Chapter 14

The VIP suite was actually the penthouse on the roof of the building. It was a large, air conditioned space consisting of a spacious main room with a bar, a small kitchen, and two separate bedrooms with individual baths. There was a hot tub outside on the patio with a fine view of the city. After showing us all of the amenities, the young man withdrew leaving us to our own pursuits.

"Wards!" was the first words out of our mouths, and we sat on the main room floor and began casting out protective wards around the VIP suite. We had done this often enough by now that it was quickly finished, especially since we were the only ones who would be passing through them.

Following that, we looked around the suite some. There was a large television, but we had no idea what would be showing on a Tuesday night in this strange town. Plus we hadn't kept up with the current programming, as we seldom watched it. Sean checked out the bar and found some O'Connell's Irish Ale, but we only split two bottles between the four of us, as we had work to do tomorrow.

Annie and Sara checked the bedrooms, which were huge, and their attached baths. They were especially impressed with the large selection of lingerie available for their use.

Since we expected a busy day tomorrow, and it was already past 10:30, we opted to retire for the night. After a long leisurely shower, Annie tried on some of the provided lingerie, but found all of it too large for her. She finally came to bed in a sheer dressing gown that she had used the shrinking spell on so that it fit her.

We cuddled, kissed, and hugged for a time after that before I peeled the gown off of her, as I liked her better naked. She liked being naked with me too, as she knew what it led to. It certainly did this time, as we pleasured each other into a state of blissful exhaustion.

"We'll be sixteen soon," I told her as she cuddled into me after we finished. "I'll see if our parents will allow Brian to marry us then," I finished.

"Oh yes, Gus. I want to marry you as soon as possible. With what is coming, we probably wouldn't be able to get a marriage license from the government, or be married in a church like normal people," Annie said softly, as she teared up. I held her to me even closer, and my sweet Annie soon dozed off after a few minutes.

I lay awake for a time holding Annie. I thought about what being married to her would be like, but a terrible thought came to me then. What would it be like if something were to happen to my Annie? What if she was hurt. or even worse died? How could I go on without this sweet wonderful girl as part of my life? I made up my mind then that I would do anything to keep Annie safe. No matter what it took.

Suddenly I found myself at the altar in the mountains with the flames of our power source leaping high into the nighttime sky.

"Do not worry, young Aengus. You and your family are my representatives on Earth and all of its realms. I will allow nothing to harm you or your family. Rest easy and sleep now," the voice from the flames assured me.

We awoke in the morning well rested. I didn't say anything to Annie about my worries, or what the Eternal Flame had told me. Despite the air conditioning, we needed another shower after our activities of last night. After a short shower, a quick use of the cleaning spell on our clothes had us looking presentable again. Well, almost. Looking in the mirror, I decided that I really needed to shave. Sean and I had started shaving several months ago, and now needed to shave once a week or so. It certainly seemed like I had just done that, but here I was in need of a shave again. There were shaving supplies in the bathroom, and Annie stayed and watched me while I shaved.

We came out into the main room to the sound of someone tapping on the front door of our suite.

"Who can that be?" Sara asked, as she and Sean joined us.

"I don't know, but I guess we should find out," I answered, as I headed for the door. I used the word and made the sign that drop the wards before I opened the door. The other three were behind me about ten feet or so and had already joined hands.

Opening the door revealed two women standing there. One was older, perhaps forty or so. She was rather tall and thin with brown hair and blue eyes. The other woman was younger, maybe twenty-five, and shorter - only a little taller than Annie. She had blond hair and gray eyes.

"Can I help you?" I asked, still holding the door.

"What are you children doing in here? Where are the four Master Sorcerers?" the tall woman demanded.

"WE!" I said, putting emphasis on the word, "Are the four Master Sorcerers."

"But ... but!" the tall woman sputtered before getting a hold of herself. "I'm Mrs. Kelley, the housekeeper, and this is Fianna, the maid," she said pointing to the younger woman... "We have brought your breakfast and will tidy-up the suite," Mrs. Kelley finished. I stepped away from the door.

"Come in," I said.

"Why were we unable to enter the suite? My key didn't work and we even had trouble knocking on the door," Mrs. Kelley asked, resentfully.

"We put up our own wards last night before going to bed," Sara told her, as the maid, Fianna, wheeled in a cart with several serving dishes, china, and silverware on it.

"Wards - up here!?" Mrs. Kelley asked somewhat shocked. "The building is already protected."

"Not as much as we prefer," Annie told her quietly.

"That's what we're here for - to reinforce the wards," Sean told her.

"OH!" she said. "No wonder my spell just bounced off of them."

"Yes, the spells from the Council couldn't get through them last night either," Sara told her with a smile.

"We'll have your breakfast ready in a minute. Is there anything else that you require?" Mrs. Kelley asked on recovering from what Sara had told to her.

"No, we're just waiting for Master O'Hennessy," I told her, as she and the maid set out the china and silverware before serving breakfast. The meal wasn't bad, but I didn't think it was as good as what our Moms prepared. Shortly after breakfast, Master O'Hennessy appeared.

"Did you young people have a good rest last night?" he inquired.

"Yes, we had an excellent time last night," Sara assured him with a large smile on her face. I was sure that Sean had set the privacy spell last night, as I had. It had become a habit.

During this time Mrs. Kelley was frantically signaling Master O'Hennessy. He quickly excused himself to speak to her.

"Mrs. Kelley is anxious about something. Let me check on what it is?" he asked. Mrs. Kelley pulled him into the little kitchen for privacy, but it did little good against two inquisitive female Masters. Annie and Sara both chanted a spell with hands clasped, and we could hear what they were saying. It was in Gaelic, but we understood all of it.

"There was practically nothing on the surveillance tapes this morning," Mrs. Kelley was telling Mr. O'Hennessy. "There was their entry and them being shown around. They said 'Wards' and sat on the floor. The rest of the tape was blank, no video or audio. The system is working, but it recorded nothing!" She sounded really upset. "We couldn't get in either. I tried knocking on the door with my hand and got burned knuckles for my trouble. We had to use a wooden stick to tap on the door and even it created sparks," Mrs Kelley finished, very upset.

"I'm sure there weren't any more sparks then when the entire Council tried to crash their wards last night, Cathleen. They tried three times and couldn't affect them, " Mr. O'Hennessy finished with a smile at her reaction.

"The entire Council!?" she asked in shock. "But how? They're just children!"

"They may be young, but they are very powerful, especially together. I get the feeling that none of us would want to go up against them even singly, " Mr. O'Hennessy finished and turned to return to the main room with the housekeeper behind him. Our girlfriends quickly canceled the eavesdropping spell.

"Where were we?" Mr. O'Hennessy asked when he returned.

"You had asked how our night was," Sara told him.

"Hum ... yes. We discussed the requirements for the building last night after you departed. This is what we finally agreed on... ," he told us. The next ten minutes or so were spent hearing their agreement, and discussing how the wards would be configured. It wound up being very similar to what we had set up for the building that our printing plant and stores occupied. This building was larger and would require a bit more time to ward properly. I wondered how long it had taken them to reach a consensus, knowing how the Irish love to argue.

"Where would you like to start?" Mr. O'Hennessy asked once everything had been settled.

"We'll start in the Council chamber. It will have the heaviest wards set permanently. We'll do the restricted areas of the building next, and the open access areas last. We should be finished by this evening," I told him.

"So soon?" he asked in surprise.

"Yes, we've been doing this a lot lately. It took us two days to do the entire exterior perimeter surface of the Otherworld," Sean told a very shocked Mr. O'Hennessy.

"The entire... !!" he said, and seemed to be lost in surprise for several minutes after that. We stood there patiently and waited while he recovered.

"I'll take you down to the council chambers," he said when he had recovered somewhat from the previous revelation.

"That's not necessary!" I told him, as we joined hands and with a word and a sign we appeared in the underground Council chamber with a very surprised Senior Master.

"How? This chamber is warded! You shouldn't be able to do that! Lord, no wonder my friend didn't want to discuss your certification!" Master O'Hennessy said.

"Oh, we took them to Colorado," Sara said in passing with a giggle.

"From the Otherworld?" he asked. "I didn't know that they had a portal to a destination there."

"They don't," Annie said quietly. "We took them there." Master O'Hennessy was too shocked to reply and just stood there for several seconds before shaking his head in disbelief.

"I'll leave you to your work," he said at last. "If anyone questions you, just tell them to call me, but I don't think you'll have any trouble," he finished before winking out of existence. We sat down and got to work.

We were stopped once as we went about our work that day, but mention of Master O'Hennessy's name immediately cleared the way. Apparently the word had gotten out. We weren't sure if it was from him or from Mrs. Kelley, who we believed was a part of their security force.

We ended the afternoon in the VIP suite as we rearranged the wards that we had placed there last night. Master O'Hennessy found us there as we were finishing up.

"You're hard to keep up with," he told us, as he entered the suite.

"We're just finishing," Sean told him, as we all rose from the floor. We went over all of the different levels of the spells with him, and the words and signs to activate, or deactivate them to ensure that there would be no trouble with their operation.

"We haven't finished the list yet," Master O'Hennessy told us. "We'll have it hand delivered to you when it's finished. After what you said last night, we no longer trust our phones or the internet. They are too easy for an unscrupulous Government to tap. We'll use couriers and look into the old mirror spells to see if we can use them. If we can get them to work, the Government shouldn't be able to tap them," Master O'Hennessy told us before we bid him adieu and used our transport spell to return home.

When we reached home on Wednesday evening, we were hoping to get a short break. The Boston Council certainly hadn't provided one, despite what our Dad had said. Our hopes were dashed during dinner when our Moms reminded us that we hadn't done our school work for Wednesday because we were in Boston.