“Los Angeles?” Thom said, staring at Keegan. “Damn. I was rather hoping for somewhere a bit more exciting, like Paris or Calcutta or anywhere out of the country.”
“Calcutta?” Keegan’s eyebrows rose in amusement.
Thom shrugged. “After six months in the States I’m ready for anything, even there. So what does Alasdair want you to do? Has some Scriostóir decided to destroy humanity by making dozens of bad movies and flooding the market with them?”
“Would that it was that easy,” Keegan replied with a low chuckle. Then he told Thom why he, why they, were going there.
When he’d finished Thom nodded. “No rest for the good guys. But at least now you can tell him no if you want to.”
A broad smile lit Keegan’s face. “That I can, thanks to you.”
As he had so many times in the past six months, Thom shook his head. “I had nothing to do with it, not really. It was you being willing to sacrifice yourself to save me that did it.”
And as he had, equally as many times, Keegan took Thom in his arms, telling him in no uncertain terms, “If you hadn’t loved me—”
“No, if you hadn’t loved me. That’s what it took. That’s what Alasdair told you, and he should know.”
“At the same time that he told me that if I ever breathed a word of it outside of his office he would see to it that I was banished to the Stone Age for the next ten thousand years.”
“Which,” Thom said, chuckling, “would not make my day. When I’m old and gray I do not want to be avoiding Mastodons and saber-toothed tigers.”
“And just what makes you think he’d let you come with me?”
“Because, to quote a rather tired but true adage, ‘Whither thou goest, I will go to’.”
“Or?” Keegan said, knowing what Thom’s reply would be.
“Or we’ll be having roast gryphon for dinner for a long time to come.”
The End
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