The whole world's gone crazy, and I'm the leader of the lunatics. I can't remember much of what I've been doing for the past several days, and I'm dressed like I just walked out of a Renaissance Fair. The only thing I do remember are that half of my brothers were missing, and I somehow became part of a dungeons and dragons type video game. ARENA.
I seem to be back to my real mental state, though a few random memories creep in and out. I can't believe I asked Leo if I really wasn't a prince. I'm looking at him now, trying to stifle a giggle. He's eating this up like pizza, and I'm the cheese. Go ahead Leo, laugh it up it's not my fault! I got sucked in!
Did I say I was the leader of the lunatics? Poor Donnie is still out of the loop, he still things he's his character, Donato. If I'm the leader, Donnie must be the divine king. A Monty Python movie comes to mind.
Splinter's doing some last minute fussing over Leo, Donnie is cutting some serious z's, and April is making moony eyes at kittens, who seem to have a problem staying in one place. Keno just stands there looking dazed, puppies crawling out of Donnie's bag and yapping at his feet. Ria just stands there, looking calm, cool and collected. She does that so well. Even when the whole world seems to be tumbling down, she keeps her cool. Okay, so I'm not a prince or liege, but I'll go to bat for her anyday. She's kept my big green butt safe so far.
So the plans are as follows: Leo and April to TGRI with Perry; Keno and Raph to Casey's to meet the others at TGRI after pickup; Splinter, Donnie, Ria and I to look for Jaggar Tharn. I don't like the idea of us being split up again, we just got back together.
On the other hand, I like Jaggar Tharn even less. He's the reason that Donnie's so messed up, and me for awhile. This "Donato" is interesting, but I want my brother back.
There's something else bothering me. Why is it that I was so quick to shed my alter ego and Don's still stuck in his? I guess that's an answer I'll find when we find Jaggar. It'll give me an excuse to put all this medieval hardware I've recently acquired to use. And when we find him, I'm gonna be a thorn in Tharn's side.
Ria's already begun the search on the computer. Her eyes grow wide anxiously as it indicates that he has been active. It's not fair he always seems to be one step ahead of us. This guy uses a computer to move back and forth from place to place while we do all of our running on foot. Wouldn't it be nice if we could use the same method he does? Ria's eyes go from worried to wonder as my idea hits her. Why do I suddenly feel sorry that I mentioned it?
Ria asks Don if he remembers some of the spells he'd been taught. He warily nodded yes. Excuse me, I wasn't aware Donnie could use magic. He said that he knows a few minor spells, but that he prefers to use his fighting abilities. This from a guy whose only real weapon proficiency is a bo, but I'm not sure of how much "Donato" has affected him. Ria explains as best as she understands: Donnie seems to have always had a "metaphysical" streak to him, looking to faith when science fails.
When I became a part of the game, I was just filling in a part; Donnie truly "fused" with his character, which explains why the "real" Don hasn't come back yet. Almost like being an avatar, she says.
Great. Why does stuff like this keep happening to us? Are some sort of swords and sorcery type magnet?
We won't get the real Donnie back until we find and defeat Jaggar Tharn, says Ria. Splinter nods in understanding, saying that he (Don), can't come back until he's completed the game, it must run its full course. The road home for everyone starts with the computer, the place where it all started. Ria motions for all of us to stand on front of the screen. We're going through the crystal box.
Uh, I don't know if I like this idea. Shouldn't somebody stay here to watch the screen? Donato suddenly looks very insulted. "How dare thoust even contemplate abandoning the Lady Silmane and Great Mage Splinter! Coward thou art, and surely not a prince!" Thank you Donnie. Nobody's gonna let this prince thing rest, are they?
Don starts pecking away at the keyboard while Ria stand behind him, calm and serene. She says something I don't understand, and a pencil thin beam of red light emerges from the screen. "Don't move," she says. It traces around each of us, taking the shape of our outlines. It then pulsates rapidly across us form head to toe, bathing us in a river of red lines. I feel like I'm at a dance club.
The light then shifts from red to blue, and Ria's eyes glow with gold haloed irises. The room becomes warped with a tunnel effect as all the lights suddenly go out. Why do I feel like I've done this before? I wanna run, but I stand there, fixated by what happens next.
The screen bursts into a pool of pure white light, like that first time I encountered Jaggar. There's a wind and a pulling sensation towards the screen oh no, it IS like before! Ria is blindingly transformed into a beam of white light and is sucked into the screen. The same thing then happens to Donato, then the puppies? Splinter exclaims something in Japanese as he's suddenly pulled in, and I'm the last to go.
I panic as I start to change I didn't leave a note or anything! How will the rest know where we went?! I scream "Geronimo!" as I'm jet streamed from one reality to another. I'm being digitized....
As soon as I got back to Nana Grisby's I tumbled onto the sofa and crashed out, clothes and all. I love Dan, but a girl's gotta sleep sometime, man. Ha.
Allow me to introduce myself. The name is Jessica Ann Walker, better known as Cat, and proud bearer of the title of Manhattan Queen. Call me Jessie. It rolls off the tongue easier. I play the part of the thief in this mad tale we call life, and it's a roll I take great pride in.
Believe me, I stand and deliver.
Besides being fun, pickpocketing makes life out on your own just a tad brighter. My friends and I do okay for ourselves and that isn't an easy trick at 18, lemme tell you.
Now don't think me rude, good reader, but that's all the background info you get on the kid. I just met you all, and I think a girl needs her secrets. Her past. If you want those tales, you better stick around for a long time.
But the tale for today is of Dan the Betrayer and how his fair lady the thief got involved in this whole mess.
First, I slept.
I slept deep and peaceful until I was stirred with a dream. I don't dream much, but sometimes my dreams come true. Nana calls it The Shining Lamp of God. The Shine for short. Just like the Stephen King book. I just think it's a mild annoyance in my life the dreams are never that important.
This dream was different. Mostly the dreams are vivid, but this one was blurred, flashes of motion, voices crying out in the dark. I heard Dan's voice, and I turned and that's when the dream became very vivid.
I was alone in the darkness, and then two people stepped forward from the shadows to stand before me. The first was a woman, a woman so stunningly beautiful she hardly seemed human. She could have been my age, or over a hundred for her face seemed young, but it held knowledge of the ages. She had kind eyes, like my mother's, and her gown was so bright it hurt to try and look at it.
Her companion was humanoid, but by no means human. It was a rat or a mouse, standing on two legs at about 5 feet high. It wore a gray robe, and leaned on a walking stick that it gripped in one hand. But his face, as strange as it was, was also kind and I felt no fear of him, only a calmness and a deep and strange loneliness.
"You must help us." The woman spoke in a voice to shame songbirds. "Please, seer. You must."
She turned away and faded from my sight. I tried to reach out and catch her gown, to hold her so she would answer all my questions. "Wait! I don't understand! Wait!" But she was gone.
The rat touched my arm, and I turned to him only to be lost in his eyes. He looked at me with such sorrow and such kindness I thought I must weep. "Jessica" he said, gently. His voice cooled my panic, and eased my confusion. He spoke to me as one would to comfort a little lost child.
I tried to speak, ask him how he knew my name, and then I was sitting up, breathing hard and trying to calm my heart.
The dream was trying to fade from my mind, and I didn't want that. I needed to hold on to part of it, remember to try and understand. I leapt off the sofa, grabbed my notebook and quickly made a sketch of the rat's face. It was a rough, quick drawing but it would do nicely.
I flopped back on the sofa, trying to understand. Death's kind brother Sleep had other plans though, and soon I was lost in his dark eyes, until Nana'a voice roused me.
"Jessie. Eh, Jessie Child. your boy's here, and he look like hell behind him."
"What time is it?" I groaned, raising my head.
"5:30," Nana grinned. "Crack o' dawn, girl." Her teeth flashed white against her silk chocolate skin. The lady is pushing 65 and she doesn't look a day over 40. An amazing lady. A Manhattan Queen of her own making, only older and a lot wiser than this kid.
"I'm up." I growled, thinking how hard I was going to kick Dan's ass for rousing me. "Go back to bed Nanna. It's too early for little old ladies to be up."
She grinned again. "To hell with you, Jessie Child. I can still whoop your ass any day."
"Yes Ma'am," I laughed, despite the hour, and she ducked back into her room.
Dan came in a moment later, looking like a little fox just escaped from the hounds. When I saw him, the ol' queen in me rose up like a tigress. He looked so helpless, so scared, I wanted to surround him and shelter him from whatever his fear was, to fight and keep it at bay.
"Dan," I said, rising. "What the hell happened to you? Are you okay?"
He nodded, catching his breath. "I ran all the way from across town. No time to get the jeep, but I'm okay. I need your help Jessie. My...." He paused trying put a suitable word in, "... friends are in danger."
Friends. Not the right word, I could tell by the tone and set of his mouth.
"You got it, Baby. What's going on?" I urged.
"That's just it. I can't really tell you. I mean, mostly I don't know, but...." His eyes wandered away in confusion and nervousness, and fell on my notebook still open on the table. His face went sheet white, his eyes were great pools of alarm. "Oh my god. Splinter? How... where did you get this?!" He snatched the book up.
"It's a dream sketch." I said. "What of it?"
"You can't know him... dream? You dreamt about him?"
"Whatta mean? He isn't real. Babe, you're not making any sense."
He looked at me and I saw total belief in his eyes. "He is real. And he's part of this."
"That's not funny," I snapped.
"I'm not joking," he said softly.
You know very well it wasn't just a dream. It was one of those dreams. A shine. You felt it. Stop trying to play professor and analyze everything. Just take care of what you need to do. My instincts scolded. They've never failed me yet, so I never ignore them.
"All right, what do I need to do?" I asked.
He began to talk, and I knew I had a hell of a day coming.
Finding out where his Casey Jones friend was roomed held no problem. Two phone calls, and we were en route to St. Vincent's hospital to see the ol' boy.
When we arrived, I got another surprise.
"KENO!" I yelled. "Keno man! Ain't seen you in ages? What the hell are you doing here!" I snatched his hand and pumped it. Holy Christ. I hadn't seen him since I moved in with Nanna.
Keno. What a lad. I'd met him a few years earlier in the same way I seem to meet everyone under really strange circumstances.
See, I'm a huge Brandon Lee fan. So you can imagine how bummed I was when he got killed making The Crow. What better way to pay my respects, I figured, than to see his last masterpiece on opening night. I busted my ass over to The Aladdin on 13th and Broadway for the big night. Front row seat and all the munchies a girl could want. Well, I loved the flick, and I cried my eyes out a couple of times during the story. Just so happened, a really nice young man is sitting right behind me. He saw that I was bawling, and gave me a bunch of tissues when I really got at it. I thought it was really sweet, but he vanished before I could thank him.
Leaving the theater after the show, I hear some noise in the alley next to The Aladdin. Some drunk guys got the lad mixed up with someone else, and started beating on him. Now, the boy is doing a major Bruce Lee act on them, but six to one is a bit much, and he's getting hurt. So I figure the best way to say thanks is to kick a little ass on his behalf. I mess up one or two, we walk away, and the boy introduces himself as Keno. Turns out he was a big Bruce and Brandon fan too.
We got to be buds. He's helped me out of a jam of two. And I watched The Crow at his apartment as soon as the video came out. I cried, he handed me Kleenex again. He's a cool dude in my book.
"Visiting," Keno grinned back. "You?"
"Same. Dan's got a friend on this floor and...." I broke off as Keno leaned forward and muttered something to Dan. I frowned. They know each other. It was a thought I didn't like.
"So you know Dan?" Keno asked.
"Yeah, you could say that." I wrapped an arm around Dan's shoulders. The boy looked like he needed a hug. "He's my Knight in shining Levi's."
"You guys are an item?" Keno looked surprised.
"Yeah. Jealous Keno Lee?" I grinned.
"Yeah, Cat. Me an' Casey wanted you." He laughed.
"We came to see how he is," Dan said.
"He'll live, but it'll be awhile before he's breaking heads again," Keno offered, and Dan looked away ashamed.
"You did what you could." I took his hand and squeezed. "Don't dump on yourself like this, Baby."
"I know, it's just, after all that's happened, I wish I could redeem myself."
Keno looked at him. "I'll tell you how. Come with me and meet up with the others."
Dan gave a lame excuse about guarding Casey. He was afraid, which is no shame in my book, but it was something I knew he would have to be forced into dealing with.
"Be back in a minute." I took off the down the hall. I figured I would get Casey a little home security.
"May I see George O'Mally?" I asked the duty desk nurse.
"One moment." She got on the phone and called the head of hospital security.
"Jessie Walker!" he cried, scooping me up in a big brother hug. George is a mountain of a man, 6'6" if he's an inch. Looks just like that Dauber kid on Coach, except his hairline's not receding. Boy's a weapon's expert, a black belt in Karate and a six year student of both Ti Quan Do and Kung Fu. Basically, he can kick major ass. I helped his sister out a few hears ago she had a spot of trouble with a heroin dealer. Fixed that, and got her into rehab. George says I saved her life. I don't know about that, but I do know that he loves me as much as he loves her, and I treasure that.
"Need a favor, Bear," I said. "The dude in 145b has some major assholes out for him. Ninja Gang members."
"Sounds tough," George said.
"Not for George 'The Giant O'Mally. You can handle this. Get a few outside guys in here."
George knows more martial arts masters than I know pickpockets. And they'd listen to him, what's more.
"You got it, Cat. You say, I do," he smiled.
"Good man." I kissed his cheek. "I owe ya a beer."
He laughed, and we split. I headed back to the boys, relieved to find they hadn't torn each other's heads off.
"All set," I said. "Let's blow this joint."
The boys exchanged a look and followed. They both know when Walker says done she means it.
After I found the note at the labs, Keno filled me in on who the Doc was. This just added to my curiosity. "Who's Leo?" I continued.
Dan started. "He's...."
"... My brother," a voice said, and the turtle stepped into the room.
Holy Shit I blinked. This god damn 5'6" talking turtle was standing there in front of me, looking me over with caution and curiosity. I looked back, and my dream
"Jessica."
That voice speaking my name in tones I hadn't heard since my mother died.
I looked back, and grinned suddenly. This was weird, but it was the most interesting thing that had happened to me.
At least, that week.
The turtle... Raph... was saying something about Casey, so I focused on the conversation and found I had his answer.
"Hi," I held out my hand, instantly relieved that he took it and shook, "Jessie Walker. Dan told me what happened, and we went to the hospital, met with Keno, and came here. I called in a whole heap of favors, and I guarantee you Casey's being watched by the best. Trust me, if these guys try anything, they'll get a run for their money before they get their asses kicked out of the ball park."
"All right. If Keno says you're cool, I'm down with that. Let's get to April's."
"Right." I let him and Keno lead, with Dan just behind and the Kid bringing up the rear. I had no idea what was next, but I hoped this Splinter guy was part of it. I wanted to know how he'd found his way into my dream. How he knew my name. What he wanted from me.
Well, I told myself, look at the bright side. They might just need a thief on this trip. Any way you look at it girl, it's a hell of an adventure.
That was good enough for me.
We headed out, Keno and Raph in the lead, Jess and me trusting their guidance. Jessie seemed to be lost in her own world of thought, but even if she wasn't talking much, it was nice to have someone there who didn't think I was the biggest worm in the Big Apple. I was getting really sick of people assuming I was really Dani the Betrayer.
After a moment, she seemed to wake, and she smiled at me a little nervous smile. "This is getting very weird, Dan my dear. But I'm loving it. I am loving it!"
"That makes one," I smiled back.
She suddenly looked around the street. The first pink of dawn was lightening the sky, but she didn't notice. "Hang on," she grinned. "I know this Ave. Aces! I'll be right back... I want some back up of my own."
"No more people," Raph said. "Sorry, but you're not even supposed to know about us."
"Trust me, he won't say a word." She grabbed my hand and darted across the street into an apartment building, towing me.
"Be cool, Dan," she said, ascending the stairs to an apartment. "This is okay."
She knocked, and a Puerto Rican boy of about 18 opened the the door. "Chica!" he laughed. "Where the hell have you been?"
"Around. Nicky, is Jean here?"
"No, he's on a date," Nick laughed like this was the funniest joke ever spoken.
Jessie chuckled, "I need him, Nicky."
The boy turned to shout behind him, "Hey Jean! Your girl is back!"
I was about to ask who the hell this Jean guy was, when the whisper of pads on a hardwood floor and click of nails answered the question. Jean flung himself past Nick and nearly knocked Jessie over in his joy.
Jean was a wolf, I was sure of it. The biggest god damn wolf I had ever seen. But Jessie knelt, and began scratching the ruff of fur that covered the animal's neck, as he lapped her face with a huge slobbering tongue. I caught a glimpse of his teeth, and had no doubt he could tear my arm off as easily as a baby sucks his thumb. Not pretty.
"Hey boy," Jessie said softly. "Missed you."
The dog whined a little at her voice, a sound full of longing and love.
"Wanna do some work?" Jessie grinned.
Jean barked, a sound that rocked my ears, and his great tail beat furiously.
"All right boy," she stood. "Thanks Nicky," she said.
"Be careful Rina los Gatos." Nick smiled and shut the door.
We met back with the others. Raph looked Jean over with amusement and annoyance. "A dog?" he asked.
"No dog. A husky/timber wolf/St. Bernard mix. The smartest, strongest, and all around best dog on the isle. Best of all, he won't tell a soul about you." She smiled.
"A dog," he said, not buying it.
"Jean," Jessie said, and the dog looked at her with his piercing blue eyes like she was his god. Maybe she was. Every inch of the dog was at her command.
"Ki," she said, and lay her palm flat, parallel to the ground. Jean crouched. We watched.
"Na," Jessie said, made a fist and punched out in the air. "Lo," she rolled her fists around each other. The dog quivered slightly, but stayed still.
She looked at Raph, smiled and said quietly, "Cre."
Jean was a blur of silver gray. Raph was on his back, with Jean on him in a moment. He whipped out a sai, but the dog was already rolling away, as Jessie had motioned. Jean was back at Jessie's side in another second. She scratched behind his ears, and he seemed to grin. "Good dog," Jessie said. "You are the best dog."
Raph got up. Jessie regarded him.
"If I'd told him Mor, you wouldn't have a neck right now."
"I get the point. He stays," Raph resumed walking.
"Nice going lady day," Keno laughed. "His ego will be hurting for a week. He's been outdone by a damn dog."
She laughed. "C'mon boys. We got work."
We stared into the apartment. "Oh shit." Keno mumbled. It was a disaster area. Looked like a herd of elephants had tangoed through. Shadows pressed everywhere.
"What the hell....?" Jessie murmured.
Jean growled, a low and deadly sound, and crouched to attack.
We jumped, and that was when a shadow stepped forward and spoke.
Go back to Part Three, Chapter Two