Larkspur (30 page)

She was gorgeous. Her full breasts pressed
against the buttons of her blouse. His eyes ran from her breasts to
the curve of her hip and down the length of her body. The young man
was right. This was the most alluring woman he’d ever seen. She was
every fantasy he’d ever had wrapped up into one woman. He licked
his lips.

“
Get in here,” Rubén
said.

The man in wool slacks glanced into the room
where Jill was in labor, and then back at Yvonne. The boss had said
he didn’t care what they did with these people. They hadn’t harmed
them because he didn’t want to get charged with murder. Now that
he’d killed the young man, he didn’t have to hold back. The man in
wool slacks nodded to himself.

He’d be a fool not to pluck this plush peach
from this waiting room. He’d bide his time until the moment was
just exactly right. The anticipation made him all the more
aroused.

“
Are you coming?” Rubén
looked into the waiting room. He gestured to the man’s wool slacks,
“Jeez, really?”

The man in wool slacks sneered at Rubén and
followed him into the room.

~~~~~~~~

Friday night — 10:45 p.m. MST

Construction site near airport

Lying face down, Rodney had no idea where he
was.

The ground was hard and cold, and it was
pitch black. He was bone tired and his body hurt all over. His head
felt like it had met the business end of a guard’s baton.

His stomach turned over. Somehow, some way,
he was back in solitary at Cañon City.

He felt a tightening around his heart.
Yvonne was in trouble. He tried to get up, but his head split open
with pain. His precious Yvonne was in terrible danger, and there
wasn’t a damned thing he could do about it. Again.

He wanted to scream. He wanted to cry. But
he was too defeated to do anything but pat the ground with his
hand.

“
Hey!” a tiny voice
said.

Rodney opened his eyes. Standing near the
end of his middle finger was a tiny, pink,
shining . . . something. Insect? Rodney
squinted.

“
Fairy,” the little voice
said. “I’m Abi. At your service.”

The tiny pink insect curtsied. Rodney
groaned. He’d had some weird hallucinations, but nothing like
this.

“
You are at the job site,
Rodney Smith,” Abi said. “Your team needs you.”

“
My what?” Rodney
squinted.

The tiny pink insect raised a long, thin
metal stick with a bright light on the end and swung it around.
Rodney’s head stopped hurting. He closed his eyes and rested his
forehead on the ground.

“
Time to get up,” the pink
insect said. “Stop calling me that.”

“
What?” Rodney asked
without moving.

“
Insect,” Abi said. “I’m a
fairy, a loyal subject of Queen Fand, and your personal fairy — at
least for tonight.”

“
And I need a personal
fairy?” Rodney asked.

“
Everyone needs a personal
fairy,” Abi said.

“
Mmm,” Rodney said. “Well,
tell me, fairy, why is my wife in danger?”

“
She’s quite safe,” Abi
said. Surprised, Rodney lifted his head to look at the creature.
“Her sexual draw has already eliminated one of the men.”

“
What?”

“
They are fighting amongst
themselves,” Abi said.

“
Over Yvie?”

Abi nodded. Rodney chuckled. He rolled over
and sat up.

“
Where am I?” Rodney
asked.

“
Job site,” Abi
said.

“
Why can’t I see
anything?” Rodney asked.

“
The last tremor took out
the generators,” Abi said. “It’s very dark, and your people are
scared.”

“
The military people!”
Rodney jumped to his feet. “They were buried by the
quake.”

“
Don’t worry.” Abi flew up
and landed on his shoulder. She spoke in his ear so he could hear
her. “They were wearing beacons and oxygen tanks. Their fellow
soldiers have almost dug them out. Take a look.”

Rodney walked to the edge of the sinkhole.
The methane fire burned near one end and ten or so headlamps moved
around the hole. The helicopter flew above casting a bright
spotlight for the military people digging their team members
out.

“
Headlamps,” Rodney
said.

“
That’s what they call
them,” Abi said.

“
My team?” Rodney
asked.

“
Scared,” Abi said. “I was
asked to wake you. They need your leadership.”

“
Why?”

“
If we don’t get those men
out of the trailers soon, they will die,” Abi said. “The medics
were knocked off the ends of the trailers. They’ve fallen between
the trailers and are trapped in the mud. Do you know what to
do?”

“
Yes.” Rodney
nodded.

His walkie talkie flew in the air to
him.

“
Where’s that ugly dude?”
Rodney asked. “Looked like something off Notre Dame.”

“
The men are looking into
something,” Abi said. “You’re stuck with me. Oh, and the blue
fairy. She’s over there.”

Abi gestured to where the military people
were digging out their team member. Now that Abi mentioned it, he
could see a distinctive blue glow under the helicopter’s
spotlight.

“
Blue fairy?” Rodney
asked.

“
She always does whatever
she wants,” Abi said. “There’s no reasoning with her.”

Abi smiled. Rodney scowled at her and tried
the walkie talkie. He wasn’t surprised when it didn’t work.

“
Doesn’t work,” Rodney
showed the walkie talkie to Abi. She waved her bright wand, and the
walkie-talkie squawked with static. Rodney smiled his thanks and
adjusted the channel.

“
Get to work!” Abi
commanded.

She laughed at her own efforts. Rodney
smiled at the tiny peel of laughter.

“
This is Rodney,” he said.
“Who’s on the line?”

“
Rodney!” Jerry yelled.
Rodney heard a cheer come up from behind him. “We’re going in after
MJ and Colin.”

“
Nah,” Rodney said. “Let’s
pull them out.”

“
We have no idea where
they are,” Jerry said.

“
They’re wearing beacons,”
Rodney said.

Jerry laughed. After a few minutes, Jerry
yelled, “Let’s pull ’em out, boys!”

Feeling movement on his shoulder, Rodney
glanced around for little pink Abi. She was cheering.

“
What’s next?” Rodney
asked.

“
I’m so glad you asked,”
Abi said. “How would you like to save some men?”

“
You sure my Yvie doesn’t
need saving?”

“
Positive,” Abi said. “I’m
incapable of lying.”

“
Fairies can’t lie?”
Rodney asked.

“
Not us wee ones,” Abi
said. “Lying is too heavy of a weight. We couldn’t fly.”

“
So the big ones are
liars?” Rodney scowled. “I knew it.”

“
Oh no,” Abi
said.

“
What?” Rodney scowled at
the fairy.

“
Fairies pay a heavy price
for lying — big or small.” Abi nodded for emphasis. “It disrupts
our powers and our ability to fly. It’s happened once or twice in
our long history that a fairy gave up his or her powers and wings
to lie and cheat. They always regretted it. But fairy-kind is part
human.”

Abi’s tiny face screwed up with anger.

“
They are liars, cheaters,
cruel, and . . .” With every word her pink glow
became darker and darker. She shook herself like a dog and until
all of the dark light was gone. She gave Rodney a bright pink
smile. “Some of them are not very nice.”

“
You don’t have to tell me
that,” Rodney said.

“
Yes,” Abi said. “Are you
ready?”

“
Ready
for . . .” Rodney started.

Abi pushed him off the edge and into the
dark sink hole below.

~~~~~~~~

Jacob was sitting in a white quartz box in
the back of a cairn on the west coast of the Isle of Man. He could
hear the ocean waves crash against the beach and the rain tap on
the ground outside. Delphie must have said something funny, because
everyone outside the box laughed.

He was supposed to find the fourth section
of Queen Fand’s human body. His mother, Celia, was confident it was
in this cairn. Jacob had crawled through a two-foot hole to get to
this white quartz chamber. The chamber was just big enough for him
to sit with his knees bent and his back against the wall. So far,
he’d found nothing, and intuited less than that. He was using the
time in the box to rest.

Much to his surprise, a phone rang. He
looked around the small compartment until he noticed that one of
the white quartz walls had a new feature—a 1950s-era wall phone
hung on the wall.

“
Hello?” Jacob
asked.

“
Jake? It’s Seth,” Seth
said. “Where are you?”

“
I’m sitting in a cairn
trying to find some bones,” Jacob said.

“
Queen Fand’s human body,
by any chance?” Seth asked.

“
That’s right,” Jacob
said. “How did you know?”

“
Dionne read me the rest
of the kingdom of Marle book,” Seth said.

“
The gargoyles told me the
rest,” Jacob said. “It didn’t help.”

“
The gargoyles could only
tell you what happened,” Seth said. “The book was written to pass
down clues to your task.”

“
What?”

“
A lot of old books were
written not only to pass down what happened, but also to convey how
to fix it,” Seth said. “The monks and storytellers trusted that
there would come a time when someone would be able to right the
wrongs of this world. They left details in the books, and in this
case, they left them in the images in the books.”

“
Images?” Jacob
asked.

“
Dionne’s book is an
original copy of the kingdom of Marle picture book,” Seth said.
“She scanned the books and emailed them to me.”

“
Are you still getting
your blood done?” Jacob asked.

“
Just finished,” Seth
said. “The story tells of the defilement of the queen of
Marle—meaning rape—but the drawings show Celtic people burying
pieces of her corpse around an oblong island.”

“
The Isle of Man,” Jacob
said.

“
Exactly,” Seth
said.

Chapter Two
Hundred and Sixty-six
Hand drawn

“
We’ve found four sites —
well three, because I’m sitting in one and can’t find
it.”

“
Which one?” Seth
asked.

“
West coast,” Jacob
said.

“
So you found the one on
the end?” Seth asked. “Looks to be near a Celtic fort and maybe an
old burial ground.”

“
We found her inside a
Viking ship.”

“
Huh,” Seth
said.

“
Huh what?” Jacob
asked.

“
I guess these drawings
predate the Vikings,” Seth said. There was a shuffling in the
background. “I’d guess they copied them over and over again. I
wonder how old the book is.”

“
Seth,” Jacob said. “I’m
sitting in a stone box looking for bones so that I can rescue my
wife and sons.”

“
Right, right,” Seth said.
“Sorry.”

“
You were telling me where
the bones were placed,” Jacob said.

“
Yes,” Seth said. “There’s
a set under something in a city on the east coast under something
that looks like a white rock obelisk or quite possibly a giant
white penis and testicles.”

“
The White Lady,” Jacob
said. “Yes, we found them and a set of ribs at the fort in the
north, Cronk Surmark.”

“
You’re on the west
coast?” Seth asked. “Devil’s Elbow.”

“
Devil’s
Elbow?”

“
That’s what it’s says
here,” Seth said. “Did you find the white stone room?”

“
White quartz, and it’s a
box,” Jacob said. “I barely fit in it.”

“
It’s a drawing, I can’t
really tell,” Seth said. “The bones are just under the
floor.”

“
Good to know,” Jacob
said. “Where’s the last one? We haven’t been able to find
it.”

“
If you connect the
location of each of the bones, they form . . .,”
Seth said.

“
Celtic cross,” Jacob
said.

“
Right,” Seth said. “The
last set is in the direct center of the cross.”

“
Dad said Manannán is
walking in a circle around the island,” Jacob said.

“
That’s good, because the
author and artists of this book didn’t know his location,” Seth
said. “But it does say you have to ‘raise Manannán’s army’ for him
to return.”

“
Any idea what that
means?” Jacob asked.

“
There’s a drawing of what
looks like ghost cavalry near the tip of the island,” Seth said.
“Just west of the Viking ship.”

“
I’ll ask Jimmy,” Jacob
asked. “These bones in the center of the cross—any idea where they
are?”

“
It says ‘King’s
Forest.’”