Authors: Scott V. Duff
“Getcher own, pretty boy!” I growled at him. Peter snorted a laugh, almost choking, and left to fix a plate himself. Satisfied my territory was no longer at risk, I stole Kieran’s itinerary to compare to mine and started eating. The plate was empty before I got through the first page—it was just
that good
. “I’m afraid to go back for seconds. I don’t think the first plateful has made it to my stomach yet.” Looking down the table, there were similar dazed looks on David and Mike.
“Hunh,” Peter grunted. “I can’t believe this was made with the stuff in my kitchen. Now I understand the prohibition on eating faery food. Where do you get hash browns like this anywhere else?”
That was a very good point, but one that I didn’t have to worry about. “It’s not like you’ll have too much trouble getting them again, you know,” I pointed out. “They’ll probably be quite happy to make it again if you ask.”
Surveying the barracks for a few moments, I asked, “Is there any reason to visit the barracks today? Everything seems to be normal.”
“Not particularly, no,” Kieran said. “We still haven’t talked to Messner yet, though, which is mildly alarming but not unexpected.”
“Okay,” I said. Then called, “Alsooth, may I have a moment?”
I had a strange shift of perspective when Alsooth answered with “Yes, Lord Daybreak?” Suddenly I was standing in front of him, an apparition that only he saw. It was akin to working in my cavern and still reacting in the regular world. Just… inside-out.
“I just wanted to check in with you before we left for the day,” I said, kneeling down on one knee. “Do you need anything? Anybody need to be threatened?”
“No, thank you, Lord,” Alsooth squealed pleasantly. His grin curled wickedly at the idea of me bullying for him. “Major Byrnes and his men have been very helpful, many useful and nearly all quite polite. We have a few fellows on my staff involved in training exercises with Major Byrnes’ men. I have limited how far my fellows can go before they decline very clearly. Obviously I don’t want anyone hurt and these are only exercises.”
“As long as Major Byrnes is aware of it, I’m fine with it, too,” I said, shrugging my shoulders. “If I find the time, I’m gonna look in on it. It’s an intriguing idea and I’d like to see what they’re doing. Unfortunately, we’ve got a rough day ahead of us. Anything comes up you can’t handle, go to Ellorn first. If you can’t fix the problem together, call the First or me, but we may not be able to answer immediately. This is my first contact with the Courts of Faery and I do not know what to expect. My previous experiences have been… violent.”
“I understand, Lord Daybreak,” Alsooth said. “We should be quite stable until tomorrow morning when, according to Lieutenant Brinks, they will exceed their supply of eggs and breakfast sausage. He also says that the midday lunch is not a problem but that dinner will be remainders.”
“Hopefully, they’ll be leaving after breakfast,” I said. “Thank you, Alsooth. You and Ellorn are taking a lot of the worry out of this situation for me. I appreciate that. I’ll at least check in at the end of the day.” My apparition stood and merged back with me on Peter’s balcony.
“Seth, Gordon’s got you down for three different speeches here,” Peter warned me as he turned through his papers.
“What? I only saw one,” I exclaimed, flipping back to the beginning of mine to read through it again. “Ten minutes? I hope they like the word ‘um.’ I have no doubt I’m gonna say it many, many times today. Fifteen? He’s nuts!”
Peter chuckled as he stood. “Come on,” he said. “Help me get the kitchen cleaned up and we’ll work on some lines. Get you started anyway.”
“You’re kidding, right?” I asked, laughing and looking up at him. “Your kitchen is spotless right now, and you wouldn’t get past the doorway with a dirty plate in your hands before a brownie snatched it from you and ran to the kitchen with it. Or do you not remember getting tossed out twenty minutes ago?”
“Oh, not fair,” Elise groaned. “It took me ten years to build decent habits into that boy and you’re going to destroy that in a month.” Richard laughed heartily while the rest snickered or grinned at Peter.
“So we’re ready to go to Ireland, then,” Kieran said standing and stretching. Then he announced to the room at large, “Breakfast was excellent. My compliments to the chefs.”
“We’ll follow in a few minutes,” Richard said as he stood with his wife and daughter. “Give the ladies some time to get ready for the day ahead.”
“Few minutes, right,” Peter scoffed and shook his head sadly. “See ya in an hour, Dad.” Apparently, I was the only person on the outside of that joke as everybody else snickered. I shifted us to Cahill Castle.
~ ~ ~
“The confusion has settled some,” Mike commented as we surveyed the mass hysteria of the grounds from the steps of the Cahill mansion. Peter and I turned slowly to gawk in disbelief.
“It has,” David agreed, nodding at the… squirming mass of human flesh with a healthy trepidation. A bell at the top of the castle started tolling loudly, announcing the time.
“Ten o’clock. What happens at ten?” I asked, turning pages through my itinerary.
“You do, actually,” Gordon said as he walked out the open front doors of the foyer. “Though I really didn’t expect you to get here by now, I admit. Good morning!” He smiled broadly as he reached out to shake my hand.
“What am I supposed to do?” I asked, looking back over my shoulder at the hundred or so caterers setting up tables and chairs in the grass off the drive. Other, better dressed men and women had noticed us now and were gathering along the driveway. Seeing them in suits made me glad I was the VIP and set my own dress code. Rank has privileges.
“Not too much,” Gordon said, grinning. “Just a quick walk-thru of what you want to happen here and maybe a short speech to those present, then you’re free to meet your public.”
“Three speeches, Gordon?” I whined. “What am I supposed to say?”
He just shrugged and said, “Up to you. An elf appeared at the west gate last night and confirmed the Emissaries arrival for a quarter of an hour before dusk tonight. I assume that there will be a similar setup to last week on the drive. Martin will be in the Castle. We’ll be arrayed up here and everyone else will be over there, out of the way but watching.” Gordon pointed out two long, tall sets of bleachers along the curve of the drive capable of seating about two hundred people.
A quick count through the ward showed about five times that number currently on the grounds.
“Can I start with ‘Some of you need to go home’?” I quipped. Actually, it had already calmed down significantly as workmen disappeared around the backside of the castle. Young men scurried around gathering tools and rolling tarps and other assorted cleaning tasks as small groups of older men inspected various aspects of the brightly colored tents and pavilions. The flow of caterers had similarly slowed as stations were stocked and now they worked on the setup of each.
“No, you can’t,” Gordon said. “Most of them are leaving anyway. The only differences in the receiving line are Marchand and Harris.”
“Actually, we’ll need to add Jimmy to my right anyway,” I said. “Felix is resting, I hope?”
“Aye,” Gordon answered, his smile growing huge. “He came home last night ready to conquer the world, he felt so good after all that wild Fae magic you tossed around. He hadn’t counted on Ma being just as rambunctious!” His laugh echoed in his barrel of a chest and into the foyer where a blond-headed streak launched onto the back of Ferrin. Marty followed Ian at a more sedate pace.
“Do you know these people, too, Mikey?” Ian asked as he squeezed the breath out of his brother without concern.
“I’m not… gonna… know anybody… inna minute,” Mike choked out, pulling his brother’s arms from around his neck. “You’re getting too big f’that, you little monkey.”
The crowd in front of us had grown so I figured I’d best push to move things along. Ignoring the general hubbub behind me, I stepped up to the center of the steps and addressed the people that stood there, barely recognizing one or two of them. My “speech” lasted thirty seconds and consisted of “I’m Seth, thanks for coming, it looks great.” Gordon didn’t seem to mind as I descended the steps and started shaking hands and meeting people with Jimmy right behind me.
Our group on the steps broke up and moved on to various tasks while Jimmy and I were politicking and chatting with the eighty or ninety magicians and wizards that helped to build and setup. After thirty minutes of this, I moved us towards the tents. After another ten, it still looked like we were trapped in polite conversational hell.
“Please excuse us,” I said to those around me, “The First and I have a security issue to attend to.” Then I wrapped us in portals, moving us back to the foyer entrance again. Leading us through the house and back through the kitchens to the rear exit, I started looking through boxes, searching for anything that didn’t belong or was maybe the wrong size.
Reaching out to the wards, Kieran and Ethan were there, methodically searching from the outside in. Jimmy pulled on Gilán as he searched, giving him better insight to any magic that might be waiting. Each of us searched in a different manner and we’d all eventually overlap, providing a comfortable redundancy. That didn’t mean that any of us slacked on our individual searches.
Satisfied after an hour of scouring the house and countryside, Jimmy and I got out of the kitchens and wandered around the outside of the house. I just wanted to watch what was going on around us and somehow we just sort of eased out of everyone’s awareness. We were kind of there but not there as people moved around. It afforded us a freedom of movement that was extremely pleasant and we used it for over an hour.
Something at the South Gate caused a quiet ruckus, stopping the trickle of traffic. A flare along the ward there from the guards was the only hint, followed up by a phone call. I’d have missed the call completely if I hadn’t been walking up behind Gordon while he was speaking to Billy on the phone.
“That idiot!” Gordon muttered into the handset quietly, searching the crowd in front of him while I stood behind him. “Has anybody even seen Seth lately?”
“Last we knew he and his shadow were heading for the back of the house,” Billy answered on the other end of the phone. My hearing was getting as good as my eyesight. “They disappeared around the north side of the house right after that.”
“Well, find him!” Gordon said, hushed but excitedly. “Keep him busy while I deal with this. Lunch is in forty minutes. Talk him into going home to change. Anything, just keep him away from that gate.”
So Jimmy and I jumped through a portal to the South Gate. The ward there flared much harder this time when the guards saw Jimmy and me. A long, black limousine sat blocking the closed gate. Two men with what looked like high-powered weaponry cradled in their arms stood on this side facing the car. Another stood ready to swing the gate open if the man on this side allowed it. That man was standing stone silent while a man in US Army military dress uniform yelled and berated him, trying to bully his way in. The gatekeeper was stalwart.
Jimmy and I climbed the fence, sitting at the top for a moment to watch the lieutenant colonel’s rant. There were four other occupants in the limo, waiting impatiently but ignoring the current happenings. No doubt waiting for Gordon’s car to arrive before they showed themselves for the next level of fighting. Jimmy jumped off the gate and onto the hood of the car, walking up the windshield to the roof. I figured it was time for me to distract the driver.
“Did I just hear you say that Daybreak himself gave you your invitations, lieutenant?” I asked the colonel, knowing I’d lowered his rank a few levels.
“Colonel,” he sneered at me. “And yes, Lord Daybreak himself invited us.”
“No,” I said, shaking my head. Jimmy knelt down on hands and knees and stuck his head down through the sunroof.
The Lt. Colonel finally heard the buckling noise and followed my gaze to the car just as Jimmy exclaimed, “Agent Messner! We’ve been trying to reach you, but I don’t think your companions will be welcome.”
“Hey! Get off that car!” the colonel yelled at Jimmy and at nearly the same time someone inside the car yelled, “Who the fuck are you?” It wasn’t Messner. Jimmy slid off the far side of the limo and tried the door. Messner popped up through the sunroof rather comically.
“Mr. Morgan,” he acknowledged Jimmy courteously then looked around to find me. “Lord Daybreak, greetings.” The lieutenant colonel whirled around to face me, shock and fear on his face.
“Yeah, you lied to me,” I told him. He screamed while the word “LIAR” seared into his forehead. Ignoring him, I walked around the car to Jimmy. Both rear doors swung open and everyone exited quickly. The uniformed men on our side ducked low and ran behind the car, running for the now-mewling man on the ground. Messner was the last man out.
“Agent Messner,” I said in greeting. “I didn’t realize you were coming today.”
“I hadn’t expected to, either,” he admitted, looking over the car as the officers helped their junior to his feet. “He’s going to be okay, right?”
“Yeah,” I said without looking. “He’s just being a wuss about the pain. None of them will forget that lying to me is a bad idea, though.” I gave him a moment to see for himself that Lt. Col. Petrikov was perfectly normal, except for the still-glowing
LIAR
on his forehead. He was having difficulty accepting what happened to him. “So what are you doing here? Or should I be asking what do they want?”