There was some muttering and one of the women, a Reb I was betting, looked a little stubborn about it. Demarco looked really unhappy now that Bran had stepped up to be a general on his territory.
Bran took a deep breath and grew even more solemn. “And be ready for deaths, anyway. Your friends’ and your own. He’s not going down alone. He’ll drag all of us out to a hell-plane with him if he can, and spend eternity torturing us for blocking him from this one.”
Everyone had another beer and nobody seemed to want much food after that. Ian, our medic from the Lone Star Brigade, hesitated a bit and then spoke up.
“I’ll keep as many of you patched together as I can. Will teleporting out bits of this thing’s brain or circulatory organ help?”
Bran nodded. “It could. It all depends on how strong he’s gotten since I saw him last.” He gave Ian a small smile. “Do your best, and keep as many of us together as you can.” He looked around once more. “So, we are agreed? I take on the beastie. You lend me power with no argument or blockage?”
Some of the faces looked a little mutinous and a couple had to think hard. Even I knew that lending your power, all or some of it, to another mage left you weakened. Bran was asking them to lower their own chances of survival to improve the world’s. In the end, they all made the calculus and came up with the same answer. And they all nodded.
“Thank ye, all of ye. ‘Tis no small thing I asked tonight. And ‘twill be no small thing tomorrow when I ask it of you. There’s no fame in saving the world. You know that. The best we can hope for is a place on the Witan’s Wall of Heroes. But when we earned this,” he grasped his vest, “when we put it on, that was the day we knew we’d die doing something like this. Proud of all of you.”
“I’m not doing this for any man’s pride. I’m doing it because there’s a fucking demon trying to break through and lay waste to my world.”
I sighed. The purple-haired girl was mouthier than me. She stood up, not feeling the beer. For as much as they’d drunk, none of the mages looked worse for wear.
“That’s the reason we all do it, lass,” he said, with more calm than I could manage. “How many are here in town?” he asked Demarco.
“Two thousand. Everyone showed.”
Bran nodded. “We’ll set up a perimeter around the Pyramid for energy work, and only the strongest two hundred will go in and face the trouble with me. You know your people best, you choose who goes in. Time to go.”
He reached down and offered me a hand and I let him pull me to my feet.
“Rest I want to say is private.” He gave me that smile that made all my hormones fizz like a shaken soda pop.
Demarco stopped him with a hand on his arm. “Brother McKay, we can’t let you leave just yet. See, your mama has her own ideas about how you should spend your last night before your last battle. She told us how to send you off with a proper kaylee.”
“Ceilidh,” Bran corrected. I heard the very slight difference in pronunciation. “Did she now?”
“You know it,” Knox from the Moonshine Mountain Boys put in. “That is one tough old lady. Clearest astral projection I’ve ever seen, and all the way from Scotland at her age. So what she wants, she’s gonna get, mainly so she don’t come over here and hex us all.”
Bran looked at me. “Do you mind, love? It’s a bit of a party, since Ma thinks I need to be ceilidh’d off good and proper.”
“I’m fine. Sounds like fun.” I could think of a dozen ways I’d rather spend an evening than being around a bunch of combat mages. Of course, most of them revolved around Bran and being naked.
“Then we’re going out to my place for it,” Demarco said. “Follow me.”
I drove. It wasn’t hard to follow a herd of bikers out to a little farm east of town. The city hadn’t spread this far yet. I was kind of surprised to find Demarco was a country boy. He’d looked like all Midtown to me.
A bonfire burned in the backyard and lots of people were already hanging around it, sitting on chairs and the ground or just standing in clumps. I hated parties. But for Bran, I’d go, stick close to him and try to have a good time.
We got out and saw a whole bar had been set up. A couple kegs and a large selection of bottles had drawn a crowd. When Bran got out of the car, a ragged cheer went up from those who noticed. It was taken up by the others, and someone pressed a whole bottle of scotch into his hand.
“Prophecy blend whisky,” he said, reading the label in the firelight. “Appropriate.”
There was a lot of laughing and talking, more drinks going around. I had a mouthful of Bran’s whisky, but refused anything else. I was still driving and one of us needed to be sober tonight. I wouldn’t begrudge him a complete bender if he wanted it.
Then someone stood up by the fire. I looked and saw it was Ian, our medic. He nodded to the mage working the music and the Southern rock cut out. A drum and guitar started up. Ian cut loose in a mellow baritone.
“Scots wha hae wi’ Wallace bled. Scots wham Bruce has often led. Welcome tae yer gory bed or tae victory!”
“His accent’s not half bad. Most of you Yanks can’t do Burns,” Bran whispered to me.
“What is it?”
“Unofficial national anthem, written by Bobbie Burns back in 1793.” He pulled out his pipe and lit it, and then wrapped an arm around me.
I didn’t like the song, about dying for freedom. I didn’t want to think about death, not tonight. Not on the last night I would have my first and only lover by my side. I snuggled in tighter to him. He bent down and kissed me. It only made me feel a little better.
Then he let go and stepped up for the last verse, his own baritone filling the yard.
“By oppression’s woes and pains
By your sons in servile chains
We will drain our dearest veins
But they shall be free.
Lay the proud usurpers low!
Tyrants fall in ev’ry foe
Liberty’s in every blow
Let us do or dee!”
Do or dee. Do or die. And tomorrow would be exactly that. Bunch of bonkers Celts, loving life and death equally, and singing about freedom and death like they went hand in hand.
I had another drink from Bran’s bottle. It didn’t help. I wished for my own rum, but that wouldn’t help either. Inside twenty-four hours, the man I loved would be dead or gone.
The thought set me back on my heels. Love. I’d never loved anyone. Mom and I had barely put up with each other while she was alive. She hadn’t wanted to have me, and despised being tied down by a kid, and she made sure I knew it. I tolerated Jinx, but was constantly annoyed at him. I loved Bran. I wanted him with me. I wanted to wake up with him, hear him talk about his family or work. I wanted the lessons he could teach me. And I wanted to make him happy. That thought was as foreign as the love.
I was D.J. Admire. I didn’t make people happy. I satisfied their curiosity, for a price. I found stuff for them. I relieved their minds. I made people dead occasionally. But I had never made anyone happy.
I might only have twenty-four hours, but by damn I was going to make them add up to the best day of Bran’s life.
Someone had done some serious research because we made it well into the second hour of singing with only Scottish songs on the menu. Food had come out by then, a roasted pig from a pit and platters of side dishes. Bran skipped most of them, and so did I, still feeling my burger, but grabbed a triangle of shortbread.
They had gone all out to make him feel welcome and at home. As the guest of honor, I figured that was right.
He sang and ate and drank a lot of the scotch. Everyone wanted a minute with him, for a well-wish, a blessing or just a moment to reassure themselves about tomorrow. I suspected that anyone who survived would tell their friends and nieces and nephews about the battle, and about fighting with Bran McKay, most powerful combat mage of our generation. And the tale would keep getting bigger, until Bran was a nine-foot-tall giant with eyes that flashed sparks a
nd lungs like a bagpipe.
Finally, as the fire died down and the songs grew sadder and slower, Bran gave me a squeeze.
“I’m thoroughly ceilidh’d, love. I have other things to do before we get a good sleep.” He kissed me and announced to the others, “Thank you all for this. Ma couldn’t have asked for a better send-off. I think all battles should do this before. But now, one last song and then my lovely lady is going to drive me home, so I can sleep before I face the beastie. Clear mind, sharp spells and all that rot.”
He conferred for a moment with the mage at the sound, and got a nod.
“This song was written by one of Bonnie Charlie’s soldiers, imprisoned in Carlisle Castle. He was to be executed, so he gave it to his cellmate, who was to be freed to walk the twelve kilometers back to the Scottish border and thence home. His friend will take the high road, the road ordinary people travel, but he will take the low one, the road the faeries open for those of us who die far from home, so that our souls may speed on the way.”
Oh, hell. He was already talking like he was going to die. If Bran went into this thinking he’d die, he would.
He nodded at the music, and looked straight at me. His burr thickened and I wondered if this was what he sounded like at home when he wasn’t trying to make a bunch of Yanks understand him.
“By yon bonnie banks and by yon bonnie braes,
Where the sun shines bright on Loch Lomond.
where me and my true love were ever wont to gae
On the bonnie, bonnie banks o’ Loch Lomond.”
I wasn’t going to cry, dammit. He could sing all the sad songs he liked, about walking the low road home, or about dying for freedom or whatever else he liked, but I wasn’t going to cry in front of a bunch of combat mages who thought I was a No-Talent weakling to start with.
I swallowed a lot on the walk to the car.
A few blocks of just being close to him made me feel better. He felt and smelled like Bran, even when he was quiet. That prickle of power all over my skin, because he leaked like the mana-hyperactive he was, felt perfectly right tonight. He smelled of smoke and whisky and leather.
I was almost normal by the time I parked the car and led us up to my office. Before I unlocked the door, I had a thought and stopped. “Bran, do you want to get a hotel room? I mean a nice one. One with good air-conditioning, a big soft bed and room-service breakfast?”
He smiled as he shook his head. “No, lass. Tonight on your lumpy Murphy bed feels just perfect.”
I let us in and locked the door. No interruptions, not tonight.
He sat on the edge of the unmade bed and shrugged out of his vest. I came to him, my feet dragging on the floor.
He pulled me down to kneel over his lap and I did burst into tears. God, I hadn’t cried, seriously cried, since I was ten and this batch of tears came hard and hot and fast.
I sobbed into his shoulder and hair and he rubbed my back and whispered soothing stuff in English and Gaelic until I calmed down enough to talk. I didn’t understand half of it, but that was all right. It took a few minutes before I managed to get the first really deep breath. A couple more steadied me enough to talk.
“I love you,” I managed and buried my face back in his shoulder for more tears.
I meant to tell him in a sweet, neutral setting, maybe over breakfast at a sidewalk café or as we walked along the Riverfront, all blue sky and singing birds, blooming trees and the Mississippi rolling along and all that crap. But the words fell right out of me and spread all over the room like blood leaking from a stab wound.
“Shh, love, shh.” He kissed my hair and stroked me. “I’m honored tonight, Admire. Not only have my brothers and sisters given me a send-off worthy of The Black Douglas himself, but the woman I love loves me back.” He kissed my neck. “I thought sure when we met, you were hiding a chunk of rock between those lovely breasts. It went with your acid tongue. But this week has changed you. It’s been the happiest of my life and I’m not giving up you or that happiness just because there is a demon coming to the town.” He smiled when I looked up. “I have some tricks left that the beastie doesn’t know yet. And tomorrow night, I’m going to lie right here beside you and lick the end of that bottle of scotch off your body until you scream loud enough that the old hen breaks down the door. And that’s a promise, at least up to the door part.”
I laughed at that, even as I was smudging away the last tears. “It’s a deal.” I licked the scar down the left side of his face. “Just don’t get your face ripped off again. I want you to make good on that promise.”
“Not this time, love.”
It felt all wrong as I took off my clothes. I hesitated over my bra, until he reached behind me and unfastened it. I wanted to get mad at him, yell and throw a sweatshirt on and storm out. But I couldn’t. He was already gone. I kept telling myself that as he kissed me, as he opened my jeans and took off his own clothes.
We lay there, side by side on the bed, letting the street lights and traffic noises wash over us. I ran my fingers over the scars on his arm and then traced the futhark tattoos on his biceps. Time to not be selfish, Admire. There was a sexy man in my bed who needed loving before he went out to die tomorrow.
That thought didn’t help one bit. The mana was nowhere to be found, making me hot for him. It was just us and that frightened me. Before, we’d always had the mana, like our own personal Spanish fly, making sure we were getting busy.
He kissed my neck. Yesterday, it would have sent me into a spate of humping him and moaning. Now it just seemed to irritate me. I took a deep breath again. Not being selfish. Maybe if I could get him off with my mouth, we could get some sleep. He was going to notice in a minute how much I wasn’t loving this.
“Just us tonight,” he whispered to me, running his tongue over my ear. I could feel his cock getting all hard against my belly. The tattoo on his throat didn’t seem to be moving as much tonight, just lying still in a loose circlet. “I love you.”
That was it. The last straw. I couldn’t do this. I couldn’t do it without the mana to push me into it. Maybe I didn’t love him after all. I rolled away and sat up.
Bran sat up behind me and wrapped his arms around me. I thought about shrugging him off, but I really didn’t want to. I wanted him, the closeness. But I didn’t want it if I couldn’t have it forever. The unselfish part of me tried reminding myself I needed to do this for him, not me, but the rest of me ignored it.
“Don’t worry about tomorrow,” he whispered.
“Bran, I—” I wasn’t sure where to go. Did I love him? Did I want him? Was I just taking him to bed out of some sense of duty?
“Shhh,” he whispered again. This time, the ghost of a kiss went over my ear and neck. It felt all right but it didn’t turn me on like it had. It just sort of annoyed me.
“I can’t,” I said miserably. “Not without the mana.”
“Then just stay with me. Not a night to be alone, love.”
I nodded and felt the tears coming again. I wanted him right here, like this, forever. I didn’t care if we never got busy again, as long as I could have him wrapped around me, smelling all Bran-like, that soft voice in my ear. It left me feeling like the earth itself was holding me close. I’d never felt so safe and I couldn’t bear to lose it.
“Been alone too long.”
I knew he meant himself, but it felt like he was talking about me too. I’d lived alone for twenty-four years, no family, no attachments. It looked very empty right now. I covered his arms with mine and twined my fingers in his hands.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered.
“Shh.”
We sat that way a long time, in the darkness. I wondered if he’d fallen asleep. I argued with myself, insisting I should turn around, kiss him and lay him like he’d never been laid. But it didn’t feel right at all.
His beard brushed softly on my shoulders and neck and I knew he was nodding. He needed his rest or he’d die before he could get the demon killed. Then we�
�d all be in a world of hurt.
“Bran? Sweetheart?” I couldn’t believe that coming out of my mouth. I’d never called anyone that, and I didn’t even have mana to blame. “Lie down. We’ll sleep.”
“Aye, girl,” he mumbled and almost toppled over.
I lay down beside him, stung. I’d been demoted. I was no longer “love” or “darling” or even “Admire”. I was just “girl”, one more warm body in a string of them. He wrapped around me, cuddling me close. That settled it, in the morning he was getting the best sex of his life, mana or no mana.
Chapter Fifteen
Bran
I woke to the skirl of the pipes, great pipes unless I missed my guess. It sounded far away and dim. But who would be playing “Scotland the Brave” at this hour? I glanced at D.J.’s clock and saw it was about four in the morning.
D.J. stirred in my arms and smiled up at me. “We need to tell Frau Blucher to turn down the aftershave commercial.” She nuzzled back in, burying her head in the pillow.
“That’s not a television, love. That’s real pipes. About two hundred years dead, unless my ear’s left me.”
She blinked awake. “Dead?”
I sat up and addressed the room. Aye, I could feel the cold spot and my arms were covered in goose bumps. “Come on out and show yourself, piper. I hear you, now show.”
He materialized at the foot of the bed, in full regalia, Glengarry hat to kilt to ghillie brogues on his feet, and a set of great pipes under his arm. His tartan was translucent, glowing a little green, so I had no idea who he was. His face bore a Highland stamp, with a sharp nose and cheekbones, and he was young, very young. If he’d been twenty-five when he died, I’d be surprised.
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