Sons (Book 2)

by Scott V. Duff

  “That sounds awful,” Donny said slowly, peering sadly at Ethan. Possibly the saddest frown I could image on a man’s face looked back across the table at us.

  Aren’t you overacting? I sent across the anchor, heavy on the disbelief and irony.

  “It gets a little easier with time, believe me, and it’s best to be around people who want you and will love you as my brothers do me,” Ethan said and smiled as sweetly at Ana as she did at him. Cpt. Pierce and the children ate it up so maybe it wasn’t as bad as I thought.

  “You never met your first father, right, Donny?” I asked him, using the same phrase. He shook his head, suddenly shy. “Even though they taught you to say ‘first father’, let’s use his name. Let’s call him ‘Mitch’ so that we won’t interfere with the memory of your Daddy, okay?” That cheered them up considerably, knowing that they wouldn’t have to forget him. “Mitch is a good guy. He’s just made some mistakes in his life, like a lot of people do. But he will try very hard and he will have a lot of help from a lot of people, including me. But you have to know a secret before you meet him. Can you keep a secret?” Wide-eyed and excited, he nodded again, kicking his feet in the chair. Cpt. Pierce stiffened in her chair, unsure of my direction and definitely uncomfortable with whatever it was.

  “Do you believe in fairies?” I asked conspiratorially. Ana giggled and clapped her hands together quickly. I laughed at the delightful change and look of wonder in her eyes.

  “That’s a cartoon, silly!” Donny said, giggling too, and falling back in the chair.

  “That was, but would you like to see some real ones?” I asked him.

  “There’s no such thing. Dad said so,” Donny said almost fearfully.

  “Your Dad was a very smart man, there’s no doubt,” I responded confidently. “But even very smart men are wrong sometimes. And most of the time, it’s not bad to be wrong. This is one of those times. Fairies are real, but they don’t come here very often. Even the name ‘fairy’ is confusing. There are really a few different kinds of fairies. And if you change the spelling a little and the whole word becomes several different races and an entire land that looks totally different in places from this one.”

  “Really?” Donny asked, canting his head in firm disbelief.

  Putting on a wide-eyed and innocent look, hopefully equal to his from earlier, I exaggeratedly said, “Really! I should know. I’m a king of faery!”

  “You are not!” Donny giggled, kicking his short legs.

  “Am, too!” I answered petulantly and pouting at him. Cpt. Pierce was enjoying my interactions with them. Most everyone was, with Daybreak loose in the room. “I can prove it! I’ll call two fairies, like in the cartoons, over from my kingdom. They will greet me, then each of my brothers and then they will come talk to you. Does that sound like fun?”

  “Yes, please!” squealed Ana, clapping again. Donny crossed his arms stubbornly.

  I looked into Gilán for Deason and Deacon, two part-time wardens who flew in random patrols around the many clans spread out across the valley. They were currently flying over a small field of pink, bell-shaped flowers, rimmed in purple and red.

  “Deason, Deacon, are you busy?” I called both aloud and through the geas.

  No, Lord Daybreak, they responded together.

  “Would you mind picking a few of those flowers there and letting me introduce you to a pair of children? They need to meet the faery for the first time and I’d like you to be the first,” I explained to them. They both dove for the flowers before I finished speaking.

  Ready, Lord! They squealed, bobbing up above the field again, barely able to hold the armloads of blooms.

  “They picked too many flowers, so I’ll make them appear over the table. That way the flowers won’t be crushed when they drop them, all right?” I said, reaching out with my free hand and gesturing at the space above the table. “Now fairies are a magical creature who live in a magical land, right? And if I’m their king, I must be magical, too.” I created a box in that space and filled it with blue Gilán energy, visible to everyone in the room. Shifting the Deas into the box, then dismissing the box completely, we now had two very enthusiastic fairies overloaded with flowers flying above the table.

  True to my predictions, they dropped all but a few flowers almost immediately, looking totally embarrassed, then bobbed once in the air and squealed, “Greetings, Lord Daybreak! A great pleasure to see you again!” Then they proceeded along to my brothers and back to me to wait for introductions to the children.

  “Donny, Ana, this is Deason and Deacon, two fairies from my kingdom,” I said, gesturing to each in turn. “Boys, this is Donny and Ana Grimes. They’ll be visiting with us for a short while until we can get them situated with a relative among the Guard.”

  The Deas enchanted the Grimes children in truly the faintest of faery ways. “Why don’t you four talk for a few minutes and give me a chance to chat with Cpt. Pierce and General Harmond. Okay? We’ll be right over there.”

  Pierce pulled herself away to come with me. “Their house is closed up, correct?” I asked Harmond as soon as I sat down again.

  “Yes, sir, though it was searched thoroughly after Mericine Grimes’ body was found,” Harmond said.

  “So it’s trashed,” I said, grimacing horribly. “Great. I’ll send someone anyway. Maybe there’s something to be salvaged. Cpt. Pierce, will you be able to stay with them for a couple of weeks? At least until they can get situated? They will need some commonality while we get them into counseling and deal with child services and probate courts. And frankly, Mitchel Dawes will need all the help he can get. Hell, he’ll need family counseling as well. He’s never had to deal with children on a daily basis.”

  “Yes, sir, my caseload has been cleared for you, Mr. McClure,” she said with a pleasant smile.

  “Here ya go, Seth,” Peter said, sliding a piece of paper across the table as he snapped his cell phone shut. “A reservation at the same hotel in New York City as we had last week. That’s the confirmation number. Three room suite. I figured the kids would probably want to sleep together for awhile, for comfort’s sake.”

  Ethan’s phone snapped shut. “I’ve got them an appointment with our attorneys tomorrow at ten to setup the trust funds for them and to find an attorney in that state to handle the probate issues. I wasn’t sure of which state, so Dawes will have to handle all of that.”

  “And I’ve gotten preliminary appointments with two psychologists on Tuesday afternoon and Wednesday morning,” Kieran said, sliding his phone into his breast pocket. “Tuesday is a family counselor who, according to David, has an excellent reputation among mixed families.”

  The officers stared at my brothers, two in open-mouthed fascination. They were paying attention to me and hadn’t heard my brothers speaking. That, and they hadn’t expected their cell phones to work around the wards surrounding us.

  “A good start then, thanks, guys,” I said, taking the two slips of paper off the table and standing again. “Let’s get them introduced so we can move along to the reason we’re here.

  “Are y’all ready to meet Mitch?” I called out gently as I moved back around to Donny and Ana. The Deas had been busy with them. They still fluttered around them, artfully placing flowers in their hair and clothing. On Ana, it made her features more delicate and innocent and on Donny, he seemed more boyish and young. It was charming. Like I’ve said all along, too cute.

  “We’d rather stay with you,” Donny said, hopefully.

  “I know, but I’m a very busy man and I just don’t have time to take proper care of you,” I said sadly. “But I’ll come to visit as often as I can and initially you’ll be staying in my house. Would you like to see it? My house?”

  “Yes, please,” answered Ana quickly with Donny fast behind her, leaning forward in his seat.

  Holding up my hand, I showed them my ring and the embossed design underneath the diamond. “Can you see the picture under the diamond? That’s where I live,
in that big house. Mitch lives there, too, along with my brothers and a lot of other people.”

  “Is there any fairies there?” Ana asked.

  “Well, there are faery there, but not any fairies like Deason and Deacon right now,” I said, trying to stress the words in the right way. “They live out in the area around the Palace. The faery in the Palace right now are mostly brownies and sprites.”

  “Are those different?” Donny asked.

  “Yes,” I said slowly, “there are a lot of different kinds of faery, remember? A lot more than I have in my realm, actually. Mine are the nice kind, but you still have to be careful around some of them. They’re stronger than they look and sometimes they don’t realize just how strong they are, but that’s why I keep those away from the Palace. I have a lot of humans there that don’t know and understand about the faery yet, just like you. Mitch will help you and I have a lot a people watching to make sure nothing bad happens. Now, are you ready to see another magic trick?”

  They both nodded eagerly, speechless and shy again.

  “Mitch is a member of my Guard. Sort of like your Daddy was in the Marine Corps,” I explained. “I’m going to make him appear there and his commander appear right beside him, there, but that blue box I showed you earlier isn’t necessary, so I won’t do that this time. That was just to show you where the Deas brothers would show up. Okay?”

  “Okay,” Donny said, humoring me, I think.

  “Cmd. Byrnes, Sgt. Dawes, front and center, please,” I called through the geas, not asking as I had with the fairies.

  “Reporting as ordered, Lord Daybreak,” barked Dawes, standing at attention in front of me.

  “Good morning, Lord Daybreak,” Byrnes said, nodding in greeting, much more relaxed.

  “At ease, Sergeant,” I said gently and stepped out of his line of sight to the kids.

  “Donny!” he exclaimed, nearly leaping at the boy to hug him tightly to his chest.

  “Don’t crush the poor kid, Mitch,” Byrnes said, chuckling at him as I told him their story through the geas. I let the children, both of them, feel the emotions roiling through Dawes’ mind, heavily tempered, of course. He would have overwhelmed them terribly.

  “Ana?” he whispered, pulling back from Donny, suddenly sensing her beside him. “Ana!” he said excitedly, swinging around and grabbing her into their hug, too. Then it occurred to him that something happened. With a quick and easy toss, he threw Donny up and caught him under his butt. Then he turned to me, holding both kids cradled in an arm. “Lt. Grimes?”

  “RPG in Iraq,” I said quietly, filling in the rest of the story through the geas, editing the unimportant parts out.

  “No!” he said, aghast, squeezing the children again. “I’m so sorry.” I let them feel a little of his grief for them, too, but much more tempered than his love and joy at seeing them. They needed to know he could empathize with them in some way. “Lord Daybreak, may I please stay with them? Act as their father? I could adopt Ana. They don’t have anyone else. Barry Grimes didn’t have any other family and they’ll end up in foster care otherwise…”

  “That’s why you’re here, Mitch, to make all those arrangements,” I said, nodding. The children were both in a bit of shock over the big man accosting them with affection, pleading to become their father. The fairies buzzed around them slowly and carefully, watching as Ana reached up and touched Dawes’ face lightly where the tears streamed down across his half-day’s growth.

  Pulling a few stacks of cash from my desk in Gilán, I handed them to Cpt. Pierce since Dawes’ hands were full, then pulled a credit card out of my wallet and handed that to her as well. “Mitch, do you know how to move through the veil, yet?”

  “Yes, sir, I was taught this morning,” he said.

  “Then you will have handling transportation,” I said, handing the two slips of paper to Pierce as well. “This is Marine Cpt. Margaret Pierce. She’ll be with the three of you for a few weeks while you get settled in. They know nothing of Gilán except the Deas. So you will have to introduce them to it slowly. Commander Byrnes will go with you to gather their belongings here then you will go to a hotel in New York where he will assign a set of Guards for the hotel room and another set to accompany you where ever you go in New York. I want your attention on the children and Cpt. Pierce, not on your surroundings.

  “Your only task today is to get to know each other a little better,” I continued. “Spend time with each other. Take them shopping and get them some clothes they like and some toys and games. I’ll stop by later this evening and explain the rest of what I want you to do, okay?”

  “Yes, Lord. I can’t thank you enough,” Dawes said through bleary eyes.

  “One last thing before you leave, Donny and Ana,” I said to the kids still in Dawes’ arms. “Stay close to Mitch and Maggie while you’re in New York. If you hear them or the Guards call out ‘Bug Out’ loudly, you must find Mitch immediately. You, too, Cpt. Pierce. Find Mitch immediately and hold onto to him. He will take you to safety. Let the Guards deal with the difficulty. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, sir,” Donny said, wide-eyed.

  Pierce looked between Dawes and me confused.

  “Don’t worry, Pierce,” Byrnes said. “It’ll make sense shortly. Shall we get going and leave Lord Daybreak and General Harmond to their meeting now?”

  “Certainly, sir, right this way,” Pierce said, suddenly quite business-like and gesturing to the door. Byrnes led the way out with Cpt. Pierce directly behind him. Dawes followed with the children behind her.

  “Why did you call him ‘Lord Daybreak’?” Donny asked Dawes quietly as they started moving, watching his face carefully.

  “Because his name is ‘Daybreak’ and he is my Lord, sort of like a king,” Dawes said. “His realm is where I live.”

  “He said his name is ‘Seth’,” Donny said, challenging Mitch and squirming out of his arm.

  “Did he?” Dawes asked, acting very impressed as he stopped and gently put him on the floor, holding out his hand. “He must really like you. ‘Seth McClure’ is his given name. He earned the name ‘Daybreak’ and made his realm, Gilán. So I suppose you could say his full name is ‘Seth McClure, Daybreak, Lord of Gilán’. It’s hard to figure out what I’m supposed to call him sometimes. Mostly, over here, I stick with Mr. McClure. In Gilán, he’s Lord Daybreak. Only his friends get to call him ‘Seth,’ so if he said it, then you can call him ‘Seth’ and nobody will object or they will answer to him.” Dawes nodded once sharply, looking fiercely at his son. Donny looked over at me, so I nodded once and looked fierce, too, then smiled. He grinned back at me and took Dawes’ hand. Dawes led him out through the door Byrnes held open.

  “Thank you for allowing me to deal with that first, gentlemen,” I said as I sat down and poured a glass of water from a pitcher on the table. “I don’t think I could have been that sweet after talking of spies and treachery.”

  “How did you know so much about them?” one of the aides asked, Second Lieutenant R. Hanson, according to his nameplate.

  Deacon buzzed his ear as Deason clattered to a halt in front of him. “If they ask questions with such obvious answers, you will be here all day, Lord,” Deason squealed, giggling uproariously. He shot up to the ceiling, curling suddenly toward Jimmy, who was calling them both to heel.

  “Why is that obvious?” Hanson asked, unperturbed and not terribly smart.

  “Because of who he is,” Barnett said quietly, rubbing the bridge of his nose in frustration. Hanson nodded and shut up, accepting that explanation as gospel, and probably the only one he was going to get.

  “So, did Morelli lead you to anything useful?” I asked.

  “Yes, he did,” Harmond said grimly, taking out a sheaf of clipped papers with hastily scribbled notes along the sides. “After you left us at the airport, we contacted a little-known cross-departmental agency that works primarily with the FBI and NSA to covertly search, review, and record everything that Morelli had i
n his office and home, including private and work computers. Every disk, photo, memory stick, scrap of paper, everything carefully and quickly catalogued. I don’t know how they do it.”

  “Probably illegally,” Peter muttered, grinning.

  Smiling slightly in response, Harmond continued, “When you gave us Pennington’s files back, we extracted the information we needed and gave the rest to analysts for study. A simple comparison of the two brought out six references in three particularly deeply nested files. These references led to other files within Pentagon and other military departmental records that seemed completely useless until someone in this agency I mentioned noticed something about these files and…” Harmond made a “hands-off” gesture and a confused face. “And ‘ran the stump on it,’ whatever that means.”

  Peter snickered, but quickly fell into a full-blown laugh, dropping his head down onto his arms on the table. Ethan and Kieran turned to watch, smiling. Harmond’s aides didn’t take it so kindly.

  “My guess would be that they ran whatever remnants of the decoding programs Peter left on Pennington’s file structures,” I said, rather enjoying Peter’s laughter. After the last forty-five minutes, I needed some honest joy of something.

  “That would make sense,” Harmond agreed, flipping a page. “That led us to a list of some nine hundred names and code words. Of those we were able to eliminate close to six hundred as either permanently removed or deceased, leaving us with three hundred, twenty-nine.” He paused, turning another page and took a deep breath. “Of those, a hundred and twenty exactly were reported AWOL on Friday morning along several eastern posts and bases. The remaining are split between naval vessels at sea, overseas deployments, and those currently under arrest, excluding four.”

  Harmond looked up at us. He pointed at the table, eyes gleaming and the corners of his mouth curling slightly. “Those four,” he said conspiratorially, “are currently in this building undergoing random drug testing and security reviews.”