The Day Before Tomorrow (28 page)

She was startled when a face other than her own appeared in the mirror. It had never worked before.  Cindy was not terribly interested in magic that was not about herself.  She jumped backwards in surprise, knocking over a vase of roses from one of her many admirers.

The face was that of a young man. He smiled reassuringly at her, and, horror of horrors, he stepped out of the mirror. That was not supposed to happen either – Cindy was certain of that. 

The room became filled with a bright light, which seemed to emanate from him and, as he turned, she saw what appeared to be large feathered wings sprouting from his back.  No, there was no doubt about it, they
were
wings.  An angel! 

‘Cindy,’ he said soothingly, and her eyes opened wide in surprise.  Erasmus was faintly amused; he allowed himself the sardonic thought, that it was probably a good thing that she would not remember this meeting for some time; she just was not ready for this yet.  Yet there was no doubt that he felt tender toward her.  Why else would he be doing this? 

* * *

‘But she wouldn’t choose it,’ said Stiles. 

‘The possibility existed,’ said Death.

‘How?  Who would offer her such a choice?’

‘I did,’ said Death.

 And then the world faded away. 

* * *

When it came back, Stiles was in a dark cavern, which he instinctively recognised as part of the Underworld, not Hell, but, he suspected, an annexe.  Hecaté’s home. 

She was lighting candles.  ‘Remember?’ she said.

‘Yes, I remember now,’ he said.  ‘But, how did you … know?’

‘This place, my home, is a part of the Underworld. There is no time here.  This is where I would have been, had we never met, and so this is where I found myself when the world changed.  But I remembered, and now, so do you.  But you had to take the long way here.’  She laughed.  ‘Down here, there is no time, and we are unaffected by the way the world turns.  Here, you will be safe,’

‘You remembered?’ said Stiles.  ‘Because you, because you’re a …?’

‘No, because, from here, things are … different.  As I said, there is no time. What happens above is irrelevant down here.  I remembered because – it happened!’

‘What about the others?’

‘Tamar and Denny are safe in mainframe. They too, have been taken out of time.’

‘And Cindy?’

Hecaté’s expression clouded.  ‘Alas, I cannot find her.’

* * *

Cindy was sitting, or rather perching, precariously on a cloud.  Erasmus was facing her. 

‘So, you’ve taken me out of time because I was caught up in a temporal paradox that Tamar caused, is that right?’

Erasmus sighed with relief.  It had taken her long enough to get the point. 

‘Exactly!’ he said.

‘Wow, thanks!’

Erasmus inclined his head graciously.  There was a silence. 

Cindy might not have been the sharpest tool in the playpen, but she could sense moods. Erasmus was uneasy. 

‘Will you get into trouble for this?’ she asked with a perspicacity that was not to be expected of her.  He did not answer her. 

‘Eugene?’

He raised an eyebrow.

 ‘I’m sorry, I always think of you as Eugene.’

‘With you, I
am
Eugene,’ he said ‘When I first saw you, I thought you the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.’

Cindy bowed her head. ‘You can’t think that now,’ she said. ‘You can see me as I really am, can’t you?  You can see, that my face, my youth, is just a glamour.’    

He smiled tenderly at her. ‘You
are
vain,’ he said  ‘But after all, vanity is only a venial sin, and if you are vain, you are also kind hearted and good and patient and you have never strayed from your own honourable ideals.’

Cindy blushed.

‘And you were kind to me, and patient with me as Eugene, a task that, I see now, could not have been easy at times. I was so lonely when you crossed my path, and even though you may not have realised it,
you pitied me.  So, you helped me and took me away from my lonely life.  Without you, I should never have regained my wings.  I think, for that, this was the least I could do for you.’

‘I was lonely too,’ she said.

‘I know,’ he smiled again.  ‘It will not always be so.’  

Cindy looked down at the cloud.  ‘So, what happens if I rock like this?’

‘Don’t!’

* * *

‘The goddess must have helped them,’ said Clive, thoughtfully, ‘she alone has that power.  I daresay they are safe enough.’

‘Hecaté?’ cried Tamar.

‘Yes, her.  They have clearly been taken out of time, as you were. They’re probably in the Underworld.’

‘You’re no ordinary clerk are you?’ said Denny.

‘No!’ said Clive shortly.

Well,’ said Tamar, there’s one way to find out if you’re right.’ She folded her arms defiantly, to indicate that this was non-negotiable. 

‘I
am
right,’ said Clive. ‘They certainly are not here, and they are not in time.  Therefore, they can only be in either the underworld or one of the other afterlife dimensions, Heaven or suchlike.’

But Tamar was insistent, and Clive was forced to co-operate. 

When he found out where Cindy was, he was not pleased. But Tamar said that if he punished Erasmus, she personally would see to it that he spent the rest of eternity with his head up his own arse.  And Clive was not at all certain that she could not do it.

‘Okay,’ he said to Denny sourly.  ‘What’s this brilliant idea of yours then?’

~ Chapter Thirty Two ~

T
amar peeped her nose out from under the mass of bubbles.  ‘Ahhh, it’s nice to finally relax,’ she said.  Denny was shaving – an almost unheard of activity, but occasionally Tamar insisted.  Besides, it gave him a good opportunity to watch her in the bath, an occupation not to be sneezed at. 

‘Almost two weeks with no trouble at all,’ he agreed.  He looked pensive for a moment.  ‘It’s just not the same without old Askphrit around stirring up trouble is it?’

‘You sound as though you miss him.’

‘No-o, I wouldn’t say that exactly, but …’

‘Bit boring?’ 

Denny pinched his fingers together.  ‘Little bit,’ he admitted. 

Tamar laughed contentedly.  ‘We deserve a break,’ she told him.

The world was almost back to normal now. Some things were different, and Denny and Tamar viewed these minor differences as a sort of private joke they shared with the universe. There were big differences too, of course.  The main one being, of course, that the war had never happened, it being Askphrit’s
coup d’état
in Hell that had kick-started the whole Apocalypse thing in the first place.  And finally, Askphrit had gone for good. 

* * *

Denny’s idea! It had been so simple in the end. Too simple for the clerks (who had spent millennia concocting multiple, intricate and ludicrous shady plots) to comprehend.  He told them just to leave it alone.

‘Everything that’s happened,
stays
happened,’ he had said.  ‘No more messing about with time or alternate dimensions or people’s fates.  That’s what got us into this mess.’

The Clerks had sent up a stream of noisy protest at this, but Denny continued.  ‘No, enough is enough already.  Askphrit is gone, the vampires are gone, now we have to look to the future, not back.’ 

Then he had suggested that to keep things tidy, they create a “Paradox file” to shove Askphrit into. 

This, it appeared, was more like it.  Clerks like things tidy, which Denny had realised, it was the main point of their existence. 

‘He’ll be happy enough,’ said Denny.  ‘He’ll never know the difference. It’s like putting him back in his bottle –
permanently
this time.’  He gave Tamar a wry look. 

The Clerks agreed, and Denny was satisfied, it would keep them busy and stop them from interfering which, as far as he was concerned, was the main thing.  That it was a totally pointless exercise, was largely irrelevant.  Neither Tamar nor Denny felt inclined to point out that Askphrit could never escape from the Paradox in any case, nor would he try, since he would be unaware of it.  The Clerks seemed to think it was such a good idea. 

* * *

And now they were back home. They had taken up residence in Clive’s house, since he would not be needing it anymore, and they had, in this new world order, never lived in Askphrit’s old mansion.  Cindy had moved into Denny’s old flat in London, it being far bigger and better furnished than her own, and Stiles and Hecaté remained, for the most part, in the underworld, although, Stiles still had offices in London, and also Manchester, Liverpool. New York, Hong Kong and Los Angeles. (Teleporting had its advantages).

  JACK STILES P.P.I (Private Paranormal Investigator) and business was alarmingly brisk.  But he spent most of his time, trying to find out what had happened to his son and if there was any way to bring him back.  At this, Hecaté just smiled. She had a secret.

* * *

Tamar lifted a leg lazily out of the water and surveyed it complacently. Denny, however, was not watching.  He was thinking. 

Piqued, she pouted at him. ‘What are you dreaming about?’

‘Remember that other world, I mean the one Askphrit created for us?’

Tamar shuddered.  ‘Yes, I remember, it was terrible.  No magic, no …’

Denny smiled remotely.  ‘It wasn’t
all
bad.  At least we were together.  And there isn’t as much magic around now as there was, I don’t think.’

‘Oh I don’t know,’ said Tamar, and she gave the bathmat a stern look, and it turned into a chicken and hopped away. 

Denny ignored it. ‘At least we were together,’ he reiterated. He definitely had something on his mind.  ‘Married actually,’ he said, glancing at her questioningly.  ‘How come we never got married, do you think?’  

Tamar shrugged.  ‘We never had time, I suppose.’

‘We have time now,’ he suggested.

Tamar opened her eyes wide.  ‘Denny!  Do you mean it?’

Denny shrugged.  ‘I guess so.’

‘Oh no, no, no.  No you don’t.’ cried Tamar leaping gracefully from the bathtub.  ‘If you’re going to propose, you do it properly!  Down on one knee with you, go on!’   

‘I’ll take that as a “yes” shall I?’ said Denny laughing.

* * *

Having finally gone down on one knee as instructed, and producing a sparkling diamond (with the aid of the Athame) Denny was now waiting at the altar for his bride.  He had never felt so damn nervous in his whole life. He wondered, vaguely, why he was. It seemed as though it was a universal symptom of bridegroomhood.  Stiles had said that he had felt exactly the same – both times.  It was, undoubtedly, just the vibrations of countless terrified bridegrooms reverberating throughout the universe. 

Hecaté was maid of honour, as a married woman, a very married woman. She walked before Tamar with her hands placed protectively over her stomach – she was very large now.  Cindy had wondered audibly whether it would be a boy or a girl. But that was just Cindy. 

‘Today a wedding, tomorrow a christening and next week a funeral,’ mused Tamar.

‘A funeral?’ squawked Cindy, ‘whose?’

‘Denny’s if he doesn’t stop looking so hunted,’ retorted Tamar tartly. 

Hecaté smothered a laugh. ‘They all look like that,’ she assured her.  ‘Don’t take it personally.’ 

‘At least I talked him out of having the theme from “Star Wars” playing as I walked up the aisle,’ said Tamar.  ‘Men!’

But it was a radiantly happy bride who met her husband-to-be at the altar, and when they looked into each other’s eyes and saw the love-light shining there, all doubts were swept away.

No one noticed the large, swirling vortex that had opened up behind the happy couple until it was too late. 

Denny yelled in protest as Tamar was sucked backwards into the heart of the vortex. He ran toward her, his hand outstretched to grab at her, but he was just too late. 

‘What the hell …?’ cried Stiles? 

Denny was silent, lost for words. Drowning in misery, which would soon turn to fury. 

* * *

Tamar was set down in a dusty chamber, which appeared to be filled with statues, glass cases, old musty books and packing crates. It looked like a cross between a library and a museum. 

She was seething. 

She tried to teleport, which apparently amused the old gent who had appeared from behind a large packing crate.  ‘I’m afraid your powers are no use to you here,’ he said nastily.  ‘I’ve got the whole place shielded.

‘So, what?’ snapped Tamar, ‘I can still kick your head in.’

‘No, I think not,’ he said, waving a hand at her, she froze.  ‘Shielded against all magic but my own, I should have said.’

‘Okay, so you’re a wizard,’ said Tamar.

‘A sorcerer, actually, Thespis is my name, and I should be more polite if I were you’

‘If you were me,’ snapped Tamar, ‘you wouldn’t be wearing those god-awful sandals.  Now, what do you want with me?’

‘Why are you wearing that old fashioned dress?’  Thespis retaliated. 

‘It’s my wedding day!’ stormed Tamar. 

‘I see, how unfortunate.’  He gestured around the room. ‘My collection,’ he said.  ‘Everything in it, one of a kind.’  He leered at her.  ‘Like you,’ 

Tamar rolled her eyes. ‘One of those,’ she thought. 

She glanced around the room. Yes she could see it now, the arms of the Venus de Milo, (Idly she remembered posing for that statue, and knocking the arms off in a fit of pique, because he had made them too fat.)  The frowning version of the “Mona Lisa” (Tamar could not see much difference.)  The collection swung from the sublime to the ridiculous.  Art treasures (it looked as if he had raided the cellars of the Louvré) were filed side by side with pieces of abhorrent kitsch. 

‘A garden gnome?’  Plenty of those about but, she had to admit, she had never seen one doing
that
! 

She wondered if he had had it specially made, but no, that would be cheating!  This guy might stoop to kidnap and theft, but never forgery. 

And gruesome relics. A dragon skull – she thought she recognised it – giant’s bones and the brain of Da Vinci, clearly labelled.  (Pretty pointless, that one, it was not as if he was using it anymore, it was now just a lump of gristle – pointless
and
horrible.)