Naming Day (Jake Underwood Book 1) (28 page)

I wanted to punch that half troll right in the kisser but the best I could do at present was a rather non-menacing gurgle and frothy blood stained sputter. Thankfully, I realized that I was about to die and that he would never get to press those charges, but at least Dalia would live. I quit fighting to stay awake and let the blackness around me claim me. It was probably the best decision I made all day.

Waking up was painful and unavoidable. At first there were lights and I could feel a tingling in my back. At least I wasn’t in pain anymore. I thought at first that I was dead and that this was a just really crappy afterlife. Then they moved me and the pain came back. While that didn’t rule out the crappy afterlife theory, the fact that it went away made me doubt it. Eventually, despite my herculean efforts to stay comatose, I woke up.

The first thing I noticed was that I couldn’t move anything except my head. I was in a softly lit room with what looked like muslin or gauze shears moving in a gentle warm breeze. Even though I had only been there once, I recognized that I was in my father’s house, in that secure room where I had waited for a tailor and a healer. Since I wasn’t dead, I assumed that I was once again under the care of a healer.

I heard a sound and a soft voice that said “He’s awake. Get Kralisch. Hurry!” The voice was familiar and in few moments I worked out that it belonged to Dalia. I think that more than anything helped restore my thoughts to better working order. She was alive. Despite the way I felt I was probably alive as well. We had survived.

A Fey that I recognized as the same one who had tended my wounds when I first arrived was quickly hovering over me and I could hear him mumbling some kind of ritual. I could see a faint red nimbus around his hands and I immediately felt more alert and refreshed. I tried to move, with no success, and started to question him but discovered that he was aware of my questions before I could even start.

“You can’t move. I placed a neural block to keep you from re-injuring yourself. You sir, are an awful patient and thrash about far too much. As soon as I finish my examination and I am convinced that you can’t do any more damage to yourself, I’ll take it off so you can move if you have to. But I suggest that you do as little of that as possible. I had to grow a new kidney in situ and the damage to your liver was severe. I suspect exsanguination was quite close. Your wounds are all closed now and beginning to heal. You wouldn’t be conscious if you hadn’t recovered enough reserves to do so but strenuous activity is out of the question for the next few months. Your wounds took a lot of effort to heal and I would hate to see you undo all my hard work. I was thinking about doing an article on you for my fellow healers because we had to use some very difficult rituals to save you and I had to invent a few new wrinkles to make it work but Lord Delbarra convinced me that it would be best to keep the whole affair quiet. I certainly hope that you appreciate all the hard work I did in keeping you alive and won’t do anything ungrateful like die.”

All the while he was talking I could hear people coming into the room and while his lecture about what a crappy patient I am were mostly lost on me I could appreciate the list of wounds and cause of my near death. I watched the halo around his hands flicker in color from red through the spectrum to blue. He then placed his hands on either side of my head and chanted something I couldn’t quite hear. I heard or felt a sharp click in my skull and suddenly I could move again. Apparently, I had been straining to do so because as soon as the block was released I raised half way up from my prone position. It didn’t take and I fell backwards and coughed.

“There! That is exactly the kind of impetuousness I am talking about! No quick movements. Slow and easy.” He said as he helped lower me back down. It took him a few moments to bring me to a sitting position and his look was scornful and disdainful. He might be a hell of a Doc but his bedside manner was awful.

My voice was hoarse and low from disuse. “That’s a neat trick, that neural block thing. Can you teach me that? It would be awfully handy at times.” I said with as cocky a grin as I could muster on my lips.

“Yes, certainly,” he said “after about a hundred and thirty years of studying and heaven knows much improvement in your craft training; I can teach you how to do that.” He smirked. I have never been sure whether it was mortal doctors or fey ones that were more annoying. I guess it’s a pointless debate because they are all arrogant bastards. “Now, if you are through trying my patience, I have other patients to see.” A pun. He made a lousy pun and then sauntered off.

Now that I was sitting I could see that I actually had several visitors. My father was there. He looked concerned and a little haggard but he seemed relieved. This look was mirrored on Dalia’s face. You could see a hint of strain here and there relief, I supposed, by my consciousness. I could see another Fey lord there who I didn’t recognize and the resolute Sergeant Bermuda.

“Didn’t you arrest me? I’m pretty sure I remember being arrested.” I tried to raise my arms with my hands together, as if to await the cuffs but it hurt so much I decided to save that gesture for another day when I felt better.

“Ah. Yes, well that was necessary. As my prisoner I was able to take certain liberties that allowed me to get you taken care of in an expedited and private fashion. I couldn’t risk you ending up in a public house of healing. Besides, Lord Delbarra insisted.” He gestured at the Fey lord who stood and bowed at his name. I couldn’t place him at first but it gradually dawned on me that there was only one Lord Delbarra that could possible issue instructions to Sergeant Angel Bermuda and that was Lord Greyson Delbara, the Head of the Court of Dawn’s intelligence service but more commonly known as the Hidden Watchers, although no one believes that they just watch.

Lord Delbara was an older and thin fey. He also looked like he didn’t get out very much. His physical presence said dusty cubicle just as I was sure he probably didn’t actually sit in one. Curious how one of the most powerful men, save the Emperor, was so unassuming. There was hardly any blood dripping down his chin and I couldn’t see any fangs.

“Yes, I did indeed insist.” Lord Delbara confirmed. “While I know that you have done nothing personally to violate court security or break the Compact, you have gotten caught up in events that do. It is vitally important that we…discuss the situation and arrive at an agreement.”

“What is vitally important is that he heal from the wounds that he suffered putting right the mess you made!” I hadn’t known my father long enough to judge his moods, but he seemed pretty pissed to me.

“I agree completely. But I just wanted to impress on him how important discretion in this matter is. I ask that you discuss the events of the past week with no one who is currently not in this room. Knowledge of this incident must be contained as much as possible. I will be happy to answer any of your questions, but I am due at court to brief the emperor on the incident and your condition. We can talk later when you are rested and I am further along in unraveling what went wrong. Your father vouches for you, that is enough for me, for now. I will let your father bring you up to date on events that you may have missed.” Lord Delbara gave a slight bow to me and my father and left, trailing Sergeant Bermuda behind him. I was alone with Dalia and my Father.

“Are you alright? I asked Dalia, “Were you hurt?”

“No. Thanks to you I am well and alive and currently in the custody of my grand uncle, your father.“ Dalia looked happy and I was glad for her.

“Custody? Are you under arrest too?”

“No. It is protective custody. It appears that I am wanted by the Twilight Order for questioning. I am willing to go, but your father and mine have decided that for know it is best for me to remain here.”  She was quiet and seemed less animated than I remembered. My guess was that she found sanctuary with her mother’s family somewhat galling considering she couldn’t go home to her father.

“How long have I been out?” I was stiff and sore and not just from where I had been shot. My legs were cramped and didn’t seem have much strength in them and moving caused pain in all my joints.

“It has been three days, my son.”

“Hunh. It looks like I missed my Naming Day ceremony after all. But I suppose being shot twice and nearly dying is probably a good enough excuse to get it rescheduled. Given a choice between being shot and attending the ceremony, it’s a little bit of a toss up.” I smiled, but he didn’t and I knew something was up. Frankly, I didn’t have the patience to wait for them to let me know what was bothering them. I had a suspicion that I wasn’t going to like it.

“Don’t tell me that Jeryn Callisandra got away! He was pinned to the floor with a great damned knife!” I sat up straighter and immediately regretted it.

“No.” He assured me, “He was still there when Lord Delbara and Sergeant Bermuda arrived.  But he is the crux of the problem. I have been told that its resolution is entirely in your hands as it involves our family and your word.” He was serious. Dahlia did say anything. She just glanced down and wouldn’t meet my eyes.

“Cryptic I don’t need, from either of you, so why don’t you just spill it.”

“He was captured easily and his wound treated. He wouldn’t say much of anything until we received a protest from the Court of Twilight demanding that Dalia and Jeryn be turned over to the ambassador. That got him talking. His vituperative tirades, blaming Dahlia for just about everything he could imagine, leads us to believe that he might not be entirely in command of his faculties. He also mentioned someone named Duntar in one his screeds, but wouldn’t say much about him. Do you know him?”

“Yeah. He was part of the same rouge Black Watch team that Serlisch was a part of. He claims that he was the only survivor of that team. He was smart and pretty ruthless, but damned likable in a smiling killer kind of way. He was there, in the barn, but the little bastard went invisible! I take it from your question, that he got away?”

“That is correct. They found no trace of him in the barn. If he was ex-Black Watch, that would explain it. Sergeant Bermuda was using men he requisitioned from the Sheriff’s office. It would be unlikely that they would find him, especially considering that they had other matters to concern themselves with, namely, your bleeding and dying body.” Neither of them said anything. And I felt vaugley embarrassed about getting shot. It makes no sense whatsoever, I know, but I felt like I had messed up by getting tagged.

“Did you hand him over yet? I still owe him a few things, but I guess that the Twilight Order can collect for me.” They would probably kill him. Strangled most likely, a traitor’s death and richly earned in my view. If they didn’t, he had committed enough crimes here to earn death, banishment at least.

“No, we are still holding him. Turning him over to the Twilight Order would go a long way towards clearing Dalia of anything other than a few bad decisions but there is a complication.” I sighed. Damn it to hell, nothing but complications on this case.

“What? What complications?” I restrained myself because I didn’t want another lecture from that healer if I reopened my wounds.

“I want you to stay calm when I tell you this.” My father moved closer to the bed. “He is offering a trade. He claims that if we let him go, effectively exile from the Bright Kingdom, then he will tell us the whereabouts of a mortal. Martin Obromowitz.”

I seethed and tried to rise but my father gently pushed me back down. I mentally counted to ten. “So let me see if I have this straight. In exchange for exile and freedom he is willing to give my back the body of my friend.” My father started to say something but I overrode him. “He can piss blood! I’m not giving him freedom for a dead body. Marty wouldn’t want it and neither do I. If we don’t make him pay, then the Court of Twilight will.”

“Jake!” Dalia cried, “You do not understand! It is not a dead body. Marty yet lives. I saw him myself. He is gravely wounded, but he lives!”

I felt the world get a little woogy as the enormity of what I was being told sank in. Marty was alive! Could it be true? I had seen him shot, how could he be alive?

“Are you sure, Dalia?” I probed, “Are you sure it wasn’t an illusion of some kind or some changeling trick?”

“I am as sure as I can be. He was unconscious and seemed to be in the thrall of some kind of magic. Jeryn Callisandra told me it was a preservation spell to keep his last few moments of life from escaping.” She looked down at the floor. “He told me that he planned to use Marty to force you to betray me. You would have to affirm what he said about me or he would let Marty die!” She was as angry as I have ever seen her at that moment.

I looked at my father. “Do we believe him?”

“Provisionally, yes we do. This is a desperate gamble, a last throw to save his life, He knows that nothing could save him if has lied to us, so I think he speaks true.” He paused for a moment. “But be aware, if we make this deal with him, we will lose any sure way to prove beyond doubt Dalia’s innocence to the Court of Twilight. She may never be able to go home again. There is no one left who will be able to verify what he said to her that caused her to flee. The accusations that he made concerning her relationship with Count Trellisor will be shaken, but not dismissed, because of the false evidence that he presented. He made sure that there was no one left alive who could forswear him. I am told that it is believed that Dalia is responsible for the deaths of Lady Tessa and her maid in an effort to cover her trail to the mortal world. ”

Poor Lady Tessa. I guess she finally read the cards so wrong that it got her killed, not to mention her servants who might have seen something. Callisandra had a lot to answer for. I really did want him dead. No, worse than that. I wanted to kill him myself. But that wasn’t going to happen no matter what choice I made. If I sent him to the Court of Twilight, then eventually Dalia would be cleared and he would be executed. If I took the deal then I might get Marty back, but Dalia would be an exile from her home and family for who knows how long, maybe forever. Neither choice involved me ending up with my hands around his neck.