“The lance, the scepter, and the shroud are at the mansion,” I said. “Cornelius still has the ark—we thought it only fitting considering the high price he paid to get it. The spear was later built into Theo’s staff. Father used to have the Seal of Solomon, too, but I’m under the impression something happened to it.”
Mab nodded. “It was one of the two pieces Ulysses kept the time he stole the Warden. What happened to the sphere?”
“I broke it during the original raid,” Mephisto said sadly. “I had to throw it at some guys who wanted to kill me. But it was great!” His face lit up. “It exploded in a huge mushroom of fire!”
Mab looked at Mephisto with an odd expression on his face. “I heard a rumor about that sphere once,” he began, but Mephisto interrupted him, speaking rapidly.
“There were lots of rumors about the sphere, and most were wrong. But, it’s gone now. So, it doesn’t matter. Oh, well. Too bad.”
Mab eyed Mephisto thoughtfully, but he did not voice his original thought. “I gather Cornelius did something similar when he opened the Ark. Foiling his attackers, I mean.”
“The guards who attacked him were transformed into dust,” I replied. “Only, he himself looked too soon, as he was covering it. That’s how he lost his sight.”
“Bad business, the Ark,” said Mab.
Logistilla arched her perfectly formed eyebrows and looked at Mab with new interest. As Logistilla raised her glass to her lips, our eyes met. Her lip curled up slightly. To Mab, she said, “You seem surprisingly sensible for one of your kind. There’s a question I’ve always wanted to ask a spirit who talked sensibly. Who was Christ Jesus really? I know what we Prosperos believe, but then, we’re all Protestants now. What do the spirits believe?”
Mab sat back and scratched at his stubble. “Opinions differ, Madam Logistilla. No one seems to know for sure. Or, if they do, they aren’t telling. Some say he was the son of a wrathful sky god named Jehovah. Some say he was Lucifer’s son. Some say Adonai’s. Some think he was a stranger, from Outside, or a renegade from the universe of Muspell. But, I think that’s pure conjecture. Personally, though, I doubt all of the above.”
“Oh? Why?” Logistilla asked. I listened, curious. It was not a topic Mab and I had ever discussed.
“Simple. Devils don’t give you something for nothing, and this Christ guy did. Angels don’t break the law, creating miracles and all that. As for the tribal sky god theory, the old deities are no longer powerful enough to keep mentions of their works from being edited by—well, the guys you called the Orbis Suleimani. Mithra and Jove have been relegated to fairytales. Christ Jesus has not. As for who Christ actually was? I have my own opinion.”
“Ah, the Orbis Suleimani, or the Boys’ Club, as it should be called.” Logistilla sniffed. “I’ve never understood why Father would not let us women join. Even their splinter group, the Freemasons, don’t allow women. Or didn’t last time I checked. Things are changing so quickly, these days.”
Mephisto said. “Father did not create the organization, Dopeyhead! He was just a member. Solomon started the organization. Hence the name: ‘the Circle of Solomon.’ ”
Mab frowned suspiciously, “You know, that’s probably where Mr. Prospero stole his magical tomes from.”
“Father would never steal books!” Logistilla said, appalled.
“Why not?” Mephisto shrugged. “He stole stuff from the Vatican, didn’t he?”
I frowned, recalling Antonio’s taunt the day we lost Milan. “ . . . in the old records you left behind in your haste to rob us of our sacred library.” By us, had Uncle Antonio meant the Orbis Suleimani?
If so, why did Father claim—well, imply—the books were rightfully his? Could this ownership dispute have had something to do with the division in the Orbis Suleimani? For the first time, I found myself curious about the split in their organization. Mephisto had probably once known what had caused it, but it was unlikely he remembered today. The Orbis Suleimani had tossed him out long ago, for not being able to keep track of their business or their secrets.
“There may be a good deal about Father you don’t know,” I murmured. Theo and Ferdinand’s claims regarding Father’s trustworthiness clamored for my attention. Dutifully, I ignored them.
Logistilla gestured, and tiny furry hands served us bowls of sherbet.
“Miranda, why are you here?” she asked. “Mephisto, I can understand, he’s probably short of funds. Stupid thing to do, big brother, lose your staff. You, however, my sister; what would pull you out of your cocoon?”
“Something has happened to Father.”
Logistilla laughed out loud. “Oh, dear, you are going to have to do better than that!”
“You don’t believe her?” Mab asked, outraged.
“No, certainly not. Nothing rattles Papa. Besides, if something had, why would she come to me? Unless he’d been transformed into a newt. Has Papa been transformed into a newt, Miranda? Perhaps, if you stopped dawdling on this Sibyl business, you would be able to turn him back yourself, without my help. Or is transmogrification not one of the precious Gifts of the Sibyl?”
“Transmogrification is not a Gift of the Sibyl, as you well know, Sister,” I replied through clenched teeth.
Mephisto, who had been frowning angrily down at his hands, now raised his head and shouted at Logistilla. “He is too in trouble. He’s in Hell!”
Logistilla sat motionless, shocked. What little color she possessed slowly drained away from her pale face. Her bottom lip trembled.
“Father unleashed an enemy he could not control,” I said. “He left a note asking the rest of the family be informed of the danger.”
Logistilla recovered quickly. “Left the note to you, Miranda, did he?” she asked scathingly. “Well, you always were his favorite. There was little enough the rest of us could do to get his attention.”
“He just left a note, Logistilla.” I was growing bored with her constant accusations of favoritism. “I happened to be the one who found it.”
“So . . . how did it happen? Where did our faultless paterfamilias go wrong?”
“We don’t know,” Mab replied. “We’re trying to track that down now.”
“Papa didn’t tell his perfect Miranda what he was up to?” Her eyebrows arched, and her lips formed a moue of amusement. “Who would have thought? I assume Cornelius and Erasmus must know. They’re thick as thieves with the Boys’ Club, and all Father’s dastardly doings.”
“Which dastardly doings would those be?” Mab reached for his pencil.
“It’s just a turn of phrase,” Logistilla responded primly.
Pencil in hand now, Mab asked, “How about you? When’s the last time you talked to Mr. Prospero?”
“Me? Oh, Papa comes by now and again. I’m helping him with certain . . . work.” Logistilla eyes sparkled maliciously. “But, I’d prefer not to talk about that. If Papa hasn’t told his precious Miranda all about it, there must be some reason he doesn’t want her to know.”
Mephisto had been pouring wine back and forth between three sizes of tall fluted crystal glasses, his face intent. Now, he lowered the glass in his hand. “Do you really think Daddy does it on purpose? The secrecy thing, I mean? I thought it was second nature to him, sort of like protective camouflaging in moths. You know, over the generations, moths change to blend in with new backgrounds, but it’s not like they do it on purpose. I think Daddy’s like that, don’t you?”
“I blame that Antonio person,” Logistilla replied, sniffing.
“Uncle Antonio? The Great Betrayer? Or was he the cool uncle who used to take me whoring?” He tipped his head back thoughtfully, as if he were trying to recall the misty past.
“Probably one and the same, from what I’ve heard. I never met Uncle Antonio, or Uncle Galeazzo and Uncle Ludovico, for that matter—they all died before I was born.” Logistilla gave Mephisto and me an arch glance. “But none of Papa’s brothers sound like real winners to me. Face it, this Antonio person betrayed Papa when he
was young and vulnerable, and Papa’s never gotten over it. Papa’s spent his whole life worrying some family member might up and betray him at any moment. That’s why he’s so close mouthed with us. He doesn’t trust us! His own children, and after all we do for him!”
I frowned, not liking what Logistilla was implying. “Father is far older and wiser than we, Logistilla. We should not question his purposes.”
“Older and wiser, my foot! Papa is much closer in age to you, Miranda, than you and Mephisto are to me,” Logistilla replied. “After all, how old could Papa have been when you were born? Thirty? Fifty? He didn’t become immortal until after you brought him the Water of Life, right?”
“Didn’t Mr. Prospero have the magic of the . . .” Mab flipped through his notes, “Staff of Decay at his disposal? Can’t that be used to keep a person young, as well as to age them? Or did I get that wrong?”
“It can make you young,” Logistilla replied slowly, “but it can’t heal illnesses and wounds, the way the Water of Life can. Erasmus experimented at one point with trying to keep people young using his staff alone. After a few uses, they became fragile and weak. It could extend life ten years, twenty years, maybe thirty, but not longer.
“Even so, Papa’s brothers and sister were still alive when Mephisto was young, and we know Papa wasn’t using his magic to preserve them! You know how niggardly he is when it comes to sharing immortality. So, we have a pretty good idea of how old he was.
“But, back to my point, Miranda, you were born one hundred and thirty-five years before Gregor and me, and Mephisto, here . . .” She fluttered her long narrow hand in his direction. “Mephisto’s a hundred and seventeen years older than we. I certainly don’t venerate the two of you based on your greater age,” she concluded.
“Maybe you should,” Mephisto replied. “I could do with some venerating. It’s a bit stuffy in here.”
Logistilla chuckled, and Mab snorted, shaking his head in disgust. I chewed my candy in silence. My sister’s math was correct. Father was closer to me in age than I was to her, and yet, somehow he had seemed ancient with wisdom, even when I was a child, in a manner my brothers and I had never achieved. I wondered why. Was Father different from us in some fundamental way? Or was my great admiration for him proof of Theo’s perfidious theory?
“So, tell me about our new enemies,” said Logistilla.
“Three demons called the Three Shadowed Ones. They are after our staffs. So far, they have gotten Mephisto’s and Gregor’s,” I said.
“The Three Shadowed Ones? Not the very same who hounded us after . . .” She frowned. “The incident involving equines of which I refuse to speak?”
“Yes. Do you remember them?”
“Quite well.” Something about the way she spoke disturbed me. Before I could respond, Logistilla turned to address Mephisto. “You mean it was this enemy of Papa’s who stole your staff?”
Mephisto turned his head away and sniffed pointedly.
“They can’t be far away.” Mab looked around suspiciously. “They sicced a human servant on us on our way here, and some two-bit spirit big mouth claims they’ve cast some kind of doom over your family so that you’ll all be dead by Twelfth Night, or something.”
“Really?” Logistilla stiffened. “That’s disturbing!”
“I wouldn’t worry about it too much, Madam Logistilla. Low level spirits like that are notorious liars; but, on the other hand, it never hurts to be careful. Here’s a list of precautions you might want to take.” Mab began scribbling rapidly.
I asked carefully, “I know spirits exaggerate, Mab, but do they predict doom upon a particular date if there is nothing to it?”
“Well . . .” Mab scratched his head; his gray-black hair stuck out all awry. “That’s a good question. The general answer is: sure, they are always predicting the end of the world on such and such a day. Problem is, ‘such and such a day’ is usually well in the future at the time of the prediction. Twelfth Night, on the other hand, is less than three weeks away. That kind of prediction usually has some teeth behind it. It suggests that these Three Shadowy Creeps are up to something no good.”
“That’s . . . disturbing,” Logistilla mused. My sister suddenly whipped her head around to face me. “Gregor’s? Did you say they have Gregor’s staff?”
“Yeah.” Mephisto put his hands on his hips.
“But it was buried with his body!” Her voice rose.
“Well, they have it now,” I replied. “They used it to attack the mansion.”
I sipped my wine. How had the Three Shadowed Ones come to have access to Gregor’s coffin? The more I thought about it, the more the Ouija board’s last message troubled me. If Gregor’s body was “No Longer” in Elgin, Illinois, what had become of it? Had Father moved the grave? If so, for what reason? And why had Ferdinand climbed out of Hell to find himself in the same town where Gregor was, or had been, buried? A number of possibilities came to mind, none of them pleasing.
Logistilla lifted her glass to her dark red lips and sipped. Her expression became calm again. “My island’s been invaded three times in the last month. Twice by a dark shape who fled when my pets went out to meet him. Once by men who are now part of my retinue. I have no way of telling whether the incidents are related. Oh, and one other thing: Both times the dark shape came, my staff gave off a flash of green light of its own accord. It’s never done that before. It was the oddest thing.”
“Did the dark shape have red eyes, red like fresh blood?” Mab asked. Logistilla nodded. “That was the incubus Seir of the Shadows. He’s one of the Three. He’s after your staff. You better watch out, Ma’am; one of their number is a shapechanger.” Mab gestured toward the sleeping beasts littered about the room.
Logistilla threw back her head and laughed again. “Do you hear that, my pet?” she asked, addressing the pit bull. “They’re worried about a shapechanger! Here! On St. Dismas!” She let out a long, throaty chuckle. Shaking her head, she added, “No worry there! My pets would notice a stranger in their midst immediately. They’re much smarter than ordinary beasts, you know. A shapechanger, you say? Not Theo’s old shapechanger, is it? What was his name?”
“José the Red?” Mephisto offered.
“Osae,” Mab corrected him. “Yeah, the very same.”
“Really! How very peculiar.” She turned toward me. “I assume you’ve reached all the others. I can’t imagine you’d bother getting around to me until the end.”
“Hardly. I’ve seen you, Theo, and Mephisto here.”
“Yes, of course, your dear Theo.” She laughed harshly. “Not quite the dashing figure he once was, is he? What a pitiful waste of flesh.”
“I sent Cornelius a letter,” I replied, refusing to rise to her bait. I had never made a secret of the fact that Theo was my favorite. “Have you seen any of the others?”
“Oh, Cornelius,” she snorted. “I wouldn’t trust him as far as . . . but no matter. The others? Erasmus throws a New Year’s Eve party every year. Care to go? I’ll give you my invitation. And Mephisto came by a few months ago with the sob story about losing his staff. Taken by demons of Hell, was it? Really, Mephisto, you should be more careful whom you take to bed. Why don’t you tie them up or turn them into goats while you are sleeping? It would be safer that way. Other than Mephisto, Erasmus, and Cornelius? I haven’t seen anyone in years.”
Logistilla lifted her wine glass again, holding it up between herself and the chandelier. As she stared into the swirling red liquid, she asked, “Have you heard anything from Ulysses or Titus?”
“I thought Titus was living in the Okefenokee Swamp with his children,” Mephisto spouted. “At least, until recently.”
That was news to me. I had not known Titus had children. Until two years ago, he had sent me a birthday card every year. They always arrived the day before my birthday, like clockwork. However, he had never mentioned children, or even a new wife.
“Titus is such a fuddy-duddy these days,” Logistilla scoffed.
“He probably sat down somewhere a year or so back and hasn’t bothered to get up. Pah! And he was such a dashing figure in his youth!”
“It’s ’cause he’s so big,” Mephisto offered cheerily. “Makes it hard to move!”
“So, you haven’t seen Ulysses?” Logistilla asked again.
“What is the trouble with Cornelius?” I returned to her earlier topic. Last I had heard, Logistilla and Cornelius had been on the best of terms. She could never have held the title to her Russian estates through the Communist regimes without help from the Staff of Persuasion. What had caused their recent falling out?
Logistilla lowered her glass and pursed her lips. “Perhaps I shouldn’t say.”
I did not intend to give her the satisfaction of seeing me beg. I waited. She obliged me.
“Doesn’t it strike you as peculiar,” she said, glancing nervously over her shoulder before leaning forward in a conspiratorial manner, “that Theo has kept this latest resolution of his, right up through growing into an old man? I mean, how many such resolutions has Theo ever kept before?”
She had me. I bit. “What does this have to do with Cornelius?”
“It’s just that the day we met to try and summon up Gregor’s spirit, the day Theo made his rash vow?” Her eyes gleamed spitefully as she reveled in my discomfort.
“Yes?” I tried to keep impatience from my voice.
“I thought I saw . . . I could be wrong, I realize. I could be misinterpreting . . .” She glanced over her shoulder again and leaned closer, dropping her voice. “And to tell you the truth, I had forgotten about it until speaking with you today.”
“What did you see, Logistilla?”
“Just after the ritual ended, just before Theo made his speech?” Logistilla whispered. “I saw Cornelius holding the Staff of Persuasion in front of Theo’s eyes—you know, his staff that hypnotizes and makes people obey?—I could not hear his words, but I could see the movement of his lips. He was saying something about ‘abandoning magic.’ ”
CHAPTER
SIXTEEN
Prospero Lost: Prospero's Daughter, Book I Page 26