Mr. Entwistle looked at me. The muscles in his jaws twitched as his teeth ground together. “This is bad,” he said.
“Tell me about it.”
“There’s more at stake here than a summer romance, boy.”
I knew this already.
Mr. Entwistle’s face relaxed. He took a deep breath, apologized for losing his temper, and headed for the back door.
“Are you leaving?” I asked.
“No. Just checking on your uncle.”
I’d just assumed he’d left. When I said so, Mr. Entwistle shook his head. “If I know Maximilian, he’ll walk the perimeter once more just to make certain the motion detectors are working. He wasn’t lying when he said he has your best interests at heart.”
The old vampire slipped out the door, leaving me with Ophelia, who was chewing her cheek, her eyes lost. A few seconds later, I heard the sound of an engine starting. It was the painted ambulance in the driveway. Did that mean Mr. Entwistle was leaving?
“I’ll be right back,” I said.
I slipped out the back door. Mr. Entwistle was pulling out of the drive. I wondered if he’d been lying. If he hadn’t been talking to my uncle at all, but was really leaving to go after Hyde. He’d said he would have to face Hyde alone. But it was so close to dawn. And he hadn’t even said good-bye.
Then the garage door started to open. Two headlights lit up the apartment. It was suddenly brighter than Broadway. I heard a sound like a jet engine, and my uncle slowly pulled forward in his car. I slipped to the side of the driveway and he stopped beside me. Although I’d seen it before and had even ridden in the front, the sight of his car was still shocking. Jedi knights didn’t get to drive in things this cool. It was half bat mobile, half spaceship, with doors that opened upward and a spoiler like a whale tail. The window slid down.
“Is he leaving?” I gazed at the ambulance, which was backing out onto the street.
My uncle shook his head. “No, just moving so I can get out.”
I suddenly felt foolish. But life is like that sometimes. You get so used to bad news, you just expect more.
“Are you okay?” I asked my uncle.
“Tired . . . I got sloppy. I shouldn’t have pushed my luck—coming in the house like that. Thoughtless . . .” Pain was in his voice. He let his head fall back against the seat rest.
“I’m sorry.” It sounded lame, but I meant it.
“Don’t apologize. I had that coming.” He took a moment to adjust his seat belt, a double-shoulder harness.
“Your father had a belief that we should put the job ahead of everything. I put myself first. And I lied to myself. I said I was doing it for you. That if I died, I couldn’t protect you from the Coven, couldn’t continue your father’s work—our work. So I negotiated with Vlad. It was foolish. . . . And I have paid. We all have.”
He started coughing. I could smell the blood in his mouth.
“You’re dying.”
He nodded. “Yes. Nothing is working. I’ve one last option.”
“What is that?”
“Biotherapeutics.”
I had no idea what that meant.
“You take a nonlethal virus and use it to kill the cancer cells in your body,” my uncle explained. “But I still have one more radiation treatment. I’m afraid I won’t be much use for the next little while. I’ve never been this exhausted.” His eyes drifted up to the eastern horizon. It was growing lighter. “You should go. Make sure Charlie’s okay. I know he’s angry with you, but this will pass. He’ll come around. Just give him time.” The words tumbled out slowly. He sounded tired, but sincere.
I thanked him and he slowly pulled away. The car engine whined. I could feel the power of it resonate in my stomach. A second later Mr. Entwistle pulled the ambulance back in. I didn’t wait for him. The light was faint, but it still made me uncomfortable, and I was worried about Charlie.
When I came in, Ophelia was in the kitchen returning the phone to its cradle. She had the ugly purse with the wolfsbane in her other hand.
Mr. Entwistle entered a second later. “Where is he?” I guessed he meant Charlie.
“He’s on the roof,” Ophelia answered. “I heard him go up while you were outside.”
Mr. Entwistle nodded and headed for the stairs.
“What are we going to say to Dr. Abbott when he gets here?” I asked.
“I’ll call him now and tell him where his children are. He’ll probably be relieved. It means he won’t have to come here and talk to any of us.”
This was true.
“I had no idea they were going to leave.”
Ophelia nodded. “I could tell.” Then she held up the purse. “Why did you bring this awful thing into the house?”
I quickly explained about the storage unit and the monkshood. I was expecting her to be impressed. We’d acquired a new poison, perhaps one that might prove useful against Hyde, but if anything, the mention of it just made her nervous. “What’s wrong?” I asked.
“Wolfsbane is lethal to vampires, Zachary. And to people. If Hyde has this, it only makes him more dangerous.”
I don’t know why this hadn’t occurred to me. I guess it indicated how poorly my mind was working.
“I’ll have to call Detective Baddon,” she said, “and see if he can find out who that storage unit belongs to.”
“Do you think Maximilian might be Hyde?”
She sighed and zipped open the purse, then carefully examined the tiny hooded flowers inside. “I hope not. I was counting on his help. But if it is him, at least he knows us as a man and trusts us. Perhaps we could find a way to help him.”
I looked away and nodded. I didn’t want it to be true. I didn’t want my uncle to be that thing.
“You should get some sleep. You look beat.”
She was right. It had been a long and tiring night. I said good-night and made my way up to the second-floor apartment, sealed the window shutters in my room, pulled the blind closed, and shut the curtains. Then I settled on the bed and listened for Charlie.
It wasn’t my intention to doze off, but it happened anyway. I woke up to the sound of someone knocking at the door. I hoped it would be him, but when I said “come in,” Mr. Entwistle entered.
“You’re not asleep yet. Good.”
I sat up and asked if Charlie was okay.
“He’s fine. Just talking to Ophelia now. They’re in the apartment upstairs.”
“Is something wrong?”
“He’ll be fine. I just needed to explain to him why it was so important that your uncle be involved. And that he be forgiving. Are you all right?”
“Yeah. You?”
His movements were restless, his eyes busy. He strayed into the doorway, his hat tucked under his arm. The hall light was behind him, so his body was like a tall shadow. “As good as can be expected. I wanted to speak to you about a few things, but I . . .” He waved his hand through the air as if it wasn’t really that important.
“No, tell me. What is it?”
He hesitated. “I just wanted to . . .” A few quiet seconds followed. “I’ve been trying to find a solution to this Hyde dilemma.”
“Do you think Charlie’s right? That his alter ego might be Maximilian?”
He started shaking his head. “I’m not convinced. It just doesn’t fit.”
I didn’t know what he was talking about. It seemed to fit perfectly to me. But he didn’t say anything else about it. He just sat down on the bed and looked at me over his shoulder.
“I believe he’s a lycanthrope, Zack. Hyde, I mean. Not your uncle. But no matter how I reason it out, I can’t get past the reality of the Beast, and that I have to face him. I’ve seen it too many times. . . .”
I realized as he spoke, as I watched his eyes move around the room, that he was terrified. I understood. Hyde terrified me, too.
“You don’t think you can beat him?”
He took his hat off. It trembled in his hands. “I can’t.”
“Are you afraid of dying?”
He looked at me. His clear blue eyes were piercing. His forehead knotted. He looked offended. “Of dying? Me? Heavens no. I’ve never been afraid of that.” He stood up as though I’d somehow restored his confidence. Then he seemed to sag. His face. His shoulders. It was subtle, but I didn’t miss it. “But when I die, who will deal with him?”
Is that what scared him? That he would die and leave us helpless?
“I can’t beat him. I’ve faced him several times now, and John Entwistle is no match for this thing. I can’t. John Entwistle can’t . . .”
When he said his name that way, I suddenly understood his fear. The air of defeat around him. He wasn’t afraid of Hyde or of dying. He was afraid of himself.
“John Entwistle can’t beat him,” he continued, “but the Butcher can. The Butcher can kill anything.”
So that was it. I was right. He was afraid he would become John Tiptoft, the Butcher of England. The man he used to be.
“I don’t think you’re meant to be that person,” I said.
“I can’t see any other way. I keep asking myself, How can we survive? There is no cure for lycanthropy. Only death stops the curse. To atone for the sins of John Tiptoft I must face the Beast. I know that. But how can I atone for my sins by committing murder? How can I atone by becoming a monster myself?”
There was only one answer. He couldn’t. I suddenly understood why he wanted to face Hyde alone. He didn’t want us to see him becoming the thing he most feared—the Butcher. He wasn’t just trying to protect us from Hyde, but from himself.
He sighed, turned, and opened the door. “You’re a good kid, Zack.” His voice sounded sad. It dropped to a whisper. “I had a son once . . . little boy . . . died of plague. . . . Had he grown up, I would have wanted him to be like you . . . would have been proud of that.”
He put his hat on his head and closed the door. I listened to his footsteps. A great swell of pity rose up in my throat. I wondered how he could have been anyone but Mr. Entwistle. And I wondered how Luna was. And Charlie. I decided to wait up so I could ask him, but when I put my head down, I fell into a deep and dreamless sleep. Some days are like that.
I awoke at dusk to the sound of gentle knocking. It was coming from the window. I got up, drew the curtains, raised the blinds, and pulled back the shutters. A faint strip of yellow light was fading on the western horizon. The sun was gone, but I still had to squint to see.
Charlie was standing on the fire escape. A pack hung loosely over his shoulder. He looked at me. I knew what he would ask before he opened his mouth. Are you coming?
“Where?” I asked.
“Stony Lake.”
“You mean the camp?”
He nodded.
I started looking for my shoes. Once I’d slipped them on, I climbed out onto the landing. Charlie hadn’t moved.
“You should have told me,” he said.
He must have been talking about my uncle—that Maximilian was Agent X.
“Yeah. I know. I’m sorry. I kept thinking there would be a good time, but stuff kept happening. . . . Are we good?”
Charlie turned and started down the steps. “Yeah. But still—you should have told me.”
I closed the window and followed him to the street. “You know they’ll see us leave. And it won’t take a brain scientist to figure out where we’re going.”
He nodded. “Ophelia said the same thing last night. She wanted me to know that if I left, she’d notice. But I don’t care.”
We started off down the street. Then my mind started wandering. What if we ran into Hyde? Or worse. What if he followed us to the camp? I slowed. Then stopped.
“Don’t tell me you’re bailing already?”
“We need to go back.”
Charlie looked as if he were ready to bite me. His voice was angry. And disappointed. “You want to go back to the apartment?”
“No. I want to go to Ophelia’s safe house on Burnham. The one with the antiques—the weapons. If Hyde shows up, I want to be armed with more than just running shoes.”
Charlie smiled, exposing his long incisors. “Now you’re talkin’!”