Sleight of Hand: Book Three: The Weir Chronicles

by Sue Duff

  It struck Ian that in a town this size, everyone likely knew each other, yet the man didn’t show surprise at Ian’s presence. He took comfort in the calm, friendly atmosphere and counted on the Primary’s guards not having gotten this far, at least not yet.

  Saxon nudged him to keep moving. The gentle rain had everyone held up inside and they didn’t pass a single soul until the third row of buildings where a middle aged-man leaned against a carved log post. He smoked a long curved pipe and released donut-shaped puffs that reminded Ian of Galen, and a nail pierced Ian’s heart at losing his teacher, a father figure, to a Pur traitor. Galen had hailed from nearby Scotland, but that was a lifetime ago, and Ian wouldn’t know where to begin, or how, to inquire about his mentor’s childhood.

  He strolled up to the man as Saxon leapt onto the deck where he stood and sniffed at the man’s boots. “Hi,” Ian said in English. It was futile to try and blend in since Ian was likely spotted as a foreigner the second they laid eyes on him. “Do you work at the company?” Ian pointed over his shoulder. “My father loves the stuff, and I hoped to get a tour and pictures while I was here.”

  The man’s eyes scanned Ian like a Xerox machine. “The plant is closed. Weekday hours only.” He shrugged and gave the guy the best disappointed expression he could conjure, then turned and headed back toward the facility.

  Saxon caught up and together they battled the rain shower that had picked up a notch since he’d arrived. Gusts of wind swept his jacket around and he grabbed it, fumbling with the zipper. By the time they strolled back, the wind had become a full-blown storm. Ian drew energy into his core and tried to ease the worst of it, but he couldn’t put a dent in the intensity. He ran the last few yards, then paused under a window. He made his way around the building, out of sight from villagers peeking through windows and possibly spotting his emerald corona.

  A lower window, next to a door marked Deliveries gave Ian a chance to peek inside without climbing a trellis or standing on kegs. The overcast sky and absence of lights made it difficult to see, and Ian had to squint to make out the contents. He pinpointed a spot, and gave a short whistle. Saxon trotted up, and Ian grabbed his companion, then shyfted inside.

  They appeared next to a large lidded vat with a shoot hovering above it. Fermented grains overpowered Ian’s sense of smell, and he rubbed his nose on his sleeve. Saxon set out sniffing and exploring while Ian cocked his head and listened. Other than a low hum from another room and occasional drips from overhead pipes, the plant was on a hiatus. He located the main office, but paused at the old office fixtures and lack of modern technology. A single desk offered a stapler, a partially used pad for ordering supplies, and a ledger with handwritten numbers in columns with no headings. A couple of upright file cabinets looked promising, and he conjured away the locks, then flipped through tabs on folders. From what he could see, most of the information pertained to farms where they obtained the variety of grains used for their distillery. Nothing about the company itself. Not even letterhead.

  A mom-and-pop operation with a handful of employees wasn’t getting Ian any closer to finding Eve or her network.

  He stepped out of the office and searched for his cohort. Saxon’s snowy mound was plopped down on the balcony overhead with his snout stuck out between the railings. His eyes were closed. “So much for being my lookout,” Ian mumbled. The wolf didn’t acknowledge. Ian swore he heard snoring. Below the balcony were double-wide doors. Ian opened them and entered a large storage room.

  Close to a hundred stacked kegs, at least two yards in diameter and four yards long, were piled on top of each other like a pyramid, filling the storage room from wall to wall. Ian gave up trying to calculate how much of the rare Scotch was being stored in this single space. He pulled out his cell and found the info that Pacman had texted him about the company. Why distribute so little each year when they obviously had made so much?

  A change in the air. Ian twisted around. The Primary stood before him. Saxon came alive and growled. Stay, Ian channeled, but the wolf’s agitation didn’t settle. Saxon had never reacted that way to the Primary before. At movement toward the front of the facility, Ian understood. A few of the elite guard had come with the Primary.

  “I won’t insult your intelligence and ask why you’re here,” the Primary said.

  “I’ll extend the same respect,” Ian countered.

  The Primary took a couple of steps back and turned his face toward the balcony. “Saxon, join us.”

  Plodding paws faded overhead. They returned a moment later when the wolf made his way toward Ian, but remained tense and at the alert.

  The Primary watched Saxon with interest. “Odd reaction,” he said.

  “He doesn’t play well with your guards.” Ian stroked Saxon, but it did little to calm the wolf.

  The Primary walked up and ran his finger across the side of a keg. He rubbed his fingers together and took a whiff. “I don’t partake.” He took in the stored kegs with nothing short of disgust. “Such waste and depletion of Earth’s resources. Let this be a lesson, Ian. How one chooses to live their life screams of what they hold dearest in their heart.”

  Standing this close, Ian stared at the leader of the Pur Weir and struggled to see him as the man responsible for so many deaths in Germany. His entire life, Ian had known him to be a man of peace and tremendous sacrifice for the good of the Earth. Not someone who would condone the slaughter of innocent people.

  “I ordered you to stay away.” The Primary’s voice was eerily calm.

  “She tortured me. I want to know why,” he said.

  “If I can trust the good doctor’s report, it’s obvious they tried something and failed.”

  “Why wouldn’t you trust Dr. Mac?” Ian said.

  “Why, indeed.” The Primary faced Ian. “Tell me, how are you feeling since the attack?”

  Ian kept his breathing steady, but caught the slight jump in his heartbeat. Was he the only one? “Tired, weak.” He rotated his arm. “A little stiff.”

  “No change in your core?” he asked with a piercing stare.

  Ian rubbed his chest. “No.”

  “Ironic, that the Duach and human were not present,” the Primary said. “I’d gathered that you were all inseparable.”

  Ian’s pulse quickened, in spite of his outward calm. “They have their own lives. I haven’t been around much. Earth’s needs have kept me busy.”

  “If they had.” The Primary turned away. “I might have been forced to isolate them, check into their potential involvement.”

  “You’ve never trusted them,” Ian said with blistering palms inside clenched fists.

  “What concerns me is that you regard them as family.” The Primary jerked his chin at someone behind Ian.

  He half turned. Falcon stood stock-still and regarded Ian with indifference. “I always will,” Ian said. “And if your allegiance is truly to Earth’s Heir, you would protect them as you do me.”

  “The Pur’s commitment is to Earth, Ian. Not man. Certainly not to the Duach. You would do well to remember that. It’s imperative that we find Eve and put a stop to her rebel forces before they get any bolder.” The Primary gestured toward the guard. “Falcon will accompany you home.” The guard took a step closer. But Saxon growled and placed himself between Ian and Falcon.

  Saxon, back down, Ian channeled, but the wolf ignored him and crouched as if ready to strike. Saxon! Ian channeled. You’ll get me in worse trouble than I already am. A heartbeat later, the wolf compromised with inaudible snarls. “I know the way home,” Ian said.

  “I’d order you to stay there until we have a handle on the rebels.” The Primary grabbed Ian’s arm. “But you’ve repeatedly ignored my efforts to keep you safe. Perhaps it would be prudent to work together to locate her.”

  “You’re the one with the boys’ laptop and Rayne’s research.” At Ian’s tone, the Primary’s grip tightened around Ian’s arm.

  “You should have been forthcoming,” Falcon said, bu
t earned a disgruntled glance from the Primary. He returned to his stoic stance.

  “I can’t help you,” Ian said. “This is as far as we got before you stole the information.” Ian tuned into the Primary’s heartbeat. “It was your men who murdered the factory workers, wasn’t it?”

  He released his hold on Ian’s arm and looked Ian in the eye. “I had nothing to do with it.” The man’s heartbeat never faltered, yet Ian knew it was a lie. “You sound like it’s a crime to protect the Earth,” the Primary said.

  “The end doesn’t always justify the means,” Ian said, unable to shake the image of the slain factory workers.

  “I need to be able to trust you, Ian. Don’t force my hand to take more extreme measures.” The Primary signaled to another guard. “Komodo, I require your services.” The guard approached. Ian recognized him from the estate. He had been assigned to shadow Marcus. Komodo followed the Primary into the storage room and closed the door behind them.

  Falcon escorted them outside while Ian kept a firm hand on Saxon. “You have your orders,” the guard said.

  “I’m curious. What are yours?” Ian said, and looked beyond him into the distillery, but the elite guard shut the door on Ian without responding.

  The Primary’s message rang loud and clear. If he didn’t cooperate, Ian would risk those closest to him. How could Ian not have known this side of the Primary? Had he selectively tuned it out? Would his eyes have been opened, if it hadn’t been for Dr. Mac planting the seed?

  Ian led Saxon around the corner of the factory and prepared to shyft home. Smoke filtered through a crack in the window at the rear of the building. The storage room had been set ablaze.

  Flickers of crimson and amber light reflected in the windows. A second later, a couple of emerald flashes.

  Ian called on his connection to the earth and the drizzle became a torrential rain. He held Earth’s fire hose in place while he faced what he could no longer control or prevent. A clanking bell and shouts came from the village.

  He texted Marcus for their coordinates. The second it appeared on his screen, he drew energy for the shyft and grabbed Saxon, pulling him close, sickened by the man he had respected and admired all his life. A man apparently capable of anything.

  {44}

  The Mediterranean sunshine blinded Ian the second he and Saxon appeared at the shipping dock. His soaked clothes clung to him. He stepped away from the wolf and ruffled his jacket, then thought better of it and took it off. Saxon shuddered, sending splatters of Welsh rain in all directions.

  Ian found Marcus and Tara sitting on a park bench, overlooking the wharf. Massive cargo ships were docked in their berths. A couple of towering cranes swung toward their ships with rectangular crates being loaded. Others dwarfed their tugboat escorts as they made their way in or out of the harbor. Seagulls squawked nearby while the gentle lapping of the ocean licked the rocky pier behind them. The azure ocean waters reminded Ian of Rayne’s eyes.

  “What’d you find?” Tara asked when Ian took a seat next to her.

  “No leads for Eve, but I ran into the Primary and his squad.”

  Marcus and Tara leaned toward him. “What happened?” Tara said.

  “We exchanged words. He threatened me, and when I didn’t back down, he tried to get me to help him find Eve.” Ian looked at the ground. “I turned him down. He burned the place and left.”

  Tara grabbed his hand. “There weren’t any—”

  “No, it was the weekend. The place was deserted.” Ian thought back to the amount of dust the Primary found on the kegs, but Ian had also noticed it on the equipment. Had it not been operational for a while?

  “This is unbelievable. The Primary . . .” She settled back against the bench.

  “Do you still have doubts he was behind it in Germany?” Marcus asked.

  Ian shook his head. “Marcus, Dr. Mac said that people have a way of disappearing. What did he mean by that?” Marcus stood and took a few steps toward the water. Ian and Tara exchanged glances, then followed. “The raid on QualSton a few months ago. Other Duach sightings that you and the Drions respond to. What happens to them when you capture them?”

  Marcus faced Ian. “I’m surprised it’s taken you this long to ask.”

  “Marcus,” Tara said tentatively.

  The Drion’s evasiveness sent chills up Ian’s spine and he feared the truth. “You don’t murder them. I can’t believe you could be a part of something like that.”

  “We . . . relocate them,” Marcus said. “To somewhere where they won’t, and these are the Primary’s words, not mine . . . contaminate Earth.”

  “You take them to Thrae,” Ian said.

  “That’s a death sentence,” Tara exclaimed.

  “The Primary takes them.” Marcus dropped his face. “He’s a shyftor, but I’ve suspected for quite some time that he’s capable of much more than that.”

  “He possesses powers, like Ian?” Tara said.

  Ian stared at the gigantic, rusty cargo ships. Civilization populated the globe, in part through human trafficking, slavery, and relocating the persecuted. Had the Weir been incorporating the same brazen practices? “So Thrae is like his very own prison.”

  “Are they cared for?” Tara asked, her voice growing more shrill with each question. Ian wrapped his arm around her shoulder, but she pushed away.

  “Tara, Ian didn’t know,” Marcus said. “Only the Syndrion are privy to this.”

  “But he does now.” She turned on Ian. “You are the Heir, the leader of all Weir. It’s up to you to protect everything that roams across the face of Earth. That includes man and Weir.”

  “The Duach are our enemies, Tara. They pollute and ignore Earth’s needs, using its resources for their own gain.” Marcus crossed his arms and jutted his chin at her. “Thrae is nothing more than a prison camp during our ongoing battle with them.”

  “You said yourself, only the Primary takes them. Who is policing their living conditions? Making sure their basic needs are met?”

  “The Primary,” Marcus responded.

  “Yeah, well, Germany gave us a taste of how little he regards his enemies.” She stormed off toward the water’s edge.

  Marcus’s steeled resolve sagged at her parting words. He turned toward the ships. “The boys were mistaken; Sigrar Twal isn’t the name of a company. It’s a single ship. From what Tara and I could find, it had been in port for almost a week, but left for Spain yesterday.”

  “Making shyfting on board nearly impossible,” Ian said.

  “We’d have to know its exact location and its speed at the time of the shyft,” Marcus said. “Otherwise we could end up appearing in a steel wall.”

  “Or in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean and miss the ship entirely.” Ian headed for the shipyard. Marcus caught up to him. “Where are you going?”

  “I can’t return home empty-handed,” Ian said. “I don’t know how long the Primary stood in the foyer before he made his presence known. Even if he didn’t retrieve anything from Pacman’s laptop, he still had time to read the list. He may be old, but I’m betting his memory is still intact.”

  Marcus blocked his path. “Ian, this is turning into a waste of time. We’re chasing our own tails. It’s obvious Eve’s connections are vast and her identity is well hidden. We need to approach this from a different angle.”

  Tara ran up, waving her cell phone. “The boys have something! I let them know about the glitch with the ship’s name. They checked further and,” she scrolled up on her screen, “they were able to tap into the ship’s manifest and found that it didn’t load cargo here in port. Only people. They sent me an attachment. Said that they got a picture off of a security camera.” She tapped her screen. A second later, her eyes enlarged and she tilted her cell toward Marcus.

  The black-and-white image was quite grainy but undeniably a screenshot of Vael standing between a man and a young woman as they boarded the ship. Marcus grabbed her cell and peered at the image. His knuckles turned as
white as the surrounding seagulls. “We need to find that ship,” he growled.

  “Tara, get back in touch and see what the guys need to calculate a shyft onto a moving vessel, and then get them searching for it.” Ian took off for the shipyard and this time, Marcus didn’t try to stop him. Saxon sensed a change in mood and ran alongside. Ian’s pulse picked up speed as he drew near with one single thought playing over and over. Was Patrick on that ship? But at Marcus’s shout from behind, Ian’s pace slowed and he stopped for the old general to catch up.

  Marcus’s expression screamed caution. They were about to infiltrate a ship filled with Eve’s rebels.

  {45}

  The tingling eased, and they appeared on the aft deck of the Sigrar Twal. Ian and Marcus slammed into a cargo bin behind them, and it knocked the breath out of Ian. Tara missed the bin entirely and skidded down the deck on her back. Ian leapt after her and pinned her down until their bodies adjusted to the same speed as the ship.

  “Whoa,” Marcus shook his head and leaned against the railing.

  Ian caught his breath while taking stock of where they had landed. The ship’s railing was an arm’s length away. If they had appeared three feet over, they would be swimming. “I can’t believe that worked,” he said, rubbing the back of his head where it had collided with the bin.

  “At least the trip home won’t be as hazardous.” Tara sat up and swiped at the dirt on her jeans.

  “Let’s make sure we get home.” Ian got to his feet, then gave Tara a helping hand.

  “I don’t see sentries,” Marcus said. He and Tara drew their handguns. The trio made their way around the few cargo bins and found a staircase. They cautiously descended, and then paused at the bottom. Ian led them down a central passageway while reviewing the schematic of the ship that the boys had given him. There were crew quarters on the lower deck and then a few large, multi-bunk cabins toward the stern. Evening fast approached and he counted on most of the crew and passengers to be in the mess hall.