Prospero in Hell (35 page)

“I’d love to be a bug on the wall the first time Ulysses has to hail a cab to get home,” Logistilla chuckled throatily.

“What grove?” Erasmus asked dubiously.

“Mephisto means the grove where Father planted his old books—the books which grew into the trees he fashioned into our staffs,” I explained, pleased that there was finally something I knew that Erasmus didn’t. “Mephisto, how do you know about the Grove of Books?”

“Saw it when Daddy brought me here to tam…” He paused, glancing at Calvin, perhaps hoping his Bully Boy would prompt his memory, then gave an elaborate shrug. “Well, for some old reason. You know how my memory is.” He tapped his temple cheerfully. “So, should I go summon him up?”

“Whoa! Whoa!” said Mab, abruptly coming to his feet. “I know the spell you’re talking about, and it’s no namby-pamby spell for humans to be mucking around with—especially if you’re going to cast it to summon one of the high lords of Hell, which we now all know to be in the staffs. We’re talking a class one, disturbs-the-ethersphere, incantation here. The kind Archmages use when they want to destroy a whole civilization. You cast that spell here, and you’ll have every last lamnia, leanan-sidhe, and edimou of the outoukkou in a thousand leagues breathing down your neck in no time.”

“Quiet, Spiritling, your contribution was not requested,” Cornelius said sharply. “Can you manage this spell, Mephisto?”

“Yeah, sure!” Mephisto announced cheerfully. “Easy as pie.”

“Let’s do it then,” said Erasmus, rising to his feet. “What do we need?”

“Darkness would help,” Mab muttered.

“Silence!” Cornelius commanded.

This was too much.

“Cornelius,” I said crisply, “in the future, you will refrain from ordering my people around.”

“I will remind you, Sister, he is a Prospero, Inc. employee. That means he works for us both—” Cornelius began.

Mab cut him off. “It’s okay, Ma’am. If your know-it-all brother thinks he can do without my help, more power to him. But, if the two remaining Three Shadowed Ones show up and make off with his staff, don’t blame me.”

Cornelius was so shocked by Mab’s impertinence he could think of nothing to say. I, too, said nothing because everything that came to mind was inflammatory, and I felt this was hardly the time to begin an argument. The tension was broken by Erasmus’s laughter.

“And he’s sarcastic to boot! Are you sure you can’t be persuaded to part with him, Sister Dear?” he asked.

“Positive,” I replied severely.

“Anyone have a better plan?” asked Cornelius. When no one answered, he said, “Very well. Normally, I abhor unnecessary uses of sorcery, but I agree that this is in a good cause. What do we need to do, Mephisto?”

“Best done at night,” said Theo. I was pleased to hear that his voice was recovering. He no longer sounded so hoarse. “Sunlight interferes with magic.”

I saw Mab smiling to himself as he sat back on the piano bench.

“Very well, then. Tonight at nightfall at this Grove of Books,” said Erasmus.

Titus had lowered himself heavily into the empty green armchair and closed his eyes. Now he opened them and said, “Woman! Gregor can’t have been on Mars since the twenties. Where was he?”

Logistilla hesitated for a long time, worrying the black cloth of her silky dress between her fingers. At last, she admitted in a small voice, “He was… a leopard.”

“You mean, one of your leopards?” asked Theo, his voice dangerously low.

“Well, it was better that than let the demon kill Ulysses,” she replied.

“Bah!” spat Titus. “Your own twin.”

“Better than having him dead,” Logistilla spat back. “Or, than losing Ulysses. Besides, life among my menagerie’s not so bad. I don’t know what
you are talking about: ‘realize what you had lost.’ It was only two years. Nothing in comparison to your long life.”

Titus rose unsteadily to his feet and glared down at Logistilla.

“Two years to me is as nothing, it is as dust in the desert. But, two years in the lives of my children… that is something of inestimable value that can never be reclaimed. The eldest one has passed from the idyllic days of childhood into being a youth without me there to guide him. I was not there to offer them wisdom or love. I was not even there to mislead them through well-meaning incompetence. Worse, you unnatural witch, you were not there, either.” Grimacing in disgust, he turned his back on her and sat down again. Crossing his arms, he growled, “I don’t know what it is with the women in our family. No natural womanly affections. Miranda at least has an excuse: her abstinence buys us immortality. But, you! You have no excuse.”

Taken aback, I asked, “Pardon me, but I’m missing something here. How does Logistilla’s not raising your children make her an unwomanly witch?”

“They’re my children, too,” Logistilla objected hotly. “And I believe I make a fine mother. I’ve visited them on every birthday they’ve had, and at Easter, and during all their holidays. Well, I’ve missed a few, but I was there for most of them. The rest of the time, they are busy. They attend a very prestigious boarding school. I chose it myself.”

Silence fell throughout the music room.

“Your children, too?” Theo asked puzzled. “Are these children adopted?”

“Ewww!” cried Mephisto. “Titus! How could you?”

“Didn’t realize we could
do
that,” murmured Erasmus, amused. “What of you, Theo? Care to take a stab at marrying your darling Miranda?”

Theo crossed his arms and glared at Erasmus, but beneath his gray beard were the telltale signs of a deep blush.

“Logistilla is only my half-sister,” Titus explained evenly, without a trace of guilt or embarrassment. “We were born more than thirty-five years apart. We did not even grow up in the same country. There are not many immortal women to choose from, you know, unless you care to wed soulless swan maidens and selkie like Erasmus, and we’ve all seen how that’s turned out. I am tired of having wives dying out from under me. Besides, I thought if I married Logistilla, our mutual children might meet even Miranda’s definition of family.”

“Mine!” I exclaimed, startled. “What do I have to do with it?”

“You control the Water of Life,” Titus explained. “I am also tired of watching my children age, wither, and die. I want them to live. Like us.”

“Me?” I exclaimed. “Father’s the one who decided who got the Water and who did not. I merely carried out his instructions.”

At this, Theo frowned, and Erasmus threw me a look of such malice that anything I might have added died unspoken.

“Father’s then,” Titus continued placidly. “I thought children of two members of the family would clearly fall under the fullest definition of family… . Wonder how the boys are.”

“They were fine as of a week ago,” Mab drawled. “We saw ’em in Santa’s scrying pool, the one he uses to ‘know if you’ve been bad or good.’ ”

“I am pleased to hear it,” said Titus, and his battered face broke into a warm fatherly smile. “It has been a long time. I believe I will leave you all and go to them.”

He started to rise. He looked so determined, despite his wounds, and so pleased at the thought of seeing his sons again, that I was hesitant to break the truth to him.

“How?” I asked.

“What do you mean?” Titus hesitated.

“Ulysses brought us here,” I said. “There is no other way off the island.”

“You could ride Pegasus!” suggested Mephisto.

Titus turned. His expression was one of sad amusement. “Within the last hour, I was shot by a gun, mauled by a bear, and nearly gored by a rhino. Even though the bullet has now been removed and I have been fortified with Water, I doubt I am fit enough to endure a several-thousand-mile ride on the back of a winged horse.”

“How are the rest of us going to get off this island?” asked Cornelius.

“I’ll send an Aerie One to the mainland,” I said. “They can contact Prospero, Inc. and have a ship or a Lear sent.”

“Don’t bother,” replied Erasmus airily. “We can all stay around to confront Ulysses tonight and welcome Gregor back, and then Ulysses can take us each home… or we can take ourselves home with his staff, depending upon how Ulysses’s meeting with Gregor turns out. Somehow, I expect our Martian brother is not going to be too pleased with good old Ulysses.”

“Very well. I’ll wait. After two years, what is a few more hours?” said Titus, sitting back down in the armchair. He promptly fell asleep and began snoring.

As soon as we split up, Mab hurried over to me, clutching his notebook.

“I’d like to make my report, Ma’am. On the subject of the disappearance of Mr. Ulysses. Then, I suggest we go question the Harebrain.”

“And exactly what did you find out about our good Ulysses’s escape?” asked Erasmus, leaving Cornelius and Titus by the window and coming to lean against the back of my chair. His dark eyes watched me, mocking and arrogant; a wicked smile played across his thin lips.

I raised an eyebrow. “Don’t you owe me an apology, Erasmus?”

“For what?”

“For having accused me of forging the document about Ulysses.”

Erasmus considered, then shook his head. “You may have been innocent in this case, Sweet Sister, but I’m sure you have done some other vile thing I have not yet discovered. So, in keeping with the law of conservation of apologies, I’ll let my accusations stand.”

What was it that made men refuse to apologize to me? My brother was nearly as obstinate as a certain elf I knew.

I sighed. “Do you work at being obnoxious, Erasmus? Or are you naturally that way?”

“It comes naturally to me,” Erasmus replied, smiling, “as it does to you.”

“Do you mind?” asked Mab, gesturing toward his notebook.

Erasmus was smiling broadly now. “Oh, don’t mind me. Go ahead with your detecting.”

Mephisto clapped Erasmus on the shoulder and announced, “He’s just jealous because he’s behind Theo and me in the ‘marry a sister’ queue. You do prefer me to Erasmus, don’t you?” he finished hopefully.

“I see this is going to be a long day,” Mab observed dryly, shaking his head.

“Go ahead, Mab. What did you find?” I repeated, ignoring my brothers.

“Well, it’s like this, Ma’am. Best as I can tell from the evidence, Mr. Ulysses had a miniature grapple-gun device in his ring. He used it to snag his staff. The staff carried him to some place on this world, probably a secret hideout he had set up for just such purposes. Staff was probably preset to transport to said spot if stabbed with the dart from the grapple. My readings suggest this hideout is somewhere in the Himalayas, but you just don’t get the kind of accuracy on in-world hops that you can get on interdimensional jumps. Sorry about that.”

Erasmus asked, “Are you telling me that our brother Ulysses managed
to hit a stick about an inch wide from across a room with a dart he shot out of a ring on a finger that was behind his head?”

“Yeah,” said Mab. “I know I got that part right, I saw it with my own eyes.”

“Incredible,” Erasmus exclaimed. “I couldn’t do that, could you? I don’t have that kind of aim.”

“Mr. Ulysses is a perp, Sir. Thieving is all he does. Apparently, it’s all he’s ever done, for more than a hundred years. I’d recommend you feel proud of yourself if you can’t pull off a stunt like that, Professor Prospero. It means you haven’t wasted your time on immoral frivolities.”

“Oh, I have most certainly wasted my time on immoral frivolities, just not the same immoral frivolities as Ulysses—and you may call me Erasmus,” said my brother, flopping down on the Roman couch and folding his arms behind his head.

“Ah… right, Mr. Erasmus, then,” Mab said. He screwed up his face and scratched at his eternal stubble. “That about covers Mr. Ulysses, Ma’am. It’s time we had a talk with the Hatless Wonder, here.” He glanced down at Erasmus. “A private talk, I’m thinking, Ma’am.”

“Oh, don’t let my presence interfere,” Erasmus began cheerfully.

“We won’t,” I said, rising and grabbing Mephisto by one arm. Mab grabbed the other, and we practically dragged him toward an inner door that led to Father’s instrument repair shop.

“Bye-bye,” called Mephisto to a bemused Erasmus as we shoved him into the repair shop. Behind us, I could hear Erasmus chuckling.