by Dana Cameron
“Get to the gate,” Claudia said as she rose. She looked for all the world like someone whose flight had been called, purposeful but unhurried. “We’ll deal with this.”
“The Wi-Fi cut out, damn it,” Gerry said. “Don’t wait; I’ll e-mail you the rest of the files, what we have on Parshin. You’ll have them by the time you land.”
Nothing else mattered but getting on that plane and saving Danny.
The sight of the team of other Fangborn coming toward us decided it. I turned and legged it for the security line.
And stopped dead. A moment before, the line had been nonexistent. Now several groups converged on it. They were moving, but far too slowly for me to avoid the other Fangborn.
I didn’t think the Fangborn wanted to draw attention to themselves—not with their secrets—but neither could I afford the attention, not with what was in the bottom of my bag. I didn’t want them to get too close; I remembered the snake-man at the construction site uncomfortably. And now there were enough of them to “suggest” I get out of line and go with them.
I glanced around, as casually as I could, and saw Claudia approach them. Gerry was still in the coffee shop, trying to get the files sent to me.
The group of six Fangborn split up. Three stayed with Claudia and three came toward me.
I turned, trying not to think about what would happen when they caught up with me. If I stepped out of line, they’d catch me. If I didn’t, and a ruckus ensued within sight of security, chances were almost nil I’d be allowed on the plane. I had to make that flight; Danny’s life depended on it, it seemed.
I closed the minuscule gap between me and the family of six ahead, four little girls with their pink Hannah Montana backpacks. I checked my watch. Twenty minutes till the flight boarded.
The line stalled as the little girls struggled to get out of their backpacks. The other line was no better, a group of traveling seniors who weren’t up to speed on their liquids allowance, every other one of whom had a pacemaker or a metal prosthetic. The third line was looking likely until a sizable flight crew, wearing uniforms identical to the woman who’d checked me in, cut ahead of the two business travelers. I realized with a start that they were probably staffing my flight, now just minutes from boarding.
A gasp behind me, followed by a shout.
Don’t turn around, Zoe, I told myself. It doesn’t have anything to do with you.
A shove, and I swung around, ready to demand to know what was going on.
The guy behind me held up his hands. “Sorry—there’s some maniac back there.”
Maniac sounded oddly familiar.
I nodded and glanced around with an awful feeling that I knew what I’d see.
The coffee shop had seating adjacent to the bar on the concourse floor, separated by only a railing. Sean had reached over the railing and grabbed a beer from someone sitting there; the owner objected. The Fangborn following me also objected as Sean careened right into them. The beer he was holding crashed to the floor, foam and glass splashing them all. He slammed into one of them and grabbed at the ones on either side of him.
The Fangborn tried to shove past Sean, the most inconvenient human speed bump ever. He staggered into them, clutching their clothing to hold himself up.
True to Claudia’s suggestion, Sean was helping me make my flight.
TSA guards emerged, then the state police. I saw Gerry join the fray, acting as if he was trying to separate the struggling parties, but in actuality, he was slowing the other Fangborn down even more. At the sight of the cops, all but two of the Fangborn melted away as fast as they could.
No one was going to be bothered with me when they had angry cops asking questions. I turned; the Hannah Montanans finally collected their belongings, tied their shoes, and moved on. They left, a pink comet tail vanishing, the security gate suddenly duller.
I dumped my bag onto the conveyor belt, took off my shoes, and handed my ticket and passport to the TSA guy. “I’m tired just watching them,” I said, gesturing to the pink posse as they headed for their gate.
“It’s gonna be a long flight for Mom and Dad,” he agreed. He nodded me through, and I waited on the other side of the body scan. My bag rode out of the scanner, then paused.
My heart stopped as the belt reversed. They were taking a second look at my carry-on.
My figurine was in there. And, oh hell, my trowel and my knife. I didn’t need delays while they…
An inspector called a second one over. They conferred, pointing at the image on their screen.
I wondered if they’d believe my concocted story about teaching examples and replicas.
Don’t worry about those things in my bag, I thought as hard as I could. These aren’t the droids you’re looking for. I’m totally harmless. Don’t notice, don’t notice…
Another moment passed. I vaguely wondered where I was getting my oxygen from, because I knew I was holding my breath.
I heard one mutter “cell phones,” and realized they’d paused over the two I had in my bag.
The bag slid out again, and I grabbed it and my shoes and moved out of the way as fast as I could.
As I put my shoes on, I glanced through the security gate. Claudia had joined the TSA and was smoothing things over. She didn’t look at me. Gerry did.
He gave me a thumbs-up, then turned back to the discussion with the police.
I breathed out and picked up my bag. My gate was to the left, and if I hurried—
“Hang on a minute, miss!”
The security guard was calling me. I wondered what would happen if I just ignored him, kept walking.
“Hey! You in the blue hoodie!”
Cursing, I turned.
He held up the plastic bowl containing my watch. “You forgot this.”
I nearly told him to keep it, but I managed a sheepish smile and retrieved it. “Thanks.”
“Gotta keep it together,” he said.
“I’m doing my best, brother.” I trotted down to my gate. They invited the first-class and business passengers to board almost as soon as I arrived. I found my seat.
First class was nicer than many of the places I’ve lived, and almost as private, with the seats that extended into beds in their little cocoons. But as solitary as much of my life had been, for the first time, I was truly alone.
I looked around to see if I could spot one of Dmitri’s men. Everyone looked reassuringly boring, but then so had Claudia and Gerry. No one, including me, was what she seemed.
As I shut the overhead compartment, I saw my hand trembling. I sat, and immediately the cabin attendant offered me a glass of champagne.
This was new; clearly she didn’t know who I was. I smiled as I accepted it, trying not to giggle insanely. In fact, I wasn’t sure I knew who I was anymore. From an early morning ambush by my so-called family, to the revelation of what I was, to Danny’s kidnapping, I couldn’t say it had been an ordinary day. I must be someone special for all this to happen.
As I stared at the champagne glass, watching the bubbles rise up in steady lines to the surface of the pale gold liquid, I wondered what it must be like to expect treatment like this all the time. For some people, it was just life, just as my life was all about gypsy peregrinations. As far as anyone here knew, this was what I was used to. I flew to European capitals all the time, swilling champagne and having people worry that I was happy. Hell, I’d never even been to Europe. I didn’t even know anyone there—
Wait.
My hand stopped shaking, but not because of the alcohol. A plan came to me, not just about getting what I needed to save Danny, but also to keep Dmitri from turning around and killing us both after he got the figurine. The more I thought about it, the more it made sense—if I could pull it off. Dmitri might know too much about me, but he didn’t know everything, and he didn’t know all my resources, scant as they might be. The idea grew and blossomed, and the more I tried to punch holes in it, the more I found answers. All through dinner, served on re
al porcelain with real glass, I thought about it, and by the time I was offered a brandy, I thought it might work.
That’s when the trembling started up again, twice as bad as before.
Chapter 8
After dinner, I went through my bag, looking for my own phone, the one with my address book in it, the one I hoped still had Jenny Kelner’s old address in London. That’s when I came across the yellow pencil box. Curiosity overcame me, and I opened it, wondering what childish keepsakes I’d find.
There wasn’t much. A small notepad with no cover and a crushed spiral binding; inside was a flip-page cartoon of a flower growing. A bundle of ancient playing cards, their corners bent and their surfaces rubbed blurry. Two SuperBalls, their brilliant colors now cloudy and the plastic disintegrating. An Optimus Prime action figure, whose joints still moved, albeit arthritically. A shiny mechanical pencil with no lead. A small doll…
Not a doll. It was clay.
I turned over the object, my fingers suddenly cold, my heart racing. I recognized it, but not from my childhood.
It was nearly a twin to the figurine I’d taken from the museum. Like the one Dmitri had described, in Rupert Grayling’s collection. This was male, but with the same stylized robes and faded painted coloring. It had suffered more than mine through the years: an outstretched arm was missing, along with part of its face.
I shivered.
There was a string tied around the base, with a small tag. On the tag was my mother’s handwriting:
This was your father’s. It’s the only thing of his, besides you, I took.
I didn’t remember playing with it. And yet here it was, among what I valued most as an eight-year-old. Clearly Ma had put it in the box, but perhaps there was some vague recollection of this figurine that prompted me to take the other from the museum?
A thrill ran through me when I realized it didn’t matter where the piece had come from. It might give me an edge in getting to Rupert Grayling, in somehow convincing him to give me the figurine in his possession.
Unless I could convince Dmitri this was the one he was looking for?
I banished the thought immediately. If he was willing to kidnap Danny, he was also quite clear about the object he wanted. He’d described it as female, with a helm—an image of Athena probably. This wasn’t even close.
So maybe I could use this fragment of a third figurine as insurance, to get me and Danny out alive.
As I wrapped up the new figurine, it took me a moment to realize there was one last thing in the bottom of the pencil case. A creased postcard from Will, from before we broke up. It said:
“Dear Zoe, Rome is amazing—and dangerous!! There are masterpieces everywhere, and I’ve never seen driving like this, not even in Boston. I’ve eaten like a Sus scrofa every night. Since you can’t see Rome properly in a week (yes, yes, I am going to the conference, too!), I’ll have to come back, and bring you with me next time. Love you, Will.”
On the reverse was a picture of the famous bronze, the she-wolf suckling Romulus and Remus.
I hadn’t put the card in here, but I bet Ma had—and I realized that’s probably when she put the figurine in here as well. She had never accepted my trumped-up reasons for leaving Will and had always pushed me back toward him. Maybe she’d put it in here hoping that if I saw it again someday, it would change my mind.
It wasn’t my mind that needed changing about Will.
Will and me…a complicated situation made more complicated by my secret personality disorder.
We shouldn’t have happened, according to him, because he’d been a TA teaching one of my sections.
We shouldn’t have happened, according to me, because my mother and I were always on the move. Maybe I stayed with my mother longer than most kids would have, but we were all we had, and I was convinced she needed me as much as I needed her. Permanent boyfriends weren’t an option in my teens, and even when we stayed in one place for more than two years, while I finally finished up my BA after six years of patching together credits from various programs, I still shied away. I mean, why get close to someone when you could turn into a werewolf and bite him, maybe turn him into a Beast? Or why get close to someone if you were afraid the Beast was a psychotic hallucination? Either way, dating didn’t make sense to me.
When I found myself engaging in class only to hear him talk, when I realized I was hanging around in the hallways afterward, reading flyers for field schools abroad and teaching positions and fat fellowships for Mayanists, I firmly told myself to put Will out of my mind.
When he emerged from the office he shared with three other graduate students, I turned to leave.
“Anything I can help you with, Zoe?”
I shook my head. “Do you want to have a coffee with me, sometime?”
I wished I could have dropped through the floor. Was my mania worsening? What had I just finished telling myself?
About six different expressions crossed his face. My heart leaped when I thought I saw a flash of happiness, then crashed when he shook his head.
“Wouldn’t be right. Not with you in my class.”
“I get it,” I said. But no sooner had I resigned myself to his answer than I found myself saying, “But you hang out with other undergraduates all the time.”
“Yeah, in groups. Hanging out. This isn’t that, is it?”
“No, I suppose not.”
“Look, if you’re still interested at the end of the semester, ask again.”
“Any hint what answer I’ll get then?” I said. I liked his forth-rightness and strict sense of morals.
He just shrugged. “Gonna have to wait and find out.” Had it been a hint of a smile I saw as he turned?
At the end of the semester, I lingered after he handed out our graded exams, making sure I was last in line so we’d be alone.
“So…coffee?” I said, my blue exam book crushed in my hand behind my back. Of course I’d gotten an A. I busted my hump to do it. No sense showing yourself to be an idiot in front of the guy you’re interested in, right?
Will had made it easy to succeed, too. He was a good teacher and had a talent for explaining things so even the densest student understood. And he had a way of communicating his own excitement about the classical past and how we explore it. It would have been embarrassing for us both if I’d gotten anything less than an A.
His face went blank. “Um…”
“Look, if you’re not interested, just say so,” I said. “I can take it.”
“Thing is, you’ve signed up for Springer’s method and theory class, right?”
“Yeah. It’s the last one I need to graduate.” After six years of wandering, taking an extensive tour of community and state colleges, I had enough credits to graduate. A miracle.
“Well, Springer isn’t teaching it, because he’s going to Arizona. I’m taking over. So it wouldn’t be right, now, to get invol…coffee…with you. I’m sorry.”
I nodded and figured in another four or five months I’d be on my way somewhere else with Ma. So it was all OK.
Except I didn’t believe that. And I don’t think Will did either, because whenever groups of the students were heading out for a beer or to a lecture, he made sure I was with them. And while he didn’t ever just break down and take me on a date, we did spend some serious time talking. Never alone, but always…intimate.
By the end of the semester, when I showed him the completed forms that said, yes, finally, I would graduate, we were friends.
Which made it kind of awkward when we went to get that coffee. Enforced chastity becomes a habit, and habits shared by two people are hard to overcome.
We both sucked at small talk and ran out of chitchat after catching up with where everyone would be working for the summer. Suddenly I found myself wishing I hadn’t tried so hard to get a job at the same contract company Will and Sean were working for.
“Let’s get out of here,” he said. Then he spilled his drink in his eagerness to leave, and we spent a f
ew awful, embarrassing minutes cleaning it up.
We strolled down Bay State Road. Found a bench with a view of the flowering cherry trees and the freshly resodded verges, made pretty for returning alum and parents coming for graduation. Spring in Boston can’t be overrated.
I turned back to Will as he leaned in to kiss me.
What we couldn’t sort out with casual talk, we worked out with kissing. Within a week, we’d slept together. Inside of two weeks, I had a drawer at his place and was kicking in for the grocery bill with him and Sean.
During those four perfect months, I was nearly able to forget all about why Ma and I had been so peripatetic. I was nearly able to forget about the Beast. I broke my cardinal rule, the one that had guided me since I was sixteen.
I let myself think about the future.
I let Will talk about how we’d do contract work until it was time for me to decide about doing an MA, about how he’d finish his PhD, and then we’d take a summer and hit the Mediterranean sites. I let him use words like “when” and “if,” because, on his lips, they were intoxicating.
Served me right, what followed.
Didn’t matter now, I told myself as I flagged down the cabin attendant. I asked if I could have another brandy. I didn’t really like brandy, but the burning in my throat distracted me from thinking about Will.
Problem was, I’d already let myself think about Will. I fell asleep remembering why I’d broken up with him, which led to a dream.
I’d been in a bar, celebrating something with someone, but couldn’t get into the mood. Will was visiting family, Ma and I had had a fight, and there was something about the frustration and tediousness of writing boilerplate field reports that brought the Beast very close to the surface. Liquor and drugs helped only if I was alone, it seemed, and there was nothing in the party to make me happy. Some of the guys were arguing sports, which seemed about the stupidest thing in the world to me; the ladies’ room had long ago exceeded acceptable levels of filth. It was crowded and hot.
I thought I was showing good judgment when I left. Turns out I was only looking for trouble.