Larkspur (27 page)

The middle aged man nodded. He glanced at
the army engineers and then at Rodney. He made the mistake of
looking at Rodney’s young assistants. DeShawn took a step forward,
and Jason held him back.

“
We understand your
concern,” Rodney said. “You don’t want to
risk
losing your
business
.”

“
That’s exactly right.”
The gas company executive smiled.

“
You’re willing to let
these people
die
rather than
risk
something that
might
happen,” Rodney said.

“
We’re not heartless, you
know,” the gas company executive said. “We’re just as sorry as the
next guy when these
random
acts of
nature
happen.”

“
Did you get that?” Rodney
turned to Jason. The young man held up his phone. “We have a policy
of recording conversations with outside entities.”

Turning to Jason, Rodney nodded. Jason gave
his phone to DeShawn. With a nod, DeShawn stalked off.

“
He’s going to share your
comments with the media,” Rodney said.

The army engineer turned away to keep from
laughing. The gas company executive’s face drained white with
panic.

They heard the
thump, thump
of military
helicopters and looked up. Rodney turned to look into the sink
hole.

While Rodney had been arguing with the gas
company executive, Jerry and his team had set up safety ropes. MJ
and Colin were standing on top of an excavator. They wore harnesses
and were strapped into the support lines Jerry had run. Some of the
guys from MJ and Colin’s team gave them oxygen masks and small
tanks. The military helicopters lowered wires in front of them.

When the wire was three feet from MJ, he
threw himself off the excavator. He caught the wire, and a general
hoot went up among the military people. A soldier slid down the
wire and hooked MJ onto the lifeline.

“
What is he doing?” The
gas company executive pointed to MJ in horror.

“
I’m not quite sure,”
Rodney said.

He waited a beat, and Colin jumped off the
excavator.

“
Excuse me a minute,”
Rodney said to the gas company executive.

“
We’re a go, sir,” a
National Guard captain said to the army engineer.

“
Go,” the army engineer
said.

Across the site, a Lipson dump truck
released a load of dirt on top of the methane fire.

“
What are you doing!?” the
gas company executive screamed.

There was a whistle, and two tall, thin
soldiers, their faces obscured by oxygen masks, jumped off the edge
of the pit and onto the load of dirt. A soldier threw shovels off
the edge at them. The soldiers grabbed the shovels and jumped out
of the way. Another truck unloaded onto the fire, and two more
soldiers jumped into the pit.

The soldiers started shoveling dirt onto the
fire. MJ and Colin reached the trailers. Another soldier landed
nearby with an acetylene torch. The soldier lit the torch and began
cutting into the trailer.

Rodney smiled. His heart swelled with
hope.

The earth shifted with such sudden brutality
that Rodney was knocked off his feet. He landed next to Jason, who
landed on top of the gas company executive.

The earth began to shake.

Chapter Two
Hundred and Sixty-four
Lab coat

Friday night — 10:00 p.m. MST

Denver, Colorado

Jill smiled and looked around the room. Her
best friends and her family were hanging out. Working together,
combined with the magical effects of chocolate cake, they had
stopped her early labor. Jeraine was playing his guitar and singing
with one of the gargoyles. According to Mike and the gargoyles,
they had eliminated the threat of Experiri Genetics. Sandy’s kids
were playing video games in the old medical office lobby. Katy was
sound asleep in the chair next to Jill’s bed.

She knew things weren’t going well at the
construction site, and she knew Jacob was struggling on the Isle of
Man. But right here, right now, everything was absolutely perfect.
They had agreed to hang out here until her IV drip finished just to
be sure.

She felt great, and the boys were calm.

Everyone laughed and she looked up. Candy
was acting out a story about the Irish bosses at the bakery where
she worked. The two men acted like clowns, but pretended they were
dead serious. It made them all the funnier. Candy laughed, and Jill
realized she hadn’t seen her sister laugh since before Candy and
her girlfriend, Jazmyne, had broken up. Jill swallowed hard like
she always did when she thought of it. Candy and her girlfriend had
broken up right after Jill’s wedding. It was irrational, but Jill
always felt like it had been her fault. It was almost as if because
Jill was so happy, Candy had to suffer. At least Candy was getting
back to her old, funny self.

“
Mommy,” Katy said from
the chair behind Jill. “I don’t feel good.”

Jill glanced at Katy and then looked around.
Something was wrong. The kids in the living room were oddly quiet.
Jill felt woozy. She was about to say something to Sandy when Sandy
crumpled to the floor. Heather fell next to her.

“
Mommy?” Katy
asked.

Katy suddenly stood right next to Jill.
Looking at her beautiful daughter, Jill had the sinking feeling
that something was very wrong. She and Katy were in terrible
danger. Jeraine stopped playing the guitar. His head lolled
forward, and Tanesha slid down the wall to the floor. The gargoyle
perched on the back of his chair dropped onto the floor.

“
Get into the hiding
place,” Jill said.

“
But Mommy!”

“
Don’t argue with me,”
Jill said. “Go now. Hurry.”

Megan, who’d been standing at Jill’s side,
fell to the ground. Katy stepped over Megan and went to the wall
where Jacob had crafted a hidden compartment in case they had to
hide the babies. Candy collapsed near the door. Mike pushed his way
across the room to her. Katy pressed on the wall, and a door
opened.

“
Mommy, can’t you come
too?” Katy asked.

“
You stay safe,
Katy-baby,” Jill said. “That’s all that matters.”

Katy climbed into the cabinet.

“
What . . .?” Anjelika asked. She fell forward
to the floor.

“
Mom!” Steve dropped next
to her.

Mike had almost reached Jill. He took one
last step and fell over. His last waking act was to close Katy’s
hiding place. In a matter of moments, everyone in the room had
collapsed. Jill tried to force herself awake.

A man wearing a white lab coat rushed into
the room. His face was covered with a gas mask. Garbled by the mask
and his Hispanic accent, she heard him say, “Good, they left in the
IV. Pitocin, stat.”

Jill tried to protest.

The boys weren’t ready to be born!

She didn’t want to induce labor!

She tried to move, but her eyelids were
locked closed. She was pushed back onto the table by someone she
couldn’t see.

“
Don’t fret, honey, you
get to keep the girl,” the man in the lab coat said. He injected
something into her IV line. He pointed to her family and friends.
“Tie them up.”

Everything went black.

~~~~~~~~

Jacob felt terror stab through his heart.
Gilfand had taken them to the north end of the Isle of Man to the
unexcavated fort Cronk Surmark. They were climbing to the top of
the hill. He stopped climbing. Valerie was deep in conversation
with Gilfand near the top of the hill and didn’t notice. Jacob
clutched at his heart.

“
Are you okay?” Delphie
asked. She came up from behind him to stand at his side.

“
I don’t know,” Jacob
said. “I . . .”

“
I felt it too,” Delphie
said. “Something has happened.”

“
Is Jill going to die?”
Jacob asked. “Delphie, I . . . won’t survive it.
She . . . Katy . . . They’re
everything . . . everything.”

“
She’s not dead yet,”
Delphie said. “We need to get this show on the road.”

Delphie put her fingers to her lips and let
out a loud whistle. Gilfand and Valerie turned around.

“
Over there.” Delphie
pointed to a set of boulders. “Can you continue?”

Jacob jogged up the side of the mountain. He
put his hand over one boulder, and then the next. He shook his
head.

“
What is it?” Valerie said
in breathless puffs. Delphie arrived a moment later.

“
Her bones are spread
out.” Jacob pointed to boulders. “Three, four,
five, . . . maybe ten ribs. Fuck.”

“
What’s happened?” Valerie
asked.

“
Jill’s in trouble,”
Delphie said. “Katy’s in the hiding place.”

“
How is that possible?”
Valerie asked. “Jill’s father was going
to . . .”

“
Why does it matter how it
happened?” Jacob snapped. “It happened.”

Valerie hugged him.

“
Gilfand,” Delphie said.
“Your fairy friends are in trouble too.”

Gilfand disappeared.

“
All we can do — right now
— is get this done,” Valerie said. “We must find Queen Fand’s human
body. That’s
our
task.”

“
And Jill?” Jacob’s voice
was filled with despair.

“
We have to trust the
fairies,” Delphie said. “We can’t do anything else.”

“
Pull it together, Jake,”
Valerie said in her manipulative voice. “We have a job to
do.”

Jacob stepped back from her and swallowed
hard. He took a breath, and then another one.

“
Thanks.” He
nodded.

“
Glad to help,” Valerie
said.

Jacob clapped his hands together, and the
five large boulders near them rose from the ground. Valerie leaned
over to look under them.

“
They’re right here,”
Valerie said, pointing to the rib that lay just under the
boulder.

Valerie dropped to her hands and knees.
Delphie jogged to the next one. When Gilfand returned, they were
holding five ribs. They looked up at him in silence.

“
They’ve been sedated,”
Gilfand said. “Looks like a gas of some kind. There are some men
there. They’ve induced labor.”

“
Why would they induce
labor?” Valerie asked. “I mean why
not . . .”

She made a cutting gesture across her
belly.

“
Something about giving
birth seems to activate your kind,” Gilfand said.

“
Our
kind . . .” Jacob said. “So this isn’t
just
about Jill’s
healing ability.”

“
No,” Gilfand said.
“That’s part of it, but this is an assault on all fairy-kind. Their
intention is the take to the boys, both of them, and use
them.”

Jacob’s hands went instinctively to his
heart.

“
How much time do we
have?” Delphie asked.

“
A while,” Gilfand said.
“One of our kind is with the fairy-child you call Katherine. And
Jillian is strong, stronger than you think. The boys are in contact
with her. She will slow things down and wait for us. We have
reinforcements in the room if things go bad.”

Jacob nodded.

“
Everything depends on our
task,” Gilfand said. “Find the queen, restore Manannán to his
rightful place at her side, and these people will lose all
power.”

“
How did this happen?”
Valerie started.

“
That’s the question,
isn’t it?” Gilfand shrugged.

“
I’d like to know why,”
Jacob said.

Gilfand nodded.

“
It’s connected to what
we’re doing here,” Delphie said. “We started this; now they have
responded. We need to finish.”

Delphie took off toward the top of the
mountain. Jacob jogged after her. They scanned the area
together.

“
There!” Delphie
said.

Jacob lifted a boulder ten feet away.
Valerie ran to retrieve the rib.

“
There!” Delphie
said.

Jacob raised the boulder she indicated and
one nearby. Valerie grabbed the ribs.

“
How many is that?”
Delphie asked.

“
Eight,” Valerie
said.

“
Two more,” Jacob
said.

“
Think about it,” Delphie
said. “Ten ribs? No way. There’s twelve a side.”

“
There have to be four
more,” Valerie said.

Jacob looked at Delphie and then glanced at
Valerie.

“
I don’t see them,” Jacob
said.

Gilfand sneezed.

“
They must have used the
elder tree,” Jacob said.

“
We can do this,” Delphie
said. “Let’s get what we can find.”

“
Val.” Jacob pointed to
two boulders on the other side of the mountain. She ran to them. He
lifted the boulders and she retrieved two more ribs.

“
Are you certain, Oracle?”
Gilfand asked.

“
Yes,” Delphie said. “I
just don’t know where they are.”

“
In the center of the
fort,” Valerie said. “It’s the only thing that makes sense. We’ve
found the ribs they used to fortify the fort wall. They’d leave
some at the center to protect the fort.”