Through Time-Pursuit

by Conn, Claudy

“Chance—stop!” she called to his retreating figure

  He turned to frown a look at her. “What is it, lass?”

  “Pestale … Pestale … I was just with Pestale!”

  Ho-ho, she thought when he came charging towards her at full attention, and it occurred to her that he was magnificent. No, more than magnificent. He filled up the air all around him and blotted out all else. He pulsated with vibrant life and gave off a current that went inside her and pulled her to him. She had to blink and shake herself free from the sensation.

  Trevor was there as well, his voice full with excitement. “What do you mean, you were just with Pestale?”

  Royce realized something in that moment—Pestale was more than a force to be reckoned with: he was a threat to life as everyone knew it.

  Chance and Trevor’s hatred of the Dark Prince had to be turned into a living, breathing force, controlled and brilliant, if they were going to be as ruthless, as cunningly efficient as he was. They had a determined foe on their hands.

  It would take their combined might to destroy him.

  ~ Five ~

  EYES WIDE WITH impatience, it was Chance who put his hands on her shoulders and gave them a little shake. “What the bloody hell are ye saying, lass?”

  “I was at the water’s edge when all of a sudden, this thing … a dark mist … or a cloud enveloped me, and then the next thing I knew I was in Pestale’s arms, and he—”

  “Damnation, hell and fire!” shouted Chance. “Did he hurt you? Lass, are you hurt?”

  “No, no, and you forget, I am not a lass—I am a princess of the House of Nimrough,” she answered, her chin well up. Once again he was discounting her worth, and it was getting old. “Besides,” she conceded, “I don’t think he wanted to hurt me, but never mind that. There’s something you need to know—”

  “Pestale takes you—you get away, and you tell me there is something I need to know?” Chance looked at her as though she had two heads.

  And then Royce felt as though the world around her had frozen into the moment.

  Chance and Trevor followed her gaze and went silent as they looked around. It was as though a hand had waved itself over all living things in their vicinity and obliterated their sound and movements.

  Royce looked around with an awful feeling. The birds had stopped their chirping. The breeze had turned into stagnant air, but the lake, which had been gently lapping, much like a quiet mill pond, had turned into a raging series of swells any surfboarder would have thrilled to see.

  What by Danu is happening? she asked herself.

  She couldn’t speak as she watched something unnatural emerge out of those sudden waves. It swirled tightly—wildly screwing itself into a foam of water and dark mass much like a tornado. It was on a clear path, the tour boat overloaded with passengers its single goal.

  Royce knew that the Lakes of Killarney were subject to strange and intensely spontaneous weather changes because of the mountains that surround them, but this, this had nothing to do with the normal weather patterns. This was sorcery at its most potent!

  She pointed but felt like an idiot because both Chance and Trevor were already gaping at the horrifying scene.

  Without warning, she heard Pestale’s voice in her ear. “Next time, Princess, you will think twice before disrespecting me.”

  This was on her? Those people in the boat were going to die because she had been rude to the Dark Prince? She couldn’t allow that to happen. She had to do something, but what did one do when faced with evil so powerful it could command the elements? If she had doubted Pestale’s pure wickedness before, she no longer did.

  She felt a choking sensation in her throat as she tried to answer him, and then whatever magic had brought his words to her was gone. He was gone.

  Do something, she told herself. This was her fault. Pestale was punishing her by destroying innocent people. He was using his Dark Magic to control a wind force that would overturn the boat. People would be severely injured; many would perish …

  She cried out even as she racked her brain for the spell to destroy the force stalking the tour boat. “We must do something!”

  Trevor frowned and said, “We may not—interference is forbidden!”

  She didn’t have time to argue with him so she punched him hard in his belly, and then her world did a tumble as logic froze with utter horror.

  A young girl became separated from her parents by the commotion and rush of people. She dashed madly and haphazardly about as people tried to hold onto anything they could within the large cabin of the tour boat. She looked no more than eight or nine.

  The little girl took a fall but clambered onto her knees, but then the boat tipped onto its side. She rolled onto her back and slid along the decking to the open rail. Just in time, she managed to grab onto one of the mainstay poles of the railing; the child held on as best she could as her lower body hung over the side of the boat.

  A swell of water seemed to form a hand as it collected onto itself and raised grasping, watery tentacles. The water appeared to have a mind of its own as it reached for the boat and the little girl.

  Royce didn’t think; she didn’t care about rules or the long-ago Treaty with Man. A little girl was in trouble. Without thought to herself or the punishment she most certainly would incur for her ‘interference’, she shifted to the child and removed the Féth Fiada of invisibility so the girl would be able to see her and not be frightened.

  “You’re okay—I’ve got you,” Royce said as she held the child cradled in her arms and shifted inside the cabin, where people were screaming and trying to hold onto seats and whatever they could find as the boat tipped dangerously from side to side in the wild and huge waves.

  “Mom!” the little girl shouted out, and Royce spied the mother, who was screaming her child’s name in her attempt to locate her.

  “Danielle!” the mother cried again. Royce did what she had to do and shifted with the child, put her in her mother’s arms, and shifted away before they could ask any questions or think about what they had just witnessed.

  She told herself they wouldn’t think about how—they would only be thankful they had found each other.

  Royce returned to stand at the water’s edge and saw Chance, his legs spread apart and his fist in the air. He was commanding wind and water using an old Gaelic spell that Royce should have remembered earlier. She grimaced to herself. I should have paid more attention to my lessons!

  She wondered fleetingly where he had learned it, as it was a Seelie Fae spell, but shrugged it off. The Milesians were a resourceful lot. Chance had been around for the war with the Fae and the subsequent Treaty. There was no saying what he had learned along that journey.

  She worked in tune with Chance, using a spell to move the boat forward, shifting style, to gain ground on the vicious whirlwind tornado at its back, but the force of raging wind and water was still gaining speed and power.

  Royce turned to Chance and watched him. She was struck by the determination of the man. He did not question, as Trevor did. He didn’t worry about interfering with fate. He took action. She looked around for Trevor, but he was nowhere in sight.

  Chance LeBlanc was a mystery to her, and at that moment, all she knew was that she believed in his ability to fight Pestale’s Dark Magic. Chance didn’t question the useless, perhaps even outdated, edicts of the Treaty—or the need to allow fate to rule. These were traditions and bygone rules of long ago, thought Royce as she watched him. Chancemont LeBlanc simply did what needed to be done, and she found herself drawn to his inner strength.

  Not romantically, she told herself. He was still a ‘heartbreaker’, and he had remained unattached all through the centuries. He had never committed to anyone all these hundreds upon hundreds of years. In comparison, she was the equivalent of a twenty-year-old human and had not even reached her full maturity. And yet, she wished he might show an interest in her—would he … could he?

  What she wanted was commitment. Ridicu
lously, she wondered if he had ever been in love. All silly musings considering the gravity of the situation, and she hurriedly shoved such thoughts away.

  Chancemont stood, much like the God of Thunder, his fist raised high as he chanted. It was actually beginning to work. The gale force of the tornado had subsided, and the boat, although still tipping from side to side, was well out of its grip. The swells in the Lower Lake were still unnaturally huge, but even so, they were beginning to diminish.

  The people from the boat could not see her or Chance standing at the water’s edge fighting black magic, since they were cloaked in invisibility. No doubt they believed they had somehow survived a freakish storm.

  “Chant with me, lass—because the devil hasn’t given up yet. Let’s show the Dark Prince what we can do …” he yelled in Royce’s direction before shouting out the ancient words, “Fuascailt suaimhneach.”

  “Fuascailt suaimhneach,” she chanted, joining him. He took her hand, and she felt the energy between them as it shot across the lake and blasted what remained of the swirling dark mass into a gentle mist.

  However, Chance had been correct—Pestale had not given up the fight.

  Horrified, Royce watched the swirl of wind and rain suddenly develop into a riveting mass of fury. Out of its depths a blistering and horned creature appeared. It clawed and bellowed out furiously and sounded as though it had come from the black pits of hell, and it filled the atmosphere with a bloodthirsty and bloodcurdling roar.

  “Chance …?” Her voice was scarcely above a whisper.

  He pulled her close and grinned. “Demons—he thinks to use a demons? As though a demon can’t be stopped. Lord love ye, lass, just draw on what ye are!” He laughed as though thoroughly enjoying the challenge. Holding her tightly, he told her gleefully, “Chant!”

  And so they did, over and over.

  The horned creature couldn’t see them in their Féth Fiada—it wasn’t Fae. As always they were when cloaked invisible to all but other Fae. However, the demon Pestale had called forth felt the might of their combined magic, and his claws swiped at air and wind and them.

  It drooled, seethed, and raged, but while Chance and Royce held it at bay it couldn’t move forward towards the boat quickly heading for the dock by Ross Castle.

  Then, just as instantly as the tornado of wind and water and the monster had arrived, all of it was gone. The storm that had nearly capsized the boat had vanished as though it had never been. Royce was astonished; she had not thought Pestale would give up so easily.

  People on the boat were clapping and shouting, “Bravo!” to no one in particular, and Royce supposed that if they had seen the horned demon they simply put it down as a trick of the eye.

  Chance looked at her and swooped her up into his arms cradle-like as though she were no more than a babe. “There, little Princess—what do you think now?”

  She laughed, for he obviously wanted praise. “Quite well done, big Milesian—quite well done.”

  “Well done? Is that all ye have to say? It was damned brilliant!” He chuckled happily. “We were brilliant!” After a few seconds, however, his smile faded. “And now, I want ye to tell me how Pestale got a hold of ye and why ye didn’t kill him when ye had the chance.”

  * * *

  Chance set her on her feet and eyed her angrily.

  Royce’s chin went up defensively, and her hands went to her jean-clad hips. “What makes you think I had a chance to kill him?”

  “Ye said he took ye into his arms—so by my way of thinking, unless that was what ye wanted, ye should have run him through right then!” Chance snapped, his eyes glaring at her.

  “I was taken by surprise, and when he kissed me—” she started.

  “He what?” Chance ran a frantic hand through his yellow locks. “He kissed ye? Ye let him kiss ye?”

  “I was taken by surprise … but even so, I don’t think I was in any way too distracted to call for my sword! It just wouldn’t have worked … at that moment … I knew he was prepared for just such an eventuality, and besides, just then, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to capture him or kill him.”

  Chance took her shoulders, pulled her up close, and looked hard and long into her eyes. “Are ye saying ye doona want him dead?”

  “I wasn’t certain then … now I think, yes, he should die … and then … I am not certain again.”

  Chance dropped his hands and stood back from her. “Aye—then go home, lass. Ye best go home.”

  “I am not going because, so far, I am the only lead you have to Pestale.”

  “Then answer me this. If ye know the Dark Prince will harm where he chooses—as he just attempted—what then will ye do?”

  “Whatever it takes to stop him—that is a defensive move, that I can do—but cold, calculated killing …”

  He paced a moment. “Ye be a trial, lass.”

  “You may not think so when I tell you that I trust you to use me as bait.” She put up a hand to stall a string of epithets he started to level over her suggestion. “He wants me—for whatever reason, he has decided I should be his mate, and he means to have me. At some point, you could use me to draw him out.”

  “Daft ye be, like your friend Trevor …” Chance’s accent thickened with his frenzy.

  She smiled. “You know, Chance, you have surprised me. I had thought you a loose cannon of a playboy … but there is much more to you. You are what a human friend of mine would call ‘solid’.”

  He laughed without mirth. “Solid, am I? Doona be so sure, lass … I might yet disappoint ye, for there is no telling why I do the things I do.”

  “How did you know the spell to vanquish that demon? It is an ancient Seelie Fae power.”

  “Ah, that is a long story, but know this—there was a time when I had a friend … a Seelie Fae friend. He wasn’t royalty, but he was honorable and good and had the heart so many Seelie Fae lack. He taught me many things before he was lost in the war that pitted us against one another …”

  “Oh … oh no … did you have to fight him?”

  “No, and when he received his death blow … I found him, and was with him in his last moments.”

  “Chance … oh … I can’t imagine what you must have felt.”

  “Good. I wouldna want a wee thing like ye to imagine such pain.” He shrugged it off, grinned, took her by the waist, and brought her in close. He looked long into her eyes and said softly, “I canna think of that devil’s lips on yours without burning inside. Doona let it happen again.”

  “Well, it wasn’t as though I had a choice …” She felt a wild heat rush into her cheeks.

  “Ye had a choice. Doona try and tell me, otherwise lass. Ye are strong and sure, and I’m not a betting man, but I would wager ye were curious about him. Doona be curious again.”

  “You think you are so smart!” Royce snapped at him, feeling like a schoolgirl. “And you can’t tell me what to do.”

  “I can and I am—doona let him touch ye again.”

  “Well, I don’t want to, but even so, you can’t tell me not to do anything I choose to do,” she retorted angrily.

  “Think not?” His smile was smug. “Think again.”

  “Grrr …” She made a sound but decided she would change the subject. She looked around and asked, “And where did Trevor go off to?”

  Chance shrugged. “I doona have a clue.”

  “Well, I am sadly disappointed in him. He should have joined our efforts to save those people.”

  “Och lass, doona be so judgmental. He has his beliefs, just as ye have yers.”

  Royce frowned over this as she silently conceded his point. It was at that moment she felt the atmosphere wiggle. Trevor stepped out of his shifting to stand before them, a grin on his face and a large, blue-velvet–covered globe in his hands.

  The thought still jumbled in her mind as she looked at her old friend. Yeah, beliefs or not, he just up and left!

  She stomped over to him, slapped his arm roughly, and then wagged
a finger. “How could you just leave like that?”

  “Ow—no need to keep hitting me every single time you don’t agree with me, Red. I saw you two had things under control so I decided to go off and find Danté and get the Lugh Orb.” He shoved the blue-velvet–covered ball into her hands.

  “Still, you should have helped us,” she said as she removed the velvet cover and held up the transparent Orb. Humans would call it a crystal ball, she thought, but it was so much more.

  “I wouldn’t have been much help … and besides, Red, you know we are not supposed to interfere with humans,” he said, avoiding her eye.

  “We weren’t interfering with humans—we were interfering with Pestale,” she shot back at him. “He was punishing me for shifting away from him when he wanted me to stay. He was, I believe, attempting to manipulate my behavior towards him in the future.” Her free hand went to her hip. “Since when do we let a Dark Fae interfere with humans? We don’t—we use our brain, which tells us that we are supposed to take Pestale and his black magic down.”

  He eyed her, frowned as he thought about this, but said nothing. Chance slapped him on the back and said, “’Tis never easy to go against one’s orders, and Trevor has only just begun to look into the face of evil. He’ll learn.”

  Chancemont LeBlanc had once again surprised her. Until the last hour she had spent with him, she had thought he was just a big, handsome hunk set on revenging his sister’s cold-blooded murder, but … he was more so much more. He was full of logic and good sense. This new side of him intrigued her. And then there was Trevor, whom she had considered one of her dearest friends, totally shocking her with his callous behavior towards humans. She had not thought he could be so … Fae cold-blooded about the humans she adored.

  She eyed Trevor sadly and decided not to give him any slack. “Well, what’s that to say to anything—all new to him? This is all new to me, but making the right choice has got to take precedence over all else.”

  “Ho ho, look at little Miss Know It All. Ye can’t cut things into black piles and white piles. Making the right choice is different for everyone. Too many colors in this world, lass.” Chance put up his hand to silence both Trevor and her and put an end to the argument. “Now, how do we use this, Trevor m’man?”