The Arrow (Children of Brigid Trilogy Book 1)

by Maureen O'Leary

  An uncomfortable clearing of throats. One doctor leaned over, adjusted his mask.

  “Let’s just get this over with,” he said and pumped more Nine in her vein.

  She opened her mouth to yell but her chin fell slack. The dark tunnel again.

  ***

  A cluster of cells rolled into a ball, a zygote with the density and power of a star nestled in a warm galaxy. Fynn imagined herself curling around it, her folded body as vast as the universe.

  I love you, she said not with her voice but with her entire being. The little ball emitted sparks in response. It ignited into a pulsing light. It was the energy of the sun and the waves of the sea. It was the electric rhythm of the heart of every human being who ever loved.

  The scalpel broke her skin. The energy nestled inside of Fynn exploded as if in a solar flare. There were shouts and the crashing of metal instruments. The thick leather straps that held her head and limbs snapped and she was free.

  The room came into focus. She stood on shaky legs, her feet cold on the institutional tile. A doctor twitched on the floor as if electrocuted, still holding the scalpel in his spasmodic hand. The door swung closed as the other two ran out. She yanked the tubes from her nose, hand.

  Cain stood with his hands up, as though she were a wild thing he still had hope of taming.

  “Fynn, my darling,” he said. “There is nothing out there for you. Come with me and you’ll have anything you want forever.”

  “Nine,” she said with a drug-thick tongue. “You son of a bitch!”

  “You’ll never have to quit again,” Cain said. “There won’t be any reason to. I have enough of it to keep you happy forever.”

  Fynn steadied herself with a hand on the wall. Escape. She took a step to the door.

  Cain blocked the way. “I can’t let you go,” he said. He smiled with a regretful sadness as though he wished he could help her, but just couldn’t. “The operation didn’t work out, but we’re leaving together anyway. This is happening whether you want it to or not.”

  Fynn took another step. Her brain activity was too sluggish to be called thinking. Bows and arrows. Clothes. Boots. She needed them.

  He put his arm around her. She leaned in to him, smelled his designer perfume beneath antiseptic soap. He pulled down his mask to kiss her forehead. His eyes shone with tears and madness.

  Fynn let him tuck her under his arm. From deep inside her body, a lightning blast of healing light boosted her to alertness. She had to get out of this death room. Blood soaked the thin cotton gown she wore. A deep razor-sharp cut under her navel bled in a seeping stream.

  A hysterectomy. He meant to make it so she could never have children. This had been Cain’s secret plan to stop the Three but still keep her as his own. It was so secret that Eli hadn’t even known about it. But it hadn’t worked. Something inside of her stopped it.

  “We’ll get past my mother,” he said, his voice rising in pitch. The hallway had a white floor, white walls, and long white fluorescent bulbs in the white ceiling. Fynn squinted in the harsh light. Blood ran down her legs, squished under her feet. Cain didn’t seem to notice. He talked into a phone, gave directions about a chopper, a meet on the roof.

  He jabbed at the elevator buttons until the door opened.

  The two other doctors slumped within like broken dolls with their necks bent at strange angles. Cain cursed and pulled her away.

  Eli burst through the door and rushed his brother. Fynn fell to her hands and knees, gulping for air, willing her heart to stop racing.

  Eli shoved Cain against the wall, lifting his collar under his chin with two hands. He wore the long knapsack packing her weapons over his shoulder but he wasn’t using them. His bare hands were deadly enough.

  “She’s mine,” Cain said. He spit in his brother’s face. “Mine.”

  Eli’s lips pulled back over his demon teeth. He tightened his grip until Cain’s face turned dark purple.

  “No, Eli,” Fynn said. “Don’t kill him.” The last thing Eli needed weighing on his soul was the murder of his unarmed brother. Blood pooled at her feet. She pressed in at her middle with the flat of one hand.

  “No, my love,” she said, “Not your brother.”

  Eli’s forearms shook but he relaxed his hold. He let his brother down and left him gasping against the wall. Eli lurched into the elevator and tossed out the doctors. He lifted Fynn with one arm.

  An explosion of gunfire shattered her ears. Eli grunted and reeled to the side. Fynn inhaled gunpowder and something else. It was the smell of her own death.

  “Daemonium,” she said. The bullets were smelted with daemonium. There would be precious few of them. It would only take one to kill her.

  Cain struggled to his feet, clutching at his own throat, waving an enormous handgun like an angry drunk. Eli blocked her with his body and shoved Fynn into the elevator. Another bullet pinged against the doors as they closed.

  “My Lady, I don’t get it.” Eli’s voice clicked with demonic anger. “You wouldn’t let me kill my brother after everything he’s done?” He bled from the shoulder. She put down the bow and pushed his collar aside to look at it but there was no bullet hole. It was only grazed.

  “It’s got to stop somewhere,” she said. Whatever else Cain was, he was Eli’s brother. He didn’t need Cain’s murder on his soul along with everything else he had done.

  Eli roared and kicked the steel doors, leaving dents in the metal. She leaned into the corner of the elevator, her head spinning. She had to stay conscious. He needed her to help him fight their way out of the building. He couldn’t have been expecting to find her half stoned on an elephant’s dose of Nine.

  “Cate’s in the building,” Eli said. “Just a head’s up.”

  The warm honey in her limbs was pure destruction, no matter how oddly tolerant her system had grown. The downside of the high was going to be torture. No witch on the planet was scarier than what she was going to go through in a day or two when the Nine wore off. In the face of everything, the withdrawals that were coming terrified her the most.

  “Do you think we beat him downstairs?” she asked. Daemonium gunshot would be the end of her.

  “You should have let me kill him,” he said, his eyes full of storms she could hardly imagine.

  “I didn’t know he had a gun,” she said. The course of action they’d agreed on in secret in William’s cabin had gone as wrong as possible.

  “I’m getting you out,” he said.

  They landed on the ground floor. Eli pushed her behind him, ready to defend her against whatever waited on the other side of the doors.

  40. The Witch Mother

  It has to stop somewhere. Even drunk on Nine, Eli knew that Fynn meant it. He obeyed her though it was killing him. He shook with the frustration of not killing his brother when he had the chance. Demonic power surged in his bloodstream. The futility of the missed kill was the worst part of it. As much as he loved Fynn, she was wrong to worry about Eli having fratricide on his soul’s conscience. He was so far beyond redemption. The balances were already tipped.

  He had to focus on getting her out of the building. He could only move forward, could only worry about getting the youngest goddess out of the witches’ nest. If anyone got in his way, that person would die and he would grovel for forgiveness later.

  The dented elevator hissed open. His mother stood on the other side.

  He froze in place. Gone were the pinstripe suit and high-heeled shoes. Her hair hung past her shoulders. She wore a skirt and tunic and a crown of purple windflowers.

  Cain Pharmaceuticals dissolved. A breeze smelling of redwood forest and briny mist cooled his face. A windflower dropped at his feet, its petals falling apart from the center. He crushed it by mistake in his clumsy fist.

  “My son.” She was smiling as though she were kind.

  “Mother,” he said. She touched his cheek.

  She carried wild daisies from the meadow, bruised purple petals with broken stem
s. The laughter of the other Keep children rang in his ears and he was filled with a hope that brought him to his knees.

  “Thank you for the flowers,” she said. “They are beautiful. What a good boy you are.”

  She pressed into an ancient hurt. He was four years old again, bringing his beautiful mother flowers. But instead of ripping them apart and beating him, she accepted them.

  He lowered his forehead to the floor. “Kill the Kildare witch,” she said. Eli tilted his head. There was the noise of bees and he wondered if a few lingered in the windflowers. She was asking him to do something hard. He tried to understand.

  “She’ll hurt me if you don’t,” his mother said. He moved forward and hugged her legs, burying his face in her knees. He was within the Keep walls and within the scope of his mother’s love. Relief flooded through him to be so blameless and pure.

  “I’ll protect you,” he said into the cotton of her skirt.

  “Kill Fynn,” she whispered, slipping a knife into his hands. It was heavy daemonium, the one Amon had used to hurt Fynn before.

  Before. Before Mother Brigid’s healing coursed through Eli, coaxing his soul to return to his corrupted body. Before he was redeemed. His mother’s image faltered. He swept the floor with his fingers. There were no flowers there.

  A sharp whistle flew by his ear. An arrow flew through Cate’s shoulder, knocking her flat. Eli turned, his rage in full force returning. Fynn stood in the open elevator, bowstring already fitted with another arrow. He swung back to his mother, who lay splayed on the floor in patent leather high heels and a narrow black pencil skirt hiked up to her thighs. She squirmed like a dangerous insect, the arrow sticking out between her collarbone and shoulder. She was the same Hecate he’d suffered under ever since the day he was born.

  From down the hall, the shattering of plate glass. The noise of demonic howling, a mob of hundreds. “Check that out,” Fynn said, her eyes on Cate. Eli hesitated. “Go,” she ordered, raising her bow. Her aim would be true. She wasn’t letting him have this kill, either.

  He ran toward the lobby, choking on his grief. He lurched away while his mother called for the demons to save her.

  Then the Arrow hit her mark and the witch fell silent.

  41. The Awakened Ones

  Fynn followed signs towards the lobby exit. She turned a corner in the maze and hit her face into Eli’s chest. He grabbed her shoulders and motioned for silence.

  “Up,” he whispered. “We’ve got to get to the roof.”

  “We need to get out,” she said. Going back in, they would run into Cain.

  He motioned her to the end of the hall. They peeked around the corner. The only way to the outside was through a demonic horde. The lobby was full of demons. There were hundreds of them. The dead bodies of human Cain Pharmaceuticals night guards lay in the shards of broken glass from the doors. Demons jumped on the long reception desk, feeding at another guard’s neck. They hooted and grunted, their eyes hollow and glowing.

  Her fingers reached for a bow. He blocked her hand.

  “We can’t make it,” he said. “Don’t even think it.”

  She let him lead her back through the hall. They moved past the elevators to the stairwell. He entered first. “It’s clear,” he said. “We can get to the roof.”

  Plaster and splinters sprayed Fynn’s face. A shot in the wall by her head and the sharp scent of daemonium smoke.

  Cain charged them from behind, roaring. Eli threw Fynn over his shoulder and slammed the door to the stairwell closed. She grabbed onto Eli’s shoulders.

  The unearthly hooting of the throng surged through the hall. The unhuman ones were alerted to them now. They would tear them into pieces.

  “Run,” she cried. And taking two or three stairs at a time, her Mayhem protector did.

  ***

  Cain hid in the elevator. The newly awakened demons ran past as the doors closed. His mother’s chaotic and stupid demon army leapt over her skewered body thirsty only for fresh blood. He holstered his gun. He wiped his eyes and nose on his sleeve as the elevator hummed. On the horizon of his imagination the oasis of his island paradise disappeared. She’d spent the whole day with him. He never tied her up or forced her to come with him to the Vine. She was the one who called him to the Keep in the first place.

  He’d had every right to hope.

  Then she’d called Eligos, the demon bastard, her love. When she called off Eligos from strangling him, Cain’s heart leapt in undead hope even as his brother crushed his windpipe. He thought just for a second that she was saving his life because she loved him back.

  But one look and he saw that it was Eligos she had concern for. Dumb, ugly, baby Eligos had somehow stolen Fynn away from Cain. Eligos wasn’t even Eligos the demon anymore, not really. Even as he pressed the breath out of him, Cain could see the difference in his eyes. Something was wrong with him. He’d gone soft, letting Cain live because Fynn ordered it.

  The leather holster held his gun tight against his body. Two more bullets rested in the chamber of his gun. He’d shot off too early before. He wouldn’t make that mistake again. If Cain couldn’t have Fynn then nobody would.

  The door opened again on the top floor. The hall rang with the deranged noise of the demon army his mother spawned in the warehouse. They were loose with no witch to control them. He was the only one left now. He was the last witch standing. His role in the coven had been the earthly, business end. He had little truck in glamour or demon rustling. He had no idea what to do with the four hundred murdering freaks let loose in his building.

  He unlocked a utility closet that hid a roof access. The hatch at the top of the ladder opened next to an electrical fuse center large enough to hide behind, across the roof from the helicopter landing pad. Eligos and Fynn would come out at the top of the stairwell twenty feet away. He had the perfect spot to aim and fire. She would be dead before she knew he had shot her.

  He’d have a bullet left for his brother. Then he’d complete the leap he’d begun that morning. If he couldn’t control Fynn then he couldn’t have her. And he couldn’t control her. He saw that now. It didn’t mean he wanted to live without her.

  The pilot sat in his kiosk, oblivious, looking at his phone. The heavy stairwell door opened and Eligos ran out with Fynn over his shoulder. The screams of the demon horde rose behind them. The pilot ventured out of the kiosk. He’d been expecting Cain and Fynn, not a Mayhem brother.

  The demons poured out of the stairwell. One leapt on the pilot’s back and tore at his jugular with its teeth. Eligos pulled on the door to the helicopter but it was locked. Only the pilot had the key and the pilot was buried in a feeding frenzy. A growing circle of demons closed in on Eligos as more sniffed their way into the night air. Fynn stood behind him as they backed up to the edge of the roof.

  Cain held his breath as they stepped closer to his hiding place. He could almost touch her. Eligos was in full demon form, teeth razored in a wide mouth, crouched on reptilian legs. He swiped at a bold demon with one claw, slicing him open. One after the other fell to the concrete as he threw them off, shredded them with his claws, and tore their throats out with his teeth. Fynn shot off arrows, killing a few as they advanced, but her quiver grew thin.

  More demons approached. They overran the roof. Fynn and Eligos couldn’t fight them all. Cain watched through the space under the heavy trapdoor, his heart quickening.

  “I’m going for the door,” Eligos said. “I’ve got to bolt it.” Fynn protested, but this time, he did not heed her. He charged through the demons like abattering ram. They leapt on his back until no part of him was visible. He was just a knot of insanity moving to the door. There was the slide of the bolt. Then the knot fell in a mass of gleeful snarling.

  Dirt blew into Cain’s eyes. Fynn seemed caught in the middle of a tornado. In the floodlights on the roof, a cold blast plastered her hospital gown to her legs. She climbed onto the wall, her heels hanging over the edge. She would fall backward in the same death
Cain had courted. Cain yearned to leap from his hiding place and join her in the fall, but his cowardice was an iron curtain he could not pass. Tears streamed down his cheeks as she teetered into the nothingness.

  There was the sound of a jet engine motor as a black shape dove through the air and into the face of an approaching demon. Then another and another. Over the mad noise of the demons, a massive engine sound roared above their heads. Cain dared to open the trap door further, expecting Keep helicopters, paratroopers, lobbed grenades.

  What he saw turned his blood to ice. The flapping wings of countless birds blanketed the night sky. There were eagles, hawks, falcons, seagulls, ravens. They were millions, as deep as the sky itself, spiraling down in a cyclone of feathers, beaks and claws. The sound grew deafening, the wings’ percussion like heavy artillery. They descended on the roof with the force of Divine wrath.

  Cain longed to drop down the ladder and run for cover, but he couldn’t look away. The demons tried to cover themselves as the birds attacked their heads, swooping in to tear out the soft places with hooked beaks and talons. Eligos covered his head with his hands, but they did not touch him. As for Fynn, Cain watched as she stepped back one last time in her bare feet and blood-caked hospital gown, off the wall and into the air.

  Cain shouted her name despite himself, expecting her to fall into the empty space. But she did not. She stood suspended as though held by strings. Her hair lifted off her head as she outstretched her arms. She was so beautiful.

  She floated in air, ten stories up. She commanded the birds to attack her enemies, who were defenseless against the carnage of a whole sky’s worth of talons. Demons jumped over the ledge in panic while more birds dove on them until the entire roof was a shrieking, feathery, bloody mess.

  A tiny corner of Cain’s heart stood up to see such strength and magic. Yet his soul was a worm dying in the rays of the sun. Nobody should have that kind of power. All he could think over and over again was that no god nor devil should ever have that kind of power.