Brothers: Legacy of the Twice-Dead God (14 page)

“They can track me by my phone,” I said.
“Peter said to throw my phone in water and run.”

“Do it,” said Kieran, getting up,
alarmed.

I ran to the bathroom and dropped my phone in
the toilet, flushing it once. At least I didn’t have to worry about
getting a new battery. At the door, Kieran and Ethan each carried a
box and I led them out of the room. Ethan paused briefly before
leaving, flashing the room with a radiation of energy that said
only “not us” to me, though I had no idea what it meant. We took
the elevator down to the lobby just in time to see three men in
blue windbreakers enter through the main entrance. I’d seen enough
cop shows recently to be leery of what giant yellow letters might
be printed on the backs of the jackets, so I guided us down through
the hall to the convention rooms. The lobby was somewhat crowded
with people, so we moved quickly but not running. Two more
windbreakers showed up at the end of the hall, so we slipped out a
side door into the pool area.

“Keep going,” whispered Kieran, nodding
forward.

The hotel was apparently building its bar
business around a pool party that night. It was packed in there.
Jostling our way through to the bar’s entrance and back into the
hotel took a few minutes, but hopefully we lost our tails in the
crowd. We were fifty feet from the exit when we heard the pounding
of feet behind us. I felt the tug of magic and turned in time to
see three men slamming into something I couldn’t see and a fourth
skidding into the wall to avoid it. We kept walking, but Kieran was
grinning when he turned around. We hit the doors and the heat of
August in Georgia felt like a wall. I felt the pull of power from
Kieran again and I had the feeling those doors wouldn’t open for a
while.

I oriented on the hotel and the parking lot,
locating the car in the lot. At least five men were after us,
probably more. We needed to move fast. Plenty of people were
milling around the front, in and out of the bar. We had some cover
on the sidewalk. Three vans were parked on the left side of the
drive, a driver in each. Then I caught sight of a man in a
windbreaker on the sidewalk facing us just out of the lights of the
driveway. None of them looked close enough to cause trouble, but
they did get three vanloads of men there seemingly instantly.

I could see the car now, less than thirty
feet to go. With a bad feeling of déjà vu, I dug out my keys and
hit the remote on the trunk and door locks as we rounded the front
of the car. I jerked up the trunk and Ethan and Kieran shoved the
boxes in. As I slammed shut the trunk, I felt a massive pull of
magic in front of us.

“Evenin’, mates,” said a man with a British
accent from the sidewalk near the hood of my car. Could have been
Australian or New Zealand, I don’t know. All I knew was that he was
charging his batteries for something; I could feel it. If I could,
so could they. Spiky bleached hair blowing in the warm breeze, the
man lit a cigarette with a flame between his thumb and forefinger,
casting a sallow light on his hawkish features. He wore a black tee
shirt and dark green utility pants with several pockets.

“What do you want?” asked Kieran evenly.

“Me?” he said, blowing the smoke straight up.
“Money. Gold. A lot of it.”

“And that has to do with us, how?” Kieran
asked.

“He’s the key to gettin’ it,” he said
grinning grimly, nodding at me.

“You aren’t getting him, so go away,” said
Kieran, reaching for the door handle.

“That’s the kicker, here, mate,” he said with
a sneer, waving his thumb over his shoulder, then moving several
feet to the side. “I don’t have to get him. That’s what she’s
for.”

Behind him stalking up slowly in the warm
night was a tall, beautiful woman dressed in a long fiery red dress
that shined brightly even in the dim lights of the parking lot. The
dress hid none of her curves and shouted sexuality from her toes to
her shoulders, only hinting at the coolness in her bosom at the
expense of the extraordinary heat from her loins. Her power was
exquisite and she was not to be refused. You saw that in her face.
Her arrogance was absolute.

“Summer,” Kieran announced, “How nice of you
to join us.”

The woman glanced at him then turned back to
me continuing her walk across the grass. It began to burn under her
feet as she neared the sidewalk.

“What do you want, Summer?” Kieran asked.

“We have not addressed you, mortal,” Summer
said. Her voice was sweet and melodious, but I could sense the
portent of volcano behind it.

“Don’t care. What do you want of Seth?” he
asked again.

“Do not question me, mortal!” she said
angrily.

“Then go away,” he answered, waving his hand
at her in a downright condescending way. She disappeared in a
vortex of fire, leaving behind a smoldering pitch mark on the
grass. The pull of magic to create the vortex was amazing. It left
me breathless for a moment. I don’t know what it felt like, but it
was big.

When I caught sight of the blond, he was
sitting on top of the car two spots over, mouth agape with a
cigarette hanging loosely from his lips, staring at where the woman
had been. Ethan moved in front of him and poked him in the forehead
to get his attention. The man froze in place but gave Ethan his
attention.

“Do you know why she’s after him?” Ethan
asked calmly.

“No, sir,” the blond said, meekly.

“Are you with them?” asked Ethan, waving his
hand at the hotel to indicate the men in windbreakers.

“The Yanks? No,” he scoffed, then gulped.

As I moved around to the driver’s door, I
felt the Stone in my head shift and move back. Then I heard a
metallic clink on the ground. I turned but didn’t see anything,
making me more nervous.

“We need to go,” I said through clinched
teeth. The Stone moved again, feeling like bricks, forming a square
shield around me. When the Day Sword flared to life in a flash of
golden light in my right hand I knew something was wrong. A
microsecond later, I saw Kieran passing out on the other side of
the car, hitting the hood first and sliding down to the
pavement.

“Kieran!” I yelled, running for him around
the back of the car. Sticking out of the seat of his pants was a
dart, the kind you see in nature shows where they’re sedating wild
animals to tag them. I jerked the dart out and rolled him over.
Kieran had a split lip from the fall and probably a pretty good
bump and no telling what drugs were in his system. I had no idea
what to do.

“Ethan! Help me!” I cried out. Where was he?
I heard another metallic clink and a dart rolled under the car
behind me. The rock was shielding me. I got that now. I stood up to
find Ethan and saw the blond hopping off the car but no Ethan. I
jumped over Kieran’s prone body to the front of the car. There was
Ethan, lying on the ground with two darts sticking out of his
shoulders, a small puddle of blood forming around his head. The
blond primed to kick him in the guts.

“Get away from him, you prick!” I yelled,
raising the Day sword high enough to mean business. He cut and ran,
taking the threat for the reality it was. I jerked the darts out of
Ethan’s shoulder and rolled him over. Same as Kieran, drugged and
banged from the fall. I had to get them in the car and get out of
there. I looked back at Kieran to see him floating three inches
above the ground and moving away fast. I ran after him for three,
maybe five steps before losing sight of him in the gloom. An
unnatural gloom. I turned back to see Ethan floating off in the
opposite direction just as fast.

Is it possible to live with this much panic
and still be sane?

I don’t know.

Peter said run. Kieran said keep moving.

Ethan and Kieran were both a hell of a lot
stronger and knew libraries more than me. I jumped in the car,
started it, and peeled out of the parking lot, throwing
firecrackers of varying noise and light everywhere I could.

I ran and I hated myself for it.

I drove around Atlanta for hours aimlessly,
totally lost. I’d figured out where Peter meant for me to meet him:
the Atlanta Aquarium. That had to be the place. It was the only
attraction we’d talked about that was actually inside a city.
Everything else sat outside, but near, a city. I hoped I was right
because I didn’t have any contingencies. I also didn’t know how to
get there, but I remembered seeing a couple of blue tourist
information signs on the interstate on the way in. With plenty of
time on my hands, I drove back out to see what they had to offer. I
still had time for four drive-byes before dawn. I wouldn’t be
getting near the building; the entrance was gated.

I pulled up at dawn and stopped, worried that
either I’d picked the wrong place or something had happened to him
because he was coming to help. He wasn’t there. I waited a minute,
but the panic was rising as I looked up and down the street. The
seconds felt like hours. Then there was a light tapping on the
passenger window. I jumped. There was Peter, kneeling beside the
car. He was a little older, his hair was shorter, and he needed to
shave, but it was Peter. He was smiling and he looked really
concerned. He really looked like his father.

I popped the locks and he climbed in,
throwing the bag he carried in the back seat.

“Seth, you doing okay?” he asked calmly,
buckling himself in.

“No,” I said as I pulled back out on the
road. “You were right about them tracking me by my phone. They
found us before we could get out of the hotel.”

“We?” Peter asked.

“My brother, Ehran, and a friend of his,
Ethan,” I said. “They shot them with darts and floated them away
from me. I didn’t know what to do so I ran.”

“Do you know who it was?” he asked. I shook
my head, then he said, “I thought you were an only child.”

“I did, too, until three days ago,” I said.
“You wouldn’t believe all that’s happened in the last three
days.”

“Three days?” said Peter. “That’s nothing.
Deputy Harris has been banging on my dad’s door for two months
looking for you. Wouldn’t say why exactly, just that he needed to
speak with you or your parents. Do you know where your parents are,
Seth?”

“No,” said Seth, “that’s why we were here,
Ehran and I, to see our attorney to get information.”

“What happened there?” Peter asked, watching
traffic with me. He started directing me through traffic as he
talked. I guess he had a destination.

“The offices were attacked by a butt load of
elves and men with automatic weapons. I’d never even seen an elf
before two days ago,” I said, starting to roll. “My attorney blew
his office up just as we left. It was a fun afternoon. We decided
to spend the night and look through the records. All my financial
information is electronic and I can’t get to it. And the other
information is so massive it would be easier to organize onto a
computer and you were the only person I know that ever had a
computer. I thought you could tell me what to do or who I could go
to. Ya’ know?”

“Seth, pull the car over there,” Peter said,
pointing to a convenience store.

I signaled and pulled in. He got out walked
to my side and tapped the window.

“Come on, Seth,” he said, “stretch your legs
a bit.”

He stayed there until I got out of the car. I
was a little shaky. Peter was right beside me nudging me all the
through the store to the bottled water, then made me buy a
chocolate bar. He promised a real breakfast shortly but the
chocolate and the water helped a little. Then he made me walk the
parking lot with him for a few minutes. He was taking care of me
and I needed that right then, to feel worthy of someone’s
concern.

We climbed back in the car to find some real
food. IHOP was the nearest and Peter actually got us a somewhat
secluded table. Peter excused himself to go to the bathroom right
after ordering and disappeared for a few minutes. When he came
back, he closed his eyes, mumbling something under his breath, and
moved his hands like he was opening and closing an umbrella. The
sounds of neighboring tables died away immediately. Then he put a
small, rectangular quartz at the edge of the table. It had a silver
wire wrapped tightly several times at one end, leading to a ring
with a single key. The quartz had a light yellow glow to it.

“As long as this is yellow,” he said,
“Nothing goes beyond this table, okay?”

I nodded. “All right,” he said. “I’ve been
thinking about this all the way down here, and frankly nothing I
came up with will fly. I need to know what’s happened to you. You
didn’t even know your parents were missing?”

“No, Mom and Dad traveled all the time,” I
said. “It wasn’t unusual for them to be gone for two to three weeks
at a time. Not usually at the same time, though. Mister Colbert
came down to Savannah just after my mother left. He told me and the
rest of the house that Mom and Dad had decided to buy a villa in
Brazil or somewhere and they were gonna split our stuff between the
villa and the house he moved me into. We set up schedules with
movers, then a week later, he moved me up to Huntsville. He told me
it would be a while before my parents would be back, that business
was just complicated this time.

“I’d just turned seventeen. My parents were
leaving me alone, trusting me to be alone, in a new house. I could
do anything I wanted, any time I wanted. Do you know how badly it
sucked after the first month?” I felt like such a loser for tearing
up at that, of all things.

“No, I can understand that,” Peter said.
“Think about this, Seth. Shh.”

The quartz glowed blue as the waitress
stepped up to the table, sliding a plate of scrambled eggs, toast,
and bacon in front of me.

“Y’all need anything, Sweetie?” she asked,
sliding the second plate in front of Peter. He looked up at her,
shook his head with a smile, and thanked her. Peter projected a
sense of contented-ness to her. I found that… interesting. He
pushed a very specific emotional sensation to her through his aura.
I wondered if he knew he was doing it. She walked away and the
quartz returned to its pale yellow glow.