by Hall, Linsey
Their minds passed through it, and again they passed by the river Styx, through the fields, and into the forest. At some point, she felt Esha’s presence fade. She was alone. The sword felt almost natural in her hand, and for that she was grateful. It was an extra sharp security blanket. Her fist clenched around the hilt and she crept through the woods, certain that she was near the clearing that held Paulinus and Vivienne.
“What have we here?” The rough feminine voice cut through the silence.
Diana jumped and spun around to see one of the red demons bearing down on her with a sadistic grin on its birdlike face. Great wings flared from its back. Recognition dawned.
A harpy. Of course. This was the Roman underworld. On earth, they must hide their wings with magic to avoid attention.
She lunged at it with her sword and caught it in the arm below the fall of dark hair.
It shrieked and yanked a sword free of the sheath at its belt. “You’ll pay for that.”
The harpy swung and she parried, knocking its sword aside. They circled, trading blows, until her arm sang from the effort. Exhausted, she tripped over a root and fell on her back. The harpy leapt for her. She thrust her sword up and managed to catch it in the stomach. The sword sank grotesquely into flesh, then slid out when the harpy fell to the side, gasping.
She stumbled to her feet, but before she could rise fully, felt a slender arm wrap around her torso.
“That wasn’t very nice, was it?” The harsh voice in her ear was that of another harpy.
Clumsily, she managed to flip her sword backward and stab the thing in the stomach. It grunted and released her. She stumbled, but regained her feet and spun around to swipe her sword across its throat. It collapsed to the ground and she looked around frantically.
No more. Good.
And thank God she had Boudica’s talent with a sword.
She set off in the direction of the clearing until she reached the edge of the woods and crouched behind a bush. In front of her, about fifty yards away, the altar rose black and menacing out of the ground. A vision of herself bleeding atop it flashed into her mind and she flinched, her muscles tightening.
She was here for vengeance, here to stop something monstrous from opening into Edinburgh; but in the end, she was also here to save her friend and her own life from the man who now stood above the altar reading from his book. He wore the armor he’d died in, though it was tattered and stained with the shadows of old blood.
He was but a shadow of the Roman general she remembered, but enough of him was there to make her skin tighten with ancient rage. Her daughters’ murders, her own brutal beating, the destruction of her village. Now he’d threatened her life and that of her friend. Her jaw tightened.
As quietly as she could, she crept through the forest at the edge of the clearing, ears and eyes alert for any sign of harpies on guard. Finally, she reached the tree line directly behind Paulinus. Vivienne was only a dozen feet from her, but Diana resisted the urge to go to her friend. She needed the element of surprise.
She crept forward on quiet mouse feet and raised her sword to strike. As much as she wanted to gloat, to lord it over him that she’d defeated him again, it would be stupid. Instead, she’d finish this quickly. But as she brought the sword down, he spun and stepped backward. Her sword sliced ineffectually through the air.
“You,” he said. The crazed light in his eyes gleamed and made a shiver run down her spine.
She lunged for him again, managed to swipe his arm with the tip of her blade. But no blood welled. As if she’d never touched him. He reached for his own blade, but not before she landed another swipe across his middle. Still, no blood.
Vivienne’s cry echoed across the clearing, distracting her. Suddenly, she felt two strong hands grip her arms. Her sword fell to the ground. In her peripheral vision, she caught sight of harpies on either side of her. Damn it. They were so fast.
Paulinus laughed, a deranged chuckle that made the hair on the back of her neck stand up. “You’ve come to me, then,” he said.
“To destroy you forever.”
“That’s not how this will go, Boudica.”
She didn’t bother to correct him. For his purposes, she was Boudica.
“Let my friend go,” she demanded, thrashing in the arms of her captors.
“No.”
“You don’t need her. Why take her?”
He shrugged. “Mistake. But she was very good bait.”
Diana flailed in the arms of her captors, reaching back to claw at the face of one. It shrieked when she gouged its eye and loosened its grip. She dropped her weight to the ground, then kicked up and broke the hold of the other.
“Get her,” Paulinus roared.
She scrambled to her feet and snatched up her blade from where it had fallen. She swung it wildly at one of the demons, but managed only to draw a shallow cut upon its chest.
“Let my friend go,” she gasped, unsure of her ability to finish this and get Vi out as well. There were too many harpies. Two more approached from across the clearing. Paulinus’s laugh cut through the sounds of clashing swords and she knew he’d never let Vi go.
“Go, Diana, get out of here,” Vivienne cried.
Diana ignored her, pivoting on her heel to land a fatal blow to one of the harpy’s neck. Suddenly, pain blossomed at her own back. It burned through her, stealing her breath, and she fell to her knees. She struggled to rise, but before she could gain her footing, she felt herself being dragged backward through Erebus.
No. Esha was pulling her out. But she hadn’t finished yet. Paulinus was still alive. Vivienne was still trapped. Diana clawed at the ground to stay in Erebus, but the pull was too strong.
CHAPTER THIRTY
“I wasn’t ready,” Diana cried as soon as she stood in the chamber. It was even darker than the forest in Erebus and it took her eyes a moment to adjust. Cadan was running his hands over her body. He cupped her face.
“The hell you weren’t,” he said.
Diana felt Esha’s hands at her back. “She looks okay,” Esha said. “I can see the mark on her soul, but it will fade since it isn’t physical.”
She pulled away from them both. “You should have let me stay.”
“Your sword dinna affect Paulinus,” Warren said. “And you dinna have a chance against five harpies.”
“I had no idea there’d be so many. We didn’t see them when we went in the first time,” Esha said.
“Damn it.” Diana stomped her foot. “I just really wanted to finish this, especially if it could be done without me dying.”
“That was no guarantee, not once their blades cut so deep and there were so many of them. You couldn’t get to Vivienne, and your blade wouldn’t work on Paulinus when only part of your soul was there. This plan gave you a greater chance of living. Not a certain one.”
Diana scowled. Esha was right. She’d held her own, but she’d been outnumbered. More importantly, her blade hadn’t affected Paulinus. But the sight of Vivienne, bound at the foot of the tree, stuck in her mind like a burr. She had to save her.
“We need a new plan. Fast. Can we talk about it in your office?” Diana asked Warren.
He nodded and they departed the chamber, making their way through the underground until they reached the entrance near Edinburgh castle. Diana realized they were close to Cadan’s flat.
“Can we swing by your place so I can get cleaned up? I know my body didn’t go in, but I feel filthy from that place,” Diana asked him.
“Sure.”
Esha looked up from where she stood nearby and said, “We can meet at Cadan’s if he doesn’t mind. It’s closer.”
“Aye, it’s fine,” Cadan said.
It was a short drive to his flat. Esha rode with them since she had aetherwalked to the underground.
“I won’t be long,” Diana said as she carried her bag of clothes to the bathroom.
She showered quickly, more to wash away the memories of the demons’ hands on he
r than to actually get clean. As she was rifling through her bag for clean clothes, her hands closed on the book at the bottom of her bag.
The treatise with the picture of Arthur’s Seat that had led her here. She’d read it on the plane, but hadn’t found anything useful. But now that she knew who she was…
Diana dressed quickly and carried the book out of the bathroom and into the living room. Cadan sat on the couch, while Esha and Warren had taken the two chairs at either end.
She held up the book and said, “A month ago, I ordered this book off the Internet because I thought it might have something to do with the manuscript I’m working on back home. But there’s a drawing inside of Arthur’s Seat that led me here. Did you send it to me?”
Warren shook his head. “Dinna send you anything. We dinna know exactly who Boudica’s soul would be reborn to, so we couldn’t. Could be coincidence, or fate that you picked that one. Perhaps Aerten sent it to you.”
He reached out and she handed the treatise to him. It was a compendium of Celtic myths recorded during the Celtic Revival period in the eighteenth century, when academics and antiquarians had become interested in what they perceived to be Britain’s misty and romantic past. It had appealed to her a month ago when she’d found it for sale on a used books site. Her attraction to it made even more sense now.
Warren frowned down at the book. “I’ll be damned. Mary Anderson.”
“Who was she?” Diana asked.
“A mortal who came to the university in the mid eighteenth century when I first joined the Praesidium.” He looked at Cadan. “You would no’ remember. I think you were off somewhere else that century.”
“West Indies,” Cadan answered.
“Aye, well, and Esha would no’ be here for another three centuries. Anyway, she was a seer, and while she was here, she wrote three volumes of prophecy. They were presented in the form of myths or fairytales, but she was certain they would come true.”
“That’s the second volume—a collection of Celtic myths,” Diana said.
“Well, shite. That makes sense, then. She saw backward as well as forward.”
“Whoa,” Diana said, excitement thrumming through her. “If she really could see the past, then her myths are true. We know so little about Celtic beliefs, but she did, because she could actually see it.”
She held out her hand for the book. Warren passed it to her and she sat next to Cadan and began to skim through the pages, glancing at the chapter headings for something familiar.
Within minutes, a shiver skittered up her spine at the sight of chapter title she recognized. She hadn’t noticed it before, but now that she had Boudica’s memories, it stood out. Quickly, she skimmed the story. Visions from her childhood, the first one, flashed across her mind. Their Druid priestess had loved to tell this tale, and it had been her favorite as well.
But now, with the idea of embodying the role of the heroine, her blood ran cold. When Warren had said she was destined to die as part of her reincarnation, she hadn’t really believed him. But this story... Her stomach clutched as she looked up at Cadan.
“I think the answer is in the story of Andrasta—how she became a goddess.” Her voice trembled only slightly, but she could take no joy in her show of bravery as she looked up to meet the eyes that had been watching her for the last few minutes.
“Your patron goddess?” Cadan asked.
Diana nodded. Andrasta was the Celtic goddess of victory, the one that Boudica had called upon during her revolt—the one she had made a symbol of her campaign. It was all coming full circle, but she had the sick feeling that the circle was going to close all too soon.
“You don’t remember how she became a goddess?” she asked Cadan.
“Bits and pieces. No’ enough to say so.”
Diana swallowed to force the boulder down her throat. “She was born mortal, but her skill with a bow attracted the attentions of Camulos, the god of war. He didn’t like the idea of a mortal sharing his skill, and so he sought to kill her. But Andrasta got lucky when he came after her. He was arrogant and didn’t think she was a real match for him, and she killed his mortal form.
“His soul was sent to Otherworld, the Celtic land of the gods and deceased mortals, where he plotted to regain his physical form so that he could come after Andrasta and her family. She knew he would succeed. He was a god, after all. To protect her family, she knew that she had to kill him once and for all. Killing him in the land of the gods, where she could destroy his soul and not just his body, would ensure that he could never come back again. And she was the only one who could do it, since she had sent his soul there in the first place.” She stopped speaking for a moment, remembering what Esha had said about the power of souls and her connection with Paulinus.
“But the only way to get to the land of souls is to die.” She saw Cadan’s knuckles whiten on the arms of the chair, but he didn’t say anything, and let her continue. “So she killed herself, knowing it would free her soul to pass over.”
Blackness started to creep in on the edges of her vision, forcing her to close her eyes and focus on breathing carefully to keep herself upright.
“And it worked,” Esha said.
Diana nodded, unable to speak, and was relieved when Cadan continued to speak for her.
“Aye, it worked. In thanks for ridding them of an unwise god, the other gods allowed her to take his place, for she was wise and just, two qualities a war god required if the world was going to thrive rather than be dragged into endless strife.”
The room was silent for a minute and Diana’s empty stomach heaved.
Esha broke the silence. “Damn it. It’s not a coincidence. Your blade couldn’t hurt Paulinus. You could hurt the demons, because of their ability to go back and forth between earth and Erebus means they straddle both realms, as you did when I projected part of your soul. But Paulinus is fully within the afterworld. For you to hurt him, he must be able to hurt you, too. The universe wants equality that way. You have to lay it all on the line. You’ll have to do as Andrasta did.”
It was too much for Diana. Bile burned in her throat and she stumbled for the bathroom. The hard floor bit into her knees as she heaved. Cadan wrapped an arm around her shoulders and held her hair back.
When the dry heaving finally ceased, and with her throat burning, she raised her head and stared blankly into space. Something buzzed faintly in her ears, and as if from outside of herself, she felt Cadan scoop her up into his arms.
“We’ll speak to you soon.” Esha’s voice echoed. The sound of the door shutting behind Esha and Warren as they departed the flat barely made a dent in the buzzing that was sounding in Diana’s head.
Cadan gave her water to wash out her mouth and carried her through the flat to the bedroom and placed her gently in a big chair in the corner of the room. He grabbed a throw blanked from the back and wrapped it around her, but no matter how cozy the wool, the chill in her bones remained.
“I’ll be back.”
She nodded, unable to speak. This was so real. She was going to die to get into hell. The idea raced in circles around her mind until Cadan returned to the room with a steaming mug of tea. He put it into her hands, and though the warmth made her sigh, she didn’t drink.
Cadan sank down onto the floor next to the chair. After a while, when some of the shock had worn off, she noticed that he’d laid his hand on the arm of the chair. After a moment, she reached down to lace her fingers with his.
After a while – minutes or hours, she had no idea – Diana put the cold tea mug on the ground. The chill in her heart threatened to shatter her into a million pieces. She’d tried to reconcile the future that was before her with the one that she’d envisioned for herself. There was no overlap. Even when she’d first arrived in this world, she hadn’t imagined that she might never return to her own.
She looked down and met Cadan’s gaze. His eyes searched hers, worry creasing his forehead.
“I need you,” she murmured, then s
tood and tugged on his hand until he rose.
“Aye.” He lifted her into his arms and carried her to the bed.
His big body followed hers down as she sank into the mattress. She needed him to fill the void within her.
“Please.” She moaned, beyond being embarrassed. “I need you. Make me forget what’s coming.”
“Anything,” he rasped. He caught her eyes as he settled between her thighs. His gaze was intense, searching. “You’re mine, Diana, and we’ll get you through this.”
Please be right.
She shivered as he ran his hot tongue along the side of her neck.
“Gods, you taste sweet,” he whispered in her ear. He nipped the lobe and her hips bucked up slightly at the pleasure.
Too much. Not enough.
She clutched at his shirt. “Faster. I need you now.”
She didn’t want to think, didn’t want time to process what her fate might be. She wanted him. Wanted Cadan. He would make her forget.
He must have heard the desperation in her voice. While she struggled out of her clothes, he reared up and jerked the shirt over his head. His jeans were gone, then hers, and she stared up at the magnificent form rising above her on the bed. She reached up toward him and ran her hands along the rigid beauty of his abs. Then she yanked him down to her.
“Now,” she demanded, running her arms over his sculpted back. She sank her nails into his ass and jerked him toward her. “I need you now.”
She wanted him pounding into her so hard that she could only feel him. Could only think of him.
“Hang on,” he grated, his breath harsh at her ear. He wanted her as much as she wanted him, she knew it. She jerked at his hips again.
He resisted, pulling back enough to slip a hand between them. “I want to make sure you’re ready.”
He stroked his thumb over her clitoris. Yes. She squirmed beneath him.
“More.” She moaned when he pushed a finger inside her.
