Prospero Lost: Prospero's Daughter, Book I (11 page)

“But it was from
The Tempest
,” Mephisto piped in knowingly. “It must have been the song!”

“Perhaps,” I murmured, unconvinced.

“The real question,” growled Mab, “is what’s he doing here? And how did he know Miss Miranda was at that hotel? That’s what I wanna know!”

WE
arrived at the airport just after two, returned the rental car, and headed across the field to the Lear.

“So, where does Mr. Theophrastus live?” Mab asked as he readied the plane, a custom-designed Lear jet modified to Aerie One piloting specs. He stood on a ladder wiping the windshield with a soft cloth. Below him, Mephisto had bent himself almost halfway backwards in order to walk under the wing and examine the flanges.

“So, where’s my staff?” asked Mephisto, from under the wing.

“Can’t we talk on the way?” I asked impatiently, folding my cell phone with a snap. I had been standing to one side, conversing with Mustardseed, my vice president of Priority Accounts, while I waited for Mab to ready the jet. “Theo could be dead by the time you two stop bickering.”

“Would like to oblige you, Ma’am, but I can’t deduce anything without facts. I can’t keep track of facts without notes, and I can’t write notes while I’m piloting the plane. If either of you two want to fly the plane, then I’ll talk about the staff while we go. Otherwise, no dice.”

“I’ll fly the plane,” Mephisto offered helpfully, emerging. Mab and I both ignored him.

“It’s your call, Ma’am. You’re the one who would like to keep your family from the jaws of Hell. Mephisto, here,” Mab jabbed his thumb at my brother, “and I couldn’t care less if the whole kit and caboodle spontaneously combusted.”

“Hey! Don’t include me in that. I love my family,” said Mephisto. He threw his arm about my shoulder. “Those members who don’t irk me, anyway.”

I gave him a cursory squeeze, then shrugged free. “This is getting ridiculous. How close is Theo’s house to the nearest airport?” I asked.

“About two hours,” said Mephisto.

“Why don’t you tell us where to fly the plane. We’ll land at the airport and rent another car. Then I can drive while you tell Mab about your staff. If Mab stops taking notes, you can stop telling me where to go.”

Mephisto narrowed his eyes. He struck a pose with one hand on his hip, staring at us suspiciously. Mab and I waited.

“I’ll tell him where to go,” Mab muttered under his breath.

“All right. I’ll agree,” Mephisto threw up his hands. “Fly your silly plane to New Hampshire.”

THE
flight was relatively uneventful. Mephisto sat in the co-pilot’s seat making comments about how the land features below resembled smiling or leering faces with long ears or enormous noses. I sat in the passenger section with my laptop open, forgoing the delight of gazing out at the sky in order to review the inventory situation for our upcoming Priority Accounts.

Yet, my thoughts kept slipping away from work and back to Ferdinand. I tried to recall Ferdinand as he had been when we first met, but his voice, his smile, his laugh, were lost in the mists of time. The real events were all tumbled with Shakespeare’s version in my mind. After all, I had only lived my life once, but I had seen
The Tempest
performed hundreds of times down the centuries. It was a family favorite.

Shakespeare must have been closer to the truth than I remembered. Maybe Father really had forgiven Uncle Antonio, and I had only invented the idea we had been seeking revenge to soothe my broken heart and hurt pride. Or, had Father been as eager for revenge as I later recalled? Exactly what kind of man had Father been when I was young? I shook my head, but the mists of time refused to dispel. I wished Father were around so I could ask him. He was already an old man in those days, while I had been a mere child. Undoubtedly, he would remember what really happened.

Only, Father was missing. . . .

OUTSIDE
the plane, a storm moved in suddenly—great black thunderheads looming ominously before us. Normally, Mab and I would have flown into the tempest for the joy of it; however, we were in a hurry. Mab took the plane above the clouds, while I prepared a song to play on my flute that would disperse the storm without dispersing Mab, in case the weather worsened.

As we pulled above the writhing clouds, a lightning bolt snaked across the storm-darkened sky. Smiling, I pressed my cheek against the cool glass of the window and waved. As if in answer, the lightning bolt formed, for an instant, the outline of a horned equine rearing up on its hind legs. From the cockpit, I heard Mab’s exclamation of wonder, and Mephisto’s yelp of surprise. They had seen it, too!

As the dark clouds fell away below us, I stared out, the afterimage of the unicorn still visible to my eye, and a feeling of joy replaced the heaviness which had overtaken my heart.

AFTER
landing at Manchester Airport, we rented another car. I drove, following Mephisto’s directions. We passed briefly through the city of Manchester, then found ourselves driving through beautiful rustic New Hampshire on our way to Vermont. My sense of urgency growing, I barreled down the road at well over the speed limit. Mab muttered a snide comment, but I ignored him. In Chicago, he had been speeding in busy traffic. The roads I was racing down were empty.

Once we were underway, Mab pulled out his notebook and his stubby pencil. There followed some snorting and shuffling as he arranged them on his lap to his satisfaction. Once done, he jerked out his arm so that he could glance at his watch without his sleeve blocking the view.

Noting my glance, he said, “Keeping track of the time, Ma’am. I’m expecting to get paid double my normal rate for this. Okay, Mr. Mephistopheles Prospero, fire away.”

“Where should I start?” asked Mephisto. In the rearview mirror, I could see him spreading his arms. “There’s so much to say.”

“When did you realize the staff had been stolen?” Mab began.

“In the morning when I woke up. I reached for it to summon up a maenad or a harpy to cook me breakfast, but it was gone.”

“You are certain that it was there the night before?”

“Yup. I summoned up the Archangel Uriel just before Chalandra arrived.”

“The Archangel Uriel,” breathed Mab in amazement. “Holy Croesus! What can’t this staff do?”

“It can only call beings or beasts with whom Mephisto has properly prepared covenants, the creatures whose images are carved into the length of the staff,” I offered from the driver’s seat. “I believe Erasmus summoned Uriel for him the first time.”

“Have you ever seen it?” Mephisto bounced in his seat enthusiastically, “I wouldn’t want you not to recognize it if you came upon it. It’s about six feet long. It’s made of dozens of little wooden figurines with jeweled eyes, all attached together.”

“Six feet! Hardly, Mephisto! Five feet at the longest,” I said, picturing the staff resting in the hand of Mephisto’s self-portrait statue.

“It used to be,” he spoke rapidly. “I . . . uh . . . made it longer.”

“How?” I demanded. “Father never mentioned anything.”

Mephisto shifted uneasily in the back seat.

“Uh, I had more compacts made, so I had to add more figurines,” he answered offhandedly, then continued with more animation. “But let me finish describing what it looks like. The very top has a winged lion head, then comes Uriel and celestial beings, like Pegasus and those guys. The celestial guys are all carved out of light-colored woods, like pine and birch. After that comes normal animals: cats and hounds and boars. These guys are carved from brown woods, like maple and beech. The bottom part had magical beasts: chimera, cockatrice, Nessie, my Bully Boy, seven hoods from D. C., you know, that kind of thing. They’re made of darker woods, like mahogany. The last figurine at the bottom is ebony. It’s a Horror of the Deep Abyss that Father met once in his travels. But I don’t call him up often. He smells.”

“Surprised you would notice,” Mab muttered.

“I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that,” Mephisto replied cheerfully, rushing on. “As I said, I had used it the night before. When I woke up, the staff was gone, and so was Chalandra. So I figured they had to have gone together. Bright of me, wasn’t it, Miranda?”

“Brilliant,” I muttered noncommittally. This was a discussion into which I did not wish to be drawn.

“Which reminds me,” Mephisto chirped. “What happened to Daddy? I mean, you said something happened to him, right? So, where is he? Is he better now? Why isn’t he here helping us? Or, are we on assignment for him, just like in the old days? That would be fun, I miss those days when we’d all go rushing off together to wrestle some recalcitrant rock troll that was shaking boulders onto the town at the foot of his mountain, or to mug some dopey sorcerer who had sicced an old hag on some pathetic rival.”

“I wish,” I said sadly. “Unfortunately, I don’t know where he is.”

“Well . . . what was he up to? I mean, you must know! You’re Miranda. You know everything! And besides, wherever Daddy goes, you go.”

“Not since he retired.”

“Oh.” Mephisto shrugged. “Oh well. What a shame. I’m sure he’ll turn up. After all, he’s Daddy. He knows everything even more than you do.”

I considered pointing out to Mephisto that his comment made no sense, but Mab interrupted.

“Just a moment.” Mab raised his hand. “I . . . I got to ask. Why—I mean
for what awful and occult purpose—could you possibly have needed to summon the Archangel Uriel, Potentate of Heaven, Lord of the West Quadrant?”

“I wanted to look good for my date.”

“You summoned up an Archangel of Heaven—an angel of the Choir of the Seraphim—to help you prepare for a date?” Mab asked, an incredulous expression on his usually stolid face.

“Yeah, angels are very good at decking people out in impressive raiment,” said Mephisto. “I recommend them to anyone who needs a valet.”

“North Wind blow this madness from me,” muttered Mab.

He shook his grizzled head in mingled disgust and awe. I chuckled at his expression, but my sympathies were entirely with Mab. Angels were the Breath of God, living Words whose presence made one aware of the majesty of Heaven and the shabbiness of mortal things. Summoning them for any reason made me uneasy, much less for frivolous purposes! The only forces more awesomely destructive than our enemies, the Powers of Hell, were the Powers of Heaven.

Mephisto was saying, “Anyway, so when I found out it was missing, I went over to the hotel where Chalandra was staying.”

“This woman you had the date with. I assume she was someone important, if you felt you needed an archangel to dress you. You were planning to propose or something, right? How long had you known her?” Mab snapped.

“Oh, a long time,” Mephisto assured him earnestly. “Almost three days!”

“Three days? You summoned one of the Seraphim of High Heaven to dress you for a date with a dame you’d known for three days! By Setebos and Titania! You’d checked her out, I assume? Tell me something about her.”

“Checked her out? For a date? If I had to check out every girl I went on a date with, I’d never have time to do anything else, including going on dates with pretty women!”

“Surely you could take the time for a few precautions. How many women do you date a month?”

“Twenty or thirty.”

“He’s exaggerating, isn’t he?” Mab asked turning to me. “He’s bragging, right?”

I shook my head. “No. For some reason I have never understood, women seem to like him.”

“I see,” Mab said grimly.

“Anyway,” Mephisto rushed on, “I caught sight of her as she was heading across the lobby, carrying my staff. Then, she caught sight of me and
ducked into the ladies’ room. I waited a little while, but she didn’t come out. So, I decided I wasn’t about to let the ladies’ room stop me. A bunch of ladies screamed when I looked in the stalls. But none of them were Chalandra, so I ignored them.

“The back window was broken, and the curtains were flapping. I leapt out the window and saw a man running down the back alley carrying my staff.”

“Was there any sign of this Chalandra character in the back alley?” Mab asked.

Mephisto frowned at the interruption. “What does that have to do with anything? Anyway, I ran after my staff, but the guy climbed into a truck.”

“Was this in Chicago?” Mab asked. “What did the man look like?”

Mephisto stamped his foot against the car floor. “Will you stop interrupting my story!”

“Do you want my help or not?” Mab flipped his notebook shut. “Never mind, Ma’am. I suggest we give up. I can’t help this brother. And, if the others are anything like him, I don’t think I want to help them either, if it’s all the same to you.”

“You help me find my staff or I’ll . . . I’ll have Miranda fire you!” Mephisto exploded.

“I’m shaking in my boots,” Mab purred.

“Mab!” I began reluctantly.

Mab cut me off. “He’s the one who won’t answer questions, Ma’am. Got to proceed in an orderly fashion, or we’ll get nowhere.”

I caught my brother’s gaze in the rearview mirror and said gently. “Mephisto, if you want his help, you must answer his questions.”