The Sixteen Burdens (14 page)

C
HAPTER
T
WENTY

P
ICKFAIR
WAS
ONLY
a fifteen minute walk through the winding streets of Beverly Hills. Gray wanted to see the other mansions, but tall hedges lined both sides of the road. They blocked the city view too, as if it were a finite resource that had to be carefully guarded.

Leave it to rich folks to turn plants into walls.

Panchito inserted himself in-between Elsie and Lulu.

“Hey, look what I can do!”

He placed a pebble on his palm and concentrated. Gray saw the energy around him flare and the pebble lifted off his hand. It wobbled in the air as he struggled to keep it steady.

“Swell, huh?”

He winked at Elsie, impressed with himself. She grabbed the wrist of Panchito’s outstretched hand and made her own face of concentration. The energy around her swirled black and enveloped Panchito. The blood drained from his face and a look of terror overcame him. When she let go, Panchito backed away. She winked at him.

“Swell, huh?”

Gray cracked a smile he hoped no one saw.

They stopped at the base of the highest hill in the neighborhood. The home at the top had a cheerful green roof and informal striped awnings, as if trying very hard not to look like the mansion it was. Gray poked his head through the gate and saw a well-manicured lawn that faded into eternity, like the horizon on the ocean.

This is where I would have lived.

Lulu was small enough to squeeze through the bars. She then found a switch that opened the gates.

“There’s no way Bastienne will let you in,” Panchito said. “Do you want me to blast the door down? I could.”

“I’ll handle her,” Elsie said. “Gray, you come too. I seem to be more powerful with you nearby.”

The driveway curved upward and ended under a small covered entrance at the front door. Gray and Elsie walked up the path while the others hid. The door was solid wood with a leaded glass window inset in the top half.

“You got a plan?” he asked.

Elsie nodded and knocked. She twirled her hair anxiously.

“I should mention I’m an awful liar,” she said. “I sense people’s suspicion.”

A large, thick woman opened the door. She was the kind who wore her years of experience in pounds.

“What is it?”

Elsie cranked her smile up to full-on certifiable.

“Good morning! My name is Elsie and we’re selling cookies for the Girls Scouts of America!”

The woman furrowed her brow. Gray groaned inwardly.

“You sound British,” she said. “And
he
doesn’t look like a girl.”

“You’d be surprised who they’re letting in these days,” Gray said, casting a pointed look at Elsie.

The woman crossed her hambone arms.

“Where are your cookies, then?”

Elsie looked at her hands as if only just realizing they weren’t full of cookie tins.

“Well, the thing is…”

She was at a loss for words. Some people were too honest to be con artists.

“The thing is,” Gray said, “We make ’em for you fresh, in your kitchen.”

Gray grabbed Elsie’s arm and took a calming breath. She needed to be relaxed if she hoped to ease the woman’s suspicions.

“If it would make you
happy
,” Gray said, pinching Elsie’s arm, “we could give you a brief demonstration.”

“Oh, yes!” Elsie said, placing her hand gently on the maid’s arm. “Might we come in and give you a demonstration?”

The woman relaxed at Elsie’s touch. Soft blue energy swirled about her, and the wrinkles in her tightly wound face came loose, like a fresh sheet being shaken out.

“Well, all right. Do you know how to make
petit-beurre
?”

Elsie entered, wrapping her arm around the maid’s. The two walked down a hall toward the back, presumably to the kitchen.

I sure hope Elsie knows how to bake.

Gray turned and beckoned for Panchito and Lulu, who snuck inside.

The foyer was large with a grand, curving staircase. The interior was homey, as if someone had poured a lot of money into making the mansion look inexpensive. Pickfair was the equivalent of a
Photoplay
model in an ordinary house dress.

“I’ll look upstairs in the bedroom,” Panchito said. “What are we looking for?”

“A small object, cone shaped,” Gray said. “Just look for anything that looks old and valuable.”

Panchito tiptoed upstairs.

“We’ll search down here,” Gray said to Lulu.

There were rooms on both sides of them closed off by sliding doors. They went first to the right, inside a parlor decorated like a hunting lodge, complete with a stuffed deer head that looked lonely. The drawers in a desk were empty, and the plush couch had no signs of wear. Rich people, it seemed, had entire rooms they didn’t bother to use.

They crossed the entryway and found the doors on the other side locked. Gray could see through the glass insets it was some kind of library. Lulu removed a hairpin and began tinkering with the lock. In seconds she had it open.

“Where did you learn that?”

Lulu shrugged.

“We live with gangsters.”

The library was painted gray and had floor-to-ceiling bookshelves made of dark wood. It had at its center rows of marble pillars with objects on top of them, like displays in a museum. One was a bust of a woman Gray immediately recognized—it was Nefertiti. On another pillar was a simple and somewhat crude pair of reading glasses. There was a small paper placard with neat handwriting that read: “Bifocals—B. Franklin.”

Lulu reached for them.

“Can I try them on?”

He grabbed her hand before she could pull them off their stand.

“Don’t touch!”

A third pillar displayed a weathered page of papyrus in an ancient language. It was covered in a glass box. The placard simply read: “Histories—Herodotus.” Another pillar had a pair of red tail hawk feathers bound together with a leather strap and beads. The placard read: “Head Ornament—Crazy Horse.”

Gray grazed the feathers with his fingertips.

“I thought we weren’t supposed to touch,” Lulu said.

“You’re a bit of a pill, aren’t you?”

Lulu just smiled and pinched Gray hard on the arm.

There was a wall with all sorts of other objects mounted to it. A rifle belonging to Calamity Jane. A bow tie belonging to Mark Twain. Even a crescent-shaped hat that the placard claimed belonged to Napoleon Bonaparte.

There was a small writing desk in the corner. On top was an old photo of Pickford, her face exposed, posing with Chaplin, Fairbanks, and a man Gray didn’t recognize. He was short, with frizzy hair and a porkpie hat.

In the background towered some kind of Chinese fortress or temple, but the photo was cropped too close to tell.

Gray checked the drawer, which was bursting with old invitations: parties, weddings, movie premieres. Nearly all had unreturned RSVP cards. He came across an invitation to the grand opening of Griffith Observatory.

Go where you can walk among the stars.

He stuffed the invitations back into the drawer and shut it.

“We should go—”

Gray heard the shattering of glass from a window facing the front and something zoomed by his face. It landed with a small thud in the opposite wall near Lulu. She reached up and pulled it out; it was a Chinese throwing star.

“Get down!” Gray yelled. He dropped to the floor and grabbed Lulu by the feet, knocking her down just as another star whooshed past them. Gray peeked through the broken window and saw Sugar charging toward them from the far end of the front lawn.

“The circus has come to town.”

He grabbed her hand and they ran with their heads down into the large foyer.

“Chito! We got trouble!”

Gray pulled Lulu into the parlor across the hall just as the front door crashed open. He slid the doors shut and pushed Lulu down. They held their breaths and listened. There was a clicking sound, fingernails against the hardwood, accompanied by a low and rumbling purr. Only it wasn’t fingernails…it was claws.

Looking through the glass inset, Gray saw the powerful shoulders of something sleek and black stalking by them. A tail whipped by the door and Gray realized it was a giant cat—a panther. It had a collar with a chain, and a man with baggy pants and a whip entered just behind the cat, holding the end of the leash.

Sugar entered behind him with one of her Chinese throwing stars in her hand. Gray dropped to the floor next to Lulu just as Sugar turned in their direction.

“Where did they go?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” the man said. “But Sasha will find them.”

The man followed the black cat down the hall, toward the back of the house.

Elsie.

Gray stood, but to give up his location would be to endanger Lulu. He wasn’t sure what to do.

Looking up through the glass Gray saw Panchito appear at the top of the stairs, his pockets bursting with jewelry. Sugar saw him too.

“Get back,” Panchito said, “or I’ll make you sorry.”

Sugar raised an eyebrow at the flimsy threat.

“I could cut your heart out within the next three beats,” she said. “You should be afraid of me.”

“Afraid of you? Why?”

“Because I’m the fastest person alive.”

“Yeah, well I’m the bravest—”

Sugar was up the stairs and had him pinned against the wall, her hand over his throat, before he could finish.

“Yep,” Panchito wheezed. “Pretty fast.”

Gray motioned for Lulu to hide behind the couch. The little girl obeyed, all the bravado drained from her.

“Where is he?” Sugar asked Panchito.

He squirmed underneath her grip.

“I don’t know who you’re talking about.”

Sugar stuck one of the throwing star’s blades half an inch up his left nostril. Gray had to do something. He silently opened one of the sliding doors.

“I said, where is he?” Sugar asked.

Panchito tilted his head up to face her.

“And I said: I. Don’t.
Know
!”

Gray saw Panchito’s energy flare and he thrust the throwing star away from him. It shot out through Sugar’s hand, slicing her palm as it barreled through, landing softly on the upstairs carpet.

“Hey Sugar, here I am.”

Gray waved from the foot of the stairs. She turned to look at him and Gray saw a shadow of her energy shoot toward him.

Move.

Gray stepped to the side just as Sugar flew down the stairs and crashed into the front door. She rubbed her head and shook it off.

“I hate small spaces.”

Gray had backed against a wall. Again he saw a shadow of Sugar come for him. He leapt out of the way just as Sugar smashed into the wall.

“How is it that you evade me?” she said.

Gray inched backward until he felt his hands come up against a grandfather clock.

“My doctor told me to avoid sugar.”

She grunted and flew at him. He ducked and rolled. Sugar crashed into the grandfather clock and fell to the ground. The clock swayed from the impact and fell over on her, ringing a dismal chime.

Panchito poked his head over the railing.

“Well, that was easy.”

A necklace fell out of his pocket and clattered onto the ground floor.

“What’re you doing with all that jewelry?”

Panchito shrugged.

“You said to grab anything that looked valuable.”

Gray bent down to pick up the necklace and found himself facing a pair of gleaming green eyes. Cat eyes. The panther was stalking up the hallway from the back of the house. It pounced at him. Gray dropped and the panther slammed against one of the doors to the parlor, knocking it off its hinge and sending it crashing into the room. The panther rolled over once and landed lithely on its feet.

Lulu, hiding behind the sofa, made a small gasping sound. The panther turned in her direction and crouched down. It saw her. Gray had to draw it away.

“Here kitty!”

The panther turned and stalked toward Gray, who didn’t have a plan beyond that. A flash of gold whizzed by Gray and hit the animal squarely in the face. It yelped, with surprise more than pain. Gray saw a ring bounce off the ground and roll down the hall. Next came a bracelet spinning toward the cat, hitting it on the back. Panchito was using his power to thrust pieces of Pickford’s jewelry at it.

Gray scrambled up to his feet and made for the back hallway, but the cat’s owner was there, blocking the path.

“We’re supposed to take you alive,” he said, “if possible.”