by Stark, Jenn
“Does the Magician know you’re doing this?” I asked, my words low.
“The Magician knows a lot, especially the stuff he doesn’t want to know,” Simon murmured back. “If he’d wanted me to stop, I suspect I would have stopped already on my own and thought it was my idea.”
“Conal is here,” the woman said abruptly. “You’ll understand once you meet him.”
Obligingly, I swung around to face the courtyard entryway to the bar. I didn’t have to wait long. The door opened as if on cue, and a gaggle of humanity flowed through. Three tough-looking security-guard types, all in deceptively casual knit shirts and khaki pants, followed by two men who looked alike enough to be brothers, at least from a distance. Even if I hadn’t seen him on Dixie’s camera feed, though, I’d have known at a glance which one was Conal.
The man who’d become the Green Knight would’ve been attractive in nearly any setting, but in the lush, luminous glow of a humid Irish evening, he was almost transcendent. Tall and moderately built, he wore a dark knit shirt and dark pants, which seemed to set off his fair good looks. His hair curled around his face in a short choppy blond mop, and his blue eyes twinkled with a fire I could see all the way across the courtyard. But it was his smile that was truly captivating, bright and engaging and so full of repressed excitement he seemed to draw those around him closer to him just by turning on the charm.
Speaking of charm, I flicked my third eye into motion and nearly flinched at the cacophony of energy that swirled around the man. It was the same tangled weave I’d seen earlier in the chapel and to a lesser extent in the heart of the festival, when the Neo-Celts and spectral opposition warriors squared off. I looked closer, trying to penetrate that power, and instantly, I was put in mind of the magic that swirled around the Magician. Armaeus’s magic was elegant in its symmetry in form, carefully studied and mastered, a true art. This, however, was a wild frenzy. But was that simply because I wasn’t seeing a natural, organic pattern to the chaos? Was I looking for the elegance of the Magician and getting instead the raw power of the man who could be Temperance?
Either way, it was too much. I clamped my third eye closed and waited for Conal to turn our way.
“Who’s the guy with him?” asked Simon, and my gaze flipped to the man beside Conal, who I assumed was his brother, Niall. Though I knew they were several years apart in age, they were close enough in looks to almost be twins. As they got nearer, I could tell more differences between the two, though their features seemed weirdly less distinctive, not more, as they came closer, glad-handing their cronies. My head was already starting to hurt with these two.
“That’s Niall, Conal’s older brother,” Patricia confirmed. “Given his druthers, he would rather close himself up in a cottage and read books all day, but Conal has become so used to having him around that he doesn’t like to make a move without him. Niall is a good brother and he works hard to support Conal. It isn’t easy running a global ministry when you’re only thirty-three years old.”
I winced, not missing the subtle Christ allusion that these people seemed eager to be pushing here. “How’s that ministry going, anyway?”
At that moment, however, Conal turned to us, stepping away from his brother, who stood back even as Conal moved forward. Conal strode toward Simon and me with a broad smile, extending his arms wide—not to hug us, but to include us both in his greeting.
“Justice Wilde, Trickster Simon,” he said, stopping a few feet short of us to execute a brief bow. “I am Conal McCarthy. You honor me with your presence. You honor us all. I have long wondered when the Arcana Council would take note of our order’s growing strength. I’m happy that time is come.”
There was something about the guy that nagged at me, but I was pretty sure I was being churlish. He really was devastatingly good-looking, and the addition of the Irish brogue did nothing to take away from that. Quite the opposite.
“I understand you reached out to the Council before,” I said.
“I did! I didn’t quite understand that Justice was not in office, until suddenly she was. I had a sense I needed to contact you, though I confess even as I did it, I wasn’t sure what I was looking for. And now you’re here, so perhaps we can figure that out together.”
There was the slightest hint of flirtation to his voice, but I didn’t take it personally. Conal McCarthy seemed to be the type of man who would flirt with a stone and not mean anything by it. It was simply the way he interacted with the world. Once again, I suspected it was part of his charm.
“Are you all gathering tonight for our benefit, or do you have a base of operations near here?” I asked.
“We did, but we do.” He grinned. “We’ve purchased several buildings in the city center, expanding as we go. We thought first a more remote location, given the noise and hustle of Dublin, but there’s no denying the energy of this place. It draws our people from all over the world. I can meet you at my headquarters tomorrow if you like.” He rattled off an address. “Or, if you prefer, we’ll be gathering in St. Stephen’s Green around noon.”
“What’s wrong with tonight?”
“Because tonight we are friends.” He smiled. “Tomorrow, who’s to say?”
I tilted my head, taking in the magic of his person—the magic and the undeniable youth. I decided not to beat around the bush. “There are those members of the Council who believe you’re Temperance reborn.”
“Reborn?” Conal laughed, shaking his head. “I am no one but me. The role of Temperance on your exalted Council is a noble one, to be sure, but I don’t seek to marry up the elements or even the disparate spirits in this world. No. I wish to light a great fire for the Connecteds, that all might see the truth of who and what we are.”
“You believe the world is ready for that?”
It was a softball of a question, and as I expected, Conal hit it out of the park.
“It no longer matters if the world is ready for it,” he said with a resonance that seemed to lift his voice and extend its reach. Everyone in the courtyard took note, and even I settled back a little on my feet. The guy could have been in the opera, with the kind of vocal projection he was rocking. Was he, in truth, the Hallowed Knight? “What matters is that we are ready for it. There is no more time to lose. Beltane is scarcely more than a day away. When those sacred fires are lit—nothing will be the same.”
I watched his energy build and twist as he spoke, the charisma of a true zealot layered over a very real web of power. This wasn’t someone who was going to listen to reason, I knew in an instant. Note to self, wrap this up before Beltane.
“It would be advisable, Miss Wilde.” The Magician murmured in my mind, teasing a smile from me. It was good to know he was paying attention.
I managed to keep my expression neutral as I studied Conal. “Tell me, why the Green Knight? It’s been a while since my English lit class.”
“Believe it or not, it wasn't the moldering old tales of the druids that inspired it, the name just sort of came to me.” Conal laughed, spreading his hands in a “what’re you gonna do, I’m a genius” gesture. “The Green Man has long been a fixture in Irish mythology, and the Green Knight was all about the symbology of a true code, not one that weak fools paid lip service to. A code of the earth and sky and mortal grace. That’s what I wish to put forth to guide the Connecteds of this world. And that’s what I will do. You’ll find that most of my presence online and in person is created to get people to pay attention, Justice Wilde. My motives are pure, my intentions true. But if the more outrageous things I suggest gain us the attention that we desperately need to get our messages heard? Well, I’m not about to let the moment pass me by. We need eyes upon us—all eyes—to launch the era of the Connected as powerfully as possible.”
“Uh-huh.” I crossed my arms, not knowing if anything that came out of this man’s mouth was the truth, the truth as he firmly believed it, or a bald-faced lie. I definitely wasn't going to tip him off about the Hallowed Knight concerns of the
druids—or the whispers of the In Between. “And the women in Las Vegas who thought they were marrying you and got a face full of Fomorians for their trouble? They died, Conal. Badly.”
“They lived,” he countered. “The Fomorians needed a human host to serve as their gateway to this world, and both Lenora and Alison eagerly volunteered. They knew their path would be one of passion and surrender, and it was. They got to experience a purpose, a power most mortals only dream about. They were also consenting adults and able to make their own choices.”
The way he said the last bit made me think he had a phalanx of green-jacketed lawyers huddling over hold-harmless agreements somewhere, which pissed me off. This guy was way too smooth for his own good. But now he’d attracted the wrong attention.
Then again, maybe that had been his goal all along.
I narrowed my eyes at him. “And that bit about the fae coming back to rule in their rightful place, taking dominion over Earth once more? You have to know the Council has heard about that.”
To my surprise, Conal merely winked. “Made you look.”
Yup.
Chapter Twenty-One
I was in the same pub the next morning, waiting for my coffee despite the owner urging tea on me like it was the elixir of the gods, when Simon joined me. He looked absolutely awful as he staggered toward me, gratefully accepting a mug from an industrious barmaid on her way to my table. She was my barmaid, as it happened, which meant it was my coffee Simon was now drinking. In this case, I didn’t mind. Simon clearly needed the brew more than I did.
The woman scurried off for more, and Simon slunk into my booth.
“What happened to you?” I asked. “We didn’t stay out that late.”
I’d bailed on the fawning gathering after enduring a few more rounds of Conal’s cryptic pronouncements. I’d decided I’d had enough. No way was this guy a former Temperance, but he was a budding megalomaniac. That was reason enough for me to deliver him to Judgment at least long enough to get us past Beltane. After that, we could all discuss the coming surge of Connected strength in a slightly saner and more rational way. I hoped. I’d managed to use the time in my room to go over Mrs. French’s files, which was time much better spent. This wasn’t the first time the ancient gods of Ireland had been summoned, and it had never gone well.
“We didn’t stay out late,” Simon agreed. “But when I got up to my room last night, I decided to check the Internet. There’s been an explosion of activity on the arcane web. Conal’s chief of staff Patricia she said was online a lot? You have no idea. I fell asleep three different times, but she never seemed stop posting.”
“Could’ve been a bot,” I suggested.
“Could’ve, but I don’t think so. There was an earnestness to it that’s hard to fake. She also changed her primary talking points too many times, but not so many times that it appeared to be a truly randomized sequence. And then she messaged me directly about game play.”
I looked more sharply at him, and he immediately clarified. “As in MPG. Online games. She wanted to play, and she was good. Too good. We decided to team up and play a game we’d never tried before, and…hours passed. Now I’m here.”
“You certainly are that.” Not knowing what would help him best, I ordered a traditional Irish breakfast. The Irish apparently ate a lot of meat for breakfast, but Simon fell on the plate as if his life depended on it, and maybe it did. The combination of savory meat, eggs, beans, and potatoes called to me as well, which surprised me, but when in Dublin…
While we ate, I pulled out my phone and engaged the map app, pointing at the district that Conal had mentioned the previous evening. “Can you program that into your little spy toy and let me know if we’re running into a trap?”
“Absolutely.” Simon pulled a much smaller daypack from his shoulder and unzipped it, reaching in to pull out a slender laptop. “Left the rest of everything in the room, warded to the gills. Uploaded everything I could to the Arcana Council servers before I did so.”
I lifted my brows. “I thought you didn’t have Wi-Fi access in the In Between.”
“I didn’t. But I did have recording capability, and Armaeus sounded like he might cry when I uploaded the feed.”
I had no response to that and pushed my eggs around on my plate as Simon finished tapping on the device.
“Here we are. Nice little area of homes near St. Stephen’s Green. That entire area is old, old, old, but nothing untoward, and nothing hyperpowerful except right here.” He tapped the address Conal had given me. “Which I assume is because that’s where Conal is located.”
“Any other activity we need to be aware of? Witch, demon, revenant, Connected, non-Connected, anything?”
“Not a ton of Connected activity of note, except for here,” he said, pointing at a collection of buildings near the southwest quadrant of the green. “There’s definitely something cooking there, though it has the sense of being muted. More like there’s some sort of shield or whatnot going on.”
“A shield?” That was interesting. “Someone trying to use their abilities on the sly that close to the Green Knight’s headquarters? Why?”
“Don’t know, but remember, this device I have is pretty sweet. It’s not like any rando Connected would be able to pick up on this, given the quality of the shield they’ve got going on. They’re good.”
“Well, Conal doesn’t need to know where we are until we show up on his doorstep. Let’s see how good.”
It took another thirty minutes of stout Irish coffee, spicy sausage, and eggs before Simon began looking more himself, then we headed for St. Stephen’s Green. The walk was easy and surprisingly pretty, with a bright sun streaming down on a city that appeared freshly scrubbed. As we approached the park, however, I began to get decidedly uneasy, my right fist clenching and unclenching involuntarily. “You sure you didn’t pick up any activity in the park itself?” I asked.
“Nada,” Simon said. He pulled the device out of his pack again and scooted over into the shade so he could read the screen more easily. “Cancel that. There’s definitely something going on now, something on the darkish side. But also a signature I recognize.” He squinted at the park, then back at me. “Would it make any sense for Death to be in there?”
“Maybe,” I allowed. I knew she was going to be in the area, and I knew she wanted to be on hand when things got real with the Green Knight and his little troupe of leprechauns. But what she was doing to keep herself busy before the confrontation happened, I had no clue. I’d only worked with Death directly a few times, so I was in completely uncharted territory.
“How much do you know about Death?” I asked Simon as we resumed our trek. I’d heard Jimmy’s take on his employer, but I’d also seen firsthand Simon’s ability to collect and parse information. I suspected he had a file on each of us, and I was looking for a deeper dive into the data.
“Not as much as I’d like, of course, but I’ve got the basics,” Simon said. “Second-longest tenured council member after the Archangel, who shouldn’t really count since he was around before the Council even got started. Druid priestess before she ascended, timeline super fuzzy on that. Could’ve been right around the start of the Common Era, or it could’ve been several hundred years earlier, or as much as three thousand years. She’s given all three answers at different times. And too, they counted time differently than they do now.”
“Fair enough.”
“A few things that she has been consistent on, though,” Simon continued, ticking off the points on his fingers. “Daughter of a high chieftain. Never was married, but she’d been promised in marriage several times, sort of the nature of the beast back then.”
“Really.” I tried to imagine Death even entertaining the idea of being married off, but then again, she hadn’t always been a demigoddess. Once upon a time, she was simply your ordinary, average druid high priestess.
No. I still couldn’t imagine her entertaining the idea of being married off.
“H
er time as priestess did not go completely without note, despite her best efforts. The oral tradition was still alive and well for several hundred years before that eventually got scuttled, but when I first ascended, one of the top non-Council Connecteds I was friendly with was a channeler. I managed to find people who’d been alive around the time of every Council member when they ascended and pumped them for information.”
I stared at him. “Please tell me you’re joking.”
“Nope.” He grinned. “I was a little messed up at the time, strung out on drugs before I ascended, and then seriously mind-fucked by the Emperor afterward, but I wasn’t a complete wasteoid. I figured out pretty quickly that if I wanted to understand who was on the team with me, I needed to do my own digging. Nobody was giving up any information, so I went out and found it myself.”
“And you seriously were able to call up contemporaries of people like Death.”
“Death, Eshe, Viktor—yep. The Devil too. I tried Armaeus, of course, but he knew what I was doing and hadn’t cared up to that point. He drew the line at his own ‘This is Your Life’ rundown. He said if I needed to know any information for something other than my own idle curiosity, he was happy to share.”
I snorted. “Right.”
“Agreed.” Simon grinned. “But I let it alone at that point. No point in setting him off, and I had enough data on the other members to at least get my footing. Anyway, my contact for Death was another priestess in her tribe, or whatever they called it back then. Not a very successful priestess, either, and bitter about that. Those always make the best informants. She said Death was a pain in the ass.”
Simon stumbled abruptly, then swung his gaze to the park. When he spoke again, his voice was a little higher, a little threadier. “You know, maybe we should wait until we know exactly where Death is before we have this conversation.”
I glanced over to the park as well, then scanned the street ahead of us. “Probably not a bad idea. And look there. I think that’s our stop anyway.”