by Max Turner
“Do you think the others are all right?” Charlie asked.
“I’d better call.” Mr. Entwistle pulled out his cell phone. “Thank God for technology. Can you imagine how easy life would have been for the Hardy Boys if they’d had these things?”
Charlie looked at me and mouthed, Hardy Boys?
I shrugged. I had no idea who they were. Pioneers maybe.
The old vampire slowed to talk. I heard Ophelia’s voice on the other end. “Yeah, it’s John. We’re turning around. We followed tracks to Douro, but found another set heading back into town. They’re fresher, so we’re following those. Keep your eyes open. Hyde might be heading your way. Are Agent X and Baddon there?”
I heard Ophelia say no. They were at the hospital. I remembered what my uncle had told me. That his last radiation treatment was in the morning. He must have gone in early with Baddon so the detective could be with his son.
“Call if there’s trouble,” Mr. Entwistle said, then hung up. “They’re alone. Let’s motor.”
“Why did Agent X leave?” Charlie asked.
“He was taking Baddon to the hospital. My guess is, they’ll both be staying there.”
Charlie shook his head. We hurdled a farm fence. Mr. Entwistle sped up and we followed. I was starting to falter. I hadn’t recovered from my visit to the hospital. I loved few things more than running at night, but my gas tank was down to fumes.
“I had a bad feeling about him,” Charlie said.
“Who?”
“Agent X. Who did you think I meant? Did anyone else shoot me with a tranquilizer? How do you trust a guy when you don’t even know his name?”
I didn’t have an answer for this. I looked over at Mr. Entwistle. He was listening, his eyes busily scanning for the next footprint.
“When you get to be my age, boys,” he said, “you discover there are reasons not to trust everybody. You can twist your mind into a pretzel thinking about it. Trust, I wouldn’t get too hung up on it.”
I was surprised to hear this. The way Ophelia made it sound, trust was one of the founding principles of the universe. Trust and order.
“You mean you don’t trust anybody?” Charlie asked.
Mr. Entwistle shook his head. “It isn’t about trust. It’s about understanding. Should I trust you?”
“Yeah. Of course.”
“Okay. Imagine this scenario. Hyde has Suki as a hostage. He asks you to betray me, or he’ll kill her. Should I still trust you?”
Charlie started to answer.
Mr. Entwistle cut him off. “Think. Is your first loyalty to her or to me? Now what about Baddon? You know how he feels about his son. What do you think he might do if something happened to the boy, if the Coven took him, for example? Would the detective sell your soul to get his son back? Count on it.”
The old vampire looked at us and laughed. “See what I mean? You could go nuts worrying about all the possibilities. All the reasons not to trust people. Me, Baddon, Agent X.”
I was pleased he didn’t add Ophelia to that list. Or Luna or Suki for that matter.
“So don’t focus on trust,” he told us. “Focus on understanding everyone’s situation. Everyone’s point of view. And what they want. Hyde. Baddon. Dr. Abbott. Agent X. When you know what people want, and how they plan to get it, you can stop thinking about trust and focus on what you need to do to help them, if it’s the right thing, or how to stop them, if that’s the right thing.”
“What does Agent X want?” Charlie asked.
“To stay alive,” said Mr. Entwistle. “He’s part of the Underground, so his interests are our interests. You can count on that.”
The old vampire looked up at the sky, then sped up. He definitely had more fuel to burn than me. I did my best to follow. The pace he kept made it impossible to talk. Maybe that’s what he wanted. The sun would soon be up. We were running out of night.
Eventually, Hyde’s trail took us around to the south side of the city.
“This is good,” said Charlie.
I agreed. It meant Hyde wasn’t heading for the apartment.
We entered the land of sidewalks and roads and it got more difficult to follow the trail. At Hyde’s speed, he didn’t leave much of an odor behind. All we had to go on were his footprints, and with all the pavement, clear ones were often half a block apart. It was slow going. Eventually, we wound up on Neal Drive. Mr. Entwistle pointed to a set of Dumpsters sitting beside a long building. It looked like a series of miniature garages sitting side by side. The sign in the driveway said Peterborough Multiple Storage. He made his way over, crouched in the shadows, and stared at the building.
“What are we doing?” Charlie whispered.
“Thinking. Now quit stealing all my oxygen.”
I tried to quiet my breathing. It was just starting to settle when Mr. Entwistle stood up and crept along the back of the storage units. He stopped outside one in the center of the row, number 6.
“Is he in there?” I whispered.
Mr. Entwistle nodded. He put a finger over his mouth and quietly tested the knob. It was locked. He paused. His eyes rolled up slightly while he considered what to do. Then he drew out the knife—the one Maximilian had given me—and kicked the door in.
— CHAPTER 32
MONKSHOOD
The doorframe buckled under the force of Mr. Entwistle’s boot. Pieces of cinder block scattered as the housing for the dead bolt tore loose from the wall.
“Well, there goes the element of surprise,” Charlie muttered.
The old vampire laughed. “The way you two breathe, he could hear you through six feet of concrete.” He stuck his head in the doorway. “Honey, I’m home.” His voice was remarkably steady.
I listened, but heard nothing but the sound of dust settling on cardboard. The room was full of packing boxes and not much else.
“Well, let’s see what Old Yeller was up to.” Mr. Entwistle moved carefully into the room.
I stopped in the doorway. There was nowhere else to go. The room had cardboard boxes piled floor to ceiling along each wall. The only place to walk was a path down the center that ended at the far side.
“You sure he’s gone?” Charlie asked.
“Unless he taped himself inside a box,” Mr. Entwistle replied.
I started forward. He stopped me with his hand. He was inspecting the floor. Then he turned his attention to the labels on the boxes.
“Sorry. You can come in. I just didn’t want you walking all over his footprints until I had a chance to check them out.” Mr. Entwistle reached up and pulled a box down. It said CLOTHES on it. He started picking at the tape. Then he shook his head. “Here. Let’s get those ones down.”
“What are we doing?” I asked. I thought if Hyde was gone, we should be hightailing it. He might have been anywhere in town by now, including the apartment.
“I want to know what he came here for.”
“Is all of this his?” Charlie asked.
“Not unless his name is Nancy.” Mr. Entwistle pointed to a box. “That’s our winner, right there.” On one side the words NANCY—COSMETICS were written in black marker. The tape wasn’t sticking to the cardboard properly, as if it had recently been pulled loose. Mr. Entwistle lifted the box down and opened the top, then he whistled as if he’d struck gold. Charlie and I stuck our heads closer to see inside. It was packed with makeup cases, lipstick rolls, mascara, perfumes. Enough to keep Kiss in costume for a decade. Sitting on top were a bunch of yellow flowers. They’d dried somewhat, but were still fragrant. Mr. Entwistle was staring at them.
“What are they?” I asked.
“Monkshood,” he said.
The name fit. The flowers looked like tiny hoods.
“Why would he want these?” Charlie reached in.
Mr. Entwistle stopped him. “You mean you’ve never heard of monkshood?”
“What, like I work for FTD?”
“A simple no will suffice.”
“Well then, no,” Charl
ie said. “I’ve never heard of monkshood.”
“It has another name. Wolfsbane. You heard of that?”
Wolfsbane. I had heard of it. Charlie and I used to play Dungeons & Dragons. I wasn’t sure if I should admit to this or not. But poisons were part of the game. Wolfsbane was right up there with hemlock and belladonna.
“You mean you never played D & D as a kid?” Mr. Entwistle asked. “Too bad. Great game. I guess you two didn’t hang out with the cool kids in the neighborhood. If you had, you’d know that wolfsbane is lethal. Back when I was your age, people nailed it to their doors to keep wolves and lycanthropes away. It’s deadly stuff.”
“I’ll try to remember that when I roll up my next half-orc assassin,” Charlie said.
“I prefer human wizards, myself.” Mr. Entwistle stared down inside the box, then started humming to himself and scratching at the whiskers on his chin.
“What is it?” I asked.
“More questions . . . What is this stuff doing here? What does Hyde want it for? Whose storage unit is this?” Mr. Entwistle glanced around at the other boxes. “We should call in the morning and see if we can find out. I wonder . . .”
“You wonder what?” Charlie asked.
“Well, if this is registered to a man, it might be his alter ego.”
“The man he turns into?” I said.
“Yeah, his Dr. Jekyll.”
“What do you mean, Dr. Jekyll? Like the guy from that horror movie?” Charlie asked.
“It was a book first. Great werewolf.”
“He wasn’t a werewolf!”
“Not literally,” Mr. Entwistle explained. “Weren’t you listening earlier? I’m speaking figuratively. In the archetypical sense, Dr. Jekyll was the good persona, Mr. Hyde was the evil one. Why do you think I picked that name?”
Charlie shrugged. “Body hair? Hide—you know. A hairy hide.”
Mr. Entwistle looked at him, then at me.
I had thought Mr. Entwistle picked the name because we couldn’t ever find him, and that his secrets were hidden, but I was too embarrassed to say.
The old vampire shook his head. “How did you two nincompoops get out of elementary school?”
“I stopped going to school in grade two,” I said.
“And I think I got promoted so my teachers wouldn’t have to see me again,” said Charlie.
I didn’t think he was joking, but Mr. Entwistle laughed anyway.
“Right. Well, I think we can leave now. With any luck, we can find out who rents this unit. Hyde must have used a key. He got in without breaking the door. That’s a good sign.”
He started to fold the box closed.
“Don’t we want to take that with us?” Charlie said.
“Charlie, that would be stealing! Zack, what kind of company are you keeping?”
All of this from a guy who’d stolen a motorcycle and a Ford Mustang from the police, and an ambulance from the hospital. I checked his face for signs that he was joking. It was like reading a cement wall. He would have been deadly in a game of Texas Hold’em.
“Do you think the Almighty would forgive us if we just borrowed a sprig or two?” the old vampire asked. “You can give some to Luna and Suki.”
Yes, he was definitely joking.
“I’d rather give some to Hyde,” Charlie said.
“Only if we have to. Now how should we carry it? Just one scratch and it’s game over.”
“It’s that strong?” I asked.
“Yup.”
“The box is full of makeup bags,” Charlie said. “Can’t we just put some in one of those?”
“And to think I called you a nincompoop. Grow a few more brain cells, Charlie, and I’ll upgrade you to genius.” Mr. Entwistle looked at me and smiled, then reached into the box and pulled out a purse. The outside was covered with grotesque floral patterns. He tipped it upside down and the stash of makeup thingamabobs spilled out. Then he folded the bag over the bouquet of monkshood. He was careful not to touch any. Once it was zipped shut, he handed the bag to Charlie and pushed him toward the door.
“Why do I have to carry this thing?”
“It’s part of that boyish charm that got you through school. And it matches your eyes.” The old vampire herded us out the door, then did his best to close it behind us. It was bent and the housing for the dead bolt had torn free from the cinder-block wall. “If only we had some duct tape,” he muttered. Then he reached into his coat, pulled out a plastic bag, and jammed it under the door so that it was wedged closed. “Plastic bags—a million and one uses. Now, a million and two.”
I smiled. Charlie was still trying to figure out what to do with the handbag.
“Quit fussing,” Mr. Entwistle said. “Look on the bright side. If Hyde tries to kill us on the way home, you can fend him off with your purse.”
“Yeah. Great. If only my friends could see me.”
“Be careful what you wish for.” Mr. Entwistle fished into his pocket and came out with his cell phone. “Cheese!” He snapped a photo, then started out across the lot at a slow jog. “Yeah, I’m definitely tagging you on my Facebook page.”
Charlie was still staring at the handbag. “Where’s a good half-orc assassin when you need one?”
“I heard that,” the old vampire said. “Let’s go.”
“Where?”
“Good question. Can you find the trail?”
Charlie and I tested the air. All I could smell was garbage and dust and cooling asphalt. I checked the ground for prints, but saw nothing. “Where did he go?”
Mr. Entwistle snorted. “No idea. But we’re out of time. The sun will be up in an hour, and I forgot to bring my stolen ambulance with me. We’d better get back. You two ready?”
“Yeah.”
So we headed for home.
— CHAPTER 33
INFIGHTING
Hope is a funny thing. It can be totally unreasonable—bone dumb, in fact—and a part of it still clings to your brain. I remember as a kid hoping to find a light saber in my Christmas stocking. After reading my first Marvel Tales comic, I hoped that I might get bitten by a radioactive bug and receive the full range of superpowers you’d expect from such a miracle. You can bet all that hope came to nothing. But other times hope is dead-on. Like when you hope the winter will soon be over and it’s already late April. That’s the kind of hope you want to have. It’s less disappointing.
All the way home, I was thinking of Luna. I was hoping she’d be awake and that I could see her. And I was hoping that my hope wasn’t too unreasonable. When we reached the apartments, my first thought was to find her and head up the fire escape. Sadly, fate had other plans. The trouble started with our greeting in the backyard. My uncle was there in his ninja garb, Cobra Commander helmet and all. Mr. Entwistle clearly wasn’t expecting to see him.
“I thought you were at the hospital with Baddon?”
“I was. But I thought the greater threat was here, so I came back. I also wanted to know if you’d found Hyde.” Maximilian glanced over at us. If he noticed the purse Charlie was carrying, he said nothing. I was about to make a wisecrack about our failure to find my friend a decent set of matching high heels, but the look on his face told me it was best to shut up. He was looking at Maximilian intently, his pupils wide and his nostrils slowly flaring.
In some ways, vampires are closer to dogs than humans. Humans trust their eyes more than anything else. If I showed you a chunk of hot fudge, you’d think it was hot fudge, even if it smelled like strawberries. A dog wouldn’t be fooled. A strawberry is a strawberry because it smells like a strawberry. Charlie was sniffing the air as if he smelled a rat. You can bet that raised my blood pressure. He had good reason to despise my uncle—and if he figured out that Agent X was Maximilian, well then, I was sure episode one of Charlie Goes Homicidal was going to happen right there in the yard. I took a deep breath through my nose. The faint odor of hospital cleanser still clung to my uncle’s skin and clothes. No surprises there. He’d j
ust delivered Detective Baddon to see his son. I casually walked past my friend and took hold of his elbow, spinning him toward the door. If it sounds like an aggressive move, it wasn’t. I was just trying to get him focused on something other than Maximilian.
“Come on, Charlie,” I said. “The sun will be up soon. Let’s get inside. Maybe the lovely Suki Abbott is awake.”
Charlie fell in step beside me, but kept his head turned and his eyes on my uncle. Mr. Entwistle was giving him a play-by-play of our evening.
“We’ll be inside if you need us,” I said.
The old vampire nodded, then continued his narrative. Charlie and I navigated the front hall, then stopped outside of Ophelia’s first-floor apartment.
“Something about that guy isn’t right,” Charlie said. “I don’t care what Entwistle says about trust. There was no reason for him to shoot me.”
I didn’t know the best response for this. Any answer would have prolonged a conversation I didn’t want to have, so I said nothing. I wanted to see Luna, and the sooner I checked in with Ophelia to make sure she knew we were safe, the sooner I could go knock on Luna’s window.
“You know,” Charlie said, “I’ve been thinking. If Hyde is a werewolf, and Mr. Entwistle is right, he needs to turn into someone huge.”
I wondered where Charlie was going with this.
“So. Look at Agent X. He’s could be a WWE wrestler.”
I must have looked incredulous. I’d never for a second considered it.
“And he was at the hospital, then left, just before Hyde showed up. And now he’s snooping around here and he’s supposed to be with Baddon.”
Could this be true - that my uncle was Mr. Hyde? I was dumbstruck. And Charlie didn’t know the half of it. Maximilian had been hunting a werewolf earlier this year. He might easily have been bitten. It would explain why he’d never seen Hyde. Why they were never around together.