Sons (Book 2) (105 page)

“I want my conference to occur as scheduled without incident,” Bishop said imperiously.

“Very well,” I said, considering for moment how I was going to pull this off.  “Brothers Hilliard, the penalty for breach is the destruction of your entire clan, beginning with the three of you.  I will forego this penalty so that Lord Bishop does not lose face because of your stupidity.  You will uphold your part of the bargain and hold the conference here without further complaint of any kind.  Your prohibitions no longer matter.  You will return every cent, every favor, every iota of energy that he exerted in honor of his agreement with you.

“Further, for a period of one hundred years, you and your descendants are to post warning signs at every entrance to every compound that you control announcing that you are under probation for this breach.  During that time, your firm will provide free legal aid to those too poor to provide for themselves in areas of the country below the national average income.  This aid will be commensurate
to no less than one million pounds per annum billable at one quarter the rate of the local public defender.  This service will not be less than your par service to all clients.  Is that understood?”

“Yeeesss, yes, yes, yes,” Hamish muttered irritably, turning to go back to his office.  He was already trying to figure out how to get around my demands.  Silly old man.

“No, we’re not done here, druids,” I said and turned the three of them around and jerked them back.  “That is a breach of protocol.  Another means your executions.  On the matter of the first breach of protocol, you, Cornell, are not to speak for a period of ten years.  Let me be perfectly clear in that statement.  You are to make no utterance that will be construed as communication.  Do you understand?”

“You can’t be serious!” Cornell said, more shocked by the demand than that I knew his name.  Fine by me.

“Quite,” I said with the force of Daybreak behind me.  And still their faery magic detectors sat idle.  “As for the second breach, you want to blow me off and show contempt.  You want to hide behind walls and slick illusions.  No more, Hamish.  Your brothers and you will be allowed indoors for no longer than seven hours a day for the duration of the probationary period.  You will stop hiding from people and you will stop being rude.  Find a copy of the Rules of Hospitality in current English and follow them more stringently.”  I was fairly angry now.  This was an odious task they forced on me.  I’d taken in a lot of information about them in a very short time and some of it was dreadful.

“You cannot hide behind a defense of ignorance,” I whispered hoarsely, pulling back on Daybreak as much as I could.  They were scared now, especially as the punishments became more severe for them and their handy protections didn’t seem to be activating for them.  That was caused by the Accords, not my fault.  “But that brings us to your most egregious of sins.

“Finally, on the matter of past and continual breaches of Hospitality, you are quite guilty,” I announced without remorse.  “My brothers will see to the immediate destruction of the sinks and any related materials, at their discretion.  We reserve the right to search any and all of your premises for any reason for the whole of the probationary period.

“In three days time, the three of you will resign from every leadership role you hold,” I said.  “With your new found time, you will do two things.  First, you will go back to your roots while you’re out in the forests among the trees and glades and teach your people your craft, with one major exception.  The use of any kind of blood magic is prohibited from this point forward.”

Pushing against the Authority of the Accords, I stepped outside its sway and called for the Armor, the Night and the Day naked in my hands.  “And a personal promise from me,” I snarled, “you will all be prepared to tell us tomorrow everything you know about any blood magician alive today.  And if you have
any
part in the war we are fighting, you will be
crying
to the Queens of Faery for mercy before I’m done with you.  These Swords can do damage to you that you cannot imagine.”

The Swords flashed and snarled at the Hilliards in angry anticipation as I inverted my hands and slammed them into their scabbards.  Then I reached back with one hand and waved the Authority forward.  The vortex of the Accords’ power rolled forward and onto to me again.

“And second, you will all write your memoirs,” I announced.  “To be given to me for editing.  These will be complete, truthful, and pertinent.  Anyone you enlist to aid you will only remember what you tell them in your presence and while you live.  I will edit what I find offensive and return the memoirs to the head of your clan to be added to your history.  You have four years to complete this task.

“So ends the Adjudication of the Accords,” I said imperiously.  “So mote it be.”

The sound of thunder
in
the room shook the entire building as lightning, ruby red and blinding white, shot from the Authority of the Accords and struck the three druids.  Convulsing as the energy tore through their bodies, the Accords wrote the compulsions I dictated on their minds, bodies, and souls.  Yet another piece of the puzzle they didn’t understand, there was no escape for these decrees, as nasty as they were.  They had no choices left, but to follow them and live in the hell they made for themselves.  It wasn’t enough for the pain and misery they caused over their lives, but it was all I had to repay them with.

My Authority burst into a thousand streams of light, then, and flew through the walls.  I didn’t watch, but I knew it was striking at each and every druid in the compound, marking them with similar compulsions that would make them follow the decrees as well.  None of the clans of Hilliard would escape.

Surprisingly, though, Ryan Davis remained unscathed.

Kieran caught me before I could hit the floor.  Ethan slid a chair behind my knees and together they eased me down to sitting.  Thanking the Swords and Armor, I sent them home again and started shaking through my fifteen-minute adrenaline surge.

“I’m sorry, Seth,” Kieran said softly, kneeling in front of me and leaning against my legs to control the shaking.  “I wouldn’t have ducked if I knew how rough it was going to be.”  Ethan stood behind me holding my arms and leaning against my shoulders, adding weight against my uncontrollable jerking.

“Is he all right?” Bishop whispered to Peter behind me.

“He will be in a moment,” Peter said quietly.  “It’s adrenaline from the stress of seeing so much so fast.  We only got part of it and we’re worn out by it.”

“You did good, Seth,” Ethan murmured above me.  “Just relax, this will be over shortly.”

“You were far more lenient than I would have been,” Kieran said softly.  “But you did well, I admit.  And your shaking has already slowed.”

“Lenient?” Davis shouted.  “What was lenient about any of that?  In fifteen minutes, you’ve devastated three old men and a centuries old druids’ circle and destroyed a decades old law firm.  What could you possibly think was lenient about that?”

I turned to him and caught his eyes with mine, capturing his mind.  Pushing the memory of the Hilliards’ first invasion on a small encampment of hunters who ranged too far from their homes into his mind, I let him feel every sense the hunters felt that the Hilliards’ reveled in.  In one massive, two-second collage, I pressed every slice of a dull knife, every pulse of energy on a nerve, and every collision of club on bone.  Suddenly I wasn’t the only one shaking.  Thankfully, I wasn’t losing my breakfast on the floor like he lost his lunch.

Taking a deep breath, I exhaled slowly and the shaking stopped finally.  “Thanks, guys,” I said weakly, smiling a Kieran.  “And I appreciate the idea, Kieran, but you couldn’t have known.  They hid well.”

The Hilliard brothers were stirring from the floor where they had fallen once the Authority of the Accords released them.  Still dazed from so much high magic roaring through them, it would be a few minutes before they could act on their new compulsions.  But act, they would.

“How?” Davis said hoarsely, struggling to stand beside his secretary’s abandoned desk.  The stench of vomit was beginning to fill the room. 

“’How’ what, Mr. Davis?” Jimmy asked, upending a wastebasket on top of it, stopping further encroachment of the odor, at least.

“How could he be so sure that Daybreak is human?  It just doesn’t make sense,” he said weakly, steadying himself against the desk.

“I must watch too much TV,” Jimmy said, chuckling.  “I thought lawyers were more observant than that.”  Davis looked at Jimmy questioningly.  Jimmy gestured toward the main aisle, where Peter was handing me my water.  “Do you not see that two of the brothers wear rings of similar design?”

“Yes, I looked at Peter’s.  I don’t see your point,” Davis said.  Jimmy smiled.

“Seth’s ring has his name embossed around the diamond,” Peter said, holding up his hand with his index finger out, turning his hand as he spoke.  “Seth McClure, Daybreak.”

Davis gawked at him for about twenty seconds while we watched.  I nodded slowly when he turned to me.  Bishop nodded slowly when Davis looked at him.

“Is that why your auras are hidden?” Davis asked.

“No, we were brothers before I became Daybreak,” I told him, glancing over at the Hilliards.  It looked like Hamish would come up first.  He was breathing evenly now and beginning to bob his head a bit.

“And Kieran is the only other one who could call on the Accords?” he asked.

“No, any of my brothers can work the Oath,” I said.  “But that is not well known and Peter still has a hard time accepting it.  Thomas implied either Kieran or me, but he was hoping for me.  He didn’t realize quite the breadth of that favor.”

“No, I did not,” Bishop said, still horrified.  “I did not imagine it would go this far.  Were you actually… lenient, Seth… as Kieran says?”

“Yes and no,” I answered, but didn’t offer an explanation.  Hamish was standing now, still woozy but coherent and Kendrick was leaning up on his arms, fighting for balance.  Cornell had a harder time, though, as he tried repeatedly to fight the compulsion against speech and chant away his impairments.  He hadn’t caught up with himself yet.  “Kieran, y’all ready to start a swath of destruction?  I’m all right, now.”

“I was hoping you’d forgotten that,” he sighed. 

Grinning, I said, “Revenge for making me read that gibberish in Ogham.  Don’t duck next time.”

He laughed.  “I guess you do demand things of me, after all.  Come on, guys, let’s heat this joint up.  Pete, why don’t you start back there and Ethan and I will start in the basement.”  Kieran pointed Peter toward the Hilliards’ offices, which Peter accepted without complaint, but Ethan wasn’t so reticent.

“Wait a moment, Kieran, I’ve got a better idea,” Ethan objected, frowning.  “Seth’s right.  Peter believes that the gap in our abilities and power is far greater than it truly is.  Let him destroy the sinks.  He needs to know he can do it.”

Kieran nodded quickly in acceptance.  “All right.  I’ll take the apartments and meet you in the middle.”

“You can’t be serious,” Peter said, shocked.  “I don’t even understand half of that!”

“Quit being such a pansy, Pete,” Ethan said, taking him by the shoulders and turning him for the stairs.  “You can do this.  I have faith.”  Peter stared at Ethan dumbly as Ethan moved them toward the stairs.  Kieran chuckled and made way past the Hilliards.  Kendrick was up on all fours now, preparing to stand, and Hamish pulled on Cornell’s arm to get him into sitting position.  It wouldn’t be long now.

“Mr. Davis, what position did you hold within the Hilliards’ Sacred Circle?” I asked him, still watching the brothers fumble around.

“I am the High Priest of the Inner Circle of Nine,” Davis said dejected, lacking in his previous pride.

“Are you?  Yet you lack the compulsions the Accords put on even the lowliest of acolytes,” I said.  “Don’t you find that curious?”

“Maybe you’re not as strong as you think,” Davis said, weakly but defiantly.

“Watch your mouth, druid!” Jimmy said sternly and tossed Davis toward me. Once Davis thudded to the ground at my feet, Jimmy stalked forward wearing his aspect, bright blue and fiery.

“Seth, you will find this interesting,” Kieran said from somewhere behind the illusion on the Hilliards’ office.  A paper airplane punctured the center of the illusion, breaking it suddenly to the sound of glass shattering.  Flares of destructive energies, fiery red and orange against energetic violet and violent white lit the depths of the offices as Kieran progressed inward.

“My First takes his job very seriously, Mr. Davis.  Remember?” I asked, plucking the airplane out of the air when it neared me.  Unfolding the paper, I chuckled as I read.  “Yes, Kieran, this
is
interesting.  I would have thought it would have taken more.”

“You!” Hamish snarled at Davis, pointing in accusation and full of anger and hatred.  “You caused this!  You did this to us.”  Kendrick and he had Cornell stretched between them, arms over shoulders.

“I think you’re about to be fired, Mr. Davis,” I said smirking at them calmly.

“With prejudice, it would seem,” Jimmy added, grinning.

Hamish’s voice became a slow rasp on hardwood, speaking a language I never heard.  Bishop rushed forward, his hands ready with half-raised invocations.  Each spell looked quite fascinating in its incomplete form, but we couldn’t interfere just yet.  Cornell added his wooden voice to Hamish’s, a long saw on a moderately hard wood.  Figuring out what they were saying was easier having read the note. 

“Thomas, wait,” I said quietly, catching Bishop by the shoulder as he passed by and flooding his system with a sense of total calm.  “Don’t get involved.  Your conference is at stake if you do.  Let this play out.  It won’t end how you think.”

“You’re banishing me?” Davis cried, shocked by their words resonating off the walls.  His shocked changed to anger quickly.  “You told me to do it!  I warned against it!  You can’t blame me for your mistakes!”

“But they have already done it, Mr. Davis,” I told him, holding out the unfolded paper airplane.  “At some point before Thomas called for arbitration, they knew something was wrong.  They were about to be called into the light for the first time in centuries.  The highest of the Nine was on duty at the time.  He’s their fall guy.”

“You sons of mongrel
bitches
!” yelled Davis, pulling what power he could from the floor as he scrambled to his feet.  There just wasn’t that much of the specialized energy the druids used between the pull from the Hilliards and my brothers.  Peter had indeed understood how and what the basement sinks did.  He was having no difficulty destroying them one by one and obliterating any sense of their presence.  Ethan was taking care of things on the periphery, watching Peter.  And Kieran was burning anything related to blood magic in their quarters.

The launching of the Hilliards’ curse sounded like a huge tree beginning to fall to the woodsman’s ax—a sharp crack as the base shears off, no longer strong enough to support all of the weight of the tree.  It wasn’t a strong curse, but it was vicious and deadly.  That was the benefit to being over twice as old as everyone knew—seriously advanced knowledge on how to twist and corrupt the forces of life.

Ryan Davis raised up, pushing both hands forward with fingers splayed and shouting a strange word in a voice like a violin.  Whatever the language was, the spell was too weak and too slow.  The brothers cut Davis off.  Jimmy, however, was right on time.

At the beginning of the crack of their release, Jimmy tugged on his aura and stepped forward.  His staff appeared in his hands, fully extended and blazing with power.  Gilán’s power shot from the staff between his hands and seized the druids’ curse, trapping it in midair.  The shaft of solid fire continued on till it hit Hamish Hilliard in chest.  It changed into a gaseous fury and enveloped the three naked and withered druids.

“Lord Daybreak prefers his employees stay alive,” he said sternly.  “It
is
generally easier to conduct business that way.  And interestingly enough, my Lord considers the day to begin at daybreak.  Aren’t you late?”  He gave them a taste of heat as he fried the curse from the inside out then pulled his aura back to himself.  Three figures scuttled out past us without a word. 

“What the hell just happened?” Davis asked, staring at Jimmy’s back.

“At what point did you get lost?” I asked laughing.  “I have to have somewhere to start.”

“I’d like to know a few things, myself,” Bishop muttered quietly beside me.  I patted his shoulder and whispered, “Later.”

“Why did they try to kill
me
?” he asked, turning to me.  “Why not you? Or Bishop?  You actually hurt them, not me.  Why did he save me, and in your name?  Why banish me from the Circles?”

“The short answer is because they are bitter, old men who have lived far too long and in the blackest way possible,” I said.  “A longer explanation is that they saw this going poorly for them at some point before Sir Bishop demanded arbitration and decided they were going to kill all of us.  But they can’t kill me because I’ve got the Accords behind me and I’ve covered my brothers, too.  They needed a fall guy and they picked you.  The curse they originally planned was meant for all of us but their machinations failed miserably.  To use a sports metaphor, they were playing well outside their league.

“The Hilliards used this ploy twice before to win their way around some task they didn’t want to complete,” I said.  “Both times the wizard in question cowed to their demands, not wanting to face a breach.  They thought Sir Bishop would do the same.  When by sheer luck, he found that the objects of contention were at his showdown with them, he changed his tact completely.  And you’re wrong, Mr. Davis.  Neither Mr. Bishop nor I hurt them in any way.  Their punishments are for breaking the Accords, which they invoked.  Even then, they did greater damage under Hospitality.  We would have caught that before we left today.

“You should gather your belongings, Mr. Davis,” I said.  “My brothers are nearly done and we’ll be leaving soon.  You’ll want leave with us.”

He looked toward his office, disgustedly.  “There’s nothing in there I want.”

“But there are three things you need to fulfill your agreement with us, Mr. Davis,” I said.  “And isn’t it customary to show appreciation to someone who just saved your life?”

“Yes, of course, sir, thank you, Lord—,” Davis started, only to be interrupted.

“Not me, Mr. Davis.  I didn’t do anything,” I said, pointing to Jimmy.  He rescinded his aspect and was snapping his truncheon into its carrier on his thigh.  It disappeared from view when he looked up.

“My apologies, then.  Thank you, First, for your most timely interruption,” Davis said graciously, bowing his head to Jimmy.  “May I ask why?”

“I thought I was clear,” Jimmy said, confused and showing it.  “Seth doesn’t like people killing his employees.  He doesn’t like people killing other people at all and generally stops that, too.”

“But I was clearly fired,” Davis said, equally confused.