Prospero Lost: Prospero's Daughter, Book I by L. Jagi Lamplighter

“Mephisto, if you want his help, you must answer his questions.”
    Mephisto pouted and crossed his arms.
    “Very well.” I stepped on the brake. “We’ll turn around and give up. Mab won’t help you. We won’t help Theo.”
    We were driving through miles of national forest. Dark pines flanked the narrow road. To the right, a dirt road led to a camping area. I pulled off the road here and began turning the vehicle around, my seat rising and falling as the car bumped over the deep ruts.
    “Okay, okay!” Mephisto cried, as the tires spun on the sand. “I’ll put up with his rude interruptions for the sake of progress. After all, my staff is more important than my vanity.”
    “Glad something is,” Mab muttered under his breath. I shot him a warning glance.
    Turning the car about again, I drove back onto the highway and continued in the direction we had been going. The forest parted to reveal craggy gray cliffs. Half visible in the distance, white-capped mountains hovered like dark ghosts.
    “What were the questions again?” Mephisto asked cheerfully.
    “Did this happen in Chicago?” Mab replied through clenched teeth.
    “No.”
    Mab waited, but Mephisto did not elaborate. Sighing, he asked, “Where did it happen?”
    “Washington—D. C.”
    “I see,” Mab made a note. “What did the guy look like? The one you saw running with your staff?”
    “Oh, I don’t know. Stocky guy in a gray pinstripe suit, with bright red hair.”
    “Ever seen him before?”
    Mephisto hesitated, brows furrowed, then he shrugged and shook his head.
    “Go on,” Mab encouraged.
    “As I was saying, the guy climbed into a truck. I hailed a cab, and we chased him. It was just like in the movies. We were careening left and right, cutting off congressmen and buses! Just like James Bond or Knight Rider!”
    “Did you catch him?”
    The animated expression on Mephisto’s face died. “No. We had to stop for a light. That never happens in the movies!”
    He shot an accusing glance at Mab, who sank back in the seat. Reaching up, Mab tilted his hat over his face and muttered, “I wouldn’t know.”
    Mephisto continued to glare.
    Mab sighed. “So then what? You left D. C. and came to Chicago. Why? Because the light was better in Chicago?”
    Mephisto snorted impatiently and forged ahead. “I was heartbroken! And after I’d had such faith in the cab driver! But, he was worthy after all. You see, he had noted the truck’s license plate and its licensing number. You know, those numbers trucks have painted on their doors? The cab driver called a friend of his, who found the address of the company that owned the truck. We went there. It was a big warehouse in Maryland. Just as we arrived, I saw my staff going in the door. I rushed in after it, but I couldn’t find the staff or the man. They threw me out, but I went back after dark.”
    Mephisto launched into a convoluted story that described how he snuckback in the dead of night and broke into the warehouse, but which also included what he had had for dinner that night, and the process he went through to have his fancy clothes dry-cleaned now that he no longer had his angel valet. His meandering tale was punctuated regularly by brisk questions from Mab.
    The rhythm of the road and the constant scratching of Mab’s pencil lulled me into allowing my thoughts to drift. We had passed the state line and were now in Vermont. Thickly forested hills rolled away in all directions, dotted here and there with patches of snow. High overhead, turkey vultures circled, their ragged wingtips silhouetted against the winter sky. Closer at hand, the liquid eyes of deer watched our progress from beneath overhanging boughs of pine and spruce.
    As I gazed out at the gorgeous vista, contemplating Mephisto’s story, I began to wonder, again, what had happened to him. He had always been athletic, but he had been nimble of mind as well. Back in his youth, whenever a puzzle confronted the family,