Induction, T.K. Eldridge [read aloud books txt] 📗

our closets, molasses and oatmeal in our boots, and someone had actually defecated on my bed. Sure, we expected the usual hazing as new recruits, but this was beyond even the most extreme cases. Auntie Sett had a sample from the poop taken and tested. The two recruits that contributed to that particular donation had been expelled and fined. Luckily, Sett and Grandpa had managed to do it quietly. Sett even spread the rumor that they’d been sent on a special assignment. A special assignment that included them never going near the Academy.

We had wanted to stay in the dorms, but the sheer level of harassment was disruptive to the rest of the students, so we commuted from the herb farm cottage to the Academy. It was about a twenty-five-minute trip one way, so not too bad.

Before we started here, Sid and I both traded our cars in and got two small-sized black SUVs. It made sense with all of the gear we’d need to haul around as Agents. There was no way Sid would fit the basic kit duffel in her Mini Cooper unless she strapped it to the roof. We usually carpooled together, but today Sid was staying to research a paper. Auntie Sett would drive her home, so I loaded our gear into the SUV and got ready to head out. Settled in the driver’s seat, I jumped at the knock on my window. The man standing there was someone I had not seen in nearly fifteen years. We had been told he was dead, yet my great-grandfather, Liam Walsh, stood there with a grin on his face and a twinkle in his eyes. I stared for a moment before he said, “Are you going to open the door and give your old Gramps a hug or just stare at me and wonder if you’re hallucinating?”

I nearly gave myself whiplash trying to undo the seat belt and open the door.

Grampa wrapped his arms around me before I fully stood up. “Damn, Sin, you’ve grown. It’s so good to see you.”

“What the hell, Grampa Walsh? Everyone told us you were dead. Even Auntie Sett said you’d disappeared.”

“I did, for a while. I needed people to think I was dead.” Commander Walsh lowered his voice, then hugged me again. “Care to give this old man a ride?”

“Where do you want to go?”

“Your home. We need a place to talk, and I know Alicia Fortin’s skill with wards and protections will keep you bug-free. Where’s your sister?”

“Finishing some research for a paper in the library. Sett’s going to drive her home when she’s done.”

“Let’s swing by and get her. Neither one of you should be traveling alone.”

I started to ask why, but when I looked at his face, I swallowed the words and started up the SUV.

Sid wasn’t happy about leaving early, but Sett said she’d bring the books by later. Instructors could take them out, students could not. I didn’t tell Sid why I needed her to leave right now, just that it was important. When I told her to get in the back seat, she looked at me funny, then slid in behind the driver’s seat – and I barely got her door shut before she squealed “Grampa Walsh” loud enough to deafen us all. I gave it a moment, then pulled my door open and got in.

Grampa shut her down quickly by saying, “We’ll talk at the cottage. It’s not safe out here.”

Sid buckled in and reached a hand to rest on Grampa’s shoulder. He was the only Grampa we grew up with who treated her well, so she loved him fiercely.

Grampa reached up and held Sid’s hand on his shoulder for a few minutes before he reached into his pocket and turned off his phone. “Don’t need them tracking me right now.”

“Should we shut ours off too?” Sid asked.

“No, but when you get home, put them in a drawer in your bedroom for a bit. They need to know where you two are, as recruits, but they don’t need to hear anything.”

I will admit, it was hard as hell to keep my mouth shut and the questions silenced until we got to the cottage. I pulled up right in front of the steps in case we had to worry about Grampa being visible for too long. Sid got out and opened the front door, gave the all-clear, then Grampa got out and went inside. I locked up the SUV and headed in. Grampa went into the kitchen and Sid and me to our rooms to change and drop our phones. By the time we got downstairs, the stew was reheating in a pot on the stove and coffee brewing.

I hugged Grampa, then dealt with getting the table set. Sid wrapped her arms around him and sighed as they hugged for a good bit, then released him to go stir the stew. Once we put the food on the table and poured the coffee and water, all three of us sat down and just looked at each other.

“You two look really good,” Grampa said. “I’ve missed you.”

“Forgive me for saying this, Grampa,” I said, “But what the hell? You supposedly died fifteen years ago and now you’re sitting here, having a creepy, secret reunion?”

Sid elbowed me and gave me her patented WTF look, then turned to Grampa. “He’s right, Grampa. Secretive and back from the dead is kind of creepy. What happened? Why now? How can we help you?”

“Your phones?” he asked.

“In our rooms, in drawers,” I said. Sid nodded.

Grampa started dishing up food for each of us as he spoke. “You already know how just after the Species War ended, I got together with Marcel Fortin to set up the Academy and then later, integrated it with the police department to create the Supernatural Police. If we’d had the SPD before, there’s a good chance we never would have ended up in a war.”

“What was it that started the war?” Sid asked.

“A death of a million cuts. No, I’m serious. It was a lot of little things. Little things kept building up and stacking up until it blew up in a street fight. An argument at a taco truck ended up with fourteen dead and nearly twenty more injured. If we’d had the SPD to break it up when it started, or around to diffuse any of the other para specific incidents, then the war would probably never have happened.”

I’d read about the Taco Truck Terror, as the incident ended up being called in the history books. “But, hasn’t there always been a ruling board for paranormals?”

“A board, sure. Make some rules, handle some high-level disputes, but no one around to effectively enforce the rules or deal with incidents at the street level. It was fine when there were only five or six paranormal families in the region, but now there are hundreds of paras of all types in Belle Cove and the surrounding areas,” Grampa said.

I sopped up the gravy from my stew with a bit of bread and chewed while I thought about his words. A sip of water, then I spoke. “Grampa, we’ve been reading the Fortin grimoire, since Mom gave it to Sid a few days ago. Is there information in there we should skip ahead to read?”

“I’d say so, yes,” he replied. “If Margaret Fraser Fortin wrote in it, there would likely be a lot of good information for you both.”

“Sounds like you knew Grandma Margaret well?” Sid said.

Grampa laughed low, gave me a wink, then sipped his coffee.

I laughed and shook my head, then got up to collect the bowls. “There’s peach cobbler for dessert. Want some?”

“I’d never turn down Alicia’s cobbler.”

“Bernie’s daughter, Jolie, made it. She lives with Grandma and helps run the farm,” Sid said.

Grampa sobered and got the coffee pot to refill our mugs. “I’m glad Alicia has Jolie, you two, and what’s the other one’s name?”

“Micah. Marie-Sidonie’s son. He moved down south about ten years ago. No one hears from him other than a card at Christmas to Grandma,” Sid said as she brought the warm cobbler topped with vanilla ice cream over to the table.

“Well, he may be out of the area, but at least he’s not…” Grampa paused, then stuffed a large spoonful of cobbler into his mouth.

“He’s not what?” I asked.

You could almost feel the temperature of the room drop as Grampa swallowed his mouthful and looked over at me. “A traitor.”

“Grampa B, you mean?”

“Yes. My son-in-law is a traitor. I’m just glad my sweet daughter, Brighid isn’t here to see this day.”

“What did he do?” Sid asked as she leaned forward, the lawyer in her coming to the fore.

“A lot of things,” Grampa sighed and took a couple of bites of cobbler washed down with coffee. “I had included James in the running of things from the time he was a young man. When Marcel passed on, I leaned on James to fill the gaps. As with most things viewed in the rear-view mirror, it seemed like a good idea at the time. All I did was invite the snake into the hen house. About five years after Marcel died, James made his play. I had planned a trip to the Isles with Bridie. We had a private plane that the SPD and Academy used together. Two of the instructors were taking five students to London to get specialized training with MI5’s paranormal branch. The plane exploded twenty miles off the coast. I’d been in the cabin with the pilot when the first explosion went off. I wrapped myself in a force field and went back to try and save Bridie, but she’d already been blown out of the plane. Only two of the students remained and as I reached out to grab the closest one, the second explosion detonated.” He reached for his coffee and drained it. I got up and filled it, then reached into the cabinet behind him and pulled out the good whiskey. He added a dose to his coffee and took another swallow. “Thanks, Sin. Anyway, I woke up in the cabin of a fishing boat. They said the Coast Guard had found Bridie and three others’ bodies, but not the rest. All were presumed dead. I paid them well to let people think I had died, too.”

“Grandma Brighid died in childbirth, as did her daughter, Bridie Walsh Boudreau. They’re buried in the mausoleum in the family plots behind Boudreau Manor.” Sid told him, a hand rested on his forearm. “They said the shock of losing you and Grandma Bridie was too much for her and she went into labor early.”

“I wasn’t in any condition to protect her, or you two, or anyone else. Brighid was too old to be pregnant safely, but she lost so many bairns over the years, I understand why she had to try. Shifters can generally carry safely past sixty human years, but Brighid was nearly ninety when she got pregnant with that little girl.”

I added a shot of whiskey to my cup and took a sip before I spoke. “Why did you come back now?”

“I’ve been working with your parents for the past three years, once I realized they were on the same path as me. They figured out that James was behind the increase in tensions between paras and the decline of standards at the Academy and started digging. I made them promise not to say anything about me being back. It was my fault they were attacked that morning at your home. Someone had followed me from where I was staying to your parents’ house and tried to kill me. Your parents intervened and