Devlin's Defiance: Book Two of the Devlin Quatrology (22 page)

“
Thanks,
Rosemary. It's so nice to see Gordy bringing someone along; first
time in the three years he's been joining us. And it's nice that
he's bringing someone as nice as you.”

“
Thank you.
Gordy's told me a lot about you and Dave, the speech therapy and the
fishing biz. Cool name.”

“
Oh, Fishbuster
Charters? That was my idea, way back when. And Gordy's told me a lot
about you, in the emails we send each other every day.”

“
Every day?”

“
Yup. And thank
you for bringing the deviled eggs; they're delicious.”

“
Just between you
and me, Marti, they're store bought. Shh.”

“
My lips are
sealed.”

“
Hey, Marti, the
first boat's coming!”

“
Be right out,
Dave,” Marti replied, as she and Rosemary finished filling
their plates and headed out to the deck, where the whole gang was
watching the river, where the first decorated boat was just coming
into view, with a Santa and six elves on board, waving to the houses
on shore, and “Jingle Bells” playing over a loudspeaker.

The gang on the deck,
mostly Marti and Dave's family and friends, waved and hollered back.

“
Isn't that the
same first boat as last year, Cakes?” an older man sitting with
his wife and Gordy at one of the tables on the deck asked, sipping
from a beer.

“
I don't know,
Paul,” his wife said. “It might be.”

“
Hi, Ro. C'mon
and sit here,” Gordy said, indicating a chair next to his.
“Rosemary, this is Paul and Gayle. Paul, Gayle, Rosemary.”

After Rosemary sat down
and pleasantries were exchanged, Gayle asked, “So, Rosemary,
how did you and Gordy meet?”

“
On the beach,”
she said, lightly rubbing Gordy's knee under the table.

“
Serendipity,”
Gordy added. “She's been helping me with the second book.”

“
How's that
coming?” Paul asked.

“
Slow; it might
be another year or so.”

“
I liked the
first one, but it needed more sex,” Gayle said, “and not
so much of the political stuff.”

“
No, no, no,
Cakes,” Paul said. “The political stuff was important.
I liked Donne's policies.”

“
Well, you're
into all that economics stuff; I'm not,” she replied.

Rosemary smiled and
said, “Gayle, I think you'll like the sequel; there will be
more sex in there. In fact, we met with a woman today who” –

“
She's gonna be
consulting a little on the erotic bits,” Gordy cut in. “Met
her on the beach, too, thanks to Rosemary. More of that serendipity
stuff.

“
But, Paul, I
wanted to thank you for the ideas you had last year. Those got me
thinking, and I used a lot of them.”

“
No problem. I
liked how you worked 'em in.”

“
Worked 'em in?
Hell, that was two-thirds of the book,” Dave said.

“
Like I said, it
really got me thinking, and it just evolved,” Gordy said.

“
Thought about
doing some TV ads?” Paul asked.

“
TV ads? For a
book?” No, hadn't thought about it.”

“
Just a thought;
you might want to consider it.”

“
I will. You're
the expert, after all.”

“
Long time ago; I
sold the agency in '02.”

“
But I'll bet the
ideas keep coming up for you.”

“
Oh, geez, Gordy,
when he gets drinking, they never stop,” Gayle said. She held
up a set of keys. “I'm driving tonight.”

“
Oh, I'm fine,
Cakes.”

“
Not for much
longer.”

“
You may be
right.”

“
Of course I'm
right.”

“
Yes, dear.”

“
You've really
got him trained well, Gayle,” Marti said, laughing.

“
Don't I,
though?” Gayle replied, also laughing. Even Paul smiled.

Gordy looked over at
Dave and nodded. “One, two, three.”

“
Yes, dear,”
they both said in unison, also laughing. Gordy leaned over and
patted Rosemary's arm, while Dave, standing behind Marti, massaged
her shoulders, then kissed her. She laughed, and Rosemary joined in,
patting Gordy's hand as it patted her arm.

Paul finished his beer
and set the bottle down. “Time for another. Cakes?”

“
I'll get 'em,
Paul,” Dave said. “Gayle?”

“
No, I'm fine,”
she said, hefting her soda can. “Still half full.”

“
Optimists see a
glass as half full, pessimists see it as half empty, but engineers
see a glass twice as big as you need,” Paul said, laughing
loudly.

Gordy, Dave and Marti
all laughed, Rosemary chuckled and Gayle arched an eyebrow. Paul
burped.

“
'Scuse me.”

Gayle frowned, her
eyebrow arching more, and signaled Dave, who went to the cooler,
brought back a can of soda and set it down in front of Paul.

“
Hey!”
Paul said. “A soda?”

Dave rested his hand on
Paul's shoulder. “'Yes, dear.'” Paul looked at Dave,
then at Gayle.

“
Ah. Yes, dear.”

Rosemary and Gordy
exchanged smiles.

“
Hey, Gordy, I
got a question for you,” Paul said after a moment's silence.
“Where'd you hear that rodeo joke you had me tell at last
year's party?”

“
What rodeo
joke?” Rosemary asked.

“
The rodeo
position joke,” Paul said.

“
Oh, right, in
the book,” she said. “Now I remember.”

“
From the woman I
used as the model for Pamela93. She was Mrs. Ohio or Illinois or
Indiana or something back in '84 or '85, and when I first met her,
summer of oh-ten, she told me that joke … in our first
conversation. Sexy, funny and raunchy woman, and still gorgeous at 57
or 58. I also used her as the model for JJ. She was just here for a
month, coordinating a fashion show or something for a fundraiser.”

“
And every time
she emails Gordy, she includes a photo of herself,” Marti said.

“
Meow,”
Gordy said, smiling.

“
I know, I know.
She is gorgeous, and I know I'm being catty,” Marti said,
laughing.

“
Deservedly
narcissistic,” Gordy said.

“
You still email
with her?” Rosemary asked, her face bland.

“
Only maybe five
times since we met, mainly to get her okay on using a photo of her on
the web site. Don't worry, she's dating a guy up there in North
Carolina. Okay?” Gordy said, gently rubbing her shoulder.

“
Okay,”
Rosemary said, rubbing his knee under the table.

“
Oh, Gordy, Marti
gave us our T-shirts. Thank you,” Gayle said.

“
No problem.
Wear them in good health.”

“
We will.”

“
Hey, Gordy, I
got another idea for you,” Paul said, returning from the cooler
with a can of beer.

“
Shoot.”

“
Y'ever heard
about those 3D printers?” he asked, popping the top on his
beer.

“
Those what
printers?”

“
3D.”

“
Nope. What's
that?”

“
It's a printer
that prints in three dimensions, uses some kinda goop to print in
layers, one at a time, so you can make 3D objects.”

“
Wow. Really?”

“
Really. You
oughta put one of those in the sequel.”

“
Cool; maybe I
will. I gotta check that out. Thanks.”

“
Any time.”

“
Hey, look at
that one!” someone on the deck yelled. They all looked out at
another boat, this one with an extension crane decked out as a dragon
head, maybe 40 feet long, spewing fire from its mouth as it went by.

“
Wow!”
“Amazing!” “Awesome!”

“
Clever,”
Rosemary said.

A couple hours later,
after all the boats had gone upriver and then returned to pass the
house a second time, Paul, now noticeably drunk, slurred, “Hey,
Gordy, if they can make a 3D printer, how 'bout a 4D one?”

“
4D?”

“
Yeah, do some
time traveling?”

“
Sounds a little
too skee-fee to me, Paul. Not my genre.”

“
Or maybe 5D, 6D,
7D? Or triple-D, right, Cakes?”

“
Okay, Paul,
that's enough. Time to go home, and I'm driving. Thanks, Marti,
Dave, for another great party. Rosemary, nice to meet you, and
Gordy, good to see you again.”

“
Or how 'bout
this? How would society be different if farts had color? Or how
'bout” --

“
Come on, Paul;
time to go.”

“
Yes, dear.”

-
56
-

January
31, 638
6:43
a.m. local time

Llairpwllgwingyllchysiliogoch,
Aberstwyxland

Lord Emedine urged his
trusty mount, Kevin, forward through the horde of three-headed Urfs
who were surging toward the castle keep where Lady Licia had run with
her two surviving ladies-in-waiting.

His enchanted
broadsword, Marvin, thrummed with the magic that Stanley the Sorcerer
had given it the previous Thursday, thwicking all three heads of the
nearest Urf cleanly from its grotesque body in one swell foop.

The heads and the body
disintegrated into dust in less than two seconds, sucked away by the
brisk breezes blowing down from the mountains overlooking
Llairpwllgwingyllchysiliogoch
and its twin castles, Llairpwllgwingyllchysiliogochone, which had
been built by Lord Emedine's grandfather in 597, and its later twin,
constructed by his father in 623, Llairpwllgwingyllchysiliogochtwo,
on the opposite slope of Llairpwllgwingyllchysiliogoch Valley, in
which the residents
of
Llairpwllgwingyllchysiliogoch made the best lives they could in and
around their mud-and-straw hovels.

Each
morning, half the men of the village left to graze their sheep on the
grassy slopes and plains surrounding the village, while the other
half patrolled the perimeter, on constant watch for Urfs, Worps and
Plogs,
who (which?)
infested the mountains and, when they weren't marauding each other's
nomadic camps, came surging down into Llairpwllgwingyllchysiliogoch
to maraud there.

Fortunately
for the village people, the Urfs, Worps and Plogs only rarely ceased
their infighting and turned their greedy eyes (24 per Urf, 12 per
two-headed Worp and one per no-headed Plog) down to
the
village of Llairpwllgwingyllchysiliogoch, on average seven times
a
year. But unfortunately for the village people, today was one of
those times.

Foop, another three
heads gone; foop, three more; foop – oops, only two, and they
immediately grew back.