“Sure!” my brother chirped, “It’s right in the spot that I left it!”
“One would hope,” muttered Mab.
CHAPTER
FIVE
The Chameleon Cloak
The fuel gauge was only barely below the half line and I was impatient to get to Theo’s, but an intuition from my Lady suggested I should refill before going any further, so I turned onto a local road.
“Hey, where are we going? This looks familiar. Are we there yet?” Mephisto peered out the window.
I sighed. “We’re stopping for gas. As for whether or not we’re there yet . . . you are directing us, remember?”
“Oops! Sorry.”
“You do know where you’re taking us, don’t you?” Mab turned in his seat. “Because if this turns out to be a wild goose chase, I’ll wring your scrawny neck.”
Mephisto cried plaintively, “Miranda, don’t let him talk to me like that!”
I forced my voice to remain calm. “Do you know where we are going?”
“Yes. Of course. I just got confused. Everyone gets confused sometimes. Even sane people.” Mephisto spoke with mock resentfulness, but there was an undertone of genuine bitterness, as if he hated his lack of sanity. Neither Mab nor I answered, and an uncomfortable silence followed.
As we arrived at a service station, however, I happened to glance at my brother in the rearview mirror, and a strange thing happened. For an instant, I had such sympathy for his plight that it was as if I were the one who had lost my sanity, who had felt slip from me my intelligence, my memory, and everything that made me myself. For the first time, I contemplated how the brilliant and talented youthful Mephisto would have felt about his foolish older self. He would have been appalled—much as I might feel were I to come upon an older version of myself who was an imbecile or who had lost the favor of Eurynome.
The experience left me shaken.
* * *
SURROUNDED by forest, the service station stood by itself except for a squat thrift shop across the road. Next to the thrift shop was a huge, sprawling, gravel parking lot, far larger than a store of its type would ever need. Perhaps the building had once been a restaurant.
As Mab pumped the gas, Mephisto rolled down his window and scrambled up until he was sitting in the window of the car door. Crossing his arms, he leaned on the roof, looking around.
“Miranda? Did you ever notice that every gas station off every highway looks like every other gas station off a highway? And, every small town thrift shop is called The Elephant’s Trunk?”
“No,” I murmured.
He was right about the name of the thrift shop. A gray wooden cutout of an elephant hung above the sign. The glass bay windows showed plastic mannequins with painted hair. They were dressed in outfits from the twenties through the fifties. One of the mannequins was missing a hand.
The soft voice of my Lady spoke in my heart.
Go into the store.
Immediately, I left the car and crossed the road to the thrift shop. Behind me, Mephisto had climbed out of his window and leapt down to the pavement. His footsteps echoed behind mine. He caught up with me as I reached the door, and we walked into the tiny shop together.
The musty smell of old clothes nearly caused me to retreat. I stood blinking, my hand over my nose, waiting for my eyes to adjust to the dim lighting. As my vision cleared, the clerk came toward us, smiling simperingly at Mephisto. She was a thin woman in a red knit dress.
“Oops, got to go!” Mephisto spun on his heels. He wrinkled his nose as he left, calling, “Icky smell!”
The clerk hesitated, frowning, before coming to serve me. I refrained from smirking. Middle-aged women pursuing my daffy brother always amused me, though how he managed to impress this one so quickly was mystifying.
“Can I help you? We’re having a special on sequined gowns and flapper hats.” An eager look came over her face as, with her trained eye, she took in my dress, examining its shimmering emerald satin, its high lace collar, its narrow fitted waist, and its puffed shoulders. “That’s a lovely tea gown you’re wearing. A reproduction of a Worth gown, perhaps? Circa 1894? It’s amazingly well preserved! What extraordinary fabric! I’ve never seen anything quite like it. Is it for sale?”
I considered saying: “Actually, it’s a Logistilla Original, circa 1910, and as for selling it, can you afford to offer me, oh, say, the moon?” But that would have been impolite. Instead, I settled for the more civil: “No. It was a gift from my sister.”
“A pity. Maybe you came for this?” she asked. She gave the door through which Mephisto had disappeared one last puzzled glance before gesturing toward a display at the center of the shop.
Just in front of the cash register stood a large papier-mâché elephant. An iron rail snaked around the elephant’s feet, and two mannequins moved along the rail with a slow mechanical whirl, revolving around the display like toy trains circling a Christmas tree. The mannequins rotated as they traveled, showing the apparel they displayed to best advantage. An Edwardian wedding gown adorned one of the mannequins. A shapeless poncho or smock covered the other. The smock was the exact shade of gray as the papiermâché elephant behind it.
I gave the display a cursory examination, wondering bemusedly if my attire had led the clerk to assume I was a collector of vintage Edwardian paraphernalia. As I watched, the mannequin wearing the shapeless garment moved beyond the elephant. As the iron rail curved to the back, the poncho passed a rack holding a fluffy blue and green sweater. Tints of blue and green appeared in the plain smock, spreading rapidly until the entire poncho bore the same blue and green pattern as the sweater.
Was the smock transparent? I leaned closer, watching as the mannequin moved by a red raincoat. Slowly, the red spread through the blue-and-green smock. The smock was changing its color, like a chameleon.
A chameleon . . . a cloak . . .
A cold paralysis gripped my limbs, and the small shop with its musty garments began to spin. I retreated rapidly, seeking fresher air.
OUTSIDE, I leaned against the drab side of the thrift shop, trembling like the rail of a trestle when a train passes. Calling to Mab, I shakily drew my wallet from my coat pocket. Mab hurried toward me, looking both ways before he crossed the road. When he reached my side, I thrust the wallet into his hands and managed to speak.
“There’s a chameleon cloak in there. Buy the abomination.”
“A chameleon cloak? As in Unicorn Hunters?” he screwed up his face in disgust. “Thought they were all destroyed long ago?”
“Nonetheless.”
Mab stalked into the store while I crossed the gravel parking lot to sit down on a fallen tree trunk. Breathing deeply, I waited for the wave of fear to ebb. It was a strange sensation, suffering another’s panic, but I felt it worth the price. After all, my Lady calmed my fears daily, while I seldom had an opportunity to calm Hers. Very few things frightened the Bearer of the Lightning Bolt . . . but Unicorn Hunters were one of them.
THE Unicorn Hunters began as a band of the nastiest knights in Christendom. Who sponsored them and why I never learned, but they clearly had a supernatural patron. They would appear from time to time bearing magical swords or riding unnaturally swift chargers. They slew Her Handmaidens and put Sibyls to the sword. They kidnapped virgins and staked them out, then laid in wait, hoping to trap Eurynome Herself.
Once, they wounded Her. The blood spilled that day became the source of a kingdom’s woe and eventually brought about its destruction. That is another tale, however, and from before my time. Eventually, the Unicorn Hunters died out or were exterminated.
Then, during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, they appeared again. Perhaps the same patron made another attempt. Or, perhaps some of the young bloods learned of the existence of the earlier band and wished to imitate them. At first, it was all posturing and show. A few hunts were held, but nothing of substance was accomplished.
Then, Edward Kelly, the young assistant to the royal magician John
Dee, became involved, and everything changed. The magical weapons reappeared, and something new: chameleon cloaks. Concealed in chameleon cloaks, the new Unicorn Hunters began to stalk Eurynome. Something about the cloaks, something more than their blending color, kept her from noticing them. With these cloaks and their supernatural weapons, the Unicorn Hunters were able to surprise her. Twice, they wounded her.
At a dance at court, one of them noticed the unicorns embroidered on my dress and remarked upon it. Naïvely, I said too much. After that, they hunted me.
They captured me as I was leaving a royal ball. I had attended without my flute. Bringing me into the country by carriage, they kept me a prisoner in a rustic cottage until the next thunderstorm. When the first lightning bolt arced across the sky, they staked me down spread-eagled on a stone bier in the rain. After the second bolt, Eurynome herself came to free me.
They struck her through with enchanted spears of copper and glass. She killed four men before they subdued her, but there were too many of them. They bound her with a rope made from the breath of fishes, the roots of mountains, and the beards of women, and dragged her into a deep dark pit, where they tied her to a stone slab. They would have killed her, sacrificing her to some dark entity, had it not been for my brothers. Mephisto, Theophrastus, and Erasmus crashed their party and set her free.
My brothers slew the Unicorn Hunters and destroyed their enchanted gear. I thought all the chameleon cloaks were destroyed that night, until today.
I GLANCED back across the gravel parking lot toward the squat gray shop. Tiny flecks of white danced in the intervening air. Shivering, I was turning up my collar as Mab emerged from the thrift shop. He came crunching across the gravel toward me, carrying a shiny brown paper bag. Mephisto reappeared as well, from wherever he had gotten to, and began hovering about Mab, trying to look in the bag.
Mab gave Mephisto a long look. My brother went pale and threw his hands up in front of him as if warding off an attack.
“I didn’t do it!” he cried.
“Relax, Mephisto. No one is accusing you of anything.”
“They’re not?” He glanced from Mab to me in surprise.
How pathetic my brother’s life had become. He lived in a world where lutes broke for no reason, where people accused him of transgressions he had no recollection of committing. The idea of a son of my father starting with fear because a servant glared at him for looking in a bag! It shamed me to see him reduced to this.
I threw him an encouraging smile, but he had become distracted and was gazing curiously back toward the thrift shop.
The snow began falling more quickly. Mab crossed to stand beside the fallen tree trunk. I stood and pulled my coat closer about me.
“Did you get it?” I asked, my voice low.
“Yeah, I got it,” Mab replied glumly. “I’d like to find out where it came from, but the clerk would not answer any questions. Apparently, they have a policy against saying anything about who drops off what.”
Mab hesitated, then continued, “Look, Ma’am, I know you never listen to me, but I’m begging you, listen now. Just this once. We are being hunted by the Powers of Hell. They can sniff out the stuff of the arcane like a blood-hound sniffs out fresh blood. It’s bad enough us carrying the accursed flute around with us. Not to mention your green dress and whatever else you carry in your purse. I’d guess, at the very least, the razor fan of Amatsumaru, your crystal vial of the Water of Life, and a chip of unicorn horn. Am I right?”
I inclined my head. Mab knew my habits well. The vial of Water and the chip of horn were mine by right of my station of Handmaiden. The war fan had been forged by the Japanese smith god himself and given to me during our first visit to Japan in 1792, when we sneaked into the country to bind up the oni responsible for the eruption of Mt. Unzen. The fan was a gift of thanks from the tengu who serve my Lady in Her aspect as the Kirin. Its razor edge had been folded and refolded over a thousand times, like a katana. The blade was sharp enough to slice through sheet metal.
Mab continued. “I don’t know what plans you have for this god-awful garment. But I’m begging you. Cast it aside and let me destroy it. It’s our only hope. If you want to warn your family, we’ve got to get to them before the Three Shadowed Ones get to us. That won’t happen if we carry around enough magic to alert even a deaf and toothless demi-sprite with cataracts and one bum leg. Please. I’m begging you, Ma’am.”
“Very well, Mab. You may destroy it.”
Mab’s jaw dropped. He glanced hurriedly back and forth between me and the bag, then held it up before me and made the throat-slitting gesture. I nodded. Certain now that he had heard me correctly, Mab grinned with vicious delight. He began rummaging through his pockets as quickly as he could, drawing out the chalk and holy water he needed to unmake the horrible thing, as if he were afraid I might suddenly change my mind. As he did so, he chuckled to himself and shook his head in wonder.
Suddenly, he froze, eyeing me suspiciously. “Exactly what were you planning to do with the thing when you asked me to buy it?”
“Have you destroy it,” I admitted.
“Ah. I see. Should have known it was too good to be true,” he said, deflated. He continued to pull the bag of chalk from his pocket, but his actions had lost their enthusiastic bounce.
“Don’t you want to destroy it?” I asked innocently.
“Sure . . . it’s just that for one sweet moment, I suffered from the cruel delusion that for the first time in our nearly seventy years of association, you had actually listened to me,” Mab grumbled.
I chuckled, “Oh, Mab. You poor, unappreciated soul.”
* * *
MAB chose a place in the wide parking lot and began tracing the lines for his warding circles. The gravel crunched as he pushed it with his booted toe. The delay reaching Theo’s worried me, but my impatience was tempered by my discomfort at the thought of traveling with the chameleon cloak in the car. Besides, Theo, who had renounced magic, would hardly welcome us if we showed up carrying an accursed talisman.
The snow was coming more quickly now, its soft flakes melting against my face. The air had grown quite cold. A little cloud formed every time I exhaled. Behind us, the bag crinkled. Swirling about, I saw Mephisto leaning over the paper bag, pulling out the chameleon cloak. It rippled and shifted, its weave revealing black birch trunks and powdery flurries of snow.
Mephisto’s lips parted, forming a perfect “O.”
“Oh, Miranda, this is pretty! Please don’t destroy it. Please? Let me have it,” He tilted his head and smiled at me. As he held the garment against his chest, it shifted to show the embroidery of his black Russian shirt and the brilliant blue of his surcoat.
“Cur! Put that back in the bag!” Mab shouted, “Do you want to send off a beacon to alert every supernatural creature this side of the Mississippi? If a Walker-Behind jumps out of the bushes and devours your sister whole, pausing only to spit out her bones, it will be on your head!”
At that very moment, a rustle came from the bushes. Mephisto jumped with fright and thrust the chameleon cloak back into the brown paper bag, wrapping it up tightly. Taking a careful step backwards, he bent and gathered up a handful of gravel. Mab pulled out the trusty length of lead pipe he carried as a weapon. I ran back to the car, returning moments later with my flute; my other hand crept toward the handle of the Japanese fighting fan that lay nestled in my coat pocket. Thus armed, the three of us warily faced the rustling laurel bushes.
The snow-sprinkled leaves trembled and parted. A black nose emerged followed by a long red snout. Then, an Irish Setter came bursting out of the laurel bushes. His long pink tongue hung out, his plume-like tail was wagging.
“Awh,” muttered Mab.
He mopped his brow and returned to drawing his circles. Mephisto’s face had gone slack with fear. Now, a high, weak giggle escaped his lips. Feeling almost queasy with relief, I smiled and dropped to sit upon the tree trunk, stretching my hand out toward the dog, who trott
ed toward me, panting happily, little white flecks of snow caught in his thick red coat.
Mephisto cocked his head and watched the animal as it stopped to smell an old cardboard box someone had discarded by the side of the parking lot.
“Remember that guy who took my staff—the one you wanted to know what he looked like? His hair was exactly the color of this dog.”
Without hesitating, Mab drew his lead pipe from his trench coat and threw it at the dog. The spinning length of lead grazed its head. The big red setter yelped and leapt backwards, cowering down with its tail between its legs.
“Mab! How could you!” I cried, hurrying over to comfort the cowering creature, “You might have hurt him!”
“Get back, Ma’am! That’s no ordinary dog,” Mab warned, but his voice wavered.
The dog whined and licked my hand.
“You’re losing your touch, Mab,” I laughed. “You’ve gotten so you think everything is a threat. It’s just a dog.”
Mab frowned uncertainly as if not quite able to credit what he saw.
“Yeah, I guess so,” he grumbled finally.
Reluctantly, he returned to his preparations while I squatted down and petted the animal, feeling its thick damp fur. It licked my hand, its tongue warm and wet against my skin. Its big brown eyes gazed up at me as it pushed against me in friendly exuberance, wagging its tail fiercely.
A strange cold chill traveled down the back of my neck. Turning, I saw the dog’s parted white fangs gently closing over the polished haft of my flute.
I grabbed the flute, shouting. The dog leapt into the air, its teeth closing on my arm. There was a sharp ripping as the white canvas of my trench coat tore, followed by a slithering sound as its teeth slid along the enchanted material of my dress, unable to penetrate it. Losing its grip, the creature dropped back to the ground.
Mab stared helplessly from the growling dog to his lead pipe, which lay behind the dog, resting against a snowy rock.
Prospero Lost: Prospero's Daughter, Book I Page 9
