by Elsa, Sandra
"That's entirely unnecessary," Harrison said.
"Who the hell are Mr. and Mrs. Kendrel?" Trooper Ralston asked.
"Don't you read the newsnet, idiot. This man is a registered mage. Harrison Kendrel, the president's son, and she is his wife, Francesca."
"Then they're using false idents."
"You would too if you'd been headlining the newsnet for the past week since the president publicly acknowledged his son and his son's wife, Francesca Leone, a well-known private investigator."
Trooper Gerrill remained on the sideline but he didn't escape unscathed as the captain turned his attention on him. "I suppose this idiot had to draw his weapon on them?"
Gerrill grew pale. His silence proclaimed the captain knew his men. The woman who had first looked at Harrison stared at him again. Jerry nodded at her then whispered to me, "That one's talented, I think she's looking for auras."
Harrison and I both turned to stare at her and she dropped her gaze. I closed my eyes and focused on the woman's location. "Teal. Very pretty, now stop ogling my husband."
The woman's jaw dropped. "You can't…You don't…"
"Enough, Sergeant Kallas. I think Ralston and Gerrill have embarrassed this precinct enough for one day." The captain extended his hand. "Our apologies, Sir; Ma'am. We hope you'll enjoy the rest of your stay in our District."
Harrison shook his hand then held it out to Trooper Ralston who returned our idents and my nine-mil without another word.
"Where will you be staying, Sir?" the captain asked.
"We're not certain. Are there hotels directly on the beach?"
"Certainly. We have several fine establishments on Shore Road. Tell them Captain Jarvis wants them to comp your rooms. They're free to call the precinct if they don't recognize you."
"No need," Harrison said. "We just want a couple of quiet weeks to ourselves. We won't be registering under our own names."
"I insist. It's the least we can do for the embarrassment of being brought in under watch escort."
"If you want to do something for me, just promise that my father won't know where we ended up, or what aliases we're using."
"If he finds out, it won't come from this precinct. Unless he asks in person."
"I know full well how difficult it is to refuse him anything in person, but I’d consider it a favor if nobody went out of their way to tell him where we are."
"What you said on the road--"
"Ralston! That's enough."
"It's not your man's fault, Captain. We had rather hoped to remain anonymous. We chose not to inform him of who we were. Those idents would have come back clean and we'd have been on our way. I have no problem with his treatment of us."
The Were's eyes fastened on Harrison, his head bobbed in a barely seen, wordless thanks.
I was disconcerted at how smoothly Harrison lied about the idents. We weren't sure of them at all. "There is something you could do for us," I said.
"What would that be Mrs. Kendrel?"
"Please, call me Angela. But I'd like some time on your range. I’ve been teaching my husband and his cousin to shoot."
"We usually have troopers on it morning and evening but anytime in the afternoon is fine."
"If troopers Gerrill and Ralston could meet us here tomorrow at two o'clock to show us the way, I'd appreciate it."
"They'll await your pleasure."
Neither Gerrill or Ralston appeared to have a problem with my request. "Thank you, and now we have other things to attend to."
"Will you be needing weapons? For the range."
"No, thank you.” I held up the nine-mil. “Have my own."
"Being a private investigator, I assume you have all the proper paperwork?"
"Absolutely. Do you need to see it?"
"No, Ma'am. Enjoy your evening."
"Thank you, Captain."
We stayed close as we exited the building. Harrison walked around the far side of the vehicle and opened my door for me. He leaned over and kissed me. "We need a room."
"I'm with you on that." I watched Jerry get in back. "Two rooms. Before Jerry gets disgusted and stomps off."
"Terry," Jerry said. "Maybe you two are in the clear but I don’t know what, if anything Jordan's done about me. He probably still holds me responsible for this whole mess even though you told him he needed to be watching his back for enemies and it wasn't my fault. I'm not in the newsnet. I'd prefer nobody knew who I was."
"Terry it is," I said, slipping into my seat. "But we've been so out of touch. We didn't know we were on the net. For all you know you're out there too."
"We'll check as soon as we get rooms." Harrison went around and climbed in behind the steering wheel.
Terry snorted, as he took his seat. "I'll check. I know what you two will be doing."
"Swimming in the ocean?" I waggled my eyebrows at him and he laughed.
"If that's what you want to call it."
"Well how about digging in back and finding some hats and sunglasses."
He turned around and started searching as Harrison pulled out of the parking spot. He came up with the baseball cap Harrison had bought before I took him on as my client, and a straw hat I wore from time to time when I went where somebody might recognize me.
I twisted my hair up under the hat and at the first stoplight slid the cap on Harrison's head. "I'm going to have to get to a hospital and get a new cast. Be nice if they could give me a soft one."
"Not the way you take doctor's orders," Harrison said.
"Then how'm I gonna swim in the ocean? I didn't come all this way to stare at the water."
"We'll see what we can do about that. Talk to the doctor. Maybe they've got something you can wrap on it that will protect it better than a trashcan liner."
"Or…." Terry said, "We can stay here until you heal completely."
"We'll be in and out for a while," Harrison said. "I'm sure we can extend our stay until your leg is healed."
"Too bad we didn't get through the gate without being recognized. If your Father gets wind of where we're at, he'll have people tagging along after us. Right now he's only guessing what we're up to."
"You two had him running in circles and took out half of District Seven's watch. Why do you imagine it will be difficult to shake off anybody he sends here?" Terry's eyes lit up when he talked about us thwarting Jordan Drover.
"Back there it was easy." I said. "We had two-hundred districts to scramble through and I had plenty of friends to call on. Even at that, he caught up with us at the end."
"Only because you dropped your guard, because he promised to leave us alone," Harrison said. "Because I promised his word was good…" He trailed off, remorse pursing his lips. "I didn't think I was lying to you, Frankie."
"We've been over this. It just proves he can't be trusted. It's not your fault for wanting there to be something good in him."
The buildings shifted from single-family homes with lawns to apartments, finally ending in buildings that rose nearly to the top of the dome. Harrison drove past three that had less than ten rows of windows before stopping at the tallest one. A sign proclaimed it to be the Jonah hotel, the words written in bold blue across the background of a gray whale--Humpback if I remembered correctly. I craned my neck backward and counted seventeen floors. The middle of the dome was nearly overhead. That meant half the dome extended out into water. Had they populated it with fish or plant-life? I was anxious to explore.
First things first. Room. Shower. Sex. Hospital. Maybe hold off on the hospital. Make an appointment, might not have to sit and wait for a doctor to be available. I already missed District Fifty-Five with their sparse population and excellent doctors.
Harrison tugged me forward. “I want a room on the top floor.”
“I bet they’re the first rented out,” I said.
“Doesn’t hurt to ask. What about you, Jerry? Top floor for a view or bottom floor where you can walk right out to the ocean?”
Jerry watche
d a bikini clad woman stroll down a boardwalk between buildings, then turned to Harrison. “It's Terry. And bottom floor-- for the view.”
We sent him in to get the rooms in the hopes that he wouldn't be recognized. The top floor had an open room facing the ocean and we happily paid top dollar to stay in it. Terry’s room cost half of what we paid for ours and commonsense decided us that we would only stay on the top floor a couple days. There was no telling how long it would be until either of us had any money coming in.
The view was breathtaking. The tint on the dome actually lightened so the horizon was nothing but blue-green water. We stood staring at it for quite some time. Well…I stared at it; Harrison did his damndest to convince me we should try out the bed. I shoved him at the shower then looked up the phone number of the hospital and made an appointment for the next day.
With that done I turned to the newsnet and sure enough, there we were, Harrison Kendrel, the thirty-three-year-old son of President Drover and his bride, Francesca Leone, private investigator, resident of District Eight. It gave a brief synopsis of events in Romanelli's where the president had publicly claimed Harrison as his flesh and blood for the first time in thirty-three years and announced our marriage. The picture must have been one that Nan had taken.
It made it sound like the whole evening had been a pleasant family dinner planned for the purpose of making this announcement; rather than a pleasant family dinner to which the president had been a most unwelcome party crasher. Small wonder District Fifty-Five had gone back to mistrusting us.
I wondered what the people in that restaurant actually remembered of the night. The president's PR people did a good job of making him look good, even considering the fact he announced being the father of a thirty-three year-old son he'd never acknowledged before. At least he hadn't made it sound like Nan was the bad guy for not permitting him to be a part of raising Harrison.
I scanned rapidly and found no reference to unregistered mages or nulls or anything I preferred the world not know. The story pretty much wrapped up with the announcement that we would be honeymooning at an undisclosed destination and would be returning to District Seven.
Over a week had passed; I couldn't believe it was still front page. No mention of Jerry, that much was good, but I had no problem believing the president was behind the longevity of the story's run. How better to make it impossible to hide than to make sure everybody knew our faces.
Almost everybody. I wondered how much time Troopers Ralston and Gerrill spent patrolling that lonely stretch of road.
Harrison came out of the shower with a towel wrapped around his waist and I shed my clothes and took my turn getting clean, giving him my handheld opened to the story as I limped past him.
Later that evening we went down to the boardwalk and strolled along, hidden by the shadows. We passed several restaurants advertising everything from boardwalk fries to fancy French cuisine--not that there was a France anymore--somehow cuisine had outlived the countries it originated from. The scents were tantalizing, swirling on manmade breezes which mingled them with an air current blowing in off the water. I wondered if there was a wind machine on the far side of the dome or if the breeze started on shore and circulated outward and around. I drew Harrison down onto a bench, staring out at the ocean.
Behind us, customers streamed in and out of an Italian restaurant. "I want to go back and put make-up on."
Harrison knew the kind I was talking about. Latex and a wig, not lipstick and eye-shadow. Wished I hadn’t left most of it in Fifty-Five. "I don't," he declared. "I'm not living in hiding because my father's an ass. The story has got to run its course sooner or later. When it does, we'll move. Until then, I want every man around me to see you in all your glorious natural beauty."
"Yeah, well I get tired of women ogling you. I want to punch them."
"Why? I'm proud to know every man around wants my wife."
"Only because you know I'm blind to it. You enjoy having them look at you all too much."
He held my hand and ran his thumb over my knuckles. The little intimate touches came so easy for him. "Not true, my love. First of all, you're too good a detective to be blind to anything. Second, the only woman I enjoy having stare at me, is my wife. Preferably as she admires my naked body. I just don't let the others bother me. You reject your minions by ignoring them. I do so with a polite nod or a smile. Either way, nobody's stepping between us."
"Not if they want to live."
He leaned down and kissed me. "I guess I am an excitement junkie. Never would have believed it six months ago. But do you have any idea how it turns me on to hear you threaten somebody's life over me?"
I curled my legs underneath myself, leaned against his shoulder and put my hand in his lap. "I think I get the picture." So maybe my intimate touches were just a little different than his.
"Keep this up and we won't be eating at any point in the near future."
"Figured we'd wait for the crowds to thin down anyway."
He laughed. "And if Father has somebody tailing us, taking photos?"
"I'm sure he'd love these only a little bit better than the ones I took."
He stood and pulled me to my feet, then nestled his hips against mine. "Hard to tell, with him, at least they wouldn't make the news. Anybody else would probably have a field day with photos like that." He stepped away from me and off the boardwalk then lifted me down the eighteen inch drop. "Why don't we settle for walking by the ocean?"
The sand under our feet glittered white in the moonlight, darkening as we approached the waterline. The cast made walking in the sand a chore. Waves lapped the beach, mimicking those outside the dome. I wondered how much effort was put into making this captive bit of ocean feel realistic.
There were other people on the sand. Most of them couples. Here and there, small groups of teenagers. At least twice we passed groups surrounded by a red haze and smelling distinctly of an odor I'd rarely come across outside District Eleven. So far from other Districts, I suppose it was natural that cultures would merge. There was no District Eleven around here, where vices of every imaginable sort were legal. Therefore I came to the conclusion that the red haze and the stench surrounding the teenagers were probably part of the illegal drugs Ralston and Gerrill were hunting for.
I stopped to look at one of the groups, then turned away when Harrison tugged at me. "Something wrong?"
We walked further toward the dome's edge, staring out at the moonlight glittering off the water. "I guess it's not my problem and I don't owe the local Watch any favors but if they're looking for illegal drugs they only need to patrol down here."
"What is it?"
"Jin weed. They might be looking for some of the more addictive drugs though. District Eleven has a back alley filled with people who never do anything more than look for the next hit. I don't know if Ralston thinks these kids are a problem or if they have more serious trouble here."
"God, I feel like such an infant. I smelled it, but I had no idea what it was."
"I imagine your district patrols its use closely."
"What district would that be, babe." A deep voice asked from behind us. "Want a toke?"
"Not likely," I laced scorn in my tone.
"Then you shouldn't be down here."
Chapter 3
I looked around and noticed we'd drawn close to the dome, we'd mostly been looking out at the water as we walked and hadn't noticed that couples had given way to many more groups of delinquents and there were older, nastier, looking people amongst the groups.
"I go pretty much where I want," I said, the weight of my nine-mil in its shoulder holster, reassuring.
"Well you're pretty enough we could probably have a good time."
I snorted. "You think you're man enough?"
"More man than pretty boy."
"He's not worth it, Frankie," Harrison said.
"They're all armed." I glanced around at several of the man's buddies who had drifted our way, and dropped my v
oice to a whisper. "We're not getting out of this without a fight."
"You armed?"
The man who spoke first waved to a couple of the others and they tried to surround us.
We put our backs to the ocean. "Of course," I answered Harrison. "You ready to use your magic against live targets?"
"If it means keeping you safe, I’ll do what I need to."
"Let's try not to kill them." The circle of men started closing in on us and violet lightning leapt from Harrison's fingertips. My pistol accounted for the two men on the ground screaming, four more on Harrison's side of the circle lay still. A third man behind my two lay silent. I knew I hadn't shot him and Harrison's magic hadn't killed him, so I searched the crowd for the other shooter, my eyes coming to rest on a man with ratty shoulder length brown hair near the boardwalk.
The remaining seven of our original attackers still had weapons, three pistols, two daggers and two with chains. They looked at their fallen comrades and those with chains and daggers ran away. Those with pistols backed up and opened fire. I dragged Harrison to the ground as I took out two of the remaining thugs. The last finally took a hint and ran away.
I rolled to my knees and began examining Harrison for injuries. He leaned up on an elbow and puked, then stared numbly at the four that had dropped from his strike. Certain he was just in shock, I made my way among the fallen men, disarming them, I'd aimed for arms and legs, they weren't out if they decided to fight, so I kept my pistol trained on them as I moved. Nobody offered any resistance. As I arrived at Harrison's targets, I found three of them weak but alive, lower limbs scorched. The fourth was dead.
The final man I examined had taken a round through the chest but fallen face down toward the ocean. I rolled him to get a better look at him then glanced back where a few of the gangster wannabes watched. The brown haired man watched me closely. Acting on a whim I tugged him around until it looked like he’d fallen the other direction. He was Were, and he was dead, which meant it had most definitely not been my round that killed him. But somebody had done us a huge favor by taking him out, so I returned it by not making it obvious we hadn’t killed him.