Rituals

by Kelley Armstrong

  "Then that is a gene I did not inherit. I prefer to apply my imagination to the waking world, where I can use it to solve problems. It seems wasted in sleep."

  Patrick smiled. "All right, then. I regret that you missed out on that, but I'll accept that any regret is mine alone. Back to the point. I'm sure you dream, Liv. If they aren't replays of memory, what are they?"

  "Sometimes fantasy, like my brain amusing itself by telling stories. Sometimes working through problems. Sometimes dealing with anxiety." I looked at Gabriel. "Believe me, you aren't missing anything with those."

  "That is where the sluagh come in," Patrick said. "Their world is that of nightmare and anxiety and fear and all those things you repress in the daytime. When we say sluagh can hurt you in visions, we mean visions that are like dreams, the sort you had earlier today. The reenactments you get from my lore books are a whole different thing. Those are dead memories, with no way for the sluagh to get in."

  "Can I accompany her?" Gabriel asked.

  Patrick looked over in surprise.

  "Yes, I've refused before," Gabriel said. "But this time..." He paused, and then pushed on. "I would feel better going with her."

  "I won't guarantee it will work, but you can certainly try."

  I opened the book. Gabriel moved closer, and I took his hand. Patrick flipped to the right page, and I began to translate aloud for Gabriel's sake.

  "Meditations on the nature of the sidhe known as the sluagh. The sluagh--also called the darkness or the unforgiven--should not even be termed fae, but rather spirits. Dark and twisted spirits. It is said that they share a mission with the Cwn Annwn, that the Huntsmen are tasked with claiming the souls of those who've wronged the fae, while the sluagh do the same for those who've wronged humans. That is an egregious misunderstanding, and any fae who indulges in it ought to be corrected before further spreading false information. The Cwn Annwn send souls to the Otherworld. The punishment, then, is not one of eternal damnation--as the Christians have willfully misinterpreted--but the premature end of mortal life. On rare occasions, the Cwn Annwn will allow the sluagh to take a soul instead, but only if the crime is so great that it warrants extreme punishment, because the sluagh devour both body and soul. Any remaining consciousness is trapped in the melltithiwyd, doomed to serve the sluagh. In some cases, as when the Cwn Annwn allow the sluagh to take their prey, it is a fitting and just punishment for a terrible crime..."

  The words began to swim, and I clutched Gabriel's hand tighter. The ink parted, words falling through, me falling with them, tumbling through space until I landed in the forest.

  I looked around for Gabriel. There was no sign of him.

  "Damn it," I muttered.

  I rose and peered around the night-dark forest. Beyond the trees, a bonfire burned. I climbed a small rise for a better view. Below lay a temporary settlement, with tents and a single bonfire guarded by a man in rough clothing.

  "The Dark Ages?" murmured a voice beside me, and I turned to see Gabriel, squinting at the camp. "I landed over there." He pointed. "Holding hands, it seems, doesn't help with the drop. Would this be the Dark Ages?"

  "Mmm, before that. I'm guessing pre-Roman."

  "--know where to find their water source?" asked a man.

  We both turned. Behind us stood a small group of men carrying swords and cudgels. While I knew they weren't speaking modern English, that's what I heard.

  "Can they see us?" Gabriel asked.

  I shook my head. "As Patrick said, it's a dead memory. Like a virtual reality replay."

  I walked toward the men, and Gabriel followed.

  "Dump this into their water," the man said to a younger one.

  "Won't that poison it?"

  One of the other men snickered, and the leader said, "That would be the idea, boy."

  "But...but that camp isn't a war party. It's their whole clan, including women and children."

  "Women can still fight. Children grow into warriors. We'll no longer share the same land with these trespassers."

  "Weren't they here first?"

  "Who told you such lies?" the man snarled. "Go back to your momma, boy. You aren't ready to act with men." He turned to the man who'd snickered. "Pour it in their water. Can you do that?"

  The man grunted his assent, took a water skin from the leader, and loped off.

  The scene flickered, like a movie reel hitting a glitch. Then I was lying in a field, looking up at the bright sun.

  "Gabriel?"

  He didn't answer. I blinked hard and reached out. I'd fallen on something soft, and when my hand touched down, I felt fur, yet no movement or warmth underneath. A skin? I hoped so, though with my luck I'd landed on a dead animal. I blinked again and turned and...

  I let out a shriek, cut short as I clamped a hand over my mouth and scrambled to my feet.

  I was lying on the fur-cloaked body of a woman, twisted and contorted, her eyes bulging, dried blood crusting her mouth, both hands clutching her stomach.

  A drinking cup lay at her side, next to a plate of half-eaten food. More food lay spilled by her hand.

  The water.

  They poisoned the water.

  Another body lay beside me. A man, hands wrapped around his throat. I turned to look around me and...

  Bodies. That's all I saw. The dead. Everywhere.

  I closed my eyes, and I heard screams and moans, and a child calling "Mommy!" voice pitched impossibly high with pain. I quickly opened my eyes, and the scene went quiet.

  As I looked around, I noticed gaps in those groups of the dead. Untouched and spilled water cups. Those who hadn't been as quick to drink with their morning meal. Those who'd seen what happened. And then...

  To my left, the body of a man lay over a woman's, his head nearly cut off by a hatchet blade, his arm still around her. Beyond them, another man lay halfway to the tents, a child in his arms, taken down by a blow from the rear. To my right, a woman had been killed trying to drag a dying man to shelter, her hands still wrapped in his tunic.

  That was when I saw Gabriel, standing between the forest and the camp. His gaze was fixed on a body near his feet. It was a girl, no more than eight or nine, who'd been running for the forest. An unarmed child. Cut down by a blow so hard it nearly sliced her in two. And under her? A baby, clutched in her arms.

  Gabriel's gaze went from me to the girl and the baby, and though he didn't say a word, I saw them in his eyes.

  I don't understand.

  Gabriel knew death. He'd defended killers, and he conducted that job with cold detachment. But now he looked at these two victims, and he saw no defense. No way to even attempt one.

  "Evil," I said. "This is evil."

  He nodded and squinted at the camp. Two ravens circled overhead. For a moment I thought they were scavenging. Crows already worked on a body at the periphery, as if they weren't yet convinced it was safe to move in, all the humans gone.

  The ravens flew at the crows, croaking, and the smaller corvids winged off, cawing indignantly. The ravens didn't take over the feast, though. They kept circling the camp, swooping to take a closer look at the carnage and then flying up again, letting out croaks that sounded frustrated, angry.

  "Looking for fae," Gabriel murmured.

  The ravens were from the Cwn Annwn, seeking evidence of fae-blood victims among the dead so the Huntsmen could exact vengeance for the massacre. Those croaks meant they weren't finding what they needed.

  "Then let the sluagh take the killers," I muttered.

  The words were no sooner out of my lips than I fell into darkness again, this time landing near a small encampment. Hide tents in a forest. A smoldering fire pit. Snores from inside the tents.

  "The perpetrators," Gabriel said.

  An odd choice of word. Very clinical, very legal, and it might seem as if that let Gabriel put this horror into a perspective he understood. But what he understood were killers, while these men had perpetrated something far worse.

  In the tents, the m
en snored and mumbled in sleep. Then came the distant sound of a thousand wings beating the night air.

  "They deserve it," I said.

  "Yes." Simple. Direct. Unequivocal.

  The melltithiwyd came. They beat at the tents until they found a way in and drove the men out, and the men ran, pursued by the birds, who swooped and dove and seemed to delight in the chase as the cwn hounds did not.

  Then came the sluagh. The darkness. The unforgiven. The smoke wound through the flock of melltithiwyd, and the birds swarmed, engulfing the men.

  The screams followed.

  Whatever these men had done, it was impossible to enjoy those screams. It sounded as if they were being torn apart, slowly, their shrieks of agony turning to an animal howling that made me stop up my ears. Even Gabriel turned away until, as one body, the melltithiwyd flew up, the sluagh buffeting them into the sky.

  And on the forest floor? Bone. Nothing left but bones.

  When that wind rose again, I looked to see that the swarm of sluagh and melltithiwyd had changed direction. It plummeted like a black and red cyclone. A scream sounded, and I took off into the forest, Gabriel at my heels.

  Through the trees, I saw the young man who'd refused to slaughter the camp--the one who'd been sent away. He must have been camping close to his kinsmen, as if hoping to follow them home.

  Now he ran. Ran from the melltithiwyd as they swooped at him, drove him, toyed with him. They weren't waiting for the sluagh. That smoke still hovered above. So there was no excuse for the torment. The melltithiwyd were amusing themselves.

  "I didn't do it," the boy shouted. "I wouldn't have."

  "He must be lying," I said to Gabriel. "The sluagh wouldn't target him if he wasn't involved."

  Gabriel shook his head. "I know the sound of false protests. He's telling the truth."

  "Then they're just scaring him. Teaching him a lesson."

  We watched the boy scale a tree to escape his tormenters.

  "The exact wording of the book was 'some,' " Gabriel said.

  "What?"

  " 'In some cases, it is a fitting and just punishment.' "

  "But..."

  The boy screamed. I looked to see the melltithiwyd diving at him. Biting at him. Swooping down and taking tiny mouthfuls and then flying away again.

  "Hey!" I shouted. "No!"

  Gabriel didn't point out that this was a reenactment, that the melltithiwyd couldn't hear me. I ran to the tree and looked up at the boy, his face and arms covered in tiny red spots, each dripping blood.

  "If you're going to do it, do it!" I yelled at the melltithiwyd. "He's the least to blame. Why torment him?"

  "Because they can," Gabriel murmured behind me, his voice taking on Gwynn's tenor. "They've eaten their fill, and he's the last, and they don't care if he's innocent or guilty, deserving or not."

  The birds continued to dive and snatch bites of flesh, until the boy was covered in blood, and he'd stopped screaming and started to cry. That was all he could do. Lie against the branch and cry, sobbing deep sobs that were more terrible to hear than all the agonized screams of the guilty men.

  "Just hurry," he said between sobs. "Please. I've done nothing wrong, but if you must take me, at least show mercy."

  "They don't know what that is," Gabriel said.

  I turned away and felt his arms go around me, wrapping tight around my head as if he could block the sound of the boy crying as I pressed my face to his chest.

  "It's not fair," I said. "It's just--"

  The scene disappeared, and in the darkness I heard a voice saying, "It's not fair!" A man's voice, echoing as if through an empty room. A clang followed, like chains. Then the thump of a fist on wood and a low laugh as a woman's voice said, "Do you think fair has anything to do with it, Duncan? It wasn't fair that you left me to care for our son, abandoned me--"

  "He is not my son. You already admitted that, and there's no one here to lie for, Mary, so don't bother. You married me because I had a good trade, made a bit of money, and I was too besotted to wonder what a girl like you saw in an old man like me."

  The scene cleared. We were in a room that stunk of old stone, with water weeping through the cracks. The man sat at a table, chained hand and foot. He wasn't "old"--maybe mid-thirties--but the woman across from him was little more than a girl. She wore a beautiful dress and bonnet, and it might seem as if she'd put on a pretty frock to brighten the day of her imprisoned husband, but the contrast between his filthy rags and her spotless gown seemed a deliberate slap in the face.

  "You left us, Duncan," she said.

  "With money," he said between gritted teeth. "My child or not, the boy doesn't deserve to suffer for his mother's sins."

  "I need more."

  "And you killed my family to get it?"

  "So you would inherit your due."

  "No, so you would inherit. I'm in here, framed for their murders. Does it amuse you, seeing me in chains, bound for the next ship to Australia? My only consolation is that you didn't get to see me hang from a noose. That the judge wasn't certain enough to sentence me to that."

  "Oh, but I made sure he didn't. I bribed him."

  Silence.

  Mary smiled. "Do you know why I spared you, Duncan? Give me your right arm, and I'll show you."

  He slowly stretched out his arm, gaze on hers. She reached down and brushed aside the thick black hairs.

  "I did this while you slept, helped along by a sleeping draft."

  As he stared at his arm, I leaned in to see a small red symbol, carefully incised in the skin as if by a razor-thin blade.

  "No," he whispered.

  "You've been marked for the sluagh." Her lips curved in a smile. "They'll come, and they'll find you convicted of murdering your entire family."

  "But I didn't."

  She leaned forward in her chair. "The sluagh don't care."

  Duncan scrambled back so fast he toppled out of his chair as he clawed at the mark on his arm, clawed so hard his skin ran red with blood, as Mary's laughter echoed through the tiny room.

  I turned toward Gabriel and caught only a flash of him before we were pitched into darkness again. When I landed, I heard Duncan screaming. It was the scream of a man running for his life. Except when I looked around, I wasn't in a forest...or any setting I recognized. I stood on the roof of an impossible house, with a castle balcony and yawning darkness below and spires behind me, jutting at all angles like spikes. Below, the landscape was equally impossible--a river running straight up a perpendicular mountainside, with twisted trees growing at ninety-degree angles. Duncan was trying to climb those trunks as if they were a ladder. Overhead, a rainbow of moons arched across the sky.

  "We're in his dream," I said.

  "This is a dream?"

  Duncan screamed anew as a swarm of melltithiwyd dove at him.

  "He didn't do anything," I said. "He absolutely, beyond a doubt, did not do anything."

  "But he's marked," Gabriel said, and I could hear Gwynn's voice weaving through his again. "If he is marked and the sluagh discover he has been found guilty of crimes, that's the only excuse they need."

  "Even if they knew he wasn't guilty?"

  "That's the difference between the Cwn Annwn and the sluagh. The Huntsmen may not take all factors into consideration, but they know guilt beyond a shadow of a doubt. The sluagh don't care about truth. This isn't a mission to them."

  "It's a hunger."

  "And a joy, particularly for the melltithiwyd. They were taken themselves by the sluagh, and the only satisfaction they have in their afterlife..."

  "Is condemning others to the same fate." I shuddered and turned away. "I don't need to see this."

  "Agreed." Gabriel put a hand against my shoulder, turning me away as he called, "Patrick? We're done here."

  "No," a voice whispered behind us. "I don't think you are, Gwynn."

  I spun, and that twisting darkness was right there, wrapping around the balcony.

  Gabriel's arms went
around me. "They can't--"

  "Oh, yes, we can," the sluagh hissed. "You wanted to know more. You reached out. We accept the invitation, Matilda."

  "Find nawr," Gabriel snarled.

  A wheezing laugh from the sluagh. "Oh, that won't work anymore, Gwynn. We're coming for what is ours. Not now, but we will come. For our Matilda."

  "I'm not yours," I said.

  A tendril of the smoke caressed my face. I batted it away as Gabriel yanked me back.

  "But you are," the sluagh said. "Bought and paid for."

  The sluagh swooped, enveloping us, and I lashed out, but it truly was fighting smoke, and then...

  And then the sluagh was gone, and we were sitting on Patrick's sofa.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  "It spoke to us," Gabriel said, getting to his feet and stepping toward Patrick. "The sluagh addressed us directly. Inside your book."

  "That's not possible," Patrick said. "I would never have sent you in there otherwise."

  "It called us Matilda and Gwynn," I said.

  I told him what we'd seen.

  When I finished, Patrick said, "I think it was a dream. A self-produced vision. Liv, you were thinking how unfair it was that the sluagh target innocents. You then projected your outrage and made it personal--what if they came for you? Or it could have been Gabriel projecting fear from the part of him that is Gwynn. He lost Matilda. What remains of him has been searching for her ever since, and now he has her--through you."

  "And Gwynn fears history is doomed to repeat itself," I said. "Fine, either is a possibility, but--for the sake of not dismissing a potential threat--let's say we really did see the sluagh. That it does believe it has some claim to me."

  "How? You're not a killer, Liv."

  "It never said that. It said I'd been bought and paid for. As if someone made a deal. Bargained away my soul."

  "Pamela," Gabriel said.

  Patrick shook his head. "Pamela dealt with the Cwn Annwn. Ioan has confirmed that."

  "But the Cwn Annwn made a deal of their own," I said. "They negotiated with some mysterious power to heal me in exchange for the souls of human killers. Like those the sluagh target. According to your own book, the Cwn Annwn sometimes give those souls to the sluagh."

  "There is no possible way Ioan would have promised Matilda to the sluagh."

  "You know where I had that first vision of it, right?"

  "In Grace's apartment."

  "When I saw the sluagh in your book, it said it accepted my invitation. That it was welcome to make contact because of that. Which I suspect means it can't just swoop into Cainsville uninvited."