Guardians of the Portals Read online

  The circle reformed about Trey and the crone, silent but for the harsh breaths and grunts as their brother took his final steps to manhood. When he finally released, his mouth formed an “O” of surprise as his clan mates broke into cheers and jeers, thumping him on the back and dragging him toward the girl. When the time came, he would need no goading, nor instruction.

  Chapter Two

  “It’ll be all right, girl.”

  “What part of having your house trashed is ever going to be all right?” Caitlin wailed.

  “It don’t mean nothing.”

  “Nothing? Nothing! Dad, look at this. The table is splinters. The, the...” Caitlin gasped in dismay at the wreckage in their home.

  “I’m the one that started this. I never should have gone to the newspaper. If I’d kept my mouth shut, none of this would have happened.”

  “They scammed your friends out of their life savings. How are you going to live with that?”

  Jake O’Brien knew it wasn’t a matter of living with it. He had no intention of sitting back and letting the bastards walk all over him. What he didn’t like was how his family had gotten sucked into the mess he’d made of everything.

  “That money’s gone. There’s no way we’ll get it back. Greyfalcon’s already run it through the system.”

  “Then why this? You said they shut it down after the reporters got to nosing around. What did they have to gain from destroying our house?”

  “It’s just a message. They want me back in the fold. I’m an asset and they hold assets close. Besides I know too much.”

  “So what are you, we, going to do now?”

  Jake ruffled his daughter’s hair. “I’m thinking on it.”

  “What if they come back?”

  “They won’t. Now, help me clean up this mess.”

  Caitlin bent to pick up a broken lamp. “I’ve got one of my feelings, Dad.”

  “So do I, girl, so do I.”

  She followed her father up the stairs, marvelling at his ramrod posture, still a picture of strength and don’t-fuck-with-me attitude. He retreated into the small bedroom facing the inlet, shuffling carelessly through the detritus on the worn oak flooring. The sliding doors on the closet hung askew. He carefully eased them off the runners and set them against the wall.

  The bedside lamp lay smashed on the floor. Wearily she sank onto the too soft mattress, idly wondering how her parents ever managed to get a good night’s sleep on the ancient bed. Her mother claimed it to be second hand when they’d moved in all those long years ago. Funny how discomfort and comfort could be measured by metal springs and the familiar feel of contours still echoing the passion and pain of shared love.

  “Look, Caty, it still fits.”

  Caitlin glanced up at her father as he pirouetted in front of what little remained of the shattered wall mirror on her parents’ bedroom door.

  “Yeah, Gunny, it looks good. Mighta looked better thirty years and a coupla pounds ago.”

  Jake shrugged out of his dress uniform jacket and held it up in the dim late afternoon light. He traced a loving finger across rows of medals, ribbons and marksmanship badges and followed the red strip from collar to hem. The pants were a total loss as was his service uniform, already frayed and moth-eaten from years of hard use and long-term storage.

  “At least they left me this.”

  “Uh-huh, real considerate weren’t they?” Caitlin slid off the bed and sat cross-legged on the smooth wide-planked floor. The “cleaners” had run out of steam by the time they’d hit the master bedroom and had left it relatively unscathed.

  She felt angry, depressed, and outraged that their home had been savaged and nearly destroyed. Unlike most military brats, for whom rootlessness was a way of life, she and her brother, Kieran, had grown up in this house, a spacious bungalow with a surround porch, off Still Pond on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. It had belonged to her mother’s family since the mid-nineteenth century. Back then the holdings had been extensive on what was called Still Pond Neck in Kent County. The bungalow sat high on the bluff above a deep-water anchorage, just to the east and north of Aberdeen Proving Grounds. The main house and most of the land had been parceled out over the years as the demands of farming, the economy, wars and ill fortune plagued the once-prosperous Sutton clan.

  They’d had the option to live near where Jake was based at Quantico, but her mother was loathe to abandon the family holdings and insisted on separate living arrangements. Caitlin and her brother had never questioned their parents’ choices. They were too intent on their own concerns with the endless adventure of living wild on forty-five acres of woods, open fields and the wide expanse of the upper Chesapeake Bay.

  Caitlin pulled an old photo of her mother and brother from under the bed. She had loved Kieran’s devilish grin and her mother’s rare smile.

  “How long ago was this, Dad?” Caitlin held the photo up for Jake’s inspection.

  “Ah, I remember this. Kathleen and you two had gone to ... geez, let me think. Oh yeah, Chincoteague that year. Am I right?” Caitlin nodded. “I got a weekend pass and joined you at the beach house. You and me, we was setting and jawing ’bout something on that park bench and the ponies came up like we wasn’t even there.”

  Caitlin laughed. “Then you told Mom and Kieran to pose with the ponies behind them but by the time you figured out which button to push, they were long gone.”

  Jake stared at the photo for a long moment. “He doesn’t look nothing like me, does he? Funny how that works.” He ran a forefinger over his wife’s profile and murmured, his voice wistful, “She was my Valkyrie, you know what I mean? My anchor. She kept us going. Kept the family together, pretty much on her own.”

  Jake sat heavily on the bed and fished for the pack of cigarettes in his jeans. He lit up, took a deep drag and sighed with pleasure. He handed the photo back to his daughter and reached for an overturned ashtray resting by the nightstand.

  Caitlin examined the picture, awash in memories, forgetting that she’d sworn to kill her brother and forever hate her mother. Perhaps not kill, but surely seriously maim him for what he’d done. She looked at his picture, the spitting image of their mother: tall, well over six feet at age sixteen, with raven black hair, a high-brow and haughty demeanour. He shared her deep-set hazel eyes, narrow aquiline nose and thin lips. Mother and son, a clone in looks and clones in abilities. He’d manifested his gifts at puberty, gifts that made him a social magnet and star athlete, gathering about him a cadre of sycophants who catered to his every whim.

  Kieran became everything she wasn’t, couldn’t be, amongst the narrow-minded cliques that defied southern graciousness and made a mockery of genteel upbringing. He’d been her entire world, then suddenly he left her as surely as if he’d abandoned her in a lifeboat at sea. Left her to join the golden ones, left her to bury herself in books and loneliness.

  Still, she’d loved him and worshiped him. She’d made excuses for the drugs and the increasingly erratic behaviour. She begged her mother to intervene, but Kathleen refused, turning a blind eye.

  Your brother’s misguided. He’ll come around. Just believe in his powers.

  Well, she did, up until the night he pulled the gun on Jake and shot him three times. Had she not been there to deflect the bullets, her father would be dead.

  Bitterly, Caitlin spit out, “She left that night. Didn’t even stop to see if you were alive or dead.”

  “She had her reasons, Caty-girl. We might never know them, but of that one thing I’m sure.”

  Caitlin crumpled the photo in her hands and broke into sobs of anguish. Jake stubbed out the cigarette and slid to the floor to cradle her, the movement awkward and shy.

  “Don’t go on about it, baby girl, don’t you fret. Like you said, we need to make this right.”

  Caitlin gulped back the tears and choked out, “How, Dad? It’s not just Kieran. It’s all of them.” She balled her fists and pounded her knees. “Those fucking rat bastards hold all t
he cards. Those SOBs lie, destroy lives with drugs and play God. I want to make it right. I want to do something, anything, to try and keep them from ruining more lives, but we don’t have any resources, and no one will listen. You tried that and see where it got us.”

  “Ah, that’s where you’re wrong, my girl.” He gave her shoulders a quick squeeze. “I have a few cards left in my deck.”

  “What do you mean, Dad?”

  Jake hoisted himself to his feet and fished out another cigarette. He lit it slowly and inhaled, blowing the smoke through his nose.

  “Let that go, Caty.” He pointed to the photo balled in her fist. “We’re done here. Go get the car.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “Havre de Grace.”

  “Whatever for?”

  “Resources, Caitlin Kathleen Rebecca O’Brien.” He spit it out, in full command mode now. Unlike her, Kieran had hated and despised it whenever Jake had issued ‘orders’, his hackles raised as resentment and idolatry waged war on a young man’s loyalties.

  Curious, she asked, “You have people who can help us?”

  Jake shook his head and sneered, “Something better: materiel.”

  Chapter Three

  “What news, Trey?” Eirik frowned at the hesitation, the blankness and absence of tone. He hated cell phones. He preferred face-to-face, even if that meant using the infernal laptop. At least then he could read body language, see the man’s eyes and take his measure. “I don’t have all day.”

  “I found the target, but there are complications.”

  “Explain.”

  “The wolf is at the door.”

  Eirik cursed under his breath, but the connection had already been severed. He hobbled to the small console set into a recess on the wall that lay opposite the bank of windows. He keyed in a fifteen-digit code and the distant rumbles indicated a lockdown in progress. Recessed track lighting faded as emergency backup lamps flickered on, replacing the cool white with soft bluish tones.

  Eirik hit speed dial and barked a command. Within minutes his driver appeared.

  “Ranulf.”

  “Sir.”

  “Pick him up.”

  “The usual location, sir?”

  “No, that one might be compromised.” He jotted down an alphanumeric code on the palm of his hand and held it out for the driver to read.

  “Understood.”

  Eirik watched the burly man pace to the door, but before he could leave the room he cautioned, “Ranulf? Be careful out there.” The driver twitched a shoulder and exited the room, pulling the door shut with an audible click.

  The gothi decided not to bother with the trappings of the Althing. His nephew might be correct. Perhaps it was time to shed the illusion and fully embrace the modern world, become a viable part of it, live out their lives in the now. He wearied of the shuffling between and amongst dimensions. Few of the younglings saw the necessity for convention and tradition, though Trey at least paid it some lip service. For him it would continue to be a comfort, a guilty pleasure and an indulgence for his advanced years.

  Eirik moved to a credenza and fumbled in the cabinet for a glass tumbler. He poured a generous amount of cognac from the crystal decanter. Just in case, he set out another glass, although his nephew seldom indulged in spirits. One had to admire the discipline, but in truth he considered the young man to be wound too tight. Gunnarr had succeeded all too well in producing an automaton, a near-perfect killing machine with a compulsive nature and the cunning of a predator. That there remained some moral compass after the years of abuse never failed to surprise him. Unfortunately his history and genealogy made the boy suspect amongst the rest of the Jarls and it was only his complete break with his father and brothers that had convinced the assembly of his usefulness, if not his trustworthiness.

  That, and his ability to manipulate the Portals with uncanny ease, made him their single most valuable asset. Not one of the Jarls had objected to Eirik making the young man the Gothi’s second-in-command. “Keep your friends close and your enemies closer” was one of his favourite take-away phrases from his collection of ancient texts.

  Eirik eased onto his chair and propped his aching leg on the ottoman. He often wondered what the populace would think if they ever found out that their supposed deities suffered from all the maladies that afflicted humankind. Ancient leaders, far wiser than he, had long ago allowed their culture to join the stuff of legend, with only occasional forays into what he euphemistically called known space. The group’s primary focus evolved to oversee and protect the miniscule population of gifteds. They’d not always been successful in living up to that mission statement.

  Even more rarely, they would recruit fresh blood if the gifteds’ talents, and DNA, proved congruent with the Althing’s directives. Identifying candidates, evaluating abilities and personality profiles, and finally assimilating them into the culture—this was no easy task as the transition often led to subtle instabilities or full-out psychotic breaks. Trey excelled at dispensing with the failures.

  A knock at the door roused Eirik from his musings. He reached behind the chair and pressed a button to release the door, then withdrew his Glock 28 from his shoulder holster and rested the weapon on his lap.

  Trey entered slowly, hands raised. He kicked the door open and sidled through.

  “Gothi.”

  “Nephew.”

  The young man leaned over a panel on the wall to his left and placed his hand on the scanner. At the green light, Eirik waved him closer with the Glock.

  “Uh, Uncle? I’m not alone.”

  Eirik sat up and levelled the gun at his nephew. He spat out, “Unwise.”

  “Unavoidable.”

  “I will be the judge of that.” Eirik debated his options, taking his time to come to a decision. “All right. Bring your guest in.”

  Trey moved into the room and motioned for the shadow figure in the hall to join him.

  Eirik’s eyes widened in shock as a tall woman entered, brushing past the young man with annoyance. Her heels clacked with startling clarity on the polished wood floor as she approached the older man with grace and authority. If she harboured any fear for her safety it was not apparent. Eirik looked at his nephew and wondered whose idea it was for her to come to the one place forbidden to outsiders. While he’d learned to trust the young man’s instincts, in this matter he would require something more than a gut level feeling.

  Eirik rose smoothly off the leather seat, though it cost him, but he could not risk the appearance of frailty, especially not before a witch as powerful as this one.

  “Madame. Would you care to sit while Number Two explains why you are here?” He glared at Trey with a “better make this good or you are both going down” look.

  The woman smiled and moved to the sofa in the center of a seating alcove, settled carefully and crossed her long elegant legs. She looked no older than her early forties, though Eirik knew that she was on the far side of sixty. He felt the flare of excitement that the rumours might indeed be true.

  She spoke with a soft Southern accent, dripping with refinement. “I believe I am quite capable of speaking on my own behalf, sir.”

  “Of course, Madame. May I offer you refreshment?” At her slight nod, Eirik waved to his nephew to take up a position on the other side of the sofa so he could indulge in the small pleasantries and gamesmanship this prize offered. He kept his gun trained on the woman until Trey rounded the sofa and backed against the stone façade with arms crossed and eyes at half-mast, but there was no mistaking the tension in his body language.

  Eirik took the extra tumbler, poured a finger of brandy and handed it to the woman. She accepted the drink, took a dainty sip and smiled in appreciation, then set the tumbler down on the glass-topped end table on her right.

  “I am...”

  “Kathleen Margaret Sutton O’Brien. I know who you are. And I am...”

  “Eric, Head of Council, Final Arbiter. Did I miss anything?”

&n
bsp; Eirik smiled at the mispronunciation of his name. “One or two critical appellations, but that is of little consequence for now. I assume you have been introduced to my nephew, Trey?”

  “Um, yes. A most persuasive young man.” The woman uncrossed her legs and shifted forward. She smoothed her wool trousers, obviously stalling for time to organize her thoughts. “I, we, have a small problem.”

  Eirik took a sip of brandy and sat in his chair wishing he had even a clue as to what disaster his impetuous relative had dumped in his lap this time. He glared at Trey lounging casually against the wall.

  I thought I told you to clean up your mess. What in the names of the gods possessed you to bring the asset here? I swear, Trey...

  Listen to her. It is worse than we thought and she has information to share.

  Fine. But you and I will talk ... later.

  Trey shrugged and gave him a sneer. Eirik turned back to the woman who watched the silent exchange with interest. From her look of confusion it was clear she’d sensed or heard the interchange but did not understand the Old Norse tongue. She was bright enough to put two and two together and this one would need careful handling. Eirik indicated she should continue.

  “Yes, well, if you are quite done berating your nephew? It was my idea to come here. I will not waste my time, or yours, rehashing ancient history. You are aware that my family, on the maternal side, has a propensity for producing female progeny with certain talents. These abilities tend toward the parlour trick variety, but on occasion a generation will manifest more interesting aptitudes. My own forte is a certain faculty for physical subterfuge and an ability to manipulate objects. Ouija board usefulness for the most part and one which netted me a small income to get us through the lean years.”

  Eirik interjected, “I’d like to know more about this ‘subterfuge’, if I may.”

  “Hmm, of course and that’s what they wanted also.”

  His eyebrows shot up as he exclaimed, “They?” and Trey shifted position imperceptibly.

  The woman continued, “Regrettably, it is a long story, of which you likely know the broad outlines. Am I correct?” Eirik nodded assent but his nephew looked from one to the other, eyes narrowing to slits. He waved for her to continue.