Brothers: Legacy of the Twice-Dead God Page 9

  Ethan chuckled and said, “No, I have merely spent many years watching him. I can anticipate his actions.”

  “So you’re telling me not to play poker with you,” I said. Kieran chuckled this time. Ethan smiled.

  We filed out of the office to the car with Kieran in the lead. I made sure the kitchen window was cracked and bellowed out to Shrank that we were leaving. My cell phone had shut down again. Aggravating, I guess the battery was dying. I shoved it in the charger in the car and pulled out of the garage.

  I decided on the northern route since Colbert’s office was on the Northeast side of town. Twenty minutes to the highway, forty minutes to the interstate, we’d spent an hour driving. I had the stereo on Jazz. Lounge singers this time. Mister Colbert always put me in the mood for the Rat Pack. Peter Lawford, to be exact. He always wore the same kind of suit Peter Lawford seemed to wear.

  Once we hit the interstate though, we made better time. It took me about forty minutes more to realize we were actually making better time than we should. I was about to switch interstates. That shouldn’t be happening for at least another forty minutes. Something was wrong. I had to think about this. Neither Kieran nor Ethan seemed to notice anything. The Night sword isn’t protesting, so there’s no magic present. Wait. No, there’s no magic attacking. There’s a difference there.

  I drove through the interchange, moving onto I-75, south to Atlanta. I pressed out my senses as far as I could, but Kieran and Ethan were still virtually invisible. At home, the ward increased the feeling of their presence monumentally. Here, they were like a whisper in the wind. The traffic was moderate so I safely sped along humming to the stereo. I felt it then, a little tug, like the car needed alignment, but just for a split second. And again, the road seemed to change just a little. And again.

  “You’re skipping rocks!” I exclaimed, looking into the rearview mirror at Ethan. He was moving the car forward small increments at a time so fast you couldn’t tell. Sort of like a movie, frames moving so quickly past a light they look like they’re moving. Skipping the car like a rock on a pond. And it had to be Ethan. He had the perspective to know how I would drive and literally see the world enough to fake me out.

  He grinned back at me in the mirror. “Told you he’d get it.”

  “I didn’t think he’d get who, too!” exclaimed Kieran, smiling at me. “Did you feel it or figure it out?”

  “Littl’a both,” I said. “I can’t feel you two outside of the ward very well.”

  “A very good way of doing things,” said Kieran.

  “So, telepathy?” I asked.

  “No,” Kieran said, chuckling, “We planned it out at home while you were changing. I realized I didn’t give us enough time for the drive. Doing this can be tricky. I had to hide both of us and push avoidance spells in front of us so other drivers wouldn’t pull into our path. Ethan was watching you and moving the car. Here, try it without me covering the magic.”

  They both did their tricks again a few more times, just as seamless as before. If I hadn’t known it was coming, I wouldn’t have seen it, but I did feel it this time. Not a big slap in the face kind of feeling, it was more like the kind of relief you feel when you find an empty spot in a crowd of people. That “breathing room” kind of feeling. They kept doing it until we were almost there, less than a minute. I didn’t even have time to object before our exit signs started showing. They’d cut more than two hours off the driving time. With the time change from Central to Eastern, we were going to be early, not late.

  I pulled off the interstate, and into the first gas station off the highway we came to. After gassing up, I pored over the map of Atlanta to find the best route to Mr. Colbert’s offices. I was expecting an inner city address but the map showed the office was on the outskirts, almost residential. It took another forty minutes to find.

  Colbert’s offices didn’t look like offices to me; they looked like a mansion. A big ol’ Southern Gothic mansion sitting on the top of a hill surrounded by big, old oak trees. The lawn was well-manicured with a long brick path leading from the front porch down to a small paved parking lot meant for maybe six cars. Walking the path gave a magnificent view of the farmlands below in crosshatch patterns, soy and early cotton. You wanted to believe the house was hundreds of years old, but it just looked too perfect.

  Kieran and I were side by side when we hit the wraparound porch. An elegant lady in a cream colored silk blouse and a brown silk skirt stepped out of the glass entry door. Her blond hair hung in loose curls around her face, accentuating her light tan. When she smiled at me, it made her brown eyes warm and inviting. She was a lovely woman.

  “Mr. McClure?” she asked, looking at me.

  “Yes?” answered Kieran, smiling back at her. Her eyes darted quickly between us, then stayed on Kieran, never losing her smile. She’d been expecting me, knew what I looked like even though I’d never seen her before.

  “Mr. Colbert is expecting you, but is on the phone with a client at the moment,” she said. Her voice was even and studied, but still had the cadence and melody of a Georgia accent. “If you wouldn’t mind waiting in the parlor for a few moments, I’ll inform him you are here.”

  “Certainly, ma’am,” said Kieran, passing by her through the door in the direction she indicated. Ethan and I filed past her with polite nods, following Kieran. She walked down the hallway past a desk and into another hall and disappeared, her footsteps silenced almost immediately once she was out of sight.

  I’d never really known what a parlor actually was, so this room was an education. A parlor is a place to entertain, a place to talk. It was a big room with four discernible areas, one big area in the center of the room and three smaller, more private areas around it, pairs of chairs around small tables in the smaller areas and couches and chairs in the center. There were two sets of French doors leading to the wrap-around porch. Plants, doilies, and frilly lampshades abounded. I expected to see some blue-haired old ladies sipping tea in the corners. Or fat judges in coattails. Maybe I’d watched Gone with the Wind one too many times.

  “Seth, step away from them, please,” a new voice said.

  I turned and looked up. Mr. Colbert stood at the entrance to the room in his trademark grayish blue suit and squared-off rose-colored glasses. This, I expected. The handgun, I didn’t. I froze, centering on the gun. Then I heard the French doors open and turned. A big man in a dark blue suit stood in each doorway, dwarfing an automatic weapon aimed at the three of us. I froze. Oh, yeah, I froze. I’d only seen this in movies. I’d never even held a gun before much less had one pointed at me. Loaded.

  “Seth,” Mr. Colbert said again, “Move away from them. Now.”

  Magic could move a car going at seventy. I guess I was going to find out if it could move faster than a speeding bullet, too.

  Chapter 6

  “Artur,” Kieran said quietly and calmly, “What are you doing?”

  “Seth,” Colbert said through clenched teeth, “This man is not who he seems. Step away from him, please.”

  I needed to relieve this situation quickly, scared to death or not. Somebody could get hurt. Magic or not, there had to be a way. Magic or … Wait, that’s it.

  “My father’s magic recognizes him,” I said calmly, keeping my eyes on Colbert. He was in charge, not the gorillas behind me. They were taking cues from him. His attention snapped immediately to me.

  “What?” he asked me.

  “Dad’s magic recognizes him,” I said again. “He got through the ward on the house without breaking it. He opened an oubliette of Dad’s without breaking it, intended for him alone. It had a picture album of Mom and me in it asking him to help me. I watched him do it, Mr. Colbert. It was attached to the same spell I opened the day before and again afterward. I am quite certain of who he is.”

  He stared at me for a long moment, letting his gun hand slowly drop to his side. Then he turned to Kieran again, looking intently at him.

  “Ehran?” he said softly,
“But… you look so different.”

  Kieran looked down at himself, holding out his arms dramatically and grinning. “Yeah, I’m all growed up, now,” he said. I couldn’t place the accent he was trying for.

  “But why can’t I see… Oww!” Colbert exclaimed. I turned away just in time to not see Kieran’s aura flash. Apparently, it still took a conscious effort on his part to show it and it still flared inhumanly brightly. The gunmen at the doors tensed again at the exclamation from Mr. Colbert and another one appeared at his side from the hallway, quiet as a mouse.

  “You have changed,” he said, handing his gun to the man and rubbing his temples roughly. “What happened to the…” He let the subject of the question hang.

  “Long story,” Kieran said, taking a seat on one of the couches. “Seth has it.”

  “That’s not possible,” said Colbert, turning to me. He stared hard at me and I felt like I was falling down a well for a moment. Then the Pact sigil flared into life. In my mind, blue tendrils of power surrounded the cavern that it existed in, pounding in my skull like a timpani, pushing back against something invasive I couldn’t see. Just as quickly as it started it was over.

  “That shouldn’t be possible,” Colbert said, looking to Kieran. “Those are tied to your soul forever. How did you disentangle it? Damn, this could cause a war the likes of which we haven’t seen in millennia.”

  “What?!” I exclaimed. Yelled. Questioned loudly. There were a lot of emotions in that one word.

  Kieran chuckled at my reaction, leaning back on the couch casually. “He doesn’t know what he carries, Artur,” he said. “It has only been a few days since I dropped it on him, since we met, really.”

  “Who are you?” asked Colbert of Ethan.

  “Ethan,” he said, simply.

  Kieran added, “Ethan is an ally of indisputable loyalty to Seth and me, but he is as ignorant of the world and its politics as Seth and me, at least considering the last forty years or so.”

  “And his family?” Colbert inquired.

  “I have none,” answered Ethan without expression.

  “Indisputable?” Colbert asked, looking at me. I nodded. He was going to have to take Kieran for who he was—the son of Robert McClure. I kept my word. My father kept his word. Kieran will keep his. I wasn’t sure how he was going to deal with the whole two-name thing, but I figured I could keep it straight for the time being. It was sort of like having a nickname anyway.

  “Gentlemen,” said Colbert, standing and addressing the men in suits holding guns, “Would you give me the room, please.” He reached in his inside jacket pocket, pulled out a white crystal pyramid about an inch to a side, and set it on the small table to his right. Once his men had receded from the room, he tapped the top of the pyramid lightly and it glowed with a very pale blue.

  I could feel the ward snap into place at the edges of the room. It didn’t extend very far, just up to the French doors, blocking the glass, and up to the hallway. Interesting geometry to the field. I thought it’d be triangular considering the crystal, but it wasn’t even regular in places. Who was I to criticize, though?

  “Ehran, where have you been?” asked Colbert, sitting across from Kieran resting his elbows on his knees and his chin on his laced fingers.

  “In a place that does not have a name,” Kieran said calmly, almost airily. “A place that no longer exists.”

  “That’s not much of an answer,” Colbert said, a sneer fighting for control of his dark features.

  “Unfortunately there is no more concise answer to that question,” said Kieran. “Suffice it to say that it has been a journey of experience and now I am here. Now that I am, I find myself faced with a number of problems, not the least of which is the one you just pointed out. That doesn’t have to leave this room. My biggest problem right now is that my little brother’s parents are missing. Quite frankly, those two problems are currently the only ones occupying our agendas.”

  “The one where people are trying to get Seth isn’t bothering you at all?” Colbert asked, peering at Kieran over his glasses. That question piqued my interest.

  “I assumed they were connected,” answered Kieran.

  “To some extent, I’m sure they are,” said Colbert, glancing at me quickly. “It appears that the Pacts are no longer secret. Someone, some group, is targeting your family. It all seems to center around Seth, now.”

  “My precocious tot,” said Kieran, grinning at me. “Yes, I saw the test scores.”

  “About five years ago,” started Colbert, “Pact members holding the Elven Seal started disappearing. Since these are often familial inheritances, these people are your cousins, nieces, nephews, uncles, aunts. I don’t know who these people are or who is left since I’m not a Pact member. I only had your father’s say on that. That is the seal he has now. That alone may make him doubly a target.”

  “He can hide that,” Kieran said.

  “All right,” Colbert said, “What do you need from me?”

  “Any information leading up to the disappearance of Seth’s parents,” Kieran said with a shrug. “An idea of who is doing this? What we’re up against.”

  Colbert stood and tapped the pyramid lightly. It ceased glowing. He brushed his lips with his forefinger once, then went to the desk and pressed a button on the phone.

  He said, “Samantha, there is a box on my desk. Would you bring it in, please?” Releasing the button, he said, “None of those are simple questions to answer. The Fae are involved, but we don’t know why exactly. Both of them, but there are competing factions among them. The Marshals are involved for some reason. Your father said it was political. Then there’s at least three different magical groups including the Greater North American Council and the United States Council.”

  “Don’t those overlap?” I asked, naively.

  “Yes, and they schedule their meetings for the exact same time,” said Colbert. “Petty politics.”

  Samantha chose that moment to enter the room, carrying a small wooden box about three inches square and an inch high. Colbert started to move around the couch to take the box but froze when he saw her.

  “Samantha,” he said, in a cool voice, like he was talking to small child, “What have you got there?”

  “Just the box you wanted, Mr. Colbert,” she said, smiling.

  “Samantha. Dear,” he asked gently modulating into a deeper register. “That’s not the box that was on my desk. Where did you get that?”

  “From your desk, sir,” she looked at the box, confused, then tried to hand it to Colbert again.

  He sighed, obviously pained, and said, “Samantha, dear, I am so sorry.” He made a gesture with his left hand that looked like he was scratching her and mumbled something I couldn’t hear and the elegant blond was entrapped in sheets of amber energy. The sheets varied in size around the woman and stacked vertically, defying gravity to stand out cantilevered with her arm holding out the box. It would have been pretty if it wasn’t disturbing.

  “Mr. Higgins,” Colbert called out loudly. The man from the hallway reentered the room. “We have uninvited guests on the grounds. Please inform security to investigate.”

  Higgins touched a place behind his ear, began speaking in low tones as if to himself as he left the room. Through the French doors, I saw the two blue suits snap to attention, their heads beginning to rove in their range of vision at different speeds. I felt like I was suddenly in a spy movie. When I looked back, Kieran and Ethan both were at the woman’s side, staring at her through the amber.

  “That is vicious,” murmured Kieran shaking his head somberly.

  “Come, I doubt we have much time,” said Colbert, turning and walking down the hallway past the desk. We followed without speaking. I didn’t know for certain what happened, but I had a guess: the box was a bomb of sorts intended for Mr. Colbert. Samantha was the delivery system. Someone had gotten into the house, placed an apparently nasty spell on her to get Mr. Colbert to take the box, blinding her to that fac
t that what she was holding was anything but what he wanted at that time. When he took it, boom. I don’t even know how big a boom it would have been.

  We turned into a large room with a desk in the center sitting caddie-corner, back to the walls. There was a large file box in the center of the desk, obviously the one Colbert referred to the first time. He waved Kieran toward it, then went to a large safe set between two large bookcases and started working the combination, tapping a corner of the door with each number he stopped at. Once he’d opened the safe, he pulled another cardboard box out and folded it together. Then he emptied the contents of the safe into the box and handed it to me, closing the safe.

  He stood up and looked at Kieran and me in turn. He looked tired.

  “Ehran,” he said, “this is the entirety of the information I have on what has happened in the last five years. It isn’t much. Most of our information sources have dried up the past few years. Your father and Seth’s mother have been trying to find out why, but without any luck. And with what has just occurred, it looks like I will be of no further help to you. Seth holds all his and his family’s accounts, including passwords, so don’t lose it.” He pointed at the box I held.

  The phone on his desk beeped loudly. “Mr. Colbert?”

  “Yes?” Colbert responded.

  “I have a situation report when you’re ready,” the voice said.

  “Thank you, Mr. Higgins, we’ll be right out,” said Colbert. Colbert sighed heavily again. “I’m going to ground, Ehran. I’m far too old and weak to fight in something that could take your father, you know that.” “I understand, Artur,” Kieran said, soothingly, “You’ve done well by my family and for that I thank you. I’m sure Father does, too.”

  “Let’s find out what we’re up against right now, shall we?” asked Colbert, leaving the room. We filed dutifully behind him.

  Back in the parlor we found six men in blue suits now visible at every entryway, one being Higgins in the center of the room. He was staring at a laptop on the table in front of him turned away from us so we couldn’t see the screen when we walked in. He rose immediately, nodding to Colbert.