Brothers: Legacy of the Twice-Dead God (86 page)

“Calm down, Ian,” I yelled, laughing a bit
while Ferrin caught up a bit to what was happening. “Mike was doing
what big brothers do. Just settle down. No harm’s done.”

Marty for his part had settled down already,
but he’d set off the ward and set the dogs loose so to speak. We
were about to be deluged with “help.”

“Marty, can you call them off?” I asked him,
confusing Ferrin. He wasn’t used to living under this kind of
dynamic field, but I’m sure he felt the probing through the ward.
Whoever was in control, either Felix or Gordon, wasn’t trying to be
gentle or covert.

“Gordon’s coming anyway,” Marty said
vacantly, leaning back on the fence. “Da can’t see you in the
wards. That makes them nervous.”

“Okay, not a problem,” I said. “I’ll
wait.”

“Don’t scare me like that!” yelled Ferrin.
He’d finally composed himself. “I could have killed you!”

“See?” I said to Ian as I set him back on his
feet. “He didn’t mean it.”

“Maybe, but I might,” said Gordon from behind
us. “Why didn’t you tell us you were back?” Bent over and
red-faced, he was breathing heavily after his sprint from the
house.

“Hi, Gordon,” I said smiling. I was a happy
boy today. “Y’all looked busy when I came in, so I came to check on
the boys. Wasn’t planning on setting everything on fire,
though.”

“Where have you been?” asked Ferrin. “Ehran
didn’t know what happened to you. He’s been a terror the last two
days, searching the grounds here and at Dunstan. Where is he,
anyway?”

I shrugged. “I presume they’re still in the
States. I was able to get Ethan back, but we’re having a
disagreement about the rest. They should be along shortly.”

“The States?” Gordon said, shocked. Ferrin
looked equally awed.

“Yeah,” I said, “but we knew where we were
going.”

“I’m sure that makes all the difference,”
Gordon said slowly. “Well, if everything is good here, Da needs us
back at the house. We’ve had a bit o’ luck tracing the soldiers
through the banks.”

“Good,” I said cheerfully. “I’m sure Peter
and Ehran will be quite pleased, but until my brother and I come to
terms, I won’t be a part of it.”

All four of them tensed in that instant. It
was kind of funny. It wasn’t but it was at the same time. Gordon
had no idea what to do right then.

“Is there anything I can do to help?” he
asked cautiously.

“No, not really,” I said, shaking my head.
“One of us is going to have to change his mind about something
fairly important. And frankly, he’s more important to you now than
I am so I’m stepping away.”

“Shall I tell him you’re here, then?” he
asked.

“Doesn’t matter,” I responded. “I’ll be gone
by then and they all know how to reach me. Besides, y’all don’t
need to get caught in the middle of our argument. Peter and Ethan
already are and that’s two people too many.”

“All right, then,” Gordon said slowly, still
incredibly tense.

“I think I’ll go shopping,” I said
cheerfully, turning back to the boys. “Is there anything I can get
you? I don’t really know when I’ll be back. I mean, I hope soon, it
just depends.” It depends on how stubborn my brother will be.

“Ah, speak the devil’s name,” I said.
“There’re the guys now.” Kieran was ticked off at me. Otherwise I
don’t think he would have bulldozed his way through the lines like
he did just now. He was a whole lot more subtle on the way to my
house earlier.

“Don’t worry, guys,” I said to Marty and Ian.
“I’ll be around regardless. It’s just that, right now, we’re a bit
mad at each other. If I stick around, I’m gonna do or say something
I shouldn’t. You both have big brothers, you understand.”

Marty turned towards Gordon’s receding back
and grinned. Neither of the Ferrins looked like they knew what to
do.

“You just need a day off,” Marty said. He
pulled a card out of his wallet and handed it to me. On it was his
family name with the main house number and “Martin” with what I
assumed was a direct line to his room. Come to think of it, my
parent’s house had separate lines, but I just never bothered to
learn the numbers. “Just try not to involve the police, ‘kay?”

I tipped the card to my forehead as I ported
out. Still this was an absolutely wild feeling, wrapping a portal
around myself like that. Being somewhere else in milliseconds.
Harris controlled a portal about the size of a dime with flawless
precision and stealth. Mine were a touch bigger and ended a little
farther away usually. I had to know where I was going to get there,
but it turns out I know a lot of places as a consequence of having
a “second sight” that never turned off. So I went shopping.

Peter caught up with me in London while an
electronics salesman was demonstrating a “home theater solution”
for me. I wasn’t going to buy it; I didn’t even want the demo. All
I wanted was the answer to one small question but that was too much
to ask. Apparently, with all the bags from high-end retailers I was
carrying, I had “sucker” marked on my forehead.

“You already have this system’s bigger,
better brother,” said Peter, eyeing the television screen
critically from beside me. “Why are you even looking at this?”

“He wouldn’t take ‘no’ for an answer. I just
wanted to know if that remote would work with my system,” I said,
turning away from the salesman. “So, how’d you find me, Ferrin’s or
Gordon’s?”

He snorted through the smirk. “Knew about
those, did ya?”

“Oh please!” I exclaimed. “I’d have had to be
unconscious to not feel them.” Really. Gordon’s trace spell touched
my skin like a hand briefly touching my neck. Ferrin’s was more
like walking through a spider’s web, light but still there.

“Gordon’s, it was easier to see,” he
answered, still chuckling over it. “Ethan sent me through. I’m not
as adept at portals and that kind of travel as the three of you and
I didn’t think advertising to Kieran where you were was a good
idea.”

“Probably not,” I said, smiling at the
salesman as we started strolling through the store again. I didn’t
feel bad about it. After all, I did tell him at the outset that I
wasn’t interested in a “home theater solution.”

I extinguished Gordon’s trace, but left
Ferrin’s for now. They meant well and if this made them feel better
for a short while, I’d stay tagged for them.

“He’s driving everybody nuts, by the way,” he
said. “Harris won’t come in the same room with him. Kieran scares
him without you around and he admits it. And I have to admit, he
has been a bit… flaky.”

“Flaky?”

“Well, I haven’t known him long enough to
know what’s truly unusual for him,” Peter said with a shrug, “so,
yeah, flaky.”

“I suppose that’s true of me, too,” I said. I
pushed the bags I was holding onto the pile I’d started earlier
beside the gate of the Pacthome. I’d discovered this amazingly
convenient method of package delivery when faced with the lunch
crowds in Dublin. I’d thought about dropping the bags through a
portal onto the bed in my room at the Cahill’s, but figured the
energy fluctuations would cause too many disturbances for them not
to notice. This way, the door was basically always open with nobody
to “catch” me.

We walked around the department store for
another hour and a half. I had a good time with Peter, just doing
much of nothing, just hanging out. One of the difficulties of being
able to see people’s auras is that you know their emotional states
at any given time. If they don’t like you, you know. If they’re
bored, you know. It makes spending time with someone far more
enjoyable when you can see they’re enjoying it as well. And Peter
was having a good time and relaxing. With the month we’ve had, both
of us needed it.

We took a cab to a small restaurant where the
dress code didn’t require coats and ties. I suppose we could’ve
just faked it, though. Peter “adjusted” my passport to make me four
years older. He made me promise not to get drunk first, naming some
unreasonable fear of waking up in Australia or someplace and not
being able to get back. It made sense to me not to try any major
magic when under the influence of alcohol or other drugs. I hadn’t
thought about it before that. No reason to, really. Now it was just
a bottle of wine with dinner and neither of us felt the need to
over-imbibe. It was an incredibly enjoyable evening.

Peter’s cell chimed lightly as I was paying
the bill. Glancing at the display, he excused himself and answered
the call with, “Hold on a sec, I’m in a restaurant.” I followed him
out to the street a few minutes later, staying back about twenty
feet, giving him both time and space to finish his phone call. It
didn’t take long.

He hung up and walked back to me,
preoccupied. We walked slowly down the street as I waited for him
to tell me about the call. I scanned farther down the road and
didn’t much like what was down there. Actually, it made me feel
rather lonely, looking down that street. It made me start thinking
about where I was going to spend the night. Brought back memories
of waiting endless nights at home for Mom and Dad to come and get
me.

“Whoa, Captain Melancholy, don’t go using
those super powers just yet,” Peter said, throwing an arm around my
shoulder and turning me around. “I need a favor.”

I turned, expectant. I could leave melancholy
alone for a bit longer.

“I need to meet a guy to get some account
information,” Peter said this part with confidence. The next part,
he seemed a bit squeamish about. “The place he picked is actually a
place I used to go fairly often a little over a year ago. Um, not
really that difficult to understand why since that’s the club we
broke up at.” Peter was flushed by that point, both in his face and
in his aura. It was kind of cute on him.

“Oh, you’re kidding!” I said surprised both
that I got it and that he was embarrassed by it. “You have to go
meet your ex at the bar you broke up in? Who’s being the bitch
here, you or him?” Yeah, I grinned. This was funny, regardless of
whose side I was on.

“He’s trying to be, but that’ll only work if
I let it,” he said, happy that I was getting the gist of his
problem. “That’s why I need a favor. Would you mind going with me?
I don’t care what he thinks, but there are other people who’ll be
there that I’d like to remain friendly with.”

“Is that all?” I said. “I thought you were
going to ask me to hang him off the side of Big Ben or something.
Sure, that’s no problem. You may have to coach me on things,
though. I’ve never been in a bar before.”

Peter grinned. He grinned big. “Just stay
close and you’ll be fine. And say ‘No thanks’ a lot, because you
will get hit on, trust me.”

A smoky gray Rolls Royce pulled up to the
curb next to us and waited. The windows were deeply tinted but our
changed vision allowed us to see the driver was the only occupant
of the vehicle, a large sturdy gentleman in his mid-forties. Peter
opened the rear passenger door and gestured for me to get in.

“Hello,” I said cheerfully to the driver as I
slid across the bench seat. Peter moved in beside me.

“Hi, Danny. Been a long time,” said Peter,
just as cheerfully.

“Yes, it has, Mr. Borland. Good to see you
again, sir,” replied Danny, politely, his voice surprisingly high
for his size.

“’Mr. Borland, sir,’ should I be impressed?”
I asked with a gleam in my eye and the hint of a giggle in my
voice.

Peter guffawed. “Dillon wishes he has your
bank accounts,” he said, shaking his head. He pushed a baffle
between us and Danny, to give us privacy. “Dillon has a number of
reasons for doing this for me. His best reason is the forty
thousand pounds I’m paying him for it.”

“Cash?” I interrupted him, just a little
shocked he was carrying that much. “On you?”

“No,” he said quickly, shaking his head. “And
he only gets that if this pans out like he claims. I’m not stupid.”
In a much smaller voice, flushing in embarrassment, he added,
“Well, twice, anyway.”

I chuckled and Peter’s blush deepened. “I’m
sure some poet has said something quite pithy about that somewhere.
Let’s just say my time will come and leave it at that,” I said in a
weak attempt at consolation.

Smiling, he went on, “Other than that, I
can’t tell if he’s trying to get at me or to me. He found out I was
hiring people in the States but couldn’t find out why, so he
figures I’ve got money to burn right now. He has difficulty with
the concept of a ‘startup company,’ so he thinks I’ve found a sugar
daddy in the grandest of American Southern style.”

I laughed. I couldn’t help myself. Peter knew
it was funny. Danny didn’t know what was going on, ducking his head
in the rearview mirror like a contortionist to see what we were
doing that that kept him from hearing. Which only made it funnier
to me. The whole concept of Peter as a “kept man” was still
hilarious for two reasons. The simpler of the two is he had money,
or his family did. Money just wasn’t an issue. The other reason is
that Peter just isn’t that simple. He is too curious about things
to sit around living up to someone else’s expectations. Look at the
way he’s latched on to the crap that’s been going on around him
now.

I also pointed out that there were three
microphones planted around the back cab of the car. One was hidden
as a button in the back of the seat in front of us. The other two
were woven underneath the fabric of the back window. They were all
invisible to the naked eye, mostly. Peter rolled his eyes at them
and it looked like he was about to fry all three of them but
stopped.

“You gotta learn sometime, I guess,” he
muttered. He swept his hand toward Danny, bringing the baffle down.
Danny jerked when he suddenly heard my laughter in the cabin.

“So I’m a what? Surely I’m a tad young to be
a sugar daddy,” I said, not making it through the sentence without
laughing twice. “Or should I have Danny stop some place so I can
buy you something pretty?”