Chapter Ten: Grandfather (Clock) Paradox
Scrooge offered Jace, Alec, and Isabelle a ride to the Brooklyn loft of Magnus Bane in his limousine. It was an offer the three Shadowhunters graciously accepted, considering the alternative would’ve been the B-Team Ghostbusters’ filthy, decade-old Volvo V70 (refitted to serve as their secondary Ectomobile).
Magnus’s loft was an hour’s drive from Bob’s Burgers.
The loft itself was as flamboyant as its owner, cleansed
with the aroma of incense (or potions) and decorated with endless relics and
keepsakes that an immortal warlock was capable of collecting. As his guests
arrived, he was in the midst of sipping on a glass of wine while standing over
one of his antique desks, adorned with stacks of scrolls – one spread open and
anchored down by candle holders.
To see Scrooge McDuck himself inside his loft put a witty
smile on the warlock’s face. “My-my, if it isn’t the old skinflint himself,” he
said after another sip of wine. “If I’d known you were coming, I would’ve
cleared the loose change beneath the couch cushions.”
Scrooge, of course, wasn’t going to ignore this challenge
of wit between them. “Magnus, how does it feel to be over four hundred years
old and still be treated like every
other mooching millennial you resemble?”
“At least I’ll always have
my youth, Scrooge,” Magnus fired back. “With every year that passes, not even
feathers can hide your wrinkles.”
That crack from the warlock was far enough to make
Scrooge boil. “Why, you…!”
“Gentlemen!” Alec stepped in before their battle of wit
could get any more personal (and violent). “Can we focus on the real reason we’re here, please?”
Magnus enjoyed seeing Alec take charge like that. He was
all business as usual.
“Of course, Alexander,” Magnus obeyed, directing the
attention of his guests to his desk. “As you’ve probably noticed on your way
in, I’ve been doing a little reading on some ancient history – particularly in
the medieval era.”
“Lemme guess: King Arthur and the Knights of the Round
Table?” Louie cleverly deduced, hands coolly dug into the pockets of his green
hoodie.
Magnus smiled and pointed to him. “You may be the one member of the McDuck family tree I
actually like,” he said. “The lad is correct. I’ve been looking into the fables
of the great King of Camelot himself in his youth. As often as I have read of
his tales, there hasn’t been one detail of it that I’ve never missed
before…until now.” He indicated the parchment spread out on the desk. “This
scroll depicts young Arthur on the first week of his reign as king. He was a
terrified boy, believing himself to be unfit to rule an entire—”
“We’ve all seen the blasted film!” the impatient McDuck
blurted. “Just get to the point, man!”
Not letting himself be upset from Scrooge stepping on his
moment, Magnus continued, “Right…so, there has been a major rewrite in the
story. Apparently, the legend now states that Arthur’s kingdom was attacked by
an army of Deadites, witches, and gargoyles – all led by Duke Igthorn. Arthur’s
kingdom was one of the last to fall before Igthorn had completely taken over
much of the European continent.”
Jace folded his arms, his patience wearing as thin as
Scrooge’s. “That’s all very tragic, Magnus, but what does this have to do with
Clary?”
To appease the young Shadowhunter’s eagerness, Magnus
took another scroll from the stack beside the one already spread out on the
desk. He uncoiled it to show Jace and the others an artist rendering of a young
woman with flaming reddish-orange hair armed with a sword seemingly made of
light. But it was her attire that was more off-putting in the artwork, as it
was more contemporary than the period in which the depicted event took place.
Jace, Alec, and Isabelle recognized the woman illustrated
on the parchment.
“Clary?” Jace uttered with a questioning frown.
“What’s Clary doing in the Middle Ages?” Alec asked.
“It’d explain why she hasn’t answered her phone,”
Isabelle rationalized. “Not much cell service in medieval times.”
“But haven’t your calls been going through somehow?” Huey
indicated.
Jace realized Huey had a point. “I placed a rune spell on
Clary’s phone that’d allow us to communicate from within any dimensional plane,
if we were ever separated between one.” In realizing this, he added, “We still
have a way of communicating with Clary from the present.”
“Then call her again,”
Scrooge insisted. “Maybe Natalie Venkman and the other Ghostbusters are with
her right now, drinking mead or feigning off a dragon or whatever medieval
nonsense of that sort.”
Jace did as he requested and called again.
It rang and rang until all he heard was Clary’s voicemail
recording again.
Only this time, Jace was more concerned than aggravated.
“Something could be wrong,” he suspected. “As long as she’s not answering her
phone, there’s no way to determine whether or not she might be in any serious
trouble.”
“You sure are putting her
well-being way ahead of our friends,”
Lisa noted.
“That’s because your
friends aren’t our main priority,” Alec firmly stated.
Alec’s statement was enough to spark a heated war of
words between Shadowhunters and Ghostbusters. Only Magnus managed to end it
when he said, “Might I offer a suggestion?” He pointed to one corner of his
loft where there stood an antique grandfather clock, still in pristine
condition yet designed bigger and wider than the average grandfather clock. “That
may look like any ordinary old clock, but it’s actually an enchanted relic.”
Intrigued, Webby asked, “What does it do?”
“It’s a literal time machine, my dear,” Magnus said in
total earnest. “It creates a time portal once the designated time is set by
winding the hands on the clock face.”
Scrooge was very skeptical of Magnus’s suggestion. “You’re
suggesting we use your grandfather clock/time machine to go blindly bouncing
around in time with no telling whether or not if we’ll end up in the Middle Age
or even the Stone Age?!”
“Sounds like a one-in-a-million shot,” Dewey said. And,
with an air of confidence, he asserted, “I like those odds!”
Huey shot his brother a doubtful gaze. “Since when?”
“The clock will get you where and when you’ll want to
be,” Magnus reassured. “Getting back is the real
challenge, I’m afraid.”
“Can the clock return anyone that it sends back?” Jace
asked.
Magnus offered him a incredulous reply, “It’s worth
giving a try. But we’ll need some way of knowing when you’re ready to return.”
Considering this, Jace gave a long, hard look at one of
the Ghostbusters he thought to be the least irksome of them all: Meagan Tully.
He approached her with his phone held out in front of him and said, “You’re the
only one I trust to do this.”
“To do what?” Meagan inquired.
“My phone has the same rune that Clary’s does,” Jace
indicated the marking on the back of the device. “That means it’s a two-way
communication between the past and the present. As soon as we call from her
phone, you answer it just like you would your own phone, got it?”
Meagan nodded. “Y-Yeah. I got it.”
While Magnus prepared the grandfather clock, Leidy took
Miguel aside to have a private conversation with him in Spanish.
“Te alojas aquí con
Meagan, primo.” (“You stay here with Meagan, cousin.”)
“Pero quiero ir con
ustedes y ver si el primo J.G. es O.K.” (“But I want to go with you and see
if Cousin J.G. is O.K.”)
“Es demasiado
peligroso. J.G. nunca me perdonará por traerte. Quédate aquí. Volveremos antes
de que te des cuenta.” (“It’s too dangerous. J.G. will never forgive me for
bringing you. Stay here. We’ll be back before you know it.”)
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