Her chest tightened. “Maybe I can go for the berries? You make the tea? You are very good with the tea.”
Shar narrowed his good eye at her, and she braced herself for a fight. Then his shoulders eased down and his lips quirked. “Just this once. If they give you any trouble, tell me.”
Bat’s mind filled with images of brambles and roots wrapping around her limbs to drag her into the soil. “Um. Maybe I will make the tea. You go reassure your babies that you’re fine. I’m paying attention now. I’ll know if anything sneaks up on us.”
“They went ahead and warded the alley as well as the garden,” Ailis put in.
“Oh, that’s all right then,” Bat said to Shar. “You go out to the garden.”
He raised a brow and smirked, looking very much like a pirate. “You were worried about me.”
She stared at him. “Of course, I was worried about you. Your spirit has a scar.”
He shrugged and was out the door.
Ailis nudged her shoulder and held out a plate. “Take this. Sit. Start. I’ll have some hot food for ya in a few. And those brothers… well, they are pretty resilient, ya know.”
Bat took the plate but didn’t move. “I don’t know. There is a lot that went unsaid last night. That needs to change today.”
Ailis averted her gaze and tucked a strand of her green hair behind her ear. “Ye’re right. But some tales are not mine to tell, and as much as I like a good gab, that story is one.” She looked at Bat then, the wicked light back in her eyes. “But I’ll help hold them down and hand you the pliers if they refuse to talk.”
“I’m sure torture will not be necessary.” Bat wasn’t sure of any such thing. “But I do appreciate the offer.” She set the plate on the island and busied herself with making tea. She was very good at being patient, even when she didn’t want to be.
It wasn’t long before her belly was full and dishes were piled in the sink to be washed later.
“So,” she said. “Where are they now?”
As if in answer to her question, Shar’s phone let out a low ping. He pulled it from his back pocket. “They’ve lost the trace out near Carney. Finn’s asked us to meet them at the headquarters.”
Ailis gave a sharp nod. “We can take my car. I’ll be back in a few minutes. It’s parked behind me shop.”
Shar held up a hand. “We’ll go with you. If they lost the trail, there is no telling where she—it—is.”
Bat noted the correction, but let it go, for now. She’d rather confront them all at once over the topic than wrestle with stubborn men four different times. Exchanging a look with Ailis, they nodded to each other and headed out.
Unlike yesterday, when the sun seemed determined to shine down, today the clouds hovered, and a light mist rested in the air, coating her in damp. The boots—along with a thick pair of socks she’d found in her drawers this morning—certainly helped, but when this was over, she would definitely need to find some gloves. And a scarf. And maybe a thicker coat. Or she would simply haul a fire around with her everywhere she went and—
Shar grabbed her hand and warmth flowed up her fingers. “You were shivering,” he said, and left it at that.
Today the streets were quiet. Pedestrians and passersby hurried about on errands, and a few stopped to tilt their caps or nod a greeting at Ailis. The occasional flapping steamer met Bat’s gaze, but for the most part, the city had recovered from the celebrations. Storefronts sported neat displays. Bookstores, confectionaries, boutiques, even a pharmacy. It was very different from her home, but she liked it.
Ailis led them down a narrow alley and stopped beside a small green car. It looked like a bubble more than a car, really, but there were four wheels, seats and a steering wheel, so Bat assumed it would work.
“I can’t fit in that,” Shar said, crossing his arms. “I can port us there.”
“Eh, no,” Ailis countered, crossing her arms as well. “I don’t trust that druid magic. Imagine making little symbols and relying on those to take ya places instead of using what you were born with.” She gave a little shudder.
Bat examined the vehicle again. “I could sit in the back, behind Ailis,” she offered. That would probably work. Shar could push the front seat all the way back and… it wouldn’t be comfortable, that was sure. Maybe he could do this porting thing, and she and Ailis would meet him there?
He groaned. “Fine. But no way am I letting myself be seen like this. I’m masking.”
Ailis shrugged and climbed into the car. “Just you. I don’t want anyone running into me because they couldn’t be bothered to see me.”
Bat climbed in after her and then watched in fascination as Shar pushed the passenger seat back and folded his frame into the too tight space. His knees were practically up around his shoulders, and he had to duck his head down to avoid hitting the ceiling.
She giggled. His grimace made him look so much like Dub, and then she imagined the older brother in a similar situation, and it just… slipped out.
He glared. “It is glad I am that I can amuse you so.”
He didn’t sound glad. She sobered, or tried to, but when she opened her mouth to apologize another laugh came instead. His frown intensified, and he turned away from her, glaring first at Ailis then out the front windshield. Then he did something with his fingers, traced them over the dash and… disappeared.
Bat narrowed her eyes and concentrated. He was still there, but… fuzzy. The longer she looked, the clearer he became, but he never quite focused.
Ailis started the car. “Weird, isn’t it?”
It was magic, not the same power Shar laid claim to through his nature, but borrowed power. Bat realized that the little flicks of his fingers must have been a sort of ritual. Fascinating. Who did he call upon? Heka? But, no, that was an Egyptian name. What did the Irish call the father of magic, who pervaded all things? Surely this was the same being in all the lands, though it would go by different names?
“You are a sorcerer?” she asked.
Shar shifted, cramming his arm between his seat and knee, and scratched his head. “Not really. We’ve picked up a few useful things from the Druids over the years.”
Bat tilted her head. These she had read of in the Idiot’s Guide. They were much like the priests and healers of her own land. She nodded in understanding. These immortals, some of them at least, utilized more than one type of power. Was this also how the soul blade worked?
She settled back against the seat and watched the shops and buildings flash by. She would hold her questions for just a little longer.
The guardi’s headquarters were not what she had been expecting. She surveyed the corrugated metal walls. They were in fairly good shape, but there were spots of rust on a few panels, and the windows that lined the upper edges were dirty. A small loading dock sat behind a chain fence, and a metal safety door was the only entrance.
Bat stepped out of the car, soon followed by Shar, who more shoved himself from the tight confines. Then he just… walked through the gate. Bat looked closer. It held the same fuzziness that disguised Shar. So, the reverse? A fence that wasn’t there but was?
Intriguing. She was coming to recognize the signs of this tracing magic.
She followed him and felt a pressure and a slight pop, very similar to what she’d experienced the first time she’d stepped over the threshold of the pub. There was no rush afterward, but the initial resistance was the same.
What greeted her was not the same as the concrete loading area she’d seen from the street. A neat lawn, with stone paths winding through it and bushes at strategic areas, gave the warehouse a softer look. The bushes rustled, and a small figure, no more than the length of her palm, darted up and over to her. Rapid wing beats lent an impression of an aura around the tiny body, blue and green and purple swirled together. It hovered in front of her face, the loose clothing disguising its sex, but she got the impression of a definite masculinity from the way the creature held its shoulders.
“
Hello,” she said. Why did Egypt not have anything as delightful as this?
It darted around her, surveying her from many angles then returned to her face. “Hello,” it finally said, the voice small and high, but still very understandable. “Will you come play for us some time? I’ve a cousin who heard ya the other night, and she said it was lovely.”
Bat tilted her head. “I would like to say yes, but I am not sure if I will be welcome in this place after we are done with our investigation.”
The figure folded its arms. “Well, I’m in charge of this particular territory. You just come here, and we’ll have a sing and a listen, and none need go anywhere near the building for the bigs.”
Bat grinned. “Agr—”
“A stor. Goddess.” Shar stepped in front of her. “Do not—”
The figure flew at Shar, and it no longer appeared so benign. “I know you, giant. Unworthy, you are.”
Shar flinched but otherwise made no move to relent.
“We just want a listen, protector of the Rowan. We are pledged to guard this place and do not leave easily. A gesture of peace, let’s call it, from the strange goddess. You may even accompany her.”
Bat laid her hand on Shar’s back and pressed.
He relaxed. “It will need to wait—”
“Until the lann de anam is found, I know.” The little figure waved a hand and zipped back to his bush.
“Damn pixies,” Shar mumbled.
Bat stared after the figure. “That was a pixie? I thought Ciara was a pixie.”
Ailis grabbed her hand and dragged her toward the door. “There’s littles and bigs. Most stick to one size or the other, though all can change. Enough of that, now.”
The door opened from the inside, revealing Finn framed in the doorway. The guardi Captain looked different. Resigned defeat pulled his shoulders down, and bruised circles sat under his eyes, but the set of his mouth told her he held a determination stronger than either the defeat or exhaustion. His gaze settled on Shar. Something passed between the two men, and Finn nodded. “It is glad I am to see you so well.”
Shar inclined his own head in acknowledgment. “I hear I have you to owe for healing the wound in my shoulder.”
Finn shrugged. “Nothing is owed for that. As the Morrigan told me, it is my mess to clean up.”
Bat stepped forward. “I want answers now. I let it go before, but after what happened to Shar last night, I will have them.” She didn’t push her power out, though. She didn’t have enough to spare, and really, it was only decent for them to concede the point.
Finn focused on her and she pulled in a breath. The purple around his eyes pulled forward the green rings around the edges of the irises so that they practically glowed. His expression went blank. He was not going to give her anything, it seemed. Then he inclined his head, verging on a bow, and motioned for them to enter. “Yes, it is time you had some answers, goddess.”
Bat wasn’t sure how to take his words, so she simply nodded and stepped forward. He led them through plain halls, past a pair of painted doors, and up a steep flight of stairs. Dub, Mell and another man waited at the top.
A thrill of mixed relief and excitement swept through her at the sight of the two brothers, and she sprinted the last few steps to throw her arms around Dub.
“Hey, what about me?” Mell inserted an arm between their bodies and plucked her away from his brother.
She enfolded him in her arms as well. Yes, hugs were good things. She would make sure she gave and received many more of these before… well, before.
“Well now, that’s a sight.” The third man hovered right beside them. “Never thought I’d see the day a Fomoiri hugged a goddess, especially an Egyptian one. More likely to try gutting them, they are.”
Bat pulled her head from Mell’s chest. What a rude thing to say. “And who are you to be making such proclamations?”
Finn held out his arms and ushered them all away from the top of the steps and down the hall. “This is Oisin. He’s usually too charming for his own good, but we’ve had an influx of goddesses lately and it’s thrown him.”
Ailis nodded wisely. “He’s having ruptions.”
Oisin tilted his chin up. “I do not have ‘ruptions’ as you so eloquently put it. It was a simple observation.”
It sure did not sound very simple. In fact, it sounded like yet another thing she didn’t know of this land and which may impact her decision to stay.
The banter had taken them down yet another plain hallway until they stopped before a single door carved with letters and shapes Bat didn’t know.
The red-haired Oisin waved his hand in a complicated pattern and then pushed the door open for her. “Welcome to my domain, goddess.”
Wood shelves, polished to a dark sheen, lined the walls. In the center of the room, flanked by yet more shelves, stood a large table, tomes and books scattered across the surface. A few smaller desks were off to the right, modern computers and printers and office-y type things arranged neatly over them. To the right of the room was a line of cases, the glass wavering in her vision as though spelled. And inside the cases were yet more books.
Maybe there was a bit of the cat in her because suddenly all she wanted to do was examine whatever those cases contained. She even took a step in their direction before Mell, who still had an arm around her, pulled her back.
“Later, realta. I’m sure if you ask nicely, Oisin will let you play with his treasures.” His voice was teasing, the tone a bit cruel, and his gaze was trained not on her but the red-haired man.
More history she didn’t know. She sighed. And another reminder that she had a story to pry from the stubborn hands of these not-men.
She slid from under Mell’s arm and took a seat near the head of the table. She’d leave the one on the end for Oisin out of courtesy for his position over this particular territory. “Now. We will get to the bottom of this situation.”
Dub took the seat to her right, Mell and Shar taking the ones directly across from her, their movements reluctant. Finn sat beside Dub, Ailis across from him, and Oisin took the seat she’d left open for him.
No one spoke.
“Why don’t we start with Benbulben?” she asked. An easy enough opening. She would give them one more chance before she forced the issue.
It was not a power she enjoyed using. She never had. But when, at the birth of her creation, she decided she would be an upholder of Ma’at, she gained not only the epithet of “the one who is saved” but a power other than her visions. She gave up much of herself each time it was employed, and therefore had let it lay dormant in herself even before the uniting of the kingdoms.
Strange how sometimes we come back to our selves. Her long existence had given her many roles, and here in this strange land, she found once more one of the first she had ever taken on.
“I can force the truth of this from you.” She held up a hand to forestall any protests. “I would prefer not to, for many reasons, not the least of which is I have always seen this as a… violation. Something done to criminals, and to… clear the air, I think is the term.” She drew herself up in her seat. “I seek only one thing at the moment, and that is a soul blade and the one who wields it. Each of you hold pieces of the answer, and yet you keep them to yourselves. That is not justice.”
Dub held his hand out to her, palm up.
She tilted her head in question.
“See what you can see, please. This is… has never been an easy thing for me to speak of.”
She rubbed the tips of her fingers over the soft skin of Dub’s wrist and sighed. “You will allow me to see what I may get from you?”
He didn’t answer, but he did shift and thread his fingers with hers.
She took it as a final approval and reached out with her mind’s eye.
Flash. A dark night. Dub, in leather armor and a red cloak, held a sword. A man, golden of hair and wild-eyed, stood clasping a child, a girl with freckles and red hair. To her throat, this man
held a knife that glowed with a dark light, its hilt a serpent’s head. Dub lunged, but he was too late, for the dagger plunged into the child’s neck and ripped through her throat. The flesh paled, the freckles standing out in stark contrast, and the dagger glowed with a pale rose hue for a moment. The golden-haired man laughed, even as Dub slammed into him. Dub knocked his hand away from the dagger where it still stuck in the girl’s neck and grabbed it himself. His expression dark, he plunged it into the madman’s abdomen, then again in his chest, angling up to hit the heart. The man paled, and the blade glowed with a sickly red.
The value of a soul?
Flash. Benbulben. Sunlight streaming through the clouds, bathing the mountain in gold.
Bat strained for more, but that was all that was revealed to her.
She looked down at where her hand was joined to Dub’s. Tanned and scarred, calluses on his palms and fingers from where he had gripped a weapon countless times. Bat lifted that hand to her mouth and placed a soft kiss on the knuckles.
He didn’t ask what she saw, and she did not offer. He had, in his way, shown her what she needed to know. The blade that killed this man, Diarmuid, was the same that killed Dano and had last been seen beside a weeping woman.
One thing was clear, though. “This does come back to Benbulben. Every vision, everything I see, circles around to this place of your legends.” She glanced at Dub, and he must have suspected what she saw and seen the question in her gaze, for he nodded. She tightened her fingers on his and looked at the others. “The soul blade used on Dano was the same as the one used on the golden-haired madman.”
“Fuck.” Mell ran a hand through his shaggy hair and sat back in his seat. He glared at Finn. “If you don’t tell it, I will.”
“Hold.” Oisin raised his hand. “Let me confirm. It is why you wanted to meet here, after all. Many of the blades have a similar design.”
Bat stiffened as this not-man she had just met rose from his chair and headed for one of the cases. She was done doubting herself, but why did these immortals continue to… He reached in and drew out a tome. Bound in worn and scraped leather, it was as thick as the width of her hand, the pages ragged. He carried it with gentle care and placed it before her with a soft whump. Then, again oh so carefully, he drew it open, flipping to a page of sketches. “Please, for our own formalities and records, identify the blade you saw.” His voice was matter of fact. “We have certain procedures we must follow in this modern time.”
The Forgotten Trilogy Page 15
