Naming Day (Jake Underwood Book 1)

by Michael Ruger

  “I thought that it could not get any worse, but of course it did. It was only a short while before Jeryn Callisandra showed up to gloat. He said that he would make sure that they would find out all about me and my bastard brother. He said disgraceful and disgusting things. He implied that I was not only your tool and a traitor to Lord Evenstride, but also, please excuse me my bluntness, your ‘incestuous whore’ and that I should ‘make my peace with the void because that was where traitorous bitches like me went when they were strangled.’”

  “The more he talked, the more he made it seem that it was a foregone conclusion. There was the all notoriety of my birth at the Court of Dawn, my mother’s…fate, the dispute before the joint court council and the ultimate decision about where I would live, my relationship to Count Trellsor, all the gossip at court. It seemed a certainty that, despite my innocence, I would be condemned and executed in a matter of hours. The worse thing was that my father would think me a traitor and would be destroyed by my disgrace. I could not bear to think of father thinking of me that way or letting Jeryn Callisandra defeat me.”

  “After he left, I became frantic. I simply could not face my death with all this blackening of my name and my father’s. I am not afraid to die, but to die with all these lies unrefuted, that I just could not allow. So I broke parole and decided to find you. But Count Trellsor was not at court. I tried at several places you had been known to frequent but you had vanished. I felt completely alone.” She looked up at me and a tear rolled down her trembling cheek.

  Damn it. There are many things I can handle with something approaching aplomb, but a crying woman is not one of them. It sounds hokey, I know, but I was raised to respect women and protect them and those early teachings are hard to shake. Sure, I have had plenty of hard lessons that a woman can be as hard and ruthless as any man who ever lived. I’ve been betrayed by plenty of skirts over the years, but I guess I’ll always have a soft spot in my armor for a lady in trouble.

  I liked this tale less and less and I was thinking that Jeryn Callasandra needed to have the crap beat out of him at the earliest opportunity, but there wasn’t time for that now. The fact that she had broken parole was a problem. It meant that she was forsworn and was dangerously exposed. It almost screams ‘I’m Guilty!’ and certainly will to the Twilight Order. I had an unhealthy thought about the second surveillance team that was watching my office and what they were waiting for. “Go ahead.” I grunted. “Finish it.”

  “There is not much left to say. After I decided to flee I went to a friend, Lady Tessa. Lady Tessa is an older woman who has led a much storied and interesting life. She told me not a week before that she would be glad to help sponsor me at court and give me introductions into more select circles.”

  “Lady Tessa? I’ll bet she was helpful. That old faker!” I smirked.

  “Do you know the lady?” Dalia seemed surprised.

  “Yeah, I know her. She comes into the Silver Tree from time to time. She runs the best crooked poker game I’ve ever seen. I’m sure she cheats, but I’ve never figured out how she does it. But if I can’t figure it out I reckon none of the marks will be able to either. Hell of interesting choice you made for a sponsor.”

  “Are you implying that she has no honor?” I could tell that she resented what I was saying and I took that as a good sign. If all the spirit had been crushed out of her, it would make what was coming impossible to get through.

  “I’m not implying anything. I am stating it. She cheats.” I smiled and winked to forestall the explosion that I could see building. “Look, if she was here she wouldn’t take offense if I said it to her face, which I have on occasion. She just smiles and offers to buy me a shot of bourbon, which I always accept. Under the circumstances, I can’t think of anybody better who you could have gone to. Go ahead.” Dalia didn’t seem to know how to take that, so she continued.

  “When I told her what was going on and who had questioned me, she seemed a little panicky. I do not blame her for this, nobody wants the Twilight Order paying them a visit, and I know I certainly did not.”

  “She told me that she could help me get away, but that it might be difficult and expensive. I wanted to find Count Trellsor and bring him back so he could disavow any association with me other than an accident of birth, but she told me that going to the Court of Dawn directly was out of the question. Such routes are always watched carefully, but there might be a circuitous way that I could find you. She told me that she had a secret way into the world of mortals and that if I gave her some money, she might be able to help me get to where you would likely be.”

  “Oh, I’m sure the old girl was quite helpful.” I smiled. “What did she say when you told her that I was Count Trellsor? I’ll bet she was real noncommittal on that point.” She considered for a moment, perhaps replying her conversations with Lady Tessa.

  “In hindsight, I can see that most of her conversation was a reflection of what I said to her. She did not tell me that I was correct in identifying you, only that it was very possible because you are a very clever man and that if anyone could pull off such a deception, it would be you.” She seemed a little chagrinned.

  “Hah! Yes, that’s Lady Tessa alright!” I laughed. “She was always an expert on deflection and left handed compliments. Continue, please.”

  “She told me that your base of operation was in the mortal world in the city of Houston, which she found dreadful. Her portal opened in New York, which she claims is much better for the kind of thing she enjoys. Then she told me that I should remove any personal magic I might have on or active as they can be used to track by those know the way of such scryings. She advised me to try and get in touch with Kevin, a goblin bartender at a salon rather than risk a direct contact. She instructed me in the use of a telephone and gave me a number to call when I arrived. This I did. Kevin arranged for my passage aboard a horrible conveyance called a jet” She paused as if considering the choice of her words. “She also warned me that you can be quite stubborn and I should be prepared for almost anything you might say. But she also said that if you said that you would help me, than there was almost no limit to what you would be willing to do to keep that word.”

  Lady Tessa knows me too damn well. I don’t like double crossing my clients. It’s a bad habit to get into. But Jeryn Callisandra wasn’t being straight with me, a few lies I could deal with but he was trying to play me. To hell with that. He wanted to destroy Dalia and lay the blame on a disreputable cousin and lay it complete at the feet of her father. Nice and neat. The only thing that I didn’t know was whether he was behind identifying me as “Count Trellsor”.

  I couldn’t think of single reason not to take Lady Dalia into my protection, other than the obvious that I was already swimming in a crocodile infested swamp. But I needed her almost as much as she needed me. It was obvious now that the wind blowing from the Court of Twilight was a cold one that smelled of rotting seafood indeed. The fact that I, by name, was salon gossip was nothing but trouble.

  “When I got to the Silver Tree and discovered that Kevin was unavailable I did not know what to do. When I asked if anyone had heard of Count Trellsor all I got was blank looks. Then I remembered that you are known here as Jake Underwood. Everyone recognized that name. Lady Lucinda took me aside and asked me a few questions and then called you and here we are.” She stopped talking and looked at me for a moment and then continued.

  “Will you help me? Will you come back to the Court of Twilight and clear my name?” She looked at me with pleading eyes and hated to disappoint her but there was absolutely no way that I would or could stick my head into that nest of snakes.

  Chapter Twelve

  “Lady Dalia-“ I started.

  “Please call me Dalia, there is no need for such formality between family members.”

  “Look, I can’t think of any good way that I can let you down easy and I can’t afford for you have comforting illusions about us, so I’m going to be blunt. Hopefully, not painful, b
ut blunt regardless. Do you understand?” She looked solemn and nodded.

  “I’m going to ask you some questions and how you answer these questions will tell me how and if I am going to be able to help you. These questions may seem, insensitive to you, but it is important that you answer truthfully and succinctly. Don’t bother with glamours, on my account. I have little patience with them and they don’t work on me, mostly, and it’s waste of effort.”

  “Now, the first thing we have to do is get out of here. Lucinda’s a good egg, but us being here is an unnecessary risk, to her and us. Did you bring a car?”

  “No. I don’t know how to operate your conveyances. I had a hired man bring me to the Silver Tree from the place where the jets are stabled Airport. All that I have is this valise and its contents.” She held up an old fashioned suitcase with leather straps that bound it and silver buckles as clasps. It would have been at home on a steamer a hundred years ago.

  “Fine. I know a café that I never go to because the food is as bad as the décor is trendy. We should be able to talk there without being overheard.”

  I got up and made our farewells to Lucinda. She looked curious but cautious.

  “Anything I want to know about?” she asked in way that told me she hoped that there wasn’t.

  “No. In fact, the less you know about Dalia, the better and I would appreciate it if you could pass that along to anyone she may have talked to at the bar.” I was in her debt now and I hoped the bill wasn’t presented in the near future.

  That seemed to satisfy her and I motioned for Dalia to grab her bag and head downstairs. It might not seem gallant to not have taken her case, but I learned a long time ago that it was better have one’s hands free when involved in a murder case.

  ---

  The 59 diner, so named because it sits on a frontage road along Highway 59, does its best to be quaint and invoke the spirit of the 1950’s diner. It spends so much effort on atmosphere that its food comes off second best. When I eat in this area, I usually go to Katz’s, which ‘never closes’. It’s expensive, but worth it. The problem is that I go there often enough that if someone knew me, they might think to check for me there and right now I decided that I needed to be scarce until I knew how to approach this problem.

  I suppose I could have finished my conversation with Dalia at Lucinda’s place. Anyone shadowing me or Dalia would probably still be able to keep track of us where ever we went. The fact is that I wanted a few moments to consider how and what to actually tell Dalia. I was worried that when she discovered that there was no way that she could actually be my sister that she might panic. It’s not that I would not want her as a sister, in fact in many ways it was quite appealing. I have had no close family since my grandfather died and that was over 70 years ago. It was just that it seemed like she penned a lot of her hope on the fact that I was her brother and if I removed that crutch, she might stumble. Still, it would better to find this out in a diner than in a more unpleasant situation. Besides, she deserved to know the truth.

  It was about two in the afternoon when we pulled up into the parking lot of the diner. The diner itself was designed in the style of an old slipstream dining car. As one who had actually sat in one of these cars, I could tell you that no dining car on a train was ever this spacious. Still, it was nice to see a little of the old style making a comeback. The parking lot was only partially filled, a testament to the after lunch crowd returning to work so it was easy to get close to the door.

  I ordered coffee, black, and a burger, one of few sandwiches that they couldn’t ruin. I suggested a salad for Dalia but she refused ordering only a glass of water. I waited until our order arrived not wanting the chatter of the waitress and the clattering of dishes to interrupt our conversation.

  “You said you had some questions and something you wanted to tell me?” she started nervously.

  “As I said, there is no good way to say this, so I’m going to just say it. I know you may have questions of your own, but I would appreciate it if you could just wait until I’m finished before asking them.”

  “First, I’m not your brother.” She opened her mouth to interrupt and I shook my head to stop her. “I know you believe that, but it’s just not possible. Look, you know who your father is, Lord Cabor Klaris, right?” She nodded.

  “My father is Lord Stavros Melliscant. I was conceived, so I’m told, on New Year’s Eve in the year 1899 in the city of Albany. There is no doubt of this. It is recorded in the archives at the Court of Dawn. When were you born?”

  “The Year of the Unicorn. I think that would be 1963 by mortal reckoning.”

  I nodded. That was about what I thought. While I don’t make any real effort to keep up with events at the Court of Dawn, I did seem to remember hearing of a conflict between my father’s house and someone else in the early sixties, something involving his ward or niece or some female relation. I had been busy with other matters and had neither to time nor the interest to bother learning the details. “Who is your mother?”

  “Lady Mayletha Melliscant. But I am afraid that she has passed beyond my knowledge.” That was nicely cryptic for a simple answer so I decided that I would have to ask again a little more bluntly.

  “Is she dead?”

  Dalia hesitated. I could she was trying to figure out how to answer the question and was having trouble framing her reply.

  “No…Not dead…not dead exactly.” This line of questioning was making her nervous and more cryptic.

  “She’s not undead is she?” Dalia shook her head.

  “She is...was…declared unclean and exiled to…to beyond! I can not speak more of her by oath on the Compact.”

  Wow. That was a little unusual. If someone was bad enough to be declared unclean it was generally considered better manners to execute them than to exile them. It was also odd to seal it under the compact, at least from family. She could see the unasked question in my eyes.

  “My mother was only declared Unclean by the Court of Dawn. Your father used considerable political influence to have her exiled instead of killed. I do not know why this is so. No one will speak of it. Execution of her sentence was held in abeyance until…until my birth”. Her lip was trembling as she said this and I could tell this was an old hurt that had long festered.

  “Ah. That would explain it.” There were only a few crimes that could result in such an odd sentence. The most likely one was treason. I decided that I didn’t need to pursue this now. This seemed like another of my father’s spiteful ploys. He must have really disliked Dalia’s mother to do such a thing. I can’t imagine any fate worse for a Fey than exile without even death to eventually release the prisoner. I shuddered.

  “I thought so. That settles it. There is no way you could be my sister. My mother, Mary Underwood, died in childbirth in September of 1900. There can be no doubt of that. I’ve been to her grave and her father, my grandfather, told me the story quite often when I was a boy. He told me how they met and how he forbid her to see him and how my father ignored his wishes. He never forgave Lord Melliscant for what he did and Lord Melliscant wanted nothing to do with his half breed son. I’m sorry, but much as I might wish otherwise, we are not brother and sister. You have to accept that. Although, we do share the loss of mother at birth.”

  She looked pale. I could see that it took a great deal of strength on her part not to fall apart and let her emotions carry her away. “Was the Lady Mary Underwood of noble birth?” She asked.

  “As they reckon things here, she was. We don’t have an aristocracy of birth in this country, but an aristocracy of wealth. My grandfather had made a lot of money in supplying steel to the railroads and the Navy, so she was as close to noble as the United States allows, but she wasn’t a Melliscant.” She nodded, doing her best to remain calm.

  “It’s not like I wouldn’t like to have a sister, I would.” I added hastily and I was somewhat surprised to realize that this was true. It was like an ache that I had never known I had. I wanted so
meone to be family again. Since the last of my mortal family had either died or forgotten about me I had been alone and I had missed having blood ties. I could see it now that I considered it, I was half Fey in the end and Fey are all about family.

  “It doesn’t mean I won’t help you. I will. I give you my word that I will try. I have never failed to redeem my word and I won’t this time, but we have to deal with what is real and not what we want to be real.” I decided that as long as I had dived in this bucket of fish guts so far I might as well swim on.

  “In that regard, I also have to convince you that I am not this Count Trellsor that you are accused of collaborating with. I know that you believe this, but it’s just not true. I don’t give a fig for the Court of Dawn or my “father’s“acceptance and name. I use my Grandfather’s name and he is the one I considered my father.

  “But I saw you! Occasionally you were seen without a glamour! I saw you.”

  “Did you really or did you see someone who resembled me?” She looked confused so I pressed the point home. “I haven’t been near the Court of Twilight in decades and I can round up enough mortals here who can prove that I was here in world of Adam. By deep scan, if necessary.” I certainly hoped it wouldn’t come to that. The thought of subjecting my friends and employees to mind witches was horrifying, but I had to convince Dalia that I was telling her the truth.

  “But…But if you are not Count Trellsor, than who is?” Disbelief was written across her face. “Why would there be such talk about you in connection with the Count if there is not some truth to it?”

  “That’s a very good question and one that I wish I had answer for it. I’m going to have to find an answer to before this situation can be resolved. Nevertheless, I’m not him. As for whom he might be, I’m not sure, but I suspect that there might be a grain of truth in the idea that he has some connection with the Court of Dawn. What it is, I don’t know yet. Maybe he is a spy or maybe this is some kind of elaborate ruse on the part of Jeryn Callisandra to be rid of you.”