“All right,” he said slowly, still looking suspicious. Kieran and Ethan started smirking at him, realizing the course the conversation had taken and where it began.
“Of course, if he’s still thinking about it, I could…” I said, teasing him.
“Oh, he still thinking about it, trust me,” he said confidently. “And you’d better not! Or blueberry pancakes will be the least of your tortures!” I laughed at his threat even though I wasn’t sure it was an idle one. The brownies and Guard were confused by the aside, which was probably for the best. Ethan chuckled lightly, adding noise to his smirk as Kieran disappeared around the corner of the house, more discrete.
“Ric,” I decided, moving the subject back. “Let’s get a prospectus as soon as you feel comfortable after you’ve seen the actual house and had a chance to survey the surrounding land.”
“How, um, legal do these modifications need to be?” Byrnes asked, apparently coming out of the baby shock.
“As much subterfuge as necessary can be used to keep it as mundane as possible from inspectors and tax assessors and other government officials who will come to the house itself. My brothers and I will ward the property lines against the outside world. No one but us needs to know what truly lies behind the walls. Don’t lose sight of safety, though, fire, electrical, ventilation and air conditioning, lighting, low-hanging obstacles. Some of us are taller than others.”
“And the overall interior design? What about the style and furnishings?” Ellorn asked.
“I’m leaving that to y’all,” I said with a big smile. “This is your project and I want to see what y’all come up with. Otherwise, I’d just hand you both plans and say, ‘Do.’ It needs to blend in reasonably with current styles of corporate England and America for our business and still hint at Gilán and Daybreak. Other than that, it’s pretty much up to you and what you find out during the walk through.”
“We should probably get some magazines and books with plenty of pictures about this for them,” Ethan suggested. “Decorating isn’t exactly within their area of expertise, especially from the ground up.”
“Good idea,” I said, nodding. “And I’ll ask Ferrin to get David or Steve to coordinate some time to research equipment and supplies for you. So, ready to walk through and see everything now?”
“Yes, sir,” Byrnes said, eager again. Ellorn let Byrnes’ response stand for both of them, accepting the “jointness” of the project. Kind of him since he was so much higher in the hierarchy than Byrnes.
“Peter, First, would you like to begin while I go speak to the women?” I asked.
“You’re not going to do it?” Peter asked, a little surprised.
“Why? You know more about what we need than I do,” I said. “The Commanders know more about standard security and Kieran and Ethan know more about wards and magical security than either of us. I’ll learn more from the prospectus than walking around as dead weight now. No, I’m going to talk to our pregnant ladies and our medical staff.”
“Okay,” Peter said and stood up. I could see Byrnes was starting to panic. “Holler when you’re done. Ellorn, this place isn’t faery-safe so watch your step, okay?”
I shifted to a corner of the Meeting Hall where twenty-eight women waited with five male medics and three brownie midwives. Of all of them, only the brownies were calm and relaxed. It was almost funny how nervous the human side was and how quiet they were being because of it.
Darting to the front of the room, I said, “Hello, ladies and gentlemen, I hope I’m not pulling you away from anything.”
Everyone stood quickly and chanted in unison, “Good evening, Lord Daybreak.”
“Please, sit,” I said with a comforting smile. “I’m just here to inform you of a few things and introduce Denean, Joquila, and Leana to you. They and a few more that they’ll introduce to you will become more important in your lives in the coming weeks. It seems I didn’t warn you strongly enough about the euphoria of the first night under the geas. Between that and Gilán’s desires to reproduce everything, it seems you’re all pregnant.”
The brownies took the information in stride, already having surmised it from their presence here, being midwives. The medics were probably trying to figure out exactly how much they knew about pregnancy and childbirth and just as likely thinking, “All of them?” The women, though, were gobsmacked. Yeah, I stole the word from Ferrin, but it was a really good word, gobsmacked. I gave them time to process the information rather than push more on them.
“But I can’t be pregnant, I have birth control in,” one woman objected. “I had Scarlet Fever as I child. The doctors said I’d never have children,” said another. “I am a few days late,” and another. “Me, too,” and another. Acceptance and denial spread until only nine were still in denial and those were the worst of the physical issues.
“As I said, Gilán is very life affirming,” I called over the women murmuring around the room. “Those of you with reproductive issues, it healed fairly quickly once the geas was laid and the euphoria took care of your reserve from there. You and your companions just did whatever felt good at the time and this was a result. Gilán also has a penchant for multiple births, so it’s possible that each coupling resulted in another child or that an egg merely split. That’s what we’re here to discover tonight, to see how many children to expect in forty or so weeks so everyone can start planning.”
“What about the fathers? What do we tell them?” asked Lt. Betty Slocum.
“Well,” I started tentatively, “initially, you can tell them anything you want, including nothing, but…” I glanced down at the brownies for help and Leana came to my rescue.
“What our Lord is trying to say, ma’am,” the brownie squeaked, laughing at my discomfort slightly, “is that as the fetus nears birth and gains consciousness in the womb, it will reach for the geas and find Lord Daybreak first. Then it will find what connects it to him, which is you and its father. The father will know the child as well as you do by the time it births, regardless of your wishes.”
“What if there are two children by different fathers?” asked Sgt. Marion Winslow.
“Both fathers will know their own child,” Denean answered, smiling. I don’t think that was a comfort for Winslow. Maybe she’d been busy that night.
“Now, my biggest concern isn’t this particular incident, but rather what comes after,” I said. “And pardon me if this seems a little blunt, but you’re not here to be the breeders of the Garrison. You are not obligated to anyone to provide sexual services. Ever. You’re here to serve just as the men are, but I want you to have lives outside of that service, too. Your choices of partners are your own, but be aware that Gilán is very active in procreation and most precautions are useless except abstinence.
“So, let’s see how many kids will be running around here in a few months then we’ll give you a couple of days to think about what you want to tell the fathers, okay?”
~ ~ ~
I shifted back to the house, to the top floor where Ethan and Byrnes were pulling plywood off a window to get to a balcony. It was one of those that showed from the outside but didn’t have any access from the house. Kieran was watching them while the construction engineer poked his head into a big hole in the east wall and shined a flashlight down into it.
“That was quick,” Kieran said without looking in my direction. “How d’it go?”
“Surprisingly well,” I answered. “They took the news better than I expected and the midwives were a comfort to them. The medics are freaking out, but I think they’ll be ready when the time comes.”
“All that wiring will have to be replaced,” Peter told the electrician as they came in from a side room together with Velasquez behind them.
“Of course, the ones who thought they couldn’t get pregnant had the hardest time accepting it,” I said coyly, once Velasquez was there. He’d been so calm when Byrnes was freaking out earlier, but I knew a secret that he didn’t yet. “One woman had e
ven had a tubal ligation healed nearly instantly and another with genetic difficulties was fixed, too. They were quite amazed.”
“So how many children in all?” Peter asked smirking at me.
“Sixty, twenty-two with twins and six with triplets,” I answered.
Ellorn giggled as the construction engineer helped him through the hole in the wall. “Gilán is most insistent, Lord.”
“True,” I said laughing with him. “I’ve asked the medics to inform the men who’ve had vasectomies that those operations have been reversed, just to be on the safe side.”
Velasquez head swung around to me, his jaw dropping as he turned. I busted a gut. I couldn’t help it. I just nodded and laughed hard. Latino men could blush and turn bright red, too! For simplicity’s sake, I blocked the men from hearing us.
“Yeah, Ric, you’re in the exact same boat as Ted, now. There goes that air of superiority, eh?” I said, still laughing. “We should have stuck around, guys. Apparently, it was a hell of a party!”
“Are the commanders expectant fathers?” Kieran asked me over his shoulder and wearing a sly grin. “Please tell us it was with different women, at least!” I clamped down on every muscle in my face as hard as I could, but the snickering still came out. And Kieran only got two thirds of the joke. Lt. Dixon was the father of the third triplet. I have no idea how they arranged that one and I wasn’t searching memories to find out either, but it was too funny for words. Peter was going to have a cow.
“Peter, what’s that called now?” Kieran asked, grinning and crossing his arms.
“’Pulling a train’ is the appropriate term, I believe,” Peter said, chuckling and dusting his hands on his pants. “Or they could have had her ‘on a spit’.” When he started a pantomime motion, I busted it again and fell on my ass. Peter knew too much about sex in its myriad forms.
I finally managed to contain myself enough to pull my knees up and curl my arms around them, still sitting on the floor. Byrnes turned and started sputtering out an attempt at an explanation. Jimmy rushed through and grabbed them both by an arm and ushered them quickly out through the door Peter just came through.
“He took our toys,” Peter complained, snickering and looking through the door after them.
Kieran moved in to take Byrnes place at the windows with Ethan and they had the blockage removed in seconds with the strength difference. That and Kieran wasn’t afraid to destroy molding he knew wasn’t real in the first place. It gave a wonderful view of a wall.
Jimmy walked back in with Byrnes and Velasquez following like puppies.
“They’re back,” Ethan said grinning. “I suppose we should play nice now.”
“It was nice having new victims, though,” Kieran commented, letting the plywood fall to the floor with a bang.
“You should see what they do to the people they don’t like,” Jimmy told the commanders of the Guard. “Trust me, they’re playing with you.”
“How much longer will you be here tonight?” I asked, watching the dust of drywall floating through the air.
“Maybe half an hour,” Jimmy said. “Just a few more rooms.”
“Well, I’m calling it a night then. Got a few things to do in the morning before meeting our new English attorney,” I said.
“You want us to come along for that?” Kieran asked.
“You might want to. It’s the same location as Bishop’s meeting Wednesday,” I said. “Pete and I scoped it out earlier tonight. The place is hidden behind a weird bending in space, quite elegantly done and old, but we didn’t see anything dangerous.”
“Weird how?” Kieran asked facing me.
“The entrance was flawlessly hidden,” Peter said. “I mean, we knew where it was and we still had to search for it and almost missed it.”
“The walls of the slip were similar to a knowe in concept but not in execution,” I said. “And I couldn’t identify the metaphor of the magic used at all. I guess it was more similar to the Weird Ways you took us through in Bankhead.”
“No latent symbology leftover from the original casting?” Kieran asked.
“Nothing decipherable, but it was there once,” I answered.
“So not like your magic,” Ethan said.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Take the Cyntakian Spheres that Peter uses so well,” Ethan said. “He’s practiced that spell thousands of times and can do it at a split second’s notice now in several sizes. With his expanded control, he can handle more with greater vector control as well. Call one up, Peter.” Peter did, floating a four-inch green orb above his right hand about an inch, its black ichors bubbling menacingly on its surface. It was paradoxically beautiful and ugly at the same time.
“Now, you, Seth,” Ethan said, simply.
“I don’t know how,” I said, looking from the orb to Peter and back.
“Seth,” Kieran interceded. “Do it like you do everything else. Don’t think about how Pete does it. Just do it yourself.”
Well, that made all the difference in the world. Uh-huh. Just do it. So now I’m a shoe commercial. Looking at Peter’s example and being so freshly invoked, I had all the structures available to use, but it was like having all the words of a sentence in a foreign language, but out of order. Staring into the energy flows of Peter’s example, I started building one from scratch without those structures. Oddly, the corrosive ichors coalesced a third of the way through and threatened to explode in the atmosphere. I had to rush to finish the final two thirds to stop that from happening.
“Make it smaller, Seth,” Kieran said calmly. I looked up from Peter’s example to see Kieran moving back from my five-foot in diameter version encroaching on his space. Pulling sixteen different energy types through its center shrunk the sphere until it matched Peter’s in size, then I tugged lightly on that point in space until it floated to me. I made another one, much smaller, and sent it into orbit around the first. Satisfied I could control two, I made a third, larger version a few feet out and sent the first two into elliptically orbiting it. I was about to dismiss all three when Ethan snickered.
“Showoff,” he said, still chuckling.
“What? I just wanted to make sure I could control them,” I said innocently. The Day hummed, moving me left a few inches. I twisted right and caught Peter’s fist where it would have connected with my shoulder.
“You bastard!” he said loudly, half-mad, half-joking. “It took me a year and a half to manage moving one in a straight line!”
“And now you throw hundreds at elves, what’s the problem?” I asked, grinning at him.
“You! Isn’t anything hard for you?” he asked, chuckling. Good, he wasn’t really mad at me.
“Look at yours, Seth,” Ethan said, directing us back to the spheres. “Do you see any difference between yours and Pete’s? How about you, Peter?”
I stood up and moved closer to mine. The orbiting spheres got distracting so I dismissed them and centered on the largest one as Peter moved in beside me with his. There were differences, certainly. Structures that sat deeply at the center of Peter’s and forced the power to flow in just the right ways were absent in mine.
“There’s no invocation here,” Peter said, concentrating on the sphere.
“That’s Seth’s magic,” Ethan said. “It looks totally natural doesn’t it? Like a volcano just spit that out on its own, but we know that’s not possible.”
“Did this ‘slip’ have that same look?” Kieran asked.
“No,” Peter said, shaking his head, still staring at my orb as he tossed his into oblivion. “From the inside it was very fibrous, sort of like cotton candy.”
“This isn’t the Hilliard Brothers, is it?” Kieran asked suspiciously.
“Yes,” I answered. “Our solicitor is Ryan Davis of the Hilliard’s. Why? Is that a problem?”
“Druid, then,” Kieran pronounced. “I have no idea if it will be a problem, but it’ll definitely be interesting. Yes, I believe we will come with you. Who a
ctually found the entrance anyway?”
“Peter. He noticed the flaw in the sidewalk as the spell phased slightly. What’s the problem with druids?” I asked.
“They hate the faery,” Peter answered. “Understandable, really, considering the elves tried to purge them a thousand years ago.”
“And damn near succeeded,” Kieran said.
Chapter 49
A trip to our Dublin bank after breakfast to arrange accounts and a cashier’s check got us ready to meet Ryan Davis of Hilliard Brothers. Checking the European account balances, I was going to have to move money around soon. I wasn’t exactly worried, but Peter asked me to set aside at least a day with him to go over expenses so he was concerned, too. I couldn’t possibly spend all the money my parents left me when they “died” in a normal lifetime, even when I diversified part of it over to Kieran, Ethan, and Peter. Hell, they couldn’t spend what I’d given to them in a normal lifetime. That didn’t mean we shouldn’t watch where it went.
It was twelve forty before we were done at the bank.
“I was hoping to rent a car and drive up to the office building, but it’s too late for that now,” I complained as we left the building.
“Well, I don’t think that’s going to be too much of a problem,” Kieran said. “No doubt they’re expecting us to be magicians of some kind or we wouldn’t have been referred to them.”
“Or having trouble with one,” added Peter.
“Less likely, but possible,” Kieran agreed.
“Do we want to start at the top of Deighton or right in front of their offices?” I asked.
“We’re a little pressed for time,” Ethan pointed out.
“Offices then,” I said and started probing the slip of space we visited last night. “They have wards up now, potent ones. They weren’t there last night.”
“We can run down and make it on time,” Peter offered.
“In suits? Nah. Besides, they’re not Kieran’s wards,” I said. “They do have an interesting power progression. Do you want to walk in as a group or should I just wrap us individually?”
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