The Thirteenth Skull (Alfred Kropp #3)(51)

Taking care not to jostle her too much, I eased a few twenties into her pocket. She murmured something in her sleep, smacked her lips a couple times (what was she dreaming about . . . chocolate sundaes, big happy slobbery dogs, vampires?), and nuzzled my neck.

Sometimes, when I got down, I would remind myself I had saved the world—twice—and that I was a hero, like the firefighter who rushes into a burning building to rescue a trapped kid. But I was no firefighter. I was no hero. Even when I faced Mogart and Paimon, the demon king, it was about me, not the world. The only reason I got stabbed by the Sword was I gave the Sword to Mogart. And I took on Paimon because he was killing me, from the inside out, filling my body with maggots and slowly driving me insane.

It was never for the sake of the world. It was always for the sake of Kropp, and that the world got saved too was a kind of happy by-product.

I leaned my head against Ashley’s and after a minute I fell asleep. I was flying again. I came to a towering cliff, and on that cliff rose a castle of sparkling white stone with flags flying from its ramparts and a man in shining armor sitting on a horse before its gates. He drew a black sword from the scabbard at his side and raised it over his head in a salute.

Then I started to fall. I dropped like a stone toward the sea. A monster reared its head above the crashing surf, its mouth stretching open to reveal fangs as tall and glittering as the walls of the castle.

I woke up before I fell into the dragon’s mouth.

“Alfred,” Ashley was saying. “Alfred, we’re boarding.”

On the plane, I sat down beside her—she took the window seat—and waited, my knee popping up and down, counting off the seconds in my head. This was goodbye, but it was a goodbye without a farewell.

I gave her hand a squeeze and said, “I think I got hold of some bad lettuce—have to go to the bathroom,” the third lie, and then I worked my way toward the front of the cabin with a lot of “excuse me’s” and “I’m sorries” as I slid sideways past passengers filling the overhead compartments. At the front of the plane, I risked a glance toward our seats. All I could see was the top of her blond head and for some reason that broke my heart: the last I would see of her would be the top of her head.

I told the lady attendant I’d left my carry-on at the gate. She was distracted, trying to find room in a little compartment for a first-class passenger’s coat. She waved me through the hatch but told me I’d better hurry.

I hurried all right, bumping into people on my way to the gate, counting the seconds in my head. Once they close a hatch on an airplane, they can’t open it again. Hopefully by the time she realized I was missing, it would be too late.

I sank into a chair just outside the double doors of the gate and waited for her to come rushing out. When she didn’t, I stood up and walked to the big window facing the tarmac. The plane was already backing away from the terminal. I wondered if she was going berserk, demanding they let her off. If she pitched a big enough fit, they might. I stood and watched until the plane was out of sight, heading for the runway. Then I stood a few more minutes until it took off, and I watched it until it dwindled to nothing in the blue.

Goodbye, Ashley.

01:07:54:12

I hoofed it back to the men’s room, praying no one had made a garbage run while we sat at the gate. The guns were still at the bottom of the bin where I had stashed them, buried beneath three feet of discarded paper towels. I tucked one gun in the front of my jeans and one in the back and examined my sweatshirt in the mirror for any unsightly bulges.

For the next three hours, I wandered the Helena airport. Besides algebra class and anyplace where you have to wait in line, airports are the most boring places on earth. This was my opportunity to come up with a really brilliant plan, like creating a disabling device out of a shampoo bottle and my pee. But I was a little panicky and tired and already regretting not keeping Ashley with me. Having a seasoned field operative by my side might come in handy when Vosch and company touched down.

When you have time before a life-threatening situation, you feel the need to clear the air, to settle any dangling loose ends, so I called Alphonso Needlemier to unstick the thing stuck in my craw.

“You lied to me,” I said.

“Alfred, I would never—”

“You knew they had Samuel the whole time. Hell, I bet you gave them Samuel.”

“Alfred . . . Alfred,” he sputtered. “I hardly know what to say.”

“Vosch and Jourdain must have contacted you after Nueve pulled me from the warehouse.”

Pushed into a corner, he went all stiff and formal on me. “That is an outrageous assumption on your part.”

“And you were scared out of your mind. I understand that. But I also know how these things work. They’ll lean on anyone who knew me—anybody close I might have confided in. So they leaned on you—they must have leaned on you. Was that the deal, Mr. Needlemier—did you offer them Samuel if they let you go?”

My answer was the soft hiss of the long-distance connection.

“When did you tell them my death was faked? At my funeral? Or did Vosch go with you so you wouldn’t try to give them the slip in Ohio?”

“Alfred, may I say, this is completely . . . Alfred, from the beginning I have always done all I could . . .”

“Stop lying to me!” I yelled into the phone.