You glance around, and shiver. Blackwell's nearby, you realize. He's watching! It's the only way he--
You freeze when you see that Robert's gone. He was on the front patio just a minute ago, and now he's vanished!
Panic overwhelms you. Was Blackwell's call just a distraction? Was he just trying to make you look away while he got ahold of your brother somehow, to spirit away, the way he spirited away your mom and dad?
You dash inside the house, slipping on the slick, parquet floor of the foyer and almost falling off your feet. Muffled voices echo nearby, and you follow them into the library. You almost pass out with relief when you see that Robert is there, with Joe. They're standing in front of the open doorway to the secret cellar where Lucy had been trapped.
"And that's what happens when you let Dum-Dum conduct the search", Joe is saying to Robert. "The idiot here was about to--"
"It's not like I haven't faced magic-based fear before, Joe", Frank says as he steps from the darkness behind the secret door. "Give me five minutes", he growls," and I could break it like a--" He stops short when he sees you, and frowns. "Something wrong, Prescott?"
You look down at your phone, and realize that by running inside you've probably just blown your chance to negotiate with Blackwell. It's like a punch to your heart. You feel the blood draining from your face as you look back up.
"I just got a call from the professor", you say.
For half a second, no one reacts. Then, in two steps (it seems like) Joe is by your side. He snatches the phone from you grasp. "He hung up. But he called from my mom's number". you tell him.
As fast as liquid light, Joe's left your side and vanished out of the library. You look back at Frank. He restrains Robert even as he waves at you to follow Joe.
You catch up to him on the patio, where he's already got your phone to his ear. He gives you a sharp, querying look, and you stammer out a fast account of Blackwell's phone call. When you mention the meeting place, Joe shoves the phone into your hand and is gone faster than you could blink, leaving only a blur in the air. But his voice floats in the air, like a ghost: "Bastard doesn't answer!"
You stare off at the open gate in astonishment, then turn to find Frank and Robert, their faces pale with concern and curiosity, watching you from just inside the foyer. "I think--", you start to say.
"Joe's gone to find him", Frank interrupts you. "Where?"
"Corner of Farm Road and Orlando. The cemetery."
Frank's expression hardens, and his eyes go distant. "I should be out there", he mutters.
Then: "Gimme your phone", he tells you. You hand it over, and he punches in a number. "What's the situation, Joe?", he asks after lifting it to his ear. "No, I want to hear it from you. I also want you to keep this line open until we get out there." He listens. When Robert starts to ask you something, Frank silences him with a loud snap of his fingers. "Be there in five", Frank tells Joe. He keeps the phone near his ear as he gestures you and your brother to follow him out to his truck.
--
"It's another trap", Frank informs you and Robert thirty minutes later, as the three of you (plus Joe) are examining a grassy spot at the corner of the cemetery. "Like the one on the stairs in the library."
He kneels to point to couple of bright, white stones. "But this one's kind of like a bear trap", he says. "One of those nasty metal ones, with teeth. Step into it, and--" He claps his hands, making a noise like a gunshot. "Easy enough to dismantle, though", he says, and flicks away one of the rocks. "There." He steps onto the patch of ground he warned you against. "Gone."
It might be your imagination, but it looks to you like Joe is fighting hard to suppress a smile.
It's the first chance you've had to talk to him since arriving at the rendezvous point. You and Frank and Robert parked on the shoulder inside the cemetery, about fifty yards back from the corner, on one of the dirt tracks that wind past the rows of graves. For almost half an hour the three of you watched the spot where you were to meet Blackwell, during which nothing happened except that Frank talked to his brother over the phone in a foreign language that sounded like none you'd ever heard before. Frank finally declared that it looked like nothing was going to happen, and together you went to examine the rendezvous point directly. Joe materialized, seemingly out of thin air, as you approached it.
"What was he trying to do?", Robert asks now.
"The professor? Capture your brother", Frank says.
"Why?"
"This place has a real homey feel, doesn't it?", Joe interrupts. "Bet you'd love to have a picnic here", he tells his brother.
Low, dark clouds are rolling overhead, and there's a sense of thunder in the atmosphere. But the trees are still heavy with leaves, which have only just begun to change color, so despite the the chilly air and the nearby cemetery, the feeling is still closer to summer than to Halloween.
Frank gives Joe a narrow look. "Why do you say that?"
"Ooh! You didn't tell Robert about that side of Lurga last night, did you?"
Frank stares at Joe, then grunts. "We should get some breakfast", he says.
"Best idea you've had this morning. Me and Robert'll go pick up some biscuits and sausages, or something", Joe says. "We'll meet you and Will back at the professor's."
Frank gives his brother a long, thoughtful frown, then nods. Joe slaps Robert in the shoulder, and together they vault the low wall that surrounds the cemetery and trot off toward the truck. You and Frank trudge off the other way, toward the villa.
You walk in silence for a minute before Frank says, "I don't want you worrying about it, Prescott. You did the right thing."
"What thing?", you ask.
"Coming to find us instead of running off like a brave but suicidal moron to meet the professor."
You glance back at the stop sign. "Was there really a trap there?"
"Don't be gullible. That was for your brother's benefit. The trap would've been in the car that the professor picked you up in."
You blink. "So why tell Robert there was a trap by that sign?"
Frank doesn't answer right away, and you have the impression he's trying to check his temper before replying.
"The professor told you to meet him back there, or you'd never see your parents again", he says. "Right?"
You nod.
"What are you going to tell your brother about that phone call?"
"Well ... I'll tell him what the professor said."
Frank snorts. "Oh, so you are a suicidal moron. So answer me this. Are you kicking yourself now for not running off to meet the professor?"
"Well ... No. Because you said it was a trap."
"But now you'll never see your parents again."
You stumble in mid-stride, and shoot Frank a hard, quick glare. The fuck? His words were like a cast-iron plate dropped right on your head.
"That's what you're thinking now, isn't it, Prescott?", he continues. "That you'll never see your mom and dad again? Because you blew off the professor instead of coming out to meet him?"
Your jaw slackens, then tightens as hot fury boils up in your guts. Tears sting the back of your eyeballs. Didn't this asshole just get through saying you did the right thing? And now he's telling you that the right thing means you'll never see your parents again?
"Yes, now you're thinking it, right?", Frank says, as though reading your thoughts. "That you did the wrong thing. That you should have run off to meet the professor, instead of coming to tell us."
"Well, now that you put it like that", you reply. Your tongue is thick in your mouth. Your chest starts to ache, like it did back at your house when that invisible claw grabbed you.
Your confession doesn't seem to bother Frank. "Exactly", he says. "But you did the right thing. You absolutely did. And I think I can convince you of that. Because you have a chance now, of getting them back. You had no chance with the professor, not by yourself."
You'd like to argue, but you're pretty sure he's right.
"Because he's a sociopath. He's a black magician, and black magicians are sociopaths. Even if they don't start that way, that's the way they end. They think of no one but themselves, and of who they might betray in order to get what they want."
He sounds like Lucy, you suddenly think. But more convincing. "Okay," you mutter at him. "You've convinced me."
He stops, and you pull up to a stop beside him. He gives you a long, speculative look.
"No", he says. "I don't think I have convinced you. But chew on this. If I can't convince you that you did the right thing, could you, or any of us, convince your brother that you did the right thing?" He lets the question hang in the air, long enough for the horror of it to begin to dawn on you.
"What would Robert think", he asks you, "if you told him what the professor said? That he threatened your mom and dad, but you turned around and did exactly what the professor told you not to do? What would he think of that, Prescott? And what would he think of you?"
Suddenly, you want the ground to open up and swallow you.
"That's why you don't tell him what the professor said", Frank concludes, and resumes his slow stroll back toward the villa. "You tell him the professor wanted you to meet him. And that's all."
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