Sleight of Hand: Book Three: The Weir Chronicles

by Sue Duff

  A NOVEL

  Sleight of Hand

  Book Three: The Weir Chronicles

  Sue Duff

  CROSSWINDS PUBLISHING / DENVER

  Copyright © 2015 by CrossWinds Publishing

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, without prior written permission.

  CrossWinds Publishing

  P.O. Box 630223

  Littleton, Colorado 80163

  www.sueduff.com

  Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.

  Book Layout © 2014 BookDesignTemplates.com

  Sleight of Hand/ Sue Duff. -- 1st ed.

  ISBN 978-0-9970156-2-1

  For my son, Jonathan

  Each sunrise is your promise of a new day—at every sunset, I kiss you goodnight

  Contents

  Deception

  Part One

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Part Two

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Glossary

  A Message from the Author and a Sneak Peek Ahead

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Deception

  In order to endure, one must be willing to either sacrifice, or choose to become something—someone—else. Then, and only then, will your quarry come within your grasp, unaware of their blunder until the fatal thrust.

  The Pur Heir, Book of the Weir, Vol. II

  Part One

  Desperation transforms us into something unrecognizable—willing to do the unthinkable

  {1}

  The forecast had promised a cloudless, bluebird sky for the ceremony. The threatening thunder and gray frosting overhead was anything but. Hordes of parents, carrying the weight of college loans on their backs, arrived in waves eager to see their offspring walk across a stage and receive the coveted piece of paper, its value equal to a decent-sized home. Their grumbles and curses floated down from the stands, blaming local weathermen for their failure to bring an umbrella.

  Rayne knew better. The clueless humans couldn’t predict the weather any more than the Pur Syndrion would know when their arch enemy, the Duach, would strike again, or where planet Earth’s next calamity would appear.

  Many of the seated crowd fixed their gazes on the heavens. Rayne kept her attention riveted on the surrounding college stadium, scanning for a hint of green from the recesses of a dark corner, any place Ian could shyft to the stadium and still remain hidden from the crowd. He promised he’d be there, but as the battle to protect the planet raged on, Ian’s promises came and went as often as the tides.

  Her cell phone chirped and Rayne glanced at the screen. Any sign of him?

  Not yet, she texted back to Patrick.

  Milo made jambalaya and cornbread.

  Rayne scanned the sea of bodies searching for Patrick and Tara. The promise of her favorite meal and a celebration back at Ian’s mansion barely made a dent in the emptiness she’d carried around for the past few weeks. The only graduation present she wanted was for Ian to share in her special moment.

  It was at times like this she longed for her mother and imagined her seated among the other proud parents. Knowledge of the bigger battle to protect Earth from the Duach, the darker sect of the Weir, had Rayne second-guessing the worth of finishing her degree. But it was a goal she swore she’d see to the end. She ran her fingers across her sash. Pursuit of the summa cum laude ranking contributed to many a sleepless night during finals. She didn’t mind; anything to fill the perpetual void.

  Where are you sitting? she texted.

  North side, mid-section, three rows up from the field.

  Rayne twisted in her seat and swiped the swinging tassel out of her line of vision. She found them in the crowd thanks to Tara’s snowy hair and early-twenties figure that stood out amongst the parents and grandparents. From this distance, Patrick’s short-cropped, chocolate hair and not-so-lean torso blended with the bodies in the crowd. Rayne waved and her gown’s sleeve swept back and forth like a flag caught in the wind. Tara nudged Patrick and pointed at Rayne. Tara stood and clapped. Patrick cupped his hands around his mouth and gave a resounding hoot, loud enough for Rayne to hear above the buzz of a couple thousand voices.

  The ground beneath her chair shook. Rayne grabbed the seat back. A few standing graduates stumbled and fell into nearby seated classmates. The quake came to a halt as suddenly as it reared its head. Rayne looked to her friends in the stands. Tara had her cell phone out, no doubt checking her app to get an accurate reading. Ian’s core fluctuations told him how serious each tremor was without the need to refer to a spiking graph. He often predicted the tremor’s arrival a heartbeat before everyone else felt it.

  Rayne’s cell chimed. Hold on! Patrick’s text message screamed on Rayne’s screen. Something BIG is coming.

  The ground beneath Rayne’s feet gave a violent shake. A deafening roar came from beyond the plywood stage. High above the stands, the stadium’s press booth shook from side to side as if suspended by rubber bands. CRACK! A corner of the booth crumbled and concrete crumbs rained toward the seats below. Rayne strained to see through the rising dust cloud.

  Shrieks and screams filled the stadium as the undulating stands jolted people to their feet. The narrow rows swelled with families scrambling to escape. A large man fell into Patrick and he in turn stumbled into Tara as the row of people made to flee. Rayne shook her head in disbelief as Patrick’s arms bobbed up and down in a futile attempt to calm the pressing crowd. Tara grasped Patrick’s arm and jerked him to sit as the throng of people fought their way into the already packed staircase leading up and out of the stadium.

  A tremor snaked up a lamppost and with a POP, the massive spotlight dislodged and swung downward from its thick cable like a wrecking ball. Sparks burst into the air and sizzled in a cascading waterfall as it slammed into the empty uppermost row of seats.

  A collective shout came from the front of the stadium. An earthen wave raced toward them and uprooted the makeshift stage, splitting it in two. Squawking professors, their colorful gowns flapping like birds, took flight and landed in piles on the grassy field.

  Th
e wave reached the graduates and upended one row of chairs after another on a beeline course toward Rayne. Graduates piled up around her like a wall. Trapped!

  A blinding emerald burst came from one row ahead. Ian appeared shielding his face with his arms. The closest graduates clamored over each other in retreat as chairs toppled amidst shrieks. Ian fell to one knee and raised a fist high above his head, then drove it against the ground. His power met Earth’s wave head-on and with a thunderclap, they cancelled each other out.

  Ian slowly rose to his feet but wobbled for a second from the tremendous energy drain. He looked haggard and gaunt. Thick stubble covered his face and the dark circles surrounding his eyes were enhanced by his ebony, disheveled hair. “Sorry I’m late,” he said

  Rayne strained to hear him over the shouts. “You made it,” she said and gave him a smile that would have been wider if not for the near-brush with calamity.

  “I can’t stay,” he said in a voice dripping with regret. The tremors had stopped but no one stood still long enough to notice. “There was a quake about fifty miles off the coast. I need to check on tidal wave threats along the—”

  “Go,” Rayne said, but her heart said stay.

  “Don’t let Patrick eat it all.” Ian crouched low, between the piles of upturned chairs. A green burst, and he was gone.

  Rayne stood still staring at the spot, committing his image to memory.

  {2}

  Ian didn’t bother with the lights when he arrived at the mansion in the middle of the night. A floating mass blocked his way and he swiped a handful of balloons to the side as he stepped into the kitchen. A note on the oven door announced leftovers could be found in the refrigerator. He was too exhausted to see what he’d missed.

  Movement on the back patio. Ian let himself out through the sliding glass door and discovered Patrick sitting on the concrete railing, smoking a cigar.

  Ian descended the stairs but didn’t pause until he reached the edge of the lake. Dust, with a hint of mildew had been kicked up by the quake. Ian would survey how much of the ocean cliffs had toppled into the surf in the morning. He watched the moonlight’s glow across the still surface of the lake and made a feeble attempt to erase the devastation he’d witnessed over the past several hours.

  Born without his full complement of powers, there was so little he could do to counter Mother Nature’s pains. He’d been at a loss about how to stop what he and the Pur Syndrion could no longer control. The Primary’s claims, that Earth’s natural disasters were the result of the Weir Sars dying out, didn’t stop Ian’s hope that they—he—could somehow prevent the planet’s gradual self-destruction.

  At a shuffle from behind, he braced himself for Patrick’s inevitable lecture.

  Ian’s friend stepped quietly next to him. “You look like shit,” Patrick said under his breath, as if voicing it softly would ease the impact of his words.

  “It goes with the mood.” Ian picked up a stone and skipped it across the lake. It bounced several times, parting the small lake in tiny ripples. Gentle lapping soon reached the outer edges. “Any significant damage?”

  “Not to the mansion. Milo checked the water purification system. Said it was intact,” Patrick reported. “Otherwise, there’s plenty of firewood for the upcoming winter.”

  Guilt at the mansion, untouched by the disaster when countless others lost so much, clawed at Ian’s chest. The Syndrion’s engineers had built the compound’s structures to withstand all but the most devastating of quakes.

  “I would have been here if I could,” Ian said.

  “We all understood, Ian, especially Rayne. Shake the guilt off and get some rest.” He grabbed a stone and whipped it across the surface of the water. It landed with a plop.

  “I feel like I’ve been swept up in a tidal wave.” Ian picked up another rock and gripped it tight in his palm.

  “Feeling helpless doesn’t bode well with any of us. Rayne and I may not have a magical connection to planet Earth, but if there’s any way we can help, you know to just ask,” Patrick said. “You’ll find a way to stop this, Ian. We haven’t lost our faith in you.”

  A sigh escaped, carried by the breeze. “Rayne moved out,” Ian said. There was an odd sensation, emptiness to the mansion when he had arrived home.

  Patrick kicked at a muddy clump. “A couple of days ago. I helped. She wants to be on her own. No ties.”

  Not after losing her best friend to a Duach psychopath, Ian thought. Rayne’s independence ran deep and fierce. Her ability to drain their power, Ian’s included, coupled with his constant absences, didn’t make bridging their chasm any easier. “Leave me her address,” Ian said.

  “She told me not to give it to you,” Patrick mumbled. When Ian turned on him, Patrick threw his hands up. “She doesn’t want you distracted. She said it’s better this way.”

  “She could still be in danger,” Ian said. “Ning may have told someone about her.”

  “He’s been dead two months. If the Duach or the Pur Sars know about her, or cared, they’d have struck by now.” Patrick shook his head. “Let her have her space. You both need to focus on other things right now. Eat some dinner, then get some rest. Tomorrow’s another day,” Patrick said.

  “You’re sounding more and more like Milo.”

  “If I become anything like that grumpy old caretaker, you have permission to put me out of my misery,” Patrick said. “As painlessly as possible, of course.”

  “If I’m ever to take you out, it’ll be when you least expect it,” Ian added with a half smile.

  “I take comfort in that.” Patrick took a deep draw on his cigar, then headed up the steps.

  Ian lingered at the edge of the lake. He craved the calm more than a warm meal, and he raised his face with closed eyes, mellowing to the tunes of the katydids. Thoughts drifted to Rayne. He yearned to stand in her doorway and watch her sleep, as he had countless times before, assured that she was safe. Even more, he ached for what they were forever denied: to gather her in his arms and feel her warmth against his skin.

  Ian awoke with a jolt. A pressure built, deep in his chest. The Seal over his left breast grew increasingly warm, the triangle surrounding his sun glowed bright orange the second it turned searing. He threw aside the sheet and shyfted to the foyer at the base of the mansion stairs.

  A message scroll spun on its end above the old, worn silver platter on the foyer table. Ian snatched it and unfurled the scroll. The branding iron heat at his chest ceased. As he read the Primary’s message, the parchment crackled under his fist. He let it spring back, then held it up. The scroll burst into flame, turned to ash, and disappeared.

  “Good god, they can’t let you have even one day off?” Milo’s grizzly-bear voice came from the hall leading to the kitchen. Ian’s stomach did a cartwheel at the smell of bacon and freshly brewed coffee. “Where?”

  “Africa,” Ian said.

  “You’re not taking off until I’ve stuffed a decent meal in you.”

  “Throw in some of your sweet rolls, and you’ve got a deal.” Ian brushed past Milo, headed for the kitchen. He needed some of that coffee.

  “Unless it’s a tribal council meeting, consider wearing clothes.” Milo stepped up next to Ian at the counter and extended his half-drained mug.

  It wasn’t until Milo’s remark that Ian realized he was naked. He finished topping off the old caretaker’s cup, poured himself one, and took a few sips without turning around. The pungent brew fired more than a few brain cells.

  “Did you use your boost last night?” Milo gave Ian a discerning eye.

  “It barely makes a dent anymore.”

  “The boost was designed to heal in case you’re ill or injured. You’re exhausted, Ian, pure and simple. Try re-energizing your core in the northern vortex structure before you leave.”

  Arms wrapped around Ian from behind. Tara’s welcoming embrace was filled with loving warmth. Welcome home, stranger, she channeled, pulling away and rustling his hair.


  “I’d turn around and return the hug, but . . .” he said.

  “Such a target and no dish towel in sight,” she quipped.

  Scrapes across the tile floor. Saxon greeted Ian with a sniffing, cold nose to his butt. Ian sidestepped, then half turned and gave the massive, snow-colored wolf a scruff around the ears.

  “You’re up early,” Milo said as Tara took a seat at the kitchen island.

  “You’re off to somewhere and wherever it is, Saxon and I are coming with you, Ian. The edge in Tara’s voice was razor sharp. “You need me.” Saxon snorted at Ian’s leg. “You need us both,” she amended.

  “I don’t have it in me to argue with you anymore,” Ian said.

  “Bring back some fresh fruit and spices,” Milo said. “My pantry is getting low.”

  “We’ll rendezvous in the foyer within the hour.” Ian shyfted to his bedroom and fought the urge to collapse on his bed. He stepped into his bathroom, set his coffee mug down and studied the dark circles under his eyes. He did look like shit, a far cry from his meticulous performance days. How he missed his illusions and the control he had in his life during those years.

  His thoughts fell to this latest assignment. He was to connect with a Doctor Willoughsby in the heart of the African Congo. The Weir geophysicist claimed he could stop the increasing earthquakes across Earth. But he would only share this knowledge with the Pur Heir.

  {3}

  Jaered pulled the Jeep onto the interstate and soon reached the stretch along the ocean cliff. The smell of exhaust and garbage morphed into the salty sea and he inhaled deep, filling his lungs. The morning haze had given way to the intense glare of the natural sun. Jaered turned his face toward the heavens and absorbed the energy’s warmth, a constant reminder of his mission on Earth.