Brothers: Legacy of the Twice-Dead God (22 page)

He was grinning so hard I could barely
believe he could speak.

“I’m guessing you know where the leak is,”
said Kieran, leaning back on the bed, eyebrows raised.

“While that would be a highly likely
possibility,” Peter said, the grin still plastered on his face. “I
would have to deny knowing anything about such an illegal activity
perpetrated against a government agency protected by anti-terrorist
acts. Even knowing that said agency was not acting in that
capacity, oh my god, I can’t keep this up with a straight face…” He
fell back in his chair laughing. “Dad told me the whole spiel he
fed to Harris. And he can’t touch us anyway; we’re Canadian and Dad
has diplomatic status.” He broke out laughing again.

“You told your dad?” I asked waiting for him
to calm down some.

“Well, yeah,” he said, the red waning from
his face slowly. “Wouldn’t you?”

I really hadn’t thought about it. “I suppose
I would. No reason not to,” I answered. “Gotta find him first.”

“We should go to the fights,” Peter said. “At
the very least, your grandfather will be there. MacNamara will be
there. Both Courts of Fae will have representatives, probably
Princes or Princesses. More than likely, all the councils will have
reps there. Pretty much everybody on the list will be there. We
should be there.”

“It’ll be night, soon,” said Kieran, softly.
“That means we have two and a half days to find it and wrangle four
invitations. That’s not going to be simple.”

“Earlier you said we could gain MacNamara’s
attention and get in,” I said. “Can’t we do that? Find some way to
gain his attention?”

“If we wanted to fight, I suppose we could
attempt to break through the entrance,” said Kieran, “but I have no
desire to participate, Seth. I have seen enough death in my life
without seeking it for pure entertainment.”

“No,” I said. “That wasn’t what I intended,
either. Can we sneak in through the back or side, maybe?”

“How do you lift the tent flap on a
dimensional rift?” Peter asked, somewhat sarcastically, then he
shook his head. He was angry with himself for that comment. It
showed in his aura, especially since his was the only one visible
in the room. “I’m sorry, Seth, that was uncalled for. It’s just
really confusing to see someone who can do what you can, but know
so little about the world. Makes me want to find Robert just to box
his ears.”

Kieran laughed at that one. “Box his ears?”
he said with a grin. “I think we need to call the day done. Peter
and I will see to dinner. Then, Seth, you need to rest. Tomorrow,
we will have our first defense practice then we will swing through
and pick up the pixie and drive to Arkansas to begin our
search.”

“Cool, what do we want for dinner?” asked
Peter, turning and tapping on his laptop.

“We’ll surprise them,” said Kieran, getting
up from the bed and stretching. It reminded me of how big a man he
was. I’m glad it was Ethan who carried him to the car and not me.
Smiling at me as they left, Kieran said, “Ethan, he’s allowed to
read and sleep while we’re gone. Nothing else.”

Ethan looked over at me calmly, still leaning
on the dresser. “We’ll get there somehow, Seth. Don’t worry. And
we’ll find your parents. Kir du’Ahn will find a way.”

I hope he’s right.

I was crammed into the back seat of my own
car. I hurt all over. Even my hair hurt. And to make matters worse,
there was a pixie jumping up and down on my nose shouting, “Wakey,
wakey!” in a sing-song, high-pitched voice at the top of his
ever-so-tiny lungs.

“I’m awake, Shrank. Quit yelling,” I said,
peering bleary-eyed out the side window. We were coming into a
small town in I don’t know what state. Kieran and Ethan were
alternating driving and they were both ‘skipping’ down the highways
at a tremendous rate. We’d gone from just outside of Atlanta to
home in less than an hour and a half. We could be in Canada for all
I knew.

Peter had fared a little better during our
sparring this morning. Kieran and Ethan showed us basic
self-defense in a style that neither of us had heard of before. It
was similar in many ways to the martial arts I’ve seen on
television and in movies, but each form and pose had power in it
that the others lacked. Not only mental or physical power, but
magical power. It drew and focused magic in the very movement of
the body. It is quite elegant. Peter managed better, both
physically and magically, from practice in other arts. He had
better concentration where it counted and he was used to moving his
body in ways I wasn’t. Maybe I’m just clumsy.

“He’s up,” said the pixie as he flew up to
the dashboard, narrowly missing Ethan as he turned to the back
seat. Ethan was excessively cheerful.

“Ready for lunch?” he asked, smiling
brightly. He hadn’t hit the ground once this morning.

“Actually, yeah,” I said, surprising myself.
Breakfast wasn’t um, wasn’t a good idea at the time. I think Peter
managed dry toast and coffee.

Kieran pulled smoothly across the highway
into a steak house with an often-renovated look, to whatever the
big chain of the year was. The dash clock read ten fifty as Kieran
parked the car near the back of the lot. We piled out of the car,
stretching cramped muscles. Shrank shot out of the car before
everybody, all but invisible, to conduct some sort of business in
the trees around us. I wasn’t privy to whatever it was but for all
I knew he had to pee really bad.

We sauntered through the doors right at
eleven, the first patrons of the day, and were greeted by a
stereotype. I swear it was a stereotype from beginning to end: the
mid-forties door greeter and waitress, the steak house with buffet
and dark wood paneling, the partitioned off areas with sliding
walls, two different salad bars, and a dessert bar with soft serve
machines. I was horrified by it. My one earlier experience was not
good—it involved a tribe of twenty unsupervised children who had
apparently been visiting an influenza ward. Since then, anything
with the word “Mega” in the title has been taboo. My tough luck,
though, as it turned out that’s all the menu was.

“You boys with the group out at Langdon’s
farm?” the waitress asked when she brought drinks back to the
table. Her accent was thickly Southern, but different from what I
was used to. Her interest was both polite and eager for gossip and
she had an edge of loneliness to her. I don’t think I liked being
able to read people’s aura better. It just made me want to “fix”
them more. For some reason, that felt wrong, “fixing” people.

“No,” answered Kieran. “But we are looking
for a man who might be in that group. What are they doing out
there?”

“You ain’t no bounty hunters, are ya?” she
asked suspiciously, eyeing Kieran as he cut his steak.

“No,” he answered before taking a bite.

“We’re looking for my grandfather,” I said to
belay her fears. “He’s training a few men that might be here.” Not
a lie exactly. Maybe. I hoped I was convincing. It calmed her
worries down a little.

“We really don’t know what they’re doing up
there,” she said. “Langdon’s a scary old fart. Came down off his
mountain about six months ago throwing some serious money around,
buying neighboring land, fencing it up. ‘Bout two months ago, he
started makin’ ‘rangements with businesses and the Sheriff ‘bout
this here get-together. Says its para-military but its all fer
show. Town stands to make a lotta money an’ we can use it. They’re
a mean lot, though.”

Well, wasn’t she a fountain of information, I
thought, then I saw Kieran’s mild influence waft away and
understood. He just bolstered her natural proclivity for
gossip.

“Y’all need anything right now?” she asked
smiling brightly. We declined. “Then I’ll check back in a few
minutes. Enjoy your lunch.”

“We’re pretty close then,” Peter said quietly
once she was out of range. He dug into his lunch with vigor.

“Seems so,” agreed Kieran, eating with equal
gusto.

“If it’s that close, the pixie should be able
to find it,” said Ethan.

Now I knew what Shrank was shooting off to
the trees to do, hunt for the location of the fights. I knew if I
was patient, I’d find out. I started eating and conversation went
by the wayside as all four of us concentrated on filling our
bellies. Ethan ate incredibly fast but not overly much and was
contented to sit and look around the restaurant. We’d barely gotten
halfway through our meals when the waitress reappeared. She’d
changed clothes, from the unnatural shade of beige polyester smock
and skirt to a pair of jeans and a baggy sweatshirt with her
nametag pinned to it.

“Y’all doin’ awright?” she asked us as she
came up, reaching for Ethan’s plate.

“Oh, yes, quite well,” said Ethan, smiling
and taking the lead since everyone else was still eating. “Why’d
you change clothes?” I was curious about that myself.

“Oh, we just heard from the Sheriff,” she
said. “The first wave should be here in a few minutes and the boss
thought this might be easier on us with yesterday’s ruckus and
all.”

I froze. Swallowing, I asked, “Yesterday’s
ruckus?”

“Oh, nothing to worry about, Sweetie,” she
said, eyes out the window, searching the road. “Bruiser slipped his
hand up underneath Janey’s skirt, unexpected like, and Janey
screamed. Her boyfriend was here, though, and he ain’t the sharpest
knife in the drawer. He came running and jumped the guy,
ninety-eight pounds a nut’n ‘ginst three hunert a solid muscle. The
guy rared back to hit ‘im one an’ this skinny guy in a monkey suit
an’a cane just appeared outta nowhere behind Janey and just stared
at ‘im. The guy ‘pologized to Eddie and Janey, and left. Lucky for
Eddie, too, ‘cuz that guy’s arm was bigger’n him. If he’da
connected…,” her grimace told the story of her supposition of
Eddie’s condition after the conclusion of the conflict. It wasn’t
pretty. “Sheriff’s asked the locals just to stay outta their way
for a day or two, just to be safe.” She shook her head sadly to
clear the thoughts. “If y’all are going back for seconds, now would
be a good time. Looks like they’re pulling in now.”

We all turned to look out the window. A
convoy of pickup trucks and vans pulled into the parking lot and
disgorged large volumes of men and a few women into the parking
lot. It was a variety of different men, to say the least, large and
small, from thin and wiry to big and muscular. To a man, everyone
was human and everyone was magically active, strongly magically
active. Something about them all together like this made me queasy.
If I wasn’t through with lunch before, I was then. I slid my plate
forward a few inches and leaned on the table, still looking out the
window as the trucks unloaded and the men coalesced into groups,
eyeing one another but remaining stoic and unconcerned. There were
about twenty-five vehicles in all with a total of a hundred and
four men. The choice of clothing differed as much as the men
themselves, some in partial military fatigues, some in leathers or
denim. Some in leather dusters right out of the movies.

“Should we leave now or wait till they come
in?” Peter asked. It was the question I was wondering, too. He’d
pushed his plate forward as well. His aura showed signs of
nervousness and fear that he was trying to calm. I couldn’t blame
him—those men scared me too.

“Let’s just see how this unfolds here,” said
Kieran softly, stacking the three plates together in the center of
the table. “It looks like we’ll get caught in the middle of them
anyway.”

At some unheard signal, the group closest to
the door headed into the restaurant. Instantly the noise level
inside increased and we were no longer the only customers in the
restaurant. They started on the food bars immediately, eschewing
seating first. Once they’d piled plates high with food and headed
toward a table, the next group entered and followed suit. It was
all quite well timed and orderly. And loud. Oh so very loud. My
parents taught me table manners early in life. When I was twelve,
Mom spent a few days teaching me different cultural habits on
cutlery and plates and such. Europeans hold their knives and forks
differently than I was taught, for example. I’d seen livestock that
had better manners than most of these men. Seriously,
livestock.

The parking lot was empty of people now and
the restaurant full. Glancing at the food bars, it looked like
every employee the restaurant had was out and running between the
kitchen and the bars refilling everything as fast as they could
run. The meat carvers, though, seemed to take the men in stride,
carving off big hunks of ham and rare to mid-rare roasted beef for
each man who walked up. When they ran out, they calmly walked to
the back and came out with another huge slab of still-cooking meat
on a trolley. They must’ve pulled twelve out already. The men lined
up and waited for the carvers to come back, quiet as lambs. It was
eerie the control the meat carvers had over them.

I heard the slap over the din and my waitress
say loudly, “Those goods ain’t for sale!” I stood up immediately,
getting defensive over her. A roar of laughter from the table she
was standing at centered my attention and I was there before I
realized I was moving.

“You should apologize to the lady then
leave,” I said to the man rubbing his face and laughing heartily. I
was calm but commanding. The laughter died away quickly and silence
started crashing around me like a tidal wave as other tables
watched. They didn’t stop eating, but they watched.

“Run along, pup,” the man rumbled. His dark
eyes implied a pit deep within his barrel of a chest. I began to
think I was rash in demanding anything. “I’ve a right to a little
fun.”

“And she has a right to not be accosted while
doing her job,” I said, putting as much venom as I could behind the
statement. I don’t think he was too impressed. “Now apologize to
her and leave.”