by Jon Skovron
“Wow, how about that? I don’t see what you have to do with me and my friends going to Lima, either,” I said.
“Listen.” She leaned in closer. The more she smiled, the less comfortable I felt. “I’ve been nice up to now. But this could all go very differently.”
“Something different from being held without cause, you mean? I’m looking forward to that.”
She leaned back, her smile suddenly gone as she stared up at the ceiling. “Here’s what I know. None of you add up. Funny names, mismatched ages. It all . . . checks out. But there is something in this puzzle that I am missing and I will find it before anyone goes anywhere.”
“Do you think your grandfather would have figured it out by now?” I asked.
Her mouth tightened for a moment as her eyes dropped back to me. Then she smiled again. “You’re pretty good. You found where my goat was tied up in no time and now you’re kicking it just hard enough to keep me off balance. Have you . . . done this before maybe?”
“Nope. First time.”
“A natural then. Speaking of natural, that sure is a beautiful girlfriend you’ve got.”
“She sure is.”
“Be a shame if something were to happen to her.”
“You’re joking, right?”
“Of course I am. Joking.”
“Good. Because some friendly advice here: you do not want to get on her bad side. Trust me.”
Her smiled faded. “She’s under suspicion, too, you know.”
“For what?”
“I’m not at liberty to discuss that.”
“Wait. You can’t tell me what we’re being charged with?”
“Did I say charged? I didn’t say charged.”
“Okay, seriously. How long are you going to keep us here?”
“Why? You have somewhere to be?”
“Yeah, actually I do.”
“Tell me.”
“You already know.” My frustration was starting to show. I knew it, but I couldn’t help it. Every minute this asshole continued to jerk me around was time lost from getting to Lima and stopping Moreau.
“Right. Lima. To visit your cousin. Who is Swiss. And named Frankenstein. And living in Peru. And you’re Swiss, too, isn’t that right? Says so on your passport.”
“Yep.”
“Then I wonder why it is you don’t have an accent.”
“I’ve been living in the States for a while.”
“Sure, of course. So why do you need to see Henri so badly? Matter of life and death?”
This woman could probably keep us going round and round like this for hours. Maybe days for all I knew. Especially if she thought we were terrorists. I decided it was time to take a gamble. I decided some truth might be in order.
“Actually, it is. People might get killed if we don’t get to Lima in time.”
“Which people?”
“My friends, my family, bystanders. Anybody.”
“And who’s doing the killing?”
“Guerrilla terrorists.” Close enough. And I thought I remembered Peru having a serious problems with those kinds of groups in the past, so it was believable.
“And why would terrorists be after your cousin?”
“They aren’t. They’re probably after the girl he likes.”
“Ah. Yes, well, of course, that would be it. His girlfriend.”
“No, the girl he likes.”
“She doesn’t like him?”
“Not like that.”
“Just friends.”
“Exactly.”
“And you’re friends with her, too, I take it.”
“Yes.”
“And who is she that she would be a terrorist target?”
“She goes by the title La Perricholi.”
Her eyebrow shot up. “La what?” It looked like I’d thrown her a curveball and she didn’t like it. Her cool evaporated instantly. “Look, Boy, if that really is your name. You’d better stop feeding me this line of bullshit or—”
The door opened and an older guy in a suit came in. He whispered something to Holmes. Holmes’s eyes slowly widened as she listened. Then the older guy left and didn’t close the door behind him. Holmes turned back to me and she looked seriously pissed.
“Well, apparently this friend of yours is some kind of big deal. So I’m going to have to let you go on your merry way. But let’s be clear, something is not clicking with you and I know it. A lot of stitches in that passport photo of yours. If I had to guess, I’d say plastic surgery. Recent, by the way you keep looking at yourself in reflective surfaces, and quite drastic by the way you misjudge your height and size. Except there’s absolutely no sign of recent surgery. It just . . . doesn’t add up. There’s something I’m missing. . . .”
She sat there, chewing on her lower lip, her forehead furrowed.
“You . . . really don’t know, do you?” I asked. “Your own people. They send you out looking for someone or something and they haven’t even told you what it is.” Suddenly, I almost pitied her.
“Well,” she said icily, “if you know so very much, why don’t you fill me in?”
I shook my head. “Sorry.” I got up and started to walk past her, but there was something that made me stop. Something about her expression that looked familiar somehow. Human or not, she knew something about famous fathers and impossible expectations.
“Okay, I probably shouldn’t say this,” I said. “But start looking at police reports during the last week in New York. And remember what your grandfather used to say. Once you’ve eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be true.”
“CAN SOMEONE EXPLAIN what happened back there?” asked Sophie.
By some unspoken agreement, none of us had said anything until we were safely on our plane and in the air.
“The damned descendant of Sherlock Holmes of all people,” said Laurellen. “We’re lucky she’s not quite as sharp as her grandfather yet. I’ve heard that old Sherlock could actually see through glamour. I’d guess this one couldn’t quite penetrate, but perhaps she kept catching something odd out of the corner of her eye. My question is, why did they let us go so quickly?”
“I name-dropped La Perricholi,” I said.
Mozart grunted. “Me too. Normally, I hate doing that, but since it’s her ass we’re trying to save, I thought it was appropriate.”
“She’s really that famous?” asked Sophie.
“La Perricholi has done of lot of things for a lot of countries over the years. Anyone who’s connected with her is treated very carefully.”
“Couldn’t anyone just say they were her friend?” asked Sophie.
“Every once in a while, someone tries that. Then La Perricholi pays them a visit, makes an example of them, and that’s usually the end of it for a while.”
“And you knew that saying her name would get us out?” Sophie asked me.
“No, it was totally by accident,” I admitted.
“Interesting coincidence,” said Mozart. “Someone with gifts like Holmes assigned as the security detail for the airport we’re leaving.”
“You think Moreau somehow managed it?” asked Laurellen.
“Wouldn’t put it past him.”
“I can’t even imagine how he’d accomplish such a thing,” said Laurellen.
“How would he even know we’re here?” I asked. “As far as he knows, we’re still hiding in the basement of The Museum.”
“Feels like he’s at least a few steps ahead of us wherever we go,” Mozart agreed.
“Ruthven said he was like some brilliant tactician or something,” I said.
“That could be it,” said Mozart.
“You think it’s something else?”
“Or someone else,” said Mozart. “I keep getti
ng . . . little flashes of a scent. Too faint and quick to make out who it is. But it’s vaguely familiar.”
“And you’re sure it’s not one of us?” asked Laurellen.
“I’ve been getting them off and on for weeks. And sometimes it’s been when I was alone.”
“Or thought you were alone,” said Sophie.
Mozart’s eyes narrowed. “You have an idea?”
“Look, this is just complete speculation, yeah?” She turned to Laurellen. “Has anyone heard from Kemp since the raid?”
Laurellen frowned. “Now that you mention it, no.”
“Because he was still in New York when it happened, wasn’t he?”
“I assume so. . . .” He shook his head. “But I couldn’t say for sure.”
“Wait,” I said. “You think Kemp has joined up with Moreau?”
Sophie shrugged.
“It would explain a great many things,” said Laurellen.
“But he’s like the last person who would be cool with Moreau’s war,” I said.
“I hope you’re right,” Sophie said quietly.
“Me too,” said Mozart. “Because the last thing we need right now is an invisible spy.”
For the rest of the flight, I kept glancing at an empty seat a few rows in front of us. It was hard not to imagine Kemp sitting there. In fact, he could have been anywhere, with us at any time, and we would never have known. His invisibility had never made me feel paranoid before. I guess I’d just felt like he’d never betray my trust like that. But now, I wasn’t sure. Liel and the Siren had joined up with Moreau. And I was pretty sure that if Moreau had given my mom a better answer about freeing my dad, she would have joined him, too.
What made it even harder was that I understood why people would want to join him. He and I wanted the same thing: equal rights for monsters. If I hadn’t had such a connection to humans, if I’d stayed in the theater my whole life, I might have joined up with him, too.
18
Deduction
VI HAD GRUDGINGLY agreed to contact Henri and La Perricholi while we were in the air and bring them up to speed. Now that she wasn’t tied down to a single device, she could still be off doing things when I had to power down the phone during the flight. So they were waiting for us with the red van outside the airport. I noticed both of them staring at me.
“Boy?” said La Perricholi, squinting her eyes. “Is that you?”
“Yep,” I said. “Had to use glamour to get through the airport security.”
“Even then we barely made it,” said Mozart.
La Perricholi gazed at me in an almost appraising way that made me feel a little uncomfortable. She pursed her lips and nodded. “Very nice.”
Sophie put her arm around my waist. “I don’t care if you can kill people with your bare hands, he’s still mine.”
La Perricholi laughed and patted Sophie’s shoulder. “Just admiring the view, mi amiga. I think Boy already has all the woman he can handle.”
“Isn’t that the truth,” murmured Laurellen.
“Perricholi, I don’t know if you’ve met Laurellen before,” said Mozart.
“No,” she said, offering her hand. “Maria has told me about you, though.”
“Good things, I hope,” said Laurellen as he shook her hand.
“Hardly any.” She grinned.
With everything going on, it seemed a little weird that La Perricholi was in such a good mood. Then again, it wouldn’t have surprised me if a little global catastrophe was exactly the kind of thing that cheered her up.
Henri, on the other hand, looked tired and sullen. He gave us a brief, forced smile and didn’t say a word. His plan to woo La Perricholi clearly hadn’t been going well.
“Vi gave us the coordinates for Moreau’s location,” said La Perricholi as she opened up the back of the van. “The signal seems to originate from a large ship anchored just off the coast.”
“How large?” asked Mozart as he tossed his bag in the back of the van.
“Big enough to hold a small army if they’re packed in tight.”
“That’s what I was afraid of.”
“It’s very close to my house,” she said.
“Could be that’s his target, then. He made a point of mentioning how your predecessor stood up to him last time, so he probably sees you as the biggest obstacle to getting a foothold here.”
“We should strike first, then.”
“Maybe. But we’ll want to wait until Ruthven gets here with reinforcements.”
“Did he tell you how many he’s bringing?”
“As many monsters as he could find that haven’t already joined up with Moreau.”
“Many have?”
Mozart nodded. “About half of what’s left of the New York clan. Including the remaining trowe.”
“I don’t relish facing them on the battlefield,” she said. “What about the Los Angeles clan?”
“Kemp put the whole group on hiatus just before this started,” I said. “He said most of them were traveling, visiting their homelands and stuff.”
“Really?” said Mozart, his thick eyebrow rising. “That’s an interesting . . . coincidence.”
“What are you suggesting, old wolf?” asked La Perricholi.
Mozart sniffed the air and his eyes narrowed.
“I’ll explain on the way. Come on, I want to take a look at this ship.”
LA PERRICHOLI DROVE and Mozart sat up with her in the passenger seat, filling her in on our suspicions about Kemp. Sophie and I sat in the back with Henri. If Kemp had been following us, there wasn’t anywhere he could have stowed away without one of us bumping into him.
“So the secret is out, eh?” asked Henri. “Humans know about monsters now?”
“Sort of,” I said. “Clearly, there are some humans who know. But I think right now they’re keeping it on the down low. The agent who tried to detain us at the airport knew she was looking for someone with stitches, but she didn’t even know why.”
“What else could they do?” asked Sophie. “Could you imagine the president getting on the telly and announcing to everyone that monsters are real? It would be complete madness.”
“I think it would depend a lot on how it was done,” I said.
“You honestly think there’s a way it could be done without causing mass hysteria?”
“Maybe. I mean, what if they were like ‘Yes! Monsters are real! And here’s one of them!’ And it was you they saw first. I don’t think people would freak out so much.”
“I am rather charming,” she admitted.
“You could be, like, the spokesmodel for monsters.”
“Right. Me and Grover.”
Sophie and I continued to talk the rest of the drive, with Henri only making occasional comments. Once we reached the coast and climbed out of the van, I pulled him to one side.
“You okay?”
He shrugged.
“Things not working with La Perricholi?”
He gave a short, bitter laugh. “You could say that.”
“Sorry.”
He shrugged again and walked back to the group.
We followed La Perricholi down to the water’s edge. I could just make out a big cargo ship on the horizon.
“That it?” asked Mozart.
“It’s roughly the latitude and longitude that Vi gave me for the signal,” said La Perricholi. “Here.” She handed him a pair of binoculars.
He studied the ship through the binoculars for a moment. “Doesn’t seem to be any activity on the deck. Assuming there is an army of beast people jammed down in the cargo hold, how do you think they’d get them to land?”
“The ship is too big to come much closer to the shore,” she said. “I would think they’d have to use small boats or dinghies to get them all ashore.”
“For a whole army?”
“I can’t think of any other way to do it.”
“Well, at least that means they won’t be able to take us by surprise.”
“As long as someone is watching. But if it is to be a stakeout, we will need to head back to the house and get some supplies.”
“I’ll stay here,” said Henri. “We should have someone watching at all times.”
La Perricholi nodded. “Good idea.”
“You want me to stay with you?” I asked.
Henri smiled faintly. “Thanks, cousin, but I could use a little alone time. I’ll call you if anything happens.”
WE WENT BACK to La Perricholi’s house and had something to eat. Regardless of what Henri said, I thought it would be a good idea not to give him too much alone time. But Sophie insisted we wash the “travel funk” off first, so it was about an hour before she and I were ready to head back.
“You two go ahead,” said Mozart as he and Maria slid steel plates over the windows in the dining room. “La Perricholi and I are going to help Maria get the house fortifications in place, just in case.”
“In case what?” asked Sophie.
“In case we can’t hold the line,” said Maria. “We’ll need someplace secure to fall back to.”
“What do you mean ‘we’?” Mozart grinned smugly. “I thought you were too old for this sort of thing. Isn’t that what you said?”
“Oho! You watch yourself, old wolf!” Maria held her fist up to his face. “You’re going to need me.”
He cupped her fist in his hands and kissed her rough, calloused knuckles. “I always need you, señora.”
Maria rolled her eyes but didn’t pull her hand away.
“How romantic,” said La Perricholi as she entered the dining room. “But would you finish barricading the windows before you start tearing each other’s clothes off?” She turned to me and Sophie. “You’re going down to relieve Henri? I need to make a few adjustments to the van. Take the car instead.”
“Sweet,” I said as she tossed us the keys.
But once again, La Perricholi disappointed me with her boring, un-Batman-like vehicles.
“What is the point of being a rich vigilante if you don’t have a cool car with lots of gadgets?” I asked Sophie as we climbed into the little, red, two-door compact car.
