Out of the Closet
“Get off!” Shar shoved me off her shoulder.
Slowly, I got up on my hands and knees, then stood. Wherever we were, it was quiet, save for the muffled hum of some electrical appliances that I couldn’t see.
“Where are we?” I looked around; it all seemed very familiar. There was a wall of glass looking out over the city, and the shapes of modern furniture, all soft in the dim light of evening. Shar rose and wandered over to a sleek black table that sat under a huge mirror. She picked up a small statue of a woman in a draped, Grecian-style gown. The place reminded me of our apartment, but I knew that wasn’t where we were.
By the door was an assemblage of large leather suitcases, all black, standing like soldiers. I went and flipped over a luggage tag and suddenly felt sick.
“Well, what do you know …” I said.
“What?” said Shar, coming over. “I don’t know where she plopped us, but—”
“I’ll give you three guesses.” I pointed to the tag.
Printed in overlarge letters was the name Arkady Romanov.
“We’re in his house?” Shar murmured.
I held my forehead in my claw-like hand, carefully so I wouldn’t scratch my own eyes out. “Well, it’s where you told her to send us. Everything was going so well until you opened that big beak of yours—”
“Shut up!” Shar cried, patting her beak. “A little empathy—you’re usually the one who can’t stop talking!”
I shook my head. “What are we going to do here? If we’re found in his house, we’ll get arrested, or shipped to the zoo! And we can’t keep enchanting other people. Demeter might come before we get a chance to siren Arkady. If she whisks him off again before we get to him, I don’t see us having any more chances to try. We have to get out of here. Now.”
“Are you kidding me? We can’t leave!”
I threw up my wings in exasperation. “Why not?”
“We’re in his house!” Shar eyeballed me with impatience.
“I know. And I want to go.”
“Come on, Meg. Persephone just handed this to us. When are we ever going to get a chance like this? We’ll corner him here—with no Reynaldo, no Jeremy, no Dem—” She stopped herself. It was probably a good idea; better not to accidentally invoke anything, or anyone.
“It looks like no one’s here,” I said grudgingly, walking over to the window. “Hey, we’re in the same building as the office, look!” There were the familiar shops across the street.
Shar rushed over and peered out. “You mapped out the portals. Where’s the nearest one?”
I dug the iPhone out of my purse and navigated to the portal map app. It only took a second or two for the grid to pop up. There was one portal close to the House of Romanov, a mere four blocks away.
I looked at Shar, appalled. “We’re going to the morgue.”
“Maybe it’s in the lobby,” she offered hopefully.
“I doubt it.”
“Whatever happened to positive thinking?” Then, tapping a talon on her chin, she resumed her inspection of the apartment. “No wonder he stays at the office so late; he only has to come up here at the end of the night. Think he’ll be coming back soon?”
“I don’t know. What time is it?”
Shar looked at her watch. “About 11:30. Let’s have a look around.”
Nearby, on a small credenza, lay a long, thick, leather-like envelope. Shar grabbed it, turned it over, and dumped it out. The soft swishes and plops the contents made as they landed sounded like thunder in the quiet apartment. Shar sifted through the pile: tickets, passports, and other travel documents. She pulled one out and held it close to her face so she could read it. “Get a load of this. His passport says he’s seventy-five.” She laughed. “Guess they forgot the three in front.”
“What time is his flight?”
“Noon.” She stuffed everything back into the envelope and dropped it back on the table. “Be on your guard. If someone comes in, we’ll have to hide, so we should stay together.”
“Good idea. All I have left is some of my hair and my face. I can’t afford a single feather more.”
Silently, we moved into the kitchen. It was eerily identical to ours, from the marble floors to the giant cabinets and stainless steel refrigerator. Shar opened a cabinet, pulled out a box, and snorted violently.
“What’s the matter with you?” I took it from her. It was a powdered mixture that claimed to be able to fix “creaky bowels.” I dug a claw into my thigh to keep from laughing, but when I went to put the box back, I found every shelf crammed tightly with similar remedies—for hair loss, nail fungus, sagging skin, and other geriatric ailments. And they all smelled funky. The refrigerator was packed with drugs that I couldn’t pronounce if I tried. I wondered how often Jeremy had to come up here, and if his duties included assisting Arkady dosing himself with any of this stuff. I stopped myself from picking up any of the boxes to read the instructions for application, ingestion, insertion, or whatever.
In a closet, in the hallway, we found a box labeled Crème de la Mer.
“Do you know how much this stuff costs?” Shar gasped. “Oh my God, the little bottles are like $150 and he has a crate!”
“What’s so great about this?” I asked, unscrewing the lid from one of the jars and taking a sniff. “It smells fruity.”
“It’s made from lime and natural elements from the ocean,” Shar said with authority. “And it’s supposed to be a miracle cream.”
“I don’t think this would help him if he sat in a tub of it for a month straight.” I said. “He should’ve been more careful about what he asked for.”
“Like us, you mean?” She quirked an eyebrow at me.
“Hindsight,” I rumbled, spinning her toward the hallway. “Moving on.”
The hallway looked just like ours, tan carpet and neutral walls, except there was only one bedroom door.
“I heard humming before,” I said.
Shar nodded. “Me too. It’s, like, air conditioning or something.”
“There’s no air conditioning in January. It’s coming from in here.” I inclined my head toward the door.
Shar pressed her ear against it. “You’re right. Do you think, you know … he’s … in there?”
“I don’t know.”
“Open it,” she ordered.
“And what if he is in there?”
“He won’t see us unless he has his glasses on,” she sang.
“In which case,” I grinned, putting my hand on the door, “we get to work.”
One turn of the knob and a gentle push, and the door opened without a sound.
The room was bathed in a soft blue light coming from the thing that rested in the middle of the floor. Shar inhaled sharply and I grabbed her hand. It looked like a giant coffin.
The sleek glowing monstrosity was the only thing in the room, and apart from its constant hum, there was no other sound.
“What is that?” Shar hissed.
We stepped nearer. The top had a glass lid that was closed, and inside, mist swirled. I squinted at the glass, trying to see through the moisture. After swiveling my head up and down and side-to-side several times, I heaved a sigh of relief. Whatever it was, it was empty.
“It’s too dark in here to see.” Slowly my eyes adjusted to the dim light, and I was able to make out some words printed on the side. “Oxo-bed 8000,” I read aloud. “An oxygen bed?”
“Oooh! That’s supposed to be incredible for your skin!” Shar squealed.
“It looks like an alien death pod,” I said. “If it’s a bed, do you think he sleeps in it?”
“Well,” Shar said, now examining every inch of it, “the more time you spend in it, the more oxygen you infuse into your skin. It’s supposed to be able to reverse sun damage. I’ve always wanted to try one of these!”
“You’re not doing it now,” I quipped. “Apart from someone coming in any minute, think about all the wrinkly skin that Arkady must have to infuse with oxygen. I guess he wouldn’t be wearing much—”
“TMI!” Shar raised her hand. “Fine. I’ll take a spa day in a clean, sterilized oxygen bed when we’re done.”
“That’s better. Now, can we get out of this room, please?” I headed for the door without waiting for a response.
“Where is he?” Shar asked, closing the bedroom door with a barely audible click. “It’s nearly midnight!”
“We need to get out of sight. Where do you think is a good place to hide?”
“How about the Crème de la Mer closet?” she suggested. “It wasn’t totally filled. There should be enough room for both of us in there.”
The closet wasn’t small, but we still had to move a few boxes out of it so we could both fit—feathers, coats, capes, scarves, hats and all. We tucked the boxes under fluffy chairs and behind the heavy drapes that hung on either side of the glass wall in the living room; they wouldn’t be noticed right away. I kept looking back at the door, expecting Demeter to walk in with Arkady on her arm. As we shuffled things back and forth, I strained to hear footsteps in the hallway, but no one came. Still, we huddled into the closet, dismayed that it was utterly and completely dark inside when we closed the door.
“Turn on the iPhone,” Shar said.
I fumbled in my bag, pulled out the iPhone, and tapped its smooth sleekness. It flashed for a second, then glowed red in the gloom. Persephone’s number, the last one we’d called, was still on the screen.
Shar yawned. “I didn’t need to see that. God, am I tired!” Then she sneezed.
Even though I was sweating, I was wrapped up like a mummy to keep Shar’s allergies in check. “I forgot we’re in close quarters. Better put on one of those masks. The last thing we need is you sneezing and someone finding us in here.”
“That would be awkward,” she agreed. I held the iPhone over her bag so she could get the mask out. She slipped it over her beak.
“Can you breathe okay?” I asked.
“Uh huh.” Shar closed her eyes. It was getting hotter in here, and I felt sleepy too.
“Stay awake!” I hissed. “We have to listen for Arkady. They should be here soon.” I moved the iPhone around, illuminating the corners of the closet, but my arm began to feel heavy, so I laid the phone, screen-side up, on my lap. The closet glowed scarlet.
“I better turn this off,” I whispered after what seemed like an eternity, but was probably only a few minutes. “So no one sees the light under the door.”
Shar didn’t answer. I slipped the iPhone into my bag and sat there in the warm dark.
A loud whirring sound jerked me awake. I fell against the wall with a thud.
“Huh?!” Shar grunted. “Where are we?”
It took me a couple of seconds, but it all came back. Persephone, the apartment, the ghoulish coffin bed, and the closet.
“Oh my God …” I heard Shar say.
“Shhhh!” I held my hand up, not even sure if she could see it. I was beginning to make out shadows from the light filtering underneath the door. I didn’t dare open it. Not yet.
“What time is it?” she whispered.
Clumsily, I dug in my bag for the iPhone, wincing as my stiff arms swished back and forth. I found it and ran a claw over the touch pad.
7:26 glared out of the red screen; it was early morning.
“He hasn’t left yet.” Shar struggled to her feet. “We can still do this.”
She stumbled over a box and fell onto me.
“Not if we can’t even make our way out of a closet! Stay still and be quiet for a minute.” I put my hands in front of myself and felt for the door. Then I leaned forward and pressed my ear against it. The whirring sound continued, then suddenly stopped.
Click! Click! Click!
“I don’t hear anyone, but something’s happening out there—the humming stopped,” I said softly.
“We can’t stay in here forever.” Shar was standing up now. “And it’s stuffy in here. Open the door, I have to pee!”
I turned the knob slowly, trying not to make noise. As I pushed the door open, light flooded the closet and I had to squint. The suitcases were still by the door.
Shar stuck her head out. “I don’t see anyone.”
“That doesn’t mean we’re alone.”
She took my hand and helped me out of the closet. We stood, blinking in the pale light streaming in from the glass wall. I could still hear the clicking, then a groaning sound. It was coming from the bedroom.
“I think he’s home,” Shar said through her mask. It was crumpled and smeared with makeup. I could only imagine what I looked like. Glancing down, I saw pin feathers sticking out of my pants.
Without saying a word, Shar started walking toward Arkady’s room. When she got to the door, I gently poked her and she turned to me.
“Since his flight leaves at noon, we have an hour, max, before Jeremy gets here to take him to the airport. We need to entrance him and get him out of here before then.”
Shar pointed to the bathroom and dodged in. I stood guard, hoping she’d be quick—she was. We made our way to the bedroom. Shar laid her hand on the doorknob and opened it, not even trying to be quiet.
The room was full of mist, more like a sauna than a bedroom. Arkady was sitting up in his oxygen pod, looking around. He had no shirt on; his skin was not only wrinkly, but translucent, hairless, and sagging in folds. Even from the doorway, I could see the blue veins underneath. He was skeletal skinny, his bones jutting against the thin skin.
“I’m going to be sick,” muttered Shar.
“I’ll join you later,” I said. “Let’s get started.”
She nodded, and we both advanced toward Arkady’s strange bed. He had no glasses on and probably couldn’t see more than vague shapes, but he was startled by the motion.
“Ehh!” he cried in an abrasive voice. “Who the hell are you? What are you doing in my house?”
“I’m uh … ” I started, trying not to shout, moving ever closer. “We’re here to help you get ready for your trip, Mr. Romanov.”
“Yes,” Shar said, moving forward and looking around. Her face became suddenly bright and she quickly made for the small table by the bed. She snatched something up and held it aloft. Eyeglasses.
Arkady wagged his head and then waved his arms. “Where’s Jeremy? Who let you in here?”
He struggled to get out of the pod, but lost his balance and started to fall over. I darted forward and caught him. His withered cheek fell against my shoulder.