Prospero Lost: Prospero's Daughter, Book I (23 page)

This was unexpected.

“Any suggestions?” I barely managed to keep my voice from coming out as one long squeak.

“I know!” Mephisto bounced up and down, his hand raised. “Set up a meeting with him, then don’t show!”

“How the heck did he find us?” Mab growled. “Might not be a bad idea to hear what he has to say, Ma’am. I, for one, wouldn’t mind asking him a few questions. Would you like me to go speak with him?”

Mab’s tone of voice evoked images of single chairs positioned beneath unbearably bright spotlights. I laughed, despite my dismay. My palms were slick with sweat. I wiped them on my Irish Setter-ripped coat.

Meeting Ferdinand would cause a delay, and I was eager to carry out Father’s request, warn my family, and return to the business of running Prospero, Inc. On the other hand, I did not feel the sense of impending doom that had oppressed me before our encounter with Osae the Red. My sister must be warned, but it could probably wait a day. Besides, the unlikeliness of Ferdinand reappearing in my life now was too great to be a coincidence. I wanted to discover the relationship between his reappearance and the Three Shadowed Ones.

“Let’s meet him, then. I’ll come too.” The thought of sending Mab was appealing, but I could not run from my past forever. “Where?”

“Better make it some public place, Ma’am.”

“I’ve never lived around here. I don’t know any public places.”

“Everybody knows public places in D.C., and that’s only a few miles from here,” Mephisto said. “What about the Capitol building, or the Lincoln Memorial?”

“Very well,” I replied. “You may tell Simon we’ll meet Mr. Di Napoli tomorrow at noon at the Lincoln Memorial. If he can’t make it, so much the better.”

“Tomorrow, at noon, at the Lincoln Memorial. Gotcha.” Mab repeated
the information into the cell phone. He hung up and looked at me. “You gonna tell your brother that this Ferdinand joker is going to be here?”

I sighed. “No. Theo would blast him before we got a word in edgewise. I think we should hear what Ferdinand has to say.”

Besides, the whole point had been to get Theo to leave his farm and interact with the world. That would hardly happen if I did his legwork for him.

MAB
hung up and poured himself a cup of hot coffee from a thermos which he, like all good detectives, kept with him in the car along with a wide-mouthed jar. He offered a cup to Mephisto and me, but we both shook our heads. It was growing dark, and we could barely make out the two figures who came out of the warehouse, waved to each other, and climbed wearily into their cars. The lights came on in one car and then the other. Both cars pulled out and drove away. We were left alone with two trucks, a Dumpster, and the warehouse.

“That’s the truck I chased in the cab! I recognize the numbers.” Mephisto popped out from under a blanket and pointed over my shoulder at one of the two green-and-blue sixteen-wheelers. He frowned. “Or maybe it was the one over there. Anyway, they’re gone. Shall we go in?” Darting from the car, he started forward.

Mab leapt after him and grabbed him by the shoulder. “Hey, punk, where do you think you’re going?”

“Get your hands off me. Into the warehouse, isn’t that the plan?” Mephisto shrugged free of Mab’s grip.

“If you want to set off the alarms and notify the police,” Mab said.

“They didn’t have any alarms when I was here before,” Mephisto said.

“That was before the place got trashed, by you. If they’re not bonkers or bankrupt, they’ve upped their security since then.” Mab squinted, pointing through the gloom at the warehouse. “See that sticker by the door? That tells us they have a security system. Hand me the binoculars, Ma’am. I’ll see if I can read it despite the dimness of the light.”

I reached into the backseat and picked up the shoulder bag into which I had stowed equipment we might need. The gear Ariel had packed for us included a pair of binoculars, my laptop and portable scanner, a starlight scope, several LED headlamps with battery packs. Last night, we had added some bright-orange foam earplugs, the kind used at shooting ranges, for Mab’s ears.

Climbing out of the car, I handed Mab the binoculars. “Check it out, Mab. Tell us what you can find out.”

Mab peered through the field glasses. “Thomson Security Co.: I’ve run into them before. No motion detectors, usually, but the system is tied into a phone line which calls the security company and the police.”

Smiling, I picked up the shoulder bag and handed the neon-orange earplugs to Mab. Then, I took up my flute. “You gentleman see to the locks. I’ll take care of the alarms.”

I WENT
forward, whistling softly. Across the parking lot, three brick steps led to a heavy steel door. Climbing the stairs, I touched two fingers to my lips, then tapped them lightly against the door, just next to the doorknob.

“Spirits of lightning,” I intoned, “deviate not one iota from the paths of your dance!”

Then, sitting down upon the steps, I raised my flute and played the tune I had been whistling. Upon my lips it had been a cheerful march. When voiced by the flute, it became something grander, rousing and yet solemn, bringing a tear to my eye even as it lifted my spirits.

As I played, Mab and Mephisto came hurrying across the parking lot, Mab glancing carefully backwards to make sure no one was in sight. Convinced we were alone, he pulled out locksmithing tools and set to work. Meanwhile Mephisto, who had not climbed the stairs, went over to the warehouse’s windows and tried in vainly to peek between the closed slats of the Venetian blinds.

The lock clicked open. I kept playing. As Mab swung the door open, a tiny line of blue fire continuously leapt the path between the tongue of the doorknob and the metal plate on the lintel.

Mab ducked under the stream of living current and stood blinking in the darkness on the far side. I followed more slowly, maneuvering so as to enter without disturbing the lightning or my flute playing. Then, I was within the small hall beyond the door, my back pressed against a coatrack, and only Mephisto remained outside.

Mab called to my brother, who came meandering up the stairs. Upon seeing the open door, with its blue-white flickering arc, Mephisto let out a cry of delight.

“Oooo! Look at that, Miranda! How pretty! Can I touch it?” He raised his hand.

In horror, I watched my brother reach for the live electricity. The amount
of current necessary to keep up this unnatural arc was far greater, by several magnitudes, than normally flowed through these wires. I wanted to shout at him, but if I stopped playing, the alarm would go off. Of course, my brother disrupting the current by electrocuting himself would also set off the alarms. Desperately, I kicked at Mab, who had turned away and was gazing into the inside of the warehouse.

Mab saw Mephisto. With the speed of a striking snake, he grabbed my brother’s shirt and forced him down, away from the deadly blue-white arc.

“Are you crazy?” Mab’s voice was unusually loud, as he still wore his earplugs. “You’re gonna get yourself killed!”

Mephisto’s eyes fixed on the electricity, and his face turned ashen. Swallowing fearfully, he squatted to the ground and duck-walked through the open door, far beneath the blue arc of the electricity.

Once Mephisto was inside, Mab slammed the door shut. I played another measure or two to insure the current returned to its natural path. Then I lowered the flute and waited, holding my breath.

No alarm sounded. We had made it safely inside.

THE
narrow hall opened into the great cavern of the warehouse. To our right was a loading dock with openings to two truck bays. Before us stood six towering rows of shelves, each some twenty-five feet tall. Large wooden crates sat on the floor beneath the lowest shelf, which stood the height of a tall man. The upper shelves held electrical equipment, furniture, and boxes marked
INVENTORY
or “UCS”. These shelving units stretched off into the darkness, toward the back of the warehouse, some tenth of a mile away. The middle four were accessible from both sides. The first and last units stood against the side walls.

A noise in the darkness startled us, and we ducked among the giant crates. The cause of our distress turned out to be the dripping of one of the great pipes running across the ceiling. Relieved, I reached into my shoulder bag and handed out the headlamps.

We split up according to our pre-agreed plan. Mab and Mephisto crept away to search the warehouse. They moved down the narrow corridor between two rows of shelves, the light from their headlamps falling upon the crates and causing shadows to leap and dance before them. Donning my own lamp, I set off as well. Since I was familiar with the running of Prospero, Inc.’s warehouses, my task was to find and check the records.

*    *    *

I FOUND
offices on either side of the warehouse. The office tracking incoming goods was neat and orderly, while the one tracking outgoing shipments was a disorganized mess. It stank of burnt coffee grounds, and beverage stains discolored the piled papers. The computer directories and file cabinets in the outgoing office were in better order. Luckily, they did not require passwords to get past the screen savers, and only one cabinet was locked. Mab jimmied it open at my request, revealing personnel records and miscellaneous reports.

A quick search revealed the date of the break-in. Hooking up my laptop, I scanned copies of all files for that date and those of several days to either side. A few of the filthier pages I ran through the warehouse copy machine first, so as to avoid smearing some unknown substance on my scanner.

A perusal of their computer records confirmed that a shipment had gone to Chicago on the eve of the break-in. The street number of the destination point differed by two digits from the one Mephisto recalled. I scribbled the correct address on a piece of paper and stuck it in my pocket to pass along to Mab.

As I worked, my thoughts returned to the warehouse door. Opening locks was another of the Six Gifts of the Sibyl, and commanding lightning was a third. Had I been a Sibyl, the precious minutes of attention-drawing flute music could have been replaced by a word and a touch. We could also have avoided the game of electric limbo. I sighed. If only I could discern my Lady’s mind and discover what held me back from achieving this final honor. But upon this matter my Lady remained mute.

BY
the time I finished, Mab and Mephisto had nearly completed a circuit of the warehouse. Mephisto climbed over the boxes and stored couches, the shadows cast by his headlamp bobbing wildly. Mab moved slowly from box to box. Sometime, he dusted for fingerprints. Other times, he stopped and sniffed.

As he came to the end of one of the narrow passageways, he approached me. “There’s something strange here, Ma’am,” he said. “An odd scent. I’ve smelled it before, but I can’t recall where. It’s nothing natural, I can assure you that. Nothing good.”

I sniffed. I detected a faint, dank odor mingled with the scent of cardboard, but nothing that struck me as clearly supernatural.

From the back of the warehouse, Mephisto called. “Do you think they’re storing magic in these boxes? Like in
Raiders of the Lost Ark
?”

Mab snorted. “Your harebrained brother has seen too many movies. Whatever it is, it’s strongest in the middle row. Over where Mephisto is now.”

As he spoke, I heard an odd noise from over in Mephisto’s direction. My brother called, “Hey, you guys, come look at this box. I think there’s something alive in it.”

“Alive? What makes you think so?” Mab began striding quickly in Mephisto’s direction. I followed rapidly.

“It’s making knocking noises. Wait a second, I’ll open it up,” Mephisto responded.

“Mephisto! No!” Mab and I shouted together.

“It’s okay. I’ve almost got it . . . Oh-oh!” said Mephisto.

Mab and I ran. Our headlamps lit a semicircle of concrete floor before us, sending shadows scurrying to either side. Two rows over, Mephisto’s noise of dismay turned into a scream. We ran faster. The screaming continued, mingled with growls. Then, there was a loud angry bellow, and Mephisto fell silent. The light of his headlamp rose high into the air and then clattered to the ground.

Mab and I sprinted through the darkened warehouse. I would have pulled ahead of him, but he grabbed my arm, holding me back. The corridor we ran down was separated from Mephisto’s by a single unit of shelving. Ahead, a break in the shelving allowed access to the next passage. As we approached it, Mab stopped behind some large cardboard boxes and pulled out his lead pipe.

Slowly, we peeked around the boxes and down the passage beyond. The shadows cast by our overlapping headlamps swayed and leapt toward us . . . and kept on coming.

Slavering hounds of shadow and smoke, dark fangs bared, rushed silently towards us. Behind them, further down the corridor, rested a large wooden crate, the top of which had been pried open. More shadow dogs were swarming out of the open crate.

There was no sign of Mephisto.

“Barghests out of Limbo,” Mab spat. “Jiminy Cricket! But I hate those shadow puppies.”

From the pocket of his trench coat, Mab brought out the handful of leftover rock salt, which he tossed into the midst of the loping hounds. The lead dogs yowled and drew back, dropping to the floor to paw at their noses and eyes. Those behind leapt over their prone leaders and kept coming. They began to howl, an eerie sound that froze the marrow in one’s bones.