“Is that him?” Sam asked her. She nodded. “Just wait. We have to make sure there is nobody stalking from behind the car to ambush us when we got out.”
“Aye,” Nina panted heavily. Her dark eyes glimmered in the dashboard light as she sought the dust cloud for signs of the child. Gradually the tan colored puff sank into the road, wiped away by the black night and the truck’s headlights. “Brian?” she bellowed from the inch of window she had wound down.
“Tell him to come to the truck and get in, Nina,” Sam cautioned. “Do not get out and keep your door locked. I will unlock his when he gets in.”
“Honey, get in the truck,” she told the boy. Dragging the ever-present scabbard with him, Brian reacted briskly enough, although she could see that he had suffered a head wound and was clearly dehydrated. With his hand firmly on the butt of his gun, Sam unlocked the rear passenger door for the child, surveying the surrounding area as he did.
With a smooth leap, the child jumped into the back seat, lugging in the huge sheath with much effort. “I’m in,” he told them and with a click, the mechanism locked his door. Sam looked at Nina. “Now what? Where do we go?”
“To the police, of course,” she replied.
“No! No, Miss Nina!” Brian objected.
Nina rolled her eyes back in frustration. “Here we go again.”
“No, really, Miss Nina, the police will give me to them,” the boy explained.
“How do you know?” Sam asked. The child hesitated, having no idea who the dark stranger was. “I only talk to Miss Nina.”
“Really?” Sam snapped back. “Then how’s about you get out of my truck and use that big mouth to get you out of trouble, hey?”
“Sam!” Nina groaned. “Jesus, he is just a child.”
“Aye, and children should not give their elders any shit, I say,” he retorted. Nina knew that Sam was the more tolerant of the two of them, and if he was intolerant, it was a miracle that the feisty Nina was not. She looked back at Brian.
“Sam is a very close friend of mine, Brian. You can trust him completely,” she vouched for Sam to keep the peace.
“Is he your boyfriend?” Brian asked.
“Aye, I am, laddie. I am Miss Nina’s boyfriend,” Sam teased deliberately, getting that long awaited punch on the arm.
“Why can we not go to the police, then?” she asked Brian.
“The men who were at my house made my mother go to the police to report me missing, Miss. I saw them waiting right behind her while she reported it, to make sure if I go to the police, they can catch me and take the scabbard, Miss. I was almost walking in there too, but then I saw them,” Brian recounted in a quivering voice. “They have mum and grandma, Miss Nina. I cannae find out where grandpa is.”
“Why did it take you so long to contact me?” she asked him, as Sam pulled the vehicle out of the back road and into the eastern street block.
“I fell, Miss,” he explained to Nina. “That dizzy came back and I fell with my head against something in the bath, so I only woke up a few hours ago.”
“And you brought the scabbard with you because…?” Sam inquired.
“It keeps me safe, sir,” Brian replied. “Every time I have this sheath on I cannot get hurt. Well,” his eyes fell to the floor, “I get hurt, but not dead.”
“Warkadur,” Nina whispered furtively to Sam.
He looked at her with a frown. “You think?”
“Sam, I can almost guarantee it,” she confirmed. “What I have seen… let us just say I am not surprised that these men have gone to such lengths.”
“So where are we going?” Sam asked. “I am still just driving around here.”
“Brian, did they mention where they are taking mum?” she asked the boy.
“I don’t know, Miss Nina. They spoke another language, but I heard grandpa’s name, so they were probably looking for him?” Brian guessed, holding on to the scabbard.
Nina had to think quickly. Having a missing child with them can have criminal implications. “High risk situation,” she said out loud. “But we cannot leave him anywhere.”
“Wrichtishousis?” Sam asked.
“No,” she disagreed. Nina swept her hair back over her ear and tried to think. “We have to find out what these people want, and we will not know until they find Brian.”
“Christ, Nina,” Sam hissed quietly. “You cannot use him as bait! Are you daft?”
“Look, as long as he wears that scabbard, nothing can harm him,” she argued.
“Are you out of your fucking mind?” he raved. “Do you actually believe that?”
“I know what I have seen, Sam,” she rejoined.
“No,” Sam objected. “Fuck this. We are going to my place first. Find out what the big deal is about this relic. If these people are after Brian’s grandfather, why are they looking for the boy? I think he has something they want.”
They drove back to Edinburgh, hoping to keep Brian’s face out away from the public eye until they could figure out who the people were looking for him, the people who thought it acceptable to kidnap his family. Brian had fallen asleep. Exhausted, he finally caved to the rocking of the vehicle on the long highway. In silence, save for the odd words, Nina and Sam drove back to Edinburgh to get Brian out of the direct harm due to his affiliation with Court Callany.
“Listen, can we just crash first and try to sort this out tomorrow?” Nina asked Sam.
“Of course,” he said. “Besides, there is nothing any of us can do right now. Let me just call Purdue and let him know we managed. Can I tell him about the kidnapping?”
“We have to tell him. I have a feeling we are going to need Purdue to sort this clusterfuck out. There is something about this scabbard business that tells me they are after Excalibur,” she speculated. “Why would they kidnap an entire family and threaten a child for something his grandfather did?”
“Tomorrow we will all have fresh minds,” Sam said. He stopped his truck in front of the complex where he lived and called Purdue. While Nina and the boy went into his apartment, Sam waited for Purdue to pick up, but only his voicemail was active. “Hey Purdue, just checking in to tell you we have collected Nina’s friend from Glasgow. Listen, tomorrow first thing, call me. We have a problem and we need your help.”
24
Lost
To Sam’s dismay, Nina elected to sleep in the living room with Brian, leaving him abandoned in his cold, big bed.
“I cannot believe Purdue is the only one scoring tonight,” Sam moaned.
“He is a child, Sam,” she whispered. “I cannot let him sleep alone on the couch like that. We can catch up on… pleasantries… once he is safe again. Come on. He is terrified and lonely.”
“And apparently invincible,” Sam reasoned like a juvenile. Had Nina not been so annoyed with his whining and insensitivity to Brian’s plight, she may well have found Sam’s argument cute — and valid.
“Just tonight. Tomorrow night, if I am still in Edinburgh…” She tried to finish the sentence, but Sam’s lips locked over hers. It had been too long since he spent some time with Nina, other than babysitting strangers and attending mutual parties.
“There is someone by the window,” Brian said suddenly, breaking things up and pissing Sam off to the fullest. The boy was standing in the corridor, looking through the open door of Sam’s bedroom. In his arms, he held Bruich. The cat was completely content in Brian’s embrace.
“That is my cat,” Sam sneered.
“Sam, shut it,” Nina whispered. “I will come see what you are talking about.”
She left the room, leaving Sam vexed and frustrated. The boy smiled at Sam before he followed Nina, an open invitation to warfare, in Sam’s opinion. “Where is your stupid scabbard now?”