Chapter Ten

Pushing his food around his plate, Benedict did his best to hide his worry as Dixon made appreciative noises about the delicious lamb Mrs. Porter had cooked for dinner. The business with Hugo wasn't causing his concern. After the unpleasantness with Charles and Frank at the York Council Office, Benedict knew Dixon needed a chance to flex his fur, and he fully expected, with him out of the room, Hugo would do something to piss off the bear. Hugo didn't disappoint. Benedict had felt the magic that Hugo had blasted at his mate through their bond, and in his opinion Hugo was lucky to have escaped with all his limbs intact.

However, his lawyer had been trying to call him while he'd been busy with Dixon in the bedroom, so taking the call he mentioned had been the truth, not an excuse. There was also a missed text from Aunt Silvia. Opening it, Benedict expected one of her cryptic missives. He hadn't had one since his aunt warned him about meeting bears in San Francisco – the same day he met Dixon.

But there was nothing cryptic about the words he read. Benedict read over the message twice, sure his aunt was joking. But no. Aunt Silvia had sent explicit instructions that he was to bring his mate to dinner the following Tuesday. "Clothes for the bear optional," she'd typed, causing Benedict to wince.

He hadn't answered right away. If things went his way, he and Dixon would already be on their way back to the States before the week was out, which would give him the perfect excuse to opt out of dinner. But he made a mental note to get in touch with Monica once they'd finished eating. She and Gordon were likely in Cornwall packing up her house, and Benedict assumed that could be why he and Dixon had been invited to Aunt Silvia's. I can worry about that later.

"I'm wondering if I should feel insulted." Dixon let out a long satisfied sigh as he pushed his plate aside.

"Insulted?" Still caught up in his thoughts, it took a moment for Benedict to catch up. He quickly placed his utensils on his plate and moved it aside. "Was there something wrong with dinner?"

"Dinner was absolutely perfect. Something you'd know if you'd eaten any while it was still hot." Dixon gave a pointed look at Benedict's discarded plate. "No, by insulted, I'm referring to the idea that you seem to believe you can hide your worries from your mate. What's going on, now, babe? I thought whatever shit we were in, we were facing together?"

Busted. Benedict nodded. "I'm sorry. You're right. I have got something we need to discuss. How about we grab our coats. I don't think I've shown you the formal maze we have here, yet."

Tapping Benedict's plate, Dixon said, "Only if you zap this up into sandwiches first. Mrs. Porter put a lot of effort into that lamb, and you'll feel better once you've been honest with me, which is when you'll realize you're hungry."

The bear was probably right, again. Benedict couldn't even say Dixon was being insufferable about it, although he smirked as he zapped the remains of his meal into chunky sandwiches, complete with napkins and a paper bag to hold them all. "You seem to be very eager to stay in Mrs. Porter's good books."

"If it wasn't for the little fact that it's important that she stay here, I'd be bribing her to come back to the States with us." Dixon was deadly serious.

"This house would fall to bits without her," Benedict said. "Besides, we'd have to buy a whole new house if we expected her to run it for us. Neither mine nor yours would meet her exacting standards."

"You're probably right. An issue for another day." Dixon picked up the sandwich packs. "Lead on, my mate. Let's explore this maze of yours."

/~/~/~/~/

Benedict knew exactly where he was going. He and his siblings had played in the maze since he took his first steps. Well before he learned how to hide in the veil, he and his brothers and sisters knew every secret nook and hideaway in the extensive hedge construction.

The soft glow of the solar lamps meant no torch was necessary, although Benedict knew Dixon was more than capable of seeing in the dark. Benedict never worried about what might lurk in the shadows. He knew the dangers he faced were the ones who looked him in the eye and then spat when he walked away. There was nothing hovering around his garden that could cause him harm.

He smiled as he saw the bench seat, sitting in exactly the same place it had for the past hundred years or more. It wasn't in the center of the maze – that held a huge Gothic fountain that his grandfather had commissioned well before Benedict's time. The bench seat was in the far left corner of the maze, and because of the turns it took to find it, was often overlooked by other members of his family.

"I had so many happy hours here," he said, sitting and stroking over the wooden slats. "Whenever the noise in the house got too loud, I would grab a book and come out and rest here until the sun went down."

"That's something I never understood," Dixon said, settling his bulk beside him and draping his arm over Benedict's shoulder. "You were just over a hundred years old, and you were the youngest child, which meant your brothers and sisters were all older. No disrespect to your family, but why were they all living at home? You've never mentioned them having sweethearts or spouses. At their age they would've had children, grandchildren, or even great grandchildren by then, surely to goodness."

"Yeah, I can see why you would think that's weird. Would you believe me if I told you I'd never even considered that was unusual until my lawyer asked me the same question this afternoon."

"I know you wouldn't lie to me," Dixon said simply. "Is this like the jeans or the house situation where you and your siblings just didn't know any different… or what?"

"All my brothers and sisters had relationships over the years – dating wasn't unusual," Benedict said slowly, his mind still trying to work out what to say, or more to the point how to express his concerns.

"I'm more interested in why your lawyer brought this up and today of all days. I thought the man worked for your father before you, and basically held the keys to the Dule family closets. He knows where the skeletons are buried."

"The family mausoleum is on the north corner of the estate. Oh, wait. I get it. Sorry." Benedict glanced sideways grinning at his mate. "You're right. My brain's a mess. Since that call…"

"Why don't you just tell me what your lawyer said."

"I thought he was calling just to let me know what time he'd be meeting us in London tomorrow." Benedict stared out across the top of the hedge in front of them, at the night sky above. "Instead, he was giving me a heads up that he, and therefore possibly the council, had uncovered new information concerning my father."

"Your father?" Dixon looked up and down the pathway as if expecting the man to appear. Benedict was half hoping he would. "What's your father got to do with anything? I thought the council was after you to make their zombie army?"

"That's what I thought, too."

"Did your father work for the Magical Council when he was alive?"

Benedict shook his head.

"Well, what did he do? Mate, you have to give me more than this so I can help." Benedict was tugged against Dixon's chest. "Whatever it is, it can't be that bad. You've already said about how supportive your parents were of you when they were alive, even to the point of severing ties with that Hugo idiot."

"My father didn't work for the Magical Council, no." Benedict blew out a long breath. "He consulted with them on some things, but that was a completely different department to where I was working. From what I remember him saying when he was at home, he never had any time for the Councilors or the Magical Council at all. He thought they were draconian and so far rooted in history they'd become weak and ineffective as an organization."

"Whether he was right or not, it's not important now, is it? Even if he was an absolute crook, and I'm not saying he was, your father's been dead ten years. It's not like the Magical Council can judge you for anything he did wrong."

"But that's just it." Benedict looked up, meeting Dixon's eyes. "If the information my lawyer's sent me is true, then my father was, at the very least, someone who went against everything I ever stood for. The information my lawyer sent through indicates that the person behind the zombie army idea was my father."

"Who sent the information to your lawyer?"

"Anonymous." The word tasted like ash in Benedict's mouth.

"It always fucking is."

"Dixon, what am I going to do?" Benedict grabbed hold of his mate's arms. "If this is remotely true then everything I believed for over a hundred years of my existence was a lie."

"Or…" Dixon said, reaching for his hands and holding them firm. "Maybe this is yet another ruse by Mr. Anonymous to convince you to summon the spirit of your father."

"You think so?" Benedict slumped against the back of the bench seat, trying to get his thoughts in order. Since arriving in England it was as if nothing was making sense at all. "Okay, I can see why if the Council thinks information like that would upset me enough to summon my father, that could be why it was leaked to someone I would trust, like my lawyer. That makes perfect sense, although I still can't think why anyone would want me speaking to my dead father in the first place. I mean, how do they know I haven't been talking to him every week for the past ten years?"

"Goodness only knows. The whole situation reeks of desperate people clutching at straws, with no firm motivation behind anything they're doing."

Dixon sounded put out, and Benedict reminded himself shifters preferred their enemies to face them and look them in the eye before carving out their heart. Or maybe it's just me thinking like that.

"Someone's acting out, and they're being damn silly about it, and this is just my opinion, mind," Dixon said softly. "But everyone knows if you want information about anything, especially a family matter you'd go to the mother, not the father."

"My mother?" Benedict had never once considered summoning his mother's spirit. In his head, his mom and dad were fated, and he only ever thought about them as a couple, but Dixon's idea had merit.

"Someone's feeding you a crock of shit, B. Whatever this information is, true or not, you're going to doubt your father, and yet wasn't it the spirit of your dad that warned us about the gremlin in the jar?"

"The changeling," Benedict corrected automatically. "Although, gremlin works, too. And yes, that was very definitely my dad. But he didn't stay, Dixon. And now when I think about how we were never encouraged to leave the family home. My dad used to joke that none of us were allowed to leave home until we were at least two hundred years old. None of my siblings ever married or had kids… Thinking back that was all because of my father. My gods, Dixon. What was he up to?"

"The only way you're going to find out, is to ask them." Dixon's hold tightened. "I know you never did before, and I'm guessing that's all part of your respect for the dead. But surely the whole point of Necromancy is to seek answers from those who've passed, and if anyone needs answers right now, it's us."

Benedict's heart warmed at Dixon's use of the term "us" even as a chill ran down his spine at the thought of disturbing his parents' rest.