The mansion’s ruins were no refuge now. Pete forced himself back awake.
Dim daylight crept into Prosperidad’s living room. Though the sunlight claimed he slept through until morning, he didn’t feel rested. He was as tired as he’d felt last night, maybe more so.
Pete’s watch said 5:30. That time didn’t square with the daylight outside. He stuck his head through the drapes. The orange glow was waning, not waxing. It was 5:30 p.m. Pete had been out for over twelve hours. Time had raced by while he checked the ruined mansion. He’d lost almost a day.
He hobbled into the bathroom and flicked on the light. The instant glare made his pupils recoil. When he focused, he was horrified.
He looked even worse than the day before. His lower eyelids sagged, exposing pink, inflamed sockets. His face was pale and drawn, his cheeks drooped. The shocker was his hair. Streaks of gray peppered the black. He reached up and ran his fingers through it. His shoulder felt like it was lubricated with gravel.
The two-tailed burning candle barely had a middle left. Living simultaneous lives in two worlds was wasting him. If he kept this up, he’d wake up with a coronary.
Prosperidad hadn’t returned last night. Either St. Croix still held her captive, or she was dead. Pete hoped St. Croix valued her fortunetelling skills enough to keep her alive.
He hung his head and slumped against the sink.
Rayna. Estella. Prosperidad. Cauquemere. St. Croix. He was supposed to be the key, the one who could fix the problems in both realities. He kept rearranging the variables in his head, trying to find an equation with a resolution. None seemed to work. Wherever he was, he needed to be elsewhere simultaneously. He could traverse two different planes of existence, yet only stay in one at a time.
But Cauquemere had the same disadvantage. He was fighting two enemies, just like Pete was.
That was the weak spot in the black knight’s armor. Pete just needed to find the right weapon, discern the right blow to strike and Cauquemere’s weakness became Pete’s strength.
Pete entered Prosperidad’s reading room. He flipped over the table back and poked through the wreckage on the floor in search of something to fertilize the sprouting plan.
He didn’t understand most of what he saw. Multicolored feathers. Bones from anonymous animals. A ring of braided hair, which he prayed wasn’t human. Many things were broken beyond recognition, shattered bits of powerless talismans.
Then he saw something useful.
On the floor lay what looked like a railroad spike, but on a smaller scale. The fact that it looked like a weapon caught Pete’s eye, but it had a more important property. He flaked some orange rust off the sharpened tip. It was made of iron.
Prosperidad said that iron killed in both worlds.
It would come to that. He was sure of it now. Either he would kill St. Croix/Cauquemere, or the demon would kill him. He hadn’t killed anything above insect in his life, and in a test of physical strength, either of the petra loa’s manifestations had him beat. He hoped he’d be up to it when the time came. He had to be, for Rayna’s sake. He slid the spike in his pocket.
Something about the ring of braided hair called to him. He fought the urge to pick it up until he remembered how things had come to him in Twin Moon City. In each instance, sudden clarity replaced confusion, clarity so obvious he felt stupid for questioning it. If those epiphanies could come in that reality, why not here?
He picked up the hair. It felt like silk, but with a strange static charge between the strands that made him feel uneasy. He pocketed the braid.
He lifted the broken shelf off the floor. Underneath lay the antelope’s head. He picked it up and brushed it off. Prosperidad asked the Antelope to send the message he saw at the mansion. He smoothed the fur on the skull. He flipped it over. A roll of paper stuck from the sinus cavity. He slid the paper out and unfolded it. It said:
PETE, MEET ME AT MY HOME.
Prosperidad’s message she sent to the mansion. The Antelope translated it into the dust storm vision.
Then it came together, as effortlessly as throwing up a reflection has come to him. Transportation, transmutation, transformation. The cloaking murkiness dissipated and the potential of his powers in Twin Moon City appeared clear as coral in Caribbean waters. All he had to do was reach out and touch it.
He understood the powers of the talismans, each distinct, each destined to have a part in the hours that lay ahead.
In this forming plan he could rescue Rayna and Estella, and perhaps everyone else trapped in Twin Moon City. He could end St. Croix’s reign in Atlantic City. He could tie things up neatly. Almost.
He couldn’t resolve a future with Rayna. Where could they exist on the same plane with any hope of having something meaningful?
A bridge he’d cross later.
First, he’d need the help of the Antelope. He grabbed a pen and paper and dashed off a note. He paused and then wrote another. The more lengthy second message filled the page. He folded the two notes up the way Prosperidad’s had been folded and inserted them in the skull. He flipped the skull back over onto the table, and looked it in the empty eye sockets.
“Antelope, Prosperidad told me you can send messages to the other side. Please, here are two. I really need your help.”
He hoped the Antelope would cut his half-assed request some slack. What he planned to do would be impossible if he had to do it alone.