Hypothetically Yours
What the hell was he thinking? Nigel took a tenuous step down, cringing at the resultant squeak of the old wood. He wasn’t a born leader. He wasn’t a leader at all, yet here he was at the head of a very abbreviated queue.
Something brushed across his face and he shrieked. Wherever it touched, the icy material left a thick stench and a slimy residue on his skin. He derived no satisfaction in knowing that Sydney echoed his scream only a fraction of a second behind him. He swung the flashlight up, giving a clear view of a shroud of nearly transparent threads. "Spider webs," he announced, regaining a modicum of dignity. "It’s only spider webs."
Sydney repeated in dubious tones, "Spider webs..." She reached up and touched a section of the filaments and they melted away, stretching and clinging to her fingers like trails of spit. "Damned warped spiders, if you ask me."
"Ugh... God, Sydney, that’s disgusting."
"Yeah, it is. And I don’t think it’s spider webs, either."
Something in her voice set his nerves on edge. "Then what is it?"
She turned her flashlight up, following the unidentified material to the ceiling. There, a thicker mat of the pale gray threads trailed from something large and clearly more than half rotted. "It’s pretty far gone," she remarked. The large animal was suspended from the dirt ceiling by a rope net.
The latest discovery was too much for Nigel’s stomach. He half-stumbled, half-fell down the remaining few stairs, retching. His tumble diverted Sydney’s attentions and she turned her flashlight on him. "You all right?"
He nodded, cursing himself for his momentary weakness. You’d think after some of the things they’d seen, a dead dog wouldn’t affect him so profoundly. "Yeah," he sighed. "Other than a disagreement with my stomach and a sense that we’re in over our heads, I’m just peachy." He straightened, determined to focus on the job at hand. "What did Xiang say to look for?" As he spoke, he waved his flashlight, willing it to illuminate something recognizable within the seemingly impenetrable darkness. A door, a wall, anything.
Something touched his shoulder and he nearly jumped out of his skin. It didn’t help to turn and see a distorted face grinning at him. After his second near-heart attack in less than a minute, he realized that the face was Sydney, holding the flashlight at her chin with the sole intent of spooking him. "Oh, you’re really enjoying this, aren’t you?" he snapped. "Just a bloody laugh a minute." This place was really getting on his nerves, and Sydney wasn’t helping matters.
She shrugged. "Party pooper."
Taking the lead, Sydney waved her flashlight like a sword, though Nigel didn’t find its narrow beam much comfort. While he swore he saw something out of the corner of his eye a couple of times, no one showed up to interfere with their latest quest. The only good thing about this space was its apparent emptiness.
And all of a sudden he wondered if maybe that wasn’t a good sign. "Sydney, don’t you think we should - "
In the space of a heartbeat, the world exploded around them. Light and flame shot from walls and ceiling and Sydney automatically threw up her fists in a defensive posture, leaning forward on the balls of her feet in anticipation of a fight.
It took a full sixty seconds for her to realize that the flame was generated by a movie projector and the audience was staring at her with no small measure of annoyance.
She and Nigel were standing at the far side of a raised dais, looking out onto a crowd who apparently migrated downward from the party. Most were drag queens, from the looks of it, though there were also some disaffected teenagers from both sides of the gender line. One diminutive girl in full goth mode stood and shouted, "If you’re not with the troupe, get the hell off the stage, you morons! God, what idiots."
From the subsequent wave of low grumbles, Sydney surmised that the rest of the audience shared the young critic’s opinion. "Ah… " Sydney stammered, "Gee, thanks, I’ll remember that. We were just passing through."
She turned to Nigel, who in turn was reared back to stare at a giant of a man. The guy had to be seven foot tall, and despite his full beard, he wore a pink tutu and satin slippers. Very large satin slippers. For a fraction of a second, Sydney’s mind strayed to the old saying about the size of a man’s feet, then she shook herself. The guy was in a tutu, for God’s sake!
Sydney grabbed Nigel’s hand and dragged him off the stage and along the narrow side aisle, moving toward the curtained door at the back of the room.
They made their way through a short passage and ran straight into a dead end, an underground blind alley.
"Now what?" her colleague asked. "You dragged us into hell for nothing. For God’s sake, Sydney, I think it’s time we did things my way!"
"Your way? What way is that?" she snapped. His voice suddenly irritated her to no end, and she felt like slapping him. In the back of her mind, it occurred to her that there was something unnatural about the whole situation. Nigel had his moments, granted, but he normally didn’t out-and-out annoy her.
Understanding filtered through the buzz that scraped at her nerves like sandpaper. "They’re here, Nigel. This is what we came for. The charms – they must be hidden somewhere close by. Help me look for a trigger, a hollow spot, anything. That’s why we’re acting like this. It’s not who we are. It’s not us." She turned to him and asked deliberately, "Do you trust me, Nigel? In the bottom of your heart, do you trust me?" Her last words were little more than a whisper.
She saw him look inward, and the small measure of trust sent a wave of warmth through her. A dozen emotions flickered through his expressive hazel eyes, but he finally nodded.
"Yeah… I do," he admitted. "I don’t like you right now, but I trust you."
"I don’t care much for you at the moment, either, but it’s the charms. I have to admit, I didn’t really believe they existed, but now..." She traced her fingers over the seemingly blank surface of the cement, but her hand hit an uneven spot and she froze in place. "Wait. I found something." Her flashlight showed little more than a faint circle etched in the wall, but gut instinct told her it was more. She pushed, and was rewarded when the circle sunk back beyond her reach. She jumped back just in time as the blank wall swung outward.
Something told her that its force would have been deadly had she not moved. Beyond the door, a glimmer of light trickled through a crack in a farther wall, throwing the tiny cubicle into twilight. The thin light did little to dispel her unease, but she stepped forward, knowing it was the only way to accomplish their goal.
In the center of the room the light puddled in the murky, water-filled hollow of a stalagmite. The shallow stone bowl cupped two protrusions, and atop each of them was a small, dull charm. While nothing was visible, there was a tangible power that arced between them, shooting off power that reverberated through the room in a tone just below the audible range, setting nerves on overload.
Nigel glanced at her, barely-disguised loathing in his eyes. "Shall we do this?" he snarled.
"Damned straight," she retorted. "If you think you can handle it. Don’t get yourself killed. You know how clumsy you are."
His eyes narrowed and he tossed a small stone at the beam of light, triggering a spear that whistled by Sydney’s ear. He sniffed, "I missed."
Her knife sliced across space and struck the opposite wall. A matching spear clipped a hole in the sleeve of his shirt. She smiled sweetly. "I don’t give up so easily."
He shrugged, then skipped over a series of odd-shaped stones and clasped one of the two charms. "That’s why I get there first."
Loping behind him to clasp the second charm, she felt its cold effects roll through her veins. For a second, she considered killing her companion. There was an equivalent state of murder in his expression. "Well, it works on us," she sighed. "Let’s get these things to that pathetic creature back home."
San Francisco
"Xan, my darling, don’t you think we should have warned them?"
Xan Lo Xiang glanced at his companion, whose five o’clock shadow showed even in the flickering candlelight from the Chinese lantern. He raised his lover’s hand to his lips. "Warned them about what, Renee?"
Renee leaned up on one elbow. "You know very well what I mean, you old coot. If I didn’t love you so much I’d probably kick your ass. Those kids think they’re solving their problem."
A smile flitted over the old man’s lips. "Well, they are. The moron problem will be fixed."
"But they don’t know- !"
Xan shrugged. "They’ll find out."
Karen was used to hearing Sydney and Nigel disagree. She’d never before heard them get into a full-blown fight. And the gloves were off for this one.
She shot a nervous glance at the hall doors, hoping Dickie didn’t come in during the middle of this fiasco. Since their return from San Francisco, the only thing they did agree on was that they needed to see Dickie, and soon. He was on his way, and they were behaving like vultures, sniping at each other without mercy.
The shades were drawn in Sydney’s office, but nothing could block the dueling strings of four-letter words.
Finally, Nigel stormed out, slamming Sydney’s door with such vehemence that its window shattered. "I’m not the one with the shitty attitude!" He yelled. "I’m not the one who drags us all around the world just to get her jollies off by beating up some unsuspecting goon who doesn’t know what he’s getting into. I’m not the one who throws her assistant aside like a dishmop when things get harried, not even asking if he’s all right. It’s you!"
Sydney followed hard on his heels, jabbing her finger into his breastbone. "Well I wouldn’t throw you around if you pulled your own weight! I have to defend not only myself, but you. And you have the audacity to whine about it, you ungrateful twerp! I should leave your skinny little ass out in the jungle and see how far you get without me!"
"Well if it weren’t for you, my skinny little arse wouldn’t be in the jungle, now, would it?"
"Come on, Sydney, Nigel. You don’t mean those things. You guys like each other. You’re partners, buddies. You’re a team!" Karen stepped in between them, placing a hand in the middle of each chest. "You don’t really want this, do you?"
From both sides came a vehement, "Butt out!"
Adding to her nightmare, Dickie chose that moment to barrel through the door. Haggard and disheveled, he clearly hadn’t seen a razor in days. And from the looks of it, he hadn’t slept in days, either. His tattered shirt was smeared with a hundred shades of lipstick, most of which trailed onto his neck and face. Much to Karen's dismay, he didn’t even give her a second look. He headed directly for Sydney and Nigel.
"You gotta help me!" he sniveled. "Women are beasts! Please tell me you found a way to counteract this stupid charm!"
Sydney slapped a tarnished charm into his hand. "Here. Wear this one. It’s certainly opened my eyes!"
She glared at Nigel, who tucked a second and equally discolored talisman into the other pudgy fist. "You’d better take this one, too. Hers can’t cut it alone. It needs mine." The teaching assistant snarled the last words. "And don’t ever let these leave your person or you’re screwed all over again!"
The instant the second charm touched Dickie’s hand, Nigel and Sydney stumbled back as though struck, their eyes glazed and their breath coming in little gasps.
Dickie repeated, in the exact same key of whine, "You gotta help me! Women are beasts! ! Please tell me you found a way to counteract this stupid charm!"
A sudden shiver ran through Karen’s body. When it was over, she blanched. Where was her sweet Dickie, the blond Adonis with the rippling muscles and the gorgeous sun-bleached tresses? In his place stood a tubby man who looked for all the world like the Pillsbury Doughboy sprung to life.
Dickie apparently noticed the expression on Sydney’s and Karen’s faces. "Do either of you want to go out with me?" he ventured timidly.
Karen shuddered. "I wouldn’t go out with you if you were the last toadstool on earth."
"Don’t look at me, I only date from my own planet!" Sydney snapped.
Nigel immediately ducked behind Sydney. "Well don’t bloody look at me!" he squeaked in indignation.
Dickie let out a howl of triumph that reverberated through the building. "I’m free! You did it!" He threw out his arms to envelop Sydney and Nigel in a group hug, giving them each an enthusiastic kiss on their respective lips. Dickie then headed off through the hall of Trinity University, dancing – badly – to whatever bizarre music played in his head.
The two relic hunters looked at each other and gagged. "Ewwww!" they exclaimed simultaneously.
Sensing that things were finally resolved, Karen let out a long sigh. "Thank God! I thought things would never get back to normal around here!" She fell into her chair when she spied the name plate on her desk. "Ewwww..." she added to the chorus.
Nigel watched as Karen picked up the offensive plate with one finger and thumb and dropped it into the metal wastebasket beside her desk. "That is so disgusting! How could I possibly look at Dick Little when I have Nigel?"
He straightened. While he knew she had a bit of a crush on him, Karen wasn’t normally quite so abvious about it. "Well, you don’t precisely have me, Karen, but thank you."
"Really! How could anyone compare to Nigel?"
Karen was one thing. He turned, expecting a smirk on his boss’s face. It floored him to see instead a dreamy look aimed at him! Confused, he raised a hand to scratch his head.
And his jaw dropped.
There, dangling from his watch band, was a silver charm. The Ai. The love charm. "Oh shit!" he breathed, horrified. "Sydney!"
"What, Nigey-poo?" Sydney purred.
"What about me, Tiger Dumpling?" Karen chimed in, batting her eyelashes in his general direction.
He paused, pursing his lips, his eyes jumping from one woman to the other.
Gradually, understanding dawned. He felt a slow, languorous smile spread across his face. Looping an arm around each of them, he drawled, "Well, I suppose San Francisco will still be there in a few days, now, won't it?"
The End