Fall of Knight (8 page)

“God help me,” he muttered.

“God help us all,” echoed Gwen, choosing not to dwell on the notion that if God did show up to help, He probably wouldn’t be able to get past White House security.

R
EPORTERS BEING THE
type of creatures that they were, they were flocking from throughout the building upon hearing that Jackson had collapsed. There were so many trying to crowd into Tyler Mahoney’s office that Tyler—an exhausted man in his thirties who was convinced his hairline had receded two inches since taking this job—was moved to shout at them, “Jesus, people, you’re like sharks at a feeding frenzy! Give the man some room!”

Not that Jackson looked like he needed it. Seeing him lying helpless upon Mahoney’s floor was shocking in and of itself, because he was a young man with thick black hair that was now matted with blood. His eyes, usually so eager and focused on whatever story he was working, were staring off into nothingness. Mahoney was crouched next to him, saying softly, “Don’t worry, Dave. It’s going to be fine,” and not having the slightest idea whether or not Jackson heard him. “
Where the hell are the damned paramedics!
This is the goddamned White House! We should have crash carts coming out our asses!”

“Stand aside,” came a commanding voice that, although none of them had heard it in over a year, everyone within proximity recognized instantly and obeyed without hesitation.

Former President Penn strode forward with a large black man behind him who looked to be a personal security guard. The reporters immediately began to shout questions, but the black man turned and leveled a gaze at them of such fearsome intensity that it caused every one of them to lapse into silence. Arthur extended a hand to the black man, who in turn handed him a large, sparkling gold cup. “You,” Arthur said briskly, snapping his fingers and pointing at Tyler. “Your name again?”

“Tyler Mahoney, Mr. President. It’s an honor.”

“Yes, it is. That water, there,” and he pointed to a bottle of Poland Spring water that was on the edge of Mahoney’s desk. “Give it here, please.”

Uncomprehending, Mahoney did so. Arthur promptly upended the bottle and poured its contents into the cup. A few droplets splashed out of it and landed in the pot of a dying plant that Mahoney had on his desk.

“The paramedics are here!” someone shouted from behind.

“Thank them for their efforts,” said Penn, who by that point had knelt next to Jackson and was pouring the contents of the cup between his slack lips. Jackson continued to look at nothing with his unfocused eyes.

“Coming through!” came the shout of the paramedics, and that was the exact moment that David Jackson suddenly sat upright, gasping for breath.

It was so abrupt that everyone watching jumped back, except for a TV cameraman who had filmed the entire thing.

“You’ll be quite all right now,” Arthur assured him.

“What…happened?” Jackson gasped. “I was…I don’t remember, what…?” Then he focused on Arthur for the first time, and his eyes widened. “You’re the former president!”

“That,” Arthur said, “is only the beginning of the story.”

“Oh my God. Is everyone else seeing this?” It was the cameraman who had spoken, and he’d shifted his focus to the plant on Mahoney’s desk…which had suddenly gone from being nearly dead to blooming and in full health in seconds.

“It’s a trick!”

“Has to be!”

“Couldn’t be—!”

Questions and words were flying all over as the bewildered paramedics stood there and wondered why in the world they had been summoned.

Then Arthur raised his hand for silence and immediately the crowd hushed. “It is no trick,” Arthur said with calm solemnity. “Come. We shall go to the pressroom. I shall talk. You will listen. And then…we’ll see what we shall see.”

M
ERLIN’S APARTMENT WAS
nothing fancy, and that was by his choice. In his lifetime, he had resided in everything from castles to the White House, and had never felt completely at home in any of them. Something deeply rooted within him despised the entire notion of such ostentation.

So the place that he had chosen to dwell was a third-floor walk-up in the seedier section of downtown Hollywood. Whereas others would certainly have found the location less than desirable, there was a certain rattiness to it that Merlin found quite appealing. If nothing else, he didn’t have to worry about nosy neighbors inquiring as to the whereabouts of his parents. There were children in the area roughly his age and even younger who were more or less left to fend for themselves, thanks to their parents being off and involved with prostitution, drugs, and—most repulsive of all—auditions. As a result, Merlin’s fending for himself wasn’t about to raise any eyebrows.

He trudged up the stairs, feeling more tired than usual. He had to think that the centuries were beginning to wear on him, the legs of his eight-year-old frame bending under the weight of millennia of emotional baggage. Passing other residents of the building, he greeted them with the most perfunctory of nods, barely acknowledging their existence, before he finally got to his door. He snapped his fingers, and the inner locks unlatched. The locks were there to deal with the more mundane intruders who might endeavor to gain entrance; he’d erected mystic wards to stave off anyone who might be more problematic than a run-of-the-mill burglar.

The door swung open before him, and he strode in. It was a studio apartment, cloaked in shadow, which was how he liked it. He was certainly no vampire, but the daylight held little attraction for him. He was built for residing in darkness.

He put together an indifferent dinner of warmed-up pizza, having ordered a pie three days ago and parceled out a couple slices each night since then. It was economical, which wasn’t all that much of a consideration to Merlin since he could literally pull money out of the air. Lately, though, as his surroundings indicated, he simply hadn’t cared that much about money, or sustenance, or his environment…or anything.

Merlin did, however, at least give a damn about personal hygiene. After eating the pizza and wiping the crumbs from his mouth with an accommodating shirtsleeve, he walked into the bathroom and started the water running. The bathtub was the one thing in the entire apartment that he found pleasing; it was large and heavy, with big claw feet that raised it a few inches above the floor. It had class and style and personality…more so, Merlin felt, than some persons he knew.

A television sat in one corner of the apartment. It had been there when Merlin first moved in. He’d put it on once or twice, but was so filled with indifference over everything he saw on the screen that he hadn’t bothered with it since.

The pizza box being empty, Merlin bent it in half and shoved the container into the garbage can. Then he stared into the trash can and saw there a metaphor of himself.

Shoved aside. Shoved away. Bastard.

He knew that Arthur had not done it deliberately to hurt him. For that matter, what if Arthur had invited him to come along with them? What then? Arthur, Gwen, and Merlin, the fifth wheel, sailing around the Pacific on a yacht? The very notion was ludicrous. He had come to tolerate and even slightly respect Gwen after a fashion, although he still tended to blame her when it came to questions of Arthur’s not properly reaching his potential. Even so, the notion of being one-third of an uncomfortable threesome, always feeling that Arthur and Gwen were eyeing him and wondering what the hell he was doing there…repulsive. Repulsive and unworthy.

Yet he felt abandoned.

It angered him because it was such an irrational way to react. In the end, he knew, all of us are responsible for our own lives. We make our choices and we live with them. Arthur had chosen to walk away from his position as a potential world leader. He had chosen a life of quiet with Gwen over a life of activity with Merlin…

Well, that was the rub of it, wasn’t it.

It wasn’t just that Arthur had chosen Gwen. It was that he had left Merlin behind.

“You’re acting like a child,” Merlin scolded himself in his childish voice.

Suddenly there was a splashing in the direction of the bathroom. Perhaps a rat had fallen into the tub and was drowning; it certainly wouldn’t be the first time.

Merlin picked up a broom, prepared to bring it crashing down on the skull of the rodent; it wasn’t worth even the smallest expenditure of his magic. Striding into the bathroom, he started to bring the broom up over his head, then froze in position.

Something was emerging from the water. There was a soft glowing dead center of the tub that was becoming brighter and brighter, then Merlin stepped back as slowly, majestically, the attractive blonde named Vivian who had come up to him at the Magic Shack rose up from the water like Venus on a clam shell, gloriously naked and covered only by strands of her long golden hair.

She smiled at him teasingly. “Remember me?” she inquired.

Merlin smacked her with the broom.

Vivian jumped back, skidded, and landed heavily on the floor of the tub, sending water cascading everywhere. She sat up and sputtered, “What did you do
that
for?”

“I thought you were a rat,” he replied sanguinely.

“You did not!”

“Well, you are. By the way, next time you’re going to emerge from a body of water, might I suggest the toilet. Since it’s full of shit, you’d be right at home.” He tossed the broom onto the bathroom floor, reached over, and turned the water off. “And for the sake of all that’s unholy, pull on some gossamer. If you think you’re going to be able to seduce me again, then clearly you’re not paying attention to matters at hand.”

He strode into the living room and flopped onto a chair, listening for the sound of Vivian’s wet feet as they splashed onto the floor. Moments later she entered, wearing a veil of gossamer as he had suggested. “I cannot believe you’re still upset with me.”

“Of course I’m still upset with you, and what were you playing at in the Magic Shack? Did you think I wouldn’t recognize you the instant I saw you?”

“You didn’t recognize me.”

“Of course I did.”

“Hardly. If I hadn’t given you that clue of my name…”

He waved her off dismissively. “I had already figured it out. You changed your appearance, as is your habit. At this point I’m wondering if you even remember what you originally looked like. It doesn’t matter, Nimue.”

“Merlin,” she said in that wistful tone that sounded like waves lapping gently against a shoreline. She sat at the foot of the chair, curling her legs up underneath herself. “I thought that we’d settled the score. After all, when you returned and summoned me, did I not immediately restore Excalibur to Arthur? Do you think that was fun for me?” She shuddered at the recollection. “Central Park Lake is not exactly the most attractive environment for one of my stature. Tossed cans, spare tires, muck everywhere…it was ghastly. But I did that for you, Merlin. I did that to make up for—”

“For betraying my trust? For trapping me? For seducing me into a damned cave for a thousand years?”

“Well…yes,” she said, sounding a bit petulant. “Are you saying it wasn’t enough?”

“How could anything be enough, you neurotic naiad?” he demanded. “Yes, you performed me that one service. Did you seriously believe that somehow evened the score? That anything could even the score? You could perform services for me from now through the end of time, and it wouldn’t be enough.”

She stared up at him sadly. “I’m sorry that you feel that way.”

“Well, honestly, Nimue? How am I supposed to trust you? I mean,” he said in frustration, “you’re looking at me now with those same sad, wet eyes that you used on me a millennium ago to stick me in that damned cave. I trusted you then and wound up much the worse for it. So on what grounds could I possibly trust you again? For that matter, I don’t even know what it is you’re doing here. You play games with me at the Magic Shack, you pop out of my bath. What’s going on, anyway?”

“What’s going on, Merlin, is that you forget who I am and what I am. I am one with the ebb and flow, not only of the world’s water, but the world’s fate. I know when things are happening and the currents of destiny are shifting.”

“The Basilisk told me much the same. She was always boasting of being able to sense when ‘the wheel was turning.’ What is it, anyway, with females of myth and legend and knowing of what’s to come? What makes the lot of you so bloody ponderous?”

“I know nothing of what the Basilisk might have been talking about,” said Vivian, “but I know what I’ve been sensing, and I came to warn you.”

“Ohhhh, you came to warn me.” Merlin laughed. “Warn me, who lives his life backwards. Who has the most highly developed sense of that which is to come in the entire history of magic. You, of all people, have come to warn me, of all people.”

“Save your boasting, Merlin,” Vivian said. “Claim to have the sight all you want, but let’s face it: You haven’t been exactly one hundred percent in foreseeing the challenges Arthur had thrown at him. For someone who purports to be omniscient, your record is less than impressive.”

His lips thinned into two very narrow lines. “Fine,” he snapped. “Tell me what you’ve come here to say.”

“I don’t truly know whether I should even bother now…”

“Dammit, woman—!”

“All right, all right,” she said with faux exasperation. “Something’s going to be happening with Arthur.”

“Something’s always happening with Arthur.”

“It’s more than that. Something big. Something global.”

Curious in spite of himself, Merlin sat up a bit straighter and cocked an eyebrow. “Really,” he said, keeping his voice sounding bored.

“Yes. And it’s going to involve the Holy Grail.”

“I see. Are you sure that you’ve got your facts on a timely basis, because he’s already…”

“And the Spear.”

That brought Merlin bolt upright. His voice dropped low and sounded nothing like the voice of a young man. Instead, it rumbled with power and implicit threat. “You had best not be joking, milady, or—”

“I would not joke about matters of such consequence, Merlin,” Vivian told him. “The Spear Luin is in the mix.”

“The Spear
cannot
be in the mix,” Merlin said. “We both know the danger that it represents.”

“Yes. You and I both do. But there are other forces involved that either don’t know…or else don’t care.”

“What other forces?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know.”

“Don’t know or won’t tell.”

She smiled elusively at him. “Couldn’t say.”

Quickly she began to backpedal for the bathroom. Now Merlin was up on his feet, clenching his fists. “Blood and thunder, Nimue! Stop playing games!”

“
You
should have been nicer to me,” she said carelessly. “I am the Lady of the Lake. I go where I wish and help whom I choose. If you mind your manners better in the future, I might choose to help you.”

“Nimue—!”

He called out an incantation even as he heard splashing in the bathtub. He charged in just in time to see energies swirling around the bathtub and the waters therein surging about. Of the Lady of the Lake, there was no sign.

“Damn you, Nimue! Get back here!” He shoved his hands into the water, splashing about furiously, soaking both his shirtfront and trousers, not to mention whatever sections of the bathroom floor hadn’t already been doused. But there was no sign of her. She had completely dissolved back into the water and from there could have gone just about anywhere in the water-based alternate plane of reality called the Clear.

He thumped his fist on the edge of the tub, his mind racing. Something happening with Arthur? Something huge, global even? What was the best way to find out what that might be? What spell would be the most appropriate means of…

“Oh, of course,” muttered Merlin, and he went to his television set. He turned it on and, plopping himself down in front of it, proceeded to channel surf to see if there was anything going on with Arthur in the world. It took him less than ten seconds to discover a news story that was being covered by every news program on every station. They went with different angles, different reporters, different interpretations of the day’s event, but essentially they all boiled down to the same thing:

A
RTHUR PENN, FORMER
president, had returned to the White House, accompanied by his wife, who had previously been as good as dead, except now she was hale and hearty. The reason he was giving for her miraculous turnaround was—according to a press conference held right in the White House—that he was truly the Arthur of Camelot fame. This was not the first time he had made such a statement. He had once claimed to be the legendary king during his run for mayor of New York after accused by a political rival of harboring such beliefs. At the time, it had been seen purely as a political strategy and been embraced as such by New York voters.

Now, though, he had taken it to new levels. Levels that were making it harder to overlook the claims or ascribe them to political gamesmanship. It was Arthur’s contention that Gwendolyne Penn had been cured through the magic of the Holy Grail…an assertion given stunning weight with not only the presence of Mrs. Penn, but also an impromptu demonstration of the alleged cup of Christ in resuscitating a stricken journalist.

Merlin moaned loudly and sagged back in his chair. Reactions were flooding in from all over the world, but none of them mattered to him. All that mattered was that he had never so wanted to throttle King Arthur as he did at that moment.