by Claudy Conn
RINGGGGGGG! They both were startled into straightening up and turning round. It was the doorbell. “Go on—go!” Maxie shooed him away.
“I will not leave you for long, my Lia. There is so much more we need to talk about.”
He was gone. Like whish and gone, just as fast as he had appeared. Gone. Ha! Remember that, she told herself. He could be kissing you one moment and then off to Faery the next!
~ Four ~
“UNCLE KENNET!” MAXIE jumped into his arms and hugged him fiercely. Her world had been closing in on her. Uncle Kennet brought back the light.
He stood there in the doorway and allowed her a moment—she took more than a few before she backed up and held both his hands. He was a tall, lean, and studious-looking man. He had tousled graying blond hair that fell in layers all around his forehead and his ears.
His sharp gray eyes smiled behind his clear glasses; however, his thin lips were drawn in deep concern. He pulled up his elbows and took her shoulders to give her a welcoming shake before he broke from her and strode into the house. Maxie’s delicate eyebrows went up. She looked at his luggage still outside, dragged the two suitcases in, dumped them in the hallway, closed the door, and hurried after him into the den, where she took his hand and tugged to exclaim, “You’re here! I didn’t know you were coming. You never said a word.”
“Had to. You didn’t sound right.” He stopped himself as though he were making up his mind about something and then dove right in. “Besides. There are things you need to know, and we have things we have to do.”
Uncle Kennet usually spoke in clips. You got a wedge of an idea here, you got a chunk of a thought there, and in between you might get a fragment of a conversation. Maxie absolutely adored him. They also shared an unusual trait: they both carried an ancestor’s name.
Kennet Silbury was named for Daniel Reigate’s partner back in 1814. Maxie had always thought that strange.
Maxie’s father and Kennet Silbury had been closer than brothers. The two had shared every secret ever known to any Reigate and Silbury family member, and Kennet had always been “Uncle Kennet” to Max.
“O—kay,” Maxie said, trying to calm him down, for she could see he was greatly agitated. Uncle Kennet’s usual demeanor was solemn. His manner was quiet, serious, and steady, but that wasn’t the present case. At the moment, he was worked up. Maxie could see he was ready to explode with something he found beyond belief.
“Come on, Uncle Kennet, into the kitchen. I’ll make us some coffee.”
“No coffee … have to talk. Must tell you … everything.” He was waving his hand fitfully.
Maxie’s eyes opened wide. Uncle Kennet did not wave his hands about. He always kept his emotions in check. This was not like him. “Okay … sit and tell me.” She plopped on the couch and tucked her legs under her butt.
“Where shall I start?” He seemed to be asking himself. He took off his glasses, rubbed his nose.
“At the beginning. That is always a good place,” Maxie answered, although she could tell he wasn’t looking at her for an answer. She was trying to be serious, but the way he was pacing about made a giggle start in her throat.
He either didn’t notice her giggle or ignored her. He put his glasses back on. “Yes. You are right.” He dropped on the sofa beside her and shrugged off his heavy gray sweat jacket.
Maxie smiled to herself. Uncle Kennet didn’t care about clothes. Never did. He wore a simple gray T-shirt, jeans, and workman’s boots, which was his daily outfit of choice no matter the destination.
Maxie smiled and waited for him to begin, and waited, and waited some more. She could see he was gathering his thoughts, sorting them, and putting them in order. All at once, he dove right in.
“Charles Squire writes that they came from the sky, landed on the Mystic First Day of May, the Beltaine—did you know that, dear?”
“They being the Tuatha Dé Danaan—the Fae?” She encouraged him to continue.
“Yes, of course. You know. I know that you know. I have always known that you know …”
“Uncle Kennet?” Maxie smiled fondly because she knew Uncle Kennet could take a computer, break it down, put it back together, hack into any system, anywhere, anytime. He had always been a brilliant man, but it was not at all easy to get him to the point. A gentle sadness swept through her as it occurred to her that he was only a couple of years short of fifty, younger than her dad had been. She drifted off on the thought and came back with a soft smile to hear Kennet reciting some facts about the Fae. It was time, she believed, to cut in with a few facts of her own.
“I met one—today … just before you rang the bell!” What the heck, she thought, if she was crazy, she might as well own up to it.
“The royal prince of Dagda.” His voice was hushed.
Now Max was not just shocked but flabbergasted. She had known that Uncle Kennet had been taken into her dad’s confidence. He knew the legend. He knew about her ‘second sight’, her ‘visions’, and the fact that she could see the Fae. He had always believed it all. He had no doubts. However, Max had only just met the prince. There was no way he could know that. “How do you know—I mean, how?”
“My dear, I too have read the journals. You know that my family has been privy to everything from the moment Daniel Reigate returned to New York in 1814 from his sister’s—your namesake’s—funeral.”
“Yes, but how would you …”
“The prince has been the trustee of all Julian Talbot’s considerable holdings. He has, in fact, taken a delight in playing with Talbot’s financial accounts and has multiplied the Talbot fortune time and again over the last almost two hundred years.”
She couldn’t speak at first, because she needed to digest all of it. She looked at Uncle Kennet and studied him. “And you know this about the prince … how?”
“Over the years the prince has kept my family in the loop, as we were always meant to help when Talbot was ready to return to the world … his world, our world. After your parents were killed in the plane crash, the prince came to see me, and then just recently he came again.”
“Whoa.” It was all she could think to say. “The prince …? Was he in human Glamour?” Astonishment opened her eyes wide. “He … visited you … conversed with you?”
“Yes, he was in human Glamour and very polite.” He eyed Maxie. “You say you met him today. May I ask what he wanted?”
“He told me Lamia DuLaine was released.”
Uncle Kennet sucked in air and slowly let it out. “Even though I have been expecting it, I must tell you, this is disturbing. However, I suppose it was just a matter of when and where.”
“Well, it scares the ‘holy everything’ out of me!” Max took a deep breath and grimaced, thinking she shouldn’t grimace. Her mom had always warned that grimacing would make wrinkles.
“What more did the prince tell you?” Kennet was pulling on his lips.
“He told me that Julian Talbot—who is living in Faery, their Isle of Tir—is no longer in his sleep state and is being educated for his emergence into the twenty-first century.”
“Ah. Then that explains it.”
“Explains what?”
“A great deal.”
“A great deal of what?” Maxie was shrieking.
“Last night out of nowhere an envelope appeared while I was working at my computer. One moment it wasn’t there, and then it was. Inside the envelope was a key with a short missive.”
“A key—a missive?” Who calls notes and letters missives? Max smiled to herself; however, she was too excited to tease him on this and spluttered, “A key for what?”
“In absolutely beautiful Old World script the prince requested that I accompany you to Castle MacTalbot in the Highlands of Scotland.”
“What?” Max jumped up from the couch. “Scotland … MacTalbot? Key?”
“Yes, and it was signed, Breslyn—Prince of Dagda, and under that was a royal seal of sorts. Would you like to see it?” He pulled it ou
t of the front pocket of his jeans, and she grabbed hold of the letter, too excited to form any words.
Yes, she wanted to see it. At least if she were hallucinating, Uncle Kennet was in on it with her. Much more fun to have real live company in your hallucination.
Oh you betcha, we’re both crazy!
The prince’s script was almost as seductive as his big warrior body. It had an Old World style that was intriguing. There was no doubt that the Fae she had just met had written this. She looked at Uncle Kennet, who returned the look as she asked, “He calls it MacTalbot Castle.”
“Apparently, Mac simply means ‘sons of’, which Julian’s ancestors dropped when they began their residence in England. I imagine the Druids had to make a conscious decision if they were to survive during the difficult times when Christianity was spreading. They—your ancestors—you must know hailed from Scotland.”
Maxie nodded, and he smiled and continued. “So, many of the Druids moved to England and fell in with the Christian faith. The Talbots had formed their family home in England and were fortunate enough to retain and maintain their Scottish holdings.” He sighed heavily. “It was where Julian had intended to take his bride on that fateful day.”
“I don’t know, Uncle Kennet … I have a very creepy feeling about all of this. It seems to me that everything is moving along too quickly. Matters are speeding out of our control. I don’t like it. Isn’t that what happened to my poor ancestor, Maxine?” She shook her head over the problem, pulled in some air, and blew it out. As she thought this over, she was pretty darn sure she didn’t appreciate Fae or anyone else making her decisions for her.
“Julian’s bride was brave, as was he, but their actions were foolhardy. They made some serious mistakes because they allowed their hearts to rule instead of their heads.” Kennet looked at Maxie thoughtfully. “Talbot went rushing in to warn Lamia off in the hopes of keeping his bride safe. His bride went rushing right towards the wicked woman’s trap in hopes of obtaining a potion to save him. It is my opinion that if we keep our heads, and do a little more calculating and less rushing about, we will gain control.” He reached for Maxie’s hand. “And we have the advantage.”
“What is that?” Maxie shook her head at him. “Because I don’t see it. Poor Maxine hadn’t been told she was a Druid until it was too late. She hadn’t trained. Her parents kept her in the dark about her Druid heritage. She hadn’t evolved enough to fight DuLaine on DuLaine’s level. I may have learned about my Druid heritage, but that does not give me the advantage. I haven’t trained and sharpened any skills either. So how can I help? Where is the advantage?” Maxie asked on a desperate note as so many thoughts started bumping into one another in her mind.
“Well, for one thing you aren’t in love, so you can think clearly.” Uncle Kennet shook his head. “Their hearts got in the way of their intellect. You have to be ready for her, Maxie, because eventually she will find out about you. When she does, she will come after you.”
Well, he had a couple of good points there. She wasn’t in love, and everyone kept telling her DuLaine wanted her dead. Love … other than the very absurd crush she had had on the portrait of Julian Talbot, she had never had a serious relationship. Think clearly? She wasn’t sure her nature would allow her to do that because she was so damn spontaneous and impulsive. She still didn’t see any advantages.
“Yeah, right—not in love, and a vampire wants me dead.” She felt her mouth tighten and purse up. She went from that to chewing on the corner of her lower lip. Her thoughts were scrambling, and she started feeling overdrive taking control. “What is next?”
“Have you got your passport handy?”
~ Five ~
Julian
FAERY? JULIAN TALBOT’S deep blue eyes scanned his surroundings. It felt like a three-dimensional painting. Everywhere he looked there was perfection, like the sky—a perfect cloudless blue. The pines—the trees of variegated greens were lush, and the breeze brought him their intoxicating scent. The sand he was walking on was firm, smooth, and fresh scented. The crashing waves where he could see her face …
His mind cried, She is lost to me. They had told him as soon as he came out of the coma. They told him that DuLaine had tricked her—killed his beloved. And still, he could see her face everywhere. He had been awake for months in Faery, and still he saw her face …
She had been his bride, the love of his life. He could almost feel her beside him. He could hear her laughing and telling him on their wedding day, their last day together, “Julian, my husband, have I told you that you are the very broth of a man?”
It felt as though that were only minutes ago. What did I do? All of it … my fault! Now, here he was in this new century, wearing what his educator, Cahal, called a swimsuit. His mind rebelled. Damn them for keeping me alive.
He didn’t care that the cool sand beneath his bare feet was soothing and scented with vanilla. He didn’t want to be, and he didn’t want to enjoy. His only love had been murdered because of him.
Up ahead on the terrace overlooking this beach, he could see a troop of young Fae females. He thought they looked young, but they were thousands of years old. He could feel their stares, hear their giggles. They were waving and calling him by name.
Julian lifted his hand in an absent greeting, but he couldn’t smile. The fact was he hadn’t smiled once since he had come out of the long sleep and discovered the truth. His first desire had been death. However, he was alive, and so he developed another desire—revenge.
Another group of young female Fae in form-fitting, sheer attire of various shades of colors were staring at the human who so intrigued them. They sat around a stone table on the far end of the main beach terrace. They were definitely inviting him to join them, and because he was not blind, he could see that they were enchantingly and mesmerizingly beautiful. Still, he couldn’t get the scowl off his face as he looked away from them.
The Fae beauties laughed and teased him to leave his doldrums behind and join them, but instead he turned his back and raced into the azure waves. Diving deep … down further, and further still—he wanted the dark and cold.
He just kept diving deeper, wishing it would swallow him up, engulf him, and end his misery. He couldn’t breathe, and the pressure around his lungs made him fight to swim upwards. His body overruled his heart, and he discovered he had to reach the surface. He sliced through the waves and sucked in air. He choked on his first gulp of air, and his lungs felt like they were bursting as he sucked in more air and realized that he didn’t want to die, not just yet—there was something he had to do.
Cahal was waving from the beach. Time for another lesson. Cahal told him he was whole—and more powerful than ever. All Julian of Talbot felt was empty.
Cahal said he was fit and pointed out that he had not aged while in the coma. He was not quite thirty years old. Nearly two hundred years had passed while Julian slept on the Isle of Tir. However, all he could feel was the bitterness eating him from the inside out. It usurped all other feelings in his heart. What he felt was one thing: an entity within, and it was built to dole out justice. His Maxine, his bride, was gone, but he was alive and able to make Lamia DuLaine pay.
It was why for now he allowed the Fae to hold the reins and teach him what he needed to know. The need to kill DuLaine took him to the Fae war room, where he worked out in mock battles with the Fae Corinthians and honed his magical and physical skills. Revenge gave him a reason to breathe.
It was the reason he spent hours upon hours learning ancient spells, some of them dark spells that required the tattoos he now sported on his arms and belly. He needed those dark spells, and the Dark Magic. It was potent magic, and he would use it when the time was right. He wanted to be the one to confront and kill the DuLaine.
The queen allowed Cahal to teach him these spells. She allowed it, but she had been quick to caution him. Julian would be one of the few Druids alive that had such knowledge. She requested him to use such mana wisely, and only a
fter much thought.
Julian thought of his bride, and then he saw the queen’s knowing, considering glance. “I informed you that I ordered the DuLaine’s release for a reason, Julian of Talbot. I have not prepared you, and given you skills I rarely offer my Druids, so that you can go off without any control and do as you please. Do you think it will serve to try and rush her, execute her? Do you think you should sacrifice your immortal soul … a thing you humans care much about? Is that your intention? Fie, human. Some things need a far subtler approach with a long-reaching result.”
Julian heard her words in his head, but although he knew in his empty heart that she was right, he also knew he could not go on unless he planned and executed his plan … his plan to destroy and kill the DuLaine. He needed to choke the life out of her with his own bare hands. He couldn’t stop himself from telling the queen what he had to do.
“No, Julian, you must think. This time you will be wise. Timing is everything. Shall I tell you that it was indeed your fault you lost your bride? I feel I must. There is no sense sugarcoating the facts, human. The prince and I had matters in hand. You and your bride would have been safely dispatched to Scotland. Timing! You forced her hand, and look where it got you—and all of us.” The queen sighed. “Then after you fell into the deep sleep of pain, we meant to bring you and your bride here to Tir. Here where you and she would have been until the fever was over, but no … human desperation took over, and your bride went rushing to DuLaine and her death—her fault and quite infuriating!”
Julian looked into the queen’s brilliant eyes. They glittered angrily at him as she continued, “Now, this time, you will be guided by me, Aaibhe, Queen of the Tuatha Dé, and mark me, I will be obeyed in this.”
“As long as you let me put her in the ground, then finesse your timing if you must,” he answered before he could stop himself. He was angry at the world, at the Fae queen, at his educator, at everyone including himself. He was alive, but his beloved was long dead.
