Shielded

Banging at the front door jolted me from my sleep and I looked around my small living room. I must have fallen asleep in my lazy boy again. I grabbed the remote on the end table next to me and switched off the T.V. and then got out of my chair to see who was at the door. I checked my wristwatch and saw it was past eleven at night. Something serious must be going on with the clan for them to bother with me at this hour. Sean had been running things pretty seamlessly for the last year and the number of times people knocked on my door in the middle of the night had dropped drastically.

I looked through the peephole to see Sean with someone else but I couldn’t tell who because they were standing too far down the hall. I unlocked the deadbolt and opened the door. The other man in the hallway was Patrick Walsh. A good guy that helped us do our taxes. Not someone I would expect to be at my door with my son in the middle of the night. But whatever they had to say must be important, or they wouldn’t be here. I opened my door wider and stepped aside so that they could come in. They both looked agitated about something so I went over to the old hutch in the corner and pulled out my bottle of Jamison and poured us each a healthy portion.

We all sat down at the table and I expected them to start right in and let me know what the problem was, but they both just sat there and drank their whiskey. I was an old man, so I knew when to have a little patience so I waited quietly as they gathered their thoughts. Seven minutes and two fingers of good old Jamison later and Patrick started talking.

“Do you remember my son Felix?” Patrick asked and I nodded that I did indeed remember his little string bean of a son. Maybe this was about his boy getting into a nip of trouble, or maybe he needed me to find him for him. I was one of only six Trackers in the Americas Northeast Kingdom. “Well he is a Communicator and we sent him to work for the young America’s West princess.”

“Is Felix in some sort of trouble?” I asked to move things along after he once again lapsed into silence.

“Oh, no. Nothing like that. He just called me this afternoon with some information that I think you need to be aware of,” Patrick said and looked nervously over at Sean. But my son looked lost in his own thoughts.

“Alright. Tell me what you need to relay. We will deal with anything that comes our way. But first, you need to say the words,” I said with the conviction and confidence I learned through thirty years of being a Clan Leader.

“A small clan in California was approached by a female Valkyrie who claims to have been living within the human foster care system for years. This female states that she isn’t associated with any of the Royal Lines and wasn’t raised within a clan,” Patrick said and Sean seemed to shake himself out of whatever trance he had been in a moment ago.

“Okay, that is strange and definitely newsworthy, but why are you at my door in the middle of the night?” I asked, trying to wrap my mind about a female that had somehow fallen through the cracks and into human society. This news would cause some serious ripples in the Valkyrie community worldwide.

“Felix met this female. Her name is Delia Ray Olsen and she told my son that her father had been a member of the Rabec Clan.” My heart skipped a beat. My eldest son, Samuel Olsen had been a member of the Rabec Clan and had disappeared along with the rest of his clan almost twenty years ago. I had spent years searching not only for my son but also for any information that might give me some clue as to what happened to him. Years of searching and I hadn’t come across any new information. And now my tax guy was telling me that there was a female Valkyrie on the west coast claiming to be my granddaughter. It just wasn’t possible.

“Didn’t you once tell us that Sam’s mother’s name was Delia?” Sean asked and I looked over at him with disbelief. “He would be just sentimental enough to name his child after a mother that he never even met.”

“You can’t be fucking buying into this shit!” I yelled and turned on Sean. “Samuel is gone. I spent almost a decade obsessed with his disappearance and you saw what that did to this clan. How much it changed me. You know that finally letting him go was the only thing that kept me alive. I will not let you go down that same road. Whatever happened to your brother was a tragedy, don’t let it ruin your life too.”

“It’s not about Sam anymore, Dad. It’s about his daughter. Your granddaughter. My niece. Samuel’s only legacy,” Sean said in a steely voice. “We are going to go to California. You are going to Track her, and together we are going to set things right with Delia. Because that is what families fucking do.”

I paced to where I had left the bottle of whiskey and took a swig straight from the bottle. Sean might be right, but I also knew deep down that I couldn’t walk away from a lead. Not knowing for all of these years had eaten away at me and killed something inside. I would do anything to figure out what evil had taken my son away from me. If that meant Tracking a girl claiming to be my granddaughter, then so be it.

-Mathis Olsen