Entanglements

by P. R. Mason

  “Yes, but it’s full of tourists for most of the day,” Zen noted. “Wouldn’t he prefer someplace relatively close but not as touristy, like Laurel Grove over here?”

  “We’ll have to check them both out.” I glanced over my shoulder to where Rom had gone. “I’m gonna go see about him."

  I found Rom sitting on the sofa and staring straight ahead. Taking a place next to him, I grasped his hand and gave it a little shake.

  “Hey. Are you okay? Is your arm hurting?”

  “The wound will not be permitted to be a problem.” Rom's voice was barely a whisper.

  “That’s not what I asked.” Tugging his arm toward me, I reached for the Band-Aid.

  “Do not,” he said but didn't pull away.

  When I peeled back the covering, I gasped. Not only was the wound a bright red but there were angry streaks emanating outward.

  “Rom. This is much worse than last night.” Zen and Petra entered the room. “Look at this.” I motioned them over. “We have to get him to the doctor. Maybe even the emergency room.”

  “We don’t want to go on grid with this,” Zen said. “Come with me.”

  As Rom and I rose from the sofa, there was a disturbance of stomping on the porch. The front door crashed open, slamming into the inside wall. Senji and Chase barreled in and skidded to a halt in front of us.

  “Hey guys,” Zen shouted. “This isn’t your mc² clubhouse you know.”

  “Sorry Zen.” Chase put both hands in the air.

  “Yeah, we were a little distracted,” Senji said.

  “What are you doing here, anyway?” Petra leaned up and gave Chase a peck on the cheek. “I thought you two were going to school today.”

  “We were.” Senji pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “But the principal sent everyone home early.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  “Because the police found Franky’s body,” Chase replied “And there's worse news.”

  Long seconds of silence passed.

  “What! What's worse?” Petra demanded.

  “The police are looking to question you, Kizzy,” Senji answered.

  “Omigod, Kizzy,” Petra said. “It just seems like the universe is messing with you lately.”

  “Just one universe?” I drawled. “At least three. Never mind the police right now. We gotta deal with Rom’s arm.”

  “What about it?” Chase asked and glanced down at the limb I held. “Oh, dude. That’s serious bad.”

  “Shut up, honey bunny,” Petra cooed. “Nobody asked for your opinion.”

  Rolling my eyes I continued on with Rom and Zen toward the kitchen.

  “Yeah. Just be quiet and look pretty, honey bunny,” Senji said.

  “Dude, you are asking for a pound down.” Chase raised a fisted hand.

  “Let me know when somebody arrives who can do it.” Senji smirked.

  “Seriously guys?” I glared over my shoulder at them. “We’re a little busy here. There’s no time for this.”

  The expressions on their faces satisfied me that they were chastened for a few minutes anyway and I continued into the kitchen.

  Behind the wall in Zen’s pantry was a better stock of medical supplies and equipment than in most clinics. Zen applied a salve to the wound before handing him two pills and a glass of water. Rom just stared at them.

  “Just take the antibiotics.” I moved to stand in front of him and placed my hands on my hips. “Don’t make me get tough.”

  Rom swallowed the pills and handed me the glass as Petra, Chase and Senji entered the room.

  “I’ve done as you wished but this will be of no effect.”

  “How do you know?” Zen asked.

  “This is the bite of a ghoul.”

  “Yeah, so?” I remembered Rom’s evasiveness when I’d asked about the text earlier. “Did you find something about a ghoul bite in that book?”

  Rom hesitated and then nodded.

  Petra retrieved the text and opened it to an earmarked page. After scanning the contents, she groaned.

  "This isn’t good." She continued scanning. “This is like really not good.”

  “What? What?” I demanded, taking the book from her. After reading the text, my body went numb.

  “It can’t be that bad.” Zen chuckled. “I mean he’s not going to turn into a ghoul is he?”

  “No,” Rom said. “Yet that result might be preferred.”

  “What does he mean?” Zen asked me.

  “It says here that an untreated bite of a ghoul will render the victim a lunatic.”

  “How long do we have to treat it?” Senji asked.

  “The book doesn’t say.” I couldn’t look at Rom so I kept my gaze firmly on Senji.

  “But we have treated it,” Zen said.

  “The only effective treatment, according to this book, is a poultice made from the leaves of plant called Downy Woundwort." I slammed the text closed. “Okay then. Let’s get some of that woundwort stuff and make this poultice thing and no problem. We can find it on the internet I’m sure.”

  I tried to keep my attitude upbeat and certain, but Rom wasn’t buying it. He shook his head before I’d finished my peppy little speech.

  “There is no such plant.” Rom's gazed off into the distance.

  Senji thumbed in a search on his cell phone. After a few seconds, his eyes rose slowly.

  “He’s right,” Senji said. “Downy Woundwort has been extinct since 1900.”

  * * * * *

  Rom insisted on driving me to my father’s hearing as planned.

  We left Senji, as our biggest brain, with instructions to find some Downy Woundwort somewhere, somehow or else find another cure. I wouldn’t consider the possibility of failure. We weren’t going to let Rom go crazy. Petra, Chase and Zen went to work on Operation Find Ghoul.

  The courthouse elevator pinged announcing we’d arrived at our floor...The floor that would bring me face-to-face with my father. The prospect terrified me. Given the many terrors of the past few days, I was surprised I wasn't numb.

  As Rom and I trod down the hall, the impact of our footsteps echoed on the industrial linoleum floor. Too soon, I stood outside the seemingly innocuous double doors of courtroom B.

  “Prepared?” Rom asked.

  Nodding, I pushed through the double doors and went inside. My fear quickly turned to confusion at the sight of the virtually empty room. Scanning, I took in the scene. The judge rose from his seat at the bench before passing through a door in the panel on the back wall—probably to his chambers. A news cameraman bent over a hard plastic case packing away his video equipment.

  The Assistant DA I’d met with to rehearse my testimony, Karen Fowler, was near the jury box talking to a man I recognized as my father’s attorney. What had happened? I glanced at the clock just to confirm the time. We weren't late.

  “No, no. Not possible,” Ms. Fowler said to my father’s attorney.

  “Ms. Fowler?” I tried drawing her attention to me.

  “Miss Taylor,” the ADA who didn’t seem that much older than I walked toward me.

  She pushed through the short wood-swinging barrier leading from the business part of the courtroom to the gallery seats, holding out her hand. I offered my own in return. We shook like any two good business people. How civilized it all was.

  “Is the hearing over?”

  “Yes and no,” she said, darting a glare at my father’s attorney. “Mr. Stimpson made a motion regarding your father’s mental competency to stand trial.”

  "He's arguing my father is insane?”

  The ADA nodded. "I was expecting it, but since your father's attorney brought the motion at such a late date—” She darted another glare his way. “I didn’t know until today that our hearing would be delayed.”

  Stimpson, a bald and morbidly obese man, toddled over to us.

  “Kizzy,” he said as if he knew me.

  The smarmy ass.

  “Don’t call me Kizzy.”


  Stimpson held up a hand for pardon and then used it to wipe sweat off his generous forehead.

  “Sorry, Miss Taylor. I need to ask you something on behalf of your father.”

  “There’s nothing you can ask that I would do for him.”

  “He says he wants to see you,” Stimpson said.

  “You can take what he wants and shove it up the nearest orifice of your choice.”

  “I know, I know. It’s natural you’d be upset,” he tried to mollify me.

  “Really? You think so?” I rolled my eyes.

  “But your father says he has to talk to you because—Now let me get this right. He said I have to repeat it as a quote.” He checked some notes on the legal pad he held. “Because you have tainted blood you inherited from your great grandmother. He says your tainted blood will cause destruction.”

  “Mr. Stimpson. This is highly improper,” the ADA intervened. “Miss Taylor has suffered enough at her father’s hands. She doesn’t need to hear this too.”

  Stimpson responded. As they continued to bicker, Rom placed a hand on my arm drawing me to the side, out of their hearing.

  “The necklace of your great grandmother bears the symbol of an open vortex. May your father know of your talents as a Clavis?”

  If he did, perhaps he knew something that would help me—us—rescue Juliette. I turned back to the attorneys.

  “I’ll do it. I’ll meet with my father, but it has to be today. Right now in fact.”

  The ADA’s face fell into sympathetic lines.

  “You don’t have to do that. In fact, I don’t think it’s even permissible.”

  “Please,” I said. “It will give me—“ I searched my memory for some psychobabble. “It will give me closure for my grief.”

  She made an awwwwwwwww face.

  “I suppose you could meet with him at the holding cell," the ADA said. "With you on the outside of the cell of course. And the deputies would be there. And I could be there."

  “Yes, that’s fine. But let’s do it now.” Before I lost my nerve.

  “Maybe I should ask your mother about this,” the ADA murmured almost to herself.

  “No, please,” I exclaimed. “The sooner we get this over with, the sooner I can begin my—” I swallowed down the lump threatening to choke me. “ My healing.”

  “You’ll have to go without your friend.” She inclined her head toward Rom.

  Nodding, I followed as the ADA crossed to a door at the side of the room next to the witness stand. She spoke to one of the deputies and a few minutes later we proceeded down a narrow corridor to a holding cell. With the attorney and two deputies at my side, I steeled myself and peered inside.

  My father seemed smaller, dressed in an oversized orange jump suit, than he’d been the last time I’d seen him. His hair was disheveled and there was a bizarre light twinkling in his eyes. The light of insanity. But the eyes were sunken and ringed with a reddish brown, almost bruised color.

  "Kizzy." He rose and shuffled toward me. Even in the cell his legs were shackled. He clutched the bars and they rattled under his grip.

  Refusing to show any emotion, I didn’t move.

  “I tried to save you,” he said. “I wouldn’t let my little girl be taken by a demon.”

  “Demon?”

  “With her white hair, I thought she was an angel.” He giggled. “At first. But when she captured me with her yellow eyes, she put me into a trance. She pierced my soul with her teeth and sucked it out of me.”

  If anything my father was even more deranged than when I'd seen him last. Now he couldn't even put together a coherent sentence.

  “Yellow eyes. Soul sucking teeth. I got it." With deliberation I turned my gaze to the far wall. "Anything else?”

  “I tried to save you.”

  “You said that. Why did you need to save me?”

  “Even though she said you would cause destruction, I tried to save you ‘cause I loved you. But it’s your fault I had to save you because of your blood. It’s tainted.” He ran a hand through his hair and tugged on the ends.

  "What?" My attention snapped back to his face.

  "To save you, I knew you had to die. But I couldn’t spill your blood. Grandma said that would be bad.”

  “Grandma has been dead ten years," I said.

  "My grandmother!" He scowled and shook the bars.

  My great-grandmother had been dead even longer. "Great-grandmother told you to make me jump off a bridge?”

  Shaking his head, my father's face scrunched in frustration. “No. I knew it was right. Couldn’t spill your blood.” Tears leaked from his eyes. “But I panicked and the gun went off… and your blood spilled…and Adam paid the price for your tainted blood.”

  Swallowing hard, I forced myself to continue standing upright even though I wanted to double over in pain from the strike to the gut.

  “Is that all?” I asked in a monotone.

  He stopped crying. “I just wanted you to know I saved you from the yellow eyed angel demon. I was brave. I didn’t give you to her. She wanted your blood, but she didn’t get it.”

  “What did you say?”

  “The angel demon wanted your blood because your blood brings destruction.”

  I would have totally written his rantings off as a symptom of insanity, except for what I’d seen in the last few days. My father had spoken of an angel demon? Yellow eyes and sharp teeth seemed more like a ghoul, but I hadn't seen any with white hair.

  My mind raced with questions. Was it possible my dad went insane from a ghoul bite? Could there be a second ghoul running around in the city? But if so, how had it gotten here? Had someone opened the portal to the vortex before me? Was there another Clavis in Savannah?

  However, maybe all this was just my wishful thinking. Just me wishing that but for the interference of a ghoul, my dad wouldn’t have wanted to kill me.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Although I was bursting to tell Rom what my father had said, there was no chance when I got back to the courtroom. Detective What’s-His-Name and his partner The-Other-Guy were there waiting for me.

  “Hello detectives.” I crossed to Rom, took him by the hand and began to walk out.

  “Miss Taylor!” Detective WHN called to me and I stopped.

  “Excuse me, detective,” I said. “I’ve just had a traumatic meeting with my insane father. I’m sure you understand I have to go somewhere and recover.”

  “I need to ask you some questions about Franky Abbott. Are you aware that his body was discovered this morning?”

  “Yes I heard that. What happened to him?”

  “The medical examiner has preliminarily ruled it a death by natural causes—a heart attack. However, the way his body was positioned on a park bench raises suspicions.”

  “As I said, we gotta go.”

  “This may have something to do with your sister’s disappearance. Don’t you want to help?” The arch in the detective’s eyebrows rose so high, he could have had a neon sign on his forehead saying, “This girl is guilty of something.”

  “Believe me, detective,” I said, walking toward the exit. “Nothing I can tell you could possibly help you figure out what happened to either Franky or Juliette.” Pushing open the door, I turned back. “Goodbye detectives.”

  “Miss Taylor wait.”

  “Am I under arrest?” I asked.

  Detective WHN glanced to Detective TOG and they both registered confusion. “Well, no,” he finally said.

  “Then we gotta go.”

  Once outside in the hall, Rom and I dashed toward the elevator. No use in giving the detective time to think. He might change his mind about arresting me. Besides, I definitely didn’t want him talking to Rom.

  As we made our way to the car, my cell phone rang and I dragged it out of my purse.

  “Senji,” I said. “Tell me some good news.”

  “I wish I had some,” he responded. “This Downy Woundwort, also known as stachys germanica, was widespre
ad at one time in England but died out in the 19th century. In medieval Britain it was popular as an herbal medicine for treatment of wounds.”

  “Hence the name. Anything else useful?”

  “I found a small reference to another side effect of Downy Woundwort. Apparently, it will put a vampire into a coma if ingested in quote ‘sufficient quantities’. Whatever that means."

  “Interesting but I don’t think we can get Leopold to swallow it even if—er when—we find the stuff.” My glance slid to Rom. I didn't want to disturb him with my doubts about finding the woundwort. “What else?”

  “It grows in stalks about two feet high and blooms between late spring until early autumn," Senji said. "It’s multi-stemmed and has—let’s see here. I’m quoting—whorls of mauve or magenta flowers.”

  “What's a whorl?”

  “No idea.”

  “Okay. Go on.” We jumped into the car and Rom fired up the engine.

  “The leaves are large and triangular," Senji continued. "They're a silvery tinged green color, are covered with long white silky hairs and have a fuzzy texture. I have a copy of a print someone drew of the plant in late 1888.”

  “So we’ll know it when we see them. Get to the important part,” I said as Rom pulled out of the parking structure. “Where do we find these plants?”

  “You used to be able to find them growing mostly around the edges of wooded areas and grasslands in England, particularly over something called oolitic limestone.”

  “That’s something.” I shot Rom an encouraging smile as if I’d heard some good news.

  “But now they don’t grow anywhere.” Senji sighed. “I’m sorry, Kizzy. I’ll start looking for a substitute.”

  “K. Good job.” Punching the screen to end the call, I turned to Rom. “He’s making progress.”

  “Progress in discovering no antidote,” Rom said.

  “Don’t be so negative. We’ll find it.”

  Rom fixed his gaze on the road. “Vow to me,” he said after a few minutes. ”Vow you will end my suffering rather than see me mad.”

  “You mean kill you?”

  He nodded.

  “No, Rom. That's not an option."

  “Then I must end my own life.”