“I will be careful,” Crannog said just before Elathan cut the connection.
…
Dewi’s mouth filled with fire once more and he shot out another blazing stream, only this time his target was Dorian. To his surprise, the Earthling’s hand glowed with magical energy as she shot a beam straight back at him. The two flows of magic collided and made a wonderfully violent explosion that concussed the air between them. While he was knocked back a few feet the girl was blown off her feet and thrown through the rubble on the cave floor.
“Ha!” Dewi chuckled from the air. “This is going to be more fun than I thought.”
…
The cold was seeping into Brendan’s body making him want to shiver, but he wasn’t sure his body was even able to move. Is this how I die? A stupid niseag freezes me to death?! He chided himself. The situation was beginning to make his temper rise. He could feel the rage building inside his body, heating him and fighting off the chill. He was determined to escape the icy grave.
At first, it was a small victory when the pinky on his left hand gave a simple twitch. Next, he forced his eyelids to close and reopen as they scraped through the ice. The internal fire was stoked hotter and hotter, and he began to vibrate every muscle that he could think to use. He didn’t notice, but his body was glowing incrementally brighter as he fought through the ice. Small cracks started showing up at the weaker points in the ice until a large chunk floated away. Finally, with one last great push the ice and rocks that surrounded him shattered into thousands of pieces and were thrown in all directions.
Brendan relaxed his body to catch his breath when out of the corner of his eye he saw the niseag returning. The beast readied itself to spray its frigid breath on him once more but Brendan was prepared.
“Not this time.” He reached out his right hand and using his powers created a cupped shield right in front of the creature’s mouth so that when it sprayed out its ice stream the water around its body rapidly froze. The niseag was now encased in an icy block of its own doing.
The buoyancy of the ice caused the creature to slowly begin the ascension towards the lake’s surface. Brendan watched it float carefully, preparing himself to use much deadlier tactics if needed. Luckily for the niseag, it just kept floating away.
…
Dewi swooped down at Dorian and rounded out his trajectory causing his thick, spiked tail to lash out and strike the Leprechaun directly in the side. The blow sent her sprawling across the floor until she slammed into the obsidian throne. To the girl’s credit, she managed to fire three or four good streams of magick in his direction, but it wasn’t anything that he couldn’t nimbly avoid.
Dewi exercised his speed and agility and closed the gap between himself and his prey, dodging her feeble attempts at a defense and grabbed her by the throat. He spun away from the throne and slammed her harshly into the cave wall.
Sabd charged at Dewi to try and ram him in the back, but Dewi’s sly tail lashed out and knocked the deer across the cave. Sabd slammed into the ground so hard that one of the branches of his left antler completely snapped off.
Dewi’s tongue slithered out of his mouth and licked the splotchy blood from a cut on Dorian’s forehead. “A Leprechaun? You must be royalty.” He examined her face by forcing her to turn her head in his grasp. “Pity that your line stops with you.”
…
The dense patch of fog looked out of place floating over the Tech Duinn landscape as a single cloud moved through a wide-open space. Bodach had a good idea of which Ku di was responsible for the oddity and the thought of that particular dog brought tingles of pain up and down his metallic arm.
“There’s that filthy dog, Bodach,” Ruffin squawked. “In his cloud form.”
“You mean the one that helped trap Bodach here, Ruffin?” Squig asked in all sincerity.
Bodach rolled his eyes and wondered why he had surrounded himself with such idiots. He was just about to beat the stupid out of his servants when the cloud came to a halt and began to reshape itself into a semblance of an Earth dog. What was really shocking was that there were five beings traveling with the blasted Ku di. Bodach strained his eyes to see since the group was fairly far away, but when he spotted the older man in the bunch he began to quiver with rage.
“Oscar O’Neal,” he said through gritted teeth.
Zat hopped on top of an exposed boulder nearby to see what Bodach was talking about. “That human? That’s the one who took your arm and sent you here? But he’s old and looks pretty weak, Bodach.”
“Silence!” Bodach lashed out his arm and smacked Zat off the rock. “That human is a Protector and you would do well not to underestimate him.”
“What are we going to do?” Ruffin asked.
“Are we going to kill him?” Squig added.
Bodach wondered what had brought the Protector to Tech Duinn after all these years, and then it occurred to him. “He seeks his bride.” A delicious thought oozed into his mind and a sick grin twisted his black lips. “And we shall let him find her.”
“You would let him have his joy?” Zat asked while licking the blood out of the corner of his lips.
“For a brief moment—and then I’ll kill them both.”
…
Brendan frog-kicked his way to the sword. It was stuck straight into the stone as if it was the legendary Excalibur. It had a thick handle and a broad blade. He knew that it wasn’t the Sword of the Protectors, but he had a suspicion of who was its original owner.
He reached down and pulled the sword straight out of the rock and then looked back up to the surface. The frozen niseag bobbed just below the surface of the water apparently not having enough buoyancy to reach the top. Brendan pushed off the lake bottom and rocketed towards the top, still fuming about how dumb he had been to let his guard down.
Brendan erupted from the surface of the lake as he launched his body twenty feet above the ground and landed on bent knees on the rocky floor. He looked up to talk to Dorian, but instead saw that Dewi had her pinned by her throat against the wall. Sabd was down, too, unconscious, but breathing.
An inferno of rage exploded in his body and he glared at the dragon god. He got to his feet and pointed the tip of the sword in Dewi’s direction. “Let her go!”
…
“What’s so important about the other human who’s here, Dad?” Lizzie demanded.
“It’s complicated, Lizzie,” Oscar mumbled his reply as he scanned the area. “I don’t see her, Ruger. Are you sure she’s here?”
Ruger barked loudly and Oscar nodded. He’d always felt like he and his dog had a way of communicating. Ruger had been a great companion when Oscar was growing up, brave and loyal to a fault. He could see himself playing with Ruger at age twelve, running, playing fetch, and bouncing on a trampoline with the little pup. These were fond memories, but wherever a good memory was stored in his mind so were ten bad ones that made him more and more ashamed as they resurfaced. One such memory began to crash his revere and it seemed too impossible to consider that it had really happened.
A car was driving around the corner. It was hers. It pulled along the curb and the lights were shut off. The driver exited the car and began walking up a path. She didn’t see how the archway that spanned the width of the concrete walkway was different. She didn’t see that the center of it was frosted and difficult to see through since she was fumbling with her purse trying to retrieve her house keys. Oscar wanted to scream, but he couldn’t. He was forced to watch as she…
“Dad?” Lizzie said, shaking Oscar from his thoughts.
“Wait, don’t tell me you have visions, too. Dang it! What is up with the men in our family?”
Oscar shook his head and then his knees gave out and he collapsed to the grass. He began to sob, crying into his palms. “It was my fault. It was all my fault.”
Lizzie and Frank mimed to each other to do something before Frank finally said, “What’s your fault, Oscar? It might make you feel better to talk about
it.”
“We’re here looking for Angie, your mom, Lizzie,” Oscar finally revealed. “She’s here in Tech Duinn and I sent her here.”
…
“Pardon me, Leprechaun, I have a human to crush,” Dewi said just as he tossed Dorian aside. The dragon god rounded his shoulders to face Brendan, the vertical slits of his pupils fully dilated. “I don’t know how you survived the lake, Earthling, but you won’t survive me.”
“We’ll see, ugly,” Brendan replied, trying to contain his anger.
The dragon god pulled out his sword—a jagged-edged double blade—and gripped it tightly. Dewi spread his wings to an impressive span and then curled them in tightly against his back. The monstrous god stomped straight ahead for a few steps before he began to charge harder with his sword held aloft. He roared as he leapt into the air to drive his weapon into his enemy’s head.
Brendan deftly stepped out of harm’s way and hopped into a side kick planting his shin and the top of his foot directly into Dewi’s midsection flipping the dragon god onto his back with a thud. Dewi was far from hurt and swung his double blades out in an arc trying to take off Brendan’s feet. Brendan moved his legs just in time and stumbled backwards.
“You fight dirty,” Brendan shot. “That makes me angrier.”
Dewi got to his feet quickly and grinned. “All’s fair in combat, boy. The sooner you learn that the longer you live. Unfortunately, your end is near.”
“Just shut up and fight,” Brendan roared.
The two went sword-to-sword clanging metal on metal. The sound was deafening in the cave as each clash echoed with piercing rings. Soon there were echoes upon echoes. Dewi lashed out chopping his blade down from the right. Brendan got his own sword up in time and deflected it, but the dragon god’s tail snuck in from behind and whipped across Brendan’s back, knocking him forward. He stumbled right into a massive left cross that knocked him the complete opposite direction. Dewi gasped when the strike failed to knock the human off his feet.
“Who are you?” Dewi demanded.
The corner of Brendan’s mouth had a small split and he reached up to dab it with his finger. He glowered at the dragon god. “I am Brendan O’Neal from the line of Arawn and a Protector of Earth.”
Brendan’s body grew sharply brighter as the silver magic intensified causing even his eyes to sparkle like stars in the night sky.
“Your parlor tricks won’t save you, boy!”
Dewi charged forward again, his sword pointed behind him trying to position his weapon for maximum impact. He got within three meters of Brendan before he felt a massive force slam into the front of his body. Whatever it was hit him so hard that it knocked him off his feet and threw him clear into the cave wall some twenty meters behind him. Dewi’s body blasted into the rock in a cloud of minerals and dust just before he fell to the ground, his sword falling away from his grasp.
Brendan stalked forward, brooding, with the broad sword dragging behind him. “I am sick and tired of you gods! You think you can mess with people’s lives. You think you can just kill whoever you want to,” he yelled. “Well, I say you can’t!”
Dorian rolled onto her back and then reached up subconsciously and touched the wound on her head. Her body was battered and bruised but she forced herself to a sitting position. When she looked around to spot Dewi she saw Brendan standing over the dragon god holding the sword from the lake. Her head was throbbing and she couldn’t quite make out his words but she could tell he was furious from the sound of his tone. She watched him raise his sword and point it directly at Dewi’s chest. He must not be thinking…
“What are you going to do with that sword? I’m a god. I can’t be killed,” he claimed as he gasped for breath. Blood dripped from Dewi’s chest and several other cuts he sustained from Brendan’s assault.
“Really, because I’ve seen it done before, handsome, and it looks like you’re halfway there.” Brendan pulled the sword back, still aiming it directly at the dragon god’s heart. “But first, you’re going to answer a few questions, Dewi.”
Dewi began to laugh even though it hurt. “You think that I would be swayed by the likes of you?”
“Have it your way,” Brendan said as he began to thrust his sword forward.
“Wait!” Dorian screamed.
Brendan stopped the sword five centimeters from Dewi’s chest. He turned and saw Dorian stumbling in his direction.
“Why? He was going to kill us both, Dorian. Why would I spare his life?”
There was so much venom in Brendan’s tone that Dorian almost didn’t recognize his voice. “He’s down, Brendan. That’s not how we do things and you know it. We don’t use mortal force unless we have to. What’s going on with you?”
“I told you,” Dewi said through heavy breaths. “Even the lake is controlled by Elathan. Poison courses through his body and his mind as we speak.” The dragon god pointed his gaze in Brendan’s direction. “There is no escape for you. You will be consumed by your rage, and that will be your ultimate death.”
“Shut up!” Brendan screamed as he flicked his foot out in a straight front kick and cracked Dewi directly in the face. The dragon god’s head shot backwards and embedded itself in the rock face of the cave wall. He fell unconscious as two of his front teeth spilled out of his mouth in a string of slobber and blood.
“Brendan!” Dorian said, looking at him in horror.
Brendan read her eyes and looked away. His mind felt like it was being torn by emotions. He was so angry, while also relieved that Dorian was mostly unharmed. His brain was being tugged in a thousand directions.
He dropped his head. “Are you okay?”
Dorian nodded. “I’ll be fine, but we have to make you right if we have any chance of stopping Elathan.”
“Ah-hem,” Sabd said, limping up from behind. “I might have a suggestion.”
Chapter 7
Discoveries
After arriving back on Earth with Ken and the Smith sisters, Simmons immediately called in for a week’s vacation. He was having a hard time wrapping his head around everything that he had witnessed and taken part in during his time in that loony Chamber. While he was living the craziness he nearly talked himself into believing what Brendan and the others were saying, but once he got back home and had a good night’s sleep in his own bed, he began to think that he had hallucinated it all. He could reach out to Ken and see if their memories matched, but he really didn’t have anything to say to the kid. Perhaps he could try to track down the Smith sisters, but something told him that he had imagined them as well.
Three days of sitting around, working out, and avoiding conversation with his wife about his odd mood made him pine for his office back at the station. There, he could close the door and block out all the distractions and just focus on his casework. That’s what he was doing back at the station. He should have known that he wouldn’t last the week.
Simmons had been at work for two hours and had barely accomplished more than getting a cup of coffee and denting the seat cushion behind his desk before there was a knock on the door.
“What is it?” Simmons growled.
Edwards poked his head into the office and smiled. “Good to have you back, Simmons. All that time off make you antsy?”
Simmons waved him off and kept reading a report from a manila folder.
“Oh, there was a young lady who stopped by the other day with her parents, said she was one of the ones who disappeared from Syracuse’s campus.”
“What! Why didn’t someone contact me?” Simmons asked as he jumped to his feet.
“I dunno. I’ve been off the last two days myself. My wife just had our baby so…”
Simmons marched straight past Edwards without even offering a congratulations. He maneuvered through the precinct barely avoiding knocking shoulders with about everyone in the hallway on his way to the clerk’s desk where Flores was sitting. She was going to have to bare the brunt of his ire.
“Hey!” he said, hi
s tone starched with irritation. “A girl came in here the other day, related to a case I’m working, and not one of you incompetent idiots had the sense to let me know about it.”
Flores’s hand shot up so that her palm was facing Simmons. “Do you think we know every one of your cases by heart, Simmons? Do you think we work for you? I, for one, don’t, so if you want information from me then you had better approach me with a more pleasant attitude.”
Simmons held his tongue, but inside he was fuming. He made a mental note to talk to her supervisor before he began to ask about the visiting woman. “Look, Flores, I’ve been at this case—a very big one—for several months and we got zilch, so this woman becomes pretty important, don’t you think?”
“Not my concern, Simmons. You had to take some days off and missed her. Whose fault do you think that is?”
Simmons glowered at the young Flores sitting pompously behind her desk. “Just gimme a name and a number and I’ll be out of your hair.”
Flores sighed and then began to hunt around on her desk. The prospect that Simmons would leave her alone was worth giving him what he wanted. After a bit of searching she located a pale yellow sticky note and pulled it free of the desk and the aluminum gum wrapper that it was stuck to. “Here.”
Simmons snatched the note and walked away. He read the name and recalled it from the list of missing persons from the Syracuse disappearances. “I’m glad to meet you, Ms. Gillespie. Let’s see where you’ve been.”
…
Camulos was getting bored. It had been over a week since his show of force on the fool Maponus and his friends and he was beginning to grow restless. He needed to be out amongst the people invoking fear and earning respect. He had decided to go without a public appearance since he killed Maponus to allow the other lesser gods’ minds to wonder. If he could callously dispatch a peaceful poet, what would he do to the rest of them? He liked the way that the imagination could work against a person—and it nearly always worked to his advantage.
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