Guardians of the Portals (2 page)

The Portals kept their kind safe and the other dimensions secure from humankind’s relentless pursuit of power and dominance. In turn he and his people vouchsafed the innocents living out their lives as the gods intended, free from human discord and exploitation.

So what of Trey? With preternatural ability he discerned unmapped Portals existing in the insubstantial aether, a secret he and his scientists kept with a blood oath.

“There’s more, isn’t there, Nephew?” He chuckled to himself. “Old fool. Talking to yourself. See what you’ve done, Trey?”

There’s more, more than you’ve let on. You hide it well, from them, but not me. I know you too well. If Gunnarr knew, or even suspected, he would reassert his blood right and destroy his son in the process.

“Dammit, sweet Freyja, I should have intervened sooner. Instead, I stood and watched...”

****

“S
how him, Bryn, take the pretty. The youngling shall have the hag, or should we say she’ll have him?”

Snickers. A shove. A ‘go on, boy, you earned it.’

“Father, please.”

Gunnarr pointed to his oldest son. Sig grinned and turned to their youngest brother with a wink. He quickly stripped Trey, using the jerkin to wipe away the blood seeping from his nose.

“Sig, don’t make me. Please.”

Sig whispered, “It will be all right, I promise. Today is the day you become a man. The last test: first the pain and now the pleasure.” Sigmund wrapped his arms about his smaller sibling and half-carried, half-shoved him, into the center of the circle. The fire flared and settled, sending shadows dancing about the clearing. The thick pines stood silent sentinel for the rite of passage, the stars overhead sharp, unforgiving.

Gunnarr waved the old woman over and gave her a wolfish grin. “Show me.”

The crone winked and gave her liege-lord a toothless smile. She greedily grasped the flagon of mead he handed her and drained it in a single gulp. Licking her lips, she hobbled toward the small group with Trey still struggling against his brother’s firm grasp.

Gunnarr commanded, “Bryn. Bring that one here. Let Trey watch and learn.” He bent to whisper in the crone’s ear and pressed a coin into her filthy palm. Satisfied, he turned and strode into the forest. Trey understood that normally the elder would have remained to goad and torment, but the man feared Trey would balk at his presence and he had no wish to be humiliated. It was enough of a surprise to them all that their youngest had acquitted himself admirably on the field of battle. It had brought honor to the clan. But, in his world, such exploits were fleeting and easily forgotten.

Trey relaxed in Sig’s grasp once their father withdrew from the circle. Three of the brothers and two cousins closed ranks as Sig positioned them with their backs to the flames. Flickering yellow light cast the warriors and the young girl in stark relief. Trey knew, in principle, what was about to happen. He’d been billeted with five older brothers for his entire life without the presence or influence of a female in their longhouse. This was the first time he’d ever seen it performed, as if on stage. It was, if nothing else, disappointing. The girl lay impassive, her eyes shut, and not even his brother’s roar of release to the claps and catcalls of his audience could roust her from her stupor.

Trey watched as each of his siblings and cousins grunted and thrust with abandon. When Sig released him to take his turn, he knew his time drew near and he felt the familiar tingling in his groin, his cock finally responding. He shut his eyes and imagined how it might feel but he had little frame of reference other than the rough hands of his brothers and his own frantic strokes. Judging from their eagerness and obvious satisfaction, he hoped that it might be even better than what his imagination conjured.

Bryn took his older brother’s place, though he no longer required restraint.

“Aye lad, it pleases me to see ye so willing,” his brother whispered in his ear. “We’ll ne’er be that close again,” and the burly man nudged his spine with his cock, reminding them both of their forbidden roughhousing out of sight of the others.

“I’ll not disappoint ye, Bryn, not now,” Trey promised, knowing that forcing Bryn to stimulate him to arousal in front of the others would bring shame on both of them.

He watched the crone approach and kneel down on the fragrant carpet of pine needles. Gripping Trey’s shoulders, his brother forced his back to arch as the crone took his cock into her mouth.

Trey moaned and twisted at the strange sensations pulsing up and down his swollen length as the old hag sucked and teased with tongue and gums.

Bryn released him and whispered, “Do it like that,” and pointed to Sig thrusting with abandon, his hips wildly gyrating as he plunged so hard and deep the girl finally grunted and expelled a sharp breath. Cradling his hips, his brother rocked him gently until he felt the rhythm, then backed away.

The circle reformed about Trey and the crone, silent but for the harsh breaths and grunts as their brother took his final steps to manhood. When he finally released, his mouth formed an “O” of surprise as his clan mates broke into cheers and jeers, thumping him on the back and dragging him toward the girl. When the time came, he would need no goading, nor instruction.

––––––––

“I
t’ll be all right, girl.”

“What part of having your house trashed is ever going to be all right?” Caitlin wailed.

“It don’t mean nothing.”

“Nothing? Nothing! Dad, look at this. The table is splinters. The, the...” Caitlin gasped in dismay at the wreckage in their home.

“I’m the one that started this. I never should have gone to the newspaper. If I’d kept my mouth shut, none of this would have happened.”

“They scammed your friends out of their life savings. How are you going to live with that?”

Jake O’Brien knew it wasn’t a matter of living with it. He had no intention of sitting back and letting the bastards walk all over him. What he didn’t like was how his family had gotten sucked into the mess he’d made of everything.

“That money’s gone. There’s no way we’ll get it back. Greyfalcon’s already run it through the system.”

“Then why this? You said they shut it down after the reporters got to nosing around. What did they have to gain from destroying our house?”

“It’s just a message. They want me back in the fold. I’m an asset and they hold assets close. Besides I know too much.”

“So what are you, we, going to do now?”

Jake ruffled his daughter’s hair. “I’m thinking on it.”

“What if they come back?”

“They won’t. Now, help me clean up this mess.”

Caitlin bent to pick up a broken lamp. “I’ve got one of my feelings, Dad.”

“So do I, girl, so do I.”

She followed her father up the stairs, marvelling at his ramrod posture, still a picture of strength and don’t-fuck-with-me attitude. He retreated into the small bedroom facing the inlet, shuffling carelessly through the detritus on the worn oak flooring. The sliding doors on the closet hung askew. He carefully eased them off the runners and set them against the wall.

The bedside lamp lay smashed on the floor. Wearily she sank onto the too soft mattress, idly wondering how her parents ever managed to get a good night’s sleep on the ancient bed. Her mother claimed it to be second hand when they’d moved in all those long years ago. Funny how discomfort and comfort could be measured by metal springs and the familiar feel of contours still echoing the passion and pain of shared love.

“Look, Caty, it still fits.”

Caitlin glanced up at her father as he pirouetted in front of what little remained of the shattered wall mirror on her parents’ bedroom door.

“Yeah, Gunny, it looks good. Mighta looked better thirty years and a coupla pounds ago.”

Jake shrugged out of his dress uniform jacket and held it up in the dim late afternoon light. He traced a loving finger across rows of medals, ribbons and marksmanship badges and followed the red strip from collar to hem. The pants were a total loss as was his service uniform, already frayed and moth-eaten from years of hard use and long-term storage.

“At least they left me this.”

“Uh-huh, real considerate weren’t they?” Caitlin slid off the bed and sat cross-legged on the smooth wide-planked floor. The “cleaners” had run out of steam by the time they’d hit the master bedroom and had left it relatively unscathed.

She felt angry, depressed, and outraged that their home had been savaged and nearly destroyed. Unlike most military brats, for whom rootlessness was a way of life, she and her brother, Kieran, had grown up in this house, a spacious bungalow with a surround porch, off Still Pond on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. It had belonged to her mother’s family since the mid-nineteenth century. Back then the holdings had been extensive on what was called Still Pond Neck in Kent County. The bungalow sat high on the bluff above a deep-water anchorage, just to the east and north of Aberdeen Proving Grounds. The main house and most of the land had been parceled out over the years as the demands of farming, the economy, wars and ill fortune plagued the once-prosperous Sutton clan.

They’d had the option to live near where Jake was based at Quantico, but her mother was loathe to abandon the family holdings and insisted on separate living arrangements. Caitlin and her brother had never questioned their parents’ choices. They were too intent on their own concerns with the endless adventure of living wild on forty-five acres of woods, open fields and the wide expanse of the upper Chesapeake Bay.

Caitlin pulled an old photo of her mother and brother from under the bed. She had loved Kieran’s devilish grin and her mother’s rare smile.

“How long ago was this, Dad?” Caitlin held the photo up for Jake’s inspection.

“Ah, I remember this. Kathleen and you two had gone to ... geez, let me think. Oh yeah, Chincoteague that year. Am I right?” Caitlin nodded. “I got a weekend pass and joined you at the beach house. You and me, we was setting and jawing ’bout something on that park bench and the ponies came up like we wasn’t even there.”

Caitlin laughed. “Then you told Mom and Kieran to pose with the ponies behind them but by the time you figured out which button to push, they were long gone.”

Jake stared at the photo for a long moment. “He doesn’t look nothing like me, does he? Funny how that works.” He ran a forefinger over his wife’s profile and murmured, his voice wistful, “She was my Valkyrie, you know what I mean? My anchor. She kept us going. Kept the family together, pretty much on her own.”

Jake sat heavily on the bed and fished for the pack of cigarettes in his jeans. He lit up, took a deep drag and sighed with pleasure. He handed the photo back to his daughter and reached for an overturned ashtray resting by the nightstand.

Caitlin examined the picture, awash in memories, forgetting that she’d sworn to kill her brother and forever hate her mother. Perhaps not kill, but surely seriously maim him for what he’d done. She looked at his picture, the spitting image of their mother: tall, well over six feet at age sixteen, with raven black hair, a high-brow and haughty demeanour. He shared her deep-set hazel eyes, narrow aquiline nose and thin lips. Mother and son, a clone in looks and clones in abilities. He’d manifested his gifts at puberty, gifts that made him a social magnet and star athlete, gathering about him a cadre of sycophants who catered to his every whim.

Kieran became everything she wasn’t, couldn’t be, amongst the narrow-minded cliques that defied southern graciousness and made a mockery of genteel upbringing. He’d been her entire world, then suddenly he left her as surely as if he’d abandoned her in a lifeboat at sea. Left her to join the golden ones, left her to bury herself in books and loneliness.

Still, she’d loved him and worshiped him. She’d made excuses for the drugs and the increasingly erratic behaviour. She begged her mother to intervene, but Kathleen refused, turning a blind eye.

Your brother’s misguided. He’ll come around. Just believe in his powers.

Well, she did, up until the night he pulled the gun on Jake and shot him three times. Had she not been there to deflect the bullets, her father would be dead.

Bitterly, Caitlin spit out, “She left that night. Didn’t even stop to see if you were alive or dead.”

“She had her reasons, Caty-girl. We might never know them, but of that one thing I’m sure.”

Caitlin crumpled the photo in her hands and broke into sobs of anguish. Jake stubbed out the cigarette and slid to the floor to cradle her, the movement awkward and shy.

“Don’t go on about it, baby girl, don’t you fret. Like you said, we need to make this right.”

Caitlin gulped back the tears and choked out, “How, Dad? It’s not just Kieran. It’s all of them.” She balled her fists and pounded her knees. “Those fucking rat bastards hold all the cards. Those SOBs lie, destroy lives with drugs and play God. I want to make it right. I want to do something,
anything
, to try and keep them from ruining more lives, but we don’t have any resources, and no one will listen. You tried that and see where it got us.”

“Ah, that’s where you’re wrong, my girl.” He gave her shoulders a quick squeeze. “I have a few cards left in my deck.”

“What do you mean, Dad?”

Jake hoisted himself to his feet and fished out another cigarette. He lit it slowly and inhaled, blowing the smoke through his nose.

“Let that go, Caty.” He pointed to the photo balled in her fist. “We’re done here. Go get the car.”

“Where are we going?”

“Havre de Grace.”

“Whatever for?”

“Resources, Caitlin Kathleen Rebecca O’Brien.” He spit it out, in full command mode now. Unlike her, Kieran had hated and despised it whenever Jake had issued ‘orders’, his hackles raised as resentment and idolatry waged war on a young man’s loyalties.

Curious, she asked, “You have people who can help us?”

Jake shook his head and sneered, “Something better: materiel.”

––––––––

“W
hat news, Trey?” Eirik frowned at the hesitation, the blankness and absence of tone. He hated cell phones. He preferred face-to-face, even if that meant using the infernal laptop. At least then he could read body language, see the man’s eyes and take his measure. “I don’t have all day.”