Knights of Black Swan, Books 7-9 (Knights of Black Swan Box Set Book 3)

by Victoria Danann

  Farnsworth nodded. “Her birthday is April 22nd. She’ll be twenty-eight. The adoption took place in Fall River.”

  “Is that in…?”

  “Massachusetts.”

  “I’ll get the ball rolling. The report will come into the Sovereign’s office. Do you mind if Glen sees it? I might not be there whenever…”

  “No. I don’t mind. The course is locked in. Really has been since I made the decision to tell the story to someone. To Sol,” she added.

  “Is there something else?” Storm’s question was prompted by instinct. He couldn’t have explained it, just the feeling that something had been bothering her since Sol’s death. Something beyond mourning.

  She blinked like she was surprised and looked around like she was afraid someone had heard her thoughts. She looked at Storm and swallowed.

  “Whatever it is, you can tell me. You know I’ll never break your confidence.”

  She stared at Storm for a minute and then smiled. “A confessional.”

  “You need to confess something?”

  “You’ll hate me after you hear it.”

  “I seriously doubt that.”

  The expression on her face changed from uncertain to determined. And hardened.

  “I killed him.”

  Of all the things she might have said Storm wouldn’t have guessed that in a thousand years. His jaw dropped and he gaped openly while his brain tried to piece together how she might have come to such a conclusion.

  “Were you driving?”

  “No.”

  “Then what makes…?”

  “I heard the paramedics who put him in the ambulance that took him away. They said that if I had done a tourniquet, that it wouldn’t have saved his leg, but it would have saved his life.”

  Storm’s face transformed into an expression of the most abject sympathy. He couldn’t imagine how hard it must have been for her to believe that she’d not only lost the love of her life, but that she was also responsible for his death.

  “Susan. Have you ever been instructed on how to apply a tourniquet field dressing?”

  Her brow furrowed and she searched his eyes. “No?”

  “It was a thoughtless thing for those idiot medics to say and an easy thing for them to say. Tourniquets are second nature to them. They know how to do it. They know it so well they don’t remember when they didn’t know how to do it. Plus, they weren’t in shock. You almost certainly were. Weren’t you thrown from the vehicle when it turned over?”

  She looked down at the floor. “Yes.”

  “Did you lose consciousness?”

  “I think so. I don’t know for how long.”

  Storm cursed under his breath. “Please excuse me. I’ve got to go get some morons fired and the Cape May Emergency Services Department is going to give you an apology or there’ll be the devil to pay.” Realizing what he’d just said, he hoped she didn’t know about his mixed heritage.

  “No, Storm, I don’t want this made public.”

  “What they said…it’s not right. Passing judgment like that, on an injured, traumatized person?” Storm’s gaze jerked up to hers. “Did they send just one ambulance?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where did they have you ride on the way to the hospital?”

  “They didn’t.”

  “What do you mean they didn’t?”

  “They left me on the beach.”

  Storm stood up so fast she flinched. He looked furious, but what he was feeling was even darker and more intense than that. “You can’t ask me to do nothing. That goes so far beyond incompetence.”

  Looking around to see who was watching, she took his hand. “Sit down. Please.”

  He sat, but wasn’t having much luck controlling the battle urges. “How did you get to the hospital?”

  She studied him for a few seconds trying to decide whether or not to answer, because she knew that anything more would just be throwing kerosene on the fire. Finally, she decided that Storm might have a point. She didn’t know how to apply a tourniquet and she bet that those paramedics didn’t know how to do many things that were so routine to her that they were second nature.

  “The paramedics said that there would be another ambulance coming. The man who helped me, he lived in one of the houses on the beach, waited with me, but the ambulance never came. Finally, he got his car and drove it as close to where I was as he could. He took me to the hospital, took my phone and started calling contacts. When he called the Operations office, one of the trainees answered and got Glen. At least that’s what I heard.”

  “Gods Almighty. It’s a marvel you aren’t a suicide. It’s the cluster fuck that just keeps on giving.”

  “What?” Farnsworth’s eyes darted to Storm. He’d never used language like that in front of her before.

  Storm leaned to the side so he could pull his phone from his pocket and touched Monq’s name. “Code P. Someone has a story for you. We’ll be down in five minutes.” Storm ended the call and looked at Farnsworth. “Now listen to me.

  “It hurts my heart that you’ve been carrying the burden of somebody else’s mistake. I’m glad you told me, but I’m sorry you waited this long. You’re not responsible for what happened to Sol in any way. It was an accident.

  “You may not believe me, but I’m just a retired knight. We’re going to go downstairs and tell your story to somebody who can actually help you sort this out.”

  “Who?”

  “Monq.”

  “I don’t know, Storm.”

  “He can be a character. I admit it. But he’s good at what he does. Let him help you through this.

  “You survived. I’m very glad you did and Monq is going to set you on the path of healing so you can live the rest of your life the way Sol would have wanted you to.”

  Storm saw the shift that took place in her demeanor when he mentioned what Sol would have wanted. She took in a breath. “Okay.”

  “One last thing. Please. I’m begging you, for Sol’s sake and mine, too. Give me permission to get justice from the assholes who wrongly blamed and then abandoned you.”

  “Okay.”

  CHAPTER 4

  Overseer Dimension.

  “He’s one of those.”

  Huber had rushed into the Council room to let them know they had a troublemaker whose status had been escalated to need-to-deal-with.

  Heralda looked up. “Whose child is he?”

  “Oh, you know, could be anybody’s.”

  “If he’s causing that much trouble, he couldn’t be anybody’s. He couldn’t be Theasophie’s, for example. Or Etana’s.”

  Huber pursed his lips intending to look thoughtful, but it ended up looking more like Baby Huey pouting.

  “Stop that,” Heralda said.

  “Stop what?”

  “That ugly thing with your lips.”

  Huber looked offended. “Humph.” He crossed his arms over his soft tummy and glared.

  “Huber, try and stay focused. What are his traits?”

  “He’s sure he knows everything and should be in charge. His spirit was sent to Summerland on Saturnia because the stories his grandmother had told him were the closest thing he had to religion and an idea of hereafter.

  “His behavior has been disruptive to the point of being disturbing. We even tried an immersion treatment in the River of Rebirth.”

  “Yeah?”

  “What happened?”

  “Nothing. He’s one-of-a-kind stubborn.”

  Heralda looked at Culain. “Thinks he knows everything and should be in charge?”

  “Got to be Ragnal’s,” said Culain without even looking up from what he was doing.

  “No doubt,” added Ming.

  Heralda turned to Huber. “So go get Ragnal and tell him to fix the problem.”

  Huber stomped his biker boot clad foot and his belly jiggled noticeably. “Don’t order me around like I’m an Elemental. I’m a peer!”

  “Of course you are. I would go m
yself, but I’m really in the middle of something. Would you mind? Please?” Heralda used her most persuasive tone. “I’ll look at your dragon babies later.”

  “You will? All right. I’ll go this time.”

  “Thank you.”

  Huber waited outside Ragnal’s harem, if not patiently. He paced, fumed, and muttered something about Viagra. He stopped in front of one of the massive androgynous Elementals guarding the door.

  “How much longer?”

  The guard’s face never changed expression. He slid a dispassionate almond-shaped gaze Huber’s way but said nothing.

  “Fine!” Huber said. “Just give him this message.”

  Huber turned his back to the door and wrote a cursive message in the air with his index finger. “Urgent Council biz. GG wants to see U. Tired of waiting. Call me. – HQ”

  The black letters hung in the air at eye level. Huber looked them over and decided that cobalt blue would be better. He waved his hand and stepped back to better see the result. Satisfied with the new look of his airborne graphic, he made a face at the guards and vanished.

  Huber had made sure that Ragnal couldn’t help but see the message when he emerged from his fuck fest. But Ragnal chose to interpret the word “urgent” as “when you get around to it”. After all, according to his personal version of hierarchy, he saw the other Council members as working for him.

  The others had let him get away with the self-delusion for centuries, but he was on the verge of pushing it one too many times.

  “He what?” Heralda asked.

  “His guards wouldn’t let me in. I left a message, but he hasn’t returned my call,” Huber said.

  “Did he know it was Council business?”

  Huber nodded. “Used the word urgent and told him you said.”

  The room rumbled underneath their feet. Uh oh.

  Heralda was more than a little upset that Ragnal had ignored Huber’s message, which was virtually the same thing as a summons. She stormed out of the Council room and materialized in Ragnal’s private foyer, but unlike Huber, she didn’t bother with polite protocol which entailed asking the guards for entrance. As far as she was concerned, Ragnal had used up his chances to play by guidelines and be social. Good manners don’t hold integrity for long without being a two way exchange.

  She bypassed the guards and went straight to where Ragnal was enjoying felatio as performed by a creature of indeterminate genetics. When Heralda grabbed the giver of head and pulled her away, the sudden loss of suction – which had apparently been sincere – resulted in a wet pop and the lolling of a Council member’s rapidly deflating penis.

  Ragnal stood, making a noise that resembled a howl, raised his hand to Heralda, but thought better of it just before he struck. His brain reengaged in time to remember that she had a reputation for holding a grudge and fighting dirty. He lowered his hand.

  “What do you want, Heralda?”

  She deliberately looked down at his flaccid godhood. “Let’s start small. Cover that up and we’ll talk about bigger issues.”

  He sneered as he pulled a robe over his head. “Better?”

  “Will you join me at Council willingly, Ragnal?” He hesitated one beat too long for her patience. “Or…”

  “Oh all right.”

  Within the blink of an eye they were in the Council room and he was being apprised of the situation.

  “What makes you think he’s one of mine?”

  Huber snorted.

  Ragnal looked at him like he’d farted instead of snorted.

  Heralda more or less strutted to her rococo chair and made a show of sitting down. “Comparing his qualities to yours, there can be little doubt.”

  Ragnal’s eyes roved over the Council members present before fastening on Heralda. “And what is it you want me to do about it?”

  “Your child. Your problem. Figure it out.”

  He glared at her for a bit before saying, “Where is he from?”

  She looked at Huber, who answered, “An inconsequential little cell of a layer on the fringe of the ellipse.”

  Ragnal let out a long sigh managing to communicate without words that he was perturbed, put out, and prickly.

  “And where is he now?”

  “Saturnia,” Huber answered again.

  “Show me.”

  CHAPTER 5

  Shamayim

  It seemed to Sol that he’d spent an eternity in Hel. The caretakers on Saturnia had tried everything imaginable to calm the soul who insisted his identity remained that of Solomon Nememiah, even though he’d left his physical body behind. Since he hadn’t forgotten the details of his former life, he was not adapting well to his spirit’s vacation between incarnations.

  He was supposed to be basking in the sensory perfection of Saturnia’s Summerland and rejoicing in the initial stages of Phase One, but what he was doing instead was trying to incite other sojourners to riot. He’d demanded to be told what the caretakers were talking about when they repeatedly referred to Phase One. When they refused to answer, his response could only be described as a fit – a display the caretakers were not accustomed to seeing in a passively pleasant dimension like Saturnia.

  The caretakers’ reply was always the same. Sol’s response to that was always the same. They would stare at him as he demanded to see the person in charge and blink slowly when he threatened them with a sound throttling.

  During brief periods when he would take a regrouping break from his full on assault of the status quo, he would return to the grassy knoll where he first awoke to find himself trapped in a nightmare that, to him, made Dante look like Disney. He was perpetually pissed off by the oversupply of pristine and pastoral. How he longed to hear someone, other than himself, object to something! Anything!

  He swore that, if he ever escaped the madhouse, he would never complain about complainers again.

  The grassy knoll, which he had come to think of as his personal space, was replete with aggravating birdsong, but at least he didn’t have to look at the serene beatific and creepily robotic expressions of humanoids whom, he concluded, must have been lobotomized.

  The biggest drawback to his retreat was not birds that never slept, but a sheep that hadn’t anything better to do than stare. Sol began to wonder if it was a robot spy, equipped with camera and sound, observing and recording everything he did. The thought sounded paranoid even to him, but that thought was always followed by the admonition that all conspiracies are not imaginary.

  Sol was sitting on his knoll studying the sheep, envisioning ways to dismember it, wondering how the legs would look Frenched and how it would taste with mint sauce. That led him to the realization that he hadn’t either eaten or been hungry since arriving. Nor had he consumed liquids of any sort. Because he was lost in that thought and because he didn’t anticipate company, he was startled by a nearby voice.

  “Solomon Nememiah?”

  He jerked his head in the direction of the inquirer, a man with tan skin, tan pants and a black Ravi Shankar tee shirt with long sleeves and three long slits across the torso that were evenly spaced like claw marks. He was medium height with strong facial bone structure, brown eyes and hair cut so close to the scalp it was impossible to tell its actual color. But by far the most striking thing about him was the no-nonsense expression he wore. The guy wore a presence that screamed, “I am not a pussy.”

  “Yeah?”

  “I hear you’ve been requesting to speak with someone in a position of authority.”

  “And would you be that guy?”

  Ragnal’s face wore a ghost of a smile, but it didn’t change the hard look one bit. “What do you think?”

  Sol met the confrontational gaze eye to eye, but knew without asking that the fellow was altogether a different sort than he’d encountered since arriving in that godsforsaken place. He got to his feet so that the newcomer wouldn’t be looking down on him. Literally.

  “It seems you have me at a disadvantage.”

  The gh
ost of a smile grew slightly bigger. “How’s that?”

  “You’re dressed. I’m not.”

  Ragnal’s eyes drifted down to Sol’s bare legs and feet. Then he put back his head and laughed. “Yes. You’re one of mine all right.” Sol had no idea how to respond to that, but his eyes narrowed. Ragnal’s laughter ended in a sigh, a smile, and a shake of the head. “What would you like to wear? Never mind. Just think about your preference.”

  Before Sol could ponder the bizarre instruction, he had, in fact, formed an image in his mind of what he would like to be wearing – his favorite old jeans that had been washed so many times they were buttery soft, the ones with a hole in the knee for character, a plain white tee shirt, and coffee-brown Ropers. He knew the instant his clothes had changed because he no longer felt grass between his toes, no longer felt a breeze ruffling his, um, skirt, and he did feel the familiar comfort and security of having his package supported. Even though he knew what he’d find, he looked down for confirmation.

  Yes. Those were his favorite weekend jeans and his broken-in boots. He passed a large hand over his chest and abdomen reveling in the feel of the tee that covered his upper body. To his mind there was nothing better than the freshness and classlessness of a plain white, soft fresh cotton tee.

  He didn’t understand how physics worked in hel, if that’s where he was, but he did understand saying thank you to someone when they did you a good turn. “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.” The guy nodded once. “I assume you have something to say? Would you like to stand, sit, walk?” Ragnal cocked his head, tilted his chin up as he looked at Sol and said, “Never mind. I know the answer.”

  In less than a blink of an eye, Sol found himself sitting on a leather barstool in front of a well-aged oak bar, being handed his favorite long neck by a kindly-looking bartender who winked when he set it down. Sol swiveled around to take a read on his environment. Old vampire hunter habits never seem to fade away. There were only three people in the bar. Himself, the bartender, and a yet-to-be-named companion.