Sword of Elements Series Boxed Set 2: Bound In Blue, Caught In Crimson & To Make A Witch

by Heather Hamilton-Senter

  “I’m not a child,” I reminded him gently. As I sat down on the bed beside him, he winced at the movement. “Sorry. How bad is it?” Between the shredded shirt and the blood that had already dried, I couldn’t tell.

  “Not bad. It was the abuse of my power to come here that . . . I couldn’t . . .” Closing his eyes, he seemed too weary to finish.

  “It’s all right. Don’t speak.” I couldn’t stop myself from smoothing the hair back from his forehead. Marveling at the way it glinted with red the same way his eyes did, I wondered where his cap was and hoped he hadn’t lost it in the attack.

  Redcap turned his face towards me, but his eyes remained closed. “There’s a bat in the belfry, Rhiannon Lynne,” he murmured. He was delirious.

  “That’s not my name anymore either.” But he was either sleeping or unconscious.

  Peter entered the room carrying a bowl filled with water and some bandages. He stopped when he saw Redcap on the bed. “Is he . . .?”

  “He’s just sleeping.”

  Putting the bowl and bandages on the bedside table, Peter pulled a small pair of scissors from his pocket. “Can you get some towels?” When I returned from the bathroom with an armful of towels, he’d already cut Redcap’s shirt away. As I watched him dip one of the towels in the water and carefully wipe away the dried blood, I was impressed.

  “How do you know what to do?”

  Peter’s fair eyebrows lifted in surprise. “I got my First Aid badge at Scouts years ago.” When I just stared at him, he laughed. “What do you think I was doing every Wednesday night up at the church anyway?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know. Human sacrifice? Running a Ponzi scheme? Since Viviane would never let me go, I figured it must be pretty bad.”

  Peter shook his head. Through our bond, I could feel the words he was thinking about my foster mother, but was too polite to actually say.

  Cleaned of blood, Redcap’s chest was muscular, but surprisingly white and hairless. I smiled when I remembered the first time we met on Carefree Lake, when the wind blew his cap away, and he told me how he, a true Scotsman, burned in the sun without it.

  Peter gathered up the ragged remnants of bloody cloth and threw them in the waste paper basket by the desk. “He was right. These are really just scratches. I don’t think he even needs the bandages.” Peter frowned. “But where did all the blood come from then?”

  The world went white. I had to sit back down on the bed fast before I fell. “Maybe it wasn’t his blood.”

  Peter swallowed hard. “I’ll bring a new shirt for when he wakes up.”

  “Can you go find out what’s going on out there first? I’ll keep an eye on him just in case.” He agreed and slipped out of the room, promising to update me soon. Once the door closed behind him with a soft click, I reached under the bed and found Excalibur by feel. I’d left the cloaking spell on so the sword was invisible in my hands when I pulled it out, but the solid weight was reassuring. The confidence of its gold power made me straighten my spine.

  “If Arthur is still the Earth King, why did you choose me? What do you want from me?” As ever, I sensed an awareness, a kind of proto-life in the sword, but there was no answer. And now another talisman of the earth magic—that by all rights should belong to Arthur—had claimed me as well.

  Placing the sword within reach at the end of the bed, I lay down beside Redcap and pulled the blanket over us both. As I nestled into his side, his strange, russet heat was comforting. His magic was apples, blood, and warm earth, with flashes of ebony that spoke of the implacable cruelty at the heart of a redcap’s nature. Thomas hid that side of himself well. He didn’t want to be a monster.

  Shame filled me as I remembered that was exactly what I’d called him. I’d driven away the one person whose magic didn’t tempt me at all. Maybe it was because our magic was similar in some ways. We both took the essence of someone, of their power, into ourselves. Redcap had chosen to follow his nature for noble reasons.

  Why do I do it?

  The answer was in the hunger that the taste of Arthur’s power had awakened. It followed me into a troubled, amethyst-tinged sleep.

  I dreamed.

  I was standing on a path in a forest—an ordinary path of dirt and trampled grass. Raising my face to the light filtering in through the trees, I took a deep breath of air scented with loam and moss. It was a perfect day, but I knew I couldn’t linger. As I began to walk, I realized that others walked with me—my friends. As we travelled deeper into the forest, the day darkened around us. One by one, my friends stepped onto paths that branched away and disappeared into the trees. Tynan and Daley were the last to leave and then only Redcap stood beside me. His eyes were red with flame, and when he spoke, his voice was not his own.

  “Remember, before the gates of Hell, a lamp is burning.”

  “What does that mean?” my dream-self asked, but Redcap turned and walked away. They had all abandoned me. When I looked down, I understood why—the path had become a stream swirling with blood. As it began to rise, I knew I was going to drown in it.

  The pain woke me up. Confused at the neon green light pulsing before my eyes, it took me a moment to realize it was only the screen of the alarm clock glowing in the darkness. It read 4:00 a.m. When I rolled over, I realized that Redcap was gone.

  My legs were tangled in the throw. Kicking it off, I stumbled to the bathroom to splash some water on my face, but it couldn’t cool the heat of my skin. Leaning on the granite counter for support, I tried to call on the barrier spell I’d perfected to wall myself off from the awareness of pain, but it eluded me. As I sank to the ground, it rose, tearing through my skull and shredding all thought. I’d come to Las Vegas expecting that I might die from the damage that magic was doing to my body—from what the doctors said was a tumor in my brain—but I hadn’t truly understood the capacity for suffering in a human body.

  The sound of the door to my room opening scraped at my brain. “Rhi? Are you awake?” a hushed voice asked. “It’s me. Thomas. Goodfellow just arrived. Arthur wants to head out before the sun comes up.” I could hear Redcap flicking the light switch on. “Rhi?”

  “In here.” At least, that’s what I tried to say. What came out was more like a cross between a grunt and a howl.

  When Redcap rushed in, the sound vibrated through me in waves of agony, but I couldn’t open my eyes or resist when he pulled me into his arms, cradling me on the bathroom floor. “Mo ghaoil, mo ghaoil,” he whispered over and over.

  Time was lost in a maelstrom of pain. Finally it crested and broke like a wave on sand and I was finally able to draw on the dark indigo that always lingered near Taliesin to create a barrier between my awareness and the corruption in my brain. If I kept using his indigo to re-make the barrier, Taliesin might eventually lose the ability connected to it—his ability to temporarily bind the powers of those in his home. I didn’t care. All that mattered was stopping the pain. The Grail was calling to me, seeking to fill me with its magic, but it was magic that was killing me.

  When I could think again, I realized Redcap was sitting with his back against the wall, and that he’d pulled me onto his lap. My head was resting against his chest, now clothed in one of Peter’s shirts. “What does mo ghaoil mean?” My voice was a harsh croak.

  Redcap sounded almost embarrassed when he laughed. “Ah, you heard that, did you? You keep telling me you don’t want to be called a child anymore, so I thought I’d try my beloved and see if you liked it any better.”

  I lifted my head so I could see his face, but the motion made my brain swim and I sank towards him instead. His mouth brushed against my cheek. I wanted to pull away. At least, I told myself I did, but I felt powerless to move.

  Redcap’s indrawn breath tickled my skin. For a moment, he was still, but then his lips trailed across my face, kissing the hollow beneath my jaw, whispering over my eyelids, heading inevitably, inexorably to my mouth. At first, his touch was tentative, tender, hardly more than a feather’
s weight of pressure.

  Butterfly kisses.

  I smiled at the thought, and the movement of my mouth against his made him bolder. He pushed against me and my lips parted. The kiss became deeper, insistent. The colors that filled me were too close to the shades of anger for safety, but I couldn’t stop him. His arms tightened around me. I was trapped, but I didn’t care. I’d never been kissed like this—I’d never even dreamed of being kissed like this—and it didn’t matter to me anymore that I wasn’t sure how I actually felt about Thomas Redcap. All that mattered was his mouth, and his hands that were now running through my hair and down my back.

  When he kissed my neck, the sound of my own gasp surprised me. I felt a sharp nip just above my jugular vein, and then a warm trickle of blood over my collarbone. I didn’t pull away.

  He did. Sliding me off his lap, he stood and then helped me to my feet. I could hardly bear to look at him. When I dared a glance, the expression on his face was unreadable.

  I was cold now. As I began to shiver, he ran his hands through his hair. “I’m sorry, mo. . .” He stopped himself and took a deep breath. “I shouldn’t have done that. The essences inside me . . . your presence makes them restless.” When he looked at me to make sure I understood, his eyes shone pure red. “There are too many powerful essences, all more aware than they should be.” When he touched my cheek with gentle fingers, I wanted to burst into tears. “They find you irresistible, like moths to a flame.”

  “Thomas,” I whispered, but the use of his true name seemed to undo him and he turned and left. I followed, but he kept his back to me as he said over his shoulder, “Arthur wants you to leave Excalibur here. He believes its presence will warn the beast of our approach.” Without waiting for my reply, he left the room.

  “Wait!” I chased him into the hall and almost ran into Tynan and Daley who were now dressed in leather jackets with guns holstered beneath them. Ty also held the dagger with the intricate hilt that Daley had almost lost at the Bellagio. The two of them looked at Redcap in surprise as he pushed past them with a murmured curse.

  “Is everything all right?” Tynan asked. Daley just stared at me with a hard look on his face before following Redcap.

  “Fine,” I muttered.

  Tynan raised an eyebrow at me. “Well, if you were trying to make my brother jealous, you succeeded beautifully.”

  “I’m not trying to do anything.”

  “Then you’re playing with fire. With both of them.” He took a step closer—close enough for me to touch his chest and feel the beat of his magically constructed heart, but I knew it would only echo mine. When I looked up, his eyes were dark opposites of Redcap’s.

  Leaning close, Tynan whispered in my ear, “You should forget my brother and the redcap. I have chaos in me. You eat chaos. We would get on very well together.”

  With a smile that never reach his eyes, it was Mordred who walked away.

  CHAPTER TEN

  CERISE

  I returned to my room and quickly dressed in more battle-ready clothes, but I was still the last one to gather in the great room.

  Peter motioned for me to join him. “Here. This is for you.” He held a silver automatic in his hand.

  “What am I supposed to do with that?”

  “When I heard Arthur didn’t want you to bring Excalibur, I convinced Aneirin that you needed something to defend yourself.” Aneirin was the senior Protector who’d taken on Peter’s training along with Daley. Peter idolized the man. I’d seen him on the property but had never been introduced. In fact, most of the Protectors seemed intent on avoiding me and I didn’t know any others by name. When I’d asked Peter what was going on, he’d admitted that Taliesin’s people were a little afraid of me.

  “I hope I don’t accidentally shoot one of us,” I muttered as Peter showed me the safety. The gun was small enough to slip into the back pocket of my jeans, and as I tugged the bottom of my jacket down to cover it, I felt like a gangbanger. “So did they explain what a Questing Beast is while I was gone?”

  He nodded. “It’s a sort of hybrid monster. Arthur said he and his knights hunted and fought it a number of times, but were never able to do more than chase it off. Prospective knights were sent on quests to find it, so the name stuck.”

  “Great. How are we expected to stop it then?”

  Grinning, Peter opened his coat to show me the gun Daley had given him—a much bigger version of mine.

  I looked around. The room was a lot more crowded than when I’d left it. Most of the Protectors who’d been dismissed to their own homes had returned. The majority were strapping on modern weaponry, but a few carried swords and one even had a bow strapped across her back.

  Christmas is cancelled, boys and girls. We’ve all been very naughty.

  “Where’s Miko?” I asked. Frowning, Peter jerked his chin towards the far end of the room where Miko was talking animatedly with Titania. “They’re pretty chummy all of a sudden, aren’t they?”

  He nodded. “Arthur’s people bother me. Bedivere hardly says a word and that older woman keeps staring at me. And you know who Titania is, right? Remember English 101? Titania and Oberon?”

  “You’re kidding me. That Titania? A Midsummer Night's Dream’s Titania?”

  “Yup. I guess Shakespeare wasn’t such a creative genius after all. More like just a reporter.”

  “Wow. Just, wow. I don’t know why anything surprises me anymore.”

  When Peter laughed, Miko looked over at us, then very deliberately turned her back and continued in conversation with the other fairy. Peter’s face fell.

  I touched his arm. “It’s good that she has someone of her own kind to talk to. Maybe Titania can help her figure things out.”

  “Maybe. C’mon, it looks like we’re getting ready to go. Where’s Redcap?”

  I looked at him in surprise. “I don’t know. Isn’t he here?”

  “The redcap has been sent to distract his ex-wife, the alluring Cleopatra.” When I turned, I tried not to let Goodfellow see how pleased I was to see him. Robin Goodfellow, Sylvanus, Jack in the Green, Robin Hood, Lord Forest, Puck—they were all his names, though the only true one was the Green Man. Giving me a little bow, he nodded pleasantly to Peter. “Well met, you two. I see the desert air agrees with you both.”

  “I love it here,” Peter declared enthusiastically.

  “Hello, Goodfellow,” I said coolly.

  The man chuckled. “Come now, Rhiannon Caerleon,” he stressed the alias he’d given me, “let us be friends again.” Even in the desert, his red hair and beard glistened with scattered drops of dew, and he was dressed head to toe in forest green.

  In the face of his cheerfulness, I relented. “Fine. But just remember that fire trumps forest every time.” I held out my hand and allowed a small tongue of flame to leap from my palm, gratified at the flicker of surprise in the man’s eyes. Goodfellow might be the Lord of the Forest, but I wanted to make sure he remembered what would happen if he betrayed me again. “What took you so long anyway?”

  The ever-present aura around this man of green and growing things made it difficult to detect any change in his emotional state, but a hint of mauve unease was teasing at the edges of my mind. My suspicion was heightened when he wouldn’t meet my eyes. “There was trouble among my kin overseas which required my presence.”

  I shared a look with Peter and knew he was thinking the same thing; Goodfellow was definitely hiding something. I was about to press it when Titania approached and interrupted us.

  “Hello, Puck.” She made the name sound like a curse and there was real fear in the Green Man’s eyes when he turned to face her.

  “Titania,” he murmured, bowing low.

  “You look well.”

  Goodfellow’s eyes widened as if she’d just slapped him. “Yes. Thank you. Yes, my lady. If you’ll excuse me, I think Taliesin is looking for me.” As he hurried away, the fairy watched him go with a satisfied expression on her face.

  �
�What was that all about?” I blurted out.

  The way Titania stretched her neck and shook her red mohawk reminded me of an exotic bird. “Puck once took my husband’s side in a conflict over one of my human servants.” Her smile had no humor in it. “I’m aware they teach that little playwright’s version of the story in your schools. What the talentless hack neglected to say was how Oberon killed the boy, or how Puck shielded my husband from my wrath by letting him escape on a Path. Puck was once my friend, but he was more interested in freeing the forests from the hands of Man than he was in the life of one small boy. He foolishly believed every false promise Oberon made him.” She shook her head again. “You cannot trust him.”

  “I don’t think that’s true,” Peter protested, but I was already nodding in agreement. I’d learned that Goodfellow’s loyalties were divided. When it came down to it, he would choose his own kind first.

  Titania made a graceful motion with her arms to indicating something behind herself and then in front. “I want you to know that I was happy when I heard the Lady of the Lake had returned to this earthly realm, though I hear much changed.” Her gaze was direct and a little intimidating.

  “Were you close to Viviane?” I didn’t admit that I’d seen her at the hospital.

  “I think you know that friend was not a word often used in connection with Viviane, so, no, not friends exactly, but perhaps kindred spirits.” Despite her extremely modern and edgy hair and clothing, when the woman smiled, she seemed ancient. With another movement like a cockatoo bending its crested head, she took her leave of us and glided back to Miko who appeared extremely impatient for her return. The two were soon huddled again in deep conversation.

  Peter whistled. “Now I know what to do my senior English essay on. I’ll be able to come up with a whole new approach to Shakespeare.”