Sons (Book 2) (64 page)

“You should ask them what they want,” he said tiredly.  “For the last two days I have done nothing but answer questions and travel between places where other people asked the same questions.  I’m not exactly sure where I am right now.”

Gordon’s utility vehicle glided to a stop behind the two men with guns.  He jumped from the passenger side while it jiggled on its shocks, glaring at the tight circle of uniforms on the other side of his gate.  The gatekeeper unlatched his lock and pulled the gate to him a few feet as Gordon stalked forward.  The ground swelled with latent energy, full with his signature.  “You shouldn’t be here,” he growled, pretty much at everybody, seeing as we each had our own reason for not belonging.

Jimmy turned and gave me a look that said he agreed with Gordon, at least on principle.  I ducked my head a little and headed for the gate.  Jimmy fell in behind me.  We walked silently behind Gordon back through the gate and up the road past the gun-bearers.  We leaned against the utility truck and waited.

“Two down, five to go,” Gordon growled.  “You do not have an invitation to this event.  You need to leave.  Now.”

They weren’t giving up quite so easily.  The Liar was rather unceremoniously shoved to the back, safe from the mean boy now, I supposed.  The uniform with the most stenciling on his cap moved to the front, then they moved as a group to Gordon.

“Wrong direction,” Gordon growled again.  This time the ground growled with him, startling them tremendously.  They stayed their ground, though.  The lead man smiled with a false bravado.

“Coulda used a man like you a few years ago,” he said in a low, gravelly voice.  “I’m General Harmond, United States Army.  We need to speak with Seth McClure and his family, please.”

“No,” Gordon said emphatically.  “Mr. McClure will contact Agent Messner tomorrow, as agreed.  Until then, the McClures are unavailable.  Regardless, neither they nor I are at your beck and call.  You know that there is a private event going on here and you have attempted to bypass my security, violating my hospitality.” 

He took a step forward, gathering his personal power from the ground into a nimbus around him.  I wondered what the officers saw when they looked at Gordon.  I saw the browns and greens of the soils and grays and blacks and reds of the deep earth.  He was in his stronghold, too.  With his power not lent to the Castle’s defenses, Gordon Cahill was a formidable man.  He’d changed a bit from that shy kid hiding behind his father barely a month ago.

“I have to try, sir.  There is a great deal at stake,” the general continued, daring Gordon’s wrath. 

Now they stood almost nose-to-nose with Gordon almost steaming from the nostrils.  His aura was deepening in the red shades as he held his urges to action in check.

“You’ve had your chances already,” Gordon said exasperated.  “Leave.  Or be carried away.”  He pulsed a heat wave down his body into the ground around him.  Any other time and that would have been a comfortable feeling, like stepping out of the air-conditioned comfort of your car into the rising heat of asphalt on a hot July afternoon.  Or that baking heat a car gets from sitting in a parking lot for hours that feels so good for two seconds then gets unbearably hot.  It was like that without the comfortable part–unbelievably hot.  It only lasted a few feet around Gordon, but that’s as far as he intended.

The small circle of colonels and generals faltered in their resolution.  “Yes, sir, we have,” Harmond agreed, taking a half-step back while his companions edged even closer to their car.  “And at every misstep we have learned more and found that our so-called experts are woefully lacking in the knowledge necessary to properly act in your… sphere of influence.”

Gordon pulsed again, taking a step forward. Then pulsed again.  They hurried to the limousine, prodded by the onrushing heat and Gordon’s proximity.  Messner stood on the far side watching over the top of the car, both tired and bemused at the sight.  Hammond admitted defeat with one parting shot.

“Please have the McClures call at their earliest convenience,” he said taking small steps backward toward the limo.  “Lives—and more—hang in the balance.”

The first man to the car, the second general, just
had
to be pissy.  Following the Liar into the limo, he glared at Messner over the top of the limo and grumbled loudly, “Fat lot of good you were.”

“He was,” I said quietly, squatting suddenly on the roof of the limo above him.  “He was quite instrumental in saving all of the others from the same fate you are about to experience.”  Casting the multiple spells necessary to do what I wanted and opening a portal around the man, his uniform fell to the ground around his shoes, still warm from his body heat.  I was leaning on the utility truck when Harmond gasped about the pile of clothing.

Gordon barked out a laugh, releasing some of his pent up anger into the ground.  “Where did you send him, Seth?” he asked, his voice loud and grating, like two tectonic plates grinding together and still chafing with power.

After hesitating petulantly, “JFK,” I answered grudgingly.  I wasn’t going to mention the Tower of Babel spell, though.  It would fade after a few hours and the man would remember everything from his side, but he would not be able to make anyone understand him for hours.  He’d be a gesticulating, grunting madman wearing only dog-tags in the middle of a crowded international airport.  Oh, and the tattoos, let’s not forget about the glow in the dark tattoos I gave him: “I have a little one” on his chest and “But I like ‘em big” on his back.

“I suggest you hurry to a working telephone, General Harmond,” Gordon growled again, chuckling this time as he turned to the gate.  “You have a naked general running around in New York and my experience tells me that isn’t his only concern.”

Harmond gave Gordon then me a worried look and ducked into the limo, slamming the door behind him.  The unmarked colonel bent down and picked up the missing general’s clothing.  He jumped into the driver’s seat, both starting the car and shoving the clothes onto the bench seat beside him hurriedly.  He had the too-long car moving before he shut the door.

When the limousine disappeared behind the trees on the road back to Dublin, Gordon finally turned back.  Releasing the energy he held in much the same way he built it, he walked back to his truck glaring at me.

“I suppose it could have gone in worse ways,” he grumbled.  “How did you find out?”

“I was five feet behind you when you told Billy to keep me distracted,” I told him as he climbed into his truck.  “I had to see what I wasn’t supposed to see.”

“Well,” Gordon grew serious as he watched his men shut and bind the gate.  “It’s nearly lunchtime and we’re closing down all but the western gate.  Get back to the house and get yourselves ready.  But keep in mind, Lord Daybreak, that
you
obligated
me.
  You interfere again and that obligation ends.”

Oops.  Gordon was mad at me.  “Yes, sir,” I said.  As Gordon’s truck turned around on the road, I dropped portals around Jimmy and me and moved us back to the house.  Time to go politicking again.

According to the official itinerary, lunch service started at twelve thirty and ended at four.  I assumed that this was like the mess hall in my barracks, start at twelve thirty and by four have everyone fed and be cleaning up.  When Jimmy and I appeared in the foyer of the castle and found only Peter, Kieran, and Ethan, I figured I was mistaken.  They were dressed in their elven silks of House McClure.

“There you are,” Peter exclaimed.  “Would you come on and change?  You’re going to make us late!”

“What?  Why?  It’s just now noon and Gordon’s closing up the castle grounds,” I said defensively. 

“He’s not expected to be there for another hour,” Peter said.  “You are expected from the beginning, looking and…” He sniffed at me loudly,  “
not
smelling like a mongrel on the streets of Calcutta.  Now let’s go.  You and Jimmy can shower while I pick out what you’ll wear.”

Kieran and Ethan walked past me on the way out the front doors, both grinning but not looking at us.  “I think Peter’s got this one,” Kieran stage-whispered as they walked by.

“Yeah,” Ethan responded normally, chuckling as they went.  “I think Gordon tenderized him first, though.” 

I turned to follow them out, looking shocked that Ethan had watched.  “You watched?” I cried in fake horror.  “You perv!”  I made a slight pushing motion with my hand, applying even pressure on him, and he sailed out the door on a parabolic path, shocked at first then laughing the rest of the flight.  He landed in what would have been the middle of the moat had the Castle been raised by Marty, or even Gordon at this point, I suspect.

“Call us if you need help with him,” Kieran said to Peter as he disappeared down the steps.

“I’ll probably need my own closet,” Jimmy said as he shifted to his own bathroom to shower.  I moved Peter and me to my bathroom and tugged my shirt off.

“Mongrel in Calcutta?  Layin’ it on a bit thick, don’tcha’ think?” I asked as I walked further in.  Peter stopped at the mirror that served as the doorway to my closet.  Opening the way for him, I went to wash the doggy smell off me.

“Well,” his voice echoed several times before it got to me, adding an ethereal quality to it, “I did run across way too many people wearing patchouli oil today and I do tend to equate that with ‘unwashed.’  Hurry up.”

With a little push of speed I was in and out of the shower inside of ten seconds and walking through the mirror into my closet.  I felt a little guilty about the pool earlier and dressed myself in a silky, blue robe as I stepped through.  Peter stood three aisles down looking at a case critically.  I took the undershirt that showed Daybreak’s power so beautifully, wrapping me in it through the robe.  May not have to use it now, but tonight was a certainty.

“Better?” I asked Peter, running a slightly flushed arm under his nose.  He cut his eyes over at me without moving his head and started vigorously shaking a small bottle in his left hand.  Then he sniffed.

“Yes, much,” he said, a little dreamily.  “Damn you smell good.”  Then he inhaled deeply from a small white bottle he’d shaken, making his head snap back sharply and yelping.

“What is that?” I asked laughing at him.

“It’s a faery glamour blocker,” Peter admitted sheepishly and a little defensively, an odd combination.  “After this morning, I wasn’t taking any chances in here with you and pheromones.  Now what do you think this is supposed to be?” 

I let him distract me with the odd looking costume in the display case.  Like the undershirt I wore now, it was magical in purpose and design.  And totally illogical in esthetics.  It looked like a comic book supervillain’s costume, a really bad supervillain with completely lame superpowers that I was hiding behind a hideously garish costume so no one would notice how lame those were.  Something like “Super Surrealistic Emu Man” or “Acute Angle Measure Man.”  On a hunch, I pulled the top drawer open and looked inside.

“Oh, yeah, this makes more sense,” I said.  The drawer below the oddly shaped strips of fabric contained several fabric covers that fit over a stiff, multi-part—for lack of a better word—breastplate.  This in turn held the colored fabrics in place while the magic fabric from the case glued it all together and would still light it up with Daybreak’s aura.  It was really a fairly functional and very changeable outfit.  Turning around, I spotted a mirror at the end of an aisle to our left and dressed my reflection with one of the various color combinations the outfit allowed.

“See?” I said, pointing back at the mirror.  “Definitely something that’ll take practice to wear and make look good, but it makes more sense now.” 

“Yeah,” Peter said slowly.  “Let’s save that one for Mardi Gras or Halloween or maybe even Carnivale.  Are you by chance color-blind?”  He asked the question with perfect innocence while still seeming to dance out of reach of a swat on the back of the head.  He forgot I was faster now.  “Ow!”

“So I can’t wear the green silks.  Why not the blues then?  They’re comfortable and they match y’all’s, almost.”

“True,” Peter agreed, “But we’re only getting away with it out of disrespect for the Rat Bastard.  You, on the other hand, have to show respect for everyone else and you have to seem more ‘Lordly’ now.”

“You want to dip me in epoxy so I can roll around in the diamond well?” I asked facetiously.  I think he actually considered it.

“Nothing says ‘I’m better than you’ than a suit of diamonds,” he said with a chuckle.  “That’s got to be worse than sand in your bathing suit, though.”  He headed back toward the more normal clothing.  “Dillon could spend a few weeks rummaging through here.  I guess you really shouldn’t be too flashy.”

Following Peter, I walked further down the aisle while he shuffled through shirts.  There were shifts in colors as I moved deeper and it was when three color blends occurred that I found one I liked, a daybreak—trite already, I know—in blue, red, and white, sort of.

“Peter? What do you think of this?” I called up the aisle and pulled the suit off the rack.  It was surprisingly heavy for the silk it appeared to be made of.  We met at the mirror between us.  With a tiny push and a twist of energy, I dressed my reflection in the black slacks and shoes.  The shirt and jacket were a little longer than I normally wore them.  At the waist and cuffs was a bright white line that faded almost instantly to red that fed into a gradient with Gilán-blue across my shoulders.  The shirt kept the colors laterally across me but the jacket encircled the center of the line at my navel, creating a disk.  A small flare of pale yellow met at that point with a bright, almost metallic red, feeding another gradient across the red band to Gilán-blue.  The sleeves of the jacket were as loose as the shirt, and both the pants and the jacket had pockets.

“I think that will do nicely,” Peter said, so I walked through the reflective surface, switching the suit for the robe, and walked out facing Peter.  “Is that made of lycra or something?”

Pausing to look down, I said, “I don’t think so.  Why?  Doesn’t it fit right?”  I turned several directions looking in the multiple mirrors for tightness and pulling at the jacket and shirt in several places.  I thought it looked good.

“No, no, you look great in it,” Peter said hurriedly, smirking as he turned for the door.

“You can slow down, Peter,” I said, smoothing out the jacket and admiring my reflection.  “Jimmy’s barely out of the shower.  We’ve only been here about six minutes.”

“Oh,” Peter muttered, stopping at the head of the aisle.  “I guess we can give him a few minutes, then.”

“Relax, he won’t be long,” I said as I walked past him after losing interest in the mirrors rather quickly.  “Come on.  I have to pick a couple of diamonds for the Queens.”

“Why?” he asked scoffing.  “I thought it was their place to give the gifts in this situation.”

“I don’t think gifts are required in either direction, but they’ll want a way to contact me since I’m not
in
Faery with them.  The diamonds are the only way I can think of that’ll do that.”

“Won’t the Queens be able to come through the veil using the diamonds?” Peter asked with serious concern in his voice.

“No,” I answered mildly as I shifted us to the well.  The giant diamond floated on the stream of water that couldn’t possibly support its weight and magically held the image of Gilán on its surfaces.  “It’s not a veil in the same sense as the veil to Faery or any other realm, really.  I mean, it is and it isn’t.  There’s something else up there that’s pretty damn strong.”

Waving my hand over the pool, I sifted the pile of gems, looking for a larger sample.  The Queens’ should be more impressed by the size.  The cut, quality, clarity and all that other mumbo-jumbo wasn’t a worry.  I just wasn’t finding anything that matched what I wanted.  Thinking about it a moment, I decided they needed to be fairly similar if not exactly identical.  At least one face should be roughly four inches wide and somewhat circular or maybe oval.  Even with such general thoughts as a description, a fairly specific image flashed into my mind. 

I had an odd sensation as my magic took the brief flash and prepared to make it real.  The foundation Stone hummed in a low, gravely threat and seized Daybreak before the wild magic could complete.  This was happening amazingly fast.  Above the marbled-façade of the Stone, the Pact glowed and fed a stream of images down through the Stone and to Daybreak.  Then the Faery Liege stamped the images into the faces of the diamonds one by one.  Then I pushed our desire and will to Gilán and the world-diamond pulsed with power.  A lot of it.

My thoughts moved downward.  There, at the bottom of the pile, sat two identical stones.  Pulling them to the top of the pile took a few seconds; it’s a deep well.  I reached down into the shallow water once they were close enough and inspected them carefully.  They were heavy, brilliant blue, somewhat oval, perfectly clear.  The top and bottom faces were oval, measuring six by ten inches across.  The whole thing was about eight by twelve by two inches.  They were impossible stones.  And each one was completely full.  Daybreak hung an image significant in some way to each of the Queens on every available nook and cranny the diamond allowed. 

Of course, that makes it sound like I wasn’t in control of Daybreak or the Stone.  I was.  I controlled the flow of information, what everything would look like, where each idea and emotion existed along with each image.  I discarded certain images, even exempting entire periods of time.  This must, without any doubt, be a pleasantly disturbing gift to each of them.  The Queens were the only ones who could see the images on their respective diamonds, unless they chose to let someone else in.  Just like the keys, these were locked to the Queens.  And the scenes were disturbing because I had no right to have those pictures. 

“Ellorn, are you free?” I called to the air, handing one of the heavy stones to Peter to examine.

“Yes, Lord,” he answered, distantly, “but I’m afraid I can’t see you from where ever you are.” 

Following his voice, I found him on the promenade, not far from the barracks, speaking with a small group of sprites.  Pulling him to me, I unlocked the side door on the left side of my room.  It connected to Jimmy’s apartment directly and from there to the access hallway to the family wing.  Still had to go through Jimmy’s apartment, but the Palace did not want to give direct access to anyone, for some reason.  I suppose it really wasn’t unreasonable on some level.

“Hey,” I said by way of greeting and sat down beside him on the edge of the well where he stood.  This wasn’t his first time at the well but he had an extremely difficult time not staring at the Worldgem.

“Lord, how may I serve?” Ellorn asked finally tearing himself away.

“I will be giving these to the emissaries as gifts for the Queens of Faery later today,” I told the Major Domo of my Palace, indicating the two dinner plate-sized gemstones that Peter and I held.  “I need cases suitable for transporting them from here to the Cahills’ and from there for Faery.  Do we have anything or can we make anything?”

“How quickly would you need them, Lord?” he asked cautiously.

“Two, two and a half hours,” I guessed.  “Absolute latest would be dusk at the Cahills’ so close to three.  These actually have to be impressive cases.  Not that the last two I asked for weren’t!  They were both gorgeous, but these two have to be a little more enduring and, if possible, ‘speak’ to them.  This is for the Queens and you can imagine how temperamental they are.  But… they have to be extremely positive, as difficult as that is with them.”

Ellorn laughed at that, just a small, nervous tinkle of a giggle.  Gilán was likely the only place in the universe that he could safely laugh at a scornful comment about the Queens of elves and not be tortured for days and weeks.

“Are they as heavy as they appear to be, Lord?” he asked.

“Yes, quite,” Peter answered melodramatically drawing the words out and groaning as he hefted the diamond up to the light.  He’d noticed the etching, finally, and was holding it up to the light from the front windows.  When he caught the light the sigils etched in the center of the stones blazed into a rainbow of color declaring Daybreak and Gilán together and inseparable on the face of the gem.  Peter barked out a rough laugh and said, “Beats the hell outta some nasty assed cages!  Damn, Seth, these are fuckin’ fantastic!”

“Will you want to display them before the emissaries take them to the Queens, Lord?” Ellorn asked.