The Lost Prince Read online

  The brunette was in her twenties, with fair skin, freckles, and a delicate upturned nose most boys seemed to favor. She’d be missed. Her blood seeped into the rose-colored carpet from the wounds, fueling spongy brown stains that tried to join each other beneath her. It was Krebe’s third kill since arriving to this reality. If Dorn found out, he would kill Krebe for jeopardizing the mission. Oulfsan doubted if Dorn would even care which body his brother inhabited at that moment—he could end up losing his true vessel. And then what…? What happens if his brother ceases to live? If they knew for certain that the death of one of them would end the switch, Krebe would have killed Oulfsan years ago. Uncertainty was the only thing that kept that psychopath at bay.

  Oulfsan had some bittersweet gratitude toward his brother for providing a plastic tarp to dispose of the body. It was his duty to clean up the dirty mess because Krebe was too thick minded to handle the details. And, if Krebe went to prison, Oulfsan would also live half his life rotting behind bars. This untenable existence is what led Oulfsan to seek out Lord Dorn in the first place. His part of the agreement to serve Dorn included the wizard’s help in breaking the curse.

  He sold the idea to his brother by playing up the fortune they’d both earn in pay and plunder—after all, in a world with no telephones, their trick was useful in relaying information quickly between whatever distant points they occupied. One brother could scout miles ahead while the other stayed with the master, so that when they switched, information would be relayed instantaneously. Oulfsan convinced Krebe he’d have ample opportunity to engage his murderous hobbies across the continent and be protected under Dorn’s patronage. In Farrenheil, Dorn’s word was second only to his uncle, the archduke. Should Krebe’s habits be discovered, he would have been protected; Dorn and his uncle couldn’t care less about dead peasant girls. But here in this world, a serial murder investigation could jeopardize everything. Dorn was barely hanging on to sanity as it was. Oulfsan had to work quickly … the others would arrive eventually.

  He wrapped the girl’s body in the tarp and used duct tape to seal her in. He placed her in the bathtub gently and tried not to think of her life or the family that will miss her. He filled a large trash bag with ice from the lodge’s three machines, enough to pack the tub. The landing outside their room had a wide view of the parking lot; he hated the exposure. They should have gone to a traditional motel. The Baltimore area was still a mystery, but resided next to a bay with a large crab population. They were excellent scavengers and would make short work of the girl in no time. He would do it right after he located Colby.

  Oulfsan checked the iPad on the nightstand. The device was a late adaptation to this new reality due to Dorn and Kraten’s insistence early on that their group would not be in this universe for very long. Therefore they did not need to waste time with its alien distractions. As soon as it became clear they were not on the heels of the prince’s guardians, that in fact, some years might have passed since they arrived to this reality, Dorn relented. Kraten still clung to his archaic ways, but then that was the character of desert dwellers … they resisted change and resented progressives.

  The one device Oulfsan cherished and wished he could bring back to Aandor was the cellular phone. Assuming Krebe was willing to utilize it, the days of popping into his brother’s body, ignorant of his whereabouts or situation, would be a thing of the past. It was the most disconcerting thing—he’d once relocated to find himself in the middle of a tavern brawl that Krebe had instigated. Oulfsan could hold his own in a fight, but lacked his brother’s ruthlessness, and suffered for it often. Another time he found himself in the middle of having sex with a homely peasant girl who noted with dissatisfaction that he wasn’t nearly as rough toward the end as he had been when they started. She had no idea how close she’d come to having her throat cut that night, saved only by the switch. Oulfsan instructed her to change her appearance, gave her ten pieces of silver, and the most serious threat on her life he could muster to ensure she’d flee the village while she could. Krebe was furious at him for weeks as evidenced by the painful cuts on his arms and chest each time Oulfsan returned to his body.

  In Aandor, they wrote notes for each other on parchment, which they kept in specific pockets since they could never tell when they’d switch—but here they used the iPad. His brother’s recent log said:

  No sighting of Dretch. Car still at Days Inn on Governor Ritchie Highway where he checked in. No signal from his cell phone.

  When did Krebe find time to monitor the detective between luring and killing the girls? thought Oulfsan. There was a digital photo of the car, a tan 1995 Chrysler LeBaron, time-stamped four hours earlier. To add insult to injury, the last entry said:

  Clean the room before I return.

  Oulfsan launched the GPS application linked to the transmitter hidden in Colby’s trunk. Did Colby suspect they were tracking him? The car still sat in the Days Inn parking lot a few blocks away. Another app traced Colby’s cell phone, but that program worked sporadically. Oulfsan did not know enough about this technology to determine whether the program was malfunctioning or experiencing typical problems. It was as alien to him as magic. He found Krebe’s mobile phone in his brother’s coat and called Colby’s number. It went straight to voice mail.

  “Damn,” he whispered.

  Dorn had decided to reveal to the detective that he had been followed to Maryland and to inform Dretch he was no longer permitted to disappear for long periods. The master was shortening his leash, despite the age-old wisdom that the best hounds did not hunt tethered. There was no reason to doubt the detective; he’d been brilliant in picking up a trail from the fumes of thirteen years past. Dorn and crew had stumbled about with no success for weeks before Dretch. Nevertheless, his lordship was piling on the deterrents against any insubordination … anything to avoid eliminating the detective before they had the prince.

  Krebe’s cell rang. He didn’t recognize the number.

  “Hello,” Oulfsan said. His crisp annunciation clashed with his brother’s deep guttural rasp of a voice.

  “You rang?” came Dretch’s gruff Brooklyn accent. The sound of wind and cars in the background buffeted the phone.

  “Why are you not answering your mobile?” said Oulfsan.

  There was a moment’s pause. Oulfsan would have thought the connection cut if not for the car horns. “I’m in legal trouble in New York,” Colby said. “They trace cell phones. Can’t have the law realizing I’ve left the state. I check voice mail on a public landline, when I can find one, and call back from there.”

  There were a couple seconds of silence and ambient street noise before Oulfsan realized the detective was waiting for him to speak.

  “You’re not to be out of contact with us for more than a few hours going forward,” Oulfsan said. “Call any of our numbers with updates, but call someone.”

  “You know…,” Colby said, “if you’d hired me a day earlier, the kid’d be in your hands already. He’s on the run from the law. Lousy timing.” A few more seconds of near silence—cars and wind scraping through the earpiece. “Sure bet he’s out of state. I’ll do my best to stay in touch, but if he’s in the boonies hiding under a coal mine, I may not even get cell reception.”

  “Twelve hours, max,” Oulfsan said, grateful that his brother’s murderous voice gave weight to his threat—the same voice that saved that peasant girl.

  A blaring ambulance sped past the motor lodge.

  “Which one are you?” Dretch asked unexpectedly.

  “Krebe,” Oulfsan lied. “We met outside the diner in upstate New York.”

  “The tall butler?”

  Oulfsan hesitated—he was, in fact, the tall neatly dressed man, but explaining the switch would only confuse Dretch. “The other one,” he said, instead. Wind and car sounds danced through the receiver joined by a siren getting louder—even as the siren outside the motor lodge faded. He’s close, Oulfsan realized.

  “I want to meet,” said Oul
fsan, trying to not sound desperate. The detective had no idea how much danger he was in with Dorn. Oulfsan wanted to protect him for all their sakes. The whole mission rested on Dretch’s abilities. “I can be in Baltimore in … huh … four hours.”

  A few seconds later Colby added, “I’ll have some leads by end of day tomorrow.” The ambulance siren had nearly vanished on Colby’s end. “We’ll meet up before I go on the road.”

  That would work … give Oulfsan time to dispose of the girl’s body and figure out what to tell Hesz. “Very well,” he told Dretch. The detective hung up first.

  Oulfsan was about to call Hesz to inquire about the delay when someone pounded on the door. He froze, looked at the bloodstained carpet and then toward the bathroom. A second impatient thump followed. Oulfsan shut the bathroom door and threw a towel over the stain. He pulled one of Krebe’s daggers out of his brother’s jacket and silently made his way to the window facing the landing. The hulking figure of Hesz; the manly Hommar; and the smaller quadroon giant, Todgarten, nervously surveyed the parking lot under the indigo dusk sky. Oulfsan let them in.

  “Good journey?” asked Oulfsan.

  Hesz, who had no receptor for sardonic humor, scowled. “MacDonnell’s all-points bulletin for me forced us onto the small roads to avoid highway cameras.”

  “We were lost in New Jersey,” said Hommar. “In New Jersey, one turns right to go left, and the roads are littered with infernal circles that defy all rules of directional sense.”

  “A most infernal place, this New Jersey,” confirmed Todgarten.

  “What news of the detective?” Hesz asked.

  “I’ve spoken to Dretch today. He is again on the trail of the prince, who has run off to avoid the law. We meet with him tomorrow.”

  “Dorn is troubled by his continual disappearance,” Hesz noted.

  Aristocrats regularly took “lesser” men for granted, as though it were part of their highborn DNA, even when their servants’ abilities contributed to their advantage. All those not of noble birth were dispensable, which left 99 percent of the population in a very bad position.

  “Colby’s success is no doubt derived from his unorthodox methods,” Oulfsan said. “They might seem alien, even insubordinate to a lord of Farrenheil, but they have served us well. Was it not you who found this detective, Hesz?”

  The giant’s deep-throated grunt of affirmation confirmed for Oulfsan Hesz’s pride in accomplishing something Dorn and Kraten could not. Dorn’s temper and impatience were already legendary before he began to go mad. Dretch was poking a hornet’s nest with his mysterious tactics. He prayed the detective did not suspect they had no way of reverting him to normal, but given Dretch’s high intelligence and the ability to sniff out information from the smallest threads, Oulfsan had to consider that very possibility.

  “Colby is our greatest asset at the moment,” Oulfsan continued. “Even Dorn’s alternative plan for capturing the boy depends on the detective’s accomplishments so far. Let us not allow Lord Dorn to forget the man’s value to our cause.”

  For the sake of the mission, Oulfsan had to protect Dretch, and he needed allies. If Lord Dorn died a failure on this world, Oulfsan may never again find someone powerful enough to break the curse that bound him to his brother. Too many fragile links connected the steps of Oulfsan’s plan to rid himself of his brother and his bane. But, if they captured the prince and returned to Aandor in time to save Dorn from his malady—well, there were worse things than the gratitude of a powerful sorcerer.

  Hesz grunted again, cementing his reputation as a man of few words. Oulfsan wagered the frost giant wanted to see Dretch succeed as well. He seemed to have his own agenda independent of the mission to find the prince and, like Oulfsan, had to get past this point to achieve it. He would help cover for the detective—at least until there was evidence that Dretch plotted to betray them.

  Hesz caught the scent of something in the room and pulled the towel back from the blood spot on the carpet. He looked in the bathroom. “What is this?”

  “My brother’s habit,” said Oulfsan.

  “This can undo us.” Hesz grimaced. “Does Dorn know?”

  “No. Please … do not tell. I will take care of the girl before we meet with Dretch.”

  “This mission hangs by a thread,” Hesz said. “We lose men even as our enemy gains allies. And Lord Dorn still suffers the head pains. We cannot afford mistakes.”

  “I cannot control Krebe any more than you can control Dorn,” Oulfsan said. “I can only clean up after him.”

  Hesz grunted again. Oulfsan was beginning to pick up the distinctions in his grunts, like they were a language unto themselves. “Show me the prince’s home on a map,” Hesz ordered.

  Oulfsan opened a map of the greater Baltimore area and pointed out the boy’s home and their relation to it. Hesz let out a deep moan as he scratched his chin. “Dorn’s alternative plan requires the prince’s personal effects. I will steal into the boy’s home and retrieve them, and then I will head back north. You will accompany the detective on his quest from this point onward.” Though Hesz said this calmly, Oulfsan detected the whiff of a command.

  “He claims he is more efficient unencumbered,” Oulfsan said. “He will decline my company.”

  “He is no longer to be left alone,” Hesz said more strongly. The giant removed the small thumping velvet sack holding Colby’s heart and handed it to Oulfsan. It fidgeted on his hand like a scared rat. “If he truly cannot find the prince again, destroy him. If you discover he has played us false, Todgarten will dismantle him, and throw his still-living parts into the sea. Bring only his head to Dorn.”

  CHAPTER 17

  TEA WITH MUSSOLINI

  1

  Cat, Lelani, and Bree pulled up to the MacDonnells’ building in the Bronx in a rented van just as the sun hit its noon apex. Though they’d only been away three days, to Cat it felt longer. A police cruiser sat across the street, watching the house. Cat didn’t recognize the officer on watch—a young one, barely out of the academy. The kid tipped his hat to her.

  Catherine balked at the glimmering shards on the curb below Bree’s bedroom window, a reminder of how close they’d come to being kidnapped, or worse. The glass had been swept into a pile against the building—no doubt a neighbor’s effort. Cat loved her block. The people looked out for one another. Seth’s shoddily repaired front door still held up. Cat hoped it wouldn’t fall off its hinges when she entered. Bree unclipped her seatbelt and reached for the passenger side door handle.

  “Wait,” Lelani said from the back of the van. She exited through the rear doors and came onto the sidewalk with her ornate brass compact in hand. “Clear,” she said. That meant spells and enchantments, not henchmen in the shadows.

  Cat felt for the Colt .32 caliber in her coat pocket. “Come out this way,” she told Bree, and the girl hopped over the driver’s seat to stand beside her mother.

  “Catherine?” Mrs. Sullivan emerged from her front door a few yards away and approached gingerly in her housecoat and walking sneakers. “Good Lord, we thought the worst had happened.”

  “We’re fine Mrs. S. The police are looking for the thugs who attacked us.” Cat looked her building over again and a wave of apprehension came over her. Despite the police presence, she wondered if it might be a good idea to check it out first.

  “Mrs. S … Would you mind watching Bree for a moment?”

  Mrs. Sullivan took Bree into her home with the promise of fresh biscuits.

  Lelani led the way. Bits of splintered wood from where Hesz had smashed through the door still littered the hallway.

  “You want to take out that bow?” asked Cat.

  “Bows are not for close quarters,” the centaur answered. “No one is in your apartment. I have a hunter’s sense of such things.”

  Cat gave Lelani a pretty please smile. Lelani indulged her. She mumbled softly, igniting specks of intense white light hovering above her palms. They grew into balls of crackling whi
te energy—mini white suns that lit the hallway like a movie set. When they reached the size of softballs, Lelani kicked the door open and entered.

  The living room to their left faced the street. It was empty, as was the dining room to their right, which faced the backyard, and the adjoining open kitchen at two o’clock. Lelani swiftly moved into the back bedrooms and declared the house free of hostiles. The wizard’s phosphor balls disappeared with a pop and stream of wafting white smoke.

  Cat sighed in relief. She desperately wanted her home back—but more than that, peace of mind within it—to know that she and her family were not being hunted. Cat threw her coat on the living room couch and crossed over to the kitchen. “I could use some tea,” she said.

  Lelani concurred, and situated herself on the dining room side of the stone island that separated the kitchen from the eating area.

  Cat set the kettle, then cried out, “Shit!” as a bug scurried in the corner where the stove met the wall. She pulled a large can of insect spray from under the sink and zapped the spot, but too late. It disappeared into a crevice.

  “When we started renovating upstairs, they moved down here,” Cat said, wondering if centaurs cared about bugs in their … What exactly did centaurs live in?

  “Cat…,” Lelani said quizzically. She came around the island staring at a spot to Cat’s left on the stove. “That red light…”

  Cat thought she might have set the oven timer by accident, until she saw the lens flare on her kitchen window and realized the red dot Lelani pointed to glided along the stove, the wall, and toward her.

  Cat lunged at Lelani. Trying to push the redhead back was like pushing a confused horse. The kitchen window behind Cat exploded, as did the spice rack on the counter and the wall behind it. Several more shots in quick succession, eerily quiet on the firing end, blew holes through the wall next to the window as the gunman attempted to recover his target. Cat’s kitchen exploded into shards of shrapnel. The centaur, finally realizing they were under attack, backed up, pulling Cat with her into the dining room.