“Who knows? Maybe he was still playing a part or possibly the mental exertion required to control that many zombies for so long really did sap his strength. We may never see Iago again, so we might never find out, but we know he’s gone back to your father with some key information about all of us and—most important of all—about where he can find you.”
“If my father takes me back to Otherworld, he will make sure I never get away again.” Her eyes were so dark they appeared black.
“I think the time has come to tell me why that matters so much.”
She drew a deep breath. “He has arranged a marriage for me.”
Lorcan looked across the square at the crowds of students milling around. Their laughter and chatter jarred with the pain in Tanzi’s eyes. “On the battlefield that day, you told me it was the way of your family to arrange a marriage for its princesses. You were resigned to your fate. What’s changed?”
Her lips curled in an attempt at a smile. “I didn’t know then whom my father had chosen for me.”
“Old and warty?”
“Oh, how I wish that was so.” She closed her eyes briefly. “My father has decided that mine is to be the honor of securing his return to his home and his former position of strength. More than that, through my marriage, I am to ensure he will become the undisputed and all-powerful ruler of Otherworld.”
“And whom will you have to marry in order to achieve that?” Lorcan subjected the leaders of the Otherworld dynasties to a mental review. Some of them might have egos the size of Otherworld itself, but he couldn’t think of one of them who would make the sort of claims Tanzi was describing. An insidious worm of discomfort was beginning to writhe in his stomach.
“If my father gets his way, I will become the bride of Satan, Lord of the Underworld.” She said it so matter-of-factly that there was no room for doubt.
Even so, Lorcan recoiled in shock. “No, Tanzi, you must be wrong. Not even Moncoya would stoop to that.”
“The devil wants a son. A child who will grow up and rule the mortal realm. Many centuries ago, in a different pact, Merlin Caledonius was to have been that child. My grandfather, Cal’s father, was responsible for the agreement.” Tanzi studied his face. “I see you have heard that story.”
He nodded. “Cal is my friend. He confided in me that his powers were bequeathed to him by Satan and how, after his birth, his mother hid him away so that his father—who was also Moncoya’s father, of course—could not find him and hand him over to the devil.”
“That story put the idea for a new pact into my father’s head. In return for absolute power over Otherworld, he offers the devil...me.” She made a gesture, indicating her body. “Young, good-looking, capable of bearing him the child he wants.”
“That fucking little...” Lorcan’s hands tightened convulsively as though they held Moncoya’s throat between them in a death grip. But there was no time for wallowing. “We have to get you away from here. Get you to safety.” Even as he said the words, his mind was working overtime trying to think where to take her. Where in the mortal realm or Otherworld could he keep her safe from her own father’s evil ambition?
“There isn’t anywhere.” It was as if she read his thoughts. “There is nowhere in either realm where he will not find me.”
“There must be somewhere.”
“I can think of only one place where he will not be able to touch me.”
Lorcan frowned. “Sure, aren’t you a step ahead of me? I’ve still got nothing.”
Her expression was fathomless. “My mother was a Valkyrie, one of Odin’s swan maidens.”
Lorcan gazed at her in dawning wonder. “Are you suggesting what I think you are?”
“It is the only place my father would never dare enter.” There was a touch of regret in her voice.
“So you are seriously proposing to travel to Valhalla, Odin’s great palace and hall of the fallen heroes? Fiercely guarded portal to the rainbow bridge that leads to Asgard, home of the gods?” Tanzi nodded and he ran a hand through his hair in a gesture that was midway between frustration and disbelief. “And when you get to Valhalla, what then? You’ll join the Valkyrie?”
Her smile was genuine this time. “I have all the necessary qualifications.” She was right about that, too. The Valkyrie were known for three things...their great beauty, their skill in battle and their unwavering bravery.
She was going to give up any other life she had and lock herself away forever inside Odin’s great hall. Like a medieval nun entering a convent. But with less prayer and more blood and guts. Lorcan decided to ignore the feeling in his chest. As though something had just snapped. It was irrelevant compared with what Tanzi must be feeling. Was he going to let her do this? Not without a fight. “Setting aside the fact that you can’t just walk into Valhalla, do you know how difficult that journey is? You would have to cross some of the most dangerous territories in Otherworld. My God, you’d be eaten alive. Quite literally.”
“Lorcan—” she turned so that she was fully facing him, her knees touching his “—believe me when I say I would prefer that to the alternative.” She took his hand and held it against her cheek. The gesture spread the pain in his chest lower so that his abdomen tightened. “I appreciate what you are trying to do for me, but I have no choice. I have to face whatever dangers the journey brings me. Valhalla is the only place I can go.”
It was the look in her eyes when she said she would rather be eaten alive than marry the devil that finally convinced him. No one should have to make that choice. He turned his head and dropped a light kiss onto her hand. “Well, at least you won’t be facing them alone.” Her brow wrinkled and her lips parted, ready to ask a question. “I’m coming with you.”
“You don’t have to do this.”
“I really do.”
* * *
When they returned to the house, it was mercifully quiet. Once in his room, Lorcan began to throw his belongings into his backpack. For someone who must do it regularly, he seemed to be particularly disorganized at packing.
Tanzi sat cross-legged on his bed, watching him. “Look, I dragged you into my problems because I didn’t know where else to turn when I left the palace. That doesn’t make you responsible for me.”
He paused, looking directly at her. “You think I’m the sort of person who is going to abandon a friend just because things get tough?”
“Is that what we are? Friends?”
The word hung in the air between them. Then his smile, the one that made her want to clamber all over him like an overactive puppy, dawned. “I’d like to think so.”
The moment—if it existed at all—was lost. And was that a bad thing? Where exactly did you want this conversation to go as you set off on your journey to leave the world behind? She tried a different approach. “You have commitments here.”
“Not me. I never have commitments.”
“Why is that?”
He shrugged. “Just the way I like it.” He bent his head to fiddle with the zipper on his bag. The message was clear. It was another topic of conversation that wasn’t going anywhere.
Tanzi ducked her head so that she could make eye contact with him. “Thank you.” She wasn’t sure what the wobble in her voice signified, but she did her best to disguise it by turning it into a cough. “So how do we do this? Valhalla can only be reached by boat. And all my belongings are in that—” she pointed to the bag he had retrieved from the imps “—which doesn’t even contain an inflatable dinghy.”
“I saw a map of the route to Asgard many years ago. It was fairly sketchy, and parts were uncharted, as it’s not a way that’s been taken very often. The truth is that the gods don’t want anyone to know how to find them, so the exact geography is a closely guarded secret. And the route to Valhalla has been designed to withstand the onslaught of an army of giants.
But that’s a problem we’ll deal with once we get there. Unless I’m mistaken, we’re going to need something more substantial than a dinghy to navigate the Isles of the Aesir.”
“The Aesir are gods, is that right?”
Lorcan nodded. “The Aesir are the gods of the sky and of consciousness and the Vanir are the gods of the earth and biological life. Odin is the patriarch of all the gods.”
“Yet the Isles of the Aesir that lead to Valhalla are not inhabited by the gods themselves.”
“No. The name comes from the fact that the islands are the approach to Asgard, not from their inhabitants. All that is really known about them is that they are notoriously difficult to navigate.”
Tanzi swallowed the constriction in her throat. “Have you ever done any sailing?”
“A bit.” His voice was cheerful. “A long time ago, when I was a lad, I used to lend a hand when the fishermen took their boats out.” She wasn’t entirely convinced they were the sort of credentials needed for the journey ahead of them. Grinning and hauling his backpack onto one shoulder, Lorcan held out a hand. “Ready?”
“Hold on a minute.” Tanzi scrambled to her feet. Things seemed to be moving very fast. “Don’t you have things to organize here?”
“Aydan will step up while I’m gone. They’re well used to me dropping in and out of this place. And we’ve not a minute to lose. Iago has been gone for a whole day. He could have reached Moncoya by now and yon bastard faerie feller—” He cast an apologetic grin her way. “Sorry, that’s become my name for him. Your father will be plotting his next steps.”
“So we go. Just like that.” She shook her head. Reminding herself again that she had no choice, she picked up her bag. “Where will we start?”
“The place where all difficult journeys start... La Casa Oscura.”
Tanzi ground to a halt again. “I can’t go back there.”
“I wasn’t suggesting you stroll back in through the front door as though nothing had happened. You’ll have to stay hidden. But we will have to get back to Otherworld to start our journey, and there’s someone I need to talk to before we set off.” He held the door open so that she could go through it before him. “I have to see a friend about getting us a boat.”
CHAPTER 9
La Casa Oscura was an imposing mansion set high on the hillside above the city. Its rear aspect afforded spectacular views over the whole of Barcelona, but the other three sides were shrouded by trees. It was well-known as one of the most beautiful and quirky architectural features in the Catalan region. It was also the center of much recent press attention since its owner, billionaire electronics wizard Ezra Moncoya, had vanished without a trace a few months ago.
“I still don’t understand why he wanted to be a celebrity in the mortal realm. Sure, wasn’t being King of the Faeries enough for him?”
They had paused on the roadside a few hundred yards from the house. Half-hidden behind a laurel hedge, they could observe the entrance to the house without being seen. The afternoon sun was sinking behind the mountains and dusk was approaching, streaking the sky with ribbons of violet and rose. One or two cars wound their way slowly up the steep road, and Tanzi wondered what the occupants would say if they knew the house they had just passed was the portal to Otherworld. Enter its doors and from there you could access the faerie king’s palace and the mystical realm that lay beyond. If you believed you could.
“I don’t think anything would ever be enough for my father. He will always want more than he has. To be more than he is. And he wanted to find a way to attract the one who would become the necromancer star. He had to don a mortal disguise to do that.”
“Luckily Stella saw through him. She fell in love with Cal instead.”
“My father will never forgive that.” Tanzi felt obliged to warn him.
“Hell hath no fury like a faerie scorned?” He saw her wince at his use of the word hell and grimaced apologetically. “Sorry, I forgot. I think Cal and Stella know Moncoya holds a grudge, but I don’t picture them spending the rest of their lives looking over their shoulders.”
“Is it Cal you need to talk to now?”
“Yes. I’m hoping the big feller will be able to help out in the boat department. What’s the point of having Merlin as a friend if he can’t conjure up a luxury yacht when you need one?”
Tanzi looked across at La Casa Oscura. Only its terra-cotta roof tiles were visible above the trees. A slight chill sent a prickle of anticipation down her spine. “While you confer with Cal, there is someone I must see.”
“I’ve been thinking about that. It might be better if we hide you away somewhere while I go inside. You’ll be recognized as soon as you enter the palace. I can get everything ready for the journey and then we can enter Otherworld a different way.”
Tanzi gave him a mischievous smile. “I won’t be recognized if I’m in disguise.”
Her smile was echoed in the blue velvet depths of his eyes. “Ah, yes. I was forgetting about your inner cat.”
She cast him a sidelong glance. “I think you like my inner cat a little too much to completely forget her.”
The smile reached his lips at that. “True. I’ve grown quite fond of her. Whom do you want to see?”
“My sister.” She sighed, struggling slightly to find the words to explain the mystery that was her relationship with Vashti. “We have a strange connection. Often we are antagonistic, even combative—I have the scars to prove it—but she is the only person who understands me, and I her. She was badly injured in the battle. I want to make sure she continues to heal...and I want to warn her.”
“Warn her?” Lorcan raised his brows.
“With me out of the way, my father may turn his ambitions for this pact with the devil to her.”
“You mean he will force Vashti into marriage with the devil in your place?”
Tanzi’s amusement was genuine. “No one forces Vashti to do anything. I would just like her to be prepared. She is very like my father.”
Lorcan whistled. “So she’s evil, too?”
“No!” Tanzi was shocked that he would think such a thing. Then she remembered that he had only ever seen Vashti’s public face. The belligerent, swaggering, street-fighting facade she showed the world. “My sister is not a bad person. Impulsive and misguided, yes. Inflexible, arrogant, headstrong—” Tanzi broke off, realizing she was probably not doing a great job of convincing him of Vashti’s good points. “She and my father are both so stubborn they will lock horns like a pair of mountain goats. And Vashti cannot waste time feuding with him. I need her to take my place on the council. She must be the faerie voice within the Alliance from now on.”
“It matters to you, doesn’t it? That the faeries get the representation they need.”
She nodded. “I wish I could see that through. The least I can do is make sure there is someone I trust to take my place.” Her throat tightened inexplicably. It must be the culmination of the day just gone. An overwhelming tiredness brought on by the physical exertion at the farmhouse and the lake, the discovery about Iago and the finality of her decision to join the Valkyrie. Lorcan’s expression was sympathetic, and that somehow made the feeling worse. Hiding her confusion at the discomfort caused by the sensations, she became brisk, nodding toward the house. “How do we get in?”
“Well, we can’t just march up to the front door. The one time I tried that, it got messy.” His expression was reminiscent and, if they’d had time, she’d have asked him to tell her the story. “The house itself is a front. It’s used by Moncoya Enterprises as its head office. Mortal employees come and go every day without knowing what it is, but it’s also closely guarded. The cover story is that rival companies are always trying to steal Moncoya’s secrets. And to be fair, that’s true. Stella tells me the little shit’s a genius when it comes to games design.” He ran a ha
nd through his hair, his expression rueful. “Ah, I’m so used to calling him names, I keep forgetting he’s your father.”
“Don’t mind your tongue because of me. For what it’s worth, I think he’s a little shit, too.”
He studied her expression thoughtfully. “And you have more reason than any of us. Okay, back to the breaking-and-entering problem. We need to get to the rear of the house, to the terrace that overlooks the gardens. That’s where the portal from this side into the palace is. And, in theory, it shouldn’t be too difficult at this time of day because—” he glanced at his wristwatch “—at any minute now, those gates will open, the day shift will start leaving and the night shift will take over.”
“Won’t the employees have to show identification in order to get in?”
Reaching into his pocket, he gave her one of his impudent grins. “You mean like this?” Lorcan held up a white plastic card that bore his photograph alongside the Moncoya Enterprises logo. According to the heading on the card, his name was Rodrigo Martinez and he was a software engineer. “It’s got me—or rather, it’s got Rodrigo—in a few times. The thing that I was puzzling over was how we were going get you in, but you’ve solved the problem for me. As a cat, you can be over that wall or through the gate faster than I can say ‘Here, kitty.’”
“It looks like the gates are opening.” Tanzi pointed across at the great iron structure.
“No time to waste. See you on the terrace in five, my feline friend.”
* * *
Entering Otherworld had never been a problem for Tanzi. Because, until now, I have never really left it. The only times she had ventured into the mortal realm in the past, she had been escorted there and back by her father’s bodyguards and had given no thought to the transition between worlds. When she met Lorcan on the terrace at the rear of La Casa Oscura and looked out at the dusk-laden city of Barcelona, she thought, for the first time, of the legends surrounding entry into her homeland. Otherworld was hidden from mortal eyes by the strongest magic, woven by the gods in a time beyond memory. Mortal rules could not be applied to Otherworld. A year might go by there while at the same time in the real world centuries may have passed. Or the opposite might be true. Time could stand still in the place known to the ancient Celts as the “delightful plain.” Those who dwelt in Otherworld did not age like mortals. Instead, they remained forever young.
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