Helen and Troy's Epic Road Quest (5 page)

Mister Scraps looked up at her with wide blue eyes and mewed insistently.

“Well, I'll be damned,” she said. “I'd get on that if I were you, little brother.”

Troy fed the cat a sliver of bologna. The cat gulped it down and licked his lips.

“Seriously, Troy. I know you've always been able to do…anything. But it's OK to admit maybe this is a tough situation.”

“I can handle it.”

“I didn't say you couldn't. I just said you don't have to be perfect. Not in front of me. You can admit you're human.”

He smiled. “Thanks. That's always nice to hear.”

She leaned forward. “So is there anything you want to confide then?”

“No, I've got this. But it's still nice to hear.”

Troy took a sip of his beer, stuck out his tongue, and pushed it across the table.

“I should get to bed. Have to start my quest tomorrow.”

She stood, gave him a hug. “Watch yourself, Troy. The gods love ruining a hero's life.”

“I'm no hero. Just an overachiever.”

She smiled, tousled his hair. “Close enough.”

He turned to leave but stopped.

“I liked that Belgian guy. Why did you break up again?”

“Once Mom started liking him, he stopped being interesting. Some of us have issues, oats to sow. Not that I'd expect you to understand, Mr. Perfect.”

“I hope you broke it to him gently.”

“Oh, he took it just fine. Turned out he was just dating me to piss off his father.”

Troy said, “And Mom and Dad wonder why you aren't married yet.”

“It is a mystery.” She tapped her two beers together and opened the fridge. “Do we have any bologna left?”

Helen slept in.

She hadn't planned on it, but she'd forgotten to set her alarm. She'd assumed she'd wake up early because she didn't think she'd be able to sleep well. But she did, and it was only when someone knocked on her bedroom door that she awoke.

She opened the door a crack. It was her little brother.

“You have a visitor,” said Will.

“Who?” She was still struggling toward alertness.

“It's that Troy guy. He said you were expecting him.”

Then she remembered that they'd made plans to go to the NQB together. She was supposed to be packed and ready by ten. It was ten till ten now. She could have a suitcase packed in a few minutes, but her morning preparations, owing to her minotaurism, took at least fifteen.

“Tell him I'm running behind,” she said.

“I'll tell him you're making yourself pretty,” replied Will with a sly grin.

She almost told him not to say that, but that would only have ensured he would. Probably even embellish it with kissy noises and a girlish dance. She tried her best defense: feigned indifference.

“Whatever, squirt.”

Will walked away, swishing his tail. “Mom is making pancakes, if you want any.”

Helen didn't have time to be annoyed. She grumbled to herself, but even this was halfhearted. The first thing she did was slap on her bracelet. The prescription magic within sent a tingle up her arm as it always did. This was followed by a sharp sting in the curse mark burned on the back of her hand. The magics didn't seem to get along, and while the cold prickle was easy to ignore at first, it would get worse. She'd had to take off her bracelet just to get some sleep, and it'd been months since she'd done that.

She'd had some bad dreams without it. Not exactly nightmares, but unpleasant visions of herself stalking a maze like a trapped wild beast. She didn't know if they were the result of her curse or her own subconscious fears, but either way the restless night hadn't helped her mood.

She didn't even consider not wearing the bracelet. She could live with the irritation if she had to. Her curse didn't give her much choice.

She threw on some clothes. It was at times like this that she hated having to wear button-up shirts. But her horns, slight as they were, tore holes when she tried putting on T's. Tank tops could work in a pinch, but they rarely fit properly. Her breasts were always threatening to spill out of those. The fashion industry had long neglected the needs of the young minotaur on the go.

She had to button up twice because the first time the shirt ended up lopsided.

She fussed with her hair, giving it a quick brush, then deciding today was a ponytail day. Although she wasn't fond of ponytails, because they did nothing to de-emphasize her ears.

She frowned at her reflection. It bothered her that she had body issues. It seemed so typically
young woman
to have them.

In her rush to get ready, she'd done things in the wrong order. She usually brushed herself down before getting dressed. It was easier that way. More thorough. Kept the shedding in check. She didn't need to do it every night, but it was her habit. She'd skipped last night. She debated stripping down and starting the process over again.

Will knocked on the door again. “You ready or not?”

“I'm coming, I'm coming.”

There was no time. She brushed down what was visible and took another five minutes to throw stuff in her suitcase. In her hurry, she didn't bother folding the clothes. This only made them more difficult to fit, taking longer, but she managed to zip the damn thing closed. She paused to consider if she was forgetting anything, deciding she most definitely was but that she'd wasted enough time already and would deal with it later. As long as she had clean underwear and a good brush, everything else could be worked around.

Downstairs, she found Troy eating breakfast with Will and Roxanne in the kitchen.

“These are delicious, Mrs. Nicolaides,” Troy said. “You have to tell me your secret.”

“It's Bisquick.”

“I'll pass that along to my mother.”

From anyone else the comment might have seemed sarcastic, but he managed to sound sincere.

“How's your hand?” asked Helen.

“A little itchy. Yours?”

“Same.”

She was relieved to hear it. Maybe itchiness came with the curse and had nothing to do with an interaction with her bracelet.

Roxanne said, “Troy tells me you're starting your quest today.”

“I don't know,” replied Helen. “We're going to the NQB. They didn't say anything more than that. Speaking of which, we're running kind of late.”

“So we're a little behind.” Troy smiled at her, pulled out a chair. “There is always time for pancakes, Hel.”

“Listen to the young man,” said Roxanne. “He knows of what he speaks.”

Helen shook her head and chuckled to herself. She allowed herself to enjoy her breakfast, and while she couldn't forget the curse hanging over her head, she could at least spare fifteen minutes to sit with her family and pretend it didn't matter. And it didn't. Not right now. All that mattered were her plate of pancakes, her glass of juice, and people she cared about.

After breakfast Helen loaded her suitcase in the back of the electric-blue Ford Chimera parked in her driveway. It had all the hallmarks of a classic fifties car: chrome, fins, leather, and monstrous proportions.

“I thought you didn't have a car,” she said.

“It's my dad's,” he replied. “He thought if I'm going questing, I should do it in style.”

“Not very inconspicuous, is it?”

“Every knight needs his fire-breathing steed. If we're going to be stuck on the road, you'll be happy for the extra legroom.”

The soft-top roof was folded down, and she leaned over, studying the cavernous interior. She could probably have lain down in the backseat and taken a nap. Though she wouldn't actually do that. Her horns might rip the flawless leather seats.

“What if we get a scratch on it?” she asked.

“You worry too much,” he said.

It was easy for him. He didn't have horns or hooves. No hard pointy bits to scrape paint or slash open the Chimera's soft top. Even if she managed to go the whole trip without an accident, there was always the shedding to deal with.

More than any other problem of her condition, it was the shedding that bothered her. She brushed herself, top to bottom, every night. Almost obsessively. It kept the problem mostly in check. But there was always going to be some incidental fur left here and there. And, of course, the Chimera's seats couldn't be a compatible shade of brown to hide the problem. No, they just had to be a flawless white.

“It should be out on the road,” said Troy. “It should be allowed to feel the asphalt beneath its whitewalls, to get bugs on its windshield, cracks in its upholstery.”

“It's just a car,” she said.

He jumped behind the wheel without opening the door. He started the engine and revved it.

“Hear that? That's not a collection of pistons and tubes. That's a beast. She's spent the last fifteen years under a tarp, sitting in a heated garage. Once a year Dad takes her out to a car show, where she's gawked at and gaped at and caressed, like some kind of museum piece, like a spoiled show pony. Oh, sure, her engine might get to rev a bit to allow a glimpse of the raging spark in her plugs, but it's a sham, a mock drama. Because people are afraid of her, afraid of what she can do, afraid to let her out on the road where she was meant to be, to prowl, to hunt, to remind every other car on the road that there is only one queen of this jungle. And this is she.”

Troy let the engine roar, and try as she might, Helen couldn't think of that sound as anything else now.

He said, “She wants to live. She wants to feel her oil pump, to draw the air through her radiator, to sear her burning rubber footprint on the highway so that, even when she's gone, the gods themselves will celebrate her life rather than mourn her death.”

He leaned back in the seat, adjusted the rearview mirror, and flashed a wicked smile.

“Let her live, Hel.”

She shook her head. “That is either the biggest load of crap I've ever heard or the most beautiful thing ever said. You rehearsed that, didn't you?”

“Maybe a little bit. On the ride over here.”

“If you don't go with him,” said Roxanne, “we will.”

“I call backseat,” said Will.

Helen gave her mom and brother a hug. “I love you, guys.”

Will made no jokes at her expense. He only squeezed her tighter.

She said, “Tell Dad I love him.”

“You'll tell him when you get back,” said Roxanne.

“Mom…”

Roxanne put a finger to Helen's lips.

“You'll tell him when you get back.”

Her mother wiped away the beginning of a tear she was fighting. She gave Helen another hug.

“Go on. Get out of here. Go show the gods above and below what a strong young woman my little girl has grown into. Come home victorious, covered in glory.” She gave Helen another hug. “Just come home.”

Helen reluctantly slipped out of the embrace. She climbed into the car, settling into the plush seat. Gently at first, but then she leaned back. Troy had been right. It was nice to have the legroom.

“I register my distaste for the leather,” she said.

“Duly noted,” replied Troy.

“Take care of Mom, squirt,” said Helen. “And yourself.”

Will nodded back to her. “You too.”

She tapped the door with her knuckles. “So are we questing or not?”

Troy pulled into the street. He didn't roar away in a cloud of dust and exhaust. This was the suburbs, after all. The Chimera's engine purred under the hood like a chained monster. Helen watched Roxanne and Will shrink in the side-view mirror until Troy turned a corner, and they were gone.

The National Questing Bureau's offices were located in a sleepy business district. There were a few small office buildings, but for the most part it was just row upon row of warehouses. Most of the traffic was eighteen-wheelers carrying cargo to or from the neighborhood. Helen and Troy nearly missed the NQB sign, a nondescript placard with the initials and the address. From the outside it looked like an old warehouse, but it was the only building on the block with a fence.

They pulled up to the front gate. A gargoyle in a security guard outfit came trudging out of the booth. An unlit cigarette dangled from the creature's beak, and he pulled his sunglasses down, peered at them with piercing green eyes, and pushed the glasses back up.

Helen did her best not to stare. Gargoyles weren't quite as rare as minotaurs, but they weren't common. They were relatively easy to make with magic, but security cameras had rendered them mostly obsolete. They took their job more seriously than most rent-a-cops, but that dedication could be a double-edged sword. You could always fire a guard, but once a gargoyle was on the job, he was on for life. For beings made of stone, that could be a very long time.

“We have an appointment with Agent Waechter,” said Troy. “Troy Kawakami and Helen Nicolaides.”

The gargoyle moved his cigarette around his mouth, checked his clipboard. “You're late.”

“Pancake emergency.” Troy grinned slyly.

The gargoyle did not.

“You got ID, Mr. Kawakami?”

Troy and Helen held up their NQB-issued badges. The gargoyle adjusted his hat and gave them a very thorough inspection.

“All right. You check out. But you must answer the riddle first.”

Helen said, “But we have an appointment.”

“And I have a riddle I have to ask because when some stupid wizard created me five hundred years ago, he put this requirement in my stone. So just listen and answer. If you can.

“Men seek me out, yet fear what I have to say. I am unavoidable yet always surprising. All travelers meet me, regardless of which road they travel, and even if they choose not to travel at all. I am a burden to many, a joy to a very few, and something only a fool thinks he can know. What am I?”

The gargoyle paused.

“Well. Do you have the answer or do I kill you now?”

“You didn't mention anything about killing us,” said Troy.

“It's assumed.”

“Isn't that a bit excessive?”

“Don't blame me. You can blame the stupid wizard, but he's been dead for a few hundred years now, so it's not going to do you much good.”

“Can you repeat it?” asked Helen as she dug through her pocket.

By the time he'd finished asking the riddle again, she'd found Waechter's card with the answer scribbled on the back.

“You're destiny,” she said.

“Did someone give you the answer?” The gargoyle leaned forward. “What's written on that card?”

“Nothing.” She quickly tucked it back in her pocket.

The suspicious gargoyle flapped his wings with a snarl. “Whatever.” He lifted the gate and let them pass.

They found a space marked
VISITOR
near the entrance and walked right in. There weren't any other guards. Not even a receptionist. Just some old furniture arranged around a sword in a stone that was the centerpiece of the lobby. Agent Waechter sat on a worn blue couch with another agent. Waechter didn't have a jacket on, though the other agent was a more expected button-down type. She had the government-issued black suit and stone-cold demeanor of a Secret Service agent, and when Waechter stood to greet them, the agent rose, clasped her hands behind her back, and remained unreadable.

“Sorry we're late,” said Helen.

“Nothing to worry about,” replied Waechter. “These things proceed at their own pace. And we're very casual around here. Isn't that right, Agent Campbell?”

Campbell nodded, smiled very, very slightly.

Waechter offered them a tour, starting with the sword in the stone.

“Feel free to give it a try. We all have. Campbell here usually does it twice a day. Isn't that right, Campbell?”

“Yes, sir. I did get it to wiggle once.”

Helen tried to remove the sword without success. Troy did manage to get it to wobble a bit. Agent Campbell frowned in a barely noticeable way.

“Shouldn't you have this locked away?” asked Helen.

“You wouldn't believe how common these things are,” said Waechter. “Magic weapons just waiting for the right person to come along. We have a warehouse in Hoboken full of the damn things. Completely useless otherwise. We give tours. Very boring, really. Once you've seen one ax or spear or halberd stuck in something, you've seen them all. But people still try it because…well…you never know. Three years ago, a plumber from North Dakota discovered he was king of the Morlocks when he pulled a mace from a piece of granite.”

“King of the djinn, sir,” corrected Campbell. “Morlocks are fictitious.”

“Right, right. Shall we get on with it?”

“You don't have much security,” said Troy.

“Don't really need it,” said Waechter. “One of the peculiar things about the NQB is that no one finds us unless they need us. We're not a secret agency. We only tend to slip through the cracks of the everyday world. Might be magic. Might be fate. Or maybe people are too busy with their lives to worry about us. We get our funding and nobody pays us much attention. Nor should they. We're merely facilitators and support. It's fine citizens such as yourselves who do most of the heavy lifting. We're just here to see that things stay on the right path.”

He led them down a long hall. Agent Campbell followed a few steps behind. They passed a sphinx in a tie.

“Hey, Akil, are you going to make it to the poker game tonight?” asked Waechter.

The sphinx kept walking. “Wouldn't miss it. Gotta get even from last week. These the two you were talking about earlier?”

“Yes.”

“Good luck then.” Akil flapped his wings and disappeared through a door.

Along the way they passed more employees. Most were human, orc, or elf. But there were an unusual number of enchanted and thaumaturgical creatures prowling these halls. A six-armed woman with a serpent tail instead of legs chatted at a water cooler with a pudgy bald man and some manner of giant talking mushroom. A pair of gremlins from tech support were either fixing a computer or taking it apart. It was hard to tell which. And a hulking, scaly creature hunched over a row of cabinets, alphabetizing files.

Helen was used to being the monster in the room. Not just one of many. In a weird way, the situation made her more uncomfortable.

“We provide gainful employment for those in need.” He nodded to the filing creature. “Yorick used to guard a bridge until they tore it down to build a shopping mall.”

Yorick shrugged. “The hours are better here.”

Waechter led them to his office. Compared to the drabness of the rest of the NQB, it was lively. He had one of those executive office toys with the clacking metal spheres, and a desk that was made out of imitation wood, not plain plastic. Behind the desk a framed watercolor poster of a French art film was hung. He sat on his desk and gestured to the two chairs in front of it. They sat. Agent Campbell stood.

“Now then, what's important for you to understand is that the NQB is here to help, but we can't actually do anything beyond a support role. Most of what we do is guidance and easing your transition into questing. If you were in school, for example, we could get you excused. If you needed time off from work or a good car or someone to look after your kids while you were off on your road to adventure, that's all part of our services. Campbell here is great with kids. Isn't that right, Campbell?”

She remained expressionless. “Kids love me.”

Waechter said, “Now, you don't need any of that, so our job is considerably easier. We're basically here to ensure you're properly prepared for what's coming.”

“You know the future?” asked Troy.

“No, not exactly. But there's a tradition to these things. We've been at this a very long time. Long before there was even an official NQB. Our records go way back, and after a while patterns emerge. Now where the heck is that report?”

He sorted through the scrolls and tomes on his desk.

Someone knocked on the office door hard enough to shake it loose on its hinges. Campbell opened the door to reveal a tremendous ogress in a crisp pantsuit.

She was far too big to fit through the door, so she stuck in one giant arm. She opened her massive hand to reveal a dusty book. “Jenkins in Tomes and Records said you asked for this.”

“Thanks, Valerie.”

“Don't mention it.” She deposited the book in his arms and lumbered away.

Waechter flipped through the tome's worn pages. “Yes, here we are. According to this, it's a fairly typical fetch quest. The Lost God appears, compels two to four mortals to seek out magical objects. Operates on a three-hundred-year cycle.”

“This keeps happening,” said Helen.

“Like clockwork,” replied Waechter.

“And you haven't stopped it.”

He thumbed through the book, half-reading, half-talking. “It's not that easy. These cycles can't just be stopped. They have to run their course. The metaphysics are a bit complicated, but it all comes down to cause and effect. You can't simply change one fundamental aspect of reality without altering everything else.”

“So your job isn't to help us with this quest,” said Helen. “You're just here to maintain the status quo.”

Waechter shut the book and smiled at her. “You're a very astute young woman, Helen. Yes, we spend the bulk of our time ensuring things run smoothly. It's not that we don't accomplish positive results. It's just that most of those results are in the aversion of earthshaking kabooms, and it's hard to measure success against things that haven't happened.”

Troy said, “If you've done this before, and you know how it usually goes, then what happens to us at the end of this? The hamburger god said he'd sent people on this quest before, and that they'd all died.”

Waechter's smile dropped. “I could lie to you and say it's all going to be fine, but this isn't an easy quest. But our records indicate it isn't quite as dire as the Lost God made it sound. Our guys in statistics say odds of survival are somewhere around 27 percent.”

“In other words, 73 percent chance we're going to die,” said Helen.

“Not the best odds,” agreed Waechter. “But I've seen questers with worse odds triumph. In fact, in this business, the lower your odds of survival, the better chance you've got.”

Helen said, “That's contradictory.”

“Only mathematically. But the quests that look easy, the ones with a ninety-plus percentage of success, those are the ones that can sneak up on you. If the Fates ask you to deliver a package across the street, you're practically guaranteed to fail that one. But if they pick the unlikeliest farmhand to journey across a desert full of monsters and bandit hordes, then he makes it more often than not.”

Helen tried to wrap her head around the idea. “You're saying your records, the ones that you've been meticulously keeping for ages, say that this quest is so dangerous that we're bound to succeed.”

“It helps not to think about it very much,” said Waechter. “But when it comes to quests, statistics often take a backseat to other requirements. Irony. Drama. Triumph. Tragedy. Deus ex machina.”

“You make it sound like a story.”

“Every life is a story,” replied Waechter.

“So what now? You tell us where to find these objects?”

“Not really our department, I'm afraid.”

“Then you give us special training?” she asked.

“Given the time frame of the quest, we'll probably have to skip that.”

“Why even call us agents then? We're just ordinary people without any special skills stuck in a lousy situation.”

“You are hardly ordinary citizens. Mr. Kawakami here is an exceptional young man. And you, Ms. Nicolaides, well, your exceptional nature is as obvious as the horns on your head. You have, in my experience, the perfect combination of the unassuming and the extraordinary. If there's a better pair of candidates for a quest, I haven't seen them. What do you think, Campbell?”

Agent Campbell said, “An excellent quest success quotient, according to our analysts.”

“But you just said the better the odds, the worse our chances of…” Helen lowered her head, covered her eyes. “Forget it. There's no point in trying to understand it. But why are we here, then? We don't need any of the support services you provide. You already gave us our badges. You can't tell us anything. The whole thing seems like a waste of time.”

Waechter smiled brightly.

“You're here because you choose to be.”

He said it as if it answered everything.

“Walking through our doors was the first step. Every hero who has ever dreamed of glory has had to cross that threshold. Not that threshold specifically, but one like it. It's the signal to the universe, the moment when you agree to begin your journey into unknown worlds.”

She couldn't decide if Waechter believed what he said or was pushing pseudo-intellectual nonsense. She wasn't sure she cared anymore.

“Can we at least see that book?” asked Troy.

“I'm afraid that's against the rules. It wouldn't do you any good to read it anyway. It's not like quests follow a road map. They work in broad strokes, not paint-by-numbers. There are certainly similarities, established patterns, but they avoid being too predictable.”

“The gods above love irony,” added Campbell.

“The more we know, the less we know,” said Helen.

“Now you're getting it,” said Waechter.