Tonight wasn’t normal, though. Kevin’s hands might be steady, but his chest still felt tight. The premonition that had seized him as he was shutting down his computer for the night still had its claws in him.
The light at the bottom of the stairs, bright but flickering, beckoned, and he hurried. Rian, the Prince Royal, had channeled his Fire magick into torches set at intervals around the new nexus chamber, torches that dimmed when they were told to but never burned out. Fire magick—elemental magick in general—was safe to use around the wellspring that shared the chamber with the nexus, or so Conall said. When it came to the nexus and the wellspring, Kevin was just happy someone seemed to have some idea what was going on.
Kevin came out into the light with a sigh of relief. The torchlight seemed brighter than it really was; the elemental Stone his husband had used to sculpt and reinforce the walls looked like the cracked concrete and gouged earth that had been there originally, but the raw materials had been infused with a crystal so clear and beautiful it put Waterford to shame. Even the battered black leather chaise positioned over the nexus—near-miraculous survivor of the collapse of the original Purgatory, thanks to Conall’s emergency ward over the nexus itself—took on a sort of beauty, in that light.
But there was a shadow in the room. A shadow that existed only in Kevin’s head, he was sure. But that didn’t make it any less real—his first struggles with the Marfach had been solely in his mind, after the monster sent him on his first visit to Purgatory, and that fight had been entirely too damned real.
And now…
Kevin sat down on the chaise. Slowly, as if his knees bothered him the way they sometimes used to before he started getting regular therapeutic massages from a Fae healer. As if he’d seen a future hiding around some unseen corner, waiting to jump out and… and what?
He leaned forward with a weary sigh, resting his elbows on his knees and grinding the heels of his hands into his eyes. He’d been shutting down his computer for the night, waiting for the ancient software to do its thing so he could go home. And then he’d jerked in his chair, nearly tipped over backwards, with a sensation like falling-asleep vertigo as a flood of images hit him like a tsunami.
He’d seen this room. A sword. His husband, whose skill with a blade had been legendary in his old world and took Kevin’s breath away in this one. And he hadn’t seen, but he’d felt, a lust for blood, hanging in the air like a thick mist, clogging his lungs and making his skin crawl.
Then?
Nothing. Emptiness. No way out of this room, not for him. No future, no life.
Then he’d been staring at his computer screen, which had still been stubbornly telling him that he had to shut down the timesheet software he’d already shut down twice if he wanted to log out.
What he really wanted was to feel his husband’s arms around him until he forgot what it felt like to imagine losing half his soul. But a little bit of exorcism first couldn’t hurt.
It helped to look around the nexus chamber, to remember how many times pure evil had tried to destroy him, and Tiernan, and all of them. Hell, the Marfach tried to pull the club down around them and bury them all in the rubble. It hadn’t worked. It wasn’t going to work. The walls rising around him, the club being rebuilt over his head, they were proof.
The Marfach was only part of the story, of course. And probably not even the source of Kevin’s premonition—if that’s what it had been, rather than just plain old dread. Janek O’Halloran’s undying and undead hatred for Tiernan Guaire was no secret—and it, too, had been born in this room. Kevin was pretty sure he could identify the exact spot on the floor where he’d lain with the former bouncer’s knee in the small of his back and his head hauled up, waiting for his throat to be cut, when Tiernan had shot a rod of living Stone out of his hand and drilled it through the bastard’s eye. It should have killed him. Would have, if the Marfach hadn’t been lurking in the ley lines under their feet, and hadn’t seized its first chance at escape in over two thousand years.
So now the gargantuan Polish/Irish bouncer was discovering that the Walking Dead were living the life of Riley compared to him. And the rest of the community of Purgatory had a zombie on their hands, a zombie with a passenger bent on destroying two worlds. Which zombie and passenger had probably escaped the prison Conall had crafted for them, right around the time of Mac and Lucien and Rhoann’s wedding and SoulSharing.
Which, in turn, was more than enough reason for anxiety masquerading as premonitions. Maybe exorcism wasn’t going to work after all—
A brittle, musical chime filled the air, an instant before three figures appeared, water cascading off them as they sat in the middle of a spreading puddle in the heart of the wellspring: a Fae with a crest of blond hair dripping water into his aquamarine eyes, a man with a military buzz-cut maybe a shade longer than regulation and an artificial leg, and another man who resembled, as Kevin had often thought, the improbable love child of a bulldog and that bulldog’s favorite fire hydrant.
“That wasn’t so—oh, hell, Kevin!”
As deep a funk as he’d been in moments before, Kevin still had a hard time keeping himself from bursting out laughing at the look on Mac’s face. Rhoann had something of an aversion to clothes, and was getting his human partners accustomed to going without in private. And they’d all apparently come from their home away from home at the bottom of the Pool in Central Park, where clothing was less than optional—it was pointless.
“I’m not looking.” Not strictly true, but close enough for jazz.
“I call bullshit.” Lucien’s gravelly voice sounded as if the bouncer, too, was trying hard not to laugh. “If you don’t want to look at my husbands, you and I are going to have to have words, Counselor. And I’ll win. Even if you did wrestle in college.”
Rhoann blushed—Kevin suspected the blond-crested Fae might be the only representative of his race capable of doing so. “Laród-ar-Fuzz…”
Hearing Lucien called “Fuzzball” in English was generally enough to set Kevin grinning; the Faen equivalent, “ball-of-Fuzz,” was too adorable for words. And just like that, something unclenched, deep inside Kevin. The triad—Mac had vetoed ‘throuple’ right off the bat, said it sounded like a childhood illness—was exactly the medicine he needed right now. It was a pure delight to watch the three of them falling in the kind of love Mac and Lucien had fallen in over 30 years ago, before either of them had realized they were meant to be part of something larger.
He even had good news for them, news that had almost been pushed right out of his head by his case of the vapors. “Mac, you’re just the man I was hoping to see.”
“Maybe. But you probably weren’t expecting to see quite this much of me,” the gray-haired Marine dead-panned, before bending to check the waterproof seal on his C-leg.
“I can deal if you can. And I have some good news for you.”
“Fire away.” Mac relaxed into Rhoann, holding Lucien’s hand. SoulShares craved touch, and the new triad was apparently no exception to this general rule.
Yeah, this was definitely what I needed. “We took on a new associate a couple of weeks ago. Her name’s Katy Lorimar, and she’s involved with a pro bono project I thought might interest you.”
“For good project?” Rhoann frowned. The channeling Aine had worked for him before he came through the Pattern let him understand any language spoken to him, but it didn’t differentiate between, say, English and Latin. Every language was ‘human’ to him. And Rhoann was strikingly literal-minded to start with.
“It’s a legal term.” Simply explaining what a lawyer was had been an interesting exercise, and Kevin still wasn’t entirely sure he’d gotten through to the Fae. “It describes a project a lawyer takes on without being compensated. Something for the public benefit, a way of giving back to the community. And Katy’s affiliated with a local group called Conduct Becoming—she describes herself as an Army brat, and she found out about it through her dad.”
That got Mac�
�s attention, as Kevin had known it would. Mac had received an other-than-honorable discharge from the Marines, seven years after coming home from Vietnam minus a leg, for what was euphemistically referred to as “conduct unbecoming”—meaning that someone had evidence of Mac and Lucien’s relationship, and had taken that evidence to Mac’s commanding officer, a galloping homophobe even in an era when homophobia had been nothing remarkable.
“What do they do?” Mac shifted uncomfortably on the concrete and Stone floor.
“They work with veterans in your situation—discharged solely on the basis of sexual orientation—and walk them through proceedings to review their discharges and have them upgraded. The process takes a while, but they’ve been able to get all the way through it with maybe a half dozen people so far. Mostly Army, but I think they’ve helped at least one Marine.”
Rhoann finally broke the silence. “I am… confused.”
Lucien chuckled. “Anyone surprised?” There was nothing but love in his crooked smile.
A smile that Rhoann returned in kind. “The two of you have explained most of what I need to know, I think. Your military is not unlike the Royal Defense in the Realm. And I would be pleased to put an end to the officer who thought to steal my scair-anam’s honor.”
Kevin blinked. Maybe he’s not quite as different from the other Fae as I’d thought.
Rhoann didn’t seem to have noticed Kevin’s momentary disconnect. “But this ‘upgrade’… why does it matter, after so long?”
Mac cleared his throat. “Well, an honorable discharge—or even a general under honorable conditions —would give me access to Veterans Administration benefits. Health benefits. Hospitalization. I could have taken care of Lucien, if I…”
Lucien leaned in and kissed Mac soundly. “Fuck the ‘if only.’ It’s all good.”
“Health benefits?” Rhoann didn’t sound any less confused. “I am a healer. Lochlann is a healer. We would both be pleased to benefit you.”
Kevin had to work harder not to laugh out loud. “If Mac can get his record cleared, there’s a chance he might be able to get his hands on 30 years or so of back pension benefits. Which would amount to a nice chunk of change.”
“You are not helping,” Rhoann informed him.
“I could have told you that,” Lucien added helpfully. Then, sobering, he laced his fingers with Mac’s and looked Mac square in the eyes. “The most important thing about getting your discharge fixed is that you damned well deserve the maudite respect of the maudite United States Marine Corps.”
“That I understand,” Rhoann pronounced with evident satisfaction.
Kevin thought he saw tears in the corners of Mac’s eyes, and was fairly sure he wasn’t supposed to have seen them. So he cleared his throat and looked away. “I can send you Katy’s contact information in the morning, if you want.”
“Morning would be good.” The catch in Mac’s voice made Kevin pretty sure about the tears. “Still have things to do tonight.”
Now it was Kevin’s turn to blush. ‘I’m interrupting something, aren’t I?”
“Well… not exactly.” Lucien’s smile was one Kevin might have expected from a cat caught wet-whiskered in fresh cream. “Not yet, anyhow.”
“Let me guess. You decided it was time to try out the chaise for yourselves.” Kevin patted the leather next to him.
“Famed in song and story.” Lucien laughed softly.
Rhoann perked up. “There are songs?”
“Not yet. But if you want some, Lasair might be willing to oblige.” The Master of the Fade-hounds—Fade-hound, now—had picked up a vintage Stratocaster at a pawn shop a few blocks from Purgatory, and was trying to figure out in his spare time how to replicate Prince’s 2007 Super Bowl halftime rendering of “Purple Rain.”
“Maybe some other time.” Mac reached around and ruffled Rhoann’s still-damp crest of blond hair. “We’ll make our own music tonight.”
The SoulShare bond was an amazing thing. Granted, it manifested differently in every couple—every bond, Kevin corrected himself, watching Mac and Lucien and Rhoann size up the storied chaise and one another. His own husband had vehemently resisted Sharing at first, courtesy of a vow he’d taken in the Realm, never to love. And Bryce, literally soulless for so long, had apparently put up a fight as well—though he didn’t talk much about it. Or about much of anything, really. Yet Bryce loved his scair-anam, and was loved, as deeply as any of them.
All it took was the slightest spark of hope. The belief that love might exist. SoulSharing could fan that into a flame. And when you started with more than that…
… you ended up with what Kevin was looking at.
“Have fun, you three.” Kevin stood. “I promise you, it’s going to be one hell of a ride.”
“That’s what we hear.” Mac grinned, as he waited for Lucien and Rhoann to get to their feet and help him to his.
Between the well-muscled, gray-haired Vietnam vet, the stocky, broad, and extremely furry former bouncer, and six-foot-five of blond Fae perfection, all sans clothing, there was a great deal of male flesh on sudden display in the wellspring. Maybe the daragin were watching, or at least listening. Kevin hoped they were. There was a truce of sorts in the hostilities between the Fae and the Gille Dubh and their daragin, and it rested in large part on what the daragin had overheard through the wellsprings in Lucien’s room at the rehab center, and at the bottom of the Pool in Central Park. Namely, Fae, and humans with Fae souls, who understood love and compassion and empathy. Fae who were different from the ones who had executed all the folk of the wood, 2,300 years ago. Fae the Gille Dubh and the daragin might, just might, be willing to forgive.
“Anything we need to worry about?” Lucien, ever practical, ever protective of his partners. Turned out Lucien’s uncanny knack for spotting cops and other forms of bad news trying to get into Purgatory had been a SoulShare gift all along, his way of making sure nothing bad happened to the man he loved.
“I don’t think so. The nexus may put on a light show for you—it does that around elemental magick, but there shouldn’t be any harm in it now that you’re Shared. But let Conall know if you notice anything unusual from the wellspring. Not that there’s likely to be anything.” Unlike the nexus, which consisted of ley energy—the raw stuff from which living magick was made—the wellsprings were pure living magick. They seemed to be appearing where magick was channeled strongly, and lately they were behaving rather ominously when more living magick was channeled around them. Which was why Conall’s outer wards around the construction site were bare-bones minimum—no sense waking up a problem none of them could figure out how to put back to sleep.
And which was also why nobody used living magick to Fade directly into the nexus chamber any more. The network inhabited and maintained by the daragin was still useable, but Mac and Lucien and Rhoann were the only ones who were completely comfortable using it, probably because of the way Lucien’s healing had been brought about. Travel through the wellsprings might now be as safe as Coinneach and his darag had promised, but… well, Tiernan was fond of saying that there were few words as’Faein for trust, but a great many words for its opposite. And Fae were not anxious to put themselves totally at the mercy—another un-Fae concept—of a race they had once destroyed.
But the triad didn’t need to worry about any of that. Not tonight.
“I kind of envy you.” Kevin started for the opening into the stairwell—stopped and regarded the three trying to arrange themselves on a chaise built for two, and grinned as they looked back at him with poorly disguised impatience. “The first time at the nexus is fucking amazing—no other word for it. Enjoy it.” Enjoy each other.
And without waiting for a response—expecting none—he started up the stairs. It was past time to get home to his husband. To the magick that was waiting for him.
Chapter Five
“We’re almost to our stop, Maelduin. Hang in there.”
Hanging would be kinder than… this. Mael
duin clung to the pole set into the metal floor, almost as tightly as he gripped his oathblade, and did his best not to look past the crowd of humans gathering around him at the lights whipping past the reinforced windows of the room into which he had stupidly let Terry lead him. A moving room. Under the ground. I was insane. I am insane. Or I soon will be.
At least he was overhearing many useful words from the curious humans. He hoped he would remember some of them for later use.
“Sure looks like a panic attack to me.” A curvaceous female, one whom Maelduin would probably have found delightful had he not been quite so preoccupied with not screaming, looked from him to Terry as if uncertain as to whom to address her concerns. “Is he going to be okay?”
“I’m sure he’s going to be fine.”
Maelduin appreciated Terry’s confidence. At least, he thought he did.
I might survive this. None of the humans seem to think our demise is imminent.
That argument might have been more persuasive had Maelduin ever trusted anyone’s judgment other than his own.
“Maelduin?”
The Fae wished he could enjoy the sensation of Terry’s body supporting his own. He would. Soon. If he survived this piece of idiocy. “What?” The trickle of cold perspiration down his face was unpleasant.
Terry drew back, and Maelduin instantly regretted his tone. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what’s going on with you, but I didn’t mean to freak you out.”
Freak me out. What a perfect phrase. “You… did not do this. My panic attack. Not yours.”
“I wish you’d told me this was going to happen. We could have taken a taxi.”
Maelduin had not thought the iron-taloned owl in his stomach could grip his intestines any more tightly than it had been until his new language gift showed him what a taxi was. “This is better.”
“That’s one hell of a phobia.”
So that was the human word for stark unreasoning terror. Good to know. Why it should so offend his sense of everything that was right with any world, to walk into a small room, have the doors close behind him, and then see those same doors open onto a different place entirely, he was not certain.
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