by Eloise Flood
“Yikes!” Phoebe grabbed a magazine and darted into the bathroom. “I’ll be listening,” she called as the door closed.
A moment later there was a soft knock at the suite door. Prue and Piper looked at each other. “This is it,” Prue said.
She straightened her shoulders. Then she crossed to the door and opened it on Niall’s smiling face. Today he wore a billowing white cotton shirt, open at the neck, tucked into a pair of close-fitting black jeans. Everything looked brand-new.
He looks like the cover model for a romance novel, Prue thought, not a warlock.
She gave him a cool smile and stepped aside to let him in.
He nodded a hello to Piper, then glanced around. “Isn’t Phoebe here, then?” he asked.
“She’ll be along in a minute,” Prue said. She closed the door, discreetly turned the key in the old-fashioned lock, then dropped the key into her pocket. Not that a locked door would hold Niall if he turned out to have magic powers, but somehow it made her feel better.
“Have a seat,” she went on, waving Niall toward the one armchair in the room. “We want to talk to you.”
Niall sat down. “What, more tough questions?” he said with a laugh, but Prue thought she detected a wary note in his voice.
“You could say that,” Piper murmured.
Prue moved to stand in front of him. She crossed her arms. “Why don’t you start by telling us who you really are?” she suggested in a quiet voice.
“And what exactly you and that group of Druids were doing out at the standing stones this morning,” Piper added.
That definitely got a reaction. Prue saw an unmistakable flash of shock in Niall’s eyes. “I— I don’t know what you’re talking about!”
“Don’t give us that,” Piper said. “I saw you.”
“Who are you?” Prue pressed. “What have you done with Mrs. Jeffries? And what do you want with Phoebe?”
“Who is Mrs. Jeffries? And what’s Phoebe got to do with anything?” Niall demanded. He was starting to sound belligerent.
“As if you didn’t know,” Piper said angrily. “Is this all part of some elaborate ploy to get the Power of Three? Because it isn’t going to work.”
“The power of what?” Niall stared from one sister to the other. “Look, I haven’t the faintest idea what you’re talking about, but I don’t want to stay here for any more of it. Tell Phoebe I’ll meet her downstairs.” He stood up and started toward the door.
“Don’t even think about it,” Prue snapped. Without bothering to uncross her arms, she made a flicking gesture with one hand.
Niall flew backward, thudding into the armchair with such force that it skidded a few inches across the carpeted floor.
He gaped up at Prue, openmouthed.
“Are you—are you a witch?” he asked after a long pause.
Prue snorted. “If that’s the game you want to play, fine,” she said. “Yes, I’m a witch. So are both my sisters.”
“We’re the most powerful witches around,” Piper added. “Believe me, you really don’t want to get on our bad side. So I suggest you tell us what we want to know.”
“You’re . . . you’re all witches?” Niall repeated. His voice was hushed, awed. Prue frowned, disconcerted. She could have sworn his surprise was genuine.
What he said next disconcerted her even more.
“Thank God!” he cried. “Please—I need your help!”
CHAPTER
6
Prue’s eyes narrowed as she gazed at Niall. “Say again?” she said. “You need our help?” “Yes! Yes!” Niall clutched both hands to his head as if he was afraid it would burst. “Thank all the gods I’ve found you. Now maybe I can find a way out of this nightmare!”
“What nightmare?” Piper demanded.
Niall dropped his hands onto the arms of the chair. He leaned back. “I suppose I’d better start at the beginning,” he said. He glanced up at the sisters apologetically. “I hope you don’t have any immediate plans. This could take a while.”
Prue heard the soft snick of the bathroom door opening in the other room. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Phoebe glide forward and take up a position by the bedroom door where she could hear better.
“I’m not who I seem to be,” Niall began.
“No kidding,” Piper muttered.
“I was brought here about two weeks ago by Diana and her group of Druids,” Niall went on.
“Brought from where?” Prue asked.
“Not where,” Niall corrected. “When.”
Prue caught her breath. “Are you saying you’re not from our time?”
“Not even remotely,” Niall agreed. He gave a short, unhappy laugh. “I cannot tell you what a shock this century has been to me. You see, I come from the year 584. That’s according to your calendar. Ours was somewhat different.”
From the doorway, Phoebe let out a sharp gasp. At the sound, Niall turned his head and spotted her. He looked suddenly drained.
“Ah, Phoebe, I’m sorry,” he murmured. “Sorry I didn’t tell you all the truth. But how could I know who you were?”
“Never mind that right now,” Phoebe said. She came into the sitting room and leaned against the desk. “The year 584? That’s right around the time King Arthur was supposed to have ruled. Are you saying. . . ?”
Niall nodded. “I am from his court, yes.” He gave a sudden grin. “That’s why I am so certain that he did not know how to ride a horse, you see. Horses made him sneeze.”
“Hold on a minute,” Prue said. She put her hands on her hips. “Can you give us one good reason why we should believe this story of yours? Do you have any proof that you’re actually from fourteen hundred years in the past?”
Niall reached inside his shirt and drew out a soft leather pouch that hung from a rawhide cord around his neck. He shook it over his palm. Two or three silver coins fell out. He handed them to Prue. “You know about antiques,” he said. “You’ll no doubt recognize these.”
She studied the coins, cool and heavy in her palm. They were slightly irregular in shape. All were stamped with the same Roman-looking head crowned with some kind of wreath.
Her heart gave a sudden, hard thump as she realized what was different about them. She stared at them for a long minute, then raised her eyes to Niall. “You could have forged these,” she pointed out.
“I could have, I suppose,” he acknowledged. “But that would take a lot of work, don’t you think? At any rate, I didn’t. I just happened to have them with me when I was . . . taken.”
“Wait,” Piper broke in. “I don’t get it. So he shows you a couple of old coins. Why couldn’t he have bought them from an antique dealer or stolen them from a museum or something like that?”
“Actually, they’re not old, Piper,” Prue pointed out. “That’s the point. Look at them— how sharp the etching is, how detailed the relief. These coins haven’t been lying around for fourteen hundred years. They’re no more than twenty years old at the most.”
Phoebe cleared her throat. Prue watched hope and suspicion chase each other across her face.
“It still isn’t proof,” Phoebe said. “You could have forged these coins, like Prue said. Or you could have gotten them by magic.”
Niall smacked the arm of his chair in frustration. “All right, it’s true. But here in this wonderful age where all is possible, how am I supposed to prove anything to you? I’m just a simple man from a simple time. I believe in magic and miracles. And I swear to you that I am telling you the truth.” His voice was pleading. “That is the best I can do.”
There was a long silence. Then Prue moved to the daybed and sat down.
“All right, let’s assume for now that we believe you,” she said. “Tell us the rest of the story.”
Niall steepled his fingers under his chin. He drew in a deep breath.
“I am the son of the Druid Merlin and Nifein the Enchantress,” he began. “You people seem to call her Nimue or Viviane, but I tell you her
name was Nifein.”
Phoebe was staring at him with her mouth open. “Merlin?” she repeated. “As in . . . Merlin?” Her eyebrows drew together. “He didn’t have a son. At least, not in any of the books I read.”
“It was not widely known who my true parents were. My lord Arthur thought it better, for my safety,” Niall explained. His gray-blue eyes darkened. “I never knew them. My lady mother sealed my father into a castle of air before I was born. After I was born she herself went away— no one knows where. But I believe they are together in their castle.”
Prue noticed that he was speaking with a different cadence now. His voice was slower, deeper, the unfamiliar accent more marked.
“I was raised at Caer Annyl, on the coast, by a noble family close to my lord Arthur. I am his loyal man, the captain of one of his galleys,” he went on. “Or I was—until a fortnight ago, when I was taking my ship across the mouth of the river Severn. I was standing in the bow, watching for the far shore, when it seemed that a great whirlpool opened beneath me and swallowed me up. And when I could see and hear again, I was . . . here.” He spread his hands. “At the standing stones. The ones where you saw me this morning,” he added, turning to Piper.
“Diana is the one who summoned me,” he continued. “Diana is the high priestess of this little band of Druids.” He snorted contemptuously. “Druids, they call themselves! Poor misguided creatures, most of them, who have read a lot of nonsense about the ancient ways and who hunger for any escape from their narrow lives.
“But Diana is different. Diana has a little power of her own and a hunger for a great deal more. And she believes she has found a way to get it—through me.”
Prue felt a prickle of unease. “What do you mean? Is she trying to steal your power?”
Niall shook his head. “I have no power of my own,” he explained. “Although my parents were two of the greatest enchanters who ever lived, their power did not pass to me. Not directly, that is. But Diana says it is in my blood.”
“Like a recessive gene,” Piper murmured. “I guess it makes sense in a crazy kind of way.”
“So if the power is in your blood, how does she plan to get it?” Prue asked. “A transfusion?”
“There is an ancient rite,” Niall said. He flicked a glance at Phoebe, and Prue thought she saw a hint of embarrassment in his eyes. What’s that about? she wondered.
“Arthur banned it,” Niall went on. “Before that, it was practiced every midsummer’s day. I’ve heard some of the Druids here call it Beltane, but it was never called that in my time.”
“Beltane?” Phoebe repeated, frowning. “I remember reading something about that. Isn’t it some kind of fertility ritual?”
“In a way. It celebrates the union of the Sun God and the Queen of Summer,” Niall said. He was totally avoiding Phoebe’s gaze now, Prue saw. And were his ears turning red?
Phoebe’s gaze suddenly hardened. “ Mmm-hmm,” she said, folding her arms. “Celebrates how, exactly?”
“A man is chosen to represent the Sun God. A woman represents the Summer Queen. They are prepared with spells and chants for twelve days before. Then, on midsummer’s day, they are anointed with the ritual oils, clad in the ritual robes, and brought to the standing stones,” Niall explained. He paused.
“Go on,” Phoebe prodded.
Niall cleared his throat. “The purpose of the rite is to make a child,” he said. “To renew the year at the moment when it starts to wane. To continue the cycle of life. To—”
“Wait a second,” Prue broke in. “Back up. Did you say ‘make a child’?”
Niall hunched up his shoulders and nodded. “Just to clarify,” Piper said carefully. “Who exactly is representing the Sun God and the Summer Queen?”
“I’ll give you two guesses,” Phoebe muttered.
Prue stared at Niall in disbelief. “So you and Diana are going to re-create this ancient Druid ritual and . . . and make a baby?” she demanded. “What on earth for?”
“I told you. She wants power,” Niall said. He looked up. “She believes that a child with my blood in its veins will be as powerful as Merlin, my father. Maybe even more so. And it will be hers. She will control it absolutely.”
He turned to Phoebe. “Please, you have to believe me, I want none of this,” he burst out. “I was brought here against my will. Diana keeps me here against my will. I have no love for her.”
“Right.” Phoebe drummed her fingers on the desk. “I suppose it never occurred to you to just say no? ‘Thank you very much, Diana, but I have a headache’?” Her eyes glittered with anger. “Or would that be too unmanly?”
“Don’t you think I would say no if I could?” Niall cried. “I can’t. They hold all the power, don’t you see? They brought me here, and they can send me back. But only if I do as they say. And if they don’t send me back on the stroke of midnight on midsummer’s day, I will die. Horribly. Those fourteen hundred years will catch up with me all at once. I’ll crumble into dust in the space of a few minutes.” He shuddered. “If I say no, I seal my fate. As long as they think I’ll be their willing stud, though, they let me go about freely. And so I can search for my own way home.”
There was a long silence. Phoebe picked fiercely at the cuticle of her thumb. Prue watched her, worried.
At last Phoebe lifted her head. “Why drag me into all this?” she asked him. “If you really didn’t know I was a witch, then why bother to get involved with me?”
“I couldn’t help myself,” Niall said simply. “When I saw you in that bookshop there was something in your eyes, right before you fainted. Something that reached right in and touched my soul. I never felt anything like it before. And I couldn’t stay away.”
He held her gaze steadily. Phoebe swallowed hard. Prue thought she saw the glitter of tears in her eyes.
“So what were you doing in that bookshop?” Prue asked slowly. She was remembering the tussle Phoebe had described, when Niall snatched the bit of parchment out of her hand. “What were you looking for?”
He tore his gaze away from Phoebe. “A way home,” he replied. “It’s said my father had the second sight. I don’t know if that is true or not, but I do know that he left a message for me before I was even born. A letter. It said that if I was ever trapped in a land of strangers, he had written a spell that would bring me home again. All I had to do was find the spell.”
“He couldn’t just include the spell in the letter?” Piper murmured.
“I have never understood the tortured laws that govern prophecy,” Niall replied. He shrugged. “Anyway, I have been searching high and low for the spell. That was what I was doing in Caer Wydyr.”
“But you didn’t find it,” Phoebe said softly. “That was why you were so upset.”
He nodded. “My father would have written the spell on a piece of parchment. That bit you found was covered with what looked like runes from a distance. But it must have been some scribe’s practice sheet. It was gibberish.”
Piper had been standing by the window, listening. Now she moved forward.
“Excuse me, but there’s something I just don’t get,” she said. “You say you’re from the sixth century, that you’ve only been in our time for two weeks. But you look totally modern. Your clothes are modern. You speak like a modern person. You don’t seem freaked out by all our modern inventions, like TV and cars and electric lights.” She spread her hands. “How do you explain this?”
“Diana,” Niall replied. “She crammed a lifetime’s worth of learning into me in a week, with the help of some Druid magic.” He gave a lopsided grin. “But believe me, there are still many things about your world that shock me. Not just the inventions—the automobiles, the airplanes, the computers. But also the way people behave toward one another. The absence of rank. And the women—such freedom!” He made a helpless gesture with his hand. “I find it very confusing. I suppose I’ve just learned to hide it.”
“I have one more question,” Prue said. “What about Mr
s. Jeffries? What happened to her?”
“Honestly, I don’t know who you mean,” Niall said.
“The old lady who sells strawberries,” Prue told him. “I saw you and Diana talking to her yesterday. Diana frightened her. And today she’s missing.” Her voice hardened. “Do you know where she is?”
Niall’s eyes clouded. “I don’t know where she is, but I think I can guess why she vanished. I told you that Arthur banned the midsummer ritual. I did not say why.” He took a deep breath. “It was banned because it calls for a sacrifice.”
“A human sacrifice?” Piper asked, aghast.
“Yes. A wicker giant is built—a hollow figure. The sacrifice is imprisoned inside the giant. And then the whole thing is set alight. Diana told me today that they were building the giant. And yesterday I noticed that she took great care to find out whether your Mrs. Jeffries had any people who would miss her.” Niall sighed. “If she is gone now, it is because Diana plans to use her in the ritual.”
“Oh, God!” Prue paced back and forth on the carpet. This was serious. Dead serious, if Niall was telling the truth.
She stopped abruptly and faced Niall. “My sisters and I need to discuss this,” she told him. “In private.”
“Of course.” He started to stand. “Shall I wait downstairs?”
“No need.” I’d rather not have you out of my sight, if you want the truth, Prue thought. “Piper, would you mind?”
“Not at all.” Piper aimed a finger at Niall and curled it slightly.
He froze in place, half-crouched in the act of standing. His eyebrows were raised, and he had a surprised expression on his face.
Phoebe gazed at him for a second, then turned away. “Ugh. Can we go somewhere else? He looks just a little too weird like that,” she murmured.
The sisters went into the bedroom. “Okay, so what do we think?” Prue demanded.
Piper walked over to the window. She stood fiddling with the curtain pull. “I think I believe him,” she said after a moment. “It’s the craziest story I’ve ever heard, but . . .” She trailed off, shrugging. “I don’t know. I just believe him. How could you make up something like that?”