What Dawn Demands

by Clara Coulson

  “Your motives don’t matter to me. The results of your actions do.”

  “You’re even more naïve than I thought”—he peered at me over his shoulder, lips pulled into a frown—“if you’d discount a person’s motives in any situation just because their actions hurt your feelings.”

  I shrugged. “You’re free to think I’m naïve. And I’m free to act as I please until we resolve our negotiations, even if I act to your detriment. You can let me know after the fact if you still believe a person’s motives sit on a higher pedestal than the consequences of their actions. Though I have a funny feeling I already know exactly what your response will be to everything that comes next.”

  His frown deepened. “And what, pray tell, is coming next?”

  “The beginning of a great experiment that might very well blow up in my face.” I lifted my hand, palm up, and placed it in the exact center of the empty space between us. “But first things first. A favor for a favor. I was forced to return Fragarach to you in an unconventional fashion, due to your intentional manipulations behind the scenes that turned a simple request into a convoluted chore. So I think it’s only fair that I get an unconventional boon in response.”

  Manannán’s brows furrowed. “How unconventional?”

  “I don’t want you to personally do anything for me. Nor do I want you to work against Abarta in a way that would compromise your other active magic contracts. Which I’m sure is the sort of request you were deathly afraid I would make.” I let my eyes drift toward the sword perched on his shoulder. “Instead, I want you to give me something that will allow me to act against Abarta of my own volition, under my own terms, whenever I please. I want you to pass ownership of Fragarach to me. Permanently.”

  Chapter Four

  One Week after the Zombie Invasion

  Tildrum laid out the entire twisted tale of Manannán mac Lir and his unfortunate debts. Turned out the man was a rather bad gambler.

  “Millennia ago,” Tildrum said with a hint of a catlike titter, “when the Tuatha Dé Danann still controlled Tír na nÓg, Manannán accumulated three favors owed to Abarta during a particularly turbulent decade. These favors owed were of substantial weight, one enough to warrant even a period of absolute servitude or another great sacrifice detrimental to Manannán’s free will. However, Abarta did not call in any of these favors in the intervening centuries, not even when the sídhe launched their strongest campaigns to topple Tuatha rule and take control of Tír na nÓg themselves. Abarta, as I’m sure you have discovered, is a fan of the long game. And a very long game he did play with Manannán mac Lir.”

  “He saved the favors as a trump card.” I kicked a small piece of metal toward a fluffy white cat, who started batting at it with a broad paw. “And now he’s using them as part of his contingency plan to waken the Tuatha from Maige Mell.”

  Tildrum rapped his fingernails against the hood of the car. “Indeed.”

  “But Mab got to Manannán first and turned him into a spy.”

  “Shortly after the Tuatha fell, when Tír na nÓg was at its most unstable point, Queen Mab did all in her power to rein in the potential threats still active in the land. She identified Manannán as one of those potential threats, due to his status as a long-time compatriot to many of the most powerful Tuatha. Though he avoided direct involvement in the final war between the sídhe and the Tuatha, Queen Mab suspected his pillar of neutrality would not always remain intact.”

  Tildrum clicked his tongue. “She correctly guessed he was vulnerable to being manipulated into acting against the interests of the sídhe. So she instigated a series of unfortunate events that pushed Manannán into begging a major favor from her grace, thus putting him at her behest at a time of her choosing.”

  “And that time is now?”

  Tildrum laughed. “That time is long past. Queen Mab paid a visit to Manannán the moment the first whispers of an active Tuatha rogue reached her ears.”

  “Makes sense.” I rubbed my stubbly chin and eyed the cloudy sky punctuated by the jagged peaks of the metal scrap piles. I smelled rain on the horizon. “But Abarta’s not stupid, and he’s been active behind the scenes for fifteen hundred years, biding his time until he could set the perfect stage for his new Tuatha insurrection. So surely he would’ve grilled Manannán, to the best of his significant magic abilities, to determine if the god posed a risk of leaking vital intel to his enemies.”

  “He did.” Tildrum laced his fingers together and smiled the way a predator smiled shortly before it ripped into a fresh, bloody carcass. “But Queen Mab is no fool either. To resolve the favor he owed to Queen Mab, Manannán had to abide by the steepest of stipulations.”

  A sharp gale on the front of a storm blew over the scrapyard and crawled through the metal heaps, creating a litany of whispers and shrieks that felt like razors ghosting up my spine.

  I said, “The only sort of stipulations I can imagine having any impact on Abarta’s ability to tease out the truth of Manannán’s allegiance basically amount to brainwashing.”

  Tildrum’s calico eyebrows arched. “Right you are, Vincent Whelan. Very perceptive.”

  “Wait, you mean Mab actually manipulated the mind of a god?”

  “Manannán mac Lir is an ant of a god, and Queen Mab one half of a mighty titan.”

  “You’re saying it was easy for her to screw with Manannán’s head?”

  “‘Easy’ is the wrong word. But such a procedure is firmly within the bounds of her power.”

  “I see.” The white cat kicked the scrap piece back to me, and I rolled it around with the toe of my boot. “So she tampered with his memories or something? Made it so he wasn’t aware he’d repaid the favor he owed by agreeing to be a spy in Abarta’s circle?”

  “She did. And she also inserted a scrying spell into his brain that allows her to view his sensory input and his long-term memories.”

  I took an involuntary step backward, and the metal piece rolled off toward another cat. “Hold on. Sensory input and memories? Are you saying Mab turned Manannán into a walking spy camera?”

  Tildrum ran his rough tongue along his bottom lip. “That is not an altogether poor comparison, so you may think of it that way, yes.”

  “And Abarta didn’t notice this spell embedded in Manannán’s head?”

  “Queen Mab is a fan of subtle magics, and she possesses much finesse at such arts. She is loud only when she needs to be.”

  “Subtle enough that even a trickster god didn’t notice the deception.” I shivered at the idea Mab could fuck with a fellow immortal’s mind in such an insidious manner, though I was far from surprised she was ready and willing to do so.

  After all, when the Unseelie kicked six-year-old me out of Tír na nÓg for a reason they never bothered to explain, the parting gift I received before they summarily dumped me at my dad’s back door was a brain full of scrambled memories. The one time I’d been bold enough to officially query the court, asking why they felt the need to obscure the memories of a child, the response I’d received from a nameless bureaucrat had claimed it was “court policy” for cases like mine.

  The Unseelie Court shied away from no forms of brutality.

  Pinching the bridge of my nose, I took a moment to consider everything Tildrum had said. “Okay, let me see if I’ve got this straight. Manannán is a double agent who consciously believes he’s working for Abarta to pay off debts owed for past favors, but who is unconsciously delivering vital intel directly to Mab as part of another deal he is currently unaware he’s made because Mab erased his memories. Manannán is getting away with deceiving Abarta like this because reneging on formal magic deals requires informed intent, and Manannán is not, to his knowledge, intentionally acting as a spy.”

  Tildrum slowly nodded, one hand inching back toward War and Peace. His patience with my interruption to his busy day was wearing thin. “Correct. You have a working understanding of the intelligence-gathering dynamics between Queen Mab and Manannán. Now that
you possess the context you require to frame your request, do tell me what sort of grand scheme you are building to derail Abarta’s efforts.”

  “One more question first.” I held up my index finger for emphasis. “Why did you let Manannán give Fragarach to Abarta, and then allow Abarta to keep the sword long enough to use it effectively on Kennedy?”

  With a week gone by since Abarta had obtained the blade, I assumed he’d already squeezed from the husk of Nolan Kennedy all applicable information concerning the spell holding the Tuatha captive in Maige Mell. And if Abarta now had a workable idea of how to free his kin from their magically enforced hibernation, then the faerie courts were once again at risk.

  “It was a calculated decision,” Tildrum answered. “A simple cost-benefit analysis. We believed we would gain more from having a spy in Abarta’s circle than Abarta would gain from successfully utilizing Fragarach. Bear in mind that Abarta merely developing a new plan to wake his compatriots does not automatically equate to that plan’s success. Especially since the courts have recently installed countermeasures to defend against every possible mode that Abarta could use to dissolve the spell keeping the Tuatha dormant in the dregs of Tír na nÓg.”

  “How did you prepare for every possible route Abarta might take?”

  Tildrum tapped his temple, like I should’ve already known the answer. “What does the Well of Knowledge do, Whelan?”

  “If you drink from the water, you obtain all the written knowledge in Tír…” It hit me. “The sídhe already possess all the written knowledge pertinent to resurrecting the Tuatha Dé Danann. So theoretically, the queens could’ve tasked a number of researchers to dig up from the libraries and vaults all the relevant information that Abarta could glean from Kennedy. With that information at their disposal, they could’ve then developed countermeasures to undermine Abarta’s next attempt to wake the Tuatha, regardless of the nature of that attempt.”

  I slapped my palm against my cheeks. “Huh. That sure is…something.”

  “Have you ever known the sídhe to do anything by halves?” Tildrum said.

  “Besides having kids? No, I have not.”

  He cleared his throat, impatience running through the sound as a subtle hiss. “Back to your proposal, if you please, Vincent Whelan.”

  “Right.” I dragged my hand down my face as I crosschecked everything Tildrum had told me against my initial ideas for more directly countering Abarta’s plots. Just to make sure no details lurked within that would in any way contravene Mab’s efforts. I found nothing, and hoped I’d done the math correctly as I organized my ideas into something that resembled a business presentation. All I was missing was the nice suit. “Well, my new plan has several stages, and the first stage is to gather some power objects that will help me more effectively counteract the objects Abarta seems to be collecting and disseminating to his allies, like the Spear of Lugh.”

  “From where do you propose to obtain these objects?” Tildrum tapped one of his fingernails on the cover of the book, leaving behind tiny divots that were distinctly shaped like claws. “Raiding the vaults of the Unseelie Court is out of bounds, you must know, as that may alert our newfound enemy of Queen Mab’s involvement in combating the efforts of the Tuatha rogue. And I have already explained to you in detail why the enemy must be left in the dark on such matters.”

  “Because you’re worried the ‘enemy’ might try to join forces with any significant rivals of the fae. I got it.” I raised my hands in mock surrender. “You don’t need to tell me twice.”

  “If only that same assertion applied to other topics.”

  I ignored that comment. “See, this is why I asked you about Manannán’s role in the grand scheme of the Abarta situation. I was concerned that if Manannán was actually working in Mab’s interests, that she, and by proxy, you, would get angry with me if I sought vengeance for Manannán’s betrayal. But, as you just explained, Mab very much wants Manannán to appear to be a legitimate ally of Abarta. Therefore, I think it would be in Mab’s interest if I openly appear to seek vengeance against Manannán.”

  “And what do you seek to accomplish beneath this veneer of vengeance?” he asked.

  I phrased this next part carefully. “I would…like…to…assail Emhain Abhlach.”

  Tildrum blinked. Four times in a row. “Come again?”

  Chapter Five

  Three Weeks after the Zombie Invasion

  Manannán gave me a contemptuous glare. “You demand too much, Whelan.”

  A sudden gale rode in on a wave of ancient magic and cut across the surface of the sea, casting a spray of salt water into my eyes. I didn’t blink. I didn’t budge. “Too much? You tasked me to forcibly recover a sword from a god fond of lies and subterfuge, a dangerous feat I just resoundingly surmounted. And duly, I task you to unwillingly part that same sword from the ownership of such a god. Sounds like a fairly balanced deal to me.”

  He whipped around, and the shale beneath his feet cracked. “That sword belongs in better hands”—than those of a measly half-fae, he didn’t say—“so pick something else.”

  “No.” I gestured for him to toss me the sword. “And it doesn’t matter how many impotent threats you hawk at me, so you might as well swallow them all, concede defeat, and save us both some time.”

  He clenched his jaw so hard I was amazed he didn’t shatter all his teeth. “What are you planning to do with Fragarach?”

  I smiled. “That might be your concern, as one of Abarta’s henchmen, but it’s certainly not your business.”

  Manannán flinched at the word “henchmen,” and his blush returned with a vengeance. “Do you really want to make an enemy of me?”

  “Doesn’t matter what I want. You already are. Willingly or not, you’re allied with the man who, through his devastating crimes, has designated himself my nemesis, and therefore you too are an adversary until such time as Abarta is dead…or you are.”

  “You’re playing a game too advanced for you, boy,” he said darkly. “And it’s going to chew you up and spit out your bones before all is said and done.”

  “Yeah, probably.” I shrugged. “But I’d rather die doing the right thing and walk through my afterlife in relative peace than wind up a wandering ghost plagued by eternal regret. That tends to be the way things play out with people who actually have morals.”

  Manannán rolled his eyes. “Do you truly view this budding war in such heavily simplified moralistic terms?”

  “Of course not.” I motioned to the sword again, just to tick him off a little more. “That’s just how I frame all the shit I have to wade through to help myself sleep a few winks at night.”

  Manannán huffed, and another strong wind blew across the beach. “You do realize asking me for a favor that requires nothing but an immediate handoff will render you vulnerable to attack the moment our negotiations conclude, do you not?”

  “I do.” I kept my fake smile plastered on my face, though I’m sure the bead of sweat running down my neck hinted at the extent of the anxiety screaming in my head. If I screwed up the next step of this little scheme, even by the tiniest margin, I was toast. “I also realize that if I delay the conclusion of our negotiations and leave your will at my behest for any extended period of time, you’ll probably end up in violation of at least one of the favors Abarta currently has locked around your throat. And if that happens, you’re in major trouble. So the way I see it, it’s in your best interest to just hand over Fragarach and be done with it.”

  Manannán squinted at me. “What the hell are you on about, Whelan? There’s no way you’re stupid enough to put yourself in a position that will guarantee a painful and gory demise. So you’ve got to have some kind of trick up your sleeve that you believe will allow you to evade my wrath.” He actually examined my coat sleeves with eyes I was sure could penetrate fabric with minimal magic enhancement. But the scrutiny came too late. The trick had already been deployed. “What is it? An ally waiting in the wings? Some kind of getaw
ay spell? A distraction of some sort?”

  “Give me Fragarach, and I’ll show you what I have in mind.”

  He groaned. “Are we just going to keep going around in circles?”

  “I don’t know. Are you going to keep trying to wriggle out of your end of our contract?”

  He bit back an angry outburst and forced himself to calm down, loosening his taut muscles and falling into a more nonchalant pose. Feigned indifference betrayed only by the smoldering sparks of fury buried in the depths of his eyes.

  He observed me with intense scrutiny. Hunted for any weapons hidden on my person, but found only a pocketknife. Probed for any combat charms, but found only a shield spell tucked into a bracelet on my wrist.

  There was nothing on me that raised an alarm, nothing that screamed I was about to pull one over on a god far out of my weight class, nothing that even hinted I possessed the skills and knowhow to achieve such a feat. For all intents and purposes, I was totally harmless to a being like Manannán mac Lir.

  I watched with bated breath as the sea god calculated the odds of a young half-sídhe overpowering him—which were zero—and the odds that I’d be able to portal off the island before he killed me with his best quick-draw spell—which were roughly five percent. I watched, sweat pooling on my collar, as Manannán mentally ran through every possible scenario he believed might occur in the seconds after he surrendered Fragarach to me. I watched, tongue pressed to the roof of my mouth, as he reassured himself that whatever I had planned couldn’t possibly overcome his might, as the arrogance all gods possessed reasserted itself to soothe his earlier embarrassment. I watched, a deep burning breath held in my chest, as Manannán made the decision that sealed his fate.