Chapter 92: Lara, Let's Go to Skull Island
The bedroom had the specific atmosphere of a room where packing is happening and one person is doing all of it.
Gloria stood at the travel bag with the focused expression of someone who had developed opinions about preparedness and was implementing those opinions with conviction. The bag was already containing more than it should and had not reached a stopping point.
Rango was on the bed with The Mysterious Island — the Director's French edition, borrowed with permission, which he was reading in translation on his phone while holding the physical copy because holding it felt right.
"You've had four days," Gloria said, without looking up from the bag. "Four days since Staten Island, and now you're going abroad."
"Technically the island is—"
"Abroad," Gloria said.
"It's in international waters, so—"
"Abroad, Rango."
He set the book down on his chest. "The Curator is going. I already told you — if he goes without me and something happens to him, I spend the rest of my life knowing I could have been there."
"I know," Gloria said. "I understand the reasoning. I'm allowed to have feelings about the reasoning without disputing it."
"That's fair," Rango said.
"Thank you," Gloria said. "Down jacket?"
"Gloria."
"It gets cold at altitude."
"We're going to an island in the South Pacific," Rango said. "The average temperature is eighty-five degrees year-round. There is no altitude."
Gloria looked at the down jacket.
Looked at the bag.
Put the down jacket down with the specific deliberateness of someone making a concession that they're noting for the record.
"Fine," she said. "Pack it yourself."
She left the bag on the bed and went to the window.
Rango sat up, looked at what was in the bag — four sweaters, two pairs of thermal pants, a travel umbrella, a full-size bottle of shampoo, and what appeared to be a portable kettle — and began making decisions.
"The bar," he said, while making decisions. "How's the timeline looking?"
"Two weeks for the renovation," Gloria said, from the window. "Maybe three. The previous owner did something to the electrical that the contractor keeps describing as creative."
"Creative."
"His word. I've started to understand it as a problem."
"Is it fixable?"
"Everything is fixable," Gloria said. "For money." She turned from the window. "Dom's contact got me a good rate on the build-out. Mia came by yesterday with a designer she knows who doesn't charge for the first consultation, which I think was her way of apologizing for Dom's behavior at the initial meeting."
"What did Dom do at the initial meeting?"
"He told the contractor the bar should have a racing theme."
"Of course he did."
"I told him the bar was going to be called Bar Universe and have a specific vision, and he said the specific vision should include a racing theme because it was near Central Park and Central Park had the road that people race on sometimes."
"Did he have more to say about it?"
"He had considerably more to say about it," Gloria said. "Mia stopped him around minute seven."
Rango pulled the thermal pants out of the bag.
"She's good at that," he said.
"She's excellent at that," Gloria agreed.
She came back from the window and sat on the edge of the bed. Looked at the bag's revised contents — one change of clothes, toiletries, the Colt in its case, and the brass knuckles wrapped in a cloth.
"That's what you're bringing," she said.
"Jones's team will have the equipment," Rango said. "I'm not there to carry things."
"What are you there to do?"
Rango thought about Toothless soaring somewhere above the departure airport, about the Night Fury's documented presence in the island's oldest accounts, about a mechanism built from coins and a lock that had been holding something for longer than recorded history.
"My job," he said.
Gloria looked at him with the specific look she used when she was deciding whether to push further and had decided not to.
"Call me when you land," she said. "And when you get to the island. And if anything—"
"I'll call you," Rango said.
"Regularly."
"Regularly," he confirmed.
She picked up the down jacket from the floor where she'd set it.
Held it out.
"It's going in the bag," she said. "I don't want to hear the reasoning. The bag has room now that you removed the sweaters."
Rango looked at the down jacket.
Looked at Gloria.
Put the down jacket in the bag.
"Thank you," Gloria said, with the quiet satisfaction of someone who has won the thing that mattered.
Dean and Sam appeared in the doorway approximately ten minutes before Rango needed to leave.
They came in the way people come in when they have something to say and are working up to the saying of it — not hovering exactly, more the specific quality of presence that precedes a conversation.
Rango looked at them.
"Say it," he said.
Dean looked at Sam.
Sam looked at Dean.
"We're leaving," Dean said. "Not because of anything here — New York has been—" he paused, assembling the sentence — "this has been the best stretch we've had in years. Genuinely. The museum, the team, Ted arguing about movies every night." He paused. "The dinosaurs."
"The dinosaurs," Sam confirmed.
"But we've been in one place for two months," Dean said, "which is longer than we've been in one place since we were kids, and the work doesn't stop because we're comfortable." He looked at Rango steadily. "There are things on the road that need handling. And Sam and I—" he glanced at his brother — "we've been talking about what we need to actually be ready for Los Angeles. Ready for what's in Los Angeles." He paused. "We're not ready yet."
Rango looked at them.
At Dean — who had come into the city like a weather front and had become, over two months, someone Rango had started to organize his thinking around in the way you organize your thinking around people you trust completely. At Sam — who was twenty-three and had demon blood he'd been given before he could walk and who had memorized the Rituale Romanum backward and forward because he'd decided being more useful was better than being less useful and had never once made it about himself.
He was quiet for a moment.
"The Impala," he said.
"Fixed," Dean said. "Same paint. Exact match. McQueen signed off on the repair, which I want on record as the most unnecessary endorsement in automotive history."
"McQueen has standards."
"McQueen," Dean said, "told me the paint matching was excellent and then said 'good job' in a tone that made me feel like I'd gotten a gold star from a car."
"That's McQueen," Rango confirmed.
He went to the desk. Pulled out the checkbook — the one that had not existed three months ago and now existed because fifteen million dollars in antique sales had created a different kind of mathematics.
He wrote a number.
Handed it to Sam.
Sam looked at it.
His expression did the thing it did when he was receiving something he hadn't expected and was deciding how to hold it.
"For the road," Rango said. "Good motels. Food that isn't from a gas station at two in the morning. Whatever research you need." He paused. "And if you find something on the road that's bigger than what you can handle alone — you call. Before it gets to that point, not after."
"We know—" Dean started.
"I know you know," Rango said. "I'm saying it anyway because it makes me feel better." He looked at Dean. "Same as Ted does."
Dean made a sound.
"There's something else," Rango said.
They waited.
"Los Angeles," he said. "When I get back from the island — I'm going to Los Angeles. I'd like you both there." He looked at them. "Whatever's in Los Angeles isn't a solo operation. Amanna said that directly. Find your cousins, stay together." He paused. "So stay close enough that when I call, you can be in New York inside of a day."
Dean nodded once — the definitive nod, the one that meant it was done.
Sam looked at the check and then at Rango and said: "Thank you. For all of it."
"Family," Rango said, which was the word that covered it.
Dean looked at him.
"Don't make me say it," Rango said.
"I wasn't going to make you say it," Dean said.
"Your face was going to make me say it."
"My face was doing nothing," Dean said.
"Your face was absolutely—"
"My face," Dean said, firmly, "was neutral."
Sam looked at the ceiling.
"Pack your car," Rango said. "I have a flight to catch."
The private airport in New Jersey had the specific quality of infrastructure that existed for people who had decided that commercial aviation was for people whose time was worth less than theirs. Clean, unhurried, none of the specific indignities of security lines and departure boards that governed the rest of the traveling world.
Toothless was somewhere above the cloud line.
Rango had confirmed this by looking up — the specific black shape against the evening clouds, the Night Fury's flight pattern, the way he moved when he was running at altitude rather than hunting. He'd given him the coordinates and Toothless had understood them with the specific intelligence of something that didn't need a map to go where it needed to go.
The jet on the runway was the kind of aircraft that communicated resources without requiring specifics — large enough to be comfortable across a Pacific crossing, fitted with the kind of interior that resulted from someone saying make it good to someone whose job was specifically making things good.
The Director was on the runway beside it, standing with the energy of a man who had been looking forward to this for his entire professional life and was choosing not to perform restraint about it.
He waved.
Rango raised a hand.
Ted, on his shoulder, surveyed the aircraft with the expression of someone running a comfort assessment.
"Private," Ted said. "Good."
"You've been on private jets before," Rango said.
"In Ghana," Ted said. "Under different circumstances. I prefer this context."
Inside, the cabin had the specific atmosphere of a gathering that had been assembled by a shared purpose rather than a shared social world — people who might not have met under ordinary circumstances, brought together by the specific logic of an expedition.
Indiana Jones had taken the seat with the best sight line to the door, which Rango recognized as the field habit of someone who never fully stopped running threat assessments. He had the notebook. He had coffee. He had the expression of a man who had waited forty years for this and was doing a reasonable job of appearing patient about it.
Beside him, a woman.
Tall, athletic, the specific build of someone for whom physical capability was a professional requirement rather than an incidental quality. Dark hair, practical attire, two holsters — not concealed, visible, the equipment of someone who considered weapons tools and carried them accordingly. She was looking at the door with the same assessment Jones was running on the entrance, which suggested either that they'd been traveling together long enough to develop synchronized situational awareness or that they were independently the same kind of person.
She looked at Rango when he came in.
Her expression did the specific thing that happened when someone was running their own rapid assessment and had arrived at a provisional conclusion.
"You must be the demon hunter," she said.
"Rango Winchester," he said.
Something moved in her expression — the specific recognition of a name landing with weight it carries rather than just as a name.
"Lara Croft," she said. She extended her hand with the directness of someone for whom handshakes were business rather than social ritual. "I've heard the Winchester name in contexts that suggest I should be either relieved or concerned that you're here. I haven't decided which yet."
"Relieved is the correct read," Rango said.
"That's what people who should concern me often say," she said, pleasantly.
Jones looked between them with the expression of a man watching a chess opening he found interesting.
"You'll find," Jones said to Lara, "that he's right. I've done my research."
"You always do your research," Lara said, in the tone of someone who had heard this before and found it both true and occasionally insufficient.
Rango took the seat across from them.
Looked at the fourth occupant.
The man in the corner.
He was older — seventy-something, the specific age of someone who had arrived at it through a process that didn't look like ordinary aging. The skin had the quality of something that had been maintained rather than preserved — the distinction between a person who had taken care of themselves and something that had taken care of itself for reasons that had nothing to do with health. He was holding a glass of red wine and turning it with the slow, deliberate rotation of someone for whom the gesture was habitual rather than purposeful.
His eyes, when they found Rango, had the quality that Rango had learned to identify — not human eyes doing their job, but eyes that were using a human vessel and doing a different job underneath.
The totem went warm in Rango's palm.
Not the urgent heat of active threat — the ambient warmth of something registering a presence and noting it. Like a compass needle settling.
Dark creature, the totem said, in its wordless way. Old. Contained. Not currently operational.
The Director appeared at Rango's elbow. "This is Mr. Victor," he said. "An old friend of the museum. He's been a significant supporter of exploration initiatives for—" he paused — "Victor, how long has it been?"
"Long enough," Victor said, without moving his eyes from Rango.
He had an accent that was difficult to place geographically and easy to place temporally — the specific quality of someone who had learned English when English was younger and had retained patterns that current speakers had abandoned.
"Your surname," Victor said. "Winchester."
"That's right," Rango said.
"It carries a specific weight," Victor said, "in certain communities."
"I've been finding that out," Rango said.
"Your grandfather," Victor said. "Anderson. I knew him. Not well — our paths crossed twice in thirty years, which in our respective lines of work is more than coincidence." He turned the wine glass. "He was a difficult man. Effective. Uncompromising. Occasionally right when everyone around him was wrong." He looked at Rango with the flat assessment of something running its own taxonomy. "The resemblance is notable."
"I'll take that," Rango said.
"It wasn't entirely a compliment," Victor said.
"I know," Rango said. "I'll still take it."
Victor looked at him for another moment, and something in his expression shifted — not warmth, not hostility, the specific recalibration of something that had made a preliminary judgment and was revising it slightly upward.
He returned to his wine.
The Director leaned close to Rango. "Don't mind him," he murmured. "Old money. Used to rooms conforming to him rather than the other way around."
Rango nodded.
Old money was one way to describe it.
Several centuries of operational history with an unclear current agenda was another way, which was the way the totem's warmth was suggesting.
He filed Victor under: watch, don't provoke, determine category later.
The same shelf where he'd put Lucifer, actually, which was its own kind of information.
Lara leaned forward.
"The island's documented accounts," she said. "Jones has been talking about them for the last three hours, and the picture I'm getting is—" she paused — "large. In a way that suggests whoever prepared this expedition underestimated."
"Jones didn't underestimate," Rango said. "Jones spent forty years preparing. He knows exactly what's there. The question is whether knowing is sufficient."
"Is it?"
Rango thought about the Cabin's lower levels. About the Titans. About Amanna closing a Hell fissure with a word. About things that predated the current supernatural order.
"Knowing is better than not knowing," he said. "Whether it's sufficient depends on what we find."
Lara looked at him with the specific expression of someone assessing whether the person across from them is being straightforward or performing confidence.
She concluded straightforward.
"I've been in the field for fifteen years," she said. "Tombs, ruins, artifact recovery in active conflict zones. I've dealt with things that weren't supposed to be possible and found ways to make them manageable." She paused. "I'm telling you this not because I need you to know my resume but because I want you to know that I'm not here to be protected."
"I know," Rango said. "The holsters are load-bearing."
The corner of her mouth moved.
"Dom vouched for you," she said. "Which is — an unusual reference."
"Dom vouches for people he's been in the field with," Rango said. "His framework for what constitutes the field is broader than most."
"He told me you drove a sentient Pixar car to a demon engagement and won," Lara said. "He told me this as a straightforward factual account."
"That's accurate," Rango said.
"He told me the car was there too," Lara said.
"McQueen doesn't ride," Rango said. "He runs."
Lara looked at him.
"I'm going to need more context for this trip than I was given," she said.
"Everyone does," Rango said. "It tends to arrive as required."
The flight attendant came back into the cabin from the forward section with the specific expression of someone delivering information they hadn't expected to be delivering.
"The captain reports," she said, "an unidentified flying object in the approach airspace. Significant wingspan. Moving in a pattern consistent with a holding pattern rather than a migration route." She paused. "The radar signature is unlike anything in the civilian database. We're being asked to hold departure until it clears."
Everyone looked at Rango.
Rango looked at the ceiling.
Then at Ted, who was on the armrest beside him.
"You didn't tell him the departure time," Ted said.
"I gave him the coordinates," Rango said. "He can read a clock."
"He's a dragon," Ted said. "His relationship with scheduled departures is philosophical rather than practical."
"I gave him the coordinates," Rango said again, which was not the defense it sounded like.
The Director looked at the ceiling with the expression of a man whose expedition had been delayed by a Night Fury and who was finding this more delightful than inconvenient.
Jones looked at the ceiling with the expression of a man who has spent forty years preparing for an expedition involving documented Night Fury sightings at the destination and is receiving confirmation that his documentation was accurate.
Lara looked at Rango. "The sentient Pixar car," she said. "And—?"
"Night Fury," Rango said. "He's flying ahead. He doesn't always interpret departure times the way—"
"There's a dragon," Lara said, "flying circles above this airport."
"Yes," Rango said.
"Your dragon."
"My partner," Rango said. "He doesn't love that word."
Victor, in the corner, turned his wine glass once.
Said nothing.
But the wine glass rotation had changed tempo, which was its own kind of statement.
Rango pulled out his phone and sent a text to a number he'd set up — a workaround, because Toothless couldn't read texts, but could read the content of texts in the same way he read everything else, which was not through language but through the intent behind it.
The text said: Runway. Land. Wait. We'll come to you.
Outside, the radar presumably showing a large circling signature, the Night Fury read the intent of the message with the specific intelligence of something that had always understood more than it was given credit for.
The radar signature, according to the flight attendant thirty seconds later, had descended and landed in the field adjacent to the runway.
"That's your doing," the captain's voice came over the intercom. "Whatever you did. We're cleared for departure."
The Director looked at Rango with the expression of a man who had suspected for eight months that there was considerably more to his night security guard than the job title suggested and was finding himself confirmed in this suspicion at a rate that was both vindicating and slightly overwhelming.
"The cameras I mentioned," the Director said. "I brought several. I want to document everything."
"Document everything," Rango said. "That's the right call."
"Including—" the Director gestured at the field where Toothless had landed — "him?"
"Especially him," Rango said. "He's going to be the most important thing on that island. I just don't know why yet."
The Director looked at him.
"But you think you will," he said.
"By the time we leave," Rango said, "yes."
The jet's engines came up.
Ted settled onto the armrest with the satisfaction of someone who had secured a good seat for something significant.
"Back in Ghana," Ted said, to the window, to the runway, to the field where a Night Fury was waiting with the patient attention of something that had been at this particular location before, in accounts that were older than the people currently reading them, "when an expedition began, the elders said: you do not choose the journey; the journey has already chosen you."
He looked at Rango.
"I think that applies here," he said.
"I think so too," Rango said.
The jet began to move.
Outside the window, the field was briefly visible — the dark shape at its edge, the Night Fury watching the aircraft with those green-gold eyes, the blue plasma charge running faintly along his dorsal fins as he prepared to lift.
Scouts, Jones's documentation had said. Creatures that arrive before something larger follows.
Rango watched Toothless rise into the evening sky ahead of them.
Something larger was following.
That was the whole point.
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