Catching the Southbound at the Civic Center Station I spot her and grab the nearest seat possible. This is two up and one over - a Knight's ambush away from the targeted Queen. She's sitting by the doors in the back of the cab reading a book whose title I can't catch from my position. Sunken eyes ringed dark from obvious lack of sleep. Stringy black dyed hair draped over half the face. A pronounced forehead, a bulge of mad thoughts or dreams not yet hatched perhaps. Rail thin. Coke thin maybe. Skin blanched of all complexion with a body that could be sculpted from wax. Wears a dark green vest with a pale gold pattern, short tight gray-black checkered skirt, wooden platform shoes with ankle straps, a neck draped in esoteric talismans and wrists of silver bracelets. There are bruises around the knees and ankles. Imagining they how they got there she catches me gawking.
Caught with no feasible alibi for my wayward gaze I smile the way I did when I was a boy, cold busted doing wrong while refusing to wear a mask of regret. In return she smirks and rolls her eyes back down into the book. I pull out a little reading material of my own from my tattered shoulder bag. I position myself at an angle on the seat, jutting crooked into the isle to face her and pretending it's because there's no room otherwise while sitting next to Big Mama Mountain over here. My stare slides right off the page and back into her body. Specifically those wonderfully bruised legs. Without looking she knows I'm watching and rubs her thighs slowly like a cricket playing it's song or a preying mantis rubbing its claws before a meal.
We hit Peachtree Center Station. Before the train lurches to a stop she motions to the empty seat next to her with a casual challenge of a glance. The doors woosh open with a zombie surge of commuters pressing inwards. With a bolt, swoop and slide across the isle I score the seat moments before the mob closes the chance on me. I turn to say something to her but she cuts me off before I get the chance.
"Don't look at me" her voice, though muffled from speaking from only one side of her mouth, is strictly scorched earth husky. A sandpaper silhouette that scrapes against the ear.
"What?" I respond.
"Don't look at me. Look directly ahead or at your book... just don't look at me."
Eyes forced forward and - "Okay. Mind if I ask why?"
"We're pretending we know each other but also that we can't let anyone around us know that we know each other."
"What... like spies?"
"If that works for you." She turns a page of the book and brushes the hair out her face adding, "Are you a spy?".
"Not quite" I open my own book slow - buying time for the answer and dropping the down deposit on that time with a bit of emergency improv, "I am but a simple messenger, ma'am. One instructed to meet a mysterious young lady on the 13th Southbound to pass me at the Civic Center."
"A message?" she uncrosses and recrosses her ankles, brushing them against the side of my boot without accident. "From who?"
"I was told you would give the Watch Word first..." I give a lizard lick to the tip of my finger and turn the page without reading a word, "...forgive the formality but the client was quite insistent."
Five Points Station. The train drains and refills itself of airport bound travelers and tired post rush hour drones. A hiss, a squawk of the announcer and we rumble on down the line.
"Butter Shadow" she says now and even though that's two words their combination together throws me for a loop. All I can do is nod with exaggerated gravity and allow pass a charged moment of silence.
"Very good." my voice solemn now, deeper as the role fleshes itself out from the void. "I bring a dispatch from Antoine Beardsley Rodriguez the Third."
"Antoine..." the name spoken with aristocratic fondness, "... that darling little shit. Why we haven't spoken since that ghastly evening in Mumbai when Professor Singh contracted the Seven Howling Fevers of Kali. Why whatever could dear old Antoine want with me after all these years?"
Garnett Station rolls into view along with the Fulton County Jail House waiting ominously across the street on one end and the Greyhound Station on the other. A lone old woman totters out. A baby screams from the other side of the cab. A man announces in full stage voice that he's not a drunk and he's just looking for some change to get something to eat.
"There's no simple way to say this" I begin, dutifully turning the page and watching the city roll past the window now before ostensibly returning my focus to the page, "The others are dead. Norimizu, John-John, Father Saul, Benjamin Price, the Gray's.... even the good professor. Only you and Antoine are left. Someone has discovered the secret of the time machine and Antoine, that is, Mister Rodriguez believes you might be next on the list."
"I see". She mulls the news over with an almost imperceptible nod. I catch a faint whiff of rose petal off her and close my eyes, imagining myself sinking into that scent.
"Please" the man who is not a drunk announces to us, "You think you can spare a little something so I can get something to eat?"
I begin to shake my head 'no' but I'm already fishing out a half-handful of change from my pockets. The man thanks and blesses us before turning his attentions to the rest of the cab.
"Tell him..." the page flips under one of her brittle fingers, "... the time machine is safe in my possession. As it has been for the last five years. You might also wish to inform Antoine that I am well aware of the fact that it was because of his betrayal that the Hand of Fate have dispatched so many of our old allies."
"Can I see it?" I ask.
"Absolutely not!" she says but caresses dramatically the pendant to one of her necklaces so that I can see it with a side glance.
"Does it work?"
"Watch" and she squeezes the pendant with her fist. The train doesn't stop so much as it suddenly ceases to move. The passengers are all frozen. The man who is not drunk stands frozen receiving a crumbled dollar from a paralyzed business man, a mother remains statue still in half crouch rising from her seat with her little one cradled in her arms and a young man sits frozen with his mouth open in a song silenced from his lips. Outside the traffic off I-20 does not move and a single bird off in the distant becomes a immovable speck against the dusk gray clouds.
She turns around and we are both finally allowed to look at each other. It doesn't last long, the distance between our stare melting into a kiss. Her tongue serpentine dances with mine. Her breath is sour with coffee and lingering nicotine. Her free hand blindly finds the back of my neck and pulls me deeper into her. The bruised knees bump against mine, the bare ankles lock behind my boots. Then she pushes me back and releases the pendant.
West End Station comes around the curve in the bend, the abandoned factory by the tracks with the banner sized graffiti reading - 'The Last Days Are Here!' - curves into view. She gets up and tucks the book into a green Publix shopping bag.
"This is my stop" she announces.
"It doesn't have to be." I offer more hopeful than I meant it to sound.
She smirks again and brushes the bangs out of the mischievous glow in her eyes.
"Just give Antoine the message."
"Does he have your number?" I grasp at the dwindling straws leaving with her.
"He does..." the trains grinds to a halt along the platform, "... but maybe I'll see you again and we can continue the game then."
The doors open. She steps out and squeezes through the two brothers entering the cab.
"Okay, I'll..." but it's too late. The doors close and our story ends abruptly.
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