Finngarick (Order of the Black Swan, D.I.T. Book 2)

by Victoria Danann

  The last people to interview were the twins. They had been incredibly quick studies. By the time they walked into the café with Gillis trailing, they could pass for having been born and raised in Edinburgh. They wore modern clothes, a little makeup, had the wild hair under semi-control, and were even more stunning, if that was possible.

  Of course the bows and quivers strapped to their backs would draw attention even if they were plain.

  They definitely looked different in modern clothes, but the animal-like athleticism of their bodies was evident as they moved gracefully to sit in front of Rosie. They’d chosen not to dress identically, but close, wearing the same clothes, but in different colors. Shivaun wore a rust-colored sweater over skinny jeans and ankle boots. Sheridan wore the same clothes but the sweater was teal instead of rust.

  Rosie had a brief conversation with Gillis before she called the girls in. She inquired as to how much of modern life the twins had absorbed and whether or not they were comfortable with urban surroundings. Their tutor reported that their unusual upbringing should not be a hindrance to working for Black Swan.

  “The only problem that has proven insurmountable is that they absolutely refuse to go anywhere without the bows and arrows.”

  Rosie looked over in their direction. “Have they heard the creation story?”

  “They have,” Gillis answered.

  “Have they been through the written part of the interview?”

  “Yes. They did well.”

  “Have they taken an oath not to reveal anything they’ve learned about The Order?”

  “All done. Every box checked.”

  Rosie congratulated Gillis on a job well done, said she’d mention it to Simon, and asked her to send in the prospective hunters.

  Shivaun took the chair like she owned it. Sheridan pulled up another.

  “So we meet again,” Rosie said. They nodded. “Been busy?” They nodded again. “What’s been the biggest surprise?”

  They both started to talk, but Rosie held up a hand. “One at a time.” She looked at Sheridan, whom Rosie knew would expect to go second, not first.

  Sheridan glanced at Shivaun, but answered. “The number of people. I could no’ have imagined that there are so many people in the world. Or that they live so close together.”

  Rosie turned her attention to Shivaun. “Electricity is the key to life as you know it. All this,” she waved both hands, possibly to indicate the restaurant, or Edinburgh, or the world, “depends on electricity. If it went away,” she snapped her fingers, “snap. It all goes and there’d be one gigantic mess on your hands.”

  “If you want to work for Black Swan, you’re going to need to start thinking in terms of ‘us’. There’d be one gigantic mess on our hands,” she corrected. “Have you formed any thoughts about wanting to stay and work for me?”

  They glanced at each other which, Rosie was learning, was as normal for them as breathing. That connection. That constant connection they’d had since birth.

  “We’d like to hear about the job,” said Sheridan.

  Rosie sat back. “Do you believe in ghosts?” They suddenly looked uncomfortable and, rather than looking at each for confirmation, as was their habit, they looked away. “There’s not a right or wrong answer. I’m asking because I may frame my comments differently depending on your answer.”

  “There are stories about things in the New Forest, but we’re the only ones who’ve seen them,” Sheridan said.

  “At least we’re the only ones who talk about it.”

  “Okay,” Rosie said. “So would these be things that most people, here in Edinburgh, would say don’t exist? So they would tell you that what you ‘think’ you saw is your imagination or something like that?”

  They nodded in unison.

  Rosie continued. “What would you say if I told you that there are hundreds of worlds all coexisting on this planet, divided by the thinnest curtains? They’re unaware of each other because even the tiniest variation of vibration can create a different reality. We call those different realities dimensions. This particular dimension, where we sit, is known as Loti.”

  After a pause, when they were sure Rosie was waiting for a verbal reaction, Shivaun was first to speak. “I’d say that is hard to believe.”

  Rosie sighed, stood up, and disappeared.

  Sheridan and Shivaun gasped and got to their feet so quickly they sent chairs flying. They looked at each other with eyes bugging out of their sockets and then turned to look back to where Gillis was talking with people at the bar in the next room. When they turned around, Rosie was calmly sitting in her chair, lifting a tea cup toward her smiling face.

  “Sit down,” she said.

  “How did you…?” Shivaun began, still standing.

  “Sit down,” Rosie repeated more firmly.

  They did.

  “What…?” Shivaun began again, but really didn’t know where to go with that question.

  “I’m part witch, part demon.” She scrunched her nose up. “I have a little bit of human in there, but not a lot. It’s the demon part that allows me to seamlessly move between dimensions. I can also travel along the corridors that exist between them. We call them ‘passes’.

  “Loti natives normally can’t exist in the passes for longer than a few minutes, but Black Swan is developing the means to compensate so that you’ll be able to travel the passes and move between worlds. Not like I do, of course. You can expect to fly in a whister, but you can’t expect to fly like a bird. But enough about me. Are you following so far?”

  Sheridan cleared her throat. “I’m no’ sure. You’re sayin’ that, if we work for you, we’ll be able to just, em, disappear like you just did?”

  “That is what I’m saying. Oddly enough, in some ways you’re uniquely qualified because you’ve just successfully completed a test like no other and proved that you can quickly adapt to an entirely different environment from the one you’re accustomed to.

  “The question is why? Why would we want to make it possible for you to move between dimensions?”

  They glanced at each other. “We do no’ know.”

  “Well, of course you don’t. The answer is because sometimes we get visitors from other worlds who are not acting in the best interest of Loti’s population. Like any community, we need security. Or police.”

  The twins both scowled. “What kind of visitors?”

  “Demons. Angels. Shifters. Vampire. The kind of creature doesn’t matter so much as what they’re doing. Right?”

  “So, you’re sayin’ that sometimes otherworldly beings come and go, but are harmless.”

  “Yes.”

  “But sometimes they’re up to no good.”

  “Exactly.”

  “And when we discover they’re here and we do no’ like what they’re doin’, we do what?”

  “On my orders, you run them down, wherever they go, and tag them. It’s a warning to stay away. If they return here, they’ll show up on our radar and be dealt with more harshly.”

  “How are you goin’ to tag these otherworldly creatures?”

  “Dr. Monq is working out the details. But the working theory is that we’re going to give them corporeal form long enough to insert a tag that can’t be removed.”

  “Insert a tag? Like an identification?”

  “Yes.”

  “How are you plannin’ to do that?” Shivaun asked in a tone dripping with doubt.

  Rosie opened her mouth to answer, but instead of saying she didn’t yet know, when her eyes drifted over the bows strapped to the twins’ backs, she began to smile.

  “I believe I just happened upon the ideal delivery system. We can’t use firearms in the passes. Any kind of electrical or chemical disturbance causes extreme and undesirable reactions. But your bows need nothing but tension controlled by you.”

  “We’re goin’ to protect the world from bad-actin’ demons by plantin’ tags with arrows?”

  “Wow. You make it sound inc
redibly simple, but essentially yes.”

  They looked at each other then simultaneously grinned and leaned into Rosie so quickly she would have flinched if she was human.

  “We’re in!”

  Rosie chuckled. “Not so fast. Now that I know you’re interested, I have a couple of questions.”

  “Like what?” Shivaun’s excitement skittered away as her eyes narrowed.

  “Like this. You two have no experience with discipline so far as I can tell. You’ve spent your entire lives doing as you pleased, refusing to obey rules.”

  They exchanged a look that said there was no point in trying to deny it.

  “If you come to work for me, you’re agreeing to be bound by strict military discipline, meaning that you’ll do whatever I say, when I say it, without stopping to consider whether you want to or not. You can count on me to give you orders you’re not going to like.

  “Like, for instance, I’m going to split you up and assign each of you to a partner who is a stranger to you at this moment, because we’ll need your archery skills spread around. You’ll have partners who are cocky, insufferably macho ex-vampire hunters. They’ll probably challenge your status as equal partner every other minute. But you’ll have to make it work anyway.

  “If you think you’re up for whatever I may throw at you, what you’re gonna get in exchange is the kind of adventure that only a handful of people will ever know. It’s also the kind of service that would make you legends if people knew about it. But unless they work for Black Swan, they won’t know.

  “Now. How do you feel about all that?”

  When they looked at each other, Rosie said, “Would you like me to give you a minute of privacy so you can discuss it?”

  “Unnecessary,” Shivaun shot back. “Like we said, we’re in.”

  Rosie grinned. “Welcome to D.I.T. That stands for Department of Interdimensional Trespass.”

  Rosie was tired from days of interviewing, but also excited about the hunters who’d been given offers and accepted. She went straight to her office at headquarters without using the doors. After making some notes in her desktop about several of her interviews, she stepped over and opened the door.

  “Grieve…”

  Grieve threw what he was working on into the air and clutched at his chest, panting. Rosie remembered, too late, that she was supposed to use the doors so that people wouldn’t be scared witless when she appeared without warning.

  “Oh, sorry, Grieve. I forgot.” Rosie waited while he began to pull himself together. She bent down and picked up some of the papers that had floated haphazardly to the floor.

  When his breathing and heartrate began to return to normal, he said, “Think nothin’ of it, madam. I should be prepared for the unexpected.”

  “I really am sorry. I’ll try to remember.”

  “What was it you were goin’ to ask?”

  “About the location for training camp.”

  “Aye. We have two alternatives so far.”

  “Wonderful! I can’t wait to see them.”

  “How did the interviews go?”

  “So good. We’ve got our people, Grieve. And they’re good,” she added.

  “O’ course. I expected nothin’ less.”

  “If you’ll text me the locations and descriptions of the training camp venues, I’ll go there before I come in tomorrow. I’ll give you my list of hunters then. I want to make some notes and make some decisions about how the teams will be paired up. Trying to assess strengths and weaknesses and assign people accordingly. I’ll run it all by Glen tonight. He’s got experience with this kind of stuff.”

  “Indeed he does, madam.”

  “Okay. Have a good night.”

  “The same to you.”

  Chapter Eleven TRAINING CAMP

  From the Memoir of Glendennon Catch

  Sovereign Jefferson Unit, Order of the Black Swan

  My life and my journal have been taken over by my wife’s work. Since it’s all she thinks about and all she talks about, I can’t help but be drawn into both the process and the drama. As to the latter, after weeks of agonizing over partnership assignments, Rosie was finally satisfied that, right or wrong, she had the best list possible. That was the good news.

  The bad news was that she saw me as her best resource for helping to make decisions. That was inarguably true, but her vacillation drove me insane. On the way to getting to the final list, I was alternately wanting to tear my hair from the roots or move to the marginally comfortable sofa in my office. I never would have imagined that she had such a streak of self-doubt that overlapped a wide ribbon of perfectionism. But I also never would have imagined that she would bite off a project of such enormity and take it so seriously.

  One of the issues that caused extreme consternation, including tossing, turning, and shaking me in the middle of the night, saying, “Are you awake? Glen! Are you awake?” was the assignment of roommates.

  Normally that would not be either a problem or a separate option. When doubling up was necessary, partners would also be roommates. Period. Done. End of story. But the fact that two of her hunters were female presented a unique wrinkle in Black Swan history.

  In the end, she concluded that the potential risks and role confusion that could be caused by mix gender cohabitation was less important than the solidarity and camaraderie that togetherness promoted. She needed her hunters to bond with their partners emotionally in a way that required close proximity twenty-four hours a day.

  I concurred. Devil take the outcome. ~~

  First day of training camp.

  Only one week behind Simon’s original, very optimistic, schedule, Rosie was ready for the first day of training.

  Grieve had found an old gray stone structure that had once been a rambling abbey. It sat on the banks of a river in a secluded glen with ample grounds and privacy from all but overhead surveillance. Rosie fell in love with the place on sight. She stood just inside the tree line on the other side of the river and whispered, “Perfect,” to herself, even before she’d self-toured the inside. Since it was uninhabited, access wasn’t a problem.

  It had everything she’d required in broad terms, but needed modification to be ideal. Fortunately for her, the man who could pull at purse strings whenever he wanted also wanted the project to be a big success.

  Simon had seen to it that officials were rewarded financially in exchange for permission to modernize the building with electricity, up-to-date plumbing, and a state-of-the-art commercial kitchen.

  It wasn’t hard to find contractors willing to drop what they were doing on the promise of earning twice as much for the same time period. As Simon said to Rosie, “This is not a case of money talking. It’s a case of money yelling.”

  Rosie had ended up with sixteen hunters who didn’t laugh when she told them to call her Rosie. She decided somebody else could come up with an official title at some point. In the meantime she decided that, if she needed a title to command respect, she wasn’t the right person for the job.

  Sixteen was more than her original goal, but it wasn’t difficult to persuade Simon to keep them all on the payroll because, when it came to talent, more was more. After all, attrition is a fact of life.

  The total count of personnel, including hunters was thirty-two if Ram’s and Elora’s nanny was counted as one of them. Two cooks. Four food service crew. Three cleaning staff. Four instructors including, Rosie, Ram, Elora, and Mad Dog Malone, an ancient and wizened knight emeritus who’d been highly recommended by Glen.

  Grieve had come along, making the point that he could best assist in close proximity. He’d wasted no time setting up a command center in a room that had apparently been a chapel at one point. Rosie suspected that he insisted on inserting himself more to supervise than assist, but she wasn’t going to confront him about it. Because, truth be known, she valued his advice.

  Rosie had to laugh that Grieve had brought one of the office staff. He didn’t see the humor in calling her th
e assistant to the assistant.

  Finngarick arrived at the Black Swan hangar in Edinburgh with his duffel and a pinpoint of light in his heart that hadn’t been there for a long, long time. He didn’t know if it was hope for something better or sheer relief that he’d been freed from the floater roster. He just knew that his feeling of numbness was flirting with giving way to the return of aliveness. His senses had awakened and, though he tried to fight against it, believing that cynicism is the only smart approach to life, he was looking forward to seeing what happened next. A dangerous way to live because there were so many ways life could do a surprise smack down.

  He didn’t have long to wait at Edinburgh before the whister that would take him to Hunter’s Abbey was ready to go. He didn’t recognize the other passengers, but introduced himself and exchanged cordial hellos. There wasn’t time for much more because it was only a fifteen minute flight.

  When Hunter’s Abbey came into view, he felt a strange sensation that he couldn’t place. He didn’t know what anxiety felt like, but he was afraid he might be experiencing exactly that.

  Grieve and his assistant greeted the passengers and directed them into the cathedral-ceilinged great room that had been outfitted as the Mess with one long table capable of seating thirty-two. Finngarick and the three others who’d just arrived were directed toward a table where they were to check in.

  He was feeling more and more agitated with every moment that passed. His eyes darted here and there. His mouth went dry. He was wondering if he might be coming down with something.

  “Welcome, Sir Finngarick,” Grieve’s assistant said, giving him a smile that let him know she’d be available for more than directions to his room. “Orientation starts in forty-five minutes. That gives you just enough time to find your quarters and perhaps meet your roommate, who’s also your partner. Let’s see. It’s Sheridan O’Malley, who I believe has already checked in.”