Текст книги "Irregulars "
Автор книги: Astrid Amara
Соавторы: Nicole Kimberling,Ginn Hale,Josh lanyon
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Текущая страница: 30 (всего у книги 32 страниц)
“And this Greine asshole is not my father!” Jason growled. “I don’t give a shit what some blood test says. My father was Levi Shamir—the man who raised me. The man who died—” Jason’s voice broke and he sent another clump of earth and flowers sailing through the air. “I don’t care if he wasn’t my biological father. He loved me and that’s all that matters.”
“I truly wish that were the case, Jason,” Falk told him. Someone had to.
Jason turned back to Henry and Henry wasn’t certain if his expression displayed more betrayal or anger.
“The son of a bitch who murdered my father,” Jason ground out, “does not get to take his place.”
Suddenly Henry wished that they didn’t have to have this conversation. But Greine’s lawyers could be depended upon to exploit every aspect of the arcane fine print of any number of treaties. Henry could guarantee that they had already pointed out that Jason had been born a sidhe and never legally emigrated. As a sidhe he was a year short of his majority and so technically still under his biological father’s guardianship.
If his father had been some shiftless gnome, it wouldn’t have mattered. NIAD would have simply trotted out their own retinue of lawyers, filed an injunction, and delayed until Jason came of age.
But Greine commanded a vast army of goblin mercenaries and exerted immense financial influence as a highly valued trade partner. He would be appeased and Jason would be handed over to him—very quietly and very soon.
The knowledge ate into Henry like a shot of battery acid.
“The problem is that he’s got the law on his side,” Henry said.
“What are you talking about?” Jason demanded.
“Legally, you’re a sidhe minor of the Tuatha Dé Dannan clan, not an American citizen—”
“You’re saying I’m an illegal alien?” Incredulity almost tempered Jason’s outrage.
“It’s a little more complex than that, but basically, yeah,” Henry replied. “As such, it’ll fall to the Irregulars to turn you over to your guardian.”
“So that he can butcher me for some fucking mythical rock?” Jason glared at Henry. “What a great law! How about putting dingos in charge of daycares while they’re at it?”
“I never said it was right—”
“No, you said that going to Phipps and finding all of this out would help somehow.” Jason pinned him with a stare as hard and sharp as a razor. “Has it helped?”
“It’s given us warning of what we’re up against and a little time…” Henry told him.
“When you say ‘us’ do you mean you and me or you and your Irregular buddies?”
Henry could read suspicion spreading across Jason’s face as Jason belatedly realized how little he really knew of Henry or NIAD.
“It’s not the same thing, is it?” Jason asked.
“No, it’s not,” Henry admitted. Gunther had all but told him that Research and Development wanted a crack at prying the stone from Jason’s body before they had to hand him over to Greine. Phipps had been right about that.
“Phipps wasn’t just bullshitting when he said your people wanted to carve me up for the stone and turn me into a—a zombie patch job, was he?” Jason stepped back out of Henry’s reach, but he didn’t run. That showed just how little he truly understood of the danger Henry posed to him. Or perhaps it simply betrayed Jason’s desire to trust him even now.
“Phipps wasn’t wrong. Gunther sent me a note this morning. R&D wants me to turn you over.”
“But you’re not going to…” Jason took another step back but then stopped and stood, staring at Henry warily.
All morning Henry’d shied from asking himself what he’d do when the moment came to pack Jason up and hand him over to the dowdy, merciless creatures that populated the R&D laboratories in DC. He hadn’t suspected that his own conscience would kick quite so hard. The Irregulars had created, trained, and kept him for nearly a century; the institution was a great gyre that carried his wreckage, making him look alive and full of purpose.
Jason, on the other hand, was nearly a stranger. They’d had sex, but Henry wasn’t one to mistake that for anything beyond a momentary respite—more pleasurable but certainly not more meaningful than sharing a drink and a laugh. It’d been a good time but taking it for more than that wouldn’t have just been whistful but damn unwise. Yet Jason’s gaze affected Henry more than he wanted to acknowledge; the smallest spark flickered in the darkness of his dead heart.
Jason exerted no special power over him—commanded no spells, oaths, or obligations written in blood. Instead he just looked at Henry like he could see the decency in him—like he was betting his life on it. And somehow just that made Henry feel the good, gallant, and foolish man he’d once been awaken within him.
Henry held his scarred left hand out to Jason and Jason came to him.
“When I said ‘us’, I meant you and me,” Henry told him.
Jason nodded, looking relieved but also exhausted. Overhead a flock of smoky blue butterflies swirled across the sun like a passing cloud.
“So what now...Henry?” Jason said his name like it was a secret spell. Silly, really, but still touching.
“We need to find a way to keep you out of both the research labs and Greine’s reach.” No news there. But Henry didn’t feel quite ready to explain all the details of the plan that had been growing in the back of his mind since early this morning. He didn’t trust his own commitment enough yet to test it against the hard realities that even words would evoke. “You need to disappear for at least a year.”
“Disappear to where?” Jason asked.
“As who might be more important—” Henry cut himself off as the door of the brilliant blue port-o-let swung open. A group of naked, green-haired youths burst out and immediately dispersed into a cloud of emerald butterflies. Princess padded out in their wake. She watched the nearest butterfly flutter with feline interest before trotting to Henry’s side.
Henry scooped her up, noting the pretty collar she now wore as well as the silver message cylinder hanging from it like a delicate bell. The note inside told him nothing he didn’t already know, except that Gunther had bought the collar for Princess and that Greine had been formally invited to take custody of his son first thing tomorrow morning. R&D were expecting Henry to make a delivery to them within the day.
Princess settled herself on Henry’s shoulder but watched the surrounding moths and butterflies with great attention.
“We better leg it,” Henry said. “Buttercup won’t abide a cat in her kingdom, not even an enchanted one.”
“But where are we going to go?” Jason asked.
“Back to where we started,” Henry decided.
Chapter Eight
Carerra’s strike team had left Phipps’s Curiosities and Antiques locked up, taped off, and warded with small gold spheres that looked to Jason like miniature sea mines. Jason’s own key and Falk’s knife made easy work of the first two obstacles, but after that they both spent nearly an hour dismantling all the security spells with lullabies and curses written across masking tape. At last they slipped through the backdoor.
Inside, the once-tidy shop now stood in disarray. Antique chairs and ivory-inlaid card tables lay toppled and cracked like the remnants of a fire sale. Tapestries had been ripped from the walls and the entire collection of eighteenth-century Japanese umbrellas rested in a heap, tattered with bullet holes, as if they’d been executed by a firing squad.
Most of the valuables were missing. The display cases that had housed Persian and Chinese gold jewelry were nothing more than battered frames haloed by shards of shattered glass.
Falk snorted derisively.
“I knew they’d snatch up the fool’s gold and leave the silver goblin’s scimitar lying in a pile of tarnished trash.” He carefully lifted the sheathed blade from a heap of broken glass and bent bookends. When he drew the blade a few inches Jason noticed red symbols glowing along it.
Princess circled Falk’s feet but then bounded away to bite the wings of a stuffed owl that had fallen behind the empty, open cash register.
“Of course they also left a lot of actual garbage,” Falk commented. He sheathed the scimitar.
Hints of both gunpowder and camphor scented the air. And a fine white ash drifted down from the second floor, where the incinerated remains of what looked like an immense serpent spilled across three shattered display cases that had once housed jade and carnelian hairpins.
The afternoon light streaming in through the windows dulled to hazy gold shafts as it filtered through the drifting clouds of ash.
Jason found a silk kerchief and tied it over his nose and mouth. He offered another to Henry, who followed Jason’s example after only briefly smirking at the spray of silk pansies embroidered across the cloth.
“What do you think?” Falk asked through the kerchief. “Do I look like a proper robber now?”
“It does strike a nice balance between criminal menace and floral extravaganza.” Jason grinned from behind his own display of pink roses.
“Sure. We’ll set a new trend in criminal fashion. Pretty soon all the young thugs would be swaggering around with their grannies’ hankies over their faces.”
Together they scavenged and pilfered through gilded cabinets, pungent travelers’ trunks, and the dark little drawers of any number of dressers and desks.
Steadily, he and Falk amassed a treasury of arcane weapons, ancient necessities, and petty valuables. Strings of semiprecious stones, silver blades, tinderboxes, leather satchels, two pocket watches, and a variety of old and costly clothes heaped up on the silken divan where they gathered their loot.
Jason’s nerves tingled with both excitement and anxiety when he surveyed the assortment of odds and ends and realized that he would have to build a new life in another world with just these supplies. But it would be his own life.
He picked up one of the battered pocket watches and studied the constellation of symbols and additional hands that revealed themselves to him. According to Falk it was a compass for traveling between realms.
Jason wound the hands experimentally. A portal to Atlantis would be active in only twenty-three more hours.
“What about Atlantis?” Jason asked.
“Depends on how much you enjoy the damp. Very pretty, though. Red Ogre’s tower was built there. She swears that some quiet nights you can hear the mermaids singing in the lower floors,” Henry replied from the balcony above.
Jason remembered his ghostly visions of serene sea creatures drifting through the hallway.
“I’d like to at least see it,” Jason decided.
“Not a bad thought. There’s certainly wealth there and the inhabitants aren’t too keen on either the sidhe or NIAD. There’s plenty of glass here to trade with the mermaids and merrows, though crystal would be better…” Falk glanced up and then suddenly swung up onto the railing of the balcony and leaned out to catch one of the crystal chandeliers. He quickly plucked several shimmering baubles from their metal supports as if he were picking cherries. “They love how leaded crystal splinters light into rainbows. Pixies tend to go for prisms for the same reason.”
Jason nodded and tried to commit this to memory along with all the other odd and esoteric information Falk had offered him as the sun had sunk outside the windows and the streetlights had flickered into life.
Cold iron downs pixies, nixies, and faeries. Trolls are nuts for coconut sunscreen. Brownies only keep their word when swearing on a sewing needle. Griffins have canaries for brains and go after their own reflections nine times out of ten. Never travel by using Mexican calendars. Don’t eat goblin shashlik.
You must name the weapon you use to kill a unicorn so that the curse of its spilled blood will fall upon the weapon and not its bearer. The same held true with silver knives and werewolves…
Jason could hardly remember it all, but he still felt flushed with excitement at the prospect of seizing control of his own life. He wouldn’t wait for some government agency or a sidhe regent to decide his fate any more than he would willingly walk back into St. Mary’s.
And, despite his fears, the idea of traveling in disguise to new worlds appealed to him. He guessed that Falk was the one who made it appealing in the way he casually mentioned curses and enchanted fountains while neatly wielding his knife to pry the pearls from a Hindu statue. Someday Jason wanted to be that experienced and confident.
Jason ducked beneath the line of a window and crept up the stairs. Princess trailed him, swatting at the fluttering streamers of broken exorcism tape that littered the steps.
“What about this?” Jason held up a blanket embroidered with golden winged lions. When he’d worked at the shop he’d always thought it was a beautiful creation—faded with age and yet still whole and flashing with gold threads.
“Certainly looks like it could keep off the sun or the cold.” Henry swung down from the railing and landed with surprising quiet. “How’s it smell?”
Jason took a whiff of the thick cloth.
“Like fried chicken.” Jason’s stomach gave a demanding growl in response to the scent.
“Really?” Falk asked.
“No,” Jason admitted. “I think I’m smelling the restaurant down the street. They probably started dinner service.”
“Yeah, now that you mention it, I can smell it too.” Henry took in a deep breath and frowned at the nearest window. “It got dark quick enough, didn’t it?”
Jason shrugged. For the last twenty minutes or so he’d been using the light radiating off Falk to see his way around the shop. It struck him as almost ironic that Falk could shine so intensely and yet be utterly unable to perceive his own brilliance.
“Why don’t you pack the bags while I grab us some grub?” Falk suggested. Jason felt more than happy to agree.
Falk handed him a fistful of cut crystal gems. Then he pulled down his kerchief and took a long swig from the flask in his pocket. A moment later the light radiating from him dimmed and he sank back into a darkness that not even Jason’s vision could penetrate.
The entire shop darkened in his absence and Jason had to grip the handrail of the stairs to ensure his footing as he descen-ded toward the silken divans and ornate Indian beds on the first floor. He wondered if he could create some small illumination of his own; he remembered how he’d used a melody to close Falk’s wounds and decided to try. He let his thoughts fill with the low, warm tones of glowing embers and then the rushing whispers of flames as they burned the air. If anyone but Princess had been with him he would have felt too absurd to open his mouth and release this strange, primal song. But now as the raspy, growl of notes rushed out of him a ball of fire burst up before him.
Princess, who’d been trailing him with a strand of pearls dangling from her mouth, dropped her treasure and let out a startled yowl.
“It’s all right. I’m not going to hurt you—or burn the building down…” Jason reassured her and himself. “It’s a tiny flame, just enough light to see where I’m going.”
Very cautiously Jason lifted his hand and the small ball of flames drifted to his outstretched fingers. It felt warm against his skin but didn’t burn. In fact, it hardly felt much hotter than a warm breath against his skin.
Once he reached the divan on the first floor, Jason placed the flame in an empty crystal chalice on a dresser and set to work sorting and packing everything he and Falk had gathered. Princess curled up on an upholstered footstool where she could watch the flame and chew on her string of pearls. Ever so slowly the flame dimmed until only the dull glow of a red ember fell across Jason.
He lowered the full leather packs to the floor and stretched out on the divan. It had been a long, exhausting day and he suspected that only hunger was keeping him awake at this point. In the chalice, the ember’s light pulsed and dimmed as if it too were fading into unconsciousness.
Then Falk appeared in halo of cold radiance, carrying a bucket of fried chicken and a six-pack of Anchor Steam Beer.
Jason rolled out one of the many Persian carpets and they ate on the floor in the warm fluttering light of the smoldering ember. Initially, hunger rendered Jason oblivious to everything but devouring hot drumsticks, salty biscuits, and cool beer. But slowly he became aware of the way the Henry watched him as he slowly drank his beer.
“Do I have something on my face?” Jason asked. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand self-consciously.
“Yeah,” Falk replied. He leaned close. “Let me get it for you.”
He kissed Jason and his mouth tasted like beer and something earthy and strong that Jason couldn’t name but yearned for. He leaned into Falk, kissing back and feeling the sensation of Falk’s lips and tongue shiver through his entire body.
He wanted this so very badly and yet he didn’t know if he trusted where it would lead. Falk’s hand curled around his shoulder and Jason thought he would pull him closer, but he didn’t.
Jason drew back. Falk held his gaze even as he allowed him to withdraw.
“I thought you didn’t…” Jason wasn’t certain of what he wanted to say except that after they’d screwed this morning Falk had seemed so cold, almost angry with him, and Jason didn’t want that to happen again. “This morning…”
“I was an asshole this morning. Sorry about that, I wake up surly. But I don’t think I ever said anything about not wanting you.” Falk’s mouth curved like he might laugh, but his gaze remained intense and fixed upon Jason. “What about you? What do you want?”
Jason wasn’t certain how to answer that. For such a simple question it asked so much—from his long-ranging romantic ideals to a preference of sexual positions.
In response Jason simply caught Falk’s scarred, calloused hand and drew him up onto the silken divan.
They undressed together. Jason felt self-conscious, comparing his soft naked body to the ropey muscle, rough blond hair, and scars of Falk’s tall frame. His inexperience seemed so obvious.
But it relieved Jason to see that he wasn’t alone in his feverish, flushed skin or excited, shaking hands. Jason tossed his T-shirt aside and Falk kissed his bare chest and then his abdomen, sending tremors through Jason’s flesh.
“You’re beautiful all the way to your bones, you know that,” Falk told him and then he pulled aside Jason’s underwear.
Jason gasped as Falk’s mouth engulfed him, his silver tongue lashing waves of pleasure through him. He didn’t know if it was magic or simply a result of Falk’s vast lifetime of experience, but never before had Jason felt ecstasy rock him so powerfully or linger so long after.
As Jason lay, sticky and catching his breath, he noticed that the ember had died out. It didn’t matter; Falk illuminated him, bathing him in a glow as radiant as starlight. Jason touched Falk’s weathered cheek and he wasn’t sure if Falk’s expression was sad or tender as he gazed down at him.
“Are you worried?” Jason asked.
“Maybe a little…” Falk stretched out beside him on the divan. “Mostly about rolling off this thing.” He pulled a crooked grin.
But Jason could tell he was lying and Falk seemed to realize as much because his expression sobered.
“I don’t want you to get hurt,” Falk admitted. “But that’s life. Sooner or later everyone loses something or someone.”
“It’s not like I’ve never lost anyone.” Jason searched Falk’s angular face. He didn’t know how he could look so rough and handsome at the same time. Like one of those tough-guy detectives from an old-time movie: the kind that talked mean and then sacrificed everything to save some hapless heroine in the end.
But Jason wasn’t a heroine and he wasn’t hapless. And most importantly he wasn’t going to let fear of an unknowable future keep him from embracing his freedom now.
“Look,” Jason said, “I can’t promise that I—or you for that matter—will be safe and sound for all time to come. But we’re here together now. And this is good, isn’t it?”
“It’s very good,” Falk admitted. The smile that curved his mouth this time was genuine.
“Then let’s enjoy now,” Jason suggested.
Falk kissed his brow lightly.
“If we’re going to keep enjoying ourselves, I need to get something out of my coat pocket,” Henry informed him.
Jason guessed that even magicians needed lube and condoms.
When Henry returned, he lay down behind Jason. His hands felt hot as he stroked the muscles of Jason’s bare back and traced curling designs down the length of his spine.
“Is this all right?” Falk asked.
Eight hours ago it might not have been, but now Jason nodded.
He relaxed, allowing Falk to arouse his languid body, while he built a song of passion and rapture in his mind. Falk shifted them both up to their knees. Jason’s skin shivered with delight at the sensation of Falk’s hair brushing over his back and buttocks. The heat of Falk’s skin and the smell of his sweat filled Jason’s senses as his hard width filled Jason’s body.
Falk moved so carefully, easing into Jason as if he were delicate beyond imagining and in response Jason whispered the first notes of his longing. He felt Falk’s entire body respond. His hands dug into Jason’s flanks and his hips rocked deep and strong.
Jason’s breath caught.
“Don’t stop,” Falk groaned into Jason’s shoulder. And Jason realized that Falk was in his power in this moment and giving himself up to Jason’s longing.
Jason called out in the rhythm of desire and coupling bodies. Falk answered him with a primal drive, pinning Jason hard and fast to the power of his own demands. They rocked and thrust, both caught up in the possession of yearning.
Shaking, as ecstatic sensation rushed through his body, Jason whispered only for more, plunging them both deeper into his song of ecstasy.
At last Jason’s voice broke in a hoarse moan and Falk called out with him.
Jason collapsed against the cool silk of the divan and Falk fell beside him, breathing heavily and shining like the sun. Jason thought he could feel Falk’s heart beating against his back.
“I can die happy now,” Falk muttered. “My God, you’re…fucking amazing.”
Jason grinned. He didn’t think he’d ever felt so utterly pleased to be so spent. His eyelids drooped and he nearly dropped off to sleep right then. But he realized that he ought to say something.
“You were great too,” Jason mumbled. “Amazing fucking.” Falk gave a dry laugh and Jason let himself drift into a contented doze. Falk shifted beside him, but Jason didn’t open his eyes. He barely felt Falk’s fingers caress his brow.
“Sweet dreams,” Falk wished him, and Jason thought he felt Falk’s lips graze his feverish skin. He drifted but then came near waking as he felt Henry’s hands lingering on him.
“Lend me the grace of his form,” Falk whispered as if offering up a prayer. “Let my coarseness keep him from harm.”
It seemed an odd thing to say, but Jason could hardly keep the words in his mind. In moments all he recalled were soft comforting sounds floating at the edge of his awareness. He felt Falk spread his tattered trench coat over him and wish him safe dreams and a deep, deep sleep.
***
Jason wasn’t sure how much time had passed. It seemed like only minutes, but a particular feeling of warm sunlight dancing across his closed eyes undermined his certainty.
He managed to crack one heavy lid, but his vision seemed hazy and his sluggish mind felt too slow to respond to anything he saw.
Beams of bright morning light revealed a circle of sharp-featured, stately men dressed in leather and green silk and holding ivory spears. Their features struck Jason as unnaturally handsome and cold. Their skin shone like polished brass. Falk stood before them—
And Jason knew he was dreaming then, because Falk stood barefoot, wearing only Jason’s jeans and yellow T-shirt. He held Jason’s red hoodie in his hands.
Jason sensed other people there as well: grim men and women in black uniforms standing far back in the shadows. Jason thought Gunther hunched among them, his terrible goblin face distorted further by anger. He couldn’t see that, but he sensed it in the way of dreams.
Before him, Falk held out his hands. One of the men in green encircled his wrists with iron chains. Then the rest closed ranks around him and they led him away.
Jason wanted to sit up and call out. He tried to shout, but Princess crouched on his chest. She bowed her scarlet face close to his.
I am sent here to hide you until the regent’s guards have taken the bait and flown home like so many swallows carrying poison back to their nest.
Sleep.
***
Jason woke suddenly and with a cry of alarm. Princess startled off the divan and Gunther—with a cigarette in his ragged, toothy mouth—glared at him.
A dizzy, unreal feeling moved through Jason as he attempted to work out what was going on. Bright afternoon light poured in through the windows of Phipps’s shop. Empty beer bottles and the remains of a chicken dinner lay a yard from the divan where Jason sat naked.
Falk’s trench coat lay across one of his legs.
“This has got to be a low point—even for you,” Gunther growled at him. “How could you let them take him? You know what they’re going to do to him when they get him back to the sidhe realm.”
“What—” Jason began, but Gunther cut him off.
“They’re going to cut him up with rusty razors and shove his remains through a fucking sieve until they find the damn Stone of Fal.” The phone in Gunther’s pocket sounded, but he ignored it. “If you were going to go ahead and let him get diced, you might as well have handed him over to our people. At least the guys in R&D use anesthesia. At least they would have tried to keep him intact…”
Jason just stared at Gunther, trying to understand what he was talking about and feeling disturbed that he just allowed his phone to keep ringing.
“Where’s Henry?” Jason asked.
Then it was Gunther’s turn to gape. His phone let out a last tone, then went quiet.
“What did you say?” Gunther moved closer and instinctively Jason grabbed Falk’s coat and pulled it around his naked body.
“I want to talk to Henry. Where is he?” Jason asked again.
Gunther narrowed his red-slit eyes, dug into his suit pocket, and pulled out what looked like a small flashlight. He shone it on Jason and then swore in a crackling, grumbling language that Jason didn’t need to know to understand.
“Doesn’t work. Must be a glamour. A genuine faerie dust glamour. Damn it.” Gunther flicked the light off and considered Jason. “If you’re here, then who—” Realization showed on Gunther’s face and at the same moment a terrible knowledge dawned upon Jason.
Falk had asked for three pinches of faerie dust from Buttercup. He’d used the last two on Jason and himself last night while Jason had dozed.
The whole time that he’d been offering Jason easy advice and helping him pack he’d never intended to leave with him.
“That stupid son of a bitch,” Jason snapped.
“Oh yeah,” Gunther agreed. He crumpled his cigarette in his hand and then tossed its crushed remains into his mouth. “He could actually get himself killed this time. Damn him.”
“Princess can find him, though, can’t she?” Jason asked.
“Of course. She’s blood of his blood.” Gunther considered Falk’s familiar, then added, “No one at HQ is going to sign off on this, though. If they find out what Henry’s done…”
“No. They can’t know,” Jason agreed.
Gunther fished a phone out of his pocket and began to dial. His toothy expressions were difficult to read, but Jason thought he looked strained or perhaps furtive. Suspicious fear moved through Jason. He tried to sound casual as he asked, “Who are you calling?”
Gunther turned his attention back to Jason.
“My boyfriend. He hates it if I don’t call when I’m going to be late for dinner.” Gunther paused, looked Jason over, then added, “By the way, you’ll probably want to put some pants on.”
