“Donovan’s holding his ground against the screams!” The knives Malcolm saw in the screams were magic, not ‘real’, not physical. They swooped and flowed through the screams like a school of fish, swirling and cutting through Donovan over and over, tearing through him with each pass. “Kieran, can’t you shield him?”
“I can’t see him.”
The transparent blaze around Bryce flickered wildly. “How can Donovan tolerate that?”
“Oh crap!” Malcolm stepped closer. The sluagh images shattered as they swooped from the belfry. “Here they come. Dozens of them! Crap!” He shouted as if Donovan might hear him, “RUN!”
The swirl of ghostly images spilled from above and the brownish figure that was Donovan raced away from them. He flung himself out of the tower and onto the rooftop. Trip screamed when they thought Donovan might slip, but he recovered and ran like hell toward the other end of the roof. The flight of sluagh, like a cloud of giant bats, flooded after him.
“Oh, no! Oh, no!” Trip jerked Malcolm’s arm as she jumped around, freaking out. “No!”
“Oh, shite!” Kieran shouted. “Teleport! Teleport!”
Only Donovan didn’t teleport. At the end of the roof, he leapt outward from the building into the nothingness beyond, the flight of sluagh only a second from washing over him.
The earthborns all screamed as their leader dropped through the air. The sluagh overtook Donovan, blocking him from their view.
Then the ground beneath them trembled. A ramp of earth thrust up beneath Donovan, catching him. As he sprinted, the ramp behind him exploded, sending shards of jagged rock spraying at the sluagh, knocking them back. The flight raged above him, out of the way of the debris but still chasing. As Donovan reached the ground level, they swirled overhead, pursuing him into the cemetery.
“We have to help him.” Trip tugged at Malcolm.
“No! We do what he said. We get the amulet.” Malcolm jerked out his knife. “Up there. Now! No hesitation. Hit him hard. End this quick.”
“I got you, Mal.” Kieran gripped his shoulder. Because Malcolm couldn’t teleport himself, Kieran transported the two of them to the ledge of the open window. Not waiting for the others, Malcolm jumped inside. Attacking like Donovan showed him, he aimed straight for the elf’s gut.
But the dark elf spun around, breaking his quarterstaff across Malcolm’s side.
The blow knocked Malcolm hard to the ground. The shattering pain of broken bones exploded through him. He rolled onto his back, struggling to get control of his body through the agony, growling a scream between his clenched teeth.
Through the blur of pain-tears, he saw Kieran jump into the room with Trip and Bryce right behind him. Kieran raised a hand and Malcolm covered his ears against the piercing sound that rippled out.
The dark elf gripped his amulet. Blackness billowed around him with building power.
“Kieran!” Malcolm winced through the pain of his cracked ribs. “Look out!”
The other Sidhe couldn’t see the magic. Kieran didn’t even try to get out of the way of the giant fist of solid shadow that punched him with enough force to send him spinning through the air. He slammed against the wall, knocking a pained outcry from him before he dropped just as hard onto the floor.
The others didn’t manage any better. Bryce flung fireballs that burst apart into cinders on impact, barely scorching the elf’s clothing. Hesitating, Trip stayed back.
Damn it. They couldn’t see what he saw. They couldn’t see what he knew. Malcolm struggled to his knees, one arm curled protectively against his side. “Trip, you have the same magic. Stop the elf! Bryce, quit playing and incinerate him!”
The fire magic that surrounded Bryce surged, flaming up into an inferno around him. A spiral of flame manifested between his spread hands.
Even as Bryce’s fire built, the elf twisted the dark magic before him. He snarled at Malcolm, “You need to shut up!”
Just then, Malcolm understood what the elf meant to do. “Wait! Bryce, don’t!”
Too late.
A pillar of flame shot out from Bryce. It deflected off the curving mass of dark magic right at Malcolm. He flinched away as the flames washed over him.
“Malcolm!” Bryce staunched the fire stream. Rushing over, he shouted, “Your shirt’s on fire!” In a scramble, they both patted out the flames before the fabric got more than a few burnt edges.
Behind them, Trip shouted. Her tentacles of shadow grappled with the magic coiling from the dark elf. The magicraft from the amulet surged, overpowering Trip bit by bit. Her legs trembled. Grimacing with effort, she dropped to her knees. Her magic quavered, starting to fail.
Magic wasn’t enough.
Malcolm shoved past Bryce and jumped onto the dark elf’s back. As soon as he gripped the icy black disk of the amulet he flung himself backward. The force of his fall snapped the chain.
The elf let loose a string of curses, flinging himself down onto Malcolm.
They wrestled over the amulet, Malcolm kicking and struggling, but refusing let go. Not if it meant Donovan’s life.
“Die, Sidhe!” The dark elf snatched Malcolm by the throat with both hands, smashing all his weight onto him.
The fingers crushed around Malcolm’s neck. He twisted and punched, but couldn’t escape. His lungs burned. Heart thundered wildly, stealing his air faster and faster. Pain and panic tore through him. It meant nothing.
Couldn’t break free.
Hands appeared. Gripped the sides of the elf’s head. A violent burst of vibration flared between them.
The dark elf’s eyes widened for the fraction of a second before his head exploded.
The bloody mess splattered over Malcolm.
Rolling over, Malcolm coughed and choked. Each breath still fought him. On his knees and elbows he struggled to get air, and it seemed like forever before his rasping breaths were enough to feed his body. Blood and gore dripped from him, splattering into a puddle inches from his face. When he got his breath back, Malcolm dropped to his side, failing to miss the blood pool. He wiped at the mess dripping into his eyes. “Gross!”
“What?” Kieran reached out and grabbed Malcolm’s hand, helping him to his feet. “It’s only blood. And brains. And eyeball goo.” He smirked. “I thought you grew up on a farm.”
“Prat!” Malcolm shoved at Kieran and then gripped his ribs. “Ow! Damn it!” The fact that Kieran laughed only made appreciating the save that much harder.
Still gripping the pain in his side, Malcolm limped over to Trip. She hugged herself like she was cold or upset. He handed her the amulet. “It’s got the same magic as you.”
The second her fingers curled around the amulet, her eyes blacked over. The dark scarves of her shadows unfurled like great wings behind her. The darkness about her hands roiled over the amulet and then burst forth like shafts of black light.
Malcolm’s mouth dropped open. “Oh… Um…” He turned back to the window through which the magic streamed and then gasped at the flight of the ghostly beasts rising into the air. “Block the windows! Quick!”
With the pain in his ribs ignored in the rush of adrenaline, Malcolm helped Kieran slam the wooden shutters and drop the crossbar into place. They raced to barricade the other windows. Bryce locked the last shutter just as the sound of furious sluagh slammed into the wood. The guys threw themselves against the shutters, fighting to keep them in place against the enraged beasts.
Then the wood started cracking as the sluagh splintered them with their wicked sharp claws.
Chapter Thirteen
Donovan didn’t look back. Didn’t dare slow down. The sluagh would overtake him soon enough.
He could escape; that wasn’t the problem. But escape meant that nothing stood between the rage of the sluagh and the earthborns.
Claws raked over Donovan’s neck and back, slicing through his shirt. He flung chunks of earth up behind him, knocking the beasts away, causing the sluagh to alter their flight path, soaring higher in
to the air.
He dodged between the twelve-foot-tall Celtic crosses like a rabbit veering through the underbrush, twisting and turning faster than the winged creatures could follow.
As the swarm dive-bombed, Donovan uplifted a mound of earth beneath the crosses before him, tipping them over like falling trees. He dropped and slid beneath the falling concrete monuments, forcing the sluagh to break off and resume the chase on the other side.
They whirled overhead like a torrent of dark magic before diving for him once more, shattering the air with the fury in their screams. They swarmed over him with a wicked Glamour that peeled off them and gave the effect of a hundred sluagh instead of the handful they were. He swung wildly, punching bodies too sturdy to break with mere blows. Their razor claws raked over his flesh and tore at his clothing.
Donovan raised a swirling torrent of stones about him, knocking into the beasts and driving them once more from him.
And then their hideous screaming ceased.
The sluagh perched on tombstones as if they were nothing more sinister than a murder of crows. Only instead of the black avians with their glossy feathers, the sluagh possessed spindly bodies like pixie children, with black leather for skin and demonic claws and wings that inspired medieval artists in their depictions of devils. All of the sluagh stared back at the church, listening or watching for some sign. Then the flight reclaimed the air, making for the tower in a black rush.
Donovan didn’t waste time catching his breath. Not when the sluagh could slaughter the earthborns in seconds. He teleported. Even still, he reached the rooftop of the church seconds after them. The beasts raked the shutters with their claws and just as he reached them, the shutters splintered.
The sluagh flooded into the room, swirling about like bats.
Donovan climbed through the window after them.
And then he halted, taking in the scene.
One of the sluagh, a little over a foot tall, perched on Trip’s shoulder like a spider monkey. The others huddled close around her legs, fawning and petting her. The diminutive beasts grinned with their sharp teeth. Their oversized eyes glowed red, reflecting the candlelight. They chattered and cooed in a broken and primitive mixture of Gaelic and an ancient elven dialect. “Pretty darkling. Sidhe magic. Becomes the night. Loves her.”
Trip, herself, remained frozen, clutching the amulet between her hands. No doubt Crom’s magicraft mesmerized her. It was impossible to tell her hair from the shadows billowing around her like black flame. Her jet-black eyes stared, unblinking.
Carefully, Donovan stepped between the sluagh, reaching out a hand to curl his fingers around the amulet. “You don’t need this.”
Releasing it, the black vanished from her eyes as her shadows evaporated. She blinked at Donovan then at the sluagh around her. The fey animals curled against her, like children, clinging to her. Needing her.
“The sluagh follow you now. Don’t abuse the responsibility.” The stone of the amulet turned to dust by his will. Without it, the magicraft unraveled and dispelled. Donovan discarded the empty metal setting.
Smiling, Trip stroked the leathery head of one of the beasts and it leaned into the caress like a cat. “I can live with that.” She lifted the creature into her arms and placed it on her hip like a toddler.
“Anyone hurt?” Donovan glanced back at the lads where they huddled in silent astonishment beneath the window. Blood smears covered Malcolm. His hair matted with the sticky substance that glistened in the pale candlelight. It drenched his clothes and smudged his face.
Malcolm cradled his arm against his side. “My ribs.”
“And the blood?”
With Bryce helping, Malcolm got to his feet. “Not mine.”
“Just because you’re a bloodhound doesn’t mean you’re supposed to roll in it, you know.” Donovan arched an eyebrow, teasingly.
“I didn’t.” Malcolm tried to laugh, and then grimaced when it hurt. “The elf tried to kill me, all up until Kieran exploded his head like a watermelon.”
“That’s one way to watch each others’ back.” Donovan made eye contact with Kieran and gave him a private nod of approval. “Good job on your first real mission.”
Chapter Fourteen
The smell of the animals and the heather was so familiar it was freaky. Even in the pale moonlight, the farmhouse was just like he remembered. Like he’d never left. Malcolm silently climbed the trellis with the ease of one who’d climbed it a hundred thousand times. He and Regan used to call the roof over the porch their balcony. How many nights had they sprawled there and watched the stars move across the sky and talked about everything there ever was to talk about? Until there was nothing more to say and then they would just chill out, having no one else in the whole world ‘cept for each other.
Malcolm peeked through the dark window into his old bedroom. Just like he’d left it. Not a thing in there he wanted either. Nothing from this place called to him. Not a thing ‘cept one, and she wasn’t a thing.
He crept up to the second window, the one beside Regan’s bed. He cupped his hands around his eyes so he could see inside. There she was, sound asleep and curled up around one of the cats like it was a stuffed animal. She was so close that if the glass hadn’t been between them, he could’ve touched her face without even leaning over. She’d be twelve this year, in another month or so. Even though she was half hidden under the covers, Malcolm thought she looked like she’d grown some since he’d last seen her, almost a year and a half ago.
More than that, the soft glow around her made him smile. She had a shimmery coppery glint all about her that kind of sparkled around her head. The shape of the magic gave her kitty cat ears and whiskers. Feline magic. How perfect was that?
Malcolm tap-tapped on the glass. His sister stirred, but didn’t wake up. He tap-tapped again. This time, her sleepy eyes half opened and she looked right at him for like all of three seconds with nothing but a sleepy confusion on her face. And then she blinked and her eyes popped open wide.
Fast as she could, Regan hopped up to her knees and shoved up the window. “Malcolm!” She whisper-shouted his name. Then she flung herself at him, arms wrapping about his neck in a crushing hug. Those arms didn’t look all that strong, but she managed to overbalance him and he tumbled through the window and landed in a heap with her in the bed. “Malcolm! Malcolm! Malcolm!” She practically sister-hugged the life out of him.
“Shhhh! Don’t wanna wake up Da.” Malcolm hugged her back, just as hard. “Come on, Squirt. Let’s go. I came for you.”
“Don’t call me Squirt.” He always called her that, and she always told him not to. Regan pushed back and looked up at him. A worried expression troubled her face. “You got skinny.”
“And you got taller.” Malcolm messed up her already bed-head hair. He whispered, “Come on, get clothes on. Let’s go.”
She flung her arms around him again. Her face buried into the curve of his neck and they just hugged on each other for a real long time, making the time they’d been apart seem to shrink. She was his baby sis and he was her big brother, just like always and just like forever. If hugging her wasn’t the best thing ever, it was darn close to it. Maybe it’d be different if they’d been allowed to go to school or have friends, but they only ever had each other. She’d been his only friend for most all his life. That’s why it hurt so bad when she said, “I can’t go.”
“What? Why not?” He slipped off the bed and hunted out her shoes from beneath it. “Get dressed.”
“No! I can’t go! I’m not grown,” she explained, as if that wasn’t obvious.
“That’s not important. You’ll grow up. You don’t want to do it here.” He waved about at the dingy old excuse for a farmhouse. “There’s nothing here. You’re Sidhe! Not some sheep farmer’s daughter. There is so much more out there! Magic stuff. You’ll just rot into nothing if you stay here.”
“Mum and Da are here.” Regan pushed away the cotton shift he tried to put into her hands. “And
the animals. And all my stuff. And everything I’ve ever known. ‘Cept for you, and I’ve missed you every single day.”
“But what if the bad people come?” He argued, “Vampires are real, you know. And goblins. And Changelings. And all manner of other foul things. They could get you from here before Da could even grab up his shotgun. They would hurt you, Regan! Hurt you worse’n you ever even thought about. I won’t let that happen to you! Not to you. Not ever. I’ll protect you. And Donovan can keep you safe.”
Now the waterworks started. Crap, he hated it when she cried. “Now, don’t go all teary on me.” But she only cried all the harder. “Shush, now! Don’t wake up Da.”
“But I don’t want to go!” She wailed, crumbling bonelessly to the ground so that Malcolm would have had to haul her out of here like a sack of potatoes if he wanted to take her with him.
“Alright, Alright! Just hush.” Malcolm waved her down, as if that might make her not be so very loud. Their Da was sure to have heard them by now and would be coming up the steps any minute. “Look, Regan. I can’t stay. I don’t want Da to catch me. But I’ll come back and check on you, alright? But don’t you just run off like I did, you hear? Wait for me to come for you. Promise me?”
She knelt on the bed as he climbed out the window, still weeping but not nearly so loud. She managed through her hiccuping sobs, “OK. I promise.” They hugged each other one last time. Malcolm squeezed her super tight, as if he could absorb up this feeling and carry it with him, memorizing her magic so he could always find her no matter what. And then he crept off as quietly as he could and climbed back down the trellis.
As Malcolm’s trainers dropped silently onto the ground, a sound brought him up short.
The ratchet of a shotgun cocking.
He froze for a moment, waiting. The sound jangled his memory, bringing back a flood of images of his father. So when he finally glanced over his shoulder, it didn’t surprise him one bit to see his dad silhouetted behind the long length of the barrels aimed at Malcolm’s face.
Remnants of Magic (The Sidhe Collection (Urban Fantasy)) Page 10