in agreement. ‘Very impressive,’ she said. And under this combined approval, Ray hung his head and went red with pleasure.

Okay,’ said Tamar briskly business-like. ‘Attack on two fronts. From the files
and
from the water. And let’s just hope that Loki hasn’t got there already. Now, who fancies a swim?’

‘Aren’t
you
going that way?’ asked Slick.

‘Yes, and I think Denny should use the files.’

‘I agree,’ said Stiles. One each of the most powerful among us. To make sure at least one of you beats Loki to it.’

‘I meant,’ resumed Tamar looking amused at this summation, ‘who’s coming with me?’

* * *

Since Stiles had a previously unrevealed and unsuspected aversion to deep water, it was decided that Tamar would take Slick with her and Denny would go with Stiles. Ray would stay behind to research the Tuatha. They still thought it might be helpful if they knew
why
Loki had a grudge against them and seeing if they could find a reference to them in the Norse mythology might give them their answer. So far, no such references had been found, but it had to be admitted that little attention had been paid to this aspect of their research, it had been shunted aside by the more urgent task of finding Loki. As Tamar had said. ‘If we find Loki in time, it won’t matter anyway.’

Denny had disagreed with this attitude. Details could be important, and Tamar’s habit of single-mindedly charging at a problem like a mad hippo at a muddy lake often caused her to miss the bigger picture.

Hecaté was still working on identifying the whereabouts of the Tuatha and Finvarra refused to leave his children. Tamar thought this was wise. She was certain that Cindy would return for them in due course, although what Finvarra could possibly do about it if she did was uncertain at best. Probably nothing.  Their best bodyguard, in the event that Cindy tried to take them, would be Tamar herself. Certainly, no one else except perhaps Denny would have a chance of standing up to Cindy now, and Denny would be, at best, an undiplomatic choice. Although, Tamar sensed that the final showdown with Cindy would be Denny’s problem in the end.  Still, one problem at a time.

Slick was understandably nervous when, at the water’s edge, he was given to understand that he just jump in, and Tamar would take care of the rest.

‘Look, it’s easy,’ she said sliding gracefully into the lake with a smile. You won’t even get your clothes wet. She demonstrated. 

‘Okay,’ said Slick and clambered inelegantly into the water beside her. He still looked unconvinced standing up to his waist in freezing cold water as his trousers ballooned up with the buoyancy of a hot air balloon. He could feel fish drifting past his knees. He was most definitely very wet. ‘Hey…!’ he began, but Tamar pushed him down under the water with a firm hand, and whatever he had been about to say was lost in a desperate gurgle. Then everything went dark.

Dawber had begged to go with somebody. He had not done very much to help so far, he said and he wanted to. He was a good fighter – he claimed – and he did not scare easily. Eventually Denny, although somewhat dubiously, agreed to take him through the files with himself and Stiles. He had, so far seen no real evidence that Dawber would be any help whatsoever. However, he had to concede that this may have been because he had, as yet, had no opportunity to show his mettle. He had been, for the most part since his enlightenment, a solitary figure wandering around the house at odd times or keeping to his room and Denny was not entirely sure that he had got his head together yet. Not that he would blame him at all, if he had not, after what he had been through. But they could not afford to have him along if he was going to be a liability. 

He felt a little better when Dawber apparently took to the file jumping like an old hand. He was calm and collected as he waited in the disused file that they still used as an access point into mainframe. And frankly, standing in what was quite literally nowhere, on what was patently nothing, could be an unnerving experience even for the veteran file jumper.  Stiles was edgy for example; he hated it in here it was like being stuck in the void. 

Dawber evidently thought so too. ‘Is this like what you guys did to David?’ he asked conversationally, before realising that this might not be the most tactful remark.

Denny stared at him in horror. He had completely forgotten about David

‘Oh,
shit
!’ he said smacking his forehead. ‘I completely forgot about that guy. And he might know something too. We were going to question him.’

‘I’ll go,’ offered Stiles. ‘It’s not as if I’ll miss anything what with there being no time in the void.’

Denny nodded gratefully. ‘It’d better be you anyway,’ he said. ‘If anyone can get him to talk …’ he stopped.  There was no need to elaborate. Stiles gave a shark like grin and cracked his knuckles. Denny could almost feel sorry for David – almost.

He grinned at Dawber. He had been helpful already, and they had not even got there yet. Denny felt a little better about him. ‘Ready?’ he asked giving him a wink.

‘Would it make a difference if I wasn’t?’ asked Dawber with a short laugh.

‘No.’ said Denny. ‘No one ever is ready for this. That’s why we call it improvising.’

‘Enough chit chat,’ said Stiles. ‘I’ll see you on the other side. Close files.’ And he vanished into the void. 

‘Close file,’ said Denny at the same time. And he and Dawber vanished into mainframe.  It was a fine distinction, but by closing files (plural) Stiles bypassed mainframe altogether and ended up outside the network altogether. They had discovered how to do this by a complete accident – well Denny had, and he had ended up in Hell at the time, which was, as Tamar had once told him, and he had to agree, a nice place to live, but you wouldn’t want to visit it.

Dawber was less than impressed with mainframe itself. Its immense size, complexity and many layers of existence was disregarded by his brain which simply short circuited the information that it could not handle. To him, as to other humans who had seen this place, (and there were not many) it resembled a tax office, with endless boring corridors painted a uniform shade of yucky brown.

‘What now?’ he asked.

‘We find the file,’ said Denny. ‘Fortunately, thanks to Ray we should have a good idea where to look.’

‘It all looks the same,’ said Dawber.

‘Only to you,’ Denny told him. ‘It’s this way.’ He set off down a corridor at a fast-paced stride.