The Autumn Castle (47 page)

Christine had never seen Jude so drunk and it alarmed her.

“Come on, honey, one foot in front of the other.” He leaned on her heavily, her back twinged, but she had to get him up the
stairs to the apartment somehow.

“Can’t,” he said, grabbing for the banister, missing it and dropping.

Christine released him immediately. Holding on to him would cause too much pain. He landed on his backside on a stair, and
rested there. His skin was flushed and his eyes were glazed and he stank of cigarettes and whiskey. They had been the first
to leave Super Jazz—after Jude had thrown up on Sparky in repayment for the free drinks. Gerda, Pete, and Fabiyan were still
at the club, no doubt speculating on why Jude got himself so wasted.

“Jude, honey. Come on. Not far to go. Then you’ll have a nice warm bed to pass out in.”

“Can’t,” he said again, leaning his head against the stair railings. “I’ll just sleep here.”

“No, you won’t.” She grasped his hand and pulled, causing her back to shriek at her. She dropped him quickly, her fingers
going to her spine.

“Christine?” His drunken hands were fluttering up now, his voice all panicked and guilty. “Christine? Did I hurt you?”

“Please, Jude, just get up and come to bed.”

“I didn’t want to hurt you.”

“Come on. We’re nearly there, just a little further.”

“I’m tired.” He sighed and put his head on his knees. “I’m . . . so . . . tired.”

She pulled his arm. “Come on, Jude, please. I’m not going to leave you here on the stairs and I can’t carry you.”

He straightened up, stood unsteadily. “No, of course. You can’t carry me. We’ll be home soon. It’ll be nice to be home, won’t
it, Christine?”

“Do you mean home here in Berlin, or back home in New York?” she said, her hand under his elbow to steady him as they took
the remaining stairs.

“Home where nothing ever happened to us,” he slurred. “Home where it was easy.”

“Okay, whatever.” She had the key in the door. “Come on. Inside.”

He shuffled in and she guided him to the bedroom where he sprawled on the bed, eyes closed. With a sigh, she unlaced his shoes
and eased them off, unbuckled his belt, and took his wallet and keys out of his pocket. Then she turned him on his side and
pulled the covers up. By now he was fast asleep; the absolute-and-entire sleep that only babies and drunkards know. Christine
sat on the edge of the bed and watched him: his tangled hair, his pale fingers clutching the pillow. She was tired too, weary
to the bone, but she couldn’t sleep without knowing if Mayfridh were safe.

Mandy was nowhere to be found. He hadn’t opened the gallery, answered his door, or picked up his telephone all day. Either
he was hiding, or he hadn’t returned from Ewigkreis and the footsteps upstairs had been boards settling, or rats, or something.
Christine was worried sick. Mayfridh hadn’t contacted her and Christine didn’t trust Mandy.

She left Jude sleeping, switched off the light, and closed the bedroom door. Checked the answering machine; nothing from Mayfridh.
She sat on the sofa and looked up at the ceiling. Mandy’s floor. No footsteps tonight. In fact, she hadn’t heard them at all
today. So far, only Jude had tried Mandy’s door. She checked her watch. It was one in the morning.

Before she could think better of it, she was on her feet and heading up the stairs to Mandy’s apartment. She knocked. No answer.
She knocked again. Remembered that the other time she had been here, his door had been unlocked. She tried it.

It opened.

Either he was too rich to care about burglars, or he was doing laundry at one a.m. She nervously backed down a few steps,
leaned her head over the railing, and listened. Not a sound: no whir of a washing machine, no footsteps nearby.

Taking a deep breath, she went inside and switched the light on. One glance told her why the door was open, and what the footsteps
had been: Mandy’s apartment had been broken into. It was a mess. Blankets were draped over the sofa and floor, books had been
pulled out and left haphazardly over the tables and chairs, food scraps lay on dirty plates everywhere she looked, and the
smell of stale rubbish and old sweat hung in the air. Someone had been camping here. A quick check of the television and stereo
told her it hadn’t been thieves, but the state of the room told her it hadn’t been Mandy.

He wasn’t back. He was still in Ewigkreis with Mayfridh. What the hell were they doing there? Christine glanced at the mess
around her and balled her fists in frustration. How could she go home to New York without knowing what had happened to Mayfridh?

She shouldn’t be up here, especially if someone had recently broken in. Whoever had made this mess might still be here or
intending to return soon and, besides, she should call the police.

“Anyone here?” she called, advancing into the kitchen and turning on the light. More food scraps. The intruder had eaten a
lot for someone who had only stayed one night. Bugs buzzed around the sink. She checked the bedrooms and the bathroom. The
apartment appeared to be empty.

She hesitated on the stairs up to the second floor. What precisely was she looking for? But she knew: she wanted to see if
that narrow door was still locked. She wanted to know what Mandy was up to.

“Hello?” she called, taking the steps slowly, peering around the doorway to see if anyone waited for her up there. “Hello?”
Nobody. In fact, the room seemed much emptier than last time she was here. She gazed around. Of course, the beautiful statue
of the woman’s body was gone. Mandy must have sold it, even though it was unfinished. Or perhaps it was finished. Perhaps
Mandy thought half a woman’s body made a good sculpture. This thought made her shudder, and she became aware of how vulnerable
she was up here alone, with an unconscious Jude the only other person in the building. Christine grabbed a sculptor’s mallet
from the shelf and held it firmly in her right hand. She went back to the stairs, leaned over the railing, and listened. Silence.
The locked door awaited.

Perhaps because the front door of the apartment had been unlocked she presumed the mysterious door would be too. It wasn’t.
Every deadlock was in place. No access

Christine ran her fingers over the door, frustrated. The enamel paint was very thick and had dried in a pattern of dribbles.
The door itself was narrow and short; Mandy, surely, would need to duck his head and take a deep breath to get through it.
A little door, leading to . . . where? A little staircase to a little room where the windows were painted black.

She turned to survey the room. Perhaps a set of keys hid in the mahogany desk. Hefting the sculptor’s mallet in one hand against
imagined enemies, she sat at the desk and began to search it. Pens, pencils, papers, but no keys. She slammed the last drawer
closed in frustration.

“What the hell am I doing here?” she muttered. Mandy wasn’t here; Mayfridh certainly wasn’t. In less than forty-eight hours
she had to catch a plane to New York and she couldn’t see how that was possible if she hadn’t heard from either of them. But
coming into Mandy’s apartment and searching his desk was not going to help her.

She halfheartedly checked the drawers again. One of them had carefully stacked notebooks in it, and she pulled them out to
leaf through the pages. Perhaps Mandy had stashed the keys between the covers. Most of the books were art journals, full of
sketches. One was a ledger of accounts for the hotel. The book at the very bottom, a scrappy spiral-bound notepad, was filled
with Mandy’s handwriting. She glanced at the front:
from the Memoirs of Mandy Z.

Christine almost laughed. Trust Mandy to embark on something so narcissistic as an autobiography. He considered himself something
of a celebrity. Curious, she opened to the first page and began to read.

Within moments, her blood had chilled. She turned the page:
I have a measureless loathing for faeries. And I am the Faery Hunter.

“Oh, my God,” she gasped, flipping forward, scanning the pages. Mayfridh was in terrible danger. Did she know it yet? Or was
she still assuming Mandy had an innocent crush on her? She read a little farther, sickened by the details. A surreal panic
lurched through her. It was one thing to believe in faeries—Mayfridh’s spell had helped to cope with that—but it was beyond
imagining that the wealthy billionaire had devoted his life to hunting and killing them. Her head spun, and she had to grab
the edge of the desk to reassure herself that what she was experiencing was real. Somewhere downstairs, she heard people arrive
home. Gerda and the others. It barely registered as she flicked quickly through the notebook reading snatches here and there.
Her stomach clutched against the awful helpless fear. There was absolutely no way for her to get to Ewigkreis to warn or help
Mayfridh.

A scream broke into her train of thought. At first she believed she had imagined it; that it was the scream inside her head
that she hadn’t let escape. But then it came again. A woman’s scream from somewhere in the hotel.

Clutching Mandy’s book under one arm and the sculptor’s mallet in the other, she hurried downstairs and out of the apartment.

The scream came again, this time followed by a frantic voice. “What have you done? What have you done?” Gerda. Commotion on
the landing as Fabiyan opened his door and leaned out, as Pete raced across the landing to Gerda. She stood there, crying,
“Where did she go? Did you see her? She’s disappeared!”

But something was very wrong, because every time Gerda spoke, she spat something from her lips. Christine peered down the
semi-lit stairwell as she came down. For a moment, she was reminded of a rabid dog she had seen once, spitting foam left and
right, distressed.

“Gerda?”

“What the fuck?” This was Pete, taking two steps back from Gerda in horror.

Gerda turned to him, her eyes wild with terror. “What has she done to me?” And as she spoke, two tiny frogs jumped from her
lips and pattered to the ground. Christine looked around her feet: frogs, lizards, locusts, all scurrying away from the loud
voices and the panic.

“Who did this?” Christine gasped. “Who did this to you?”

“Oh, God! You have to help me,” Gerda shrieked, and a shower of locusts sprayed from her mouth. “She said her name was Hexebart.”

W
here’s Jude?” Pete asked, as Christine searched for a bucket under the sink.

“In bed. Unconscious.” She approached Gerda, who sat at the kitchen table in Christine’s apartment, her face flushed and her
eyes teary. Christine put a bucket in front of her. “Here.”

Fabiyan, who sat across from Gerda, watched her in awe. “Where do they come from?” he asked.

Gerda shook her head, tight-lipped.

“Okay, Gerda,” Christine said, pulling up a chair, “so Hexebart did this to you?”

Gerda nodded.

“Where? Outside? In your apartment?”

A nod.

“She followed you home?”

No.

“She was waiting for you?”

Yes.

“And she said her name was Hexebart?”

“Who is she?” Gerda said, and a lizard plopped into the bucket.

“That is so amazing,” Pete said, leaning over the bucket. “Can I get my video camera and film this?”

Christine pushed Pete away in irritation. “Hexebart is a witch from Mayfridh’s world. She’s supposed to be imprisoned. I have
no idea how she got here, but it must have something to do with Mandy.” She slapped the notebook on the table. “The guy is
a homicidal freak. He’s been hunting faeries for decades. None of us had any idea, least of all Mayfridh.”

“What are you talking about?” Pete asked.

“I’ll explain in a minute. Gerda, did you see where Hexebart went?”

Gerda shook her head.

“Did she leave by the door, or did she just disappear?”

“Door.” A tiny frog jumped from her lips. Pete caught it and put it in the bucket.

Christine ran a hand through her hair. “I have to find her. She’s my only hope of getting back to Ewigkreis. I have to warn
Mayfridh. Or save her, if it’s too late to warn her.”

Pete held his hands up, a “slow down” gesture. “Wait, Christine. You’re seriously going to try to find this witch? Look what
she’s done to Gerda.”

“Gerda’s still alive, at least. Mandy wants to kill Mayfridh and use her bones for a sculpture. I bet Hexebart was squatting
at Mandy’s. Maybe she’ll go back there.”

“Will she take the spell off?” Gerda said, spitting locusts and frogs.

“I don’t know. But if I find Mayfridh, she can take the spell off.”

Fabiyan was flicking through Mandy’s memoir. “Where did you find this?”

“In his desk.”

Pete leaned over his shoulder, reading a line Fabiyan pointed out for him. “Oh, my God. Is this for real? This guy is a psycho.”

Christine’s eyes ached and her heart sped. “I feel so helpless.”

“We will help if we can,” Fabiyan said. “Anything you say.”

“Okay. Right, Fabiyan, can you go up to Mandy’s and keep an eye out for Hexebart? If you see her, don’t approach her. Just
call me. Trap her up there if you can, lock her in. Pete, can you take Gerda back to your place? Don’t make her say anything
and don’t film her.” She handed him the bucket. “Gerda, hang in there. It may only be a temporary spell. If not, I’m sure
Mayfridh or Eisengrimm will be able to fix it.” She glanced back toward the bedroom. “I’d better wake Jude and tell him what’s
going on.”

Pete led Gerda out and Fabiyan warily took the stairs up to Mandy’s apartment. Christine closed the door behind them. Her
knees shook and for a moment she had to steady herself against the doorway. Was Mayfridh already dead? The thought was unbearable;
Mandy preying on her like a cat preys on a butterfly. But then, if Mayfridh were dead, surely Mandy would have returned by
now. She clung to that thought. Until he came back, she could convince herself that Mayfridh was still alive.

Christine entered the bedroom and sat on the edge of the bed. Jude, in exactly the same position she had left him, was fast
asleep.