Liam tried to find Patrick. There was little he could do while floating. The stone was with him, and he tried to fight back, tried to keep his companions from falling to their death. And maybe it worked. They stopped flying backwards, at least those he could see. Patrick, Katina. Brodie too. Where was Eoin? And the FBI?
As abruptly as they were thrown back, those left on the rooftop were caught up by some force, Cyril’s power. They were held up in the air much like Liam.
The stone left Liam’s hand and floated several feet from him. He and the stone moved over the heads of all the people surrounding the domed cathedral. Their twisted faces spoke, their black eyes closed. Their voices sounded like a pit of snakes.
Liam was brought to the center of the cathedral and set down more gently than he would have thought. When he was on firm ground again, he turned to see Nina. He worried she would be Fae-touched. Her eyes met his, and he breathed a small sigh of relief when he saw they were human, still Nina’s eyes. She pleaded with him as she stood bound, her hands tied above her head.
“I haven’t harmed her,” Cyril said behind him.
Liam turned on him. “You’ve hurt enough people, you son of a bitch.”
Cyril’s face was still in shadow, the robe he wore open to a bare chest. He lifted and removed the hood so that Liam was able to see his face directly. He was a man of dark attraction, eyes a piercing blue, strong cheek bones, and a jawline that ended in a sharp goatee on his chin. This was the face of the man who haunted him his entire life, a face unknown to him in person until now. And for what?
“I’m going to kill you,” Liam said.
A small smile spread over Cyril’s lips. “It’s good that you have fight left in you,” Cyril said. “You have a right to be angry.”
Liam glanced to the stone. It floated in the air still, not far from where Liam stood.
“Has it spoken to you yet?” Cyril asked.
Liam glared at him. “Who’s Thaddeus?”
“I thought the same when I first heard it,” Cyril said. “Thaddeus, like the name of an old English professor. A quaint name. What I didn’t know the first time I heard it was that the word being spoken was in a Fae dialect. Thaddeus sounds the same as thé Deus.”
“Is he your boss?”
“He is the leader of all of us. He is our king.”
Liam’s brow furrowed. “What are you talking about?”
“Thé Deus is The Dagda.”
Liam’s mouth opened. He went over the history that Eoin explained to him. The Dagda, the king of the Fae, the ruler of Tir na Nog next to the queen Morgauna.
“Your ancestor, Fionn mac Cumhaill trapped his essence in the lockstone. Only one force on this world is immortal, and that is a soul of the Fae. A poetic touch. What better way to power the Veil that separates the worlds than to use the very immortality of the Fae against themselves? Morgauna escaped that fate after the battle at Eridu. She is the one with the true power of the Fae, but The Dagda would do. Fionn mac Cumhaill trapped his soul in the lockstone and used it to drive the Fae from our world. And do you know what resulted from that?”
“I’m sure you’ll tell me,” Liam said. “This is the part where the villain spills the whole evil plan, isn’t it?”
Cyril smiled at that, and he did actually have a nice smile. Under other circumstances, he might be a man that would even draw Liam’s eye at one point. If it wasn’t for the being evil part.
“The balance of this world was disrupted. Magic was cut off from the land where it was meant to thrive.”
“You seem to be using magic pretty well,” Liam said.
“You haven’t seen power until you’ve seen the true strength of the Fae.” He moved closer to the glowing orb. “This here is an example of what is to come. A rip in the fabric between our world and Tir na Nog.” He turned his attention outward toward the others, toward Patrick, Eoin, and everyone else still caught up in his power. “Witness what happens in a world where balance is restored.” He lifted an arm toward the captured group, and he splayed his fingers apart. In an instant, he clasped a hand.
Over the heads of the crowd, a single scream. At first, Liam thought it was one of those he came up here with. But it wasn’t. A robed figure lifted up from the crowd, and Liam could see that it was a man in the midst of his transformation, one of the fae-touched.
He was different, however. Unlike the Fae-touched he’d seen—unlike his aunt downstairs, a thought that struck a sorrow chord—this man’s forehead developed into horns, almost a crown of them. This man was becoming something other than even those twisted creatures. For a monster, the man maintained a savage, almost elegant beauty.
But in Cyril’s grasp, the man folded in on himself. His bones snapped, and his torso smashed into a red, pulpy ball. From that ball, a wispy line of light shot out and struck into the center of the cathedral, and the bright orb pulsed with light.
“Every one of these people,” Cyril said, “have come to give themselves to this cause. It is their energy that allows us to punch through to the other side to even let a little bit of that world back where it belongs. They will die here or they will be transformed. Either way, they will serve what is to come.”
“Serve you?”
“Serve the Fae. Serve the Queen and her King once he is returned, just as we all should. As it was meant to be. For millennium, the Fae have been trying to breach the doorway once again, pounding on it from both sides. Only now have we come this close to actually bringing down the Veil and making the world whole again.”
Liam cocked his head to the side. “I thought there were no more Fae on this side of the Veil.”
“That is where you’re wrong,” Cyril said. He actually seemed to be losing himself in this little moment of story time. He paused long enough to assess Liam. “Did you enjoy the gift I left you? Answers are a true gift. I wanted you to have them.”
Liam glared at him. Cyril meant the file. It was left there, obviously, for him to find.
“Have you ever wondered who your father really was?”
Liam’s lip curled. “You mean the father you murdered to try to get at me?”
“No, I mean your real father.”
Liam didn’t say anything.
“Your real father is Fae, Liam. He fell in love with Elena Coyle, married him, and that’s what led to her exile from the Council. She left to give birth to you. Only, I was paying attention. I knew what was to come because I’d been in close contact with the Lockstone. The Dagda told me what I must do, and that was to kill you.”
“So, all of this just to bring me here and kill me. Boy, you sure do know how to draw it out, don’t you?”
“I admit, I was rash and impulsive.”
Liam grew even angrier. “Rash and impulsive?” he yelled. “Compelling my fath—Walter Yates to murder the only family I knew to get at me. That was a rash impulse?”
“I hadn’t yet formed the real bond with The Dagda’s spirit yet, and he was unable to reach out completely. It took me years to be able to communicate with the stone in any sort of reliable fashion. There were only images, flashes with little meaning. He showed me a prophecy about a child born of the first Councilman and a Fae who would become the key to unlocking the Veil. I believed he wanted me to kill you. That’s what I attempted to do in Texas, though I failed to understand the full extent of Elena Coyle’s spell. I thought I’d found a loophole only to be stymied once again.” Cyril chuckled. “Your mother was powerful. And her magic was aided by your father. Her blood was enough to keep you hidden from me and the Council indefinitely. If it wasn’t for Patrick, we might never have found you.” Cyril turned to look out over the bowing people at the people, Liam’s companions and the tactical team, still held in his power, Patrick among them. “For years, I studied with the aid of the Lockstone and Dagda, searching for the way to you, and it came in the form of a man spiritually tied to the first Councilman through a love bond.”
“You’re sick,” Liam said.
Liam knew it was coming. This was the end of the speech. Now Cyril was ready to get down to business.
Cyril turned and faced away from Liam. He lifted a hand to his face, and he whistled like calling a dog. “Do you know what happens when the Fae are separated from their soul?”
“I don’t know,” Liam said. “People build walls?”
“A formoire is created. The hollow essence of what is left behind becomes a creature of pure evil, intent on only one thing, finding its soul once again so that it can become whole.”
Liam heard the rush of air, the flapping of wings.
“I believe you’ve already met this particular one.”
A black figure flew up too fast for Liam to get a good look, but he knew what it was. It was a demonic creature with hollowed out eyes, the same creature Eoin had saved him from in the alleyway.
The creature entered through one of the large open doorways and hovered near the light in the center of the room. Even in the bright glow of the break in the Veil, the creature’s skin was a non-reflective black, as if its body absorbed the light.
“Liam, I would like for you to meet the soulless form of The Dagda, the king of the Unseelie Fae, the Ruler over Life and Death, God of Time, the king of the Tuatha de Danaan. He has come to be reconnected with his soul and to sacrifice the ancestor of the first Councilman to unlock the stone.”
Liam wasn’t sure what to do. He stared at the winged creature, the very form of a demon itself, drawn straight from a pit of hell. He guessed that was where the legend of demons came from, from soulless Fae. For a brief moment, it crossed his mind that maybe actual Fae were seen as angels then. It made sense. Others mistook them for ancient gods.
Liam stared at the pulsating orb of light in the center. “I’ll stop you,” Liam said. “You’re not going to succeed.”
Cyril had the nerve to laugh out loud. “My boy, I already have.”
Liam stood up. He glared at Cyril. He thought of his father and his family dead at this man’s hands. He could almost see the blood there, staining the tips of his fingers. And he thought of his Aunt Jonie, a beautiful soul taken from him too soon. She never deserved that death. Liam should have done more. He turned to look at Nina. Her face was streaked with tears, the gag over her mouth wet with them. Horror haunted her eyes as she stared at the creature that landed in the center of the cathedral and stood as if waiting for Cyril’s signal. The Dagda. A supposed god waiting for the order from a man empowered by access to another world.
“I’m not dead yet,” Liam said. He moved swiftly to the center of the cathedral, and he balled his fist. With everything he had, he punched into the ball of light.
Hitting it was like touching a live wire, but one that didn’t shock him. There was pain, sure, but it was merely from the coursing energy that struck through him in a way he couldn’t even imagine before. He thought his head would explode with it.
He was screaming. He knew that much. But, in the midst of his screams, he turned toward Cyril, and he shot his free hand out. From it, blew a blast of power unlike anything he’d ever experienced.
The blast struck Cyril directly in the chest and knocked him back and into one of the support columns for the cathedral. His body went through the granite stone, the brick exploding outward and striking the gathered people. Many of them died. Liam knew this because their soul light or whatever it was moved up and entered the ball of energy. He knew this also, because with each bit of energy that entered the orb, Liam could feel it too as if he was now a part of that orb himself.
Thirty-Six
Chicago, IL - Tellus, Inc. Headquarters
Patrick dropped to the ground. He was no longer held by whatever it was that kept him in place. Immediately, he leapt to his feet again and searched for the others.
The crowd of people around the center dome all stood at once, almost as if whatever trance they’d been in, whatever held them in place had suddenly let go. They were up, and they were looking around.
And they were different. They were like the Fae-touched, only different in some ways. More intelligent, it seemed, as if these were the ones more evolved than those they’d encountered previously.
“Shit,” he said. It was only a matter of time before they looked back to him, Eoin, and the others. He dropped down to his knees again to use the grass for what cover it could provide.
He searched on the ground, and he found one of the assault rifles. He grabbed it and checked the clip. It was one he’d used before, an MP5.
The grass rustled behind him, and he turned with the gun aimed. Eoin.
“Shits about to get crazy,” Patrick said.
“I know,” Eoin said. “I’m going up there.”
“So am I.”
“It’s not safe,” Eoin said.
Patrick stared at him. Liam was up there, and despite everything that had happened between them, he knew where his intentions lay. With Liam. He was going up there, even if he had to take out every single one of those things between here and the dome. “Lead the way,” Patrick said.
Elsewhere on the roof, gunfire erupted.
Eoin could feel the change in the power. He didn’t get a gun. He didn’t feel he needed one. What worked for Cyril would also work for him as an Ephor of the Council. As he stood up, he called on every shred of energy he could muster and surrounded him and Patrick with it. By whatever means necessary, they were going to make their way up to that dome.
The battle had begun elsewhere on the rooftop, and that made it easier for Eoin to move. The attention of the fae-touched were directed at first in the direction of the gunfire.
As he moved through the grass at a quick pace, however, it wasn’t long before some of the fae-touched took notice of him.
Next to him, Patrick fired the rifle before Eoin could do anything. The shot was true. It struck the Fae-touched in the middle of the forehead and took out the back part of its skull. The creature fell back.
Eoin glanced at Patrick.
With a shrug, Patrick half smiled. “I watch zombie movies,” he said.
But as they moved forward, the creature hit with the bullet stirred. It wasn’t attacking. It sat up again, almost as if in a daze. Already, Eoin could see the skin on the creature’s bald head knit back together again.
“That’s not how this is supposed to work,” Patrick said.
No shit. Eoin punched forward with everything he had. He called the power to him in a wall of force, and it came easier to him. The rip in the Veil. The creature—along with several of those behind it who had just begun to take notice of them—were hit and lifted from the rooftop and thrown over the edge. If a gunshot to the head didn’t work, maybe a fall of seventy-six stories would do the trick.
Their immediate way was clear, and Eoin sprung from the grassy area. He was followed by Patrick close behind. As soon as they were free into the clearing, the full chaos that had taken over became clear. The fae-touched—or these new versions of the fae-touched—were all moving en masse toward the loudest noises on the rooftop. The constant gunfire. An explosion followed as if someone had thrown a bomb or a grenade.
Or it was Katina and Brodie. The flashes of light that accompanied some of the blasts told him as much. Eoin guessed they found their power easier to access just as he did. As if in answer, the bodies of some of the fae-touched flew into the air, some of them even in pieces. So yes, he figured they had learned the new extent of their power. The portal to Tir na Nog was helping them all in this regard.
But it couldn’t last.
Eoin saw him. Cyril. He lay on his ba
ck as if he was knocked out cold, but even now, Eoin saw that he was coming to again.
He turned to Patrick. “Get to Liam. I’ll deal with him,” he said.
Patrick nodded when he followed where Eoin pointed, and he headed toward the central dome.
Eoin turned his full attention to Cyril. As he moved toward him, he balled his hands into fists and called the full fury of his power into himself. This was going to end. Now.
As he walked, a fae-touched tried to attack him. He reached out with a blast of his magic and shoved the fae-touched from him. He had a singular goal, and that goal was trying to get to his feet again.
“Cyril Holder,” Eoin yelled.
Cyril looked up at him. He had blood smeared on his face as if it had run in rivulets down his cheek. Even through his pain, he managed a grin. “You miss me, lover?” Cyril said to him.
The anger burned inside him. Eoin reached forward as he walked, and he shot a missile of his anger toward Cyril.
But, just as quick, Cyril drew in on himself, and the power that Eoin shot blew apart before it struck its target. The space around Cyril, the concrete of the rooftop and part of the wall, splintered in bits of rock. Glass shattered, and Eoin guessed it was the glass of the upper floors blowing out to rain down on the ground below.
“I’ll take that as a yes,” Cyril said as he stood up. Shaky, but still with a confidence that only Cyril could exude. “And that you’re rather angry with how we last left.”
“This isn’t the continuation of some lover’s quarrel,” Eoin said.
“It’s not?” Cyril wiped his face and smeared the blood even more. He looked at his hand after he did. “Seems I underestimated him,” he said with a glance toward the dome.
“That’s not the first time you put your hubris before common sense,” Eoin said. “Stop this now, and maybe I’ll let you live.”
The Stone (Lockstone Book 1) Page 41