Aw,
sh... Jeremiah was making a conscious effort these past few days
to cut down on swearing, and so suppressed his natural reaction as the rock he
was climbing crumbled in his grasp. Shhh... iznacle! he internally euphemized, and he sucked
at the bleeding cut on his hand as he struggled to cling to the rope. Eventually he steadied himself and continued
his climb up to the third-story window.
I
almost feel bad about damaging a national treasure,
Jeremiah thought as he regarded the pebbles that had previously been part of
the wall on the grass below him. But the
Goethehaus, he reflected, would be a pile of rubble within two decades anyway,
and besides, with all the bad blood between the Goethes and the Van
Oppenschantzes, it would have been a shame not to have committed at least some
sort of vandalism while he was here.
“But, eyes on the prize,” he whispered
aloud. More than petty vandalism would
be the result of these past years of planning.
Jeremiah felt his gloved fingertips reache
the
ledge of the window, and a broad smile spread across his face. He raised a boot up to a protruding stone and
pushed against it to hoist himself up to the window. He reached through the ledge... and the stone
gave way, flying off the wall, and Jeremiah’s smile was brought down hard on
the ledge as he fell.
“Fu...” he quickly silenced himself, but then
felt angry enough about the whole thing that he decided to let it out, if again
with a less-than-satisfying replacement.
“Fu... ddernuts!” That didn’t
feel right. “Muggyfuddernuts!” Still no.
He sighed, angry and disappointed, and tried to suck in the blood that
was filling his mouth.
It was at that moment that someone who had
been watching in the background – yea, even a background character – appeared
in front of Jeremiah at the window. He
grabbed the young man’s cut hand, causing Jeremiah to let out a muffled yelp,
and dragged him into the building. Jeremiah
fell hard to the ground.
Sunnuvabagel! This night was bringing him more injuries
than he’d anticipated. He raised his
bloodied chin to look at the figure who had grabbed him. His eyes swept up the black cassock, raised
up to the white collar, stared up at the face of the priest. Oh.
Wait. He knew this face. Was that... yes, it was. It was Father MacKenzie. As soon as their eyes met, the old Father
MacKenzie whirled away from Jeremiah and started walking down the narrow
hallway, wiping the dirt from his hands as he walked from the grave. Grave?
Jeremiah looked down, and saw he was sitting on a pile of dirt with a tombstone
at the head, a mock grave of sorts.
Well, this was odd. Jeremiah
finally found words.
“Father!” he whispered loudly, and the old
priest stopped in his steps, but did not turn around, “Father!”
Still no movement on the older man’s part. “I haven’t seen you in... how are you... what
are... how did you find me here?”
That last question finally drew a
reaction. Father MacKenzie whipped back
to face Jeremiah, with a sneering, mirthless laugh.
“Jeremiah, you idiot!” Father MacKenzie never had been the old
grandfatherly type of priest. “Any
retard with an ape’s brain could have found you here! What did I always tell you about posting on Facebook? ‘Tonight
is the night I avenge my great-great-great-grandfather.’” he raised his
voice in mockery, “Such a moron!”
Jeremiah was confused, but raised himself to his feet and stumbled
forward.
“But why are you here?” The priest smiled again.
“To prepare this welcoming gift,” here, he
gestured at the grave, “from my employer.
She is most interested in your mission here tonight.” Another sneer.
“Your employer? Why... who is your employer?”
“Oh,” Father MacKenzie put his fingers
together as villains are wont to do, “I think you do know her. Do you remember... THE CURATOR?!” Father MacKenzie shouted the last, and as he
did, the red-headed menace herself stepped out from a side hall and stood
beside the priest, stroking her horn-rimmed glasses menacingly. Jeremiah gasped as his mind flashed back to
their first encounter. It had been at a
fancy dinner party. A meeting of
intellectuals, eager to show to each other how sophisticated they were as they
wined and dined among the artistic treasures of the past few centuries in
London’s National Gallery. An event
planned by gallery owners who were all about quomodocunquizing. Jeremiah had of course been there,
out-of-place, under cover, ready to liberate his next target, a long-enslaved
Rembrandt etching. He had just been
about to swap the small treasure on the wall with the counterfeit under his
coat, when all of a sudden, the ginger terror had appeared beside him.
“Guten Abend,” she’d whispered, almost
seductively, “Ich bin der Curator,” and before Jeremiah could react at all, she
yelled out to the gathered guests, “Ihre Achtung, bitte! I hab’ hier ein Gaest der tinkt he can
simplisch take unser treasures! I sink
nein, oder how about yous?” And all the
guests had pulled their submachine guns out from underneath their own fancy
clothes and taken aim and fired at Jeremiah.
He’d dashed for the nearest exit, and it was only by a miracle that he’d
made it out alive.
And here she was again, advancing on him with
a dagger in all her vile auburn intensity.
She had him this time, and they both knew it. Goethe’s notebooks would not find freedom in
the Rhein tonight. Jeremiah whipped a
flash grenade from his belt and hurled it at the crimson monster, but she held
up her hand and it vanished into thin air.
She smiled thinly, and drew close to Jeremiah.
“Ohne Blitz bei uns,” she whispered. “No flash photography, please.” And then he saw a flash of scarlet hair, and
then darkness, and then the last of the Van Oppenschantz marauders was no more.
FINAL SCORE: 823.50
