by Celia Jerome
He must be crazier than I thought. “Who?”
“Lord Grantham. Your lover. The Translator. You thought I was looking for you the whole time, didn’t you? You’re all as stupid as I counted on. It’s him I need. I knew they’d send him if you were in jeopardy.”
Grant was a lordship?
“Dial! I know he’ll find you by tracing the call. I’ll even give him directions to a boat he can use. Do it now, or I’ll drug the brat again. Or shoot the dog.” He opened the suitcase, far away from me, to show vials and syringes and a gun. A real one, I suspected.
So I called the emergency number.
“Willy, is that you? Are you all right?” Grant sounded frantic.
“Why, yes, Lord Grantham, how nice of you to care.”
He paused. “Willy, that has to wait. Where are you? We found the car. And Parker.”
So I told him about the speedboat, the yacht, and Borsack’s demand that he come by another boat they’d left for him. Vinnie told me to say that the proper coordinates for the yacht were already programmed into the outboard’s steering system. And he had to come alone. If they saw one other boat, a plane, a swimmer, or a suspicious looking seagull, they’d kill me and take the boy away again.
“Your whore isn’t half as important to my plans as you and the brat,” Borsack said after he grabbed the phone away from me, “so don’t think I won’t get rid of her. And don’t bother trying to get at me through the lines of power. I have them blocked, if your pet mentalists haven’t figured that out yet.” He tossed the phone aside and laughed. “He’ll come. He has to.”
“No,” I told him, “Grant will sacrifice me to protect the world from evil monsters like you.”
Borsack slapped me. Then he shoved a pad and pencil at me. “Draw. That’s why you’re here. All you’re good for, except bait for his lordship.”
My cheek burned, another black mark against this black-hearted fiend. I vowed to defeat him somehow.
I knew I could draw Fafhrd safely, because either he was already coming, or he couldn’t be reached through the psi-blanket Borsack had cast.
Borsack preempted my plan. “Don’t give me the fucking troll. I want the kid’s father.”
I was relieved. I’d worried that Borsack might be the man who raped Tiffany Ryland. Nicky was better off with an ogre as sire than this scumbag.
“I don’t know who his father is.”
“But you know what he is. The brat is a halfling, that’s why he can’t survive here, why he can’t talk anything but elvish. The father will come get him. They don’t procreate easily, the eldritch kind. He’ll want his son before the brat dies. He’ll come, I say.”
Actually he shouted. The man was demented, horrifyingly so. Nicky made a sound, but I pulled him away before Borsack could strike him.
Borsack glared at both of us. “Lord Grantham can interpret for me, tell him my terms, what I want in exchange for the freak. I’ll have it all, then.” He pounded on the pad on the table in front of me. “Draw, Willow Tate, as if your life depended on it. It does.”
“But . . . but I don’t know what an elf looks like, much less Nicky’s father.”
“He does.” He pointed to Nicky. “That’s why I set the mind-block outside the boat. You draw until he tells you to stop.”
“How can I draw with my hands tied together?”
“You really don’t want to get on my nerves this way, bitch.” Vinnie handed him a switchblade, which he snapped open without looking at it, showing me a long, curved, deadly knife. I shut my eyes, but all he did was slice through the plastic tie at my wrists. “Now draw. I want it done by the time the linguist gets here. If not, your dog is shark bait. Then you. Then the kid. Understand?”
They both left, loving family that they were, climbing up to the flying bridge, I thought, where they could check radar screens for incoming vessels.
I looked at the pad and the pencil, then at Nicky. “He’ll destroy the world, this world, maybe your father’s world, if he gets his way. But he’ll kill us if I don’t give him what he wants.”
Nicky put his hand over mine and said something I couldn’t possibly understand. But I did, in pictures in my head, like my imagination, only not mine. “Images of your father?”
He nodded. “D’ref.”
“He’s very handsome.”
He nodded again.
“But he won’t come for you, will he?”
Nicky smiled, a mischievous little grin I was thrilled to see. “How come?”
I had the image in my head of the incredibly good-looking figure being stripped of his power, of his magic, for the sins he had committed. I already knew he’d trespassed into the humans’ world, breaking a millennialong treaty. He’d likely bespelled a human girl and impregnated her. Who knew what evil he’d committed in Unity itself?
“And no one else will come?”
Nicky shook his head, and I saw another beautiful man, this one with a crown, looking sad but determined. “J’omree.”
“It’s your grandfather, isn’t it? He’s king, and he will not, cannot, disobey his own laws.”
Nicky gave that little boy grin again.
“So Borsack’s plan fails before he begins?”
Nicky managed a “Ys.”
“Good boy.” Red wagged his tail, so I gave him part of the last Oreo. Then I drew. Not the magnificent elven king, but the maggot that’d started this whole mess, D’ref, Nicky’s father. I made him beautiful because he was, and I made him sinister, because he was that, too. I made him sneer, because he could not do any more harm.
I was satisfied. The problem was, what would Borsack do when he realized his grand scheme was foiled? He couldn’t let us live, not knowing what we did. He couldn’t return to his nefarious way of life now that he’d been so well identified. For that matter, I doubted he could escape the forces sure to be gathered in the bay or in the air above. As for Vinnie, shooting Parker, even with tranquilizer darts, put an end to her Hollywood career whether we lived or not. Neither of them seemed to have any great respect for human life.
I’d leave the endgame to Grant. He was the secret agent, the soldier, the blasted British aristocrat!
And he was coming now, walking into certain death.
Oh, hell.
CHAPTER 33
I HEARD THE FAINT SOUND OF a small outboard engine coming closer and closer. Borsack shouted something to Vinnie, and I saw her pass in front of the cabin door above. She waited, then told Grant to catch the line she was throwing him. A few minutes later, I heard her tell him to throw his gun overboard.
Splash.
“The other one, too.”
Another splash.
“And the jacket that’s full of electronic gadgets and wires.”
That didn’t make as much noise. Maybe Grant just dropped the jacket onto the floor of the outboard, hoping to get at some of those gadgets later. I sure hoped so, too.
“Now climb up. Then put your hands on your head.”
I imagined she was patting him down. If her hand passed between his legs, she was as good as dead in my mind. If she found the knife he usually had strapped to his ankle, we were all dead.
She told him to walk in front of her, down the steps to the cabin, his hands still up, in plain sight. One wrong move, she told him, and she’d fire her gun. She wouldn’t miss at this range.
When they reached the cabin where Nicky and I sat huddled together, Borsack looked at Grant, nodded, and said, “That’s him, all right. Shoot him.”
I screamed. Nicky started crying.
Vinnie shot anyway.
My head said it was a tranquilizer dart. They wouldn’t drag Grant out here only to kill him. They needed him. That’s what Borsack had told me.
My heart wasn’t listening. It stopped altogether as Grant fell to the floor.
My eyes paid attention, thank goodness, and saw that Grant brought his hands up before he fell, clutching at his chest. When he landed on the floor, he managed
to land on top of a dart in his hands, and he winked at me.
The dart must have hit a Kevlar undershirt Vinnie hadn’t noticed, which meant she was as crazy as her father. Or so used to flabby older men she couldn’t tell muscle from armor.
No matter. We had a rescuer. He had a plan. Maybe.
Borsack came and hit him over the head with the butt of another gun, just to make certain he was unconscious, and stayed that way. I winced, and turned Nicky’s head to my shoulder when I saw the trickle of blood on the back of Grant’s skull.
I didn’t think that was part of my hero’s plan.
“It’s safer that way,” Borsack was telling Vinnie. “He’s too dangerous otherwise. Now he won’t cause any trouble until we need him. Tie him up.”
While she did that, he laughed, like Grandma’s chickens used to cackle. “I knew he’d come. He had to.”
I was scared, but I was furious, too. Why did Borsack have to hit Grant when he was already tranquilized—at least as far as Borsack knew? The anger gave me the courage to ask, “What do you mean, he had to come? His job is to study events, not sacrifice himself.”
“He came for you, his mate. Didn’t you know that?”
“Know what? We’re not married. Not even engaged. I haven’t known him a month.”
“I forgot. You refused to learn, didn’t you? Stupid sow. You were chosen for him, preordained, preselected, forever.”
A sow, was I? I’d kick Borsack where it hurt. I’d—“No, he came because he had a job to do. And he . . . he loves me. Grant was not forced into anything.”
He laughed again. “He loves you like I loved my wife, because I had to. They chose her, and it was a good choice, I’ll give them that. We were a pair. Geniuses, we were, everyone said so. We made great new discoveries in the science of mind and states of consciousness. We opened our own minds until we could see Unity.” He licked his thick lips. “I saw it, I swear.”
“You hallucinated, old man! Those were opium dreams, magic mushroom trips, or whatever psychedelic cocktail you concocted.”
“We were brilliant, I say! My wife saw Unity, too, and it was beautiful. So beautiful that her mind stayed there. She would not come back. They enthralled her.” He tried to swing out at Nicky, sitting in my lap, but I pulled the boy aside. The smack landed on my shoulder, shoving me backward. Grant’s shoulders tensed, but no one noticed except me.
“My wife stopped talking to me! She was going to lead me there, but she stopped talking to me.”
“So you killed her with more drugs,” Vinnie spat out at her father.
“No, I wanted her to take me with her. We’ll go now. The boy’s father will take us. We’ll be together, and strong, stronger than anyone, ever.” He pulled my pad off the table and thrust it at Nicky.
“Is this your father, boy? And don’t lie. I have a trace of that Royce truth-knowing blood in me, too, so I’ll know.”
Nicky nodded. “D’ref.”
Borsack stroked the picture. “See, Vinnie? See what I can do? I told you I can bring one of them here!” He checked his watch again. “Soon. Soon.”
I had to know. “What are you waiting for?”
“A surprise. A wonderful, glorious surprise, and more psi power than this area has seen in decades.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Vinnie said, obviously upset at the mention of her dead mother. “I think you should make this D’ref give you more power to control, to rule here. I want to stay. With money and influence, I can be a real star. Who needs magic when I’ve got talent?”
“You think your talent’s gotten you this far? Think again, girl. It’s my tending to the nasty little habits of people like Parker that got you noticed, that got you jobs. You’ll come with me. They’ll want fresh blood to mother the next generation.”
“I’m an actress, not a brood mare for your ambitions!”
“Shut up. You are coming with me.”
“Or else you’ll kill me like you did the nannies?”
“You are the one who shot the last woman. If you stay, you’ll be charged with murder. Now that they know who and what you are they’ll hunt you down like a rabid dog.”
They went out of the cabin, shouting at each other. They took the guns and the suitcase with them.
“Quick, Nicky,” I whispered. “Agent Grant usually has a knife under his pant leg. Go find it, cut him loose. No, cut me loose first. Then I can shove it in his back, the despicable, lying—”
Nicky was still crying.
Grant groaned, then said, “Save it for later, sweetheart. Don’t scare the boy any worse.”
“Is your head all right?”
“Too hard to dent.” Then he uttered something that sounded like a combination of cricket chirps and bird-song and tongue clicks, and my mother’s sniffs. Nicky smiled and scampered off my lap toward him.
Vinnie had taken the knife in the sheath against Grant’s leg, but not the small one in the sole of his shoe. We were both free in seconds, but Grant told me to stay where I was, as if I was still tied. He lay back on the floor, so they wouldn’t notice he was free.
“You’re not going to kill them?”
“One knife against two people with guns? I’ll save that for later, Willy, okay? I have to find out what Borsack intends to do.”
I quickly told him about the telepathy block, Fafhrd’s disappearance, and Nicky’s grandfather, who would not be coming.
He smiled, pleased with our deviousness, so far. “I guess that means you didn’t need me to rescue you.”
“Go to hell, Lord Grantham.”
His smiled faded. “I almost did, when we lost your signal.”
How could I be mad at that?
I heard Vinnie and her father still yelling, but closer. “They are coming back. Quick, what’s your plan?”
“Kill the buggers, get Nicky safe, and marry you.”
As far as proposals of marriage go, that one sucked. Otherwise, it sounded good to me.
Borsack came down and kicked Grant to see if he was awake. Grant grunted, pretending pain and befuddlement.
“On your feet. It’s almost time.” He swung the gun toward Nicky and me. “You too.”
I stood up, holding Nicky’s hand.
“Weren’t you supposed to be tied to the table?”
“The dog chewed the rope.”
He started to kick out at Red. At which I screamed, and Grant leaped to his feet, the knife in his hand. But Borsack still had a gun, and I couldn’t tell whether it had bullets or tranquilizer darts.
“Put the knife down or I shoot.”
I could see Grant measuring the odds. Not good.
Then Vinnie came down to see what was happening and Grant pulled her in front of him, the knife at her throat, her gun hand immobilized by his other arm.
Borsack held his weapon on me, but he snatched Nicky’s hand from mine and dragged the boy against him.
Standoff, and all I had was a safety pin!
Borsack did not consider the situation a stalemate at all. “Go ahead and kill her. She’s no use to me anyway.”
Vinnie screamed obscenities at her father and struggled in Grant’s arms. He held her, reluctant to slit her throat, it seemed.
I guess I was glad he wasn’t a cold-hearted killer like Borsack, who put the gun to Nicky’s head and cocked the hammer. “Drop the knife.”
Grant had no choice, really. He threw the knife into the wooden tabletop, where it quivered back and forth. Maybe he had another one in his other shoe. James Bond would have.
“Now get on deck, all of you.” Borsack swung the gun around at each of us in turn, even Vinnie.
Maybe Grant knew what was coming, one more thing he hadn’t told me. But I was too astounded to notice his reaction. Once we were all on the afterdeck, open to the sky, all thoughts of flight or fight disappeared—only awe remained. There it was, the rainbow, the colors, the magical surprise Borsack had promised.
I’d seen it once before, one summer years ago. My father wok
e me up and carried me out to Grandma’s flower garden with a blanket, to lay back and watch the northern lights, the aurora borealis, the gods at play with paintbrushes, so rare on Long Island.
Usually the weathermen predicted the possibility, if all the conditions were right. I had no idea how Borsack knew of it, unless he’d somehow tinkered with the forecasts, which made him all the more dangerous.
He held up my pad with D’ref’s picture on it. I had the second picture I’d drawn in my pocket, the one of Fafhrd on a barge, one of those ferro-cement ones that could hold tons of coal, or garbage, or trolls. That was the picture I’d keep in my mind.
“You are certain this is your father? No games, now, boy, or I’ll throw you overboard.”
Nicky nodded.
“Call him,” he ordered, twisting the boy’s thin arm. Then he turned to Grant, his gun arc swiveling, “And you tell me what he says. Remember my Royce blood and speak the truth, both of you.”
Nicky spoke, sounding like a cage full of monkeys this time.
“Slower, Nick,” Grant told him. “I have only studied, not spoken the language until tonight.”
Nick started again, and Grant translated: “ ‘Father, it is I, Nicholas, son of Tiffany Ryland, who you took in a tranced state, then left alone with child. A child who could not speak the language here, nor thrive. Mr. Turley Borsack wants you to come to get me. He is the human who killed my mother, who kept me prisoner for five years, who killed my nursemaids, all so he could use me to further his amb—”
“Hey, none of that.” Borsack shook the boy by the neck. “Just tell him you want to go with him, before you die here. Tell him to come, damn it!” He glared at me, all the moving colors of the sky reflecting in his eyes. “You focus on the image.”
“Come, Father.”
The lights stopped dancing.
Vinnie scoffed. “Nothing is happening, just like I warned you.”
Borsack seemed close to tears as the sky colors faded. Then he gave a high-pitched laugh like a nervous young punk about to steal his first car. “I forgot to shut down the psi-block, that’s all.”
