Johan Birch

"As we told you before, we sometimes have feelings, sometimes. That's not it."

The taste of her kiss was still on my lips. I pondered that for a second and tried to put it into words. "Athena?"

"Yes, sir?"

"Grace once told Jaci that she had a feeling which could be described as dying." I paused. "I now know what death tastes like. It's not rotten, like a corpse; the taste, it's sweet, like a drug."

"That's why you should never kiss any of us, even the men, ever again," Athena warned. "Even you can get drawn down that hole and will never come back up."

"Is that what happened, to you?"

"Sir, it's in the book."

I waved my hand at her. "Get to it, Athena, the punishment for Marty. Make sure the memory comes to him every six hours or so."

"Yes sir. And sir?"

"Yes?" I asked.

"When it comes time, I want my end to be with you."

"Athena, I don't think I could do that," I shook my head.

"Just think about it, sir. It's been five thousand years since I've seen my own blood."

"I promise," I nodded.

Athena vanished in a flash of light. What a cold phrase, that: 'It's been a long time since I've seen my own blood.'

***

Aysun and Petra folded into my office an hour later. Aysun took a look around, then gave me a wave before she vanished. Since I had stood at their arrival, the gentlemanly thing to do, Petra came and stood toe-to-toe with me. She made a show of sniffing around my chest and then my face. A momentary flash of fear came over her face when she realized what that smell actually was.

"Why did you kiss her?" Petra asked.

"Because I wanted to know, Petra. I wanted to know what death tastes like."

"What else?"

"I wanted to feel magic, to see if I still had any."

"Our wedding should have proved that, Johan," Petra scoffed. "Gaia blessed us in the ritual manner!"

"This isn't about...binding our souls together, this is about practical magic," I countered.

"If you start to exercise magic, people will know who you were," Petra grabbed my head between her hands. "Knowing that puts your children in danger, we agreed on this!"

"You know what I miss, Petra? I miss having a garden. Johan cannot have a garden!"

"Johan, you have a garden!"

"Yes, I have a garden. There is a difference between having a garden in the hidden corner of a huge-ass estate and bringing an abandoned planter in a city to life. There's a difference in the energy, I know it, but I can't feel it!"

"I'm sorry," Petra let my head go and nestled into my chest. "I can't even begin to understand what you are still without. Let's get this mess with Hillary unraveled, and I'll think of something."

You always do, Dear Petra.

Petra and I went down deep into our special vault to retrieve the sensing wand that Gemma had given to us. A locator spell was something simple to interpret and convert into technology. Within an hour Petra and her assistants had that information packed inside a device about the same size as my cellphone. You couldn't cast a locator spell in an aircraft, but the electronic equivalent worked just fine. I hoped that Hillary was in Los Angeles like I had heard. If she were anywhere else, it would take months to find her.

We did a sweep over the city and located Hillary. She was still alive, or we wouldn't have been able to locate her. As always, Petra was thinking ahead, she had a car and driver meet us at the heliport to continue our search on the ground. I still wasn't crazy about being driven around, especially by women, but I conceded that to Petra. Every time.

My heart jumped when we pulled up in front of the building where Hillary was located. She was in the club hospital, and there was no way to sneak in there. Petra gave my arm a pat. "Looks like you get to have some fun after all."

"Ha-ha."

"The best approach is to just go to the doors, you know that."

"So much can go wrong," I sighed.

"I'll come with," Petra said.

I got the chance to open my wife's car door. I was happier than a desert lizard in the dawn sun until we started our walk to the entrance. The woman I knew as Lynn stopped us at the outer doors. Her being at the hospital would mean that Tara Knight was here as well. "Can I help you?"

"Yes, I'm here to see my friend Hillary Milano," I said. "I don't have an appointment, but I'd like to make sure that she's okay."

Lynn looked like she was considering the dumb route. "What makes you think that she's here?"

Petra held out the activated tracker and held it out to Lynn. It showed that Hillary was eighty meters above us and sixty-five meters north. "GPS tracker, one of our new models."

"Sierra-one to poppa zero-two," Lynn said.

Tara Knight is here.

"Ma'am, there is a couple out in front and they would like to speak to your guest." A pause. "Ma'am they look very insistent, they also have a locator on her."

"Her name is Hillary Milano," I growled. "She is our friend."

"Very well, ma'am." Lynn looked at us. "I'm sorry, but you cannot enter the building."

"You kidnapped a woman and are holding her hostage," Petra said. "Let us see our friend, and ascertain her condition. If she truly needs medical treatment, we'll be glad to let her stay under your care as long as we have an observer present."

"Or you'll what?" I heard from behind us.

That voice, I'd never forget that shitty-ass voice Larry had. "Lynn, if she is standing within two meters of us, there will be some trouble."

"Back off, Larraine," Lynn said. "You know where the doors are at."

Lynn flinched, telling me that Larry didn't care. She couldn't intervene because Petra and I were standing in between, but I got a heads-up and that was enough. I twisted to my left, hitting Larry in the face with my elbow. I knew she fought dirty and was left-handed, so I was correct in my assumption that she would try and sucker-punch me in the head.

"Hello, Rowan," Lynn said. "Can you put your dog back on her leash?"

Oh great, the one person I was hoping to not run into.

"You're very crude, Lynn," Rowan said. She still had that silky-smooth voice that begged you to locate the source.

Petra and I turned together. "Hello," Petra said. She didn't offer her hand and Rowan didn't offer hers, either. "I guess that you have an appointment."

Rowan shrugged. "And you are?"

"Johan and Petra Birch," Petra replied. "We don't have an appointment."

"You're very rude," Rowan said. "Have I done something to wrong you?"

Rowan, if you only knew.

"Other than your bodyguard trying to sucker punch me?" I asked.

"It takes a big man to strike a woman," Rowan panned.

"Then you wouldn't take it personally if I cleaned your clock, Miss McCreedy?" Petra asked.

Meow.

I stepped over Larry and took another step back to clear Petra's strike zone. "You might want to step back, Lynn," I warned.

Lynn took a step back, subconsciously heeding my warning. "How do you know my name?"

"Do you want some popcorn?" I asked.

Rowan lashed out, a fist-follow-flying kick combination. That was something unusual, but Petra could handle it.

While I was getting used to being Johan, one of the things I had to do was re-learn my martial arts. I was bigger and heavier, hence slower, but I could defend myself if need be. It took eight months to shed the reflexive magic fighting Jaci had known, and the only way to do that was to start at the beginning. As I relearned the artistry as Johan, I had also taught Petra.

The piddling little combo that Rowan had thrown at Petra ended with Rowan on the ground. She had been putting too much weight on her pivot leg, as opposed to letting her inertia help with her balance, and Petra swept the leg out from underneath her. Rowan huffed, but didn't get back up until Petra offered her a hand.

Lynn nudged Larry in the side with her foot, but Larry was down for the count. "Sierra-one to red-cross base. You have a drop-off out front. Bring two plus a stretcher."

Petra cast a look at Rowan. "Maybe two stretchers?" Rowan shook her head, getting dumped once was enough for her.

"You two are very interesting," Lynn mused. "You command a presence, something that's hard to do for a couple."

"Lynn, you'd be surprised," Petra snickered.

Rowan gave another huff at Larry's body on the ground. Lynn, Petra, and I moved back so Rowan could tend to her. We stood and watched as two guys came out of the building with a stretcher, scooped Larry up, and went back inside.

"How do you know my name, Johan?"

"We can talk about it inside," I countered. "It's pretty private, for a private hospital."

"Sierra-one to poppa zero-two." Lynn rolled her eyes at me, she knew she wasn't going to win. "Ma'am, we're exposed here." A pause. "Very well."

"We can join the party? Goodie!" Petra was going to have the time of her life, and I was going to watch her do it. And love her for it.

Tara Knight was on the other side of the entrance doors. "You're friends of Hillary Milano?"

"No, we just came all the way here from Las Vegas to rummage around your private hospital," Petra scoffed. "Of course we're here for Hillary! Thanks for saving her life, but we'd like to see if she is okay."

Petra had hit just the right tone with Tara. "All right, I'll take you to her. I have your word that what you see in here is private?"

"Of course," I scoffed. My favorite phrase.

Tara walked us over to the elevators and hit the call button. Her body gave her away, not heading for the car when the doors parted. "After you, Tara," Petra said.

"I'm sorry?"

"You're a good actress, Tara," Petra said. "We're not getting into a possible man-trap unless you go first."

"Paranoid much?" Tara scoffed. She went into the car, Petra following, then I lumbered in.

We got out of the elevator on the floor the tracker specified. "Why are you so paranoid?" Tara asked.

"Tara, look. We came to find Hillary. She was taken from her home, in the middle of the night, without even so much as a heads-up to her company," I said. "Your saving of her life earns you bonus points, but taking her across state lines without notifying anyone takes them away. I'll let you know this for shits and giggles: I recently had to negotiate a deal with a Mafia family in Vegas for the release of an employee along with a guarantee of Hillary's safety."

"Yeah, the ambulance thing marked you as a goose until we realized who had taken her," Petra added.

"A goose?" Tara snickered. "You sound like my mother. How do I know that you're not the people trying to do her harm?"

Petra pulled one of my cards out of her clutch. "Because if we were trying to do her harm, we would have just demolished her house from high altitude," she said.

Tera took the card and studied it. Then she looked back and forth between me and Petra. Twice. "You're really Johan Birch?"

"Feel free to google me," I shrugged. "Are you stalling us, Miss Knight?"

"Yes, are you stalling, Miss Knight?" Petra echoed with a smile.

"No, let's go."

Hillary was alert when we entered the room. Petra immediately rushed over to her, brushing aside Doctor Sahai. Khalila looked at me first, then Tara, then back at me. "I'm Doctor Khalila Sahai. Your friend hit a rough patch on the road of life, but she's going to be okay."

"Thank you, Doctor," I offered my hand, and she shook it. "Thank you very much."

Khalila left the room, Hillary and Petra were whispering between them, so I turned my gaze onto Tara. "Do you even know why she is so important?" I asked Tara, she nodded. "You should have told somebody, anybody at the company."

"We were going to," Tara shook her head. "We were going to," she repeated in a whisper.

"Why didn't you take her to a hospital, any hospital in Vegas?" I demanded. "Your little move with the fake ambulance and the puddle jumper could have killed her!"

"How do you know all of this?" Tara asked.

"Your comm system, while good, is not great. My techs are some of the best in the world, and they earn every penny."

"The best techs work for free," Tara mumbled.

"I'm sure they do." I mentally chastised myself for not remembering how much technology Tara had invented and put into the club with no thought of recompense.

Petra came over to us. "She's fine, Johan. We really don't need an observer here, the gals with guns will take care of anyone who comes after her."

"We need to talk long-term security for Hillary," Tara said. "Protection against her ex-husband is one. He went underground, and nobody seems to know where he is at."

"Marty'll probably show up at some insane asylum in Arizona or Texas," I offered.

"He needs to do better than that," Tara said. "Like show up under the asylum."

Petra exerted her presence: "You need to leave Marty alone. If something happens to him his first week out, Hillary is the one they will look at."

"What about Marty? He will come for her, all the noises he made in prison about getting half her company?"

I snorted. "Arthur assured me that the divorce is ironclad."

"Arthur, huh?" Tara seemed impressed. "We need to have a sit-down, Johan Birch. To talk about the patents you bought when you wiggled Granite, Limited and Christian-Brook Fabrication out from underneath Brookstone Pointe."

"You've got a voice in your head too," Petra giggled. "How do you live with all that racket? Poppa zero-two this, poppa zero-two that?"

"We should probably go," I said. "The question is answered, and that's good enough for me. It goes without saying that Petra should be able to come visit her...bestie?"

"Bestie," Petra nodded.

"Bestie, anytime she feels like it," I finished.

"That's fine," Tara waved her hand. "You're a duck, I'm a duck, everybody's a duck-duck. I'll leave a message with security."

"Thank you," Petra said.

Petra waited until we were in the air before she spoke again. "What are you going to do to Marty?"

"Marty will get the best gift ever. Every couple hours or so, he will experience Hillary's pain, what he did to her," I replied. "If something happens to him, he will do it to himself."

"That's fair," Petra nodded. "Is that how you got close enough to lock lips with a Revenger? Meting out a fair punishment?"

"Athena and I were debating preemptive action. As it turns out, Ceres set the whole Laws of Man thing into motion, gaia just enforces it."

"Oh, neat," Petra said. That's what she always said when I figuratively bonked her on the head. What I didn't say, she already knew. There was something strange going on with the 'new' four fifty-seven club.

***

-One month later-

Hillary called me as she was on her way back to Vegas via plane. I told her I would have sent the helicopter for her, seeing as how her battery design had improved its operation.

I heard her giggle before she promised to take a ride with me as soon as she got to the lab. Petra and Aysun popped in from goddess-knows-where the second Hillary set foot into my office. We stepped into my 'conference suite,' another office protected by an electronic version of the cone of silence spell.

The high point was that the club still wanted the same thing as we did: A cleaner planet. The low point was that they needed money, now more than ever. Hillary was willing to give them some of her buyout money, but she wanted Petra there both for moral support and as her lie detector.

Petra took fake offense at this, and they both burst out giggling. I told Petra if she was going to giggle like a schoolgirl, I would put her over my knee like one. I immediately tried to take it back, but Hillary waved it off. She said that girls talk to each other, Petra talking more than most about our sex life.

Hillary also gave us a heads-up on her new assistants. There were three of them, and they had a nice heavy; meaning armoured, Suburban to drive her around in. I told her that close-in protection like that was probably better than my team tailing her everywhere, but I would only pull my detail once I was assured the threat had passed.

When I asked Hillary if the club had mentioned her technology, it put a damper on her good mood. No, they hadn't mentioned anything about her solar technology in their 'saving the world' plan. At all. In fact, she had been bursting at the seams to share the next-generation solar panel which stored part of the charge for nighttime use.

Petra suggested that they might already know about Hillary's tech. It's not like the company kept all the panels for themselves, they were out in the world.

Hillary told us that the panels she had received from me had ended up on a private solar project; nothing that the outside world would have access to. In fact, she admitted, she had even swapped out some of her panels for the ones she had gotten from me. My panels output more power and she had gotten the job completed faster because of them.

We agreed that most solar panels were alike, so the club might not have any questions about her panels specifically. There was also the possibility that the club had people inside the company already. That was debated, then sat aside. The only way we had at the moment to find interlopers was to violate their privacy with technology or magic. Going around probing peoples' minds, that was against the spirit of the power. We'd find them the old-fashioned way, eyes and ears all day, Jason's father had said that.

What would Old Bird think of how much I had learned from him about The Spy Game?

The three of us agreed that, save sabotage, we'd let things go the way they were. Since nobody could get into warehouses thirteen, fourteen, and fifteen without explicit permission, those buildings were secure.

Before I left the room, I asked Hillary to keep my ownership of the company under wraps for the moment. When she asked me why, I told her that I didn't know, just that something wasn't sitting right with me about the club. I also told her that I would wait for fifteen minutes before I took off in the helicopter that she had helped design the batteries for.

The pilot and I were starting to close the inspection panels when Hillary's golf-cart rolled up. She gave me her disapproving look, then started poking around in the battery compartment. The Birch-1A helicopter had been longer and taller than this bird, the Birch-2A, because of the block-style batteries. Hillary's new battery design involved 'sandwiching' the batteries and that led to more power for the duration of the flight with less battery space needed.

Hillary complained when we set down fifteen minutes later. I promised her that the first one off the assembly line was hers. She gave me a snort and said that I would have to get done 'testing' them before they went into production. What she didn't know was that I had already given that order.

***

Petra told me to meet her at the LA condo that evening. I asked why she didn't want to ride with me, she gave me a wink and told me it was a surprise. I told her I didn't like surprises because I never got to surprise her. When she threw out her pouty lip, I knew I had lost.

Nora ambushed me at the heliport, a briefcase of documents ostensibly needing my approval. She did a good job of keeping me distracted from the papers with her smell and light touches. We reached the condo building just as I signed the last form.

By the way Nora had been playing with me in the car, I knew that she was going to be part of whatever Petra had cooked up. I helped her out of the car, then tried to take the briefcase from her. Nora did the same thing she always did, whirling around and keeping the briefcase as far away from me as possible.

I conceded again, but at least got to hold the door for her as we went inside. As the elevator doors were closing, a woman's hand came through and hit the safety bumpers, causing them to come back open. It was surprising that the owner of the hand was Janine Olsen, followed by Marci Hathaway.