The Immortal Crown

  Tessa realized then that while Justin was certainly upset about the threat to her, he was just as bothered by the fact that he hadn’t noticed anything at the time of his visit to think this man presented any special danger. And that drives him crazy, she thought. He’s so good at reading people, but he missed this. Anyone probably would have, but he holds himself to a different standard.

  His eyes focused back on the scene at hand, and he seemed to notice Darius for the first time. “Who are you?”

  Darius flinched and then straightened up, doing so in a way that made his long limbs seem unwieldy and in the way. “Darius Sandberg.” After a moment’s hesitation, he extended his hand. “It’s an honor to officially meet you.”

  Justin shook it automatically, recognition lighting his features. “Sandberg. From New Stockholm.”

  Darius’s head bobbed up and down. “I can’t thank you enough for what you did, Dr. March. For my family.”

  “I think you helped me as much as I did you.” As the memories of that grave case returned, Justin added, “I’m sorry for your loss.”

  “Thank you.”

  Justin’s brows knit in a frown. “You aren’t here to thank me in person, are you? Long trip.”

  When Darius faltered, Tessa jumped forward. “He goes to my school. For tertiaries.”

  “Ah.” Justin relaxed. “Another free thinker, huh?”

  “Creative thinker. He was hoping you could help him get an internship,” explained Tessa, now feeling obligated to Darius. “You know, with your Internal Security connections.”

  That brought about Justin’s first smile since returning home. He shook his head. “You don’t want to work for Internal Security. Especially SCI.”

  Darius’s earlier zeal returned. “I want to work for any place I can be useful! Any government branch that’ll let me get a start.”

  Justin shook his head again, and Tessa could tell he was on the verge of politely refusing. After few seconds, though, Justin glanced at Tessa, and his expression softened a little.

  “He saved my life,” she said, guessing what Justin was thinking.

  “I don’t suppose you broke that coatrack, did you?” he asked at last.

  “Justin,” growled Cynthia.

  Darius, not knowing the coatrack’s history, looked startled. “I . . . I don’t know. I’m very sorry if I did. I can replace it.”

  Justin waved off the comment. “Forget it. I’ll see what I can do for you.”

  The euphoria filling Darius’s feature was so cute that Tessa couldn’t help but smile over it—and at the subsequent outpouring of gratitude that obviously discomfited Justin.

  “Thank you, thank you, Dr. March! This means so much! I mean it. You have no idea. Wow. Thank you. And if there’s anything I can do for you . . . wow . . . thank you and—”

  “It’s fine, it’s fine,” interrupted Justin. “If you want to help, stay for dinner, and keep your coatrack handy until I get real security around here.”

  That brought Cynthia back in. “What are you talking about?” she asked warily.

  “Some guy showed up here brandishing a weapon. You think I’m going to leave you guys exposed after that?” Justin demanded.

  His sister put her hands on her hips and tossed her dark hair back. “You just said it was a random attack—and a rarity. You think we’ll be ‘lucky’ enough to get another anytime soon?”

  Justin took his time to phrase a response, and Tessa watched him very closely. He’d once told her that she had observation skills to match his own. She wasn’t always so sure of that, but just then, she was almost certain that Justin had more on his mind than a random dissident. There are other threats worrying him, she realized.

  “Probably not,” he said, almost smoothly enough to convince Tessa. “But do you want to take the chance? You want to take the chance with him?” He nodded toward Quentin, and Cynthia faltered, as Justin had no doubt known she would.

  “What do you have in mind?” she asked. “We’ll hire personal security. Bodyguards.”

  Cynthia’s eyebrows rose. “Did you just use a plural?”

  “You don’t all travel together,” pointed out Justin. “You’re each going to need someone with you.”

  Even Tessa was surprised at that. “Like, all the time?” she asked. “A shadow?”

  Justin stood up. “You’d be surprised how used to it you get. Don’t look at me like that, Cyn,” he warned. “You can make the calls around here on decorating, food, and what, uh, lifestyle choices are allowed in the house, but this one’s all me. None of you are going around unprotected.”

  Tessa had a feeling Cynthia wanted to protest, simply because she was used to contradicting Justin, but she finally gave a nod of acquiescence. It was hard to fight the logic. “Where are you going?” she asked, seeing him move toward the door. “You just got back!”

  Justin held up his hand in farewell and then turned toward the front door. “Off to find someone who’s an expert on security type stuff,” he called

  .

  CHAPTER 4

  Moonlighting

  It wasn’t difficult finding Mae. Many facets of her were still a mystery to Justin, but some things were pretty predictable. After leaving his house, he immediately got on a train for downtown, knowing she’d either be at her place or a bar. When he called her, and she answered with voice-only, he had his answer.

  “Where are you drinking?” he asked promptly. “How do you know I’m drinking?”

  “Because you were instantly sending messages the moment our plane had stream access. You only do that on our trips if you plan on going out afterward.”

  “Well, congratulations on another brilliant deduction. Are you trying to find out where I’m at so you can verify some other amazing guess?”

  “It wasn’t a guess,” he retorted. “And I need to find you so we can talk.”

  There was a moment of heavy silence. Then: “We were stuck on a plane for ten hours. Couldn’t we have talked then? There’s such a thing as personal space, you know.”

  He sighed, mentally and physically exhausted after the long day of travel. “Something’s happened. Something involving danger and death and all that other stuff you like.”

  She fell into thought again and then yielded. “I’m at Brownstone.”

  “Where is it?”

  “Really? There’s a bar in the greater Vancouver area you don’t personally know every inch of?”

  “Man, you’re in a bad mood,” he grumbled. “I’ll look it up. See you soon.”

  A quick check on his ego told him Brownstone was a bar frequented by military personnel, due to its proximity to a train stop used exclusively for traveling to the base just outside the city limits.

  Justin uneasily wondered if he might be walking into a praetorian drinking party. Mae’s two regular sidekicks, as Justin thought of them, could be trying enough, let alone when they were en masse with others. No use worrying about it now, he supposed. And, for all he knew, maybe they’d have recommendations on this latest complication in his life.

  He was still blown away that Antonio Song, the devotee of Mithras who’d attacked Tessa, had proven that unstable and vindictive. Justin had meant what he said about these sorts of retaliations being rare. Most shut-down churches blamed the government as a whole, not its individual servants. And Justin had also meant it when he said this was just a random, routine zealot. He didn’t believe Song was part of some larger conspiracy or one of the dangerous elect Mama Orane had warned about. Song was a fluke, but he was a fluke that had driven home to Justin just how great the potential for harm this job presented. Enough supernatural sightings and trips to the provinces had reinforced the dangers of his work. He’d accepted it, just as he’d accepted Mae as his shield from those threats.

  But having his family targeted? It was a startling and disturbing revelation, especially in light of this “war of the elect.” And from what he knew, there were just as many elect and godly devotees walking
the RUNA as the provinces—maybe more, considering Geraki had told him the religious vacuum the RUNA had maintained for so long was opening itself up to divine influences. If elect were willing to attack other elect they considered threats, then loved ones of the enemy could be a starting tactic. Song might be a nobody in the grand scheme of things, but he was a warning of what could be much more dire things to come.

  Mae was easy to spot when Justin got to Brownstone. There weren’t a lot of castals in the military, and her light features stood out among the predominantly plebeian soldiers. More than half of the bar’s patrons were in uniform, mostly the gray and maroon of the regular military. There were a few black-clad praetorians among them though, creating spots of shadow in the cheery environment. Even off-duty, the regular military moved deferentially around them.

  Two such praetorians were sitting with Mae: Valeria Jardin and Linus Dagsson. Justin paused near the bar’s doorway as he studied the threesome. Just as he’d known he’d find Mae in a bar, he knew she wasn’t actually here to drink. Praetorians couldn’t get drunk, at least not on the stuff a place like this served. Their implants metabolized regular alcohol too quickly. Mae wasn’t here for the drinks or the establishment. She was here for her friends. She always returned to them after a case, taking therapeutic comfort from them, even if she didn’t ever discuss many of her cases’ details. The dynamic she had with them fascinated Justin, both because solitary Mae wasn’t nearly as close to her biological family and because Val and Dag seemed like such opposites for a highborn Nordic girl.

  And because you’re jealous, said Horatio. She bears her heart to them but not to you.

  Neither of those things is true, Justin retorted. She has walls within walls that not even those two have seen through. And I’m not jealous.

  You could’ve had a more exalted place in her heart, said Magnus.

  And at our master’s knee.

  I don’t need either of those things, Justin said. But he couldn’t help but feel a little wistful as he noticed the rare ease with which Mae sat in her chair, elbow propped on the table and chin resting in her hand as she smiled at some wild story Dag was telling her. There was still tension in her, of course. There was always tension in her. Just now, though, it was about as low as he’d ever seen, excepting their ill-fated one night stand. And as he approached the table, Justin watched her normal tension return as her blue-green gaze settled on him. Her companions, sensing the change in her, immediately turned to him as well.

  A grin lit Val’s face. “Dr. March,” she said, going so far as to stand up and kiss him on the cheek. “And here I thought suits like you didn’t go slumming with the likes of us.”

  “Suits don’t usually get invited,” he explained. Although she’d been joking, Justin noticed that he was, in fact, the only person literally wearing a suit in there, earning a few curious glances. He might as well have stamped BUREAUCRAT on his forehead.

  “Well, then, consider yourself with a standing invite,” declared Dag, spreading his hands grandly. “Especially if you can get IS to pick up our tab.” Whereas Val was small and—deceptively—fragile looking, Dag was a schoolgirl’s dream of muscles and rugged looks.

  “I don’t see why not,” said Justin, bringing up the table’s ordering panel. “I can get them to pick up everything else.”

  “So where’s all the death and danger that you mentioned?” asked Mae pointedly.

  Justin finished his order and turned off the panel. “At a police station, vanquished by a coat rack. For now.”

  He told them the story as it had been told to him and watched as another transformation took place in the praetorians. The jovial, laidback expressions vanished, as did the smiles. Calling Mae tense earlier had been a mistake because that was nothing compared to the rigid posture that now seized her. Even for a fight long since passed and far away from them, the praetorians’ implants sprang to life, filling their bodies with adrenaline and other fight-or-flight chemicals.

  “She’s okay?” demanded Dag, when Justin finished. “Our girl’s okay?”

  Justin wondered when Tessa had become “our girl.” By Justin’s count, she and Dag had met twice, the first being a particularly traumatic time when she’d been dragged home after she and drunken friends had trespassed on federal property. Dag had led her to believe she was in more trouble than she was, going so far as to suggest she’d be sent to a girls’ reform camp. Their second meeting, a chance run-in downtown while Justin’s family was out to dinner, had mostly consisted of Dag asking her how her camp application was coming.

  But he and even Val looked fiercely protective as Justin assured them Tessa had survived the incident unscathed. Mae didn’t ask about Tessa, not because she didn’t care, but because she knew Justin wouldn’t be here if anything was wrong with Tessa.

  “And he was just some random zealot?” Mae asked. Justin met her eyes, knowing what she was really asking: did the attack have anything to do with the elect and the divine “game” being waged?

  “Random,” he confirmed. “Just some upset guy who got it into his head to come after the servitor that shut him down. But next time— well. Who knows?”

  He left it at that and could tell from her face that she understood. “So what now?” asked Dag. His face brightened. “You want us to go rough him up a little?”

  Val nodded in agreement. “We can scare the shit out of him if you want. Make sure he never messes with you again.”

  “I don’t think he will anyway, but thanks for the offer.” Justin paused to accept a glass of bourbon from their waitress. “I am, however, concerned about other malcontents coming and calling on my family. I think I’m overdue at looking into security for them and figured I should ask the person—well, people—who know it best. I mean, I’m sure IS has people—”

  “Screw that,” said Dag. “You don’t want government contractors involved. They’re just watching the clock. I mean, they’re fine if you’re just some rich person worried about your house, but with your job? You’re dealing with some serious shit.”

  He doesn’t know the half of it, said Horatio. “So your suggestion is?” asked Justin.

  Dag held up his hands. “Us.”

  The amazing part was that he looked perfectly serious. Justin shook his head. “Right. Because you don’t have any other job to do.”

  “We’re on capital duty,” said Val. “We have nine hour work days. We need to do something else with the other fifteen. Moonlighting’s as good a thing as any.”

  With the way Mae tended to keep her friends close to her, Justin would’ve expected some protest. Amazingly, she looked as though this were perfectly reasonable. “I have to stay with him.” She nodded her head at Justin. “And there’s only two of you and three of them.”

  “You know we can get another Scarlet to help.” Val looked truly inspired. “Hell, we could get a bunch of them. Do kind of a rotation for when our shifts don’t line up.”

  “Whoa, hang on,” said Justin, unable to believe this was still going on. “I don’t think I can afford a whole ‘bunch’ of moonlighting praetorians.”

  “Oh, we’d do it for Finn,” said Dag. For a moment, Justin thought he’d actually said “fun” instead of the praetorians’ pet name for Mae. “We take care of our own.”

  It was a weird bit of logic—that Justin had somehow become part of that inner circle. If, say, they’d been talking about protection for Mae’s sister and nephew, Justin didn’t doubt they’d have the Scarlets and every other praetorian cohort ready to help. It was hard to believe they’d go out of their way for someone like him.

  “We can’t base their protection solely on when capital praetorians are between shifts,” said Mae. “He’s going to have to hire out someone—just to have a regular person on hand. The Scarlets could be pulled out without notice.”

  “There are agencies for that,” said Justin.

  “No agencies,” she said. “Unless you can find someone that’s ex- military looking for secur
ity work. They’re out there. Probably a number of them in this bar, even.” She glanced around as though the lucky candidate might come strolling right up to them. “But you’ll have to advertise and do interviews. Well, I’ll advertise and do interviews.” The look on Mae’s face said that she expected, if left to his own devices, that he’d end up hiring call girls.

  The three praetorians soon seemed to forget about him as they threw themselves into making plans. They compared Dag and Val’s schedules to Justin’s family’s and began working out a system where there’d always be one person on duty in the house at night, and then individuals to escort various family members to their respective schools throughout the day. Mae even worked herself into the rotation, volunteering to come over tonight and do the all-night watch. Justin nearly protested that, seeing as she’d barely gotten back into town, but he thought it might break his family into this new system a little easier if they dealt with Mae before the others. As it was, Tessa would probably have a panic attack being under the same roof as Val or Dag.

  “If I can get an ad up tonight, maybe I can do interviews tomorrow or the next day,” said Mae, letting Justin back into the conversation. “We’re good for that long, right?”

  “Should be,” he said. “Nassau ran longer than they expected. We should have at least the next two off and then stay domestic for a while.” It was one nice side to their job, at least. When they went away for a long provincial trip, they could usually count on local assignments upon returning.

  “Listen to you guys,” said Dag, eyes shining. “Tossing around Nassau like it’s no big deal. You’ve been to more provinces with March these last few months than I’ve been to in my whole military career. I wouldn’t mind dropping in on one of your trips if you ever need help.”

  That’s it, Justin realized. That’s why they’re helping. They’re bored. Praetorians are proud to serve in their capital, but it’s a lot of show, and they’d rather be fighting. They’re hoping helping me will send a little more action their way.