Yet, sorrow over paths untaken was not one of Theo’s vices; he was too active, too purposeful. He might regret his impulsiveness but never his lack of action. He had not wasted his life! It was the magic of Cornelius’s staff, not his own will, that had drawn him away from us these last decades. As soon as he had thrown off the external coercion from the staff, the real Theophrastus had reemerged, as idealistic and determined as ever.
My brother laughed again, squeezing my hand tightly. “It feels good to be back!” Then he frowned his serious, chivalric frown and wagged his finger at me. “But, you should not have wasted so much Water of Life on me! It was an excess we can’t presently afford!!”
“Oh, Theo!” Tears welled up in my eyes again. I gripped his hand as tightly as I was able.
* * *
AHEAD of us a long trench cut across our path. I slid down the dusty bank, along with Mab, Theo, Erasmus, and Gregor. Mephisto opted to have Caliban throw him over the gap. He did a flip in midair and landed lightly on his feet, throwing his hands up like gymnast and shouting “Ta-da!” Caliban then leapt the trench, followed by Titus, whose foot slipped on sandbags piled on the far side, causing him to slide down the steep bank on his stomach, breathlessly joining the rest of us at the bottom.
Beside us, in the gloom, beady eyes gleamed. If that was not bad enough, the ground beneath my feet swarmed with thousands of horned beetles, all clicking their mandibles. As I shrieked in surprise, a rat the size of a large cat poked its nose out of the shadows.
“This is one of those moments when I wish Logistilla were here with her staff. Those creatures would look so much less disturbing if they were toads or dogs.” Erasmus paused. “No, on second thought, being down here surrounded by packs of ugly toads or angry dogs would not be a great improvement.”
Caliban knelt and extended his hand, which I quickly accepted, allowing him to haul me up onto the sandbags. He then helped Titus, and the two of them aided the others, until we were all out of the trench.
Ahead of us stretched more trenches, each separated from the next by waist-high barbed wire.
“Great.” Mab’s Bronx accent seemed unusually pronounced. “This is where we should have used the horse. From now on, we should check out the terrain ahead of us with the marble.”
“The Seeing Sphere of Horus the Wise—also known as the Gazing Stone of King Solomon, or the crystal ball of Merlin the Magician, and that of the Renaissance wise man John Dee—might not appreciate being called a marble,” Mephisto replied cheerfully, patting the crystal sphere.
“How exactly does this ball of yours work, Mephisto?” Erasmus asked as we climbed over the first of the barbed wire. “Can it answer any question? Show me tomorrow’s winning lottery numbers? Show me the secret combination to a safe?”
Mephisto walked up to the fence, measured it with his eyes, took three long steps backwards, and ran. Leaping, he threw his body straight up, so that he rotated his heels over his shoulders without his head altering its height. He landed lightly on the far side of the fence.
Lounging against the protruding gun barrel of a rusting tank, he balanced the crystal ball on his fingers, rolling it back and forth, while watching the rest of us clamber awkwardly over the fence. “Nope. It only shows things I could see if I spent long enough looking myself. So if, right now, someone is writing down tomorrow’s lottery numbers or the combination to the safe, it could show that. Otherwise, no luck.”
“How does it define trouble, when it picks who is in the most trouble?” Gregor eyed the crystal ball suspiciously as he untangled his crimson robes from several barbs. “That seems a rather complicated concept.”
Mephisto petted it as if it were a small animal. “It can’t, really. It can only show us who looks to be in the most trouble. If a danger is invisible or in the person’s head, the ball can’t help. When I first got it, it had trouble judging even obvious visible problems. I had to train it.”
“So, you couldn’t just ask the ball who the traitor was, then?” Erasmus looked faintly disappointed. He stepped over the next trench, which luckily was only two feet wide.
“Are you back on that dopey traitor theory? Nope. It couldn’t help us unless someone was committing an act of treachery against us right now.” Mephisto hefted the ball up to his eye level. “Ball, show me any of my goofy brothers who are committing acts of treason.” We all peered at the ball, but the mist continued to swirl. “There, you see?”
“Or sisters,” Erasmus pressed.
“Or sisters,” Mephisto added to the ball. Again, there was no change within the crystal.
“Jiminy Christmas!” Mab exclaimed, as we all approached the next fence. “It’s not like Miss Miranda would be plotting against you right now as we’re walking along. If she were, you wouldn’t need a ball. You’d be able to see with your naked eye!”
“Is there a traitor?” Gregor paused and glared at the rest of us warily. “If so, it cannot be Caliban here, or Mab, because they are not family, but as for the rest of us…” He stared grimly into each of our faces. “If it should turn out that there is a traitor, I want that person to know that Theo and I will kill you.”
“What if it’s Theo?” asked Erasmus.
Gregor snorted, refusing to dignify Erasmus’s comment with an answer.
“Show me Theo being a dopey traitor,” sang Mephisto. Featureless mist continued to swirl in the ball.
“What of Ulysses?” Titus asked. He picked me up by my waist and deposited me on the far side of the next barbed wire. Then, he stepped over it with ease. Mephisto handed him the crystal ball and did a back handspring over the fence. Titus handed the ball back to him. “Are we certain he will not betray us again?”
“He did not kill me when he could have,” Gregor replied in his gravelly voice. “In fact, he went to great lengths to keep me alive. He may be weak and foolish, but I believe his heart is in the right place.”
“But he is still bound by his oath to Abaddon,” Titus continued, walking again. A narrow board covered the next trench. We all teetered across this rickety bridge in single file. “What if Abaddon reaches him while Ulysses is off on his own? Could that be the danger the ball warned of?”
“We sent Abaddon down in the depths of Hell, into the ice at the very bottom where Satan is entrapped,” Theo said with some satisfaction. “He won’t be back anytime soon.”
“Are we sure?” Erasmus asked. “Mephisto, check the ball.”
“Show me Abaddon,” Mephisto said, speaking to the ball. The mist swirled revealing the great demon’s legs and feet. His head, shoulders, and chest were embedded in a sheet of unpleasant-looking green ice.
“Well, at least we don’t have to worry about him.” Erasmus chuckled. “We can go back to worrying about Miranda and, maybe, Mephisto.”
“Show me myself being a dopey traitor,” Mephisto asked the ball as he hopped over a line of barbed wire. The picture of Abaddon vanished, replaced by swirling mist.
Erasmus’s supercilious attitude grated on my nerves. I longed to slap him and wipe that smug sneer off his face, but slapping him would, of course, solve nothing. Gregor and Theo, however, eyed Mephisto warily.
“We mustn’t start distrusting each other,” I urged, climbing carefully over the next fence. “That is what the demons want. It is their weapon against us!”
“How convenient, Sister,” Erasmus purred, as he made his way over beside me, “that virtue and goodness compel us to fall right into your trap.”
“Show me virtue and goodness,” Mephisto asked the ball but received no response.
“Professor Prospero, you got to listen to her!” Mab spoke up. The tail of his trench coat had caught on the fence. He wrestled with it, trying to work it free. “I know demons, better than you folks. Your family unity is the biggest advantage you have over the Forces of Hell—they never work together. Not for long anyway. And they can’t take this unity away from you unless you give it up freely!”
“Yes, little spiritlin
g. We know you are loyal to Miranda.”
“Why must you be so spiteful, Erasmus!” I snapped. “What have Mab or I ever done to you?”
“Show me why Erasmus is so spiteful,” Mephisto chirped cheerfully.
“Mephisto, will you please cut that out, you’re…” Theo reached out as if to yank the crystal globe away, and then he froze. Within the ball, the mist cleared and an image formed.
A simple stone altar stood in the midst of a pentacle. Atop the altar, two dolls had been poised. One was dressed in doublet and hose of green and black and a cavalier’s hat, much like the one Mephisto currently carried on his back. Its right hand was covered by a white gauntlet, and it held a white and black staff. The other was feminine, silver-haired, and garbed in a satin gown the color of emeralds. In her right hand, she carried a flute. Both dolls held tiny swords in their left hand, with which they stabbed the opposite doll through the chest.
Mab hissed at the image, as if it were poisonous. “Sympathetic magic, Ma’am. Bad stuff!”
“What are they? Voodoo dolls?” Erasmus peered closer. “Hey, that’s me! That’s supposed to be Miranda and me. Are we … are we stabbing each other?”
“Yes,” I said numbly, aghast. “But where is this? Who … who did such a thing?”
I glanced at Erasmus and felt the familiar rush of hatred flow throw my veins. Could that sensation, which I suffered nearly every time I thought of Erasmus, be caused by the spell these voodoo dolls represented? If so, how long had the spell been going on? Years? Generations? Centuries?
A horripilation of dread spread along my arms. Someone had cast a spell intended to harm me: a spell I had had no chance of knowing about, much less stopping. The horror of it reminded me, yet again of Seir’s first attack on Prospero’s Mansion. I felt as if something inviolate had suddenly been ripped open and defiled.
“Ball, show me who made these dolls,” Mephisto asked. The ball showed a red demon with long bat ears and delicate fingers. Mephisto snorted with annoyance. “Show me who this demon works for.”
An image formed of another demon, this one had a black-and-gray piebald hide and large incisors. Mephisto rolled his eyes, annoyed. “Show me who gave the command to make the dolls.”
The mist swirled, showing yet another demon, bright blue with a wide mouth full of crocodile teeth.
Mephisto hissed in annoyance. “Those idiots! They do this on purpose, layers and layers of command, just to stop guys like me. I could keep asking right up to their ultimate boss, but whoever really originated the orders might not even be in the official line of command. Ball, show me where the dolls are.”
The mist swirled and showed the dolls again. Then, the picture pulled back, showing a familiar structure with towers rising over reddish stone walls.
“The Castello Sforzesco in Milan!” I cried.
“Dear God!” Erasmus leaned forward. “Why are the walls running with blood?”
“Are they?” Mephisto peered closer. “Oh, they are! This must be in Infernal Milan.”
“Infernal Milan?” several of us asked.
“Most cities have an infernal version,” Mephisto replied. “I like to think of it as the city’s evil twin! Every time anyone sins on earth, a bit of wickedness drips down into Hell. The more sinful the people in the city, the more solid the evil dark twin becomes. You think Milan looks bad, you should see Rome!”
“Or New York,” murmured Erasmus.
Mephisto shook his head. “New York’s in a category by itself.”
I gripped Theo’s arm. “You are saying these dolls of us are here, in Hell?”
“Yep, in the infernal version of our granddaddy’s castle,” Mephisto declared.
“Look around,” Mab pressed. “Maybe the perpetrator has left some clues. Might even be on the premises.”
“Ball, show me the rest of the castello.” Mephisto held the ball atop his hand for us to see. “Oh, my!”
The crystal sphere moved through the hallways and into the ducal presence chamber. Upon the throne sat Logistilla.
CHAPTER
TWELVE
There Once Was a Girl Named Maria
“So, we’ve found the culprit at last,” Mab exclaimed with some satisfaction. We had stopped for a rest and were seated on the dusty plain.
“My question,” Erasmus asked as he recovered from a fit of dust-induced coughing, “is why encourage me to fight with Miranda? I thought Logistilla liked me.”
“My bet’s been on her all along.” Mab grinned like a cop about to make a bust. “I told you her place stank of the Devil.”
“That must have been Abaddon!” I said.
“Never thought to ask her what else the Angel of the Bottomless Pit might have gotten her to do,” Erasmus mused. “Makes sense that if he made a play for Theo and Gregor through Ulysses, he wouldn’t leave Miranda and me out entirely.”
“Bet this has something to do with that cavern of undead Italians,” Mab crowed, delighted at having his suspicions proven true. Several of the others gave him startled looks, but Erasmus merely chuckled.
“Those are intended for Aerie Ones, such as yourself.” Erasmus’s tone was light and cheery, as if he spoke of some obvious thing that everyone knew.
So, I was right about the bodies! Yet, my pleasure was short-lived. I may have figured out Father’s plan, but Erasmus had been privy to it all along. And to think that I had believed I was the one in whom Father confided!
Thinking back, I realized that Erasmus had never liked me. It was not until the early 1600s, however, just after Logistilla and Gregor came on the scene, that he became intolerable. But then, it was about that time, as well, that he stopped studying art and swordplay and threw himself into sorcery. That could hardly be the fault of the then young Logistilla.
If these dolls dated from the period of Logistilla’s youth, then they might indeed be the cause of our enmity. If they were recent, then they were of little interest, for, by now, they would merely be icing on the cake of mutual hostility.
Could Logistilla have been setting us against each other all her life? The idea of young Logistilla behaving in such a fashion was laughable. What would have motivated her to do such a thing?
I ran my finger through the dust. “I don’t think this could be Logistilla’s doing. It doesn’t make any sense.”
Titus looked relieved. “Miranda’s judgment is always good.”
“No,” Erasmus drawled maliciously, “Eurynome’s judgment is good. But the Unicorn no longer informs our sister’s decisions.”
Erasmus was right. Without my Lady to guide me, my judgment had proved faulty. I hesitated, uncertain.
Gregor leaned over and gave my shoulder a comforting pat. He said hoarsely, “It is for the best. Your soul is safer now that you have put that blasphemy behind you.”
That was the last straw. I was in Hell, in the midst of dust and ash, having scattered my family and lost my Lady, and my brother had the nerve to be less than respectful to Her!
I screamed. “My Lady is a loyal servant of your God! The one and only God! There are more things in heaven and earth, Gregor, than are dreamt of in your theology!”
Taken aback, Gregor stepped away from me. His face betraying his startlement.
“Whoa!” Erasmus threw up his arms as if to ward me off. “The wildcat has unsheathed her claws.”
“Enough with you!” I turned on him. “Didn’t you see the vision in Mephisto’s globe? Don’t you realize you are being manipulated by magic? You would think that, upon learning this, you might make some kind of effort to restrain yourself. But no! You’re just as malicious as ever! What is wrong with you, Erasmus?”
Theo’s firm grip came down on my shoulder. “What’s wrong with him is that he’s under a spell, just as I was. Forgive him.”
I shrugged his hand off and continued, glaring at my family. “As to Logistilla, I say she is innocent! She is petty, and she turns people into animals, I grant you that, but I do not believe she would
do something like this to us. Nor do I believe—” I turned on Theo—“that Father would cast a spell upon me, or any of us! I believe in our family! We might fight. We might annoy each other, we might even fake each other’s deaths or turn each other into bears, but when it really comes down to it, we are faithful, loyal!”
The others were staring at me as if I had sprouted wings from my ears. My tirade had impressed them, so seldom had they seen me get truly upset.
Erasmus spoke in his calm, oily voice. “I’m sure Father felt the same way about Antonio.”
If he had slapped me, I could not have felt more shocked.
He was right. Surely that betrayal had been as shocking as Logistilla’s would be to me. More so, for Father and Uncle Antonio had once loved each other dearly.
* * *
WE walked until Mephisto dropped midstep onto his face and lay snoring gently, as the dust formed puffs about him. The rest of us were too exhausted to drag him back to his feet, so the others insisted on making camp. I argued that we needed to keep pushing onward, to reach the others, to save Father, but Theo pointed out gently that if we dropped from fatigue before we made it to Father, we would not do him any good.
Mab snuck the crystal ball out of Mephisto’s pocket and asked it to show him the date. It was still the third of January. We had three days left, and the distance from Ulysses to Father did not seem very far. The only question remaining was how long it would take to rescue the other three—Ulysses, Logistilla, and Cornelius. But as the others were already falling asleep, the point was moot.
Gregor took off his crimson robes and insisted that I, being the lady, rest upon them. I spread them out so that I slept upon one side, leaving the other side open for someone else. None of the men wanted to be the one to take the softer surface while the rest of them proved their manliness by sleeping on the hard ground. Finally, they dragged the sleeping Mephisto onto the robe and went off to make up their own beds with their jackets and bags.
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