The Harder I Work, the Luckier I Get Read online

When we arrived at the arena, there were crowds everywhere. My little conferences had become red carpet affairs. Sadly for the adoring public, I never dressed up like it was the red carpet. If that ever became a requirement, the conferences were over. The handful of guys in the limo started filing out, and I took a moment to insert my communication device.

  For events out in the open, we didn’t use the chatterbox. Instead, Vinnie made us up little devices that just slipped into our ears like earplugs. We were all connected once they were on and if we tapped them we were able to talk. They came in real handy when the warlocks used cloaking spells and managed to make it up close to the stage.

  I was led, by a wall of my men, into the arena and on to the stage. I kind of hated that I couldn’t even check the crowd to see whether the supporters outside the building outnumbered the Humans Unite people. There had been groups of at least ten anti-uniques at every event. At the last two events, there were closer to fifty.

  “Supporters are strong tonight,” Nate informed me mentally. “There are even a few signs asking you to marry them.”

  “Do those sign outnumber the ones asking for your hand?” I replied.

  It was a standing joke between us that one day I was going to run off with one of my fans. Sometimes I couldn’t believe how much my life had changed since Nate entered my life again. I had gone from not getting any attention to people wanting to marry me. It was crazy.

  “Of course. I don’t see a single sign for me. You’re the rock star, my little butterfly. I’m just your loyal follower.”

  “That’s crap and you know it. Everyone knows you are my king. Once we say our vows this weekend, there shouldn’t be any question where my heart lies.”

  “I’ve always known where your heart belonged, my dear. I just like to tease you. Now, get ready for the camera flashes, because it’s go time,” he said out loud as he and the guys parted so I could get a good look at the night’s audience.

  Most of the guys headed off the stage, to basically surround me, without being totally obvious. If anyone wasn’t clear on what the muscled men were doing there, they deserved the shirt I’d neglected to wear calling them stupid.

  Looking out into the crowd, I was pretty sure it was the biggest one I’d seen on my conference tour. It was standing room only, and by the way they were fired up, you’d think they were teenage girls at a male pop star’s concert. There were signs everywhere. I saw a few of the marriage proposals, but mostly they said things like Uniques are people too and Give them a chance.

  “We have a very strong power reading coming from the audience,” Liam reported over our communicator.

  That wasn’t really anything new. There were always uniques in the area who wanted to check out the message we were sending to the humans. The leaders were okay with the arranged speeches, but their followers weren’t always clued in about what I’d say.

  “I know, I’ve picked him up and am hoping he’s just here to observe. If not, this is going to turn nasty really fast,” Rick quietly reported back.

  That was not the response I was expecting. It didn’t sound like a run-of-the-mill unique checking me out.

  “What is it?” I asked him telepathically.

  “We’ll worry about that if it becomes an issue. For now, just go on like you normally do,” he replied.

  The guys were really lucky that I didn’t go around reading their minds all of the time. It was easy to do, but it would set up precedence that it was okay for any of them who had the ability to do the same to me. I already had Nate and Eva roaming around in there at all times, I didn’t need other visitors.

  “Hello everyone, and thanks for having us here in your great city,” I said into the microphone the stage manager handed me.

  I assumed he was the stage manager, he could’ve just been a guy tasked with dealing with me. I was sure that wasn’t a preferred job.

  The crowd clapped loudly, almost loud enough to drown out the few boos I heard in the arena. I assumed some of the Humans Unite group were able to get tickets. It had happened at each of the events, so it didn’t really surprise me.

  “As you may have heard, my name is Avery Clavens and I’m a phoenix. I like to start these conferences by letting you know what different kinds of uniques we have with us. Joining me on the stage are my fiancé Nate, my brother Rick and my son Charles. They are all phoenixes. With us we also have five wolves, six foxes, four wolverines, a polar bear, a grizzly bear, and a hawk.”

  I pointed out the guys on stage with me when I said their species, but I didn’t distinguish the rest of the entourage. We still hadn’t announced there were more unique beings out there besides the shapeshifting ones, so I left a Kapre and a couple berserkers off the list.

  I also didn’t give away we had a robot. I wasn’t sure if the idiots from Montana were still looking for him, but I didn’t want to give them a chance to figure out he’d moved in with me.

  “Now, I know the majority of those seem like scary animals to have hanging around. That’s why we left all the scaredy-cats at home.” My jokes didn’t always work, but I liked breaking the tension by telling a couple.

  “Really, no one here is in any danger from the people I arrived with. They’re all well-behaved, and we’ve even managed to potty train them. You can imagine how many newspapers we had to line our floors with while we worked out that task.”

  That got a nice laugh from the crowd. I almost wished I had photos of the house in that condition to go along with the joke.

  “Sorry, I get really nervous speaking in front of so many people, and I tend to tell really bad jokes. Anyway, my friends and I are going around trying to help educate everyone on what we are and what you can expect from us. You have to remember from the beginning that we have always been around. We aren’t some alien species sent here to take over the Earth.

  “In fact, like you, we just want to be able to live our lives. We aren’t going to come out and tell you how you should live your lives either. So far, you guys seem to be doing just fine on your own. I mean, there are a few wars that could have probably been prevented over the years, and don’t get me wrong, we fought beside you in those wars. I’m just stating some humans really like to fight a lot or live amongst conflict.

  “That isn’t a trait you’ll find very often among uniques. I haven’t met one yet who genuinely likes hurting another person. We’ve lived so many years that it seems like a waste to injure another life. That’s not saying that if we’re threatened, we’ll just stand by and allow it, but in general we live peaceful lives.

  “With my intro of peace, love and happiness done, I’m now going to turn it over to Charles to help explain how uniques came about. He serves kind of as our historian, so you won’t find a more qualified person on the subject,” I said, wrapping up most of my part. I had to be awake for the question and answer period at the end, but Charlie did the majority of the talking.

  While the history was being given, I checked with Rick and Nate in one of our mental conference calls. The powerful entity in the audience had me a little worried. Rick couldn’t sense warlocks, but I wasn’t sure about the most recent foes to be brought up.

  “So, is it one of the demons?” I asked, not knowing what else could cause an issue for us.

  “No. I could sense them, but you wouldn’t have entered the building at all if it was one of them,” Rick answered.

  “Still no hints? You know how I hate being out of the loop.”

  “Don’t worry, Avery,” Nate replied. “I don’t have Rick’s ability, well at least not as strong as him, so I don’t know what it is either. Like you, I’m being a good boy and letting our team take care of the issue, as they’re trained to do.”

  I hated it when he spoke reason. “Fine, but I better find out what’s out there, even if it doesn’t make its presence known to me. Also, if you couldn’t tell, it’s a little hard for me to be a good boy. I’m missing some key parts.”

  “I guess you are, but you
know gender wasn’t really a factor in what Nate said. As far as the person out there, it’s another rare unique like Elan. Unlike Kapres this species isn’t always known for being nice,” Rick told me.

  Great, just what we needed, a unique who wasn’t all that nice when I’d just promised the crowd living around us was like living in Mayberry. I supposed I was going to have to quiz the team on hostile uniques and make sure we kept that group under tabs.

  Charlie wrapped up his history, and looking out in the crowd I saw everyone was enthralled by what he’d told them. I knew from his books that he was very gifted in weaving a story and he was capable of making even the dullest details seem fascinating.

  “You know it’s part of his gift set,” Nate mentioned telepathically. “His charisma leaks out whether he’s writing or talking. All he has to do is open his mouth and the world will listen.”

  “We may need to loan him out to the police in hostage negotiations,” I remarked.

  “He’s been doing it for years. I guess that didn’t really start until twenty years ago, so you wouldn’t know. When he’s not writing books or hanging out trying to protect you, he works as a detective,” he replied.

  “That seems to run in our family a lot,” I stated.

  “We want to lead by example. As you may have noticed, many uniques look towards us as leaders. We all chose fields to better unique and humankind.”

  “So what does my dad really do?” I asked. “I imagine he wasn’t ever really a postal worker.”

  I didn’t think my mother had a secret job, and I couldn’t fathom how her pink retro dresses improved anything. I supposed taking care of me was her gift to humankind.

  Nate gave a little mental chuckle. “No, he’s been pursuing a different route this life cycle. He actually makes toys. Some of his ideas he’s sold to the big toy makers, but mostly he makes them and gives them to needy kids. Uniques have lived for so long we’ve saved up enough that we don’t really want for anything. That gives people like your dad the ability to enrich people’s lives in other ways.”

  “So he likes to play Santa Claus, does he? I’m not exactly sure why he kept that a secret from me, but if Eva is right, he’s going to have a new little baby in the family to pamper in a couple months,” I said.

  “I know, and we’re going to be grandparents for the first time,” he replied. “Only two of our children have found their soul mates, so it shouldn’t be hard to figure out who the happy couple is.”

  “I was guessing Sophia. Elizabeth didn’t seem to be in a relationship and I don’t even know what our other daughter is currently using for a name.”

  I would’ve thought as I got more memories, I would’ve remembered everything there was to know about all my children. They should’ve interacted with the people in the memories I had, but for some reason they were screened out of them.

  “That other daughter is Beatrix and she is single as well. Our other son, is currently going by the name Phoenix, but I imagine he’ll change that soon, because it won’t be as amusing to him anymore. He has a great wife, who you’ll love once you remember her. They’ve been together long enough that you’ve met her.”

  It was unfair that he was actually talking about our children and I had to get back to work. I wanted to ask for more names and see if he would be kind enough to give me their locations in the world. There wasn’t much I could do with that information, but there was a chance it could jumpstart something in my head.

  “Thank you so much, Charles, for relaying all that information. Even knowing everything you’re going to say, I still love hearing your part of the presentation,” I said, taking the mic back from him. “Now comes everyone’s favorite part of the program. The part where we answer any remaining questions you have. Do we have a volunteer out there who’d like to ask the first question?”

  CHAPTER 4

  There are no stupid questions, at least that’s what I tell myself