by David Khalaf
“Beauty is so easy to conquer,” Vlad said, “if we can simply avoid the temptation to look.”
“Go, Gray,” Pickford said. “He won’t hurt me while you have the Eye.”
Vlad punched Pickford on the side, just below her ribcage. She grunted.
“On the contrary,” Vlad said. “I’ll take great pleasure in hurting you. I’m not called The Impaler for nothing.”
Vlad looked at Gray.
“I’ll give you one opportunity right now to make a swap. After that, Mrs. Pickford dies and I will hunt you down until I find you. What do you decide?”
“Don’t, Gray,” Pickford said. “He can’t have the Eye. Nothing is more important.”
Gray removed Newton’s Eye from his pocket. So much violence for something so simple looking. He wanted nothing more than to be rid of it. But if he gave it up, all of Pickford’s efforts would have been for nothing. Houdini’s death would have been for nothing.
“Fine,” Gray said. “Let her come to me first.”
“I’ll send her halfway,” Vlad said. “Then throw her the Eye and she’ll throw it to me. If she makes any other move I’ll shoot her dead. If she gives it to me you can both go home.”
Gray nodded. He set down the machete and removed the only other item from his pocket—the small compact mirror.
Plan B.
The struggle for control of Newton’s Eye wouldn’t end at Atlas. Someone would always fight to own it. Someone would always be willing to kill for it. And someone had to be willing to end it.
Gray couldn’t think about it too long or else he knew he wouldn’t go through with it. He simply had to move. He would be a Studebaker, his insides wrapped in steel, speeding down an asphalt boulevard. But this time, he would be driving with purpose.
He opened up the compact mirror. His hand was shaking. He held the Eye up to his face, then began to lift the mirror.
Infinite reflection.
Gray looked away. He couldn’t do it. It was the right thing to do. It would save the others and keep the Eye out of the wrong hands forever. And yet, with the moment at hand, he was unable to make the sacrifice. He dropped the compact mirror.
Self-preservation’s the first law of nature.
Someone yanked Gray into a side aisle.
“Checking your makeup?”
Gray saw Douglas Fairbanks crouched in the shadows. His speech was slurred and one hand was bent at a wrong angle.
“What were you doing just now?” Fairbanks asked. Gray didn’t answer, but the combination of sweat and relief on Gray’s face was evident enough.
“You were going to destroy the Eye, weren’t you?”
A gunshot glanced off the wooden boxes next to him. Gray and Fairbanks pulled back.
“Quick, what’s his name?” Fairbanks asked. “His real name?”
“Vlad,” Gray said. “The prince of Wallachia.”
“That has a nice ring to it.”
He stood and stepped out into the aisle.
“Put down the pistol, Vlad, prince of Wallachia. And stay where you are, please.”
The tintinnabulation of Fairbanks’s voice resonated throughout the warehouse. Vlad’s energy bent toward Fairbanks, and he set down the gun.
“We were in the midst of a trade, Fairbanks,” Vlad said. “You should stay out of it.”
Fairbanks walked over and picked up the gun with his good hand.
“What lovely locks you have, Vlad, prince of Wallachia. What Burden are you?”
“Health.”
Fairbanks looked him up and down, impressed.
“You’re the old man? Someday you must share your beauty secrets. But not today.”
Fairbanks winced as he took Pickford’s arm with his injured hand.
“Mary, come with me.”
Her energy bent toward him and she took his hand.
The two walked halfway toward Gray. Fairbanks turned back to Vlad.
“Tell me the truth, Vlad. Were you really going to let Pickford and Gray go?”
The old man pinched his mouth momentarily, but his energy bent forward and he couldn’t keep the words from spilling out.
“I was planning to kill both of them. Painfully, if possible.”
“I see,” Fairbanks said. He raised the gun and shot Vlad three times in the chest. The man staggered backward but caught his footing.
“That won’t do much,” Gray said.
Vlad cracked his back. He pulled open his shirt to reveal bullet holes that were already healing.
“And I thought Atlas was a problem,” Fairbanks said.
Gray held up the machete.
“I could chop off his head,” Gray said.
Fairbanks scratched his chin with the barrel of the gun.
“It couldn’t hurt,” he said. “Not us, at least. Give me that, Gray, and stay there.”
Gray handed the machete to Fairbanks, who walked back over to Vlad.
“You have no idea what you’re doing,” Vlad said. “If you had any sense you would lop off the boy’s head. He’s the real danger.”
Fairbanks sighed.
“Lean over, please.”
Vlad complied. Fairbanks lifted the machete high and with one swift stroke lopped off his head. It rolled to the ground past Fairbanks’s feet. Vlad’s eyes came to rest on Gray. They were still full of life.
Vlad’s body stood up in shock, then knelt to its hands and knees and felt around for its head. Fairbanks kicked the head down a side aisle.
“That’ll buy us some time.”
Fairbanks embraced Pickford. Gray noticed that she hugged him back.
“My darling,” he said. “You’re safe at last. I told you I would rescue you.”
Pickford held on to him, and Gray wondered whether it was out of love or whether she was too weak to support herself.
“Now wait just a minute,” Gray said. “If we’re passing out medals, the only one you deserve is for being a lying double-crosser.”
“I did just save your life,” Fairbanks said. “You wouldn’t consider me a hero?”
Gray said nothing.
“Well?” Fairbanks said.
“I think you’re the worst kind of villain,” Gray said. “The kind who claims to be good and then betrays his friends. You called me a bastard, but you’re the real one.”
Fairbanks bit his lower lip. It appeared not to be the answer he was used to getting. He slumped a little.
“I always assumed I was the hero of this story. Maybe it’s because I always played one on film. Was I really so wrong to do whatever it took to save your mother?”
Pickford tugged on Fairbanks’s arm.
“Let’s go,” she said. “While we can.”
He turned and looked at her, deep into her mesmerizing eyes.
“I did all this to save you, Mary. Won’t you come back to me? Won’t you love me like you used to?”
Pickford took his good hand into both of hers.
“You can make me come back to you, Douglas. You have the power to make me do whatever you want. I could be your slave. But I could never love you again, not the way we used to. You’ve proven yourself to be a coward and a traitor.”
The gleam in Fairbanks’s eyes died. For the first time Gray had known him, the man looked tragically mortal.
“But Mary…You’re all I have!”
The warehouse door came crashing down. Sunlight flooded the giant room. Darko Atlas filled the doorframe. He stepped inside, where Gray could make out his face. It was bloated and veiny. His eyes were blood red and bulging so far from his skull Gray was sure they would pop out.
Fairbanks walked up to him.
“Stay there, Atlas!”
But Atlas swatted Fairbanks to the side, sending him into a stack of crates. Blood trickled out of his ears. He couldn’t hear Fairbanks.
“Eye…Deda,” Atlas wheezed. “My only chance.”
Pickford stepped up to Atlas, focusing all of her beauty on him. Rays of energy beamed fr
om her face.
“You can chase me until the day I die,” she said. “But you will never have the Eye. Now leave.”
But Atlas just stood there, looking at her with unfocused, bloodshot eyes. Even her Beauty seemed to have no effect on him in this state. He brought his fist down on some metal scaffolding next to him and it crumpled like paper. He then reached out for Pickford and grabbed her around the waist.
“Die,” he said.
She grabbed at his hand as he lifted her off the ground.
“Gray, the Eye!” Fairbanks shouted. “Give it to me. Quickly!”
Gray pulled the Eye from his pocket but hesitated.
“Trust me,” Fairbanks said. “Just this once. For your mother.”
Gray handed him the Eye.
“Atlas!” Fairbanks shouted.
The giant man looked in his direction.
“This ends here. See? The Eye!”
Fairbanks held up the Eye and waved it around to make sure Atlas could see it. He then cast a glance at Gray.
“I hope you’ll accept this as my sincere apology.”
Fairbanks blew a kiss to Pickford.
“You are the love of my life, Mary Pickford! If I can’t be your hero in life, then let me be it in death.”
Fairbanks held the Eye up to his face and walked over to a full-length mirror someone had used for dressing. Just as he had seen Gray do, he looked through the narrow side and leaned in so the mirror would reflect his gaze.
Gray remembered what Howard Hughes had told him: A Burden’s power would bounce back and forth, gaining intensity in an endless loop until the energy destroyed the device and released the essence inside.
The metal around the Eye glowed red hot. Fairbanks struggled to grasp it as it burned his hand. It sizzled and Gray could smell burnt skin, but still Fairbanks grasped the object and looked through it to the mirror. There was a pop of breaking glass and Fairbanks collapsed.
“Douglas, no!”
The Eye rolled out his hand. Atlas dropped Pickford and reached down for it. The glass on both ends was broken and the inside looked like a burned-out bullet casing. Something like steam floated out of it and away.
Pickford knelt by Fairbanks.
“Oh, Douglas! Douglas!”
An otherworldly shriek left Atlas’s mouth as he examined the broken Eye. He crushed the remains of it in his hand. Then he raised his fist high into the air, about to bring it down on Pickford. She and Fairbanks would both die, together. Gray ran up to Pickford to pull her away.
But Atlas didn’t swing. He stood there, as if frozen in time. Then, like a top-heavy statue, he fell backward and smashed into the ground, cracking the concrete under him.
His eyes remained open, his fist still tight above his head. After a moment, Gray ventured over to him. Something changed about the man. Darko Atlas seemed to shrink. To wither just the slightest bit. It was difficult to place exactly what it was, but Gray had the sense of a balloon deflating. All of his parts were still there, but something had left him. His soul?
His strength.
Gray stood. He looked around for Vlad’s body. He followed a trail of blood down the side aisle where Fairbanks had kicked the head. Spatters of red followed a straight line and then curved left before abruptly ending at a cardboard box. This was where the head should be.
It was gone.
CHAPTER
F IFTY-TWO
GRAY HAD LOST so much blood the white scarf around his neck had turned black, like an eel caught in an oil slick. A loose end of it had even begun to float off his body.
He and Pickford staggered out of the warehouse together, through the parking lot and toward the street. Pickford was mostly unharmed—a bullet had only grazed her shoulder—but she was inconsolable over Fairbanks. She had pulled her veil down, but it didn’t mask her sobs.
As the sun grew higher in the sky, the chill from daybreak broke into a pleasant, mild morning. For a moment, the street was empty and silent. Young ficus trees planted along the sidewalk rustled softly in the breeze. Far off, there was a cry of sirens. It grew louder.
Before they had found a place to sit, the Grand Marshal car appeared, limping down the street toward them. It had two flat tires and was smoking from under the hood. Chaplin was driving. Panchito sat up front, with Elsie and Lulu in back. He pulled the car over when he saw Gray and Pickford.
As soon as Chaplin stepped out, Pickford stumbled into his arms.
“He’s gone!”
She sobbed into his chest.
“Atlas?”
“Douglas!”
Chaplin grew pale and put his arms around her. He gripped her fiercely, as if to squeeze out the pain, or perhaps to hold tight to the memories the three had shared for twenty-five years. Fairbanks had betrayed them, and yet his friends still grieved him.
Friendship that powerful was foreign to Gray. As much as he wanted to offer a kind word or gesture, he was helpless to comfort them. He stepped away.
When Elsie approached him, his heart leapt. He couldn’t help it. She must have sensed it because she smiled and forced a hug upon him. Her face was pale, as if all the blood had drained from it.
“You look like death,” he said.
“Not a dollface anymore?” Elsie asked.
“Or more a dollface than ever.”
She saw the scarf around his neck soaked in blood.
“What happened?”
“I was bit by Dracula.”
She gave him a look.
“I ain’t kidding.”
“Newton’s Eye,” Panchito said. “It’s destroyed, isn’t it?”
Gray nodded.
“How did you know?”
“Lulu doesn’t have my courage anymore.”
Lulu held a pebble in her hand. She screwed up her face but nothing happened.
“She’ll have to do with her normal amount of courage,” Elsie said, “which is more than enough for a girl her age.”
Lulu stuck out her tongue.
“I still have my speed.”
Gray noticed scratches on the side of Elsie’s face.
“What happened to you?”
“Jack Siegel,” she said, but before he could ask more, she shook her head. “I don’t want to talk about it. Not yet.”
While Pickford and Chaplin took a moment, Gray told the others about Atlas first, and then about Vlad the Impaler.
“How was Atlas killed?” Panchito asked.
“Some kind of poison, I think. I guess he wasn’t immune to that.”
“Vlad,” Elsie said, “He died too, right?”
Gray had a flash of the head rolling toward him, its expression obstinate in the face of death. Those eyes that locked with Gray’s, they spoke as clearly as if words had been said aloud:
I’ll be back for you.
“Probably,” Gray lied. “His head came clean off. Fairbanks kicked it like a football.”
“And even if he isn’t dead,” Panchito said, “The Eye is destroyed. There’s nothing else he wants.”
Gray nodded, and even offered a smile that didn’t feel convincing.
He wants me. He wants all of us.
“Right,” Gray said. “I think we’ll be able to get back to normal.”
Normal.
What did that mean? Nothing would be normal ever again. And that was a good thing. He belonged to a group of people now. No one could take that away from him. These friends, they were a team. Maybe more than a team. Maybe a family.
“It’s best that no one sees us,” Gray said. “We should hightail it back to…”
Gray didn’t know how to finish the sentence. To where? He wouldn’t go back to the home, not for a thousand new fedoras. And he had agreed to leave Chaplin’s mansion.
Panchito clapped him on his good shoulder.
“You can stay with me for a while. We’ll figure something out.”
“Nonsense.”
Pickford entered their circle. She must have overhead them.
<
br /> “You’re my son. You’ll live with me.”
The first image in Gray’s mind was of the quaint drawing of Pickfair on the moviegraph map. Then he remembered he had seen the real Pickfair—he had been through its iron gates and crossed the sprawling lawn. There were more bedrooms than he could count, and he had heard there was even a swimming pool in back.
Most important, it was where Mary Pickford lived. It was where his mother lived.
“Girls, you’ll stay with us too until we find you more suitable housing,” Pickford said. “I believe Elsie is overdue for a career change. Now, let’s get home where I can call my house doctor and get everyone properly cared for. He’s very discreet. He’s used to my eccentricities.”
Pickford gave one long glance back at the warehouse.
“Charlie, can you…?”
Chaplin nodded.
“I’ll take Doug to his home. We’ll make sure he’s discovered there.”
That settled, Pickford let out a shaky sigh.
“Good. Now, let’s just get through today so we can get on to tomorrow.”
She squeezed Gray on the arm.
Just get through today.
“And then what?” he asked. “Then what do I do?”
She touched his head, tentatively at first. When he didn’t recoil, she mussed his dirty blond hair.
“You’re the son of Mary Pickford, the heir to Harry Houdini, and a friend of Charlie Chaplin. You’ll do anything you like.”
There weren’t enough pages in the newspaper to cover all of the happenings of the past few days. The onslaught at the Rose Parade, the death and funeral of Douglas Fairbanks, the wrongful arrest of Charlie Chaplin for the Star Stalker murders. The overabundance of gossip put Hollywood at a standstill for the better part of a week.
Fortunately, luck was on their side. Luck, and a few reporters Charlie Chaplin kept in his pocket. In true Chaplin style, he was able to twist a few details from the events to their favor.
From what Gray could gather from articles in the Examiner and the Times, everyone agreed that Darko Atlas, an ex-convict with a lackluster circus show, was the true Star Stalker. He had attempted to abduct Shirley Temple during the Rose Parade, but police got wind and swapped Temple out with a stand-in at the last minute. Atlas had been bravely beaten back by police, and was mortally wounded.