Fort Morgan (41 page)

Ivan’s eyes welled with emotion. He clenched
his jaw.

“
Family,” Sandy said. “She
will be a part of our family.”

Ivan looked at Sandy for a moment.

“
She has none,” Ivan said.
“Her mother was Russian bride from an agency. Her family said it
was shameful and disowned her. Nadia’s American father was quite
wealthy, elderly. He died when Nadia was young. Her mother was
killed in a car accident when Nadia was at university.”

“
She has family now,”
Sandy said.

Delphie and Abi nodded.

“
Is that all right with
you?” Sandy asked Ivan.

He nodded.

“
Is she downstairs?” Sissy
asked.

Ivan nodded.

“
I’ll go,” Sandy said. As
she passed Ivan, she kissed his cheek, and whispered, “Thank you
for loving Sissy.”

Ivan flushed.

“
Please,” Delphie said.
“Come in.”

Ivan sat down next to Sissy’s bedside. They
sat in silence for a moment before Delphie cleared her throat.

“
How are the men?” Delphie
asked Ivan.

Ivan shot her a look of gratitude.

“
They are good,” Ivan
said.

He told them a funny story about his work
with the men’s troupe. He was finishing when Nadia appeared in the
doorway to Sissy’s room. Abi disappeared. Ivan smiled at her and
waved her inside. Sandy came in after her.

“
I’m Delphie,” she said,
standing.

“
She’s an Oracle,” Ivan
said. “You can ask her anything. She will tell you what will happen
or what has happened in the past.”

“
What might happen,”
Delphie said. “We still have choice.”

“
Really?” Nadia asked.
“Would you know if my mother and father are united in
heaven?”

“
Of course they are,”
Delphie said. “It’s hard to imagine two more different people — I
mean your father’s eyebrows alone should have kept your mother away
— but they do truly love each other.”

Nadia gulped a breath.

“
Don’t be overwhelmed but
there is also a full-blooded fairy here,” Ivan said.

“
A real fairy?” Nadia
asked.

Abi appeared behind Nadia and touched her
shoulder. Nadia turned around. She looked at Abi’s wand and her
pink Fairy Corps suit.

“
General Abi,” she said
and held her hand out.

“
Princess,” Delphie
said.

“
Princess Abi, wife to
Finegal. . .” Abi said.

“
From Queen Fand’s court?”
Nadia’s face lit up.

“
At your service.” Abi
curtsied.

“
How. . .?”
Sandy asked.

“
Nadia loves fairies,”
Ivan said. “She knows everything about them
including. . .”

“
Rubbing pregnant belly,”
Sissy said.

“
Very lucky,” Nadia said.
She leaned into Abi and asked, “That Manannàn — he’s not the
powerful one, is he?”

“
Compared to the Queen?”
Abi shook her head.

“
Knew it!” Nadia said
under her breath.

“
Welcome to the family,”
Sissy said.

Nadia blinked and looked at Ivan. He
shrugged, and she looked at Sandy. She smiled.

“
Well, I guess I’m not the
weirdo anymore,” Nadia said with a smile.

They laughed. Ivan gestured to a seat, and
Nadia sat down. They talked until the nurse came with Sissy’s sleep
medications. Afterwards, they went to a nearby diner, where they
talked for hours.

~~~~~~~~

Wednesday morning — 4:30 a.m.

“
No, I will not calm
down,” Jill said in a terse whisper.

She was standing at the counter in their
little loft kitchen. Jacob was in the process of making a pot of
coffee.

“
I didn’t ask you to calm
down,” Jacob said and pressed on the coffee maker. “I’m a jerk, but
I’m not that much of a jerk.”

“
You want me to,” Jill
said.

“
No,” Jacob shook his
head. “I want to understand what you’re talking about. I wasn’t
there. I didn’t see or feel this thing. I can’t see or feel
anything now, probably because it’s so close to me. I don’t know
what it was.”

Jill scowled.

“
Something had ahold of
Katy,” Jacob said. It was clear he was repeating what she’d told
him. “You were able to dispel it from her, but it chased you from
school to the hospital to here. Mike and Honey were able to chase
it off.”

“
It looked like my
father,” Jill said.

“
To you,” Jacob said.
“Mike said it was crows.”

“
You talked to Mike?” Jill
asked.

“
Of course I talked to
Mike,” Jacob said. “I talked to Honey, too.”

“
Oh.” Jill gave him an
embarrassed grin.

“
I care,” Jacob said. “My
daughter had an incident — possibly medical, possibly fairy,
possibly something else altogether. I want to know everything I can
about it.”

“
Sorry,” Jill said. She
looked down.

“
Don’t be sorry,” Jacob
said. “You saved our daughter from who knows what? There’s nothing
for you to be sorry about.”

Jill gave a slight nod.

“
And?” Jacob
asked.

“
I’m sick of this,” Jill
said. “I’m sick of getting sucked into this bullshit.”

“
Bullshit?” Jacob
asked.

“
An adventure on the
freakin’ Isle of Man? The end of the creepy serpents? Some drama in
Olympia of all places?”

Jacob nodded that he understood.

“
I’m not living in some
television show where once a week someone I love is possessed by a
demon,” Jill said. “I need to find a way to protect my children,
us, everyone from other beings. . . bullshit. We have
lives to live. Katy is just a little girl! She needs to be a little
girl!”

Jill paused to catch her breath.

“
No more,” she
said.

“
No more?”

“
No more am I going to
leave us hanging out there for any freak to take over our lives,”
Jill said. “I’m going to find a way to protect us from demons and
fairies and whatever else.”

“
How can I help?” Jacob
asked.

Jill looked confused. The coffee maker
burbled the last drops of the pot. He turned to pour her a cup of
coffee.

“
Who would know how to do
this?” Jill asked.

“
Your dad,” Jacob said.
“Delphie.”

“
Otis,” Jill
said.

“
The fairy siblings,”
Jacob said.

“
Edie and Fin,” Jill said
with a nod. “Abi, too.”

“
My dad,” Jacob
said.

“
Your dad?” Jill
asked.

“
He’s not magical but he’s
really good in a pinch,” Jacob said. “Val too.”

“
The girlfriends,” Jill
said with a nod. She picked up the cup of coffee and started toward
her office.

“
What are you going to
do?” Jacob asked.

“
I’m going to hold a
meeting of the minds,” Jill turned to look at him. “Someone knows
how to do this, or we’ll figure it out together.”

“
And if they won’t
come?”

“
Oh, they’ll come,” Jill
said and closed her office door.

Jacob shot a worried look after her and left
for work.

Awakening a
dragon

Thursday morning — 8:45 a.m.

New York City, New York

“
And what?” Otis asked in
Russian.

He threw his hands up in the air and paced
across Ivan’s open loft. At the windows, he turned back toward the
couch. Out to the windows, and back to the couch. When he reached
the window a third time, and Ivan hadn’t responded, he turned to
point at him.

“
I have to hear this from
the daughter of my oldest friend!” Otis said.

Used to Otis’s outbursts, Ivan held his
tongue. Mari was standing at the window, looking out at the city
below. Bruno sat in the armchair on Ivan’s left.

“
God damn it!” Otis said,
as he paced back toward where Ivan was sitting on the
couch.

Otis stopped pacing. Ivan raised his
eyebrows to ask if Otis was done; Otis gave him an acquiescing
nod.

“
I thought it was a good
thing,” Ivan said in Russian.

“
An unbreakable, mandatory
one-year employment?” Otis asked. “It’s slavery!”

“
They
are
paying me well,” Ivan
said.

“
I’d kill the man who
trapped me like that,” Otis said.

Bruno nodded in agreement.

“
I thought that, this way
they couldn’t get rid of me,” Ivan said.

“
He thought they would
want to keep the girl and get rid of him,” Bruno said in Russian.
“This way, they couldn’t break them up. What he says — it makes
sense to me.”

Otis scowled at Bruno, who looked
unimpressed by Otis’s scowl. Otis shook his head.

“
I wanted to stay with
her,” Ivan said.

“
Instead, they got rid of
the girl, and you’re stuck!” Otis said. “Who is going to manage her
rehabilitation? Without good care, she will never dance
again.”

“
I will take care of it,”
Ivan said.

“
No,” Otis shook his head.
“You’re forced to work for the ballet company here in New York,
while our ballerina rots away in Denver!”

Ivan shook his head at Otis.

“
And why is that?” Otis
asked.

“
Katia,” Ivan
said.

“
That’s right,” Otis said.
“The ridiculous girl. What did I tell you to do with
her?”

“
Get rid of her,” Ivan
said.

“
And, what did you
do?”

“
I let her move to New
York,” Ivan said what he’d told Otis before. “I’ve had nothing to
do with her. Nothing. Ask Nadia!”

Otis glared at him.

“
What did you want me to
do?” Ivan asked. “Kill her?”

Otis’s eyes flicked to Bruno, who stood up
from the armchair. Ivan waved for Bruno to sit back down again. The
large man looked at Otis before sitting back in his seat. Otis went
back to pacing.

“
This was her plan all
along,” Ivan said.

“
Shoot little Sissy?”
Bruno asked, his voice filled with horror.

He stood from his chair. Otis turned at the
window. Bruno looked at Otis, but this time Otis shook his
head.

“
To separate me from
Sissy,” Ivan said. “Destroy Sissy’s chance at a career in the
ballet.”

“
That’s worse,” Bruno
said.

Ivan nodded in agreement.

“
Katia is the reason Sissy
wasn’t hired outright by other companies,” Otis said. His head
nodded as if he finally understood something. “Sissy is so
talented. I couldn’t believe that every company wouldn’t jump at a
chance to have her.”

“
Yes, this is true,” Ivan
said. “But Sissy met the madam, who hired her.”

Mari walked over to the coffee table and
picked up Ivan’s contract. She held the paper to her nose.

“
She wrote this,” Mari
said in Russian. “Katia. She wants to have you for
herself.”

“
It’s madness!” Ivan
said.

He got up from the couch and stalked to the
kitchen. The others watched him go.

“
You hurt her ego?” Bruno
asked in a loud English.

“
Never,” Ivan shouted from
the kitchen.

He returned with a percolator, cups, and
fixings for coffee. Bruno and Otis made a cup of coffee for
themselves before Ivan poured a black cup. Mari turned up her nose
at Russian coffee.

“
It is odd,” Otis said in
Russian.

He looked at Mari. She gave a nod. Taking
the contract, she moved away from the group.

“
What will you do?” Bruno
asked.

“
I’ll work my contract,”
Ivan said. “What choice do I have?”

“
How long?” Otis
asked.

“
One year,” Ivan said. “If
they try to make it longer, Nadia’s lawyers say we can
intervene.”

“
I have spoken with them,”
Otis said.

Mari walked back toward them. The men turned
to look at her.

“
He is right,” Mari said.
“This is not about Ivan. This is about the girl, Sissy. Katia has
decided that Sissy has injured her in some way. How? She isn’t
sure. She just feels the slight. She took the position on the board
as a way of keeping Sissy from becoming a ballerina.”

“
She married the
homosexual to do just that!” Ivan said.

“
Yes,” Mari said. “But
there are things this Katia doesn’t know.”

The men became still and stared at her.

“
She doesn’t know the girl
is connected to O’Malley,” Mari said with a nod. She pointed to
Otis. “Or you.”

“
That’s good,” Otis
said.

“
She doesn’t know about
Nadia,” Mari said.

“
Nadia took over her
father’s seats on all of the ballet boards,” Ivan said.