Sons (Book 2)

by Scott V. Duff

  “Mr. Davis,” Edmington said respectfully, answering to Davis’ authority as if sensing his status. “The neighbors are violently disputing the survey team’s presence. This started a few moments ago and I have yet to determine the exact reason for all the shouting.”

  “I see,” Davis said, stepping down to the grass and drinking in the Earth’s power. He radiated strength and confidence back through his aura and it had an effect on them, in their auras. “I think we can avoid violence here and settle this like gentlemen. Let’s start with who is the offended party?”

  “I am,” a man in dirty coveralls and red plaid flannel shirt in front tried to growl at Davis. He was just too average to growl adequately at anyone. Mid-fifties, pot-bellied and only a wisp of hair on top, even with ten men in backup, if the survey team took off the vests, they’d be more intimidating. “I’m Gerald Harbin. I got the farm next door and these clods was on my land. Y’got no right t’be trespassing!”

  “Yes, and I see that your current crop has yet to be harvested,” Davis said, making me snicker quietly. Ryan had seen the same cash crop I did. “Mr. Harbin, you have no legal standing here. The survey team is defining the legal property line. At this point you have two options. You can either cooperate or you can continue to object. If you choose the former, your crop will simply disappear along with your amateur chemist shop. If you choose the latter, then law enforcement officers will be called and you will still lose your cash crop and chemist shop and you will learn what the inside of a prison looks like. The choice is yours, so make it quickly.”

  Harbin was in shock at Davis’ knowledge of his lab, but I don’t think the man could tell the difference between a pipette and a test tube. His men weren’t as agreeable and started speaking in low voices to Harbin about the money they’d lose, now and in the future. They got noisier and noisier, challenging Davis’ options to Harbin in favor of more violent choices. They really weren’t all that bright. Two men from the back surged forward and caused the rest to move past Harbin toward Davis. I felt waves of earth and fire magic shoot away from me. As the waves hit the charging men, their feet became glued to the ground and their throats constricted, choking off their yelling. The waves passed them and they fell over themselves from their own inertia. Jimmy nearly fell off the railing in a fit of laughter, watching them fall into a pile between Davis and Harbin.

  “Prison it is, then,” Davis said, shaking his head. “Mr. Edmington, would you mind calling a constable? I’m afraid I left my phone at the hotel.”

  “Certainly, Mr. Davis,” Edmington said. It was so absurdly genteel I almost hated to interrupt them.

  “Before you leave, sir, I’d like a word with my solicitor in private,” I said, not particularly loudly but with enough intent behind it to seize everyone in a hundred feet. Instant fascination is a basic Fairy trick and easily defended by most talents. “Ryan, we have to make a small change. We travel under diplomatic passports and I have known associations with the Pentagon. Perhaps the Foreign Office should be notified first, otherwise this might be quite an embarrassment for little reason. I’ll probably do whatever they want anyway.”

  “You lead a complicated life, especially for such a young man,” Davis said, grinning. “I’m afraid I need more practice with solo magic. I’m used to having a community to draw on.”

  “Not a problem,” I answered. “I’ll provide eight men to cover the surveyors so that they’ll feel safe enough to continue while we wait for the Foreign Office to decide what route to take.” I felt the gentle scratch of eight shifts across the veil as a security detail of my Guard appeared on the grass near the steps to the porch. Jimmy was being pro-active. “Perhaps Mr. Edmington knows of a delivery service we can call? I’m hungry already.”

  “Hey, Seth! Look!” Jimmy called out. “They learned a new trick!” He was standing with the Guardsmen, a second lieutenant in command. They were in full uniform and carrying elongated batons. “Show ‘im, boys!” Jimmy said, grinning. With a slight effort of will, the Guard’s auras shimmered in contact with their uniforms and their outer aspect changed, snapping instantly to a black, unmarked assault team uniform reminiscent of that Bishop and his men wore. Even their batons changed to look like shotguns. It was more menacing than the friendly Gilán blue, I thought.

  “That’s marvelous!” I gushed, probably too much. “Just remember to hide the guns when the cops show up. The Brits are testy about firearms. Really tight, though, guys.” Reaching into the geas, I touched Byrnes’ mind. Ted, I’m going to need a couple of dozen more men to control the property while we contact the authorities. How pervasive is this camouflage ability?

  Yes, sir, Byrnes answered immediately. I have a platoon forming now. And about a third of us can manage the camouflage now. Brick says it’s simple enough that everyone will have it down by tomorrow.

  Tell Brick to watch his more able students carefully, I told him. There may be more to this than he suspects.

  “Yes, sir, I’ll do that,” Byrnes said, standing beside me suddenly, startling Davis.

  “Do any of you people walk anywhere?” Davis gasped quietly.

  “You can’t get here from there by walking, Ryan,” Jimmy said, chuckling as he walked up. Familiar scratchings touched my consciousness and the platoon appeared behind our raucous neighbors. I dropped the fascination as my men flowed around and surrounded them, not much caring how confusing it was to them.

  “Mr. Edmington, gentlemen,” I said, turning about and including the survey team. “The neighbors weren’t so much upset about trespassers but that you’d find their nice little field of marijuana plants in the back corner of the property that they’ve been using for some time. Since that would likely bring the police, then their little meth lab would be discovered, too, and they’d lose a considerable chunk of change as well as risk jail time. Some of my men will go with the survey team so that they can continue their work while others will surround the field and the lab without going into either so we do not contaminate the crime scenes.”

  The survey team was instantly nervous and scared that drugs meant drug lords and that meant gunfights. They watched too much TV. Jimmy jumped in and started smoothing pitched emotions and within moments, they were jogging off with the security team toward the break in the fence to start again. Ryan had Edmington sitting at a table explaining about the Foreign Office situation and calling them first. And Byrnes was with the platoon, sending his men to the outskirts of the property to patrol. He left only five men to watch over the ten neighbors, properly cowed by fake assault shotguns. That left me doing nothing, so I guess I was calling the Foreign Office.

  Figuring any number I got from a directory would start me at the bottom of a mountain of red tape and take forever, I decided to try for a shortcut.

  “Good morning, Cpt. Thorn, Seth McClure,” I said after dialing my Pentagon contact number.

  “Good morning, Mr. McClure, I didn’t expect to hear from you until tomorrow,” Thorn said anxiously. “What can I do for you today?”

  “Just a minor diplomatic issue in England,” I said and told him a brief recounting of the problem. “So I want to get in touch with the Foreign Office before we get a headline like ‘Foreign diplomat buys into meth lab’ or something like it. You know, reasonable deniability and all.”

  “Can’t you do anything normal?” Thorn asked, chuckling nervously.

  “I’m just trying to buy a house, captain,” I said, laughing with him. “If it weren’t for the newsstand in bookstores, I wouldn’t know what a pot plant looks like.”

  “All right, let me make some calls and I’ll get back with you as soon as possible,” Thorn said and disconnected.

  And suddenly I was alone on the patio with nothing to do. There was a lot of activity on the property and I was responsible for most of it, but I wasn’t doing any of it. Thinking about Davis’ problem while I watched Jimmy set the Guardsmen around the pot field and chem lab, I dropped a battery into my hand, playing with it l
ike a stage magician doing a coin trick.

  From what I’d seen of the druid magic, it was an Earth-based talent that linked the elemental forms to symbolic natural attributes of plants, stones, rivers, and animals. It wasn’t elven, more like a blind man’s attempt to be elven, but it was certainly strong enough in the right adept’s hands. It’s a heavily ceremonial magic so it was more persistent than invocative. The trinities and nine point circles helped them build the power and remain generally peaceful. Getting eight friends to agree to fight somebody made for a fairly peaceful society, in theory. My knowledge of history was more east than the British Isles in that time period. The Hilliard brothers named me Archdruid because I sang an invocation in three voices into their carefully laid ceremonial spells with them basically singing backup. It’s a trick of magic that takes a bit of concentration and power all by itself. Add in the three voices for the spell itself, holding the entire sacrament in stasis, and supplying them their energy made my output of magic look phenomenal in their eyes.

  I suppose it could have been arrogance on my part that I chose to work in their mode rather than simply make adjustments myself. Showing off. My thoughts were to learn more about them through their magic and the way they worked it. Druidic magic flowed easily in my mind. I don’t know why. It was just like every other form of field manipulation. Except the one Kieran slowly taught us and what the Twice-Dead God dropped on me.

  That’s what idle time does–lets the mind wander.

  “First, how’s pizza sound?” I asked the open air of the patio.

  “Great! I’m starved. New York, okay?” Jimmy asked walking out the back doors onto the patio with Davis and Byrnes on his heels.

  “Oh, can I get in on that?” Byrnes asked.

  “I sent Mr. Edmington back to his office,” Davis said neutrally. “The building inspector came and First led him expertly through the house. Amazingly, he signed off on it. All we’re waiting for are the survey results and your signature.”

  “New York-style is great,” I said as my phone rang. “Ted, would you send a couple of guys to get enough for everyone, please?” Instant excitement ensued, confusing me. They ate a hell of a lot better than pizza on a regular basis, but the whole platoon started clamoring. I went to the far end of the patio to answer the phone. “Yes, captain?”

  “Mr. McClure,” Thorn said. “We’ve spoken with the British Foreign Office and arranged to have an assistant Deputy Minister sent to your address to handle the legal issues.”

  “An assistant Deputy Minister? Will this person have authority over the law enforcement?” I asked, amused. “The title seems a bit low on the totem pole.”

  Thorn chuckled and said, “We presume so. Since you aren’t actually attached to the Diplomatic Corps or the Pentagon in any official capacity, we downplayed your position to sort of an ‘in-training,’ nepotism-type thing. Didn’t even mention your name.”

  “What’s this person’s name?” I asked.

  “Jack Dunwoody,” Thorn said. “Minister Kingston said that he’d be there by two.”

  “We’re an hour out of London,” I said. “That gives him less than twenty minutes to travel well over three times that. How is that possible?”

  “No idea, but that’s what he said,” Thorn answered, his amusement evident.

  “Jensen Thorn, you’re getting off on this, ain’tcha?” I accused him, almost laughing. “It’s not my fault the neighbors are pot-heads!” He finally broke down laughing.

  “You have to admit it’s funny!” Thorn said. “Really! How likely is it to buy a house and find a marijuana field? I mean, who has this problem?”

  “I do,” I whined. “Give me Kingston’s office number in case this guy doesn’t show and we’ll see you in the morning.” Thorn reeled off three different office names with thirteen digit telephone numbers and disconnected. I didn’t see any reason to get upset with him. This was a bizarre situation. If it weren’t for the neighbors’ face-off with Edmington and the survey crew, I’d just make the whole thing disappear and wall the neighbors out. Their monetary loss was not my concern, nor would any other loss they suffered as a result of their illegal activities. Morally I wanted to be against the drugs, but so much of Daybreak and many of my decisions lately have been made around the principle of choice and self-determination that it was hard to say their actions are immoral. The user has the choice to use, after all. “Choice” is not so easy a word.

  Brushing the anchor gently, I found Ethan sitting on a hillside watching a German duo build a ward in the third sink. Ethan, we’re going on a pizza run. Y’all want any?

  Hell, yeah! He answered, standing and trotting off toward the second sink. Let me ask Kir’du’Ahn and Seth’Dur’an o’an what they want. So what have you been up to since you ran off in a snit?

  Laughing my way through the absurdity of the whole day, I told the story of the last ninety minutes or so. He was laughing at me by the rise to the next sink. You jumped from one sinkhole into another. Damn, he’d scared the crap out of them if they saw the work behind that. Ethan stopped at the crest of the hill and linked the anchor to his senses as he watched Pete in the sink hold a large casting of the curse bugs. It was a huge multimedia presentation, like he was running it on a computer. He held live examples of all five variants that we knew about in pale green energy cylinders, staged in the air at different heights. In the center over his head was a huge display that followed his focus as he lectured about the bugs. The presentation and information flow was so smooth that most of the audience didn’t think about how massive the energy structures Peter was managing were. It was like looking at a Vegas casino sign close-up.

  He’s very good at it, though, said Ethan to me, then whispered aloud, “Seth’Dur’an o’an.”

  “Yes, Ethan? What’s up?” Peter called from his podium, centering his attention on Ethan.

  “Seth’s going on a pizza run. Want anything?”

  Peter grinned. “Yeah, a large one. Surprise me with the toppings.”

  “Anchovies it is, then,” Ethan yelled over his shoulder as he took off for the last sink and Kieran. Did you hang around long enough to see Thomas yell at everybody?

  Nah. I mean, I was here for a bit, but not paying attention. Fixed the druids’ circles then came out here.

  He railed on for twenty minutes after you left, Ethan sent through the anchor. Dared ‘em to take on twenty elves much less the two hundred at Grammand. Then he informed them that they’d insulted a Lord of Faery and they damn well better read the Rules of Hospitality before you call another breach.

  I laughed, feeling the twitch of a smile on Ethan’s face. Like he wasn’t irritated enough at those twits. Half of them are Marchand’s idiot brother. He’s got the patience of a saint.

  He deals with us. He needs it, Ethan sent, laughing. “Kir du’Ahn,” he whispered, stopping at the top of the rise into the final sink. Kieran sat cross-legged in the grass watching members of Bishop’s security team show a large crowd different methods of defense against dark arts at close range. Ethan spoke softly this time, so he didn’t distract the two men tossing angry magic at each other in slow motion. “Kieran, Seth’s on a pizza run. You in?”

  “Hell, yes, I’m starved,” Kieran answered softly. “I’ll take a large veggie and a large meat-eaters. Are we going to him or is he coming to us?”

  “We’re going to him,” Ethan said smiling. “You wouldn’t believe what the dipshit’s got himself into.”

  Hey! I objected, nearly shouting into the anchor, not that I could get mad about it. A car pulled into the drive at the road. There’s someone here, presumably assistant Deputy Minister Dunwoody. I’ll call when the pizza’s here. Jimmy and Byrnes turned to the front of the house like they could see what was happening, which in a manner of speaking, they could. I started for the front door with Jimmy falling in beside me as I passed him.

  “I ordered six large for y’all. That be enough?” Jimmy asked as we tromped down the hall.

>   “Oh, yeah. At least one veggie,” I answered softly without thinking. I was paying more attention to the limo pulling up to the house now. It occurred to me there might be a point behind the question. “Am I that predictable or could you tell I was talking with someone?”

  “With the way you were studying and working over that stone?” he asked laughing lightly. “I know you well enough. You felt like crap for getting mad and you’re trying to make it up to them in some minor way. Or you were bored. Why would an assistant Deputy Minister need two assistants?”

  “Ryan, have you ever met an elf?” I asked, looking out the side window from a discreet distance while three men in suits climbed out of the black stretch limo. Well, one man and two elves presenting themselves as men. Three Guard met them at the walkway and asked the same questions the Guard at the road asked the driver. Byrnes was stalling them through a double security check.

  “Not personally, no, but I have been in a room with several under the protection of a veil,” Davis said starchly. “This takes a few minutes to perform alone.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” I said, reaching for the door. “They’ll have much bigger problems than a druid if anything happens. This should be interesting, though.” I walked out onto the porch, throwing the door open for everyone else. Jimmy and Byrnes rushed around me, taking points about two yards out. I saw the benefit of a long path. It offered the opportunity to cover events involving two large men moving at inhuman speeds as an optical trick. This was a short walk.

  “May I help you, gentlemen?” Jimmy asked politely, attracting the attention of the young, blonde man in the expensive Italian suit. Cheerful sort, he smiled wide with sun burnt cheeks and bright blue eyes. Slightly taller than average, Dunwoody was generally athletic with the beginnings of a paunch. Either the rich food of embassy life or perhaps a sympathetic pregnancy was getting to him.