Blackwood (29 page)

  If Dee had been a skin cream commercial before, now he was an ad for youth itself. Vitality. Strength. Even the body he wore seemed in better shape.

  He was also wearing yet another suit. This one had thin gray pinstripes. Some devoted follower, or his lackey Roswell, must have shopped until they dropped to make sure he'd be coordinated with his coven's capes. Dee's own gray cloak remained folded across his arm.

  "So, what's your big dastardly plan?" Phillips set down his bowl on the counter with a clatter. Couldn't hurt to ask.

  Dee looked at him, eyes black and blank as if he were a painting that walked.

  In that moment, Phillips felt sure he'd been right about the forces Dee was accessing. They were unknowable, beyond understanding. Maybe they were using
him.
Maybe he wasn't fully in control either.

  Those eyes made the murmuring voices in Phillips' head go quiet. They made it hard for him to breathe.

  Or maybe that was the invisible fist squeezing his lungs–

  He couldn't breathe–

  "Shall we go?" Dee's lips formed the words, and the flatness left his eyes. A boundless dark energy replaced the two-dimensional death glare.

  Phillips knew who he'd see before he turned, gasping, lungs released.

  Miranda stood in the middle of the common room with her arms crossed over her chest. Her hair was loose and almost dry. She wore a fresh outfit – a vintage western shirt, a pair of jeans, and dusty sneakers. This was the girl he wanted to go anywhere with, anywhere except wherever Dee went.

  Beside her, Polly and a couple of women Phillips didn't recognise wore heavy cloaks. Polly who was really Eleanor said, "Master, I apologise for the state of her. She wouldn't consent–"

  Dee held up a hand. "Mary–" He paused. "Miss Blackwood is a vision. It will be my honor to escort her to the birth of New London."

  Polly's mouth closed. She nodded.

  "I'll walk with Phillips." Miranda crossed the room to him.

  "That will be fine." Dee responded with a don't-care elegance he could afford, with everything else going his way.

  Phillips could not fathom how the man had become so divorced from reality that he thought Miranda was not only into dead guys, but that she'd ever be attracted to someone who looked like her dad. Merry olde England hadn't been
that
backward.

  Phillips' thinking must have showed on his face. The squeeze of his lungs was more than a warning this time–

  He coughed, hacked–

  Miranda gripped his arm, concerned. "What's wrong?"

  The pressure eased at Miranda's question.

  Phillips sucked in a breath. Dee was waiting to see how he'd respond. He choked out an answer, "What isn't?"

  Dee's black eyes left him.

  Still, Phillips wasn't breathing easy.

27

Break a Leg

The trek to the theater began at sunset. Dee, Polly, Roswell, and Sara were in the lead, followed by Miranda and Phillips. The rest of the returned formed a dark cloud behind them. The visual of familiar figures wearing the unfamiliar gray cloaks was guaranteed to freak out any friends and loved ones attending the Dare County Night to end all Dare County Nights.

  They didn't walk along the main road, but took the back way. Miranda had always considered the path somewhat enchanted, because only people in the show used it. It hugged the coast, the waters of the Sound in full view, before dipping through the corner of the Elizabethan Gardens and on to Waterside Theater's backstage.

  The actors and technicians had left a few hours earlier. Dee wanted them to put on the show, though Miranda still didn't understand why. Couldn't he clap his hands and make thunder and lightning strike and drop birds from the sky and take his stupid gun and force her to betray everything she was?

  She didn't know about the other stuff, but the last one was coming. The moment when Miranda was made into the traitor he'd branded her as. She touched her cheek, an absent gesture that was becoming habit. Her last-ditch effort at sabotaging the gun seemed like a bad joke with the entire parade of body-snatching alchemists around her.

  "What did they want you to wear?" Phillips asked.

  These were the first words he'd spoken since they left Polly's, after that weird choking incident. He'd tell her if Dee had hurt him somehow, wouldn't he?

  "Gray isn't my color." They'd gotten a tray of make-up from somewhere, and a sack-like too-long baby doll dress made in the same gray of the cloaks. Polly had attempted to force a cloak onto Miranda's shoulders, but she'd locked the bathroom door and put on her own clothes.

  Miranda refused to look over at the Sound, in case it was dead fish fiesta from here to eternity. Dee looked far too strong, leading his favored companions toward the theater. Or Eleanor was favored, anyway – Sara was as much a pawn in this as Miranda, and Roswell just had a bad case of hero worship.

  The wind tossed Miranda's hair around her face. She wanted to tell Phillips how much his sticking with her had meant. She wanted to tell him lots of things. But she didn't. He didn't say anything more, either.

  She reached down to pat Sidekick's head, where he trotted along beside her. She hadn't wanted to bring him, but she was too afraid to leave him behind. If she never made it back, she didn't want him trapped with
them.

  The silent party finally reached backstage, winding along the stone path between the small buildings that housed everything from costumes and props to lighting gels and tools. A stagehand leaving the costume shop called out to Polly. "Poll, where have you been all day?"

  Polly ignored him, fixated on Dee.

  The man in the pinstriped gray suit didn't stop until they left backstage behind and reached the amphitheater. He stopped in front of the stage, waiting for the mass of his followers to file out behind him. The audience watched, their questions murmured.

  The event had packed the house. Every seat was taken, aside from a large vacant section down front blocked off by strands of police tape.

  Once his cohort was complete, Dee crossed to the first row of empty seats. He swept on his cloak with a flourish. He called out, words loud and clear as if they'd been broadcast through a wireless mike: "Welcome tonight's guests of honor. Your beloved have returned to you!"

  The confused applause quickly gathered force as the returned claimed their seats. Miranda spotted Blue Doe at the back of the house with her cameraman, beaming as they caught the entrance on film.

  The applause and Blue Doe's presence were all the confirmation Miranda needed to prove her theory that Dee had billed tonight as tourist fodder. The people here would see their annual income triple from the bump in interest caused by the disappearance and reappearance. The show's next season would probably be its biggest ever.

  This night was about dragging out the attention on the new mystery, adding to the local legend. Next year's dollar signs were in everyone's eyes.
Except they don't know we'll be living in "New London," then, with our creepy mayor, aka the devil of Roanoke Island.

  When she finally looked at him, she realised Dee had been waiting for her. He leaned forward, giving her a small bow. "You will do me the honor of sitting at my side."

  It wasn't so much a question. The snake burned, and her lips opened, "Yes, delighted," she said. He made her say it.

  "I'll stay with you," Phillips said.

  "Yes, and our Sara will be right beside you," Dee said, scanning for her, "in case you need motherly guidance."

  Dee looked around for his wayward recruit, and Miranda located her at the same time he did. She was engaged in a heated conversation with Chief Rawling, who was in uniform. Sara met Dee's gaze and walked back to them, not another word to her husband.

  The chief shot a worried look in Phillips' and Miranda's direction. Miranda matched it, as Dee's cloak swooped in the air. He urged them into their seats. Front row center, of course.

  Blue Doe appeared as soon as they were seated, teetering in front of Dee. Her eyes narrowed on Miranda, trying to place her. Miranda craned her neck in the opposite direction.

  "Sir, can I have a moment of your time?" Blue Doe asked. When she got no response, she said, "Anyone else care to do a quick interview? Come on, now. Don't be shy. America wants to hear your stories… What is that
dog
doing here?"

  Without looking at her, Miranda reached down and tugged Sidekick in front of her feet.

  "What do the capes symbolise?" Blue Doe asked, exasperated. "At least give me that much."

  Miranda shifted to catch Dee's response.

  "Ceremony. The connection between souls who have been among the lost," Dee answered, nailing the reporter with a look that would have shut Miranda up.

  It must have had the same effect on Blue Doe, because she took off, clicking away on her high heels. But Miranda didn't get a chance to enjoy the reporter's retreat, because Dee placed his hand over hers.

  The hunk of flesh was cold as ice cubes. The summer night's humidity stuck to her skin, and she half-expected mist to form where his hand made contact.

  The lights swelled then dimmed. The crew was readying for curtain.

  "We're really watching the show," Miranda said, disbelieving.

  "I know this version of history means much to you," Dee said. "And what better way to bring reality to our new home? We will show it to them."

  Miranda's mouth opened to ask what he meant – not that she would've expected an answer, not after the way he dodged admitting he'd helped murder her dad – but His Royal Majesty came on stage then. She didn't miss his dirty look at her and Polly in the front row.

  
He hates us. Great.

  He gave a stiff speech about what a relief it was to have everyone home safe, how the theater wanted to mark the return of everyone's loved ones in a special way, with a special island tradition.

  Miranda heard every word, but processed little of it. What did Dee mean 'we will show it to them'?

  His Royal Majesty exited stage right to another round of applause – this one merely polite – and the show began. Miranda tried to lift her hand from Dee's in the guise of covering a yawn, but he exerted a steady pressure that kept it under his own. Noticing the struggle, Phillips propped his forearm on the armrest, so his shoulder touched Miranda's.

  She had death on one side, and life on the other.

  The first group of actors marched onto the stage, decked out in the most elaborate Elizabethan costumes
The Lost Colony
had to offer. They bustled with pomp, and Miranda settled into her seat despite the reality of what was happening. She dipped her head back to take in the sky above. Those familiar, clear pinpoints of light stared down. The stars were watching tonight's performance, too, and she wanted to warn them.
New scenes, little rehearsal. This night might well go down in flames.

  The play began with Queen Elizabeth and Sir Walter Raleigh in London, agreeing that he should colonise the new world. The settlers came next. They voyaged and arrived, argued and suffered. Musical numbers hit in perfect time, the chorus not a note out of tune. No one forgot a line or stepped on a cue. Mean little Caroline was a rosy-cheeked angel.

  It was one of the best performances Miranda could remember.

  And none of them knew what lay ahead. Not one of the actors giving it their all, celebrating this messed-up island. Not one.

  She chanced a look next to her, resigned not to hold it against Phillips if he was smirking or bored. But he seemed taken with the production too, something that pleased her more than she'd expected. She felt more tied to the theater than any other part of the island. She had always belonged here more than anywhere else.

  But the show was also long, too long for Dee's patience to hold apparently. Just as the second act closed – after the actors left the stage, but before the lights went down and intermission started – he released her hand.

  Watching the play had been a reprieve. That ended when Dee rose to his feet, and the rest of the returned stood on his cue. The mark on her face burned, and he made her stand.

  
Sorry, stars, we have to interrupt this program.

  Phillips got up, too, said, "Miranda… Mom…" But Sara was already walking away with the others.

  The returned filed out of their rows in neat lines, as choreographed as if they'd rehearsed for a few hundred years. They climbed the stairs on either side of the stage. Some lingered on the steps facing the audience, while others took over the back half of the stage itself. All of them left space for someone else to pass by. It was a makeshift promenade.

  The crowd buzzed in confusion, not sure how to react. But they stayed in their seats.

  Miranda fought as hard as she could, willing her limbs to be under her own control. But her elbow jutted out at a wide, proper angle to allow Dee to slip his through it. Her feet walked her forward, her pace matching his perfectly.

  The cloaked figures Dee paraded her past were curled in a generous half-moon, a cupping shell that mirrored the
monas hieroglyphica
. They climbed the steps onto the stage.

  When they reached the top of the short flight of stairs, she managed to look into the crowd. Locating Phillips was as easy as finding the flash of movement. Agent Malone and Agent Walker had come to the show. Phillips was being hauled up the aisle by them in slow degrees, his father attempting to intervene while Phillips argued. Neither of their protests seemed to be meeting with success.

  The crowd itself barely noticed that disturbance, despite all the busiest busybodies in town in attendance. They were too busy watching the stage – there were a few confused murmurs, but far more wide smiles that assumed this was all part of the show. The disappearances themselves were part of it, they must have been thinking. What a grand idea this was.