“A double-handed claymore, a claidheamh mór,” Saurin said, deliberately misunderstanding the question.
“Of the suspect,” Fowler said patiently.
Victoria Heath handed Fowler a photograph.
“Oh.” Saurin laughed easily. “Yes, I see what you mean. There were actually two of them, a man and a woman. I got a very good look at the man, as it happens. Mid-twenties, tall, hair cut short, green eyes…”
Tony Fowler slid a photograph of Sarah Miller across the desk. “Was this woman with him?”
Saurin looked at the photograph and feigned surprised. “Good Lord. Why, yes, but this is remarkable, Officer. This is the young woman all right, though she’s done something different with her hair. It’s shorter. She was waiting outside for him. She’s wearing a pink sweatshirt and tattered jeans.”
“Was there anyone else with them?” Victoria asked.
“Not that I could see.” He paused, before shaking his head. “No, when they were heading into the woods, they were definitely alone.”
“You saw them going into the woods?”
“Yes, just over the bridge.”
Tony Fowler grinned savagely. “When was this?”
“Fifteen, twenty minutes ago. I would have got down here sooner, but the traffic was dreadful,” he explained.
Fowler turned to Heath, but she was already on the radio.
“If you do find them,” Saurin added quickly, “could I ask you to return the two artifacts?…”
“They are evidence.”
“I just need them for a couple of hours, just to mount an exhibition. It’s crucial to the festival. You can have them back directly afterwards.”
“I’m sure we can come to some arrangement, Mr. Saurin,” Tony Fowler said, stretching out his hand.
Ahriman Saurin shook it warmly, taking care not to crush the detective’s fingers.
94
Sarah and Owen stood at the edge of the woods and followed Ambrose’s pointing finger toward the solid nineteenth-century farm house. “The Hallows are in there. The house is built over the remains of the ancient well.”
Owen shivered and rubbed his hands against his arms and across the back of his neck. Sarah found she was clutching the sword in sweat-damp hands, and she kept glancing over her shoulder, almost as if she expected something to come charging out of the trees.
“You’re feeling a tiny trickle of the power of the Hallows,” Ambrose explained. “They are sealed in lead boxes warded with words of power…but they are still incredibly powerful. If he does not use them soon, then the Hallows will break their bonds of lead and magic.”
“And then?” Sarah asked.
Ambrose shrugged. “Who knows? They are powerful enough to rip through the fabric of the myriad worlds, opening doorways into uncharted realms.”
“What do you want us to do?” Sarah asked tiredly.
“You must stop him, of course.” Ambrose said.
“How?” Owen asked.
“Only I can contain all of the Hallows,” the old man explained. “We have to get into the house—which is guarded by more than human wards—and then remove the Hallows. The Dark Man and his companion must be slain.”
“You make it sound so simple,” Sarah said.
“It won’t be,” Ambrose promised.
THE PLAN had seemed absurdly simple.
Why should Ahriman expend his energy searching for the couple when the police had the resources to do it for him? Discovering that the police had tracked Miller to the village was an added bonus. The gods—his lips twisted bitterly—were smiling on him.
The Dark Man paused at the top of the hill and leaned on the stone wall to look down across the Mere. Stretching into the distance, the fields were ablaze with makeshift tents and colorful stalls. Flags were fluttering everywhere, and thousands of people were dressed in various macabre costumes, celebrating the festival. Some were wearing modern Halloween outfits, others were in dress inspired by movies, others in the robes they thought were traditional. Ahriman smiled; when the Demonkind came through, the humans wouldn’t even recognize them.
In the distance, sounding faint and not unpleasant, bagpipe music skirled on the surprisingly balmy October air. There were visitors from all across the world: Many were from the Celtic lands—Welsh, Scots, Irish, Manx, Bretons—with more arriving hourly. Americans, Canadians, Australians. A surprisingly large contingent of Eastern Europeans had arrived during the night. He’d even seen some South African flags. There were at least one hundred and fifty thousand men, women, and children of all ages in the fields before him.
Thirteen enormous pyres were scattered in a seemingly random pattern across the landscape; only he knew that eleven of them contained straw-wrapped portions of the bodies of the Hallowed Keepers and that the fires had been arranged in a very particular order.
And when the fires blazed forth into the beckoning night sky and consumed the flesh, then he would bring the Hallows together and ceremonially shatter them, breaking the seals between the worlds and allowing the Demonkind through. The ancient ritual would bind them to him. He would be their master and they would be his to command. With them he would rule the modern world.
Ahriman looked over the fields again. He wondered if one hundred and fifty thousand souls would be enough to sate the Demonkind’s ravenous appetite.
He doubted it.
95
I cannot see any alternative, can you?” Ambrose asked reasonably.
“But hundreds could be killed, thousands injured,” Sarah protested.
Ambrose shrugged. “If they remain and the Dark Man activates the Hallows, then they will all die anyway. Millions will die.”
“And can you do this?” Owen asked.
“Oh, I can do this…and more, much more,” the old man promised.
“If you’re so powerful, why can’t you get the Hallows yourself?” Sarah demanded. “Surely you could march in there and take them?”
“The wards of power the Dark Man has ringed around the Hallows would also weaken my own special powers. I would be helpless.” He shook his head quickly. “No, my place is here. I will return to the cave and wait one hour, then I will begin. When you hear my signal, you will make your way into the house, secure the Hallows, and kill the Dark Man and his servant.”
“How will we get the Hallows out to you?” Sarah asked.
“Carry them,” Ambrose suggested.
“I didn’t think we could,” Owen said doubtfully.
“Anyone can carry them, but you need to be of the bloodline of the original Keepers to use them properly.”
“But I’m not related to Judith Walker and yet I used the sword,” Sarah said.
“You are not a Hallowed Keeper,” Ambrose said simply, his face impassive. “But you fed the sword, and so bonded it to you. And yes, you used it, but only to kill. The great magic of the sword, Sarah, is that it can also heal and create.” The old man turned to Owen. “You have the horn, Owen, but can you control what comes when you call? Brigid Davis could. You can do nothing with the horn, but you could work wonders with the sword, for you’re of the blood of Judith Walker, and she was from the line of the original Hallowed Keepers. And let me tell you this, Owen Walker: If you go up against the Dark Man in the house, it is you who must face him with your Hallow, the sword. That is the only chance you will have, for he is a Hallowed Keeper, too.”
“But what about Sarah?”
“It would be better if Sarah did not face the Dark Man,” Ambrose said softly. He glanced at the young woman. “It would be better if you gave Owen the sword.”
Sarah looked at the sword in her hands. Even the thought of handing it over to Owen made her break out in a cold sweat.
Ambrose shook his head in amusement and then, without warning, reached out and snatched the sword from Sarah’s grasp. Blue green flames danced along the length of the blade, hissing and spitting like an angry cat. He thrust the sword into Owen’s hands. “If the circumstance
s were different, I would tell you its history and powers….”
Sarah suffered as if she’d just lost someone very close to her. She felt chilled and shaken. However, the constant pressure that had been sitting behind her temples for the past few days was suddenly gone, leaving her light-headed and dizzy.
In contrast, Owen felt himself shivering with the raw power that trickled through the sword, tingling along the length of his arms, settling into his chest and down into the pit of his belly. It seemed almost natural to hold the sword aloft in both hands, broken blade pointing through the green canopy toward the sun. Bruises faded, cuts healed, his curly hair suddenly grew back, blossomed around him in a mantle, sparkling and crackling softly.
Ambrose picked up the horn where Owen had dropped it. White light coiled around the rim of the horn’s mouth. “I’ll take this with me. It will help.”
Owen lowered the sword, and when he looked at Ambrose, his green eyes were hard and unforgiving. “I cannot agree with what you want to do.”
“Give me an alternative,” Ambrose suggested.
Owen chose to ignore the question. “Tell me how you intend to panic the people into leaving.”
“No,” Ambrose said simply.
“People will die,” Sarah protested.
“Sooner or later we all die.”
96
Ahriman was putting the key in the lock when Vyvienne pulled the door open and almost dragged him inside. He was disappointed to see that she was still wearing her loose robe and hadn’t bothered to get undressed. “They’re close,” she whispered, face ashen with excitement.
“Who?” he asked.
“Miller and the boy. They’re close, so close. I’ve felt them—flashes, vague impressions, nothing more—but each time they were closer to the house. I think they’re coming here.”
Ahriman rubbed his hands together briskly as he followed the woman up the stairs to the bedroom. Usually, he would have admired the sway of her buttocks beneath the thin cloth and fondled her as a token of his appreciation, but not today. Today, he needed all his energy for the ritual.
“Do you want me to contact the police?” Vyvienne asked.
Ahriman barked a laugh. “No. I had hoped they would capture Miller, but this is even better.”
Vyvienne stood in the doorway and watched her master pull off his clothing, buttons popping in his eagerness. “I think there’s a third person with them,” she said quietly.
He stopped and turned to look at her. “A third person?”
“I’m not sure. It’s just the way they wink in and out of the Astral, and the way the Astral itself is opaque and twisted, making it impossible to travel through, impossible to see anything in it.”
Ahriman sat on the bed as he pulled off his trousers. There couldn’t be anyone with them; they were strangers in a foreign land. There was no one to help them. “They are both carrying Hallows. Perhaps the combination of artifacts is shielding them from us.”
“Perhaps,” Vyvienne said doubtfully.
Naked, Ahriman stood and spread his arms wide, muscles creaking as he stretched, then he smiled at Vyvienne and allowed her to step into his arms. He kissed the top of her head in a rare gesture of affection. “Do you know what day this is?” he murmured.
“October thirty-first, All Hallows’ Eve.”
Ahriman Saurin shook his head. “This is the last day of the modern age. Soon this world will belong to me.”
97
Ambrose lifted the horn to his lips.
He knew all the Hallows by heart—their names had changed through the years, but he had handled them all…indeed, he supposed he had chosen them all. In a more innocent time, for a more innocent reason. Quirky pieces for mercenary gain. Innocent objects, now imbued with a terrible power.
They had been created to do good, but through the ages they had always ended up touched and tainted by evil. The Sword of Dyrnwyn had been used to kill, the Knife of the Horse man used to wound, the Spear of the Dolorous Blow used to maim, the Crimson Cloak used by butchers and torturers to terrify.
It was not that the objects themselves were evil: They were merely powerful, and the powerful attracted the curious, and so many of those who set out on this path of discovery were ultimately seduced by the attractions of evil. He turned the horn over in his gnarled hands.
He would use the Horn of Bran to call the five elements. Once it would have been used in ceremonies to welcome the coming of spring or to drive off a particularly harsh winter.
He was going to use it to kill.
Many lives were about to be lost. Hundreds, possibly thousands. He could rationalize it by pretending that they had given their lives to save so many others.
The old man bent his head. If he had tears, he would have wept them, but he’d long ago forgotten how to weep. Instead, he looked at the Horn of Bran as he turned it in his hands, relishing these last few moments of the—his lips twisted at the thought—the calm before the storm.
Once, the horn had had another name, but he couldn’t remember what it was. He’d bought it from an Egyptian…or Greek…No, he’d bought it from the Nubian trader who specialized in carved bones. Ambrose smiled as he remembered: That would have been two thousand years ago, and the memory of that day was as fresh as if it had just happened. He could still smell the sweat from the man, the peculiar odor of exotic spices that clung to his skin, the distinctive stink of camel that clung to his ornate robe.
Ambrose had simply admired the hunting horn for itself, a unique and beautiful piece of craftsmanship, unusual enough for him to be able to ask a good price for it. There was a Greek merchant in Tyre who had a passion for bone carvings; he would buy it, especially when Josea had spun him a suitably exotic yarn. He had intended to introduce Yeshu’a to the Greek on the return voyage from the Tin Lands, though he would have to watch the merchant, for he preferred the company of boys…though on reflection, he remembered that the Greek preferred his boys beautiful, and Yeshu’a could never be called that.
But Yeshu’a had taken the horn, along with all his other trade goods, and imbued them with an ancient magic. He had made them into what they were now: the Thirteen Hallows.
And now Yeshu’a was worshipped as a God, or the Son of God.
Josea wasn’t sure if Yeshu’a was a god; certainly he was more than a man. Yet there was a magic in the world at that time, elder magic, powerful magic.
It had been a time of wonder.
There was little wonder left in the world in these modern times. Perhaps that was a good thing.
Lifting the horn to his lips, Ambrose drew a deep breath and blew.
98
One newspaper would later call it a freak storm.
Another claimed it was the storm of the century.
But those who were there, those who survived it, would claim that it was unnatural, as the dusky landscape radiating beautiful golds and reds changed dramatically in a matter of seconds.
Unlike the usual rumble of thunder that generally precedes a storm, there was a low, dull sound…almost like a trumpet or a tuba.
Or a horn.
The clouds rolled in quickly, boiling up from the south and west, flowing over the mountains in a tumbling sheet. Shadows raced across the ground, chilling everything they touched, huge drops of icy rain spattering onto the dry earth, popping off the leather tents and cloth awnings over stalls and stands. Almost as one, the festival-goers groaned aloud; it had looked as if it were going to be such a nice evening.
PADRAIG CARROLL of the Irish folk group Dandelion was climbing onstage when the sun vanished behind tumbling gray black clouds. He swore silently. This was just his luck: His first big break—he knew there were at least two record scouts in the crowd, and the BBC was recording it—and right now the concert was going to be a washout. He glanced at Shea Mason, the drummer, and raised his eyebrows in a silent question: Do we go on?
Mason nodded and grinned. He was sitting at the back of the stage under the awning.
If it rained, Padraig and Maura, the lead singer, would be soaked. He would be safe.
The crowd was shifting impatiently, turning to watch the gathering storm clouds as Padraig picked up the guitar. Static howled, drowning out Maura’s greeting in Irish. The guitarist stepped up to the mike and repeated the greeting in carefully rehearsed Welsh. There were whistles and cheers, and in the distance a dog howled.
“We’d like to welcome—,” he began, and the lightning bolt struck him through the top of the head.
The incredible surge of power shredded his body, boiling flesh exploding, spraying slivers of cooked meat onto the front row, the guitar bursting into molten metal. The electrical charge rippled through the power lines, and the speakers erupted in balls of flames, red-hot cinders spinning out into the audience. All over the stage, power cables started to burn.
Those nearest the stage screamed, but their cries were misinterpreted by those at the back, unable to see clearly, who started to shout appreciatively and cheer for the pyrotechnics.
A second lightning strike danced over the drummer’s metal kit and landed on Mason’s studded leather belt, fusing it to his body. He tumbled backward into the heavy black curtain decorated with the Celtic festival logo. It wrapped itself around his body and immediately started to burn. Mason was still alive, but his screams were lost as a series of rattling lightning detonations rippled across the field, destroying people at random, blue white balls of light dancing from metal chairs and tables.
In the sudden gloom, the lightning flashes were incredibly white and intense, blinding everyone in the vicinity. The crowd panicked and ran. Then the heavens opened, and a solid deluge of rain—some of it electrically charged—immediately turned the field into a quagmire.
A three-hundred-year-old oak split down the middle, burying twenty people beneath its branches. A silver jewelry stall exploded, shards of red-hot metal hissing out into the crowd. A falafel stand took a direct hit, the gas cylinder detonating in a solid ball of flame, spraying long streamers of grease and hot fat in every direction.
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