by Jane Godman
“I’m scared on two levels. I’m wondering if those ramblers down there—” she pointed way below them to the fields, where four or five people, their coats a bright splash of color, were walking “—might turn out to be sidhes, and I’m also scared about what you’re going to ask me to do. Creating light in darkness is all very well. Raising the dead? I’m not sure I’m cut out for that.”
Instead of responding, Cal swept a hand wide, indicating the valley below them. “There is a story about the land that surrounds this hill. It is said that many centuries ago there was a farmer who was famed for breeding the finest white horses. He was approached by an old man of noble bearing. The man had long white hair and a flowing beard and he carried a staff. He wore the robes of a monk from an earlier period in time. Sound familiar?”
Stella nodded. “Merlin...but you said the stereotype wizard of legend was not necessarily the truth about him.”
“I did, but let us not forget his ability to shape-shift. It probably suited him, on that occasion, to look the way legend portrayed him. Perhaps it made him appear more commanding. Merlin asked the farmer to sell him five white horses and told the man to name his price. When the man refused, Merlin allowed him a glimpse below the soil of the valley where a vast army of warriors slumbered in deathly sleep. Each soldier had a white horse tethered at his bedside and a sword across his chest in readiness for battle. All except five, who still awaited their steeds. The man bowed before Merlin and gave him the horses without taking a penny in exchange.”
“I should think so. You wouldn’t mess with Merlin, would you?”
Cal’s shoulders shook with silent laughter. “Probably not. My point is that the warriors Merlin showed the farmer slumber here still. They await your command, Stella.”
“Me?” The word sounded a lot like a squeak. “Oh, bloody hell. No, you do it.”
He draped an arm around her shoulders, drawing her close against his side for a few seconds. Just for encouragement. Nothing more, she told herself firmly. “Summon them, Stella.”
“Those people down there will see them. We’ll draw attention to ourselves,” she protested. “The police will be on us before you can say ‘flame-throwing airport terrorists.’”
“They will see nothing that we do not permit them to see.”
“I don’t know what to say in order to call them.” It was a final, desperate attempt to put off the inevitable.
“The words are unimportant. You are the necromancer star. They will come when you command them.”
Rising to her feet, Stella looked around her at the slumbering scene. It seemed impossible to believe she was about to do as Cal asked. And yet that newfound part of her—her necromancer soul—thrilled to the test he had given her. When she spoke, she barely knew her own voice. She certainly did not recognize the first word that left her lips. Nevertheless she knew what it meant.
“Hidercyme. Come here. Come to me.”
And they came. So slowly at first that she began to think nothing was happening. Then she realized that the trembling sensation she felt did not originate in her own limbs. It was coming from the very ground on which she stood. The trees themselves began to shake. Smaller stones broke loose from the restraining soil around them and skittered wildly down the hillside. The sky darkened and a breeze rose up from nowhere. Stella had time to notice the ramblers lifting their faces skyward as though looking for signs of rain and turning their collars up.
A huge gash appeared in the valley floor as if the verdant pastures had been torn apart by the hands of an angry giant, and then the warriors, each mounted on his white steed and clad in chain mail, rode out. Mere minutes later, the whole valley floor was filled with the massed ranks of a great ghostly army. Each man held his sword across his chest and bowed his head in homage. And yet, as Cal had predicted, the group of ramblers continued on their way, unaware of the spectral legions surrounding them.
One man rode forward and up the slope, pausing a few feet away from them. He addressed himself to Stella. “My men are yours to command, breguróf steorra. We have been in readiness for your word throughout these many centuries and more.”
Obeying her instincts, Stella stepped forward, reaching up to briefly clasp his gloved hand where it lay on the pommel. “Thank you, Grindan, your words mean much to me.” How did she know what to say, let alone know his name? Yet she responded to the inner voice that prompted her.
With a nod to Cal, Grindan the Faithful dismounted. Taking Stella’s hand on one side and Cal’s on the other, he faced the serried ranks of warriors and raised their arms aloft. In response, each soldier silently raised his sword. A thousand blades pierced the morning sky, yet no whisper of sound penetrated the solemnity of the moment. Without speaking, Grindan released their hands and returned to his horse. With another nod, he mounted his steed and returned to his men. Within seconds the vast army had vanished into the cleft within the valley floor. Hardly a minute had passed before normality was restored and the countryside returned once more to its undisturbed state.
Stella stood absolutely still, hardly daring to breathe. Then, abruptly, she sat down on the grass, hugging her knees up under her chin for comfort. “What did he call me?” She squinted up at Cal, who was standing with the sun behind him, and he moved so that he could sit next to her.
“Breguróf steorra. It means ‘majestic star’ or ‘mighty star.’”
She was quiet again for a long time. Then she turned her head. The look on Cal’s face made her draw in a sudden, urgent gulp of air. “Merlin did that? Because he knew that one day I would need them?” He nodded. “My God.”
She raised a shaky hand as if to brush her hair back from her face and then lost track of the action, so that her fingers faltered in midair. Cal caught hold of her wrist, stilling the movement and restoring her to calm. The urgency in his eyes deepened as he raised her hand to his lips, tracing her palm with his tongue. With a sound somewhere between a sob and a laugh, Stella fell into his arms and her lips parted in response to the prompting of his. She had wondered for so long what it would be like to kiss Cal, but the reality was so much more than she had imagined. She had dreamed of tenderness. The truth was harder and more demanding. His beautiful mouth, with its full lower lip, plundered hers. As he drew her closer and deepened the kiss, the stubble along his strong jawline rasped against her tender flesh and she shuddered with pleasure. As his tongue explored the depths of her mouth, she gave a moan of surrender, pressing harder against him. Something about the sound and the action seemed to break the spell and, slowly, he drew back. The silver of his eyes was dulled to pewter.
“I’m sorry. That should not have happened.”
Rising to his feet, he reached down a hand to help her up. Stunned, Stella allowed him to assist her. Part of her wanted to refuse, to stay where she was, to make sense—if there was any—of what had just happened. Both the appearance of the army and the thunderbolt intensity of the kiss. But the ever present shadow of Moncoya loomed in her mind. Reluctantly, she followed Cal back to the bower.
* * *
Something had been bothering Stella. Something other than the devastating kiss that must—it seemed—never again be thought of, let alone repeated. She decided to speak to Cal about what was on her mind, even though she suspected she might not like his response. Since he seemed to be doing his best to avoid her, she had to go looking for him. She finally found him sitting at the edge of the pool. He appeared lost in thought.
“The prophecy says that he who claims the heart of the necromancer star will be the one to rule Otherworld, right?”
He looked up at her, shielding his eyes from the dappled sunlight that was sneaking through the trees. She could tell by the wary look in his eyes that he had probably been dreading her next question.
She lowered herself to sit next to him on the rock and threw a pebble into the pool, watchi
ng the ripples it made. “What does that mean exactly? For me?”
“No one knows for sure,” he said, after a long pause.
“Could it mean there are some factions—dynasties, I think you called them—in Otherworld who would like to rip my heart out of my body and lay claim to it that way?” There, she had said it aloud. Laugh at me, Cal. Call me an idiot. Please.
He clenched his fist on his thigh as though warding off a sudden pain. “There are those who have interpreted it that way.”
“Who are they?” Stella was pleased with the way her voice stayed so calm.
“The most bloodthirsty dynasties, apart from the faeries, are the vampires and the therianthropes, notably the werewolves. They are the ones who like the image of claiming the heart of the necromancer in a literal sense. I suspect one of them might have been responsible for sending the gargoyle to check out Moncoya’s casa. My money would be on the wolves. The vampire prince tends to have more subtlety.”
“But Moncoya wants...what, exactly? Is his idea of claiming my heart to win my love?” She strived to get the flippant note back. It didn’t quite work.
“Yes. Moncoya has been boasting that he will make you his queen. I was surprised at that, to be honest. He’s not known for doing the decent thing, so I’m still unsure of his motive.”
“That must be why his party pals were so delighted with me.” Stella thought back, with a slight shiver, to the overenthusiastic welcome she had received at La Casa Oscura. “I thought they held orgies or something, and were on the lookout for new recruits. If only it had been that innocent.”
“The problem from your perspective is that he’s not really interested in whether you agree to the wedding or not.”
Stella frowned. “I don’t understand. If he has to claim my heart, surely he needs me to love him and therefore it follows that I would have to go to him willingly. If he forces me to marry him, he won’t have my heart. He doesn’t fulfill the prophecy.”
He shook his head. “Don’t try to apply mortal values to Moncoya, Stella. He believes you will belong to him once he has had sex with you. Whether you consent or not is immaterial to him. If he can claim your body, he has your heart anyway. Faerie values.”
“Nice.” Stella grimaced. “And they said romance was dead.”
“He’s an evil bastard, Stella. Flowers and chocolates are not his style. All he wants is to stake his claim to you.”
“Um, Cal?” Stella spoke quietly and he bent his head close so that he could hear her. “It feels weird discussing this with you, but if Moncoya is relying on me being a virgin we have nothing to worry about.”
“I know.” His voice was equally quiet.
Stella looked up quickly. “Oh, shit! Cal, please tell me you weren’t there!”
“Of course I wasn’t.” He looked horrified. “What do you take me for? I just know everything there is to know about you, that’s all.”
“Phew. Anyway, surely we have nothing to worry about if I’m not all pure and innocent. He can’t claim me if I’ve already been—for want of a better word—claimed.”
“Mortals don’t count.”
Stella put her head on one side. “That’s a bit unfair. I mean, sure, one or two of them could have done with a few tips in the technique department.” Despite the gravity of the situation, she couldn’t help laughing at his shocked expression. “But there were a couple who weren’t bad.”
“Not bad? Oh, Stella. You deserve so much better than not bad.” He shook his head in mock sadness.
“And you would know all about that, would you?” she teased, her head on one side. It was such a relief to be able to joke with him again. As soon as she said those words, the mood between them changed. Out of nowhere, Stella found it very difficult to breathe. Found herself, not for the first time—even before the kiss—imagining what sex would be like with Cal. Wondering if it would indeed be better than not bad. Wanting to find out. And she knew, by the look in the liquid silver depths of his eyes, that he was thinking exactly the same things. Heat flooded every part of her body.
“Stella, we can’t...” She never did discover what they couldn’t do. For the first time, the peace of the bower was shattered by another living creature as a huge falcon swooped low and then landed in the lower branches of a tree that overhung the pool. It eyed them with its head cocked curiously on one side while flapping its wings to make a sound like a hand clap muffled within silken gloves. Then, with a single, rattling cry, it rose again into the sky. Raising his face heavenward, Cal watched until the bird was a tiny, dark speck in the blue overhead. Stella, on the other hand, was watching Cal.
“What was that about?” she asked. Because she could tell by his expression that the bird’s appearance meant something to him.
“It was a message from a friend. A warning that danger is on its way.”
“Moncoya?”
“I don’t speak falcon, Stella, so I don’t know the details.” His smile was reassuring. “Remember...you’re on the winning side.”
She wasn’t convinced. “I think I’d rather be on the winning side back in the cave.” She bit her lip. “Will you come with me? I know you don’t want to be around me much right now...”
He draped an arm about her shoulders. “Stella, I always want to be around you. That’s part of the problem.”
Chapter 10
You can’t love someone you don’t trust. Stella decided she should get that as a tattoo. Because saying it—over and over like her own personal mantra—sure as hell wasn’t working. Even setting aside the lack of trust for a minute. She still had no idea who, or what, Cal was. So she couldn’t possibly have allowed herself to fall in love with him. No one would be that stupid. Would they?
That was what rational Stella told herself. And for long periods of time, she almost managed to convince herself. Today, reason wasn’t working. Rational Stella was nowhere to be found. Irrational Stella had taken herself for a dip in the refreshing waters of the pool and was now stretched out full length on a rock at the water’s edge. She lay on her back, allowing the cool stone to soothe her skin as the heat of the day faded into late evening. Gazing up at the overhanging trees, she permitted her mind to play a tantalizing game of “what if?” Or even to dwell on possibilities. Possibilities such as what might happen when this was all over. When Moncoya was defeated and Otherworld was safe, might there still be a place for her in Cal’s life? Every good guy needed a sidekick. And now that she had overcome her initial disbelief, Stella had to admit she was getting pretty good at this necromancing lark.
“Cal and Stella,” she murmured, trying it out to see how their names sounded together. As a new superhero pairing, of course. Nothing more. “Stella and Cal.” That sounded better. Oh, dear God, whom was she kidding? Next thing she knew she’d be carving their initials into the nearest tree trunk.
No, she told herself. She was not being giddy. On the contrary, she was being practical and professional. Future-proofing her assets, which were her supernatural talents. She could, of course, think about returning to the semisafe world of games design once this was all over. Use those talents. Be safe and secure. Oh, for the days when the scariest thing she could imagine was not having Wi-Fi. She smiled at the thought of her phone—usually grafted into her hand—lying at the bottom of her suitcase, uncharged and unloved, since her arrival here. Could she go back to that time before she had known she was a necromancer? As crazy as it seemed, she didn’t think she could. So, if she got out of this madness alive, even if Cal didn’t want a partner, business or otherwise—despite all her lectures, her heart gave a funny little skip at that thought—it seemed her future must include the dead.
Stella wrinkled her nose. Not in disgust at the thought of a life spent engaging with the deceased. That no longer troubled her. Cal had done his job well. He had tried hard to convey to her
that being a necromancer was a privilege. She understood completely what he meant when he said that she must harness her skills, that they were an art form to be revered and practiced. The ability to listen to and care for those who had passed beyond the veil of mortality was a responsibility conferred upon very few. Stella didn’t know where her strange gift had come from, but she was determined to take it seriously. No, it wasn’t that thought that was bothering her all of a sudden. It was something far more immediate and physical. She sat up abruptly.
What was that awful smell?
It reminded her of a trip to the zoo as a child in the company of one set of foster parents. It had been a swelteringly hot summer day and, even though Stella had desperately wanted to see the giraffes, the stench from their enclosure had been so overwhelming she had been forced to turn away. For some reason, the clean scent of the freshwater pool and surrounding pines had been replaced by a new perfume. This one was reminiscent of rotten food, dung and urine, and damp earth. Not a great combination. It was definitely animal in origin. But a glance around her revealed no clue to its source. Darkness was falling, but, even so, nothing about the familiar scene had changed.
Dismissing it as the results of an overactive imagination—maybe all her thoughts of death had summoned an illusory aroma of the grave?—Stella returned to her musings, sitting with her knees bent so that she could rest her chin on them. During the week that had followed the encounter with Grindan’s army—returned now to their waiting repose—she had honed her skills even further. She had even raised no objection when Cal suggested a nighttime visit to the cemetery just outside Carmarthen as her next opportunity to commune with the dead.
It had been a film-set-perfect midnight with a full moon riding high above rain-laden clouds. The graveyard housed centuries of the town’s dead, and many of the stones leaned drunkenly against each other as if for nocturnal support. Several had been rent apart by deep fissures in their stone surfaces.
“We should have brought a flashlight,” Stella had whispered, her teeth chattering in spite of the humidity caused by a looming storm.