by Izzy Shows
Eek. That sounded like they were expecting something else from me. I didn't have anything but the shirt I was wearing.
He turned back to me. "Now, then. The Dullahan is a headless rider that carries his head beneath one arm, the mouth of which is outstretched in a hideous grin that touches both sides of the head. His eyes are constantly roaming, able to see across the countryside even on the darkest of nights. No one can hide from the sight of the Dullahan. He carries a whip made of a human spine, and the chariot upon which he rides is bedecked with funeral regalia. When the Dullahan stops riding, that is the place a person is due to die, and the Dullahan will call out the name of his victim. No attack is necessary. The person will die at once, with no opportunity to defend himself."
"Well, that sucks," I said. "Why don't you just build a bunch of walls to keep him out?"
"Nothing can stand in the way of the Dullahan. You cannot bar the road against him; all locks and gates open to him when he approaches, and he will curse those who dare to watch him to be the next to die. Sometimes, he will even lash out with his whip to blind the watchers' eyes. Nothing can harm a Dullahan. They are impervious to all known weapons, even the powers of our priestesses."
I made a face. "Nothing in the world is completely impervious to everything. This guy has to have some kind of weakness."
He held up his hands as if to say, "Like what?" "The only story I have ever heard of a Dullahan turning from his quest is that some say the Dullahan pay homage to the Winter Queens: the Lady, the Mother, and the Crone. They say that he rides in their name, and that only they can stop him."
"Hm," I said, crossing my hands. "You know what that sounds like to me?"
His brow wrinkled. "What?"
"Well, you said this Dullahan guy has been corrupted by the Slaugh, right?"
"Yes, my lady."
"And now you're saying the Winter Queens can tell him to go away."
"That is correct."
"So, it sounds like the Dullahan is weak against mental compulsion," I said, feeling triumphant. "Which is not one of my strong suits, I'll admit. It's not exactly an approved course of study where I come from. We're not supposed to mess with anyone's mind, but it could probably be done."
But if the only person known to have turned a Dullahan away was a Winter Queen—which obviously referred to the Queens of the Winter Fae—that meant it took a hell of a lot of power to get the job done.
Oh, yeah, I was totally screwed on this one.
"She does not understand the Dullahan!" one of the villagers shrieked. "She thinks it to be mentally weak. No one can defeat the Dullahan! She is not the one. She is ignorant of our ways."
I scowled at the individual who was apparently having a great time dragging my name through the mud. I was not ignorant.
"Hey, just because I'm trying to think of ways to stop this guy from eating you up doesn't mean I'm ignorant. In fact, I'd say it makes me pretty damn smart. Would you rather I threw up my hands and said, 'Oh, man, there's nothing to be done. Boo-hoo'? Come on. You need someone stronger than that, don't you?"
Jameson gave me a look as if to say I hadn't been very helpful, then turned back to the crowd.
"She is the one. I am certain of it. But if it will calm your nerves, Miranda, we will take her within the Shrine. She is our savior, and the Shrine will confirm it."
I didn't like the sound of that. What exactly would I have to do to get the Shrine to sign off on me? Also, it totally wasn't going to sign off on me, because I definitely wasn't the prophesied one, not by a long shot. I wasn't the kind of person anyone would write about in a history book, and I wouldn't call myself a savior by any means. If I had been prophesied about, it was probably to warn people to steer clear of me, because bad luck followed me wherever I went.
But I wasn't going to say any of that to the villagers. They wanted to believe they had found someone who was going to save them, and even if I didn't believe in their prophecy, I did believe they were in danger.
And I never turned away from anyone who needed protection.
Five
Jameson led me into the Shrine. Some of the crowd followed us, but the lot of them obviously wouldn't fit, so only about five or six came in. Inside the Shrine was a large stone pillar, on top of which sat what appeared to be…an orb on fire? That sounded impossible, and was damn confusing to look at, but I figured it wasn't the weirdest thing that could exist in the world, all things considered.
Listen, after all the shit I'd seen, a burning orb wasn't going to rate.
Still, I couldn't help the sense of anxiety that had followed me into the Shrine. I didn't want to be here. I wanted to go back to bed, and maybe back to that dream I'd been having, although in the light of day, or night, or whatever, I was having regrets. Plus, I was fairly certain they had the wrong woman, and this was all some giant misunderstanding.
But I wasn't going to fight the townspeople on this one. It seemed dangerous to piss them off when there were a couple hundred of them and one of me, and I really didn't like the idea of leaving them unprotected in a situation as dangerous as the one they had described.
"What do we do now?" I asked, looking over at Jameson.
"You must touch the idol," he said, indicating the burning orb.
"Uh, no offense to what I'm sure is a very sacred object to you and your people, but I don't really feel like burning a hand off today just to prove a point that I'm about ninety-nine percent certain isn't right to begin with."
"You do not need to believe you are the savior in order to be the savior," he said, sounding like some weird wise man would. "But do not fear to touch the idol. It will not harm you. It protects the town. It does not harm those who wish it well."
Right. OK. Well, now or never, right?
I took a deep breath and thrust my hand through the flame to touch the orb beneath.
The moment my fingers brushed against the glass, the world fizzled around me and I found myself standing in a sacred grove. There were trees all around the clearing, flowers growing inside of it, and a lot of cute little animals hopping around.
In the middle of the grove was a woman. She was wearing a long white gown and had a circlet on her head.
"Who are you? What's going on?"
I was getting really sick of being randomly transported. A word of warning from Jameson would have been nice.
"I am Priestess Moira," she said, and I could hear the power in her voice when she spoke. Jameson hadn't been kidding around when he said a powerful priestess had sacrificed herself for the town; I had no trouble believing this woman had been capable of quite a lot when she was alive.
I hadn't expected to meet her, although, Jameson had said she lived on within the Shrine, so I supposed I shouldn't be terribly surprised.
"You are a child," she said disapprovingly. "Why are you here? You are not right."
"I don't know what you mean by that, but I'm pretty sure I am right. I didn't say anything to be wrong about, but I'm definitely my right self."
"A falsehood," she said, walking toward me, although it almost seemed as if she was floating along the ground. "You are a child. You do not know yourself, and you are unable to give my people the protection they need. You are not the one I sent for."
I sighed. "Yeah, I know. I tried to tell Jameson and the others that they had the wrong woman, but I apparently fit the physical description, so they're pretty sold on it. I know I'm not the prophesied one, but it doesn't look like she's showing up, so I'm all you've got right now. Sorry."
She frowned. "You are right, and you are wrong."
"What, now?"
"You are the woman, and you are not at the same time." She sighed. "You have been taken from the wrong timeline."
"Timeline? Wait, are you saying this isn't the same year I went to bed in?"
"Naturally not," she said. "Why would I choose someone from this timeline to protect the village? I have scoured the future and the past to find the one who can protect my peop
le, but I could find none. And then you appeared. It was very strange, for you were there and yet you were not at the same time, just as you are the one I sent for yet you are not. There is something wrong about you, child. You cannot help my people."
"Listen, lady," I snapped. "I don't know what the hell you're going on about with all this timeline talk, and I don't care if I'm the person you sent for or not, but I sure as hell can protect the village if I want to. You'd be a fool to turn away someone who wants to help, even if they aren't the person you want. I've gone up against a lot in the past four years, so I'm not someone you can just dismiss out of hand. I'm damn well going to do what I can to help."
She shook her head. "You will only get in the way. I will return you to your time. I am yet strong, and I will handle this myself."
I let out a huff, crossing my arms over my chest. "Your people sure don't think you can take care of yourself anymore, and I agree with them. You were supposed to keep the Slaugh buried, right? Well, they're out and about now, so it sounds like whatever you were doing isn't working. Which makes me think your strength is waning, or they're getting stronger. Either way, that means you aren't strong enough to do this on your own. So, you'd better accept my help, or your people are going to be in a world of hurt, which shouldn't happen just because you happen to be arrogant as all hell."
She narrowed her eyes. "For one who stands in the presence of a holy one, you curse a lot."
I shrugged. "Yeah, sue me. It's a habit. I get the job done. That means I don't have to deal with people telling me how to do it."
"Fine," she said grudgingly. "I will accept your offer of help."
And with that, as quickly as I'd found myself there, I was now back in the Shrine, no longer touching the orb. I checked my hand, and sure enough, it wasn't burnt to a crisp. Apparently, Moira had decided I had the best interests of the town at heart. I would certainly hope so, considering that I'd been more willing to help the town than she had been; she'd been off on some power trip thinking she could handle the whole thing herself, when she clearly needed help.
And you wouldn't know a thing about needing help and not being willing to accept it, right? the snide voice in my head chided me, and I winced. Yeah, OK, it had a point. I was historically bad at both asking for and accepting help when I needed it, but I was working on that. I didn't go anywhere without Weylyn now, so I always had at least him for backup, and I generally had Fred listening in whenever I went into a bad situation, so he could call the cavalry in just in case.
I say the cavalry, but really, only Emily was guaranteed to be able to help if I was in a situation I couldn't handle on my own. It would have been different if Mal had still been around, but that wasn't going to happen anytime soon. He'd made it very clear that he didn't want anything to do with me, and for my part, I didn't want anything to do with him, either. He had hurt me more than I could handle in one lifetime. I didn't want him to come back around just to do it all over again.
That's not what you were saying in the dream.
Ugh. That again. It was a dream, damn it. I was allowed to enjoy a dream every now and again, especially since Emily had basically given me her blessing to have weird and confusing feelings about Mal. It wasn't like I was doing anything wrong.
So, why did I feel bad about it? It almost felt like it had been real, like he'd really been there and I'd really been behaving so wantonly, not holding him accountable for all the bullshit he'd pulled.
But it hadn't been, I reminded myself.
Suddenly I was aware that I was standing in front of the idol, staring at it like an idiot, and the rest of the Shrine was completely silent. I turned around, frowning, to find Jameson and the others standing exactly where they had been. They were gaping at me as if I'd suddenly sprouted horns and a tail or something equally ridiculous.
"What? What's wrong with the lot of you?" I demanded.
"My lady, you…you glowed," Jameson whispered reverently. "When you touched the idol, you glowed."
The others chimed in with their agreement, confirming what he'd said, and I shifted my weight from one foot to the other, a little uneasy.
"So what?"
"It's true! She is the champion," one of the people said, and I could hear a nervous undertone in their voice, as if they were afraid to speak up.
"I knew Moira would confirm what we had suspected," Jameson said. "Now you may be unafraid."
He turned to the others as he said that last bit, and they really did look reassured.
I didn't have the heart to tell them that Moira hadn't exactly said I was the champion she'd sent for; she'd been very vague and confusing about the entire thing, saying that I was and I wasn't all at the same time. I didn't understand how that could be possible, and I doubted it would go over well if I spilled the beans.
So I kept it to myself, even though in my heart I still didn't believe I was what they'd been expecting.
Not that it mattered what I thought. I'd already promised Moira I would do this.
Fuck. How am I supposed to stop the Slaugh, much less the Dullahan?
It sounded like an impossible task, but wasn't that what I was always doing? I didn't back down from a challenge. This town would die if I didn't do something about it, and I wasn't about to stand by and let innocents die because I was feeling a little uncertain about my place in the world.
"I'll do what I can to help you," I said at last, aware that they'd fallen silent again and were looking at me expectantly. "I can only promise you that I'll do what I can."
"It is enough," Jameson said.
I hoped he was right, but in my gut, I had a feeling that things weren't going to go as planned. Was it really life if the world wasn't crashing down all around you, though? The past four years had been me going up against impossible odds and somehow pulling it off.
I'd done it before. I could do it again.
Six
"The first thing we need to do is fortify the town," I said as I walked out of the Shrine and into the crowd that had formed around its entrance. I kept going, heading towards the town proper.
"My lady, that will do no good," Jameson said, his voice a little breathless as he hurried to keep up with me. The man was a little short, and I had always towered over most people, so my long strides weren't doing him any favors.
"Of course it will. There's no sense in not doing everything we can to stop the bastards in their tracks."
"But the Slaugh fly through the air. Nothing we can put on the ground will stop them. And nothing can bar the way to the Dullahan."
"Yes, yes, he can move through anything, and the earth splits open to give him passage or whatever. I know. You said it before. But that doesn't change basic facts, which are that we have some time on our hands and we need to spend it doing what we can to make the town as safe as possible."
"It is a waste of time."
I whirled on him, scowling. "What would you do with the time? Cower in your bedrooms? If you're not going to help me, just say so, and I'll do this my own damn self."
His eyes widened—he clearly wasn't used to being talked to like that—and then his expression humbled somewhat.
"If my lady thinks this is the best course of action, then of course we will do what we can to help her," he said at last, though he didn't sound happy about it.
"Great. Rally the people. We've got work to do."
He did so, calling the others together and telling them to do as I said.
I instructed the burliest men in the group to find the biggest stones they could, the kind that came up to at least your knee, so we could blockade the gate to the Shrine. I set the rest of the townspeople to the task of boarding up their windows and barricading the doors with as much furniture as they could so that nothing could break them down.
They all looked at me skeptically, but they did as they were told. Clearly, they didn't believe in what I was doing any more than Jameson did, but at least they didn't give me any lip about it.
I helped the men move the giant stones into place, which earned me a lot of grief at the beginning.
"You can't possibly lift that stone," one of the men said. He was a tall, thickly built man with a shock of black hair and green eyes.
"Watch me," I said, eyeballing the stone I'd approached. It came up to about mid-thigh and was rather wide, and I figured it would probably break the back of a regular person.
But I wasn't a regular person. I trained day in and day out to be the strongest I could possibly be. I used to need the help of my wrist cuff to break through the body of a vampire and extract their heart; I could do that on my own now. I still kept the cuff on me at all times—except for when I went to bed—but that was more for emergencies than anything else.
I also happened to have a secret the man didn't know about. Just because I didn't have any of my tools with me didn't mean I was powerless. I still had my tattoos, which had been magically enchanted when they were inked into my skin.
I crouched in front of the stone and wrapped my arms around it. "Vis," I muttered, calling on the strength that came from the tattoo on my ankle. I only used that tattoo to give me a little more oomph when I was fighting something and wanted to kick the shit out of it, but it was also a good source of strength. I made sure to store excess energy in it whenever I could, which meant it had a good store waiting for me when I pulled on it.
Like right now. I felt the power coursing through my body, and I lifted the stone off the ground with a grunt. I spared a glance to the man who had doubted me and grinned when I saw the shocked look on his face. Then I hiked over to the fence surrounding the Shrine. I dropped the stone in front of the fence to the right of the gate, in line with the other stones we'd already dragged over, then I made my way back to the men.
"See? Told you I could do it," I said, controlling my breathing so I didn't pant when I spoke.