Trefoil (17 page)

“I know dad, look, I need you to rent two limos.  Send them both to Columbus Circle.  We ran into some trouble tonight with Ty, his sister, and brother.  We have the ability to negotiate with them to leave us alone, so it is important that we have the limos to do the discussing.  Jeff and Isabel are both here so we are as safe as we can be.  I just need you to stay at home and not do anything crazy.”

“Meckenzie this is very scary.  Let me talk to Isabel.”

Meckenzie handed Isabel the phone and shrugged her shoulders.  She went over to Ty’s sister and began trying to lift her up.  She had gotten her into a sitting position when Jeff and Taggart came up with Ty’s brother.

“He’s a big fellow.”  Taggart looked winded.  He had almost been set on fire tonight, so it was understandable. 

“We need to go find Kellan.  I think Isabel, Taggart and I should go.  If she needs healing we’ll need Taggart.  If a spell has been used we’ll need Isabel.  And I’m the one who saw the vision.  I think Jeff can handle these two sleeping beauties.”  Meckenzie had taken control again.  Isabel was still whispering into the phone to Meckenzie’s dad, so she didn’t have the chance to argue. 

Meckenzie and Taggart started off towards the Driprock Arch.  Meckenzie motioned for Isabel to follow.  She complied, still on the phone.  As they got out to the walkway, Meckenzie reached back and took the phone from Isabel.

“Dad, there isn’t any more time for discussion.  Call the limo service.  They need to be limos, because we need the privacy glass, two of them.  We don’t have any more time to waste.  I love you and we will talk to you soon.”

With that Meckenzie hung up the phone.  She needed people to start cooperating for this thing to work.  She didn’t need any arguments, just actions.

Isabel laughed, “You are definitely your mother’s daughter.  You got that Queen thing down pat too.”

“Well, thank you, I think.”  Meckenzie wasn’t really in the mood for any of this.  She just wanted to find Kellan. 

“So what’s the plan Queen?”  Taggart was getting some of his humor back.  He was trying to lighten the mood. 

“Dad’s sending two limos.  We are going to put Ty’s brother and sister in one and send them off with Jeff.  Then Isabel and I will go find Ty.  He should still be in the vicinity of the Thai restaurant, as I cast a confusion spell on him.  We will remove the spell and bargain for them to leave, if we return his brother and sister.  That should buy us enough time to train, graduate, and then we will go to Aquanis and resume this little fight.”

“What makes you think Ty will honor it?  He was going to kill us you know.  They said as much when they attacked us earlier.”  Taggart had brought up a valid point.  Meckenzie had no way of assuring that they would cooperate.

“Well, I guess we threaten them with numbers.  We can bring in a couple of extra people to guard the house.  We can stop going to school so they don’t have the advantage of finding us in public.  We can take the next few weeks and train.  Then after our birthday party, we can leave.  I think if we tried to leave now, Dad would have a heart attack.”

“You want to drop out of school?”  Taggart looked shocked. 

“We can test out early.  Tell them we have a family emergency.  All three of us are way ahead anyway.  We aren’t going to college now, so what does it really matter?”

Taggart looked heartbroken.  He had been working so hard to be school valedictorian.  Taggart still had hopes of Harvard on his mind.

“Look, when we finish this thing, you can come back and go to Harvard.  They will still take you.  We just have to make up a convincing family emergency.  I have an idea we can discuss later.”  They had arrived at the arch and Meckenzie wanted to concentrate on finding Kellan.  “I’m going to call her phone, so let’s spread out and listen for the ringtone.”

Meckenzie made the call and the three of them went in separate directions listening for Kellan’s phone.  Meckenzie had to call five times before she caught the sound of ringing coming from behind a tree between the arch and the skating rink.  It was dark enough that Kellan was hidden in the shadows.  Kellan was propped up against the tree, sleeping. 
her
hands and face had been badly burned.  Kellan had tried to fight Ty’s sister, and it had not gone so well for her.

“Taggart, heal Kellan before we wake her up.  She will be in a lot of pain if you don’t and it might trigger her to grow.”  Isabel knelt beside Kellan and motioned Taggart to do the same. 

Taggart placed his hands on Kellan’s face first.  Meckenzie noticed tears in Taggart’s eyes and she could read in his mind that he felt responsible.  Meckenzie placed her hand on Taggart’s back letting him know through her thoughts that she knew it was her fault.  She was the one that decided to go on this date to get the information from Ty.  Meckenzie could have insisted they stay home. 

Taggart began healing Kellan’s burned hands.  Her face was healed and looked more flawless than before.  Any traces of acne were gone along with the burns Kellan had suffered.  Taggart took her hands in his own, placing them together.  Within seconds Kellan was completely healed.  Taggart really did have a miraculous gift.

“Okay, now I’m going to wake her up.  Kellan will still be in fight mode, so everyone step back.”

Isabel began whispering the words to wake Kellan up.  Meckenzie and Taggart took a step back.  Kellan began to open her eyes.  She blinked twice and then jumped to her feet.  Her fists went up and she almost took a swing at Isabel.

“Kellan stop.”  Meckenzie yelled.  “It’s Isabel.  Kellan look at me.”

Meckenzie took a step toward Kellan.  Taggart tried to grab her so that she wouldn’t get in the way of the swing that Kellan was about to throw, but Meckenzie shook him off and stepped closer.  Without hesitation, Kellan spun around and threw a vicious right hook that broke Meckenzie’s nose.  Meckenzie fell back onto the ground with a thud, blood poured out of her nose down the front of her dress. 

“Meckenzie.”
  Kellan realized too late that she had just hit her sister. “Are you okay?”

She dropped to the ground beside Meckenzie.  Isabel laughed, as she always did when the triplets didn’t listen to her.

“I told you to take a step back.  I think eventually you will start listening to me.  Taggart do you have enough energy to heal your other sister now?”

Taggart didn’t respond
,
he was already kneeling next to Meckenzie, moving her hands away from her face.

“This is going to hurt a little.  I need to move your nose back into position.”  Taggart was pushing and prodding at Meckenzie’s broken nose trying to determine exactly where he needed to move it.  “Okay, take a deep breath. 
On the count of three.
 
One.
Two.
Three.” 

Taggart popped Meckenzie’s nose back into place.  Meckenzie screamed.  A million little camera flashes went off in her vision.  Taggart kept his hands on her nose for a moment so he could mend it.  When Taggart was done, he sat back on the grass beside Meckenzie.  He had used all the healing he could use in one night.  Meckenzie hoped that he wouldn’t be asked to heal anyone again tonight.

“I’m sorry Meckenzie.  I thought you were that fire breathing witch that attacked me.”  Kellan said apologetically.

“It’s okay.  I deserved it.  You wouldn’t be out here if it wasn’t for me and this stupid date.”  Meckenzie really did think she deserved being punched in the face.  The whole evening was a disaster.

“I hate to break up this pity party, but we still have two sleeping fairies that need to be taken care of.”  Isabel brought them all back to the situation at hand.

The evening was not over yet.  They all made their way back to Jeff, who had called in his own reinforcements.  Standing beside Jeff was a red haired gentleman.  He had the most intriguing green eyes that seemed to sparkle even in the darkness.  He had brought with him a wheel chair.  Meckenzie had been worried about getting everyone to the cars without attracting attention.  The wheel chair would work fantastic for one of the slumbering fairies, but carrying the other would attract a lot of attention.

Jeff noticed the blood on Meckenzie’s dress and immediately ran over to her.  He looked her over from head to toe, but could find no wounds.

“What happened?”  Jeff said with worry in his voice.

“Kellan happened.”  Taggart laughingly said.

Kellan punched him in the arm and laughed herself.  She was starting to forgive herself for hitting Meckenzie. 

“I accidently punched her, broke her nose.  I think it improved her looks, but Taggart fixed it anyways.”

“So what’s the plan?”  Jeff asked.  “I called my friend Bowen.  He has a particular talent that might come in handy for us.”

Isabel had been particularly quiet since their return.  Meckenzie turned to find her staring at Bowen with rapt attention.  It seemed that Bowen was as interested in Isabel as she was in him, they had locked eyes.  Everyone began to notice the two of them.

“Bowen.”  Isabel finally spoke.

“Isabel, how are you?”  Bowen moved towards Isabel.  A smile touched his face, making his eyes dance more than before.  The smile made him look twenty years younger than
the his
fifty-something year old appearance, or maybe it was Isabel that inspired his youthful look

“I’m good.  How long have you been in the city?”  Isabel’s breathing became heavy.  The sweetness of her words reminded Meckenzie of cotton candy, there was something happening under the surface of the pleasantries being exchanged
..

“A few months, I’ve been tracking for the Queen.  She has had me looking for these guys.”  Bowen pointed to the ground where the two Fae rested comfortably. 
“Though I didn’t know that I was looking for
Tiernan’s
progeny.”

“What?”  Isabel was looking back and forth from Bowen to the two on the ground. 
“
Tiernan’s
progeny.
  They’re the heirs to the throne of the Raven.”

“Yes, it seems, as best as my
intel
can gather, that the fire clan has a produced a set of triplets that they are claiming are the heirs to the throne in Aquanis.  It would be best, in my opinion, if we just killed them now and were done with the whole thing.”

“I don’t think so.”  Meckenzie objected. “Killing them here brings a whole lot of questions down on my family.  There is not going to be any killing tonight.”

Bowen bowed at Meckenzie and smiled.  “You are your mother’s daughter.”

“I keep hearing that, thank you.”  Meckenzie was ready to get this over with.  “We need to get to Columbus Circle with these two.  There should be two limos waiting for us there.  We will put these two in one limo and Isabel and I will go get Ty in the other limo.  We will convince him to leave the city, by bartering with him for his siblings.”

“That might be where I come in handy.”  Bowen said.

“Why is that?”  Meckenzie couldn’t see how this man who wanted to kill the teenagers could be of any help to convincing them to leave.

“I’m what they call a
bedazzler
.”  Bowen said.

“That was what I was going to tell you.”  Jeff interjected. “Bowen here has the special gift of being able to convince people to do what he wants them to.”

“It’s in the eyes.”  Bowen said with a smile.

“They are sparkling.”  Kellan added the words that Meckenzie was thinking.

Bowen laughed from the soles of his feet. “Yes.”

“Okay, so Bowen, Meckenzie and I will go retrieve Ty.  Jeff will take the other two and meet us when we call him.”  Isabel finally pulled her eyes away from Bowen and rejoined the conversation.

“Excuse me.  What are we supposed to do?”  Taggart added.

“Go home.”   Isabel and Meckenzie said simultaneously.

“No.”  Kellan objected.  “We will go with Jeff.  If something happens and they wake up, he’ll need some help.  Plus, I am not going to be pushed out of this.  This is our fight too.”

“I agree with Kellan.”  Taggart looked at Meckenzie. “If something happens, it would be better for there to be more of us.”

“Fine.”
  Meckenzie didn’t want to argue about it.  “This has taken too long already.  Let’s get them to the cars.

They put the earthmover in the wheel chair so Kellan could push him to Columbus Circle.  Bowen and Jeff lifted the fire-starter up and draped her arms around their shoulders.  They carried her as if she were drunk and had passed out.  That was the cover story that Bowen had determined would be the easiest to sell. 

Meckenzie felt like they were heading off into the night to make a deal with the devil himself.

Chapter
20…

They got everyone into their appropriate cars with no problems.  New Yorkers were good at ignoring what was going on around them, so no one actually asked about the passed out girl Jeff and Bowen were carrying.

Meckenzie, Isabel and Bowen hopped into their limo and headed toward the Thai restaurant where Meckenzie had left Ty.  Isabel and Bowen sat staring at each other in silence.  Meckenzie could only imagine what had happened in the past to cause this reaction in Isabel.  Isabel always so calm and collected seemed to be in a state of panic around Bowen.

No one said a word in the few minutes it had taken them to get to the restaurant.  Once the car stopped, Meckenzie jumped out and headed inside the restaurant.  To her disappointment, Ty was not seated at the table they had occupied. 

Meckenzie asked the hostess if she had remembered him leaving.  The hostess said Ty had seemed drunk so they had called him a cab.  The problem had been that he didn’t know where he was supposed to go so he sent the cab away.  Ty had walked off.  Meckenzie asked the hostess if she remembered in what direction Ty had gone.  She pointed down the street back towards Meckenzie’s house.

Meckenzie got back in the limo.  She gave the limo driver directions to head back down west 72
nd
street and then to make a left onto Central Park West.  Meckenzie asked him to take it slow so that they could look for missing member of their party.

Meckenzie positioned herself on one side of the car, while Isabel took the other and looked for Ty.  He was nowhere to be seen on 72
nd
street.  They had traveled several blocks before Meckenzie spotted Ty walking next to the park.  He was talking to himself and looked extremely agitated.

“Ty.”
  Meckenzie shouted from the car.  The driver pulled over and Meckenzie jumped out of the car.  Bowen was close behind her and stepped between her and Ty to protect her if Ty decided to strike out. 

“Ty, we can help you.  Get in the car.”  Meckenzie pointed to the limo idling on the curb.

“You did this to me.”  Ty said as he took two very aggressive steps towards Meckenzie.  “I can’t think straight.  I can’t figure out what I’m supposed to be doing but I do know that you are not here to help me.”

“Isabel
reverse
the spell.  He is never going to go with us if we don’t take away the confusion.” 

Isabel stepped out of the limo.  Ty stepped back, preparing to make a run for it, when she quickly uttered the reversal spell.

Ty stopped in his tracks.  He shook his head trying to remove the fog.  His hands dropped to his sides and his mood changed from defensive to aggressive.  The anger that flashed in his eyes made Meckenzie take a step back.  She couldn’t believe she was about to ask him to get into a car with her.  Ty would probably rather kill her right on the sidewalk of Central Park then bargain with her.  Meckenzie took in all the courage she could muster.

“Ty get in the car.  We need to discuss your brother and sister.  We have a proposal for you.”

Ty stood thinking about his next move.  A hundred thoughts flashed through his eyes.  He didn’t like not having the upper hand.  He was trying to figure out how to reverse their roles.

“Did they succeed in taking your brother and sister?  We will never give them back.  They may already be dead.”  Ty said with a smile.

“I told you we should have killed them in the park.”  Bowen said with a hint of I told you so.

“They don’t have Taggart and Kellan.  Actually it is just the opposite.”  Meckenzie pulled out her phone.  Thankfully she had made the decision to take a picture of the snoozing pair in the back of the limo before
they
seperated
.  Kellan had volunteered to be in the photo, she wanted to make sure that Ty knew that she had not been bested by his siblings. 

“Here, take a look.”  She held the phone out for Ty to see. 

His smile faltered for a moment,
then
it was back, bigger and scarier.

“What do you want?”  He said.

“Get in the car.  We aren’t going to hurt you.  We just want to talk about how this is going to end.”

“It will end when you are all dead.”  Ty was not going to make this easy on Meckenzie.  “They would never want me to bargain for their lives.”

“Fine.”
  Meckenzie pulled her phone back and punched Taggart’s name on her contact list.  She held the phone up to her ear and waited for the phone to ring.  Meckenzie turned to Isabel while she waited for Taggart to answer. 

“You might as well confuse him again, or paralyze him.  I don’t care.”  When she said the last part, Taggart answered.

“Who’s getting paralyzed?”

“Ty is not cooperating.  Activate plan b.”  Meckenzie had not actually made a plan b.  She thought this would be enough to get Ty to get into the car.  It worked, because the moment she said it, he spoke up.

“I’ll go with you.”  Ty said.

“Cancel plan b.”
  Meckenzie said into the phone.

“That’s good, because I don’t know what plan b is.”  Taggart was laughing.  Meckenzie heard Kellan say “Plan B?” in the background.

“I’ll call you back when we have come to a decision.”  Meckenzie hung up the phone and followed Isabel and Ty into the car.  Bowen walked up to the driver’s window and gave him some instructions.

The car pulled off into the night again.  Meckenzie knew that she would have to approach this conversation with arrogance.  Ty was arrogant and would not agree to a deal if he didn’t think he was at least matched by Meckenzie.

“We obviously have your brother and sister.  It was among the suggestions that we kill them now and
be
done with it, but I don’t believe that will get us anywhere.  I don’t know enough about our history to know why it is that you think we should be dead, or why Bowen here thinks you should be dead, but I do know that doing this here in the human world will be anything but messy.  So I propose a truce until we graduate.  Then we will be going to Aquanis and we can pick up this pointless battle.”

“Why would I agree to that?”  Ty snarled.

“Because we beat you.
  We have your siblings and mine are still alive.  If you try again, we will beat you again.  I can’t promise the second time around that there will not be casualties involved.  You have a much better chance in Aquanis of achieving whatever it is you wish to achieve, here we will outnumber you.  Unless you are planning on marching an army through the portal and up to our front door and I’m not sure you want to mess with New York’s finest.  They are still pretty jumpy after 9/11 and it wouldn’t take much to convince them that you are terrorists.” 

Meckenzie paused letting all the information
sink
in.  She reached over to the mini fridge that was provided by the limo company and pulled out a bottle of water.  Meckenzie offered drinks to the others.  She decided she would sit back and let him stew for a few minutes.  Meckenzie would let Ty come up with a counter offer. 

Ty sat staring at Meckenzie trying to figure out if she were bluffing.  She took a particular interest in her finger nails and the wonderful color of polish that she had picked out to match her dress.  Ty finally cleared his throat to speak.

“We will leave.  I cannot promise anything else.  We have spies all over the city and it will take weeks maybe even months to disperse the information that you are off limits till graduation.”

“Fine, but if someone attacks our home, I will not hesitate to let Bowen here kill them.”  Meckenzie decided that was as good an offer as she could expect, so she picked up the phone and called Taggart again.

He answered on the first ring, with a bit of anxiousness in his voice.

“It’s about time.”  He said.  “We were just about to track you by your cell phone again.”

“Meet us at Columbus Circle.  We will exchange them there.”  Meckenzie didn’t really want to discuss anything further so she hung up after she relayed the meeting point.

When they met up at the Circle, everyone piled out of both limos.  Meckenzie indicated to Ty to look inside the other limo and he would find his siblings.

“Someone going to reverse the spell?”
  He asked as he stuck his head inside the car.

“Isabel will reverse the spell after we are all in the car.  You can use the car to take yourselves home.  And don’t return to school.  There is no reason for you to be there now.”

Meckenzie and her siblings got into their waiting limo with Jeff.  Bowen and Isabel waited till they were safely seated, then Isabel walked over to the other car to reverse the spell.  Bowen was never more than a step behind her.  When her work was done, they returned to the limo.  Bowen gave the driver instructions again and slid into the seat beside Isabel.

Meckenzie was happy they were headed home.  Her father would be worried sick if they didn’t get there soon.  She knew there was more business to discuss.  They had to make a plan for training and they would have to figure out a way to convince their dad that they need to quit school to keep themselves safe.  They were also going to need a few more people around the house for protection.  Ty’s threat about the other spies coming after them, now that their identities were compromised, had her worried about her dad’s safety as well. 

“Bowen,” Meckenzie had an idea.  “How would you like to come to work for us?  We need protection and training.  It seems you have some gifts and knowledge that would be helpful to us if we are going to make it through this.”

Isabel appeared to almost fall out of her seat.  She started to object, but Meckenzie held up her hand indicating it wasn’t up for discussion.

Bowen laughed, “She really is just like her mother.”