Prospero Lost: Prospero's Daughter, Book I (39 page)

During this extended journey, we supped on exotic food and subdued menacing spirits while tracking the remaining winds. We cornered Afer, the Southwest Wind, in Egypt, and captured Notus, the South Wind, below the Cape of Good Hope. We then chased Eurus, the East Wind, through India and China, before it escaped us by hiding in Japan. We did not follow because, at the time, the Shogunate had declared the country closed to foreigners. Outsiders found on Japanese soil were slain.

We dwelt in China for a few years. Then, in 1792, we received a request for help from En the Ascetic, the immortal Japanese sorcerer, whom we knew from the Centennial Masquerades. Mount Unzen had erupted, and the ensuing tsunami had killed over 14,000 people. En wished us to come and subdue the
oni
responsible.

With the help of the
Staff of Persuasion
and the
Staff of Transmogrification
, we crossed the Japanese countryside in disguise, hunting down numerous
tengu
,
oni,
and violent
kami
. The dragons, who dwell beneath the islands and shake the earth, eluded us, but no Japanese volcano since has slain so many. To show his gratitude, En brought us to his secret temple. There, by playing upon his enchanted shakuhachi, he lured the East Wind into the open. Finally, three hundred years after Father first captured Ariel, all eight winds were ours!

Throughout these journeys, Father would pause and touch the
Staff of Transportation
to the earth, so the staff could return to that spot. The Great Winds Hunt took us thirty-six years, all told. The return trip was accomplished in under one minute.

Where was Ulysses now? I wondered, sighing. That staff was wasted on him!

“Ma’am,” Mab called. He had gone ahead to find a shop that carried newspapers from the mainland and now stood before a newsstand, scratching his jaw. “That Priority Account you decided not to sail back and check on yesterday. What was it for?”

An icy jab of fear traveled through my stomach.

“Why?”

“Better take a look at this.” He jabbed a finger at a paper. The headline read:
RUMBLING AT MOUNT ST. HELENS: ASH FALLS ON NEARBY TOWNS
.

Frowning, I handed him some change. He bought the paper, and I read the article on the spot.

“This doesn’t bode well, Mab.” I folded the paper and tossed it into a nearby trash can. My cell phone still read “out of range.” “This is definitely
a breach of contract. I’d better call headquarters as soon as we reach the airport!”

We picked up our pace. The sights were still lovely and the air balmy, but the afternoon had lost its charm for me. What would I do if our Priority Accounts stopped honoring their word, now that Gregor and Theo were not around to oathbind them and terrify them into submission? Currently, as a stop gap, I was requiring new contracts be sworn upon the River Styx. Our meager supply of Styx water grew smaller each year, however, and some of what remained was needed for other purposes. More than once, I brought this up with Father, but he had never given me a satisfactory answer. Now he was missing, and the problem was on my shoulders.

Mephisto tripped along in front of us, kicking stones and shouting instructions to them. I could feel Mab glaring at me. He was waiting for me to tell Mephisto that we were deserting him. I figured there would be plenty of time for that on the plane. After all, I was not going to abandon him on St. Thomas.

As we reached Vimmelskaft Gade, Mephisto turned into a narrow alley that the map showed to be a shortcut, then suddenly backed out again, bumping into Mab and exclaiming excitedly, “Uh-oh!”

“Hey, Harebrain, what’s your prob . . . oh . . .” Mab trailed off, staring down the alley. He threw out a hand to indicate that I should stay back. I ignored him and rounded the corner. A shiver of dread passed through my body from the roots of my hair to the soles of my feet.

We were gazing down an alley paved with dusty yellow brick. A few palms grew on one side. There was an opening into a café, and the air smelled of fragrant spices, though I also caught a whiff of decaying flesh. In the middle of the alley, blocking the way, three demons stood shoulder to shoulder.

The first was an inky figure with sharp horns, wrapped in a billowing opera cape. His scarlet eyes matched the runes carved into the staff in his hand. Next to him, a stocky man in a robe of thick gray fur leered menacingly. His red hair stood in caked peaks that resembled a punk hairdo, though he followed a far older custom. The third, clad in moldering mummy’s wraps, towered over the other two. A gold pharaoh’s death mask hid his face, and the red-and-white double crown of the Egyptian kings adorned his head. The eyes of the mask were dark slits, so the direction of the gaze beneath could not be discerned. It was from this last figure that the stench of death wafted.

Quick as the wind, Mab pulled a container from his pocket and, deftly
pouring it, formed a protective circle about us. Mab’s face was slick with sweat. Putting his finger to his lips and then drawing it across his throat, he indicated that we should keep silent if we valued our lives. Then he passed his hand in front of his eyes, while pointing toward the demons with his elbow, which I took to mean that we should avoid glancing in the direction of the splendid golden pharaoh mask, lest we accidentally make eye contact with the mind-reading Baelor.

So, the three of us stood bunched together, trying not to look at the demons while still not daring to look away, lest they catch us off guard. Mab’s precautions are often excessive, but this time I applauded his quick thinking and vigilance. The palpable malice that issued from the demons—sweeping over us and causing me to feel sullied, unclean—diminished after Mab completed his salt ward. Even so, the sensation was as frightening as it was unpleasant, for the demon’s infernal presence conjured up memories I loathed to recall.

The alley fell away, and, suddenly, I was back several centuries, following Theo and Titus into an abbey that had been visited by an incubus. The demon’s unholy get had eaten their way out of their mothers’ wombs, leaving the dead nuns lying with their entrails spread about them in pools of blood. It was the smell of Baelor of the Baleful Eye that brought back this particular memory. The sight had been terrible, but the odor had been worse, as the stench of the nuns’ rotting corpses mingled with that of the decayed matter spilled from their exposed innards.

I pulled my attention back to the present, only to again breathe in the demon’s stink and find myself transported yet again into my past: the time we found a corpse in an abandoned boneyard, its limbs spread out about the graves, the head bloated and hollowed, as if some creature had been wearing it like a mask. That one gave Logistilla nightmares for years.

This memory was followed by another equally ghastly: a visit to an asylum with Erasmus and Cornelius to question inmates driven mad because some sorcerer had trafficked with a demon. The poor souls screamed horrifically, flinching from invisible foes. They gnawed on their own lips until their mouths were raw and torn. They would have done worse had they not been restrained. The first few had been found eyeless, with gnawed stumps where their fingers should have been. The would-be sorcerer was dead, his blood splattered across the walls of his house. The patients in the asylum were his unsuspecting neighbors. Their only crime: they lived too close to the wrong man.

As bile rose dangerously in my throat, I felt I could not bear much more of this. I closed my eyes and prayed.

Like a soft breath of cool freshness, my Lady’s blessing embraced me. The glaring images of mangled bodies and lives gone wrong faded from my thoughts. I felt cleansed, pure. Mab and Mephisto also raised their heads and stood straighter. Apparently, my Lady’s blessing extended to them. I thanked Her.

Ahead of us, the third demon moved. From behind his back, he brought out a tall staff topped with a winged lion. It consisted of small figurines similar to the one Mephisto had begun of Mab, strung together like a long totem pole. Birds and angels carved from pale woods made up the first two feet of the staff. Mundane creatures made of apple, cherry, and oak followed, and dangerous mythical beasts of dark mahogany or ebony made up the bottom. The jeweled eyes, set into the carven faces, winked in the bright sunlight like so many points of colored fire.

“My staff!” Mephisto darted forward.

Mab and I both lunged, grabbing him by the hair and shoulders. My brother struggled, twisting and writhing, but there were two of us and only one of him. Furthermore, his recent injuries and vagabond life had taxed his strength. After a brief struggle, he went limp and confined himself to muttering darkly, never taking his eyes off the staff.

Mab wildly glanced about us. One-handedly, he drew out his salt and fixed the circle where Mephisto had scuffed it. From his scowl, I gathered that he would have liked to redraw the ward entirely, but to do so he would have had to release Mephisto.

The stench of death was growing. I fought off the desire to gag and wished I had an extra hand to cover my mouth. I noticed my arms, were trembling from the effort of restraining Mephisto. This was not good.

We could remain here, but for how long? The sun would set soon, and the demons’ power would only get stronger as night approached. True, we had a ward, but salt was used to hold off ghosts, ghouls, and vampires. More powerful beings, such as these, could cross such a barrier if they exerted a little effort, especially now that Mephisto had scuffed it.

What other options remained? Run? If so, where would we be safe? Where could one run when fleeing demons? A properly consecrated church would offer sanctuary, but nowadays one could not rely on churches having been properly consecrated.

If we could not stay and we could not run, that left fighting. Fight with
what? My flute? Lightning hurt demons, but the sky was blue, and there was not a power line in sight. On a clear day like this, raising enough of a storm to draw a lightning bolt might take as long as twenty minutes, and that was assuming I let go of my brother to play. By then, we could all be dead.

A tornado? Calling up a twister did not require a storm, and I could do it one-handed. In an enclosed alley like this, however, it would be as likely to suck up us as them, not to mention the effect upon the town.

That left us facing demons of Hell with a fighting fan, a lead pipe, and Mephisto’s new lute—and that was assuming Mephisto would fight beside us, rather than commit suicide by lunging for his staff. Of course, it might throw the fight in our favor, if Mephisto suddenly reverted to his giant black bat-winged form. If he was not transforming now, to gain his beloved staff, then I doubted we would get help from that quarter. Besides, I did not necessarily want help from a demon, even if it thought it was my brother.

What we needed was Theo’s
Staff of Devastation
, or the Ring of Solomon, or one of Mephisto’s mythical beast friends. Alas, the mythical beasts were on their side now.

Seir of the Shadows spoke in soft dulcet tones. “Children of Prospero, our quarrel is not with you. Return that which has been stolen, and no harm will come to you.”

His voice flowed like music, as pleasing to the ear as his handsome sable features were to the eye. Yet, it was a repulsive pleasantness, evoking passions I did not care to experience. My Lady’s breath encircled me again, shielding me from his influence.

Mab, too, stood grimly, refusing to speak. Mephisto, however, showed no such restraint.

“Stolen? You stupid Inkie! We’re not the thieves, you are! Or at least that Irish Setter guy with the Celtic hairstyle is! He stole my staff. And look. It’s right there! King Tut is holding it in his hand! Do something, Miranda! Make them give it back!” Mephisto stamped his foot.

He had begun to squirm again, and I feared Mab would deck him, or worse, let him go and abandon him to the demons.

Seir replied courteously. “Long ago, Dread Prospero stole nine books that were in his trust. We, the Three Shadowed Ones, are the guardians charged with their return.”

“Daddy didn’t steal anything!” Mephisto cried. “Unless you count grumpykins Mab here, who wasn’t stolen, just compelled; so he still didn’t. Besides, we don’t even know where those books are!”

Seir gestured with the
Staff of Darkness
, then pointed it at the
Staff of Summoning
. “Two we have already retrieved. A third, the lady Miranda holds in her slender hands: the eldritch flute known as the
Staff of Winds
.”

His words made no sense, even to Mephisto, who cried out impatiently, “Those aren’t books!”

“Great Prospero altered their form, but we are not deceived.”

Was this true? Could that be what Father meant by
they have been put to a greater purpose from which they cannot now be retrieved
? I dared not let the question distract me now.

Osae the Red cocked his head and leered at me; his gaze traveled over my pale peach sundress in a fashion that turned my stomach and caused a frisson of fear as I realized I was not wearing my enchanted tea dress. He rasped, “Just give us the flute, and there won’t be any trouble.”

“Are you crazy! No!” Mephisto put his hands on his hips, even though we were still holding his arms, and stuck out his tongue. “What’s with you guys, anyway? Are you culturally challenged? Shouldn’t the guy with the Irish name do his hair like a Celt, and the goofy shapechanger wear the mask? With a name like Baelor, if you want to hide your face, you should paint it with woad!”