Saviors 101

Chapter 39

Chapter 39

Jeremy nearly leapt out of his skin as Virgil came plowing into the study like a system’s crash.

He reached for the door, missed the handle, collapsed against a rolling bookshelf ladder that had brass wheels suspended from a high brass rail to reach the upper shelves of the study, and sent it sliding. It slammed into three small chairs before untracking and nearly killing Jeremy.

It bounced off Cassie’s empty chair and smashed into the monitor screen. Sparks and bits of glass flew in all directions.

Once Jeremy was sure that he was still alive, he turned to inspect the damage.

The heavy beige plastic had survived the blow, but the screen was gone. It didn’t really matter though.

“s**t! Sorry, Kid.”

The man was a wreck. Hung over, pasty-faced, bloodshot eyes, and his clothes were beyond recovery.

“Somewhere I gotta be. Girl I gotta see. Has a car race, yesterday, today. I dunno.”

Jeremy knew, despite his complete inexperience, that showing up in his current condition wasn’t going to do Virgil any good in front of any girl. He dragged the poet off toward a bathroom, ran the shower water up hot, and shoved him in clothes and all.

While the screams subsided, Jeremy went on the prowl through the sprawling mansion. He found Cassie sitting on a stool at the kitchen counter reading a murder mystery as if nothing untoward had been going on.

“Isn’t that a little weird, I mean you’re prophetic and all. You already know the ending, right?”

She looked up at him. “It’s fiction. Right? I can’t be prophetic about fiction. That jerk Apollo left me at least that much.”

“Oh, right. Anyway, Virgil’s awake and in the shower moaning about a girl he’s in trouble with.”

“That isn’t exactly news either. He’d been that way for the last thousand years at least.” She turned back to her book shutting him out of her world.

“Fine.” Fine. s**t, but Jeremy hated the shutout. His dad had been a pro at it, forever riding down on his useless nerd of a son who wouldn’t join Little League.

“Useless brat. Not a hero like me who really did something with his life.”

The great victory of his dad’s life was at the age of twelve, which had turned out to be a lie anyway. His great life’s victory had been working as a grunt at a photocopy store. Until he ran off with his best friend’s wife, and money.

To hell with all of them. He found Loki’s room and scrounged for a clean set of clothes that might fit Virgil. Most of them were painfully bright and made his eyes hurt even though he hadn’t been drinking. Virgil’s eyes would simply bleed. Primary red. Primary orange.

He finally unearthed a pair of jeans and a flannel shirt from a particularly dark corner he didn’t enjoy in the least and tossed them into the bathroom. Virgil’s moans were down to whimpers.

Back in the kitchen he ignored Cassie and she ignored him as he made coffee. Actually, he’d never made coffee before. Cassie was studiously ignoring him, so he faked it. Couldn’t be that hard anyway. Soon a pot was brewing nicely, dark as pitch and pretty stinky, which seemed right. He scrounged a mug of orange juice and a bagel for himself and hung out with nothing to do but watch coffee drip and a prophet read.

When he couldn’t stand it any longer, he shuffled a coffee mug beneath the drip. It could have been tar, but it smelled strong enough that it might wake up Virgil.

In the bathroom the poet was half-dressed. Spying the coffee he grabbed it and took a large swallow.

“f**k!”

“What?”

“Don’t you know how to make coffee?”

Well, he’d tried. What did the guy expect?

“I guess this will wake me up but good.” He took another scalding swallow and winced. “Man, that Loki is a bad influence.”

“You weren’t all that good an influence on him. He’s still out.”

“Really?” The poet smiled. Shoved his long, blond hair back out of his face. “Drank Loki under the table? That’s a first, old boy.” He grinned at himself in the mirror and finished buttoning his shirt wrong. The sleeves were also a foot too long, though Virgil didn’t seem to notice so he didn’t mention that either.

“Actually under the bar.”

“Don’t spoil the moment with facts, Kid. You ready to get the hell out of here?”

Jeremy was so ready to be gone. Get away from Cassie’s cold shoulder, when he’d thought they were becoming friends. His libido had been doing a Harold and Maude trip on him. She was a fine-looking senior citizen. He was more than ready to get back to a world that made sense. Maybe he should go see what Nancy Munro was up to. No, he wasn’t that desperate…at least not yet. She was way too square and proper to fit any of his fantasies.

“Let’s go.” Virgil stood up straight, grabbed for his coffee mug, missed, and face-planted on one of the giant pillows. In moments, he was snoring as loudly as his adversary of the prior evening.