by M. D. Massey
Balor’s Eye answered me with that big, booming voice it’d used the first time we met.
-YOU KNOW I CANNOT, COLIN MCCOOL. I AM BOUND BY THE GEAS BALOR PLACED ON ME TO SEEK THE TOTAL ERADICATION OR REMOVAL OF THE FAE AND TUATHA DÉ FROM THIS REALM. I WILL NOT REST UNTIL I COMPLETE MY TASK. I MUST BE FREE.-
I stuck a finger in my ear and wiggled it around, meeting eyes with the Dark Druid. “Fucking hell, but that thing is loud. Wasn’t like that when it lived inside my head—we actually had normal conversations. How do you stand it?”
“Your nonchalance won’t buy you any time, MacCumhaill. You are correct; I do intend to send this reactor into meltdown. Once I trigger the reaction, I’ll portal myself a hundred miles away—but you won’t have near enough time to escape with your friends. And even in that body, you won’t withstand the energies that will be released. Your skin will peel from your muscles, bit by bit—”
I held up a hand. “Let me stop you right there, because I know what comes next. I die in the blast, and the energies that are released will thin the barrier between this plane and the Veil, allowing a bunch of primaries on the other side to punch through. They’ll immediately inhabit the bodies of all the plant employees you killed, and probably a bunch of highly-ranked officials and military personnel who will show up during the clean-up efforts. How am I doing so far?”
“B-but—who told you this?” he rasped.
“Hang on, not done yet. So then, those primaries—who are now inhabiting the bodies of many very important people—multiply, turning other well-placed individuals into vampires, at all levels of government, both here and abroad. And that’s how the nuclear war starts—the vamps cause it all. Then, they help you and the Eye chase the fae and the last remnant of the Tuatha Dé Danann from the face of the Earth, who will be more than happy to flee a world sickened by radiation and infested by the undead. Because if there’s one thing the fae can’t stand, it’s sickness and death.”
The Fear Doirich threw his head back and let out a mad cackle. “I truly must hand it to you, I would never have thought you’d figure all that out.”
I gave him a thumbs up. “Admittedly, I had a little help. A bit of old Fionn’s wisdom still remains, you know.”
“Ah, I see. Well, the question still remains. How will you stop me?”
“Oh, that,” I said, nodding. “Like this.”
I changed back into my stealth-shifted form and twisted my hands and fingers exactly the way Click had taught me. We’d drilled this spell over and over and over again, thousands of times in the void space of the Bag’s interior. By now, I could cast it in my sleep.
The Welsh trickster god had said I was his worst student ever, because I couldn’t affect a very large area with that spell at all. But I didn’t have to. All I needed was a stasis field large enough to encase a large gemstone—or, perhaps, the hand that held it.
The spell released, latching onto the Fear Doirich’s Fomorian hand, surrounding it and the Eye as well. Now, both the hand and the Eye were useless—at least until I released the spell. That wasn’t going to happen, not even if the Dark Druid killed me. Moreover, the spell froze whatever was inside it, which meant that he was anchored to that spot.
Or, at least, his hand was. And that was all I needed.
I made a running leap onto the balcony, pulling Dyrnwyn from the Bag and willing it to light. Once Click told me what it was, I realized why it had failed me in the past; I hadn’t been using it for a worthy cause. Fortunately, this cause was worthy, like saving the entire fucking world worthy, which was probably why the sword lit up with a white-hot flame that nearly seared my eyeballs.
I landed next to the Fear Doirich, severing his arm at the elbow just as he released the mother of all lightning spells at me. I took it square in the chest. The spell blasted me off the balcony, right into the fuel rod cooling pool below. I hit the water with a splash, then blacked out.
26
I awoke next to the fuel rod cooling pool, coughing up water while Click leaned against some equipment nearby.
“Sorry, lad, but mouth to mouth just isn’t my thing. I like ye, but not like that.”
I completed my coughing fit and looked up at him. “You pulled me out?”
He nodded. “I couldn’t let me favorite pupil in—oh, the last five minutes or so—go an’ drown in a radioactive pond, now could I? Not after he risked his life ta’ save humanity from a future too terrible to imagine.” He squinted and wagged a finger at me. “But don’t ya’ go lettin’ that go ta’ yer head now.”
“I won’t,” I said calmly. Then, something occurred to me. “Wait a minute—you were here all along?”
He frowned, wavering his hand back and forth. “Sort of. I was watching from a parallel plane of existence, just in case ye failed. No sense in having us both glow in the dark, eh?”
“Why in the fuck didn’t you help out earlier?” I asked.
He sighed, clapping his hands on his thighs. “Ya’ see, that’s just the sort of thing that got me in hot water in the first place. Ya’ go an’ mess with the timelines, interferin’ and what-not, and soon ya’ have a primordial goddess of chaos wantin’ ta’ rip yer head clean off yer shoulders.” He waved his hands back and forth. “Nope, not me, not anymore. No way, no how, no siree. I only work through champions these days. And you, lad, are me current pick.”
I looked around frantically. “The Eye! Shit, did he get away with it?”
Click smiled and pointed above his head. “’Twas a fine spell, and I daresay even Cú Chulainn in all his madness could’na budge it from where it remains.” He held a hand up beside his mouth, whispering to me conspiratorially. “If I were you, I’d stuff that thing in that Bag o’ yers and keep it there until ye can pawn it off on someone who knows what ta’ do with it.”
“Sure, I’ll get right on it. But first, I have questions.”
Click shut one eye and rolled the other in a sour expression that almost made me chuckle. “Oh, I suppose.”
“After falling in that pool, am I going to get cancer or grow a third eye?”
Click pursed his lips and looked up at the ceiling. “Hmm. No, not likely.”
“Where’s the sword?”
“Safe and sound back in yer Bag, lad. Safe and sound.”
Now, the big one. “Did we just prevent the apocalypse?”
The trickster smiled and gave me double-guns with his fingers, Fonzie-style. “You did, lad, ’twas you. With a little help, o’ course.” He huffed on his knuckles, polishing them on his motorcycle jacket.
I heaved a sigh of relief. “What about the other timeline, and all those people in it? Will that happen—er, has it happened?”
“And can ye go back ta’ save them? Am I right?”
I gulped and nodded.
“Think back ta’ yer lessons, lad. The Twisted Paths got their namesake fer a reason. Once ya’ walk them, the things ya’ see and experience will haunt ya’ all yer days. O’ course you can go back—once ya’ learn to walk those paths yerself. And I’m willing ta’ teach ya’, if ya’ truly believe it’s what ye want ta’ do.”
“I do, Click. I can’t just abandon them in that desolate timeline. I couldn’t live with myself if I did.”
“So be it, then. I’ll teach ya’ how ta’ walk the Paths—but it’ll take years, even decades. Lots o’ time inside that Bag. Or yer—oh, never mind, ferget I said that.”
“Forget what?” I asked.
He pointed over my shoulder. “Yer friends are comin’, lad.”
I looked over my shoulder, but no one was there. And when I turned around, neither was Click, the magician and trickster god once known as Gwydion.
A youthful voice echoed from the empty air nearby. “I’ll be in touch,” it said, trailing off into silence.
Footsteps behind me caused me to spin, crouched and ready for violence.
“Whoa there, it’s just us,” Luther said, walking into the reactor trailed by Crowley. “I take it you ha
ndled the Dark Druid?”
I exhaled heavily, blowing a strand of hair from my eyes. “I managed. What about Remy, Silvère, and Cornelius?”
The two looked at each other. “We managed,” Luther said.
Crowley’s eyes zeroed in on the balcony overhead. “There’s a hand floating in the air up there—a hand with an extremely powerful magical artifact embedded in it.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “Don’t even think about it.”
“Well, I was going to ask, but since you’re so prickly about it,” he said, clasping his hands behind his back. “Then again, it would make it so much easier to power a few experiments I’ve been working on.”
Luther and I both looked at him and shouted in unison, “No!”
Crowley gave a small shrug and the barest of smiles. “It was only a suggestion.”
Two weeks later, things had settled down considerably. The city was still reeling from the disaster downtown, but people are resilient, and there’s no end to what they can survive or accomplish when they band together. It would be weeks before the area would be deemed “safe,” but except for those still grieving, lives were getting back to normal.
The nuclear power plant was another matter. Maeve portaled in with her fixers at Samson and Luther’s request. The mages cleaned the place up as best they could, but they had to stage a minor disaster to cover for all the deaths that night. And with three major “terrorist attacks” in Texas within the span of a week, rumors started to fly that certain people in Washington were taking notice.
People who were clued-in to the World Beneath.
That had even Maeve worried, so she and her people took extra care to do the cover up right. A few mind wipes and a little media manipulation later, and the battle had been forgotten by all but those who were clued in on the supernatural. But, as in Austin, the city of Glen Rose lost a lot of native sons and daughters that night. They’d be hurting for a good long while.
Both cities received several generous, anonymous donations to the families and victims funds for their respective disasters. Maeve, Samson, Luther, and Finnegas had all pitched in their fair share, but the bulk of it came from the Cold Iron Circle. After I threatened to expose how they’d had an impostor on their High Council working with a rogue vampire coven, well—they couldn’t pony up the funds fast enough. It wouldn’t make up for the lives lost, but it was a start.
As for the Dark Druid, he was still in the wind.
I buried myself in my studies, both practicing what Click had taught me in private and learning the deeper secrets of druidry from Finnegas. We trained everywhere but the junkyard. Finn made excuse after excuse, but I knew the truth; he simply couldn’t stomach seeing that wounded, withered, dying oak tree.
As for the status of the New Orleans coven, their leadership had been gutted. “Good riddance” seemed to be the sentiment all around. Germain agreed to stay on for a time, both to serve as temporary coven leader and to prevent some worse entity or faction from filling the power vacuum left by Remy’s sudden, unexpected demise. I had a pretty strong feeling that Luther would be running Austin and New Orleans soon, but first he’d have to take over Houston, which was a no man’s land.
All things in their own time, I suppose.
I had other issues to contend with, namely the disposal of the Eye. For that reason, I was sitting in Maman Brigitte’s parlor. We sipped on pepper-infused rum while engaging in polite conversation, waiting for a certain third party to arrive. Well, the conversation wasn’t that polite—this was Maman Brigitte, after all. Madam Bawdiness herself.
She was telling the punchline to a very dirty joke involving a one-legged sailor, a midget stripper—her words, not mine—and a mutant, two-dicked merman. Thankfully, I was rescued from the embarrassment of blushing through another of her jokes when the guest of honor arrived.
Maman Brigitte looked over my shoulder, smiling demurely at the door. “Hello, Lugh. It’s been a minute. Have you been well?”
I stood and turned to greet him. “Lugh, good to see you, I—”
He cut me off. “Let’s jest get this whole affair over with, shall we?”
I was taken aback by his abruptness, as he’d been so friendly when last I’d seen him in Underhill. He was practically glaring at me now, clenching his jaw and his fists at his sides. What the hell?
Maman Brigitte broke the ice. “Might I remind you, there’ll be no violence in my home. ’Tis neutral ground, and you’ll be respectin’ my rules, yes?”
“Um, yeah. Sure.”
Lugh nodded, tight-lipped.
“It be settled, then,” she said. “Shall we make the exchange?”
I pulled the Fomorian hand, with the Eye still attached, out of my Craneskin Bag. “It’s, um, in stasis. I had some help procuring it.”
Lugh scowled. “Time magic. Nasty stuff. Ye’d best be tellin’ the mage who cast it ta’ watch their back. The gods have a way of knockin’ off those who fart around with chronomancy.”
“Yeah, I’ll do that.” I handed him the Eye which, although suspended in time, seemed to glare at me from within the stasis field.
That was a weird thing in and of itself. When I set the hand down on a solid object, the stasis field sunk into that object, freezing time for anything that came within its radius of effect. Yet, I was able to handle the stasis field as if it was a physical object, like a bowling ball or a potted plant. Click hadn’t explained that part, and I had no idea how it worked, so I handed it off to Lugh with a warning.
“Ah, be careful with it. The stasis field—”
“I know how ta’ deal with time magic,” he snapped. “It’s not my first time around the fidchell board.”
“Right.” I watched as Lugh placed the hand inside a magic bag of his own. He was almost shaking with anger, and something inside me said I couldn’t let this be. “Maman Brigitte, could you give us a minute?” I asked.
The goddess frowned. “I suppose, but don’t you boys be tearing my parlor up or I’ll skin the both of ya’.” She fixed me with a stare. “And you—you’d best call my granddaughter, just as soon as you get back to Austin.”
I mumbled a “yes, ma’am” and Lugh nodded, standing silently as Maman Brigitte left the room. Actually, he was looking at her ass, and frankly I couldn’t blame him. The goddess was quite a looker. Once she left the room, I cleared my throat to get his attention.
“Lugh, did I do something to offend you?”
He looked at me like I was nuts. “Didja’ what? Offend me? Oh no, not at all. Kick me out o’ yer druid grove, steal me spear and sword, and hold ’em ransom. No, ye did nothin’ o’ the sort.”
“I did what?”
He squinted, his mouth a taut line that split his face. “Ye really don’t remember, do ye?”
“Um, no.”
He exhaled heavily and sat in a nearby chair. “I came ta’ warn ye about the dryad, ta’ tell ya’ no good would come o’ it. We fought, ye managed ta’ kick my tail by usin’ the power o’ the oak—else I’d o’ had ye, mind—and then ye stole me weapons and used that tree ta’ toss me seven leagues.”
I blinked and frowned. “I did what? When did this happen?”
“Not long ago, lad.” He squinted at me again, then stood and got up in my face. Not angrily, but to stare at my forehead. “Ah, I see what happened now. That crazy lass used my spear ta’ erase yer memory.”
“Um, how would she do that?”
He gave me a rueful smile. “I believe yer physicians call it a ‘frontal lobotomy.’”
Of course, I agreed to get Lugh his weapons back, but I wound up putting it off until I could figure out how to get rid of Jesse. I did everything I could to avoid her, but she wouldn’t take the hint. Finally, I resorted to placing a containment ward around the druid oak—an invisible, magic fence that kept her confined to the tree and its environs.
Hah! Try waking me up in the middle of the night now, bitch.
After that, I simply pretended she wasn�
��t there. I’d walk through the yard, ignoring her presence, and she’d just sit against the dying oak, staring at me. Some days, she’d bury her face in her hands and cry.
I wasn’t falling for it, but it was hard seeing her like that. Still, I’d chosen a course and was determined to stick to it no matter how much it hurt. I’d wait until the druid oak died, and Jesse with it, and hope her spirit would decide to move on to her final rest. Then, I’d find a way to reach the Dagda—maybe through his daughter, Brigitte—and ask him for another acorn.
It’d work. At least, that’s what I kept telling myself.
Once things had settled down, after I’d truly allowed myself to process all that happened, I came to a few realizations. First, I definitely still loved Jesse, just not that Jesse. Second, I missed Bells.
Belladonna was another matter. We’d been texting back and forth, talking about simple, everyday stuff. How many monsters did you kill today, what was the bounty, who was your client, things like that. But when the topic of conversation rolled around to the status of “us,” she clammed up tighter than a nun’s knees.
It was obvious she still had feelings for me, just as I did for her. Even after all that time in the Hellpocalypse and training with Click, I still carried a flame for her. But there was a chasm between us that I didn’t know how to cross, and for that reason I had no idea if she’d ever come back to me.
A few weeks later, after coming home from a disastrous date with Janice, I was fast asleep in bed. I heard a knock on my door, so I flipped on the light and grabbed Dyrnwyn from my Bag. The light was for the benefit of any mundanes who might not understand how I could see in the near dark, and the sword was just in case the Fear Doirich showed up.
I opened the door, sword hidden behind it as I peeked out. My jaw nearly hit the floor when I saw who was standing there.
“Um, Bells—wow. Is something wrong?”
She smiled and pushed a strand of hair behind her ear, obviously embarrassed to be there. “Hi, Colin. Can I come in?”
I tossed the sword in the corner. “Sure, come on in.”