FORTY
Allen got on his hands and knees, and peered under a thorny bush. "I mean, Jesus. You know? What am I supposed to think? It's like I don't even know you."
Penny followed behind him, still buttoning her shirt. "It's not an easy thing to tell somebody, okay? I mean, hell, remember Jenny Mackenzie from Victorian lit last semester? She got the clap over the summer and still hasn't told her boyfriend."
"This is different."
"Of course it's different. It's always different."
"But you're very very different."
"You don't have to treat me any different," Penny insisted. "I don't need your... your racism."
"Racism? It's not like you're Chinese."
"Animalism then," Penny said. "Whatever."
"I mean, you're a... a-"
"Don't say it!"
"Say what?"
"Werewolf," Penny said. "We hate that word."
Allen walked in a widening circle, bent over, scanning the ground. The first rays of dawn helped only a little. "What's the right word?"
"Lycanthrope."
"Lycan-what?"
"Lycanthropy is a disorder," Penny said. "A rare virus in conjunction with an even rarer genetic predisposition. The Third Vatican Council ruled it as a medical condition. As opposed to the work of Satan."
"I've never heard of a Third Vatican Council."
"You're not supposed to have." Penny scanned the ground now too. "Where did you drop it?"
"I don't know," Allen said. "I was slightly terrified at the time."
"Following your scent was the only way I could think to find you, and I can only do that in wolf form. How many times do I have to say I'm sorry?"
Allen sighed. "I just need to let this sink in. It's been a strange couple of days."
"For me too," Penny said. "That's not really how I wanted you to see me naked for the first time."
"Over here!" Amy's voice came from forty yards away, through more thick bushes.
Allen and Penny found Amy. She handed him the manuscript, still bound up with twine and newspaper. There were leaves in Amy's hair, grass stains on her shorts.
"It seems okay."
"Open it," Penny said. "I want to see."
"Not here." Allen clutched the manuscript to his chest. "It's too old."
"I don't even know what it is," Penny said.
"I told you. It's Edward Kelley's diary. The alchemist."
"Back to my apartment," Penny said.
"No," Amy said quickly. "They'll think to look there."
"I told you I didn't tell Father Paul where we were," Penny said.
"I don't trust you."
Penny sputtered. "You don't... after I let you see me... Oh, my God. You suck."
"I'm not saying your motives are bad," Amy said. "I just won't risk it."
"Oh, you so very much suck."
"I just need a table and someplace quiet," Allen said. "Preferably not too crowded."
"Like a library?" Amy said.
"Been there. Done that."
"I know a place," Penny said, "but it won't be open yet."
"Okay then," Amy said. "Breakfast."
They walked back through Mala Strana in no particular hurry. The city was waking, the morning cool and dewy. They circled Prague Castle on the north side, pausing to gander at the walls and towers.
"In there." Allen tapped the Kelley diary. "That's where he wrote it."
They continued on, back through Letna Park. In the light of day it was pleasant, trees arching in a canopy over the path. Allen pictured himself here with Penny under other circumstances, walking hand in hand, on the way for a cup of coffee. Two healthy young people in an exotic foreign country. Why couldn't it be that simple?
They reached the Holešovice suburb and found a hip little caf¨¦ that was just opening, serving eggs, toast, sausage heavy enough to sink a naval destroyer, and coffee so strong it could eat the paint off the wall.
"Push the dishes aside," Penny said. "Let's see the diary."
Allen shook his head. "No way. Spill some of that coffee on it, and the whole thing will disintegrate."
"I'm so curious, I can't stand it," she said. "How did you even know to look for it?"
Allen went a little pale remembering his encounter with Cassandra. He couldn't quite bring himself to relate that experience to Penny just yet. Then he remembered there was something else he hadn't told her.
"Penny, Professor Evergreen is dead."
"What?"
Allen related the story to the girls, how he'd found the professor dead, the chunk bitten out of his throat.
"Oh, my God," Penny whispered.
Amy said, "Good."
Penny's eyes went big. "Did you just say 'good'?"
"I'm sorry. I don't mean I hope he suffered or anything like that. It's just good he's out of the way. He was a traitor to the Society. We were all pretty worried he'd get a hold of the philosopher's stone and do something really fucked up with it. His wife's a vampire, you know."
Penny sputtered coffee. "A what?"
"Vampire."
"Unbelievable," Penny said.
Amy pointed a finger at her. "You're a werewolf."
"Lycanthrope!"
Amy narrowed her eyes, turned back to Allen. "How did you know about the diary? How did you know to look in the monastery?"
Allen opened his mouth to tell them. Of course he would tell them. Time to come clean. These people were on his side. So why wouldn't the words come out? He suddenly felt Cassandra's cold touch and shivered. He realized with acute dread that whatever spell the vampire had put on him had not completely evaporated.
He held up his hand for the waitress. "Check, please."
Penny said she'd found the place her first day, tired and jet lagged but too excited to sleep. She'd strolled the streets of Holešovice and stumbled upon the Veletrzni Palace-the Trade Fair Palace.
A gleaming example of modern architecture, the Trade Fair Palace housed Prague's collection of twentieth-century art and was one of the main reasons tourists made it out to the suburb. The four floors of paintings and sculptures attracted groups of students on the weekends, but on an early weekday morning, the small caf¨¦ in the lobby was utterly deserted. All very modern, sharp angles and white plastic, metal chairs that looked uncomfortable but weren't.
"They have a couple of Picassos here," Penny said.
Allen held up his copy of The Rogue's Guide. "This place isn't even in here. All this book tells you is where to get drunk and laid."
Penny laughed. "You're not actually using that to get around Prague, are you? That was a gag gift."
They picked the table farthest from the entrance, and Allen untied the twine, peeled away the newspaper.
Amy and Penny crowded in on either side of him.
"I can't do this with you reading over my shoulder," he said. "You're making me anxious."
"We're curious too," Penny said.
Amy crossed her arms. "Yeah."
"Okay, just wait. Hold on." Allen pointed at the caf¨¦ counter. "I need napkins and plastic coffee stirs."
"One second." Penny went to fetch them.
"I'll bite," Amy said. "Napkins and coffee stirs?"
"These old manuscripts damage easily." Allen ran his hand lightly over the leather cover. "Watch and learn."
Penny returned with the napkins and stirs, gave them to Allen.
"Okay." Allen pointed to the chairs on the opposite side of the table. "Both of you sit over there."
The girls looked at each other and frowned, but they took their seats without complaint.
Allen took the cracked and worn leather cover between thumb and forefinger, and opened the manuscript with utmost care. Edward Kelley's erratic scrawl was faded but legible. Allen began to read, skimming, slowing down occasionally to determine if a particular passage was pertinent. He used the plastic coffee stirs like surgical instruments to carefully turn the pages, sneaking a stir under an edge, lifting it carefully, catching the page with the other stir and letting it down again delicately. When he came to some caked-on dust, he dabbed at it with one of the napkins.
"Are you going to read some of that to us?" Penny asked. "Or do we just sit here watching you turn those pages with plastic sticks?"
"It's not all relevant, okay?" Allen gestured at the thick manuscript. "This thing looks like it covers months and months. Maybe more. Probably what we want is toward the end, but I don't know. I don't know anything. I have to go through all this, and I'm trying to do it fast, but I don't know what I'm going to find or when."
"Read us something," Amy pleaded. "We can't stand it."
"Fine," Allen said. "Here's a sample." He read the following passage out loud:
This serving maid is unquenchable. Last night she used her mouth on me in ways that surely are sins in the eyes of the Church. She begged me to return the favor. Unfortunately, I do not believe she had bathed in several days and-
"Never mind," Penny said. "We'll do it your way." She nudged Amy. "You want some coffee?"
Amy grimaced. "No way. The last cup almost ate through my stomach. Some tea?"
"Be right back." Penny left for the caf¨¦ counter.
Amy waited until Penny was out of earshot, then said, "You're holding back something about the vampire."
"No, I'm not."
"I could tell. Back at breakfast."
"No."
"How did you know where to look for the diary?"
Allen hesitated. "Dr. Evergreen told me."
"You said he was dead."
"He... told me before he died."
"You're a terrible liar, Allen."
"Okay, yes. It was Cassandra. She made me fetch the diary from the monastery."
"She 'made' you?"
Allen sighed. "It's sort of... complicated."
"Allen, if she sent you for it, then she'll want it. When night hits, she'll come, and then we'll have a vampire on our hands. The Society thought Evergreen had something bad planned for the philosopher's stone, but it was Cassandra all along, wasn't it? She needs it for something."
"She didn't tell me for what," Allen said. "But I plan to find out. She may have sent me to find the diary, but I didn't take it to her, did I? I'm going to get to the bottom of this, but I'll need your help, okay? I just... I don't want to say anything to Penny about Cassandra. It's embarrassing."
"Embarrassing? But why would-" Amy's eyes went big, comprehension dawning in her expression. "Oh, my God. Did she do that vampire hypnotism thing on you? Did she seduce you?"
"Keep your voice down." He felt himself turn red.
"She did, didn't she?"
Allen saw Penny returning with tea and coffee. "Shush."
"That's hot," Amy said.
Allen glared her into silence just as Penny sat down and passed a mug of tea to Amy.
"Did I miss anything?"
"Nope." Allen kept his eyes fixed on the manuscript, deliberately not looking at either of the girls.
He focused on passages, trying to find something important. Kelley went on and on about life at the castle, lengthy tirades against somebody named Dee. He skipped ahead, feeling a little more urgency to get to the meat of the matter. Amy and Penny lapsed into a conversation about shoes, then poetry, then where Amy had attended college. Allen tuned them out, focusing on Kelley's words.
At last he found something, but he reread it again to be sure.
Allen cleared his throat. "Ladies, I think you might want to hear this."
PRAGUE CASTLE
1601