“That’s right,” I said, turning onto U.S. 1 without looking and accelerating through the thinning traffic.
“Where are they?” she asked.
“I know who has them,” I said. “Deborah will help us find out where they went.”
“Oh God, Dexter,” Rita said, and she began to weep silently.
Even if I wasn’t driving I wouldn’t know what to do or say about that, so I simply concentrated on getting us to headquarters alive.
A telephone rang in a very comfortable room. It did not give out an undignified chirping, or a salsa tune, or even a fragment of Beetho-ven, as modern cell phones do. Instead, it purred with a simple old-fashioned sound, the way telephones are supposed to ring.
And this conservative sound went well with the room, which was elegant in a very reassuring way. It contained a leather couch and two matching chairs, all worn just enough to give the feeling of a favorite pair of shoes. The telephone sat on a dark mahogany end table on the far side of the room, next to a bar made of matching wood.
Altogether the room had the relaxed and timeless feel of a very old and well-established gentlemen’s club, except for one detail: the wall space between the bar and the couch was taken up by a large wooden case with a glass front, looking something like a cross between a trophy case and a shelf for rare books. But instead of flat shelves, the case was fitted with hundreds of felt-lined niches. Just over half of them cradled a skull-sized ceramic of a bull’s head.
An old man entered the room, without haste, but also without the careful hesitance of frail old age. There was a confidence in his walk that is usually found only in much younger men. His hair was white and full and his face was smooth, as if it had been polished by the desert wind. He walked to the telephone like he was quite sure that whoever was calling would not hang up until he an-
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swered, and apparently he was right, since it was still ringing when he lifted the receiver.
“Yes,” he said, and his voice, too, was much younger and stronger than it should have been. As he listened he picked up a knife that lay on the table beside the telephone. It was of ancient bronze. The pommel was curved into a bull’s head, the eyes set with two large rubies, and the blade was traced with gold letters that looked very much like MLK. Like the old man, the knife was much older than it looked, and far stronger. He idly ran a thumb along the blade as he listened, and a line of blood rose up on his thumb. It didn’t seem to affect him. He put the knife down.
“Good,” he said. “Bring them here.” He listened again for a moment, idly licking the blood from his thumb. “No,” he said, running his tongue along his lower lip. “The others are already gathering.
The storm won’t affect Moloch, or his people. In three thousand years, we’ve seen far worse, and we’re still here.”
He listened again for a moment before interrupting with just a trace of impatience. “No,” he said. “No delays. Have the Watcher bring him to me. It’s time.”
The old man hung up the telephone and stood for a moment.
Then he picked up the knife again, and an expression grew on his smooth old face.
It was almost a smile.
The wind and the rain were gusting fiercely but only occasionally, and most of Miami was already off the roads and filling out insurance claim forms for the damage they planned to have, so the traffic was not bad. One very intense blast of wind nearly pushed us off the expressway, but other than that it was a quick trip.
Deborah was waiting for us at the front desk. “Come to my office,” she said, “and tell me what you know.” We followed her to the elevator and went up.
“Office” was a bit of an exaggeration for the place where
Deborah worked. It was a cubicle in a room with several others just like it. Crammed into the space was a desk and chair and two folding 282
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chairs for guests, and we settled in. “All right,” she said. “What happened?”
“They . . . I sent them out into the yard,” Rita said. “To get all their toys and things. For the hurricane.”
Deborah nodded. “And then?” she prompted.
“I went in to put away the hurricane supplies,” she said. “And when I came out they were gone. I didn’t—it was only a couple of minutes, and they . . .” Rita put her face in her hands and sobbed.
“Did you see anyone approach them?” Deborah asked. “Any strange cars in the neighborhood? Anything at all?”
Rita shook her head. “No, nothing, they were just gone.”