Days of the Dead Book 3: The King's Ghost

Chapter 6: The stupid thing

Gideon
I return to my room in modern London. I hastily tug off my period clothes, stuffing them in backpack. Then I turn on my phone. I need to book a flight to America.
The thing is, Kit's mother is still alive. Now I don't know why he did what he did, or what made him the way he is. But I'm going to guess she'll be a good start. And knowing secrets from his past will make for a good distraction, I should think. Also, I feel bad. This is his chance at redemption we're messing with. If I can gain his trust maybe I can help him. He's rejected my offers before, but you never know. It's a start. And if I can lure him back to 21st century America that's going to prove pretty distracting.
"Jay, I'm flying out tonight, d'you mind dropping me at Heathrow if you're heading that way—," I'm halfway down the stairs when I see my friends, casually and dramatically leaning against the front door. Dancer spends little time here, so he surprises me as always in a dark trench coat and white band t-shirt, looking eerily similar to his dad. Sadie, with multiple piercings in each ear and a green army jacket, looks entirely logical in this century, no longer in her drab archer's garb she wears a tight purple tank top, and practical army-surplus cargos. Both of them have their arms folded.
I sigh, "Jay told you?"
"You're doing the stupid thing, yeah," Dancer says.
"I'm sorry. I have to, I just—do," I sigh a little.
"So, where's the fight?" Sadie asks.
"Yeah, you're not being this stupid without stupid back up," Dancer says.
"What—you guys are helping?" I ask.
"We're not letting you—make dark deals with King Henry alone. That's what we're here for. And if you think it's a good cause, we've got you," Sadie says.
"What she said. Also I'd love to see Henry get his ass kicked," Dancer says.
"You may get your wish. But leave it to him to die dramatically. All right. I'll explain on the way," I say, holding up my phone, "And I'll book us two more tickets to LaGuardia."
"Why are we going to New York?"
"We're going to North Carolina, actually."
"Why are we going to North Carolina?"
"To meet a pensioner, come on, like I said, I'll explain on the way, in order," I say, fiddling with my phone to book the tickets.
"Yes, I'll drive you, I promise not to ask any questions," Dancer father says, materializing tossing Porsche keys. Dancer gets on him if he asks if the person we're keep calling 'that minge' is the king of England.
"Ask as many as you like," I say.
"Just explain in order," Sadie says.
I explain mostly in order. I update them on Kit's mission and what I saw in the Beggar's Tomb at the end of the last book. Then I explain my slight crisis of conscience and ultimate decision to help King Henry despite him not necessarily deserving it, and that I'm not going to be talked out of it. They respect that. They also appropriately gag when I tell them King Henry's plan to get out of his current situation.
"How does he make everything about him?" Sadie groans, as we go through airport security.
"I don't know, it's a talent," I sigh, "I know, I know, for the record it likely won't work."
"No, it won't. If God took a hit out on him, then she's gonna know if he doesn't die," Sadie says.
"I know, I know, but I said I'd help him try—in a way, I owe him that," I sigh.
"I know you said not to argue with you, but you don't owe the colonizing motherfucker shit," Dancer says, pointing a finger gun at me, before starting to put his shoes on. Gideon! You say. It sounds like you and your friends use that very profane word to refer to England's greatest warrior king, an awful lot. Yes, yes we do. He's tried to kill us all, personally, more than once.
"Dance," I sigh, watching our stuff come through on the belt,"Look, I'm not open to constructive criticism. When we land you need to go tell everyone to evacuate Harlech and remind them I'm not actually going to die. My plot armor is too thick at this point."
"They're not going to like that explanation," Sadie guarantees, picking up her backpack from the belt.
"That's why I'm not delivering it myself. No, seriously, I don't think it's a good idea for me to go back to Wales, until we know that Kit is gone, or no longer a threat. He wants me too, for whatever reason," I sigh, collecting my boots. Yes I'm wearing my 1400 boots would you believe they're terribly comfortable? No? Well would you believe I couldn't find any 21st century shoes? Yeah, thought as much.
"That I will agree with," Sadie says, watching as security holds up Dancer's bag, "Jesus, Dancer, do you have a knife in your bag?"
"Oh probably," Dancer says, tugging on his shoe and nearly falling. I hold him up.
"How did you leave a knife?"
"Oh it's gonna be more than one."
It's only three, which is an improvement on most Dancer-security experiences. Dancer's father was waiting on the other side of security, so when the officer asks Dancer if he wants to walk them back out, Dancer just picks up the knives and throws them across the checkpoint.
The security people love this.
Dancer's father naturally catches them. Fifteen minutes of being detained later, he and his father convince them that it's a family joke and no of course they weren't real knives. Reader, they were most definitely real knives.
We make it to our gate in plenty of time. Sadie pops back to Harlech to relay the message that we need to evacuate, and Dancer and I remain with our luggage. By now it's dark out, and you can't see anything but the lights of the runway. I'm horribly tempted to pop back to Pleasance and check on the chaotic trio, but I know it won't do any good. And my friends deserve more of an explanation.
"Are you going to be like this the whole plane flight?" Dancer asks. I might be curled up in the seat with my fist my mouth headphones blasting BardCore music.
"Yes, haven't you ever flown with me before? It's too loud," I mutter, face in my knees.
"Then why are we doing it?" He sighs, "Gideon, you don't have to be doing this."
"Funnily enough I do," I say.
"Is it Kit? You think you need to save him?" Dancer asks, he's moved closer to me and I took one headphone out. Heathrow isn't that bad but the overlapping noises makes my spine crawl. I also am not a fan of crowds.
"That's there. Yes, I do think that I want to give him a second chance, and find out—why he's like this I don't know, but I don't want to abandon him the tomb. But I also don't want to abandon King Henry either. I know what you're thinking and it's true, but, I wouldn't be okay. With me. If I left him now," I say.
"Okay," Dancer says.
"You don't agree?"
"No, based off the number of times that man has personally fucked us over. But," Dancer shrugs, "I can't blame you for trying to be nice to people when I wouldn't be here if you hadn't pled for my life."
"You're different," I say. He killed me.
"I know I'm not," Dancer says, examining the rings on his fingers, he has steel rings on every finger, it's very goth. "So I'm not going to stop you."
"Thank you," I say, quietly.
Sadie returns after a while, no I don't know how long it feels like forever. I forgot how much I hate airports. She doesn't fill us in till we take our seats on the airbus. We're in one row together which is nice and I'm in between my friends which is also nice I like being sandwiched between them soon Dancer will cuddle me and I'll be almost okay.
"They were depressed, how not surprised they were that we're having to evacuate Harlech due to King Henry. The family's moving to Conwy for a while and Elis is going to remain behind to get the official word. He says he's going to stay the whole time if any Welsh troops stay," Sadie says.
"God knows Henry will keep our bowmen," I growl, "Don't worry. I'll be there. Not an arrow will reach us."
"I'll be there as well," Sadie says.
"If you would, you'll be with Rhiannon and the kids, I don't put it past Henry to double cross us," I say.
"Why are we helping this person again?" Dancer asks.
"Personal pride, also aside from the murder attempts, I think he's cool," I say, weakly.
"He spends all his time plotting how to kill people," Sadie says.
"Once again I'm going to state that the British Isles would be a safer place if that damn bishop would just get over himself and fuck the king now and then," Dancer says.
And in case you were thinking, 'wow isn't this a bad conversation to have in public?' Yeah. Yeah it is. Turns out the Daily Mail and the Guardian had folks on the flight. And they heard. And, thing is, England currently has a king. And that sounded like good gossip.
"I'm a children's book author we don't know King Charles," I groan, hands over my headphones in my ears.
"I'm a wealthy heiress," Dancer, his feet in my lap, hanging his head in the aisle.
"I'm a post grad student, I definitely don't know royalty we were talking about a Netflix show," Sadie says.
There isn't a Netflix show where there's a King and a bishop who should probably start sleeping with him. So, that doesn't absolve us anyway. After a while the flight attendant makes them leave us alone. Dancer won't stop laughing that tomorrow a news story will break that poor King Charles is having an affair with a bishop and plotting to kill three college students.
"My mum's been known to read the Daily Mail it's not funny!" Sadie hits him.
"It's like a little funny. My dad will think it's funny."
"You yourself say your dad doesn't count as a person!"
"He doesn't; that stands."
Eventually things settle down. The hum of the plane takes over the overlapping conversations and it's loud but it's mostly fine. I keep my headphones in. Pretty soon Dancer returns to his usual state of using me as a human pillow, and wraps his arms around me and snuggles his head into my chest and falls fast asleep. I love cuddles so I have no problem with this arrangement.
Sadie also uses me as a pillow to lean on so I get double cuddles, which is fantastic, because somedays I don't get any. Sadie has all the Jurassic Park movies downloaded to her tablet so we watch those together and she eventually falls asleep. I do after a bit.
We three use the three seats creatively and basically wind up entwined like pretzels, with Dancer and Sadie both using me as a cushion. This is the ideal way to fall asleep, for me, so I'm not complaining. Well, the noisy plane bit isn't ideal, getting cuddled by two people is.
We land in LaGuardia and have to make a quick connection to Durham. I take the time to text Mariah that I'm in the states if she wants to meet up. And then I put in a call to the nursing home where Kit's mother now lives. It's early in the morning but they answer and promise to give her the message that I'm coming. I simply say I'm an author wanting to meet with her regarding her son's disappearance and that I may have information from my research. I mean it's technically true even if it doesn't encompass that he's been imprisoned by God and I know that because he was trying to kill me and Henry V and sort of Henry VI.
Our next flight is quicker and bumpier than our first. LaGuardia is predicable noisy and I hate it and I'm getting very done with traveling. Sadie sees me trying to figure out how to magic myself home.
"Don't you dare you need to save your strength," she hisses.
I reluctantly admit she's right.
I know I don't talk about it a lot, but to be fair the 1400s don't have a lot of overlapping noises. I don't think about having autism that much. It's not like it's something I bring up every hour of the day like, I don't know, anecdotes about Edward III. Whatever, I stim, I like certain foods which are better than other foods, and I don't like being stopped from stimming. It's a thing like any other, and I'm a grown man it's not like I'm not doing other things that are way more interesting than what my hands are doing. Dancer has a limp but we really don't talk about it. It's a thing, and it's my thing and long ago I decided I was going to like who I am.
But airports are simply awful. There are crowds (which are evil) and noises (which are more evil). Thankfully, I am immune to people staring at me, because all my life I've stimmed and looked autistic all my life (whatever that looks like, apparently it's a little Mexican boy drumming his hands on everything and sticking his fist in his mouth). So when people stare at me because of the magic scars, I don't really think much about it because I'm used to it. Even so, I will wear glasses when we're in public because my one eye looks really off so people tend to try to ask me if I can see out of it and I am not interested in personal questions from people. If you walk up to me and start a random conversation about something it should absolutely be asking me about my top three favorite Edward III stories or my preferred Matilda in the Matilda war or my favorite medieval weapon, NOT what my hands are doing (their thing) or if I can see out of that eye (yes why would you want to know that?).
When our flight lands in North Carolina we are all three tired and ready to be off the plane, and my neurotypical friends are as through with traveling as I am. They text their respective parents to let them know we landed okay, and then we go find our rental car. We got a hotel nearby so we're going to sleep off the jetlag, then I will go and meet with Kit's mother, and they will go and check on things at Harlech.
Finding our rental car proves a challenge as it's at the back of the lot. Dancer's limp is worse and his leg is seized up from that long on a plane, so I wind up carrying him on my back while Sadie and I try to find the car. I say that because Dancer is not good at finding things. Dancer thinks he's good at finding things. This is not true.
"I can spot it. I'm up here," Dancer says, indignantly.
"You spent fifteen years in a closet and you couldn't even find yourself. Why would we expect you to find a car?" Sadie asks him, annoyed, while not actually looking for the car.
"That was funny, but fuck you for real," Dancer says, arms around my neck.
"Guys we need to put our heads together, or google something, it says Nissan, but I don't know what that means," I say.
"You should have asked the attendant," Dancer says. We left him outside, because he gets in fights with people.
"He was more concerned with Gideon's hands, than helping us find the damn car—ugh, all of these are ugly," Sadie says, "You two should know this, you're guys."
"That's sexist," Dancer says.
"You're guys though. Usually guys know that stuff," Sadie says.
"The space in my brain that was supposed to be for breeds of cars, I instead used to understand lineage claims in War of the Roses, and I'm not sorry," I say.
"And I'm gay so I can't be expected to do things," Dancer says.
"I'm going to be an ass and hit the panic button. We can walk towards that surely," I say.
Reader, we cannot do that. It takes us way too long. The attendant comes out and asks what's wrong with us. It's taking so long it's become funny, and we're all tired so we all wind up laughing hysterically. The police are very nice and try to help us find the rental car they're not racist or abide or homophobic at all towards the two lost brown people one of whom is fidgeting constantly, and they gay white person being carried places. No, that goes really really well for us.
Yes, of course that's sarcasm.
"What do you think you kids are doing here?" Two of them, racist and more racist. They're talking to Dancer.
"Oh us? I and my friends are finding our car," Dancer still on my back.
"Said you'd been beeping the horn and refusing to leave," more racist says.
"We didn't say we were good at it," Sadie says.
"Have him put you down," racist says.
"I can speak, and hear you, I'm right here," I say.
"I cannot walk," Dancer says.
"Look, we're trying to get to our car, we can't find it, I don't think that's a crime," Sadie says.
"Just settle down, sweetie."
"Okay here we go," Dancer breaths.
"What did you just call me? So I can make sure I have it recorded," Sadie says, holding up her phone.
"You can't record us," more racist tries to take her phone.
"Actually she can, and we're not being accused of a crime, are we?" I ask, setting Dancer down anyway to lean on his cane.
"And what are you high on?" Racist asks me, looking me up and down.
"Welsh independence," I say, without thinking.
Naturally my friends crack up at that, which does not help the situation.
Eventually they realize they can't enslave us or shoot us in broad daylight so let us go because turns out we were standing next to our car. We all pass breathalyzers which is really great, and they're very racist so they try to talk to Dancer and then he acts gayer than he normally does and they try to talk to me, but I'm visibly vibrating so they try to talk to Sadie but they're sexist.
Gideon, you're having one encounter in this whole trilogy, probably whole series, with cops in America and you're making them sound like generally racist jerks. Yeah, huh, maybe we should think about that for a while.
No. I'm sure there are good cops somewhere. They didn't show up to a rental car lot in the middle of North Carolina but yes some cops in America are fine. But that's like saying some medieval Kings of England don't want to kill French people. Yeah Henry VI exists, but he doesn't redeem all the psychopaths in his family line that thought setting French towns on fire was a fun weekend activity. That's not about Richard III, he only reigned for three years, he's excused.
We eventually make it to our car. Apparently, we were standing next to it the whole time. The cops don't go, we figure out that it's our car and get in and leave. They choose not to stop us because Dancer has already called his lawyer. Sadie drives us to the hotel while I get to sit in the backseat and move as much as I want.
The hotel is a Hilton, because Dancer booked it, and we all pile into one room. Sadie takes a shower, Dancer orders us food, and I lie underneath the mattress looking at my phone, answering emails and texts, and trying to distract myself. The room is warm and clean smelling.
"I always used to like hotels when I was little," I say.
"Why?" Dancer asks, lying on top of the mattress because he's a good friend.
"When we'd go, it meant, that they couldn't argue, because we were in public. He couldn't shout at her. But it was bad because I had to be in the same room, but I couldn't go under the mattress. But at least he couldn't shout," I say, quietly.
"Huh," Dancer says, "I don't think I remember caring. I didn't like the food away from home, that's all."
"The food at Harlech is great."
"It's fine."
"It's really good!"
"I need you to understand it is not."
Our food order comes, pizza and brownies, because we're very mature. We eat that and I am finally feeling better after the flight. Then we get ready to sleep, even though it's only mid afternoon.
"I should go back to Kenilworth, I need to check on things, plus I need to return this," I hold up the amulet. I've been trying to regain my strength. But now it's been a while, I'm better. I should get rid of it.
"Oh, I forgot you did dark dealings to get that," Dancer says.
"Is this send a rescue party if you're not back in an hour, territory?" Sadie asks.
"Nah, I'll be back soon, also I'm fine," I say, sorting in my bag for the proper attire, "I'll be back, don't wait up. I know you're tired."
"Probably gonna wait up," Dancer grunts.
I go into the bathroom to clean up and change. I need to shave so I just shower completely. My hair is a mess and it's getting long. I need to get Gareth (the only person I trust with scissors) to help me cut it. No, I don't think my friends would stab me. I think they don't have good hand eye coordination.
I get clean and change into my proper 1400s clothes. I feel instantly better out of modern grab. After all these years this feels much more like who I am.