Awakenings (19 page)

“What happened?”

“War. But nature, too. Our females need twelve months to carry a foal to term and almost two years before they can have another. Beyond a few hundred residents, our villages become burdened. Humans build sewers and aqueducts. They farm and produce enough goods to support large cities. My people cannot—or will not—adapt to a faster pace of life. Without treaties like the Blue Forest Accord and leaders like Athelstan, centaurs will fade from Aandor as they did from this world.”

“Centaurs lived here?”

“Many races lived here who now no longer exist.”

“Why?”

“No one is sure. Fear. Racism. I suspect peace was tenuous. Perhaps I’ll research it and write a thesis one day.”

“Is that what’s happening on your world … why you came here? To escape?”

“Many are in jeopardy, not just centaurs, not just Aandor. Aandor is the anchor that steadies the ships of state in the Twelve Kingdoms. Our courts are fair, our economy strong, and the rights of minorities are protected. Through trade and diplomacy, we maintain peace with, and between, the kingdoms around us. Coming here was a desperate attempt to keep Archduke Athelstan’s claim to Aandor viable. Both the captain and I stand to lose everything if we fail.”

The word “everything” unsettled Cat. She and Bree had once been Cal’s everything. Her place in his life had diminished overnight.

“Ain’t it funny?” Seth said from the hall. “Laws of physics might change from universe to universe, but the laws of human nature are exactly the same.”

Cat didn’t realize he had come into the room to eavesdrop. She poured more tea into both their cups and offered some to Seth.

“Thanks, I’ll stick with beer,” he said. “So what exactly happened on
your
world?”

“The concord between the kingdoms had loopholes,” Lelani explained. “Many chose to exploit them.”

“The fine print—another constant across multiple universes,” Seth snorted. He sat down and put his feet on the coffee table. “Notice how charity and goodwill toward men are in short supply everywhere in creation? And people wonder why I’m a cynic.”

“Let her finish,” Cat said. “Get your feet off the table.”

“In Aandor, titles are passed through sons,” Lelani continued. “Women are valued for their pedigree and dowries. All the ruling families conspired to breed a boy with the blood of twelve kings, who, according to the continental treaty, would have the rightful claim to the title of emperor. A race began.”

“A race?” Cat asked.

Seth shook his head and laughed. “A breeding contest. A royal fuckfest. ‘Think of England’ and all that.”

“Because of his pedigree, and the bylaws of the continental accord, the boy who was your husband’s charge is the rightful prince regent of the Twelve Kingdoms. He will have more ruling powers than his father Duke Athelstan, the first regent, and he will most likely father the next true emperor of the Twelve Kingdoms. There isn’t a family on the continent with the right lineage who would deny him a daughter for marriage. The boy is the penultimate step to House Athelstan reclaiming its empire.”

“See, this is what happens when a society doesn’t have soap operas,” Seth said. “All this aristocratic sperm flying around, trying to find the right hole like a golf ball at the PGA Masters…”

“Please, shut up! I want to know what my husband is mixed up in.”

“There’s not much else,” Lelani continued. “Certain factions had lost the breeding race. The most powerful of them, Farrenheil, became desperate, and rejected the treaty. Aandor was caught off guard. The castle was under siege. Magnus Proust, the court mage, devised a plan to spirit the child here, away from his enemies. A dozen guardians were sent along to care for the boy until he reached manhood. But he was lost. The archduke himself may already be dead. There are neutral kingdoms among the twelve that are staying out of the fight until they are sure Aandor’s claim is still viable. There’s no point in making war with Farrenheil over a dead prince. Everything in Aandor depends on finding this boy.”

“Un-fucking-believable,” Seth said. “This is why I’m homeless? Why Joe’s dead? Our lives are turned inside out because of a handful of privileged brats with supercharged family trees playing pass-the-chromosomes. Who else bought the farm so these creeps can act like the Kennedys of Tolkien land? I ought to wring the little freak’s neck if we ever find him.”

Lelani vaulted the couch, a blur of rapidity, and hurled Seth against the wall. She braced him with her forearm pressed against his throat. Seth’s feet dangled as he gasped for air.

Cat sprang up, unsure of what to do. How did one stop a four-hundred-pound angry horse-woman?

“You insignificant flea,” Lelani hissed. “Proust picked you for the mission out of an unreasonable fondness,
not
because of your skills. My people have one haven left to them on our world and it exists by the grace of Duke Athelstan. Returning his child safe and unharmed means more to me than words can convey, so I’ll give you this warning out of respect for our teacher—should you make any attempt to harm the boy, ever, I will burn you alive. That is not an exaggeration.”

Cat put her hand on Lelani’s arm. “Please, aren’t we in enough of a mess without fighting among ourselves?” she said gently.

Lelani let go. Seth tumbled to the floor. His breath came in rasps.

“Is there a problem?” Cal asked, from the front door.

Cat rushed to give Cal a warm hug. “How’d it go?”

“Like spending four hours with the Spanish Inquisition. Thank God for my PBA representative … and for this,” he said, holding up Lelani’s silver pin. “Everyone’s glad I’m okay, but the dazed-and-confused story has stretched my credibility to its limit. If I didn’t have that pin, even my reputation couldn’t have helped me square things with the brass. I arranged to have police stationed at your mother’s house around the clock. I’m also scheduled to report for bereavement counseling in a few days. My PBA rep got me a few days to grieve for Erin before my next round of questioning.” Cal stopped a second. “I haven’t … I haven’t had a second to think about Erin since … since she…”

Pride struggled to dam Cal’s tears. Cat gave him another hug and found herself unable to let go.

“I need to call her life partner and offer condolences,” he said. “God, so much to do.”

He pulled away from her, took out a scrap of paper from his shirt pocket, and picked up the phone. “I’m hoping that since Seth and I kept our actual names, the rest of the guardians will also have kept theirs. Someone at the station looked up Tristan McLeod for me while I was being debriefed. He was my lieutenant in Aandor. We found one in Brooklyn that was the right age. If we can get Tristan back, it’ll help with the search for the rest. Heck, maybe we’ll catch a break and he’s raising the prince himself.”

The phone on the other end rang, and a woman picked up. Another wife that was about to have her world turned upside down, Cat thought. Cal introduced himself and asked to speak to Tristan. Then her husband’s face went ashen. “How?” he said. “I’m sorry for your loss,” he concluded, and hung up the phone.

Cal sat at the kitchen table in a daze, unaware that everyone was hanging on his next word.

“Cal?” Cat said, and placed her hand on his shoulder.

“Tristan was murdered two days ago,” Cal said. “A mugging gone bad.”

Cat looked to Lelani. The centaur was sad. She shook her head to say
It wasn’t a mugging.

“I was alone before today,” Lelani said to Cal. “I had to make finding you and Seth my priorities.”

Cal looked at Seth with disgust. Cat was sure he’d trade him for this Tristan in a heartbeat.

“My God,” Cal said. “None of the others even know they’re being hunted by these psychopaths. They’re helpless. We’ve got to find them. Where do we even start?”

Lelani approached with a handful of maps. “Perhaps at the beginning,” she said. She opened a map of New York State. Notes, circles, equations, and runes were drawn throughout it. “The only way to travel between Branes is through lay lines, the rivers of magical energy that emanate from the core of the multiverse. In Aandor, magical energy moves similar to radio waves here. It’s in the air and everywhere where people attuned to it can access it. One cannot walk fifty yards without encountering a lay line, much like those Starbucks in Manhattan. Using magic on this earth is akin to a landline telephone. You have to find a line to tap into. They are spread miles apart. These energy lines vary in potency. Some are like rivers; some like streams, brooks, and so forth. The more energy that flows through a line, the easier and safer the transfer is between worlds.” Lelani pointed to a zone north of the city. “This was the point of entry for your group.”

“Dutchess County?” Cal said. “That’s about two hours’ drive from here. Is that where you came in?”

“No. Dorn may have posted guards at that transfer point. I used a smaller lay line running deep under Central Park. It was dangerous, but I was alone and thought I could navigate it. I would prefer not to use it again.”

“You think going back to the original transfer point up north will give us a lead?”

“More than that, my lord.”

Cat flinched as the horse-woman called Cal her
lord
. She looked for any sign of embarrassment in her husband’s face. He barely noticed it. The ten-year veteran of the NYPD—this pretender to peasantry—was at home at the top of the food chain. He had an air about him now, like he expected others to serve him and his cause. Cat didn’t like it.

“The last remaining magus on this earth resides somewhere near there,” Lelani said. “An old friend of Master Proust’s named Rosencrantz. He might know a way to give the others their memories back no matter where they are on this world. We should seek his aid.”

“Okay. That’s a start. What about you? You can’t travel looking—well, like you are now.”

“If I cast another illusion spell, I will deplete the last of my energy supplies. As I tried to explain earlier, bending photons is not simple. Illusion has a high-energy initiation cost.”

“Can you recharge at the lay line?”

“Yes … but should we encounter sorceries on the way…”

“Do it. There isn’t any choice.”

He was a soldier again, Cat concluded—a commander.
Do it,
he says, and he expected it done. Would this change the partnership they had created?

“We’re off to see the wizard, are we?” Cat said.

“Cat, I’ll drop you and Bree off at your mother’s…”

“I’m coming with you.”

“No.”

“I’m sorry. I meant, may I come with you …
your lordship.
” Cat attempted a curtsy.

“Catherine…”

“Should I bend lower? This is my first curtsy.”

“It’s dangerous.”

“No fucking kidding, Cal. Did you think I didn’t notice the giant and the swordsman trying to cut our throats a few hours ago? Wizards and trolls? Where the hell is safe? You tell me.”

Cal pursed his lips into a tight line. He looked taller. More rigid. Confident. He was still the man she loved and still just as much of a stranger. She had always held more ground in the marriage. He had spoiled her with power. She was not used to butting heads on serious decisions. Cat wondered how he saw her now. Was it through a new spectrum … his mother, his sisters, the kaleidoscope of women from his past? She owed him a victory, or three, for years of acquiescing. But this would not be one of them. He had left his family once before and it cost him thirteen years of his life. Cat could not stand to lose Cal for thirteen years or thirteen minutes. He had accepted a piece of her soul on the day they exchanged vows, and he could not just disappear with it. She would defend it.

“Bree goes to Mom,” she said. “I go with you. Discussion closed.”

“Fine.”

“Hey, do I have to come?” Seth asked.

“Yes!” said the other three in unison.

CHAPTER 12

OFF TO SEE THE WIZARD …

1

A pothole jolted Cat back to the world. Her temple lay against the cold window, a string of dribble crept down her collar. The world whizzed by Cat’s head at the speed of life. She peeled herself off the window and made note of her surroundings. They were driving north on Route 22 in the Ford Explorer. The rain had not made it this far north; the trees and pastures were bleached with frost, a shadowless cinereal landscape under the absent noon sun. Cal drove with a firm gaze and heavy thoughts on his brow. Cat pulled down the sun visor to wipe her chin in the mirror. Out of habit, she inspected the backseat through the reflection, forgetting that Bree was with her mother.

Seth, in the rear seat, had passed out. He had gone through a six-pack and was sleeping off the difference.
Better for everyone,
Cat thought. Lelani lay crouched in the rear of the Explorer. Her newly redisguised legs looked human enough, but she couldn’t fool the car. Cat felt the extra weight at every acceleration. They were all quite tired from the previous night’s activities. Cal and Lelani seemed to be handling it the best.

Lelani admitted to having a vague idea of where to find this Earth-born sorcerer, Rosencrantz. He lived along the northern lay line, a virtual river of energy flowing from the center of all creation, in the vicinity of a major transdimensional gate. Dorn would likely have left guards behind, the centaur warned. Cal had taken his spare vest, both guns, and all the bullets.

Cat watched Lelani study the passing world. She had an appetite for knowledge, a mind like a glue trap, and a physique and dexterity that could make mincemeat out of Serena Williams on the tennis court. Cal said she was unique. In his experience, magi were the types whose cuffs soaked in their soup bowls while they absorbed text from a scroll. They were geniuses, but also awkward and clumsy in their youth—the types that seldom had girlfriends or boyfriends even in their own circles; in other words, nerds. Cal confessed to taunting a few with his friends when he was a child. Lelani, according to Cal, was a cut above the basic spell-tosser. Her bravery had returned his identity, made him complete for the first time in more than a decade. They were lucky she had been picked for this mission, Cal explained. A mixed blessing at best. Cat couldn’t help wonder if a less able rescuer might not have been preferable, someone not as likely to have succeeded. After all, she’d earned her husband fair and square.