by Sierra Dean
“What about the girl?”
Siobhan looked at her replacement who was passed out cold and stripped bare on the altar. “The high council are cowards at the core. They’ll open the circle to save themselves, and if we do this right, we’ll be able to get in and grab her before whatever comes out has a chance to get her first. It’s the only way we’re getting over that line.”
Shane whistled again, a low, impressed sound. “You’ve got bigger balls than I do.”
Pulling her knife out, she tried to lighten the mood. “I think we both know that’s not true.” She held out her empty hand, and he gave her his arm with only the slightest hesitation.
“Try not to kill me,” he warned.
“Try not to die,” she countered before she slit open his arm.
Chapter Twelve
Siobhan was a banisher by nature. Her job was to take whatever got past the gates and send it back from whence it came. But the gateway worked in two directions. Calling them to her was just turning the ritual on its head. The problem was she didn’t have the blood she needed, which was why she had to borrow some.
Shane looked woozy as the blood seeped from his arm and wet the ground beneath their feet. She released his arm, and with her ceremonial knife in hand, she tracked the blood as it flowed towards the white circle her father and his cohorts had laid down in salt.
The moment Shane’s blood touched the circle she drove her knife into the newly reddened salt.
Light and energy exploded outwards with a force she’d been unprepared for, sending her stumbling backwards into Shane. They landed in a heap, bathed in the cool, bright illumination she’d created.
Blinking, she shielded her eyes and looked into the circle, a dome of pulsing energy now showing exactly where the ceremony site extended to. Within the confines of the dome, the high council turned towards her, and though she couldn’t see their faces, she knew they were pissed.
Let them be pissed.
She pushed herself off Shane, and they both climbed to their feet. He removed his jacket and investigated the mark on his arm with naked wonderment. The knife had acted like a soldering agent, sealing the wound once the bloodletting had ended. He rubbed the thin, long scar and turned his arm over as if expecting to see the real wound had moved of its own volition.
Seeing the blade’s healing power in action had lost its impact for Siobhan, so she returned her attention to the ceremony circle where the crackling energy of the dome had formed a bright blue pillar in the center of the clearing. The pillar sparked and billowed outwards with lightning-like arms until it was a good five feet across. The white light shrank until a wide, dark circle had appeared ten feet behind the altar, forming the black yawning mouth of the gate.
This whole venture now depended on luck. She prayed to the goddess her father hadn’t had an opportunity to summon forth whatever gatekeeper would be coming to claim the virgin sacrifice. If he had, surely the gate would have been opened already. Siobhan didn’t know what she expected to emerge from the hole, but she hoped it was something big, mean and hungry for druids and not unconscious virgins.
Shane ambled up next to her, and they stared into the circle while the druids watched the gate nervously. They moved into action, pulling out their own knives—identical to hers—and set about a speedy course to seal the gate. They wouldn’t make it on time. Opening the gate, even for a second, was long enough for something to get through.
Siobhan withdrew the compact bow from her back sling and slipped the wire off her hip, stretching it long as the bow expanded into its full size. She bent the bow, stringing the wire tight, all the while watching her clansmen try to shut the gate before—
The gate was empty one moment, and the next a big, hulking mountain of monster appeared in the opening. It was easily ten feet tall, had the skull structure of a horse and four elephantine legs as well as two humanlike arms. The only thing making the arms unusual was the sharp claws in place of fingers. The beast was entirely red, except one break in color—two solid black eyes. The monster—one she’d never seen before in her life—grabbed the nearest druid by sinking its talons in the man’s head and flinging him into the blackness of the gate.
Siobhan heard a pop, and the gate closed. Blood was blood as far as bindings went, and the gate had been appeased.
The remaining five men scattered in front of the monster like ants whose hill had been disturbed. One panicked and ran headlong into his own protective circle, and the swirling wall of energy sent him flying back, directly into the monster’s waiting arms.
The monster ripped the druid in half.
Siobhan recognized the gruff voice of her father shouting directions to his still-living comrades while he knelt before the salt line and began to chant in Gaelic. The breaking ritual. She fixated on the slab where the girl lay supine, and prayed the monster would seek out more active prey before turning its attention to the unconscious innocent. Watching her father’s mouth move, she could hear the words he was speaking echoing in her head, words she’d chanted herself a thousand times over.
She knew the exact moment the barrier would collapse.
Leveling her bow and keeping both eyes on her father, Siobhan could feel her fingers trembling. It wasn’t that she harbored any kind of warm-and-fuzzy feeling towards the man who’d sired her, but the idea she might need to put an arrow in him didn’t sit well.
It wouldn’t stop her. She knew what needed to be done, and she understood this girl didn’t need to die. The texts said a female of the clan should be sacrificed on her twenty-fifth birthday. The girl on the slab was not a member of the Claughdid. Siobhan doubted she was even twenty-five. A virgin, possibly, but what did that matter? If the texts were to be followed to the letter, one item out of three wasn’t going to cut it. Especially not when Siobhan herself still met more of the criteria and had been deemed unworthy.
Two days ago she’d believed the Claughdid clan did what was hard but what was right. Now—because of her own selfish desire to live—she could see the absurdity of the clan’s ways more clearly. They protected people, that was undeniable, but did that justify killing innocents when they thought it bettered their cause?
Siobhan’s fingers twitched.
She didn’t know what to believe, but she knew she couldn’t blindly believe in the gospel of the druids anymore.
The protective field shimmered, wavering between something of substance and no longer existing. Siobhan’s grip tightened, and the shake vanished from her fingers. Whether or not the man in her sights was her father, she would shoot him if she needed to.
She hoped she wouldn’t need to.
The barrier came down with a whoosh of misty air like a wave breaking against a pier. Next to her, the nearly forgotten Shane staggered back two steps and gasped in a hard breath like he’d been sucker-punched. He held his gun as though he wanted to shoot something, but at least for the moment there was nothing to shoot.
Siobhan took a step forward, and her father raised a hand without looking up to see her move.
“Don’t,” he warned.
“The gate has been sated. Move so I can save the girl.”
Eion laughed gruffly and got to his feet, his balance shaky from the effort of the spell he’d just completed. “My ritual is not done.”
Behind him, the red horse-monster grabbed one of the remaining druids, sinking clawed fingers deep into the man’s ribs. Screams echoed across the circle, followed by the meaty sound of flesh being rended from bone. The creature stuffed dripping handfuls of the druid’s fatty tissues into its gaping, fanged mouth.
So far it hadn’t noticed Eion, Shane and herself. But they were running out of red shirts, and soon enough the beast would come for them.
“What are you trying to prove?” Siobhan seethed. Her fingers were twitching now for another reason. Now she sort of wanted to shoot her father.
“You’ve disobeyed us. Proven you are but weak mortal flesh, like all women.”
“Dude,” Shane said, shaking his head while shifting his attention momentarily away from the monster. “Weak mortal flesh? Seriously? This woman will kick. Your. Ass.”
Bolstered by Shane’s assessment of her, Siobhan gave Eion a smile loaded with a threat.
“I fathered a disappointment,” Eion replied, sucking all the wind back out of her sails.
“Hey, Dad?” Siobhan jerked her chin up to make sure Eion’s glare moved from Shane back to her. “About that warrior job you seem to think I’m unfit for?”
Her father grunted, puffing up his chest to make himself appear larger, looking like he was bracing for a fight.
She released the arrow she’d been holding for what felt like an eternity, and it flew free with a twang. The air seemed to part around the projectile, and for Siobhan it all happened in slow motion. The feathered tail end of the arrow twisted as it moved, and a moment before it struck home she watched her father’s eyes widen with shock.
“I quit,” she said, as the arrow lodged itself into his all-too-human flesh.
Chapter Thirteen
If there were more time, Shane would have taken a second to marvel at the woman standing next to him. The chick had just shot her own father with an arrow, and she made it look easy. Anyone who thought women weren’t twice as badass as men clearly weren’t spending time with the same caliber of ladies Shane was.
The problem was—in spite of Siobhan’s stellar aim—she’d shot to wound instead of kill, hitting Eion in his shoulder. In doing so she’d failed to consider that her father wasn’t the kind of man who was going to lie down and let them finish what they’d come to do. Eion had regained his footing, and the look he’d fixed on his daughter said she was in for way more trouble than being grounded.
They had bigger problems, though.
Literally.
The already mammoth-sized horse-monster had grown at least a foot in height since eating the druids, and Shane didn’t want to wait to find out if it would keep growing the more it ate.
“Hey, Red?”
Siobhan was busy reloading her bow but gave a small grunt of acknowledgment.
“The big horse-faced dude…I’m no expert here, but is he supposed to be, you know, getting bigger?”
His redheaded companion took one look at the creature and swore under her breath. “That’s bad.”
“You think?”
The monster—oblivious to their discussion—had caught up to another of the scrambling druids and begun dismembering him. Shane hadn’t thought a lot about how he was going to die, but he’d long assumed it was inevitable in his line of work. He’d sometimes imagined one day a lovely rogue lady vamp who was ten times too strong for him would put him under the thrall, use his body as a sex toy before bleeding him dry.
A guy could dream, couldn’t he?
Being shredded apart and eaten by a black-eyed fae who looked like it belonged at the front of Satan’s Revelation’s chariot out of hell wasn’t even on Shane’s imaginary top-ten list.
Eion had broken off the tail end of the arrow, leaving the metal shaft sticking out of his shoulder, and turned to follow their attention to the carnage. At which point he laughed. Shane assumed shock or blood loss was to blame until he grabbed hold of the last-remaining druid who’d come to quiver next to him and thrust his ceremonial blade into the man’s chest.
“For you,” Eion cried, kicking the man’s limp body in the direction of the beast.
The fae had blood dripping from its mouth and looked down at what Eion had offered it. It smiled and plucked the body from the ground, letting go of the other desiccated corpse it was nearly finished eating.
“You please me,” the monster said, making Shane jump. It had a voice like gravel in a garbage disposal, rough and unpleasant. Sort of like Tom Waits with tuberculosis. But more than the voice, it was the fact that something so terrible was speaking at all which gave Shane the heebie-jeebies.
“I have more than matched our bargain,” Eion said.
The monster looked thoughtful, and even as they watched on, it began to grow taller and wider, the bones and muscles of its body screaming in protest, grinding with each inch it expanded. When it was pushing twenty feet tall, Shane wondered if he might be better off putting his gun in his own mouth, because there was no way bullets were taking that thing down.
“This was not what I asked for,” the beast said. “When your ancestors banished me from my rightful plane, I was promised untainted blood. What you’ve fed me smacks of impurity. I haven’t waited all these years for this.” It licked its lips and growled softly.
“I brought you an untouched human offering.” Eion directed the monster’s attention to the stone slab, where the hot girl with glasses was still out cold.
The fae moved towards the altar, and Siobhan took a step forward, her bow ready for the moment she needed to protect the girl.
“This sad offering is not of your blood.” It sneered at the girl but didn’t back away.
“It was the best I could do. My original offering was…” Eion sighed and shrugged. “She was spoiled.”
Shane didn’t think the guy meant it in the I bought her too many toys and ponies sense of the word. He’d also lost track of Siobhan’s movements and only noticed her a second before she stepped across the salt line and into the clearing.
“Son of a…” He clambered down the hill after her and almost bumped into her when she came to an abrupt halt. Here—inside the circle—the creature loomed even bigger. Impossibly large. It being slick with blood and staring directly at them didn’t help Shane feel any better about the whole thing.
The creature peered at Siobhan and smiled a creepy, leering grin that showed off rows of bloodstained, sharp-looking teeth. “This one is one of your kind,” it said.
“Don’t get too excited. You won’t find any purity here.” Siobhan edged towards the stone platform until she was standing on the opposite side of it, facing the monster with an arrow aimed right at its face.
“This new generation is plagued by insolence.” The monster let out a huff and spoke directly to Eion. “I am no longer pleased with you.”
“Siobhan, put down your weapon,” her father demanded.
“I’ll put it down if I can take the girl and leave.”
She was so small in comparison to her father and the mountainous creature glaring down at her. If she was scared, it didn’t show. Shane, on the other hand, was about ready to shit himself. If he lived past tonight, he wouldn’t bitch about hunting vampires ever again. Bloodsucking fiends might not be fun, but this was a whole new level of awful. Shane had never wanted to know this much about the diversity of fae.
“I don’t want this pathetic offering,” the monster said, pointing a claw in the direction of the unconscious girl.
“You’ve been fed, it’s time to go back,” Siobhan told it.
Eion and Shane stood side by side watching as the petite warrior negotiated with the monster four times her height.
“No,” it replied.
“I’ll reopen the gate, and you will go through it.” Her voice quavered the slightest bit, and Shane heard the uncertainty in it. So did the fae.
“Girl, do you know how long I’ve been on the other side waiting to be called through? Others like this oaf were smarter. They made the opening too small to get through when they called to me and made their offerings. Seems like time has done nothing to improve the wisdom of your people.”
Siobhan, who had opened the gate without knowing the monster had already been called to it, looked abashed. She’d told Shane she just wanted something to scare the druids. Neither of them could have known that what they would unleash would be so much worse.
“I—” She began to speak, but the monster lashed out, backhanding her with shocking speed. Siobhan flew across the circle and smacked into a tree, making a loud crack sound. Her bow clattered to the ground, and she tumbled after it, flopping limply into the duff.
“I will not be bound,”
screamed the fae.
It didn’t wait for anyone to chat with it again. Charging in the direction Shane and Siobhan had entered from, the monster vanished into the darkness. Eion stood, mouth agape, watching the empty space where the creature had last been. Shane didn’t waste time staring at the woods. He skirted the stone table and skidded to a stop beside Siobhan.
“Red. Hey, Red.” He tapped her face with a light slap.
No response.
He lifted her head, and his fingers felt warm and tacky with blood. “Hey, sweetheart, you wanna wake up for me?” he asked hopefully.
She groaned, giving his heart a leap. “What happened?”
“You saved the girl.”
Siobhan gave a weak smile, her eyes fluttering open. Her gaze swept the area behind him, and a frown settled over her lips. “Where did…?” She glanced at her father’s transfixed figure. “Did he banish it?” she asked.
“Um…”
“Did he banish it?” she demanded, sitting bolt upright before wobbling slightly from her head wound.
“Not so much.”
“Then where is it?”
Eion turned around, looking at his daughter cradled in Shane’s arms. “We’ve made a terrible mistake,” he mumbled.
Siobhan gazed at Shane wide-eyed. “What does that mean?”
When Eion didn’t speak, Shane ventured a response. “You know how it’s bad when a troll gets through the gate and out into the streets?”
Her skin went whiter than usual, taking on a green-gray pallor. “Yes.”
“This is about a thousand times worse.”
Chapter Fourteen
They couldn’t leave the girl, but Siobhan didn’t want to trust her father. Considering he’d kidnapped the girl so he could kill her, Siobhan figured the distrust had been earned.
Outside the Bath & Body Works, Shane set the unconscious girl on the sidewalk and pulled out his cellphone. They’d dressed the girl the best they could given how torn up her clothing had been once her kidnappers had taken them off her. One of the dead druids had a robe that wasn’t too shredded, and they’d wrapped it around her damaged clothes to keep her protected from the elements. She was still out cold.
