The Compass

by Cindy Charity

  Ali groaned. What was he talking about—what darkness? “I’m sorry; I really need to get home.”

  He made a sound of annoyance. “The only place you're going, Alina, is to see Mikel. He is most anxious to meet you.”

  Did she have a damn name tag on? She studied the man closely. Where she had felt a measure of safety from fantasy guy, it disintegrated with this guy. Danger clung to him; his opaque eyes were like mirrors. Despite her best efforts, Ali couldn't help but stare into them. His smile reminded her of crawling insects. His hair was combed straight back, and was black as night. He wore a suit that screamed Armani, and his shoes, even in the dark, shone. She stepped to the side; intuition told her that she needed to get far away from this man. “I'm not going anywhere.”

  The man laughed. “Typical mortal, you think you have a choice? Come, I grow weary of our dialogue.”

  She pulled back when he reached for her. Then tall, dark, and gorgeous was there—with a sword. Where the heck did he get that from? Her brain struggled to understand what she was seeing as he shoved her behind him. Her line of vision was blocked completely by his broad back. The hand with the sword rose and she found herself mesmerized by it. He spoke to other man with a tone of familiarity.

  “Lugus,” The name came out in a sneer. Finn brandished his sword. “It has been a long time.”

  With a one sided smile, Lugus produced his own blade with a flip of his hand. “Finn O’Shea, our paths cross once again.”

  In response, Finn called up the wind, then sent the squall forward, knocking Lugus back.

  “Parlor tricks?” Lugus spat onto the ground. “You’re going to protect a Fragment with parlor tricks—Agrona was arrogant in her choice.”

  The dismissal of his ability was hard to take, but Finn couldn’t allow his ego to take over. “That was just a warning Lugus. I have the first Fragment.” Thrusting out his free hand, he punctuated his declaration with a shower of ice shards.

  Lugus stopped the projectiles with a sweep of his arm. The ice fell to the ground in droplets of water. “Repaying you in kind would be too easy. It has been some time since our blades clashed.” Taking a few steps forward, Lugus brought his sword down in an arch.

  Ego commanded him to stand and meet Lugus’ attack head on, but his priority was Ali. Whirling away from the deadly steel, Finn grabbed Ali by the arm, ignoring her gaping mouth, and incredulous expression. Fading his own blade, he forced her into a run; her struggles doing little to slow him down.

  This had to be some kind of an elaborate hoax. The man—she now knew his name was Finn, had conjured up wind and ice, and threw it at the other man, Lugus—with his hands. There had to be hidden cameras and a crew waiting to jump and yell something absurd like: you’ve been punked. Yet, something told her that this was very real. She was wide awake and was being dragged by some gorgeous stranger who accosted women, and wielded swords—swords that appeared, and disappeared, into thin air. If this didn’t get her committed, she didn’t know what would.

  Her chest burned with the effort it took to get air, her legs were going to fall off, and his grip on her arm was surly going to leave a bruise. Couldn't he tell she was in pain? She tried to focus on what they were passing, on the off chance that she would be able to escape, but all she saw were brick walls. They turned a corner and came to a sharp halt. A dead end. Ali wrenched her arm, surprised when he let go. She glanced up at their roadblock. Whirling around, she yelled at him. Fear, mixed with her growing temper, made her voice sharp. “Fabulous. Tell me, what were you thinking of doing? Jumping the thirty feet to the roof of the building?” When he remained silent and glanced upwards, Ali sputtered, “You can’t be serious?” This was insane—he was insane.

  Finn gave jumping as much consideration as he dared; frustration had him curling his hand into fists, another reminder that he couldn’t do as he wished. Transporting both himself, and Ali, would be too strenuous and he wasn’t all that confident that he would be able to make the jump without endangering her. The familiar rising of the hairs at the nape of his neck announced that he had waited too long. With his mind already turning to battle strategies, his eyes jerked to Ali, “Hide—now.” Her mouth dropped open, reminding him of a baby bird. Then she was back to shouting at him.

  “You want me to hide?” She spread her arms out wide and did a slow turn. “Could you perhaps point me to the best dumpster?”

  Her sharp tongue did not help the situation, and Finn could feel Lugus pressing down on them. His sword shimmered into view once again, his hand curled around the hilt. He tried not to let Ali’s expression concern him. She was going to be seeing a whole lot more of these types of things in the coming days. “We could discuss it, but our company is here.” Silently he chided himself for wasting precious time on chit chat.

  Before she could come up with a retort, she was shoved behind him as he blocked an attack. She watched in horrific fascination as the two men engaged in battle. The sound of metal against metal echoed off the walls of the alley. Sparks flew, and rained down like glitter. As much as her mind screamed that what she was seeing was impossible, she couldn’t look away. It was like a scene out of Braveheart. The men lunged and pivoted away from one another, curses filled the sky. Above them, thunder boomed and lightning flashed. She supposed she should be grateful that it wasn’t raining. She immediately chastised herself for tempting fate. With the way this day had gone, it would be surprising if there wasn’t someone controlling the weather.

  In the midst of the action and noise, the thought of escape came to her. With them fighting, now would be time to sneak off. They were too busy trying to kill one another to worry about what she was doing. Slowly, Ali scanned her surroundings. What she thought was a dead end—wasn’t. There was a narrow opening to her right. It would be a tight fit, but it was her only chance. She took one more glance to make sure that the two men weren’t going to be an issue. Making her move, she descended down the three steps and shimmied through the opening. She closed her eyes at the sound of her leather jacket scrapping against the brick. Her purse got jammed and she played with the idea of just staying put. Sandwiched between two brick walls gave ample protection in her opinion. But as tempting as the thought was, she preferred to get as far away as she could from the sword wielding maniacs.

  It took some effort to free her purse and continue moving. When she got through, her elation was short lived. She was in another ally. This one just had boxes instead of dumpsters. “Wonderful.” Huffing out a breath, she scrambled for an idea. Her phone—of course, how could she have forgotten about it? Digging it out of her purse, she hit the home button. Her euphoria of possibly getting assistance was crushed when her phone immediately died. Great, fantastic. On top of everything else, she had forgotten to charge her damn phone. Biting her lip, she weighed her options. Standing still was not one of them. “Come on Ali—think.” She turned her body towards the sidewalk and possibly freedom. A brief flash of the empty streets gave her pause. Had that been just a trick? It was possible; this whole night had been one weird thing after another.

  She took a step, her ears trained on the sounds from the next alley. What if the trick—if it had been one, had worn off when Finn had dragged her off of the sidewalk? And now tons of people were milling about, and cars—in other words, help. If she went out there, flagged down the first person she met, or a cab—she would be placing people in danger—wouldn’t she? She took another step. Her head pulsed, the headache gathered, making her feel foggy. Whether or not her thoughts, her theories were true, she couldn’t take the chance that someone, other than herself, would get hurt. Another thought hit her, what if Lugus had friends waiting for her? Her stomach rolled. She just couldn’t stay here, even if it was a slim chance of escaping this, she had to risk it.

  Pushing down the queasiness, and fighting through the throbbing in her head, she took several more steps. The pain that exploded throughout her body had her faltering back. It was though something wanted to preven
t her from leaving, but that was ridiculous. She dug down and pushed forward once again. This time, the pain had her doubling over. Breathing through it, Ali closed her eyes. Immediately, visions flashed colors and events, swirled together like a kaleidoscope.

  Her eyes snapped open. The combination of what she saw, and the growing heaviness of her head, had her moving backwards, away from the sidewalk. Tears stung her eyes. She wasn’t going to be able to get away. “Okay, Ali. It looks like it’s the boxes. I only hope I won’t be heading into someone’s house.” Going over to the biggest pile, she got down and began to crawl forward. She grimaced as her hands went through something slimy. “Don’t think about it, just keep going.” The smell had her gagging, but she kept moving. When she got to what she thought was the center of the pile, she gathered her legs up under her and sat with her back against the wall. She clutched her purse to her chest and just breathed. Everything in her was scrambled. Her head was heavy, and her heart went from racing like an out of control train, to plummeting to the bottom of her feet—if such a thing was possible.

  If there was something good that could be taken away from this whole night, she stopped. There was nothing good about this night, or this day for that matter. Yet, the only thing that helped her keep it together was that Finn seemed to want to protect her. She should be terrified of him, but she wasn’t. He seemed to want to shield her from the other guy, which was completely irrational. She knew neither of them.

  Were they wizards? Tilting her head back, snagging her hair on the bricks, she dismissed the notion. Wizards were in movies, or they were people dressed up doing kids parties. No, those men were real. She just didn’t know where they had come from, or how they were managing to do what they were doing.

  Once she was home, she was confident she would be able to figure it all out. That’s what she did; she uncovered truths, found the hidden. All she needed was peace and quiet and her own space. She would start with the swords. No doubt they were replicas. It would have taken a master artist to recreate such convincing items. A lot of people like to take part in those re-enactment clubs, all she had to do was locate ones who specialised in—her thoughts halted. Well, she didn’t know quite how to categorize what the men were trying to re-enact, but surely, a club would jump out at her.

  Besides the swords, there were the accents. Clearly, the two were not from New York. However, she couldn’t place them. Both sounded like they had stepped off the boat from Ireland—or Scotland, but that deduction didn’t feel solid in her mind. No, maybe they were from around there—possibly a region or something. She would have to Google different dialects around the British Iles. Something was bound to pop out at her.

  In the meantime, all she could was sit here and wait, and stew in her rioting emotions, and hope that Finn was the better swordsman. The thought had maniacal laughter bubbling up and out. She was hiding in a pile of discarded boxes, hoping for the least crazy man to bring her out of this madness. Perhaps a nice visit to a padded room was just the thing she needed.

  Chapter Seven

  Finn deflected Lugus’ attack with ease. It had been a sloppy assault at best. In fact, every move had been half-hearted. It was as if the other warrior was toying with him, but for what reason? Gaining the first Fragment of the Star was just as important to Lugus, as it was to him, so why this game? He ducked as Lugus swung out with his blade.

  Kicking out a leg, Finn swept him off his feet. Lugus rolled away and came up crouching. Finn wanted to wipe the smile off his face. The battle had been strictly blade on blade, no magick; a definite advantage for the other man, so why wouldn’t he use what he lacked? The thought filled his mind as he fended off another advance. The only thing that made sense was that there was another nearby. However, that speculation was dashed when Lugus suddenly withdrew.

  “Until next time, warrior.”

  Bowing deeply at the waist, the older warrior shimmered out of sight, leaving nothing behind but confusion. Finn stood, his sword hanging loosely in his hand. What the hell had that been about? With a thought, his blade faded out of sight. Confused or not, he wasn't going to take a chance that it wasn’t a trick. He sought out Ali’s energy, and quickly made his way to her. That she chose to hide rather than flee pricked his curiosity. Her earlier behaviour dictated that she would have been long gone once the fighting had occupied his and Lugus’ attention.

  Entering the alley that she was in, he had to marvel over her choice of hiding place. Though the boxes had managed to conceal her, it would have been nothing for an enemy to set it ablaze. He approached with caution. It had been his experience with mortals that they tended to overreact. Stilling his breath, Finn crept closer. He latched onto her mind, found it to be a swirling, frenzied mess of emotions. She had had some time to have them run the gamut. He let out a sigh and reached out to her, making sure to keep his tone calm. “Ali, it’s me—you can come out now.” He stopped and waited, hoping she would respond. After a few tense moments, he watched her crawl out. He made a face, and sounds of sympathy. Goddess knew what littered the ground here. No matter, even looking like she had gone through a tornado, she still managed to steal his breath. She drew herself up and faced him her eyes were ablaze with fury. So, she had settled on anger, Finn braced himself for it. She came at him full blast.

  “Have you any idea how pissed off I am?” Ali kept her voice controlled. But when he just stood there, staring at her, she let go of the thin thread of her composure. “What the hell is going on—how the hell does everyone know my name?” She noted that he no longer had his sword, it wasn’t a silver lining, but at least she didn’t have to worry about him lopping off her head, though somehow, she knew he wouldn’t harm her. That she would feel anything for him but contempt pissed her off more. “And, more importantly, who the hell are you?”

  Finn found himself scrambling for the right words. At least she wasn’t afraid of him. The anger he could deal with—at least, he thought he could. Rubbing the back of his neck, he scrambled to find the right tone in which to address her, to get her to a place of calmness, like when they had first connected. If it were him, he’d appreciate a no nonsense approach, so he went with that, “Your energy is spilling over—if you would just calm down, I will explain.” He realized his choice had been the wrong when he saw her face pinch with her anger.

  “Calm down?” Ali’s voice went up several octaves. She took a wobbly step forward. “I’m suppose to stand here, calmly—covered in god knows what, so you can explain why you tried to abduct me off the street—why I had to hide in garbage, while you and your friend tried to disembowel one another?”

  Finn sent out a plea. Any help now, would be appreciated. Laughter filled his mind and he cursed. He was on his own to deal with her. Raking both hands through his hair, he tried to sound diplomatic. “Aye, that’s what you need to do.” He saw her eyes narrowed. Shit.

  Ali always thought the phrase ‘seeing red’ was an overreaction, but it perfectly fit how she was feeling right now. Her head hurt, her body ached, and she smelled like a sewer. And the one responsible was standing in front of her, relaxed, looking like cover model in his too well fitting jeans, too form fitting shirt, and badass leather jacket; telling her that she needed to calm down. Well, that wasn't going to happen. She took several menacing steps forward, holding her purse in a tight, doubled fisted grip. Her goal was to gain the satisfaction of hitting him. But her heel caught, and she was propelled forward.

  Finn only had a second to react. He caught her, grunting under the surprise. He had a moment to enjoy the feel of her soft body. Then, she punched him, catching him under the jaw. It was a paltry punch, but it did surprise him.

  “Get your hands off of me!” When she found herself released quickly, Ali stumbled, and nearly fell before he grabbed her—again. “Stop it.” She pulled away and the heel of her boot was snagged once again. Only this time, there was the sickening sound of wood splintering. “Oh no—oh please no.” She went down—hard.

 
; Finn had no idea what was happening, only that she had yanked herself out of his grasp, and was now sprawled on the ground. Energy snapped in the air, a result of her high emotional state. He crouched down to aid her only to have his hand slapped.

  “You’ve done enough.” Tears clogged her throat. Her right boot was now missing its fabulous heel. One tear fell, followed by another. This just bites! Glaring up at Finn, Ali laced her words with acid. “These are my favorite boots and cost me a small fortune.”

  The attachment mortal females had to shoes and clothes never made sense to him, but seeing how upset Ali was over this particular pair, had him wanting to fix it. “I can repair your boot.” Without pause, and ignoring another swipe of her hand, Finn took hold of her and lifted her to her feet. She hobbled due to the broken heel. To regain her balance, she placed her hand on his bicep. Her touch ignited a firestorm within. Hot, and powerful, the energy raced through his system like lightning, rooting him the ground.

  The muscles in his neck corded as he fought against it. His body struggled to absorb it, to try to neutralize it, but it was too strong. He watched Ali’s eyes widen and glaze over, her nails dug into his arm. Seeing her in distress ripped a roar from him, yet, he could do nothing. The sheer force of having so much power travel through him was enough to send him to his knees. This went beyond the desire he had felt when he had connected to her mentally.

  She was on fire, she had to be; her blood felt like it was boiling. Ali tried to let go of Finn, tried to step back, but she couldn’t move. Her muscles seized, causing sharp, jabbing pains. Something in her shifted, it was dark and menacing. She didn’t like it, it made her feel sick. Her vision went in and out of focus; she saw Finn’s face, it was set in hard lines of pain. For some reason that bothered her more, she didn’t want to see him in pain. Her throat felt swollen and it was so dry, it would be agonizing to speak. But he was the only one who could give her an answer. “What’s happening to me?”