“You have a gun. Two, I believe, and I don’t want to know how many knives you have on you.” I had a pistol on me and my kit. I probably wouldn’t need it because I also had a key to Sarah’s apartment.
“I have four knives. And yeah, we’ve got plenty of guns, but C-4’s been hard to come by,” my son admitted as he started down the tunnel. “And I think we left a metric shit ton here. I would get brownie points with Sasha if I brought him back some.”
I followed behind him. It wasn’t that I minded if Lee wanted to steal a little something extra, but I wanted this to go as easy as it could. “That C-4’s been down here for years. How do we know it’s even good?”
“We know because Sasha taught us whole lessons on weapons and how to use them. C-4’s a stable explosive. It’s easy to transport, and with the right amount you can take down a whole building easy-peasy. Papa always bought the good stuff. If there’s C-4 in the basement, it’s still good. I promise I’ll only take some if we’re not busting ass to get out of there.”
My son’s education wasn’t what I’d planned, but it seemed like Sasha and Trent had done their best to prepare them for the world they lived in rather than the one I’d wanted for them. But then I’d probably been naïve about that in the first place. “Papa had some P-90s delivered a couple of weeks…well, twelve years ago. He hadn’t had a chance to use them yet. I’ll grab one or two of those if I can. I didn’t ask you earlier, but how do you think Dean is handling the whole I have to kill my dad thing?”
One big shoulder shrugged. “He told me JT Malone is his dad. Did you know there’s a JT Malone here on the Earth plane? He’s like a billionaire oil guy. I showed Dean a picture of him on the Internet. He said that dude looked exactly like his dad, but on the Vampire plane he’s married to Dean’s mom and here it’s some woman named Nina. I feel bad because according to what we were able to look up, they still don’t know what happened to Dean’s mom. Though apparently there are a couple of true crime podcasts about her.”
“They can’t ever know.” I wished I could send the poor man a letter explaining that the woman he’d known as Dana Johnson was happily married to a vampire version of himself on another plane of existence. Her family had to wonder what happened to her. They would never know she’d had a son and he was here to save them all.
“It makes you wonder how many of those people who vanished off the face of the earth actually vanished off the face of the Earth plane,” Lee mused. “That would be an interesting true crime series. Anyway, I think it shook him, but he doesn’t consider Myrddin to be his father in any real sense of the word. I’ll keep an eye on him. And hey, when I turn, I’ll be able to keep two eyes on him.”
My son was ever the sarcastic one. He’d come by it honestly. “Did anyone deal with the Fae who took your eye?”
He kept walking. “It doesn’t matter. I’m not looking for revenge. In some ways they were simply doing their jobs. I injured them enough that I was able to do mine and get Rhys out of there. That’s what mattered. Also I’m going to be honest again, Momma. Ogres pretty much all look alike to me, so it would be hard for me to be sure I was getting revenge on the right one. Evan tells me that’s speciest of me, but I thought that even before I lost my eye to one of them. Don’t get me wrong. I know maybe somewhere out there is a happy, nonviolent ogre commune, but I haven’t found it yet. Every last one of those fuckers I’ve met have tried to eat me.”
“I’m proud of you for saving your brother,” I said quietly.
“Well, you taught us to watch out for each other,” he replied. “Rhys and Evan and Fen have all saved me at one point. I know it was rough, but some of it was good. I think all childhoods are like that. I know most kids don’t have to fight demons and ogres, but they all have bad shit happen. They have bullies and losses and anxiety. All children have to learn to survive in the real world.”
His real world was a dangerous one, but then it always had been. “I’m so glad you had each other.”
“And I’m glad you had Dad and Grandad when you were growing up. I’m going to miss that old man, but I think Rhys and Shy have a shot now. I can give him hell about the romantic crap.”