**
Maggie hadn’t been able to be very specific on the location of Thoth; he was underground and surrounded by hieroglyphics. So Hugo deposited them in Cairo, so that CJ could do a search underground as electricity. In the meantime he pulled out his laptop in a café, working on restoring the database as he waited.
He didn’t have to wait long, CJ came running into the café twenty minutes later, a grin on her face, “Found him! And he’s ready to talk to you.”
“You talked to him?” Hugo asked, alarmed.
CJ frowned a little, crossing her arms, “Well, he slowed me down so I had to. So I told him you were looking for him, and he was all,” CJ puffed out her chest as she gave a terrible rendition of a British accent, “Oh is it that time again?” CJ stuck her tongue out, “Anyway, he knew you were looking for him, so let’s go.”
They were under the Sphinx. Thoth stood from a small slab seat as they entered. He was wearing a button down white shirt, a pair of dark slacks, a suit coat, and he looked worn, even though he looked to be in his mid-thirties. “Hugo, welcome,” his voice was calm, heavy, with just a hint of an English accent. He offered his hand and Hugo took it.
He was watching him get choked to death by a large blue man, the monster he’d seen at the concert where the guy had tried to shoot him. One of the tentacles coming out of his back was wrapped tightly around Thoth’s throat, the time manipulator pulling on the appendage ineffectually until eventually his arms fell limply at his sides. Hugo backed up a few steps, but he already had a headache. Something about that blue guy…
“You can see the future? That’s different,” Thoth said mildly, a small spark of curiosity in the statement.
Hugo’s eyes widened, “How did you…?”
“I’m sorry, I can read minds,” Thoth answered apologetically.
“Geez, what can’t you do?” CJ asked, rolling her eyes.
The man offered her a slight smile, “Stay alive.” CJ opened her mouth, startled, and then snapped it shut.
“So, do you know why we’re here then?” Hugo asked, trying not to rub the bridge of his nose.
“How and when you find me tends to vary, but you always come here to talk to me about Vitaly.”
“Is that the thing that…”
Thoth nodded, “Yes.”
“You make it sound like we’ve done this before.”
“You have, many times,” Thoth paused, glancing at the ground, “I recommend you leave, forget about this, and enjoy what’s left of your time with your friends and loved ones.”
CJ laughed, “Has that ever worked on him?”
That slight smile returned to Thoth, “No, never.” Hugo scratched the back of his head, blushing. “But I’ll keep trying.”
“How many times have you…have we met?” Hugo motioned to the room.
Thoth shrugged, “To be honest, I’ve lost count.”
“I guess that means you know about the explosion and how the world collapses afterwards?” Thoth nodded his acknowledgement. “Do we ever stop it?”
The taller man sighed, “When Vitaly doesn’t kill me before he kills you, no you don’t. Otherwise, I don’t know.”
Hugo’s eyes widened, “What about this time?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t lived all the way through this timeline yet.”
The question burst out of CJ’s mouth, “What? This makes absolutely no sense. Can you travel through time or what?”
Thoth settled into a comfortable expression, this is something he had explained to them countless times, “I can only go backwards. However, every time Vitaly kills me, I jump to a new timeline. Things change a little, but the outcome remains the same.”
“How old are you then?” CJ asked, huffing a little.
“I’m always born a little over 400 years ago, but how many times I’ve lived, I don’t know.”
“400 years? That’s super awesome! Or does it get boring? It must be a bummer to die so many times, but you should get along well with Hugo, he’s always asking the bummer questions,” CJ made Thoth smile again, Hugo had a feeling he didn’t do that much.
“I’m sorry. Please, have a seat,” Thoth motioned to the raised benches in the room. There were three of them. “We have a lot to discuss.” Everyone sat down and Thoth folded his hands in his lap.
Hugo glanced around at the hieroglyphics on the wall. He should learn to read them someday. Well, if they all survived past the next three weeks, which it seemed unlikely that they would. Crysta wouldn’t. No. He would change things this time. He would fix everything, “So, what is Vitaly?” Hugo asked.
Thoth’s voice went on autopilot again, “Vitaly is the father of Boris Melnikov. He was a man interested in controlling the world. 15 years ago a group of people with abilities nearly killed him, all of them dying in the attempt.”
CJ’s eyes widened, “Holy crap, he sounds badass! What could he do?”
“A number of things. He could dominate people like your friend Clem can, and he could control the weather. But his powers have since expanded. The only additional abilities I can confirm though are teleportation and disrupting other’s abilities through touch. He’s been in hiding while he recovers, but he has not been idle, he is building an army. I know four years ago he took a vast quantity of the Substance, which mutated him, but then they developed the armbands and I could no longer keep track of their group. I know he counts among his allies The Lazarus group and Yon Lougawou. But he has many small cells spread throughout the world.”
“Yon Lougawou? Isn’t that Haitian Creole for evil witch, or werewolf or something? I’ve never heard of that group,” Hugo admitted, frowning.
“Their leader is a woman who calls herself Baron Samedi, you have heard of her.”
Hugo paused for a moment, staring at the ceiling while he combed through the database in his head, searching for that name, “She’s in the Agency database. She can reanimate the dead, and can cause brain-death with physical contact.”
“Almost all of the Haitians with abilities serve under her. They are Yon Lougawou.”
CJ huffed, “Geez, what is it with all these people and their made up names? Oh, no offense dude!” Thoth shook his head slightly. “So can I have a cool name too? I always thought Ixion was pretty cool, you know, from Final Fantasy X.”
Hugo nodded absently, not really listening as he scanned through the database, picking out the other possible members of Yon Lougawou; their membership was larger than the six known members of The Lazarus Group, 13 in all. “How do we find Vitaly?”
“Most likely today you will get invited to a birthday party. He will be there. But I wouldn’t recommend trying anything, you’ll be surrounded by people with abilities and it will not work.”
“Hey! I was talking here!” CJ exclaimed, waving her arms in front of her.
Hugo scratched the back of his head, nose scrunching up a bit, “You want me to call you Ixion?”
CJ gave this due consideration, tilting her head to the side. Finally she shook it, “No, I think I’ll stick with CJ. I’ve been signing everything with that, it would be kind of dumb to change it now.”
Hugo opened his mouth, but decided it best not to pursue that line of questioning; he really didn’t want to deal with where it led. “When does Vitaly kill you?”
Thoth tilted his head to the side, “It changes, but it’s usually before your group fights him. He teleports right behind me and disrupts my abilities so that I cannot stop him. He likes to explain to me that he could find me with such precision because of a precognative, but I’ve never discovered who.”
“I’ll find a way to stop it,” Hugo said quietly, but even Thoth could hear the lack of conviction in his voice. How could he, if he couldn’t even save Madeline?
“You never do. But I appreciate the gesture,” Thoth smiled.
CJ was quietly watching their exchange, even her fidgeting had ceased. Hugo stared at the ground for several seconds. How would he be able to stop it i
f he had no clue when it would happen? It would most likely be within the next three weeks, Vitaly would want to get rid of someone who could undo all of his plans, but without an accurate time-frame, just moving Thoth wouldn’t work. The precog would see that. But there had to be a way. There had to be. Hugo stood, “Thank you, Thoth. Can I come back if I have any more questions?”
The man nodded, “Of course you can. But just one moment, I have something for you. I’ll be right back.” Before Hugo could respond, the man’s body flickered and then he was standing there with several large objects wrapped in white linen in his arms. “This is for you CJ,” he handed her one of the cloths, and she unwrapped it to reveal a small golden scepter, a clear diamond at its peak. There was a snake coiled around the shaft to form the grip.
“What the heck is this?” CJ held it up to the dim candlelight, turning it at angles to refract the prismatic light.
“That is Vajra, the Thunder of Indra. From what you’ve told me before, it can channel electricity, amplifying its voltage.”
CJ’s eyes grew large, “Really? Awesome!” She gave the air some experimental whacks with her new toy, but thankfully refrained from testing it out right away. Thoth smiled again, then turned his attention to Hugo, handing him a long flat bundle. It was a sword, an incredibly heavy long sword.
“This is Fragnarach, the sword of Manannan, it can pierce through anything, and answers to the wind.”
Hugo’s face turned red, “This is great and all, but I can barely lift it.”
Thoth smiled, “You told me using your powers makes me much lighter.”
A breeze gently shook the candle flames in the room, and just as Thoth had said, the sword was almost weightless. “Ok, that’s awesome,” not the most dignified response, but definitely honest.
Thoth handed over another package, this one small and round, “That is for Clementine. It is Brísingamen, the necklace of Freya. It is said that no man, or god, can resist the person wearing it.”
“A necklace?” CJ had already started giggling, “Clem gets a necklace?” She snorted.
Thoth smiled at her and waited until she quieted down before continuing, “And finally,” he handed Hugo a flat piece about eight inches long, “For Dr. McFadden, the Spear of Longinus. It can also pierce through anything, but protects the one who wields it well.”
CJ looked up from her examination of her scepter, “Dr. McFadden knows how to use a spear? What the heck, she’s a doctor!”
Thoth glanced at Hugo, and then his expression fell into something apologetic, “I see you haven’t discussed that yet. My apologies.”
“Discussed what?” CJ exclaimed, waving her scepter around, “What aren’t you guys telling me about Dr. McFadden?” Hugo cast his glance around the room, trying to figure out if there was a way to get out of discussion. “Well?”
“Uh…well…”
CJ threw her arms in the air, glaring at him, “Gah! Dr. McFadden has abilities! She can control spears and fix Christians!" She huffed, "Geez, was that so hard?”
Hugo coughed, threading his fingers together. Well…the hard part was over at least. “Actually, she can heal people and objects, and uh…can control magnetism.”
“She what? Like metal? Is she Magneto?”
“Uh…” Hugo scratched the back of his head. This was terrible. He'd told Crysta he wouldn’t let anyone know about her abilities and here he was talking about them without her permission. He sucked. “Her ability works like that.”
“So why was she being all secretive about it? That sounds pretty awesome,” CJ tilted her head towards him.
He cringed, “You’ll have to ask her.”
CJ shrugged, “Ok.”
Hugo turned back to Thoth, who looked like he was warring between an apology and amusement. “Thanks. Um…where did you find these?”
“I’ve collected them over the timelines. Their locations never change, and sometimes they help. Vitaly is powerful.”
“Thank you,” Hugo said quietly, and then the room filled with a burst of wind.
“Bye! Thanks for the stick of whatis!” CJ waved, stepping through the portal he’d created. Hugo followed, giving the older man a slight wave as he did. Thoth waved back.
Hugo had an email from Boris when he got back. Boris was having a birthday party in three days and he was invited, but not only that, he was encouraged to bring three friends.