Down in Flames

by P. W. Catanese

  “Mr. Taylor,” Howard answered. Donny was so dizzy with relief that he put a shoulder against the van to steady himself.

  “Hi.” He wanted badly to call Howard “Mister something,” but all he knew was Howard, and Howard probably wanted it that way. “Uh, Howard . . . I talked to Angela. About leaving.”

  After a pause, Howard replied. “I’m impressed. That took a lot of courage. How did it turn out?”

  Hard to say, Donny thought. “Well. I think she’s going to let me go. But if she sees me again, I’m pretty sure she’ll kill me. And then do something even worse.”

  “There’s that fiery temper. You’d better take it seriously. Stay out of her way.”

  No kidding, Donny thought. He craned his neck around the side of the van. “Yes, sir.”

  “Are you still in Old San Juan?”

  “Uh-huh. Yes.”

  “Do you remember El Morro, the fortress we went to?”

  “Yes.”

  “Can you find your way there?”

  His nerves settled a little. It felt good, being told exactly what to do. “I’m pretty sure. I mean yes. I can do that.”

  “Good. If you recall, a long footpath goes across the lawn to the fortress itself. I’ll meet you there, where the road ends and the footpath begins, within an hour. Stay calm, and obviously keep out of sight. Come out when you see me. I will be in a black car.”

  “Right. El Morro. The footpath. Black car. Thank you. Thank you so much, Howard. Sir.”

  “Miss Obscura is trying to reach me.”

  Donny’s eyes popped.

  “I need to take that. See you soon, I hope,” Howard said, and he ended the call.

  It took a while for Donny to collect his wits. His imagination sped to awful destinations. He wondered what Angela and Howard might talk about. Did Angela change her mind? Would Howard tell her where Donny could be found?

  “Don’t get paranoid,” Donny whispered aloud. Then he looked both ways around the van and squatted low to see if she lurked underneath.

  There really wasn’t a choice. He had to meet Howard as planned. Otherwise he was trapped in Old San Juan with just the stuff in his pockets, and no way to get to his mother. Even the fake passport that Angela had given him was in the hotel room.

  Finding El Morro was easy enough. At the end of the street, Donny glimpsed the ocean. He headed toward it, and it was obvious that he had to turn to the right and follow the centuries-old wall that once guarded the old town from invaders. Soon he saw the fortress with its dark, time-stained walls looming over the sea.

  There was a yellow building with a pretty red dome nearby. He went into the building’s courtyard and stood in the shade of a broad green tree, where he had a clear view of the beginning of the path.

  The road ended in a wide circle. He watched every vehicle that drove through and turned around, dropping people off and picking them up. Tour buses arrived and passengers got out, and he looked at all the tourists just in case Howard was among them. All the while, he kept an eye out for Angela, too.

  His hand went into his pocket and touched his phone. He took it out and looked at the last text he’d gotten from Angela. There was an ache inside his chest. He started to compose a message of his own. While he typed, he looked around after every few words to watch for Howard.

  I am so sorry. I really liked you, but I know you didn’t feel the same about me. I will never forget you, but don’t worry, I’ll never talk about you either. Good-bye.

  A long black sedan pulled to the edge of the circle and idled there. Donny tried to see who was inside. The back door opened and Howard stepped out, held a hand up to the driver, and told him to wait. Donny sent the message and shoved the phone back into his pocket. He jogged out from his hiding place in the shade, looking again for Angela in every direction. Howard spotted him. He waved Donny over, ushered him into the backseat, and slid in beside him.

  “Isla Grande airport,” Howard said to the driver.

  Donny sagged low in the seat, from relief and the need to hide. There was something soft at his feet. He looked down to see his travel bag. “You got my stuff!”

  “I thought you might need it,” Howard said. “Your passport is in there, I presume?”

  “Yes, sir,” Donny said. “But how’d you get in my room without a key?”

  “Money will open almost any door.”

  Donny pulled a baseball cap from the bag and tugged it low over his eyes. “Thank you, Howard. I really mean it.”

  Howard nodded and held out his hand. “I should take your phone.”

  “Oh.” That caught Donny by surprise. It was his final connection to Angela, the only way left to reach her.

  “Right now, please,” Howard said without inflection, keeping his hand there to receive it.

  “Sorry. Sure. Of course.” Donny took the phone out and gave it to Howard, who dropped it into the bag by his side. Donny wasn’t certain, but he thought he heard the phone vibrate a moment later.

  The car zipped through town. Soon they crossed the bridge that separated Old San Juan from the main island. The driver immediately turned onto a street that led to a small airport.

  “You’ll take my private jet to Colorado,” Howard said. “One of my associates will meet you there and bring you to the town where your mother lives.”

  “Wow,” Donny said quietly. “Does . . . does she know I’m coming?”

  Howard shook his head. “It will be up to you to reintroduce yourself. Are you comfortable with that?”

  Of course not, Donny thought. “I guess so,” he said. They pulled into the airport. Flying usually meant going through a crowded, noisy terminal, but they just stopped at a security checkpoint and were waved through after a few words from Howard.

  Donny looked out the window toward Old San Juan. “It just occurred to me: I won’t ever see Angela again.”

  “Or me, for that matter,” Howard said. He held out his hand once more, this time for a handshake.

  Donny stared at the hand, stunned. Of course he wouldn’t see Howard again, he realized. He reached out and shook it. “Right. Thank you, sir. Thank you so much.”

  “This was the right thing to do, Mr. Taylor,” Howard said. “You seem like a fine young man. I hope you can put all this behind you and enjoy a normal existence. It won’t be easy, of course. Life will seem dull compared to your recent adventures.”

  “Dull” felt very appealing at the moment. “I think I’ll be okay.”

  “Excellent. Now, I’ll say this one more time: you must not speak of what you’ve seen and what you know.”

  “I won’t. People would just think I was crazy anyhow,” Donny said.

  “We would make sure they did.”

  Donny almost laughed, but he noticed that Howard wasn’t smiling when he said it.

  CHAPTER 34

  It was weird, getting to fly in a private jet. There were no tickets to show, and no waiting for the plane. They drove right onto the tarmac where the plane waited for Donny.

  There were two pilots, a man and a woman. Howard spoke quietly to the woman while the man took Donny’s bag and stowed it in a rear compartment.

  “Come on in,” the woman said to Donny. Howard raised his hand in a farewell gesture. Donny waved back, and then he walked up the short flight of aluminum steps and entered the plane.

  It was all wood and leather inside, not plastic like a typical commercial jet. It smelled new and clean. He was the only passenger, and that made it even weirder.

  The pilots barely said a word when Donny climbed on board. The man told him to sit in any of the six white leather chairs, and asked him to buckle his seat belt. He pointed out the bathroom and a basket filled with snacks if Donny wanted anything after they took off. Then he joined the woman in the cockpit, closing the door behind him and leaving Donny alone in the cabin.

  The takeoff was nothing like Donny was used to from commercial flights. The ascent was much steeper, and he gripped the armrests tight. The
runway ended at the sea. He saw giant cruise ships in the harbor below, and Old San Juan from above. Then a wispy curtain of clouds flowed by the oval window, as if closing on an act of Donny’s life.

  Everything hit him at once: all the things he’d given up and hadn’t really thought about until now. He wouldn’t see Tizzy anymore. Or Zig-Zag. Or Arglbrgl. Or any of the other denizens of the underworld. He would never again stand amid fiery clouds and feel their gentle warmth, or watch the mist of the river restore human shape to arriving souls. He wouldn’t behold the magnificent pillars that propped up the underworld, with ancient cities that circled their roots like wreaths. He wouldn’t see all the wondrous ways that flames could be engineered. He wouldn’t explore any more unknown quarters of that cavernous universe. All that strange grandeur was forbidden to him now. It would be dangerous even to speak of it.

  Maybe one day he’d think it was all a dream.

  But there was a new life ahead, or at least he hoped. A new life that might erase the old one. His mother was out there. And a half brother who he’d never seen. And the man his mother had married. Did they live in a cozy little house? Was there a room for him there? He’d share one with his brother. He wouldn’t mind at all. Maybe you could see the Rocky Mountains right out the window. That’s a different life, Donny thought. He could learn to snowboard. Or climb mountains with his new father and his little brother, or catch fish in a crystal alpine river. Maybe he’d grow up to be a park ranger.

  Florida appeared on the horizon, and they left the blue seas behind. Donny fell asleep and dreamed of snowcapped mountains.

  CHAPTER 35

  A tap on Donny’s shoulder woke him up. “We’ll start our descent pretty soon,” the male pilot said. “Sorry to wake you up, but I thought you might be hungry.”

  Donny rubbed his eyes and looked down. A tray had appeared in front of his seat, unfolding right out of the wall, and on it was a silver platter with a turkey sandwich, salad, cheese, grapes, a brownie, a green bottle of fancy mineral water, and a can of juice. “Thank you,” he said.

  His appetite didn’t kick in until he’d taken a few bites, and suddenly he was starving. He ate everything on the plate and guzzled the juice. The man came out and took the platter away, folding the tray back, and soon after that there was a change in the sound of the engines. They were descending. Donny peered out the window. The sky was clear again. The land below was flat, but when he looked out the windows on the other side, he saw a great mountain range in the distance.

  The plane touched gently down and rolled to a stop. Donny waited for one of the pilots to come out of the cockpit before he unbuckled his seat belt.

  The woman came out first. “We’re in Denver. You ready, Mr. Taylor?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Donny replied.

  The man opened the door. “Right this way,” he said. They stepped through the open door and walked down the metal steps to the tarmac. There was a ceaseless roar of planes overhead.

  The man got Donny’s bag from the storage compartment, but he didn’t hand it to him. A big black car approached their plane, driving slowly across the pavement and pulling up right next to them. The door opened, and another man stepped out. He had a kind of military look about him, with short-cropped hair and a solid build. He wore a jacket and slacks.

  “Donald Taylor?” he asked.

  “That’s him,” the pilot replied before Donny could respond. The pilot held Donny’s bag out, and the driver took it.

  “I’ll take it from here,” the man said. “Right this way, Mr. Taylor.”

  Donny got the slightest of nods from the pilot, who returned to the plane without another word. The driver opened the door to the backseat, and Donny got in. “How far is it, sir?” he asked when the driver got behind the wheel.

  The driver tapped out a text message on his phone before he replied. “Seventy-five miles to Estes Park,” he said flatly.

  That was it for small talk. Donny had already gotten the signal. This was all business, and neither the pilots nor the driver were there to make friends. Donny never even got a name from any of them. Even Howard had acted that way at the very end—not unfriendly but not friendly, either. They were cutting ties. As they drove, Donny just stared through the windshield and watched the mountains get closer.

  An hour and a half later the car pulled off the highway and into a town with snowy peaks looming high in the west, and pine trees and rocky outcroppings on the rolling hills nearby. Donny had pictured a sleepy little town, but the place was bustling with visitors and busy with restaurants and shops. They turned off the main drag and headed into a neighborhood, and that was when Donny’s hands started to shake. Get a grip, he told himself.

  The driver pulled a sudden U-turn in the middle of the street and accelerated in the other direction. “What happened?” Donny asked.

  “Your mother just drove by,” the driver said.

  Donny’s eyes bugged. There was a blue SUV just ahead. “You’re following her?”

  “You’re supposed to meet her, isn’t that correct?”

  “Uh . . .” Donny tried to get his breathing to slow to normal. “Yeah. Yes . . . I am.” The moment was close and he wasn’t ready.

  “There’s an envelope in your bag with some extra money from Mr. H.”

  “Mr. H. Is that Howard?”

  “She’s parking,” the driver said. “I’ll pull over here.”

  Donny opened the door, stepped out onto the sidewalk, and put the strap of his bag across his shoulder. The driver lowered the power window and leaned over to speak through it. “You all set?”

  Donny’s mind swirled as if someone had pulled a plug and his brain was circling the drain. A hundred yards away he saw a woman get out of the blue SUV and take a stroller out of the back. “I’m . . . I’m good,” he said, barely thinking while he spoke.

  “You sure?”

  The woman—my mother, he said to himself—opened a rear passenger door and leaned in. She emerged again, a toddler in her arms. She gently settled the boy into the stroller and buckled him in.

  “What?” Donny said to the driver. It was hard to listen and panic at the same time. “Oh. I’m good. All set.” He moved along the sidewalk toward his mother, so numb that the simple act of walking felt strange. Behind him, he barely heard the sedan’s wheels grind on pavement and then accelerate away.

  CHAPTER 36

  Donny kept his distance for a while, keeping pace as his mother pushed the stroller down the sidewalk. She wore blue jeans, pink-and-gray sneakers, and a white fleece jacket. He stared at the back of her head like he’d never stared at the back of anyone’s head before. She was taller than he expected. He watched the way she leaned to one side to say something to the boy in the carriage, and he caught a glimpse of her profile. That’s my mother, he told himself again. He walked a little faster, drew a little closer.

  He stuck his hand in his pocket absentmindedly, and his fingers closed around the tiny bottle of demon drops. He’d forgotten about them completely, and was sure that he wasn’t supposed to still have them. Howard wouldn’t even let him keep the phone. So there was no way he’d want Donny to hold on to actual evidence of the infernal world.

  His gait slowed for a moment as an idea came to him. He took the bottle from his pocket and stared at it, cradled in his palm. There was plenty left inside. If he used the drops right now, he could find out for sure. What kind of woman was his mother? Was it really such a good idea, to reunite with her after all these years? It would be so easy to find out. A drop in each eye, and the secret would be revealed.

  He pulled the stopper out of the bottle and poured the liquid onto the pavement. As he passed a garbage can, he tossed the bottle inside. All that infernal magic was behind him now. It was time to join the mortal realm. And that meant fumbling in the dark to understand another person, until hopefully the years brought you closer.

  His mother turned on a side street that led downhill. She looked both ways as she crossed the
road. Donny’s heart got a jolt when she glanced his way, but she just went on pushing the stroller, and jogged across the intersection.

  As Donny walked, it occurred to him that he might have made a mistake when he told the driver he could go. What was he supposed to do if this didn’t work out? “But it will work out,” he whispered to himself.

  The street led to a park beside a river. The river tumbled by with dangerous force, as it frothed and hissed away from the mountains. A paved walking path ran beside it, and a railing kept people safe from the current. Donny followed his mother, now just a hundred feet behind her, as she walked along the path toward a children’s playground. She sat on a bench and turned the stroller to her. The little boy inside had fallen asleep.

  Donny ambled closer. He pretended to look up at the mountains and down at the river when he wasn’t staring at his mother’s face. Seeing her was like finding the missing pieces of a puzzle. He always knew which features he’d inherited from his father: the shape of the face and the ears, the color of the hair. But there, for the first time, he saw the rest of himself. The nose. The set of the mouth. The eyes.

  He had eyes like his mother.

  She turned and looked directly at him, gave him a little smile, and then took a paperback book from a bag under the stroller. That little smile stopped Donny cold in his tracks. He recovered a couple of seconds later and sat at a bench that was just a few feet away from hers.

  It was time to say something, he knew. But his throat was so dry, he had to clear it first. He gulped and coughed, and felt sweat sprouting on his head and palms.

  He looked at her again, and this time he was sure that she had been looking at him. She turned back to her book.

  Donny cleared his throat again. “Your son is really cute,” he said with a shaky rasp.

  She smiled a little wider this time. It was like the smile Donny saw in the mirror.