Sons (Book 2) (4 page)

“Yes, very nice, honestly,” Peter said.  “Not too tight, are they?  Because both of the jackets are showing their physique quite obviously.”  Kieran moved his arms and shoulders through several motions that would have tugged on a regular jacket, but this one seemed to shrink and grow to accommodate his every motion.

“Psht, put your tongue back in your mouth, gay boy,” Ethan said, glancing in Peter’s direction.  “Show’s over!”

“Yeah, as if,” Peter scoffed.  “At least I’ve
had
sex, pretty boy.”  I think I was offended more than Ethan was.  They were developing a friendship that I thought was a little odd, but as long as it worked for them I would stay out of it.  Then again, they just involved me in their game.

“Hey!  Who are you insulting here?” I cried sternly. 

“What?  He’s only a couple of months old, really,” Peter said, defensively.

I walked through the mirror and into my bathroom, deciding on a shower before changing, just to wash the “road” off before dressing.  The Palace was full of amenities and I thought to wonder who or what was supplying them for me as I grabbed a king-sized, fluffy towel from a shelf and stepped into a huge shower stall with glass doors.  Hanging the towel loosely on a rod at the back, I looked at the front of the stall and saw three sets of faucets for three shower heads arrayed at the front and sides. 

I examined the setup as I stripped, tossing my clothes out the door into a pile on the floor.  Each head was attached to the wall with a handle, apparently each moved independently, and it looked as though a section of the tiled wall would shift around, too, so I could either sit or lounge while being sprayed.  Trying the center knobs first gave me a solid stream of hot water from the center shower head, so I slowly added cold water until I had the water at the temperature I liked, then slipped underneath the spray. 

The water felt amazingly clean and while I really wanted to turn on the other two jets and stay for an hour, I knew I was burning up the clock and needed to clean up and get out.  It occurred to me that I didn’t have soap, looking around a little hopelessly.  Then I noticed a bottle of a white, pearl-like liquid sitting on an inset tile shelf on the inside wall.  Sniffing the bottle, the stuff didn’t have much of a smell I could detect, so I stuck my finger in to collect a small sample and put the bottle back.  Rubbing the liquid in my palm, it lathered immediately and dramatically.  Okay, found the soap and apparently, this was the super-ultra-concentrated version.  I rubbed the tiny amount I had into my chest, expecting to have to go back for more, but it kept lathering as I spread it down my arms then my lower regions and again up from my shoulders to my head and face.  I washed all of me from one tiny little sample.  I wondered if Proctor and Gamble knew about this stuff.  The lather rinsed away easily and the towel was so soft, I almost decided to wear just that. 

If this shower weren’t mine, I’d be jealous of the owner.

Shifting over to my closet and considered what to wear, looking down the long aisles.  Mine was larger than everybody else’s, by at least four to one, and some of it was… bizarre.  I started cutting the closet down into smaller parts, categorizing the basic styles of the clothing there until I had a clear idea where to look.  I was down to a tenth and shifted there.  Standing in the aisle in front of the rack of suits in form fitting black underwear and socks, neither of which did I recall putting on, the next step was deciding on a color.  I had a rainbow of options before me, mostly understated in this section, but the next aisle was far less so should I change my mind.

I went with blue, selecting a dark, nearly black jacket and pants.  The vest was the same blue in Ethan’s suit, that prevalent blue of my realm, and all the buttons of the vest and jacket were platinum with cut blue diamonds set into the sigil repeated so often now.  Moving to the three-way mirror at the beginning of the aisle, I dressed my reflection with the clothes on the hanger.  I decided I liked what I saw and walked through the mirror and back into the hotel in New York, fresh and ready, almost colliding with Ethan as he poked at the mirror.

“’Bout time you got back!” he growled at me.  “The car’s here.  I think we’ll make the cover of ‘Wizards Monthly’ now, for sure.”

“There is such a magazine?” I asked, turning to check my hair in the mirror, releasing my connection to my realm.  My closet faded quickly and I waved the table back into place and lifted the lamps up to either side of the mirror.  Surprisingly, my hair fell into place without brushing or combing—a miracle shampoo since my hair hit the curling point in length again.

“No, and don’t let him rag you,” Peter said moving to face me with a brush.  “You were only gone ten minutes.  You look good, Seth.”  He shrugged off the brush without touching my hair, as satisfied as I was.

“Where’s Kieran?” I asked.

“He went to help Mike with the studs for his shirt,” Peter said.  “He was having a hard time figuring out how it all fit together.  And speak the devil’s name…”  Kieran and Mike walked in just as he said that.  “You look good, too, Mike,
very
nice.”

“A half a mil in diamonds on me and I’m still the plainest one in the bunch,” Mike said, grinning and looking around the room at us.  “At least you got that part right, Seth.”

“Shall we go, gentlemen?  The car’s waiting,” Ethan said by the door.

“Sure,” I said.  “Let’s hurry for the car that’s going to take us on a ninety minute drive of boredom.”

“Think of it as practice,” Kieran said, chuckling and pushing me lightly toward the door.  “Mostly for the rest of the evening.  Welcome to the political life, Lord Daybreak.”

Ethan and Peter took the lead since Mike and I had taken the direct route to the room.  We filed down the hall with me in the center of the die pattern.  Our rooms were on a concierge level and there was some sort of cocktail party just beginning in the VIP lounge.  We still managed to turn quite a few heads as we passed the open room, even among the thousand-dollar couture suits and even more expensive dresses on the women.  The concierge greeted Kieran by name and made a quick call as we passed to the elevators.  Mike had barely even reached the elevator call buttons when a bellhop stepped out of an empty car and held the door open for us.  This floor had privileges, it seemed.

We gathered more obvious looks and gawks as we trooped from the elevator to the front doors with Mike and Ethan creating a path through the milling crowd in the lobby.  I didn’t see any magic at work.  Simply our presence seemed to make the people move and clear away in front of us.  On the curb, we waited only a moment before a large black SUV-type van pulled up in front of us and a large man exited the front passenger side.

“Mr. Ferrin?” he called to Mike, looking at the five of us, confused and not afraid to show it.

“Yes?” Mike answered stepping forward to meet the man.

“Mark Phillips, sir,” he said as his eyes darted over the rest of us.  “I’ve been sent to collect you and the McClures.  I presume these are the gentlemen?”

“Yes, we are,” Mike said, not bothering to make introductions.  I wasn’t sure why, but no one else complained so I kept quiet, too, and turned my attention to the van, searching for malevolent magic.  The driver stiffened when he felt all four of us take hold of his spells on the vehicle, seeping through them and tightening the controls.  He relaxed slightly when we returned control to him a few seconds later, but he shot Phillips an alarmed look and a gasp.  Ethan opened the sliding side door and waved us inside.

“What was that?” Phillips asked, feeling the release and return of his security wards and his driver’s alarm.

“We had an incident earlier today involving another vehicle,” Mike said smiling, his pale blue eyes sparkling.  “I’m sure the McClures were just checking the van carefully against similar events.”

“I find it alarming that they were able to do that in the first place,” Phillips said blankly.

“And yet, they are still climbing into your van,” Ferrin said calmly.

I headed for the back seat with Peter moving in beside me.  Kieran took the middle with Ethan while Mike sat sideways on the front bench seat.  Phillips shut the sliding door then returned to his place in the front.  With a curt nod to the driver, he began our trip through New York City.

“How long will the drive take, Mr. Phillips?” Mike asked.

“Just over an hour, if traffic works in our favor,” Phillips responded.  Kieran and Ethan exchanged glances quickly and I got the distinct impression that traffic would work in our favor as the van pulled out of the hotel entrance.

“So why exactly did you agree to this?” I asked.  “I thought we were here to sign contracts and interview for assistants.”

“Yeah,” Peter said.  “Apparently, Harris narced on us, though, and told somebody that we were passing through so they decided to throw a party for us at the last minute.  All the clamor of killing MacNamara got everybody’s attention.  Go figure.”

“Since both of the coalitions here helped with the attack on him, I couldn’t very well say no, now could I,” Kieran added.

“Wait, both?  Together?” I asked, a little shocked.  “They’ll both be there tonight?”

“Yep,” Kieran said.  “With St. Croix’s demise, they started getting along
just a little bit
better almost immediately.”

“You’ve got to be kiddin’ me!” I said.  “Gramps was
that
influential?”

“St. Croix was your grandfather?” Phillips asked from the front, telling us that he was listening.  Not that we hadn’t expected it, but that told us he was.

“Yeah, at some point he was, before the snake took over,” I said, looking out through the heavily tinted windows.  “He was pretty much insane by the time I killed him.”

“
You
killed St. Croix?” asked Phillips, peering into the mirror overhead at me.

“Shouldn’t you know this all ready, Mr. Phillips?” Mike asked, the aggravation in his voice causing me to look in his direction.  Phillips obviously didn’t know who was who among us.

“Yes, Mr. Ferrin, I should,” he admitted.  “And while I knew of these events occurring, I was not told that these were the gentlemen involved.  Indeed, they don’t appear to be capable of such.”

Kieran and Ethan chose that moment to skip the van a few dozen times forward a few miles at a time.  A sharp intake of breath from the driver followed that.

“Well, looks can be deceiving,” I said, chuckling, seeing the driver tense his shoulders.  “That was us, by the way.” 

Both statements obviously confused Phillips until he looked out the front again.  Then Kieran and Ethan did it a few more times.  They weren’t being as careful now as they had been with me on the way to Atlanta, blurring the transitions.  A second sharp intake of breath, this time from Phillips, followed this series of jumps along the crowded highway.

“You should probably let them get their bearings before you do any more, guys,” I said calmly.  “Especially since we really don’t know where we’re going.”

“Good point,” Kieran said, nodding.  I looked at his aura and saw the bright green and blue streaks running through.  He was enjoying picking on Phillips and I suspected Ethan didn’t have to push too hard to get him to play along.

A soft warbling sound rose from the dash of the van.  Phillips opened the glove compartment in front of him and pulled out a cell phone.

“That’s probably the men you had tailing us telling you they lost us,” Peter said, stretching out down the aisle.

“Yes,” Phillips said into the phone, glaring at Peter briefly through the mirror.  His ego was going to be shot by the end of the trip.  The conversation consisted of a series of “yes” and “no” answers and one angry “later,” then he tossed the phone back, slamming the compartment closed.

“Don’t be mad at us, Mr. Phillips.  We aren’t the ones who didn’t explain who you were picking up,” Ethan said, a touch condescendingly.

“And had you told us that you had watchers on us, we wouldn’t have skipped us ahead,” said Kieran.

Neither comment seemed to assuage Mr. Phillips’ agitation.

“How much time did you guys cut from the drive, anyway?” I asked as the driver began changing lanes to the far right.

“Looks like about forty minutes, I think,” Kieran said softly.

“Sounds about right,” Phillips agreed, mellowing slightly as the driver exited the highway and started the trek down smaller, state roads.

“What’s our earliest appointment tomorrow, Mike?” I asked, hoping we could cut the evening short seeing as everyone seemed to be encouraging dissension with our primary interface to the two American councils. 

“Lawyers at nine,” Mike answered.  “Then interviews from noon to three.”

“That doesn’t seem too bad,” Ethan muttered.

“It’ll be good to get home, though,” I said as we turned off the state highway.  Another car pulled onto the road behind us, both occupants lit up the astral brightly with their auras as they closed the distance.  “Mr. Phillips, is the car pulling up behind us one of yours or do I destroy it now?”

“It’s ours,” he said quickly, as the driver made another turn, this one into a well-manicured, gated entrance, slowing and stopping for the dark-suited men milling about seemingly randomly.  Both the driver and Phillips rolled down their windows and spoke softly to separate men, identifying themselves and us.  This was a mundane entrance, complete with computer-operated gates and surveillance equipment.  We appeared as fuzzy blobs on their screens, which they accepted without concern.