Her shaking hands betrayed the calm tone of her voice, but Callahan never guessed. “I'm having car issues at the moment,” Alexandra explained.
“Imagine that,” Callahan said gruffly.
“We'll get there as fast as we can,” Alexandra promised.
“No,” Callahan interrupted. “We cannot linger and cross our fingers that the jiggly bits will not fall off your engine before you get here. Besides, I thought young Mr. Lawson was borrowing a sleek piece of German engineering from his mother?”
On the street below, Alexandra spotted an unsuspecting, metallic-blue pickup truck. It was pulling to a stop against the red curb directly in front of the entrance to Park View Tower. “Good luck, dude,” she whispered under her breath to the mullet-haired driver in sunglasses and a tie-dyed t-shirt.
“Why are you wishing me good luck, Miss Peyton?” asked Callahan. “I don't need luck. I always get my manâor beastâ whatever the case may be.”
“Callahan,” she said, exasperated. “I wasn't talking to you.”
Callahan sighed. Women remained the one mystery that the great adventurer had never solved. They were losing time, and he needed to hurry. “I'll call a taxi and meet you at your address. You're not far?”
Alexandra gave him excellent directions. “Tell the taxi driver to take a left out of your driveway and head to Peachtree Street. My apartment building is across from the park. Tell him it's the tall one with the gargoyles around the roof. Trust me. He'll know where to go.”
“Very well, then, my dear,” Callahan told her. “Prepare yourself. I shall be there soon.”
“Uh, okay,” Alexandra stuttered into the receiver. She was terrified that the beast was coming for her, that he knew where she went to school, and that he probably could find out her Social Security number and even SAT scores.
As if he had read her mind, Callahan said, “I'm certain you are safe.” Callahan tried to reassure her. “He is not looking for you. Rather, I think he wants you to follow him. Besides, my dear, you have Kraven with you.”
“Not right now,” Alexandra said, feigning calm, hoping Callahan could not hear her growing panic.
Tired of him already? The attention span of teenagers!
Callahan huffed to himself. “Well, I'm sure your new friend has not let himself get too far from you.” Grasping the banister, Callahan winced as his swollen ankle hit the bottom step of the staircase. “Bloody beast,” he howled and spat incoherent mutterings into the phone.
“Where are you, Callahan?” Alexandra asked.
“Climbing my arse up the stairs, dear girl,” he explained, grappling slowly toward the second floor of his headquarters on Mockingbird Lane. His strained voice boomed off the polished hardwood floors and bounced from bare wall to bare wall in the unfurnished rental. “That mongrel escaped from the attic while I was gone, and I'm going up there to see how he did it.”
“How could he be gone? You were supposed to be guarding him!” Alexandra squealed into his ear, her eyes lingering on every bus, every truck, and every car driving on the road below her. She even scrutinized the van selling hot dogs at the curb by the park.
“But he was half dead,” Callahan replied calmly. “And another pressing matter presented itself.”
Press this
, Alexandra thought, shaking the phone in the air above her head as she held her breath and counted to five.
Callahan paused his climb halfway up the staircase to sit down. “We should probably get on the road soon before the beast gets too much of a head start.”
“Should I pack a bag?” Alexandra asked, her fingers on the talisman dangling around her neck. Four stories up in the air, the breeze felt soothing on her blazing skin. She was sure that somewhere in the park across the street, Kraven was watching her. She could feel his cool-blue, penetrating eyes on her face. Even before she found out that the beast was loose, she realized that she had been cruel to him in the park.
“Travel light, my dear,” answered Callahan. “Bring your uncle's journal and your raven-haired protector,” Callahan advised.
Alexandra gulped. “Okay,” she said, nodding her head. The call ended with Callahan's staggering footsteps echoing in her ears.
Callahan gripped the banister with both hands and stared at the steps above him. The throbbing in his ankle pulsed up his leg. “I'd rather hike up Kilimanjaro again than tackle these rickety old stairs once more,” he grumbled as the steps creaked beneath his footfalls.
With the attic yet another flight up into the labyrinth of the steep mansion, he paused at the top of the second-floor staircase before ascending to the attic. “I am certain I left that door closed,” he said into the empty hallway as he stared at his wide-open bedroom door.
Creeping closer, he smelled the foul aroma of filthy fur and urine emanating from his bedroom. At the threshold, he paused before the door slammed in his face, pushed by the breeze from an open window.
“My nose,” he hissed sourly, rubbing his face and pushing the door back with the tips of his fingers. Poking his head inside the room, he tasted the scent in his mouth and spat on the hardwood floor.
Fresh air poured in from the open window that overlooked Mockingbird Lane. A strong, warm breeze brushed his skin, but the stench of dog stained the curtains and baseboards. “How considerate,” Callahan said, bending to inspect his suitcases. “He unpacked for me.”
Callahan was amazed to see that the beast had touched every shirt, every sock, and every cape. The creature had rummaged through the bags and had strewn every piece of clothing on the floor. “And then he peed on them,” Callahan observed ruefully.
“I believe I am starting to get a little angry now,” he said as he gathered the soiled clothes into a heap and threw them into a corner. He suddenly remembered that he had hung up an outfit in the closet. “Please,” he said, peeking inside.
Hanging as pressed and tidy as he had left it, his spare tuxedo and shirt swung back and forth on the metal rod. Callahan grazed the deep black suit with his fingertips. “I love to dress up for battle anyhow,” he announced.
He wanted to take a shower. Two graves in one day weighed on his hygiene and his mind. He'd found no treasure in the grave of Colonel Collinsworth, but a gold necklace in the grave in his backyard. He mused whether or not the person in his backyard had stolen the necklace from the colonel.
“The game is afoot,” he bellowed, and suddenly had a craving for a tobacco pipe.
First he needed to visit the attic. The beast had been secure; he was sure of it. Slamming the bedroom window closed and securing its lock, he stalked across the ravaged bedroom to the hallway, the pain in his ankle easing as his hopes soared for the possibility of imminent battle.
Man-eating pythons in the Amazon, great white sharks off the Cape of Good Hope, a yeti in the Himalayan peaks of Nepalânone of these creatures had ever stopped Callahan. So he was certain that a shapeshifting old man in a smelly wolf hide would not get the best of him.
“Bring it,” he yelled, climbing the loose attic stairs.
Once he got to the attic, he decided that the foul mongrel must have had help to escape. He stared at the shredded spikes of wood that used to be the door at the top of the steps. Smashed and disintegrated, the remaining scraps of pine swung lightly back and forth on the squeaky hinges. These iron mountings held them only precariously to the dented doorframe.
“I don't understand,” Callahan said. He rubbed his thumb along the barbed needles of shredded wood that encircled the perimeter of a gaping hole at the bottom of the battered door. “How did he have the strength?”
It was then that Callahan formed a growing suspicion he had underestimated the supernatural phenomena plaguing young Alexandra Peyton.
The list of the beast's injuries ran through his head: faint pulse, shallow breath, fractured ribs, internal hemorrhaging, and blood loss. Alexandra and Kraven had inflicted serious trauma on the lost soul, enough to kill a human man.
“But he is not a human,” Callahan reminded himself as he stepped over the littered threshold and into the dusty, cluttered attic.
In the dim sunshine filtering through the grimy, oval window, he spotted the chewed nylon bindings that should have been strong enough to hold the wounded beast until more secure fastenings were delivered.
“I spent a whole year bleeding my arse off in the North Sea, learning how to tie these damned knots,” Callahan swore, holding the busted strands of rope in his hands. “But that bloody dog chews through them the first time I turn my back.” He shivered, recalling his attempt at naval service at eighteen.
“God bless his soul,” he said, bowing his head, the slipped knots a testament to the sound advice of Captain McFarley. The captain was the man who had pulled him aside one evening at a Dublin pub and advised him to move on, for his own sake and for that of Ireland. “Your country would hate to lose you the first time you put to sea,” the captain had advised. “I am afraid your landlubber legs will stumble and send you tumbling to drown, just getting you across the plank to board the vessel.”
A pirate he would never be then, Callahan decided at eighteen. But his lust for adventure led him to a far more intriguing career. Not many men could whisper to another that they fought demons and chased ghosts. The first law of the Order of the Dragon King kept the membership roster a closely guarded secret. He recognized other knights only by their signet rings. The ring was engraved with the symbol of the Dragon King himself, an ancient spirit with the body of a dragon and the head and torso of a man.
Dropping the rope to the floor, Callahan kicked aside the wool blanket he had laid down on the dusty wood for the mongrel. Where the blanket had been, a glob of brownish, bloody goo and mottled fur oozed through the planks of the attic floor.
Nudging the remains of the mouse with his toe, Callahan choked back the bile rising in his throat. The stench of burning flesh soaked the stale air. “Rabbit?” Callahan questioned, sniffing the air. “Rabbit stew?”
A cackle pierced the uneasy silence.
“He fed,” Callahan surmised, stooping to the floor. “He had help from the witch, the one he talked about. Her black magic is more potent than I imagined.”
If the beast found his way to the witch, with the man in the back of the truck, then Callahan knew he would have a fight on his hands. Alexandra would need all of her awakening powers and loyal friends to help defeat the witch and the demons the witch could command.
“Her story has just begun,” he said, climbing down the attic staircase slowly. In the bathroom adjoining his littered bedroom, he turned on the shower faucet.
Rising steam filled the air. On the mirror, he wrote a name: Jonathan.
Callahan whispered, “Have you come home?”
Taylor stared into the restroom mirror and poked her tongue out at the glass.
You are so not the fairest of them all today, honey
, she thought.
Her bubblegum-pink fingernails prodded at an angry red zit doubling in size every second on her chin. She leaned her worried face closer, the cracks of the mirror distorting her reflection.
“Texas,” she muttered with her fingertips rubbing the blemish. “This bad boy is as big as Texas. Maybe it's stress.” She knew greasy French fries and chocolate did not cause the explosion on her perfect face. She never touched the stuff.
“This is not good,” she told herself. “I need to chill.”
In the middle of her forehead, a red welt reminded Taylor that relaxation might not be an option. She needed to make Krystal pay. She touched her forehead tenderly while her delicate skin turned black and blue. The smack of her face into the detective's desk had not concerned her. Taylor did that sometimes when she had not eaten in a while. But she usually made sure to faint backward and not fall flat on her pretty face. Dabbing at the trickles of dried blood beneath her nostrils, she felt a surge of panic when the swipe of the rough paper towel revealed a pink stain beneath her nose and above her pouty lips.
“How does Alexandra do this?” she asked, barely above a whisper. Her best friend did not give much thought to her skin, hair, or make-up, which Taylor chalked up to innate good looks.
Bending over the sink, Taylor spat into the drain. She ran her fingers under the cool water dripping from the faucet. “I hate bananas,” she said angrily and cupped her palms under the stream. A sip of water rinsed her mouth clean of the taste. She had forced herself to eat the brown, mushy mess because she knew the detective would not have let her excuse herself to the bathroom unless she did.
Above her head, the flickering light bulb died and darkness drenched the restroom. The pitch black was an improvement on the jail's battleship-gray interior design, as far as Taylor was concerned. She began feeling in the dark for her crutches. Suddenly a barrage of sharp taps rattled the door, causing her to suck in a deep breath.
Gunfire?
she worried, the shock sending her crutches clamoring to the tile floor. Crouching and blind, she whimpered until her hands found the metal sticks.
“Taylor!” a voice yelled from the hallway. The rapid knock of a pair of knuckles on the steel door ceased, and a shaft of light slid into the unlit room.
With the door cracked open, Taylor recognized the raspy voice. It was the detective, the frizzy halo of her too-short bangs backlit by the fluorescent bulbs in the hallway. “There is someone here for you. Why are the lights off? Are you okay in there?”
“Yes, ma'am,” Taylor assured her as she clasped her crutches in her shaking fists and hobbled toward Detective Monroe. “Sure took Connie long enough to get here, huh?” she asked, stepping past the detective into the hallway.
“Connie?” the detective asked with a confused shake of her head.
“Connie Rose,” Taylor said, biting back the impatience on her tongue with her straight, white teeth. “She's my father's secretary. Didn't my stepmother ask you to call her to come pick me up?”