Heat bathed me from the side. The warrior’s body burned from the inside out, his armor melting. There goes my evidence.
The man in the fire nodded to me.
Be patient. No ranting. Wait for him to tell you what he wants and who he is, and then tell him you’re going to cut his head off. Zen. Diplomacy. I could do it.
“You murdered my people.” The language of power rolled off my tongue. Probably shouldn’t have started with that.
“I took from outside your borders.”
He had a deep resonant voice. The power in it rolled through the village, unimaginably ancient. The tiny hairs on the back of my neck rose on end. Behind me one of the deputies made a choking sound.
“They are all my people.”
“Do you claim dominion over the entire world, then, Daughter of Nimrod?”
“I don’t claim dominion; I claim kinship. Every time you enter this world and kill, you kill one of my own.”
He chuckled. “You’re arrogant. Like the rest of your clan.”
I wished I could reach into the flames. My hands itched. I could almost hear the sound of his windpipe breaking under my fingers.
“Have you given any consideration to your answer?”
I raised Sarrat and looked at its edge. White curls of vapor rose from the blade. Sarrat didn’t like him.
Diplomacy, Curran’s voice said in my head. Find out what he wants and how big of a threat he is.
“Let’s summarize. You sent me a box of ashes with a knife and a rose in it.”
“Yes.” He shifted into English too, but it didn’t help. His voice filled the space, deep and overpowering.
“What am I supposed to do with it? What does it mean? Is it a gift?”
He paused. “I see. You don’t understand.”
“I don’t. Enlighten me.”
“The world is mine. It had a brief reprieve, but now I’ve returned. Much has changed.”
“Go on.”
“I will need a queen.”
I raised my eyebrow at him.
“I’m offering you a crown. Sit by my side and share in my power. Be my guide in the new age.”
“And if I don’t?”
Amber flashed in his eyes. “I’ll burn your world.”
“You need to work on your proposal delivery. First come flowers and gifts, then dating, and only then, offers of marriage.”
He fixed me with his stare, a hard, unblinking gaze. “You’re mocking me.”
“You’re a pretty bright boy, aren’t you?” I quoted the line from the old story. He wouldn’t get it, but I thought it was funny.
“You don’t understand what I am offering.”
“How exactly did you think this proposal would go? ‘Hi, here I am, I murdered a bunch of people in a horrible way, marry me or I’ll burn everything down.’ Who would agree to it? You’re not someone to marry. You’re a threat to eliminate.”
“Your aunt said the same thing to my brother once,” he said.
Oh crap. “How did that go for your brother?”
He smiled. There was something wrong with his teeth. They weren’t quite fangs, but they were sharper and more conical than human teeth had a right to be.
“Your aunt and your father killed him. But I am not my brother.”
“So your brother got his ass kicked by my family. You can see how that isn’t in your favor.”
He laughed. “Do you know why my brother sailed to your family’s lands? Because he fought me for mine and lost. They faced but a weak imitation of what true power is with their combined strength, and he nearly ended them.”
“Let me guess, you’re the true power.”
“I am. I hold gods prisoner, tormenting them for my pleasure. I bring war and terror. I am Neig, the Undying. I am legend. All who know me bow to me.”
The way he said “legend” sent shivers down my spine. I shrugged. “Never heard of you.”
“Then I shall have to remedy that.”
“Why don’t you step out of that fire and I’ll cut your legend short.”
He laughed. Little streaks of smoke swirled around him. “I will give you a demonstration, Daughter of Nimrod. Then we shall speak again.”
The fire went out, like a snuffed-out candle.
I turned to Julie and the lawmen.
“Well,” Beau said, his voice calm. “Kenny, climb off Meredith, find a phone, and call down to the station. Tell them we’ve got another invasion on our hands and to get the evacuation alert out there.”
I headed to the gas station.
“Where are we going?” Julie caught up with me.
“We’re going to relight that pyre. Are you sure he is human?”
“Yes, I’m sure. Why are we relighting the pyre?”
“Because we’ve got an ancient fire mage on our hands, and he has a vendetta against my family. I need to talk to my father. Check the phone and if it works, call home and leave a message on the answering machine for Erra with everything you heard. Then call Roman and tell him we had a change of plans. Tell him to swing by the house and pick up the box. Adora should be home and she will let him in. We can’t wait till tonight. We need to talk to the Druids now.”
“Why?”
“Because Neig promised to give me a demonstration of his power. He doesn’t consider anything he’s done up to now a proper demonstration. According to him, making two hundred people disappear and sending a human who burned to death to deliver a message doesn’t count.”
“Crap,” Julie said.
“Find the phone. Call Curran after you’re done and tell him not to bother coming here. I’m going straight to the Druids once I’m done, and I doubt they’ll let him in.”
She ran behind the counter. I headed to the pump. Erra had told me that the more I gave of myself to the fire, the louder it would be for my father. This time Roland would answer me. I would scream into that fire and feed it magic until he picked up.
CHAPTER
12
“IT WILL BE okay,” Roman told me from the passenger seat.
I took the turn too fast. The Jeep jumped over a protruding root. The trees on both sides of the road stood so thick, it was like driving through a green tunnel. The witch forest thrived during magic waves.
“I sat by that damn fire for two hours. I fed enough magic into it to wake the dead. I screamed myself hoarse.”
“Parents,” Roman said. “Can’t live with them. Can’t kill them. You call, they don’t pick up. You don’t call, they get offended. Then they chew a hole in your head because you’re a bad son.”
“He is a bad father!” I snarled.
“Okay,” Roman said, his voice soothing. “Of course he is. Be reasonable. This is the guy who ordered his own grandson killed. Nobody is saying that he is a good father. All I’m saying is that parents don’t like being yelled at. He knows you’re upset and he doesn’t want to take your calls.”
“That’s family business. This is an outsider attacking us. This is different!”
Roman sighed. “I get it. I really do. Have you tried pleading? Maybe cry a little? That way he would know it was safe to take the call, and he would swoop in like a savior. Parents love to play saviors.”
I glared at him.
He raised his hands. “All I’m saying is when I need to talk to my dad, I don’t call him and scream at him because he got into a drunken brawl with Perun’s volhv, and Perun’s idiot kid followers decided to Taser Chernobog’s idol in his shrine, because that’s the closest they can come to lightning, and now my god wants them all murdered. I call and say, ‘Hey, Dad, I know you’re busy, but I’ve got a serious situation on my hands and I need your advice.’ Just try my way. I bet it will work.”
“Where the hell is this damn camp?”
“Make a right at th
e next fork.”
I took the next turn. The Jeep screeched, protesting the bumpy road. It was just me, the woods, and the black volhv. I’d sent Julie back. I’d wanted to bring her, but Roman had dug his heels in. According to him, he’d had to cash in all his favors, and that would only cover him and me.
“I feel like we’re driving in circles.”
“We are. They’re deciding if they’re going to let us in.”
I brought the Jeep to a halt and parked.
“What are you doing?”
“I don’t have time for druid shenanigans.”
I shut the engine off, opened the passenger door, and stepped out.
“This is a mistake,” Roman told me.
I looked up into the treetops. “You know me,” I called out. “You know who I am and what I do. I brought you a name today. Neig. Neig the Undying. The legend. I spoke to him and he is coming for all of us. I need to know who he is.”
The trees didn’t respond.
I waited. The forest churned with life. Squirrels fussed at each other. A woodpecker drummed a steady staccato somewhere to the left. Things rustled in the underbrush.
Nothing.
I got back into the Jeep. The witch forest was outside my borders. The land called to me. It needed to be claimed and protected. All that magic, stretching to me. All that life, vulnerable to outside threats. I could claim it and flush the Druids out like foxes out of their flooded burrow.
That was a hell of a thought.
I’d had over two years to deal with having claimed the city. I’d learned to manage the craving for more, but some days the urge to take land, to make it my own, gripped me. My aunt called it the Shar. The need to hold and protect. It was bred into our family to make us better rulers. Most of my now-deceased relatives had been taught how to handle it in childhood. I’d had to deal with it as an adult, and it almost drove me off a cliff. I’d beaten it, but once in a while, when it reared its ugly head, I had to beat it back again.
I wouldn’t be claiming anything today. I would chant the engine back into life, and Roman and I would go home.
“Huh,” Roman said. “I take back what I said. Your way is faster.”
I looked up. A palisade rose in the middle of what a moment ago was dense forest. Huge trees formed its wall, their trunks perfectly straight and touching each other. A gate reinforced with iron and bristling with spikes guarded the entrance. Dark blood stained the tips of the four-foot spikes.
The gate shuddered and slid aside.
“We need to hurry now,” Roman said, grabbing a duffel bag, “before they change their mind.”
We walked to the gates. A Caucasian man in his forties stood in the center, leaning on a staff. He wore plain trousers, boots, and no shirt. Blue whorls and symbols, painted in blue ink, decorated his muscled torso. His headdress, made of a grizzly’s head, gave him another six inches of height. His face fit right between the bear’s jaws. If I fought him, I’d come from the side. His peripheral vision had to be shit with all that fur.
The man glared at us, looking like he was about to roar and unleash a Pictish horde. The last time I saw him, he’d worn a snow-white robe and was groomed like he was about to attend a white-tie event. He’d been smiling at some children at the Solstice Festival and handing out candied fruit with the other druids as part of their community outreach.
Hi, we’re druids. We wear pretty white clothes, hand out sweets, and teach about honoring trees and forests. Look at us, all gentle and nonthreatening. We’d never strip naked, paint ourselves with battle symbols, and dance around in the woods with savage weapons and fur headdresses. Yeah, right. No wonder they didn’t want anyone to come to their masquerades in the woods.
“Is that Grand Druid Drest?”
“Uh-huh,” Roman murmured. “Watch what you say.”
“I always watch what I say.”
“If the words ‘I didn’t know you were having a fancy dress-up party, pity I wasn’t invited’ come out of your lips, I’ll turn around and go home. And that’s a promise.”
“Killjoy.”
“These are my colleagues from work. I have to have a good relationship with these people.”
“Okay, okay.”
Next to the Grand Druid stood a woman. She was about two inches shorter than me, with bronze skin and thick wavy brown hair. She wore an outfit of fur and carried a spear. Judging by the definition on her arms, she could use it, too.
“What about her?” I murmured.
“Jennifer Ruidera.” He pronounced “Ruidera” like “Rivera,” but with a D sound.
“What does she do?”
“You don’t want to find out. And call her Jenn.”
My luck with women named Jennifer wasn’t exactly great, so “Jenn” would work just fine.
Behind the pair stretched a camp. People walked back and forth, some naked, some clothed, most painted. Weapons waited in racks. The magic was so thick that if it were fog, we wouldn’t be able to see past three feet. Here was hoping there were no wicker men present, because if they tried to sacrifice someone or something by burning them alive, I wouldn’t be able to sit on my hands, professional relationship or not.
Drest met my gaze. “You said Neig.”
“Yes.”
He looked at Jenn. She shrugged. “Anything is possible.”
Two men joined us, one old and stooped, wearing an ankle-length tunic, his white beard stretching down to his waist. The other was in his thirties and looked like he got his exercise by tossing cows into the air for fun.
Roman bowed. I did, too.
Drest held up one finger to us and turned to the old man. “This woman says she spoke with Neig.”
“Ah?” the old man asked.
“Neig!” Drest repeated.
“I can’t hear you. Stop mumbling.”
Drest sucked in a lungful of air. “SHE SAYS SHE SPOKE TO NEIG!”
People stopped what they were doing and stared at us. Drest waved them off.
“Neig?” The old druid peered at him. “Oh, that’s not good.”
Drest looked like he wanted to slap himself. “Brendan, he has to wear his hearing aid when he comes to the rites.”
Brendan raised hands the size of shovels. “What do you want me to do? Sit on him and shove it into his ear? He takes it out. He says he wants to be one with nature.”
“Aha!” a male voice called out.
I turned. A man was striding toward us. Thin and painted with blue, he wore a cloak of crow feathers and carried a large black chicken.
Drest’s face drooped.
“I told you I had a vision about it,” the chicken man announced. “I told you last Thursday. I said Neig is coming. And you said, ‘Alpin, stop sacrificing your chickens. Stop putting yourself into a trance, stop looking at the entrails, and stop calling me in the middle of the night.’ You said that if I couldn’t fall asleep, I needed to drink a beer and suck it up.”
“He’s right,” Jenn said. “You need to leave those chickens alone. It’s unnatural.”
“For the last time, I don’t sacrifice chickens,” Alpin declared.
“I saw a dead chicken in your kitchen last week,” Brendan told him.
“I was going to cook it for dinner. I bought it at the market! I don’t eat my friends. I like to have them, because they help me with astral projection. Their squawking is soothing.”
Jenn dragged her hand over her face.
Roman cleared his throat.
Drest looked at him.
Roman unzipped the duffel bag and held it open for me. I took the box out.
The druids took a step back in unison. Only Jenn remained. She reached out, touched the box, and withdrew her hand.
“Open it,” Drest said.
I opened the lid.
They
peered at the contents. The old druid reached out, ever so slowly, his ancient hand shaking, grasped some ash between his fingers, and let it fall back into the box. His face went slack. He looked like he was about to weep.
“It will be all right, Grandfather,” Drest said gently. “It will be all right.”
“Everything will burn,” the old man said. “He will set the world on fire.”
“No, he won’t.” Drest nodded to Brendan, and the big man gently steered the elderly druid away.
Drest turned to me. “Put it away.”
I did.
“Come with me.”
He led us deeper into the camp. “What did Neig say when you spoke to him?”
“He told me that he gave the world a break, but now he is back, and he is going to conquer it. We think he has a place outside of time, like Morrighan’s mists. We’ve had people disappear, whole settlements. Serenbe and Ruby in Milton County. He took them, killed them, and boiled them to extract their bones. Any idea why he would be doing that?”
Jenn shook her head. “No. But he is a crafty old bastard. If he’s doing that, it isn’t for anything good.”
Alpin just looked like he would collapse at any moment.
We reached the back of the camp. A big slab of rock protruded from the ground, one side polished and covered in Pictish symbols. Kudzu had climbed it, covering the top. An outline of Ireland and the British Isles was carved in the corner. Drest pointed to Ireland.
“First came the sorceress Cessair and her people. They inhabit the isle for a bit, then die out. Then comes Partholon and his people. They start farming, fishing, building houses. Then in one week they all die of plague.”
“Then comes Nemed,” I said. I had brushed up on British magic history. Most people thought it was one-tenth history, and the rest was equally myth, wishful thinking, and bullshit, but I’d read it all the same.
Roman threw me a cautious look.
“The correct name is N-e-i-m-h-e-a-d-h,” Jenn said. “When you pronounce it correctly, it sounds like . . .”
“Neig,” Drest finished.
Only Celts would use nine letters to make one sound.
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