“It doesn’t have to be, Sam. Your son, it appears, is in good hands.”
“But whose hands?” I asked.
“That, as the old game show hosts used to say, is the million-dollar question. As of now, yes, the emerald medallion behaved very similarly to the diamond medallion, which not only returns your mortality, but also helps you retain all the perks, if you will. That is, all the perks of your choosing.”
“My choosing?”
“Yes.”
“I could retain...my great strength?”
“Yes, that, and more.”
“My psychic ability?”
“Yes.”
“More?” I asked.
“Much more, Sam.”
I thought about what could be much more...and gasped. “Flying?”
He nodded slowly. “Yes, Sam. You would retain that, as well.”
“And all this without the bloodsucking and sleeping during the day?”
“Yes, Sam. No more blood.”
“And I could finally see myself in the mirror and have normal nails again?”
“Yes, Sam.”
How Fang presently owned the fourth and final medallion was another story—a story I didn’t presently know. After all, how he came upon the diamond medallion, why he wore it, and what he even knew about it were all questions whose answers were unknown to me. A part of me wondered if he even knew what he had, if he understood the value of the relic that presently hung around his neck.
Maybe, maybe not. Either way, he and I were going to have a long talk...and soon.
“And what of the dark master within me?” I asked. “Does the diamond medallion eradicate her as well?”
He smiled down on me. “Completely.”
“And no such creature resides within my son?”
“No, Sam. The emerald medallion took care of that, as well.”
“This is all very weird.”
“It’s a weird universe, Samantha.”
I sighed and continued standing there. I found that I was hugging myself. After a moment, Maximus said, “But you didn’t come here today to talk about medallions, did you?”
“No,” I said, shaking my head. “My son...” But as soon as I began the sentence, the words got caught in my throat, and emotions poured out of me in tears, and the next thing I knew the Librarian had his arms around my shoulders, pulling me into his shoulder.
After a long moment of this, still unable to speak, the Librarian’s thoughts appeared in my head, just inside my ears.
Your son and the boxer remember each other on a soul level.
A soul level?
Many lifetimes ago, they were deeply connected as father and son, as they have been often in many lives, in many places.
But Anthony had a different dad...
In this lifetime, Sam. But the boxer, Jacky, and your son, Anthony, made an agreement to connect again, in this life, if your boy was ever lost or sad or lonely.
I wept harder into the Librarian’s shoulder and he squeezed me tighter.
There is deep love between them, Sam. Both need each other.
I nodded, and finally couldn’t even form words to think, let alone speak. Instead, I buried myself deeper into the young man’s shoulder. A young man who was, in fact, ancient, and wept for my son.
Chapter Seventeen
I was back at the ‘Bucks, as Tammy called it.
The evening shift would be rolling in soon, which was why I was here now. Jasmine Calcutta, who had, perhaps, the most exotic name I’d ever heard, would be here soon, and she was expecting me. We had planned on meeting fifteen minutes before her shift.
I had just sat down with a venti water on the rocks, when I saw a young girl appear at the entrance, blinking and looking around. She was wearing a green Starbucks apron. I waved to her and she nodded and came over.
“Can I get you a coffee?” I asked.
“Thanks, but I’m a little coffeed out,” said Jasmine Calcutta.
“Coffeed out,” I said. “The two words that keep Starbucks executives up at night. Well, that and their Sumatra Roast.”
She giggled and sat down opposite me. “That was kind of funny.”
“My kids don’t think I’m funny. They think I’m embarrassing.”
She giggled again, and I think we were hitting it off. Hitting it off with a witness is always a good thing. Much better than the alternative. Jasmine Calcutta was maybe twenty-five. Her eyes, I think, were violet, which surprised the hell out of me. The girl with the most exotic name might also have had the most exotic eyes I’d ever seen. Some girls got all the breaks.
“You’re a private investigator,” she said.
“I am. But you can call me Sam.”
“A real private investigator?”
“In the flesh,” I said.
“Do you have, like, a license or something?”
“I do.”
“Can I, like, see it?”
She wanted to see it out of curiosity’s sake, not because she doubted me. I didn’t need to be a mind reader to see that. I produced it from my purse and she oohed and ahed at it for a few seconds before handing it back.
“So cool,” she said. “I want to do something like that.”
I pointed to my license photo, in which I might have been wearing too much makeup. “You mean take great pictures?”
She giggled again. “No. Be a private detective. A real one, like you.”
“Well, here’s your chance to watch a real detective at work.”
She nodded enthusiastically.
I said, “I need you to do your best to remember everything you can about Lucy Gleason.”
“I’ll try, but it’s kind of getting fuzzier and fuzzier.”
“Real detectives don’t use words like fuzzier,” I said.
“Okay, sorry.”
“I’m teasing, Jasmine.”
“Oh, right, sorry.”
“No need to be sorry,” I said. “Just give me your hands.”
“My hands?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“It’s a super-secret interview trick I learned.”
“Wow, really?”
“Really.” I then directed this thought to her: It feels perfectly normal to give your hands to the nice, if not beautiful, lady and do whatever she asks.
She cocked her head to one side, and then nodded once.
I’m a monster, I thought. A monster who needed answers. I gestured for her hands and she presented them to me from across the table.
I slipped mine over hers and asked her to close her eyes and think back to the day Lucy disappeared. Luckily, most of the Starbuckians were too absorbed with their laptops and their own self-importance to notice two women holding hands in the coffee shop. Additionally, I had found a table that wasn’t in direct line with her fellow co-workers, who might wonder what we were doing.