“We’ll follow in a few minutes,” Richard said as he stood with his wife and daughter. “Give the ladies some time to get ready for the day ahead.”
“Few minutes, right,” Peter scoffed and shook his head sadly. “See ya in an hour, Dad.” Apparently, I was the only person on the outside of that joke as everybody else snickered. I shifted us to Cahill Castle.
~ ~ ~
“The confusion has settled some,” Mike commented as we surveyed the mass hysteria of the grounds from the steps of the Cahill mansion. Peter and I turned slowly to gawk in disbelief.
“It has,” David agreed, nodding at the… squirming mass of human flesh with a healthy trepidation. A bell at the top of the castle started tolling loudly, announcing the time.
“Ten o’clock. What happens at ten?” I asked, turning pages through my itinerary.
“You do, actually,” Gordon said as he walked out the open front doors of the foyer. “Though I really didn’t expect you to get here by now, I admit. Good morning!” He smiled broadly as he reached out to shake my hand.
“What am I supposed to do?” I asked, looking back over my shoulder at the hundred or so caterers setting up tables and chairs in the grass off the drive. Other, better dressed men and women had noticed us now and were gathering along the driveway. Seeing them in suits made me glad I was the VIP and set my own dress code. Rank has privileges.
“Not too much,” Gordon said, grinning. “Just a quick walk-thru of what you want to happen here and maybe a short speech to those present, then you’re free to meet your public.”
“Three speeches, Gordon?” I whined. “What am I supposed to say?”
He just shrugged and said, “Up to you. An elf appeared at the west gate last night and confirmed the Emissaries arrival for a quarter of an hour before dusk tonight. I assume that there will be a similar setup to last week on the drive. Martin will be in the Castle. We’ll be arrayed up here and everyone else will be over there, out of the way but watching.” Gordon pointed out two long, tall sets of bleachers along the curve of the drive capable of seating about two hundred people.
A quick count through the ward showed about five times that number currently on the grounds.
“Can I start with ‘Some of you need to go home’?” I quipped. Actually, it had already calmed down significantly as workmen disappeared around the backside of the castle. Young men scurried around gathering tools and rolling tarps and other assorted cleaning tasks as small groups of older men inspected various aspects of the brightly colored tents and pavilions. The flow of caterers had similarly slowed as stations were stocked and now they worked on the setup of each.
“No, you can’t,” Gordon said. “Most of them are leaving anyway. The only differences in the receiving line are Marchand and Harris.”
“Actually, we’ll need to add Jimmy to my right anyway,” I said. “Felix is resting, I hope?”
“Aye,” Gordon answered, his smile growing huge. “He came home last night ready to conquer the world, he felt so good after all that wild Fae magic you tossed around. He hadn’t counted on Ma being just as rambunctious!” His laugh echoed in his barrel of a chest and into the foyer where a blond-headed streak launched onto the back of Ferrin. Marty followed Ian at a more sedate pace.
“Do you know these people, too, Mikey?” Ian asked as he squeezed the breath out of his brother without concern.
“I’m not… gonna… know anybody… inna minute,” Mike choked out, pulling his brother’s arms from around his neck. “You’re getting too big f’that, you little monkey.”
The crowd in front of us had grown so I figured I’d best push to move things along. Ignoring the general hubbub behind me, I stepped up to the center of the steps and addressed the people that stood there, barely recognizing one or two of them. My “speech” lasted thirty seconds and consisted of “I’m Seth, thanks for coming, it looks great.” Gordon didn’t seem to mind as I descended the steps and started shaking hands and meeting people with Jimmy right behind me.
Our group on the steps broke up and moved on to various tasks while Jimmy and I were politicking and chatting with the eighty or ninety magicians and wizards that helped to build and setup. After thirty minutes of this, I moved us towards the tents. After another ten, it still looked like we were trapped in polite conversational hell.
“Please excuse us,” I said to those around me, “The First and I have a security issue to attend to.” Then I wrapped us in portals, moving us back to the foyer entrance again. Leading us through the house and back through the kitchens to the rear exit, I started looking through boxes, searching for anything that didn’t belong or was maybe the wrong size.
Reaching out to the wards, Kieran and Ethan were there, methodically searching from the outside in. Jimmy pulled on Gilán as he searched, giving him better insight to any magic that might be waiting. Each of us searched in a different manner and we’d all eventually overlap, providing a comfortable redundancy. That didn’t mean that any of us slacked on our individual searches.
Satisfied after an hour of scouring the house and countryside, Jimmy and I got out of the kitchens and wandered around the outside of the house. I just wanted to watch what was going on around us and somehow we just sort of eased out of everyone’s awareness. We were kind of there but not there as people moved around. It afforded us a freedom of movement that was extremely pleasant and we used it for over an hour.
Something at the South Gate caused a quiet ruckus, stopping the trickle of traffic. A flare along the ward there from the guards was the only hint, followed up by a phone call. I’d have missed the call completely if I hadn’t been walking up behind Gordon while he was speaking to Billy on the phone.
“That idiot!” Gordon muttered into the handset quietly, searching the crowd in front of him while I stood behind him. “Has anybody even seen Seth lately?”
“Last we knew he and his shadow were heading for the back of the house,” Billy answered on the other end of the phone. My hearing was getting as good as my eyesight. “They disappeared around the north side of the house right after that.”
“Well, find him!” Gordon said, hushed but excitedly. “Keep him busy while I deal with this. Lunch is in forty minutes. Talk him into going home to change. Anything, just keep him away from that gate.”
So Jimmy and I jumped through a portal to the South Gate. The ward there flared much harder this time when the guards saw Jimmy and me. A long, black limousine sat blocking the closed gate. Two men with what looked like high-powered weaponry cradled in their arms stood on this side facing the car. Another stood ready to swing the gate open if the man on this side allowed it. That man was standing stone silent while a man in US Army military dress uniform yelled and berated him, trying to bully his way in. The gatekeeper was stalwart.
Jimmy and I climbed the fence, sitting at the top for a moment to watch the lieutenant colonel’s rant. There were four other occupants in the limo, waiting impatiently but ignoring the current happenings. No doubt waiting for Gordon’s car to arrive before they showed themselves for the next level of fighting. Jimmy jumped off the gate and onto the hood of the car, walking up the windshield to the roof. I figured it was time for me to distract the driver.
“Did I just hear you say that Daybreak himself gave you your invitations, lieutenant?” I asked the colonel, knowing I’d lowered his rank a few levels.
“Colonel,” he sneered at me. “And yes, Lord Daybreak himself invited us.”
“No,” I said, shaking my head. Jimmy knelt down on hands and knees and stuck his head down through the sunroof.
The Lt. Colonel finally heard the buckling noise and followed my gaze to the car just as Jimmy exclaimed, “Agent Messner! We’ve been trying to reach you, but I don’t think your companions will be welcome.”
“Hey! Get off that car!” the colonel yelled at Jimmy and at nearly the same time someone inside the car yelled, “Who the fuck are you?” It wasn’t Messner. Jimmy slid off the far side of
the limo and tried the door. Messner popped up through the sunroof rather comically.
“Mr. Morgan,” he acknowledged Jimmy courteously then looked around to find me. “Lord Daybreak, greetings.” The lieutenant colonel whirled around to face me, shock and fear on his face.
“Yeah, you lied to me,” I told him. He screamed while the word “LIAR” seared into his forehead. Ignoring him, I walked around the car to Jimmy. Both rear doors swung open and everyone exited quickly. The uniformed men on our side ducked low and ran behind the car, running for the now-mewling man on the ground. Messner was the last man out.
“Agent Messner,” I said in greeting. “I didn’t realize you were coming today.”
“I hadn’t expected to, either,” he admitted, looking over the car as the officers helped their junior to his feet. “He’s going to be okay, right?”
“Yeah,” I said without looking. “He’s just being a wuss about the pain. None of them will forget that lying to me is a bad idea, though.” I gave him a moment to see for himself that Lt. Col. Petrikov was perfectly normal, except for the still-glowing LIAR on his forehead. He was having difficulty accepting what happened to him. “So what are you doing here? Or should I be asking what do they want?”
“You should ask them what they want,” he said tiredly. “For the last two days I have done nothing but answer questions and travel between places where other people asked the same questions. I’m not exactly sure where I am right now.”
Gordon’s utility vehicle glided to a stop behind the two men with guns. He jumped from the passenger side while it jiggled on its shocks, glaring at the tight circle of uniforms on the other side of his gate. The gatekeeper unlatched his lock and pulled the gate to him a few feet as Gordon stalked forward. The ground swelled with latent energy, full with his signature. “You shouldn’t be here,” he growled, pretty much at everybody, seeing as we each had our own reason for not belonging.
Jimmy turned and gave me a look that said he agreed with Gordon, at least on principle. I ducked my head a little and headed for the gate. Jimmy fell in behind me. We walked silently behind Gordon back through the gate and up the road past the gun-bearers. We leaned against the utility truck and waited.
“Two down, five to go,” Gordon growled. “You do not have an invitation to this event. You need to leave. Now.”
They weren’t giving up quite so easily. The Liar was rather unceremoniously shoved to the back, safe from the mean boy now, I supposed. The uniform with the most stenciling on his cap moved to the front, then they moved as a group to Gordon.
“Wrong direction,” Gordon growled again. This time the ground growled with him, startling them tremendously. They stayed their ground, though. The lead man smiled with a false bravado.
“Coulda used a man like you a few years ago,” he said in a low, gravelly voice. “I’m General Harmond, United States Army. We need to speak with Seth McClure and his family, please.”
“No,” Gordon said emphatically. “Mr. McClure will contact Agent Messner tomorrow, as agreed. Until then, the McClures are unavailable. Regardless, neither they nor I are at your beck and call. You know that there is a private event going on here and you have attempted to bypass my security, violating my hospitality.”
He took a step forward, gathering his personal power from the ground into a nimbus around him. I wondered what the officers saw when they looked at Gordon. I saw the browns and greens of the soils and grays and blacks and reds of the deep earth. He was in his stronghold, too. With his power not lent to the Castle’s defenses, Gordon Cahill was a formidable man. He’d changed a bit from that shy kid hiding behind his father barely a month ago.
“I have to try, sir. There is a great deal at stake,” the general continued, daring Gordon’s wrath.
Now they stood almost nose-to-nose with Gordon almost steaming from the nostrils. His aura was deepening in the red shades as he held his urges to action in check.
“You’ve had your chances already,” Gordon said exasperated. “Leave. Or be carried away.” He pulsed a heat wave down his body into the ground around him. Any other time and that would have been a comfortable feeling, like stepping out of the air-conditioned comfort of your car into the rising heat of asphalt on a hot July afternoon. Or that baking heat a car gets from sitting in a parking lot for hours that feels so good for two seconds then gets unbearably hot. It was like that without the comfortable part–unbelievably hot. It only lasted a few feet around Gordon, but that’s as far as he intended.
The small circle of colonels and generals faltered in their resolution. “Yes, sir, we have,” Harmond agreed, taking a half-step back while his companions edged even closer to their car. “And at every misstep we have learned more and found that our so-called experts are woefully lacking in the knowledge necessary to properly act in your… sphere of influence.”
Gordon pulsed again, taking a step forward. Then pulsed again. They hurried to the limousine, prodded by the onrushing heat and Gordon’s proximity. Messner stood on the far side watching over the top of the car, both tired and bemused at the sight. Hammond admitted defeat with one parting shot.
“Please have the McClures call at their earliest convenience,” he said taking small steps backward toward the limo. “Lives—and more—hang in the balance.”
The first man to the car, the second general, just had to be pissy. Following the Liar into the limo, he glared at Messner over the top of the limo and grumbled loudly, “Fat lot of good you were.”
“He was,” I said quietly, squatting suddenly on the roof of the limo above him. “He was quite instrumental in saving all of the others from the same fate you are about to experience.” Casting the multiple spells necessary to do what I wanted and opening a portal around the man, his uniform fell to the ground around his shoes, still warm from his body heat. I was leaning on the utility truck when Harmond gasped about the pile of clothing.
Gordon barked out a laugh, releasing some of his pent up anger into the ground. “Where did you send him, Seth?” he asked, his voice loud and grating, like two tectonic plates grinding together and still chafing with power.
After hesitating petulantly, “JFK,” I answered grudgingly. I wasn’t going to mention the Tower of Babel spell, though. It would fade after a few hours and the man would remember everything from his side, but he would not be able to make anyone understand him for hours. He’d be a gesticulating, grunting madman wearing only dog-tags in the middle of a crowded international airport. Oh, and the tattoos, let’s not forget about the glow in the dark tattoos I gave him: “I have a little one” on his chest and “But I like ‘em big” on his back.
“I suggest you hurry to a working telephone, General Harmond,” Gordon growled again, chuckling this time as he turned to the gate. “You have a naked general running around in New York and my experience tells me that isn’t his only concern.”
Harmond gave Gordon then me a worried look and ducked into the limo, slamming the door behind him. The unmarked colonel bent down and picked up the missing general’s clothing. He jumped into the driver’s seat, both starting the car and shoving the clothes onto the bench seat beside him hurriedly. He had the too-long car moving before he shut the door.
When the limousine disappeared behind the trees on the road back to Dublin, Gordon finally turned back. Releasing the energy he held in much the same way he built it, he walked back to his truck glaring at me.
“I suppose it could have gone in worse ways,” he grumbled. “How did you find out?”
“I was five feet behind you when you told Billy to keep me distracted,” I told him as he climbed into his truck. “I had to see what I wasn’t supposed to see.”
“Well,” Gordon grew serious as he watched his men shut and bind the gate. “It’s nearly lunchtime and we’re closing down all but the western gate. Get back to the house and get yourselves ready. But keep in mind, Lord Daybreak, that you obligated me. You interfere again and that obligation ends.”
Oops. Gordon was mad at me. “Yes, sir,” I said. As Gordon’s truck turned around on the road, I dropped portals around Jimmy and me and moved us back to the house. Time to go politicking again.
Chapter 31
According to the official itinerary, lunch service started at twelve thirty and ended at four. I assumed that this was like the mess hall in my barracks, start at twelve thirty and by four have everyone fed and be cleaning up. When Jimmy and I appeared in the foyer of the castle and found only Peter, Kieran, and Ethan, I figured I was mistaken. They were dressed in their elven silks of House McClure.
“There you are,” Peter exclaimed. “Would you come on and change? You’re going to make us late!”
“What? Why? It’s just now noon and Gordon’s closing up the castle grounds,” I said defensively.
“He’s not expected to be there for another hour,” Peter said. “You are expected from the beginning, looking and…” He sniffed at me loudly, “not smelling like a mongrel on the streets of Calcutta. Now let’s go. You and Jimmy can shower while I pick out what you’ll wear.”
Kieran and Ethan walked past me on the way out the front doors, both grinning but not looking at us. “I think Peter’s got this one,” Kieran stage-whispered as they walked by.
“Yeah,” Ethan responded normally, chuckling as they went. “I think Gordon tenderized him first, though.”
I turned to follow them out, looking shocked that Ethan had watched. “You watched?” I cried in fake horror. “You perv!” I made a slight pushing motion with my hand, applying even pressure on him, and he sailed out the door on a parabolic path, shocked at first then laughing the rest of the flight. He landed in what would have been the middle of the moat had the Castle been raised by Marty, or even Gordon at this point, I suspect.
“Call us if you need help with him,” Kieran said to Peter as he disappeared down the steps.
Sons (Book 2) Page 56
