“Where has the party gone?” Purdue smiled.
Bernard got up, groaning as he flattened the creases in his clothing. “It is getting rather late,” he told Purdue. “Much as I would like to stay, I do have an early morning engagement.”
“That is a pity,” Purdue replied, feeling the sudden loss of merriment getting to him. He was honestly enjoying the evening. “One more for the road then? My night staff could pack you some of the feast while you have a nightcap. What say you?”
“Nah,” Bernard said. “It is a good offer, but if I do not leave now I will never get out of here.”
“With all the alcohol in your system?” Purdue persisted.
“He drives just fine, even with jet fuel in his system,” Ava sighed. “I, on the other hand, am not planning to go anywhere.”
Bernard and his sister briefly glanced at one another in silence, waiting for Purdue’s response.
“Good!” the billionaire cheered. “Ava, of course you can stay the night. I have a dozen spare rooms for you to choose from.”
“Thank you,” she smiled, leering at her brother.
“Fine,” Bernard said. “You stay if you want.”
He shook Purdue’s hand. “My friend, it has been an insightful and superb party. It was an honor to sit at this table with our best client yet. Regrettably I really have to leave.”
“Certainly,” Purdue accepted the accolade, especially now that the beautiful Ava agreed to stay. Somehow, Bernard’s departure did not feel so heavy anymore. “We will have another powwow soon, I promise.”
Ava heard her brother’s car fade into the darkness. With Sam gone, choosing to leave with the historian, Ava settled for the king of the castle. At least she could enjoy the spoils of her efforts to consolidate any form of relationship with David Purdue without interference from another woman.
“Now, isn’t that a shame that they all have to leave,” she teased openly when the tall master of Wrichtishousis entered the warm room.
“Terrible pity,” he played along, making a beeline for her. Ava stood in front of the hearth, her body accentuated by the fire. It was only when Purdue came closer to her that he realized that her fingers were undoing her blouse buttons. Her actions earned absolutely no protest from him. He closed the tall doors that barred the entrance to the great hall, and turned to find her waiting on the table, sipping red wine.
“I might not be the ordained of the Brits, but tonight I shall conquer the most powerful territory of all,” Purdue recited playfully as he neared the nude beauty. “Does that not make me king after all?”
23
Crow’s Nest Sense
On the M8, Sam and Nina cautiously rushed without drawing attention to the speed at which they were traveling. It was Friday midnight, so the traffic cops would be having a busy night already. Luckily, the highway made allowances for higher speeds possible.
She had spent most of the road telling Sam about the odd friendship she had cultivated with the young boy, Brian Callany. Sparing no small detail, but still keeping it concise, she told Sam about the school project. She told him about the boy and her torc, his encounter with the deadly bolt of lightning which he walked away from without injury and how the boy was frantic about his grandfather finding out about the scabbard.
“All I can gather now,” she sighed, “is that his grandfather stole the bloody thing. That is why he would be so pissed if he found out his grandson found it. Imagine how you would fume. You steal a precious artifact in hopes of selling it, and your grandson walks into the public with the thing and shows it to everyone. I would kill him too, for jeopardizing my criminal ends like that.”
“Alright, so you believe that this sheath the boy has is the real Warkadur. I get that. But now, tell me why I am cruising down the M8 to another city like a madman, when I could have been sipping a single malt with Purdue,” Sam inquired, still bewildered.
“The message I received on my phone,” she explained, sniffing. Nina wiped her eyes with a tissue and looked out the window, clutching her phone in both hands.
“What is it? Jesus, you look like a lottery winner with the wrong ticket, you know?” Sam urged her to share what upset her so. “I take it this is about the young lad. Is he okay? Is he dead? Just tell me what is directly causing you to cry, love.”
“This message,” she choked on her emotions. “It is Brian. He is calling me from his mother’s cell phone. She… he says… two men took his grandmother and his mother while he was hiding, Sam.”
“Holy shit!” Sam gasped. “What, just now?”
She shook her head, dabbing with the tissue. “Yesterday night, or, well, this morning dark sometime.”
“And he only calls you now?” Sam frowned. “Does he know why?”
She shrugged. “He says nothing about his grandfather. I was there until this time, round about, and the guy still did not come home.”
“Oh my God,” Sam grunted. “Could it be he is the reason?”
“That is what I am thinking,” she replied, sounding a bit more stable now that she could actively hypothesize a bit with Sam. Now, at least, it felt as if someone is proactively helping her sort this out.
“Did he say where to find him?” Sam asked.
“Aye,” she affirmed. “The schoolyard. I have no idea why he has not gone to the police.”
“Perhaps he trusts you more?” he comforted her. “Do not worry yourself. We will be there in a jiff.”
At just before 1am, Sam pulled into the small drive that ran along the back of Gracewill Primary, looking for the ‘skew tree’ the boy told Nina to come to.
“Nina, I do not want to sound like a nay-sayer, but this reeks of an ambush to me,” Sam warned. “Did the kid tell you how he got here, why he did not tell the police, shit like that?”
“No,” she answered. She looked at Sam. “Jesus, no, Sam. Did I lead us into an ambush? Who would be looking to nail us? We have not fucked with anyone shady in almost a whole two months.”
Sam had to smile at her casual assessment of the peril in their lives. He shrugged. “I just do not see why he would call you and not the cops. Surely they would be closer to his home, right?”
Nina began to panic. “Turn around then,” she agreed. “You are right. It is just a voice mail. They could be holding the boy at gunpoint or something.” She gave it pause. “Then again, if that is the case, shouldn’t we do something to help?”
“You told us at the mansion that someone is in hospital,” Sam reminded her. “What was that all about?”
“I had to make it sound urgent and serious without alarming our new friends for no reason, so I made it up.” She scoffed. “I could hardly tell everyone that a schoolboy called me to meet him at his school’s prefab classrooms in the middle of the night because his family has been kidnapped. Even less so because of the scabbard he said he had with him, the very scabbard of which we heard a horrendous fiction tonight.”
“Touché,” Sam said, but he still did not trust the circumstances of this exercise.
Suddenly a small, pale child stepped out in front of the 4x4. Sam’s high beams blinded the boy, but she stood still, wincing.
“Jesus!” Sam roared and slammed on the brakes. His hand instinctively drew back the hammer on his gun as the dust particles impaired view of the area around the truck. He could hear Nina gasping, waiting for the dust to clear before she jumped out.