Timothie Hill and the Cloak of Power

Chapter Two

Chapter TwoTimothie threw the covers off his bare chest and leaped to the side of the room. There was no alarm clock. He didn't need one. He knew, though, that he had overslept. His salon business could not be neglected, and yesterday had been a day of adventure and plans following Maude's purple hair visit.

“Reginald!” he remembered. The universe cried out for redemption.

Timothie knew that Bael's appearance was only the first of many. Reginald, his old friend and nemesis, was an antihero wrapped in a cloak of invisibility and power provided by the demon. There was work to be done, not all of it as a super hairstylist, but some to be done that night back at the penthouse tower. The Angel had whispered in Timothie's ear earlier that week that all was not well at the Oyster nor with the world, and the Angel was always right. Timothie's mouth curved upward in a wry smile and his stubbled face smiled back at him in the sweat of the mirror.

After a quick power breakfast shake, shower, and shave, Timothie dressed in his black jeans, western belt, and tight white lace sleeveless shirt. He tucked his cloak into a gym bag, threw open the door to the adjoining carport, and vaulted into the seat of his red 1967 Volvo GT 123. The engine purred as he threw it into first gear and quickly accelerated into overdrive along Ada Boulevard. An instant later, the car sprouted silver wings and careened to the back of the salon and spa on 118 Avenue as though teleported, and perhaps it had, thought Timothie. He shoved the stick shift into “Park” and strode into the back of his salon.

The salon business was slow that morning, and Skye, the aesthetician from the backroom spa, melted into his arms to slow dance amongst the chairs, mirrors, and horse chestnut vines. Over the blare of the antique stereo, they conversed in short witticisms. Skye wore a smart black pantsuit and oxfords, her long auburn hair bobbed.

“I finished my advanced certificate exam this week,” she explained as they twirled. “I can now do sugaring.”

“Your certificate exams – what did you get on them?” Timothie asked. He pirouetted.

“Nail polish,” Skye replied, and they both laughed.

“Dear,” he said, “you look very like a man.”

She peered at him with twinkling eyes and replied, “So do you.”

He grinned his crooked smile, said, “You're beautiful,” held her tightly, and they whirled to the door as a portly gentleman entered the narrow lobby.

Surprised, he beamed at them both as they broke apart. kd lang crooned “Bird on a Wire” from vinyl on the stereo. Skye skittered to the spa in the backroom, and the client settled into a silver chair. Timothie whisked his best apron around the gentleman's neck. Paula peered out from the waiting room.

“Dancing again?” she asked.

“Go, go,” the stylist insisted, waving his hands. “I can't concentrate. You see I'm working.” The client glanced up and grinned at the second aesthetician dressed in a purple smock and pink skirt.

“I've embarrassed you,” Paula laughed.

Timothie examined his work, his client's greyish locks curling on the shiny hardwood floor. “You could never embarrass me. But go back to your spa, now. I can't concentrate when you're twittering.”

“Ooo la la,” Paula said and was joined by Skye, who took her by the arm and led her back amongst the mirrors and vines and brightly colored paintings to the rooms they rented for pedicures, manicures, and facials.

The gym bag shuddered in its place on the corner table by the spacious windows. The client tipped handsomely and left. Pages of a magazine fluttered. Paula came out and swept the floor. Timothie stood silhouetted at the window, the storm of last night dissipated into the fog of early morning, and an orange and lavender sunrise broke over the buildings to the east. He longed to don the cloak and be swept southwest to the spot where Bael's power was greatest, to confront the demon and its minion, and draw on the might of the Angel of the West. The tips of his sensitive fingers tingled. He felt cold.

With quick movements, he ransacked the gym bag, drew out the Cloak of Power, and threw it over his shoulders. The cloak swirled and covered his manly chest. The cloak was darker than a black Labrador, and the stars shone like silver holes seen through a velvet drape. Timothie's red shoes hovered six inches above the floorboards. He felt that rush of adrenaline that only the superhero can experience when his future explodes in his mind's eye – suddenly he knows that in the next instant he will be miles above his mundane neighbors and another adventure has begun.

No time for styling hair today, no time for Paula or Skye simpering in the backrooms, no time, no time! The door blew open with a thud, Jann Arden sang “Living Under June” on a vinyl LP, and Timothie was gone, transported into the orange-lavender burst of dawn, a twinkle of white soles, red shoes, a billowing cape, and the beat of the Angel's wings, no more but the grit of morning blowing about the Olde Towne of Beverley. He disappeared, teleported into Reginald's entertainment room in the district of Oliver, southwest, where the minion crouched by the flickering images on his wall and drooled in anticipation of another visit from Bael.

“Not you,” Reginald whined. “It's the demon I summoned.” The pentagram writhed in the middle of the room. Smoke, blood, and vomit poured from the basin Reginald held in his shaking hands.

“STOP!” Timothie roared, and extended a strong fist.

The apparition in the middle of the blue tiles hesitated then strengthened, erupting into a figure twelve feet high whose tentacles touched the beams on the high ceiling. Each black appendage sprouted a red eye with a white slit for the pupil.

The ultimate shapeshifter, Bael had usurped the throne of Hell from Lucifer and now set loose on Earth to imprison as many human souls as possible. He sought to strengthen the armies of Hell and, finally, become God in Heaven himself. All this Timothie knew from the whisperings of the Angel of the West. All this he knew from the Troll on Draxxt, the planet where he had grown as a youth and then been propelled to Earth by a burst of Mindbender's magic. Timothie knew his place in the universe – to vanquish the demon finally and lay peace to the nations of Earth.

Even Maude, the purple dream maker of spiked hair, didn't know the extent of his powers. She guessed because in her dotage she was wise. In a previous life, she had lived as a witch on Draxxt who sold the new queen a fertility charm to keep the pregnancy safe.

It worked, and Timothie remembered the queen and her husband, and of course, Tevron, the king's brother, and Tevron's wife. They raised him to a strapping adolescence. Then Mindbender took over Timothie's tutelage and instructed him in the art of magic. The Troll taught him his destiny on the world from which the humans of Draxxt had sprung so long ago. From Earth.

In Vancouver, he learned a trade, his skillful fingers deft and finally, practiced. The magic they held transferred to the flowing strands of his client's heads. Timothie was eager to learn, and the Angel of the West took him under her beating wings and her beating, loving heart. He learned well.

Now he confronted his nemesis, Bael, and his old friend Reginald, who had in his way taken the demon's form and power.

The black, white, and red image before him swayed in the putrid air of Reginald's room. Reginald drooled in his corner. The demon slobbered and groaned, tentacles in the place of its head. Timothie stood tall, hands on his slim hips, a silver sword suddenly at his side. He placed wiry but muscular fingers on the hilt of the sword, and drew it.

Bael lunged. Reginald lunged at the same time, a mirror image of Bael. Reginald's left hand gripped Timothie's right shoulder, the arm that held the sword. Through the dank, putrid air his hand blurred like silver fire, the sword slashed blue with sparks, and Reginald collapsed, screaming. Bael roared and fell on the caped figure, enveloping Timothie in blood and vomit. “You don't need me, superhero. Do it now!” The stylist could hear his Angel whisper. He rose above the clinging tentacles and the moans of the demon, rose to the cedar beams of his former friend's ceiling, and slashed at the writhing head.

The room was devoid of human sound. Only the echo of a demonic wailing and the roars of Hell below deafened the stylist. His sword glowed like a supernova a. Pierced by light, clouds scudded to the north. A south wind was always good, Timothie thought. Fog tendrils clawed at Reginald's windows. Designs of yellow and blue curled in intricate patterns on the floor.

Timothie slashed with the striking sword; sparks and lightning flew, a cacophony of sound rose, and Reginald gasped, “Enough!” He drew the basin of unholy fluids into his arms and emptied it onto the pentagram. He uttered the spell that would send Bael back to its kingdom beneath the ground.

Bael laughed.

Timothie groaned, and the sword catapulted from his hands. Fatigued, he collapsed to the floor. The cape with the silver stars covered his body. “My Angel, where are you?”

His spent words rasped into the silence. There was no reply.