by S A Archer
Deacon didn’t know and didn’t care what bits of fey the wizards used to create the enchantment. All he cared about was the healing that slowly spread through his body as he chewed.
Lying back against the sandy dune, he watched the single mountain peak that towered over the Isle of Fey. Against the clouds he could see the sluagh flying like dragon hatchlings. Hugging his arms to his brutalized body, he watched.
And waited.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Lugh noticed that the great hall in the mountains was forged not of stone, as he’d somehow expected of a mountain castle, but of timber. On the dais, an empty throne blocked the open portal way, which shimmered with icy white and blue. Given the coloring, the Aesir aptly called the portal the Bifrost.
Heimdall, with his new sword, stood watch at the entrance, looking not outward for an enemy, but inward. Not that he needed to face any particular direction to see to any reaches of the universe. The Aesir Champion refrained from speaking, thankfully, preferring to watch with a stoic expression that doubted not the verdict of his king.
Odin himself hadn’t yet spoken to Lugh, having raised a silencing hand towards him when he arrived through the Bifrost. In the layers of leather, fur, and chainmail, the Aesir king appeared dressed for battle. Not an uncommon state for the Nordic races, so Lugh took no implication by it. Rather, he leaned his bum against the rough hewn wooden side table, his hands gripping the sides as he waited to keep from crossing his arms. The closed, impatient stance wasn’t the impression he wanted to make, even if he felt the slip of hours like a smoldering of a fire.
The one-eyed king wasn’t above pouring the mead into tankards and offering one to Lugh, which he sipped from as little as courtesy would allow. Other than this one act of hospitality, Odin did little else but gaze with his one good eye into a great glass bowl mounted on a pedestal. Shimmers of light played within like the aurora borealis, and reflected upon the small, smooth stones floating on the surface.
The Bifrost rippled like a disturbed pond as a woman in a long, golden gown emerged through it. “Forgive me, Odin. Poor timing, it was.” She carried a rough woven basket laden with some random plant cuttings and mushrooms. Her long golden braid swung down to sweep the floor by her feet. Placing the basket aside, she brushed her hands on her long skirts as she rushed to give the king a kiss on his cheek.
“Auspicious timing, I rather suspect.” Odin corrected her, cupping her elbows as he kissed her back. “Good of you to come.” Then he finally addressed Lugh, “Have you met Freyja, Champion?”
He straightened. “I do not recall having had the pleasure.” The name, of course, preceded her. Odin’s insight was second only to the Aesir sorceress. Lugh gave her a Seelie smile and enough of a bow to honor her, as was the custom for foreign dignitaries to the Nordic courts.
Touching her was not something he desired to do, even as she smiled beatifically and rushed forth to offer him her hand. The gesture implied familiarity and good natured hospitality, but just as a Seelie would, Freyja had layers of purpose to her gesture. Still, he could not deny her the contact she urged upon him.
As her smaller hands closed over his, she sucked in a deep breath. Then she stilled herself, seeing not him, but past him. “Yes.” She spoke to Odin now, not to Lugh. “Yes, of course. I see.” Then she patted the back of Lugh’s hand and withdrew from him.
In contrast to the relative stillness before her arrival, Freyja’s energy fairly flustered about her. She gathered the cuttings and crushed the dried flowers and leaves over the bowl of water in a flurry of activity, then waved for Lugh to draw nearer. “Come, come. Let’s have a look, shall we?”
Doubtful, Lugh crossed to the bowl around which Odin and Freyja gathered. “I should rather discuss negotiations. Time is short.”
But he couldn’t continue with Odin waving for him to hush. “All in good time.” Then he gestured towards the water.
Lugh knew what he wanted him to do. “I’d rather not. Odin, if there is anything I might do, or might procure for you, then we could discuss the exchange of favors. I only ask that you close the Bifrost for just a short time. Just a day, if possible.”
“You will select a stone or we have nothing further to discuss.” The thunderous insistence shook the timbers, casting dust down from the rafters.
Lugh didn’t bother to brush off what had fallen upon him. With reluctance, he reached his hand into the bowl. The stones fled from his grasp like minnows, so that he could catch only one. It wiggled and flopped in his palm as he opened his hand for the others to see.
No markings showed on the stone at first, and then a light burned from within to sketch out the figure of a rune that looked like half of an arrow. He knew what it meant. Chaos. Formlessness. The unknown and its potential.
Lugh flicked the stone back into the water to swim with the others. He wiped at his palm as if he might brush away some stain.
“And there we have it.” Freyja leaned back, hands on her hips as she looked first to Odin and then to Lugh. “That settles it, I should think.” She returned to her basket, gathering it up to prop on her hip.
“That’s it?” Lugh gestured to the bowl.
“That,” Odin slapped Lugh’s back, “as you say, is it.”
“So there is nothing to discuss? Nothing that might persuade you?”
“No,” Odin assured him. “There is nothing.” He climbed the stairs and sat upon his throne before the portal. “The Bifrost will remain open. And just to be certain there is no doubt of this…” He gestured into the air, and from behind a veil of magic similar in function to Glamour, more than a dozen valkyries descended from the rafters where they’d lain in wait.
Clearly, Odin trusted Lugh about as much as the Unseelie. And with good cause, in this instance.
“You know how to reach me, if you change your mind.” Lugh offered, more out of form than any real hope that they would. He spun away from Odin and his winged warriors that would give even a flight of sluagh a challenge.
Heimdall allowed Lugh to pass, but not without a parting shot. “I told you.”
Lugh didn’t slow down, teleporting away the moment he departed from the company of the Aesir.
He’d other portals to secure, and lost time enough on this one. If Manannan balked at even one, then he’d resort to more drastic measures, Odin’s runes and Dione’s predictions notwithstanding. Manannan had to be delivered to the heart of the fey realm as soon as may be. In this task, he could not fail.
Chapter Thirty-Six
The asphalt was worn so thin on the rural road that the underlying dirt showed through in spots. On one side of the road, past a wire fence, a hill rose up covered in scrubby greenery and a narrow track of young trees with thin trunks. On the other side, the valley with its pasture land reached out to the hills beyond. Up that way was Wicklow Mountains National Park, and a bit further beyond that was Dublin, according to the map app on Malcolm’s phone. He’d not been to Dublin before. A city that big was bound to be crawling with vampires.
Malcolm didn’t need to double check the GPS to know that this patch of nowhere was the right one. The trees and the hill beyond were aglow with a thick pink cloud of Glamour. Fresh Glamour, too, given how bright it was. Malcolm left his motorcycle off the side of the road and made his way into the heavy pink fog. “Kie?”
The smells within the fog were varied and sharp. Malcolm paused, and then turned slowly. There were fey here, in the Glamour, but he couldn’t make out the shape of any of them. The flood of Glamour couldn’t have hidden them from his eyes, only if they wore silver. But the scent of their magic lingered. The sharp metallic one had to be Tiernan. The earthy scent all about him had a dark elf taste to it. Maybe a few dwarves in the mix, given the undertone.
But to his ears, the real sounds were absent. Kieran was
suppressing them.
But why?
“Tiernan,” Malcolm called, not quite so loud now. “I know you’re here, too. What’s going on?”
The sound like a puff made Malcolm jerk around. Something smacked against his backpack and made a clicking sound. He dropped the pack and spun around. Two spiraling wires led away from the pack to a man that had stepped out of the trees. “A taser?” he snapped, just as he recognized the human. He’d been one of the ones from the cave. The guy he’d thought of as ‘Ankle’ because that was the only place he’d ever touch Malcolm. He’d almost always look away, too, rather than watch what the others were doing to him. Ankle got the Touch, but he never seemed to take any perverted pleasure in it. Of all the creeps that came to the cave, Ankle was probably the only one Malcolm didn’t really want dead.
All except now, when he’d tried to zap Malcolm. “What are you thinking?” Malcolm demanded.
Two or three more puffs hit the air and Malcolm teleported.
He reappeared behind Ankle and hooked his arm around his neck, jerking his body back against his chest. Snatching out his long knife, he pressed the flat of the blade to the guy’s face. “What’s going on?” He demanded to the Glamour around them. “Kie? Tiernan?”
“Wait!” Kieran called out, and then he appeared suddenly from the fog of Glamour. The thing he flicked from his hand glinted of silver as it tumbled down to the ground. Raising both empty hands, he stepped closer. “Don’t hurt him, Mal. Just let Joe go and we’ll talk about this.”
“You know this bloke?” Malcolm gave Ankle, whose real name was apparently Joe, another jerk backward. “He’s enchanted!” The fact that he was human was obvious, but Kie might not know the enchanted part, Malcolm figured.
“I know.” Kieran stepped a little closer still. “He’s part of my crew. So let him go.”
“Your what?” Malcolm twisted about, feeling the shifting in the Glamour like a cat’s whiskers sensing the movement of air. Other fey were hiding all around him, closing him in. “What are you playing at, Kie? What’s with the tasers?”
Tiernan’s voice called out to him now from the haze. “Because you’ve gone feral, bloodhound. The killing madness has taken you.” The Unseelie with the near colorless eyes burst into the clearing, his own silver token dropping away. And Malcolm knew why. He meant to use his magic.
Not even knowing what was coming, Malcolm released Joe. He shoved him away, just as he reached down and snatched the gun from his hip holster. Before Joe could even catch himself Malcolm was teleporting. Just as he dematerialized chains like metal snakes snapped up from beneath the leaf litter and swirled around the place where Malcolm would have been, tangling around Joe instead.
Malcolm reappeared behind Tiernan and kicked him in the back of the knee he knew Lugh had once broken, and that probably still gave Tiernan trouble. He dropped and rolled on the ground, growling with the pain.
Knife in one hand and gun in the other, Malcolm leapt and twisted in the air. The Glamour and silver might hide his attackers from his eyes, but the Glamour was magic. And magic was what Malcolm knew best. Each movement through the fog telegraphed the positions of the people around him. Two dozen or more he guessed. The rush of arrows. The toss of a rope. The flick of a netting meant to snare him all rushed towards him and Malcolm teleported again.
He didn’t care now, if it was fey or human out there. These people were trying to capture him. It didn’t matter if it was friend or foe, he’d done his time in chains, and he wasn’t ever going back to them.
In and out he flicked, slicing with his blade and punching with the butt of the gun. He kicked and swept with his legs. Each time he teleported in, he would only stay long enough to feel impact with a body, before he would slip away again.
“Malcolm!” Kieran yelled.
He’d just bashed another one in the head when he heard his friend’s outcry.
Only Kieran wasn’t his friend anymore. Not if he meant to trap Malcolm. Turning towards the tornado of sound magic that reached towards him, Malcolm fired the gun right down its gullet. Kieran screamed as the amplified sound of the shot hit him full force.
Again the chains twisted into life and swept at Malcolm.
Tiernan wasn’t out of the fight.
He flicked away, abandoning them all to the chaos that they’d caused. Malcolm grabbed up his motorcycle. Just as he went to straddle it, it flung up from him into the air, propelled by the magnetic magic of Tiernan.
Malcolm teleported again. He reappeared in a crouch before Tiernan. He stabbed the blade down into the Unseelie’s gut, driving it to the hilt. The scream of pain echoed through the valley, followed by the sound of the motorcycle crashing back onto the road.
One last time, Malcolm teleported. He grabbed up his bike and took off, revving it to go as fast as it could. The wind sucked past him, stripping him of the scents of gunpowder, blood, and magic.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
“Malcolm!” Kieran ran out onto the road, catching nothing but the tire marks he’d left when he peeled out on his motorcycle. Covering his ringing ears, Kieran cursed his inability to reach out with his magic. Without his sense of hearing his magic was crippled.
And his friend was gone.
Cursing, he jogged back up into the Glamour smoke that the fey had woven. Sweeping his hand, he cast out a wave of vibration that rippled through the smoke, stripping it away like fog before a hard breeze. The lesser fey Tiernan gathered for the ambush tended to their wounded, accepting the loss of their target rather than risking their necks to go after him. Most weren’t severely injured, and for that much Kieran could be grateful.
Joe knelt over Tiernan, packing a pressure bandage around the knife. Riley stood over him, at a loss as to how to help him. Tiernan himself was the only one not shocked into silence. He cursed Malcolm with every creative insult he could roll off in a single breath, loud enough for Kieran to hear over the ringing in his ears.
“I told you that you should have let me talk with him first.” Kieran dropped down next to Tiernan.
“I’m going to kill him when I catch him. I’m going to kill him!” Tiernan attempted to move and screamed. He gripped his leg which wouldn’t bend. “Gonna kill him!”
“Lay still.” Joe gestured to Riley, who knelt down behind Tiernan to pin his shoulders to the ground.
Kieran glanced around at the lesser fey. “We need to get you to Dawn. Who can carry you to the Isle of Fey?”
“You can do it,” Tiernan said. Already the color drained from his face, leaving a deathly pallor behind. “You are Sidhe.”
Kieran searched his face. “I can’t go that far. I have never gone more than a few blocks.”
“We have to do something. I think he nicked the abdominal artery.” Joe pressed down on the bandages soaked in the blood seeping down Tiernan’s side. “He’s going to bleed out soon.”
Tiernan snatched Kieran’s wrist. His pain growled between his clenched teeth. “Distance doesn’t matter. What matters is the magic you put into it. Draw it in through your connection and breathe it out in your magic.” Tiernan cried out as Joe accidentally jostled the knife. Then he grabbed at Kieran again. “I don’t have time for you to figure this out and grow into your magic. Just do what I’m telling you. Reach back through to the realm and pull the magic you need to make the distance!” For all the force behind his words Tiernan trembled as his grip faltered. With a strangled cry, Tiernan began convulsing.
“We are losing him.” Joe hooked his arms under Tiernan’s legs and Riley caught him under the arms to lift him from the ground. “Whatever you are going to do, do it now!”
Clutching at Tiernan hard, Kieran closed his eyes tight. With his teeth clenched, Kieran reached back into the source of his magic. He’d not meditated on the differences between being co
nnected to the earth realm and the new fey realm. But now that he focused on it, now that he drew on it with intention, Kieran finally understood. He breathed, “Donovan.”
And in that moment he felt the connection to the realm… and its creator. The sensation, so familiar, was a mingling of pure fey power and the sensation of Donovan’s Touch.
The teleportation occurred so fast that to Kieran it had been as if Donovan had reached through time and space and snatched him by his shoulders. The power plunged him backwards, deep into its depths, like slamming him into a black ocean. The power flooded into his mouth, into his lungs, drowning him.
When he hit the ground, flung down by the force, it wasn’t on the Isle of Fey. He struggled to sit up against the weight crushing down on him.
Pushing himself up to sit, Kieran stared at the bright colors of the fey realm, for in that moment, everything seemed to emanate with light from within. The effect slowly faded to normal, as the ringing in his ears vanished.
Tiernan rolled off of Kieran, clutching his middle. The knife and the bandage had fallen away from him to land in the grass. When he pulled his hand away there wasn’t any blood and his stomach was unblemished. On his knees and leaning on one hand, Tiernan glanced up at Kieran with shock. “You healed me?”
He shook his head wildly. “It wasn’t me!”
And then Tiernan looked around them, noticing for the first time where they were. “You found the strength to teleport into the realm itself?”
“It wasn’t me!” Kieran insisted again. Getting to his feet, he searched around them. “Where are the guys? Joe and Riley?”
