Authors: Scott V. Duff
“Jimmy, can you walk with me?” I asked as I stood. He followed me up awkwardly.
“Why do I feel like you can’t make a mistake?” Jimmy asked, confused and standing way too close to me. Sighing, I looked at the dirt road into the house and barn, deciding how many cars and trucks could drive the ruts and fit into the available space.
“That’s probably part of the magic, too, Jimmy,” I said, walking towards the car. “I definitely make mistakes. Whoever did this used a particularly nasty kind of magic called blood magic. It’s one of the few that normal, non-magically-inclined people can use. We don’t know much about it because of that and because, frankly, it’s disgusting to commit. You saw evidence of just how extreme it can get.”
Clenching his eyes shut, he nodded in understanding. At least in this case, he did. Definitely had to give him credit for that.
“Whoever did this was apparently upset that he didn’t get you, too,” I said. “And he went out of his way to set this trap. I don’t know why. None of this makes any sense to me, but at the moment that doesn’t matter. We’ll deal with that later. But, I will find this bastard and I’ll show him a few things about magic that he’ll wish he couldn’t know about.” The road turned back to the left, back toward the paved, main road. The FBI vehicles shouldn’t have any trouble maneuvering through here.
“We should have kept you out of that room, first off,” I said, scratching the back of my head and staring at the ground. I was having a hard time looking into his eyes. “I knew something was wrong in there from my first step. The whole room seemed to suck in the light from the sphere I called. And there was so much dust everywhere. The spell, the blood, was in the dust. It didn’t react at all to us, so we didn’t suspect anything about it until it was too late. The three of us were examining the bodies, trying to see what happened, why they looked that way, how they died.
“All my attention was down in the blood,” I said, finally managing to look at his face. He was watching me so intently it hurt, pangs of guilt ran through me. “I was trying to see what triggered the magic into action when you came in. I got to see it, up-close and personal. You were this spell’s trigger.” We stopped at the bend in the road, the afternoon sun casting long shadows on the road through the woods. The physical distress on Jimmy’s face, though, was clearing up much faster than I thought it should normally.
“The first action was to draw all of the spell to you physically,” I said. “Basically, all the dust in the room attacked you, but in doing that, it took me with it since I was attached to it at that point. Then it started its real work. You remember the guy in the apartment earlier? He burst into flames, super-hot flames?”
“Yeah,” he said softly, nodding.
“To do that, you have to have energy,” I explained. “In the apartment, we could see the energy as a powerful object there. They expected that knife to be used in an emergency. Mr. Borland saw them and confronted them, for instance, which is tantamount to what happened. Here, they expected you and you alone. They thought they had time to build the power, sort of like stoking a fire. So they, he, whatever, set it up so that you would be tortured while the power was raised until you burst into flames. The spell would keep fanning the flames until the house was completely ash. Inexplicably hot. Crematorium hot.”
“Tortured? I don’t remember…” he started to say he didn’t remember any torture, but something in his memory got in the way. An idea, actually. “How did they die?”
I gulped, clenching my eyes shut for a moment, remembering. “Unpleasantly,” I whispered.
I wanted to say, “You saw how they ended up, Jimmy. Isn’t that enough?”
I actually said, “Misery and horror from you would have fed the fire spell immensely, so they pumped the damnable thing with the memories of your family’s torture and evisceration. I… removed them. I didn’t like doing that, Jimmy. You start messing with people’s minds and you start playing God. I’m not God, Jimmy, but what they did…”
“So you stopped me from seeing that. And?” he prompted me.
“No, you saw it once,” I said, sadly, turning back toward the house. “We both did. I’ve just blocked that memory from you. But the spell used that connection to lock into your blood using what’s called sympathy. It’s a little different than it sounds. It uses the similarity of your blood to your family. The family bond can be particularly strong. Yours was. I had to break that bond before the spell could finish or you would be that guy in the apartment all over again.”
I paused, hoping beyond hope that he’d figure this part out on his own, but that was really outside of his scope. Last week it would have been out of mine. Stopping behind my car, I hopped on the trunk, looking at Jimmy as he moved up in front of me, still too close. Even he knew he was too close, but couldn’t tell why he felt that need.
“This isn’t going to make a whole lot of sense to you, Jimmy,” I said, resting my forearms on my thighs, trying to preserve some personal space. “When we first met, I was a lonely teenager outside of a bookstore at a strip-mall looking to make some friends. Y’all probably thought of me as a snooty, little rich kid looking to go slummin’.” He shrugged in a ‘Yeah, sort of’ way. “You didn’t think anything odd until the night in Bankhead when you saw me tossing invisible firecrackers. At that time, that was all I could do. Literally, that was all the magic I knew, bright light and loud noise. Kieran found me that night in the middle of Bankhead Forest. Your life didn’t get half as freaky as mine did on that night. Not even by a tenth.
“Without getting into all of the story right now, though,” I continued, “there is an important aspect that you need to know and understand, or at least, understand to some degree. You need to know who and what I am. Other than being a wizard—”
“A powerful wizard,” Peter added, coming up with Richard behind us.
“Very powerful,” Richard said, nodding.
“Not helping,” I muttered, turning back to Jimmy. “Other than being a very powerful wizard, I have taken the role and power of a Faery Lord.”
“Something that should be positively impossible,” Peter said emphatically, sitting on the trunk beside me. For some reason, Jimmy liked that idea, that I did something supposedly impossible. He was proud of me for it. That was weird.
“The reason I’m telling you this is that the most obvious facet of a Fae Lord is his people, or more usually,
her
people,” I explained. “Until very recently, the only Faery Lords we knew about were the two Queens, named Winter and Summer. Their people are bound to them by geas. The Fae are a magically-bound people. If they aren’t tied to the land, they’ll die just because they can’t use the magic there. Their geas is passed from mother to child at birth. It also ties their loyalty directly to their Queen.”
“Okay. So you’re a Queen now?” he asked, a ghost of a grin on his lips. It was nice that much could happen so soon.
“No, and not a king either,” I said lightly. “I am Lord Daybreak, Liege of Gilán. When we go there, I’ll have the Fae say it so you can hear the words in their language. It will be more similar to the sound you’re hearing in your head.”
Furrowing his brows, he asked, “You can’t say it?”
“Well, yes, but I don’t think you can hear it when I say it,” I said.
“Try me,” he challenged.
So I told Jimmy and Richard my Fae name in all its voices, then I told them Gilán’s name in all of its voices.
Jimmy stood stock-still and not breathing, staring at me with wide eyes, totally enthralled.
“I didn’t think humans could do that,” Richard said mildly. It was enough to jump start Jimmy’s breathing.
“It takes practice,” Peter said. “We need to get moving soon, Seth.”
“I’m a part of that now, aren’t I?” Jimmy asked me. “Gilán. I’m a part of Gilán now. I can feel it.” I nodded slowly. He was starting to understand. “What did you do?”
“I only had a second to figure out how to break the sympathy,” I said, trying to explain, and probably put off explaining, too. “The only way I could think to do that was to force a previous claim to the spell, a stronger claim. Unfortunately, the only way I had to do that was through Daybreak and the geas I’d put on you earlier today. That was my mistake, my biggest one anyway. As Richard pointed out, I am a very powerful wizard and Daybreak is a very powerful Lord. And I’m very, very new at this. When I claimed you as mine, I did it with everything I had.”
“What does that mean, ‘claimed’ me?” he asked, tilting his head and quirking a slight smile.
“Brought you into my Faery world, made you part of Gilán,” I answered, making him meet my gaze. There it was, almost written across his face. I didn’t know if this was Jimmy’s psyche, working in hyperdrive to replace his family with purpose, or some part of the Fae magic. “Made you mine,” I told him, in front of witnesses that he knew I respected and wouldn’t deny.
“We should be going,” I said, jumping off the trunk. “Get ready, guys.” I opened a slit in space above the parking lot of the hotel in Atlanta where I’d not actually stayed the night, but certainly my most memorable stay. “Get Set.” I sent out several different perspectives and didn’t see anything dangerous. “And there.”
Wrapping the four of us in portals, I moved us to the sidewalk of the parking lot of the hotel, at the end nearest the dog walk. The Stone provided a thick dome of protection around us, strobing a gentle fluorescent green on the astral as I requested. That didn’t help Jimmy, but he seemed to be staying close to me and between Peter and Richard. Of the four of us, Jimmy was the most relaxed.
Looking over at Richard pacing nervously, I said, “Go ahead and ask. At least that way, if I haven’t thought of the question, I’ll have to think about it now. And it looks like we have a few minutes.”
“I presume this is not for public consumption?” Richard asked.
“Preferably,” I said.
“How do you expect this to work?” he asked.
“What to work?”
Richard snorted. “You’re being difficult. What is Jimmy to you? What relationship does he hold?”
I shrugged and said, “That I do not know, other than to say he is within my influence.”
“Jimmy, what is Seth to you?” Richard asked him.
“Lord Daybreak of Gilán,” Jimmy said quietly and proudly.
“No, not who is Seth, what is Seth?” Richard repeated his question.
“I don’t see the difference,” Jimmy said, obviously confused.
“That is a very Fae answer, Richard,” I said, grinning tiredly. “I suspect he’ll be this way until I can jumpstart his personality back into gear again.”
Two sedans pulled into the parking lot, one right after the other, and both painted black with darkly tinted windows. The two cars pulled up side-to-side a few hundred feet out. I heard the electric windows roll down, so I opened a hole in space nearby to hear what was said. Apparently, Marshal Harris was on a speakerphone in one of the cars, his voice tinny and pitted.
“…be very careful what you say around them!” I heard Harris’ voice say. “He may look like a kid, but he’s extremely powerful and he takes offense easily.”
“I think I can handle myself, Marshal,” said the man in the right hand car passenger seat. “Thank you for your assistance. You’ll have a copy of my report in the morning.” Then he disconnected the call. “What the hell does he think these kids are going to do? Chant up a Fae Wylde way to Alabama? We should turn around and drive now.”
I glanced over at Peter, sharing my annoyance with him, then spoke through the hole, glaring across the parking lot at them. “Agent Messner, we’ve had a long day already. Please listen to Marshal Harris and strive to not annoy me.”
Both carloads of FBI agents bolted upright, startled at my voice and surprised that I’d overheard their conversation. And more surprised that I spoke to them so obviously over such a distance. The portal was invisible to them. Heh-heh.
Messner signaled the driver to pull forward, deciding that speaking wasn’t such a good idea right then. The second car followed more slowly. I dropped the dome as Messner and his driver got out and moved to us, buttoning their jackets and smoothing wrinkles subconsciously, nervously.
“Mr. McClure, Misters Borland,” Messner said, reaching into his breast pocket and pulling out his identification with a practiced flip. “I’m Special Agent Ashton Messner. This is my partner, Special Agent Earl Springer. We’re with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Special Arts division. We understand you found a triple homicide of particularly nasty description?”
Looking at his aura, he was magically active in a minor way, much like the Inspector from London a few weeks ago, Mercer. His partner, Springer, was likewise talented. They saw Richard as a reasonably powerful mage and Jimmy as a normal human, probably a little tainted with magic at the moment, but still normal. Peter and I were mannequins to them, though, or incredibly well veiled. Right now, he was asking leading questions, trying to get answers to questions he already knew out of us.
“Yeah,” I said, throwing a portal up in the parking lot beside us. We could see the house from our angle. “In the Master bedroom to the right.” We filed through the hole-in-the-world, leaving the gawking FBI agents to stare and call their team to follow. Glancing up at the sun, we had about two, maybe two and a half hours of daylight left. “Can we move this along, Agent Messner? My brothers will be home from New York soon.”