Immortal Lycanthropes - By Hal Johnson Page 0,66

we entered the long stretch on I-80.

“We’re going to Portland,” Myron said as we motored west.

“No, we’re going to Sacramento to meet Alice,” I corrected him. “She has a safe house there.”

Myron flipped out. “What? The Rosicrucians are in Portland.”

“Maybe they are and maybe they aren’t, but you’re not going to go meet the Rosicrucians. It’s obviously a trap.”

He crossed his arms and sulked. I think he might have tried to jump out of the car if we hadn’t been speeding. Also, I can assure you that his deep-seated respect for me would have kept him in check.

“This is going to be a long trip,” I goaded him, “if no one talks.”

But Myron could not stay mad at me for long, though. Who could? Gloria forgave me, Alice time and again forgave me, I’m sure you’ll forgive me, too, after the part where you find out and get mad. My crime against Myron, the crime of not driving him directly to his doom, was comparatively minor. And he warmed up eventually.

I tried to help him understand. “Ask me anything,” I told him. “You’ll be surprised what I know.”

Q: Why did Mignon Emanuel’s militia guards have harpoon guns?

A: In case any lions showed up, harpoons, and their tangling lines, are better for stopping them than ineffectual bullets.

Q: Why does Gloria talk that way: i’ faith and zounds?

A: You tend to internalize a language best when you first learn it. Gloria learned English sometime in the sixteenth century, so when she gets distracted or excited, she falls upon old habits. In contrast, I learned English from a set of The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire I acquired from a British soldier in India in 1791, so my speech, like my prose, is as pellucid as Edward Gibbon’s.

Q: Who was still looking to kill Myron?

A: Too many people to count, now.

Q: Why don’t we go see the Rosicrucians?

A: BECAUSE IT’S A TRAP!

Ah, but how did I know it was a trap? The ermine may or may not have been in league with the lion, but he was in league with somebody. And when it came down to it, the Rosicrucians were much more likely to want to help someone as powerful as Mr. Bigshot than our little Myron. And also they were the Rosicrucians. Who trusts them?

Myron was far too trusting. He believed he was paranoid, but he didn’t know real paranoia: he couldn’t remember the Time of Troubles. I was amazed by how little animosity, though, he had toward Mignon Emanuel and Florence. He actually seemed concerned that Florence was the last survivor of the Vazimba. He also seemed to think I was callous for not sympathizing.

“Her whole people were wiped out! Isn’t that sad?”

“Kid,” I said, “everybody’s whole people were wiped out. You knew Spenser, right?” (I’d heard about Spenser.) “Spenser’s from Scotland before the Celts arrived. What do you think the Celts did when they got there? Here’s a hint: Scotland ended up Celtic. And anyway, there are plenty of Vazimba left—I’ve met at least three species of civet, and a fossa—they just don’t like Florence. And anyway, the real Vazimba are not Florence’s people. The real Vazimba are humans.”

But Myron still seemed to care even about Mrs. Wangenstein. She’d been blackmailed a little, by the way, but mostly she’d been bribed. And Oliver, too. “I hope he’s okay,” Myron said.

“He’s alive; he’s back with his parents, I’d heard. But I don’t think he’s okay, if you get what I mean.”

It was a long drive, and finally Myron began to tell me his story, much of which I’d already pieced together, fragmentarily and at times inaccurately. “Hold the wheel, will you, I want to take notes,” I said. But Myron seemed to think this was dangerous. He wouldn’t even let me set my typewriter up while I drove. I tried to explain I was a touch-typist, so it was perfectly safe, but perhaps Myron was notching closer to the paranoid ideal. I couldn’t wait until we were able to stop, so I could write things down, but I kept driving, anyway, because I didn’t want to break his train of thought. Finally, in a dull generic motel in Grand Island, Nebraska, which is incidentally not an island, I pretended to a desk clerk, who was literally eating paint chips, that Myron was my son. He faced away from the front desk. The warped and filthy key card got us into a room with a bed