Brothers: Legacy of the Twice-Dead God (85 page)

Kieran glanced at Ethan then and said, “It’s
good to have you back on this side, too. And so much closer to your
natural condition. This is good.”

“Huh?” asked Ethan, his eyes glazing over for
a second. I looked at him, too, pushing back into his aura to that
area that reached behind him and, surprise, he was huge again.
Those dark, burnt, and twisted places weren’t there now, replaced
instead with flowing and bright lines of energy, still twisted but
there’s no fighting biology, er, physics. Metaphysics?

“What did you do?!” he yelled at me.

“Will you two quit yelling at me?” I yelled
back. “All I did was what you asked then I woke up in my bed.
That’s all I know. Now where’s Peter?”

“Peter! Oh, no,” Kieran exclaimed, turning
for the living room. “I disappeared right in front of him without a
word. There’s a phone here, right?”

“On the coffee table,” I said, walking in
behind him. “You can let go, now, Ethan. I’m not going
anywhere.”

“Says you. You disappeared on me before,” he
said.

“Twice,” I muttered under my breath.

“What?”

I turned to tell him that Des’Ra’El pulled me
out of his memory twice but all that came out was “Huh?” If this
worked, it might come in handy. Coming off like I don’t know what
I’m talking about instead of not being able to talk. Interesting
side effect, if I can pull it off.

“Nothing,” he said, grinning, then lightly
shoved me into the living room. Kieran was punching buttons on the
phone carefully. It was still dark outside, so I was still working
on Irish time.

“So, what did we talk about, Ethan?” I asked,
falling into a chair and hoping Ethan would take the couch next to
Kieran. “What could have been so traumatic for me that I would have
lost two days and not remembered anything about it later?”

He started to answer, but stopped, confused.
I sympathized.

“I don’t know,” he said meekly. Kieran turned
quickly to look at him, alarmed. He was still waiting for a
connection.

“What were we talking about, then?” I asked,
leading him.

“Why I did not want to come back,” he
answered.

“Okay, let’s start there,” I said. “Why
didn’t you want to come back to this side of the anchor?”

“Peter is not near his phone,” said Kieran as
he hung up. “I left a message. He should call shortly.” I nodded to
acknowledge him and turned back to Ethan.

“I don’t remember,” Ethan said, frustrated.
He didn’t show it nearly as much on this side of the anchor as he
did on the other. I was watching both sides, now that I knew how to
look.

“All right, then,” I said, calmly, “I can’t
fault you for not remembering something I don’t remember either, so
let’s just be calm and methodical about this. Do you remember what
happened at the Pacthome? When you went into the conduit to close
the far end of the tunnel?”

He leaned back on the couch, gathering his
thoughts, then started, “I jumped into the hole the curse bugs were
coming through. As you cut your end from the inside, I left the
tunnel and started cutting the far end from the outside.”

Kieran held up a hand to stop him there. “You
were in this form, correct?”

“Yes,” he answered. “But before I could
complete the cut, I was jerked back into real space. That shouldn’t
have been possible. At least, I didn’t think it was possible. He
should not have been able to find me there.”

“Who?” I asked.

“MacNamara.”

“Yeah,” I said, sighing. “I was pretty sure
that’s what you were gonna say.”

“The elves at the school?” asked Kieran.

“They were his,” I said, nodding.

“I had assumed,” said Kieran.

The phone rang. Kieran snatched it up before
it finished the first ring.

“Peter? Is Shrank with you?” I hated
listening to phone conversations. “Felix or Gordon?” Unless you
knew the context, you had no idea what was being said. “Tell them
we’ll all be back in about an hour, okay?” Or why it’s being said.
“Yes, I mean all five of us.” To me this sounded like Peter was
coming here, for instance.

“I don’t know what he means,” Peter was
suddenly telling my stereo. Then he turned around, still holding
his cell phone to his ear. “Where the Hell have the two of you
been!” He recovered quickly, snapping his phone shut.

Shrank slid off his shoulder, diving for me
in a flutter of red and gold. “Master Seth!” he squealed
happily.

“Hey, Shrank, Peter,” I said with a smile.
“I’m sorry I can’t muster the enthusiasm and excitement y’all are,
but as far as I know, I saw y’all a coupla hours ago.”

“We’re trying to get to the bottom of that
now,” said Ethan.

“Right now,” Kieran said with a sly grin,
“we’re listening to Ethan tell us how he got beat up by a mangy
elf.”

“A very powerful elf,” said Ethan,
thoughtfully. “He had something, a revenant.”

“Well, we know MacNamara’s elves were
responsible for the Dunstan attack,” said Peter, sitting in the
chair opposite me. I guessed that Dunstan was the actual name of
the school.

“Yeah, we covered that just before you
called,” I said. “We just don’t know why, yet. Or how he found
Ethan.” I turned to Ethan and asked, “Did MacNamara himself pull
you in?”

“I’m not sure,” he said hesitantly.

“Kieran, what happened to Lucian?” I asked.
There had to be connections here to fit all the pieces.

“He was the victim of a Loa attack of a
particular clan,” Kieran explained. “Shrank pointed out to me that
he appeared to be marked by the worm prior to his arrival here. If
he was right, it answered several questions, so I needed to let it
play out.”

“And Lucian is what now?” I asked.

“Dead,” said Peter, sadly. “He passed away
about ten hours ago.”

“I’m sorry, Kieran,” I said softly. Looking
at him, his aura showed the loss, hidden behind his relief, but the
sadness and sorrow were nicks in his armor compared to the chasm I
saw last night. We’d seen a lot of death in the last few weeks, but
this was more personal. He knew this man, but he was coping.
Personally, I did what every seventeen-year-old would do, I pushed
it away to deal with later—years later, with luck.

“This Loa attack, did it intersect with his
Pact or the Lock at all?” I asked Kieran.

“I didn’t notice,” he answered. “Or rather,
think to notice. Why?”

“I’ve been trying to put all the different
pieces together,” I said. “But nothing seems to line up right. What
about something controlling the Loa?”

Kieran glanced at Peter and asked, “What has
he told you about the Pact?”

“He told me everything he knew about it in
Atlanta,” Peter answered.

Kieran turned to look sideways at me with
indignation. “I never made any promises,” I said defensively. “And
he was risking his life for us. He deserved to know why, but he
doesn’t know what’s in it or what the Queens said yet.”

“The McClure’s hold the Sacred Pact of the
Geas,” said Kieran, giving in to reason and to the fact that he was
no longer bound to the promise. “Usually, this is spread liberally
throughout the entire Guild so there is little chance of it
failing, but something is removing the Guild completely.”

“And what is the Sacred Pact of the Geas?”
Peter asked.

“The entire history of the Fae from their
beginning to their defeat at the hands of Man and the binding of
the Fae to the Geas, constricting them all to two minds. It is
important to keep the Pact alive because it holds our only clue to
defeating the elves.” This was the whole of his explanation to
Peter. I was disappointed; there was more.

“That’s it?” I asked. “The man stands in the
front gardens of the Pacthome risking his life to these psychotic
little bugs and that’s all the explanation you can give him?” I was
standing by the end of my short tirade and the Southern Georgia in
me was definitely coming out. But really, how did I get this
accent? Neither of my parents had it.

“What else is there, Seth?” he asked calmly.
“At the moment, you are the only Pactholder and yours is the only
Pact extant. Any past politics are useless. Any magic is
unavailable. The Pacthome is empty. What more is there?”

“How about who wrote it?” I asked, ticking
the questions off on my hand, my own questions. “Where was it
enacted? When was it enacted? Why is it invisible to everyone? What
happens when the Pact fails? I can go on, Kir du’Ahn, but I know
you see what I’m getting at. The half-truths have to stop, here and
now.” My anger ran out of steam right about then. I fell back in
the chair. “You’re gonna loose our trust if we keep catching you at
it, Kieran.”

He held my glance, staring at me and sitting
absolutely still. I stared back with equal intensity. Those weren’t
the most imposing eyes I’d seen lately—those emerald eyes are a
cakewalk compared to the concentric rings of Des’Ra’El. Ethan and
Peter shifted uneasily in their places as the silence
lengthened.

“All right, Seth,” he said softly, finally
agreeing with me. “If you feel I’m being overly protective, I can
pull back.”

My mistake. “You aren’t getting this. It’s
not about being overly protective, Kieran. It’s about being
manipulative. It’s about you trusting us like we’ve trusted you.
It’s about you knowing more than you’re telling. That could get one
of us killed and providing it’s not me, I couldn’t live with myself
knowing that.

“Peter,” I said, turning slightly, “Call me
if you need anything or when he decides to come clean, but I can’t
stay around if he can’t trust me.”

I felt Kieran draw power to stop me from
doing whatever I was going to do. Unusual because I don’t normally
feel his draws. The transits through the lines must have taken his
internal reserves out.

“Seth,” Kieran started calmly, looking away.
He was used to people that relied on reading auras, not body
language, for their clues. He knew he was hiding things, being
manipulative. That glance away told me more than he knew.

“No, Kieran,” I stopped him. “When you’re
ready to be more open with me, come talk to me. Till then, you’re
just too damned dangerous.”

Then I wrapped a portal around myself and
jumped, first to the Pacthome, then back to Ireland. Kieran tried
to stop me and he certainly had to power to do it. If I hadn’t been
expecting it. I took precautions. First, he had to take the ward
away from me. As long as I had the ward, I had control of the
property. So while I did have it, I sort of rewired a few parts and
when he moved to take it from me, I just rolled over and let him
have it. Literally. I swapped the anchors for the ley lines. First
thing he touched was flowing energy. It wouldn’t kill him, but it’d
slow him down and he’d have a hellacious headache most of the
day.

Second was the trip to the Pacthome. I was
pretty sure that Kieran could track where I went if I took a direct
route through the ley lines or an open portal. He didn’t get to
know for certain. So I jumped inward first, through the door that
was tied to me and me alone. If that created any dimensional
paradox, the universe didn’t seem to mind. Then I jumped to
Ireland, to the Cahill’s property, wrapping myself in the Stone’s
powerful shielding specifically to block Kieran’s sight.

Stepping out onto the stone drive into the
morning light, I started hearing the calls almost immediately.
“Little Brother, this isn’t funny. Come back and talk to me!” and
“Seth, you’re not being fair!” I ignored them. If I answered, he’d
know where I was. He apparently needed time to reflect. Because he
knew more than he was telling us. He knew more about the
connections between my parents’ disappearance, the Pact, the Loa,
the Elves, and this war. And they did all connect somehow.

The stone steps to the front door of the
house were ice-cold on my bare feet as I jogged up them and let
myself in. Cahill’s aura was barely visible through the walls in
the observatory as I passed to go upstairs. There were a few others
in the room I couldn’t discern, but I didn’t care at that moment.
Just kept running quietly up the stairs, somehow missing
everybody.

Peter left two contracts on the dresser in my
room, ready for my signature. I read through them while I changed,
unhurried. These were the papers necessary to take care of Ian and
Mike Ferrin. Peter had already signed in the requisite places so my
signature was a formality, which was good because his bore the
necessary counter-signatures of notaries and witnesses and such. I
didn’t have that at the moment, but I signed anyway, for the
formality.

When I found Ferrin, he was watching the
horses canter around in a field with the boys. He actually looked
calm and happy standing there next to his brother and Martin
talking so casually. And that made me happy to take him out of the
rat race. Well, providing I actually had. MacNamara’s gave him a
rep, which meant people might come gunning for him.

“Hey, guys,” I said as I neared.

Apparently, I startled Ferrin, coming up
behind them so quietly. He jumped away from the boys, his left hand
shooting back and behind as he turned, firing a huge ball of green
fiery something that straightened and coiled around my shield. It
writhed around me looking to tighten its hold but the Stone was
steadfast with its protection. I smiled as I continued toward them
and Ferrin recognized me. He tried to backpedal and disperse his
spell, but I don’t think he’d ever had to do that. He was having
trouble and Marty and Ian’s screams weren’t helping any. I flicked
the Night Sword out and let it dine on the green ropes. The spell
Ferrin used glowed faintly in my mind as the Sword dispersed its
energies. I filed it away, just in case I ever needed such a
thing.

Ian was on Ferrin like stink on a polecat
once the spell dissipated and Ferrin was too confused to protect
himself adequately. I stepped in a grabbed the little man by the
waist, pulling him back and repeatedly calling “Whoa” at the same
time.