by Kirk Zurosky
Breeze was indeed a beautiful woman, and clearly was available for some very personal field work, or bushes work, or forest work. She did not seem too particular as to location or man, judging by her husband, Braddock, who was as ugly on the inside as he was on the outside. Did she actually have relations with that obese ode to obnoxiousness? Perhaps I had found the key to resisting the temptations of the naughty elf. The last thing I wanted to do was follow Templeton Braddock anywhere—least of all the inside of his wife’s privates!
“You don’t have to worry, Hedley,” I said to the Master of Masters, who was watching me watching Breeze leave. “She will not be a distraction to me. Braddock’s been there, which pretty much kills that thought for me!”
“I think you and your teaching methods may be distracting enough,” Hedley said with a laugh. “You might be the first teacher of mine to have a kraken attack an entire class through a wormhole. What are you going to do for your final exam—go on a third trip to the Underworld?”
I joined him in a laugh. I shuddered at the possibility of another frightening trip to the netherworld. The third time would definitely not be a charm! “So, where are the naughty elf, the Professor, and I going?” I asked. “Clearly, since you have set the field studies in motion, I am wagering you have heard of an attempt on one of the Relics.”
“Indeed, I have,” Hedley said. “Justice happened to be representing a young werewolf from London who made an exceedingly bad choice in brides. See, you are not the only one. Anyway, the young pup was very connected with the monarchy, but Justice found it very peculiar that, as part of the settlement, the other side insisted on taking his client’s place at George I’s coronation next week.”
“George—the first?” I said. “What happened to Queen Anne? She was on the throne when I walked in the door to the college.”
“She was not a healthy creature,” Hedley said. “Mortal life is so blasted short, and frail to boot. Good thing they breed like cockroaches. Who knows? They might even find some way to survive the Blood of the One.”
I grimaced at the thought of a world filled with nothing but mortals. If that ever happened, I was convinced they would ruin the place, or at the very least cover it from sea to mountain in garbage, pestilence, and detritus. “Let’s try to avoid that,” I said. “So who was this ex-wife raking the werewolf over the royal coals, and why does she want to get into the coronation?”
“Good question,” Hedley answered. “She probably just wants to see and be seen. But this young lady is a distant kin to the faerie group that your Thief belongs to. Such distant kin that no one would have ever noticed, but for the coincidence of Justice representing the now ex-husband.”
“I am beginning to not believe in coincidences,” I said. “So, you are thinking that the Thief is going to the coronation. Big deal. What is she going to do, try and pilfer the crown jewels? Even an immortal could not survive an attack by the assembled military forces of England.”
“Actually, it is a big deal,” Hedley said. “Someone near and dear to your heart, and fond of imprisoning you in Peel Castle, will be attending the coronation as well.”
“No! Not the Howler!” I exclaimed. “Why would she be there? Perhaps looking for another husband to use, abuse, and chain to a wall?”
“Oh yes, she will be there, but as a guard,” Hedley replied. “So be sure to play nice.”
“A guard for whom?”
“Not whom, what.”
“Cornelia and the Moon of Madrid,” I stammered in realization. “I wager that ole Angus has now built up so much political capital that it was a foregone conclusion he would be there. But why would Cornelia be there with the Moon? Wait a minute. Doesn’t Angus still have the boil stuck to his face by court order? Tell me he does!” I rubbed my hands together in anticipation of Hedley’s answer.
“He does still have the boil. However, it turns out that even a talking boil has its price, and now lives happily on Angus’s face, made up as a rather well-paid battle wound,” Hedley said.
“Angus bribed the boil, and that pus spitter actually took the money?” I said incredulously. “It is not like the boil has a vault to store the gold, or even has hands!”
“The boil is not keeping Angus from the coronation,” Hedley said. “In the eyes of mortals, he has run his course on this earth, and is biding his time, ironically at Peel Castle, celebrating his recent death. Very tragic from what I hear.”
I slapped my hand to my forehead. I had forgotten that, in recent centuries, immortals had taken to disguising themselves to look older as time passed so as not to draw the attention of curious mortals. Indeed, most immortals in the past had traveled the world fairly continuously both out of desire and self-preservation. But with the advent of industry, some, like Angus, had put down roots and developed vast empires and wealth that they wanted to keep. With a little subterfuge and a steady rotation of “family” members over time, all was well. Between my constant misadventures and banishment to the Underworld, I had never stayed in one place for very long. Perhaps one day that would change. “Too bad that fat lout is not really dead,” I grumbled. “I still owe him one, you know. Even nearly dead would be sufficient.”
“I am sure he has not forgotten that,” Hedley said with a grin. “Soon, Angus will reappear as a long-lost cousin, and no one will be the wiser. You would be amazed how young Angus will look with his beard shorn, hair trimmed, and a few stone lost in weight. So that is why Cornelia will be there representing the family.”
“And where Cornelia goes—”
“So goes the Moon of Madrid.”
“I had hoped we would be going somewhere more exotic than London in October,” I said. “No matter, but how are the Professor, Breeze, and I going to attend the coronation? The last time I checked, vampire master assassins are not so popular among the world’s royalty. They love us when they need us to clean up one of their messes or perhaps eliminate a hated rival, but they certainly don’t want to socialize with their hired killers.”
“You are a killer no more, Sirius, remember?”
“Right,” I nodded. “I am an academic.” I stood and threw my cloak over my shoulder with an exaggerated flourish. “To the coronation, old chum. Pray tell, where is my ceremonial robe? Has it been properly pressed?”
“You are more than just any old ordinary teacher,” Hedley replied, standing to join me. “You are an Oxford man.”
When I returned to my chambers, I was in for quite a shock, as sitting with Adelaide and Beatrice was Wisdom, apparently giving Maria a lesson in astronomy with the help of strange glowing orbs that were whirling all around the little merpire as she sat on the floor with Garlic on her lap. I found it fitting as she was indeed the center of my universe. Maria’s eyes widened with joy when she saw me. “Daddy!” she cried, running to jump into my arms. I twirled her around in the air, reveling in her giggles. Finally, I put her down and watched her dance in a circle by herself one last time before going over and taking Wisdom by the hand. “Meet my new friend, Wizzie,” she said. “Oh, wait, silly me, Wizzie says you two already know each other!”
“Yes, we do,” I exclaimed. “Wisdom, my dear, how have you been? How long has it been? What, a century or so?”
Wisdom’s bronze orbs sparkled, and bright white teeth shone in a smile framed by those amazing full and lustrous lips. She walked over to me and gave me a warm hug that, despite the rather conservative, even matronly lavender dress she had on, served to remind me of the attributes of that incredible body of hers that I had experienced all too long ago. It was all I could do to not have my eyes linger over her smooth dark skin dappled ever so beautifully with radiant gilded flecks. But I know I failed—and in front of my daughters to boot. Oh, Wizzie, Wizzie, Wizzie.
“Hello, Sirius,” Wisdom said, planting a polite kiss on my cheek. “It has really been too long. Knowledge sends her greetings and said to tell
you she misses the time you spent at the Laurentian together. Such great intercourse . . .”
“Indeed, of our thoughts, ideas, and theories . . .” I added awkwardly, feeling a slight flush of crimson come over me. “About literature, art, science, and philosophy . . .” I could see Adelaide and Beatrice exchange a knowing glance. Damn, grown up kids!
“Right,” Wisdom said with an innocent smile. “She especially talks about your aptitude in demonstrating Newtonian motion theory.”
“Yes, we did have many good times at the Laurentian. It’s a library in Florence, you know. Reading. Studying. Learning . . .”
“We get it, Father,” Adelaide said, stifling a grin with a hand over her mouth.
“Understood, Father,” Beatrice replied. “What else can you do in a library but study?”
“Exactly,” I said, sweeping Maria back into my arms, having convinced no one but myself, and Maria of course, of that. “So, Wisdom, what brings you to Oxford?”
Wisdom held out her arms, and Maria leaned forward, and I let her go to Wisdom. “It seems that your new job is going to require you to leave the College of Immortals on occasion, so Hedley and Justice have worked it out so I will serve as Maria’s tutor and nanny while you are gone.”
I looked to Adelaide and Beatrice. “Oh wonderful,” I said. “That is perfect, because you and your sisters will be teaching my classes.”
“Exactly right,” Adelaide said.
“Indeed,” Beatrice echoed.
“Wait a minute,” I said looking around the room. “I said sisters. Where are your sisters?”
“Contessa is helping Master Edrick with some research,” offered Beatrice.
Adelaide nodded. “Something called string theory, I believe.”
“And where is Mary Grace?”
“Reading in the library,” blurted out Beatrice.
“You know, Father, studying, and learning,” Adelaide added with a wink at Beatrice.
“Lovely,” I said.
“Yes,” they answered.
I turned to Wisdom. “And so it begins,” I said, feeling Lovely was less a threat to Mary Grace’s virginity than Mary Grace herself. “All right, let us move on to more pressing matters. I leave tomorrow for the coronation of George I.”
“Eww, he’s a Hanover,” said Maria. “I hear people don’t like him.”
I was beginning to become less and less surprised at what came out of Maria’s mouth. “Like him or not, Maria, he is to be the king of England. I will be traveling with the Professor and Instructor Breeze, and I will be back soon.”
“I will miss you Daddy,” Maria said, putting her arms around my neck and hugging me. “Be careful, and especially watch out for people that eat their vegetables. And stinky people too.”
I stifled a grin, looking into her all-seeing baby blue eyes. “I will, sweet girl,” I said, kissing her. “I am always careful.”
Adelaide and Beatrice surprised me by joining in on our hug, which made Maria shriek with joy. “And not just vegetables, Father,” Adelaide said. “Guns, swords . . .”
“And bad attitudes, ill will, and the like,” Beatrice added. “No matter how they smell . . .”
“All right,” I said. “I will be really careful.”
Maria looked to a beaming Wisdom, who had witnessed firsthand my pain in the courtroom at not seeing my daughters, which had now transformed to this tender moment. “Wizzie!” she called to the ebony beauty. “Come here! Join the hug! Join the hug!”
Wisdom did so with a laugh, and I realized that was the happiest and most loved I had felt in a long time. Hedley had put me up in chambers that, like everything else at the college, seemed to defy logic, in that my residence was impossibly bigger and more luxurious than it seemed when you entered the small foyer. From the main sitting area where we all sat, I walked down the hall, carrying Maria to her room that was adjoined to my own. Garlic followed us. She had dragged the soft silk blanket that served as her bed from my room to Maria’s the very day Maria arrived in Oxford. Garlic curled up upon it, and closed one eye. She slept with the other eye open for any sign of trouble, and though I expected none here at the College of Immortals, I was thankful that Garlic and Maria’s half sisters would be watching over her while I was gone.
As I did every night, I told her a story about Princess Daisy, who lived in a big castle, made of the most wonderful sparkly stones, high on a hill. And like every night, right before I kissed Maria good night, the Princess Daisy in the story got to eat a magical chocolate banana surprise. And like every night, Maria said, “I am a real princess just like Princess Daisy.” She was asleep almost before I left her room, so I tarried for a moment, watching her sleep, amazed at the wonder of something so simple as the rise and fall of her chest as she breathed.
I walked back out to the main sitting area, and Adelaide and Beatrice promised to meet me early with both of their sisters to see me off and get my final lesson plans, which I would be busy writing out tonight. The College of Immortals had a very strict curriculum, and I had every intention of doing my part. They hugged me good night, and now it seemed so natural for them to do so. I shut the door to my chambers behind them and turned to Wisdom, who was holding two silver goblets filled with red wine.
She handed me one of them, and I took it readily. “A toast to you, Sirius Sinister,” she said, her eyes gleaming in the candlelight. “Congratulations, for although you have learned much from my rainbow sister”—I opened my mouth to protest since I had taught Knowledge a thing or two, but decided it was in my best interest to remain silent—“you have learned how to be a father in such a natural way! They simply adore you!” Wisdom finished.
We touched our goblets together. “Thank you,” I said. “I am still worried about saying the wrong thing to them, and sometimes I do, but I would never have guessed how amazing it is to be a parent. To see a part of your own self in another human being is really incredible. I love them all differently and equally at the same time. Does that even make sense?”
“It does,” Wisdom said, peering intently down a long hallway off of the sitting room. “This place makes the Laurentian almost look boring. I could swear that hallway was not there a minute ago.”
“It wasn’t,” I said. “I am going to wager that those are your new quarters, not to mention whatever you need to tutor Maria. Come on, let’s take a look.”
Down the hallway we walked, first coming to a small laboratory filled with countless glass beakers of multicolored bubbling fluids. “She will like this,” I said. “What kid wouldn’t?” Each step took us past a new room that literally opened up in front of our eyes. We passed a library that nearly rivaled the Chamber of the Master of Masters in Florence, a gymnasium filled with tumbling mats, balancing ropes, and weaponry fit for the daughter of a master assassin, a fully stocked pantry and kitchen, and lastly, a room with a sandy beach of fluffy white sand like spun sugar and water that smelled amazingly like seawater. Wisdom followed me onto the sand, kicking off her shoes. I looked up at where the ceiling should be, but there was only a light, misty fog with the barest hint of what looked to be sunlight shining through.
“I am speechless,” I said, watching Wisdom’s amber tresses get teased by an unseen zephyr. “Will Hedley Edrick’s wonders never cease? This place is great for Maria, but I guess he forgot quarters for you. No matter, you can just sleep in my bed.”
“Sirius!” she said with righteous indignation. “Don’t you think you are being just a bit forward? I am here in a professional capacity.”
“I meant when I am not here,” I said, staring down curiously at my wine goblet. “Well, that is odd, no matter how much of this wine I drink, this goblet still remains full.”
“So what do you think we should do about that?” Wisdom asked, the light from above catching the yellow sparkles on her skin and casting golden raindrops upon the sand.
<
br /> “I think we have a professional obligation to sit down on that blanket over there, under that lovely thatched cabana, listen to the waves, and test out this theory some more. Science demands it!”
“That is a good idea,” Wisdom said. “But I am pretty sure the goblets will keep refilling themselves.” She reached over and took my hand and interlocked her fingers with mine. “I do, however, have a better idea,” she said as we walked to the cabana. “How about finishing those lesson plans of yours? It looks like the cabana has a writing desk and chair in it just for you.”
“Sounds great,” I deadpanned. But when I entered the cabana, I did not see a writing desk and chair. Wisdom pulled the canopy over the doorway and fastened it to stakes in the sand, shutting out the outside world but for the tiny bits of light coming through the cabana’s walls. She reached behind her neck, unfastened the tie of her dress, and shimmied out of it. She was matronly no more. So much for my lesson plans.
She flexed her wings, which looked like they had rivers of molten sunshine rushing through them as she moved closer to me. With each step a different part of her body glowed amber as the light from outside caught first a toned thigh, then a flat stomach, followed by a lean muscular arm. Closer still she came—gilted nipples fairly glowing at the ends of her marvelous midnight globes, until finally she was in my arms, her lips pressed firmly on mine, and my clothes joined her dress in the sand. She pushed me down onto the blanket, hovering for a moment above me, her wings now fully engorged with honeyed heat. “Sirius Sinister,” she cooed, “now, I would like my lesson in Newton’s laws of motion!”
I reached up, and she dropped her hands into mine, and the fiery light of her wings faded as she folded them back and descended upon me. “Intercourse, indeed,” she muttered with a slight moan as I thrust deep inside her, making her womanhood come ablaze with the fires of our passion. “Oh, Sirius,” she gasped, her eyes rolling back in her head as she writhed in ecstasy, waves of pleasure rolling over her again and again, keeping time with the waves crashing on the shore outside the cabana. “Is that all the motion you have?” she said, trying to catch her breath.
