Authors: Scott V. Duff
“Good,” I said, shifting with them this time. “Now, look for the room you haven’t seen before, the one the looks like a lobby. Mom and Dad, yours will have three doors in it, the Cahill’s has five. Everybody got that room?” Everyone nodded. “Jimmy, if you’d go with the Cahills, please, we’ll follow in just a moment. Let’s shift.”
I felt the slight tugs at the Palace that told me the shifts occurred and I was standing in the lobby of my parents’ apartment suite with them, directly in front of their door. “This…” I said, sweeping my hand around the room and ending at their door, “is yours. There are two apartments on either side to do with as you see fit and your apartment here.” I pushed the door open, gesturing for them to enter, following them. The entryway was by far the most feminine of all the apartments so far—any room I’ve seen, really. The stonework here was lush peaches and reds, warmer colors.
Even from the front door, there was a clear view of the back gardens and through some acoustic magic the waterfall off the rear of the Palace ran off the side of the balcony. But it wasn’t roaring through the room, deafening everyone. Carpeting ran along the marble floors in simple and majestic style and I knew at a glance that my mother would like it. My father was a little harder to judge, well, used to be harder to judge. Now, his thoughts whispered to me in the breeze if I listened, but something about reading my parents like that made me uneasy.
They were both so excited that I hated to cut it short. “I’m sorry, but Gordon and Felix are on a schedule, so I need to get back to them. Do y’all want to stay here?”
“Could we?” Mother asked, looking scared.
“Well, yeah, that’s the whole reason for the keys, to give you free access,” I said. “You can come and go as you please. If this is where you want to live, then do. Kieran and Shrank are lining up the Fae to take care of the Palace today so the supplies will be more readily available. There are spots on the front lake and back gardens in the keys and you can call me anytime through them, unless I’m asleep or involved in something that requires all of my attention.”
“So I’m betting his Lordship’s digs are nicer,” Dad said as we moved into their new apartment.
“Robert!” Mother cried, aghast.
“What? I’m not saying this isn’t the Taj Mahal,” Dad said, grinning at her. “I’m just curious to know what the Taj Mahal Supreme is like.”
“I’m not sure ‘nicer’ is the right word,” I said. “Bigger, more open. Mine is the top two floors at the front of the Palace. Most of it is open space with lots of plants. You’re more than welcome to come look, but it’s farther away from just about everything.”
“We can peek at that later, dear,” Mother said, sliding an arm around my father’s waist. “Go see to the Cahills. We’ll be fine on our own for a while, I’m sure.”
“If you have any troubles and can’t get me through the key, just yell off the balcony,” I said. “There are sprites in the garden now and they’ll call for Shrank or the Dea brothers. They can definitely get through to me without a key.”
“Can you teach us how they do it?” Dad asked.
“Through the geas? ‘Fraid not,” I said, but that, he grasped perfectly and nodded his understanding. “Enjoy yourselves. Bye.” I hugged them as one since they were so close, then shifted over to the Cahills.
The lobby was empty and three of the five doors were open, but I only heard voices from Gordon’s. The five of them clustered in there so I went that way in search of them. As I walked through, I looked around and once again thought the décor was rather masculine with more brown, gray, and blue and occasional bursts of red and an almost yellow-orange marble. The furnishings were spare but unlike Mike’s, were rather plush and cushy, more fitting to Gordon’s style I supposed.
“Gordon! You’ve
got
to see the bathroom!” Marty yelled from deeper in the apartment, obviously from the Master Bath. “It’s got a swimming pool!”
“We’ll get there!” Gordon hollered from another bedroom where he and his parents were looking around. They were just coming around to the Master bedroom as I was coming up the grand and sweeping staircase to the second floor. Jimmy wasn’t with them and when I looked for him, he was jogging through the back garden. Thinking there was probably a reason, I kept quiet for the moment.
“Well, what do you think? Reasonable home away from home? Vacation spot?” I asked as I reached the top.
“It makes the castle look like a shed,” Felix mumbled, almost like his feelings were hurt.
“That’s not really a fair comparison, though,” I said, trying to find an angle to placate his bruised ego. “This place was built with Faery magic to rule an entire realm. Your castle was built by your forefathers with blood, sweat, and tears to house and protect their families. Size alone… hmm, actually, if you figure the square footage of the two buildings and divide by the size of the territory covered, you come up much higher than I do.” I smiled like I won the argument but I knew that was very left-handed reasoning. Felix cocked his head to the right, gawking at me. Then he roared in laughter. Gordon didn’t quite get the joke, not that I could blame him. It was a very Faery way of thinking.
Jimmy appeared on the landing holding a basket in each hand. Inside each sat six large, golden
Esteleum
nestled in dry grasses and small flowers. It was obviously not his doing but I could see how he attracted so many girls. If I could only carry myself so easily…
“I know that Daybreak plans to make a more formal presentation of these to your council, Mr. Cahill,” Jimmy said as he handed one of the basket to him. “The Lord’s Regent, Shrank, introduced these to me a short while ago and said that what you were used to was rather like eating a muddy shoe. This would make a muddy shoe taste like manna!”
He handed the second basket to me. “For your parents, Seth.”
“Thank you, Jimmy, that’s very thoughtful,” I said, looking over the basket and flowers. “I didn’t realize there were any
Esteleum
bushes in the garden. Did the nymphs do this?” The weaving was a delicate work, twining back on itself and creating a curious pattern around the sides. The small flowers scented the basket, sweetening the light cedar-like odor wafting from it.
Still, I was worried about the seeds being an issue, not knowing why the Fae removed the sheathe from the casing that allowed for its growth. Until I knew why the elves removed that sheathe, I was uncomfortable allowing them out of Gilán. So I slipped underneath the skin and meat of the twelve fruit, searching for the tiny seeds, and shifted them out.
“Yes, Lord,” Jimmy said. “I apologize if the pattern is unacceptable. The nymphs were unhappy as well, but I didn’t want to leave the Cahills unattended for too long.” This got Felix laughing again and I knew a conversation with Gordon was in our future. Jimmy actually meant what he said, so the laugh was rather insulting and it was entirely my fault. What Felix was laughing at was the completely elven way Jimmy shifted the blame of the imperfection back completely to him. Laughing at the stereotype that I had perpetuated in the first place a moment ago.
“I’m sorry, Jimmy,” I said, shooting my free hand out to his shoulder, trying to show sincerity. “He’s not laughing at you, really. You just happen to say the exact wrong thing at exactly the wrong time right after I set up a really bad joke. If you’d planned this, it’d be a great joke.”
“Okay, Seth,” he said. Just like that, he accepted what I said. Huh. It would be really easy to lie to Jimmy in the future, if that was in my nature. I don’t attempt to lie often since lies tend to be written all over you, but now that I was hidden from all but three others…? I wasn’t sure I liked the idea.
“This is Gordon’s apartment,” I said, knowing I was repeating Jimmy. “Y’all can divvy up the suite however y’all see fit. I know Mike has told Ian he can’t have his own until a certain age, but I’ll support what you decide with Martin either way, so long as there is an emergency spot picked and locked into place for everyone.”
The four of them thought of the foyer of Gordon’s apartment, just past the door, so I stamped the position onto the second face of each of their diamonds, right beside their essence. The Cahills now had a backup plan and I felt better, safer. Safer for Marty who still lacked the training and experience necessary to survive an assault and safer for Enid who had the power but lacked the experience and the confidence to use it properly. I wouldn’t want to face her when she got her maternal dander up, though. All of Gordon’s power didn’t come from Felix—Enid was an instinctual powerhouse. I’d bet a cool million that Felix had been tamed, and enjoyed it, too.
“When you get the time, please practice shifting back and forth between here and the castle,” I told them. “We want to make it second nature in case of an attack outside of the castle stronghold, like with Ian yesterday. So long as we’re at war, we want to be as safe as possible while people are gunning for us, okay? And yes, Gordon, I mean you, too.” He felt mildly offended and I didn’t care.
“Marty, you busy today?” I asked. “Ian’s bored, I think, and could use the company.”
“Can I, Ma?” Marty asked, pleading with his mother. “I’m just in the way at home right now.”
“Yes, dear, you can stay until dark,” Enid agreed, reluctantly. “But stay out of the lake when no one is around to watch you.”
“I’ll leave you to look around and get used to the place, then,” I said, watching Felix idly toying with the fruit in the basket. “Take as long as you want. Come and go as you please and yell if you need anything. Okay?”
I searched quickly into the garden to get a fix on Ian then glanced around to find Marty. As I shifted the two of us to Ian, I heard Felix exclaim, “I’ll be damned. This
would
make a muddy shoe taste good!”
“Thank God,” Mike said under his breath as we appeared in the garden. When I turned to find him, he was looking for Marty. Ian must be driving him up the walls and Marty was his fix for that. They were both pretty high-maintenance people.
Jimmy slipped in beside me a minute later. “Mr. Cahill looks better already,” he said. “That is quite an amazing little bush.”
“Just be careful giving it away just yet, okay?” I said. “There may be a problem with the seeds that I haven’t figured out. If you remove the seeds like the elves would, it turns the skin a similar shade of purple to the
Esteleum
we’re used to. Still tastes a lot better, but it’s discolored. So until I find out why, I don’t want the seeds leaving here.”
Jimmy looked panicked, eyes dropping to the basket in my hand and his thoughts to the Cahill’s basket. “I took care of these already, Jimmy,” I said, looking for Ian and Marty, only to find Ian introducing the sprites and nymphs to a wide-eyed Marty beside the lake. Apparently even for landed gentry, Marty led a sheltered life and wasn’t used to naked nymphs and certainly not touchy-feely naked nymphs. Hormones raged throughout Gilán and my back garden was no different.
“Marty, Ian, we’re leaving now,” I called. “Keep the diamonds close or I’ll come looking for you!”
“Where are we going, exactly?” Mike asked. That stymied me. We hadn’t really decided on that, at least on my side. Kieran and Ethan were down the mountain with the sprites and were apparently having good luck separating some sprites from the likely candidates. With Shrank’s help Kieran had two fairly large families gathering their few belongings and Ethan had another doing the same and was talking to a fourth. All four of them were far more comfortable in an urban atmosphere than the forests, so the Palace was the best I could offer them.
Once I knew what to look for, I found three more families with similar traits. I didn’t want to push the entire city dwelling inclined Faery from the forests, though. Towns and villages are a necessary part of life if they were going to exist as a people. If I allowed them to spread out too thinly, they’d start to die out over time, unable to find viable mates and build new families. I didn’t want a true-life, Adam-and-Eve-style population problem. I was already facing that with the water nymphs. Gilán hadn’t seen fit to change other Fae into that form yet, but I could sense about six that were close. By Wednesday, I may have a total of eight.
Richard and Peter were both gone, too. I hadn’t felt the now familiar light scratch that meant a key shift across whatever constituted the veil around Gilán, so Peter must have carried his father with him. While I could sense my brothers’ shifts, theirs was a subtler move and I had to be listening for it. David must have gone with them.
“I guess we find out how last night ended,” I said. “Right after I give this to my pare—” Okay, there are some things a teenager doesn’t want to know about their parents, especially a teenager between the ages of puberty and death. When I checked to see where my parents were, that’s what I got to see. Hormones raged all over the planet and I didn’t want to know about it. Not that I minded the possibility of a younger sibling and I definitely understood the processes involved, but that didn’t mean I wanted to see it happen.
“I’ll just leave that on the coffee table,” I said quietly and slipped the basket onto it from the garden, opting to not venture up to their apartment right then, and shifted us to Alabama. The house wards were happy to see me.
They were under assault when we slipped in.
It was more of a prelude to an assault, really. The wards were being probed repeatedly from six directions, trying to find the limits to its strength and space. I shielded Mike and Jimmy, hiding them behind one of Ethan’s chameleon spells and hopefully keeping them out of the sights of whoever was doing the probing. Then I sent my own probes out, following the first bulky and thick sensation of energy back to its source, near where I found Jimmy but closer to the house.
“Something is wrong,” Jimmy said, as he looked around the den nervously, unable to locate the source of his unease.
“Y’think?” Mike snapped at him. He tugged at the battery he held, charging himself with power.
“This is unreal. Four times in two days, this is startin’ t’piss me off,” I said, feeling the drawl on my tongue. I found four of the six in a few seconds, all between one hundred twenty and one hundred fifty feet directly out from the house. The other two were trying to map the lower yard, in the field. They were searching for the wardstones, the source of the wards.
With all of my attention pushed outside of my wards, I barely felt that faint scratch of a shift, followed by an equally faint tug of magic use, a familiar tug.
“Why are you boys hiding?” my father asked quietly.
“Because several someones are probing my wards,” I said from the window just as quietly. “Maybe you should go back and get Kieran and Ethan for me.”
“When did I get ‘stupid’ tattooed on my forehead?” Dad asked, peeking through the curtains over my head. Mike laughed. “Nice cloaking, by the way. One of Ehran’s?”
“Yes, sir,” I answered, still looking over the opposition. I had all six teams in the immediate vicinity. The two teams at the front of the house were both four-man teams, the two on the sides were five-man teams, while the two out back were both three-man teams. They were all armed in some form, but the unmagical had firearms, automatic and semiautomatic. I didn’t know enough about such to identify them. “With some minor adjustments, I can get to near invisibility depending on the intensity of the aura involved. And of course, the person doing the seeing.”
“So what have we got out there?” he asked, squeezing my shoulders. It was very comforting to have him there at my back, so it was a minor surprise how anxious I was over him.
“Six teams,” I said and I pointed. “Five men, four men, and three men, each group has at least one and at most three wizards and at least two armed men with firearms. They are all armed in some way. They haven’t seen us yet. Seem to be happy searching for the wardstones.”
“Same ones that I installed?” he asked.
“Yes, sir, but I think Kieran has managed a few tweaks and changes since then,” I said. “You’re welcome to join me in looking, but I have control at the moment.”
“You found the second wardstone,” he said, sounding surprised.
“That was what drew Kieran to me the night we met in the forest,” I told him. “He brought it out of the lake and back here the next day while I was recuperating from Ethan.”
“’Recuperating
from
Ethan’?” Dad repeated, asking what that meant.
“A story better left for another time,” I said gently. “It has a good ending.”
Jimmy walked into the room holding two black cases. Dropping both into the chair, he popped the snaps and opened them, taking out two different sizes of binoculars. The pair he handed me were huge in comparison to what I considered the more normal sized ones he handed my father.
“I thought it was Billy that had ‘Short Man’s Disease’,” I said sarcastically.
“Well, those were his,” Jimmy said dryly, with just a hint of humor in his eyes. “I think I still have his tweezers, too.” Mike let out a snort and Dad chuckled. I just shook my head for being the straight man for that act.
“Mike, front,” I said, tossing the binoculars to him. I was looking straight down the barrel of a sniper’s rifle as he attempted to acquire targets in the house. I didn’t really need to get a better view of that. The
see in truth
spell had them locked down tight for me. This team had three wizards of fairly high power and two able-bodied men armed to the teeth—almost literally, one of them was picking his teeth nervously with a pen knife. Of course, the mages were the more interesting to me as they held more of a threat to us.
“Hmm, snakes,” Dad murmured, then he turned more to the back, trying to see the two teams at the rear. There were too many trees in the way for that, but I could help there.
With just a few calculations and estimates of distances and focal lengths, it was pretty amazing what you can do with pinhole-sized portals and reflective surfaces. I had images of the six teams from overhead displayed onto the wall behind us, showing all twenty-four men, no women at all this time around. The three mages on the team nearest us did indeed share some affinity to a snake god and their magic was based and tokenized on it. Two of them even carried several live and venomous snakes with them.
“I see what you mean,” I muttered staring at them as one attempted to burrow through the underbrush again, only to get slowly burned in the wards’ energy barrier. “Does the way they are set about mean anything? The four, five, three pattern?”
“Not really,” Dad said, dropping the spyglasses and glancing back at me. He joined me at the wall, blocking the left side portals until I adjusted his position and he figured out how I was doing it. “Another of Ehran’s tricks?”
“No, extrapolating from photography and telescopes, actually,” I said. “Pinholes above their heads, lensing through the atmosphere, portals are wonderfully adaptable.”
“Good job, son,” Dad said, nodding and studying the men carefully. “I wonder where they got these men. Snakes usually mean Africa or South America.”
“One’s carrying a black mamba so Africa makes sense,” I agreed.
“You’re joking, right?” Mike said, coming back into the room. “Idiot’s carrying a black mamba?” Peering at the images on the wall, he said, “I’d say this was the Russian’s work, the fixer anyway. Are they looking for the wardstones?”
“Yes,” I answered, watching him piece together the little mystery before us. Obviously his previous experience showing value.
“It’s his style anyway,” Mike continued. “Armed backup with groups of multinationals. Keeps the groups actively interested in keeping each other alive. Real Cold War, hate monger type man. He’s good and he’s expensive.”
I sighed heavily. “Time to call in the big guns, I guess,” I said, glancing up at the clock. Even at ten thirty, I didn’t think we’d make the interviews in time.
Little Brother, Peter is in trouble, can you come?
Ethan called me through the anchor as he closed his business as quickly as possible. “I have to go, figure this out for yourselves,” he told the sprites.
We are under attack, too
, I told him. I have Dad and Mike with me.
Go help Peter and Richard.
Time to change tracks.
Gordon?
I sent through the key I’d set on him this morning. I could feel him near it.
“Seth, is that you?” I heard Gordon say as if he was standing beside me. It was an uncanny sensation of sound.
“Yes, Gordon, it’s me,” I said, thinking maybe it would translate to him through the link as he seemed to be talking. “Only have a moment. Both Peter and I are under attack at our individual homes. Kieran and Ethan have gone to help Richard, David, and him there. I have Dad, Mike, and Jimmy here. That leaves Ian and Marty on Gilán. The Palace has a Fae population that will see to their needs for some time, but I’d rather not leave them for too long without adult supervision.”
“What can I do to help?” he asked, the concern streaked through his aura. There was also a vague sensation of someone hovering about four feet away from Gordon. So there was a limit to how far out from the diamond I could sense or was it out from Gordon? The pattern was very irregular and did seem to be spherically oriented around Gordon and not the diamond.
“We need information,” I said. “That’s the best help you can be, find out if others are being hit. Mike says this looks like the Russian’s work. Find out what you can about him. Who he is, where he is, and why he’s doing this, although money is the most obvious answer.”
“We just got off the phone with Harris,” Gordon said. “They’re still processing your assault last night, but he made no indication of other problems. We’ll get him back on the wire. You be careful, Seth.”
“We’ll do our best on that front, Gordon,” I said, breaking the connection. “Looks like we’re on our own. That, or we bail out and help Peter.”
“Abandon your home?” Dad asked. “I don’t think so. These guys don’t look so tough.”
“It’s not them I’m worried about,” I said. “It’s who’s waiting in the wings to take over once they crash the wards.”
“A healthy fear of the unknown is good,” Dad said. “But we can’t let that rule our lives. Ehran and Ethan may need help with Peter. We’re that help, so we need to move.”
“Good point,” I said. “I’ll expand the sensitivity of the wards to encompass all six teams. Jimmy and I will take this pair while you and Mike take that pair. Whoever finishes first should go after the back pair. If you can identify the one in charge try to keep that one alive, but otherwise don’t bother trying. Where and how do you want to be dropped in?” If Dad was surprised by the way I’d taken charge, he didn’t show it and he didn’t try to usurp it either. He did pick the larger team to attack.
Moving three batteries out of my cavern, I handed one to Mike and held the other two out to Dad. “Take these and pull from them. That’ll help keep you hidden longer and there’s more energy available in these than ambient right now.”
“Merlin’s Stones,” Dad whispered as he took the batteries from me. He studied them carefully, pulling energy and pushing it back down several times with growing intensity.
“I’ll ask you what you mean by that later,” I said. “For now, these are as full as I like to get them but I don’t know their true limit or how much they actually hold. Yell if you want more.”
“Merlin’s Stones?” Mike asked, grinning, his accent purposefully heavy. “Your boy’s been making Merlin’s Stones for weeks and nobody’s taken ‘im t’see Arthur? Should I have a word with Cahill on his behalf?”
“Oh, have mercy!” Dad said, laughing lightly while pleading with Mike. There was a joke I wasn’t privy to in there. Mike moved to the wall in the meantime and managed to suggest a strong position for both of them, back to back with several yards between them. I chose a similar attitude for my two, but Jimmy would not be attacking anyone.
“Jimmy, you have one job here,” I turned to face him as he tapped his truncheon against his thigh. “You are to stay behind me on my right, outside of the Day’s reach. Your only job is to stay alive. You are too new at this to be attacking anyone.”
Jimmy glared at me angrily, hitting his thigh hard repeatedly. “To tell me not to fight and protect myself goes against every fiber of my being, Seth. Don’t tell me not to protect myself, please.”
“How far are you going to wheedle me, First?” I asked darkly throwing every bit of what Kieran called the ‘Fae Countenance’ I could into it. Dad and Mike both cringed and turned away, but Jimmy just cringed a bit. He stood his ground.
“At least let me fight the ones that come after me or at you through me, Lord Daybreak,” he said, with a fair amount of pleading in it. “Let me do my job.”
I glared at him for a second or two while I considered his plea. I could wrap him in a shield and go in blasting away at everyone. There were so many dangers in that, though, so many different problems that I didn’t know how to handle. I had too many people to take care of now. I needed to work the way I worked best: in the armor using the forms that Kieran and Ethan taught me. I know it was habit and newly formed at that but the Fae parts of me worked along the same lines as well. I was still very much learning three different forms of magic at the same time and at the apex of two of them by virtue of their rarity.
I had to make a decision. If I was going to risk my dad, I couldn’t expect Jimmy to do less. That would be insulting to my father, even though that did not make sense to me. Dad understood completely and I knew that. The reasoning was wrong, but the thought was right.
“All right, Jimmy,” I said sternly, pulling the armor on, fully loaded but without the helmet. “You have permission to follow me in and fight, but stay out of my way. We know too little about who’s out there and I am going to be vicious. These people are trying to kill us. This has got to stop.”
“Thank you, Seth,” Jimmy said, his relief obvious as I released my hold on him.
“Anybody need anything before we go? Bathroom? Water?” I asked, not wanting the pee-pee dance in the middle of a pitched battle. Apparently, this was the equivalent to a babbling brook because all three of them took off down the hall, slightly embarrassed. I took the opportunity to brush up against the anchor lightly and see if Ethan was busy. He appeared to be stalking or searching for something, so I pulled away and kept busy watching the six teams. Luckily I didn’t have long to wait.
Jimmy was back first with Dad and Mike just seconds behind him. There was a healthy dose of fear in everybody’s auras. Jimmy pulled his truncheon again, making it grow with a flick of his wrist to a full-sized staff. The magic of my realm licked the alabaster surface like flames, searing the office of the First of Gilán in Faery script along the stick. The fire lasted only briefly but the staff held strong and true with Jimmy’s aura as if it was a part of him.