Life After Death
Chapter 13
"Harry Dresden is dead." She had admitted it aloud to me, nay proclaimed it even to the gods themselves, because she was the one who had him killed and felt unconcerned to admit it! As she walked away I knew that even in my rage I was totally drained for magic and that there was not another single thing I could do about her admission at the moment since I had left the backup guns I got from Marcone and Hendricks in the car. I was helpless, impotent, and as pissed off as I had ever been in my life.
It was getting late, well actually early, and it was time for me to head on back to the hospital and try and catch a few winks. I also had to decide on what my next plan of action would entail. So far I had been astonishingly unsuccessful in figuring out what was happening and therefore how best to try and stop it. In fact I realized now that I could, make that should, be dead at this moment if this mysterious woman even had enough respect to consider me a threat. Sort of sucks to know you don't rate high enough for such consideration. But hell, I seem to make a decent living off of being underestimated like this so let's see if I could pull that trick off again.
I wish I had more than just Margaret to talk to and bounce ideas off of but as long as I had to keep Harry alive in the minds of Chicago I did not see that happening. I never realized how lonely being all alone really was when you really needed your friends.
As I drove back to the hospital partially watching out for racing motorcycles I came up with another option but did not know if I had the ability to pull it off. So when in doubt I figured calling upon Margaret's spirit to help me think this through would be a good idea. I mean if you have a spirit with tons of knowledge at your disposal why not use it to your advantage? Heck maybe this gave me nearly as much, or even more knowledge, than Harry had access to. In these times I usually caught him talking to some old skull down in the subbasement that he named Bob but who never answered him. In contrast I would have a former powerful wizard from my own discipline to lean on when I needed magical insight. I really think of the two of us I got the much better deal in this.
"Alright Margaret wake up." I thought in my head and then wondered if spirits actually have the need to rest or not.
"We do in fact, especially if we have exerted a significant amount of psychic energy trying to assist some young and foolish yet still living wizards against rather dangerous opponents who wish to dominate their will or to counter rather massive spells meant to destroy them." She said with a sense of actual fatigue in her disembodied voice. I would make this discussion quick so she could get back to whatever form of resting she required because if what I thought might be required I would need her alert and knowledgeable assistance in a few hours or so.
"Speaking of psychic energy, what do you know about psychic bonds between people?" I asked knowing that Harry had told me he and Elaine Mallory had established a limited version of this between themselves as kids and that this bond still existed for them more than two decades later.
"They are sort of a magical extension of the natural bonds that emotionally link two people." She explained in a tired teaching tone. "In fact if the natural bond is strong enough, like the ones shared between twins or rarely those shared by soul mate lovers, then magic enhancement is not even required. The psychic bond that exists between them allows one of the two to a limited degree feel what the other is feeling or experiencing even if they are separated by vast miles."
"So there no real maximum range for this?" I asked. "And what about if one is say in the Nevernever and the other here in the mortal world?" I clarified more to aim the question more directly at what I thought I needed to know.
"There is a range limitation and that is based upon the level of emotional bond the two share much like the skills and natural talents of magicians limits the distance of their spells." Margaret responded. "Twins tend to most naturally share the strongest bonds and in some cases have been reported where one sensed the other's death even though they were continents away. I am not sure how effective this would be in crossing over through the Nevernever though. That particular barrier tends to mess with magic and even time to some degree though if this were mostly emotional based rather than magically enhanced then perhaps the psychic link would have the strength to cross back and forth with no effect."
"So correct me if I am wrong but from what you tell me it therefore stands to reason that if one or both of the parties were more naturally inclined to this emotional realm, say like being sensitive wizards, that should probably enhance the power of this kind of spell or effect." I asked moving now toward the very heart of the subject.
"It certainly would." She said and then paused. "But Molly if you are thinking of trying to call up Harry's spirit through a psychic link I would strongly advise you against that course of action. You never had such a bond demonstrated when you he was alive and sending out an emotional 'call me' signal into the realm of the dead is not something you want to try as a lark. There are way too many things out there, like the fetch that nearly killed you, that love to intercept such calls. I could relate to you many stories of dark spirits crossing over by pretending to be a deceased loved one in order to wreak havoc on those emotionally weakened and in mourning."
See this is why it was so cool to have a spirit filled with knowledge at your more or less immediate disposal. I wondered what type of dating advice she would be able to provide?
"While an interesting idea, that is not what I was thinking of doing Margaret." I said opening up my still developing thoughts to her and seeing what she thought of my initial plan. As expected, her first reaction was motherly concern, but as she speculated over the possibilities more and more and offered protections and measures I should consider for my safety she came around to accepting the concept providing I let her play her part of wise advisor. Since I figured I would most likely need her timely and useful knowledge there was no way I was going to say no.
I made it back to my hospital room without incident, in fact it was almost getting too easy and I therefore had to make sure to focus and not leave any details unattended to. I left the weapons and Harry's getup in the trunk of my car instead of bringing them back into the hospital with me. It was a slightly safer place and made even more so by my adding an extra locking spell that would not keep out a determined investigator with a pry bar, but would at least stop any casual attempt at snooping.
Once back in my bed I tried to get comfortable and then turn my mind solely to the idea that I wanted to attempt. Margaret had explained how the bonds of love could be used psychically to bind two individuals, but I was pretty certain that the flipside of that particular coin, hatred, would work every bit as well also. And since the cloaked woman in question seemed to have that emotion in abundance with me, perhaps that odd dream I had the other night was in reality the creation of a psychic bond between us when she invited me into the odd desert hotel. And if she had indeed established that bond as I suspected then I should be able to use it to return on my schedule to where she was hiding, and perhaps without her even noticing. At least that is what Margaret and I assumed was possible.
My meditation instructor Hisha had taught me to empty my mind of all thoughts and emotions when seeking the state of inner peace in order to let the spirit fly free. I had tried to reach this condition when distracted by other things or even in my grief and found that such states sidetracked me from reaching the necessary state of harmony. But now I had determination as an ally to my efforts.
This time I had the advantage that I could push away all my earthly concerns as Hisha had taught me to do, but instead of wandering aimlessly as a free spirit, Margaret's was there as well to point me toward the feelings of discord or dark emotions that flowed toward me from others like strands of a web. There were more of these than just one, not thousands thankfully, but certainly not just a few. In my mind I saw them as black lines and if I reached out to just about touch them, I could sense the being from which they originated. This would be helpful to filter them down to the one I needed.
The first I happened to almost touch came from The Merlin, leader of the White Council. It was not pure hatred but rather a sense of increased concern and annoyance for I represented a threat to his power. He also saw me as a potential wildcard to the state of law and order that he tried to establish in the White Council because I was much like Harry in that regard, doing what was right before worrying about what was politically correct or expedient.
Other smaller lines of darkness included slight feelings of jealousy aimed in my direction, some from friends, some from acquaintances, and some from people I did not even know. I knew I could discard all these small lines without missing my real goal.
I chose instead to focus upon the darkest line of power I could find, one that almost throbbed with stomach rolling rage and loathing. It also had that distinctive chemical magic scent to it that I knew immediately linked it to the cloaked woman. I reached my mind to focus fully upon it and was carried away on its power as if the line were a highway or a metro rail.
I was soon standing in the same corridor where the last dream had left me a day before. The difference now was this time the building looked not so much like the lobby of a hotel, but rather some stark and worn concrete structure made from cinderblocks and steel. I guess the illusions that my hostess had laid out before my arrival last time were no longer in place, though I could feel their tattered remains due to my sensitivity to magic and by getting use to the smell of her spells.
Speaking of illusions, since she was big into such things, and it appears I had arrived unnoticed, I chose to follow suit and therefore mentally commanded my strongest veil to cover my psychic self before I proceeded. Please do not ask me to explain how a spiritual image casts spells in a dreamlike state. That was likely going to be on my White Council final and while I had no problem doing it, just like breathing, I had no way of explaining just how I did it. I did not know if the veil would work any better here than it had in the real world but it did not hurt to take these kinds of precautions since I was dealing with someone way out of my class magically.
Now done with my defenses I took a moment to better assess my situation and noted that the dark web line of psychic power tied to me was also still floating before me and that it headed deeper down the hallway and into this building. I figured it must be connected to the lady in question that so wanted to kill me, so it seemed like following it was probably the best course of action if I wanted to get an answers on just what she was up to. I headed deeper inside with cautious steps and began to sense that the building itself around me was saturated with dark emotions.
In a normal house, families and love and genuinely care for each other create invisible thresholds that serve as a basic ward against magic unless the wizard or other dark being is invited into the home. This is because that love that passes from one to the other also seeps into the walls of the building as well. Hotels and commercial building on the other hand tend not to have these, or at least not much of them because the occupants tend to be transitory, their level of caring less in most cases, and therefore there is no actual build up of emotions like in a home.
But whatever the building was that I was in right now felt like it carried whatever the opposite of a threshold would be, almost like a well of evil I decided to call it, for the very walls reeked with acts of violence and vice, pain and suffering, even malevolence and death. Whereas a threshold might drain away my powers, this well of darkness made me nauseous except for those darker aspects of my spirit that seemed to revel in the feeling and want to come forth and more fully experience it. Normal people without magic would undoubtedly feel hesitant or queasy to be in this facility, but to a sensitive wizard like me who wanted to do good, the effect was nearly overpowering.
Being here in spirit form perhaps also gave me a different type of insight to the place almost like an odd form of wizard sight. While the walls appeared solid if one stared upon them directly, from out of the corner of the eye they seemed to swell and shift. But if I turned to look at where my mind said this was taking place nothing seemed out of the ordinary. The more I tried not to think of this effect, the worse the movements in my peripheral vision got. It was almost as if the walls themselves were trying to drive me slowly mad like it had to others before me.
"Do you see and feel this as well Margaret?" I asked her silently in my mind. It was not so much that I really wanted her opinion on this peculiar effect but rather I just wanted to not feel so alone and vulnerable as I did at that very moment.
"I do indeed child." She said trying to offer mental comfort and bracing me against this emotional onslaught. "Rarely have I ever experienced anything like this before and then it was always when dealing with darker powers such as the Daemon Fae. I can only speculate that the mind behind all this is…" Her speech faded off as she searched for the appropriate term.
"Twisted. Definitely twisted." I offered as my explanation of what I felt and sensed her nod in acceptance that this was indeed the correct term for what we both were experiencing. Thankfully I could see light at the end of the tunnel and hurried my pace.
The light did not seem as bright and healing as the sun would be, but was instead a sickly flickering like that of smoldering torches and candles. But compared to the corridor I was walking through where there were no light sources at all it seemed a definite improvement. I stepped from the hallway and into a grand open air courtyard and saw that the binding line of darkness beside me led not as expected to the woman who wanted me dead, but to something far different.
It was a car of all things. And not just a simple, average, everyday car but instead a fairly top of the line silver Mercedes. The dark line of emotional and hatred led right to the car, not through it or over it, and ended upon the three pointed star hood ornament that rose up in front.
"A car? A car hates me?" I asked confused as I walked forward to try and figure out and make sense of just what I was seeing.
"You know Molly, many people believe you can judge a person by the enemies they make." Margaret said with a sense of undisguised awe. "If that is true then in your case you must be truly high class to have such an enemy as this!" She said with a bit of a chuckle to relieve the tension of the moment and help me relax to better understand what I was seeing.
"Great so now along with everything else I need to start worrying about Christine too?" For the record a book and a movie about a killer car seemed a bit farfetched even if I did learn that the story was originally based upon the car the Archduke Francis Ferdinand was in when he was assassinated. That all being said, I did still not understand what I was seeing here and why it was linked to me.
"This has to be a seventy thousand dollar car at least." Margaret said continuing to gush over it. Who would have thought that Harry's mother, the mother of the guy who thought a sixties Volkswagen Beetle was the pinnacle of driving class, would be such a gear head. And she had married a stage magician who would never have been able to afford a car like this unless he was headlining in Vegas!
"You know with such a nice, expensive car, I wonder why the owner never had that huge dent in the hood of the car fixed?" She asked waking me out of my own recollections.
"What did you just say?" I asked suddenly putting pieces together in my mind as I looked closer.
"It's right there." She turned my eyes to see the impacted dent on the hood. "I mean it looks like someone dropped a one ton weight right on top of the hood ornament or something." She said disapprovingly of the damage this did to the car.
"Hey I don't weight anything like that much!" I replied defensively now fully understanding what was going on here and getting more than a little peeved by it as well. I mean it was one thing to have such a vivid reminder of one of the worst days of my life placed on obvious display, but it was another to have additional insults heaped upon me even if they were by an uninformed spirit who was just being observant.
"What did you just say?" Margaret asked the exact same question just like it was her turn to read the script and even used just about the exact same inflection that I had. I knew that I had to explain it to her so I could get her take on the magic aspects.
"My brother Daniel once picked me up and body slammed me down onto this hood, and specifically this hood ornament in fact." I said in nearly a whisper in my mind so that I would not reopen all those old wounds again as they were still painful to me.
Daniel had not really intended to specifically hurt me but rather it was a result of a long repressed impotent rage that he had been nursing from an even earlier incident where I had unintentionally nearly gotten him killed. The body slam occurred only because I kept pushing him for an answer of why he was avoiding me when he was already mad rather than letting him cool down and tell me when he was ready. I won't say the attack hurt Daniel worse emotionally than it did to me physically but they were probably pretty close in measurement. I replayed the vivid scene in my mind so Margaret would understand the event completely.
To be fair to him I also showed her the later images of Daniel fighting beside me and helping to trap the Summer Court Handmaiden Abagalesidhe to stop her from taking the Faerie Courts to war. This connection to those events made me wonder if perhaps Abagalesidhe was the one hiding behind the cloak and hood and trying to destroy me. While last time I faced her she had relied mostly upon lightning as her weapon of choice if a Faerie was wanting to hide her identity she would certainly have access to other forms of magic to assist with this.
The Handmaiden of the Summer Court also certainly had all the necessary motivations for wanting to see me dead. I had left her in that state acturally, barring the fact that she could not actually die. And after perhaps the Summer Queen, Summer Lady, and Summer Knight, Abagalesidhe had access to the most power of any member of that court which was fairly substantive. It was therefore certainly possible that she had the magic at her disposal necessary to destroy the buildings that I had seen demolished from within or without.
One lingering thought though brought my speculations up short. The cloaked woman said she was the one who had sent me the note announcing the blood feud that existed between us. As that document had arrived soon after my friends and I had trapped Abagalesidhe in such a way as to drain her power and keep her contained for what we expected to be a long time, I did not think it was possible for the Handmaiden to have freed herself and then sent the letter. Nor was it likely that anyone else would have done so either on her behalf while she recovered. And of course being a goddess of lightning, it is not like long term plotting to kill a mortal was her weapon of choice; not when she could merely blast me with a bolt of lightning as I was walking down the street and unprepared for it.
The display before me then confused me as to its purpose. If it was not tied to those events, what was the purpose of having this car here except to serve as some ghastly trophy of this woman's hatred for me? In that case she is talking about Elvis impersonator levels of obsession!
"No it is an emotional anchor for her magic spell." Margaret explained and once more used terms that Harry had never mentioned in his lessons. Of course Harry not being a sensitive wizard, and of course also being a guy, was probably double the necessary number of reasons why he would be unaware of any spell focus not tied to lust or blowing things up. Men…they really prove Darwin wrong about species being able to evolve.
"Must I ask?" I requested with just a hint of sarcasm.
"That is only required if you wish to honor the rules of good decorum my dear." She replied with a touch of snide in her response reminding me she was the previous bad girl thorn who got under The Merlin's skirts before I took up that role.
"Why should I start now?" I laughed.
"Good point." She agreed with a smile as well.
"An emotional anchor is in a way a focus for a very specific type of sensitive magic spell, much as Harry's blasting rod is primarily for fire-related spells." She explained to me. "Traditionally in many older cultures this is used more with love-related spells to creating bindings between two hearts that wish to be joined." She paused to see if perhaps I would catch on to what she was hinting at. Why is it that everyone without the title of apprentice feels the need to quiz my ability to infer meanings from their lessons as a form of personal entertainment?
"You mean like wedding rings?" I asked catching on of course to what she was trying to lead me to. Really, it is not like the words 'with these rings let their hearts be joined' was difficult to decipher that they originally had a spiritual and magical connotation.
"Exactly." She mentally nodded in approval before returning to the subject at hand and how this was relevant. "But just like a marriage ceremony is filled with bonds of true and everlasting love…"
"Boy do YOU live in the Nevernever…" I thought to myself then realized that in the middle of a conversation with a possessing spirit there really is no 'to myself' anymore. She cocked a mental eyebrow at me but did not stop her prepared speech.
"…other events that are equally highly emotionally charged can likewise be used for similar purposes aligned to that emotion." She explained which led to the Mercedes sitting in front of me.
That of course made perfect sense. Daniel had tossed me onto the hood of the car in a fit of rage and probably true hatred in that moment if I cared to admit it. Being that he was also my brother, someone who was supposed to love me, I suspected that the emotional power of that act was that much more intense and magically that much more powerful. And so as a tool to be used by a being who also already hated me, it was in truth the perfect physical anchor for an emotional spell in order to keep track of me as the cloaked woman had obviously been doing.
"I wonder…" My next question was broken off by the distinctive sound of a gong ringing loudly from somewhere nearby. Yeah of all the sounds I might have expected to hear, the sounds of a gong were not among them so I lost my train of thought.
I took this distraction as a moment to make sure my veil was up and powered just in case and waited to see what, if anything, the sound had portended. While my experience with gongs was limited, they were almost always portends of things to come.
Luckily or unluckily I did not have long to wait to get that answer. From the far side of the courtyard the big steel reinforced doors that I had only casually noticed earlier opened and a half score of men emerged in two separate groups of five, the second a minute or so after the other.
The first group walked with four of their members surrounding the fifth, just outside of normal arm's reach. I am not sure which situation was more of a shock, that the man in the middle of the group appeared to be a terribly haggard and distressed Gentleman Johnny Marcone, who tailored two thousand dollar suit still smoldered and smelled at this distance like smoke, or that the four men surrounding him were exact duplicates of each other and showed no signs of emotion.
Not surprisingly the second group of four guards was similarly organized around an equally distraught Mortimer Lindquist and the quartet surrounding him was not only individual identical to each other as well but they were also a spitting image for the first four. And most disturbing was that the eight all looked exactly like golems I had fought years before as well. 'Holy crap, just how long had this bitch been stalking me?' I thought to my myself but of course Margaret heard this as well.
"Well they are rather pretty…" She said with obvious approval. "…pretty boys." Her words faded off for a moment as she looked upon the golems with a wizard eye of approval the way a jeweler might look upon a stone set in a necklace and comment upon its quality as well. "It seems our mystery woman has a lot of cute friends to play with in case she gets bored."
"Yeah, we need to keep in mind that these 'friends' of hers can be rather difficult to destroy so do not get distracted by their charming appearance and allow them to jam one of their fists down your throat." I said in response. "Trust me, I saw it was a rather horrible way to die."
"You know for a girl your age you certainly have a rather unnatural accumulation of rather disquieting experiences." She said seeing in my memories a few bodies that had been killed just the way that I had described to her. Yeah these were things I would have been happy not to experience firsthand.
But as disturbing as those particular images were, my eyes could not help but wander back to both Marcone and to Mortimer Lindquist, who had aged some and also put a few more pounds around his middle than Harry's memories shared by Margaret had pictured him. There was something in the pair's eyes, actually more like something missing from their eyes, that made me feel all the more nervous on a real subliminal level by what I was observing.
The head of Chicago's underworld and a recognized Freehold Baron under the Unseelie Accords, a term that meant his powerbase was recognized by other signatories even if his kingdom legally belonged to another, seemed anything but the powerful and confident man I had seen just days ago. I have never actually been in a war or serious combat of that sort, but the term shell shocked seemed oddly appropriate for describing his state of mind at this moment.
When his four guards stopped and spread out further to give their charge more room, Marcone made no attempt to escape even though he likely could do so rather easily. Across the way Mortimer was given the same opportunity and he too stood passively as if awaiting a command like a good golden retriever. But unless the golems were different from the ones I had faced myself a few years ago, speech was not something they were capable of so the command would need a different source.
The gong rang a second time and once more the doors to the courtyard opened again and this time the cloaked woman walked forth with two more identical golems a step or two behind serving as her personal attendants. But standing right beside her was Captain Smith, the very Captain Smith of Titanic fame, or would that be infamy? Like so much else in this odd trip down memory lane I immediately knew that he too was not actually the real captain, but instead merely an image of what Greek Mythology had named Charon, or others had later called Thanatos. Today we merely think of this being as the Specter of Death. I had met him before as well when facing off against Abagalesidhe so was not shocked at his appearance.
As the cloaked woman entered the courtyard, and did not immediately notice me thanks to my veil even though I was standing in the open with nowhere to hide, she did stop and looked from Mortimer to Johnny Marcone drawing Captain Smith's attention to the pair as well. "You may begin." She said to the two of them; her words soft and polite, yet with the steel undertone of a nearly divine commandment entwined with an overwhelming sense of superiority that I had felt as well.
At her command the golems did nothing but continue to stare straight ahead, however both Mortimer and Marcone began to sway and then to dance in some odd motion, like snakes charmed and by some Indian Swami and on display for tourists. Of course Mortimer was anything but graceful as he took fully to the compulsion driven no doubt by some form of mind control magic. Obviously Ms. Hood and Cloak did not let little things like the Laws of Magic against dominating another's will constrain her amusement level. You would think that if she had been following me around for all this time she would have seen this was something the White Council frowned upon.
Marcone on the other hand was far more nimble, but while his body seemed to move gracefully, he was also subjects to fits and starts that I could tell was his underlying willpower trying to exert itself and break the dominating control that he was under. Being closer to him I could also barely hear that he was mumbling something under his breath over and over again, almost like a mantra chant. I moved silently closer hoping that it might reveal something important to me because that is what always happens in the movies! I purposely skipped over focusing on the act that the snoop usually got caught by the villain when performing this action..
"Must remember who I am…" He said obviously straining to control his mind. "Must remember who I am…"
While the words were not particularly fearful in nature I must admit hearing him repeat them over and over and thereby understanding just how forcefully and completely she had broken his mind. This revelation did not leave me feeling any better for my own chances in facing off against her.
Marcone had pretty much risen up to the pinnacle of crime on will and determination alone, where the slightest slip or sign of weakness would have left him dead. Now here he was little more that a living marionette, dancing on invisible strings for the entertainment of one rather evil woman with a serious case of revenge on her mind. All and all this was not looking good for your cute and perky wizard apprentice.
"Aaagggghhh!" Mortimer screamed and held his hands to his head as his body continued to dance around. Neither the golems nor Marcone's attention seemed to notice but my eyes along with Captain Smith's and the Cloak One's were drawn to this display.
"Must forget…" Mortimer screamed to no one but himself, beating on his head with his knuckles in the process. "Must forget…" Yeah that visual just cranked my whole impending doom meter up another notch.
"Entertaining I admit, but until you collect each of the necessary components all you truly have is this degrading display to serve as entertainment. It brings you no closer to paying the price with your toast." Captain Smith said to the cloaked woman.
"I will pay your price." She said to him in response. "And when you have your 'wine' I assume you will honor your side of the bargain and release him back to me from the dead?" Wow, now THAT was certainly a little tidbit of information that caught my full attention. I knew it was dangerous but I had to get closer to the pair of them so that I would not miss any other important details that they might let slip along the way. I just hoped my veil was up for this type of challenge.
"Yes, I will bend those rules if you provide me my 'wine' as you so readily call it." He said with a smile that only Death could wear. "It has been forty-two years since I sipped that particular vintage and I must admit that I look forward to doing so again. As you well understand, it is not something I can keep in a wine cellar and get back to at my convenience even if I had the time to put my work aside."
"Let me be clear. I want him returned to me immediately after our bargain is fulfilled. Death shall not hold sway over…" She began to name someone and then I felt my whole body shake and shudder momentarily missing what was said after.
"Molly?" A distant voice seemed to be calling to me but I tried to block it out and focus on what was being said.
The cloaked woman continued to speak. "This city will tremble at the return of…"
I shook again and lost my concentration once more. Worse still I felt myself drifting away from this place and though I fought against it, the shaking made it impossible to deny the call. No matter what I desired some other voice was calling to me from far away. And of course they had to wake me up practically in the middle of the night, okay well what served as my middle of the night at least, just to hear them say…
"Molly?" I groggily swatted at the hands that were shaking me back to consciousness. "Come on Molly wake up." The voice was both far too cheerful and far too persistent to ignore which just made it all that much more annoying to face coming out of a dead sleep. And trust me I was not one of those people who liked being woken up when I still wanted to sleep.
"Leave me alone!" I said trying to roll over and pull my pillow over my head and return to the state of blissful unconsciousness.
Suddenly the pillow was gone from around my head, ripped right out from my hands no less, forcing me to open one eye that looked at the towering mass of muscle standing beside my bed and recognize it as my brother Daniel only an instant before he clobbered me with my own recently stolen pillow. "Come on sleepy head, mom told me make sure you were awake while she parked the van and brought dad up here. We only have a little time to visit before we have to leave and they do not want you wasting it by sleeping since you spend all day in bed already anyway."
I looked at the clock and calculated in my head that I had gotten just over two hours of sleep at most and I'm sorry, but looking as good as I do takes rest, eight hours of which at least! But it was not like I could explain how I was spending my nights or anything else and the sense of excitement that underlay Daniel's words made me certain something was going on that I needed to mentally focus on if I could clear my mind. And since he was happy, not screaming, and especially not being chased by a ten foot spider, I figured it likely was good news of some sort and I could really use the emotional uplift as a balance to knowing someone else wanted to kill me.
"So what's up?" I asked as I rolled over onto my pillow and partially sat up, happy to know that when he was in this state Daniel usually could not keep a secret.
"Oh just Dad and I have to go to St. Louis to help restore an old church. It will probably take us a week or so to do the entire job but the pay looks good." He said with a far greater sense of happiness than almost anyone I knew had when talking about work. My dad was an excellent carpenter, and Daniel had proven to have an equal level of skill with metals so between the two there were few construction projects the two could join forces on and not exceed any preconceived standards.
"What is so special about…" I said before my brain woke up fully to what he was actually saying. "Wait a minute, did you say you were going to St. Louis?" I asked to make sure I had that part right.
"Yeah, Father Forthill got a call from a local priest down there asking if he knew any reasonable priced general contractors who also had the necessary respect to work on a holy building. Of course he immediately mentioned both dad and I." Daniel said with just way too much satisfaction, and I knew at once that this had absolutely nothing to do with the inherent compliments in that referral.
"And this local priest did not happen to get this suggestion from a certain wizard did he?" I asked and the smile on Daniel's face grew so wide that his face nearly disappeared.
"Maybe…" He said with a tone that was just too satisfying so that it was really annoying!
"Daniel, Elaine is way too old for…" His raised eyebrow as a possible hypocrisy detector stopped my comment short. Since our little joint brother and sister adventure stopping a war between the Faerie Courts, Daniel and Harry's first love Elaine Mallory had been writing each other fairly regularly. If she had not been a wizard and therefore prone to shorting out electronics I am certain our family's long distance telephone bill would have skyrocketed over the past year or so.
In a way I understood the potential for attraction between them. Both Daniel and Elaine had been put through rather traumatic events at the hands of magic and this had left them severely damaged inside. But through working with me, both of them had found in the other someone who could actually understand and empathize the pain they had themselves gone through.
As far as I knew there was nothing physical that had yet taken place between them but since they had basically bared their souls to each other I would not make that beyond the realm of possibility either. In fact I was tempted to have Father Forthill provide a quick reminder that premarital sex was a sin, but the way my luck runs Daniel would use that as an excuse to propose to Elaine then and I'd have to accept her as my sister-in-law and deal with her at summer picnics and such for the rest of my life. Please remember that wizards tend to have rather long lives.
Don't get me wrong, I did not dislike Elaine. Okay that is not completely true, I did sort of dislike her mostly for the pain she had put Harry through when pretending to be dead, and when she had not supported him like she should have, and of course a twinge of jealousy that he considered her his first love. But even putting all that aside, Elaine was just wrong for my brother and he completely refused to see it. And while it may be socially acceptable these days to be a cougar's play toy, the age thing did bother me, regardless of the fact that the difference between the two of them was almost the exact same number of years as what separated Harry and me. Yeah, that might make me a hypocrite in his eyes but hey I never said I was perfect either. Unfortunately Daniel knew how I felt about Harry so he had no problem calling me on this when I raised the age issue.
"uuuummm… too old to be looking for a casual relationship." I tried to cover my hypocrisy but was fooling neither of us in the process. "I mean soon she will beyond child bearing age so she really needs to spend the limited time she has left on her downhill slope focused on finding someone willing to settle for her knowing all these flaws exist." Yeah all of that was cheap, low shots but what the hell did I have to lose?
To my surprise what I said actually seemed to sober Daniel up somewhat. His smile pulled back a bit as he considered what I said before taking a more calm and rational tone. "Wow, I had not even considered that Molly." He said pondering. "Thank you for your insight. I might have inadvertently made a wrong choice looking just to have a little fun."
"Think nothing of it kid." I said happy that I had injected some sanity into his world, but hey what were big sisters for? And thankfully we got this out before Mom and Dad made it to the room. I could hear the distinctive hard clomp of my mother's hard heeled and practical shoes stomping down the hall toward my room.
"I guess Elaine and I will just have to name our first girl after her aunt Molly." He said with a smile and turned and headed out the door just as mom and dad reached it and I was trapped there sputtering for a reply. I was pretty sure that he was kidding, okay mostly sure, but I still did not want him getting this last word. However, it was not like I was going to keep this particular conversation going in front of my mother. I made that particular political calculation and it was nowhere near a winning situation.
"I will wait for you down in the van." Daniel said to our parents, giving my mom a kiss on the cheek like a good son was supposed to and she beamed in response until he was out the door and her focus turned fully on me. Why I have been cast as the straight man in a world full of slapstick comedians I will never understand.
"Molly give your father a hug, he will be leaving for St. Louis in a few hours." My mother Charity Carpenter ordered without looking right at me. She was focused primarily on keeping track of my youngest brother Harry Junior who was wrapped around her leg and peeking out at me in a little game that we always seemed to play until he finally gave in by breaking out into a smile and running over to give me a hug.
My dad, although a former Knight of the Cross, was wise enough to pick his battles and therefore chose not to challenge my mother's direction or timeline and seeing that I was still laid up in bed, came to my bedside instead of me trying to find a way to my feet. He leaned in close and whispered in my ear. "Take care of things for me Princess." He said to me the exact same way he had spoken those words a hundred times or more when I was growing up and God called upon him to complete a mission. It was both comforting and disturbing on various levels.
I was so shocked by this that when he pulled back I looked to see if he was carrying his gym bag where he used to keep his sword but he was not holding anything but a windbreaker. "For a moment there I almost thought it was like old times and God was calling on you to perform a mission." I explained a little embarrassed by my thought but wanting to tell him why I may have looked a bit concerned.
"Yeah, I have to admit it felt like that to me too." He said with a smile that dismissed my concern. "It is the first time I am going out of town since I recovered and the way that this request came to me made me wonder if God is allowing me to continue to serve him now in this new capacity."
I could tell that my dad was incredibly happy by that particular prospect. Having spent so much time as God's avenging fist here on Earth I knew it was hard for him to fully rectify that he had walked away from that position of responsibility even though his injuries had made that a necessity. Having this possibility that now God was calling upon his new skills could easily be taken as proof that God was fully accepting my father in his new role. I could see why that would make his day.
So with all that being said there was no way that I was going to tell him that it was even more likely that Daniel had been behind this request more so than God. Yes I know, the Divine One works in mysterious ways and yes I do in fact believe this. However, I also knew that boys between the ages of sixteen and thirty, some even older, worked in devious ways when the potential for nookie was involved! Which of the two forces had more power here on Earth was up for debate.
"Go give your sister a kiss so we can get you to your new daycare." My mother said nudging Little Harry away from her leg and over in my direction. I stared seriously at him for a moment making the little tyke freeze in place before we both broke out in a smile and he came running over to wrap me in a rather strong bear hug for a child his age.
I looked at my mother. "A new daycare?" I asked confused. Charity Carpenter never tried anything new once she found something she deemed fit her needs. Case in point while I went to three different daycares as a child, the third one was deemed acceptable in my mother's rather stringent standards and therefore every other of my younger siblings all the way through Harry Junior had only attended this one. That being said there had to be a natural disaster here in the city of Chicago that I was unaware of that had driven this change.
"Yes the owners are renovating our regular one for the next few months so we had to find a temporary alternative." My mother explained to me. "Thankfully a new one that caters specifically to Catholic values called St. George's daycare opened up not much further away. I think it will be adequate until the paint dries and we get back to our regular schedule." Like I said Charity was not one for unnecessary compliments.
Little Harry smiled at me and pointed to the sticker on his chest of a knight in shining armor battling a dragon. Beneath it was proclaimed the required 'Hi my name is Harry' written in red crayon no less, so that all the others at this school would know what to call the new kid. He seemed to like the image of the knight, and since he had demonstrated this odd ability to see things that others did not, I wondered if that was because he knew that his dad had been just such a knight up until recently.
"Michael I have a schedule to keep." My mother said coming over to the bed and providing me the perfunctory kiss on my forehead before rounding up Harry and heading for the door.
My dad paused before following her. "Can you bring the van up to the door so I do not have to walk all the way across the parking lot?" He asked rubbing his healed but still crippled leg. "I will catch up with you after I kiss my first born one last time." My mother did not even think to argue as my dad was not one to lie, not even for the best of reasons.
I waited until her footsteps were a way down the hall before I spoke. "Dad is something wrong?" I asked with a sense of concern.
"With me?" He asked almost laughing. "No. I was actually going to ask you the same thing. You seem a little worn out for someone who has been lying in bed for more than a week."
I wanted to object but I could not easily lie to my dad; mom was a completely different story mind you. "I…uuummm…" I began but I just could not find the right words to say.
He stopped me with a raised hand. "I am not asking you to explain anything you do not want to." He said and the relief must have been readily apparent on my face because he noted it and chuckled before returning to his fatherly concerned voice.
"One thing though kiddo." He said. "No matter how much you may think it is better to handle things on your own, take it from you old man, having one or more friends at your back that you can rely on in times of trouble is always the better answer." He said shocking me with how relevant this basic fortune cookie like advice was at this moment.
He turned to begin to leave but I stopped him. "Dad?" I questioned making him turn his head toward me. "What made you say that?" I wondered if this was just random fate or if I had bigger issues to contend with.
"I don't really know." He said with a laugh. "Mom dropped Daniel and I off at the door when she went to park the van and I sent Daniel down here to make sure you were awake. But while I was waiting for your mother to meet up with me, this old janitor struck up a conversation on how important it was to have friends. I just thought it was good enough advice that was worthy of being passed on to you."
I had that sinking suspicion in the pit of my stomach but I could not stop myself from asking the next question. "Did you happen to catch the janitor's name by any chance?"
"Yeah." My dad said as he left. "It said Jake on his shirt."
Great, things just went from complicated to potential earth-shattering crisis. On the other hand I realized it was still good advice, and from this particular source I was certainly not going to ignore it. It took me only five minutes to narrow down my options before I grabbed the phone, luckily it was working – and based on who was behind the original advice I was hardly surprised, and dialed a number that I knew by heart.
"Hey, it is Molly…" I said to the voice that answered. "I need to tell you a few things. Are you available to meet tonight?"