Blood Sacrifice

by Maria Lima

  A groan. Tucker’s voice. “What the hell…?”

  My brain sent commands. Move. Feel. Listen. I sank further into the stillness, wanting to just lie there, insensate.

  With a formidable effort, I struggled against the forced ennui, compelling my hand, my arm to move. Skin brushed skin. Tucker’s arm? Gods, I hoped so.

  “Keira, why can’t I move?”

  Clarity. I needed… Focus, damn you, I thought. I could almost feel my brain firing signals, synapses sparking, but like a misfiring car, the sparks died, alone in the dark, never reaching their intended target.

  “I don’t know.” My mouth formed the words, molasses slowing my tongue. I could hear. I could talk, sort of, and if I worked really hard at it, I could move parts of me. It was as if we were entangled in some sort of weird TV time loop, something out of Doctor Who or Star Trek—fuck me. Time loop. Faery is out of time. I’d been trying to close the open door.

  We were caught in the Between.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  “These mountain beds do not agree with me.”

  —from the short story “Rip Van Winkle” by Washington Irving

  I’d heard of this happening—in old legends, tales told when I was first learning at my mother’s knee… before she’d given up on me. Travelers caught in a doorway, a chance encounter ensnaring them for all time. The man had accidentally fallen asleep on a Faery mound, a door had opened at the behest of someone wishing to exit. He’d been trapped in a bubble of time, suspended between Above and Below until someone let him out. They’d quickly aged him and set him free. He’d remembered nothing of the sleep, only that he’d woken twenty years later.

  “Rip Van Winkle,” I managed, the slushy words sounding more like “wibvnkl.”

  “Fuck.” Tucker’s voice managed the crisp fricative with no problem. Why was he able to speak so clearly when my own contributions felt as if I had a thirty-two-ounce jar of peanut butter clogging my mouth? “How do we get out of here?”

  I made an effort to move my mouth. “Don’t know.” There. That sounded better. If I focused on just speaking, I could do it more easily. “We’re stuck Between.”

  Something brushed against my hand, grasped it. My instant reaction of fear subsided. Tucker’s hand taking mine, that’s all. He seemed to be able to move a little more easily than me. Why? I had no clue. The only thing that came to mind was that I had been the one reciting the incantation to close the door. He’d been an innocent bystander—yeah, well, bystander anyway. He wasn’t of Sidhe blood, but was as immortal as the Sidhe, so I figured that’s why he was conscious and not asleep or in a coma, like Rip Van Winkle had been. Facts? Again, no clue. I was grasping at straws, combing my memory for anything that might help. The only thing I could think of was that episode of Torchwood where Captain Jack’s long-lost brother buried him in a grave for a thousand years. Since Jack couldn’t die, he’d just be there, alive for centuries. Could that happen to us? It could, it very well could. The Between was just that—between realities. It was a place through which you passed to go into and out of Faery. It did not exist in either Faery or the mortal realm.

  I took a deep mental breath. Adam. Adam and Niko knew where we were. They’d find us.

  “Don’t worry, sis,” Tucker said, his voice gentle, soothing as his hand squeezed mine. “Adam and Niko will come for us.”

  “Just what I was thinking,” I said, my voice breaking free of the mush, now clear and loud. “Wow, I can talk again. That’s a relief.”

  “What do you think happened?” Tucker asked.

  “To my voice? No idea.”

  “That, too.” Tucker sounded amused. “I meant to us.”

  “I guess that energy wasn’t just leakage from Faery. I was stupid to continue. We’ve stumbled into the equivalent of a spider web, caught Between.”

  A hand squeeze. “Not stupid, Keira. You did what had to be done.”

  “Stupid,” I insisted. “I keep doing this, Tucker. Barging in without thinking. Figuring I can just fix things, take care of things. Instead, I keep fucking up. When am I going to go too far and get someone killed?”

  “Don’t beat yourself up. You tested for traps and there weren’t any.”

  “That just means whoever set it is better at this than I am.”

  “See, you couldn’t have known,” Tucker said. I knew that tone. That was “big brother taking care of little sister” tone. “Keira, we’re all muddling through this as best we can. We’re fighting against things that can’t be seen, against someone more twisted than Texas politics. We can only do our best. Don’t beat yourself up.”

  “I suppose you’re right,” I said. “It’s just that…”

  “I know, little sis. I know. This was supposed to be a time of relaxation and fun—learning to be heir. Instead, we’re up to our elbows in dark magicks.”

  “Aren’t we though?” I heaved an internal sigh and prepared to wait. I could wait without going too far into crazy, right?

  A thousand eons later—though perhaps really only minutes, a blinding flash of white light flooded us, bathed us in its radiance, then as quickly as we’d been trapped, we were standing in the midst of a room. It glowed with this light, rock walls of the natural cave gleaming. I’d been here before.

  “Daffyd.” I addressed my Sidhe cousin who stood across the room. He looked exactly the same as the first time I’d seen him, long silvery white hair falling back from a high forehead, down to his knees. His robes shone silver, too; his skin alabaster. “How long were we in there?” I asked.

  “I do not know, my lady cousin,” he said, his voice like the ringing of a silver bell, clear, yet cold. “I felt your vibrations and came directly. It was a disturbance…”

  “A disturbance in the Force?” I joked.

  Daffyd’s expression did not change. He simply waited in silence until I said something he understood.

  “Where have you been, Cousin?” I asked. “After we left Vancouver, where did you go?”

  “Back among our people.” He nodded and approached. “I went home.”

  “Not my people,” I spat out, unable to keep the derision out of my voice. “They stopped being mine when my mother let me become little more than a slave.”

  “Your mother went Above.” Daffyd’s voice remained neutral, ignoring my outburst.

  “Don’t I know it.” I pushed past him, finding myself in the same bland, nearly empty room in which I’d first encountered him some months ago. “Haven’t redecorated have you?” Same rock chair/throne, same shiny rock walls, stalactites and stalagmites glowing in the light from Faery.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Never mind.” Thankful to be somewhere I could move, I immediately started to do some stretching and bending, my muscles aching in that good way they feel after being still for too long. My body felt as if I’d been bound up in swaddling for days. Tucker soon joined me and we both began a series of flowing movements, a habit I’d gotten into during my training. We moved singly, but in synch as we glided from our opening to the final cross hands and then closing posture. Not even needing to say a word, we changed tack and continued into the partnered pushing hands exercise for a few minutes. In no time at all, my muscles felt normal again, strong and energetic.

  I put my palms together and bowed to Tucker, who mirrored my movement.

  “Thanks, bro, I needed that.” I felt a million times better. “Daffyd, what happened to us? Why were we caught like that?” I joined my brother, perching in the center of the immense chair in a half lotus. “Most important, how do we close this bloody door so that no unsuspecting humans get past it?”

  “My apologies, Keira, it was I who set the wards.” Daffyd bowed, slid into a kneeling posture in front of me and bared his neck. Okay, whoa, horsey. I suddenly got a mental picture of me in a throne, Tucker at my side and Daffyd kneeling before me like some medieval courtier waiting for his queen to grant him a boon. Then again, not so out of the ordinary for us, really.
Daffyd had sworn fealty to me some months ago. Nevertheless, it still made me uncomfortable. In the context of a ritual, a Reception, yeah, I was okay enough with it, but here and now, not so much.

  “Stand up, Daffyd, please.” I also stood and approached my cousin. “What brought you back here?”

  “I felt the door open,” he said as he obeyed. “A spell, a dark one, calling on things we dare not call. I am attuned to this particular doorway.”

  “We?”

  “The Sidhe—Seelie or Unseelie. Some spells we do not use.”

  Spells even Sidhe wouldn’t use? That was some seriously powerful mojo. “Did you recognize the specific spell?” I asked. If he had, maybe we could figure out a way to combat it, to neutralize it.

  “Not as such,” he said. “I only felt the vibrations, because I lived here for a time and am attuned to this place. The underground portion of this cave can be considered a part of Faery, an odd pocket to be sure, not precisely in Faery but still beholden to it. It became a sort of home when I resided here and became imbued with a sense of myself. When I felt the spells, I hurried here as fast as I could. I was too late to prevent the door opening, but I was able to set wards to warn me should anyone attempt to enter Faery through here or tamper with the door.”

  A dry laugh escaped me as I recalled my spider web analogy. “Well, you’re certainly prettier than Shelob.”

  Tucker threw back his head and laughed, the first healthy laugh I’d heard from my brother in days. “Well, I for one am glad he’s not a giant spider.”

  Daffyd looked on in amusement, not bothering to ask us to clarify our references. He’d gotten used to our sibling banter during out trip to Canada. “I’ve disabled the trap wards for now,” he said, “but the door remains open. It must be shut, but I was unable to do so alone. Perhaps, with your help?”

  “Count me in on those not able to,” I said.

  “That is not good news.” Daffyd’s face fell, the first true emotion I’d seen from him. “An open Faery portal is more than just a door,” he said. “It can Call to people. To those who can hear, can feel it. When I saw you there, trapped, I had hoped that you simply had attempted to enter Faery and had been caught. You say you tried to close the door?”

  “Exactly,” I said. “That’s what I was trying to do when we fell through the ground.”

  “Fell through?”

  “The overhang outside, above the cave mouth? That’s where I did the spell.”

  Daffyd’s brow furrowed. He strode over to the entrance to the sloped path that led to the large cave mouth and peered upward. “You were not behind the angel statue? Not at its level?”

  Both of us shook our heads. “No, we think the cemetery has a lot of booby-traps set,” Tucker said. “We thought it better to not attempt crossing the ground again.”

  “Odd.” Daffyd raised a hand toward the opening and shut his eyes. After a moment, he turned and strode back to us, his robes whipping about his legs. “There is very dark magick out there.”

  “We know.” I paused before continuing. “Daffyd, my cousin Gideon set runespells in the cemetery somehow. He’s issued Challenge.”

  Daffyd’s eyes glittered in the fey lights. “Challenge? Are you then under Truce?”

  “We are. Until Lughnasa,” I said.

  “You should not be here.” His voice was sharp. “My queen, it is very dangerous for you.”

  “Don’t you think I know that?” I exploded. “Daffyd, Gideon desecrated sacred ground. He’s burned down the town’s main sources of revenue. I have good reason to believe he’s plotting with the high queen. He’s managed to marry her daughter, who is pregnant with her mother’s acknowledged heir. My cousin wants this land, this door to Faery. He wants to send us packing, but I’m sure that he’s got a ton of ulterior motives. At this point, we’re willing to take our chances but not willing to blindly wait out the Truce period.”

  “He broke Truce first?”

  “Maybe,” I said. “If not in body, then in the spirit of Truce. He or one of his minions did the damage you feel up there.” I motioned in the general direction of the cave mouth. “Marks on tombstones, vandalized graves—the type of thing humans dismiss as childish pranks. The marks were all runespells. We didn’t get very far in trying to decipher them when Tucker was hurt.”

  “Hurt?”

  “Insects.”

  Daffyd seemed lost in thought and wouldn’t meet my gaze. Then, with an abrupt nod, he spoke. “He came to Court, your cousin. I saw him, all cock of the walk, strutting into the Great Hall. I admit to a great surprise when the queen—your aunt—received him. After a few days of courtly banter, they began to meet in her privy chamber.” Daffyd fixed me with a steady look. “Her daughter was not part of these meetings.”

  “Do you mean that Aoife is as much a pawn as we are?” I demanded answers. “And my mother? What part does she play in this? She came with him, you know. Above. It was her hand that proffered the Challenge.”

  “Branwen?” If he’d been a bearded scholar, I could imagine him stroking his beard right now. “This is certainly news,” he said. “Though I did not see your mother in attendance in the queen’s chamber with Gideon, I also did not see her at Court. Not proof of anything, I know. Of habit, however, she attends Court daily, as is her personal wont and right as a lesser queen. I did not remark on it then, as I was preoccupied with the arrogant stranger.”

  “So you don’t know anything.” I deflated, my sudden hope that he knew Gideon’s plan flattened. “Great. So we’re back to square zero now.”

  “At least we’re not still stuck Between,” Tucker said. When I shot him a murderous look, he shrugged. “Just trying to lighten things up a bit. Daffyd, any chance of you scoping out what’s what?”

  “Of scoping… you mean of spying on the high queen? You must be joking.” Daffyd’s voice raised in surprise and not a little bit of anger. “I cannot spy on my queen.”

  “Not at all.” Tucker rose and approached Daffyd, his large frame towering over the slender Sidhe. Daffyd was tall, but Tucker was taller and much broader. His red hair gleamed, his expression menacing. “You swore fealty to Keira,” he growled. “You owe her. You owe all of us.”

  “It will do no good if I were to be discovered,” Daffyd said, standing strong. “Though a cat may look at a queen, a courtier interfering in a queen’s business ends ill. Though your cousin is no longer at Court, there are others with whom our queen plots.”

  “She is not my queen,” I muttered. “I owe allegiance to no one but my own clan chief.”

  “Who is missing,” Tucker said. “Until she is found, Keira is in charge of our clan, as her heir. So, Daffyd, does that alter your attitude? After all, the Kelly leader is of the same rank as the Sidhe high royalty.”

  Daffyd stepped around my brother and approached me. “Your chief missing? I do not understand.”

  “Gigi… Minerva Kelly, chieftain of the Kelly clan is missing. She’s disappeared and hasn’t been reachable.” I slumped against a smooth part of the wall. “Daffyd, Tucker’s right. In principle, I’m head honcho right now. Since this position is the equivalent to that of the high queen—”

  “Keira, your leader is far from missing. She’s with Queen Angharad.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  “If we still advise we shall never do.”

  —Elizabeth I

  I didn’t waste any time. “Okay. That’s it. You’re coming with us,” I said and grabbed onto Daffyd’s arm. “Tucker, lead the way. We’ll have to take our chances crossing the cemetery.”

  “Where are you taking me?” Daffyd asked.

  “Home with me. You’ve got a lot of explaining to do and I want Adam to hear all of this.”

  Without a word, Daffyd followed Tucker and me as we climbed up the rock pathway, through to the cave mouth. It was still light outside. No sign of the priest anywhere, though if he had truly consecrated the cemetery as he said he had, he wouldn’t be able to walk the property—
at least I thought so. Hopefully, he was waiting in the car.

  I pulled out my phone and checked the time. Great, it was only a couple of hours after we’d begun the ritual. We’d been lucky—or Daffyd had traveled fast.

  I dialed Adam the moment we reached the cave entrance. “We’ve found Gigi,” were the first words out of my mouth.

  “Found her? Where?”

  “She’s playing at something with Angharad,” I said.

  “It seems our esteemed matriarch thought she’d head them off at the pass, so to speak,” Tucker interrupted, explaining nothing.

  “I don’t follow.”

  “Stupid bloody woman decided to confront the bloody Sidhe queen.”

  “She did what?”

  “She’s gone Underhill. Holed up with Angharad. Effectively, she’s missing in action.”

  “How do you know this?”

  “Tucker and I got stuck in a Sidhe trap set by Daffyd. He’d been trying to guard the open door. He showed up to get us out and just told me about Gigi.”

  “Damn it. I was afraid of this.”

  “You knew?” How could he have? “Not knew, but guessed.” Adam sounded weary. “I didn’t sleep much after you left. Woke early so I could make some calls. It occurred to me that Minerva may have tried the door in Vancouver, realized she couldn’t enter that way, so went somewhere else.”

  “Where?”

  “Wales. Raine is still in London and I was able to get in contact with her. She confessed that Minerva set us up. Minerva glamoured herself so no one would recognize her, hopped the plane with Raine just after we spoke to her. She and Raine were the ones to lay a false trail for your father to find.”

  Bloody fucking fool of a Kelly matriarch. What in all the seven layers of my own special hells had she thought she was doing? Gigi may be a Kelly, but Angharad was a right bitch of a Sidhe who held nothing but contempt for us upstart aboveground magickal folk. In her eyes, we were lower than nothing. Not that she’d ever admit it in front of anyone who mattered. I only knew her true feelings about us because she’d never noticed me. Not once she’d decided I was less magickal than her left boot, an invisible girl, sliding through the shadows and twisted pathways of Faery, hearing so much, understanding so little until adulthood. I knew I’d suppressed most of it, memories surfacing only as I’d begun my Change to adulthood, started my transition to Kelly heir.