Blood Sacrifice

by Maria Lima

  Long minutes later I was finally able to blink the last of the tears out of my eyes. My hearing had returned to nearly normal. I stood, trying to get my bearings. La Angel was to my upper right. I made my way there.

  Adam and Niko were arguing in quiet whispers.

  “What is it? What’s wrong?”

  “I think we need to try to get the door open,” Adam said. “We believe Gideon’s gone Below to loose the Dark Fae into Seelie territory bypassing Above altogether and letting them Between. He’s after Angharad. If he defeats her—”

  For a swift moment, I hesitated, my instinct to let them fight their battle in Faery and stay there, but I knew that couldn’t happen. If Gideon won, by whatever chance, he’d be able to open the doors now shut. Her death would mean the spells chaining them would vanish and he could allow the Darkness free reign over the world.

  “He’s also got Minerva and Drystan,” Niko supplied. “Adam didn’t want to worry you.”

  “What the hell happened?” I asked. “I was out of commission for about what, ten minutes?”

  “More,” Adam said. “A lot more. All this opening and closing of the door and magickal activity seems to have created pockets of unstable time. It seems to be passing at different rates in different parts of the cemetery. We’re mostly out of it up on the overhang, but we noticed the anomalies as soon as we got up here. We’d hoped to get a better sense of the action, to figure what to do next when we saw you three.”

  I dropped my head and kicked at a rock, swearing under my breath. Great. Fan-bloody-tastic. “So Gideon snatched Gigi and your father?”

  “More like swept them along as he slid Between,” Adam said. “They’d just shown up when he slid out. At the last possible second, he grasped their hands and pulled them along with him. It happened too fast to get to them.”

  “Do we know for sure he’s Below?”

  “The fact that he was yelling something about ‘getting that bloody queen’ leads me to believe so.” Adam shook his head. “I’m afraid if we don’t open the door, we may not be able to find him in Faery.”

  “Why not?”

  “Going there through a door makes things more stable,” Adam replied. “Trying to use pathways in the Between is fine if your goal is just to get to Faery and you have deep knowledge of navigating its Ways. I’ve long since lost that knowledge. We could be lost in there for years, trying to find a familiar place.”

  “In that case, I guess I have to open a door.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  “Then the king and all Israel with him offered sacrifices before the Lord.”

  —1 Kings 8:62

  The mouth of the cave yawned wide and empty. Beyond it, if I concentrated, I could feel the energies of the door chained tightly to itself as if literal links of steel bound it. Part of me wanted to just throw all my energy at it, to see if I could burst the chains. Sure, I’d probably end up letting the rest of the Darkness and Chaos through. No doubt they, and it, were panting at the other side of that door waiting for their master to defeat Angharad. I sighed and focused, trying to see the spells the queen had used to create the bindings.

  And if I figured out how to remove them? Could I do what Adam asked? Open Pandora’s box and let it all out? Gideon might just win then, despite our having soundly routed his forces. Then again, if I didn’t, we could lose Gigi and Drystan. Gideon’s power was strong, fueled by the dark energies he’d allowed inside. He might simply incarcerate the two of them while he went looking for Angharad to take his anger out on her, but he might also decide he didn’t need them any longer and kill them. It wasn’t easy to kill a Sidhe king or the Kelly clan chief, but there were ways, and Gideon, no doubt, could put his hands on a number of those ways.

  Hell of a choice I had, wasn’t it?

  I slammed my hand against the rough stone. “Damn him forever,” I yelled into the impenetrable darkness within the cave. “Damn him, damn him, damn—FUCK!” I’d sliced open the side of my hand. I shook it and brought it to my mouth to ease the pain. The moonlight was enough to let me see the damage. Moonlight? No longer the dark of the moon, but now nearly half full! More of that pesky time imbalance. Great. Had I been in here nearly two weeks now? Were Adam and Niko frantic with worry?

  I sucked at the wound. It wasn’t horribly deep, but deep enough to draw blood. I was going to need to do a healing spell. I was pretty shite at it when it came to doing it on myself especially after tonight’s battle, but this was a small enough cut. I shook my hand, trying to remove some of the blood so I could see the edges of the torn skin. Drops flung every which way, on the rock, on the ground. As the drops hit the parched dirt, the ground beneath me seemed to tremble, just a little, like a wee shrug.

  “What was that?” I spoke out loud, my words swallowed by the night. I waited a moment, and nothing else happened. Surely my blood on the ground wouldn’t—I squeezed the wound which had already begun to close and forced a few more drops of blood on the ground. Plop. Plop. They lay there in the dirt, shining. Nothing. Okay, then I must have imagined—

  Another shudder, this time stronger, underneath my feet. I dropped to one knee and placed my uninjured hand on the ground, palm flat to the dirt. The movement wasn’t originating here. That much I could tell. I shut my eyes and concentrated, letting shields lower and my energy pour outward. I had to be careful, had to make sure that whatever was causing this didn’t actually touch me, just in case it was some manifestation of the Darkness. I slid awareness just under the surface of the soil. “Find it,” I whispered. My energy sang, pulsing in place as if sniffing out its prey. A moment later, it sped away, toward the center of the cemetery. I kept hold of it as I stood, worried that someone had inadvertently run into something he couldn’t handle. The night remained silent as I exited the cave. No signs of any more fighting. With Gideon vanished, his minions had scattered. A few bodies still lay on the ground. Some his. A few ours. I peered up at the sky. I was back in normal time… or what seemed normal to me. The final, nearly transparent sliver of the moon hung among the stars, winking in and out of what could only be rain clouds gathering. Rain. Blessed be. Something had gone right tonight if we were getting rain.

  Should I shift? I could scent things better as wolf. Yet, if I did, what if I came across something I had to fight with magick? I couldn’t cast spells in animal form. At least, I didn’t think so. Deciding against shifting, I followed the energy path. It shone for me, a silvery ribbon pulsing in the moonlight, as if made of the moon’s own light, faint, but steady. I followed its path, extending my shields around me, strengthening my protection.

  “Keira?” A soft voice called. Adam.

  “I’m OK,” I called back. I knew that Niko was probably chomping at the bit, his Protector instincts on overdrive, but I ruthlessly tamped down emotion. I didn’t want either of them to join me just yet. Not until I knew what I faced.

  The night was quiet as I carefully walked the path. No night insects calling, no breeze rustling the dead leaves. The path wandered a bit, as if following someone’s stride, not exactly straight, but more or less in the same direction. Where was it leading? This wasn’t exactly a large place. The gate came into view, the light path veering to the right just before it. Was that Antonio? Had he made it away safely or had he hid during the battle? I didn’t want to call out. If the priest had stayed and somehow survived, any lingering physical manifestation of the Darkness might hear me and find him first. I couldn’t put him at risk.

  The shining ribbon curved once more, between two gravestones, back again toward the rear of the cemetery, back in the direction I’d just come from, toward the Angel. I could see her some dozen yards or so in front of me, the edges of her wings faintly lit by the moon. A shadow passed in front of her. My heart thudded in my chest. I stopped, tried to focus my vision. A light wavered in front of the statue. Antonio again? Had he come to pray in the aftermath?

  I saw that the path of my energy led directly to the clearing in front of t
he statue. I ran then, leaping over gravestones, over piles of dead leaves and grass. I let my unconscious take over as I wove through the tangled brush and undergrowth. Before I reached the clearing, I smelled it.

  Blood. Fresh, liquid, and lots of it.

  One last leap over a mutilated body and up a small rise and I froze.

  Antonio knelt in front of La Angel, facing her, both arms held out a little to the side, a rosary dangling from his right hand. Blood dripped from his fingers, pooling on the ground. He’d set the lantern at the feet of the statue. She looked as if she were alive, illuminated by the dancing light. A breeze had sprung up, making even the shadows dance.

  Soft words carried in the no longer still air. “Ave Maria, gratia plena; Dominus tecum: benedicta tu in mulieribus, et benedictus fructus ventris tui Iesus. Sancta Maria, Mater Dei ora pro nobis peccatoribus, nunc et in hora mortis nostrae. Ave Maria, gratia plena; Dominus tecum: benedicta tu in mulieribus, et benedictus fructus ventris tui Iesus. Sancta Maria, Mater Dei ora pro nobis peccatoribus, nunc et in hora mortis nostrae.”

  Over and over again he repeated the Latin prayer, the Hail Mary prayer, his voice weaker with every repetition.

  “Antonio?” My feet wouldn’t move, couldn’t move. It was as if he’d cast a ward against me. How? I tried to move again, putting my whole energy into it. Nothing. My feet stuck to the ground, locked in place as if encased in concrete.

  The priest’s voice faltered. “In hora mortis…” He shuddered, a weak movement, and attempted to speak again. “In hora mortis…” At the hour of our death. Why?

  “Why?” I screamed at him. “Why this?” My words fell flat, as if the wards he’d somehow raised blocked sound, as well as people. “Why are you doing this?” I struggled against the invisible glue that held me in place. C’mon, Keira Kelly. You are the heir. You have more power than this. Sweat beaded on my brow and trickled into my eyes as my muscles strained. The ground shivered and shook again, as if another earthquake was beginning. The blood scent grew stronger, permeated the air around me. I growled in frustration and sank to my knees, palms flat on the earth. “Let me through,” I commanded in a whisper. “Let me—”

  A bark and growl from behind me. I turned and fell to a sitting position.

  Tucker leaped to my side and shifted back to human. He knelt next to me and took me into his arms. “Keira.” He kept whispering my name over and over again, face buried in my hair. “I thought—” He stopped, his body tense as strung wire. “What?”

  “Antonio,” I said, slumping against my brother’s chest. “He’s…” I didn’t finish, not needing to.

  “He chose to be the sacrifice.” Tucker’s voice sounded awed. “Why?”

  I pushed him away, needed to see this through. Needing to watch. The priest’s body swayed as if pushed by the wind, which had increased. The wards fell.

  “He’s fading,” I said, trying to scramble to my feet. “I want to—”

  “No, you can’t.” Tucker put his arm around my waist. “He has to finish this. Don’t make this worth nothing.”

  A soft cry from the priest, then the words again. The same prayer.

  “I know.” I sank back against Tucker, letting him take some of the weight from me. “I know.”

  “The cemetery is re-consecrated,” Tucker said quietly. “Adam and Niko couldn’t enter. They saw him from the overhang and tried to jump down, but he’d already managed to re-consecrate the ground.”

  I nodded and wiped my face of the tears that now flowed without interruption. “I didn’t ask him to do this.”

  “I know.” Tucker’s arm tightened around my waist. A noise from above made me look up. Adam and Niko stood atop the overhang once more. “We can’t come down,” Adam said softly. “He’s completing the ritual. We wished to honor his choice.”

  I nodded, focusing only on the priest. I vaguely saw Adam and Niko bowing their heads, as if standing vigil. Niko’s hands were folded, his lips moving in prayer. Of the four of us, he was the only one originally human, raised as a Christian. He was still a believer.

  Time ticked slowly, minutes stretching into forever as I watched the life draining from the small old man. He’d lived several human life-spans, alone, outside of society, caring for a church no one attended. A part-fey human—someone like me, like Adam—had cursed him, caused him to live this unnatural life, yet he still had the humanity to do this—give his life, give his blood to save me from having to condemn others. He took the choice from me, took my burden and gave himself. I couldn’t understand this. Couldn’t know how he’d made this decision. But I knew that for the rest of my many, many centuries, I’d never forget him.

  Thunder sounded in the distance. I looked up. Clouds scudded across the sky, hiding the moon. I realized that the wetness I was feeling on my face was no longer just my tears. It had begun to rain.

  Fray Antonio slumped to one side. I pulled away from Tucker and rushed forward.

  “Father,” I said as I gently scooped an arm under his shoulders and held him up.

  He smiled, his eyes fluttering closed. “It is raining.”

  “It is,” I said, inanely.

  One breath. Then a second. “All is well, then?”

  I had to strain to hear him. “Yes.”

  “Good.” His eyes opened and he stared into mine. “You must care for them all now,” he said. “It is up to you.”

  I nodded. “I will.”

  He closed his eyes again. “I am at peace.”

  With a rattling breath, he was gone.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  “The past cannot be cured.”

  —Elizabeth I

  Before I could wipe away my tears, I heard him. “So you think you figured it out, dear cousin.” Gideon’s smarmy voice made me clench my fists tighter.

  “Did I not?” I tossed the words to him as casually as I could, considering the fact that I was standing in the rain, facing my once lover, now enemy.

  Gideon laughed, a shrill mad sound. He’d lost it. Power slid to madness as he cackled. What was next, lunatic ranting? He threw his hands out, shrieking a spell.

  I fell, rolling instinctively, then back on my feet with a shield spell surrounding me. My hands splashed bloody water as I extended my arms, whispering the mage fire out of my body. It sizzled away from me in direct line toward Gideon. A blink and he was gone, hiding behind some sort of dis-illusion, a notice-me-not stronger than I’d ever seen. I crouched behind a tombstone to Listen. There, to my right and forward about two dozen paces. I closed my eyes and focused, calling forth more magick. A quick toss over the stone and I rolled to my left, behind another marker.

  “Bitch!” Gideon yelled. I felt the magick slice open his flesh. Arm perhaps? Too bad, nothing fatal. “You think you’ve won? You think the land belongs to you now? I was once able to open the door to Faery. I will do it again.”

  A flash to my right. Another spell gone awry. He still didn’t know where exactly I was. Damn it, where was my cavalry, anyway? Though my vampires couldn’t cross the newly consecrated ground, Tucker most certainly could. Maybe he was sneaking in under wolf guise. Gideon might could shapeshift since he theoretically had all the Talents, as I did, but he didn’t grow up in a house full of them. I had, and I’d learned from the best.

  “Still silent, my former love?” Gideon continued to taunt me. “Did you not understand the meaning of the Challenge? Was it too difficult for you?”

  I ignored him. His voice hadn’t moved, which meant he hadn’t. Not much with the battle strategy this one.

  Suddenly, I felt a presence behind me “Thanks, bro,” I whispered.

  “Not a problem.” The quiet voice came from behind me. I turned my head to nod. There he was, crouched at the stone behind me, still in human form. He’d not spoken loud enough for Gideon to hear him over his own ranting.

  I nodded and turned back toward Gideon. He really had lost it.

  “Come on out, Keira,” he said. “This is no fun without y
ou. I want to show you. To show you how I’ve won.”

  “Not biting, Cousin,” I yelled past a rumble of thunder. “You want to talk, then talk.”

  Another twisted laugh. Tucker slid next to me, now fully nude. “Want me to shift?”

  I shook my head. “Not yet. I’m not sure what he’s up to.”

  “The priest wasn’t enough,” Gideon ranted. “You think he fulfilled the Geas? Oh yes, he brought the rain, well, goody for him.” Sounds of splashing made me peek around the left side of the stone. Nope, Gideon was just kicking water, but not moving anywhere closer.

  “What the—?” Tucker whispered.

  I shrugged. “He’s gone batshit haywire full-on McRanty pants crazy.”

  “Don’t be whispering about me, dear Keira,” Gideon said. “I can hear you. Is that your darling brother with you? Too bad the dead men can’t leave their perch now, but no, the priest took care of that. Funny, isn’t it. He gave up his life for you, yet his sacrifice only blocked the ability for your vampires to rejoin you. What will they do when I kill you, Keira, what then?”

  With no warning, Gideon’s face appeared over the tombstone. I shrieked and rolled left, tossing a flash-bang at him. After counting to five, I opened my eyes. “Tucker? Where are you?” I couldn’t see him. The rain was heavier now, with flashes of lightning punctuating the rolling growl of thunder. A bark from my far right. I scrambled in a zigzag toward him, trying to avoid Gideon, who was blind and deaf from the flashbang, but yet throwing out curses and spells. In too little time he turned his head in my direction. Damn it, he’d tossed my spell as if it were no more than a Fourth of July sparkler.

  “The land requires more lives,” Gideon said. “Not just the life of someone who gave themselves willingly, that was a possibility I’d planned for.” He cackled. “Don’t you want to hear? Don’t you want to understand?”

  I pushed the wet hair from my face and stood figuring that if he was talking like this, he’d not be saying spells. “Okay, I’ll bite,” I said. “What in the name of all the hells are you talking about?”