Chloe found herself fascinated by him. “You’re the Akyri they said lives in Disneyland. You’re the seer.”
“Have you ever found a hidden Mickey?” he asked, completely ignoring her questions in favor of asking his own.
Chloe blinked. “What’s a hidden Mickey?”
“It’s the shape of Mickey’s head; two small circles over a larger one. They’re hidden all over Disneyland.” His smile was pleased as punch. “I’ve found almost two hundred.”
Chloe processed that. “There are two hundred hidden Mickeys in Disneyland?” How had she never before heard of them?
“Of course, some of them Walt puts up himself, so mortals can’t exactly see those all the time.”
Now Chloe was silent. Walt…. As in Walt Disney? Was he talking about Disney’s ghost creating hidden Mickeys?
On the one hand, that was nutso – like this entire conversation was quickly turning out to be. On the other, it might be proof that this was indeed the Akyri Chloe was looking for. Either way, the conversation was veering way off track, and she needed to pull it back in.
“You are an Akyri. I can tell,” she started, watching his expression for any sign of agreement or concession. But there was none. He was too busy taking childlike joy in the pirates that haunted the waters of the Caribbean. She went on anyway, figuring she really had no choice. “I need your help. Something is happening –“”
“Something’s happenin’ here, what it is aint exactly clear,” he began singing.
Chloe’s brow arched. She waited for him to trail off and started again, “I don’t know where I fit into all of it. I don’t know if I should…. I mean I don’t know whether to accept my place and give in….” She drifted off, realizing that she was talking circles around herself and couldn’t possibly be making any sense – and he was humming anyway, so it didn’t matter.
“The name’s DaVinci,” the man suddenly said. He smiled at one more thing that tickled his fancy and then lowered his popcorn and looked straight at her. “And you are Chloe of the Twenty-Eight.”
Chloe stared at him, taken aback. After a few stunned moments, she nodded.
“You are empty,” he said, his tone serious. And then, as if someone were switching buttons, he smiled that distracted, happy smile again and held up his popcorn. “Want some?”
“Um, n-no,” Chloe said, shaking her head. “No thank you.” She looked around, realized that the ride that had been carrying a few other people minutes earlier was now completely empty but for them, and knew it had everything to do with the old Akyri and some very strange magic.
She came to a decision. She stood, jumped over the back of her seat, and quickly sat down next to DaVinci.
“Look,” she said, “You’re obviously the guy I’m looking for. Can you help me, DaVinci?”
“Can you help yourself, Chloe of the Twenty-Eight?”
“What does that mean?” she asked, leaning forward and wishing that he would turn to look at her again rather than at the ride. Not that she could blame him, really. It was a cool ride. But it would soon be over and she didn’t know what would happen to him when it was. Would he disappear?
He pointed to something on a chest plate that hung along one wall. “Look, there’s another one.” He chuckled again, chewed some more popcorn, and then produced a soda fountain drink, seemingly out of nowhere. Chloe glanced at the chest plate. A tiny Mickey Mouse symbol could be made out at the center of its bass relief design.
As her companion slurped loudly through the straw of his drink, Chloe pinched the bridge of her nose. “DaVinci,” she said, her tone unable to hide its tiredness, “please. I don’t know where else to go.”
Suddenly, the old man reached out with both hands, now inexplicably empty, and grasped Chloe’s arm. Her eyes widened, and she sat up ramrod straight as the world around them spun and blurred into impossible motion.
In the space of seconds, Chloe saw lifetimes go by, both her own – and DaVinci’s. And in the span of just a few seconds more, she understood his story and knew that he understood hers as well.
When the bizarre and unexpected information exchange had passed, DaVinci released Chloe’s arm and slowly sat back. He was looking at her now, his deep, dark eyes depthlessly sad. He had stories to tell, and he’d just told them.
“Take the Coast Starlight to Portland,” DaVinci told her, for once completely lucid. “The answers you seek can be found there.”
“The Coast Starlight?”
The wrinkled Akyri nodded. “It is a train.”
“I… I know that, but –”
But by then, the old man had looked away, turning his attention to the watery path ahead. He was silent. Chloe had the impression that he was wrapped in the blankets of his memories, thick and muffling. For now, he was finished.
The boat tilted back as it began to climb its slow way up a steep ramp. To Chloe’s left, a wax figure of Captain Jack Sparrow mumbled its drunken rock-star-like nonsense about keeping some of the loot as recompense and what not. Chloe glanced at him, took in the fake treasure around him, and then looked back at DaVinci.
But DaVinci was gone.
Chloe wasn’t surprised. After what she’d just learned about him, nothing he could have done would have surprised her.
DaVinci had once gone by another name, but he’d suppressed the name right along with most of his memories. Years ago, he’d served a very powerful warlock. He’d deliberately disobeyed the warlock when he refused to carry out an order to kill an innocent mortal. As punishment, the warlock had overloaded the Akyri with dark magic. The warlock was just strong enough that he’d managed to do something to DaVinci that had never before been done to an Akyri.
He infused the defenseless man with so much black craft, DaVinci had gone mad. His body felt the weight of the darkness as well. He’d aged seventy years even as he’d simultaneously become immortal. DaVinci was now composed of a confused menagerie of magical thoughts, whims, and wills. He could no more control what he saw of the future or when he saw it than he could his own destiny. He’d been well and truly cursed.
Chloe got off the boat when it came to a stop and walked a few feet away before turning around to look down at it once more. It was empty.
Or it appeared to be.
But DaVinci was there somewhere, she knew. Maybe having popcorn with Walt. Ghosts in a small, haunted world.
Chapter Fourteen
The Amtrak Coast Starlight was a sleeper train, meaning it had cars in it with seats that folded out into beds and could often accommodate three or more people. It ran all night, along the West Coast from LA to Seattle, so sleeping was more or less a necessity at some point in the more than thirty-hour trip.
The interior of the train was decorated in varying shades of blue, from the dark blue-grey carpets to the navy blue seats to the electric blue found in the window curtains. The tiny drapes were outfitted with Velcro sides so they could be pinned open or shut, and the door to the cars could be locked from the inside.
Almost all the sleeper cars came with their own toilet rooms, which could be converted into showers. They also possessed their own sinks, beds, and foldout tables. For those riding in the sleeper cars rather than the coach cars, amenities were provided, such as bottled water, soap, towels, free ice, juice, and coffee. These passengers were referred to by the staff as “sleepers,” and the term had come to represent a “first class” status.
Chloe could see why. The tickets for a sleeper car were not cheap, running a passenger three times as much as a plane ticket. But included with the price on an overnight trip were breakfasts, lunches, and dinners, as well as access to the famed parlor car.
The parlor car on the Coach Starlight was normally a genuine antique car from the 40’s featuring a seated lounge area, a café, a dining area, an arcade for the children, and a theater in the downstairs area. Only sleeper passengers were allowed into it. Chloe had read about it online while booking her tickets the day before, and she’d been
looking forward to seeing it.
However, just as the Haunted Mansion had been closed down during her visit to Disneyland, the antique parlor car was unavailable for her train ride. Due to a broken window, it had been temporarily replaced with a second dining car. Once more, only sleeper passengers had access to it, but it was nothing special. It consisted of a few seats looking out the tall partial-ceiling windows and a few dining tables.
Chloe tried to brush off the mild stroke of bad luck. At least she was on a train. This might be the last bit of freedom she ever experienced, and she would much rather have spent it on a train than on an airplane.
The Coast Starlight was supposed to run through some truly gorgeous territory; through the San Fernando Valley, up along the seashore and Santa Barbara, then inland through San Luis Obispo and a host of small mining towns with crumbling missions and weathered monuments. By morning, they would be crossing into Oregon, which meant tall pines, snow-capped Cascade Mountains, and bottomless lakes.
At the moment, Chloe sat alone at one of the tables in the substitute parlor car, her gaze on the changing scenery beyond the window, three hours into the ride. Her Diet Pepsi had become a small amount of brown watery liquid among tiny slivers of ice. She was thirsty for a fresh drink, but was admittedly a little irritated that she had to buy them despite the fact that she’d paid full sleeper prices and was denied the antique parlor car. The least they could do to make up for the inconvenience was spot them a few cans of soda. It wasn’t that she didn’t have the money. It was the principle of the thing.
After a few minutes, someone made an announcement that lunch orders would be taken shortly. A female Amtrak employee came through the parlor car dressed in the usual blue uniform, her thick black hair pulled into a tight bun. She was a distinctly beautiful woman, her skin porcelain, and her eyes large and dark, if her lips did look a tad pale. She seemed tired to Chloe; that was the initial sensation she picked up from her.
The woman took the orders from passengers at the first two tables in the parlor car and then moved on to Chloe.
She looked directly at Chloe, meeting her gaze, and Chloe was struck with a sudden urge to look away. Instead, she tried to smile at her. “Is there a vegetarian option available?”
The employee, whose nametag read “Lia,” pursed her lips and straightened a little in obvious agitation. “For a vegetarian meal, you’ll have to eat in the dining car.” At that, she turned crisply away and walked down the aisle to the next few passengers.
Chloe watched her go. The woman’s intensified bad mood radiated out from her like ripples in a pond, abrading Chloe’s nerve endings. She took a deep breath as the woman finally left the car and the doors closed behind her.
Chloe was unsettled by the brief encounter. She didn’t know why. Some people were just rude sometimes. People had stories to them, each and every one of them. Some of those stories were hard and some were sad and some would most certainly leave a person in a bad mood. Whatever the employee’s story was, Chloe didn’t know it, so she shouldn’t judge.
But she felt discombobulated nonetheless.
Well I guess I’d better figure out how to eat while I’m here, she thought as she rose from her seat at the parlor car table and made her way back toward the sleeper cars.
*****
Six hours later, the sun was setting on one side of the train. The terrain beyond the rails had changed drastically. They were no longer anywhere near the coast, but were instead trudging through tall woods and dropping temperatures.
Chloe had learned a lot in the space of those six hours. One of the friendlier attendants had informed her that due to a railroad act from the early nineteen hundreds, Amtrak employees were allowed only four hours of sleep every night. Also, some employees were allowed only two days off and kept on for anywhere from eight to ten days in-between.
The system was based on seniority. Many years under an employee’s belt would allow them to choose better “runs,” which meant they could take a route affording more time off and fewer days on. But a newbie could be worked as many as four hundred hours a month. They would have money coming out of their ears, but neither the time nor energy to spend it.
Now the car attendant’s surliness earlier that day was a little easier for Chloe to understand. One might argue that if a person couldn’t handle those kinds of hours, they should look for work elsewhere. But sometimes a job was a job, and other work wasn’t available. You took what you could get.
Chloe had just finished brushing her teeth and showering in the tiny convertible shower/toilet area and was pulling on a fresh pair of jeans when the conductor made the announcement that they would need to make an unscheduled stop due to being stuck behind a freight train. Chloe bent over, towel-dried her hair, and ran her hands through it. Then she sat down and pulled on fresh socks and her favorite pair of Fiorentini and Baker boots.
When she’d finished, she relaxed against the seat back and pulled the curtains of her car aside so she could stare out the window.
Nothing but trees greeted her vision. She had no idea where they were.
“It is time, Chloe of the Twenty-Eight.”
Chloe jumped in her seat, gasping hard as shock ramrodded through her. The voice seemed to have come from directly in front of her, but there was no one else in the small sleeper car. She was alone.
“All aboard!” the same eerie voice hollered, and Chloe leapt to her feet. Her heart raced, her breathing came in short, heavy gasps, and her eyes skirted the small car around her, searching in fear.
“Who are you?” she questioned. “Where are you?”
She stopped when she noticed something moving. The floor-to-ceiling length mirror that backed the connecting door between her suite and the next was rippling like water. Chloe froze and stared at it. Her own reflection was not there. Instead, a swirling mass of darkness and light grew to engulf the rectangle of the looking glass.
An image of the ancient Akyri from Disneyland appeared in its dark depths.
“DaVinci?” Chloe whispered.
But DaVinci only began to fade back out, calling “All aboard!” once more before disappearing entirely.
Chloe’s own reflection took its place. She ran her hands over her face. “Maybe I’m asleep,” she said. “Maybe this is a dream.”
She dropped her hands and looked around the room. Everything certainly seemed real. Dreams were usually much more blurry than this. “Maybe I’m going crazy,” she whispered. “Maybe I’m finally….” She swallowed hard again, realizing it was harder to say than she would have thought. “Dying.”
But she didn’t feel like she was dying either. Of course, Akyri didn’t get sick or old – other than DaVinci. Instead, they simply popped out of existence one day never to return.
Maybe her time was coming up. Maybe that was what the image of DaVinci had meant by, “It is time.”
“Not quite, lovely.”
Chloe whirled around to face the door of her car. It had come unlatched and open and she hadn’t even noticed it. A man now stood there in its frame. She didn’t recognize him, but due to the familiar sensations coming off of him, Chloe knew right away what he was. He was an Offspring – a child born of a warlock and an Akyri.
Otherwise known as a vampire.
His enormous height, rugged good looks, glowing red eyes, the warlock magic moving through him, and the fangs he showed her when he smiled cinched it.
“And fresh out of the shower too,” he said. “My luck seems to have turned. Your presence is desired by my master, little queen.” He came forward into the cabin, forcing Chloe to bump against the folded table behind her as she retreated. “He’s guessing you taste like falling stars.”
Chloe’s stomach felt like it was boiling lead. Her vision tunneled and her legs would move no further. Not that it mattered. There was nowhere for her to go.
“From the scent of you, I’m guessing he’s right.” The vampire’s smile turned blatantly hungry. “Maybe he’ll conside
r sharing.”
“I wouldn’t count on it,” came a second voice – a split second before the vampire was shoved violently into the car. Chloe barely managed to sidestep the two men who came tumbling toward her, a towering mass of muscle and snarls.
She dodged, shoving herself up against the mirrored wall, eyes wide, heart pounding as the vampire turned on his attacker, whom Chloe vaguely recognized.
A werewolf, she thought. And a big one.
She was proved right a second later as the werewolf, a black man with glowing gold eyes, was enveloped in a bright white flash, temporarily blinding Chloe. She knew it was a transformation flash, and when she lowered her arm again, a massive wolf nearly the size of a horse had his fangs around the vampire’s throat.
Chloe didn’t waste time. She lunged past the two fighting creatures, shot through the door, and sprinted down the hall beyond.
Chapter Fifteen
The Coast Starlight lurched to the right, knocking Chloe off balance. She slammed roughly into the wall to her left. The metal doorframe of another sleeping room dug into her upper arm, bruising it instantly. She ignored the pain, trying to catch her balance.
The train rocked violently, seeming to have picked up an exorbitant amount of speed. Chloe hurried to get her feet under her, stumbled down the remaining hallway of the sleeper car, and jammed her hand against the large black panel that electronically opened the first set of doors between the cars.
She squeezed through them as soon as the opening was wide enough, noticed the ground speeding away from under the gaps between the linked cars, and then slammed her hand against the second black panel to allow her access to the next car.
As soon as it opened, Chloe took a few running steps through – and then stopped in her tracks. “Holy….” Her voice trailed away.