Rebecca introduced me to the family. Robert Junior was a sixteen year old boy, with all that that implied, he was mostly monosyllabic. His sister, Samantha, made up for it. She was fourteen, that's the age where the phone gene kicks in. I swear, I think the girl was injected with a phonograph needle at birth. Samantha looked just like Mary probably did at that age. Black hair, high cheek bones, long legs, she was already fairly tall, about five foot four or so, and was around one hundred and ten pounds. Robert Junior though was a puzzle. Red hair, sort of short, at about five foot two, and weighed maybe one hundred twenty pounds. Gods, I just wanted to ask what the milk man looked like, I resisted the temptation though.
Bob looked the Hammer over, I could tell he thought he was being subtle. If he wasn't a professor, I would have been sure that he couldn't even spell subtle. Come to think of it, I guess that spelling isn't required at Wazzu so he might not be able to spell the word. He certainly wasn't adept at the action. He looked over at me and asked "So, John, what do you do?" The sub text was obvious, how do you afford a farging Lamborghini.
I thought I might have a little fun. "I'm in government."
"Oh. I didn't recognize your name. Senate, or House?"
I laughed. "Employee."
"Really? I didn't think anyone in Government service made that much money. Goodness knows I don't."
I pointedly looked around at the house and grounds. "Yeah, I can see that being a poor underpaid professor is really cramping your style."
"Oh, my salary from Washington State isn't bad, but I make most of my money in private practice. So, where did you get your degree?"
I grinned at him. "Well, I have some courses from the Defense Language institute, and other military stuff. I have a Bachelors from the University of Phoenix, but basically I graduated from the school of hard knocks. I'm a big Huskies fan though. If I can ever get some time, I would like to take some courses there." Gods, this was fun, watching him bust a gut muscle trying to figure me out. Then the mention of the Huskies, just to fire a shot across the bow. He was practically bursting. His wife was quietly doing the Donna Reed thing, bustling about, getting the kids to take our stuff to the guest rooms, walking us inside, etc., all the while her husband was going crazy trying to figure out which cubbyhole to place me in.
Finally he couldn't resist any longer. "John, you never said what you do for the Government?"
"I'm a cop."
This put him over the deep end. He looked at Mary, and I could see what was going through his mind. This guy is dirty, he's on the take, and when he goes down, he's going to take my big sister with him. Oh bullshit. So he went all confrontational. "You expect me to believe that a cop makes enough to afford a Lamborghini? John, I have to say that, as you have not retained me as council, this is not a privileged communication, and I am an officer of the court. Don't say anything that might incriminate you."
Well, by now Rebecca had heard quite enough, and she wasn't going to let me play anymore. "Robert, you boob, you have just been played. John didn't tell a single lie, but he led you down the primrose path. He earned his money the old fashioned way...he inherited it. This is Lars Scalagrimson's great nephew, and sole major heir."
"You mean that older guy you and dad used to go all sorts of places with? The guy that owned an island?"
"The very same...and the Lamborghini was his. John was good solid upper middle class until his uncle died, and I guarantee you, you will not find a straighter cop in the entire nation."
Aw, why did she have to go and say that? Now I was blushing; aw-shucks and shit. "Well Rebecca, I don't know if I would go that far..."
She cut me off. "Well, I do...and I did, and I meant it." Aw-shucks again.
At this point, Bob proved he wasn't nearly the ass I had him pegged as being. He looked me in the eye, grinned from ear to ear, nodded, and said "Nicely done, you had me completely played. Damn, man, remind me not to play poker with you. I haven't been had like that in a very long time. Sometime before the first of the year we need to sit down and talk though. If you just inherited all of that crazy old coot's money, I guarantee that Uncle Sam bent you over. Come April, he's going to do it again. I can help; and I'll do it for the first year free, just to apologize for being such an ass."
He paused for breath and continued "Who's your attorney?"
"Mark Harder, up in Anacortes."
He nodded. "Mark's a great guy for general work. You will be very happy with him for any civil, criminal or commercial matter. If he doesn't know it, one of his associates will. But when it comes to tax law, I'm the best. I've worked with Mark before. May I call him and see if he will allow me to do you this service?"
Well, what could I say? "Sure, that would be great. Mark really impressed me, but if he is willing to let you do that side of my affairs, I'll go with his recommendations. Hel, I just file the taxes and pay what the paper says I owe."
You would think I just suggested joining Hamas or something. Bob's eyes got big, his jaw dropped open, Pat about dropped the plate of cookies she was bringing in. "Oh. My. Gods! You really are an innocent. How much do you make a year, not counting the interest on the stuff you just inherited?"
"Well, about sixty-five K a year from the Federal Parks police, and about thirty K from my Military pension, maybe five or six more from interest on investments. I wasn't hurting, but I wasn't any threat to the Forbes list."
"And how much of that do you have sheltered?"
"Well, I have a mortgage and my TSP which is like a 401K..."
"That's it? Oh, we'll fix that. You are paying about thirty percent too much tax, my friend. So unless you love giving Uncle Sam money for nothing, I can help you out. We'll sit down later this weekend and talk about it."
After that, the topic turned to a little of everything. The ice had been broken, and while Bob and I may never be as tight as, oh say, Pete and I, we got along. Pat was part of the conversation too, but didn't have any earth- shattering revelations. She seemed sort of shallow. A nice enough girl, but her house, her children and her charities were the sum total of her interests. She was a great cook though. All of the snack trays looked like something out of 'Martha Stewart's elegant living' or something; they tasted pretty great too. It wasn't until that evening as she was making dinner that I noticed something. I kept smelling cinnamon and vanilla. OK, not much of a stretch in a kitchen but I was smelling it everywhere, and she wasn't baking, she was making corned beef and cabbage.
I went into the kitchen as Mary and Bob were arguing about some point or other of family business. I looked at Pat and quirked an eyebrow. "Bob's family isn't the only one that has magic in it, is it?"
Pat looked me up and down and in a fake Irish brogue asked "And now why would you be saying that?"
"I keep smelling vanilla and cinnamon, even when you aren't doing anything remotely like baking. I have a bit of magic too; one of my skills is that I can tell when magic is being used around me...I smell it. You smell like cookies baking, even when you're making pizza. What spell are you doing?" Now yes, I was being nosy, but I was actually sort of curious. I didn't see any noteworthy magic being done, and Mary hadn't pinged that there was magic being done at all, so I wanted to know what was up.
Pat looked at me and replied in that same Irish brogue. "Well, you've caught me, Mr. Cat. It all dates back to me Great Granther, see, he was one of the Gentry." I guess I had a sort of blank look at that, I wasn't quite sure what her Great Grandfather's noble title had to do with anything. After a second she continued. "You know, one of the Faire folk." she paused again. "He was a leprechaun."
"Well that's sort of cool, but what does it have to do with me smelling magic?"
"Now, don't you see, it's a part of me, I am by nature magical. Oh, I don't have much in the way of spell casting ability, that often skips a generation or two, but some certain things are just part of the family trait. Just like Bob, gods-love-him. Now Bob Junior, he's going to have a powerful magic."
"So Bob d
oes do magic? Mary was certain he did, but she could never catch him at it."
"Well now, it's not so much that Bob does magic intentionally. He has what Gram called the shining, he's sort of a reverse Murphy." I must have given her that blank look again because she continued, "You know, Murphy's law: Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong, and at the worst possible time? Well, Bob's the antithesis of that. Anything he's interested in or involved in goes right, and at the best possible time. Ya see, the magic will not be denied. If you have it strong enough, it will come out...somehow."
"So, I take it that Bob doesn't know he's doing magic, or that you are?"
"It's not so much that I'm doing magic, as that I am magic. And no, Bob doesn't know. Telling him would just bother the poor dear, and I don't want to make him uncomfortable. He works so hard." She was still in full brogue. "The dear man could skate through life easy as pie, but not him. He puts in full time to make it better. I'm so glad Great Granther arranged for us to meet."
Well, that was interesting. Her great grandfather hooked them up? "Hmm...how did your great-grandfather know about Bob?"
"Oh, it's something the Sidhe keep track of. Who's part Sidhe, who's of magical family, who of each is an eligible match...that sort of thing."
"Oh." Well, now isn't that interesting. I didn't quite see the ramifications at the time, but that's another story. Then it hit me; a few minutes ago, she called me Mr. Cat. I haven't told anyone over here about my affliction, much less what flavor of 'Thrope I was. "Say Pat, did you call me Mr. Cat?"
She looked at me and grinned. "Aye, that I did."
"Now why would you say that?"
"Och, you shape-shifters can no more hide from my kind than I can hide from yours. The only reason Mary hasn't twigged is that the whole place appears magical to her because of her brother. I imagine Bob's magic smells different to you."
I thought about it, and I couldn't remember smelling anything else. Either Bob's magic only showed up on my personal radar when it went active (a strong possibility), or part of his magic was that he was undetectable. Either way, it wasn't a problem for me, so I muttered something and wandered back out to the living room.
We had a nice dinner, and conversation was entertaining and well-behaved, OK, fairly well behaved. I don't know if Rebecca said anything to Bob or not, but the sibling rivalry thing was kept at a low level. The next morning (Thanksgiving) we all woke up and had a country breakfast, then Bob popped up with the question "Did I hunt?" Well, I chuckled a bit and said that I was known to on occasion. Mary had a glint in her eye, but said nothing, Rebecca was also in on the joke and kept it quiet, even Pat had a glimmer. Pat said that it was a wonderful idea and would get everyone out from under foot so that she could do her kitchen work without interruption, and that we should have fun.
With that invitation, I looked at Bob and asked what he had in mind? He said that there was a large Chukar population in the area and would I be interested in helping to reduce it. Soon we were out in the back forty with shotguns and bird vests. You can hunt Chukars (a western game bird with about the same amount of meat as a prairie chicken, or a game hen) without a dog. That was a good thing because, as expected, Bob's dogs wouldn't come out of the kennel when I was around. Bob did a huge amount of apologizing over this "I don't know what's wrong with them; they're never like this..."
I said that it was cool; lots of dogs don't like my smell, I didn't bother to explain why. Bob loaned me a Remington 870, and asked me if I knew how to use it. I smiled and said that I had used one a time or two, and we went out into the field. Bob proceeded to try to run me into the dirt. Chukar hunting is an energetic sport. The birds like to hang out around hillsides and will fly when just out of range, go fifty yards uphill or so, and land. They repeat this until they get to the top of the hill, then fly over your head down to the bottom of the hill, laughing at your ass the whole way.
I let Bob set the pace, and he set a fast one. I guess he wanted to prove something, and I wasn't about to explain that there was no way on earth he could outdo me physically. So we had a long morning. We also bagged a full dozen birds. That's a lot for a chukar hunt. Bob was a Hel of a wing shot, I think his magic helped there. At least I kept smelling sage and wood smoke, and every time I did, a bird would veer just right to take the full charge. Between his luck and my speed we limited out. On the way back to the house, he looked at me and asked "Where in the world did you learn to shoot like that?"
I looked at him and grinned "I think I mentioned that I have a military pension coming in."
"You learned to shoot like that in the military?"
"Well, I've been hunting for as long as it's been legal, and maybe a little bit before. But most of my skill with weapons I picked up in the Navy."
"You were Navy? Shit, if this is the skill and fitness level in the Navy, remind me to never go hunting with a Marine."
"Oh, you'd do OK, Marines are wimps, by and large." I said with a grin.
Bob looked askance at me, but he didn't say anything. When we got back to the house, dinner was still about an hour away so we cleaned the birds and got them in a salt water brine to pull the blood out. I didn't bother trying to pluck 'em, just skinned the darn things. Plucking birds takes forever and just isn't worth the hassle in my book. By the time we were done with that we had just enough time to get dressed and come to dinner.
Dinner was most certainly a dress occasion. The menu was classic Thanksgiving: Turkey (wild), mashed potatoes and gravy, stuffing, green beans with brie sauce, cranberry sauce with oranges, hot cross buns, pumpkin pie and coffee. The food was wonderful and the conversation was kept light. Everyone was in high northwest casual, which is to say no blue jeans, Dockers or better, a nice button-down shirt, usually covering a turtleneck for the men, and similar for the women. This was about as dressed as I usually got unless dinner was going for over fifty bucks a plate, I was going to lodge, or someone was getting hitched or ditched. That's not to say I don't know how to get dressed to the nines, I'll have you know I own a tux (it's my Navy Mess Dress, but it's a tux!), I just don't find myself fitting in with that crowd much.
After dinner we had more friendly conversation, Mary and Rebecca helped me keep the conversation away from certain subjects, and the evening went well. Friday was spent on nothing much in particular, the girls went shopping, we male types watched football and talked about tax shelters. Saturday breakfast was Eggs Benedict, then the drive home.
On the way home I told Mary what I had found out about Bob's magic, and that Pat was part fairy. This last surprised both her and Rebecca, they had never known. The drive back wasn't too bad, the weather had been decent, and most of the traffic was waiting for tomorrow to go back home. Soon enough we were dropping Rebecca off at home, and heading back to Mary's place. We had gotten lunch on the road, entirely unmemorable except for the stares the Hammer got. Dinner was at Mary's; I just didn't feel like going out after 6 hours at the wheel. She made a nice set of pork ribs and some coleslaw, and we sat, drank Fat Tire, and talked. Sometime in the evening the discussion got around to Pat, and I suddenly remembered her saying something about her great-grandfather arranging for them to meet, and that the Sidhe apparently kept track of who's of magical families, etc.
She asked "You mean like a breeding program?"
"Well I hadn't thought about it, but yeah, that was sort of the opinion I got."
"HUMM, now, isn't that interesting?"
We didn't discuss it much beyond that, and it drifted out of my mind again. The next morning it was back to work, by way of Anacortes, the ferry, etc.
Chapter Twelve
Sunday morning I called the number that 'Mr. Jones' gave me, and asked if his people were ready to give us cover. He said yes, so Pete deployed, with the normal amount of fanfare, to the woods. He drove my rig out to the edge of the park, with Tigner and Alex following to bring the truck back. We hoped that by starting on a Sunday, we might catch the FPI flatfooted, if you'll pardon the pun.
No such luck, they had a guy tailing Pete shortly after he left the office. They were sloppy though, Pete made them in under ten minutes, so maybe they had their second string on. After everyone left, I got my things together and got ready to go. Then I started a spell that Lars and Robyn had taught me. It's not a true invisibility spell, yes, those exist, but I don't have anywhere near the horsepower needed for such a spell. This is just sort of an "Oh, don't look over here, there's nothing to see here" sort of thing. If you are really determined to look anyway, you can. There is one good thing about this spell, it's fairly unobtrusive. Unless you are really looking hard, there is no indication of magic use. It also has an alarm circuit that lets you know it's been detected or broken.
Well, I cast it about me, and put my assault uniform on. Then I grabbed my 'Thrope pack and that cell, and walked out the back door, headed for the edge of town. I didn't get that tingle that tells you you've been spotted, and fairly soon I was out in the boonies. I didn't run, but I can travel pretty fast at a good solid walk. In about twenty minutes I was out of town and on a rural road that went into the park. There I broke into a jog, and an hour later I was truly in the woods. An hour after that, I was in the park proper. By then I had changed to cat, after finding a secure spot to take my clothes off and pack them away in the back of my vest. I also had my pistol, my radio, a knife or three, a map, my new Blackberry (which had sat-com capability so I could file reports etc. and had a GPS system attached), some line, a fire starter, spare batteries with a crank charger, a few incidentals and some vitamins. In this part of the world, that was enough to keep me functioning indefinitely. Me and fifteen pounds against the wild. If it wasn't winter, I would be having fun. It still wasn't bad, but I knew that by the time I got into the true high country, it was going to be cold. Like single digits either side of the zero line cold.
Keeping The Faith (John Fisher Chronicles Book 2) Page 13