The Lost Prince (43 page)

“Does Dorn know?” Cat said.

“Dorn could not care less. His family has myopic vision. They’re happy to end a rival’s claim to the emperor’s throne and perpetuate their power base for another generation. The war was inevitable … I simply accelerated it. I’m a means to an end.”

“I don’t believe you. I don’t think you’re here on purpose. I think you were running for your life in the castle just like the rest of them.”

“There’s risk in everything,” Balzac said somberly.

Cat had hit it on the head. Balzac had misjudged the situation—he hadn’t anticipated the attack on the prince’s naming day … that they would reach the capital. She let out a contemptible snort.

“Ball Sack Cruz, super genius,” she said.

“I was out of my depth, but I made it here,” he said, throwing his arms out to take in the room and the world beyond it. “All’s well that ends well.”

“Get me out of here,” Cat pleaded. “You want to be a revolutionary … show some compassion for me, for my family. You’ve met my daughter … she needs her mother.”

“We’re all pawns, Lady MacDonnell. I have nothing personal against your family. You certainly did not deserve this. You are no gold-digging aristocratic tart breeding her way to the throne. You married a policeman. It mattered little to me whether you and your daughter returned to Aandor with your husband. You’d probably have been killed there within a fortnight. The whole kingdom is overrun with enemy soldiers.”

“I’ll take my chances,” she said.

“But you’ve seen too much … connected too many of the dots. No, it’s better that you remain here. Better that you never speak to your husband again.”

Catherine’s blood turned to ice. “I’m—under Dorn’s protection,” she said.

“The prince is in his grasp. You no longer matter.”

She struggled for words, for the argument that would save her. In desperation she found the leverage to move words that had wedged in her throat since this entire escapade began. “I’m a … I’m a noble.”

“Exactly,” he said.

“But—codes of conduct…”

“Are merely guidelines until someone decides they don’t need you anymore.”

“Oulfsan,” she pleaded, turning to him. “You can’t…”

“This is not Oulfsan, my dear,” explained Balzac. “He and Krebe are soul swappers. Unbeknownst to his brother or Dorn, Krebe has been looking after my interests for years. I throw him a little morsel now and then to practice his art on—the price of retaining good help in troubled times.”

“Dorn won’t like it.”

“He’ll just say you tried to escape.”

“She tried floodin’ the bath before you showed,” Oulfsan/Krebe said. “We’ll start there.”

Balzac left with no farewells, conveying his distaste for Krebe’s methods.
Effete little asshole,
Cat thought.

Oulfsan/Krebe grabbed Cat by her hair and dragged her into the bathroom. She was in shock. Instinctively, she punched and kicked, but Oulfsan was solid muscle under his tux. He shut the bathroom door. She finally found the wherewithal to scream, but he shoved her head underwater and kept her down until her lungs ached. Then he yanked her out and laughed in her face with wild eyes. He drank in her terror like a sweet wine quenching his long thirst. She sucked several big gulps of air.

“Like to play with water, governess?” he taunted. He shoved her head back into the tub, pushing down until Cat’s cheek was pressed against the porcelain bottom. His strength was uncanny, like a rhino lying atop her. She reflexively breathed in water. It burned her lungs. She flailed with her last strength.
This is it,
she thought. He pulled her out again, laughing uncontrollably. She struggled to catch her breath, coughing, trying to convince her lungs she was no longer under the water.

Suddenly, Oulfsan/Krebe made a face as though something with too many legs was crawling under his shirt. A far-off gaze descended on him; he let go of her and slumped back against the toilet.

“The pull,” he said, hoarsely. “Spoil the fu…”

His gaze went blank; it reset a moment later. Oulfsan looked about, wondering why he was sopping wet and on the bathroom floor.

Cat reached out to him, struggling to find her wind against the weight in her chest, the rawness of throat. “Your brother tried…” She fell into a coughing fit.

Oulfsan shot up; ignoring her, he ran from the room toward the suite’s common area. “The prince is trapped!” he shouted. “On a farm in North Carolina … we have him!”

CHAPTER 31

CAPTAIN AMERICA

1

Callum pushed the Explorer to crazy velocities beyond the speed limit. He was determined to make up the difference since the rest stop, “lest the beacon mysteriously stop working,” he told Seth, who knew what the cop really meant was
in case you screw up again and lose it
. The wisps of energy deviated from the highway at Route 64 near Nashville, North Carolina, and then again on a country road that brought them to within a few miles northeast of Raleigh. Seth suspected only a mile separated them from Dorn’s car. A mile might as well be a hundred if Dorn’s men got to the prince first. It takes less than two seconds to run a knife across a throat.

Malcolm said he’d convinced Allyn Grey to take a ride out to where the boy supposedly was. The prelate was no warrior, but Cal hoped the minister could reach the prince before Dorn’s men, and disappear with the kid. Mal tried hard to convince them the pick up would be easy as pie, but something about Mal’s emphasis gave away the good cleric’s reluctance to become entangled in this affair. Cal didn’t believe the preacher was as reliable as they needed him to be.

Cal had become unbearably intense. He refused to talk unless it was to ask Seth whether he could still see the trail. It burned the cop to have to depend on him. Nothing Seth had done so far on the trip swayed Cal from the opinion that he was incompetent, useless, and probably evil. In a way, Seth respected Cal’s unfaltering single-mindedness—his ability to know what he knows and the inflexible manner with which he resisted change. That single-mindedness is what got them within arm’s reach of the prince.

Eight hazy headlights emerged from the inky blackness ahead of them. They grew brighter quickly and zipped by; the first one, a station wagon, passed them at over eighty miles an hour.
Crazy way to drive in the rain,
Seth thought, ascribing the behavior to the customs of country folk. The second car, clearly in pursuit of the first, glowed brighter, with tendrils of energy dancing upon its roof giving it the appearance of a ghostly jester’s cap. It sped past, as did the two vehicles right behind it.

“Turn around,” Seth said.

“What?” asked Cal.

“That second car … It’s Dretch. They’re all pursuing that first car. One guess who…”

Cal slammed the brakes and in a crazy police-academy maneuver, pulled a bootleg turn on the slick road, switching the direction of the Ford Explorer 180 degrees. He had it back in drive and pedal to the floor before their backward motion even stopped.

This was it—contact with the bad guys. Seth had never been much of a fighter, and with three carloads full of hostiles ahead of them, they were extremely outnumbered. And yet, Cal rushed forward without blinking an eye. He would literally die trying to defend the prince with no thought of his wife and daughter in New York.

The convoy’s lights were in sight, headed up a slight grade in the road that allowed Seth full view of the chase. Dretch’s car overtook them and smashed into the rear of the station wagon. When that failed, it pulled up beside the wagon and smashed into it from the side. The wagon almost went off the road, but righted itself.

Cal threw all the power of the Explorer’s V8 into catching up with the rest. The vehicle they came across first was a black Cadillac SUV.

“I don’t suppose you figured out how to shoot lightning from your stick yet?” Cal asked Seth.

“Uh … no. Still on training wheels.”

“Didn’t think so.” Cal pulled up beside the SUV, and once lined up with the driver, swerved into the truck. The other car, completely taken by surprise, ended up in a ditch on the edge of a farm.

“One down,” whispered Seth.

The repeated attempts to push the station wagon from the road resulted in it suddenly pulling off to the right and onto a service road. Its red taillights blinked and were eventually swallowed up by the darkness as trees and brush hid it from view.

Dretch’s LeBaron went several yards past the turnoff, did its own bootleg swing, and followed the wagon up the trail. The next car around that turn was the old Cadillac DeVille followed by Seth and Cal. The dirt road was thin, muddy, and made for a bumpy ride. Not too far ahead, the DeVille, with its rear-wheel drive, had become stuck in the mud. The way past them was a tight squeeze; Cal pulled around them cautiously. Four young locals gave them the finger and shouted obscenities as they drove by.

“It’s like a fucking Blake Edwards movie,” Seth said. “What the heck did that kid get into down here?”

The road ended at a dairy farm. They saw the headlights of the station wagon and the LeBaron ahead reflecting off the side of a massive red barn. The cars sat abandoned in a large muddy circular yard before the barn, the station wagon’s doors were open to the elements. To the right was an open garage with a Jay-Lor feed mixer and other tractor attachments against the wall. To the left was a massive shed connected to the barn by an enclosed passageway. All the buildings were dark. The only sounds were the wind and patter of raindrops on wood, metal, and mud.

“Which way?” asked Seth.

“Don’t you know?” asked Cal, pointing to the staff.

Seth tapped it on the ground, but nothing happened. In the excitement of the chase, he’d lost hold of the spell and lost the signal.

“Nothing,” Seth said.

“Take the shed on the left. I’ll take the garage.”

Seth was afraid Cal would say that.

2

Reverend Grey couldn’t help wonder how it had come to this. Despite his efforts to stay out of the fray, he was now in possession of the prince of Aandor with half the county’s meth dealers and a contingent of Lord Dorn’s thugs gunning for them. Allyn was never an athletic man; his heart threatened to burst from his chest with all this activity.

The barn housed over fifty cows. He and Daniel had found a dark niche to hold up in crouched behind a large contingent of Jerseys. The enemy was out there somewhere—at least one carload of pursuers that Allyn knew of.
Why am I here?
he thought. His plan was to completely avoid this conflict. Why was he about to die?

After Rosemarie conveyed the location of the prince back at the henge, Allyn had a revelation of sorts … of all the places in the world for the prince of Aandor to end up—that Daniel should be in North Carolina, upon his very doorstep, was a sign from above. This burden was practically handed to him on a platter by biblical standards.

Free will being the Lord’s greatest gift to man, it was Allyn’s choice to live up to the Almighty’s expectations. God did not force issues. He did not teleport the Jews from Egypt and plunk them down safely in the land of milk and honey—homes already built and crops abundantly sprawling. He did not remove the tree of knowledge from Eden where the possibility of its fruit touching Adam’s lips might stain his descendants for generations. God set expectations and left men to choose their paths. The harder path did not always guarantee a reward. Even without the prompting from Malcolm in New York, without the guilt of a broken oath, Allyn understood the message—he had little choice but to drive out to retrieve the prince if he hoped to live with himself.

Daniel tugged at his sleeve.

“I just wanted to say thank you,” Daniel whispered.

“Thank you?”

“It’s obvious from your driving that you’re not good at cloak-and-dagger stuff. I appreciate that you tried to help.”

Allyn was surprised at how much he relished the compliment despite their predicament. With all his ponderings about God’s intentions for him, his oath to House Athelstan, he’d forgotten about the human element. Saving a young life, even if the boy was not royalty, was a noble effort unto itself.

He was strangely proud of the boy, who seemed wise for his years. It was some consolation in the face of death that the object of his demise was at least worthy of the sacrifice.

“We’re not done yet,” Allyn said in his bravest whisper. “I have a trick up my sleeve … If I can come in contact with one of our pursuers, I may be able to convert him.”

Daniel scrunched his nose in a way that Allyn read as a
yeah, right
response toward his statement.

“No offense, Reverend, but did you see that seven-foot guy?” Daniel whispered. “He’s Mary Shelley’s version of Frankenstein. We need superheroes, not sermons.”

“We have a superhero,” Allyn whispered. MacDonnell was in a car heading south, the source of that second blip Allyn had picked up when he cast his search spell. Malcolm had communicated to the captain that the prince was in the vicinity of the trailer park. The wizard who cast that spell thirteen years ago and wiped their memories was with him. That didn’t give Allyn much confidence. Perhaps the boy had learned a thing or two in thirteen years.

“I pray that he finds us in time,” Allyn said.

Someone kicked a milk can at the other end of the barn. The two of them held their breath. It rattled loudly, disturbing cows in that section before coming to a halt. A hushed obscenity drifted on the wind accompanied by several cow emissions.

“Which one?” asked Daniel.

“What?”

“Which superhero?”

Though Allyn was being metaphorical, he actually put some thought to the question, as though the exercise were a substitute for having a plan of action. He considered the pantheon of heroes he’d heard about through movies and advertising, and the occasional confiscated comic book from Sunday school, and wondered which mold MacDonnell fit.

“Captain America,” Allyn concluded.

“Really?”

“Yes. Muscular, tall, blond, with a good heart, and prone to noble deeds,” he explained.
God help his opponent when MacDonnell’s holding a sword and shield.