Stepping through the portal that opened a foot in front of me, I found myself in a two-bedroom hotel suite. Kieran stood in front of a dresser tying a bow tie with thick fingers and having a rough time of it.
“It’s been quite a few years since I’ve had to do this,” he muttered.
“Oh, God, you’re wearing that?” exclaimed Peter from behind me. Mike and I turned to look at Peter, dropping our jaws at him.
Peter looked good, damn good. It was the most comfortable-looking and dressiest suit I’d ever seen. A chocolate brown silk jacket hung loosely over a cream-colored shirt clasped together with white buttons bearing the sigil of Daybreak. The shirt seemed skin-tight but slid so easily with him that every move was seductively powerful, even through the jacket. His pants weren’t particularly tight, but every step accentuated muscular thighs in the fore and calves in the aft. I needed to watch Peter when I started dating. The man definitely knew how to use what he had. I could learn from him.
“Damn, Peter, where did you get that!” Ethan said from a bedroom doorway.
“From my closet at the Palace. Didn’t you guys find your apartments? They’re huge!” Peter said excitedly. “Seth’s given the whole family a whole wing to ourselves. I didn’t have a chance to go through the whole apartment because it was so big, but I got to the bedroom and the balcony.”
I looked at the Palace, seeing the layout clearly in my mind. Defining how many floors the building had was rather confusing. In some places, it actually had ten; in others, like the entire center, merely two, three if you count the outer concourse level above the Throne room that has a split-level on the sides. I haven’t quite figured out what their purpose is yet.
“Actually they look like apartment suites and they appear to be designated already,” I said. “At least the main apartments have. Although there seems to be a lot of room for change.”
“I dare say there’s some nice clothes in your closet, too,” Peter said, perching on the couch. “And definitely something better for Ethan than that blue suit.”
“We’re running short on time, guys,” warned Kieran.
“I think I can get this done pretty quick,” I said, glancing back at him fighting with his tie. Spotting Mike fidgeting nervously, I decided to start with him. “Okay, Mike, let’s start with you. What do you want to wear tonight?”
I turned around the room and picked the large mirror on the wall as my visual aid. Using the Stone, I lifted the lamps off the table and onto the floor then pushed the table out and down. It blocked the second bedroom, but got it out of the way, clearing the wall for me. Then I centered my attention on the Palace, shifting down continually until I conceptually stood in Mike’s bedroom in front of his closet.
Daybreak felt the connection build between the plane of space in front of that wall into the doorway of Mike Ferrin’s closet. Lights began glowing inside as the Palace sensed my presence in my realm as the volume around me changed slowly. This was not a portal. This was my world. Here. What the hell have I done?
“Well?” I asked as I turned to look at Mike. “We’re on a clock here…” All four of them were staring at me and all I could think about was how good it felt to be in my Palace. There was a very different feel to the magic that emanated here.
“Um, well, this is a formal affair,” Mike started. “Um, I supposed I should be in a tuxedo or black dinner jacket, white shirt, cuff links, that sort of thing. I’m a background person.”
“Yeah, right,” I said, scoffing. I looked up and down the aisles of the closet and picked through the aisles until I found suits. It was all quite orderly and arranged. Not a whole lot of suits really. Everything was literally completely organized and together, as if one of us was completely socially inept. That, or lazy. I wasn’t gonna complain right now. Reaching into the mirror, I pulled out two hangers and laid them over the back of the couch, blindly. Just below them on the floor sat a pair of high-gloss shoes and on the shelf above the rod were cufflinks and studs for the shirt. Both the studs and the cufflinks bore the same symbol as Peter’s buttons. I had to reach through the wall to grab the cases that held those.
“This should do it, Mike,” I said, smiling as I put the cases down atop the suit and dropped the shoes on the floor. He was gonna freak when he saw those studs were blue diamonds set in platinum. So were the cufflinks. “Why don’t you go get cleaned up and make sure this all fits.”
Kieran gawked at me as Mike came up and started picking everything up. Mike started chuckling suddenly, saying, “You know, Seth, I’d be highly surprised if it didn’t. I really would. Which room is mine?”
Kieran answered, starting his own chuckle, “The one Seth blocked. Just use Ethan’s and mine.”
“Speaking of Ethan, you’re next, evil twin,” I said, turning to the bedroom doorway just as Mike disappeared behind him with a whispered “Good luck!”
Ethan was braver than Mike—he walked right up and looked in the mirror with me. He noticed the difference immediately. I could feel him casting about through space, searching for the differences and where they began, and what I could have done to create this, especially with both Kieran and him watching.
“Wow, what is this, Seth?” he asked as I shifted my attention to his closet.
“It’s a perspective into my realm,” I answered. “You want to stick with blue?” Ethan was a little easier to work with here. Slipping my arm across his shoulders, I used the mirror behind the closet and dressed him directly from there. “Blue seems to be a prevalent color throughout the Palace, a shade away to your eye color. What do you think of this?”
Pointing to the mirror, I dressed his reflection in silk sashes of differing shades of blue in ways that definitely showed off his physique. Kieran burst into laughter as Ethan turned his dark blue slacks but watched his bare leg and buttocks in the mirror. A single deep blue silk cloth ran up between his legs, splitting around his waist and running up his chest to meet others. Even in the reflection, I saw the resolve in him solidify.
“If this is what you want me to wear at a dinner in your honor, I’ll do it!” he said, crossing his arms and bulging in more places in the mirror. Snickering, I waved my hand at the mirror, erasing the image and replacing it with a suit similar to Mike’s. It was like dressing a mannequin, without actually having to do the work. Just a thought and the reflection had it. It was a reflection, after all. Within a few seconds, Ethan’s reflection wore a predominantly black suit with circular swirls of the blue brushed into the fabric. The vest was an inversion of that, predominantly blue with faint swirls of black. As with Mike’s, the shirt studs and all the buttons were diamond studded with the same stylized glyph.
“What do you mean, ‘in my honor’?” I asked, waving toward the reflection again. “You said ‘our honor’ before. Better?”
“Quite,” he said, looking at the image appreciatively. “They said ‘our’ but you know they’re just sucking up to you.”
The problem of how to get Ethan into the clothes reared its ugly head then, but reflections being what they are, the answer showed itself to me fairly quickly. It was just a matter of sifting Ethan between the two, leaving the ugly blue suit on one side of odd dimensional twist I’d created and pushing Ethan physically into the new suit and back. It was a virtually simultaneous switch with his old suit going straight onto hangers in the closet. Daybreak has some pretty wild magic at his disposal.
“Why are they sucking up to me?” I asked. “It’s not like I can get them anything. Okay, Kieran, you’re next.”
Ethan stared between himself and his reflection, desperately trying to understand how I did that.
“What’s wrong with what I have on?” Kieran asked defensively, looking down at the black dinner jacket he wore.
“Nothing, nothing at all,” Peter said with raised eyebrows. “It’s a very fashionable suit. We’d like a table for five, preferably near the balcony, please. We’d like to look out over the city.”
“I’d rather no
t wear a suit at all,” Kieran muttered.
“How about this?” I asked as I switched to Kieran’s closet and adjusted his reflection as he walked closer to me. I chose an almost black, dark green jacket with black lapels and black slacks. The vest was a mixture of black and dark red, and when the light hit the lapels of the jacket just right, they would shine with emblems of either the House McClure in green or the other dominating sigil in red.
“That is nice,” Kieran said, nodding at himself in the mirror and stepping across the border into my realm. He looked down at his feet as he crossed, then out and around, searching for the edges just as Ethan did. “Is this a knowe?”
“I have no idea what that is,” I said, twisting the reflection around and creating the same shift onto Kieran that I’d done to Ethan. I motioned for both of them to turn around. “What’d’ya think, Peter? Are they acceptable now?”
“Yes, very nice, honestly,” Peter said. “Not too tight, are they? Because both of the jackets are showing their physique quite obviously.” Kieran moved his arms and shoulders through several motions that would have tugged on a regular jacket, but this one seemed to shrink and grow to accommodate his every motion.
“Psht, put your tongue back in your mouth, gay boy,” Ethan said, glancing in Peter’s direction. “Show’s over!”
“Yeah, as if,” Peter scoffed. “At least I’ve had sex, pretty boy.” I think I was offended more than Ethan was. They were developing a friendship that I thought was a little odd, but as long as it worked for them I would stay out of it. Then again, they just involved me in their game.
“Hey! Who are you insulting here?” I cried sternly.
“What? He’s only a couple of months old, really,” Peter said, defensively.
I walked through the mirror and into my bathroom, deciding on a shower before changing, just to wash the “road” off before dressing. The Palace was full of amenities and I thought to wonder who or what was supplying them for me as I grabbed a king-sized, fluffy towel from a shelf and stepped into a huge shower stall with glass doors. Hanging the towel loosely on a rod at the back, I looked at the front of the stall and saw three sets of faucets for three shower heads arrayed at the front and sides.
I examined the setup as I stripped, tossing my clothes out the door into a pile on the floor. Each head was attached to the wall with a handle, apparently each moved independently, and it looked as though a section of the tiled wall would shift around, too, so I could either sit or lounge while being sprayed. Trying the center knobs first gave me a solid stream of hot water from the center shower head, so I slowly added cold water until I had the water at the temperature I liked, then slipped underneath the spray.
The water felt amazingly clean and while I really wanted to turn on the other two jets and stay for an hour, I knew I was burning up the clock and needed to clean up and get out. It occurred to me that I didn’t have soap, looking around a little hopelessly. Then I noticed a bottle of a white, pearl-like liquid sitting on an inset tile shelf on the inside wall. Sniffing the bottle, the stuff didn’t have much of a smell I could detect, so I stuck my finger in to collect a small sample and put the bottle back. Rubbing the liquid in my palm, it lathered immediately and dramatically. Okay, found the soap and apparently, this was the super-ultra-concentrated version. I rubbed the tiny amount I had into my chest, expecting to have to go back for more, but it kept lathering as I spread it down my arms then my lower regions and again up from my shoulders to my head and face. I washed all of me from one tiny little sample. I wondered if Proctor and Gamble knew about this stuff. The lather rinsed away easily and the towel was so soft, I almost decided to wear just that.
If this shower weren’t mine, I’d be jealous of the owner.
Shifting over to my closet and considered what to wear, looking down the long aisles. Mine was larger than everybody else’s, by at least four to one, and some of it was… bizarre. I started cutting the closet down into smaller parts, categorizing the basic styles of the clothing there until I had a clear idea where to look. I was down to a tenth and shifted there. Standing in the aisle in front of the rack of suits in form fitting black underwear and socks, neither of which did I recall putting on, the next step was deciding on a color. I had a rainbow of options before me, mostly understated in this section, but the next aisle was far less so should I change my mind.
I went with blue, selecting a dark, nearly black jacket and pants. The vest was the same blue in Ethan’s suit, that prevalent blue of my realm, and all the buttons of the vest and jacket were platinum with cut blue diamonds set into the sigil repeated so often now. Moving to the three-way mirror at the beginning of the aisle, I dressed my reflection with the clothes on the hanger. I decided I liked what I saw and walked through the mirror and back into the hotel in New York, fresh and ready, almost colliding with Ethan as he poked at the mirror.
“’Bout time you got back!” he growled at me. “The car’s here. I think we’ll make the cover of ‘Wizards Monthly’ now, for sure.”
“There is such a magazine?” I asked, turning to check my hair in the mirror, releasing my connection to my realm. My closet faded quickly and I waved the table back into place and lifted the lamps up to either side of the mirror. Surprisingly, my hair fell into place without brushing or combing—a miracle shampoo since my hair hit the curling point in length again.
“No, and don’t let him rag you,” Peter said moving to face me with a brush. “You were only gone ten minutes. You look good, Seth.” He shrugged off the brush without touching my hair, as satisfied as I was.
“Where’s Kieran?” I asked.
“He went to help Mike with the studs for his shirt,” Peter said. “He was having a hard time figuring out how it all fit together. And speak the devil’s name…” Kieran and Mike walked in just as he said that. “You look good, too, Mike, very nice.”
“A half a mil in diamonds on me and I’m still the plainest one in the bunch,” Mike said, grinning and looking around the room at us. “At least you got that part right, Seth.”
“Shall we go, gentlemen? The car’s waiting,” Ethan said by the door.
“Sure,” I said. “Let’s hurry for the car that’s going to take us on a ninety minute drive of boredom.”
“Think of it as practice,” Kieran said, chuckling and pushing me lightly toward the door. “Mostly for the rest of the evening. Welcome to the political life, Lord Daybreak.”
Ethan and Peter took the lead since Mike and I had taken the direct route to the room. We filed down the hall with me in the center of the die pattern. Our rooms were on a concierge level and there was some sort of cocktail party just beginning in the VIP lounge. We still managed to turn quite a few heads as we passed the open room, even among the thousand-dollar couture suits and even more expensive dresses on the women. The concierge greeted Kieran by name and made a quick call as we passed to the elevators. Mike had barely even reached the elevator call buttons when a bellhop stepped out of an empty car and held the door open for us. This floor had privileges, it seemed.
We gathered more obvious looks and gawks as we trooped from the elevator to the front doors with Mike and Ethan creating a path through the milling crowd in the lobby. I didn’t see any magic at work. Simply our presence seemed to make the people move and clear away in front of us. On the curb, we waited only a moment before a large black SUV-type van pulled up in front of us and a large man exited the front passenger side.
“Mr. Ferrin?” he called to Mike, looking at the five of us, confused and not afraid to show it.
“Yes?” Mike answered stepping forward to meet the man.
“Mark Phillips, sir,” he said as his eyes darted over the rest of us. “I’ve been sent to collect you and the McClures. I presume these are the gentlemen?”
“Yes, we are,” Mike said, not bothering to make introductions. I wasn’t sure why, but no one else complained so I kept quiet, too, and turned my attention to the van, searching for malevolent magic. The
driver stiffened when he felt all four of us take hold of his spells on the vehicle, seeping through them and tightening the controls. He relaxed slightly when we returned control to him a few seconds later, but he shot Phillips an alarmed look and a gasp. Ethan opened the sliding side door and waved us inside.
“What was that?” Phillips asked, feeling the release and return of his security wards and his driver’s alarm.
“We had an incident earlier today involving another vehicle,” Mike said smiling, his pale blue eyes sparkling. “I’m sure the McClures were just checking the van carefully against similar events.”
“I find it alarming that they were able to do that in the first place,” Phillips said blankly.
“And yet, they are still climbing into your van,” Ferrin said calmly.
I headed for the back seat with Peter moving in beside me. Kieran took the middle with Ethan while Mike sat sideways on the front bench seat. Phillips shut the sliding door then returned to his place in the front. With a curt nod to the driver, he began our trip through New York City.
“How long will the drive take, Mr. Phillips?” Mike asked.
“Just over an hour, if traffic works in our favor,” Phillips responded. Kieran and Ethan exchanged glances quickly and I got the distinct impression that traffic would work in our favor as the van pulled out of the hotel entrance.
“So why exactly did you agree to this?” I asked. “I thought we were here to sign contracts and interview for assistants.”
“Yeah,” Peter said. “Apparently, Harris narced on us, though, and told somebody that we were passing through so they decided to throw a party for us at the last minute. All the clamor of killing MacNamara got everybody’s attention. Go figure.”
“Since both of the coalitions here helped with the attack on him, I couldn’t very well say no, now could I,” Kieran added.
“Wait, both? Together?” I asked, a little shocked. “They’ll both be there tonight?”
“Yep,” Kieran said. “With St. Croix’s demise, they started getting along just a little bit better almost immediately.”
Sons (Book 2) Page 3