by S A Archer
“Are you okay? You want to lay back down?”
“No, mate. Just back off, alright?” Malcolm pushed Kieran aside as he rose. That’s when he saw Thorn, and the knives strapped to his back.
There was a serious glare that past between them. Malcolm knew why he was there. And Thorn wasn’t about to back down.
“He’s okay,” Kieran said. “See? He’s fine.”
Malcolm snatched up Tom Cat so that he draped around his shoulders. Then he started for the door.
“Hey, where are you going?” Kieran got to his feet and started after.
“I’m leaving,” Malcolm said.
Thorn allowed the two Sidhe to pass, but followed after them.
“What do you mean you’re leaving?”
“I mean I’m leaving.”
“Where are you going to go?”
“I’m going back home.”
“This is your home now, Mal. This is everyone’s home.”
“It’s not my home.” He was out the door and going down the steps two at a time.
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t belong here, Kieran!” Malcolm swung around and gripped Kieran by the front of his shirt and pushed him back. “I can’t be here, so I’m leaving!”
“Wait! I’ll come with you.”
“No. This is your world. It’s not mine. It was never mine.” He stomped outside.
Kieran followed him, not sure what else to do, not sure where Malcolm was going to go. But he seemed to know the way out of the town and back to the portal. Just follow the stream of people and go against the current. Kieran reached the top of the crater just as Malcolm reached the bottom of it.
The bloodhound marched for the portal. And then passed right through it, coming out the back as if it had been nothing more than a Glamour. Kieran hadn’t known if the silver would allow it to work. Now he had his answer.
Kieran caught up to him. “Mal, wait…”
Malcolm snapped at him, teeth clenched so tight he snarled out the words. “Back off!” He scrunched up his face in anger, or in anticipation of pain. Malcolm yanked off the ring and stuffed it into his shirt pocket. The second his hand released it, Malcolm jolted, doubling over and gripping his temples. Then he plunged toward the portal, and this time, he vanished through it.
“You going after him, then?”
Kieran shook his head to Thorn’s question. “The thing about Malcolm is, when he needs his space, it’s best to let him have it. Chasing him will only drive him farther, faster.”
“You can’t help him then.” Thorn jerked his head back toward the town, indicating the direction he intended to go. “He’ll have to find his own way. He’s not a lad anymore.”
Kieran cut a look to Thorn, who didn’t flinch from it.
“None of you are.”
Chapter Nine
Lugh appeared on the broken hillside, as dotted with roughly shattered boulders as unkempt brush. The dusty earth coated the suede of his knee boots as he approached in the open. “Tell your mistress she has a visitor,” Lugh called into the wind that teased his hair. The path before him led to the edge of the cliff overlooking a beautifully wild valley, where no humanity marred its nature. Nor would any human eyes take in the majesty of the temple to which he walked. Only those with magic in their essence could witness this golden sight, which was how the Greeks had designed the temple which guarded the portal to their home realm.
Though the Olympians ventured to the earth realm no more than the Sidhe of the Mounds had in recent ages, they hadn’t abandoned their access. Nor did they leave it unguarded.
None of the titans appeared to block his path, for he was no stranger and no enemy to them. With his footfalls on the steps to the temple, only one figure shimmered into view. As unchanged as ever, the Greek beauty crossed her arms over her stomach as she cast her hip at a saucy angle. More Amazon in her dress than Greek maiden, her leathers clung to her lovely figure. The mass of dark waves tumbled down her back, free of any restraint. Her famous bow slung across her back, never out of reach. “Darkening my doorstep after all this time, sun god?”
“Artemis,” Lugh bent forward, placing his hand on her elbow as he kissed her cheek, “I beg your tolerance, Luv. We must speak.”
“Of course, we do.” Never one to easily charm, Artemis watched him with the wary dark eyes that reminded him of the Unseelie. She preceded him along the pillar-lined walkway around the outside of the temple onto the wide veranda which overlooked the valley below, where an eternity pool reflected the sky.
Floating in the mirrored surface of the pool, a naked and nubile woman stared up at the sky. As they approached her, she rolled over and swam to the edge with the grace of a mermaid. Lugh recognized the sea nymph as she turned her uncanny blue-silver gaze upon him. Her irises reflected like metal, a sign of her skill. Dione wasn’t just a Nereid, but an oracle of considerable talent. Knowing that she saw through him like a thin veil nearly faltered his steps. After a moment’s hesitation, he continued to the side of the pool.
“We know why you’ve come.” The weight of Artemis’ words dropped like iron rings to resonate around him.
“So it appears.” His attention could not escape the depths reflecting in Dione’s eyes.
Dione reached a slender hand towards him, beckoning. “You have no prophetess of your own, since Aoife was slain.”
The bending of his knee wasn’t fully by his own will. Lugh knew this, yet allowed it. No man could escape the consequences of his actions, no matter how he might wish it otherwise. In a life as long as his, Lugh carried many intimate regrets like lashes across his heart. Aoife’s fate was one he’d denied for nearly a century. Kaitlin had been right. He should have searched for her long ago. He admitted, “She is sorely missed.”
“Not by the king who silenced her.” Dione glanced past Lugh, seeing through the mist of her vision.
Lugh flinched away. Even he could not deny the truth. Aoife’s prediction had come true. The Mounds had Collapsed by Manannan’s hand. Had Lugh not ignored her claims, perhaps he could have prevented the tragedy.
The oracle’s reaching fingers cupped his face. The cool touch of her skin chased a shiver through him. “I see your commitment to this path. The one to bring Manannan to the fey realm.”
“It is the only way,” he whispered, wanting to lie, to escape, to blind himself to all that would come. His eyes closed against her truths.
The kiss she pressed to his lips wasn’t expected. The rush of her foreign magic breathed through him with dread and torment like banshee moans and grave gas. The ashen taste of death coated his tongue. The burning scent of funeral pyres invaded his senses. No amount of struggle could break the hold of fate upon him.
Not until Dione released her kiss. She yet curled her fingers behind his neck, keeping him close as she whispered, “For the survival of the fey, it is the only way. Manannan must come to the fey realm, as you deem necessary.” Her grip released as she sank back into the water. “But it will bring forth more than you know. Tread lightly with your silent fey steps and leave no mark of violence. If you violate the covenant with your allies, the peace of the earth realm will crack. If the weight of corpses tips the balance, the peace will shatter.”
“I hope to avoid that.” Lugh pushed himself to standing, craving the distance to breathe.
“We will close our portal temporarily.” Artemis said from behind him. “That is all we will do for you.”
Lugh backed away from the oracle, who continued to watch him with those disturbing eyes. With tremendous effort, he turned from her. To Artemis, he offered a small bow of his head. “That is all I ask of you.”
Chapter Ten
Malcolm stumbled through the screaming, dizzying agony of the portal. Breaking through th
e other side, he dropped to his knees. Jostled, Tom Cat leapt down with a meow of complaint. Malcolm ignored him. Ignored the flow of immigrants that parted around him. All of them spilling magic everywhere around them in endless bursts. Malcolm dug into his pocket for the silver and the silence that came with closing his fist over it.
Then he bent over onto his hands and knees and wretched. The nausea and disorientation twisted his guts. Luckily, he’d barely eaten and nothing actually came up to splatter the boots of those who side stepped him.
Staring down at his hands, which gripped at the ground, Malcolm’s focus landed on the ring.
How he despised it.
It gnawed into his flesh, hating him back.
Pink, irritated bands of skin rimmed the base of each finger. He’d moved the silver often enough to avoid blisters, to prevent scarring, but it was getting close in places.
If poisoning himself was the only way he could tolerate living among the fey, then he didn’t belong here.
Admitting that to himself twisted his guts again, and he dry heaved. Maybe he should eat something just so he’d have something to hurl, and maybe vomit out the sickness that boiled in his belly.
Lifting his head, he glared at the lesser fey that recoiled from him. They feared him. Hated him, maybe. Hated what he was. A bloodhound. They didn’t even know him, but they still wanted him away from them. To their minds, he had no place among them.
Kieran would want him to stay. Bryce maybe, too. But at what cost? His fingers? Watch the silver chew them like they had his wrists?
Malcolm shoved himself up and dusted himself off, done showing weakness before the merciless pity and fear of the fey.
Maybe Kieran would have come with him, but Malcolm couldn’t give him what he needed, and they both knew it. Kieran belonged. He belonged so much, he’d be just as sick away from the fey as Malcolm was around them.
At sixteen, Malcolm left home to discover what it meant to be fey. For a time, he’d found a new home with Donovan in the Glamour Club. Now the club was gone, and so was Donovan. Verging on eighteen, Malcolm was leaving again.
But this time he wasn’t so stupid. This time he knew the traps. The scumbags. He was no one’s whipping boy any more.
And he wasn’t really alone this time.
Malcolm halted at that thought, not sure where it had come from. He turned back toward the portal, his hand covering his heart where the connection to the realm reached him, despite the silver.
And Donovan was the realm.
It was weird, this feeling that he still had Donovan with him, even when he was alone. He thought he could almost even hear Donovan’s voice, telling him it was so.
But he was alone and Donovan was gone. Probably even his connection with the realm would fade in time, replaced again by the link to the ley lines, like what happened with the fey that left the Mounds.
Life from before was over. Broken. And he was on his own.
Setting his determination, Malcolm stormed down toward the fey town downhill from the portal. He’d teleported a good hop back in the realm, farther than he’d ever gone before, but reaching Ireland from the Isle of Fey was still a stretch. Striding upstream from the current of lesser fey, he traced the line to the back of the pub. His cat padded along with him, keeping up and sometimes getting ahead of him, like it knew where he was going.
The little furball Regan gave him wasn’t going to let him go it alone. Malcolm wasn’t sure if the beastling’s tenacious determination to stick close to him was going to be a comfort, or a pain in the bum. He didn’t know where he was going or where his next meal was coming from. Knowing that the purr-monster was counting on him jerked back the reins on his self-pity, and that was just annoying. He felt justified to a heaping bowl of it.
But Regan entrusted him with the grey bundle of whiskers, and dumping the cat would be like tossing away a piece of her. She’d be safe in the realm. He wanted her there, even if he couldn’t stay. He wanted all of the fey safe and happy. That’s what Donovan had made the Glamour Club for. And the Isle. And the realm. The fey mattered to Donovan, so they mattered to Malcolm.
Keeping the fey safe was the job of the Sidhe. Donovan had taught them that. Bryce and Trip already slung on the titles of ‘guardians of the realm’, by which they really meant the Isle of Fey. They meant to protect the Isle and the portal, and Malcolm knew that they could do it.
He just couldn’t.
He couldn’t do a thing for the fey, but stay clear of them.
A dwarf with a beard full of dreadlocks and beads balanced on the back two legs of his wooden chair, his feet propped up on a pony keg behind the lemonade-stand quality booth. A hand-painted banner strung between two poles identified him as the ‘ferry master’.
In the area behind him half a dozen Brownies, most of them just kids with enough grown-ups to ride herd on the flock, popped in. A couple wood elves marked the center of the group, with jackets loose enough to allow their ‘passengers’ to grab a hold.
The ferry master called back at the group in a tone made lazy from repetition. “Next ferry due in ten minutes. Clear the dock!”
“Hey,” Malcolm jerked his head toward the ‘dock’. “You taking fares back to Ireland?”
“No charge for the Sidhe, my lad.” The dwarf dropped his chair down onto all fours, making it rattle side to side on a short leg. As he flipped through a crumpled ledger, he jabbered. “Not many going back to the old country, as it were. Let me see here. We’ve got ferrymen heading back out to Cork… Dublin…” He traced his finger over the scribbles that weren’t like any letters Malcolm knew, as he deciphered the markings. “Waterford… Galway…”
“Not Galway.” Malcolm snapped. If he never stepped foot into that town again, it be too soon.
Someone gripped Malcolm’s shoulder just as a familiar male voice said, “He’ll go to Cork, with me.”
A handful of times, Malcolm had sat in with the dark elf band at the Glamour Club. Before then, he’d only ever played solo on the drums, accompanying the music on his MP3 player. The Fury had a drummer, but Alec could play the bass and sing backup, so he didn’t mind handing off the sticks to Malcolm now and then.
Joel, who was the lead singer, grinned up at Malcolm like they were real good mates, though they’d only hung out after a set a few times. The band liked to burn pot, and Malcolm wasn’t even interested in the contact high. He didn’t need anything messing with his head any more than the magic already did.
Not even giving Malcolm a chance to object, Joel gripped Malcolm’s hand in that blokish way where they ended up with interlocking fists, instead of a normal handshake. “Mate! I’ve been hoping to run into you.” He grinned in that way that made people gravitate toward him. Like everything through his eyes glittered and amazed, and he wanted you to see the sparkles too. “The band needs you.”
“I thought you’d be in the realm, with everyone else.”
Joel flicked the back of his fingers against Malcolm’s chest. “No way, mate. Can’t be famous hiding in the realm.” He jerked his head to clear the bangs from his eyes. “Alec and Patrick went though. So it’s just me and Griffin. But!” He lifted a hand as if to stop any objection Malcolm might have had. “We have a new lead singer.”
“You’re not lead?” He tried to figure what had Joel so hyped he couldn’t hardly stand still.
“No, mate. I’m back up singer and guitar. Griffin on bass. You on the drums. And our secret weapon wielding the mic.”
“Sure, why not.” Malcolm shrugged. It wasn’t like he belonged anywhere else.
Joel jumped with way more excitement than Malcolm could muster. “It’s going to be savage!”
Chapter Eleven
Tiernan didn’t even attempt the hide his exasperation. He scrubbed a hand over his face, tryi
ng to reinvigorate his numbed mind. “Why am I listening to this?” The question was directed to Dawn standing by his right side, not the two Brownies that had excruciatingly detailed their plans to build a series of bakeries in the various villages sprouting up across the realm.
Ever tolerant of the minutia, Dawn explained, “They wanted the Regent’s approval.”
Cutting her a sarcastic look, he replied, “I got that much. Why am I hearing about it?” When she moved to speak, Tiernan stopped her with a cutting gesture before she could repeat herself. “This is how I run my business,” he turned to her as he explained how things were going to be, “I don’t handle the details, I run the big picture. Just like the mob, I have lieutenants who handle the business in their territories, and those lieutenants delegate to the people below them.”
Tiernan took the clipboard away from her, and handed it off to the Scribe taking notes of everything anyway. “Willem will be your secretary and manage the paperwork. You,” he gave her a serious look, “will be my lieutenant in the realm. The piddly stuff I don’t even want to know about. If you can manage it, if you can mediate it, then do it. If you can’t, then you call me. You have my number, just step through that portal and use it.”
He gave Dawn a second to digest this, noting that besides the widening of her eyes she seemed ready for the responsibility. Then he asked, “Was there anything else on that list that I needed to take care of, or can you handle it?”
She straightened and her expression became even and confident. “I can handle it.”
“Good. Then I’ll be back to check on you later.” He gave her a smirk and a flirtatious wink, before planting a quick kiss on her lips and leaving her to it.
