The Lost Prince Read online

  The sky was the color of bluebird eggs, crisp with a late autumn’s cold. There was a lot of sky around these parts. The land was flat in all four directions, with only the occasional silo or barn to break the monotony. The park was tornado bait—something a classmate had once said about their proximity to natural disasters. The cop came out of Jeb’s with a doughnut stuffed in his mouth and a bottle of Coke in one hand and a white paper bag in the other hand. He got into the cruiser, pulled out onto the state road, and peeled off like a man saturated with processed sugar. Daniel climbed creaky steps and entered.

  Daniel’s senses were assaulted by the schizophrenic nature of Jeb’s wares. The pungent, mingled odors of beef jerky, laundry soap, dairy goods (not all fresh), women’s hygiene products, colas, candy, beer, tobacco, and sawdust merged like a dysfunctional symphony, baked into the wooden shelves and particle floorboards by years of Carolina heat. Daniel picked up some Kraft Mac & Cheese boxes, hotdogs, buns, relish, two liters of Coke, and some cans of peas for color. As he laid the items on the glass counter, he spotted a condom display underneath the glass. It just occurred to him that Luanne might be crazy enough to not be on birth control. That’s all he needed. He couldn’t even support himself. Daniel pointed to a box of Trojans to be thrown on the pile.

  The steps creaked louder as he exited, under the extra weight of the bags. Daniel’s foot just touched the dirt when he noticed Cody and two other guys leaning on the Caddy DeVille at Jeb’s corner. One of the toadies was thin with long greasy blond hair and wearing a black Slayer tee under his denim jacket. He seemed especially jittery. The other was tall and solid, with close-cropped nappy red hair and shoulders that drooped from a lifetime of hunching. They loitered between Daniel and Bev’s trailer. Daniel hoped these grassroots capitalists would be too preoccupied with their ventures to notice him, but since when had his luck ever run that good?

  “Hey,” Cody said, as Daniel walked by.

  Daniel stopped beside the hoods and turned casually to face them. Cody leaned against the passenger door, lighting a cigarette.

  “Hey,” Daniel said back matter-of-factly.

  “Interested in some rock?”

  Daniel wasn’t sure of the subtext. It might be a straightforward offer. “Not particularly,” he said. “Thanks, though.” Politeness was always a plus in the South, even with death-metal, gun-toting meth dealers.

  “Where you from?”

  “Up north.”

  “I know you’re from up north. Where?”

  Daniel weighed the risk of telling the guy to go fuck himself and ending up in a fight that might bring cops to the park or send him to the emergency room. He wasn’t a good enough liar to make up a story. Who knows where Cody’s business ventures have taken him? “Baltimore,” he said. It was mostly true. Glen Burnie was a suburb.

  “Yeah?” Cody said. “What’s the best crab place?”

  “Obrycki’s,” Daniel said. At least that’s the one his mom liked best, so they went there.

  Cody took a drag and blew smoke. Daniel got the sense that he’d passed the first test.

  “Why you stayin’ with Luanne?”

  “I’m not staying with Luanne,” Daniel said. “I’m staying with Bev. She’s my friend’s sister and is putting us up for a few days. Luanne also lives with Bev.”

  Cody’s expression didn’t change, but Daniel sensed annoyance at the way he successfully skirted the question. “Why you drawin’ pictures of her?” he asked. Another drag. More smoke.

  “Bored. She doesn’t have any books, no videogames in the house; nothing to do around here. Did you happen to see the twelve other drawings in that pad you tore up that had nothing to do with Luanne? Why’d I draw the lake? Why’d I sketch a tree?”

  Cody took a drag, blew it out, and spit really close to Daniel’s sneaker.

  “You hangin’ out with a fifty-year-old bum and his sister … no mom, no dad. Seems shady.”

  Daniel was tired of playing twenty questions. “Why you hanging out in front of the store with your car?” he asked back.

  “None of your business,” the greasy blond kid said.

  “Exactly,” Daniel responded.

  The three of them came off the car slowly in unison. This was their turf—no one was going to tell them to mind their own business in their corner of the trailerverse. Cody did his best to give Daniel the cold dead-eye stare. Daniel ignored the other two and locked onto Cody’s stare. Daniel refused to budge or blink in the face of this pretender. After all, Cody had never killed anyone and Daniel had. The meth head blinked first, looking down into the shopping bag. He shot his arm into the bag and pulled out the box of Trojans.

  “What the fuck is this?!” he asked.

  Shit.

  “They’re for Bev,” Daniel lied, thinking fast on his feet.

  “That old cow’s dried up,” Cody said. This time his stare had an edge to it. “You hopin’ to get lucky with someone?”

  “Maybe Bev’s beau has VD,” Daniel said, trying to act like he didn’t care. “Or maybe she’s giving them to Luanne. What do I know? She asks, I buy.”

  A black Cadillac Escalade pulled into the trailer park with music blaring loudly. Four young men poured out. Cody’s attention switched to them swiftly, as though danger had arrived. The leader of the other crew, a tall, blocky lad with pink ears and pink neck approached. He wore a black leather vest over a striped flannel shirt, boot-cut jeans, and a huge silver buckle. The other two looked like off-the-shelf southern white guys, the type you’d forget two minutes after they left; the fourth guy was a skinny geek type with a Bluetooth in his ear and an open laptop computer that he cradled with one hand and typed into with the other. Daniel was caught between the crews.

  Daniel tried to slink away and allow the men to talk business. Cody grabbed his arm and held him firm. “We ain’t done,” he grumbled.

  “That’s no way to treat a customer, Cody,” said big belt buckle.

  “This our park, McCoy,” Cody’s greasy blond lackey stressed.

  “Don’t get your panties in an uproar, Weasel. We going into Jeb’s to get some smokes is all.” The geek was talking into his Bluetooth, confirming a delivery for that night.

  “’Sides, we don’t need to come here to sell. Yo’ folk come to us to get product. Walk five miles to buy rock from me.” McCoy jerked his thumb toward Bluetooth guy, and added, “We doin’ business the modern way—on the interweb.”

  McCoy and his cronies guffawed stupidly, like fifth-graders giving heck to third graders. Daniel wished he were miles away from what was obviously a turf war. Cody doesn’t do well with competition, he remembered Luanne saying. An insecure idiot with a gun, under pressure.

  Daniel looked up and down the state road, hoping the police cruiser would return. At this point, jail might be preferable to being shot or stabbed. Daniel decided he couldn’t wait for the law to save the day and took a chance that just the threat of police would work.

  “Cops,” Daniel said.

  Both groups craned their necks searching nervously up the road. Cody shifted his body; Daniel slipped free and strolled off at a calm pace. By the time Cody realized, it was too late; he couldn’t turn his back on McCoy or walk away from his homies on his own turf.

  “Why don’t you finish your business with the nice gentlemen?” Daniel said, continuing his streak of southern politeness. “Keep the rubbers. But if Bev catches the clap, you’ll hear hell from her.”

  Cody looked like he was chewing on rusty nails. Once out of view, Daniel doubled his pace back to the trailer. He shouldn’t have rubbed it in as he walked away. Daniel wondered if the trailer park was still a safe place for him and whether he should start thinking of leaving before he ended up with a bullet in his back.

  How do I get myself into these messes?

  CHAPTER 20

  WHY WE HATE GROUPIES

  The Waldorf Astoria was the most opulent hotel Catherine had ever been in. Even Lelani, sporting Bree on her back, cra
ned her neck, impressed at the beautifully decorated lobby. The art deco remnant of the Great Depression had a three-story ceiling supported by large columns—the lobby floor was marble with a decorative circle-of-life mosaic underneath a grand chandelier. Above the entrance canopy resided an art deco grill, and inside a luxurious lounge with a grand piano. The lobby’s palette was creams, gold, deep rust, and black pillars, accented by warm lighting. Even the sound of the hall was a subdued echo granting airs and privacy at the same time. The many guests had an international flavor; Cat suspected a few of them owned horses, which they learned to ride as children, and had nicknames like Biff, Buffy, and Mitt. And here, Malcolm Robbe entertained guests and business associates from around the world in his own private suite.

  Lelani had ridden over with Scott in the van, leaving Cat and Bree time alone with Malcolm. In the limousine, Mal regaled Cat with stories of his exploits both in Aandor and in this reality. Malcolm Robbe hailed from a distinguished line of mine owners. His grandfather, Fengus Robbe, fled from his hillside home with the family during one of Farrenheil’s infamous purges—a thinly disguised land grab draped in the cover of threat to racial purity. Their mines had the richest deposits of rubies and diamonds in Farrenheil, not to mention good quality iron ore and silver. They had been stewards of those mines for seventeen generations. The Robbes relocated to the northern part of Aandor, far from the madness of Farrenheil, but never reclaimed the status they’d once held in the old kingdom. Malcolm’s three brothers could barely stay employed as miners—the villages were saturated with refugees. It was impossible to buy a decent hill or mountainside to start anew—Aandor had its own dwarven hierarchy, and those old families, dubbed the Longtooths, protected their lands and power against the arriving waves. Malcolm left his family in the north for Aandor City to find his fortune in other vocations. Thanks in part to the MacDonnells, whose family seat was also in the north, and for whom Mal’s family built irrigation canals for their crops, he found a position in the palace guard. The day of the invasion, good fortune placed him near the pantry, defending the infant prince.

  Among refugees, there was great affection for Archduke Athelstan, who exhibited high tolerance for émigrés. Everyone had looked forward to the young prince’s naming day celebration … fealty to the archduke’s family went to the core of each subject, and Mal would have died for the boy if necessary back then.

  Like the others in the guardians’ party, Seth’s botching of the identity spell left Malcolm with no memory of who he was or where he’d come from. He stumbled, starved and drenched, into the Presbyterian Church in Smithfield, New York. The pastor took pity on him and hired Mal as a handyman. Malcolm, it turned out, had a natural affinity with tools and construction.

  He found work as a welder and discovered he had a talent for handling metal as well. Soon, Malcolm began to moonlight as a repairman, fixing farm equipment, and even constructing his own attachments for Caterpillar and John Deere tractors that were better than the manufacturers’ designs. His boss and friends at the shop convinced him to do more with his talents than remain in Smithfield. Mal applied to several engineering schools. With no history of prior education, it was tough getting the acceptance boards to take him seriously, but he managed to convince the folks at Stevens Institute in Hoboken, New Jersey, to give him a probationary period. Malcolm graduated three years later at the top of his class with dual degrees in mechanical and chemical engineering. Today, he was CEO and chairman of Hartschell Corp., one of the country’s top weapons’ manufacturers. His specialty was armor.

  As she walked through the opulent lobby, Cat wondered about the eddies and currents in life that led two lost soldiers to different fates. Wealthy, landed, and tutored Callum ended up in the NYPD and a three-story walk-up in the Bronx, while penniless uneducated Mal ended up at the top of his social hierarchy and on an estate on the eastern shore of Long Island. More importantly, Cat suspected Malcolm was also very aware of the irony. Mal was at ease giving orders. It had been a long time since he last took one from her husband. Could the mission handle a power struggle among the guardians?

  Outside Malcolm’s grand suite near the top of the building stood an NFL-sized African-American in his forties wearing a black suit, sunglasses, and an earpiece. He whispered something into his shirt cuff and opened the door for them. The room inside was a buzz of activity. It continued the lobby’s opulent motif with dark-gold carpet, cream-colored drapes, and off-white walls. The lines on the molded tray ceiling were crisp and the furniture was restored vintage; Cat suspected no two suites of this caliber were decorated alike at the Waldorf. The living room had a working gas fireplace and plush couches facing each other divided by a large red-stained oak coffee table in the middle. A plush loveseat crowned the set, facing the fireplace at the other end of the table. The tables in the room were a mixture of fine wood antiques and ones with marble tops, like the coffee table between the couches. French doors on opposite sides of the room separated three bedrooms from the common area. A breakfast counter marked the border of a kitchenette with microwave, sink, and a fridge.

  Cat was grateful to have Lelani with her because she hated meeting strangers in large groups, and this room was filled with people. Too many names, purposes, interests to remember all at once—and in this case, doubly so because some had a second life in Aandor that she would have to remember as well. Malcolm’s security detail stood out because they looked as though they’d been recruited from a Secret Service catalog—black suits and wired earpieces. Malcolm likely paid better than the government. Of the detail, a woman in her thirties with short-cropped red hair was wearing a telephone headset and sitting at an antique desk in the corner in front of three large computer monitors. The older man, Tom Dunning, who led the charge at her apartment in the Bronx was on his cell phone in the kitchenette. Despite the snow on Tom’s roof, he still looked fit enough to lead a squad of marines through hell and back.

  Sitting comfortably on the plush couches, knocking back drinks, were three who were definitely not part of the usual entourage—a young man in his twenties, thin, with tattoos on his arm and shoulder-length brown hair, wearing skinny jeans, Converse sneakers, and a tight black knit sweater with brown leather patches sewn into the shoulders. He looked unhappy and also slightly familiar. Next to him was a beautiful young woman with long, straight dirty-blond hair wearing designer jeans, black calf-high leather boots, and a pink blouse buttoned only to the point of her cleavage. On the other side of the coffee table from them sat a preppy man in his fifties, messy salt-and-pepper hair with a receding hairline, wearing a tweed jacket with elbow patches, a bow tie, tan corduroy trousers, and brown leather wing-tipped shoes. He had an unlit pipe in his mouth.

  Malcolm stood beside Cat and announced to the people on the couch, “The Lady MacDonnell and her daughter Brianna.”

  The men on the couch looked at each other with confused expressions. After a slight delay, Malcolm cleared his throat loudly, and the men stood and introduced themselves.

  “Balzac Cruz, at your service,” said the older man. His affect gave the subtle hint of an English accent without actually having one. He smelled of gin, and his pinkish face had a bit of that bulldog droop that would eventually lead to jowls. There was a slick manner about him beneath the preppy veneer.

  “Clarisse,” said the blonde. She had a bubbly manner, a stark contrast to her partner’s dour look. “This is Tim. Some crazy shit, huh?”

  Cat covered Bree’s ears. “Yeah.”

  “Sorry,” Clarisse said.

  Clarisse was too flippant for Cat’s liking. People were dying around them and the blonde looked ready to go clubbing.

  The white-haired man in the kitchenette got off the phone and approached Mal. “This is my head of my security, Tom Dunning.”

  Dunning made his salutations and turned to Malcolm. “Copter’s still in Toronto with the financial team. They’re back in the morning. I’ve cleared its schedule the rest of the week.”

>   “Oh, do we get to fly around in copters?” Clarisse asked excitedly.

  “Uh … no,” Malcolm said. “But from this point on, one of the suits goes with you everywhere. They’re all linked through GPS.”

  “Is he going to follow me to the urinal?” Tim asked in a snarky tone. “Take a satellite picture of my winkie?”

  Scott excused himself to take a call in the master bedroom.

  “I was hoping we might discuss protective measures from—uh—their special abilities,” Dunning said to Lelani.

  Lelani gave Malcolm a quizzical glance. Cat, too, wondered how much Dunning knew.

  Lelani waited, and it took Cat a second to realize the centaur was waiting for permission to take her leave. “By all means,” Cat said, waving toward the command center.

  “Want some wine?” Clarisse asked, and left to fetch it before Cat’s answer.

  Bree tugged at her mother’s skirt looking tired and bored. “I need to put her down for a nap,” Cat said. Mal pointed to the second bedroom.

  “I think we get Nickelodeon,” he said.

  Cat steered her toward the room, tiredly carrying their coats, and hoped Bree would nod off.

  “I’ve rented the suite next door as well,” Mal said. “I’m hoping to get every guardian here in the next few days.”

  “What if someone doesn’t want to come?” asked Cat.

  Tim snorted. “He’s not giving them a choice,” he said, and took another sip of his drink.

  “You gave an oath,” Malcolm said.

  “Right, an oath … a decade ago when I was sixteen and scared for my life.”

  Scott called Malcolm to their bedroom. He motioned animatedly at the phone in his hand and mouthed Pentagon, with a harried look.

  “Please excuse me,” Mal said. “Generals and congressmen are as demanding as children.”