by Brook Rogers
My mouth dropped into an O. This Fae Queen needed to be taken down a few notches. If power corrupts, then absolute power corrupts absolutely. The signs were all there, flashing in bright neon.
“She knew that thing was coming. Instead of letting us go, she made a meat shield to protect herself,” the elf added with disgust.
The demon appeared to have come to the same conclusion. Blue flames shot up from his hands, and he let out a growl. We tensed. Dubhlain pulled his guns again, but the demon realized we were taking his hibachi imitation personally and quelled the fires dancing on his skin.
I’d finally found a fire demon! Too bad there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it right now. Not until we resolved this mess with the Fae Queen.
In an effort to show us he was now calm, the demon told us that he, along with his now dead partner, had been approached last night by a Fae who’d offered to pay them in exchange for watching the road and detaining any travelers—by whatever means necessary. The two demons had met the elf on the road, found they had similar instructions, and cooked up the attempt we thwarted.
What were we going to do with them? The demon who attacked me was the only one who’d really tried to harm anyone—Dubhlain had undoubtedly taken worse hits in pub brawls during his youth—but it wasn’t right to turn them loose either.
The elf had a sad story, sure, but was it true? And even though the demon acted angry, it could just be an act. They might be biding their time until we let our guard down. I knew what I’d do if it were up to me, but I wasn’t the one running this show.
The berserkers shocked me with their generosity. They offered the demon and elf two choices: they could join us and have the chance to throw down on the Fae that had done them dirty, or we could truss them up like chickens and leave them here.
Not surprisingly, our captives went with the first option. Dubhlain rummaged through his duffel bag and produced two sets of silver cuffs inscribed with delicate runes. He handed one to each of our new “team members,” who eyed them warily.
“These inhibit your natural magic,” Bran told them. “Inclined as we are to believe you, both of you did have a very recent change of heart. None of us can afford to be distracted, worrying you might decide to stab us in the back. Either wear them or we get the ropes.”
The elf slipped his on. The demon held the bracelet between his thumb and finger as if it were going to bite. “Can we at least have our weapons back?”
Conall scratched his beard, mulling over the request. After a moment, he took the box knife from his pocket and handed it back to the demon. “If you come after any one of us with that, I’ll use it to carve out your testicles. One. At. A. Time.” His smile practically screamed unhinged. “Make good choices,” he added with a wink.
The brown-skinned demon paled a couple shades as he pocketed the knife. The elf’s face had turned hopeful at the news he’d be getting his gun back, but after Conall’s threat, he didn’t even bother asking for it. The bearded berserker could be downright scary when he wanted to.
I caught Bran’s attention and waved him over—well, less of a wave and more of a spastic hand movement. There was no way I could lift my arm enough to do a real wave. “Would you heal this for me?” I pointed to my stomach.
He sucked air in through his teeth when he spotted the holes in my shirt. The blood wasn’t very visible against my black tank top and leggings, but I could feel it getting tacky in places.
“Raise your shirt. I need to know what I’m dealing with,” he said. I grabbed the wet hem and pulled it up.
In a heartbeat, Dubhlain zeroed in on my exposed skin and stomped over. “I can take care of that,” he huffed. The possessiveness would have been less obvious if he’d hiked up his leg and peed on me.
Irritated, I held up a hand to stop him. There was no way I was signing up for a grope-fest in front of four other men. “Back up there, Marvin Gaye. I don’t want your kind of healing right now.”
He narrowed his eyes at me, and I scowled in return. Bran hesitated, his hands outstretched but not touching me, his gaze darting between us.
Eventually, Dubhlain turned away with a snarl and a muffled “fine.” I rolled my eyes. If that blockheaded Irishman couldn’t see the problem, I wasn’t going to waste time explaining it.
Bran didn’t even have to put his hands on me. His palms hovered just above the jagged and weeping punctures while tingles, not unlike tiny shocks, replaced the ache and burning. The skin knitted back together before my eyes. When he finished, I couldn’t even tell where the demon’s claws had been.
“Thanks,” I said, tugging my shirt back down.
He waggled his eyebrows. “No problem . . . now you owe me.”
I snort-laughed and walked away to pick up my backpack. Not that I remembered doing it, but I must have taken it off during the glamour. The elf had considerable skill in that area. I couldn’t help but feel a little relieved he was wearing the cuffs.
With Dubhlain leading the way, we continued our search for the flesh-eating monster.
Chapter 19
The sky slowly began to lighten with the coming suns’ rising. Once we were able to see well enough, Dubhlain tapped the rune on his arm, and his handy night-light vanished.
I was tired all the way to my bones, although Bran’s healing had taken the edge off the utter exhaustion I’d come to associate with my strange new magic. Hopefully using my power more would lessen the side effects. Like any other skill, practice improved performance and stamina—someday I might even figure out how to access it outside a life-or-death situation.
I angled myself to where I could walk beside the demon. His head was shaved on the sides, with a strip left on top to grow long, and braids weaving through the dark tresses made for a very goth-viking vibe. He was leanly fit, taller than me by a head.
Since we had new additions to the group, it seemed wise to get to know them—especially considering the Fates had dumped exactly what I’d been searching for right into my lap. If I got him talking, he might even let something slip. People did that sometimes. We had time to kill on this little trek, so it was worth a shot.
“I didn’t catch your name?”
He cast me a wary sideways glance. Frankly, I couldn’t blame the guy for being suspicious; my plans for him weren’t exactly honorable.
“You can call me Peep. My full name would be hard for you to pronounce.”
A bubble of surprised laughter tried to crawl out of my mouth, but the seriousness in his expression made me choke it back down. I managed to hide it with a cough. Sort of. “Okay . . . Peep. I’m Ray. You lived in the Hell Plane your whole life?”
He was wearing gray homespun trousers, but he’d paired them with a basic white T-shirt and a brand of boots readily available in the human realm. All kinds of goods made it into the Hell Plane from the different realms it connected with.
He clearly didn’t want to have this conversation—or any conversation, period—but something kept him from flat-out refusing to answer me. “It would be home as much as anywhere. I’ve traveled some of the other realms before, but I always come back here.” He wasn’t young; wrinkles twisted the corners of his tired gray eyes, but they still held a tiny spark of something. Determination, maybe? He was sick of life’s bullshit but far from broken.
“So what do you do, you know, for work or whatever? When you aren’t trying to waylay passersby, that is.” I said it with a grin, but it was a jab all the same.
If my teasing bothered him, he didn’t show it. “I’ve done many things since my wife left. Fishing was always my favorite, but I’m not very good at it. When I wasn’t able to buy her the things she wanted with the money from my fish sales, she found another who could.”
His wife sounded like a pretty horrible person. It made me wish she was here just so I could punch her in the mouth for being so materialistic.
“The money the Fae promised us was very good,” he continued. “I could have lived on it for a long
time, maybe even gone fishing for fun. I met Jericho a few weeks ago. He was rough, but I didn’t think he’d do what he did.” Dropping his head, he kicked a stone out of the path. “I never dreamed he’d try to kill you.”
If Peep was spinning a story, it was a good one. Things weren’t always black and white. Sometimes, circumstances forced people to make hard choices they would never have made otherwise. Maybe I’d end up regretting it, but I decided right then to befriend the demon.
Back when I still lived with her, Grand-mère and I used to float the rivers near our place several times each summer. There was good fishing there, and if we succeeded in keeping the Underworld closed, I could take the demon on a fishing trip. Maybe if I offered to do that, he could return the favor with his fire? I’d be able to pay Verlina back.
Excited at the prospect, I’d just opened my mouth to tell Peep when a portal ripped into existence right in front of Dubhlain.
Confusion locked my feet in place, but Conall immediately moved to catch the weapons bag Dubhlain tossed to him. In the meantime, my brain caught up with my body. I rushed forward a few steps, but Dubhlain stopped me short again with a look, his features pinched into a combination of regret and . . . shame? He mouthed the word sorry just as something jerked him into the portal.
Bran and Conall didn’t react the way I expected. They simply stood there as the portal faded, shaking their heads in resigned frustration.
What in the actual fuck just happened? Dubhlain up and vanishes, his brothers are irritated, but that’s all? Hell, Conall even had the forethought to grab his duffel bag. All signs pointed to this happening before—and often.
My anger burned at the man bearing the mate rune, but since he wasn’t here, I’d gladly take it out on the two berserkers in front of me. One way or another, I was getting answers.
“That’s the same thing that happened in the bar, isn’t it?” I asked, too loudly. I pointed at Conall and Bran. “You will tell me what’s going on. Where did he go?”
When Conall just shook his head sadly and turned away, something inside me snapped. I jerked my backpack off and threw it to the ground. My eyes had started to burn, and a prickly sensation was making my scalp crawl. Cold rolled over my arms, and suddenly two spinning spheres—one silver, one black—appeared in my hands, the colors a match to the tattoo on my back.
Peep pulled his box knife out and slowly pushed the blade up, holding it in front of him. He and the elf backed away slowly, their eyes wide.
Conall squared himself in front of me, but Bran hesitated, as if he couldn’t decide if he wanted to fight me or not.
At that moment, my right eye went blind.
Panic burned my throat, my pulse racing. It was ramping up into a full-blown freak-out when the knowledge of how to defeat them both suddenly emblazoned itself across my mind. I knew exactly what tactics they would use and how to counter them. Their every weakness was cataloged, and I could exploit them all. Even though I only had use of one eye, I could see better than ever.
Victory was assured.
“Everybody, just calm down.” Bran put his arms out in a placating gesture.
They were only going to talk in circles if they didn’t respect me, and there was only one way to earn that respect. A bitter laugh erupted from my mouth as I launched one orb at Bran and one at Conall. Dropping low, I ran toward them.
The sphere landed directly in front of Conall, kicking dirt up into his face. He automatically flinched away and brought his hands up, which gave me the opening I needed. I slipped in with an elbow to his temple.
He staggered a bit but kept his feet, then launched forward with a mighty swing that had surely felled bigger opponents than me. I ducked and kicked the side of his knee. It gave a sickening pop, and he did go down then. Anticipating his drop, I was already loaded into a roundhouse kick, which connected with his face and put him on his back.
Arms banded around me, and Bran murmured in my ear, “Enough, valkyrie. I’ll tell you what you want to know.”
But he wouldn’t. I could taste the lie in his words. My head whipped back, and he barely avoided a broken nose. I stomped hard on the insole of his foot—the same one that had broken half a millennium ago and never healed right.
To his credit, he didn’t yell or scream—only grunted. The arms around me loosened, and I spun out of his hold.
Bran shifted his weight to his uninjured side, his form beginning to waver and grow. Finally, they were taking me seriously, but I wasn’t sure I could best him if he let his berserker out. I had to put him down before that happened.
Tapping into speed I’d never experienced, I ran in close and caught him mid-change with several solid hits to his body. His meaty fist whooshed by my head as I slid nimbly to the side, and then my leg sweep toppled him like a giant tree.
Something moved in my periphery. Conall was up again.
I dived on top of Bran’s downed form and rained punches on his face and head while he tried to buck me off. One of his teeth came loose when I nailed him in the mouth.
Conall got a kidney shot on me before I rolled off Bran, who was now gagging on the incisor in his throat. The bearded berserker growled angrily and swung with a deadly right, but I feinted and let fly a punch to his happy place. Gargling, he went down again.
Bran pushed himself back to his feet. I paused, chest heaving, every muscle wound tight as a bow string. He was shrinking, coming back from the berserkergang, but if he moved at me again, I was ready.
Triumph rippled over me as I cast a glance back at Conall. He wasn’t even trying to get up. Some would say hits like that weren’t honorable, but I’d fight dirty every fucking time if it meant coming out on top. If they were bigger and stronger—and most of them were—I was going to have a damn good equalizer.
Now fully back to normal size, Bran spat out a glob of blood. “I’m done. Keeping this from his fecking mate isn’t worth it.”
Conall sat back, hands still cupping himself. “Aye. Whatever he’ll dish out won’t include a sack tapping.”
I grinned. Some of the tension left my body, and sight filtered back into my right eye.
Bran went over to Conall and put a hand on his shoulder, and after a few moments, the man’s tight, pained expression smoothed. With Bran’s help, he got to his feet and walked over to Peep and the elf. Peep looked appalled; the elf, terrified. A lot of Fae and other individuals with magic tended to rely on its use heavily. Physical violence shocked them, and they didn’t train to defend against it.
Conall spoke to them in a hushed voice, and Peep gave a nod. The elf also appeared mollified by whatever was being discussed.
After a few moments, Conall turned back to Bran. “We’ll scout ahead.”
When they turned to go, I cocked an eyebrow at Bran.
“I’ve got to get another godsdamned implant thanks to you,” he complained, putting a finger in the hole where his tooth used to be.
I didn’t feel bad. He would’ve knocked mine out and kept right on coming, so he’d get no sympathy here. Buffing my nails on my shirt, I shot him a sour smirk.
“All right.” Bran sighed. “Obviously Conall and I keep his secret. Not because he bound us, but we respect Dubhlain and aren’t gonna blab it to just anyone. But you aren’t just anyone, are you? He told us about the mate bond. I can’t figure why this hasn’t come up already . . .”
He drew a breath, then released it. “We were born and raised in Ulster Province. Dubhlain’s parents were farmers. Like today’s working class, some did really well for themselves, and others not so much. His mum and da, they weren’t overly good farmers. To make a better life for themselves, they struck a bargain with Oonagh. She agreed to make their farm plentiful in exchange for their son.
“His parents couldn’t bear the thought of losing their only child, so she modified her offer. In exchange for fertile fields, their son would be oathed to her for life, serving her whenever she called. Not knowing what would eventually come from their agreem
ent, they accepted. Their son was able to stay with them. They were happy, and their fields overflowed.”
It was a lot to take in. The way he talked about her, this Oonagh seemed like a big deal, but I’d never even heard of her. “So, he’s promised to . . . Oonagh, and she can summon him anytime she wants—leaving us high and dry. That about right?”
“If you boil it down, yeah.” He scratched his head. “The thing is, Dubhlain went on to train as a druid, and she never once called for him. Then, Tyrone’s Rebellion came, and we were called to fight by the O’Neill. Odin gifted us the berserkergang and immortality during those battles. That changed Dubhlain’s life commitment into an unending one.”
He spat again. “Once that bitch realized she had the power of a druid and a berserker at her beck and call, she came for him all the time. We’ve learned to deal with his sudden departures but can’t find a way to sever the oath.”
I pursed my lips. Damn. “There’s no way to know when he’ll be back?”
Bran shook his head. We couldn’t just wait around for his return; we might lose the Manticore’s trail. The attack on the town, along with Peep and the elf’s story, proved we were much closer to the stone than we originally thought.
I grabbed my discarded bag and slung it over my shoulder. “Dubhlain disappearing is a problem, but there’s nothing I can do about it.”
“I just thought because of your mate bond, you could—”
I cut Bran off with a sharp chopping motion. “Right now we need to find the Manes stone. If Dubhlain wants my help with some oath, he can damn well ask me himself. Are you and Conall still coming, even if he doesn’t make it back in time?” I’d opened a whole can of worms I wasn’t expecting. For now, it was better to put them all right back into that container to be examined at a later date.
Bran opened his mouth to say more but then decided against it. Instead he shook his head as if I’d missed something. “Yeah, we’re still coming.”