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BACK TO FRASER'S FRACTURED FICTION Follow That Falcon!by A. Fraser
© Copyright 2004 A. Fraser. All rights reserved.
When full darkness had settled in for the night, the members of the Brotherhood
of Darkness, plus Rigo, once more gathered in the meeting room at Fairlawn.
There were signs that they had come in some haste uncombed hair, missed
buttonholes, a smudge of dirt. Several eyebrows were raised at the sight of the
thirteen year old twins seated on chairs next to their father.
"They've earned the right," Michael said, anticipating questions. "It was
Vivain's idea that led me to believe we could use Andrei."
The girl grinned, enjoying the attention, while Galen scowled. Andrei, perched
on Michael's desk, stretched his wings and managed to smirk; which isn't easy
when you have a beak.
Maggie nodded to the other two red heads. "Aye, they're old enough," she
conceded. "About time they started learning the ways of the Brotherhood." She
winked at Vivain.
"So how do we do this?" Gideon asked, taking a moment to tuck his shirt in.
Even he looked slightly rumpled. "We won't all fit in the limo."
"And I don't see how we can follow Andrei on the Freeway," Evan put in.
"Not Andrei, perhaps," Michael smiled, "but a magical tracking device, put on
Andrei and attuned to the computer in the limo...?"
"Can you do that?"
The Archdruid nodded. "We are only blocked magically from contacting Ray, or
finding out where he is. Nothing is blocking any other magic."
"Whoever has Ray and Estella seems to have overlooked a few things," Nicholas
commented.
"I suspect that whoever it is doesn't have a very high opinion of the
Brotherhood," Michael replied. "If it is Matthew's old coven, then they likely
don't think that any magic other than their own is effective. They've taken our
ace, I admit. But that doesn't leave us powerless."
"We still won't all fit in the limo," Gideon said.
"No, but those who can't go in the limo can fit in my mini-van," Michael said. "I
can get onto the Freeway without a computer."
"Can we go, Dad?" Galen asked, almost wild with excitement.
"Please?" Vivain added.
"Not this time," Michael said. Looking at their crushed faces, he added, "And
not just because you're too young, or it would be too dangerous, or that your
mother would kill me. But we don't know the situation we're going into or what
we're facing, and if we have to protect you, we won't function properly.
Besides, there isn't enough room in the van."
"Your day will come," Pandora smiled at the twins. "You have already made a
start."
"Let us go!" Rigo exclaimed. "Enough talk!"
"For once, I agree with him," Francis said, from the opposite side of the room.
"Let's go."
Michael looked around the room. Apart from the disappointed expressions his
offspring were wearing, everyone else looked determined. "Let's go," he
nodded.
He put on a falconing glove and Andrei hopped onto it. There was a brief green
glow flickering around the falcon.
"I still do not understand," Rigo said, staring at the falcon as Andrei shrieked.
"How is it that we can follow a bird? It is night. Hawks do not fly at night."
"Andrei's not an ordinary bird," Josh explained as they all made their way out to
where the vehicles were parked. The twins, looking mutinous, trailed them.
"He's magical, and he was made from Ray's blood. It's a bit complicated, from
what I understand. Gideon was there; he might be able to explain it better."
"I was inside the church at the time of Ray's wounding," Gideon said, before
Rigo could ask. "I did not see Andrei's creation. But from what I learned later,
that is essentially what happened. Andrei was magicked out of blood and pain."
"But Ray's magic's being blocked," Francis spoke up, having drifted close
enough to hear this conversation. "Nobody can reach him, and he can't reach us.
They've probably taken his cards, he's cut off from his magic. Doesn't that
mean that Andrei can't use magic, too, since he's Ray's?"
"That's what I originally thought, too," Michael said. He smiled at his youngest
daughter. "Until what Vivain said made me start thinking along another line.
Andrei is made from Ray's wound, yes, but not from Ray's _magic_. It was
Karra who made him, not Ray."
Light dawned in a few eyes, though others still looked puzzled.
"Please, who is Karra?" Rigo asked.
"A friend," Gideon replied. "Although one I have not heard from in awhile. It's
a long story; some other time, Rigo."
The gypsy vampire bowed. "Of course, my lord."
Nobody except Josh saw Gideon roll his eyes.
"What if the magic man and my niece are very far away?" Rigo asked. "How
will one small bird fly so far?"
"More magic," Michael answered simply. "Andrei can use the particle and the
wave, just like the limo and the van."
"Ah, magic." Rigo didn't understand, but knew better than to meddle in the
affairs of wizards.
"Galen, Vivain, get back inside, please," Michael said to the twins. "Everyone
else, choose a vehicle; the van or the limo."
"Aw, come on, Dad, can't we please go?" Galen gave it one last try.
"No. It's a school night." And that was that.
The limo could seat six; besides the Oakwoods residents and Rigo, Alex went
along for the ride. The Druids and Francis piled into the minivan.
"You are Romanian," Rigo nodded to Alex.
"But not Romany," Alex replied, with a slight smile. "I am a Magyar."
Rigo chuckled. "A Romanian vampire."
"I was a Count, in my life," Alex sighed. "Go ahead and say it, everybody else
has."
But Rigo just laughed again. "Count is not Romanian title," he said.
"I told you, my family were Magyar. Hungarian. Count _is_ a Hungarian title."
"Do you miss the old country?"
Alex stared out the window of the limo. "I have never been back," he replied, in
a tone of voice not calculated to encourage further conversation.
Evan made sure everyone was buckled in, and turned the key in the ignition. He
awaited Michael's signal.
Michael ushered everyone into the van, kissed his children (not without Galen
making a face), made sure they went back into the house, and then unwound
Andrei's jesses from the grip of the falconing glove.
"Go find Ray and Estella for us," he said to the falcon. "If you do that, I'll
personally catch a rabbit for you."
Andrei spread his wings, shook them, and leapt into the air. He circled around
the van and the limo, shrieking. When he was certain he had everyone's full
attention, he took off, winging frantically south along the Cliff Road.
"Follow that falcon!" Michael cried, and leapt into the van. He fastened his
seatbelt as Nicholas, behind the wheel, gunned the motor.
Both vehicles peeled out of the driveway of Fairlawn, in hot pursuit.
Watching from the living room windows, the twins sighed.
"It's not fair," Vivain protested.
"It _sucks_," her brother added.
Mary put an arm around each offspring. At times like this, she really missed
Bess, who'd never expected to be a member of the Brotherhood. But her eldest
daughter was studying hard at MIT.
"Come on," she said. "After we put Aisling to bed, " (the Edwards' son was
sound asleep on the floor, one arm around Ruddigore, his cheek pressing into a
pile of Legos), "We'll make some popcorn and watch a DVD, okay?"
"We can go next time, right, Mom?" Vivain asked.
"That's up to your father. How about Lord of the Rings?"
"Okay," they chorused, hearts not in Middle-Earth.
Andrei reached the point where he could summon the tachyon. He vanished.
First the mini-van, then the limousine, followed.
Estella's head reeled from the blow Eric dealt her. A bruise was already
forming it hadn't been a polite slap. Despite herself, she felt tears welling.
"Stop it," Ray coughed, raising his head wearily. "Don't hit her again."
"That was just to get your attention," Eric said. "Do I have it?"
"Fully."
"Then you will believe me, when I say that I will have her beaten?"
"Eric, there is nothing shitty I don't believe you capable of."
"Then you admit I hold all the cards?"
"All the..." Ray stared. He hadn't even thought about the Trumps. "Where are
my cards, you bastard?"
"Those things? A bit too Zelazny, aren't they? Nice artwork, though, I didn't
know you had a talent."
Ray bit his lip to keep from cursing. He didn't want to say too much about the
cards a magic he had learned, and then made his own.
"They're mine," he said.
"Ah, no, they're mine now, along with the keys to your car, your cell phone, and
the contents of your wallet. Obviously, being on the Right Hand Path doesn't
pay well."
"I don't do it for money."
"That's good, because I'm not going to offer you any. You will be coven leader
for nothing, because otherwise she dies." Bates moved so quickly that even Ray
had trouble following him, and suddenly there was a knife at Estella's throat.
"What happened to not killing your insurance?" Ray asked.
"I'm getting impatient."
"All right, Eric. You win." Ray spread out his hands. "Put the knife away, and
we'll talk."
Knife, that was another thing Eric had taken. Ray's knife. Even more than the
cards, it was a terrible personal loss.
And then he knew how his magic was being held. The Trumps and the knife,
two things imbued with his personality and magic, could be used to lock his
magic away from him.
"That's a terrible thing to teach a child," he said, when he saw that the knife was
no longer near Estella's throat.
"What?" Eric asked.
"To use someone's personal belongings against them."
"Deirdre is not an ordinary child," Eric replied.
"Ray, he's never let that girl outside," Estella said. "Or let her go to school."
Bates looked at her. "Technically," he said, "Deirdre does not exist. Her birth
was never registered. It's difficult to send a child to school when she doesn't
exist, wouldn't you agree?" He nodded towards Ray, who was still slumped in
the chair, hurting too much to move. "Besides, your boyfriend can tell you what
an excellent teacher I am."
Ray's eyes narrowed. "You know, I wondered why you had the strong-arms, and
why there are no coven members around. It's something to do with Deirdre, isn't
it?"
"You'll find out, if you do what you're told," Eric replied, though he was
obviously
not happy with Ray's question.
"Don't do what he says, Ray," Estella urged him. "Not even to save my life."
"Too late," Eric said. He motioned to the thugs. "Take him back to his room."
They hauled Ray to his feet, but even as he groaned, another sound came from
the front of the house. Incredibly, someone knocked at the door. Ray was
unceremoniously shoved back into the room with Estella, one of the thugs was
left there to guard, and the door was locked.
"I hope it's not kids selling Girl Scout cookies," Ray managed to quip.
Estella helped him up, glaring at the unmoving strong-arm guard, and cleaned up
his bruises and abrasions the best she could. She, too, wondered who had
knocked at the door. It was too much to hope for rescue.
Cautioning his guards to stay within easy reach, Eric went to the door. Whoever
it was knocked again. From the outside, this looked like a large, but ordinary,
house. Probably a political campaigner or someone collecting for some charity.
He opened the door to two lovely women; one with flaming red hair, green eyes,
a skirt slit to the neck, and stiletto heels; the other with curly dark hair and a
curvaceous figure, though she was less provocatively dressed.
"Hi," Maggie breathed at him, beaming from ear to ear. "We're your local Avon
representatives."
"Ding dong," Pandora intoned, standing aside.
Five pounds of furious feathers, beak and talons hit Eric in the face before the
thugs behind him could react.
"Oh, yeah, I forgot, watch out for the falcon." Maggie laughed, then turned to
the nearest muscle boy. "Let's go out to dinner and a movie," she suggested.
"What?" The thug watched his employer struggle with an enraged falcon; he still
didn't think that two beautiful women were much threat.
Maggie sighed and kicked him, hard and very accurately, in the groin. By this
time, the other muscle man was moving. Pandora had not stood idle, either. She
had crossed the threshold and was turning towards the outside.
"Come on in," she called out merrily. "It seems the owner of the house is a bit
occupied, so my invitation will have to do."
Eric managed to fling off Andrei; the falcon slid, stunned, down the wall and lay
in a sad little heap of brown feathers.
"Stop!" he cried out. "I do not invite you!"
"Too late, I'm afraid," said a voice at his ear.
He turned and saw fangs.
The other muscle man, stepping around his gasping, green-tinged colleague,
encountered Evan. He was rapped neatly over the head with a cosh and left to
lie. Evan whacked the other one, too, out of mercy.
Eric lashed out wildly at Alex, catching the vampire in the stomach, and then
raced into the house.
"They'll both be dead before you can rescue them!" he called out from the top of
the stairs.
Four vampires, who could move faster than thought, gave chase. Gideon turned
around and headed back downstairs. He collared Mitch, who was bounding up
on all fours, and said, "Let's check the windows, from the outside."
The werewolf followed his employer. Evan starting checking rooms for more
muscle, this time with a gun in hand. Michael had knelt by Andrei and was
tenderly holding the falcon, his eyes closed. They let him be. Nicholas, Pandora
and Maggie were prepared to meet any magical attack.
Evan burst a door down, gun drawn, then stopped in surprise. He hadn't expected
to find a little girl.
"Who are you?" he asked.
The girl drew back on her bed, and turned her blind eyes to him. "Please don't
hurt me," she said.
"Of course I won't hurt you," said Evan, father of a girl somewhat
younger than this. "I'm Evan Jones, a friend of Ray Griffin's. Is he
here?"
"He killed my father," the girl said. "I don't want him here, but Eric
does."
"Then I'll take him away with me. Estella, too. If you'll tell me
where they are."
"She's nice. I like her. Eric brought them both here. Eric looks after
me."
"That would be Eric Bates, right?" Ray had told Evan about Eric... but
not about this strange child.
"He looks after me."
This conversation was getting nowhere, and there were bangs, yells
and thuds coming from upstairs. Evan needed to be where the action
was, not here.
"Listen, I'm going upstairs to see what's going on," he said. "You sit
tight in here, so you don't get hurt."
"Please don't hurt Eric," the girl begged.
"I can't make any promises, honey. But don't you leave this room!"
Upstairs, indeed, Eric was in serious trouble. He had locked himself
in one of the stouter cells, but it hadn't been designed to keep out
vampires. The hinges were even now pulling away from the frame as
Rigo and Alex hurled themselves against the door.
Francis and Josh were concentrating on finding Ray and Estella. The
thug guarding them had heard all the noise and concluded that a
rescue was underway. He had dragged a heavy desk in front of the
door and was threatening Ray and Estella with a gun.
"If they come in here, you die," he said.
He didn't think about the window. It was barred, wasn't it? And on
the second floor?
There was a grinding noise of metal in pain, and the bars were
wrenched away from the window. Less than a minute later, a vampire
and a werewolf leaped through the shattering glass, shards spraying
everywhere. The thug aimed wildly and fired; there was a yelp.
"Sorry, cove, got to be silver bullets," growled a voice just before
fangs descended into his throat.
Baron Gideon Redoak shook slivers of glass off of his ruined jacket
and bowed to the other two occupants of the room. They were both
staring at him.
"What?" he asked.
"Gideon?" Ray tried to stand up. "I don't believe you just did that."
For a brief second, Gideon winked at him. "It's not all roses and
brandy, you know," he replied. He extended a hand, the manicure on
which was now beyond repair, to Estella. "Shall we?" he asked.
"Is that Mitch?" Estella asked, horror and fascination mixed equally.
The werewolf raised a blood-stained muzzle. He was somewhere
between both states, and having a hell of a good time. "Woof?" he
said.
"I think that's about enough, Gaylord," his employer told him.
"Bum." There was a cracking noise, a blur of fur and skin, and Mitch
stood up in human form. "My god, I kept my trousers on," he said in
surprise.
He and Gideon moved the desk away from the doorway, after kicking
aside the body of the guard.
The door was opened from the outside by Francis. "Oh, hey, you look
terrible,"he greeted his best friend.
"Yeah, well, you didn't look so great when I rescued you, either."
"So, whose turn is it next?"
Ray just shook his head, and gratefully accepted Francis as a leaning
post. Estella, looking dazed, had her hand tucked into the crook of
Gideon's arm. Alex and Rigo, with Josh giving them advice, were
doing their damnedest to break down a door further down the hall.
Evan was just coming upstairs; he stopped and spoke to Pandora and
Maggie. Both women cast a concerned look at Ray, but went
downstairs.
"The bastard is in here," Rigo grunted when everyone had reached the
doorway he and Alex were demolishing.
The door crashed open, the hinges weakened beyond all hope. Almost
without thinking about it, Alex reached in and grabbed the man
cowering inside the room.
"Who is this worm?" he asked.
"Eric Bates," Ray answered. "Matthew's right hand man. Not really
much of a witch, but a power broker, the real brains of the outfit. He
wanted me to replace Matthew so he could have a coven leader he
could control."
"Kill him," Rigo said. "He kidnapped my niece."
"No!" cried out a voice from the steps.
Maggie and Pandora had reappeared, helping Deirdre up the stairs.
"Don't release him, Alex, no matter what you hear," Ray cautioned.
"No problem," said Alex. Vampires don't tire easily.
"Who is this girl?" asked several people.
"Matthew and Cassandra's daughter, Deirdre," Ray said, shifting his
weight on Francis. "How'd you find us, anyway?"
"Andrei," said Michael, bringing the healed falcon upstairs.
"The gang's all here," Francis cracked.
"Deirdre," Eric said. "I want you to listen to me carefully. These
people are evil. The vampire who killed your mother is here, and the
man who murdered your father. Destroy them all!"
Deirdre shook herself free of Pandora's grasp. "How, Eric?" she
asked.
"You know how. Remember what I taught you?"
"Getting a child to do your dirty work for you?" asked Ray. "That's
beneath even you, Eric."
"She holds your magic, Griffin, she can at least destroy you!"
The girl held up a leather bag that she'd brought out of her bedroom.
"I can use this," she said. Her sightless eyes glowed, and the hair
raised on everyone present.
Nobody knew how to stop her, or wanted to she seemed so innocent
and so... fragile. Yet her power was undeniable; they all felt it.
She screamed and dropped the bag, though nobody had touched her.
"It hurts!" she cried out.
"Keep trying!" Eric urged her. He flung what little power he had to
her, wrapping her in a cone of magic.
Unnoticed, Michael reached down and picked up the leather bag. His
heart bled for the screaming girl, but there was nothing he could do for
her. She gasped and dropped to the floor, still wrapped in the power.
Suddenly it was Eric who screamed and sagged, unconscious, in
Alex's grip.
The power around the girl crackled and went out. Pandora at once ran
to her side, feeling for a pulse.
"She's dead!"
She and Michael went to work on Deirdre, ignoring Eric, but it was no
use. The girl was burnt out.
Silence fell over the assembled Brotherhood. They all stared at the
girl's slight body, unable to summon any emotion.
"She was too warped by this bastard," Ray finally said, indicating
Eric's limp figure. Alex had finally dropped the witch on the floor.
"She could never have been trusted. It might actually be better this
way."
"What do we do about this son of a bitch?" Francis prodded Eric with
his boot.
"All his power was in the girl. Let him live with the knowledge that
he killed her."
Michael opened the leather bag and checked the contents. "This is
yours, I believe," he said, handing it to Ray.
A jackknife. A cell phone. A wallet. Car keys. A deck of cards,
cold to the touch.
At the feel of each item, power came flooding back, the locks opened
in Ray's mind.
"What a terrible thing to teach a child," he said.
"She said he was kind to her," Estella sighed.
"Yes, but what other kindness did she ever know?" Ray shook his
head. "No, it sounds tough, but I think I'm right. It's better this way."
"What should we do about... her?" Michael asked.
In the end, they buried the sad little body out behind the building. It
was a deserted area; chances were nobody would ever find the lonely
grave.
"A whole family, wiped out by the Brotherhood," Nicholas said.
"Do you know how many families Matthew and Cassandra
destroyed?" Ray retorted.
"Come on," Michael sighed. "Let's get home, so we can look after
those bruises."
"What am I going to tell my mother?" Estella asked.
"You still owe me a weekend visit!" her mother sniffed from the
telephone, once Estella had done her best to explain.
"Is now really the time, mother?" Estella sighed, looking at Ray for
help.
"Of course," her mother replied. "After all, we must discuss wedding
plans."
"Wedding plans?" Estella exclaimed.
"Wedding?" Ray repeated.
Andrei shrieked.
The End
My thanks to L.M. Wallace for the loan of Pandora, to Craig "Wolfie"
Patrick for the suggestion to use Andrei, and to all who commented on
this story and helped me figure out a new ending
For those curious or disappointed or unsatisfied with this ending, you may see the original written ending HERE . I wrote it, then was unhappy with it because it seemed a bit too soppy and neat. I decided that poor Deirdre had to die (yes, that was channelling Zelazny again, so sue me) because she was just simply too disconnected to real life to live happily. Eric had warped her too badly; she was arguably insane. I also removed the appearance of Estella's mother because it seemed just a bit too contrived to have her show up; I never did establish where the house that Eric built was, for one thing. (Yes, kids, that was deliberate. I may need that house and Eric again.) Plus I feel at this point there's simply no way Chiva can ever live up to her billing. *g* I'm curious to know what my fans think is the more fitting ending for the story. Drop me a line at Anne063@sympatico.ca and let me know. |