"I was curious as to when you'd get to that Sir." Marcus said softly. Vince smiled a little.
"The Missing Persons Unit has shelved the case, pending any further leads that may arise. At the moment, policy dictates that if a person is missing for the space of more than sixteen months, they are declared legally dead and the case file is shelved to free up manpower for other, more immediate cases." Marcus felt the world shift beneath him. What? he thought, not sure what it was he'd just heard.
"You mean, they're giving up?" he asked, trying his best to keep his tone even. Vince scowled a bit.
"Do attempt to remain calm," Sir Lefein said quietly.
"I respectfully refuse Sir Lefein." That got a strange grimace on Cristoph's face. “The MPU isn’t exactly swamped with work. Last I checked, Jacob was the only missing person’s case on their docket.” Vince leaned forward.
"Marcus, I appreciate your concern, but at the moment, we have just six officers in the Missing Persons Unit, and forty new cases that need looking into after the streamlining of departments is completed.” Marcus knew that the Council had been working to consolidate the different departments in the Paladin Corps. With dozens of separate entities within the workings of the Paladins the work of helping Althea’s citizens had become cumbersome. But what Marcus had observed told him that the consolidation was taking too long.
“It seems like a waste to me,” Marcus said stiffly.
“It's been over a year already. You’ll just have to let him go Marcus," Cristoph returned without compassion in his tone. Marcus frowned deeply. He knew they were within their rights to do so, but he didn't believe Jacob to be dead. He knew he was alive.
"So, he's dead until proven otherwise? Without evidence?" Marcus asked sourly. Vince nodded.
"I'm sorry Marcus. I really am, but Jacob Raven is as of this moment, declared dead." The room seemed to get colder as he said it. "Since Jacob listed you as his only kin, we are giving you the keys to his quarters and his office, and allowing you to do with his possessions as you see fit. Miss Valtierra has the keys to both." Marcus refused to look at them, and tried to hide his clenched fists in his cloaks.
"Thank you, sir," he said, without conviction. Vince closed the folder and clasped his hands.
"That is all Marcus. And please accept the council's sincerest condolences." Marcus didn't acknowledge them. He simply turned and walked out.
"Just like that?" Rebekah asked, tossing another dress on her bed. Ian and Marcus watched her rifling through her clothing with just a bit of awe. Neither had known just how much clothing she had. Rebekah was out of their sight, but just the image of clothing flipping through the air as she dug through the walk-in closet for something appropriate for the Cotillion was amusing.
"Yep," Marcus said, rubbing a hand across his face. "He's dead as far as they’re concerned." Rebekah came out of the walk-in closet and gave Marcus's shoulders a quick rub. She could feel the tension there, and decided she needed to continue. Her dress hunt could wait.
"Sounds like the old council," she mumbled. Marcus shook his head.
"No. This council at least said they were sorry." Rebekah shrugged at that.
"Well, that's something." Marcus tried to grin, getting only a slight tweak of his mouth.
"What I don't understand," Ian began "is how anyone could kidnap your mentor. I mean, from some of the stories you've told, the guy sounds less like a knight and more like a superhero." Marcus wasn't too sure how that had worked out either. Normally, Jacob was on top of things like that. It wasn't that he didn't have the capacity for a blind spot. It was just that he was usually so careful that no one really ever got near enough to him for it to happen.
"Maybe we should do our own investigation," Rebekah suggested as she walked back inside the closet, tossing another dress on the pile. Marcus wasn't sure why, but Rebekah was having real trouble finding a dress for the Cotillion. Marcus marveled as the stack grew, nearly masking the fact that a bed rested in the room at all.
"You mean, try to figure out what happened to him, when the MPU has written him off? Just walk all over an MPU investigation?" Ian asked slowly. Marcus nodded.
“They aren’t busy with it anymore,” he said flippantly. “Besides, I think we can do a better job.”
“All right. How? Just walk in and ask nicely for the file folder?” Marcus had to think about it for a moment. It wasn't going to be easy. The MPU didn't like having their investigations questioned.
"Well, most everything in the MPU report is sealed. They aren’t going to just hand it over, so getting any intel from them is gonna be like pulling teeth from an alligator." Ian frowned a little.
"An alligator in a bad mood," Rebekah added from the closet.
"Who hasn't eaten in a month," Ian continued. Marcus put up a hand.
"Yes. Yes. That's exactly right. Sheesh guys." Marcus smiled a little. They were just trying to help him relax. But they were right. The current paladin committees, for all their great worth, tended to keep a few too many things under their hats. Not that he blamed them. Even Donavan played the espionage game from time to time. But each division of the paladins tended to treasure its autonomy, to the point of being exclusive to anyone else. Marcus had never liked it, and had instructed Ian against such things.
"What about the reports out of Meridian City?" Ian asked after a moment. "Donavan had ordered an all-out search before you guys came to save the two of us." Ian was of course referring to himself and Rebekah. Marcus gave his head a little tilt.
"I never got the full report. But Donavan's due here in a day or two as part of the shakedown cruise. I guess we could ask him if he knows anything." Marcus really didn't want to involve anyone else other than the four of them. He had enough trouble keeping Ian and Rebekah safe. "But the fewer people involved in all this, the better I'll feel." Another dress arced through the air and landed on the bed.
"How much formal wear do you own anyway?" Ian asked, watching a black sequin dress crumple as it landed. The pile was shifting slightly, some dresses sliding off the side and onto the floor. Rebekah poked her head out of the closet and gave Ian a cold stare.
"Look. You may not care what you look like. You can come to the Cotillion as Paper Bag Man for all I care. But the press is going to be there in full force. And since this'll be the first time that Marcus and I will be officially seen together by the public again, we both need to make a good impression." Rebekah disappeared again and another dress spun into the stack.
"I think you're over thinking it. I mean, look at me. I'm not worried about how I look," Ian said simply, teasing his hair a little. Rebekah scoffed from the closet.
"And no one's going to notice you anyway Ian. Other than Marcus and myself, no one cares what you look like." Ian grunted at that. He didn't like the thought.
"Speaking of which," Marcus said, purposely wedging himself into the argument. "You need a date." Ian nodded grimly.
"Kinda hard to get someone to say yes to anything when these are staring them in the face." Ian pointed to his pupil-less eyes. Marcus didn't say anything. He'd seen the looks that Ian got around campus, and he'd heard all the stories that were told about what people thought. They had yet to give Ian a fair shake about it.
"Well, if you ask someone blind, then you're all set," Rebekah offered. Ian looked back with disdain, but didn't respond. Marcus watched another dress flop onto the floor and shook his head.
"You know, if dress piling were an event at the Peace Games, you might have yourself a championship." Rebekah shook her head at Marcus. Marcus quickly turned his gaze down at his boots. She didn't think that was funny.
Drew pushed his way past the press, trying to get to Jennifer's room without having to talk to anyone. He liked the life he'd built, but he couldn't stand the press. They had their purposes, but they could be unbelievably infuriating at times. If he didn't need them, Drew would've banned them immediately.
"Mister Anger, are the rumors true that you and Miss Burton
are engaged?" Simon Houghton asked, his hawkish nose protruding entirely too far from his slate-like face. No matter what else seemed to happen, Simon Houghton always seemed to be there. Drew frowned as the reporters stuffed a dozen microphones into his view.
"Get outta my face!" Drew barked louder than he'd intended, shoving his way past the paparazzi and forcing his way into the hotel room. With a grunting shove, Drew slammed the door, shutting the noise outside of the soundproofed room. Jennifer was kneeling on the floor, her candles nearly burnt out. Drew shook his head. He'd known Jennifer for a long time, and this was a turn he hadn't seen coming. But he wasn't one to say anything. Besides, by the look of things, it was going to help him out.
After a moment, Jennifer blinked and looked up. "What?" Drew blinked at her tone.
"Hi to you too," he said, trying not to have a reaction. Over the last few days, Jennifer had become increasingly rude. She pulled herself up on a chair, massaging her knees.
"I wish you would leave me alone Drew. The press already thinks we're a thing. All these visits to my hotel room probably have them talking."
“They'd talk anyway. Want to give them something to write about?” Jennifer guffawed loudly.
“Get real Drew. It'll never happen.” Drew didn't say a word. It wasn't that he didn't want those rumors to be true. He just wasn't sure he liked it coming from the press this way. "So, is there a reason you barged in here? Other than to stare at me?" Drew looked down at his hands, fumbling with the book in his possession.
"Yes actually. We've got a scheduling problem. We're going to postpone your next two months’ worth of concerts and move up the book tour." Jennifer looked up at that.
"Why?" Drew smirked.
"This is why." Drew held up the green gilded book. The cover was adorned with gold pressed designs that Jennifer didn’t recognize. Drew gave the book a neat flip and showed her the back, with her picture on it. "Your publisher put this book out in every bookstore they could find. I just got the sales numbers today. You're the number one book in the country." Jennifer looked down at her feet and tried to process it. The number one book? she thought.
"So instead of the last of the concert tour overlapping with the signing tour, we're doing a book tour on its own, with a few limited performances. You've got an hour to get ready, cuz we're taking off." Jennifer sat there for a moment, quite at a loss. This wasn’t something she’d expected. Drew started for the door.
“Drew, wait. This doesn’t make any sense. Why? How?” Drew just shrugged.
“It’s got your name on it. People want to read about you. Does that surprise you?” Jennifer stared at her picture on the book and wasn't sure.
“This isn't what I signed up for,” she mumbled. “I just want to sing for people. I'm just a musician. Why all this fuss about me?”
“I don’t know sweetheart. But then again, I just work here.” The door closed and Jennifer looked at the floor for a moment. It didn’t make sense. She couldn’t possibly have the number one book in the country. There was no reason why it should happen that fast. None at all.
Marcus opened the door to Jacob's quarters, and stood for a moment. He'd been to Jacob's quarters dozens of times. But he'd never been there alone. He had opened that door half expecting to see his mentor at his desk, writing in his journal, which was his habit. He had been so adamant that journal keeping was important.
Marcus turned on the light. The room came into view and Marcus stepped inside. He hadn't brought Ian or Rebekah with him this time. He wanted to do this once on his own. Jacob's affairs were his responsibility. He wanted to take care of a few things first before he went about handling his investigation. There were things that he wanted to look over before anyone else.
Jacob's room was very simple in itself. A bed that hadn't been slept in, a desk that was neat and tidy only to Jacob's particular way of thinking, and a chair that only Jacob found comfortable. Marcus walked slowly through the room, looking about at all the things he was so used to seeing around his mentor. All the things he knew about Jacob were here in this room.
Marcus turned the beat-up old swivel chair and let himself down. The old metal creaked in a familiar tone, and Marcus closed his eyes. He'd been there so often when Jacob had sat down in that chair to think of the best way to answer one of Marcus's myriad of questions. It took a long moment for Marcus to gain his perspective among all the memories of his upbringing. He was without his surrogate father for the first time in his life.
The desk was to his immediate left, and Marcus could see that the journal that Jacob frequented was there open on the desk. He figured the MPU had gone through the room with a fine-tooth comb and had simply left the book open. Marcus glanced at the page before him and read what Jacob had written.
'I made a decision today that may or may not change things for the better. The Council just would not listen to reason, so I fired them. And now I'm about to charge off into battle like a foolish young man. I promised Marcus's father I'd watch out for him, and that’s what I intend to do. I just hope that I'm not making a huge mistake.'
Marcus closed the journal and frowned a little. He wasn't sure if you could call it a huge mistake, but he was sure that the result was not what Jacob had intended.
Chapter 6
The Hard Way
"Do you see it yet?" Noganus asked as his blade arced toward Marcus. Marcus couldn't lift his sword to defend himself. He couldn't seem to move at all. He looked about him. Ian was gone. Rebekah lay on the floor in a pool of her own blood, her body split along her waist. A shower of ricochet bullets from his own guns had killed Donavan. Jacob had been shorn in pieces by Noganus's blade. The bodies of dozens of others were scattered about them. Only Noganus and Marcus remained.
"See what?" Marcus asked the air. Noganus had never said anything in the dreams before. He'd simply cut them down. Everything was going in slow motion. Marcus couldn't understand what was happening.
"It," Noganus said solemnly. Marcus felt himself frown. "You can't, can you?" Marcus felt frustration in his heart as the images before him flashed again. His friends died before his eyes. Jennifer wanted to dance all of the sudden. And in it all, Uther stood within a pillar of light. Marcus blinked once, and all went dark.
"What am I supposed to be seeing? What is it?" The darkness persisted, and Noganus's voice echoed off in the distant.
"When the time is right, you'll see it. Don't get distracted," Noganus began to fade backward, away from Marcus. “It never hurts to seek help.” His voice echoed back at him. "Trust him."
Marcus's room was dark that evening. But at least this time, he hadn't awoken with the terrified thought that his head was no longer attached to his neck. He was glad for that. He'd had trouble the last couple days hiding the fact that he wasn't sleeping well. Rebekah had asked him a few times already, noticing the bags under his eyes, but Marcus wasn't ready to tell her about what was going on.
Marcus looked over beside him at a long shard of moonlight that stretched into his room through the window. It laid itself upon his sword, which he had thought to put by his bed. Another throwback to Jacob's advice. Not that he was worried anymore what Jennifer thought of the blade being that close. Since they weren't married, her opinion didn't count.
The blade glistened quietly in the moonlight, sending small streams of light around the small quarters. Marcus felt a little bit of solace as he stared at the blade, seeing the etched wing on one side. It gave him enough presence of mind to think. Why am I dreaming this? he asked himself.
The fact that Noganus had asked him if he understood what he was seeing was a new wrinkle in the dream. It told Marcus one thing for sure. This wasn't just a nightmare. And it was important that he figure out what the images meant. Were they literal or allegorical or both? Or maybe something else entirely? He wasn't certain of any of it.
Every time he'd had the nightmare, a new piece was added to the puzzle. The addition of Jacob to the dream was new this time too. Marcus figured th
at the players in the dream all meant something. Himself, Noganus, Rebekah, Ian, Jacob, Donavan and Jennifer. The puzzling player in the equation was Jennifer. She arrived and wanted to dance, but something about how he saw her wasn't right. She looked off or uneven somehow. He just wasn't sure.
Marcus shook his head. Jennifer was a creation of his mind. She wasn't really a part of it. Marcus figured it was his own conscious mind trying to awaken his unconscious mind. Jennifer was a serious touchstone for him. But he didn't want to dwell on that any longer than he had to. The one piece that was sticking in his mind was what Noganus kept repeating. Trust who? he thought. What boy? And why?
Marcus set himself back down in bed and let the thoughts and theories lull him to sleep. His rest was without dream the remainder of that night. The next day was a weekend, so Marcus didn't have any class to teach. He was going to take some time off and think things through.
The Triumphant set down in the Littlefield Drydock, which was only a stone's throw from the forest adjacent to Ellen's Landing. Marcus watched her land and marveled at the great ship. It was like a giant silver bird. Sage's designs were not just brilliant. They also held that special beauty that so few technical things could lay a claim to.
Marcus could see the brilliance of Sage's designs in the Triumphant. The ship itself did not look like it could fly, let alone hurtle at the speeds that the young elven engineer boasted. And as it slowed to a stop, the ship seemed to unfold. The hull plating shifted and moved like feathers, further cementing the idea of being like a bird.
Marcus tucked his lesson plans under his arm and walked from the beach towards the drydock. He had intended to meet with Donavan upon his arrival. But lesson plans and other concerns had eaten up his time. Though he was leaving now, he was going to be late.
"Deck Officer Tracy Lesnin," the young woman who met Marcus at the drydock checkpoint announced formally. Marcus nodded at her salute and smiled. "State your business."
The Paladin Archives Book Two The Withering Falseblade Page 10
