Rael (Wine of the Gods Book 27)

by Pam Uphoff

  "You . . . overly observant . . . "

  Rael pretended to not hear the chuckle from the phone she was still clutching in her hand. Clicked it off. There were some things her boss didn't need to hear.

  A Small Family Wedding

  Pam Uphoff

  Chapter One

  Friday, 10 Emre 1402yp

  "So you're going home for your sister's wedding?"

  Rael nodded. "Her sixth and his first. I actually approve of this one, so I'll go lend support for my poor mother. Not to mention the groom."

  "Have fun!" Her boss made a shooing motion.

  Rael headed for the door. "No guarantee, but really, how bad can a small family wedding be?"

  ***

  The house was so new they hadn't even gotten the stickers off the windows, let alone draperies hung.

  "There wasn't anything left to save, so I had the old ruins bulldozed, even the basement concrete crushed to fill the old basement hole. Then I split the land up into five lots and sold four of them. So there was plenty of money to build the house."

  "That's good. Now Ox only has about an acre to mow. 'Bout right for exercise after work." Rael grinned as she caught her sister's scowl. "Oh wait, don't tell me, let me guess. You've still got enough money to pay a gardener."

  "And a cook, and a maid, and a nanny. Goodness, four year olds can be stubborn."

  "It's a huge house. You and Ox have plans?"

  Raod sighed. "Well, I'd like more kids, but they'll be Ox's or it just won't happen. If they ever approve some of the new meds that they say blocks the antagonistic effect . . . "

  Rael grinned as her sister glanced her direction. "Why, yes, I do happen to know about them. No, I don't know where they stand in the approval process. No, I am not going to sneak you any samples. Your soon-to-be husband is a cop. Unlicensed pharmaceuticals are not a good idea." She looked over her shoulder and grinned at the man walking up the sidewalk. "Right?"

  "Right." Ahxe Withione Timber Black Point was tall, broad, good looking. Recently promoted out of the investigative branch and into administrative. Poor sod. The least sensible thing he'd ever done in his entire life was probably proposing to Raod. Five previous marriages. Four divorces. One murdered husband. Not quite five year old twins. Borderline between comfortable and rich. Rael glanced at the new house. No, make that comfortably rich. But he's still insane.

  "Come inside and take a look. The inspections should be done tomorrow, so we can start moving in." Raod's head turned at high pitched laughter. "Sounds like Jess has the kids out in the back yard. Now, about this modern sculpture kid toy you threatened us with . . . The umm, picture was certainly interesting. Is it actually that big?"

  "Yep. If you don't like it, I'm . . . fairly sure I can also take it away."

  Ox eyed her. "Fairly sure."

  "Yep. I conned a boyfriend into showing off. Both for the sculpture and the means of transport." Rael grinned. "I designed it myself, so it is the epitome of elegant usefulness."

  She ignored their apprehensive exchange of glances, and followed them into the house. The ground floor held the kitchen and quarters for cook and maid, with a formal parlor and powder room off the fancy entrance. An elegant sweep of stairs led up to a large room with a sweeping view of the ocean. A maze of walls formed an open network of dining room, two offices, and a play area for the kids.

  The third floor was all bedrooms and bathrooms.

  "Six more? Right, a big suite for you guys, a nice suite for the nanny and four bedrooms for kids. Where are you going to make the gardener sleep?" Rael dodged a threatened fist.

  "Ocha is an independent businessman, and his wife expects him to sleep at home."

  "Very sensible of her. And you've finally managed the 'happily ever after' part of your life. I've got to say I'm surprised it took you this long to land your Prince."

  Ox snorted. "I had to do the chasing. Somebody had some silly idea that I might think she was marrying me out of desperation, if we married before all the lawsuits were settled."

  "So . . . if a rich woman marries a cop, it's clearly love. Makes sense. Obviously not something I'd recommend. So . . . who's been mentoring my idiot sister?"

  Raod made a rude gesture.

  Rael grinned and looked out a window at the back yard. "At least you get to start with nice mature trees. You won't have to bother with those yard blinds things to keep the neighbors from peeking." A twenty floor tower of totally ordinary apartments rose up beyond the trees. Privacy was going to require blinds in every west facing window.

  Raod grinned back at her. "That's why I kept this lot. And there's a bare corner where you can put this sculpture toy of yours. All the Proles in the stack back there can admire it."

  Rael grinned. "It'll be the envy of the neighborhood. Honest."

  In the yard, two kids were chasing each other around the biggest tree. One redhead, one brunette. Giggling madly.

  "Aunt Rael! Aunt Rael! Come see the tree! It's our tree." Redheaded Ryol abandoned the tree to take a run at her aunt. Her brother was hot on her heels.

  They plowed into her legs and Rael leaned over to hug them. Double zap. Their father must be some cousin on my biomother's side. I always get a bigger zap from them than from my sis. . . Well, technically, Raod's my half cousin. But I'm surprised I get such a nice big zap. Gah, she used to like rich old men. Maybe she seduced my bio-father, wherever the hell he is.

  She eyed Arno . . . Nope. That has to be Xen's kid. And Ryol has those dark eyes too.

  Oners are all descended from thirty-three people, so we usually get a little zing whenever we touch another Oner. We mostly ignore it. But sometimes, randomly, we have a whole lot of identical magic genes, so we get really big zings. Then we also either ignore it or make jokes about distant cousins or Evil Twins. I wonder about Comet Fall. The next time I'm on Embassy, I'll have to touch as many Fallen as possible, and report back about it.

  "It's big and Mom says we can't climb it until we're bigger. I told her the tree would be bigger too, and we should climb it now, but she still said no." And Arno was so smart it was a bit scary. For better or worse, he only spoke to family, so outsiders tended to underestimate him.

  "I think trees grow a lot slower than little kids. You'll catch up to it."

  "Did you bring me a present?" Ryol batted her eyelashes.

  Oh, you are going to be a heartbreaker, aren't you? As smart as your brother, and a manipulative charmer, too. Do kids outgrow things like that? If she wasn't so precious, she'd be obnoxious. "I brought one present for the whole family. Now where should I put a humongous great huge rock?"

  She had gotten the idea from a neat little mineral sample. Cubic crystals of galena, a lead ore, had grown in an eye pleasing pattern, a pixelated snake-like spiral, and a flare that was almost a wing. Squint and it looked like a dragon. "Can you show me how to make something this shape, big enough for my niece and nephew to climb on?" she'd asked one of the foremost magical builders in the multiverse.

  Xen had laughed, and when she couldn't affect rocks in the large volumes needed, he'd done it himself. Infuriating man had just stood there, while the marble and basalt slabs they kept around for whatever building project came up flowed into the desired shapes. It was four meters high, with a flat, walled, look-out on top. All angles and cubes and Artsy. And hollowed out for an excellent cave on the back side. A staircase of cubes wound up opposite the slide tube that wound down through and over cubes and ended in a cubic bench by the cubic lined little pool. Which had the little holes of the "one way pipes" that would recirculate the water up to the waterfall. Or spray the slide. Or shoot up even higher in the air before splashing down into the pool, depending on how one turned a rock in a socket at the top.

  It was a bear to get out of the carrier—a trans-dimensional bubble with a number of useful properties. Including lugging ten tons of rock around in one's backpack.

  Raod had laughed in disbelief, halfway through the process, and made her move it t
o a much more central spot, and then turn it for the best visual impact, before Rael finally wrestled her carrier out from under the miniature mountain. Sculpture. Toy. Whatever you wanted to call it.

  Ox had swapped his boggling from the rock to the carrier. "Do you realize how valuable that is?"

  "Disco sells them for a million rials each, for their operating budget." Rael admired her fingernails modestly. "I, of course, got this one by batting my eyelashes."

  Ox snorted.

  "No, really." Rael held up her left hand. Little finger up, the rest curled. "Xen Wolfson. Right there." She twirled her right forefinger around the other.

  "Wrong finger, I suspect."

  Rael choked, sniggered.

  Ox watched her fold up the handles and drop them into her shoulder pack.

  "You really did kidnap Agni, didn't you? And hold him prisoner for five days."

  "Ox, Ox, Ox. How can you think such a thing of me!"

  "Easily."

  Rael grinned, and watched the kids exploring their new toy. "It really doesn't match the style of the formal garden, does it?"

  "It will, once Raod and your mother get done designing the landscaping around it."

  "It looks like it'll be a hit with the kids. Good grief they're getting big. It can't possibly be five years since Raod was parading around my hospital room, humongously big, going 'Look one of them is kicking!' It was really gross."

  "Rael! You were impossible." Raod walked over, half her attention on the kids checking out the rock. "She asked me if I was sure it wasn't an alien eating its way out. That was about a month before they were born."

  Rael giggled. "I never could see anything in those sonograms, but the baby clothes you bought every time you came to Paris were actually cute. Even if I did sneer at the time." She watched Raod hustle over to hover while Arno checked out the cube steps to the top.

  Ox shook his head. "I'm almost glad I missed it. I've got to make another airport run. Some of my Black Point relatives actually decided to come. My grandfather decided the Clan ought to show some support."

  "Oh, Black Pointers aren't all bad. My best friend is one—do you know Xiat? And the XR Subdirector of Intelligence, Ajki, is quite easy to work with. Do you know them?"

  "Know them? Yes, but not well."

  "Probably related to them." She eyed him, curious about his feelings about his birth clan.

  "At least twice. Each." His bland expression had her grinning again.

  "Excellent debate tactic! Dull the accusations of inbred Black Point overachievers before it gets used as a weapon."

  He snorted. "Go talk to your sister." He walked away.

  Rael walked over to Raod and Jess, the nanny. "So sis. What horrible relatives of ours are coming to the wedding?"

  She rolled her eyes. "Uncle Ibku and your biomother Kael will get here tomorrow."

  "Oh . . . dear. I haven't seen her for years." She caught Jess's raised brows. "My real Mom's half sister is my biomother. She's a bit on the . . . interesting side. Thank the One she didn't want to have anything to do with me once I was born. She still works for External. She's a former Action Team Leader."

  "Leader? An Action Team leader? A woman!"

  "Yeah. Interesting." Rael hunched her shoulders. "I'm sure she'll be on her best behavior for the wedding."

  Chapter Two

  Saturday, 11 Emre 1402yp

  "Aunt Kael! So good to see you again!" One, that sounded lame! She's my mother, biologically speaking. But her not wanting to raise me, thank the One, gave me a fantastic set of parents and Raod for a sister.

  Her biomother scowled. She had the family hair, silken red blonde, cut short, and looked more like Raod's mother than carrot top Rael's. In coloring. Physically, she was tall, broad and obviously worked out regularly. Aggressive body language and she let an aggressively strong level of glow show. Obviously the very highest of Oners, she'd not been recruited for the Princess school. Too straightforwardly, physically, aggressive. I guess I do take after her, a little.

  "Rael. I suppose I ought to say it's good to see you, but given the lurid stories about you and that Native in the news, I was rather hoping you'd stay decently away."

  Rael paused, then forced a smile. No scenes in the middle of the airport. "I'm also picking up someone named Mead and her . . ."

  "Her children, excellent. I haven't seen them in months." Kael actually smiled.

  "Months, err, I thought they lived in Africa."

  "Yes." Kael stalked over to the arrivals screen.

  Rael blinked, and followed. I never thought about my biomother as, well, having friends. Visiting people. Being glad to see someone. Not to mention glad to see her kids. Aunt Kael . . . didn't want her own kid. Me. Rael looked at the old woman, baffled. Surely I'm not jealous.

  ***

  Rael eyed the interesting bunch of people who homed in on Kael.

  "Rael, I don't believe I ever had a chance to introduce you to Mead Servaone. And her children Deim Withione and Imde Withione. Mead was my aide for, what? Fifteen years, wasn't it? She works for Interior now, over in their Cape Town office. This is my daughter Rael Withione."

  They shook hands, rather formally.

  Mead was a plain woman, with rather protruding eyes that edged her close to ugly. But her smile was sweet. "Goodness. I haven't seen you since you were a newborn. Deim and Imde had been born just about two weeks earlier, so I was on maternity leave." Her glance sheered over toward Kael. "I always said she ought to have kept you."

  "Bah. I was much too busy. I was back across inside of three weeks. I knew Kyol would do a much better job raising Rael than I could have. So I thought she might as well have the baby full time." Kael hefted her own case, and Rael snagged Mead's and led them off to her borrowed car. Raod's late husband's car, Raod's, now that the lawsuits were settled.

  The "children" were Rael's age. A pair of golden blondes.

  "Are you hungry? There's any number of restaurants between here and the enclave." Rael eyed the strangers . . . including her biomother.

  "Good idea. Is the Red Barn still there?" Kael held the front passenger door for Mead.

  "Yep." Rael paid attention to the traffic and missed half the catching up news between Mead in the front seat, and Kael so improbably sandwiched between the kids—adults—in back.

  The Barn was just outside Montevideo proper, and empty enough to seat them immediately.

  Deim—pronounced Dime—was a beautiful blonde woman, looking much younger than her thirty-eight years. In her, the slightly protruding eyes just made her memorably different, without detracting from her looks. Her voice was soft. "I've heard so much about you from Aunt Kael. I'm glad to finally meet you."

  Aunt Kael?

  Rael let herself grin. "Good things, I hope."

  Imde pressed his napkin to his mouth, coughing. Or trying to not laugh.

  Rael decided to not go there, and kept on talking. "So, you live in Cape Town? Right across the ocean, pretty much."

  "Yes, Imde snagged an excellent position there, oh, ten years ago, now. When a spot opened up last year, I decided it was time to get serious about my career." Mead glanced at her menu. "It was an excellent promotion, I just couldn't pass it up, however disruptive it was for Kael and Deim."

  Kael nodded. "I visited a couple of times, but work . . . "

  Mead smiled at Kael. "So when this wedding invitation came, I decided it was time to see Kael's childhood home. And the kids came too." Her eyes twinkled. "A chance to meet the legendary Rael might have had something to do with that."

  Rael was saved from having to respond to that by the arrival of the waiter. By the time he'd departed she was able to ask about their jobs.

  Imde gave a modest shrug. "I teach math at the University of Cape Town. Damn's in micro manufacturing at the controlled facilities the Empire has there." He jumped as if someone had kicked him under the table.

  "Don't. Call. Me. That." Deim switched on a smile. "It's just ID and cash cards,
mostly. But with Mom in admin there, I had no trouble with the security checks." She shot a glance toward her brother. "Imde . . . got a bit of a late start due to, well, waiting to see if the One wanted him for a Priest."

  The man flushed and squirmed. "Fortunately I have some odd . . . things . . . about my priest gene, so they decided against taking me. At ten I . . . was both relieved and angry to not be 'good enough.' Pretty silly." He shrugged. His aura was disturbed.

  He's still angry.

  Rael nodded. "Bloody damned Priest gene. Why the hell it can't work when there's testosterone in the system . . . Really though, you'd think they'd come up with a better solution than castration. Must be frustrating to know you could have been more powerful."

  An angry shrug.

  Rael hesitated. "It's . . . a bit like that for Princesses. We know we'll never have children, never have that big qualitative breakthrough that comes with childbirth."

  "But you get it, eventually."

  "Umm, yeah, gee another century and I'll be able to do some of the small scale stuff as well as my sister. Well, technically, my cousin."

  "Families . . . are very odd things." Mead smiled sweetly across the table at Kael.

  Indeed. Maybe I ought to find out more about mine.

  "So, you're Dad's cousin? Or am I mistaking you for someone else?"

  Mead grinned. "No, my mom is your, well, stepdad's, half sister. She married a man from New York and moved there with him. We came and visited a few times when I was young, but I really don't know anything about even the region, let alone Montevideo Enclave."

  "Well, I may be partisan, but I think we've got the best beaches in the world, hands down. It's . . . home. Even though I've lived elsewhere for nearly half my life now." Eep! I'm almost thirty-eight! More than half my life.

  Kael glanced out the window. Shook her head. "Home is Gate City for me, now."