Cal fixed a watery stare at Murdock. “He’s a liar.”
“Cal…” I said.
He brought a wavering finger up to his lips. “Shhhh, little bro.”
“I have to be somewhere, Cal,” said Murdock. It was a nice try, but Cal wasn’t buying.
Cal waved him back into his seat. “Not yet. Not yet. I have to tell you about my little bro.” He took another sip of his drink, while Murdock gave me a sympathetic shrug. “When we were little, I found the box. Remember that, little bro?”
“Murdock doesn’t need to hear this, Cal.” Old aggravation settled over me. No matter how many years went by, the same damn story had to come up.
“Course he does.” He looked at Murdock again. “When we were little, I found the box. Now the box, Murdock, is a rite of passage for druids. I’m not going to tell you how they hide it because it’s a big druid secret, and I’d have to kill you or fry your brain or something, but I found it like I was supposed to, and I couldn’t get the damned thing open.” He wobbled his head at me. “Now this little guy, he comes in and sees me with the box. Remember that, little bro?”
I started getting that sick feeling in my stomach I get whenever the box comes up. “Yeah, Cal, I remember.”
He nodded, looking back in his drink. “Yeah, he remembers. He comes in pretty as you please and flips the box open.”
Murdock looked interested yet puzzled, and I couldn’t blame him.
“So I took the key out and brought it to our da,” he continued. “And Da said, where did you get this? And I said, I opened the box. And Da said, no you didn’t. And I said, sure I did, ask Connor, he was right there. And Da went to Connor and said tell me who opened the box. And Connor said, well, you tell him, Connor, tell him what you said.”
I refused to play this game. I just stared at Callin, wishing it never happened.
He shook his head. “Fine, don’t say.” He looked at Murdock. “He said, Callin did, sir. And Da said, are you sure? And you know what my little brother said?” A big grin split his face. “He said, yes, ’cause my big brother’s going to be the greatest druid ever.”
Callin slapped the table with a laugh, then downed his drink. He smiled from me to Murdock to me again. He reached over and pawed the side of my head. “He’s a liar, Murdock, but he always tells good ones.”
We sat in uncomfortable silence. I hated when Cal brought it up. Something broke inside him that day. Our da was disappointed in his lie. Cal idolized our da, and the disappointment crushed him. What made it worse was that Da blamed Cal for my lie because Cal knew I’d back him up. Cal never could get past the fact that I had been forgiven the lie because of my loyalty, and he had not because of his pride. Things only got worse as my abilities proved much stronger than his. It’s one of those moments in life you wish you could take back. Too many times, when I’ve had my own share of what Cal was drinking, I thought about that day and whether things would have turned out differently if I told the truth, whether Cal would have. But we’ll never know.
A commotion at the bar blessedly broke the moment. We all turned to see an elf pushing a dwarf repeatedly in the shoulder. Another elf took that as his cue to start in on a druid standing next to him. Both elves wore red leather jackets with black bars running down the sleeves. TruKnights colors. I scanned the bar and saw more of them, even a couple of fairies, and all of them hassling someone.
“I don’t think you want to be here anymore, Murdock,” I said quietly.
He looked away from the bar and did the same scan. Cops don’t run, but they’re not stupid either. His hand instinctively went for his radio. He was stopped by the hard, firm grip of my brother’s hand.
“Don’t,” said Cal, quiet and tense. I looked at him. The drunk telling stories suddenly looked suspiciously sober. Murdock started going for his gun.
“Wait, Leo,” I whispered sharply. I hardly ever call him by his first name, and it had the effect I hoped it would. He paused. Cal nodded back to the bar, and we turned.
The Clure stood swaying before the elf. “Gentlemen, what seems to be the trouble?”
“Take a walk, Clure, this isn’t your business,” the elf said.
The Clure leaned past the elf and picked up a full beer glass from the bar. He tilted his head back and drank in one gulp. “Ah, my friend, but you’ve made it my business. You’re breaking Yggy’s rules. Keep it personal. Take the gang stuff outside.”
“Those aren’t our rules,” said the elf.
The Clure smiled deeply as the bar became quiet. It was then that I realized that stationed in every nook and cranny of Yggy’s were a helluva lot more Cluries than I had first thought. “I don’t tell people rules they already know, my friend. I just remind people that neutral ground is Cluries ground, the rest is up to them.”
“TruKnights make their own rules, Clure. Mind your step, or we’ll mind it for you,” said the elf.
“Wrong!” The Clure cried with delight, his smile going wider. The elf did not see it coming. The beer glass came flying around with a roundhouse punch that threw him against the wall. In moments, every Clurie was in a frenzy.
Cal jumped up. “Nice seeing you, bro,” he tossed at me before he ran off into the fray.
“In the mood for some fun?” I asked Murdock. A chair whizzed over our table, and we ducked.
He laughed. “Nah, let’s go.”
By the time we made it halfway to the door, the place was a full-scale riot. Most of the tussle consisted of Cluries and TruKnights, but a few opportunists were getting their jabs in. My shields activated automatically, feeble and weak. They wouldn’t keep a bottle from beaning me, but at least it wouldn’t knock me out. Someone grabbed my shoulder and spun me around. Before I had a chance to react, a fist flew past me and into the face of the elf holding me. He sank to his knees, a deadweight.
“Nice reflexes,” I said.
“Don’t mention it,” said Murdock. His essence surged around him, bright and clear. I’d never seen such a thing in a human normal. His eyes had a glint in them that made me nervous. He barreled his way through the bar, pushing bodies left and right with no effort whatsoever. I followed in his wake, too stunned to say anything. We stumbled out the door in a crush of several other people, half of them laughing and the other half swearing.
Joe popped into the air over us. “See, I knew you guys would have fun together!”
“Yeah, thanks, Joe,” I said. I twisted to check if my jacket got ripped. It looked okay. Murdock flexed his hand open and shut a few times.
“Let’s go before the beat cops show up,” he said.
We walked up the alley, occasionally dodging someone running. “Oh, it’s Yggy’s. No one calls the cops unless someone gets killed,” I said.
“And then I’d have to stay,” he said. Good point.
We jumped into his car. Joe lingered above the sidewalk. “That’s it? You’re leaving?”
“It was work, Joe, not social,” I said.
He looked over his shoulder, disappointed.
“Go on, if you want, Joe. Tell Cal…tell him it was good seeing him.”
He smiled. “See you!” He blipped out.
Murdock pulled into traffic. “That was interesting.”
“Yeah, we need to find this Moke,” I said.
“I meant that you have a brother.”
“We don’t hang much. Long history,” I said.
“I didn’t get the whole box thing,” said Murdock.
I didn’t say anything for a moment. Druid rituals are secret, like Cal said. Some of those secrets make sense because they’re about manipulating essence. Some of them are just the bonding of members of closed societies, and druids are all about bonding. Some things, though, are open secrets.
“It’s the first step on the druidic path,” I said, deciding I could tell Murdock what every potential druid learns on the playground. “Our abilities manifest around puberty, and the first sign is when a kid can see through the glamour hiding a box left where he might find it. If they can open the box, they’re ready to start training. Inside is a key. We take the key to an adult druid we respect, and he arranges our testing and training.”