“Cat, your language…”
“Fuck my language! I always cuss when I’m high!”
“Cat, we’re not on drugs.”
Bree squealed as Lelani gave her a trot around the apartment.
“You get the hell off that thing this minute, Brianna MacDonnell!” Cat shouted.
“Please don’t call her a ‘thing,’” Cal said. “Centaurs are extremely proud. We owe her our lives.”
“I don’t know who you are,” Cat said to her husband.
Lelani helped Bree down and stood in the corner with her arms folded.
“I’m Cal MacDonnell-husband, father, son, cop. None of those things has changed.”
“Some trick,” Seth said from the couch. “Breaking up a happy family usually involves drugs, greed, alcohol, or infidelity. She does it all by pulling a rabbit out of a hat; or rather, a horse’s ass.”
His wife’s eyes, which Cal had gazed into a dozen times over, were surrounded by webs of crimson fatigue as they searched for a clue to his thoughts. The very structure of reality-time and space, God and science-had been thrown into flux. It wasn’t just the attack or the craziness, Cal realized. The obvious was right there before him. His wife wasn’t sure if there was a future for her in his new and former past. The confidence to handle anything life threw at her, which indelibly defined Cat, was shaken to its core. Cal had mistaken anxiety for anger.
He took Cat’s hands into his own and rubbed them gently. “This doesn’t change how I feel about you,” he said. “I’m not going anywhere without you.” He hoped he sounded more sure than he felt. “Whatever the future brings, we’ll do it together.”
“Is that wise?” Lelani asked. “Consider your obligations.”
“Queen of Tact strikes again,” Seth said from his corner, still half asleep.
“Is what wise?” Cat asked.
“You. Shut up,” Cal told Seth. “This whole mess is your fault.”
“ My fault?” Seth asked, coming full awake. “How the hell can this be my fault?”
“Call it a gut instinct.”
“I don’t remember any of this sci-fi shit!” Seth insisted.
“Well, I remember you. A pain in the ass.”
“Hey man, I may be an ass sometimes, but I didn’t cause your problems. Don’t lay the blame at my feet. I’m a second away from walking out of here and forgetting this crap ever happened.”
“You wouldn’t last a day on your own,” Lelani said.
“What did she mean, Cal? Is what wise?” Cat repeated.
Cal glared at Lelani, a reminder that she was his subordinate.
“I only meant that the road ahead is rife with danger,” Lelani responded. “It might be wiser to put you and the girl somewhere safe.”
“This is my family. I’m not getting ‘put’ anywhere,” Cat said.
“You can stay with your mom for a few days,” Cal suggested.
“I’m staying with you.”
“Cat…”
“I’m staying with you. Case closed.”
A high scream broke out from Bree’s bedroom. The door was ajar when it should have been shut. Lelani vaulted the couch and reached the room before anyone else. Cal hobbled as quickly as he could. He still had a little vertigo but wasn’t sure if it was because of the injuries or the spell. Bree was sitting on the floor crying with her arms around Maggie. The dog’s neck twisted at a disturbing angle. Blood trickled from her mouth.
“Maggie needs a doctor,” Bree wailed.
Cat lifted Bree and let the girl bury her face in her neck. “Maggie was very brave,” she told her daughter. Cat rubbed Bree’s back and made a shushing noise. She cast Lelani a resentful glance as she carried her daughter out of the room.
“Sorry about that,” Cal said. “We really do appreciate your help.”
A radio and car doors shutting sounded from the street.
Through Bree’s window, Cal spied his lieutenant and the precinct chaplain tapping on the cruiser parked below to wake the cops that “dozed off” while on guard duty. They’d be put on report. How much did the cops remember? Maybe Cal could tell the chief they were gassed. How did that fit into the big picture?
“There are loose ends that need attending,” Lelani said, beside him, as though reading his mind.
“How the hell am I going to explain all this to the brass?” Cal said.
Erin was dead. His home was in shambles. Cal realized he would be at the station house for hours as Internal Affairs debriefed him. If he left now, he could at least prevent them from coming up and having to explain why the apartment looked like a war zone. The mission ahead was full of travels, perhaps even a retreat into the remotest parts of the world. He needed to stay mobile and in the law’s good graces. If only the boy was still alive…
“What will you do while I’m at the precinct?” he asked Lelani.
“Seth and I can address the damage to your home and other matters,” she said, looking down at the dead pet. “We- I will guard your family. Although, I am fairly certain no other attempt will be made. Only a fool attacks a sorcerer without backup, and I wounded theirs severely at the tenement.”
“About your remark earlier… the one about obligations…”
“I meant only your obligations to Duke Athelstan. Whatever your commitment to your betrothed, it is your concern. The boy’s survival is important to my race. That is my concern. Everything I do, I do for my people.”
“I am in a pickle, though, aren’t I?”
“Pickle? A flip description. Your family’s reputation is in jeopardy. And I doubt Chryslantha’s father will let the matter go without reparations. His pride is at stake.”
“You’re assuming Cat will choose to come back with me.”
“You are the victim of your own good judgment, Lord MacDonnell. If your wife were of lesser character, the decision would be easier. However, she is brave and will follow you to the ends of the earth… and farther. You will eventually have to make a decision. Whatever you choose does not change the fact that you took a mate and sired a child. Your honor will not allow you to keep this news from Lady Chryslantha. Consider this, though-if Athelstan’s son is lost, even if we retake Aandor, the duke will be merciless in his judgment. He can use those reparations to Lord Godwynn as his vehicle to strip your family of titles and lands.”
Cal pondered the ramifications. He had found his soul mate on two different worlds. How could a man so lucky be so cursed at the same time?
“Of course the stakes are much higher than your complicated betrothal,” Lelani continued. “Farrenheil will strip Aandor of everything decent. They will force its lords, including your father, to fealty, and those who do not submit will be publicly executed. Our citizens will be sold into slavery, our women carted off and raped. Scholars, clerics, and any other perceived threats will ‘disappear’ as agents of their secret guilds drag us out of our homes in the middle of night without a writ, and the last beacon of hope, prosperity, and fair rule in our world will be gone.
“And we have not even touched upon the dangers to this world should we not get on top of the situation,” Lelani continued.
“This world?” Cal asked. “You mean the other guardians in our party?”
“They, too, are in mortal danger, but I actually meant the people of this world. Lord Dorn is as reckless as he is remorseless. You have no idea how many times he’s been reprimanded by the Council of Wizards for engaging in the darkest arts-forbidden magicks that could lay waste to entire regions in a single stroke. There are no councils here to hold him in check. We’re fortunate that magical energy is in short supply, but he will eventually find what he needs. Even if we find the prince and regroup the guardians, out of desperation, Dorn could resort to outlawed spells and kill tens of thousands here while trying to defeat us.”
These revelations overwhelmed Cal. He thought about the line cops often used to avoid responsibility for FUBAR scenarios… It’s above my pay grade. But that wasn’t even the case here. In Aandor, these types of responsibilities were exactly his pay grade. Three thousand men served under him, helping him keep order in the grandest city on his world.
The buzzer rang.
One problem at a time, Cal thought. “I’m going down to the station to get my interrogation over with.”
“Wait,” she said. Lelani delved into her satchel and pulled out a lapel pin that looked like a small silver flower.
