“We’ve had good luck on one front,” Richard said, moving to the table opposite the agents and orienting on the map. “There are several parcels along this road that you were interested in, Seth, that we’ll be able to buy without problems.” Richard pointed out the section of roads we’d just blown past. “The one issue we’re having is this property here. We can’t track down the owner. It seems to be owned by a shell company out of the Caribbean. They haven’t yet answered our inquiries.” He glanced up at me with a knowing twinkle in his eyes. As I oriented myself, I saw why—his finger was on my house.
“Without that, how much land are we talking about?” I asked, “Which properties?”
Richard took a pink highlighter out of his pocket and quickly sketched along the property lines for me, completely encircling my house. It was a good-sized hunk a land.
“That much?” I said, surprised. I felt the realty agents hopes of a big payoff slide downhill, though outwardly they appeared cheerful. “Okay, let’s let New York handle the Caribbean problem. Have you got enough money in accounts for this?”
“Yep, but we’ll need to move some over afterward to cover the next big buys,” he said.
“Ka-Ching!” Ron and Ben nearly shouted gleefully at each other, causing me to look up. But no one else did. I was the only one to hear the obviously mental shout of joy. Must be a huge commission in there, I thought as I went back to the map.
“I’ve seen a lot of ‘For Sale’ signs lately, around here,” I said, waving my hand vaguely in the area I knew Jimmy lived. “Mostly on foreclosures. Has something happened in this area I don’t know about? A major plant closing or something?” Jimmy perked up at the question, seeing where I was asking about.
Ron and Ben quickly dismissed the question, though, both shaking their heads.
“No, nothing big in the last two years,” Ron said.
“Do you recall any specific addresses?” Ben asked. “I can inquire discreetly and get back to you.”
“No, nothing specific,” I answered. I really didn’t want to let them that close to the problem.
“How about the name of the realty company?” Ron asked.
Hadn’t thought of that, but looking up at Jimmy, I could see the sign sitting in Billy’s yard near the road. “Farmer’s Sunshine… Something like that,” I said, purposefully confusing the words slightly.
“Farmers and Families,” Ron said, nodding. Ben added a sour look to the conversation. “That isn’t likely to get sold anytime soon. The agency and the mortgage company are owned by the same people and they’re both under investigation for illegal practices.”
“Okay,” I said, dropping the matter.
“Next, we have the research facilities,” Richard said, moving down the table. “That’s proving to be a little more challenging, but we expected that. Our biggest problem is actually in the zoning laws and the fact that we’re incorporated. If we just popped a building up in the middle of nowhere, we’d be fine, but you went and made everything legal and we’re a little stuck.”
“What?” This confused me completely. And I really wanted a donut. “How does a fried cell phone conflict with zoning laws?”
“It’s considered research on electronics within electromagnetic fields and potentially hazardous to humans,” Richard said, grinning.
“We’re bathed in these fields constantly,” Peter said with narrowed eyes. He was confused by it, too. And a cup of coffee. Why did I want a donut and coffee, suddenly?
“Yeah, the cell phones are more dangerous than what we’ll be doing,” I said. “We’re just looking for a way to shield the electronics from damage.” The realty agents were following this part of the conversation avidly, but from their reactions, it added nothing new to what Peter’s father had said already. And an apple, I’d love an apple.
I realized where those thoughts were coming from. “Jimmy, go get a freaking donut before you drive me nuts,” I said, looking back at him. He took off immediately for the end of the room with a “Thanks, Seth.” Shaking my head and ignoring the three questioning looks I got from everyone, I went back to the map.
“What options have you looked at, Dad,” Peter asked.
“Well, anything too close to the Tennessee river is too much of a draw away,” Richard said, talking about ley energy fields with Peter in a language I barely understood, and I needed to understand this.
“Could you guys give us a few minutes?” I asked Ben and Ron for a little privacy.
“Certainly,” Ron said amid Ben’s similar polite assurances and they left us, darting for the lobby. I thought they’d go for one of their offices. Odd enough for me to put some sound shields up.
“I’m sorry Richard, I don’t understand what you mean by ‘too much of a draw away’?” I asked for clarification.
“The research Peter wants to do requires setting up a constant field strength of magical energy around the test object until it fails,” Richard explained. “The water flow will created a draft against that field that will constantly pull and destabilize it. When you get several of these fields together, the greater the destabilizing effect. So you want as few flows as possible, both electromagnetic and magical, working against you.”
“At least until we can find something to test live,” I said nodding and understanding now.
“Right,” Richard agreed. “Which leaves us with these two geographical areas.” He gestured, indicating on the map where he found the correct situations to fit ours. “The few others that come close are going to be too difficult to obtain. If we can’t get one of these two, I think we’ll have to go elsewhere.”
“Which might not be a bad idea, anyway,” I muttered, but I was partial to this area. Southern Georgia couldn’t be much better geographically and I wasn’t familiar enough with the rest of the country to know of any likely viable opportunities.
“True,” Richard said. “We might want to bring Robert in on that, too. He knows an awful lot of people and he knows this country very well.”
“I honestly hadn’t thought about that,” I said. I hadn’t thought at all about what my parents were doing right now, besides healing. Dad had already said not to worry about the money I’d taken over and, after consulting with the attorneys, the way the contracts were written with our incorporation, it was a simple matter to give them both access to funds at any time. But they had both led busy lives before, what did they want to do now? “I’ll talk to him when I see him next. He may enjoy this sort of thing. You seem to be having a good time at it,” I said.
He laughed. “It gets me out of boring diplomatic missions of no importance with boring diplomats and out into the world while I’m waiting for Elise and Justine to come home from their dig in the Middle East.”
“We’re spending the weekend at the Palace,” Peter said. “Would you like to join us?” Richard turned to me.
“Don’t look at me. He asked,” I said, chortling. “I suspect he has bigger plans than just a weekend, but I’ll let him talk to you about any of that.”
“I just thought that since you had to make the transfers,” Richard started to say.
“Oh, Seth discovered a way around that,” Peter said. “Maybe even more than one and it appears to be secure.”
“Have you decided on a name yet?” Richard asked me, his eyes and aura alight with curiosity. He’s yet to visit the Palace.
“Yes, it told me this morning,” I said, instantly at ease just at the memory of the sound. “In human speech, it’s Gilán.”
“We can do this over lunch,” Peter said. “Let’s get these guys taken care of and out of our hair. Which two, Dad?”
Jimmy walked over eating his third donut and sipping coffee as Richard directed our attention around the map, pointing out various issues with both plots of land. The biggest problem in both cases was still zoning and permits, but we didn’t think that would be serious issues in these cases. They were both zoned close to the way we needed, we’d just have to get the legalities wo
rked out in the way the research permits were written. We’d just have to change our cover story a little. After all, we weren’t attempting dangerous magical research, just confining the effects of magical energy on electronic equipment. No nuclear physics or high level radiation experiments. And the one closest to my house looked extremely promising, until Jimmy spoke up.
“That’s Yaegar’s place,” he said, licking his fingers after finishing the giant sugar-coated sugar he was eating. “You’d need a ton of dynamite to get him and his boys outta there.”
“Where?” Richard asked Jimmy to point it out on the map. I saw Peter wave at the door behind me and Ron came in, calling back down the hall, “Ben, they’re ready for us.”
“Why do you say that, Jimmy?” I asked.
“You can barely get ‘em off the mountain anyway,” he said. “But they run a fairly lucrative huntin’ business off that land. Stock it themselves, run private camps at certain times of the year, survival training, too. No cameras, cell phones, or computers allowed. Daddy’s lodge ran out of there, but he never let me go. Billy went, though, the last six months or so.”
“All right,” I said, giving up on that section of the map. It was the upper fourth of the area we thought we’d need. We could probably do without it, but there were too many unknowns in what we were researching to let something trivial slip into the equation.
“Now hold on,” Ben insisted, “there is some sort of paramilitary survivalist group that meets up there every other month or so, but everything else your friend mentioned is only local legend. Hans doesn’t have two nickels to rub together to buy livestock to stock the land with.”
“Which makes me think you’re having difficulty with this section?” I said coyly, pointing to the second. It wasn’t too difficult to read his reactions, even without my newfound abilities. “Richard, it looks like you suddenly have some time off.” Ron was mentally cussing Ben out and picturing exactly what he wanted to do to him physically, thinking he’d screwed up their previous deal already. His images were quite vivid. And visceral. Cutting off Ron’s imagery, I stared at the map, thinking about all that Richard had said and what we needed to proceed.
“I don’t think this would work anyway,” Peter said, looking over the western property. Richard turned to look at Peter and where he was looking so intently. He got an “A-Ha” look on his face then searched a few more spots.
“Yeah, I see what you mean, son, and not just there, either,” Richard said as he reached under the table for another map rolled up like a scroll. I hadn’t noticed those. He flipped through several layers before slapping it down on the table and rolling it out further. It was an older map, less detailed but with utility lines, including power, phone, and cable. “They’re already digging these up when I drove through. There’s got to be an installation of some sort out there. Probably bordering the county line, it looks like. Radar for aircraft and weather from the airport.” He shook his head ruefully. “Good for post testing though.”
“Especially long term,” Peter agreed. “But that’s after we find a solution.”
“All right,” I said. Time to make decisions. Standing here vacillating was wasting time we didn’t have. “We leave for Ireland tomorrow afternoon, I believe, but we’ve got interviews tomorrow morning in New York—”
“Possibly tonight,” Peter interrupted, reminding me. I cringed a little.
“At best, the soonest we can get back is the end of next week,” I said. “You’ve got at least that long to talk to Yaegar and see if there’s any kind of accommodation you can make with him, but I would much prefer if you could keep our names out of the transaction for as long as possible. Do keep in mind that I do mean legal and moral accommodations, especially since we work closely with several high-ranking members of our government’s law enforcement agencies.” Ben and Ron were having a hectic morning. I was shocking the crap out of them and they were having difficulty with belief.
“Just wanted to be clear on that,” I said, shrugging. “In the meantime, let’s go ahead with what we’ve agreed on. We’ll go look over the remainder of the property if we get time today. What do you need from us at this point?”
“Signatures on Letters of Intent,” Ron paused his list as Richard reached under the table again, all the way to the floor this time. He came up with a battered briefcase that looked like it had seen better days. He appeared to wipe it down with a handkerchief, but both Peter and I saw the pulses of magic he pushed into the surfaces of the case to unlock it. When he opened it, I was amazed he could close it, there was so much stuff crammed into it. He took out two thick sets of files, handing one to me and one to Ron.
Ron flipped the file open on the table in front of them. Inside was an exact duplicate excluding the checks. There was a bundled set of papers for each of the nine properties with bid agreements in arcane legalese, deed transfer agreements, and an enormous number of ‘in lieu of’ littering every page. I understood what the papers were saying but all legalese tends to sound deliberately misleading to me. The last page was unique to my packet, though. It was the final brokerage agreement with Mr. Borland for the fee of one dollar per property, contingent upon delivering all ten properties.
I burst out laughing, waving the file at Peter as I fell into a chair. Peter grabbed it seconds before I dropped it. Flipping to the last page, he started snickering almost immediately.
“I didn’t think you’d see it that fast,” Richard said, grinning and red-faced. He sat on the table, looking between the two of us. “Robert would have signed and went on his way.”
“So is this in US dollars or Canadian?” Peter asked with mock seriousness.
~ ~ ~
“Should I be worried that Ben has your friend cornered?” Richard asked.
“No, he’s all right,” I said, listening to their whispered conversation.
“They’ve got about forty minutes to an hour left,” Peter said as he dropped his cell phone into his pocket. “They could go for lunch in either city so long as they’re back by one, Eastern, for the interviews. Kieran agrees we should look over the property anyway. I didn’t mention our tagalong, though.”
“He’ll notice at some point,” I said, wryly. “Any place in town you want lunch or should we go to New York?”
Ron came back into the room, placing the question on hold for a moment. “Looks like we have everything we need here,” he said, smiling and happy.
We all stood with Richard taking the lead. “Very good, then,” he said. “I’ll be getting in touch with you sometime next week about the rest of the paperwork and obtaining the deeds and such. Then we’ll see where we are with the second set of properties.”
“We have all your contact information, correct?” Ron asked. “And yours, Mr. McClure?”
“I’m afraid we’re rather difficult to get in touch with,” I said shaking my head. Jimmy snorted into the coffee he was drinking. I was thankful it wasn’t a spit-take at least. “Life in politics makes communication through associates a necessity, unfortunately. Our attorneys’ offices will be sufficient.”
“So what Bethany overheard was true, then?” Ben asked, curious and excited, a gossiper. “You’re a king?” Ron growled at him under his breath and nearly glowed with aggravation.
I smiled at them and said, “Kings are primogenitors. My father, brothers, and I have all worked hard for any and every title we hold. No, I am not a king.”
Richard opened the door and stepped out of the room. “Nicely said, Seth. Has Olivia finally managed to mellow Robert out, then? You seemed rather practiced at that.” I had gotten several oblique comments regarding my father’s radical swings from brusqueness to smooth diplomacy.
“Ya’ know, I get that question a lot,” I said, cheerfully, following him out. “He must’ve acted completely differently at home than he did elsewhere. That’s all I can think of. I really should ask him.”
Peter waited for Jimmy to catch up, waving for him to hurry. Peter decided to ta
ke a parting shot, “Yeah, ‘king’ isn’t quite the right word for what he is, Ben. Bye, now!” Then he left Ron and Ben at the conference table with confused looks on their faces and fat checks in their hands.
Chapter 9
We decided on New York for lunch and drove both cars to Richard’s apartment before leaving. Watching Peter and Richard talk through the rear window as I followed was an adventure in pantomime. Neither was as animated when he talked alone, but put them together and arms went flailing. That Richard was able to keep the car under control was purely miraculous.
The short trip over gave me a few minutes to explain to Jimmy what we were about to do and who he was about to meet. I wasn’t actually worried about either Kieran’s or Ethan’s response—it would be harsh—but he needed to know ahead of time that either one could grind him into dust if he acted up at the wrong time. And neither would be particularly remorseful about it. Oddly though, that’s not what he had questions about.
“Is what Peter said true?” he asked hesitantly.
“What did Peter say?” I asked, hating guessing games.
“Well, you had just denied being a king, but just before we left, Peter said that ‘king’ was the wrong word. So if you’re not a king, what are you?”
“I’m what kings have always aspired to be but never could. I am Lord of the Realm, Liege of Gilán.”
“How is that different?”
“It’s not something that can be taken away, for one thing. Far more importantly, there is a connection to the people and the land that goes deeper than merely a line on a map. And let me tell you, that connection can be downright scary at times.”
“Why?”
“My people can be… intense.” A million, very short, very intense people who really, really want to please.
I felt the tickle of wards when we parked and again when we entered Richard’s temporary housing. I felt half-naked under such under-powered protection, but considering the geography and neighboring buildings, there wasn’t much more that could be done without creating havoc for other people. Sort of destroying the point behind hidden wards.
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