Irregulars: Stories by Nicole Kimberling, Josh Lanyon, Ginn Hale and Astrid Amara (65 page)

Jason fought to maintain a neutral expression. He didn’t know anything about the Irregulars as an organization, but he trusted Falk and didn’t believe Phipps.

Falk scowled but denied nothing.

“For all you know I’ve done the boy a favor.” Phipps took another drink. “At least his own father might not be quite so keen to strip him to the bone.”

At that, Falk gave a derisive snort.

“Yeah, Greine’s well known for his decency and compassion,” Falk replied.

Phipps shrugged, but something like melancholy showed in his expression. He took another slow, measured drink from the tin cup.

“I would have preferred it if Jason had ended up with his mother,” Phipps admitted. “I did like the boy, actually. He was the best employee I ever had.”

Jason glared at Phipps. Clearly he hadn’t liked him enough to resist the temptation to sell him.

“You’re such a hypocrite,” Jason snapped. “You auction someone off to the highest bidder and then sit around looking morose and making accusations about other people’s evil intentions! What utter bullshit!”

“I did what I could for him,” Phipps snapped back. “But it wasn’t as if I could have kept him a secret! That anonymity spell placed on him may have hidden him through his childhood, but it wasn’t going to last much longer. And especially not if he kept singing. I could see it wearing away day by day. In a week’s time it would have burned out completely. In place of a plain-faced nobody for an employee, I would’ve had a shining sidhe prince working my till and enchanting half the city with his songs. How long do you think it would have taken the revolutionaries or Greine to notice him after that?”

“Who knows,” Henry answered. “But you didn’t try, did you?”

“Oh, go to hell,” Phipps replied. He glowered between the two of them, lifted his cup, and then set it down without drinking. “I did try, actually. Not that it’s any of your damn business.” Phipps sounded almost defeated. “The day after he started working for me I cast a second anonymity spell over him. It should have lasted three years, but he seared through it like a flame through paraffin. An hour after I cast it, the spell had burned off. Even if I’d decided to, I couldn’t have kept him.”

“I’m pretty sure he wasn’t meant to be kept,” Falk replied. “Did you provide Greine with means to verify Jason’s paternity?”

“Blood. He cut his hand once while restringing a harp for me. I lent him my kerchief but didn’t wash it afterwards. Blood like his always has a use.”

Jason remembered that afternoon. At the time he’d been embarrassed about letting his hand slip and then bleeding all over Mr. Phipps’s work table. He’d also been touched by Phipps’s concern for him.

God, he’d been a pathetic sucker.

He had to look away from Phipps’s self-satisfied face to keep from giving this whole charade away with a furious tirade of obscenities and accusations.

Not that he wanted to keep standing here, listening to Phipps recount all the ways he’d been deceived and used. What an idiot he’d been. What a fucking idiot.

He didn’t want to stay in this dank little room one more minute.

He stole a quick glance to Falk only to catch Falk considering him in return. Whatever Falk read in his expression, it seemed to displease him. He dropped his flask back into one of his deep pockets and stood.

“I think that’s about all we need to know for now,” Falk told Phipps. “Can’t say it’s been a pleasure, but you were certainly informative.”

Phipps gave a wave of his hand as if he were shooing away flies.

“Don’t let the door hit you on the way out,” he replied.

Falk smiled and replied, “If I were you I’d be more worried about trolls hitting me on their way in.”

***

Henry saw it coming, though it impressed him that Jason got all the way to the Elysian Fields before he blew his lid. He possessed a remarkable level of restraint for such a young man, particularly one of sidhe heritage.

Though right this moment he looked mad enough to chew nails and spit rivets. The muscles of his jaw worked like flexing fists.

He kept silent and still while Henry called the glamour of Agent August’s guise off him; Henry drew the illusion into his own lungs like he was taking a deep drag from a clove cigarette. He swallowed the slight burn, tasting both the sting of faerie dust and the natural spice of Jason’s body.

Watching Jason as the glamour receded, Henry wondered how he’d previously failed to notice the subtle bronze luster of his skin or the gold gleaming through his dark eyes. The anonymity spell shielding Jason must have once been truly powerful to render such a presence unremarkable.

But Phipps hadn’t been lying about the speed at which the spell was degrading. Little to none of it would be left by the day’s end.

Even scowling and bristling with anger, an unearthly grace permeated Jason’s motions. The hint of a hot, sweet spice perfumed the air around him.  

Jason shoved his battered glasses into the pocket of his red sweat jacket and then wheeled back from Henry, scattering the creamy white butterflies fluttering on the flowers all around them.

“That son of a bitch!” Jason kicked at the ground hard. Clods of soil and miniature lilacs went flying. “Just sitting there looking sorry for himself while he fed us that bullshit about how much it pained him to sell me out! Literally—fucking—sell me out!”

Henry kept his trap shut. No doubt, Jason had been screwed over. Offering him some lip service about how things could have been worse or counseling him to take a philosophical view would only further insult his justifiable anger.

He had a right to blow off some steam. In his position Henry would have probably loaded a pistol and blown off much more.

“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.