“This is my family. I’m not getting ‘put’ anywhere,” Cat said.
“You can stay with your mom for a few days,” Cal suggested.
“I’m staying with you.”
“Cat…”
“I’m staying with you. Case closed.”
A high scream broke out from Bree’s bedroom. The door was ajar when it should have been shut. Lelani vaulted the couch and reached the room before anyone else. Cal hobbled as quickly as he could. He still had a little vertigo but wasn’t sure if it was because of the injuries or the spell. Bree was sitting on the floor crying with her arms around Maggie. The dog’s neck twisted at a disturbing angle. Blood trickled from her mouth.
“Maggie needs a doctor,” Bree wailed.
Cat lifted Bree and let the girl bury her face in her neck. “Maggie was very brave,” she told her daughter. Cat rubbed Bree’s back and made a shushing noise. She cast Lelani a resentful glance as she carried her daughter out of the room.
“Sorry about that,” Cal said. “We really do appreciate your help.”
A radio and car doors shutting sounded from the street.
Through Bree’s window, Cal spied his lieutenant and the precinct chaplain tapping on the cruiser parked below to wake the cops that “dozed off” while on guard duty. They’d be put on report. How much did the cops remember? Maybe Cal could tell the chief they were gassed. How did that fit into the big picture?
“There are loose ends that need attending,” Lelani said, beside him, as though reading his mind.
“How the hell am I going to explain all this to the brass?” Cal said.
Erin was dead. His home was in shambles. Cal realized he would be at the station house for hours as Internal Affairs debriefed him. If he left now, he could at least prevent them from coming up and having to explain why the apartment looked like a war zone. The mission ahead was full of travels, perhaps even a retreat into the remotest parts of the world. He needed to stay mobile and in the law’s good graces. If only the boy was still alive…
“What will you do while I’m at the precinct?” he asked Lelani.
“Seth and I can address the damage to your home and other matters,” she said, looking down at the dead pet. “We- I will guard your family. Although, I am fairly certain no other attempt will be made. Only a fool attacks a sorcerer without backup, and I wounded theirs severely at the tenement.”
“About your remark earlier… the one about obligations…”
“I meant only your obligations to Duke Athelstan. Whatever your commitment to your betrothed, it is your concern. The boy’s survival is important to my race. That is my concern. Everything I do, I do for my people.”
“I am in a pickle, though, aren’t I?”
“Pickle? A flip description. Your family’s reputation is in jeopardy. And I doubt Chryslantha’s father will let the matter go without reparations. His pride is at stake.”
“You’re assuming Cat will choose to come back with me.”
“You are the victim of your own good judgment, Lord MacDonnell. If your wife were of lesser character, the decision would be easier. However, she is brave and will follow you to the ends of the earth… and farther. You will eventually have to make a decision. Whatever you choose does not change the fact that you took a mate and sired a child. Your honor will not allow you to keep this news from Lady Chryslantha. Consider this, though-if Athelstan’s son is lost, even if we retake Aandor, the duke will be merciless in his judgment. He can use those reparations to Lord Godwynn as his vehicle to strip your family of titles and lands.”
Cal pondered the ramifications. He had found his soul mate on two different worlds. How could a man so lucky be so cursed at the same time?
“Of course the stakes are much higher than your complicated betrothal,” Lelani continued. “Farrenheil will strip Aandor of everything decent. They will force its lords, including your father, to fealty, and those who do not submit will be publicly executed. Our citizens will be sold into slavery, our women carted off and raped. Scholars, clerics, and any other perceived threats will ‘disappear’ as agents of their secret guilds drag us out of our homes in the middle of night without a writ, and the last beacon of hope, prosperity, and fair rule in our world will be gone.
“And we have not even touched upon the dangers to this world should we not get on top of the situation,” Lelani continued.
“This world?” Cal asked. “You mean the other guardians in our party?”
“They, too, are in mortal danger, but I actually meant the people of this world. Lord Dorn is as reckless as he is remorseless. You have no idea how many times he’s been reprimanded by the Council of Wizards for engaging in the darkest arts-forbidden magicks that could lay waste to entire regions in a single stroke. There are no councils here to hold him in check. We’re fortunate that magical energy is in short supply, but he will eventually find what he needs. Even if we find the prince and regroup the guardians, out of desperation, Dorn could resort to outlawed spells and kill tens of thousands here while trying to defeat us.”
These revelations overwhelmed Cal. He thought about the line cops often used to avoid responsibility for FUBAR scenarios… It’s above my pay grade. But that wasn’t even the case here. In Aandor, these types of responsibilities were exactly his pay grade. Three thousand men served under him, helping him keep order in the grandest city on his world.
The buzzer rang.
One problem at a time, Cal thought. “I’m going down to the station to get my interrogation over with.”
“Wait,” she said. Lelani delved into her satchel and pulled out a lapel pin that looked like a small silver flower. “Wear this somewhere in view of the people questioning you.”
“What is it?”
“The pin is endowed with a credibility enchantment. As long as the person questioning you is in view of this pin, they will be more apt to believe your stories.”
“I can tell them anything?”
“No. Try to make your explanation as realistic as possible. This is not strong magic. I confiscated this one from a novitiate who used it to bed tavern wenches in Aandor. If you told someone you were a cricket, they would get a terrible migraine trying to reject that lie. But if you told them you were five foot eight inches tall, they would accept that. The enchantment gives your own creativity an added edge.”
Cal was grateful for the gift. He could paint Dorn’s men as gangsters who kidnapped him from the scene and attacked the cruiser outside… that they didn’t expect Cat to have a weapon much less be proficient with it, and with that distraction, he freed himself of his bonds and helped get the jump on them. He could put out an all-points bulletin on them as well. That would make it hard for them to travel in public, especially Hesz.
The buzzer rang again.
“Will they insist on coming up?” Lelani asked, worried about her appearance.
“No. I’ll tell them Cat is having a fit. Her temper is legendary at the precinct. ‘She’s in a mood, hates the NYPD at the moment, and they risk having a coffeepot thrown at them.’ They won’t come up.”
It was a stretch, but Cal had to keep the investigation in check. His original mission was the most important charge of his life. He had to resume it as soon as possible.
“I’ll be back in a few hours. Try to formulate a plan of action. Take care of them. And keep an eye on Seth. I can’t tell you how he did it yet, but my gut tells me he’s the reason everything went to hell.”
2
Seth entered the apartment with all the finesse of a drunken Marx brother. The wooden planks he carried caught on the door frame, and he slammed into them hard enough to drive the air from his lungs. He startled the young girl who sat on the living room window seat vigilantly watching for her dad. She looked exhausted.
“Sorry,” Seth said to the girl.
Everyone had an assigned task to kill time until Cal returned. Seth’s job was to raid the apartment being renovated upstairs for tools and materials to patch the bedroom windows that had been damaged during the fight. Cat was on the phone, telling her construction contractors to take the day off.