Brothers: Legacy of the Twice-Dead God (92 page)

“Did you get him?” he asked quietly.

“The elf?” I asked, looking back between us
at the building across the street. “Yeah, sent him deep sea
fishing. He’s chum now.”

“Elf? You sure?” He was surprised.

“Positive,” I said. “Couldn’t you tell?”

“Too far away, I guess,” he answered. He
watched the Joe College look-a-likes recover slowly from the
flash-bangs and see to their associates. The Bikers just encircled
them threateningly again, reminding the militarists of who held the
upper hand here.

“What do I do with you now?” I asked, more
rhetorically than anything, but I really didn’t know what to do
with them.

“What?” asked the man kneeling down at the
first man I worked on.

I looked down at him and asked the question
again. He stared at me for a moment. “What do you mean?” he
asked.

“If I let you go and you go back to your
bosses at whatever headquarters you have, you won’t live out the
night,” I said calmly. “I don’t want to kill you, either directly
or indirectly, regardless of what you believe. And your friends on
the ground require further medical aid. Your elf gave them strokes.
Tried to stroke out all of you actually. Nice friends you have, by
the way. So, what do I do with you?” I asked again.

“Why would they try to kill us?” he asked.
“Just because of you? Of the shitty wizards we got saddled with?
That doesn’t make sense, asshole.”

“They’ll kill you because you failed,” I said
calmly. “And because you know about other failures. That’s the
biggest one, the other failures. That will put the idea in someone
else’s head that the war they all think they’re winning can be
lost. Actually, they are losing. That once the elves are out of the
picture, you won’t have a chance.”

“We aren’t involved with the elves,” he said
vehemently, standing to face me. “The Devil’s Stepchildren are your
purview, not ours.”

“Devil’s Stepchildren?” Ferrin said
amused.

“Apt description, I suppose,” I said. “But
they’re only our purview because we can stand up to them in some
way. You can’t. Exhibits A, B, and C are at your feet.”

“You’re lying,” he said angrily.

Nodding sagely to him, I say, “So you don’t
believe me. Okay, I can live with your decision. You can wait on
the street for a few minutes. Let’s see who else wants to go with
you.” I wrapped a portal around him and sent him to the sidewalk
two blocks north of here. Turning to the next man, I asked, “What
about you? What do you want?”

He looked up at me confused, near to crying.
“It’s not fair,” he whispered hoarsely. His face was a mess,
bruised already, bleeding from several cuts, and swelling on his
right side. His aura was roiling in emotion and confidence was not
one of them.

“That I’m leaving it up to you? Get over it,”
I said, not sure exactly what I should be feeling here. “This is
your choice: I put you on the north side with the first guy and you
go back to your army pals or I put you on a south side and you take
your chances where ever you want to go. I make no guarantees beyond
that. I am making this not my problem.”

“We can help them,” said the lead Leather
man, his soft voice booming across the rooftop.

That surprised me and I let my face show it,
then smiled and said, “Thank you, but please understand that I will
not be able to help you. I don’t know when or even if I will be
back this way again.”

“I understand. Not asking for it,” he said.
“But I lost a brother in the military and they’re somebody’s
brothers. Or sons. Keep ‘em hidden long enough, maybe they can be
that again. I can’t get back mine , but…” He shrugged slightly, as
if he didn’t care. Score one for humanity. Now I was actually
curious to see how this would work out.

“A third option, then,” I said, turning back
to the beaten man and waited.

“It’s not fair,” he repeated, just as
hoarsely. I think the last of his brain cells fried themselves out
in the fight. There was no evidence the elf’s spell got through to
him. He was just losing it. Not my problem. I wrapped a portal
around him and gave him to the Leather man. “Next.”

The two men looked at each other. The right
one asked, “What’s gonna happen to them?” He pointed to the men on
the ground.

“I’m gonna have to drop them off at a
hospital anonymously somewhere,” I said. “I’m not equipped to give
them the type of therapy they’re going to need because of the elf’s
spell. I don’t even know enough to say what they have lost, what
the infarctions killed. They need neurologists and MRIs and CAT
scans and things. I can’t do that.”

“But you’re ‘Miracle Boy’! You can do
anything!” he said sarcastically.

“First off, call me ‘boy’ again and I’ll show
you how it feels to be eaten alive. Second, if I could do miracles,
those two wouldn’t be on the ground and Wilkerson wouldn’t be dead.
Make a decision, I want to go home.” They looked toward the Leather
men then at each other again, being indecisive. I’d had enough.
“I’ll be right back.”

Wrapping a portal around myself, I went to
the first man to leave. He was standing in the shadows of a
storefront’s doorway about fifteen feet from where I dropped
him.

“Your compatriots decided to go another way,”
I told him. “You have two-hundred and seventy degrees of freedom
from here. Do not go back to the bar. Ever. If I ever see you
again, I will kill you, though honestly I don’t think you’ll see
another sunrise if you go back.”

“Why should I believe you?” he growled. “Why
would you just let me go? You’re gonna follow me, aren’t you?
Follow me back to my league and try to catch us the same way we
caught you.”

“Don’t believe me, I don’t care,” I said,
testily. “Go back and die, don’t go back and live, I don’t care.
It’s your choice. Just go.” I moved back to the rooftop. And I
tried not to care. I really did.

The Leather men were busy while I was gone.
They’d rummaged through the downed men, sorting and separating, a
kind of macabre laundry. I tried to be stoic about the stack of
bodies at the edge of the roof, five out of sixteen. The four
remaining unconscious men were draped between the shoulders of some
of the more normal, biker-looking leather men. Huh, more
“normal-looking.” My definitions of things were really skewing.

“Y’all ready to go back downstairs?” I asked
the Leather men. They grumbled and nodded assent. I jumped back
down to the table with Dillon and found myself seriously close to
the shoulders of a rather bulky policeman standing with his hands
on the back of the chair I had been sitting in. My awareness of the
room flooded back in and I quickly picked a spot on the back wall,
then jumped back to the roof. I formed I circular portal between
the point I’d picked out along the back wall and here. “Step
through and look casual. There are policemen about,” I said, then I
turned to the bodies on the ground.

Wilkerson and the magicians I sent to the
Atlantic, along with the stack of the dead bodies, circle of life
and all that. What else was I gonna do? The two stroke victims I
pushed through to the street a few blocks away. I didn’t know where
any hospitals were, but they couldn’t stay on the roof and I
suddenly had a cop I could dump them on. Once I found out what was
going on there, anyway. I grabbed Ferrin and jumped us downstairs,
farther back this time.

Again, the Quiver mapped the room for me and
showed me the policemen. Two of them stood at the table with
Dillon, only one in uniform. Great. Now the cops in two countries
were after me.

“Dillon, who are your new friends,” I asked
cautiously as we took the few remaining steps to the table. My
baffles were still in place, which made me realize I was going to
have to go through my head and see what else I was keeping alive
unnecessarily.

“Mike, Mac,” Dillon said by way of greeting,
setting me on edge. Intentionally not using my name obviously meant
they were looking for me. “These fine officers of the law are
looking for a Seth McClure. They won’t tell me why.”

I looked the uniform officer over briefly.
“Sir, there are two men two blocks north of here lying on the
sidewalk. They appear to need medical attention, but not being from
here I didn’t know how to call for help and nine-one-one didn’t
work on my cell phone. Could you call for an ambulance?”

He looked confused for a second, looking to
the other man, a plainclothes detective of some kind. The man
nodded once but continued to stare at me, squinting and contorting
his face.

“Maybe you should see to them first,” I said
to the uniformed man, pointing vaguely in their direction.

“You should update your cell phone, kid,” the
cop said, giving me a dirty look as he left. “That should have
worked.” I tripped him as he walked away, too far away to blame me.
Get snippy with me and there might be an invisible brick in your
path. The last of the Leather Biker men came through the portal so
I closed both ends as they passed as discretely as possible into
the back rooms, except for the soft-spoken one. He peeled away from
the group and headed for us once everyone was safely tucked
away.

“Thanks, Dillon. If you can flag down a
server, could I get a bottle of water or three, please?” I asked
and sat down. Ferrin added on to the order when a cocktail server
appeared suddenly as did Leather man, who took up the chair on the
other side of Dillon.

“Mercer,” Leather man growled at the cop.

“Trelaine,” the cop muttered back.

“Oh, good, you know each other,” I said,
beaming. “You both know Dillon, right? My friend will introduce
himself as he deems necessary as I’m sure there are still rights to
privacy in this country. Now officer, who are you and why are you
looking for me?”

“Are you saying you’re Seth McClure?” he
said, reaching into his jacket.

“You first,” I said. I could just picture the
anvil from Saturday morning cartoons dropping on his head. But
instead I just took my aggravation out by jiggling my leg
nervously. He was just doing his job by the book, just making sure.
Still, it was a stupid question to ask…

“I am Inspector Gavin Mercer of the London
Metropolitan Police,” he said, but not as if by rote. I found that
distinction interesting and watched him carefully. “Are you Seth
McClure?”

“Yes, Inspector Mercer, I am,” I said. “What
I can I do for you?” His aura was all over the place with suspicion
taking the lead although curiosity was coming in a close second.
Something about us intrigued him.

“Well, the first thing you can do is tell me
why you don’t have an aura,” he said. “Then maybe how a seventeen
year old got into a bar of this type.” He glared at Dillon on that.
Dillon smiled innocently.

“I tend to go where I want when I want,” I
said, matching the wattage on Dillon’s smile. “And I have an aura.
You just don’t get to see it.”

“Wow, that’s the best veil I’ve ever seen,
then,” he said.

“I’m not hiding it, you just don’t get to see
it. It’s not that hard to understand, Inspector. Oh, sweet mercy,
it arrives.” My bottle of water sat dead in the middle of the tray.
I so wanted to be the obnoxious teenager and grab for it but I
restrained myself and reached for bills instead. Tossing the money
on his tray as he placed my water in front of me, I turned my
attention back to Mercer. The server stayed frozen in place,
staring at his tray. Dillon broke out laughing.

“Seth, you’re not buying him for the
weekend,” he laughed even harder when Trelaine joined in. I guess I
tipped too much. Looking back to the waiter, I picked up all the
bills then started dropping the one at a time. He said thanks and
left before I got through half of what I dropped originally. “But
what if I did want to buy him for the weekend?” I asked, just
before he left earshot. He turned and winked, but kept going.

“Don’t be a tease, boy,” growled Trelaine.
For some reason, ‘boy’ didn’t sound insulting coming out of him. He
still got a look that said don’t do that again.

“He knew I was kidding,” I said
petulantly.

“You still tipped too much,” said Dillon.
“Change some of those bills, Seth.”

“Gentlemen, if we may…?” interrupted Mercer,
trying to regain the control he never had. At least he didn’t have
it when I was around. Maybe while he was browbeating Dillon alone.
“Is there someplace we can speak alone?”

“We can use my office,” offered Dillon.
Mercer nodded and stood. When we all stood with him, he started to
object and limit us so I wrapped portals around all of us and moved
us before he had a chance to say anything. I fell back onto a sofa
and propped my feet up on the coffee table.

“Smooth,” murmured Trelaine, sitting in a
two-seater to my right while Dillon stood, shell-shocked next to
him. Ferrin sat down next to me and the Inspector sat, unfazed by
the shift, opposite me in a chair. Trelaine grabbed Dillon’s belt
and pulled him down beside him, swigging on his bottled beer at the
same time.

“Were you responsible for the light show on
the roof?” asked the Inspector, pulling a small notebook out of his
suit jacket.

“Only partly,” I responded. “I made it happen
on the roof instead of in the bar and I turned one magician’s
magefire back on him, but everything else was someone else.” If he
was comfortable enough to talk about auras and wasn’t bothered in
the least about being jumped through a portal, then he wasn’t gonna
be bothered by a few terms. At least that was my hope. “Exactly
what branch of the police force deals with magicians anyway?”

“The unofficial branches, mostly,” he
answered uncomfortably. “I’m with the ‘Office of Special Services,
Adjunct Division,’ officially. Magefire, huh? So there were deaths
up there?”

“I didn’t say that,” I answered
mechanically.