CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Twenty three days till the Global Unveiling of Bluetannia: The T110 Motorcycle roared through the middle of Colchester like a rocket, its lone headlight shining brightly on the blacktop. The cold breeze shot straight at Amanda’s face as she clung for dear life around Chabe’s massive waist. She was never a big fan of motorcycles growing up. The noise, the smog, the reckless amount of danger exhibited by the people who ride them. It seemed to Amanda like a painful way to either die or help a Dentist send his or her child to college.

Every inch of her upper body tensed up as she moved her face away from the bugs flying directly at them. “Of all the vehicles you could have manifested, Chabe,” Amanda screamed. “Why couldn’t you choose one with four wheels and a roof?”

“Have you seen the automobiles you humans ride in,” he replied over the roaring engines. “If I stepped out of one of those things, can you honestly tell me no one would run away or try to kill me?”

“Good point.”

“What in the Dark Lands are you complaining about anyhow,” Chabe added turning the behemoth vehicle to the left. “This is what you signed up for, is it not?”

She tensed up to reply, but realized soon that Chabe was right. There were times that Amanda actively fought against it. To cling to some semblance of normalcy from the world she had been thrown into. But she realized that she could fight it no longer. This was the life he chose. Report the events of the world by day, and save it with magic motorcycles and swords by night. She had the chance to take Brigid’s offer and fly back to Seattle, and chose to stay.

The motorcycle stopped fifteen minutes later across from the Gerry Arthur mine just as night started to fall. The office building to the north was dark. The security guard on duty stepped out of the security outpost behind them a few moments later. He proceeded to pace back and forth in a straight line, not noticing their presence as he kept a watchful eye out for intruders. Chabe hopped off of the vehicle with his hand on one of the handlebars and the other hand grabbing hold of his duffle bag. “What do we do now?” He asked, carefully examining the guard.

“A good distraction would be nice,” Amanda replied, hopping off the back seat a couple of beats after Chabe. As they walked behind the motorcycle, it morphed into native foliage tall enough to keep them both out of the guard’s sight. “Not sure what it'd look like though.”

Chabe pondered for a moment, looking down at the ground. Suddenly, a spark of inspiration hit him. “How good are you at conjuring up rain or fog?”

Amanda tilted her head to the side in surprise at Chabe. “How did you know—,” she realized the answer to his question and continued with her train of thought. “To be honest, I’m not really that good at it. I basically did it once, and that—.”

“Consider this on the job training, then!” Chabe shoved Amanda in the back out in the middle of the road.

Ms. Duncan turned back around after taking a few steps forward, hoping to fire back angrily at Chabe. But he was nowhere to be found. “I hate on the job training,” Amanda grumbled, holding the middle of his back and moving toward the outpost.

The security guard overheard Amanda’s grumbling and stopped. He caught sight of him in the distance and started to approach him, moving his hand toward his weapon. “Oh crap!” Ms. Duncan panicked and ran into a darkened part of the road out of sight. She then tried to focus her energies in the same way he did back in the Boardroom.

A couple of minutes later, gray clouds started to form in the sky above them which rumbled and roared. The clouds grew increasingly darker with each passing second and froze in position above the security outpost. She kept her focus on the clouds, trying to hurry the process along as the guard moved closer to their position. After a moment, she looked up and noticed something weird about the clouds. “That doesn’t look like fog. That looks more like—”

Suddenly, a massive bolt of lightning shot out of the clouds in the direction of the outpost, instantly engulfing it in flames upon impact. The guard stopped and turned back around to see the outpost bathed in a piercing orange glow. He ran back to the fire a split second later in tears, calling for the Fire Brigade from his mobile phone.

“That will work nicely,” Chabe uttered, emerging from the bush walking past Amanda as she looked on with mouth agape at the scene.

A few minutes later, he stopped at a section of the gate. He put the bag on the ground and flashed his razor sharp claws. Chabe looked out from his periphery and noticed that Amanda had not moved an inch. She was still staring in amazement at the burning outpost as the clouds started to turn into a noticeable fog.

“Are you coming or what?” Chabe yelled from a distance.

“Oh yeah…yeah, I’m coming.” Amanda shook off the fog and returned to the present. She took a few steps toward Chabe before he remembered Chabe’s sword sitting out in the middle of the road in bush form for all to see. She grabbed one of its branches and uttered the keyword to himself. The bush glowed for a few quick seconds before it returned to its cell phone form.

“This century, ese!” Chabe bellowed out as Amanda picked the phone up.

“I said I’m coming,” Amanda sneered, putting it in her pocket and jogging over to where Chabe stood. “Just taking care of a few things.”

Amanda watched with puzzlement as the bear god focused intently on the perfect part of the fence to attack. “What are you doing?” She asked.

“Lining up the perfect carve,” Chabe replied, moving his big right hand in the sky. “I have to be absolutely precise with it.”

“That seems a bit anal retentive, don’t you think,” Amanda said mockingly. “Why not just let loose and swing away?”

Chabe growled, ignoring the remark as he swung his right hand forcefully on to the metal fence. A few moments later, a five and a half foot section of metal loosened from the rest of the gate and fell limply on the blacktop on the other side.

“If I was off by even a tenth of an inch,” he explained to Amanda as he walked through the newly formed hole. “that little chunk of gate would have shot out at you and left one hell of a welt on your chest as well as those of every poor sucker in its path ten miles away.”

“Has that ever happened before?” Amanda nervously asked as she stepped through the hole behind the Bear God.

“Oh yes. A long, long time ago,” Chabe gazed up at the somewhat foggy night sky. “I drank a lot of tequila at a pub in Manchester and started showing off to a couple of equally knackered Chelsea supporters and their lovely senoritas. I ended up destroying three houses and part of a church three miles from the pub.”

“That definitely puts my past partying into harsh perspective.” Amanda remarked with a chuckle as they continued up the parking lot. Chabe chuckled lightly as the glow of the orange lights blended together to create an eerie scene around the large span of blacktop.

“What if the security cameras catch us here?” Amanda asked, gazing up at the top of the light poles a few car lengths from them. “Aren’t you worried we’re gonna get found out somehow?”

“Don’t worry my friend,” Chabe replied, calmly glancing in the same area as Amanda. “The fog and the little fire you started should buy us enough time to do what needs to be done.”

“And if you’re wrong?”

Chabe smiled as he stepped up on the concrete sidewalk. He then showed Amanda his massive hand with its claws still out. “Never leave home without them!”

***

Five minutes later, the two men arrived at the back of the building. They stared out at the vast stretch of nothingness there. The only thing they could see was a blue speck in the distance. There were also a row of unused and relatively undamaged hovercrafts lying a few feet away from them. Chabe walked around the left half of one of the vehicles carefully examining it.

“This must be how they get to the mine itself,” he remarked, placing the bag on the ground and his free hand on top of the driver’s side door. “Now, why on earth would they need something? One would think a Jeep would be sufficient for the job”

“As long as it’s functional, I’m not complaining.” Amanda grinned, moving over to the passenger side door.

“Hold on, my friend. There is one little problem to solve,” Chabe remarked moments before Amanda could open the door. “How are we going to turn the vehicle on?”

Amanda looked around at the seat for a few moments and saw nothing initially. “Well, shit!” She cried, hanging his head down dejectedly and walking a couple of steps away from it.

They spent the next couple of minutes searching the area around the craft in the hopes they would find the keys for it. All they found were rocks, clumps of mud, and mushrooms coming out of the grass. Chabe opened his duffle bag up and started to search for any tools that could be of assistance. After a short time of searching, he too could find nothing that could be feasible for the job.

“How comfortable would you be hotwiring a hovercraft?” Chabe asked Amanda, standing back up.

“About as comfortable as swallowing cow dung,” Amanda replied with a quizzical look on her face. “Why you ask?”

“I think I may have come up with a way to start this hovercraft up.” Chabe said, zipping the bag up and lifting it inside the craft as he sat back down on the driver’s seat.

Amanda scratched her head, watching as the bear god got comfortable on the seat. “I’m sorry, still a little lost here.” She said.

Chabe chuckled and patted the passenger seat a couple of times. “Just get in, Al. The plan is predicated upon your participation.”

Amanda sighed in disbelief and opened the door. “What do you mean?” She asked as he sat down on the seat next to Chabe.

“Place your hand on the ignition.” Chabe commanded.

Amanda casually reached across from where Chabe sat and placed her hand on the empty ignition. “Now, what?”

“Do what you did in summoning the lightning bolt.”

Amanda immediately pulled her hand off of the ignition upon hearing it. “You mean the thing that nearly killed the damn security guard?” He fired back.

“It is all about control, my friend,” said Chabe reassuringly. “You have a massive amount of power at your disposal. If you can harness even a tiny bit of it, there is no limit to what you could be able to accomplish.”

Amanda shook her head. “There has to be a better way. You--You sure there isn’t a better method to hotwiring it?”

“Not unless you’ve acquired a skill for electrical repair I’ve yet to know about.”

“Alright, then.” Amanda took a deep breath and focused on trying to replicate the same surge of energy she had back in the Boardroom. After a few minutes, the young woman could feel it starting to move through her right arm. The force both excited and agonized Amanda as it rattled through every bone and muscle in her body as it moved up toward the palm of his hand. After another couple of minutes, she tried to focus the full fury of it into the ignition’s keyhole with little success.

“By the glorious Gods above, man, you can do it,” Chabe cheered, watching as Amanda struggled to summon the energy out of her body. “Don’t try to force it. Just let it flow!”

The struggles continued for another minute as Amanda tried to focus the ball of energy inside her into the narrow hole. Finally, she could feel it shoot out of her hand in a steady stream into the ignition. A few seconds later, the hovercraft hummed and roared to life. She slowly moved his hand away and back to her side. Ms. Duncan started to laugh in amazement and disbelief for a short while at what she had just done.

“Well done, Amanda,” Chabe chuckled, pulling the flashlight out of the bag and handing it to him. “Let’s get to work!”

He then retracted his claws and gripped the steering wheel firmly, lifting the hovercraft off the ground shortly after. Amanda clicked the red power button, showing a bright beam of light on her face as the two of them flew northward.

***

For a little over seven minutes, the only thing either Chabe or Amanda could see from the glare of the flashlight were dirt and foliage native of the area. There was also a blue speck that appeared far from view. “Have there been other Páistí who have had these…weather powers before?” Amanda asked, trying to break up the silence that had built up between the two of them along the way.

Chabe pondered it for a moment, looking out at the empty road in front of him. “I’m not certain precisely. It depended on their godly parents,” he finally replied. “There were those who had great strength, invulnerability, and the power of flight. Some if I remember correctly had the power to control weather and the elements, such as yourself.”

“What about psychic powers,” Amanda inquired further. “Were there Páistí who had them?”

“I’ve seen it in some, yes,” Chabe turned to the side briefly. He could see the nervous energy permeating all over Amanda’s face. “Why do you ask?”

“Oh, nothing.” The nervous energy continued bubbling unabated as Amanda looked down at the blank landscape below. It remained silent for a handful of seconds as Amanda tried to calm herself down.

“What happened to the other Páistí?” Amanda asked.

Chabe was stone faced for a second. “There was a phrase an old comrade used to say moons ago. ‘El destino es una brújula que un hombre debe tener siempre constante.’ Fate is a compass which a man must always keep constant,” he replied. “I would be wise to heed those words in the future, my friend.”

Amanda sat back in her seat and tried frantically to shift her mind off the bleak picture. Suddenly, in the distance, she saw a mysterious pyramid-like structure coming to view where the blue speck was.

“We’re here!” Chabe smiled upon seeing the structure in the distance as he planned out the upcoming descent to the ground.

Just as Amanda celebrated, the bear god’s focus was jolted suddenly by a large noise. The noise sent Amanda’s heart leaping into the middle of her throat and caused her to lose his grip of the flashlight. She tried to recover it before it fell over the edge, but it was too late. She watched helplessly as it fell like a rock back down to the ground.

Ms. Duncan looked over the edge of the hovercraft to see if any sparks shot out where it landed. All she could see was the outline of a tube or pipe in the same area where the flashlight crashed. In the middle of the hole, Amanda noticed a blue glow emanating out of the same hole.

“Turn around, Chabe,” Amanda uttered as the craft moved further away from it.

“Why?” Chabe asked incredulously.

“I just saw some type of...pipe or something on the ground,” Amanda replied. “Around where the flashlight hit.”

“Pipes?” Chabe raised an eyebrow at the comment from Amanda. “I wonder if it’s related to…”

A split second later, the bear god jerked the massive craft around one-hundred eighty degrees and started to fly back toward the crash and the blue beam that shot out into the sky. A couple of minutes, he settled down on a plot of dirt a short distance from the crash. Chabe unbuckled from his seat and immediately walked over to the hole, gazing inside. “The sweetheart deal, of course.” He said, shaking his head.

“What deal?” Amanda asked as he stepped out of the hovercraft and walked toward the bear god.

“There was a deal a few days ago that slid underneath the hype of Mr. Arnold’s pene. It was between the MP of Colchester and the Prime Minister,” Chabe turned his gaze back to the skies and set back off to the derrick. “The government allows some of the Bluetannia to filter into town to juice up the electric grid. And the MP helps kill the no-confidence vote in Parliament.”

“Why didn’t you guys tell me about it?” She remarked insultingly, charging up to Chabe.

“You didn’t need to know.” Chabe sidestepped past Amanda on his way back to the driver’s seat. Amanda groaned in frustration, moving back over to the passenger’s side as Chabe buckled in.

“Nice to know shady politics isn’t just a feature of my country.” She snarked as he sat back down and buckled in.

“Where do you think you Yanks learned it from?” Chabe uttered with a smile as he lifted the hovercraft in the sky back toward the blue pyramid-like structure.

***

Fifteen minutes later, the hovercraft descended in an empty patch of dirt in front of the blue pyramid-like structure. Chabe was the first to unbuckle from his seat and step out of the vehicle, pulling the duffle bag from the backseat.

“How the hell are we gonna see our way inside?” Amanda asked as she unbuckled and stepped out a few seconds after the bear god.

Chabe unzipped the bag and pulled out a couple of long wooden poles three feet long. “A little something I got from the Greek God of fire after a card game one new year’s eve.”

Amanda grabbed the pole and examined it briefly. Suddenly, a bright fire popped up on top which caused a bright circle around where she stood. “Instant Tiki torches,” she uttered, staring briefly at the orange flame. “Why couldn’t I have just used this instead of searching around for a flashlight?”

“I didn’t want you to lose it,” Chabe replied, lighting his own torch and moving ahead to the entrance. “It makes for brilliant furniture in my flat.”

Amanda followed behind the bear God, moving the torch to the left and right in order to get a better view of the area. She noticed immediately the lack of development that made up the mine compared to the complex miles away. All there was were three office trailers and a tarp that covering what appeared to be a makeshift mess hall where the workers would eat.

They arrived a few minutes later in front of the entrance to the tall pyramid structure. Amanda walked up to the electronic panel next to the cast-iron door, which was being protected by a plastic cover. She put the torch in his opposite hand and tried to open it as Chabe watched over his shoulder.

“It's locked,” Ms. Duncan uttered after trying to jimmy open the plastic cover of the panel a couple of times to no avail.

“Let me try another way.” Chabe handed Amanda the torch and his dufflebag and took ten steps back.

“What do you mean?” Amanda looked on in a state of confusion as Chabe did a deep squat down to the ground. He then shot up like a cannon eight feet high in the air, gliding forward and grabbing one of the metal beams effortlessly.

“Show off!” Amanda shouted, watching as the bear god slid inside the building.

Amanda paced around in front of the entrance, waiting for her friend. The minutes piled on as the door remained closed. Suddenly, she heard a couple of thuds emanating from inside. She leaned his ear close to the base of the door in order to hear it more clearly. A short moment later, the door slid open. Amanda tumbled inside the opened doorway and bumped his head on the floor. She groaned in pain, placing his hand over his head as he got back on his feet.

“Wasn’t expecting the sliding door there.” Chabe chuckled, grabbing his torch next to the panel and lifting the young woman the rest of the way up to her feet. He then went back to retrieve his dufflebag before walking back inside. Amanda chuckled weakly as she followed three steps behind.

The two of them marveled at the beautiful clear blue of the pools as well as the individual veins that littered the walls of the massive structure. The collective glow illuminated every inch around them as they moved toward one of the pools. “You do have an idea how you are going to collect the Bluetannia sample, right?” Chabe queried, putting the pole in the ground next to him as he stood over the pool’s edge.

“Of course, I do.” Amanda replied, standing a few feet away from him. A split second later, she mimicked the bear god placing her Tiki pole in the ground.

She reached into his jean pocket and pulled out an empty glass jar she had used as a kid for spare change. “Never thought I’d use it for something like this,” the woman muttered under his breath, unscrewing the lid. She then dipped it into the pool and scooped a few ounces of the light blue liquid out. As it moved down the inside of the jar like maple syrup, a violent shock overtook her and froze her in place.

Amanda was immediately transported mentally to the post-apocalyptic setting of her dream. She could feel the crunch and crackle of the black top beneath her feet as she walked. She could see the boarded up shops and smell the fire and putrid smoke bellowing up into the air from the destroyed cars. She could see Brigid scream for help as the Gaelic goddess tried to stop the glowing blue ball over the center of London. And the devastation...the indescribable devastation when it landed, turning the city to ash and melting her flesh like candle wax.

“I’m sorry...I failed you.” Amanda weakly bellowed as tears trickled down her glazed eyes.

The human woman repeated the fateful statement in a steady monotone as her hand gripped the glass jar. Chabe noticed his state a short time later and forcefully pulled her away from the pool.

“Amanda...Amanda,” he screamed, hoping it would snap Amanda from her comatose state. Chabe tried again a second later, this time closer to her ear. “What the hell are you going on about?”

Like Chabe’s previous try, Amanda remained in place reciting the same five words coldly back at him. He tried a couple more times to forcefully shake Amanda by her shoulders back to the real world to no avail. “Come on, kid,” Chabe helplessly sighed, dropping his arms to his side. “Give me something. Anything!”

Chabe racked his brain to figure out how to wake up. Finally, he raised his right hand and slapped Amanda across his face as hard as he could. He repeated the action a couple of more times on alternate sides of her face. At first, it appeared that it too had no effect on him. Then, Amanda stopped speaking suddenly and closed her eyes. Chabe took three big steps behind him and observed what would happen next.

“AHHH!”

Amanda opened her eyes and let out an ear-piercing scream, surprising the seven-footer. As Chabe regained his senses, he noticed that Amanda’s eyes had lost its glossy look. Something inside him had a hunch that his friend was back.

“Owww! Holy hell,” Amanda cried, looking at Chabe as she clutched the left side of his face. “Why does my jaw hurt all of a sudden?”

As she rubbed his face, the jar of Bluetannia loosened out of her hand and began to fall. Chabe picked it up from his periphery and grabbed hold of the glass jar moments before it would have cracked on the ground. The two of them looked at each other as Chabe lifted the jar that hovered millimeters off the ground to his chest.

“It's a long story, my friend,” he said handing the jar back to Amanda. "Suffice to say though...I only did it as a last resort."

“What happened to me,” Amanda said woozily, regaining her bearings. “It felt like I sort of blacked out there.”

Chabe looked up to the ceiling for a few moments and let out an exasperated sigh. “You went into a frozen comatose state when you got the Bluetannia and said ‘I’m sorry…I failed you!’ for over twenty minutes.”

Amanda’s face immediately turned white. She timidly moved away from the bear god. Chabe noticed the strange behavior from his friend and pursued her step for step. “You know more than you’re letting on...don't you.”

“Oh that’s ridiculous,” Amanda said nervously as she continued to backpedal from the bear god. “Like I would cover up something I barely remember.”

Chabe grabbed Amanda by the shoulder and planted her down in one place. “What—the hell—happened to you?!” He bellowed an inch from his face.

“It was just a dream.” Amanda fired back empathically.

Chabe found the explanation hard to believe. His curiosity grew as he approached Amanda. “What kind of dream?”

Amanda struggled to keep the secret inside. A few moments later though, she couldn’t hold it any longer. “I dreamt that London was destroyed in a massive explosion.”

Chabe’s blood went cold when he heard it. “The Athghiniúna.” He said, quickly pulling his pole out of the ground. “Oh infierno, this could be bad.”

Amanda picked her pole out of the ground after the bear god. She rubbed her eyes which were irritated by dust in the air. Suddenly, the human woman was bombarded by images of a café window and a stainless steel suitcase.

“What’s going on?” said Chabe, observing Amanda for a moment.

Amanda shook his head. “Nothing. Just…a little stuff in my eye.” Before she could ask Chabe what the Athghiniúna was, her attention was interrupted by the sound of banging in the distance.

“It’s the police,” Amanda cried out fearfully, pulling her torch out of the ground. “I knew someone was spying on us!"

“Relax, Amanda. It’s not the cops,” Chabe calmly uttered. “Unless Colchester’s finest are secretly harboring Clark Kent within their ranks.”

Amanda flashed a raised eyebrow at Chabe’s reference. “What? I happen to like Superman,” Chabe said defensively. “Though personally, I think he would lose in a fight against Alowatsakima.”

Before she could debate Chabe on the merits of that argument, they were drawn to the doorway as the banging grew louder and more frequent. “How are we gonna get out of here?” Amanda asked as she could feel her heart wildly racing.

Chabe grinned, grabbing the duffle bag and putting it on. He then wrapped his arm around his waist, pulling him closer. “What are you doing, Chabe?” Amanda asked as Chabe took the torch out of her hand.

“Hang on,” Chabe grinned, taking a deep breath. “And make sure the jar’s closed tight!”

He quickly sprinted ten feet and shot up like a rocket high into the air. Amanda screamed at the top of his lungs, trying to tighten the lid on the jar as Chabe landed three seconds later on one of the structure’s metal beams. Amanda was able, even with the added duress, to screw the lid on. But not before a small droplet of the Bluetannia slipped out and landed like a small firecracker on the ground.

Amanda muttered some thankful praises under her breath as Chabe looked down at the field and put the two torches back in his duffle bag. She caught a sight of a small group of people below him who were at the door, comparing it to the hovercraft parked out in the distance. They appeared to the bear god like nondescript teenagers at first glance.

“I wonder if I could clear that without getting discovered,” Chabe remarked. “Only one way to try.”

Amanda glanced over toward Chabe’s grinning face. A sense of dread fell in the pit of her throat. “Oh fuck—”

Chabe clutched Amanda again and immediately jumped off the beam fifty feet away from both the group of people and the hovercraft. The moment Chabe landed, he wriggled Amanda out of his grip as she screamed. He let it go for a few moments before slapping Amanda in the back of her head stopping the screaming.

“Okay, that's enough of that crap!” Amanda cried indignantly, holding the back of his head.

“With all due respect, Amanda, I just saved our asses in there,” Chabe uttered angrily. “Do you want to put it back in danger?!”

They stared at each other for a couple of seconds before setting off to safety. A hint of blue started to blend within the formerly black darkness, signaling the coming dawn and the return of workers to the mine.

***

A half-hour passed before the two of them arrived at a strip of bumpy, unkempt road seven meters away from the Mine. Chabe stopped at the edge of a stretch of road, gazing at the landscape. Amanda was five steps behind him, looking behind to see if anyone from the group was following. When she finally turned back around, she wildly shifted to the left trying to avoid crashing into Chabe. The move ended up causing Amanda to trip and fall face first on the silty rock filled dirt.

“Why are we stopping?” Amanda said, pushing himself off the ground and dusting the dirt from her shirt and jeans.

“You still have my phone in your pocket?” Amanda timidly nodded, dusting off her face as she pulled the bear god’s phone out of his pocket and handed it to him.

“Have you ever been in a helicopter before, Ms. Duncan?” Chabe asked, flashing a playful grin as he gripped the phone from his friend's hand.

“No, I...can’t say I have,” Amanda replied with a confused look on his face. “Why?”

Three seconds later, Chabe went down on one knee and placed the phone in the middle of the road. “I would take a step back if I were you,” he warned Amanda. “Preferably four or five steps”

Amanda took the deity’s advice, quickly moving over next to Chabe. They watched as the phone transformed itself over the course of a few minutes into a jet black helicopter. There was a logo of a bear claw shaped into a C emblazoned on the side of the aircraft.

She examined the helicopter a few moments and reflexively started to laugh. “What are you laughing about, Amanda,” Chabe shot back defensively. “I can’t have a little style?”

“It’s not that,” Amanda replied containing his laughter. “I was just thinking we could have taken this thing here instead of that stupid motorcycle.”

“We did ride in a chopper here,” Chabe said with a straight face. “That’s what you Americans call motorcycles, right? Choppers?”

Amanda struggling to come up with a response as Chabe walked inside. All she could manage were an assortment of guttural groans before walking over to the passenger seat and buckling herself in.

“Have you operated a chopper,” Amanda stopped herself in the middle of the statement and quickly chuckled. “—I mean, helicopter before?”

Chabe grinned at the question, silently disposing of the idea as the blades powered up. He then gripped the steering wheel and lifted the helicopter high into. “Check this out!”

Once he had acquired enough altitude a couple of minutes later, he engaged in a set of stunts that only a well-trained pilot could do. He then moved into doing multiple barrel rolls in the Eastern English sky. It was followed shortly after by maneuvers such as the Cuban Eight and the English Bunt. The bear god could hear the sound of a distressed yelp coming from Amanda in the other seat as he was thrown around the helicopter like a doll.

“Okay--” [THUD]. “--I--” [THUD]. “--believe--” [THUD]. “--you!” [WHUMP].

Upon hearing the admission, Chabe settled the helicopter back into a steady position six thousand feet in the air. He looked out at the scenery from the window, smiling at the beauty of another sunrise emerging in the landscape. Amanda was woozy from the display and unable to enjoy it as her friend had. “Was that really necessary?” She asked, keeping the jar of Bluetannia on her lap as he tried to keep herself from blowing chunks.

“Actually, I could have shown you my pilot’s license in my front pocket,” Chabe replied playfully. “I just felt you could use a little bit of fun.”

Amanda wanted to complain and call him a lunatic. But she felt too queasy to argue with him. And in a way, she thought, it was pretty funny. It put the events of the past handful of hours into a proper context. Besides, she thought, we’re alive with a jar of Bluetannia. A good night’s work indeed.

Once she felt safe enough to not puke, Amanda reached into her pocket and pulled out her cell phone. “Who are you calling?” Chabe asked, looking from his periphery.

“Calling Brigid. Saying everything’s good with us,” she replied, dialing her number on the touch screen. “She should be back from her business thing by now.”

Ms. Duncan pressed the phone up to her ear a couple of seconds later, expecting to hear Brigid’s Brogue on the other line. One ring. Two rings. No answer from her. The phone rang two more times. Still, there was nothing on the other end. Something feels off here, Amanda thought. On the fifth ring came a click.

“Hello, this is Brigid. I am sorry that I cannot come to the phone right now,” the automated message from the goddess began. “I am either in the middle of work or trying to stop an army of dwarves from taking over northern France. If you found this number by accident or through a Phishing incident, a worm will affect both your phone and your brain that will erase any memory of this recording within the next thirty seconds. If you're someone I know, please leave a message at the tone and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can. Thank you, bye!”

Amanda waited an extra second after the beep before speaking. “Hey Brigid, this is Amanda. Chabe and I are currently flying high above Colchester on our way back to London. I have the Bluetannia with me, resting on my lap. There were some...interesting moments at Gerry Arthur. But nothing too big I think. We should be back at King’s Cross in another twenty or thirty minutes I think. See you then, bye.”

Amanda turned off the phone and slipped it back in her pocket, staring blankly out at the beautiful scenery.

“No answer from our red-haired Cap’n?” Chabe asked over the sound of helicopter blades.

Amanda nodded without taking her eyes off the changing English scenery. “I hope she’s alright,” she said with a concerned sigh.

“She’s probably just running late, Amanda,” Chabe remarked optimistically. “I wouldn’t worry about it that much.”

Next Chapter: Chapter 19