He was waving them off.
“It’s a trap,” Niklaus bellowed. “Get out of here.”
“Not a chance.” Audrey brought the bank of mist to rest a few feet from where Niklaus’ feet were rooted to the bridge deck. “We’re not leaving you.”
“They’ve already taken Emilio and Archie,” the Rook grunted. “And I’m all that’s keeping this thing out of the river. Save yourselves.”
“The bridge is clear.” Steven leaped down from the bank of mist. “You can let it fall.”
“It’s clear?” Niklaus scanned the far end of the bridge. “You’re sure?”
Steven nodded. “Not a soul remaining.”
“But the bridge itself. I can’t just let it—”
“Stop, Niklaus. The bridge is a loss.” Steven’s voice dropped to a whisper. “Now. Let…it…go.”
“It’s not just the bridge, Pawn, but your entire cause that is lost.” The all-too-familiar voice from above their heads sent ice up Steven’s spine: sultry and feminine with a hint of Irish lilt and dripping with venom. “Now, be a good boy for once and accept your fate.” A quiet laugh echoed down. “Or don’t.” The air crackled with ozone. “Either way, the outcome will be the same.”
5
Rest & Recovery
Steven and Niklaus weathered the hurricane well into early evening from the relative safety of the small Miami hospital. The gash above Steven’s eye had proven more ugly than dangerous, and other than the large hunk of gauze taped across his forehead, he remained none the worse for wear.
The same could not be said for Niklaus, who’d nearly lost his foot the day before.
The archaic x-ray films showed an ankle broken in two places and three fractured bones closer to the toes. Back in their own time, Niklaus would most likely already be in surgery, but in the Florida of 1945, Steven doubted that was even an option.
Instead, Dr. Bolton had put Niklaus in a simple leg splint with instructions to come back in a couple days for a recheck. “No cast till the swelling goes down,” he had ordered with a raised eyebrow. The entire process had taken the better part of three hours, but in the end, and with some trepidation, Bolton cleared Niklaus to leave once the storm let up.
Steven and Niklaus now sat in the ER waiting area, the room packed to the brim unlike the nearly empty space they’d found upon their arrival hours before. The brunt of the hurricane had passed, and, for the first time that day, a ray of sunlight shone between the curtains of a nearby window. The storm’s passing, however, had brought people—the injured, the homeless, the suffering—all leaving Steven feeling more helpless than ever.
“We still have a few beds upstairs.” Bolton handed Niklaus a pair of wooden crutches. “At least for the moment. If need be, both of you can stay the night. I’m not kicking anyone out who doesn’t have a place to go.”
“Actually, I think we’ll be heading on if you think we’re all set.” Steven peered around at the packed ER, the hurricane’s aftermath bringing almost certainly the busiest day of Bolton’s career. “Looks like you need all the room you can get.”
“I’m good to go, Doc.” Niklaus struggled to his feet, wincing at even the slightest weight on his bad ankle. “Yeah.” His voice dropped to a low grunt. “Should be running marathons again in no time.”
“I gave you those crutches for a reason, Mr. Zamek.” Bolton stooped at Niklaus’ side and inspected his splint. “I don’t know how you could possibly make that ankle any worse, but I suspect you’d find a way.”
“Doc, I’m—”
“No weight bearing on that side for at least a week and, like I said, I want you back here in two to three days to check on you, understood?”
“Roger that.” Niklaus grinned through the pain. “Thanks, Doc.”
Steven peered out the window. The winds still gusted from time to time, but nothing like the Old Testament scene that had unfolded earlier. After weeks of stepping into the boots of his favorite superheroes from childhood comic books and cartoons, sitting by helpless as an entire city weathered a hurricane had been hard to accept.
“Hey, Nik.” Steven headed for the door. “I’m guessing we’ve got about an hour or two of sunlight left. We should probably try to find lodging before it gets dark.”
“Ready when you are.”
An elderly woman two seats down perked up at Niklaus’ words. “Young man,” she said with a similar accent. “May I ask where you are from?”
“Poland.” Niklaus turned in her direction and kept his smile despite the pain. “Krakow, to be specific.”
“I thought so. As for me, I was born and raised in Warsaw, though I haven’t seen my home in many a year, times being what they are.” Her lips spread wide in a grandmotherly smile. “You remind me so much of my Ludwik when we were young.”
“He must have been quite the handsome man.” Niklaus shot the woman a mischievous wink. “Is he…”
The woman shook her head sadly. “No. Ludwik died three years ago, just days after our 44th anniversary.” She looked away, a hint of moisture at the corners of her eyes.
“I’m so sorry to hear that.” He leaned on one of the crutches and stretched out his massive hand. “I’m Niklaus.”
“Dorota.” She squeezed his hand. “It’s so nice to run into someone from the homeland.”
“Agreed.” Niklaus gripped both crutches and stood as straight as he could. “At least something good came from our shared trip to the doctor today.” His gaze followed a beam of sunlight trailing from the open window behind the woman’s head to its final destination on the waiting room floor. “And now that the storm has passed, everything should be coming up aces.”
“Careful.” Dorota waggled a playful finger in warning. “My mother always said to never bless a day until the sun has set.” A quiet laugh escaped her lips. “Still, this once, I believe I agree with you, young man.”
“So,” Steven asked, “you’re here alone?”
“I’m just waiting for my son to pick me up.” She stretched out her leg, covered knee to ankle in bandages. “I fell onto some broken limbs trying to cover the windows at our home just before the storm hit. It left a pretty bad cut, but the doctor stitched me up and gave me some medicine for the pain.” Her gaze flicked to Steven and then back to Niklaus. “I’m curious. Do you and your friend need a place to rest your heads tonight?”
The gears in Steven’s head began to turn in earnest. He’d been considering their dilemma for hours and hadn’t been able to come up with a solution. Lodging would likely be scarce after a natural disaster, and even if they managed to find a hotel, how would they pay? A wallet full of cash that wouldn’t be good for sixty years? A debit card not worth the plastic on which it was printed? A mobile phone that might as well have been a prop from an old Flash Gordon serial?
Penniless. Literally.
“We couldn’t possibly impose—” Steven’s words stopped short at Amaryllis’ pinch.
“There they are!”
Steven spun around reflexively at the gruff voice, the pawn icon in his hand before his brain could register why the intonation seemed so familiar. His moment of panic, however, subsided as he met Ron Springer’s gaze, the weathered lines about the man’s eyes turned upward in a smile.
“I thought you boys might still be here.” Ron rested a hand on Niklaus’ shoulder. “How’s the ankle, kid?”
“Hurts like hell, but the splint is helping.”
“And your eye?” Ron turned to Steven. “Looks like they got you all fixed up.”
“Seems that way.” Steven’s hand went to his stitched brow. “Doctor Bolton says I’ll be good as new in a few days.”
Ron knelt before Dorota. “And who might you be, lovely lady?”
A faint pink rose in the woman’s plump cheeks. “My name is Dorota Nowak.”
“Ron Springer.” He wiped a hand on his pants leg and offered it to her. “Pleasure.”
Dorota gave Ron’s hand a firm shake. “A pleasure, indeed.�
��
“Glad to see you made it through the storm all right.” Steven took his turn greeting Ron. “And thanks again for picking us up earlier. You really saved our bacon.”
“No problem.” Ron smiled, his kind eyes dancing between the three of them. “After sixty-seven years in Homestead, it’ll take more than a little wind and rain to slow down this old codger.”
“Did your house survive the storm?”
“For the most part.” Ron gave a noncommittal shrug. “A little damage to the roof, a few broken window panes, about what you’d expect.”
“And your…family?” Dorota’s face went another shade pinker. “Are they all right?”
“Oh, it’s just me these days,” Ron answered, a twinge of sadness in his voice. “My wife, Marjorie, died back in ’42 of pneumonia, and the kids are all married and moved on to bigger and better than what you can find in good old Homestead.”
“Who cooks for you, then?” Dorota raised an inquisitive eyebrow as she studied Ron’s callused hands. “You don’t strike me as a man that spends much of his day in the kitchen.”
“You might be surprised, my dear.” Ron cracked his knuckles. “I was a cook in the Army for four years. Used to feed hundreds every day. Cooking for one may be boring, but it’s nothing I can’t handle.”
“How…interesting.” Dorota’s voice grew low, her lips pursed in thought.
“If it really is just you at the house, Mr. Springer,” Steven glanced at Niklaus, “then I may have a proposition for you.”
Ron Springer’s house, a one-story ranch with a brick foundation, remained miraculously standing, unlike many of the homes they’d seen upon their difficult sojourn to Homestead the previous evening. Night had fallen by the time Ron, Steven, and Niklaus finally pulled into the old man’s gravel driveway, and the veil of darkness had left his rather cheery view of his home’s condition intact.
The light of day told another story entirely.
The room where Steven and Niklaus slept, once the Springer children’s shared bedroom, was the only one left with the windows mostly intact. The remainder were all missing at least a pane or two if not completely shattered. Half the shingles from the roof had blown off to God knows where, and water damage to the interior left half the house just this side of uninhabitable. Where the front porch had been, only splintered two-by-fours remained, all connected to a trio of brick stairs that now led to nothing. The house had no power, and the water came out of the tap brown. Still, the humble house still had four walls and most of a roof overhead, which was more than many of the neighbors could say.
“She sure needs a lot of work.” Ron sighed. “You boys sure you’re up for this?”
“Just tell us what you want us to work on first,” Steven said, “and we’ll get started.”
Steven and Niklaus had negotiated the previous evening with Ron for a few weeks’ lodging in exchange for helping the man rebuild. Though they were desperate for a place to stay, the arrangement allowed them to repay the kindly old man for rescuing them from the hurricane’s fury. Not only that, Steven suspected Ron’s part in their drama was neither accidental nor finished, an intuition supported by yet another pinch from the mystical dragonfly clasp that resided over Steven’s heart.
“First things first. We clean up all the glass and mop up as much water as we can.” Ron choked on his words. “For all the good it’ll do with no shingles on the roof.”
“What is it?” Steven joined Ron by the front corner of the house. “What’s wrong?”
“Sorry about all the blubbering.” Ron shoved his hands in his pockets. “It’s just a lot to take in. You see, I built this place for Marjorie with my own hands. To see it this way breaks my heart.”
“Don’t worry, Ron. It’ll all get done.” Steven cracked his neck. “So, any place in town we can pick up shingles, nails, and some tools?”
Ron thought for a second. “We passed the hardware store on the way back into town yesterday. They survived the storm, thank God, though I imagine they’re packed to the gills today.” He pulled a ring of keys from his pocket. “We can take the truck.”
“Nik,” Steven asked, “you mind staying here and watching the house?”
“No problem.” Niklaus turned and sat on the brick stairs that led to the three square feet of remaining porch. “Any looters come by, I’ll swat them with one of my crutches.”
“You do that.” Steven shook his head with a quiet chuckle. “We shouldn’t be long.”
“Might as well eat whatever’s in the icebox,” Ron added. “Everything in there’ll go bad by tomorrow if they can’t get the electricity back up soon.”
“I’ll get right on that.” Niklaus glanced across his shoulder at the debris that used to be Ron’s porch. “That is if I can manage to get back inside with this bum foot.” He raised an eyebrow. “Save you something?”
“There’s a big bowl of Marjorie’s famous chicken salad and what’s left of a loaf of bread on the top shelf,” Ron said. “Eat what you need and Steven and I will fix up some sandwiches with what’s left when we get back.”
“We’ll score some groceries while we’re out as well.” Steven patted Ron’s shoulder and motioned to the truck. “Ready?”
The drive to the hardware store somber and quiet, the roads sat empty for the most part. The radio picked up either static or stations so far out, they might as well have been. The lucky stood in their yards making repairs to houses left more or less intact while the less fortunate sifted through splinters that had been their homes just hours before.
“Must be tough.” Steven tapped at the window.
“What’s that?” Ron glanced in his direction.
“Seeing a place where you’ve lived for six and a half decades torn apart like this.”
“We’ve been hit before.” Ron huffed out a quiet laugh. “Heck, when doesn’t southern Florida take it on the chin?” He shook his head as they passed a family of four squatting by a demolished house. “Doesn’t look to be as bad as the one that hit up north back in ’28, but there’s no doubt it’s going to be tough around here for a while.”
“Do you have enough money to take care of this? Or insurance?”
Ron smiled even as he brought a sleeve across his eyes.
“If there was one thing Marjorie made sure of, it was that we’d always be taken care of.” Ron turned into the hardware store parking lot. “Some of my friends thought I was crazy letting the wife handle all the money, but let me tell you, when everybody else went hungry back in the winter of ’29, we had food on the table and wood in the stove.” Ron parked the truck as close to the door as possible. “I still miss her, Steven, and that’s no lie.”
“I can relate.” Twin flashes of Katherine and Audrey’s faces vied for top billing in Steven’s mind. “Believe me.”
The pair exited the truck and stepped to the rear of the long line awaiting entrance to Hal’s Hardware. Thirty deep or so, the queue encompassed people of all ages, races, genders, and incomes. Mother Nature, Steven considered, the great equalizer. Though the store remained mostly dark, a few flashlights shone inside.
“Man,” Steven muttered, “I never thought I’d miss Home Depot.”
“What’s a Home Depot?” Ron asked.
“Oh, nothing.” Steven contemplated how many buildings like the one before him would fit inside a single Walmart. “Just thinking about home.”
“It’s funny. I may be the one who just weathered a hurricane in a house with no roof, but you’re the one who looks like you’re about to fall over.” Ron gave Steven a thorough up and down. “You want to wait in the truck?”
Still exhausted and aching from the battle atop the Brooklyn Bridge, Steven gave serious thought toward taking the man up on his offer. The broken night of sleep at Ron’s place hadn’t helped much, the sweltering humidity of the windowless house coupled with his worry over Audrey and the others making even minimal rest impossible.
Where could they be? Steven ground his
teeth. And more importantly, when?
“Steven?” Ron waved a hand before his face. “You still with me?”
“Sorry.” Steven faked a grin. “Just a bit distracted.” He shot Ron a quizzical glance. “So, different subject. You going to take that nice lady up on her offer to cook you an authentic Polish dinner?”
“Mrs. Nowak?” Ron’s already ruddy complexion went a shade darker. “Don’t see why not. If those pierogi dumplings are half as good as she says…”
A solid forty-five minutes passed before Steven and Ron finally made it inside to peruse the picked-over offerings at Hal’s Hardware. Fortunately, the well-constructed building had taken only minor water damage, leaving most of the stock in serviceable shape. Steven grabbed a wagon and began to sift through a hodgepodge collection of mismatched shingles while Ron assembled several large flat sheets of wood meant to cover the windows until he could work toward more permanent repairs. Half an hour later, they reconvened at the front of the store where Ron produced a thick roll of bills to pay for the various building materials along with a sundry collection of tools and hardware. The wad of cash like something you would expect to see in one of the Godfather movies, Steven wondered how much of Ron’s life savings the man held in the palm of his hand.
The two of them loaded the truck in silence, fatigued with nothing but hard labor to look forward to for at least a week. Unfortunately, the grocery store hadn’t fared nearly as well as the neighboring hardware store, so they got back on the road for Ron’s place with plans to scrounge for food the next day. No more than a minute into the trip, Steven drifted into a fitful sleep, his dreams haunted by images of their latest encounter with the Black atop the destroyed Brooklyn Bridge. He relived the horror of Emilio and Archie each disappearing into dark holes in space and Rocinante’s own watery fate. As his mind turned another corner, he sprang awake gasping.
“Audrey!” Steven shouted just as Ron pulled his truck into the debris-strewn gravel driveway beside his house.
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