Chapter 41: Two Suitcases
In Which Strephon engages in some soul-searching, and Cassandra unloads some extra baggage.
The last glimmer of Inanna’s form had barely faded under the afternoon sun when Tobias gave a start, like someone woken suddenly. “Mister Strephon! Where did you come from?”
“Your previous fare was one of the Fair Folk,” Strephon said. “and I fear she placed an enchantment on you. It looks like you escaped with losing only no more than a half-hour or so of your memories. It might be prudent, nevertheless, to have your Grandmama, or perhaps a priest, bless the money she paid you before you spend it.”
Tobias noticed the cash in his hand. He stared at it for a moment to convince himself it was real, then carefully placed it separate from his till, just to be safe. “Where to?” he said.
“Home, if you please.”
For several blocks, Strephon sat silently brooding as the neighborhoods passed by. After a while he said, “Tobias, do I regard you as a pet?”
Tobias chuckled. “Only you can say that.”
“I mean, you think I take you for granted? Am I fair to you? Do I appreciate you?”
Strephon thought he saw a moment of indecision on Tobias’s face; but almost immediately the cabbie resumed his mask of professional cheerfulness. “You’re the biggest tipper in town!”
“Bother that! Do I respect you?”
“You’re polite. I’d say you’re the most polite customer I have.”
“Bosh! One can be mannered and yet still be condescending.”
“Oh, I know that, Mister Strephon. I get both kinds, believe me.”
Strephon drew in a deep breath. “I suppose what I’m really asking is, do I treat you like an equal?”
“Well, that’s the thing, isn’t it. I’m a cabbie. People tell me where to go, and I take them there. It’s my job. And like the fellow said, ‘When people gives orders and other has to obey them, equality’s out of the question.’”
“Don’t quote Gilbert and Sullivan to me,” Strephon scowled. “You know I detest Gilbert and Sullivan.” That came out more crossly than he intended.
Tobias waited another block before he continued. “You know how it seems to me, Mister Strephon? It sounds to me like you’re feeling guilty and you’re looking for a black man to grant you absolution for the sin of havin’ Privilege. You know it don’t work that way.”
“I meant no such thing.” Strephon frowned. Or did he? He wasn’t sure now what he meant. “Perhaps Inanna was right,” he muttered to himself. “The whole system is corrupt and no one is without taint. Perhaps the only answer is to smash it all to blazes...”
He must have spoken more loudly than he intended, because Tobias gave him a sharp look and said, “Now, that’s just crazy talk, Mister Strephon.”
Strephon waved his hand dismissively. “Don’t mind me, I’m just in a mood.”
Tobias gave him the same skeptical “Hmph!” that Strephon had often heard from his grandmother, and for the rest of the trip, he kept glancing at Strephon warily in the rear view mirror, as if watching for other symptoms of incipient Bolshevism.
Mrs. Hudson was waiting for him when he came home. She gave him an aggrieved “miao” as he crossed the threshold to let him know that she was a creature of regular habits and did not appreciate his kiting off to who knows where and returning with his wheelchair smelling of werewolf.
”I know, I’ve been neglecting you terribly.” Strephon wheeled his way to the kitchen and refilled the cat’s food dish. He found this homely little chore oddly soothing, and decided that he needed a break from investigations and conspiracies and Machiavellian fae. He found a packet of biscuits that Devon hadn’t raided and decided to enjoy them with a good book.
He retired to his study and selected Thomas Carlyle’s The French Revolution from his bookshelf. It was one of his favorites, but the choice proved to be a poor one because as he read, his mind kept trying to find parallels between Jacobite factions and his own situation. The similarities were pretty tenuous, but given that the Revolution resulted in the Terror, he found any similarities at all disturbing.
Mrs. Hudson padded into his study and, to show that she had forgiven him, leapt into his lap and permitted him to scratch behind her ears. He did so inattentively, however, requiring her to butt her head against his hand twice to remind him what he was supposed to be doing.
The doorbell rang. Mrs. Hudson sprang from his lap, upsetting the remaining biscuit on his plate, and retreated to the top of the bookcase. Strephon cursed and lurched his chair to the door. He had already had more unexpected visitors that day than he liked. Perhaps he’d be lucky and this one would only be someone soliciting for a charity or selling linoleum siding or some such thing. He opened the door.
It was Cassandra.
“Ah. I wasn’t expecting you,” Strephon said.
She stood on his porch, bashfully scratching the ankle of one foot with her other foot, next to a suitcase which looked like it had been given to her years ago by a prudent aunt and a duffle bag bearing the logo of a popular energy drink. “Hullo, Strephon. Sorry to impose on you, but when Cecily went off with Devon this morning, she asked me to pack a few of her things. She wasn’t sure how long she’d be gone, you see?”
“Of course. Quite sensible. Do come in. May I help you with your bags?”
Cassandra hesitated, regarding Strephon's outstretched hands dubiously.
“I'm disabled, not sessile,” Strephon said. “I do have wheels, you know. Hand me your bags and I can transport them into the sitting room.”
She relented, placing the luggage in Strephon's lap, and followed him into the house. “I don't want to be any trouble. Since I don’t know where to send her stuff, I thought maybe you might have some kind of fairy Internet or something so you could send Devon a message and he could pick it up.”
Strephon winced. “We do not call it that.” To be honest, though, he supposed that Melchior probably did. It was the sort of thing he would think was clever. “But yes,” he continued, “on the rare occasions I wish to speak with Devon, we do have means to communicate.”
“Did Devon really take her to... well... Fairy-land?”
“I suppose it does sound silly, doesn't it? If it's easier to accept, you may simply say that Devon has taken her to visit his native country.”
“What I mean is, she isn't going to come back and find that a hundred years have gone by is she?”
“Ah. I should hope not. I had words with Devon on that very subject. He assured me that he would keep track of the time, and I will see to it that he does.” He set the bags down in the sitting room, next to the love seat. The settee, he mentally corrected himself. Why did he think of it as a love seat? Well, because it was one, of course, and because that's what Phyllis always called it. He did not wish to pursue this line of thought, and so he changed the subject. “It was kind of you, but Miss Draper probably won't need all this baggage. I daresay Devon will be able to provide her with anything she might require.”
Cassandra blushed again. “Actually, the suitcase is mine.”
He turned to her, his countenance an unspoken query.
“Oh, hell. It's like this. I think it might not be safe to stay at my flat, and so I've decided to check into a hotel for a couple days.”
So, her discomfort was not just the result of embarrassment. Something had clearly happened to her. Strephon paused to consider his words. “What is the trouble, Cassandra?”
She sunk down into the love seat and the story spilled out of her encounter that afternoon with Philippe. Strephon listened gravely.
“Hum,” he mused. “Well, you are certainly correct about staying at your flat. Philippe seems to have turned his attentions to you. The question is, were you his object when he arrived at your doorstep, or was it mere opportunism?
“What puzzles me is why he came at all. Surely it would be more convenient for him to wait until nightfall,” Cassandra said. “Maybe sunlight isn't fatal to him like movie vampires, but he wasn't very comfortable. He could easily just wait and watch me from a distance until he could 'accidentally on purpose' run into me some evening after dark.”
“That suggests an urgency which compelled him to act outside his usual feeding habits. I think we can rule out hunger, unless some circumstances prevented him from feeding elsewhere last night. Possible, I suppose, but unlikely. Do you suppose he really is obsessively infatuated with you?”
Cassandra made a face. “If he is, he seriously needs to work on his pick-up lines.”
“No doubt he's come to rely on his vampiric charisma to attract his prey and is unpracticed in pleasant conversation. Then the most likely alternative I can think of is that someone else, someone with power over him, wants him to enthrall you specifically.”
Cassandra shuddered. “I had a feeling it might be something like that, but I can't for the life of me think why.”
“In any case, I can see why you don't feel safe at home. And I fear a hotel will be no safer. You'd be surrounded by strangers. The hotel lobby is a public space and a vampire would have little difficulty finding a spot to ambush you. Do you have any family you can stay with?”
“I have a sister in Manchester, but she's off at an orthodontist's conference this weekend. And my parents are currently on holiday in Sneek.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Sneek. It's a city in the Netherlands and home of this really big model railroad museum. Dad's a model railroad buff.”
“I see.”
“I'm afraid that if I did go to a family or a friend's house, they wouldn't understand the situation, and I'd just be putting them at risk too. I don't want to put anyone I care about in danger.”
“And so you came to me.” Strephon could not help a wry smile.
“Well, you're different. You do understand. And I really didn't come here to ask for crash space. “
“Crash…?”
“A place to stay.”
“Well, if you need a place to land, you are welcome here. And if you foresee anything more cataclysmic, I can find a few extra pillows to strew about. Unless you fear it might harm your reputation, I would be honored to extend my hospitality again.”
He spoke with such a serious tone that Cassandra almost laughed. “But I haven't told you the rest of it,” she said.
Cassandra proceeded to tell how Saul showed up to rescue her and the conversation which followed. At the mention of Taylor, Strephon clenched his brow. Cassandra's encounter with Philippe had given him concern, but hearing about Taylor's involvement aroused some darker sentiments in his breast. He realized that he was gripping the armrests of his chair with an atypical vehemence. He forced himself to resume a semblance of calm.
When she finished, Cassandra said, “You don't seem surprised that Saul is a wizard.”
“I sensed it when I met him at your flat.”
“You never mentioned it to me.”
“Well, he strongly implied that if I told you what he was, he would tell you what I was; and at the time I had hoped I could still maintain a few of my close personal secrets. And... well... if I had, it would just sound like I was being petty and jealous.”
A hint of a smile crept over Cassandra's face
“Yes, I was jealous,” he scowled. “You needn't be so smug about it.”
“Not at all,” she replied. Her smile was now a grin.
“It seems inordinately convenient that Taylor happened to be right there when Philippe was menacing you.”
“I thought so too. He said it was because he had been keeping an eye on me. For my protection, he said. It still struck me as a little bit creepy.”
“I dare say,” Strephon muttered darkly. “I'm surprised he didn't suggest you stay with him. For your protection.”
“I think he wanted me to bring it up myself, but at the time I just wanted some space to think things over. It didn't occur to me that I'd need a safer place to stay until after he'd gone. But he did give me this.” Cassandra fished the smooth purple stone Saul had given her out of her handbag and offered it to Strephon, who accepted it gingerly. “He said it was a talisman of protection,” she explained.
Strephon examined it carefully. “Perhaps,” he said. “It is definitely magical. The symbol on it is a Fae rune.”
“What does it mean?”
“I can't say. The symbol is very ancient; I don’t think I’ve ever seen it before. It looks a lot like the runes on the silver collars those werewolves who attacked us outside the restaurant wore. I thought at first they had been made by somebody who copied them from a book or some such thing for aesthetic value, without comprehending their meaning. Now I'm not so sure. It has a flavor of some very, very old magic.”
“Deep Magic From Before the Dawn of Time, like in the Narnia books?”
“Well, I might not go that far, but before the dawn of recorded history, anyway.”
“Is it safe?”
“I'm not sure.” Strephon weighed the stone in his hand.
“I've seen stones like this before,” Cassandra said. “Ms Kurayami has one. A red one. It's on her desk in her office.”
“Is that so?” That was interesting.
Cassandra took a deep breath and added, “And I saw a bunch of them at Morrigan's house.”
“Morrigan?” Strephon nearly dropped the stone.
“I thought it looked familiar when Saul gave it to me, but I didn't recognize it right away. I only remembered it later. They were in a basket sitting on her workbench, maybe a half dozen in different colors. They didn't have the runes carved on them, but they were the same size and shape. She had a bunch of those silver collars in her workshop too.”
Strephon maneuvered his chair to an end table next to the love seat and placed it in the table's drawer. He cast a small enchantment of concealment on the item and then shut the drawer. That accomplished, he turned his attention back to Cassandra. “That decides it. You are not going to a hotel. You will stay here until we can resolve this problem.”
“I don't want to be a bother.”
“Nonsense. Mrs. Simms laid on me a solemn obligation to look after you. If anything were to happen to you, she would never let me hear the end of it.”
He paused, then in a more sober tone added, “Here I've been trying to protect you from being mixed up in my intrigues; but I see you are already involved more than I realized. I would have done better to have confided in you from the beginning.” He sighed. “Perhaps I should brew another pot of tea. We have much to discuss.”
NEXT: The League of Colorful Paper Weights.