Fates' Folly (24 page)

I looked down at Lynda Carter's smiling face
and my Marvin the Martian pajama pants and decided maybe Riley had
a point. Besides, he could shift to the school and back in seconds,
and I would know for sure if Bo was all right.

Riley continued, "As soon as I find Bo safe
and sound, I'll shift back and drive you to work. Okay? Sound like
an acceptable plan?"

“Yes.” And… if Sebastian was up to no good,
Riley could slice his head off.

Riley gave my shoulders another squeeze.
"Good. I'll see you in a few minutes."

I nodded my head, and Riley disappeared.

I turned away from the door and walked into
my bedroom, doing my best to ignore the cramping of my stomach and
the acid taste of bile in my mouth. For a second, I thought I was
going to be sick, but knowing that Riley would be back any minute
and that I didn't have the time to vomit helped me bring my body
under control.

I pulled on a pair of gray yoga pants, a
plain white t-shirt and my flip flops, shut my bedroom door and
walked into the living room to wait for Riley. I wasn't really
dressed appropriately, but I decided if Dr. Covey had a problem
with my attire, she could just bend her bony legs and kiss my ass.
I almost smiled at the thought, but as I looked up, Riley was
standing in front of me with sorrow etching lines across his
face.

Suddenly, my body felt heavy, and I thought I might collapse. Riley
reached me before the thought took physical form, turning me around
and pulling me down beside him on the couch.

"All I know is that Bo was not at the school,
and no one seems to know where he is. There could be a dozen or
more reasons why he is missing, and only one of them would involve
Sebastian."

"Then why do you look like your best dog just
died?"

Riley sighed, brushing unruly locks of hair
out of my face. "Because, I'm a jaded asshole, and I always assume
the worst. Ignore me, and hold a little hope that you'll soon be
able to prove me wrong."

"Let's go then. Mrs. Alverez has third period
free. Her gossip network is so advanced that she's usually within
minutes of knowing the details of any event that's taken place in
Dempsey."

I snatched my school bag off the floor and
ran out the door, down the stairs and to the car, making sure I'd
skip any encounter with Mrs. Crowell.

Riley dropped me off at the front of the
school. The plan was for me to find Mrs. Alverez, find out any
information I could and then report back to Riley, who would be
waiting in my classroom. I had about twenty minutes until my fourth
period class started, and it would take at least ten minutes for
Mrs. Alverez to grill me about my visiting uncle- something she'd
been trying to do all week. So I hurried down the hall, my flip
flops making a dull slapping noise as I walked.

As luck would have it, I didn't need to speak
with Mrs. Alverez at all. As I approached her door I could hear her
and Mrs. Kilpatrick clucking back and forth as they did whenever
they got together. "I still can't believe she would do that to poor
Norman. The man has doted on her for two years, driving to Madison
twice a day for donuts, not to mention all the time he's put into
fixing up her old house. One look at some tall, handsome stranger
and Linda just threw it all away."

"Well, he isn't just tall and handsome,
Betty, he is drop dead sexy. In fact, Donna Wilson said he was some
stripper Myra Jane picked up and brought home from downtown
Atlanta."

Mrs. Alverez snorted. "Well, we all know he
isn't her uncle."

"Coach Kelley must be broken hearted."

Mrs. Alverez gasped in excitement. "He isn't
just broken hearted Shelly, little Jennifer Mabry came into second
period this morning in tears because Tyler Bledsoe accidentally
broke coach Kelley's arm during some stupid stunt he pulled in
weight training this morning."

"Why was Jennifer crying?"

"Hormones." I could almost hear her rolling
her eyes. "Jennifer was blubbering all over my classroom because
she thinks Coach Kelley will be so angry, he'll bench Tyler next
season."

Mrs. Kilpatrick sighed. "Young love, so
silly."

Mrs. Alverez huffed, "Jennifer isn't the only
one letting hormones make her act silly. I heard that Dr. Covey,
who everybody knows has had a crush on Coach Kelley for years,
insisted on accompanying him to the hospital. She said it was to
make sure he was getting the proper care." She laughed, "Coach
Kelley kept telling her there was no need, but Dr. Covey used those
skinny little arms of hers to force him into her Audi and tore out
of the parking lot like the very devil was chasing her."

"Good lord, how embarrassing. Who knew the
woman could behave so desperately," Shelly Kilpatrick clucked.

I'm sure they continued their conversation,
but I had already turned away and started back to my classroom. The
moment I had heard Bo was not in Sebastian's clutches, a warm buzz
of relief filled me, and I couldn't care less about the rest of the
gossip.

Riley took off to check on Bo at the
hospital. It was in the next town over, a twenty five minute drive
by car, but he shifted there and back within ten minutes. Students
glowing with the excitement of an anticipated summer and the end of
another school year started to shuffle through the doorway, so
Riley shifted into the supply closet, where I joined him, pulling
the door almost closed behind me.

"Well?" I whispered.

"Bo has been sent home with his wrist in a
temporary cast and an appointment with an orthopedic surgeon for
tomorrow. Apparently some kid was fooling around with the bench
press and when Coach Kelley stepped in to keep the kid from
breaking his neck, he got a fractured wrist as a reward. I'll go
hang out at his house in case Sebastian shows up while you're
working. I called a fellow Assassin, Marcus, to watch over him
tonight."

"Do you think Sebastian will show up?"

Riley shook his head. "Not really. Bo is on
so many pain killers he’s drugged out of his mind. Marcus is just a
precaution. Sebastian won't want a hostage he has to carry around
and is too doped up to be afraid of him- trust me, it takes all the
fun out of it."

"One day you're going to give me details of
your life," I said.

He ignored me. "After I check on Bo, I'll
snoop around campus a little and then drop you at home. I'm going
to check out some of the abandoned mill houses down Canyon Drive
while you and Barty are training."

One of my students, Brian Fently, opened the
supply room door. I turned to block his entrance just as I felt the
change in the air behind me that signaled Riley's shift out of the
closet.

"I brought the TV and DVD cart from the
library," Brian said.

"Great. Let's go watch the documentary on
Louis Wain and be happy that our lives don't suck as much as his
did."

Riley promptly picked me up
twenty minutes after the last bell. On the short drive home he
informed me that there was no sign of Sebastian at Bo's house or
the school, and the Assassin, Marcus, was already in place, keeping
an eye on Bo, and Bo, for his part, was passed out in his recliner,
enjoying the effects of Lortab.

"How did you know where Bo lived?" I
asked.

He grinned. "Linda gave me a verbal tour of
everyone of interest, at least to her, in town. Bo was at the top
of her list."

We had just pulled in behind the Crowell
house. I turned in my seat to look at him. He was grinning, with
one eyebrow raised. I was not going to take the bait and ask what
exactly a verbal tour entailed.

"Are you going to shift to the abandoned mill
houses or are you taking my car?"

"I'll shift."

We both got out of the car. "I'll watch you
walk in before I leave. Bartholomew should be here any minute."

I ran into the house and up the stairs as
fast as I could. It had worked this morning, so I figured I had a
pretty good chance of it working again.

As I stepped onto the landing, without a peep
from Mrs. Crowell, I couldn't help but smile. Of course, it quickly
turned into a grimace when I saw Barty leaning against my front
door. He was glaring at me, upper lip curled into his signature
sneer.

"No one said we had to have training today.
You could always go home," I grumbled.

Barty's thin lips curved into a smile. "I'm
going to show you how to take a good punch today. I couldn't
possibly have you miss out on such a lesson."

I stomped into my apartment, threw my bag on
the floor and headed for the kitchen, trying my best to ignore
Barty's annoying presence behind me.

I walked into the kitchen and started to open
the pantry door.

Barty stepped in front of me. "I just wanted
to let you know, that since I'm a little early today, you can take
your time snacking, I'll wait." He said this in a sweet tone of
voice, full of encouragement, which was all wrong, because Barty
didn't do sweet or encouraging, especially towards me.

"Great, then do you think you could move so I
could get to my snacks that you're so generously allowing me time
to consume?"

He smiled and moved out of the way.

My snack cakes were missing! So were my star
crunches, cosmic brownies and fudge rounds. The container that
usually held chocolate chips was empty and there wasn't a box of
sugary cereal or a bag of chips in sight. But there was a bag of
veggie fries, a box of rice cakes and a box of organic puffed rice
cereal. My pantry had been pilfered of all its yumminess, and
nasty, dry, tasteless food had been put in its place.

I slammed the pantry door shut, turned around
and opened the fridge- Goddess Greek Yogurt, carrot sticks,
broccoli, and spinach filled my shelf, along with diet soda,
vitamin water and skim milk. I didn't dare look over at Barty as I
slammed the fridge door shut and opened the freezer. Just as I
expected, all of my ice cream had been replaced with pints of
benign flavors of fat free, sugar free yogurt. I tried counting to
ten, but I only made it to three before I blew.

"You fucking bastard!!! Where the hell do you
get off taking my food and replacing it with this," I threw a
container of frozen yogurt at him, "crap!"

Barty smiled as he retreated into the living
room.

"We agreed I could help you eat better. I'm
not forcing you to eat these foods, which by the way, was the only
condition in our agreement, I am only providing you with a healthy
option."

I grabbed the rest of the containers of
frozen yogurt out of the fridge and began throwing them, aiming for
his head. Barty, who had managed to dodge each one, only laughed.
"Such a temper, T. T. If we could harness all that, you might
actually become a formidable opponent."

"Fuck you!" I was only a few feet away from
him, and I had one container left. I took a deep breath and threw
my last pint with as much force as I could muster. When Barty
successfully dodged it, as I knew he would, I hammered my foot into
his groin, which of course, didn't make contact because he twisted
out of the way.

"See how sluggish all that processed sugar
and fat makes you? A child could have avoided your attack."

I didn't think about what I did next, I just
charged forward and plowed into him like I'd seen all the football
players do. My shoulder connected with his stomach, and we both
went down, falling over and bringing with us my favorite orange
chair. I straddled Barty's skinny hips and starting swinging. I'm
ashamed to say that, after several minutes, not only did not one
single punch land on his nasty pale freckled face, but I was also
absolutely exhausted, and Barty threw me off of him with ease as he
laughed- huge guffaws that shook his body and brought tears to his
eyes.

I lay beside him trying to catch my breath,
looking up at the ceiling, desperately trying not to cry. "I hate
you."

Barty turned over on his side, looking down
on me, his face split into a wide grin, his eyes still shiny with
laughter. "I know. And I have yet to feel an ounce of concern about
it. But I'll let you know if that changes."

"What did you do with my food?"

"I shifted it to my apartment. If you'll add
just one or two healthy items to your diet, I'll give it back."

I sat up, crossing my legs like a pretzel in
front of me. "You know I can just go out and buy some more."

"Yes, and I will take those as well."

"Why? Why don't you just give up? You don't
have to train me, it's not like Hades ordered you to, or that you
like me or believe I have a chance of being successful in the
Trials. Find someone else to pick on, and make their life
miserable."

Barty sat up, sliding his bony butt across
the floor and folding his legs up so his knees were practically
touching mine. "True, you will most likely fail as no other
candidate has before, and I do not like you, not one little bit.
However, I agreed to train you, and even if I wanted to go back on
my word and walk away, I couldn't."

"Sure you can. Tell everyone I fired you or
insulted your honor or something, then you can walk way, and no one
will think badly of you."

"I couldn't, even if I wanted to. Any
agreement between immortals, whether verbal or written, witnessed
or not, once agreed upon with physical contact, is binding. If I
got up and tried to walk away with the intention of not continuing
your training, I literally would not be able to."

"Is this true of all immortals?”

I remembered Carrie saying something
similar.

Barty's mustache twitched. "I know it is true
of our realm, even the gods must abide by the rule, but I am not
sure of other deities or the immortals that exist within their
realms."