Chapter 27: Another Monday

There should be a law against Mondays. Except when the wake-up call is a sweet voice whispering in your ear “Hank. Its’ time to get up.” Followed by the imaginary feeling of a warm breath along your neck. And a sweet “Mhmmm. Now get out of bed, lazy bones.”

“CINDY!? Are you here?” I squeaked.

“No silly. You wore your amulet to bed, and we never disconnected. I actually slept with your image in my mind. And I woke up and felt you next to me. Now good morning, lazybones and get out of bed.”

I smiled and thought to myself, “Great, another mother to tell me to get organized.”

“Yes” the disembodied voice next to me said “And you need all the help you can get to get you going. Now get out of bed.”

“Are you going to be with me in my shower?” I asked. “Want me to scrub your back?”

“Hank, there is a limit to what we can do so far. But the memory of the time I was with you here in this room is a pretty good one. No. I think I will leave you for a while. I have some others who I need to talk with.”

“Ok. Be safe, And I love you.”

And I did. I hadn’t much realized how much I missed her before dinner last night. Nagy has a lot to pay for. And I’m coming to collect for everyone.

Four “Ss” later (Shit, Shower, Shave and Shine teeth) and I was walking out the door of my bedroom and almost tripped over Brimstone. Laying across the doorway to the bedroom. The lazy lizard looked up at me and smiled.

“Good morning, Master. Your mood is relaxed. You are not stressed. Yesterday must have been good for you.” Brim’s voice echoed in my head. I could get used to this. Friends and Lovers all in my mind. Need to talk mentally so people don’t think I am crazier than I am.

“Brim, you and the others here have made my life very good. I need to pay you all back.”

“You already have. So, I guess we go to Delores’s office first and then Breakfast?” He asked.

“Yes. And to lay against the fumeral for you, my friend.” I replied. And the image of Cindy’s voice in my mind was echoing all the way down the hall, down the elevator, and into the office for my morning check of mail.

Nothing on the desk. Wow. Nothing as in empty. Even the outbox was empty. Ok. On to breakfast. Before I was captured and chained to signing papers.

I walked into the Lounge at eight o’clock and it was quiet. Oger had coffee and bagels and said scrambled eggs were coming right up. So, I settled into a seat and enjoyed the morning. And after eating and goofing off for a while I wandered out into the Foyer. And bumped into Jeffery.

“Good morning. You escaped kid duty this morning?” I asked.

“Not hardly, Paula is wrestling with the twins right now and we are going to the park. I wanted to talk with Carl and ask if he could take over the gold and silver attraction artifacts for a few days. He said Saturday he wanted to back off of the Volga River for a while.” Jeffery replied.

“I think that’s a wise idea. Besides we can always investigate the German/French border and look over the last hundred years of conflict there. Don’t know how many creeks we can find but there should be a few.” I said. “So, Monday in the park. Sounds like fun.”

“Its’ really a combination fun time and check out things time. I also want to introduce Paula to Aine. He has a meeting with the Dwarves, Setno, Carl and the Goblin coaches for his new role as “Umpire”. He read the rule books on Soccer, Rugby, Lacrosse and some track and field events. He wants to drag the dragonets into work as Field Umpires as well.”

“He has reached out to me. But I need to make sure Hank is safe before I go and play” Brimstone said to both of us.

“How about if I am in the audience?” I asked.

“That would work. When can we go?” Brim asked.

“Let me get my hat and we can go there.”

A quick stop to the fifth floor for my hat and I caught Paula and the twins in a push stroller and got two of the bags as well. My gosh, kids need a lot of support items. Three bags, the stroller, and two giggling babies and we wandered out the Arch and into the park. God it was a great Monday.

Volgograd

“I cannot believe that slut kept an archive of everything her familiars saw or heard for over two hundred years. But now she can’t remember any of it, nor does she know where it is. She carefully drove its’ manufacture with her own mind but now that conveniently does not work anymore. What good is she?” Nagy said.

“George, I only am passing on the question about her living condition. The American Council asked yesterday, and I promised to pass the inquiry on.” Jacque said to his friend. “I thought that they had washed their hands of her at the council meeting, but apparently there is still some interest in her. How is she, by the way?”

“She’s in a Torc collar in the basement under my wine cellar, and she will stay there until I decide what to do with her. What do you care?”

“I only care about the damage she’s done. Just like you. That damn Georgia brat has a absolute lock on powering artifacts and evidently he is building a historical archive. There is no way of telling what is in it without seeing it. And I kept hearing that it was in some sort of “Fae Park” being used. Do you know anything about that?” Jacque asked.

“I don’t know anything about any park. I have some people looking into it, but we have not heard back from them. I may have to follow up with them to get more information. Probably in a couple of weeks. We are busy right now.” Nagy said.

“Well, keep me informed. I am sure you know how much all of us could be embarrassed if this archive ever came into the open.”

“Still no sign of those damn Cossacks. It’s been two weeks and no sign or sound from them. I don’t think the damn Americans can keep something like that quiet if the Cossacks are detected. So I have figure they are either drunk somewhere or hiding. I guess if you want something done right, you do have to do it yourself” Nagy thought to himself. “And I will get right on that this week.”

The Definition of Sport is...

Getting a dragon to understand the limitations of physical mayhem as what can be allowed and what is not was more fun than any Marx Brothers slapstick act. The demonstrations of what constituted fair play and what was not to the satisfaction of elves, dwarves, gnomes, mages and goblins and a twenty-five-hundred-year-old dragon was a comedy that was part slapstick, part fantasy, and totally hysterical. I found out that a body block from a dwarf on a human could fracture bones, and as such they had to be somewhat restrained. No front tackles job for Dwarves. I also found out that most armor was not needed. But everyone loved the amulets that were given out.

Brynstan and Brimstone spent almost a half hour measuring Aine for his chest piece. Bedlow (the dwarf in charge of Rune engraving) was happy to say he had enough jewels and a plate of titanium that would make a great mount. Aine was silently bemused by all of the fuss. Until he remembered that his younger cousins wore that same set of protections. Then it wasn’t so silly.

As the day wore on, I asked Jeffery if it was possible to get together tomorrow with him to sit with Aine to see how we could incorporate him in defense of the park. What were his limitations, his strengths, and how could we bring a reflection of his power to act like artillery.

“Paula, Amelia and William are ready to have some ideas tried. We should look at those for Wednesday and Thursday of this week. Bedlow says he will probably have Aine’s first run of his chest protector ready then. So we can try different things and see what we can do to stop the next set of rats that come crawling out of the woods.” Jeffery said very coldly.

I was a little taken aback by this. “Jeffery, I am happy to see you are as focused on this as I am.”

“Hank. A year ago, I had no idea of this world. Since then, I have been bedded by a wonderful woman, learned that the world is full of wonderful beings, had two children, run an international business along with three of the most talented women I have even heard about, and made some amazing friends. Two of whom were hurt at the beginning of last week, because I didn’t have a defense plan in place. That will not happen again.”

“Copy that. Let’s go get some supper.” I said.

Job switches.

I decided to keep Jeffery and Paula in the office working on Defense strategies. I told Peter to chime in and also asked Riska and Setno look over the plans to have a defense in depth of the park, as well as review what we had for 1030. I admit I was a little scared. But, in the words of a former president, “you are not paranoid if they really are out to get you.”

So Carl and I took over the artifact collection jobs for Gold and Silver dust as well as scouting out places for lead, tin, copper and brass as well. The problem was that our artifacts had to be in fresh water, so that meant that we could not go fishing off the Atlantic or Pacific battlefields. So far, it was Krusk, the Volga river, and that was about it for the European theater or Asia Pac.

Tuesday and Wednesday we hit a mother lode in western Alabama. Gold Mine Road ended at a creek where there was a worked-out mine from the 1830s. Only there was a vein that wasn’t totally worked out. Gnomes have real sensitive noses, and Carl found the top trace of the vein that went over a hundred feet and was up to a foot wide with gold flour embedded in the soil. Don’t know where it came from on the surface, but we managed to get the artifacts to vacuum it up Tuesday night. When we got to two hundred pounds of gold flour, we stopped and marked this as a place to come back to someday. Three million dollars was enough for us for a while.

I have to say, I understand why the gnomes, and the humans love finding and mining. It’s a treasure hunt that pays off immediately. Totally instant gratification. Almost better than sex.

Speaking of which, I got a major discussion kicked off Tuesday evening. With my mental companion, Cindy.

“Hank, you need to get Laid.” She started the discussion off.

“Cindy, I’m doing all right.”

“Eighteen years old, male, healthy, and with the appetite of a Mage and you ain’t got laid in a month. Hank, it’s not healthy. You need a woman.”

“I got all the women, plural, that any man could want.” I said with a smile. “And while I am not in their bodies, I sure am in their minds.”

“You forget, I hear your moans and groans and the emissions you have from your peter in the middle of the night. Have you washed the sheets lately?”

“Yes, I have changed them. I don’t do laundry, since the gnomes took over housekeeping.”

“You are a lazy guy, Hank. But you do need to get some real physical interaction. And no, I don’t mean Judo. And you can’t dance for shit. I swear, for a man with twelve different women all of whom would jump into bed with you in a second, you are almost gay in the avoid the physical behavior.”

“Look, miss, my favorite women are all at school. Wendy, my sister and Carrie are all going to college to get brains to manage this place. They have career plans. They don’t need me to dilute them with my in and out fantasies.”

“Hank, you have five single women living and working there that would jump into bed with you in a heartbeat, plus three others who would stand aside and cheer you on. What is your hangup? Come on. Fess up.”

I sat silent. Maybe she would get bored and move on. She was a teenager, after all.

“Its’ because of Lynn and Bernie, isn’t it? And Me. Hank, I don’t want you to be roadblocked about forming physical relationships because of my situation. You didn’t put me here, and you are working against the odds to get me out. Hank, I am not someone you can grab hold of and hug any more. And probably I won’t ever be. And its’ not your fault. It’s the evil bastards that did this to get to you. If you give up, they win.”

“Cindy, we are going to get you out of there and back to here.”

“And what will I be? A female robot? A newborn with a twenty-year-old mind? Puberty a second time? Not to mention that the sort of biological research that’s needed to clone my old body hasn’t been even started yet, and it’s probably illegal everywhere except China. They make copies of everything. Hank, we were taking about it earlier today. The bets are that it will not be available technology for at least another hundred years, and it will be illegal everywhere except off the coast of China. Or somewhere like it.”

“Cindy, if it’s just a hundred years, it ain’t no big thing. Mage and Wizard life spans are long. Remember? Besides, I have a hundred different things to do first. Hunting pussy isn’t high on my needs list today.” I said. Then I thought about what I had just said. “Cindy, I didn’t ‘“

“Hank, we are closer then you have been to any other person, living or dead. I am not embarrassed by the word pussy. I had one.”

“And a mighty fine one it was too.”

“Not after the drain cleaner got to it. That’s the one thing I really resent. I didn’t get enough action on earth.” Cindy said.

“That’s what the reason is. You want to live vicariously through me, right?” I said with a teasing remark.

“No. No, Hank, I don’t. I don’t want you to kill a piece of yourself because of me or your sister or Lynn. None of us would want that. I don’t want that. I do just want you to remember to take off the amulet before you get into bed with someone else. Some sensations I don’t need to feel and miss.” Cindy said.

I swear, I could hear the wistfulness in her voice inside of my head. Georg Nagy had a lot to pay for. And the bill due. And I was coming to collect.

Thursday Morning

Where the heck has the week gone? Last Monday was the Labor Day holiday, and the kids were now in school, and we had lots of stuff being shipped in and out. The high end furnishing and furniture business was going gangbusters. Apparently, we got on the “Wedding Gifts” registry in NYC, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, and Los Angeles. All of the highflyers were buying all sorts of stuff from our catalogue. Emily LaFontaine, Yana Marenko and the Geas covered Dwarves in Lambert Jewelry were all working full out this week, catching up on orders. I got a message from Arno that the folks in Brazil were working their behinds to the grinder to keep up with multi orders. And they were not cheap things either. We had a Bent wood rocking chair that was backed up six months in orders. There were six gnomes in the furniture store that did measurements of bodies for couches, and Yana was going insane with her suits and formal attire list. Her hardest challenge was making sure that the labels didn’t reflect the source of the designs. It’s tough to explain that stuff is made in Brazil, shipped via gateway, and then loaded onto a truck.

The Jewelry store had agreements to second source through Tiffany’s in NYC and Los Angeles. I estimate that our necklaces were on the throats of most of the Gala attendees this year. I heard that someone was copying one of our designs for some film about a boat sinking. “The Star of the Sea” or some such drivel. Evidently it was such an amazing piece that it got into a bidding war at Southby’s. Our dwarves do some interesting things with jewelry.

Which is why I am standing in a field at ten o’clock in front of a pavilion watching Bedlow fight with Brynstan over fitting a new cuirass on our new resident “Grounds Keeper”. I don’t know about its “protective” quality, but the damn thing had over two hundred jewels outlining the Lambert Crest on a mild silver titanium backing. Runes elegantly ran between, around and across the darn thing in so many forms that it was hypnotic to look at. The light reflecting off of the entire surface was almost blinding, and it almost took your attention away from the front arms, claws and jaws and teeth of the compact mid-sized dragon. Who was amused at the fuss. I was there to do the final fitting of the device to Aine’s personal energy stock. This should allow him to effortlessly draw on and replenish and use the different shields and other tricks we had in in it. Almost making Aine a true Power Mage in his own right.

“Well, I think that’s the best we can get a fit on you, sir” Bedlow said.

“Lord Hank, will you please tune this vest to my uncle?” Brynstan asked.

“Ready, big guy?” I asked.

“Sure. Let’s see how this works.” Aine said.

I reached out to touch the surface of the cuirass, and gently ran my hands along the runes and the edges, and finally toward the middle of the stones set within the Lambert Crest. And it felt warm. Warm like a comfortable old sweater. And suddenly, I felt it expand. Light tendrils along the edges reached out and crawled along Aine’s skin.

“That tickles.” Aine said. “It feels nice, but it tickles.”

The hanging straps fell away from Aine. They fell to the ground, but the cuirass remained on Aine’s chest, as if it was growing into his body. And it did. Slowly from the edges, the scales of the dragon overlapped the edge of the cuirass, growing over it until only a feint glowing Lambert crest was visible below the scales on Aine’s chest.

“Ok. Was that supposed to happen?” I asked the group. Looking at Bedlow, I saw pure shock. Brynstan looked somewhat smug. Aine straightened up flexing his shoulders and wing bases. And scales fell from those wings and his body to the ground, and his color grew darker, and richer and more reflective. Almost a diamond luminescence. And Ain’s eyes changes through colors from red to violet, to yellow and back to the sea green that they were initially. Totally enlarged and totally focused. And deep.

“Aine, are you all right?” I asked.

“My Lord Hank Lambert, I thank you for this wonderous gift. You have tuned this to me so well that it is now a part of me, and I am a part of it. I shall hunger no more for gold, or flesh of fae. I am complete. I am a strong, and healthy, and I am an armored Dragon. I have never been better. I am honored to be your Groundskeeper. I feel that this vocation is my life’s work.”

“Brynstan, you don’t seem as surprised as I am or as Bedlow is. Is there something here that you should have let us know about?” I asked the smiling dragonet (How did I know she was smiling? Not sure.)

“The runes of power are a call to bind power to the Crest on his chest. And to feed that power into his flesh and bone and soul. When you tuned it to him, he accepted it as a part of himself, and it became his power. His power is through you and the power you can find and create. He will feed from that for as long as your accomplishments shall live. Even beyond your life.”

Oooooo Kaaaay. I am not sure how to take this, but I know better than to allow my insecurity to infest what must be a pretty joyous occasion. After all, you only brand a dragon once.

“Ok. Aine, do you feel the power and runes being a part of you?” I asked.

“Lord Lambert, I can feel the entire fields of this place as if it is a part of me. I feel the Fumeral and all of its pure power. I feel the trees, the grass, the streets around me. I feel the empty space of the quarry at my back. I feel the fish in the pond. I sense deer walking in the woods behind us. I feel everything. It’s almost overwhelming.”

“Do you need to sit down?”

“For a moment.”

After a few moments Aine extended his head up and looked around the space. He could clearly see almost all of the five acres of playing fields, the trees, the Pavilion house, and the arch. “Lord lambert, I ask you if we could take ownership of the dead quarry behind us. I feel it needs to be owned. It’s abandoned and the ground seeks someone to own it.”

Ok. Real estate advice from a twenty-five-hundred-year-old lizard. Not bad for a Thursday.

“I’ll put Natalie on it tonight.”

“Thank you. It’s crying for me.”

Oooo Kaaay “What is it saying?”

“Please take me in under your wing.”

“Ok. Enough said. I’ll put Natalie on it now. Aine, do you feel like playing with my friend Brynstan and seeing how this fits your needs?