Authors: Scott V. Duff
Ethan opened a portal into a hotel suite in New York for us from directly outside the tent. I hadn’t been to this hotel before so this explained why Ethan came to me earlier. The change from the heat of the late summer Alabama tent to the air-conditioned hotel was a little shocking, but nothing major. He shut the portal quietly behind me as I passed through it and the bedroom into the adjoining living room.
“Ah, the prodigals return,” I heard Richard say as I walked in. The room was setup similarly to our previous hotels, two couches facing each other in a square with a smaller, two-seater on one end and a chair at the other. A small table sat between them. A writing desk sat along the wall between the bedrooms and a few, smaller tables and chairs spread out along the other walls. Kieran and Peter were both sitting on the couch with their backs to us and turned to look. Richard faced us, smiling, and a man I didn’t know stood nervously on his right watching us file in, thoroughly confused by our presence.
“No bandages or open wounds,” Kieran said, grinning. “Things went well, then. Did you have fun on your first outing with Seth, Dad?”
Dad let out a loud guffaw, falling into the chair heavily. “It was definitely an experience! You’ve taught him well, Ehran.”
Kieran sputtered, snickering. “I’ve taught him precious little but theory. What he does, he just… does.”
Dad glanced at me appraisingly as I sat on the smaller couch opposite him with Jimmy coming in beside me. “He did that as a child, too.”
“Well, just wait until he does something big,” Mike said walking up to the man still standing up. “Mike Ferrin. How are you?”
“Steven Norton, good to meet you,” he said, his accent light, Midwestern. Glancing up at the clock, if they were on schedule, they’d been talking with Norton for roughly half an hour.
“That wasn’t big?” Dad snorted, both laughing at and surprised by Mike’s declaration.
“Ignore him, Dad,” I said. “He’s making more of it than is there. Where’s David?”
“We left him in Gilán with the boys,” Kieran said. “After lunch they’re going to sort through supplies with the brownies and setup some sort of organizational system for the short term.”
“How many did you bring in?” I asked.
“Initially, about four hundred but we expect that number will grow to roughly three thousand by tomorrow.”
My mouth dropped open. “Three thousand brownies? There aren’t enough of us to give them work to do.”
“A good number of them are going to be supporting each other in the Palace,” Peter said. “Then there’s all the initial work that’s going to take months, like inventorying store rooms, mapping the Palace. Three thousand is probably too little.”
“Likely,” Kieran agreed, nodding.
“Can’t you do anything small?” Dad asked, still grinning.
“This is when you grab your crotch and say ‘Hell, no!’” Jimmy said, elbowing me in the side. With perfect bad timing, water spewed across Kieran and Peter, hitting Steven and Richard full on as Ethan created a perfect spit-take, bursting into laughter at Jimmy’s crude joke. It brought the room into further gales and more juvenile humor as several of us scattered to retrieve towels.
It was a good thing for all of us, though. Our anxiety levels were all very, very high considering the day we all had already. My group had been through three fights and Peter’s, one. This release was obvious and welcome and we all relaxed afterward, including Norton. More bottles of water got tossed around the room, too, because, frankly, we were thirsty.
“So, Mr. Norton, now that we’ve wasted a good fifteen minutes of your interview time and spit all over you,” I said, “what do you think of our group? Think you could be, well, a glorified gopher for a few years?”
“Is that truly what you see this job as being?” Norton asked me.
“In the end, no,” I said. “Initially, though, probably. We have too much to set up right now for it to be otherwise. That’s not to say you’d be sent out at midnight to get a pack of gum or some such nonsense, but you might be given a list of things to procure or run interference for us with the FBI or something.”
“The FBI?” he asked, alarmed.
“Yes,” Mike confirmed. “Though that task will probably fall to me since they already know me.”
“Technically and probably logistically as well, you’ll be Mike’s charge,” Kieran said. “But you’ll deal with all of us at one time or another. We’re a fairly democratic group, being family.”
“Speaking of family,” Norton said. “You said at the beginning of the interview that there was a facet of your magic shared with your brothers that caused your aura to be hidden and that is why I couldn’t see either you or Peter. Correct?”
“Yes,” Kieran said plainly and even though he knew the direction Norton was going in, he let him ask his question.
“Now I see that this includes those two,” he said, pointing to us, which made me realize we hadn’t introduced ourselves yet. “And to top it off, you talk about running interference for the FBI. Who exactly are you guys?”
I chuckled slightly as Mike asked, “Who set up your interview for you?”
“Gordon Cahill did, through my brother, Mark,” he answered. “He said it was an excellent opportunity for me to learn and network from the bottom up.”
“I’ve certainly met a lot of people during that last few weeks,” I said laughing. Then we went through the process of introducing everybody and explaining the relationships somewhat loosely. “As far as my brothers, Kieran and I share a father in common. Other than that, you just have to accept that relationship as it is: the four of us are brothers.”
“So I take it you aren’t aware of the occurrences of the last few months on the political fronts of our world?” Richard asked Norton.
“What do you mean?” he asked, scrunching his face in question. The phone warbled at that moment, repeating from three locations in the room and starling us slightly. One extension sat on a small table just behind me, so I reached back and answered.
The concierge was calling to let us know our next appointment was waiting for us. Thanking her, I glanced up at the clock, noticing it was after four. I’ve never had to worry about timeliness before, but my parents were always punctual—except that last time, but there were extenuating circumstances there. I wasn’t sure how much emphasis to put on this, but this was supposed to show us how responsible this person is.
“Next one’s here,” I said, standing and stretching.
“Let’s go out on the balcony and I’ll see if I can’t catch you up to what’s happening in our world,” Richard said to Norton. “That way, you can make an informed decision before they make any decisions about you, okay?”
“Okay,” Norton agreed, leery and confused. I had to admit to being confused, too, since this suite didn’t have a balcony. It made sense when I felt both Peter and Richard shift over to Gilán with Norton in tow, moving to Peter’s balcony.
“I’ll go get the next one,” I said and headed for the door. Stopping short, I turned and asked, “I guess I was getting ahead of myself there, but did you guys like him? Is he gonna be worth the effort?”
“He seems good,” Kieran said. “I don’t see any immediate problems, so let’s see what happens after Peter and Richard have their talk with him. That should be enlightening for all of us.”
“Okay, that’ll work. Be right back,” I said and went for number two for the day with Jimmy right behind me. We walked the hall to the concierge lounge and spoke to the man on duty for the person who asked for us. Not that the woman wasn’t perfectly obvious. Her aura blazed with predatory intent, sitting on a small couch lazily flipping through a magazine.
“Miss Osbourne?” I said as we walked up, holding out my hand and watching her reaction to us.
“Yes,” she said, smiling and standing, tossing the magazine on the table in front of her. She was clad wholly in silk today with a dark blue skirt and blouse combination that complimented her eyes and showed her bosom more than adequately. I caught a glimpse of a line on the back of her leg that suggested the stockings, too, were true silk. She wore little jewelry—namely two rings, a bracelet and a necklace—all made of silver and all charmed in some way and recently recharged.
“Hi, I’m Seth McClure,” I said, smiling back. “We’re going take you back to our suite for the interview with my brothers.”
“All right,” she responded, turning to gather her belongings, a purse and a small portfolio. A spike of nervousness shot through her. I heard the thoughts at the edge of her mind; she was worried about being alone in a hotel with a group of men she didn’t know.
“Hmm. That hadn’t occurred to us,” I muttered, stopping at the door of the concierge lounge. “I’m sorry, we hadn’t thought about a woman being in a room by herself with people she didn’t know. Is there someone here that you’d like with you?”
“No, Mr. McClure,” she said, smiling, after the briefest of hesitations. “I think I can handle myself if that was your goal and I don’t believe it is.”
“No, ma’am, it’s not,” I said, starting for the room again. “I will say the room has gotten a bit crowded at the moment. When we set all this up, it was just the five of us, but we seem to have added a few people unexpectedly into the mix. We could have up to eleven people in there right now, just so you know.”
“Not a problem,” she said. She found me amusing and unimportant, which I found amusing. Jimmy saw it, too, which made him dislike her fairly quickly. Neither point bothered me, particularly. “Who exactly is in charge?”
“Of the interview?” I asked and getting a nod, I answered, “I suppose that would be Kieran since he and Peter started and Peter had to leave, but Mike’s in charge of the assistants so he might take control now. Hard to say, really.” By that time, we’d reached the room, but instead of knocking and waiting, I created a portal through the door and walked straight in without stopping. Jimmy ran into the backside of Miss Osbourne as she stopped, knocking her through unceremoniously too far and into my backside. The Stone flared in my cavern, creating a thin, strong wall between us, which she buffeted against while I walked on without concern until I noticed the flare dying down.
“What happened?” I asked turning around and closing the portal.
Jimmy was irked but satisfied that Osbourne got knocked around a little. “I’m not entirely certain,” muttered Osbourne, poking at the air where the shield existed seconds before.
“Well, let me introduce everyone and get started,” I said, waving an arm further into the room. After introductions were made, there were the obligatory explanations as to why she couldn’t see auras around the three of us and wouldn’t see Peter’s as well.
“Next time, let’s set several of these up for the same time,” Kieran said midway through. “Explaining this so many times a day gets to you.”
“Communi-date style,” Jimmy said with a grin.
“Fifteen minutes of orientation followed by three minutes with each of us?” Ethan offered as explanation on Jimmy’s idea.
“A better idea would be to parcel the orientation out to an assistant and leave just the interview part to us,” I said.
“Ever the voice of reason,” Mike said in a singsong voice. “But that does make sense, even if it does make more work for me.”
“And that’s why we’re hiring more assistants,” I said.
I felt the scratches of shifts from Gilán, telling me that Ian and Marty shifted to Ireland. A moment later a get a call through the diamond from David.
Seth?
“Excuse me a moment, please,” I said and stepped away, treating this as a cell phone call. It was rather one-sided after all. “Yes, David? What can I do for you?”
Marty and Ian have gone to the castle to have dinner with Marty’s parents
, David pushed across the link.
And the Fae have gone in search of sustenance for the evening, and well, it’s kind of eerie being here all alone…
“You want to come to us?” I asked, chuckling slightly. I could definitely imagine the Palace being a daunting place without companionship—not for me but I’m a special case.
Yeah, do you mind?
“Not at all. You have everything you want with you?”
Yes, sir.
With that, I reached into Gilán and grabbed ahold of David’s aura, feeling for everything he touched, and pulled him through the dimensional barriers. He shifted over without a problem, carrying a large case and sporting a minor sunburn on his face.
“Spent a lot of time out by the lake today?” I asked.
“Am I burned?” he asked. “I burn so easily at this time of year. Wait, what time of year is it over there?”
“No idea. That’s one of the many things we have to figure out,” I answered, shrugging. “Offhand, I’d say it was spring there, but the realm is barely a week old so who knows?”
“David Henry?” Osbourne asked behind me. I turned and David looked over at her.
“Caitlin? Caitlin Osbourne, what are you doing here?” he asked moving around me to hug her. “Last I heard, you were shackin’ up with that Murphy kid.”
“Yeah, well, seems everybody but me knew he was shaking it with the man downstairs, too,” she said, rather venomously.
“Yeah, we did try and warn you about that, but love is blind,” David said, trying to be supportive to her feelings. “How long ago was that?”