Fort Morgan (2 page)

Gino looked her in the eyes. Dionne
swallowed hard.

“
I’m not going to rape you
or nothing either,” Gino said. “I owe that to my old man. You can
just sit here and when the time comes, I’ll make sure it’s
easy.”

He gave a nod to seal the contract.

“
That’s nice of you,”
Dionne managed.

Gino laughed. He looked at the bodyguard and
nodded toward Jeff, whose head was buried in Yvonne’s breasts. The
bodyguard gave a sly grin and nodded.

At that moment, Dionne
understood what was going on. Gino was a mobster, maybe one of
those old New York,
Godfather
mobsters, or maybe something else. Organized
crime, for sure. He’d been the organization behind the child
pornography sites. They’d used Jeff, his money, and his connections
to make things happen. She had misjudged him. Gino was not the
sidekick. He was one of those mythical creatures — a true
psychopath.

“
Did you kill my friend
Andy Mendy?” Dionne asked.

“
Now that was the
damnedest thing, wasn’t it?” Gino asked. He shook his head. “That
was that prick Red Bear. He . . .”

Gino nodded to finish his sentence.

“
She was a friend of
yours?” Gino asked.

“
I went on tour with her a
couple of times,” Dionne said. “Our kids are about the same age.
We’re in the same profession and live in the same town.”

Dionne did her best to give an unconcerned
shrug.

“
It will please you, then,
to know that the Great Detective is being dealt with,” Gino said.
“Her kid got the symphony?”

“
She did,” Dionne said.
“How do you know about the symphony?”

“
I made sure the box got
to her,” Gino said with a shrug. “Just didn’t seem right that this
prick would get the dough and her
kid . . .”

“
But you’ve made a ton of
money off Sandy’s porn?”

The words just popped out of Dionne. Her
heart jumped with terror. Gino raised his eyebrows. He didn’t say
anything. Instead, he leaned down to cut a lime wedge. He pointed
to Dionne with the knife.

“
You should take a better
look at . . .” Gino said. He pointed the knife at
Jeff. “My people, we don’t get involved with no kid
stuff.”

Dionne turned to look at Jeff. In her
exhausted state, her mind jumped to an image of the boys’
hysterical mothers pacing in their office waiting room, poor little
Ivy and Tink, Charlie’s beaten body, and every other horror from
this entire situation. The images battered her until her mind fell
on an image of Sandy.

“
Why? All of
this . . . why?” Dionne asked.

Gino raised his eyebrows and nodded to Jeff.
There was a noise in the hallway and the bodyguard went out to
look. Gino leaned in.

“
Have you ever done
something so that something else could happen?” Gino
asked.

Dionne gave him a confused look.

“
You’ll see,” Gino
said.

The bodyguard came back into the room. Gino
looked up at him, and the bodyguard shook his head.

“
Hey, what do you drink?”
Gino asked in a voice that Dionne thought was intentionally
slurred.

Jeff looked up from Yvonne.

“
Uh . . .”
Dionne saw that he wasn’t going to take “nothing” for an answer.
“Wine.”

“
Red? White?” Gino
asked.

“
Red,” Dionne said. “I’d
like some cold water too.”

“
Done.” Gino pointed to
the bodyguard. “Get the good stuff.”

The bodyguard looked at Jeff, and he nodded.
The bodyguard left the room.

“
Just a little while
longer, Dionne,” Gino said. “You’ll see. I’m not such a bad
guy.”

~~~~~~~~

Tuesday night — 9:48 p.m.

Denver, Colorado

“
What are you going to
do?” Jeraine asked in a low tone.

They’d just put Jabari to bed in the small
bedroom next to theirs. Jabari was good at going to sleep but he
woke up with the slightest provocation.

“
I’m going to call him,”
Tanesha said.

She went into her closet and started to
change out of her school clothes.

“
Who?” Jeraine
asked.

“
Fin,” Tanesha said. “God,
my clothes stink after lab.”

“
What?” Jeraine
asked.

“
My clothes stink after
lab.”

Tanesha poked her head out of the walk-in
closet. Her pants were off and her shirt was unbuttoned. Jeraine
raised his eyebrows at her and she smiled.

“
You’re going to
call
Fin?” Jeraine
asked.

“
My mother is in danger,”
Tanesha said.

“
I remember,” Jeraine
said. “My mom is with your mom.”

“
I know,” Tanesha said.
She nodded and went back into the closet. “We have to do
something.”

“
You’re going to call
Fin?” Jeraine asked.

“
I
saw
Fin in that Sea of Amber,”
Tanesha said from inside the closet. “Saw him, and then my computer
broke. And, really, where is Jacob? Delphie? Little Keenan? If
Valerie weren’t in hiding, she’d be screaming to the rafters about
Jake.”

“
How are you going to call
Fin?” Jeraine asked.

“
Just a sec,” Tanesha
said.

He came to the door of the closet just in
time to see Tanesha pulling up her flannel pajamas. She walked past
him into their bedroom. She picked up her cell phone and looked at
it.

“
How . . .”
Jeraine started.

“
The Isle of Man is a real
place,” Tanesha cut him off. “He told me once that the fairy
queendom exists in private because no one expects it to be a part
of the world. If he’s with Abi at his mother’s place, that’s on the
Isle of Man. They have cell service there.”

“
You’re going to call the
fairy castle?” Jeraine’s voice held his skepticism.

“
I’m going to call Fin,”
Tanesha said.

She went to the couch tucked under the
rafters of their attic bedroom. He sat down next to her. For a
moment, she looked at her phone, and then she shrugged.

“
I may as well try it,”
Tanesha said.

She found Fin’s number and pressed the
button. The phone rang once, and then twice. It rang a third time.
Tanesha was about to hang up when she remembered that she had to
use some of her fairy juju. She clicked off the phone.

“
What happened?” Jeraine
asked.

“
I forgot to give it a
whammy,” Tanesha said.

“
A whammy?”

“
Fairy juice,” Tanesha
said.

She closed her eyes for a moment and then
dialed the phone again. The phone rang.

“
Hello?” Fin’s voice
said.

“
I’m looking for Prince
Finegal,” Tanesha said.

“
Tanesha?” Fin asked. “Did
you get my e-mails? I can’t believe you never called
or . . .”

“
Please confirm your
identity,” Tanesha said.

“
Uh . . .”
Fin said something to someone in the background. “You bought the
couch you’re sitting on at the Salvation Army when they had a store
on Colfax.”

“
Fin?” Tanesha’s eyes
welled with tears.

“
What’s going on?” Fin
asked.

“
Mom’s in terrible
danger,” Tanesha said as tears fell from her eyes, “and the
serpents say they have Dad, and they have Jake and Delphie and
Keenen in the Sea of Amber and . . .”

“
What?” Fin asked. “You
must calm down and tell me everything.”

Tanesha gulped in air. Jeraine rubbed her
back. It was difficult to speak, but Fin’s words were an order. She
was forced to calm down before she responded.

“
Did you get my e-mails?
My phone messages?” Fin asked.

“
No,” Tanesha said.
“Nothing. I saw you in the Sea of Amber.”

“
The Sea of
Amber . . .” Fin’s voice trailed off. She heard
Abi’s voice in the background. “How do you know about the Sea of
Amber?”

“
I
saw
you in the Sea of Amber,”
Tanesha said.

“
You said that,” Fin said.
“I’m a full-blooded fairy. The Sea of Amber has no hold on me.
Titans, witches, Olympians, Earth spirits, some feys but not all of
them, earth sprits of course, humans, . . . no
fairies, that’s for sure.”

“
Fairies can go to the Sea
of Amber and not get sucked in?” Tanesha asked.

“
Of course,” Fin said. “We
can’t find it, though, that takes a. . . Wait. Start at the
beginning.”

Fin’s voice held so much magic that their
bedroom lights flickered.

“
You came to Jake’s room,”
Tanesha said.

“
I did not. Who said
that?” Fin asked.

“
Jill,” Tanesha said. “She
said they were sound asleep. You came to their room. You were ill
or sick and covered in blood. You told them that the curse wasn’t
broken for you. Every time the healers closed Abi’s wounds they
broke open. She is carrying a boy.”

“
No, a girl,” Fin said.
“We’ve already named her Misty, after you.”

“
Very funny,” Tanesha
said. She pressed over his laughter. “Jake left with you. So did
Keenan and Delphie. Jill said you wanted or needed a Titan and
asked for her or Katy. She called her father and he went. We didn’t
know anything until Jill
saw
Jake in this stuff. Jabari said it was the Sea of
Amber, and then Heather . . .”

“
What did Hedone say?” Fin
asked.

“
She said that she could
find the Sea of Amber, but it would suck her in,” Tanesha
said.

“
That’s true,” Fin said.
“It’s an Olympian gift. No other being can find it.”

“
Right,” Tanesha said.
“And aren’t you a half-blood?”

“
Me?” Fin
asked.

“
Because of Manannán,”
Tanesha said. “Your father.”

“
My mother made him a
fairy,” Fin said. “Royal blood. Makes me better than a full blooded
fairy. Over the millennia, we’ve had to be able to create more
fairies, otherwise we’d become inbred.”

“
I thought that was a part
of the war!” Tanesha said.

“
Sure, it was a war that
started a couple thousand years ago,” Fin said. “It’s not such an
issue now.”

“
Well, you told Jake that
fairydom was rotten at the core,” Tanesha said. “Is someone after
the queendom?”

“
I said no such thing,”
Fin said. “I’ve said this before — no one in their right mind would
want to be the queen of fairies.”

Tanesha let out a frustrated sigh. Fin was
controlling the conversation so she couldn’t get the part about to
her mother.

“
You said something about
a serpent,” Fin said.

“
I told you about killing
the female serpent . . .” Tanesha said.

“
You did what?” Fin’s
voice rose with fear and the smallest touch of awe.

“
I told you all about it,”
Tanesha said. “It happened in the basement of Sandy’s studio
and . . .”

“
I assure you, you never
told me you took on a female serpent,” Fin said. “Do you have any
idea how dangerous that is? She could have easily infected you, and
if not her, the thousands of offspring she carries will take over a
human. You have no idea how many . . .”

“
I have some idea, because
we killed them all,” Tanesha said.

“
You did not.” Fin’s voice
was filled with disbelief.

“
We did too,” Tanesha
said.

“
How?”

“
With hairspray-flame
throwers,” Tanesha said.

The line was silent for a moment.

“
What?” Tanesha
asked.

“
You got them all?” Fin
asked.

“
Every last one of them,”
Tanesha said.

“
Wow,” Fin said. “I’ve
never heard of . . . anyone . . .
ever . . . but flamethrowers, that would
work.”

“
We saw a serpent,”
Tanesha said. “Tonight, that’s after Ne Ne — well, it wasn’t really
Ne Ne, it was a serpent, we think —
and . . .”

“
Maybe you’d better cut to
the chase,” Fin said.

“
Jake, Keenan, Delphie,
and my dad are all in the Sea of Amber,” Tanesha said. “We met this
ghost serpent or whatever tonight. It said the Sea of Amber is the
domain of the serpent. They were taken as retribution for killing
the female and her offspring. We killed her mate too, with the help
of a dragon and. . .”

“
You killed a mating pair
and all of their offspring?” Fin’s voice reflected his
terror.

“
Right,” Tanesha
said.

“
Wow, give me a minute.”
In the background, Fin said, “Did you know Tanesha and her friends
killed a serpent mating pair and all of their
offspring?”

“
They did what?” Abi
asked.

Tanesha held the line while they talked back
and forth for a moment.

“
What about Perses?” Fin
asked.