by Lisa Shearin
“Then why are you—” Ian began.
Janus laughed. “I want to spill Lámhfhada blood myself, but I want my people free to ravage this world more.” He raised his voice to a clarion shout with words I didn’t understand.
“He calls to his warriors and cursed ones to kill Lámhfhada’s heir.” The Tuatha regarded Rake with eyes as bright as emeralds. “They may or may not heed his words. I am no longer of this world, so my voice has no power here. A mage of strength can speak the words and mend the curse. You have seen the words in fire and your power is great.”
The curse on the folio in the SPI Archives. How did they know Rake had—
“Yes, I have seen the words,” Rake said. “But I do not know how to speak them.”
“With a touch, I can teach you.”
“I am not of this world, either.”
The bright warrior gazed down at me and smiled. “In choosing this brave one, you have chosen this world over the one of your birth. You know this.”
I glanced sharply at Rake.
“And if I fail?” he asked.
“The Fomorians will spill the blood of our heir and your valiant companions. The fractured curse will be truly broken, and Janus and his legions will have the freedom to take this world.”
Rake gave a weak smile. “No pressure.” Then he handed me over to Alain Moreau and stood tall. “Teach me.”
The Tuatha Dé Danann’s leader laid his glowing hands on either side of Rake’s head for only a few seconds. As soon as he released him, Rake began to speak, his voice magnified by the three remaining walls, projecting it toward the approaching Fomorians, the ancient language spilling from his lips, each word sending a shiver of power through him. As the final word passed his lips, a great cry went up from the island all around us as the curse did its work. Portals flashed like strobes as the Fomorians were pulled from where they stood, their bodies growing indistinct and glowing nearly as bright as the Tuatha Dé Danann as they were pulled like shooting stars from the island and through the underwater portals, banished back to where they’d come from.
Rake’s dark eyes rolled back in his head and he collapsed in a boneless heap to the ground. I wasn’t fast enough to catch him, but Ian was.
A jagged line of darkness opened like a wound at the foot of the altar. What looked like stars gleamed from inside, but their color was wrong—or at least wrong for our world.
“Those greater than I await their chance,” Janus told us. “They have begun to awaken. They will find you. I will be there to guide them, and this time, you will not escape.”
Janus stepped through the portal and it closed behind him as if it had never existed.
And we were alone.
37
CALVIN went over with his med kit and squatted down to check on Rake. Apparently satisfied, he turned to Ian. “You hungry? I think we got some leftover burgers from the picnic.”
Ian just stared at him. “Picnic?”
Rake didn’t regain consciousness until we’d gotten him back to our picnic/staging area.
We’d folded down the seats in the Range Rover to made a bed, and I had his head in my lap.
“I don’t understand why I passed out,” Rake was saying. He was still groggy.
“Honey, I hate to be the one to break it to you, but that curse was originally cast by a god.”
“Yes.”
“You’re not a god.”
“I’m not?”
“No.”
I glanced outside to where Kylie and Ian were having a passionate reunion. “Eh, dating a god—or even a descendant of one—is overrated.”
Rake smiled sleepily. “You think so?”
I kissed him softly on the lips. “I know so.”
Moreau had contacted the Garrisons as soon as Janus had sent his warriors and the hydra to kill them and bring back Kylie and Kitty. The ladies and the werewolves had been ready for them. Kitty and Kylie weren’t slouches in the weapons department; and as to the werewolves, let’s just say that Bill and Nancy Garrison and their crew topped Bill’s Big Rock Tournament catch weight, bagging a hydra and half a dozen Fomorians. The rest ran back to the river with their fins between their legs just in time to get sucked into those portals. I’d loved to have seen that, but Bill Garrison was a natural-born storyteller, so it had been almost like I was there. Janus’s shield dome had protected him from more than us and the Tuatha Dé Danann. It had shielded him from Rake’s repair of the fractured curse. He’d had just enough time to escape, and escape he had.
Once we’d been sure there weren’t any more Fomorian stragglers hanging around, Moreau had contacted headquarters to let them know our mission had been a success.
Little had we known how much of a success it’d been.
When Janus had begun his ritual, the curse had cracked, and there’d been reports of undersea earthquakes, tsunami, and rogue waves around the world. These events were for the most part written off as seismic or weather-related incidents. Not so coincidentally, at the same time, there’d been sightings of various large sea monsters, kaiju, and kraken. These sightings had been either unconfirmed or explained by the weather or seismic phenomenon.
Vlad Cervenka stood off to the side, relighting his cigar, a duffel bag full of an assortment of ancient vampire bones at his feet. Janus had taken the relics out of their safe deposit boxes. That’d be some trick to get the right bones back to the right family. Maybe like Lugh’s Spear, the bones would glow when their descendants picked them up. Maybe not. Alain Moreau walked over to him and shook his hand and began talking to the big Czech. I wondered if it was a job offer.
Rake had dozed for a few minutes, then he opened his eyes, his brow creased. “Calik?”
“Calik is fine,” I assured him. “His squadron is fine; their dragons are fine. Also, they’ve gone home.”
When Calik was sure their job was finished, he’d saluted us and led his Royal Fighter Squadron back through their portal.
“He said they couldn’t stay here any longer than they had to,” I added.
Rake woke up a little more. “There’s a situation in the Seven Kingdoms,” he said solemnly. “They’re needed.”
“I heard one of them mention an expedition.”
Rake nodded, his dark eyes gazing at the stars through the Rover’s moon roof.
“Do you need to go with them?” I asked quietly.
“No. If it doesn’t go well, my people will need a place to go. I can do more good for them and their allies here.”
“Are we about to have guests?” I asked.
“I hope it doesn’t come to that.”
“You called it ‘the Seven Kingdoms.’ You didn’t call it ‘home.’”
“I didn’t, did I?”
“No, you didn’t.” I hesitated. “The Tuatha said you’d chosen this world—and me.”
“He did—and I have.” Rake’s eyes went from the stars to my face. “Though that statement wasn’t entirely accurate. My home is wherever you are.”
I leaned down to kiss him, wondering how should I go about introducing an incredibly hot and handsome goblin to my family?
• • •
Alain Moreau had wanted Ian to take a week off.
Ian took the weekend.
My partner got a standing ovation when he stepped off the elevator into the bull pen on Monday morning. SPI agents never let any opportunity go by to give our fellow agents a hard time.
Ian was a descendant of not one but two not-so-mythological Irish kings, so it was a given that his office chair would be decked out like a throne and have one of those Burger King paper crowns perched on the back. We’d even gotten him not one but two Ultimate Breakfast Platters (to satisfy even a king-sized appetite) and had them laid out on his desk on a silver platter.
Ian loved it.
A meetin
g with Noel Tierney in his professional capacity was a given when an agent had had a particularly tough mission. Kidnapped by a race of sea monster gods and nearly being sacrificed by their leader to bring about worldwide Armageddon certainly qualified. Then there was the not-insignificant life change that came with being the descendant of a legendary hero of Irish not-mythology.
We already knew one such SPI agent. Rolf Haagen in SPI’s Norwegian office. Rolf’s sword, that he’d described at the time as a family heirloom, had nearly killed Janus that New Year’s Eve under Times Square. Ian had used it to cut into him like hot butter. On any other night, all of Midtown would have heard his screams. It turned out Rolf’s family heirloom was one of those swords with a name.
Gram.
Rolf’s ancestor had quite a name, too.
Sigurd.
At the time, I didn’t know whether to be really impressed that we knew the descendant of a legendary Norse hero, or to be really worried for the safety and continued well-being of the Norse gods.
My partner had one up on Rolf Haagen. His ancestor was a god—or at least what the ancient Irish believed to be a god. Where the Tuatha Dé Danann had actually came from, no one knew. Ian didn’t have a problem with that part of his lineage. It was knowing he had a Fomorian side that might wake him up at night. Noel could help with that. Ian had a stack of reading material to catch up on, and ancestors to research. Elizabeth Wellesley had promised to deliver everything SPI had to his tablet. I couldn’t blame Ian; if my ancestors had been that cool/evil, I’d have wanted to know everything about them, too.
Like Rolf Haagen and Gram, there’d be times when the spear of Lugh would be needed. And as I had fortunately discovered, the spearhead didn’t need to be attached to a shaft to do its thing. Though you couldn’t exactly walk around town with a seven-foot spear; even jaded New Yorkers would have a problem with that. Probably. That didn’t mean Ian wouldn’t have access to the weapon of his ancestor. Ian could do the concealed-carry thing under his jacket. In fact, I had a feeling Ian’s trusty machete was about to have some illustrious company.
For now, our Research and Development folks were studying the spearhead. They loved getting their hands on supernatural weapons for study. Our commandos had also gathered the tridents and nets that some of the Fomorians had left behind. Our lab people would be giddy with geeky joy for weeks.
Once again, Ian had asked that I come with him to see Noel. This time, it wasn’t because he was nervous or didn’t like the idea of seeing the agency shrink.
He told me that since I was his partner, this was a part of who he was now, and I should be there. He’d wanted Kylie to come as well, but she and her entire department were swamped dealing with news that was coming out of the Hudson Highlands concerning strange sightings, sounds, and phenomena late last week.
“You aren’t the first SPI agent to be descended from an ancient god, goddess, or hero,” Noel was telling Ian. “In fact, you aren’t even in the first dozen. I was going to suggest that you come to our next meeting.”
“Next meeting?” I asked. “This is a regular thing?”
“Oh yes. We meet every month. The next one’s here in New York.”
“So it’s like a support group?”
“We try to avoid using that kind of terminology.”
I could see why. People talked about their feelings in support groups. I couldn’t see a bunch of demigods and superheroes sitting in a circle with boxes of Kleenex talking about their feelings. But if they did, I’d love to be a fly on the wall.
Ian slowly raised an eyebrow. “So, what exactly goes on in these meetings?”
“We share and discuss the challenges that can come with having a famous bloodline—and some of the abilities that can manifest as a result.”
I didn’t think Ian heard anything past “share.”
“It helps to accept and deal with them,” Noel continued, “when you know that others are experiencing the same thing.”
It took him a moment, but Ian slowly nodded in understanding and maybe even agreement.
Noel smiled, and I detected a wee bit of relief there. “However, boasting about your feats of daring and challenging each other to tests of strength is against the bylaws.”
Ian just looked at him. “Bylaws for a support group?”
“For this bunch, it was needed. I moderate the sessions—so I have my own set of challenges.” Noel’s smile faded. “And you certainly won’t be the first in the group whose nemesis has threatened to return with new allies.”
I remembered Janus’s parting words. I imagined Ian was doing the same.
“Those greater than I await their chance,” Janus had told us. “They have begun to awaken. They will find you. I will be there to guide them, and this time, you will not escape.”
Ian smiled. “Bring it.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Lisa Shearin is the New York Times bestselling author of the Raine Benares novels, a comedic fantasy adventure series, as well as the SPI Files novels, an urban fantasy series best described as Men in Black with supernaturals instead of aliens. Lisa is a voracious collector of fountain pens, teapots, and teacups, both vintage and modern. She lives on a small farm in North Carolina with her husband, four spoiled-rotten retired racing greyhounds, and enough deer and woodland creatures to fill a Disney movie.
Visit her online at lisashearin.com, facebook.com/LisaShearinAuthor, and twitter.com/LisaShearin.
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