This time the dream abruptly changed, and Koda is dressed in his then-favorite outfit—red-and-green flannel Christmas pajamas—at the base of a tree fully decorated in tinsel and lights. In front of him is a wrapped box.
“Go ahead, open it,” a woman’s voice says. Koda knows it’s his mother, but he dare not look up for fear that if he does, she will disappear again. He does not need to see her; he is happy just knowing she is nearby.
Koda’s hands begin tearing frantically at the paper until he reaches what he knows was there all along.
A telescope.
“That’s what you wanted, right?” his mother asks.
More than anything.
“Maybe tonight Daddy will take you outside and show you how to use it.”
“Yes, Koda,” Bruce Mulvaney says from somewhere in the room. “If it’s not cloudy, maybe we can see the rings of Saturn.”
Suddenly, the dream shifts.
Koda is still six, still in the same red-and-green pajamas, but now he’s outside. In his hurry and excitement, he has forgotten to put on shoes and can feel the crunch of cold, wet grass between his toes as he trudges across the lawn, his new telescope tucked under his arm.
He struggles with the tripod, and then looks through. But he can’t make it work. Try as he might, he is unable to see anything.
Then, in the dream, he steps away from the telescope in frustration and—across the lawn, somewhere off in the darkness—he sees a flicker of light.
What is it?
Koda steps back to the telescope and lowers it, pointing the lens in the direction of the small flickering light. He places his eye against the eyepiece and looks through. Nothing. He begins moving the telescope left and right until—finally—he sees him.
It is a man, standing in a window of a house, smoking a cigarette. Koda can see the man’s face—his lips, his nose, the lines etched at the corners of his eyes, and forehead—in amazing detail.
Then the man does something Koda does not expect.
He lifts a pair of binoculars to his face and looks through, making eye contact with Koda through the telescope.
The he woke up.
Usually, when Koda would wake from a nightmare, he’d have a difficult time remembering the details, but not this time. This time he remembered everything.
Especially the man’s eyes. Dark. Dull.
Darker than the blackest of black holes, it felt though—had he kept looking into them—they might have sucked him into a place so dark and empty that he might disappear and never return.
Chapter Twenty-Two
New York City, New York
June 1, 2010
Olympia Fudge and Nathaniel Cryer could not have been more different.
The pair had been working together for six years as co-hosts of the popular and highly rated cable show—Believer And Not!—a show that successfully played off their numerous differences:
Nathanial was white…
Olympia was black.
Nathanial was short…
Olympia was tall.
Nathanial was young, celebrating his twenty-ninth birthday the week before…
Olympia was fifteen years older and rapidly approaching the age that spelled the end of the road for most female TV personalities.
Nathanial was going prematurely bald...
Olympia was all hair.
In fact, Olympia had decided to grow her enormous afro after seeing Tamara Dobson in the movie Cleopatra Jones when she was in her teens. The afro eventually became her trademark, so much so that Olympia was forbidden—by contract—to cut it off.
Most important—when it came to all things paranormal—Nathaniel was a true “believer” and…
Olympia was the “And Not!”
Nathaniel Cryer was infatuated by ghosts, vampires, demonic possession, mental telepathy, prophecy, astral projection, witches, werewolves, fairies, and cryptids. The only category on which the jury was still out, as far as Nathanial was concerned, were aliens. But he was still open-minded on the subject.
Olympia Fudge thought it was all nonsense.
And that’s why their show worked.
When producers at CNN were searching for a supernatural odd-couple, they couldn’t have been luckier. When their contract was up, and they had the chance to shop for another network, A&E got lucky, too.
The two things Nathaniel Cryer and Olympia Fudge did have in common were a thing for well-hung men and ratings. And their show was a ratings monster that generated a ton of money, the majority of which went to the network and Nathaniel.
As it should have.
Nathaniel was TV’s top expert on the supernatural world—a world Olympia didn’t even believe in. And it was Nathaniel who had to defend his position with passion to get viewers to nod in agreement. All Olympia had to do was sit there and shake her trademark afro and say her trademark line: “Hey, I’m just tryin’ to keep it real.”
So when the show’s executive producer called and told her to drop what she was doing and head to the airport, Olympia didn’t bother to ask why.
The answer to that question was always the same: Because Nathaniel said to.
“No problem,” Olympia said. “Where are we headed?”
“Savannah,” the producer said. This would not be Olympia Fudge’s first trip to Savannah, and, if she stayed with the show, it wouldn’t be the last. With more ghosts and graveyards than any other city—according to the “fright seeing” ghost tour brochures—Savannah had staked its claim as the most haunted city in America. If you couldn’t get haunted in Savannah, you couldn’t get haunted anywhere.
“What’s the story?” Olympia asked.
“There’s a piano in the upstairs lounge at the Forsyth Park that’s been playing by itself every night for almost a week,” the producer said—which was music to Olympia’s ears, no pun intended.
Olympia loved staying at the Forsyth Park Hotel. They had great beds, good food, a world-class pool, and amazing art.
“Anything special I need to pack?” Olympia asked.
“Just your attitude and your hair,” the producer said before hanging up the phone.
There it was, Olympia thought. After six years with Nathaniel, the truth was her entire value could be summed up in two words—hair and attitude.
It was also time to accept another truth. Without Nathaniel Cryer, Olympia would be nothing more than another unemployed sidekick.
It was Nathaniel’s topic…
It was Nathaniel’s show…
It was Nathaniel’s world, and Olympia Fudge was simply along for the ride.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Desoto, Missouri
May 19, 1936
Onyx and Ulrich packed the last of their belongings in the stolen Chrysler, which had been retrieved from the auto repair shop.
To say Ulrich was excited to leave was an understatement. Seven long months cooped up at the orphanage had worn on Ulrich, and it was finally time to leave this hellhole of a place.
The previous fall, Ulrich had made a mistake—a mistake that ended up working to his advantage even if he didn’t realize it at the time.
When he and Onyx had arrived at the orphanage, Ulrich found himself worrying that someone might steal his cash.
“How long will you allow us to stay?” Ulrich had asked Father Fanning the morning after the farmer had dropped them off.
“That depends. Do you have any construction skills?” Father Fanning had asked. When Ulrich said he did, the perfect trade was made—room and board in exchange for Ulrich finishing work on a new boy’s dormitory, which had sat empty when the funds for completion dried up due to the Depression.
Ulrich estimated the work would take him no more than three months to complete, which would mean he’d be on his way—with or without Onyx—by the end of January.
So one day, when no one was looking, he’d taken a metal box containing The Owl’s mob money out into the woods, dug a hole in the dirt with his bare hands, and buried it.
The plan was a good one had it not been for one tiny oversight—the fact that by mid-December the soft ground was frozen solid. Leaving in January was out of the question, and he and Onyx ended up residents of the Open Arms Orphanage the entire winter.
As it turned out, staying the entire winter was the best thing that could have happened.
Ulrich thought he’d be safe hiding in Chicago.
The Owl had not only told his bosses immediately about the situation but also offered a $1,000 reward—of his own money—for information regarding the German’s whereabouts.
As expected, every wise guy in the country had been looking for Ulrich and his attractive wife, Onyx.
Ulrich knew that returning the money, even if he wanted to—which he didn’t—would do him no good. The Owl wanted his money back, sure. But more than that, he wanted Ulrich to pay in blood for the life of his son.
So the moment the weather warmed and the ground softened enough to dig, Ulrich went about the task of retrieving the stolen money—by all rights, his money now—before he and Onyx hit the open road.
“Do you know where the shovel is?” Ulrich asked Sister Katherine.
“I would think it would be in the shed by the woods, where it is usually kept,” Sister Katherine said.
“I checked there,” Ulrich said with a shrug. “I will look again.”
Ulrich turned and headed off, singing as he went:
“Spring hath sprung, the grass grows green,
Off in the woods the birdies sing,
Sing their song now the grass has ‘ris,
All around, in the branches and on the ground,
That’s where dem birdies is.”
An odd and disturbing version of what Sister Katherine recognized as a poem by Ogden Nash, with extra words that didn’t belong, and the few that did mangled nearly beyond recognition. But Ulrich was a secretive man, someone Sister Katherine had always felt uncomfortable around.
When it came to Ulrich Schröder, something was off, so much so that Katherine felt compelled to share her misgivings with Onyx before she and her husband left.
“I think Ulrich had something to do with making you sick,” Sister Katherine said. “I do not believe he is to be trusted.”
Onyx discounted the notion entirely.
“Ulrich is a man with serious flaws and lacking in many ways,” Onyx said, “but he’s not evil. Inside that rough exterior is a man who I believe loves me deeply. If I didn’t, I would have left him long ago.”
Sister Katherine was not so sure.
A few days later, when the time came for Onyx to leave, Sister Katherine shared her misgivings one last time.
“All I’m suggesting, Onyx, is that you be careful. Promise me you’ll keep your eyes and ears open.”
“I promise,” Onyx replied. “Oh, and I have something for you.”
Onyx went to the car and retrieved a small wrapped package and handed it to Sister Katherine. The nun couldn’t remember the last time she’d unwrapped a present since the act of gift-giving was strictly forbidden between the nuns, supposedly to avoid fostering feelings of jealousy by those less fortunate.
“It was in my pocket that day in Obedience Everhardt’s basement,” Onyx said.
“Oh, no,” Sister Katherine said when she saw the small brown coin purse. “I simply can’t accept this.” The purse was one of the few souvenirs Onyx was able to buy during her visit to the St. Louis World’s Fair thirty-two years earlier.
“Detective Boyd saved your life that day,” Onyx said. “And last fall—when I arrived here so deathly ill—you saved mine. Please, I want you to have it.”
Katherine and Onyx wrapped their arms around each other, holding each other tight—something else that was strictly forbidden at Open Arms, lest the embrace give others the wrong impression.
It would be the last time Katherine Keane would see Onyx alive.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Berlin, Germany
June 3, 2010
Alternative rock band Thirty Seconds to Mars had just finished the third song of the set and the band seamlessly moved into “Search and Destroy,” as Koda approached the security checkpoint behind the stage at Berlin’s O2 World concert arena.
Koda had been a fan of the band since college, and over the last few years became good friends with Jared, Shannon, and Tomo, having spent time on their tour jet—along with Dane—two summers before.
Koda climbed the stairs, but before the security guard could stop him an attractive girl with a big smile—and even bigger breasts—stepped forward and hung a security lanyard around his neck. He knew he should know the girl’s name, having slept with her—more than once, he seemed to remember—but he drew a blank.
“Maya, right?” Koda said.
“Closer than usual,” the girl said, kissing him on the cheek. “You free after the show?”
“We’ll see,” Koda said, instinctively reaching up and wiping his cheek, having learned to do everything in his power to avoid letting a member of the paparazzi get a picture of him with lipstick on his face. A photo like that was a $50,000 payday for the photographer, and another embarrassment for his father.
The irony, of course, was that ending up on the cover of People covered in lipstick would please Mika to no end. Even if the photo meant he was with another woman, she’d be happy with his publicity efforts.
Mika Flagler was a real piece of work.
Koda walked to the edge of the stage curtain as lead singer, Jared Leto, repeated the line:
“A million little pieces…”
“A million little pieces…”
“A million little pieces…”
Appropriate, Koda thought. After the last few months that’s exactly how he felt—like he’d been broken into a million little pieces—after being called home by his father only to discover he was broke. Then he’d seen the girl in the mirror, followed by being trapped by Vijay Sharma.
After that, everything was a blur.
Which is why he’d decided to get the hell out of Orlando—out of the United States, for that matter—to a place where fewer people recognized him, somewhere he could spend time with friends who didn’t expect anything from him. The big question now was: How was he going to explain his latest two-week absence from work to his father?
Athens, Greece
In retrospect, two weeks wouldn’t have been such a big deal. Unfortunately, the two weeks Koda had planned to spend chilling with the band in Germany, Switzerland, England, Finland, and the Netherlands, turned into another two weeks on his own.
Koda started with two days in Paris, most of it spent at Rex—one of his favorite clubs—followed by three straight nights at Razzmatazz in Barcelona, a couple wildly drunken evenings at Club Collage in Stockholm, and after that…?
Koda couldn’t remember.
He vaguely recalled hooking up with a girl at a nightclub called Guzel—a wildly chic see-and-be-seen hotspot in Athens, Greece—and taking her back to his suite at the Hotel Grande Bretagne. But when the key to his room didn’t work, he threw a fit in the lobby.
Had a “fit” been all Koda had thrown, the hotel may have overlooked his outburst. But when he started throwing chairs and potted plants at the young man behind the registration desk, the constabulary was called, and Koda was given a private escort to the Athens jail.
The next morning, his head throbbing, Koda discovered a plastic keycard from the W Hotel in his pocket, which explained why he couldn’t get into his suite at the Grande Bretagne the previous evening.
He wasn’t staying there.
Two days came and went, and despite repeatedly telling the guards he had the right to make a call, Koda was completely ignored. Finally, on the third morning, the door to his cell was unlocked and he was physically dragged from the jail and thrown into the back of a waiting limousine.
“Where are we going?” Koda asked the driver. The man did not respond. Ten minutes later, Koda was dropped outside the W H
otel.
Koda took the elevator to the top floor and inserted the key in the first door he saw. It didn’t work. Nor did it work at the second or third.
The small green light on the fourth door turned green, which, after the last few days, was a nice surprise. The next surprise wasn’t so nice. Sitting in a chair in the middle of the room was an old man dressed in a black suit and black turtleneck sweater.
“Hello, Koda,” the old man said, rising to his feet.
It had been so long since he’d seen the man it took a moment for Koda to recognize him.
“Grandpa?”
At eighty-seven, Declan Mulvaney was many things: He was rich, powerful, connected, worldly, and distinguished.
But he was not patient.
“You look like shit,” Declan said.
“Two days in a Greek jail can do that to you,” Koda said.
“You’re welcome,” Declan said. “I thought a couple days tucked out of sight with no alcohol would do you good.”
“You made them keep me there for two days?”
“Damn right, and I’d have made it three but I’ve got better things to do than babysit my grandson.”
“Don’t tell me, my father sent you,” Koda said.
“Perceptive,” Declan said. The old man held his arms open wide. “Three years, and not even a hug?”
Koda stepped forward and embraced Declan.
“Jesus, you smell like shit, too. Take a shower, and we’ll talk,” Declan said taking a step back from his grandson.
“Oh God, not another talk,” Koda said. “I’m tired of—”
Before Koda could finish his sentence, Declan Mulvaney’s clenched right fist struck him in the jaw so hard he dropped to his knees and literally saw stars. He knew better than to talk back to his grandfather—a man with a well-publicized reputation for not taking anyone’s shit—but the idea that his grandfather would punch him caught Koda totally off guard.
“Well, now that I’ve got your attention, let’s get a few things straight,” Declan said, holding out a hand and helping Koda to his feet. “I’m here because your father asked me to come—and God knows I’m tired of seeing your drunken mug on every magazine at the grocery checkout, regardless of how sexy most people find it. Mostly, however, I’m here for you—and if smacking you around a bit is what it takes to get your attention, then so be it.”
Onyx Webb: Book Two Page 8