Midnight Crossroad

“Should we get Chuy and Joe?” Manfred said.

“No, they need to stay here,” the Rev said, without any hesitation.

“Teacher?”

“No, he would not come,” the Rev said. “Better not to ask him.”

Manfred wondered how the Rev knew all this, and how the oldest resident of Midnight had been tacitly acknowledged leader of the Fiji rescue expedition—but since Manfred himself was not qualified to take control, he was not about to ask out loud.

“What are we going to do?” Bobo asked impatiently.

“We’re going to find Fiji and get her back.”

“Great. How?” Bobo snapped.

The Rev looked up at Bobo, but Bobo didn’t relent.

“As soon as Lem is up, we’ll go. We’ll take the cat.”

Both the younger men looked at the Rev as if he’d lost his mind, and so did the cat, whose eyes sprang open. Manfred thought they were lucky Mr. Snuggly’s outrage made him speechless.

“Mr. Snuggly, Manfred will hold you. He is a psychic, and that will help you focus.”

“Oh, all right,” the cat said sullenly. “I must get my feeder back.”

Bobo looked a little punchy. “All this time, he’s been able to talk,” he whispered. “And he calls Feej his feeder?”

“You have a vampire living in your basement, and you’re stunned by a talking cat?” the Rev said, with some asperity.

“Good point,” Manfred said. “Catch up, Bobo. Okay, so we take the cat out with us, and because he’s . . . what, her familiar? . . . he’ll be able to tell where Fiji is?”

“Yes,” said the Rev. “He is a lazy cat, but he must do that for her.”

“What’s all the palaver about?” Lemuel said behind them, and Manfred couldn’t help it. He jumped. Everyone except Mr. Snuggly politely ignored that.

Lemuel had come up through the trapdoor. “I could tell there was trouble up here,” he said, moving to stand beside Bobo. Lemuel was wearing starched khakis and a button-down shirt. He made it look like a costume. His pale hair was slicked back, still damp from a shower, Manfred assumed.

“Fiji has been stolen,” the Rev said. “We think the man who took her was Eggleston. If you had not burned down his hunting lodge, we would know where she was, but since you have done that, we must look for her elsewhere. We have the cat.”

Lemuel absorbed all this quickly. He didn’t respond to the Rev’s rebuke, and he didn’t waste time raging against the kidnapper. “We must start now, then. How long have they been gone?”

The Rev looked at his watch. “Less than an hour.”

“We can all get in your station wagon,” Bobo said, and that was another surprise for Manfred. He’d never seen the Rev drive.

“Do you need to change?” Lemuel said to the Rev, and Manfred wondered why the Rev would need different clothes.

“Not now,” the Rev replied, and he left the shop, running faster than Manfred would ever have believed a man his apparent age could move.

In three minutes, he was parked in front of Midnight Pawn in an ancient station wagon. It was dark and rusty and huge, and probably steered like a boat, but in this weather, that was about what they needed. Manfred had not removed his rain poncho, and he scooped up the cat again. They scrambled out of the store and into the station wagon, and without a word the Rev drove west.

32

The rain did not slacken as they drove toward Marthasville. It beat against the road and the station wagon as if it were trying to pound them apart.

From the rear seat, Manfred, who’d been tapping on his phone, said, “Price Eggleston has a home address on Rolling Hills Road. Someone named Bart Eggleston, I’m assuming that’s his dad, has a phone listing on the same road. From the addresses, they’re next door to each other.”

“Your computer told you all that?” the Rev said.

“My telephone told me all that. You really should try it sometime.”

“I have a telephone,” the Rev said. He was bent forward to peer out the windshield. “It stays on the wall in my house and takes messages if I don’t want to answer it. That’s all I need.”

Manfred could tell from the limpness of the warm bundle under his poncho that Mr. Snuggly had gone to sleep again. So far, he was not a fan of the cat. But he would rather think about the cat than Lemuel, who was sitting beside him and behind Bobo. The vampire seemed more stone than flesh. Manfred could not imagine what Lemuel was thinking. The vampire could be lamenting the absence of his lover, he could be angry at the Rev, he could be planning revenge on Fiji’s abductors, or he could be trying to remember if he’d flossed that night. He could even be considering the scolding the Rev had given him.

The Rev drove as fast as he could, considering the age and size of the vehicle and the terrible weather, but there was no way they were going to catch up with the pickup truck. When they’d gotten close to Marthasville, the old man said, “Manfred, wake the cat.”

Manfred said, “Okay, I’ll give it a shot.” He gave the cat a gentle shake and lifted up the flap of yellow plastic that had covered him.

“I’m awake,” said a peevish voice. Mr. Snuggly looked up at Manfred through slitted eyes. “I will know when she is close,” the cat said.

“You’d better,” said the Rev, very quietly.

“No threatening the cat!” Mr. Snuggly said.

No one spoke after that. They all concentrated on finding Fiji.

33

Fiji was scared, and she was angry. It was impossible to say which emotion was stronger. Just after they’d left Midnight, a moment of hydroplaning on the slick road had left her down on the floorboard, since she had no way to catch herself. Fortunately, Eggleston steadied the truck and calmed down. Fiji was glad the road west was mostly straight and the hills were gentle. She had so many thoughts running through her head that she couldn’t seize any one of them to develop. She had wept a little (out of sheer anger, she told herself), and her nose was stopped up in consequence. Since her mouth was sealed shut, she had to concentrate on her breathing. Finally her nasal passages cleared, and she was getting oxygen in a regular amount in the normal way. It was amazing how much that helped to clear her mind.

She had a few thousand things to say to Price Eggleston, but by necessity they were bottled up inside her. That doesn’t mean I’m powerless, she told herself sternly. I can still work magic without a voice. Or hands. Or the cat. Great-Aunt Mildred had told her that spoken spells and hand gestures were only tools to the witch, that what mattered most was intent. “Focus and intent,” she’d said.