I thought about it, then I thought about Cindy. “Yeah, in the end, it is. You have friends, you have a family, and if you’re lucky, you find somebody to love. You can’t have any of that if you let the darkness win.”
“Good, then I need you to give me a pep talk like I gave you because I feel like a glass vase that’s been shattered into little bitty pieces.”
“Well, you are a little bitty—”
“Boss!”
I spied something half sticking out of a bag and pulled it out. A honey bear. I grinned as Rose went still. She flew to my shoulder so I could use both hands to break the seal on the new bottle of honey and I found a stack of paper plates. I was making quite the pile of garbage, but the water for the rice was boiling, and soon it’d be time to add the cream of mushroom soup to another pot with the canned chicken.
I poured what I figured a thimbleful was on the plate and put it on the table, bagging up the trash I hadn’t already. Rose looked at me, then flew down and landed on the clean side of the plate. She looked at the honey then looked up at me.
“You know, Rose,” I told her, “sometimes you have to grab life and pix its balls to its butt cheeks.”
“Yeah!” she said, a smile tugging at the side of her lips.
“Sometimes when things turn to shit, you have to flip the table and burn the house down.”
“I like this,” she said, dipping a finger into the honey then putting it into her mouth, her whole body shivering.
“And there’s a reason you never see a movie where the bad guy wins—”
“Well, except No Country for Old Men.”
“That was just a weird story,” I told her.
“True, but okay? Why don’t you see a movie where the bad guy wins?”
“Um… I don’t know,” I told her.
She slumped and stuck another finger into the honey, licking it clean. “You suck at this cheering me up stuff.”
“How about the bad guys never win because we’re going to fry their ass, pix their balls to their butt cheeks and tie their knickers into knots and then burn their house down?” Kiersten’s voice came from under the covers.
The snoring had stopped, but I hadn’t been paying attention. I looked over and saw her starting to sit up, rubbing her face.
“I like that, that works, that works really good!” Rose said, scooping a handful.
“We can’t go back right now, Wright,” Kiersten said standing up. “Rasmussen has turned the council against us. Vivian will be here soon, I know she got out safely, she’s just waiting for the right time to get through the gate ward.”
“Good,” I told her, “So uh… thank you. How did you…?”
“Told you, I used a construct as soon as we came through the gate. What you saw was real enough, but it was a conjured body, an elaborate fake.”
“Won’t the council have realized that?” I asked her.
“With an autopsy, sure, but that’s for mundanes and you see how often a lead bullet takes down something with magic. They forget that magic isn’t the end all be all.”
“But Rasmussen knew,” I told her, “he read you as you walked through the gate.”
“Yes,” she said, stopping in front of both of us. “The position of the Merlin and who got it last, remained secret. Only the true Merlin could pass into their chambers, that, and his assistant. I was given the position by your father by succession order. Rasmussen had assumed it was going to have been his, but he didn’t know your father was already suspicious of him and Vassago. He assumed, and I let him, that I was the assistant to the new Merlin. I wasn’t sure if I could trust him, and after your parents’ death, all I had was suspicions. It was a shock to hear how badly we were infiltrated, that our chief healer wasn’t who we thought she was.”
“Yeah, she had me fooled,” I told her.
“We’re in bad shape here. I never thought the tables would be turned and we’d be on the run.”
“What do we do?” I asked her, starting to mix ingredients in the second pot now and turned the flame down on the rice.
“Avoid the good guys till we can root out who’s working for which team, get rid of the bad guys, save the day?”
“And my pack? Cindy?” I asked her.
“Rose has been in touch with Cindy. I told her in two weeks, come hell or high water, I’d have you call her, but not before. The pack, they may be helpful in what we have going on. Besides, we can’t stay here forever, we don’t have the supplies.”
“I’ve got a place or two we could go,” I said grinning.
“Better than this?” she asked skeptically.
“Oh yeah,” Rose told her, "bossman’s secret Batcave has computers and the whole nine yards. He even has a cave where he can secretly—”
“Rose?” I interrupted, something she said sticking in my head, now suddenly seemingly begging for attention.
“Yeah, boss?” she asked.
“Who’s this mage you’re dedicated to serving, who’s to take over the council someday?”
“Oh shizzna!” she said, both hands covering her mouth.
My mouth dropped open.
“Hakuna-ing mattattas,” Kiersten agreed. “God, I love that movie.”
--The End--
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About the Author
Boyd Craven III was born and raised in Michigan, an avid outdoorsman who’s always loved to read and write from a young age. When he isn’t working outside on the farm, or chasing a household of kids, he’s sitting in his Lazy Boy, typing away.
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[email protected]
Second Sight: The Rune Sight Chronicles Page 24
