Authors: Scott V. Duff
“Naught, were you in the gymnasium when I gave the speech to the Guard about what to call me in public?” I asked her. “I know Nil was there, but I don’t remember if you were.”
“Yes, Lord,” Naught said, her hair glistening brilliantly as it flipped back and forth when she nodded.
“Where are we anyway, Seth?” Ryan asked, finally sitting down beside me.
“Pentagon,” I muttered, already bored. “I do a lot of waiting. I suppose that explains our reputation for impatience and I’ve encouraged that reputation since the last time lost my temper at being stonewalled.”
“You think they’re stonewalling you now?” he asked, eyeing the sergeant by stretching his arms and legs out and discreetly peeking over his arm.
“No,” I said assuredly. “At least not the first four on the list. They think I won’t be back until Monday, but that all hinges on the fifth man and whether he’s provided his part.”
“Excuse me, Mr. McClure?” McNeely called from a few feet away. “Cpt. Thorn asks if you would kindly speak to him on the phone for a moment, sir, please?” She was nervous and showed it, wringing her hands then swinging them back toward her desk repeatedly.
I rose up slowly, saying, “All right, if it’ll speed things up some.” When I went for the phone, I wasn’t thinking and moved with a quickness. McNeely had barely turned around before I snatched up the handset and jabbed the only blinking light on the right. “Cpt. Thorn?”
“Mr. McClure? Thank you so much for accepting a phone call,” Thorn said as obsequiously as he could manage. “We thought you had given us till Monday before you returned.”
“Before you have anything to worry about, yes,” I said, plopping down lazily in the sergeant’s desk chair. “But Mr. Dominick has a deadline to meet today.”
“Oh,” Thorn said. “That might be a problem. He’s dead.”
“Really? That answers a question or two,” I said, thoughtfully. “Proves me wrong, though. When?”
“Sometime between four and five this morning, near as we can tell right now,” he said. I couldn’t tell if he was being intentionally evasive, but I had Ryan and two assistants to worry about so I didn’t want to push it right now.
“All right, we’ll talk about this on Monday then. Decide what to do about his part. I don’t suppose you know your elven envoys?”
“No, sir. I didn’t know that we have elven envoys,” Thorn answered.
“You do. You’re Accorded. I’ll find out.” Somebody should know how to contact the elves. “Whoever is replacing him should attend as well, as cold as that sounds.”
“I’ll see to it, Mr. McClure,” Thorn said.
“One last thing, then,” I said. “Would you kindly give Sgt. McNeely permission to give me a contact number for Lt. Col. Brian White, please? I’d like to visit Sara today and I think a little warning would be nice.”
“Oh, yes, Mr. McClure, I think we can provide that,” Thorn said, almost relieved. “He’s actually requested a meeting at your convenience. I don’t know the other people involved, though, so I was waiting for you to come rather than contact you.”
“I’ll talk to him and see about anyone else,” I said noncommittally.
“Thanks, Mr. McClure,” Thorn said again. “We’re investigating Dominick’s death now and we’ll know more by Monday. Now, if you’ll just pass me off to Sgt. McNeely, I’ll have her give you the contact information you want.”
“Till Monday,” I murmured, pressing the hold button and standing up again. McNeely was there to take the phone from me and I wandered back around the desk slowly. Catching a glance at my motley colored assistants surrounding the somewhat staid-looking Ryan, I said, “I probably should’ve done this already and they’ll probably want us to wait to see her. With little notice I don’t mind that, but as soon as they start playing games with me, we’re outta there.”
“Here you are, Lord Daybreak,” Sgt. McNeely said, coming around the desk holding a card out with her handwriting on it. “The information you wanted.”
“Thank you and please, call me ‘Seth’,” I said smiling broadly.
~ ~ ~
My only jump point into Ohio was the Cleveland airport. I rented a car and drove into town before I called Col. White. It was a cool November day in Ohio. Winter was announcing itself with icy mornings and leafless trees, not exactly what I was used to in Georgia. That reminded me I needed to look into the seasons on Gilán—the tilt of the planet—before winter snuck up on us, too.
Once we were away from the airport and moving into the city, I called Col. White. Thorn was right about him wanting to meet me. White also asked if Sara’s parents and her therapist could be present when I saw her again. I thought that would be more of a stipulation instead of a request so I agreed easily, knowing there would be another shoe dropping somewhere along the line. Explaining that he’d need about an hour to get everyone together, he gave me an address that was far more than an hour away from us, in another city. I needed a map.
“You know, I’ve dragged a few of you around through time zones rather casually,” I said after disconnecting. “Would anyone like something to eat? Not promising much in the way of haute cuisine by what’s coming up the road.”
“May we, sir?” Nil asked excitedly, pulling on the back of my seat and slipping out of his shoulder strap. “Some place with mashed potatoes and grits?”
“Grits?” Ryan asked. “Why grits?”
Nil blushed, so I told on him. “He’s heard First and me talking about the food on this side and he’s eager to try the things he’s heard about,” I said, grinning. “I can’t guarantee either of those unfortunately. There’s an upscale steakhouse of some kind, a large mall, so a food court—no, forget that. I’ll just pick something.”
I really should have been paying attention to where I was, but while I was talking, I was just driving aimlessly. Choosing a restaurant by my usual standards, we pulled into a place called
Denard’s,
local, well kept, and clean, with an air to being established some time. The hostess and soon-to-be waitress didn’t bat an eye at the colorful
huri
as she led us to a large table in the back section of the restaurant. Maybe she did bat an eye, we were the only party on this side of the only real wall divider. It might have been suspicious if it weren’t for the sigils above the door.
The four of us read them as we passed through the doorway. It was a simple peace bond with wards against theft and vandalism on either side. Curious, how I seem to be drawn to these places now. None of it was particularly strong, but I didn’t think they intended it to be more than a friendly warning.
“May we have anything, Mr. McClure?” Naught asked from behind a giant menu.
“Of course, Naught, provided you can manage to call me ‘Seth’ for a few hours,” I said grinning. She giggled shrilly. I guess there are some things you can’t change.
The waitress came back with glasses of water and started taking orders. She wrote three pages in her little book before I stopped Naught from starting on the second page of the menu. Her excited eyes overloaded the size of her stomach by far more than she knew. Asking her to skip to Ryan, I moved around the table between Nil and Naught and started a high-speed conversation about what they wanted and how hungry they were. Basically they both wanted to experiment and try everything. I talked them down to more reasonable amounts with promises of future trips out.
Letting them order for themselves, I settled back in my chair and watched. Eager as school kids, they were sitting on the edges of their seats when the waitress came back around from Ryan. Nil smiled up at her and started ordering.
“Nil!” I interrupted quickly, laughing. “Slow down there, man. I doubt the lady is trained as a stenographer to auctioneers.”
Blushing and smiling, Nil said to the lady, “My apologies, ma’am, I forgot myself for a moment.”
“That’s quite all right, young man,” she said with a smile that reached her jaded hazel eyes. “That was mighty fast, too! Faster than any actual auctioneer I’ve heard before. Pretty cool. Have you decided now?”
Nil proceeded to order still far too much food for what looked like a fifteen-year-old that weighed about a buck fifty. That he was in actuality roughly twenty-seven—sort of a guess at these translations, worse than “dog years”—and weighed in at more like two-forty. The
huri
have very dense muscle and bone tissue. When she moved to Naught, the
huri
knew to speak slowly and ordered like we agreed, still far too much for one person, but not three pages worth.
“I’ll just have coffee and… scavenge from the plentiful leftovers,” I said before she could move from Naught. I spread my hands at my bright-haired subjects, smiling. She grinned back at me, in some way understanding. Maybe she thought I was the father of upstart teenagers. Neither Nil nor Naught acted rebellious. Grinning at the thought, I pushed the whole idea away as the waitress, who introduced herself as Michelle, left after promising to return with drinks and starters momentarily.
“So,” Ryan began nervously after a moment. “Wednesday night you left rather abruptly. Kieran said there appeared to be something… ‘not quite right’ happening that you were attending to. Your brothers and father tried not to look too worried as they rushed us out. Is this something you’re willing to talk about?”
“Um, yeah, sure, but it’s kind of personal so keep it to yourself please,” I asked quietly, surrounding the table with soundproofing. Jimmy would have to show my guards his phasing trick; it works much better when I didn’t want to devote my attention to service. “There’s really not that much to tell that I
can
explain. It started with Ellorn’s Change failing in the middle and requiring my intervention. Between Gilán and me, the
huri
were created. Gilán did most of the physical work while I handled tying everything together on the magical end.”
“Are all of them so brightly colored?” Ryan asked.
“You object to their clothes?” I asked chuckling, being deliberately obtuse.
“I meant their hair,” he said quietly, seeing Michelle enter the room with a tray of drinks.
“Oh, my brothers and I played a minor trick on some Pentagon brass and Ellorn enjoyed the affect,” I explained even as Michelle approached. “He wanted a similar color to what I wore and I couldn’t say no. That’s allowed for a number of unusual colors including purple, a lighter blue and yellow, as well as the normal range of hair colors.”
Ryan waited for Michelle and the food runner that came a moment after her to retreat before he asked anything else. Both Nil and Naught stared at the three plates of appetizers on the table in anticipation. “Dig in, guys,” I told them. “Don’t wait for me.” Then I reached over to my desk on Gilán and grabbed my laptop. Thankfully, we added a better mapping system to the laptops rather than relying on the Internet. The address White gave me showed as a farm on a county road. Ye-aa-ah, I was right. It would take longer than an hour to drive that and we were fifteen minutes into that hour. Still thought we could get there in ten to fifteen minutes once I put my mind to it.
“Well, I wouldn’t have expected that to work in here,” Michelle said from behind me. She set a stack of small plates on the table along with some extra napkins. “And that is just the loveliest shade of green, dear. However did you get it that color?”
“I’m just showing what my Lord gave me, ma’am,” Naught said, smiling demurely. “But thank you.”
“That’s natural? Really?” Michelle asked in surprise. Nil nodded at her look, being too busy eating to talk.
“Yes, completely natural,” Ryan said exuberantly, running his hand through his short reddish-brown hair, causing a minor chuckle and grin from Michelle.
“Do you know how long it would take us to drive here, ma’am?” I asked, turning the laptop toward her. Our mapping software showed two different solutions, a fastest route and a most direct route, both estimating over two-and-a-half hours.
“There’s road construction along there,” she said, pointing out a section of highway along the direct route. “That’s gonna slow you down some that way, prob’ly three and a half hours at least, that way. Other way is ‘bout two hours, maybe two-and-a-half.”
“Thanks,” I muttered, considering the landscape on the map. There had to be a Weirdway I could use to get through faster. Pushing the laptop closed, I decided to worry about it after lunch. I decided it was time to get in the spirit of the day. I leaned over to Ryan and conspiratorially said, “Mmm. If you think it’s odd to see a pair with fanciful hair color on top, imagine my first night when they were running the garden nude. Flashes of violet, blue, green, and bright red body hair were everywhere.” Lifting an eyebrow, I watched Ryan draw his own pictures by the reactions on his face as I turned to Nil and winked.
“I think that sleeping with Seth was the highlight of the night,” Nil said with seeming innocence. I grinned big at Ryan at Nil’s innuendo while directing calming emotions at Naught so she wouldn’t blow Nil’s joke before Ryan got caught up in it. Ryan gaped at me then got suspicious, snapping his jaw shut.
Centering his attention across the table, Ryan watched her eat a piece of fried mozzarella with child-like glee. “Naught, did you sleep with Seth that night, too?” Ryan asked sweetly.