Warriors

CHAPTER 2

Dinner was lovely. The heavy rain had somehow held off, and they’d all walked the five blocks to the restaurant hand in hand, the evening skies a brassy shade of gold, the skeletal trees etched black against them like a Chinese watercolor Chase used to own.

Kat had worn an old black Saint Laurent cocktail dress with slit sleeves that revealed her perfect white arms. She was wearing the diamond brooch at the neckline, the one he’d given her for their twentieth anniversary. The kids, little Milo and his older sister, Sarah, had even behaved, beautifully for them, and for that he was grateful.

Kat didn’t like this birthday, with its early hints of mortality, one bit. He was determined to make it a happy evening for her and their family. He’d always had a sense of occasion and he wasn’t about to let this one go to waste.

And he’d loved the shine in her lively brown eyes when he gave her the birthday present. She opened the slender black velvet case, took a quick peek, and smiled across the table at him, her eyes sparkling in the candlelight.

A diamond necklace.

“It’s lovely, Bill. Really, you shouldn’t have. Way too extravagant.”

“Do you like it?”

“What girl wouldn’t, darling?”

“It’s the one Audrey Hepburn wore in Breakfast at Tiffany’s.”

“What?”

“You heard me.”

“Bill Chase, stop it. I know when you’re teasing.”

“No, Kat, really. There was an auction at Sotheby’s when I was in New York last week.”

“You’re serious. Audrey’s necklace. The one in the movie.”

“Double pinkie swear, crossies don’t count.”

“Oh. My. God.”

“Dad?” Milo said.

“Yes, Milo?”

“You’re funny.”

Milo and Sarah looked at each other and laughed. Double pinkie swear? They’d never heard their brainy dad speak like that before.

“Audrey Hepburn?” Kat said again, still not quite believing it. “Really?”

“Hmm,” he said, “Audrey Hepburn.”

It was perfect. For that one fleeting moment, it was all just perfect.

Her favorite actress. Her favorite movie. His favorite girl. The happy smiles on the faces of his two beautiful children.

He was a very, very lucky man, and he knew it.

The fog was thick when the Chase family stepped outside the flickering gaslit restaurant entrance. You could barely make out the haloed glow of streetlamps on the far side of the narrow cobblestone Georgetown street.

Bill held his daughter’s hand; pausing at the top of the steps, he pulled his grey raincoat closer round his torso. It must have dropped twenty degrees while they were inside, and the fog made everything a little spooky.

They descended the few steps to the sidewalk and turned toward the river.

He could hear that melody in his head, the theme song from his favorite horror movie, The Exorcist. What was it called? “Tubular Bells.” They’d shot part of that movie on this very same street, on a very foggy night just like this one, and maybe that’s why walking back from the Tombs at night sometimes gave him the creeps.

“Let’s go, kids, hurry up,” Chase said, edgy for some nameless reason as they plunged into the mist.

The street was deserted, for one thing, all the curtains in the town houses drawn tight against the stormy night. He took a look over his shoulder, half expecting to see a deranged zombie dragging one leg behind him.

Nothing, of course.

He felt like an idiot. The last thing he wanted after a perfect evening was to look like a fool and alarm Kat about nothing. She and Sarah were singing “A Foggy Day in London Town” off-key, Kat loving to sing when she’d had a glass or two of her favorite sauvignon blanc.

“Damn it!” Bill cried, bending to grab his kneecap. Looking over his shoulder, he’d walked right into a fireplug, slammed his knee and upper shin against the hard iron rim. He could feel a warm dampness inside his trouser leg. The cut probably wasn’t deep, but it hurt like hell.

“What is it, darling?” Kat said, taking his arm.

“Banged my damn knee, that’s all. Let’s just keep walking, okay? The corner is just around the corner up there somewhere, I think.”

“The corner is just around the corner!” Sarah mimicked and her mother laughed.

What the hell was wrong with him? She was happy. The Big Four-Oh was officially history. And she had loved his present.

“Let’s skip. All the way home,” he said. “Except for Dad. For Dad, you see, has a very bum knee.” Inexplicably, he felt better. Some second sense had warned him that some bad thing was waiting in the fog.

And it was just a damn fireplug.