by M. D. Massey
“It’s not trapped?” Sabine asked.
The wizard stared at the open doorway. “Not that I can tell. I became well-acquainted with Mother’s traps and wards during the years I spent here, and I see none.”
He crossed his arms and cradled his chin in one hand as he contemplated the problem. I took a moment to look at the doorway and room beyond in the magical spectrum. I might not have had much magic, but I knew how to spot magical traps and wards. As far as I could tell, there were none in the room or on the doorway.
But I could see a sword and a flat, unassuming gray stone sitting on a pedestal in the center of the room.
“I don’t see a thing, Crowley. This smells fishy.”
“I don’t like it either,” Sabine remarked.
Crowley remained silent for a minute or more, then scratched his head through his hood. “Well, there’s nothing for it. Either we take the items and attempt to escape, or we abandon the mission.”
“Not a chance in hell,” I said. “You sure there’s nothing there?”
“As certain as I can be,” he stated.
“Alright, then here goes nothing.”
I walked through the door, expecting the ceiling to cave in on me, or to be struck by lightning or a meteor storm or a magic missile attack, or for a pair of stone elementals to spring from the floor and attack.
But instead, nothing happened.
“Huh.” I walked to the pedestal and examined the items. They both shone brightly in the magical spectrum, almost blindingly. But again I detected no wards, weaves, or traps on the items or pedestal. So, I took a moment to examine the items more closely.
The blade of the Sword of Nuada was currently inside a plain but finely-crafted scabbard. I leaned in for a closer look at the hilt, which was the only part of the sword that was exposed. It was made from bronze—and was nothing much to look at, to be honest. The handle was wrapped in worn, deteriorating leather; the crossguard was notched and tarnished; the pommel was dented flat in several places, giving it a faceted appearance.
Other than a crude face on one side of the pommel, it otherwise free from embellishment. On further inspection, I realized that the handle, guard, and pommel were crafted to form the shape of a man, with the legs making up the crossguard, and the arms and head the pommel. The sword was shorter than I would have guessed, more the size and length of a gladius than a longsword.
If I hadn’t looked at it with my second sight, I’d never have guessed it was one of the most powerful weapons ever crafted by the Tuatha.
I grabbed it off the pedestal, holding my breath.
Nothing happened.
I quickly tucked it into my belt and turned to the Stone of Fál. It looked like any stone you might see in a walkway or garden wall. The stone was free from decoration, mostly square in shape, and no bigger than a melon. It had been cut out of some sort of granite, and worn smooth from centuries of being carried and handled.
Legend had it that the Lia Fáil, or Stone of Destiny, stood on the Hill of Tara in County Meath, Ireland. That stone was a four and a half-foot-tall, rough-cut stone obelisk that was definitely not the Stone of Destiny. I was pretty sure some fae had placed the stone there as a joke, and started the whole legend about it being the real Stone of Fál.
At any rate, this Stone looked to be the real deal. Supposedly, when the true king of Ireland stood or sat on it, it would respond with a shout, proclaiming the validity of the would-be king’s claim.
I leaned in and stared at it, suddenly unsure of myself. Something about it felt off, like the Stone was charged and waiting to be triggered.
“Crowley, you sure there are no traps around this thing?”
“Ninety-eight percent. I would suggest you grab it so we can leave posthaste. Mother may already have been alerted to our presence here.”
“Colin, just grab the stupid thing already!” Sabine hissed.
“Well, it’s now or never,” I said as I grabbed the Stone.
As with the Sword, nothing happened. I stood up straight and wiped the sweat from my forehead.
“Well, that’s a relief,” I said, as I began to tuck the Stone into my Craneskin Bag.
That’s when the Stone of Destiny began wailing in ancient Gaelic at about a hundred and twenty decibels… plenty loud enough to alert the entire castle to our presence.
Shit.
18
“Damn it! Turn it off, Colin!”
Both my companions had run inside the room when the Stone had started its shouting fit. Sabine was frantic, looking around in anticipation of Fuamnach’s forces swooping down on us.
“I can’t! I don’t know how!”
“Then stuff it in that damned bag!”
“Oh.” I put the Stone in the Bag, and immediately our ears were met with blessed silence.
“By the way, what was it saying?” I asked.
Crowley shook his head again. “Let me get this straight. You’re descended from Finn McCool, you studied druidry under his mentor, who is perhaps the greatest druid the world has ever known, and you don’t speak Gaelic?”
“Just enough to cast a few minor cantrips.” They were both looking at me with their mouths agape. “What? It’s not like I needed to learn to speak Gaelic. I mean, who speaks Gaelic anymore, anyway?”
Sabine threw her hands in the air. “Apparently, ancient magical rocks. By the way, it kept saying ‘imposter’ over and over again.”
Crowley scratched his forehead inside his hood. “Hmmm… I suppose we should have anticipated that. But, there’s nothing to do for it now. We’d better get moving before we’re discovered.” He headed out the door for the treasure chamber proper, where our escape portal awaited us.
I heard a woman’s sandpaper-and-silk voice echo from outside the smaller treasure room. It was reminiscent of the voice some college girls earned after too many nights spent drinking hard liquor, smoking weed and cigs, and yelling to be heard over loud club music.
“Why, hello, darling. So kind of you to bring the Eye directly to my treasure room. It’s almost as though you wanted to save me the trouble of retrieving it.”
I pulled Sabine off to one side of the door and peeked around the doorframe. Crowley was frozen in place directly in front of the doorway—whether by fear or magic, I couldn’t be certain. I couldn’t see around him, but assumed Fuamnach was standing directly across the room from him.
Sabine grabbed my wrist and growled in my ear. “Ugh! I knew we couldn’t trust him. He probably led us here knowing that you’d trigger the alarm on the Stone. Bastard!”
I glanced around the corner again. Crowley was still frozen in place.
“I don’t think so, Sabine. At least, I don’t think he did it intentionally. Look, we don’t have time to discuss this. When I step through that door, you glamour yourself with the strongest see-me-not spell you have. When I have her distracted, make a beeline for that portal.”
“Colin, damn it—”
“There’s no time. Take Crowley with you if you can.”
I took a moment to feel for my shifter magic, to see if it was fully charged up again. As far as I could tell, it was. I slipped out of my sneakers, stuffing them into the Bag along with my trench. Then I tossed in my tactical belt so I wouldn’t lose it when I shifted, along with my sword, pistol, and the Sword of Nuada.
Fuamnach’s voiced echoed once more from the treasure chamber. “You may as well come out. I know you’re in there, both of you. Stalling will only delay the inevitable.”
I took two deep breaths, then I strolled out from behind Crowley. Fuamnach stood across the room, and she looked nothing like I’d imagined. In my mind’s eye, I had expected her to be either monstrously ugly or otherworldly beautiful. She was neither.
The sorceress was attractive in a sort of Claudia Black kind of way, with fair skin, piercing gray eyes, a prominent Romanesque nose, high cheek bones, and full lips. Her face was framed by shoulder-length brown hair that fell in lustrous waves, suffic
ient to put any L’Oréal spokeswoman to shame. But her strong, masculine jawline and her mouth, set in a permanent sneer, offset these features.
As far her figure went, she looked like she did a lot of obstacle course races or parkour. She was slender and flat-chested, tall at maybe five-ten, with that lean track and field look women got when they did a lot of cross-training. Rather than wearing a long flowing gown like a proper faery sorceress, she bucked convention in black gabardine trousers, sensible black leather boots, and a white funnel-neck cashmere sweater that reeked of entitlement and privilege. She wore a few ivory bangles on one wrist, but was otherwise unadorned with jewelry. As with most fae, she apparently had an aversion to metal.
I took in her appearance in a heartbeat, searing it in my memory. “I’ve waited a long time for this, Fuamnach.”
She looked rather nonplussed by my presence, and stretched languidly against a nearby arched buttress as she watched me walk to the center of the room. There was something familiar in her movements, in the way she held herself and how she looked at me… I just couldn’t quite place it.
“Oh, Colin McCool. You have ever been a melodramatic and whiny little bitch. Are you still pining for that trashy little hunter girl?”
I bristled at her tone. “Her name was Jesse, and on her worst day she had more class than you’ve probably had in your whole miserable existence.”
Fuamnach struck a pose, leaning against the arched ceiling support with an almost lazy composure and exuding a smugness that only the ultra-wealthy and ultra-powerful could assume. She flashed me a smile that was pure sugar-sweet flirtation, which played counterpoint to the rattlesnake venom in her eyes.
“Oh, I doubt that entirely. And her worst day was her last, as I understand it. You can’t show much class when you’re dead, dear.”
I held my tongue, promising myself I’d make her pay for that remark.
She paused and looked me up and down, barely wetting her lips with the tip of her tongue. “But you, Colin, you were much too good for her. You have the blood of Tuatha royalty in your veins, and it shows stronger in your genes than any human in generations.”
As she spoke, my head began to feel muzzy. At the same time, I became utterly entranced by what she was saying. I was starting to like Fuamnach, and considered that maybe she wasn’t as bad as I’d made her out to be.
“We could rule, you and I. You have so much untapped potential. Finnegas has been holding you back, the fool. He saw a glimpse of what you could become, and it frightened him. Or perhaps he’s as jealous of you as he was of Fionn. Regardless of his motivations, he’s been keeping you in the dark.”
Sabine yelled from somewhere distant. “Colin, no! She’s trying to—”
“Quiet, girl!” Fuamnach snapped. And like that, she was.
I wondered if Fuamnach could teach me to do that to Sabine.
All at once, my thoughts were interrupted by an intense pain just behind my eyes, like the onset of a killer migraine. But compared to Fuamnach’s voice it was merely a distraction, and one I chose to ignore. All I wanted to do was listen to her speak. I could have listened to her voice for hours on end. It was glorious.
The sorceress walked toward me, her hips swaying with a sinuous grace that made my knees weak and my groin swell. I wanted her. I wanted to worship her. I wanted to bed her and do her bidding, and I couldn’t decide which I wanted to do first. For that reason, I secretly hoped they’d be one and the same thing.
The pain in my head grew worse, but I did my best to ignore it.
Fuamnach looked at my eyes, and an expression of concern flashed across her face. Then, she smiled and continued speaking.
“Colin, you might think that I’m the one at fault for the curse that caused you to kill your former girlfriend. However, nothing could be further from the truth. The fact is, Finnegas and the bitch queen both knew about your ríastrad, long before you ever entered that cave to fight the Caoranach.”
My head was pounding, but all I wanted to do was hear Fuamnach speak. She sauntered up to me, brushing my cheek with her hand, then running it down my chest. It was exhilarating, feeling her this close to me. Yet, for some reason, I couldn’t respond. I realized it was because she didn’t want me to respond, not yet. I accepted that as a reflection of her will, and I was okay with it.
“You see, Colin, you were born with Cú Chulainn’s curse, which was handed down to him from his half-Formorian father, Lugh. It’s a genetic trait. I know something of such things, as I have long had an interest in the effects of magic on human genetics. It’s quite fascinating, really, what you can do by changing a chromosome here, and adding a DNA strand there. Science can’t make such changes—not easily, not yet. But I’ve had centuries to experiment on your kind, and I’ve achieved such wondrous results.”
I was certain her work would be fascinating, and wondered how I might help her in her experiments. A sharp pain in my head caused me to wince, and Fuamnach flinched, almost imperceptibly. I kept my eyes on her, because I was enraptured by her presence. She continued to talk as she walked a slow circle around me.
“Finnegas, the fool, knew that eventually your curse would show itself. What he didn’t realize was just how strongly it had expressed itself in your particular genetic make-up. And when you shifted that first, glorious time in your fight with the Caoranach, he was entirely unprepared for your complete loss of control.”
My head was throbbing now—and hot, as if I was running a fever. Sweat dribbled down my forehead and into my eyes. I forced myself to concentrate on what Fuamnach was saying. The sorceress ran a finger over my shoulder as she came around to face me, then leaned close to whisper in my ear.
“What I’m saying, Colin, is that it wasn’t my fault that you shifted. I never cursed you—in fact, I was unaware of your presence until you began dogging my adoptive son’s footsteps. And it wasn’t your fault, either. It was your mentor’s fault, Finnegas. He knew you had inherited the curse of the ríastrad, and he knew if you were hard-pressed, you’d shift into that warped, beautiful, deadly other form of yours.
“He put you and Jesse in that cave with the Caoranach. He told you she’d been weakened, that she couldn’t transform into her more powerful, dragoness form. He wanted to trigger your warp spasm, so he could use you as a weapon.
“Colin, Finnegas is the person responsible for Jesse’s death.” She placed her hands on either side of my face, and despite the searing pain in my head, I gazed deeply into her eyes. “Join me, and we’ll rule together. We’ll destroy Finnegas, and I’ll make certain no one lies to you or hurts you, ever again.”
I wanted to believe her. I needed to believe her, because she wanted me to do so. I opened my mouth to say yes, to agree to join her and serve her. To make my will subject to hers, forevermore.
But before I could speak, pain exploded behind my eyes. It was a searing, intense pain, the likes of which I’d never experienced. I shut my eyes, and heard a scream that was filled with shock, terror, and frustration. That scream wailed on and on, and as it did it deepened into a roar.
That’s when I realized the scream was my own. I was the one screaming, because my head was on fire with burning, agonizing pain. Unable to think, unable to speak or form clear thoughts, I did the one thing that was a reflex for me in times of stress.
I shifted.
-I see you’re once more in full control of your faculties. Welcome back, Colin.-
The Eye was speaking inside my head, which was still throbbing. It felt like someone had boiled my brains from the inside out.
What did you do to me? I asked. That hurt like hell.
-I apologize, but it was the only way to break the spell Fuamnach was casting over you. I began phase shifting from the alternate dimension where I normally reside, into this one. I couldn’t fully phase into existence here, for fear of killing you. But a partial phase was enough to force you to shift into your Fomorian form. Shifting allowed you to shake off the effects of her spell.-
Let me get this straight… you nearly fried my brain in order to save my bacon?
-Yes.-
Good work. Now, let’s fry this bitch too.
-Gladly. It is my life’s purpose to do so.-
I looked around for her, but she was gone. Shit! Crowley and Sabine were more or less where they’d been when I’d confronted Fuamnach. Both appeared to be shaking off the effects of her spell.
“Where’d that fucking coward go?” I yelled.
-It appears she fled when she saw you shift. There are few things the Tuatha Dé Danann fear, and I am one of them.-
“Well, I doubt she’s going to let us just prance right out of here with the Treasures, so I suggest we get going. Can you blast us a way out of here without blinding me?”
-Negative. In your current, inferior half-Fomorian form, the energies necessary to burn through solid stone will boil your eyes in their sockets.-
“I hate it when she does that, honestly I do.” Crowley leaned over, hands on his knees. He looked up at me and raised a very shaky hand. “I’m sorry, Colin—were you speaking to me?”
Sabine rubbed her forehead with the palm of her hand. “No, Crowley. He’s talking to that Eye thing inside his head. Sorry I doubted you, by the way.”
“Don’t mention it,” he said as he stood up straighter. “We should get going.”
“Good thinking.” I searched the room for our planned exit. “Crowley, where’s the portal?”
His hood swiveled back and forth. “Damn her! She must have closed it before she left.”
Fuamnach’s disembodied voice echoed inside the treasure chamber. “Indeed, I did. Nothing goes on inside my home without my knowledge, son. Colin, it’s such a shame we couldn’t come to some sort of arrangement. I’ve had my eye on you for quite some time, although the real Siobhan doesn’t quite share my attraction to you.”
In an instant, it all came together. Fuamnach’s mannerisms, her haughty air, the way she spoke… it was classic Siobhan. At least, the Siobhan I knew.