by Dyrk Ashton
“You’ve been spying on me?!”
“Absolutely not,” he replies indignantly. “There is quite a disparity between spying,” he says the word as if it tastes awful, “and attending to your safety as a proper guardian should.”
The only things Fi can think of to say aren’t very nice, nor would they be productive in the present situation, so she remains silent. Luckily, Zeke speaks up.
“Um, I’m assuming you’re Fi’s Uncle Edgar. It’s a pleasure to meet you, sir. She’s told me a lot about you.”
“She has, has she?” says Edgar. “Nothing good, I hope. I wouldn’t want anyone ruining my hard-won reputation.”
Zeke laughs anxiously, unsure whether he’s joking or not.
“So,” Edgar states, “explain yourselves, you two.”
Fi’s eyes go straight to Zeke, whose mouth hangs open. Could he possibly know about them dating?
“Uh...” she stammers, “explain...? You mean...?”
Edgar is reassuring but determined. “Fiona, what occurred at the hospital?”
“Oh!” she responds, relieved. Then the events of the day flood back like the memory of a nightmare. She bites her lip. “Please don’t think I’m crazy...”
It’s beginning to rain harder, pattering on the windshield, tapping the roof of the car. Edgar turns on the wipers. “Tell me everything,” he says, putting the car in drive and exiting the alley.
* * *
Fi relates the story of the attack while Edgar drives unhurriedly along back streets, then makes his way to the river and across it via the Cherry Street Bridge. Zeke interjects on occasion to clarify or add detail. Edgar listens without a word, keeping his eyes on the road. Fi thinks she sees his weathered hands tighten on the wheel when she describes the group that came after Peter, then backs up to tell him about the homeless guy grabbing her on the street before she got to work and showing up later with the rest.
Her voice quavers as she tells him about the guards being killed, and Billy. Edgar grows thoughtful when she describes what Billy did, and his axe, and how Mol showed up and fought and even killed some of the bad men. “I have no idea how he got out of the house,” she says, “or why he would’ve come.”
The only time Edgar looks at her is when she explains how they escaped from the hospital. What Peter did. The “slipping” thing. The strange misty beach, and how Peter changed. When she speaks of Zeke being able to “slip,” Edgar regards him with circumspection in the mirror. She tells Edgar that there are other worlds, what Peter told them about Billy, about going to the bank, the little gold rod that Peter retrieved from the secret vault--and what he told them it was--and admits that this must all sound completely insane.
She leaves out any mention of her seizure last night and the dreams about the baby, and the part about the vision in the swimming pool. She also doesn’t tell him the reason they left Peter at the bar was they caught him in a ménage à trois in the women’s restroom.
“I was worried, I just had to leave,” she says in conclusion. “I had to find you.”
Edgar pulls into a deserted gravel lot that overlooks the Maumee river to downtown and stops the car. Fi watches him, hoping for some reassurance. For long moments he stares out the windshield, the wipers beating rhythmically against the drumming rain.
Deliberately, Edgar removes his hand from the wheel and places it tenderly on hers. She looks at it in wonder. “You’ve done well, dear,” he says in the kindest voice she’s ever heard him use.
“You believe me, then? You don’t think I’m crazy?”
“Your sanity has always been questionable, dear.” She frowns. Edgar gives her hand a squeeze. “Of course I believe you,” he assures, “of course I do.” She smiles weakly. Edgar returns the smile then looks back out the windshield in contemplation.
Distant lightning blinks the city skyline into ghostly silhouette, followed seconds later by the faintest rumbling of thunder.
“I don’t think it would be wise to return home,” Edgar says. “If the men who came to the hospital know who you are, and have truly associated you and Zeke with Peter, their next move may be to find out where you live, if they haven’t done so already.”
Zeke sits up in the back seat. “You think so?”
“It’s what I would do.”
Fi refrains from biting her nails. She nibbles on her lower lip instead. “Where will we go?”
“Somewhere safe. Where we can gather our wits and you can rest.”
Zeke shifts in his seat. Fi turns to meet his gaze. She bites her lip harder, addresses her uncle. “What about Peter?”
“From what you tell me,” Edgar replies, “the old man sounds perfectly capable of taking care of himself.”
* * *
Rain continues to fall, lazy but consistent, as Edgar maneuvers the Bentley along a dark two lane road that winds southwest along the river away from the city. After passing through the small town of Rossford into a more sparsely populated area, large homes begin to appear on their right, between the road and the river, interspersed with upscale gated communities.
Zeke realizes he’s been unconsciously petting Mol, who is sound asleep and snoring softly. His eyes roam the once plush interior of the old Bentley T1 Saloon. The fine upholstery, now cracked and faded. The finish of the hand-crafted wooden dashboard, crackled and dull, with circular analogue instrumentation. It smells like old leather, motor oil, and dog.
Fi has the knuckles of one hand pressed to her lips, wanting desperately to nibble her fingernails. She can’t stop her mind from playing back the day’s events. The bad men, the violence. Peter, Billy’s death, and the murders of all the others. But in her head it’s like it happened to someone else, like she’s watching a movie she’s seen before and is only half paying attention to. She knows she should be wracked with grief, having a breakdown, crying her eyes out, but she’s spent so much of her life not allowing herself to dwell on pain, loss and loneliness, pushing heartache away instead of dealing with it, shoving it deep down inside and locking it away, she isn’t sure what she feels now. She cringes at the numbness in her heart. What’s wrong with me?!
She brushes her hair over her ear, sits on her hands to keep her fingers out of her mouth, takes a long, deep breath, and looks out the rain-spattered window on her side of the car.
A stone wall rises and falls with the rolling wooded landscape. Something about it looks familiar. Edgar slows the car, steers to the right onto a gravel drive. They continue through the trees to a wrought iron gate in the wall.
Fi sits up. “I know this place.”
“You’ve been here before,” says Edgar. “It’s my employer’s residence.” He enters a code on the lighted keypad of a remote he retrieves from the glovebox. The gates swing open. “One of them,” he adds, driving through.
“We’ll be safe here, you think?” she asks.
“Trust me, dear. This is the safest place we could want to be.” They wind through the wooded grounds of the estate, Edgar quietly whistling “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” with what seems to Fi to be a slightly nervous air.
They come over a rise and Zeke exclaims softly, “Wow.”
“It’s not a palace,” says Edgar as he brings the car to a stop, “but it is impressive, nonetheless.”
Zeke is first out of the car. The house is three stories of brown stone that spread well over two hundred feet before them, illuminated along the front by in-ground lamps. His eyes wander the hipped and gabled slate roofs, copper gutters with green patina, and ivy that winds its way between tall windows.
Fi steps out, shielding her eyes from the rain, which has diminished to a meager drizzle. She hasn’t been here since she was probably eight years old, when renovations were being completed and her uncle would bring her on weekends when the workers were away. To romp the grounds, swim in the pool, and bowl on the three lane alley in the basement. It still looks like what she always thought it did--a really big mausoleum.
“Fiona, dear,” Edg
ar calls to her. She meets him at the front of the car. He hands her the house key. “Would you take Mol and open up, please?” he requests.
“Okay.” She lets Mol out, who climbs down stiffly and follows her to the house.
“Zeke,” says Edgar, moving to the back of the car. “Would you give me a hand, lad?”
“Sure.”
Edgar opens the trunk and hands him an enormous blue backpack, military style, with a tent and bedroll attached. Zeke almost drops it--it has to weigh 50 pounds. He gets one strap wrestled over his shoulder and Edgar gives him an identical pack, except this one is pink--but just as heavy.
Zeke is wondering what Edgar is doing with these, and why anyone would make a military pack in pink, when Edgar lifts an oddly shaped black case with shoulder straps out of the trunk and leans it against the bumper. It looks like a custom case for a musical instrument, wider at the top and smaller at the bottom, with a long thin pocket running down the center of the front, like for a bow string or a pool cue, or maybe collapsible ski poles. That’s it, Zeke muses, Fi’s Uncle Edgar is a closet snowboarder.
Edgar pulls out a beat-to-hell, stained canvas duffel. It’s much longer than the packs Zeke has and bows in the middle as Edgar places the strap over his shoulder.
“That’s it, lad,” Edgar says, shutting the trunk. “Many thanks.” He lifts the weird black case and heads for the house.
Zeke struggles after him under the weight of the two packs. He careens up wide stone steps to the lit columned portico, lurches to the oak double doors, painted red and reinforced with black iron bars wrought in the shape of a tree. The tree splits in half as Fi swings the doors inward.
She finds a knob on the wall and light fills the formal two story foyer. When she was here last, there was scaffolding, visqueen plastic sheeting, paint cans and plaster dust. Now the place is immaculate. The floor is white marble streaked with silver, as are the sets of stairs to either side that curve upward to a balconied hallway that looks down from the second floor. The ceiling is domed, of the same white stone, with a glittering golden chandelier at its center. To either side, Greek statues stand on pedestals in front of colossal mirrors with gilded frames.
“Wow...” Zeke says again.
“Yeah,” Fi agrees.
Ahead of them, between the stairs, is an archway to the back of the house. Edgar heads toward it. “This way, please.”
Zeke lets Fi go ahead of him--mostly so she won’t see how much trouble he’s having with the packs. They pass through the arch as Edgar raises a bank of faders on the wall. Zeke stifles the urge to say “wow” one more time.
They’ve entered midway along an expansive great room. The ceiling must be twenty feet high, Zeke figures, and the room itself at least sixty feet wide and forty feet deep. To the right and left, hallways fade in darkness to other areas of the home. The floor where they’re standing forms a rectangular border along the walls, because the central portion of the floor is about a foot higher, with an intermediate step that runs all around the edge. The centerpiece of the raised area is a gleaming white Steinway grand piano. Chairs and divans of various designs, from sleek contemporary to the most ornate antique, are arranged around it. More chairs, loveseats and chaise longues are placed in various sitting areas around the room. Behind him, above the arch, the upstairs hall is open to the room, creating a balcony on this side as well.
Edgar steps up to set the long duffle on the floor and leans the oddly shaped black case against a chair. Zeke’s glad to be relieved of the heavy backpacks, which Edgar plunks unceremoniously on a highly polished burl-wood coffee table.
“What’s all this stuff?” Fi asks, eyeing the packs and bags.
“Oh,” says Edgar, rubbing his hands together in what occurs to Fi to be an uncharacteristically anxious manner, “just some things I thought might come in handy.”
Zeke removes the coat he received from the bank manager and Edgar takes it politely. Zeke realizes his clothes are almost dry and his chill gone, aided by the soothing warmth of the room. He stretches his shoulders and neck and surveys the space.
The wall to the left is covered with bookshelves built around a wide contemporary gas fireplace with glass doors. Mol laps water from a bowl and makes himself comfortable on a plush sheepskin in front of it. Zeke wonders if he should say something about Mol getting bloodstains on the rug, but Edgar doesn’t seem concerned. He wanders toward the back of the room, checking out the piano on the way, and looks out high wide windows that take up the center of the back wall.
Fi comes up beside him. “Edgar went to the kitchen.”
“Okay,” he responds, preoccupied. Distant lightning pulses through the clouds, revealing the texture of treetops that slope down and away from the house to the rippling glint of the river below. Zeke’s never been inside such a home. He turns to Fi and smiles, then something at the other end of the room catches his attention. “Whoa...”
He steps down from the raised area of the floor and walks along the windows. Fi follows, stopping momentarily to pluck a string on a gorgeous harp that stands in the corner. Zeke peruses the collection before him with incredulity.
All manner of guitars and their ilk cover the wall. There’s a mandolin, lute, banjo, even a vihuela, but by far the majority are guitars. Three of the electric variety and at least twenty classical acoustics. Gibson, Fender, Yamaha, Hanika, a couple of Hausers and Martins, all hung with padded hooks and in pristine condition. Zeke plays a Martin himself, though his is of a much lower series than those displayed here and he bought it used--which reminds him with a lurch in his stomach--he left it at the hospital. He sighs, then his eyes fall on a guitar with an extra wide neck and ten strings hung directly over a gracefully carved buffet that sits at the center of the wall.
“Beautiful, aren’t they?”
Fi and Zeke both whirl to see Edgar holding a tray with a teapot and cups. Neither of them heard him come in. “Uncle!” Fi scolds.
Edgar wrinkles his brow, not understanding how he might have incurred her wrath. “Yes, dear?”
Fi shakes her head, scowling at him for startling them.
Zeke turns back to the guitar over the buffet. “Yeah, they’re incredible.” He reaches for it, then stops himself and turns back to Edgar. “Do you think your employer...? I mean, may I?”
“I don’t believe he’d mind, lad” says Edgar, then his eyes flit to the hall that leads from the great room behind them. “However,” he continues with a mixed expression of anticipation and wonder, “you could ask him yourself.”
A man pads into the room in bare feet and tan khaki cargo pants, vigorously rubbing his head with a towel. A white cotton dress shirt is thrown over his shoulder and he carries a vintage stenciled haversack.
He wipes his face and lowers the towel to find Fi and Zeke gaping at him. He beams back at them. “There you are!”
This man has shorter hair, mussed by the toweling, and no beard, but there’s no mistaking the strong features, those brilliant green eyes, and--Fi can’t help but notice--that perfect sculpted torso. It’s Peter, freshly groomed and showered.
Fi and Zeke both make mindless mono-syllabic noises like “um,” “er,” and “uh.”
Mol leaps up in spite of his wounds and trots to Peter, tail wagging.
“Mol!” Peter greets him. He dumps the haversack on a chair, tosses the towel and shirt on top of it, then stoops to grasp Mol’s face by the jowls and kiss the top of his head. “Good, brave Molossus.” Mol makes happy doggie noises and wags his tail harder.
Fi and Zeke exchange puzzled glances.
Peter’s grin spreads even wider at the sight of Fi’s uncle. “Edgar...” he says with obvious affection.
Slowly, Edgar sets the slightly trembling tray on a coffee table, then lowers himself to one knee and bows his head. “Milord.” Fi is dumbfounded.
“I really wish he wouldn’t do that,” Peter mutters. He bounds to the raised floor. “Edgar! Rise!” He takes him by the hands and pulls h
im up. “On your feet, my good man.”
Edgar raises his misty eyes to Peter’s. “Welcome back, sir.” Peter grasps him by the shoulders, then wraps him in a hug. Edgar embraces him in return.
“Dumbfounded” is not the right word for Fi’s reaction--because there is no word for it. She has never seen her uncle in such a state, and no one hugs Uncle Edgar, let alone gets hugged back! What’s even more bizarre--they know each other?!?
“Good to see you, Edgar,” says Peter, releasing him. “You look well.”
“As do you, sir.” Edgar leans in and lowers his voice. “But, how...?” With an almost imperceptible movement of his head, Peter indicates to Fi. Edgar’s eyes go to her. “I see,” he whispers, a proud smile creeping over his face.
Peter moves a hand to the side of Edgar’s neck and pulls him closer. “Quickly, what have you learned?,” he asks quietly.
Edgar glances briefly at Fi, as if uncomfortable speaking in her presence, even in a whisper. “Kabir--Zadkiel, is missing,” he bemoans. “Last night, in Detroit.” He clears his throat softly. “And still no word from Mokosh.”
Peter’s face falls. “I am... very sorry to hear that.” His brow furrows as he considers the events of the day in light of this news and his eyes well up. “Samson is gone as well.”
“So I heard. Very unfortunate, indeed.”
“Did you call upon him?”
“He came of his own volition several months ago, said he wished to make reparations. When he learned of your condition, he swore to watch over you until the patermentia passed, no matter how long it took. I apologize, milord, I had no idea that Kleron--”
“None of us did.” Peter’s expression is pained. A single tear escapes down his cheek. “Though I should have.”
“There’s no telling how widespread this may be,” Edgar continues. “I tried to call Freyja and her lads, but there’s no response. The last time I spoke to The Twins was several years ago. Their phone is no longer in service and other methods of communication defunct. I’ve no manner of expeditiously contacting any of the others. We lost touch with them long ago, as you know.”
