It was true. The ancient Druids somehow held the knowledge that we stopped their original curse. It was as if someone had alerted them to the events that unfolded at the solstice a few weeks ago. They knew their curse failed and so they put a second plan into motion, thousands of years ago. But how could they have known?
Now, with that leaked knowledge, they had planned their final attack: a full-scale, deliberate assault on the modern world. Mass annihilation.
Doomsday.
But also a brutal, direct attack on us, their enemy. We were the target that had the power to stop them. And they knew it. We’d done it once already. So now, they were coming to finish us.
They were tracking us through the wormholes of time in a final attempt to protect their insidious curse and allow it to come to fruition.
"Their power runs deep through the rhythms of the earth,” Maeve said through clenched teeth. “And they aim to take control of the ultimate force: the power of time itself. Then nothing will be able to stop them."
I stared at the intricate designs on the altar, the ones that had revealed to me the secrets of controlled time travel. I had been foolish to think I was the only one who had decoded and understood their mystery. And the others, the evil ones who’d likely deciphered the code as well, they wanted the power for themselves and would do anything to protect it.
Including killing me. The truth seer.
"So, if we don't exist, they would have sole authority on the progression of time?" I asked.
Maeve nodded. It made sense. If they killed Maeve and me, they would stop our ability to move through time with our visions and to eradicate their wrongful abuse of the portal. They wanted absolute control over it, to twist time to their preferred goal: preserving Gaelic Ireland and stopping modernization.
My knees buckled beneath me at the thought of my unseen stalkers—cloaked misanthropes from another time with a willingness to kill for what they believed in.
But I was the truth seer. A modern, honorable Druid.
My initiation into Druidry and my enlightenment from the ritual of the solstice had to mean more. It could guide me through this. It had to. But how?
We needed to intercept their attack and stop their curse—ending it before it could reach its ultimate goal. That was the priority at the moment.
My hands ran through my hair, squeezing my skull to keep it from exploding. I felt like a sitting duck, exposed and waiting for my killer to appear at any time.
Maeve turned her phone and took pictures of the floor from a variety of angles, brushing dust and sand off specific areas to expose more writing.
Satisfied she'd captured enough for us to interpret later, she leaned back with me against the wall and we stared at the designs on the floor as if they might begin speaking to us.
"As the prophecies occur, one by one, they’ll warn us of the coming of the Druids as they get closer." She scrolled through her photos of the carvings, then zoomed in on the last shot. "This one, it looks like the final sign."
She tapped on her screen as I gazed into the light of her phone, focusing on what looked like a depiction of the sun and the moon, then a blending of the two.
"An eclipse," I stated.
"Yes. A unique eclipse," she replied, zooming in on more markings. "These are numbers. Dates, maybe. In the thousands.” She looked back to the floor to compare it to her photo. “I think they mean that this type of eclipse only occurs every couple thousand years.” She paused. “Basically, it's our deadline."
I grimaced at her poor word choice and a squeak escaped my throat as I swallowed. I hadn't heard news of an impending eclipse, but I rarely paid attention to astrological events, aside from the recent solstice, anyway.
Just as I found my voice, a strange vibration ran through my back, causing me to flinch. Maeve jolted too. Then an unnerving crunching sound of stone rubbing on stone rumbled at our feet.
And then the wall behind us moved.
It sank in a few inches exposing a massive panel in the wall that shifted, opening a hidden space behind it with a deep groan. The eerie sound turned to guttural moans that wafted up to us as if from the depths of hell.
Jumping back, we fumbled with the flashlights on our phones and aimed our beams into the dark passage within the wall. My heartbeat pounded in my ears but not loud enough to block the terrifying sound of Maeve’s hyperventilating breaths.
“Shit. What is that?” I choked on my words. “A secret passage?”
The light from my phone shook with the trembling of my hand. We inched closer, pressing our shoulders together, and peered into the dark crevice.
“A hidden chamber?” Maeve whispered.
The light from our phones was too weak to illuminate the vast darkness of the space behind the wall, and we strained to see farther in. I pressed my hand against the solid stone panel and with the slightest pressure, it opened more without a sound.
“Oh my god. We can fit through.” I gasped.
But then my hand flew to my face as a waft of ancient stench hit me between the eyes, turning my stomach.
Maeve choked. “Jesus.” She retched. “It’s like the air of a thousand-year-old grave.”
And just in that instant, our phones went dead, leaving us in pitch darkness.
The moaning from within the secret chamber grew louder and the rancid stench overwhelmed us, sending us stumbling back. Just as we steadied ourselves, a fluttering sound escaped the secret passage. The quivering grew in intensity to a level of thunderous vibration and pounding that sent immediate panic through me.
Something was coming. Something big.
And in that instant, pure terror took over.
I grabbed for Maeve's arm through the darkness.
"Run!"
Chapter 2
The frantic sound of a cyclone tore out of the secret opening in the wall as we ran for our lives through the pitch dark tunnel of the catacombs. Without light from our phones, we stumbled and smashed into each other, feeling our way toward the guardian statues and the narrow passageway to our freedom above.
The roar of chaos and dizzying thunder beat on our backs as the terrifying sound from the hidden chamber followed us with increasing intensity.
"Here it is," I called to Maeve. "Follow me. Quick!" I turned the bend and pressed into the damp crevice that led up to the safety of the clearing.
Maeve kept a hand on my ankle as I pulled myself up the slippery incline.
Something caught in my hair and a scream escaped my lips. I batted at the thing and my erratic motions caused me to lose purchase. I slipped down a couple feet, pushing Maeve lower too.
"Shit! Pull me back up!" she yelped. "Hurry! It’s getting closer!"
We scrambled faster with alarm rising in every twitching nerve.
Another thing hit the side of my head and frantically batted about. I kept my grip on the stones, pushing through the terror of the unseen creatures in my hair.
"I'm almost there," I yelled. "I can see the light of day." I reached for the last handhold and pulled myself out of the tight hole in the earth.
Reaching back, I grabbed Maeve's hand just as a blood-curdling scream escaped from her horror-stricken soul.
"Something's in my hair!" she shrieked. "Pull me out! There's another! Isobel, help me!"
With a violent shudder of terror, I pulled her with all my force and she wriggled out onto the grass. Behind her came the force of a squall through the narrow opening.
A torrent of fury blasted out of the hole in a dense fog of quivering chaos. It streamed out of the crevice like a whirlwind of black smoke that streaked across the clearing and then spread out in swirls across the sky.
We ducked with our hands over our heads to avoid being hit by the surge and crouched behind the shelter of a boulder.
Pulling a quivering creature out from the knots in my hair, I threw it to the stones like vile poison. My fingers moved frantically through my hair searching for any others as I stared at the smashed b
ug at my feet. I recoiled from the shock of how it looked, splattered on the ground. Its head was skull-like and its ashen, blanched body reminded me of death.
Looking back up toward the lengthy swirl of chaos fluttering across the sky, it came clear to me.
It was a giant swarm of freakish insects that had been released from the secret chamber.
The dead body of one of them lay on the stones at my feet. I shuddered as a nervous jolt ran through me, causing every muscle to twitch in one fluid motion of revulsion.
Turning to Maeve, I saw a similar grimace of disgust painted across her face.
"Are you okay?" I reached out and pulled parts of a smashed bug from her hair.
She bared her teeth in repugnance. "I friggin' hate bugs. I wouldn't have gone down there if I knew there'd be friggin' monster bugs." Her body shook with a massive quake. “I’d face an assassin Druid any day over a swarm of vile, skeletal insects.” She stomped the remains of the bug on the rocks and ground it to bits with her boot.
An endless surge of emaciated insects continued to escape out of the darkness of the catacombs, and I pulled Maeve away with me toward the trail leading down to the car.
Hunched low with our hands over our heads, we stumbled along the grassy path, swatting at anything that threatened to move near us. The sky darkened above us from the sheer volume of the increasing swarm. It filled the air like heavy, undulating thunder clouds that swept across the heavens toward the horizon.
Panting, we scrambled into Gram's vintage BMW and slammed the doors with quick snaps. Maeve cranked her window tightly closed even though it was already up and then ran her fingers through her hair for a final check.
Blowing out a breath I felt like I’d been holding since extracting myself from the hole, I fogged the windscreen in front of me. I grabbed my old coffee cup from the console, popped the plastic lid off, and chugged the cold leftovers until it was gone. With a gasp, I turned to Maeve in disbelief of the frightful assault.
She stared in silence at her phone, which had buzzed back to life. Pictures of the catacombs filled her screen.
"What the hell was that?" I blasted, still reeling with disgust, flicking a suspicious speck from my pants—a bug leg or something.
She pinched her fingers on the phone screen and spread them out, expanding the size of her photo. She turned the phone then for a better look and finally lifted her gaze to mine.
Her eyes held quivering concern that soon turned to a wet glaze. Tears pooled in her lower lids and without a flinch, a heavy tear dropped out of her left eye and fell down her cheek.
My breath froze as I waited for her to speak.
"And so the skies darken with a plague that will swarm the fields," she recited as if by heart. "It's the first prophecy, Isobel," she stated as she looked at the photo of the carvings from the floor of the catacombs.
"What?" My words caught in my throat.
"We’ve unlocked it. And now, it has begun."
The prophecies had started.
And we were the ones responsible for setting them in motion. Reading the predictions in the carvings on the floor and then releasing the swarm triggered the beginning of it.
The first prophecy written in the stone of the catacombs predicted a swarm that would darken the sky, just as the massive cloud of skeletal insects did. I stared at Maeve in disbelief at the onset of the countdown, regretting our trek here without the others. We’d awakened the dormant curse and now had no clue how to stop its progression.
Gazing at Maeve, searching for answers, I noticed a purple glow around her face and hair from the light of her phone.
"How many prophecies in total?" I asked with a shake in my voice. "I need to know how much time we have."
She looked up from her phone and pressed the side button to turn it off. "I can't be sure. There's a lot of overlap with some of the carvings. What we need to figure out is when the next eclipse is coming. That will determine how much time we have."
She went to turn her phone back on and I stopped her.
"Wait! Stop." I threw my hand up to keep her from turning her phone on again.
"What?" Her voice held a twang of annoyance.
My eyes widened as the purple hue glowed brighter, all around her.
"Maeve. There's a weird haze around you." I pulled back. "It's all over you. Like, purple."
She inspected her hands and chest and then looked at me. "I don't see it. What are..." Her words cut short as her jaw dropped. "Isobel. You are too. There's a purple aura all around you."
Shit! I turned my hand both ways in front of my face but didn't see it. Looking back at Maeve, I reached for her hair to try to touch the glow. She reached for me at the same time with equal curiosity.
As soon as we made contact with each other's auras, an explosion of whirling color shot us back. Blasts of wind tore through the car, creating a surge of energy that funneled into a vortex in front of us. Squinting through the whipping gusts, we peered into the focused source of light and with a crack of intensity, it blasted the car doors open and we sailed out either side onto the grass with a crash.
I shook my head, attempting to clear a haunting image that had peered out at me from the vortex. It was a man's face. A sense of déjà vu moved through me as its familiarity resonated in the back of my skull.
I scrambled up to standing to check my condition and ran around to Maeve. She pushed herself up to sitting and stared at me, wide-eyed.
"What the hell what that?" She panted.
"No freakin' clue," I said. "But it’s gone now. I don't see the purple around you anymore.”
"Good." She stood and brushed herself off. "Used to be my favorite color. Screw that, now."
"Did you see the creepy face?" I murmured.
"Hmm?"
"The flash of a man’s face. It was vivid." I hesitated, trying to make sense of what I saw. "I don’t know. It was just…weird."
We climbed back into the car and I reminded myself to never touch her again if she glowed purple. I was sure she was making the same silent oath.
"We need to make a pact," she said to me.
My air caught in my throat. I knew we couldn’t avoid it that easily. We were too volatile together. We needed to figure out how to hone our abilities. As a team.
She continued. "We obviously both have very powerful gifts. We know this. Can you imagine if we joined forces? Like, truly joined forces. We’d be the butterfly effect…the subtle motion that gives rise to the tidal wave." She chuckled. "I mean, sounds funny when I say it out loud, but think about it. Together, we could be the small force that makes the huge change."
"Funny? No. I was just thinking the same thing,” I mumbled. “But I was trying to come up with a way to avoid overlapping our gifts. Basically, so we wouldn't explode out of the car again." I huffed. "But you're right. That might have just been a tiny glimpse into what might happen if we connected properly." I paused. “Together, with our gifts combined, we might have what it takes to fight this.”
My mind ran with the idea. Maybe there was hope at facing the assassins who were coming for us. Maybe there was a way to block their plans for doomsday.
But then the unsettling vision of the man’s face flashed in my mind again. Was he one of the trackers? One of the rogue Druids, who was getting closer? His aggressive, gnarled expression sent chills through me. I couldn't help but feel I wasn't ready to face him yet.
And it wasn’t only him. It was the oldest order of Druids, the secret society, dating back thousands of years. They were wise beyond their time. It was clear now that they had some form of knowledge of the mystical portal in the catacombs and their prophecies were connected to it.
The portal was their way of reaching us. And we wouldn't stand a chance against them.
I thought about joining forces with Maeve. Interlacing our gifts to increase their power. After the intense explosion from the purple haze, it seemed like it could be a real possibility. But I couldn’t help but think we need
ed more.
I was almost nineteen years old. They were over two thousand years old. I was at an extreme disadvantage in terms of wisdom, yet somewhere deep within me, ancient knowledge seemed to linger. It was as if it was sleeping in the depths of my mind, waiting for the moment when it would be unlocked.
But still, I didn't seem to stand a chance against such a force. Not without more information, anyway.
I needed to know what lay hidden in the secret chamber of the catacombs. It called to me in every breath.
My mind’s eye travelled back down the dark passageway toward the opening of the mysterious cavern. As I peered into its darkness a jolt of familiarity returned to me, drawing me into its depths.
I shook my head to clear the images, but they remained stubbornly burned onto my retinas. The secret chamber. The ancient assassin’s face. The feeling of being pulled in to the darkness of its mystery.
I had to go back. There was no question left in my mind.
My molars pressed together as I inhaled through my nose. I needed to explore the hidden vault. To figure out its lost secrets.
But the warnings that flashed through my mind made my hair stand on end.
I turned to Maeve. “We need to go back down.”
Chapter 3
The secret passage within the catacombs held a mystery that called to me. The swarm had spread and faded on the horizon so I was fairly confident they'd emptied out fully from the dark subterranean tunnel. The initial sound of the waking swarm had come from deep within the secret chamber, though, causing my imagination to envision middle earth trolls and all varieties of creatures of the dark. My bones quaked at the thought of entering it.
"We need to explore it," I said to Maeve as we flew past the black and white road sign for Galway City Centre.
"I had a feeling you were going to say that." She rolled her eyes and looked out her window. "I guess I can't expect to return to a normal life at this point, anyway, right?"
I nodded my head and peered at her from the corner of my eye.
Truth Seer (Irish Mystic Legends Book 3) Page 2