Brooklyn Knight (24 page)

“Sorry for the delay. I … I wonder, do you have any idea how much I trust you?”

“Ah, I assume, like a great deal, and me without a security clearance or anything. I mean, I hadn’t really thought about it—”

“I’m sure you didn’t. It’s the kind of thing truly honest people don’t concern themselves with.” Letting his spoon slide into his bowl, Knight moved his left hand across the table to take Bridget’s right. Holding it gently, wanting there to be contact between them as he spoke, needing their auras to mingle at least slightly so the back of her mind would be positive he was telling her the truth, he explained to her gently;

“I trust you a great deal, probably far more than you realize. You’re thinking I’m merely talking on such matters like the flying, the ring I told you about, the Disc of the Winds, magic use in general. But trust me, dear Bridget, it goes far beyond that.” As the redhead nodded unconsciously, Knight continued, telling her;

“I didn’t worry about letting you sleep here. In this suspicious and litigious age, that’s something—especially after your little ‘boundary-setting’ speech. You think me telling you about my use of magic is a big deal, my dear, let me remind you, young lady, I let you drive my car. You think about that for a moment.”

Bridget lowered her head in response, her wide mouth breaking into a smile she was desperate to keep from erupting into uncontrollable giggles. As the professor looked at her inquiringly, she told him;

“I’m sorry, but every time you start to seem the least bit sexy, you say something that sounds like my dad.”

“Oh, you are a cheeky monkey, aren’t you?”

The two made slight conversation for a moment, both of them putting some effort toward downing a bit more of their soup while it was still at least somewhat warm. After a half-dozen rapid spoonfuls, Knight wiped his mouth with the napkin his assistant had set out for him. Replacing it on the table, he then told her;

“As for last night’s unusual weather, I don’t have any kind of explanation for that outside of, yes, as I’m certain you’ve been suspecting, its creation was most certainly magical in nature. It not only came on too swiftly, but I could feel the residue of dark bindings running all through the bolt when it struck me.”

“But,” asked Bridget, “what was it all about? If you’re saying it was sent, then who sent it? Why were you struck?”

“Good questions all, and I will be looking into them,” the professor assured her. “I can tell you this much: I felt something of the same directional threads leading off from this attack as I did those in the basement of the police station and the museum lobby.”

When the young woman asked if that meant all the attacks were coming from the same source, Knight explained that the sources of the attacks were different, but the guiding force behind them was the same. Then he told her;

“What you may not understand, however, is that last night, the lightning bolt wasn’t meant for me.”

“They were after me?” Bridget gasped as she spoke, unable to imagine why anyone would do such a thing. Before her fear response could run away with her imagination, however, the professor raised his hand, telling her;

“No, the bolt wasn’t meant for you, either. There was another presence there last night, if you remember.” The redhead’s eyes went wide as she whispered;

“The spirit? Someone wanted to zap the ghost? Why?”

“Because he was trying to tell me something.”

“ ‘He’?” Bridget questioned the single word, her eyes narrowing. “Why are you suddenly calling what we saw last night a he?”

“Because, my dear, what you saw last night was the essence of the recently departed Detective Sergeant Dollins. And if I am correct, he has something very important to tell us.”

Much to Bridget’s intense frustration, the professor could make no speculations as to what the specter of Detective Dollins might have been trying to tell him the night before. Nor did he have any concrete ideas at that moment on how to find out, either. As he explained to her, no longer attempting to guide Bridget down any misleading pathways such as Homeland Security issues;

“I might know various bits about magic and the supernatural and the lot, but apparitions and their motives have always stayed a bit beyond me.”

Electricity, however, the professor knew quite well. As they finished their soup, Knight explained to his assistant what an extremely effective tool it was for reducing ectoplasmic energy to nothing more than a flurry of noncohesive atoms. Even if Dollins’ spirit somehow survived the blast, the professor assured Bridget, it would still take the thing quite some time to reassemble itself.

Not that either of them could worry about such matters
right then. It was Thursday, which meant it was a workday, which meant both of them were expected at the museum—were already late, in fact. Swallowing the last of the broth in his bowl, Knight replaced the faded piece of china on the table as he said;

“Well, of course, if you’d like to play a bit of hookey, I am the boss, well … as far as you’re concerned, anyway. I think you would certainly be justified in lounging about for a day. Or if you wanted to take the time to finally connect with your sorority sister, get settled in out there in Queens—”

The professor looked to Bridget for an answer and was surprised to find her smiling. Wondering what she might have to grin over, outside of the fact that like any chef she could simply be pleased to see he had finished his soup, he asked the reason for her good cheer. Her eyes filled with a sudden mischief, she told him;

“I’m not so certain Queens is the best place for me this summer. Someone once told me it was ‘lumpy.’ ”

“Did they now?”

“Oh yes,” she continued, adding, “how did they describe it now?… . Oh, I remember, they said it was ‘only good for taking up the overflow.’ ”

“Not very kind of them. Perhaps even a bit condescending, if you think about it.”

Knight’s voice had gone soft as he replied to the young woman. He understood what was happening between them, knew what his assistant wanted—realized why she was having the difficulty she was in asking for it. As the silence in the kitchen began to shift slightly from the type that is restful to that which is uneasy, he swept aside the growing awkwardness, saying;

“You know, this was rather a good pot of soup.”

“Why, thank you.”

“Well, and you’re welcome, certainly. But, I was actually going
somewhere with that. You see, it’s just that, being a stuffy old bachelor, I’ve kind of grown out of the habit of having anyone else around. This was rather a delightful change of pace, and so … I was just wondering… .”

“Yes … ?”

“I’ve been reflecting, as it were, I mean …” Making his voice as light as possible, Knight spread a bit more than his usual half smile across his face, then continued, saying, “With you privy to so many of my secrets now, that perhaps I should be keeping a closer eye on you.”

“Sir … ?”

“You’ll forgive me,” the professor said, hoping he was making his true intentions clear. “I feel a little awkward asking this, and I certainly wouldn’t want to appear forward, or in any way improper—” Unable to contain herself, Bridget cut Knight off, blurting;

“Please let me stay!”

The professor sat quietly on his side of the kitchen table, elbows planted firmly, hands held before his face, suddenly not quite knowing what to say next. Knight felt a certain embarrassment, for he had been building up to asking the young woman if she would like to stay. He thought that was what she had been leading toward, thought he knew why she wanted to do so, and had been trying to make such easier for her. Bridget’s unexpected outburst, however, not only caught him completely off-guard but left him a trifle flustered as well. Before he could regain his composure, the redhead added;

“I’m sorry, but I’m just so scared. All I can think is that I don’t know what’s happening to me—to us. And that you don’t know what’s happening to us. And if you don’t know …”

“Well, it’s not like—”

“Professor, please—if any of these crazy things come after me,
I’m finished. I don’t want to be gunned down or burned to death or blown up or struck by lightning. And going to Queens isn’t going to make me safe. Running back home to Montana isn’t going to make me safe.”

“The way things have been going,” the professor reminded his assistant, “I’m not so certain you’re all that safe around me, either. And please, I don’t say that to dissuade you, but to remind you that, as you said, I really don’t have any idea as to what it is that’s been happening around us.”

“I know all of that,” answered Bridget softly, her tone trembling. Looking at her, staring into the clearly frightened green eyes staring into his own, Knight felt his heart crumbling. He could not turn the young woman away, for no other reason than she was most likely completely correct in her assessment of the situation.

“And … I don’t care.”

Rapidly the professor turned the recent rash of events over in his mind. There was no question that he did not know what was going on. Or, for that matter, why it was happening, either. For all he knew, the very second young Bridget Elkins got too far away from him, some other doorway from beyond would open and launch forth some new entity to ensnare his helpless assistant, simply because whatever was going on behind that door, the progenitors of it felt destroying her could help their cause. A part of his brain asked him, and not very subtly, if he was willing to take her in simply because he liked her full figure and long legs. Growling at himself, he made the cynical side of his nature aware that he intended to offer her what sanctuary he could in
spite
of her many pleasing attributes.

“I know it’s an imposition. But I just know I’m not going to feel safe anywhere else.” As she spoke more rapidly with each word, tears began to roll down Bridget’s face while she sobbed, “It’s like I’m losing my mind. When I look in the mirror, I’m not
certain who it is I’m seeing there. Every shadow, in corners, passing the window, I, I—”

“It’s all right, my dear… .”

“And I promise, I won’t ask another embarrassing question. I don’t care why you didn’t want a doctor to see you, or why you have giant scars running across your chest, or—”

And then, the professor put a finger of one hand to his lips while he took one of hers in his other, squeezing it gently.

“As for my aversion to doctors, the bodies of those who store magical energies tend to throw off the readings of medical instruments. Everything from MRIs to simple blood-pressure machines, none of them seem normal, and questions begin to mount up which can’t be answered. I knew my body would repair itself, but I, well, I was too frazzled at the moment to explain that to you. The lightning and all.” Sensing that his assistant was almost calm, he began again;

“And, as for the scars—”

Before he could even really begin his second explanation, Bridget suddenly began crying in earnest, sobbing harder the more Knight tried to comfort her. They both then began apologizing to each other, her for breaking down so completely, him for knowing nothing about how to treat women. Talking over each other, they blurted;

“I think you know something about women, but me—”

“I wish I could somehow reverse all this. I’m so sorry that—”

“You don’t have anything to apologize for—”

And then suddenly the professor and his assistant stopped talking and stared at each other for an instant. Hearing what each other had been saying, the pair started chuckling over how foolish they sounded. Handing the redhead a paper napkin from the dispenser on the table, Knight commented;

“Modern life really has screwed up just about everything,
hasn’t it?” Bridget merely nodded, doing what she could to dry her face. As she did, the professor said;

“Very well, as far as your friend in Queens, or your family, for that matter, is concerned, my housekeeper left me two months ago to get married. My home is a mess; my pantry is bare. I’ve been living on canned beans and spaghetti and will soon forget to bathe without supervision. For taking care of me you get free room and board close to the museum, as well as a ride to and from work every day. Is that enough of a story to placate all parties?”

“I would think so,” answered Bridget, smiling brightly as she gathered up their bowls, spoons, and used napkins. Running the hot water in the sink, she tossed the refuse in a nearby container Knight kept there for that purpose, then started cleaning their dishes. She was about to thank the professor further, not only for his generosity but also for understanding her feelings, when she noted that he suddenly appeared to be transfixed, as if listening for some faraway sound. As she finished the dishes, Knight announced;

“Well, if you’re thinking you want to be where I am, then you’d better get ready to head into the museum.”

“What is it,” she asked. Drying her hands on the oversized T-shirt in which she had slept, she added, “You seemed so far away for a moment there.”

“I was,” answered Knight. “I finally heard something in the minds of one of the bozos worth hearing.” When his assistant inquired as to what that might be, the professor told her;

“I overheard a phone conversation Mr. Klein was having with one of his underlings. Dr. Ungari’s plane has just landed at JFK Airport. Ungari and Bakur are in New York City.”

“Okay,” answered Bridget, her tone suddenly bright, “guess I better get cleaned up. After all, I’d hate to have less than perfect
makeup for my third day in the greatest city in the world. I mean, God only knows what’s going to happen today.”

Watching Bridget leave the kitchen, Knight nodded his head unconsciously, telling her, “Indeed, God only knows.”

And
, he thought, frowning as he did so,
as usual, the bastard is keeping the information to himself
.

Knight had been inside the museum for no more than twenty minutes when Martin Klein walked into his office unannounced. Of course, since the professor could still hear the agent’s thoughts, he was in no way surprised by the FBI man’s arrival. Indeed, it pleased Knight to act as if Klein’s sudden appearance there were the most natural thing in the world, as if he were merely a delivery boy from the corner deli, bringing the professor a coffee the way he did every morning. Looking to get some sort of reaction out of Knight, the agent said;