Sons (Book 2) (80 page)

“We could hardly shackle them in irons and feed them bread and water, Colonel,” Peter said smoothly.  “And you had already abandoned them.  Tried to kill them.”

“That wasn’t us,” Morelli declaimed.

“Colonel, you can defer the blame for that decision only so far,” I said, calmly but sternly.  “And honestly, how does that explain why you asked Byrnes why he hadn’t asked to stay?”

Harmond and Barnett’s heads both whipped around to Morelli.  I felt their shock and saw the flashes in their auras.  Messner watched them closely, just as we were.

“Vince, why would you do that?” Harmond asked quietly, shocked.

Morelli sighed and said, “I let
him
get to me.”  He clamped his jaw shut, working the jaw muscles with visible intensity.

Harmond’s eyes narrowed.  “Him?”

“Major Byrnes and Colonel Morelli’s daughter divorced three years ago,” I said.  “I gather it wasn’t a friendly breakup.”  Morelli scowled at me, but quickly looked away when I narrowed my eyes at him.  Harmond was angry but controlled it.

“Colonel Morelli,” Harmond said firmly, the steel in his voice came from commanding for years and being followed without question.  “You have a direct conflict of interest and I learn of it from the other side?  Do not say another word to anyone.  If asked a direct question, answer politely and succinctly.  Offer no opinions whatsoever.  Any, and I do mean
any
, contact with Major Byrnes will be avoided.  Am I understood?”

“Yes, sir,” Morelli said, hands together on the table, his eyes on his cooling coffee.

“Are those biscotti?” Ethan asked, staring at the far end of the table.

“You’re just noticing the food?” Kieran asked, grinning.  “You’re slipping.  I think there’s even doughnuts.”

“Oh, it’s been on my mind since they came in,” Ethan said.  “What do you think, Shrank?  Are there doughnuts down there?”  He was leaning further into the table and nearly drooling.

Shrank giggled shrilly from Kieran’s shoulder.  “I think, Master Ethan, that you can see those trays far better than I.”

“Go around,” I warned him nearly a second before he sprung up.  He was in a really good mood, probably because of the green man comment I made earlier, and he was already close to crawling onto the table.

“They’re mad!” exclaimed Morelli in a hoarse whisper.

“Morelli!” Harmond barked, red-faced with anger.

Kieran and I burst out laughing as Ethan ignored them and headed for the end of the table.  Peter stood suddenly, shooting his chair back and tripping him as he twisted around, now in a race for cookies.  Ethan laughed at him as he went down.  Shoving the chair in as he rose, he darted after Peter and launched himself into a flying tackle as Peter slowed for the turn.

Peter expected it.  He had a good idea, but he didn’t take Ethan’s nature into account, that other part of him that sits between everything without really touching anything.  Ethan saw Peter shift and shifted with him, hit him right in the midsection, and knocked them both hard into the door.  Ethan knocked his head on the door and Peter had the breath knocked out of him.  They both slid to the floor pretty hard, making Kieran and me laugh harder.  Mike and Jimmy were both trying to show some respect and hold it back, but David and Steve ran to their aid.

We watched in amusement as they wrestled to heft Ethan off of Peter.  They weren’t weaklings, but Ethan was a lot heavier than he looked.  They were discovering just how heavy, when Peter shoved him up at them, wheezing, “Get off, ya’ lout!”

“Does everything have to be made of stone?” Ethan muttered, holding his head as David and Steve both steadied him to his feet.

“You’d break anything less and it’s prettier than steel,” Mike said sarcastically.

“No, Colonel, we’re not mad,” I said, grinning at Mike’s comment.  “We just have a different outlook, different priorities, especially during our few breaks.”

“You consider this a break?” Harmond asked.

“No swords are flying,” I said, shrugging.

“And no one is dying,” Kieran added.  “Or bleeding.”

“No threats of violence, so yes, this is a break and they’re playing,” I said, sipping my coffee and watching Ethan reach for the doughnuts.  As soon as he was an inch away, I shifted all the pastry trays to my end of the table.  “Care for a cookie, General?” I asked politely, grinning down the length of the table.

“You bastard!” he said quietly, grinning back, his head wound forgotten now.

“Do you… play like this often?” Harmond asked.

“No,” Kieran answered.  “More often than not, we’re on your world and have to act accordingly.  Gilán is a new freedom that Seth is allowing us to explore and have fun.”

“And what kind of legal system are you using?” Harmond asked.

“I’m afraid that question lacks grounds, General,” I said.  That confused Harmond, not that I could blame him exactly.

“Then, you have no laws, no rules for your society at all?  No way to deal with robberies or muggings?  What about taxes and tax collections?  Money in general?”

“No, these are not usually problems among the faery,” Kieran said, “though territory disputes and fights about treasures can be a problems in Faery, but Seth has a few millennia before any issues like that occur.”

The phrase “few millennia” disturbed me as much as it did Harmond and Barnett, but I couldn’t afford to show it.  Intellectually, I knew I would have a long life because of my father’s, but I don’t think that’s what Kieran was talking about.

“General, were you aware of what was happening at the convocation at the Cahill’s last night?” I asked, changing the direction of the conversation again.  Harmond wasn’t a stupid man and this alarmed him a little.

“Yes, sir,” he answered simply and waited.

“Yet you chose to approach there,” I went on.  “At a time and place when you knew my brothers and I would be busiest and the most distracted, and with a single, dazed, and sleep-deprived advisor.  Indeed, your attempted gate-crashing failed miserably.  But you jumped at the chance to enter in the middle of the night with mere minutes’ notice through unknown magic, facing unknown odds in basically enemy territory.  To me that strongly implies more than a desire for a speedy trial schedule.  So again, I ask, what’s the rush?”

“We have to make certain this stays out of the press—” Harmond started.

“You thought Daybreak was covered by the Accords, General,” Ethan interrupted him loudly.  “He couldn’t have done that and you didn’t want to accept the fact even after you saw the magic dripping off of him last night.  Your advisors must have been most adamant about that for you to be so vehement.”

“And they would normally be correct,” Mike said, all light and airy and British.  “But little about McClure and Associates is quite normal.”

“You see the puzzle you’ve presented me?” I said as I stood to get some more coffee.  Ethan shoved his foot out as I passed behind him.  It really sucked to be him this morning.  I curled my foot around his as best I could and yanked as hard as I could.

Ethan jerked unceremoniously away from the table, spilling the water he drank as part of his innocent act.  He grabbed at Jimmy’s chair as he flailed for balance, pulling him partly away, too.  Ethan ended up sprawled halfway out of his chair and facing the wrong way.

I kept going for the coffee.  Jimmy leaned back in his chair and turned to the more embarrassed than dazed Ethan.  “Dude?” Jimmy said.  “Him?  Here?  Dude…”  I couldn’t fathom exactly what that meant, but I was more interested in the coffee.  Ethan sat up in a huff, twirled the chair around and up to the table, and proceeded to sulk.

“I’m not an especially patient man, General,” I said as I poured.  “I expect Agent Messner has stressed that even if your other advisors did not.”  Messner stayed quiet.  I expected that and it didn’t matter.  It was answer enough.  Harmond and Barnett watched me walk back to my place as if fascinated.  I had yet to exert any kind of pressure, so this was a different kind of awe.  Morelli just stared at his cooling coffee.

“The… conspiracy that you uncovered,” Harmond began slowly, “had proven to be very difficult to follow.  Every lead we’ve managed to uncover has either evaporated or led to collections of dead bodies and completely destroyed records and computer systems.  We are at a tremendous impasse and a huge loss of information, both internally and externally.  We are hoping that interrogations with Pennington’s men will lead to further associations that will further our investigations.”

“That probably won’t work,” Kieran said evenly, considering that statement.

“It’s been our experience with these groups that they operate in cells,” Peter followed him.  “Groups of four or eight, usually, with one man in charge.  They usually only know their directives by code name and rarely know anything about their commanders or their next operation.”

“No, they aren’t your best hope in that regard,” Ethan said.  “We are.  Or more specifically, he is.”  He brushed his hand idly in my direction.

“And, of course, Pennington’s uncorrupted files would help immensely,” Peter added thoughtfully.  “Oh, wait, we have those, too.”

“Yes, those would be quite helpful,” Barnett agreed.  “But how could Daybreak help where interrogating the men could not?”

“Ethan is suggesting that I could invade their minds, collate the information, then act directly,” I said.  “I am unwilling to do this except for one reason, and you’ve already said it is contrary to your goals.”  I shrugged it off as if it was nothing.

“What do you mean by ‘invade their minds’?” Harmond asked, his head cocked to the side slightly.

“It’s exactly what it sounds like, General Harmond,” I said, the distaste evident on my face.  “An invasion of their minds, completely subsumed by mine.  At that point, I know everything there is to know about them.  But again, this is completely against your stated goals.”

“You make it sound as unpleasant to you as well as your… victim,” Harmond said suspiciously.

“I can make it unpleasant for them,” I said.  “Otherwise, it would depend on their ability to fight back.  In other words, no.  With what I’m being asked to do, there will be no unpleasantness during the invasions, except my own.”

“What are you being asked to do, exactly, and to whom?” Harmond asked.

“The men of the barracks have asked me for political asylum and citizenship on Gilán,” I said casually.  “No, Colonel, you still do not get to object.”  I forced myself into Morelli enough to override his impulse to speak and made him sit and shut up.  “Except for the seventeen men that I somehow managed to instill enough responsibility in to make them feel like they have to stay around for some unlikely event a relative may need them in the future.”

“A respectable goal,” Harmond murmured.  “Why are they asking for ‘political asylum’?  That seems like an unlikely objective from someone they’ve just tried to kill.”

“Yes, well,” I admitted.  “They are playing on a series of unfortunate similarities and the fact that they’re sitting at the centerpiece of my realm.”

“Could you force them into this?” Harmond asked.

“Yes,” I answered, nodding slowly.

“Have you?” he continued.  It was a reasonable question and Messner was paying attention to me, too.

“No, I still find the idea distasteful,” I said.  “The problem is, I understand their side too well.  They are much like my faery in that they were violently discarded by their previous liege.  That is the very reason they are here.”

“I’m not sure ‘violently discarded’ is fair,” Harmond said, hedging against the phrasing.

“What else would you call shooting at them?” I asked laughing through every word.  Our side of the table laughed with me at the absurdity of his disagreement.  He knew it, too, but he was trying to abrogate their liability, just like Morelli.  I wasn’t letting that happen.

“So what’s stopping you from granting their request?” Harmond asked.

“At the moment, you are,” I answered.  “I have a previous agreement with Agent Messner to hold them for prosecution.  He is bowing to your authority.  They also have a previous agreement with you and your government that, while is no longer morally binding, is still legally binding.  Therefore, until I gain your permission, meaning your government’s legal permission, I will not proceed regardless of how I feel about the issue.”

“So, you have the abilities and the power to do it, but you won’t just because we say so?  I don’t understand,” Barnett said.

“Not everyone is a bully, Colonel,” Kieran said.  “But it comes down to one thing: if we are to maintain credence with our kind, we must maintain our bargains.  Otherwise we will become like the dragons, barely tolerated.  We wish to remain human.  Does that explain things a little better?”

“No, not really,” Barnett said, gulping.

Why weren’t they getting this? 
Is this easier to understand?
I asked them both from inside their minds, stopping just short of a true invasion.  I let them both feel as much as they could the difference between where they sat and where I did, letting them see the infinitesimal portion of Gilán’s power that they could actually sense.  They didn’t stand a chance of getting even a fraction of what a brownie saw and still they were completely overwhelmed by the sensations.