The Lost Prince

by Edward Lazellari

  “After I bleed the goat, take it to that corner. There’s a first-aid kit. Wash its wound, and bandage it. Give it some orange juice and spinach.”

  “You ain’t killing it?”

  “I need more than a pint of blood, Theo. The goat may die, but I don’t need for it to die for the spell to work. Back in Aandor, we’d simply cut the animal’s throat and then we’d roast the flesh for dinner. But I’m only going to make a small incision in its neck.”

  Allyn had not realized how much the boy’s faith in him had wavered until he saw Theo tear up and smile a wide row of teeth. Through his smile, Theo’s faith in one of his personal heroes was affirmed. How such a mountain of a man who delivered brutal punishment on the gridiron could have so tender a heart was a mystery.

  “I am a minister, you know,” he said to Theo, defensively. “Do unto others and all that.”

  Allyn punctured the goat’s artery with a long surgical needle. The goat bleated in distress, but remained in place under Theo’s massive arms. Allyn placed a funnel with a rubber tube running under it by the hole and placed the tube end over the bowl. A stream of blood gushed into the flame. Allyn instructed Theo to take the goat away when he had what he needed. He closed his eyes and began to chant, pushing out his will and drawing in the energy of the circle, letting the current of power hasten from a lazy river into a roaring rapid. It filled reservoirs within him that had been empty for the better part of a decade. He spread the energy out through his consciousness, like a tablecloth whipped out and billowing over a large dinner party. He let the energy fall on the land and saw the light of millions in all directions from his epicenter. He saw the glow that represented Theo in the tent, the lights of his wife and daughter in the house, the cluster of intense lights in the cities as people massed together in concrete domiciles—living souls in an unbroken web of magical connection. Once he’d reached the limit of his range, he put his hands up, palms out and pushed out a second wave of energy to piggyback the first one, meant to penetrate these beings with streams of magic less than a molecule thick. He pushed it out in a flash and felt the current connect with millions of beings—except for … two?

  Two beings rejected the stream, forcing it around them. But that was not possible, thought Allyn. Danel should be the only one with resistance. And stranger yet, the two entities were both in the south … one near the Virginia border … and the other, only a few miles north of his present location.

  “Only a few miles north?” Allyn mumbled to himself.

  “Did it work?” Theo asked.

  “No. I don’t think so,” Allyn said, defeated. “I must have missed something—forgotten an ingredient.” And yet, everything seemed to have worked exactly as he expected.

  Rosemarie’s shout came moments before she ran into the tent excited and out of breath. She was holding the cordless phone up at him as she tried to catch her breath. The goat in the corner surprised her. She gave her dad a quizzical expression. He pointed to the phone and mouthed Who?

  “Malcolm Robbe is on the phone from New York,” Rosemarie said. “That MacDonnell guy believes the prince is in North Carolina. And he’s in a lot of danger!”

  “Lord have mercy,” Allyn whispered.

  CHAPTER 28

  PINKIE SWEAR

  1

  Daniel returned from the store to find the house dark and quiet as a crypt. A note from Bev on the counter said she was doing another double shift at the bar. She left a twenty-dollar bill clipped to the note for food.

  Daniel could see why Luanne turned out skinny and wild with so little parental guidance and little to eat. He wasn’t one to talk since his own alcoholic stepfather was barely in his life except to beat on him, but at least his mother had been home and tried to keep food on the table between dosing up on tranquilizers. Maybe Rita felt she owed her first husband, John Hauer, that much.

  The cold weather was settling in, as was dusk, and opportunities to sketch outside would diminish. He decided to do one last sketch—the waning sun would make for great shadows in the forest—a great setting for werewolf stories. Walking into Luanne’s bedroom, Daniel froze when he saw his sketch pad on the bed open to the nude he’d done the previous night. This was the pad he hid so that Cody wouldn’t find out what was really going on in Luanne’s house. He smelled the remnants of cigarette smoke and cheap perfume.

  A wave of dread shot through him. She wouldn’t, he thought. Luanne can’t be that dumb.

  Daniel thought long and hard about what to do next. He appreciated Bev and needed Colby’s advice, but staying put in that trailer even for one more day might be the most dangerous thing he’d ever done.

  But just because the pad was out and opened to a naked drawing of Luanne doesn’t mean anything, he rationalized. As these thoughts crisscrossed his brain, he realized he’d subconsciously been collecting his items from around the house and packing them in his bag. While his conscious mind had been rationalizing about staying there, his subconscious clearly knew what he had to do.

  The thought of heading out into the cold night, in the middle of nowhere, was none too appealing. Raleigh was nearby, several miles away, but there were no taxis or buses. The front door slammed.

  He peeked out of the bedroom to see Luanne, alone, with several shopping bags. She was decked out in brand-new formfitting clothes, with open-toed leather pumps that showed off manicured toenails, and a new hairstyle. Gone was the wild bramble of wavy blond hair—she’d straightened and combed it and cut it down to just below shoulder length. Her fingernails were long and manicured as well, a bright lacquered red with tiny black Asian characters along the edge. She looked beautiful. From the window, he spied Eljay driving off in a VW Beetle with several store bags in her backseat.

  “Danny!” Luanne shouted excitedly. “Come see what I bought!”

  Luanne placed the bags on the living room couch. They were from fine stores—Nordstrom, Macy’s, and the like. There had to be hundreds of dollars worth of swag here. No way that this was Cody’s doing; that cracker was about to have a serious cash flow problem due to an aggressive competitor. And Luanne was broke. So was Eljay for that matter.

  “Where’d you get all this?” he asked her.

  “The names is right on the bag. Can’t you read?”

  “How can you afford this?”

  “Oooh—look at this sweater!” she said, extracting something pink and as fuzzy as a cat extricated from a clothes dryer.

  She was elusive about the source of her newfound wealth. It was her business after all. He didn’t know why he was so mad at her for buying all that stuff—Daniel was just a guest and could push only so hard. Something about the shopping spree bugged him though. Luanne had only one asset, her looks, and his suspicions led him down a dark path of the only way he believed she could earn this much money in so short a time span. The thought disgusted him and made him angry as well. He didn’t know why he was angry … she didn’t belong to him.

  “Hey, uh … I noticed that my drawing pad was on your bed,” he said, changing the subject of one source of aggravation to another.

  She continued pulling out new clothes and folding them in a pile on the couch arm.

  “Yeah. I wanted to show Eljay,” she said a little too bubbly. “That neked picture is the best one. Why’d you hide the pad under my bed?”

  It was as though someone poured liquid nitrogen into the base of Daniel’s brain and down his spine. Was he frozen with fear or anger? Both emotions fought for dominance right now.

  “Weren’t you right there when your boyfriend threatened to kill me because I drew you with clothes on?” The stress on the word “on” was to indicate how much more Cody would want to kill him when he found a picture with her clothes “off.” It did not have the desired effect on Luanne—educating her to a serious breach of trust and common sense of … well, biblical proportions.

  “Don’t fret,” she said, swatting her hand down like giving a slap on the wrist. “I made her pinkie swea
r first that she’d keep it secret.”

  “Oh! You pinkie swore. Well there you have it. I was worried for nothing.”

  At moments, Luanne dropped her guard and revealed she was not as clueless as most people thought. Yes, she was capable of bad judgment and reckless behavior, but there were times he recognized in her the con of fostering a ditzy persona for the intentional sake of having others underestimate her. Luanne did not make love the way Daniel imagined stupid people would engage in sex. Not that he’d had a lot of experience, but he’d seen his share of dirty movies, and there was just something about her that didn’t add up.

  Their intimacy let him see through her spell. This was one of those moments where he picked up a degree of complexity coming from her that belied the obvious—her eyes conveyed a full recognition of his sarcasm, a detailed understanding about his concern, even the seriousness of Cody discovering their affair, capped by a body language that said she did not care to worry about it.

  “I didn’t tell her nothin’ else, Danny,” Luanne said in a you think I’m stupid? tone of voice.

  “Cody already suspects something, Luanne. Now there’s a picture showing you were sitting naked five feet in front of me for, like, half an hour…” He broke off and brushed back his absent hair. Daniel usually forgot he had cut it all off to avoid recognition. He no longer looked or felt like himself anymore. He’d become someone else.

  He turned back to face her, then toward the bedroom, then back again to her, unsure of which direction he wanted. Should he just head out the front door or confront her until she saw some common sense. He had a rational argument worked out in his brain, but when he open his mouth, all that came out was, “A damned pinkie swear … really?”

  Luanne stomped her new shoe on the carpet hard. “Don’t get snarky with me, Danny Hauer!” Her southern drawl had intensified. “I bought you new stuff, too.”

  She jabbed a bag into his chest with a thwap.

  “You might want to say ‘Thank you, Luanne, for buyin’ me nice stuff. Thank you, Luanne, for bein’ a friend.’” Her volume increased. “‘Thank you, Luanne, for sharin’ your sweet cherry pie with me for my first time in my pathetic, lonely, little life!’”

  Daniel’s temper rose to match hers. She just didn’t get it. The girl never thought more than an hour ahead.

  “There hasn’t been a cherry in your pie for years,” he threw back at her. He regretted the insult immediately.

  “EEEEEEGH!” she screamed, and threw a shopping bag at his head. She picked up a shoebox and threw that, too, then anything that was close at hand. Nothing she hurled had any aerodynamic quality—Daniel easily sidestepped the items. She closed in on him until she could do him in with her own hands.

  Luanne lunged, newly manicured claws out, shining brightly the color of fresh blood. Daniel grabbed her wrists to protect his face, and they weaved back and forth in some sort of primeval puppet dance. He had her arms over her shoulder and began pushing her back. She launched a knee at his crotch, but he instinctively turned his hip and blocked it with his leg. They ran out of room and he slammed her against the trailer wall, pinning her arms back. She was ferociously strong and wailed like an angry wombat. Her feral beauty aroused him, and again the familiar stirring in his loins betrayed his need for clarity at this time. Daniel’s eyes must have conveyed his admiration; when she looked into his eyes, something clicked, simultaneously aligning their minds. He leaned into her, his face barely an inch from hers, waiting to see if he read her true. She made to bite him and he pulled away quick, but he knew she would have had him if she was serious. He put his lips on hers, pressing passionately. She kissed back just as fiercely, tasting him. Any thoughts about open window blinds and unlocked doors melted away as they embraced. They slid to the shag carpet locked around each other and commenced their mating dance.

  2

  It was completely dark when Daniel awoke. He and Luanne lay on the carpet beside the couch, she curled up slightly on top of him with one naked leg wrapped around his and her arm on his chest. The living room was in shambles. Shopping bags and clothes strewn everywhere, seat cushions piled against each other—they had gone at it like animals in heat.

  As rational thinking reasserted itself, Daniel realized he couldn’t stay. Whether it was a matter of minutes, hours, or days, this thing with Luanne was going to blow up—it was inevitable. Bev’s reaction to his having sex with her daughter may not be any less violent than Cody’s … she kept a loaded twelve-gauge shotgun in the living room closet.

  A drizzle began outside, spattering the windows with cold streaks of dew. Great, thought Daniel. Leave tonight and catch pneumonia.

  The TV remote was on the coffee table beside him, so he clicked on the newscast with the volume off to spy the weather forecast. As the meteorologist spoke of cold fronts, rain, and possible snow, something streaming across the news feed banner at the bottom of the screen perked his attention. It had gone by quickly, and he thought it must have been a trick of the light. Bev ran her cable through a DVR that always recorded the channel it was on; he hit the rewind button on the remote and backed up a few seconds. It was not his imagination; he saw his name in the news feed: $60,000 reward put up by mysterious benefactor for the capture of, or information leading to, father killer Daniel Hauer of Glen Burnie, Maryland. The station was a local NBC affiliate, so you could be sure other stations were running it as well.

  Colby was wrong. Interest in him wasn’t going to die on the vine. This money was going to supercharge the search for him. This news would hit an even bigger cycle the next day, maybe even go national. He should have followed his instincts and fled the country while the going was still good. Now every cop and yahoo up to his neck in bills will be gunning for him.

  “Shit!” he whispered. Who the heck would put up sixty thousand for him? No one could be that angry Clyde was dead. His stepfather was a loser squared.

  Daniel got dressed and finished packing in the dark. He’d already lingered too long. Luanne awoke when he came back into the living room. She sat up, resting her arm on a couch cushion.

  “Why are the lights off?” she asked.

  “I have to go,” Daniel said.

  “What?” she said, coming awake. “Wait…” She stood up, her beautiful, naked body a study in shadows as the neighbor’s porch light across the street cast itself upon her through droplets on the windowpane.

  “I have to go,” Daniel repeated.

  “You can’t just leave … I mean—it’s cold and rainy outside.” Luanne sounded dejected, her expression a mix of sad, scared, and pissed off. Daniel couldn’t remember the last time someone wanted him to stay around as much as she wanted him to at this moment. He was flattered.

  “I don’t have a choice,” he said. “On the TV just now … I’m in danger, and now I’m putting your family in danger.”

  “So you just fuck me and take off?”

  This she cares about? Daniel thought incredulously. Not Cody’s finding out about them, not schoolwork or college, or even about next month. This?

  “I thought you were different,” she said. “One of those smart sensitive types. But you’re like all the rest … you get what you want and you leave.”

  That stung. And it couldn’t be farther from the truth. Daniel was enamored with her. Imperfect as Luanne was, he cared about her. She was etched in his memory for life, no matter where his journeys took him.

  “That’s not true,” he said.

  He wanted to tell her what she meant to him, but there wasn’t time. He was only going on fourteen but it felt like twenty, and there wasn’t enough time to relay two decades worth of hardship. He’d spent so much of his life holding in disappointments and other things—expressing positive emotions didn’t come easily. He stuck to his guns. “My life—my life is over. Yours is just starting.”

  “You’re not makin’ any sense,” she said. He noted her reining in her anger when he said his life was over. It affected her—worried her. She
was having one of those rare moments of absolute clarity. Did Luanne actually feel the same way about him? He was two years younger than her—light-years apart in teen hierarchy. He was a toy for her amusement—some passive-aggressive fun to scratch her itch and get back at her asshole boyfriend.

  Luanne was on the cusp of tears—a look Daniel recognized because he’d seen it in his own mirror before. It was the look one had when a person was powerless to stop a person of value from leaving their life, prompting views of one’s own worthlessness in the scheme of life. Daniel always resented his private pity parties. He’d never been the object of such a response in anyone else. He didn’t like it any better from this side.

  Luanne needed the truth … if only to help her understand how little she had to do with his need to leave.

  “The authorities are after me,” he explained. “I did something awful in Baltimore … that’s why Colby hid me here. I thought I was safe, but that’s not the case anymore. If the cops find me here, you and your mom would be in big trouble.”

  “Cops? Danny, what did you do?” she asked, genuinely concerned—sounding like a girlfriend.

  The words wouldn’t come out. He’d suffered through Katie Millar’s rejection of him when he was as clean and wholesome as kids came—now he was dirty … a murderer. Luanne’s rejection of him inside of the same week would crush whatever there was left of him that kept him going. He realized just that moment, faced with the need to flee, how much Luanne meant to him. Love had been absent through much of his life. His parents didn’t care for him, his teachers didn’t love him, his best friend betrayed him, and the one girl he would have moved heaven and earth to make happy said she would never feel the same way about him. There was a vast deficit of this elusive emotion in his life, an epic drought of affection. He wasn’t a bad person—as human beings went, Daniel thought he was fairly decent compared with others. And yet, no one thought of him the way he wanted to be thought of … until Luanne.