Inside, a passage glowed with the same sickly light we had seen above. A wrongness throbbed on the air that even Murdock could feel by the look on his face. He unholstered his gun, gave us a nod, and went in. Keeva rolled her eyes and pushed past him. "That gun isn't going to do much good here, big guy."
The far end of the corridor framed the parade ground in a simple arch. In the center, a naked, bone white figure stood, fairy wings undulating out from either side of him. Dark almond-shaped eyes stared from a worn face of ecstatic triumph. Seeing Gethin macLorcan in person made me realize that Shay's police sketch really had looked nothing like Corcan Sidhe. I had been seeing only the superficial similarities.
Shay lay crumpled on the ground just on the edge of the lawn. Ignoring him, Keeva walked onto the grass. Murdock trailed behind her with his gun drawn as I leaned down to check Shay. I couldn't tell if he was breathing. I wondered if he knew how over his head he had been. Pulling my dagger, I stepped up behind Keeva. The blade felt warm and alive in my hand, its runes grabbing the light around it.
Gethin had drawn himself inside another pentagram. Spirit jars sat at the five points, filled with herbs and water and the unmistakable shapes of hearts. Corcan lay at the center, his head near Gethin's feet. His body was rigid, and he stared straight up without seeing.
"You've done enough," said Keeva.
Gethin brought his gaze down, inspecting her with coal black eyes. His ears were not so much rounded as stunted points.
"I've just begun," he said. The voice. At once raspy and clear, like someone who had been smoking all night and talking too loud. It wasn't a voice to forget. Neither was his essence. Stinkwort and I had been so close the other night. We could have saved the last victim and even macDuin if we had been faster. His essence still felt wrong, but it had become muted, more fairy in nature, with a distasteful edge to it. As I moved closer, the hair on my arms bristled. He had already sealed the circle around the pentagram and erected a protection barrier. Most sane people did that with themselves on the outside.
"You don't have to do this. You got what you wanted," I said.
His eyes shifted to me. "What I wanted? No. What I wanted was to claim my mother's noble heritage. Instead, I must wear the disgusting wings of my traitorous father."
Keeva had circled around the pentagram. She kept one hand near her waist and flexed at the wrist. She was gauging the strength of the shield. When she reached the point opposite me, she shook her head. She hadn't found any weakness.
"You can't do this," Keeva said.
Gethin's face twisted into a sneer. "Only you think in terms of cannot." He spread his arms out. "Look at my power, de Danann. Look at your own. You waste yourself. If more of you had joined my mother's people, we would be ruling this place. Instead, you cower before the humans, content to take the dregs they offer."
"Let Corcan go. You don't need him anymore," I said.
"I need him to open the way. I am keeping my word to my mother, unlike my father. She found me a cure. Now we will cure the world." He began to chant. I recognized the spell. Good ol' Meryl had hit the nail on the head. Gethin was opening a door into chaos. Wind picked up in speed. Outside me fort, someone shot off a roman candle that glimmered red-orange through the hazy light of the protection barrier Gethin had erected. More explosions went off as the first display of fireworks appeared overhead.
"This spell will kill you!" I shouted. He faltered for a moment.
"You're wrong. It opens the door for The Defeated Who Will Conquer. They will ally with us, and we shall rule together." He had the fevered gleam in his eye of the rabidly insane. There wasn't going to be any reasoning with him.
He began chanting again. He raised a hand, and a burst of yellow light tore through the barrier and into the sky. It seemed to fly up forever and scatter among the clouds. A heavy silence spread around us except for Gethin's guttural muttering. Off in the distance, a moaning broke out. The ground vibrated with a deep thrumming. A torrent of air pounded down out of the sky, throwing us off our feet.
I lifted my head against the pressure. A towering wall of water ringed the walls of the fort, a dark, malevolent green surging toward the open sky all around and above us. Gethin had called up the sea. The wind died down. Confused shouting came from outside the walls, and more stray fireworks arced against the darkness.
Keeva flew to my side. "We can't penetrate the pentagram. The shield's stronger than anything I've seen."
"That's not the real problem." I looked up at the wall of water around us. "That's where all hell's going to break loose."
"Will someone please tell me what's going on?" said Murdock. He had not taken his eyes or his gun off Gethin.
I pointed at the seawall. "That is the gateway to a dimensional prison. The Dananns spellbound some critters called Fomorians. Gethin's breaching the barrier to let them out. They're big and nasty, and they're not going to be very happy to be here."
"Sorry I asked." He cocked his gun and aimed at Gethin. "So why don't I shoot him?"
"You can't see the barrier around the pentagram, but it will stop a bullet."
Gethin continued chanting, facing each of the points of the pentagram in turn. He picked up a stone blade and crawled around Corcan, inscribing runes into the ground. Pinpoints of light appeared in the spirit jars and raced around the hearts. They pulsed with an eldritch glow. Five columns of red light shot from them and pierced the clouds that capped the ring of water around the fort. A tremendous clap of thunder broke, the force of its vibration almost knocking us to the ground again. Above us, the clouds revolved in a circle like the beginning of a tornado. The center rippled and tore open, widening like the pupil of a dead eye. Oddly, no stars shone in the blanket of black. The surface of the wall of water rustled like a windblown curtain. Figures moved beneath the surface, huge unshapely things, vague and undefined.
"Keeva, use the binding spell to bind us all in here. We have to block Gethin's access to the water."
She closed her eyes in concentration. She shook her head. "I don't have your recall, Connor."
I fumbled in my pocket for Meryl's note and thrust it at her. "Learn quick. I'll try and distract him."
I flung myself at the pentagram. The invisible barrier yielded a few inches, then threw me off. Gethin didn't even notice. My dagger had gone flying when I landed on the ground. As I picked it up, the runes on the hilt glimmered. Bracing for the inevitable pain, I forced some of my own essence down my arm, and they burned brighter. The blade had some ability in it even if I couldn't access most of my own.
I approached the barrier again and slashed at it. A shower of sparks rent the air, pitting my skin with burns. Gethin did not stop chanting, but he glanced at me that time. I slashed again. More sparks cascaded over me, and I stumbled away. Gethin stretched out his arm, and a charge of energy hit me in the chest. I fell on my back.
I sat forward, clutching the hot, sore spot on my chest. It hurt like ten fists had pummeled me.
"Got it," said Keeva. She launched herself into the air above Gethin and began to chant. As she flew above us, a faint trail of blue light began to appear behind her. She had en the shorter spell by the sound of it. I could sense the weaving of her words bonding to the top of the battlements of the fort. The spell wouldn't take down the seawall, but if she managed to close Gethin inside the spell, his own spell would be trapped.
I hit the barrier again. This time I was prepared for Gethin's countershot and rolled out of the way before it even left his hand. It hit the wall behind me, and Keeva screamed. The power from Gethin's bolt had latched on to her spell. It went wild. She was spinning out of control, her face contorting in pain. I watched helplessly as she spun faster and faster in the air. With a burst of electric blue fire, she vanished from sight.
I screamed for her. No answer came. My senses trembled with the power of the shield capping the parade ground. I could feel her essence permeating it, but I could not feel her physical presence anywhere. In the
sudden quiet, I heard laughter. I turned back to the pentagram. Pure joy lit Gethin's face as he raised the stone knife over Corcan's heart.
"No!" Murdock shouted.
I shouted, too, but too late. He fired his gun. The barrier burst into a fury of white light as it absorbed the bullet, folding in at the point of impact. The bullet funneled inward. Just when I thought it would stop, it grazed Gethin's arm as he brought it down. He recoiled and dropped the knife. The funnel of light reversed itself, bouncing back to where the barrier had been.
"Get down!" I yelled to Murdock. He either didn't hear me or didn't understand. The funnel flattened out at me barrier and exploded outward. It took him in me shoulder and flung him off the ground. He sailed limply through the air and landed with a sickening mud. His body tumbled out of sight into the entrance passageway.
Gethin dropped to his knees. The bullet had only grazed him, but clearly it had stunned him a little. As he stretched one hand out for the fallen knife, he rested the other on the ground. Time moved slowly for me as I stared at that hand. The one steadfast rule of any protection barrier around a pentagram is that only the one who casts it can break it. I stared at his hand, fully halfway outside the invisible barrier. I flung my dagger. He screamed as it pierced him between the knuckles, pinning his hand to the ground. Before he could react, I grabbed the hilt of the dagger and yanked him the rest of the way out of the pentagram. The barrier dissipated immediately.
Gethin screamed and launched himself on me. His fist connected with my cheekbone and knocked me to the edge of senselessness. He straddled me and flailed away as I tried to block the blows with my arms. I swung at him with the dagger. He deflected it, and it flew from my hand. He hit me again.
As he brought his fist up for another blow, he paused and looked up. Blood was running into my eyes, but I saw lights in the sky above us, flickers of blue and green, yellow and pink. They were like fireworks, only moving with a purpose. Gethin pulled back onto his feet and shot bolfs of white light upward from his palms. The lights swirled and danced away from it, but kept coming.
I shook my head to clear it. I could hear chanting.
The sounds resolved into words, a phrase repeated over and over. Ny a wrug agas dhestrewy jy.
It wasn't a chant. It was a war cry. We will destroy you.
I laughed in disbelief. It was Cornish. The People had arrived. By the hundreds, flits spiraled into the parade ground screaming for all they were worth. The Power of their dance surrounded me, filling my body with essence, like the day Stinkwort had performed the sun greeting with me. Only this time it was off the scale. The black mass in my head receded. I dragged myself to my feet. The block was gone. I could tap my essence. All of it. I had my ability back. I picked up my dagger and called out to Gethin. I pointed my dagger at him. "Hey, asshole. Know what happens when you use a knife for a wand? It hurts like hell." Energy coursed down my arm and shot out the blade. It hit him in the head, and he collapsed. The flits swarmed all over him. Gethin struggled and screamed under a fury of color. The flits were screaming right back at him. One broke away and flew toward me, his sword held aloft.
Stinkwort hung in front of me, his body bathed in blood. The flush of battle euphoria suffused his face. "I said we'd get the bastard!"
"You must have called in every clan in the country."
He fluttered back. "Near enough. You okay?"
"It'll hurt more in the morning."
Joe gave me a great big grin. "It always does. I have to stop them before they kill him."
"What are you going to do with him?"
His grin broadened into that impossible smile. "He's a fairy now. We're going to give him fairy justice." With that, he shouted in Cornish, and every single flit vanished. Gethin had disappeared, too. They had taken him. Only one place dispensed fairy justice: Tara, where Maeve ruled with a cold hand.
Corcan had not moved. I bent at his side to check for a pulse. It felt faint, but it was there. I turned his head toward me. Gethin's knife had nicked his cheekbone when it fell. A bead of blood trembled at the edge of the cut. As if in slow motion, it detached itself and dripped. Up. Startled, I stepped back. Before what that meant occurred to me, the droplet floated out of my reach.
It gathered speed as it rose. I watched helplessly as it shot up to the seawall. The sea had not fallen back. The water shimmered where the blood made contact, and a black and sinuous crack appeared. It bulged, turning blacker, and something stepped through. A mass of gray darkness coiled in the air and descended. It touched the ground on the other side of the pentagram and resolved into a mass of quivering flesh. An arm uncoiled, thick and greenly scaled, and then a head no more than a lump attached at the shoulder, with a single bulbous eye and a mass of teeth. I'd seen pictures that I thought were nightmare exaggerations. This was no exaggeration. The Fomorian unfurled, a sickly gray torso supported by thick, black stumps for legs. It smelled like the rot of a thousand fish left in the sun.
It swiveled its body around until its eye found Corcan. It shambled a few steps toward him, and I raised my dagger.
"Back off." I have no idea if it understood me, but it stopped. Its eye rotated up. My body shields activated, the real ones, covering my entire body in a cushion of protection. It felt good to have them back, but I wasn't too thrilled at the cause.
It howled and lifted an arm. A sword appeared, a great length of jagged ebony iron. I couldn't tell whether it had it when it fell or had just conjured it from somewhere. It hefted the sword and eyed my dagger warily. While I held its attention, I used my free hand to work a protection spell over Corcan.
The thing raised its blade and swung at Corcan. In a shower of green sparks, it bounced off the barrier I had made. My protection spell evaporated like a mist. I shot a bolt of energy at the ground, and the Fomorian leaped back. I stepped between it and Corcan and recast the protection.
The blade swung toward me. Dodging away, I clawed my left hand at the air. White lightning crackled from my fingertips. It caught the creature in the chest, and it let loose an unearthly howl. The eye began to glow. My limbs suddenly grew heavy. I could feel some kind of spell draping over me. I tried to shake it off, but I didn't understand how it worked. I crumpled down. The Fomorian came toward me, sword raised. My hands were anchored to the ground. A mistake. I waited until it was ready to bring the sword down, and I tapped into the essence of the earth around me. The ground between us erupted in a shower of mud. The thing lurched sideways, its sword striking my leg with a glancing blow. Red pain lanced through my knee.
I scrambled toward the fallen thing and plunged my dagger into its thigh. It screamed again. A fierce heat blistered up my arm. I jerked the dagger out and fired bolts of pure energy at it The Fomorian flailed wildly, scrabbling away. It flung the blade at me. My shields absorbed the impact, but the power of the thing knocked me off my feet again. I landed hard on my side and felt ribs crack. Curling into the pain, I crawled away. It thrust a hand out and more heat blazed across my body. I smelled a nasty burning odor and realized my hair was on fire. I rolled again, grunting against the pain in my side as I batted at the flames.
As it reached for its weapon again, I used the simplest of spells to send the sword soaring out of the parade ground. The thing bellowed in fury, dragging itself to its feet. I held the dagger out and shot the same bolt of energy I had used on Gethin. He only hesitated a moment, shrugging it off. With a roar, he surged forward and punched me in the face. Blood gushed out of my nose.
The energy from the flits was wearing off. The darkness in my head gnawed at the edges of my mind. It hadn't gone away, only receded from the essence supplied by the flit clans. I wasn't going to make it. The Fomorian was too strong. I had no idea how to counter his strength, never mind his power. He hit me again. My head snapped back against the ground. He crouched over me and began swinging. Blow after blow struck me, sending me skittering across the ground. The only reason I wasn't dead was that my body shields blunted the force. But
they were only blunting the blows. I began to lose consciousness. He hit me again, and I went airborne. I landed hard against the wall and slumped to the ground. A wet sound rattled in my chest I felt the unmistakable pain of a rib puncturing my lung.
I was burning out. Channeling essence through the body is exhausting under the best of circumstances. I could feel lots of things broken inside me. I didn't have much time left before nature took its course. In desperation, I called up the one thing I had strength for. A deep white fog hissed around me, hiding me from sight. I could see the Fomorian, but he couldn't see me. He stumbled around in the druid fog, bellowing in anger. Twice he almost trampled Shay's still-inert body. It didn't matter if he did. I couldn't stop him. He would eventually find Corcan, rip open his body, and use the blood to let more of his kind out of the sea barrier.
Trying to breathe as shallowly as possible, I stared up at the full moon. I wasn't any good with Moon spells. As Briallen said, they work best for women. I eased myself up against the wall as the thing clawed against the ground nearby. With painful steps, I inched my way around the perimeter. If I could get out, I could get help. There had to be a fairy outside the walls who could at least help me contain the thing.
I was halfway to the exit when I stopped. Confused, I looked up again. The moon stared back at me. It wasn't supposed to be there. It was the first night of the new moon. The sky should be empty. Why would I see a moon that shouldn't be there? An ancient, dry voice welled up in my memory.
Not your moon.
Not your moon. I tried to think, but I was too tired. If it wasn't my moon, what was it? Virgil somehow knew I'd see a moon that wasn't mine. He didn't know what it meant. Damned gargoyle. I didn't know what it meant either. I wished Briallen were with me. She would matter-of-factly point out the obvious to me. I felt dizzy and slumped against the wall. I jerked my head up. Had I blacked out? The Fomorian seemed farther away than before. Or closer. I couldn't really remember. I felt like lying down. Maybe just for a bit. Something slipped out of my memory. Briallen. Something about Briallen. Briallen would know what to do with the moon. But she was locked in her trance. Right. Only I could wake her. That was what she had said. She should see this moon. A sick feeling welled up in my stomach. What would happen to her if I died? Would she sleep forever? Or would she waste away until she died?
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