Beside him, Finn and Mell scanned the alley.
“Clear?” he asked.
“Wait.” Mell stared at the far end, where the alley opened again onto Tobergal Lane. A shadow moved there.
Dub gathered strength and poised to attack. He’d found no traces of Scath in the trees around the glade, but what he’d seen, combined with the shadow hounds Bat had glimpsed in her vision—and who the invitation had been sent by—were enough that he suspected his father’s lieutenant—and his father as well—of deep involvement in this quest to revive Balor.
Both Mell and Shar were too young to remember the old bastard, but Dub had been unlucky enough to bear that particular privilege. Balor had been cruel, coarse, and power hungry. He’d stirred the men with promises of riches and freedom to do as they pleased, preached the mightiness of taking what you were due.
And Dub had followed him as well. For a time.
Balor had a quality about him, one that riled you, and teased and seduced you, into believing his way was the right way.
As soon as Puchi had mentioned his name, things had begun to come clear to Dub.
“Scath?” Dub asked.
Finn cocked his head, a hunter scenting prey, then shook his head. “No.” He drew in a deep breath. “But he was here. And recently.”
The shadows shifted yet again, and dissolved into a dark and stooped figure. It shuffled closer, tattered robes hanging from twisted shoulders. Its skin was rough, wrinkled like the ba men’s, yet translucent like a wisp’s. Instead of lights and pastels, though, this figure swirled with darkness. When it was half-way, it lifted its head, revealing blue lips and bright red eyes. Fangs flashed then disappeared back into the dark, and the robes shifted and bunched at the back, as though there were more limbs hidden under there than there should be.
Dub called his sword from the fold of space he stored it in and readied himself. A sluagh. If it had sided with Balor…
“Hold,” Mell whispered.
The figure drew even with Shar’s garden, stepping into a stay beam from the streetlights, and changed, pulling on a mask of humanity.
Was that…?
“Faolan?” Dub had never cared for this particular immortal, but he was fairly certain Faolan hadn’t sided with anyone. This sluagh preferred to keep his allegiances free.
“Can ya get me ta the goddess?” Faolan shuffled forward another step, then stumbled, falling to one knee. “I saved it.”
Dub looked to Mell who nodded, telling him Faolan was sincere. Dub went to the sluagh, Finn and Mell flanking him as Cu Chulainn, whose presence he’d been attempting to forget, remained at the mouth of the alley, facing out, ready for anything that came from that direction.
Dub knelt, matching the sluagh. “What did ya save?”
“The Uaithne. Bastards came for it, but its no theirs, now is it? None but the goddess should have it now. So I snuck in after them.” He grinned his evil smile, then coughed. Blood speckled his lips and the sluagh licked it away. “Yer wards suck, Dub O’Loinsigh. Ya should fix tha’.”
“Finn? Can you?” Dub asked. Whatever had injured the sluagh, it wasn’t a soul blade, or even Nuada’s sword. If it had been, the fae would be dead already. They needed him healed. If he passed out before they got all the information they could from him, who knew what they could miss.
Finn nodded and headed for the small hose tucked in a corner of the garden.
“Faolan,” Dub said, his voice sharp. He needed the sluagh to focus. “What happened?”
“Well, ya closed too early, and I didn’t get me pint. I was just waiting. A man’s got to have his pint, now doesn’t he? And then these shadows, no mine, mind ya, come sneaking around, prying at the door, at the locks, at the windows, till they finally went down the flue. If I’d know the pub was weak there…” He shook his head.
“Faolan, focus for me.”
The sluagh rolled his head and it flopped back, another smile flashing fangs he usually kept hidden. He pulled his head forward as Finn stepped beside them, hands carefully cupped together. “I saved it,” Faolan continued. “Me shadows are better. I hid it, but they got me. Not fatal, mind ya. Never fatal for me.” The red of his eyes dimmed. “But it burns, it does, to hold it so. Only meant for the goddess.”
“Finn.”
The guardi knelt and held his hands to Faolan’s mouth. “Drink, sluagh, and if you bite me, so help me I will sneak a lann de anam from the vaults of the gods and finish your misery.”
Dim red eyes rolled, but Faolan stretched his head forward and slowly sipped from the sidhe’s hands. A bit of light returned to his gaze and his shoulders straightened, though he didn’t rise. “Ye’ll take me to her? I’ll not hand the harp to any but her.”
Dub stiffened and moved his hand back to his sword. Was this a trick? Had Faolan chosen a side after all?
Mell’s hand fell to his shoulder. “He tells the truth. All he wants is to give the harp back.”
“He can give it to me.”
“And how do I know ye’ll take it ta her? No. None but her shall have it from my hands. I know who your father is, and who serves him.”
“If you were so suspicious of us, why show yerself?” Did Faolan really think they would side with their father?
“Because I know ya as well.” Faolan licked his lips, then licked Finn’s lingers.
The sidhe jerked his hands away and stood. “I’m going to see what else I can find.”
“I’m no taking the harp out till we’re with her. My shadows hide it. My shadows are verra good.”
“Good enough to penetrate the wood around Benbulben?” Dub didn’t release his sword. Shadows. There were too many shadows.
Red eyes darted to his. “I’m not picking sides, Fomoiri. Some things just belong where they belong. And… she’s played me a song, just for me. Can’t have a power-hungry idjet go ruining something like that, now can we?”
Dub sighed. The sluagh’s words rang with truth. Well, as much as it would ever hold. And, he knew the power of those songs, and her generous smiles. “Fine.” He stood, gesturing for Faolan to rise as well. “We’ll finish here, and then we’ll make sure the harp gets to her, one way or the other.”
Faolan stepped toward the mouth of the alley, and Dub settled the tip of his sword at the sluagh’s throat. He needed to make sure he was understood. “There will be no pranks, no bargains, no tricks. You will return the harp to her.”
The sluagh nodded and Dub lowered the sword. He looked to Finn. “I want to do a full sweep of the pub, and grab that invitation. I assume the guardi has a secure place we could trace the seeing spells?”
“Of course.” He turned to the mouth of the alley. “Cu Chulainn, we have this side secure. Could you patrol the front, scan for any watchers, or traps laid?”
The other guardi captain gave a jerk of his head and disappeared back onto the street.
“You’re asking him?” Dub wasn’t sure how he felt about that. Finn was more the type to order, rather than request.
Finn shrugged. “He is a guardi captain, whatever you feel of his accomplishments.”
Mell was at the back door, looking it over for more overt signs of tampering. He stepped back and looked over his shoulder. “Finn, could you check it? I don’t see anything, but I don’t have your tracking abilities.”
“Are we going after them tonight?” Finn asked as he took Mell’s place on the back stoop.
Dub’s first instinct was to say yes. He wanted to find whoever had invaded his territory, hunt them down and make them pay for the violation. Not just of his home, but of his goddess’s. How dare they come in, and seek her possessions, defile her sense of security? Put that look of fear into her beautiful eyes…
“Dub?” Mell appeared before him. “Ya need to pull it together.” His brother placed a hand on either shoulder and shook. “We’re not going anywhere but back to the guardi headquarters, and forming a plan.”
Dub shook his head and blinked, focusing on
Mell’s wide brown eyes and the soothing waves he emitted. Calm. Have to remain calm.
“That’s right. We just need to finish here, and then get back to her, all right?”
“We should get her coat. And those thick socks she likes.” That was what he’d do. He’d pack up her favorite things while they were here, make sure no one would take them. He wasn’t sure they’d be able to come back to the pub right away, at least not until they found someone who could lay stronger wards than he was capable of. He’d put back the basic ones before they left, to keep the riff-raff out, but those wouldn’t be enough to keep his goddess truly safe, not now.
“Dub.” Finn’s sharp tone snapped him back to the current task.
Dammit to all the hells and afterworlds and lakes of brimstone in existence. Get your head in the game. Dub took a few more breaths to even his breathing. “Watch this one,” he told Mell, gesturing to Faolan. “And keep your senses open.”
His brother gave him a simple nod, and refrained from pointing out that Dub was the one who needed to keep his senses keen. Dub joined Finn on the stoop. “What do you have?”
“At least four, including Scath. I don’t know the others, but then, I haven’t met all the Fomoiri. One of them does have the taste of a Fir Bolg, or one of their descendants. Possibly a sluagh, and not Faolan—I know his scent.”
“So the neutrals are taking sides.” That wasn’t good news. There were many creatures who preferred to be left alone and out of the struggles of general power. It worked well for everyone that way. If Balor or his agents were bending those creatures to their side, this was going to be more difficult than tracking down a mythical island, fixing one of the lost treasures of the sidhe, and killing an immortal who was once considered as powerful as the gods.
Yeah, they were fucked.
“Which means we need to begin gathering our own allies.” Finn stared intently at the door’s lock for a few more seconds, then began scanning the edges of the jamb and trim. “We’ve got a good start.”
Dub snorted. “One sluagh and a handful of bomen. And we don’t know the enemy’s forces.”
“Don’t forget the pixies. And whoever else Ailis knows. The leprechauns and the wisps. Hell, the guardi. I’m sure a few of the sidhe could be convinced to stir themselves.”
“We’re going to get ourselves killed.”
Finn’s lips twitched up. “But think of it. One more great battle.” He stepped back. “That’s it. Other than Faolan, and those of us who gathered earlier, I sense four others, much more recently.”
Dub began probing at the pub’s wards, looking for the weak point. Unless all four intruders had come down the flue, there must have been another way in. They seemed intact, which was more disturbing than finding them obliterated.
He traced a quick scanning rune. The lower level appeared clear. He was mid sketching a second one specifically for the upper level, when a crash sounded from the front door.
Dub aborted the scan. No sense in wasting the energy now. “Mell.”
“On it.” Mell ran to the street and cut left, toward the front of the pub.
Twisting the knob, Dub found the door locked. Of course it was.
He pushed, breaking the door frame and crushing the knob. He’d fix it later. “Hide,” he shot over his shoulder to the sluagh. Shadows swept over Faolan and he faded into the night as Dub and Finn entered the kitchen.
Scuffs and muffled shouts came from the common room. Cuchi and Mell fought against three men. One, another sluagh, grinned and rushed them. This one was shirtless, and gave Dub a good view of what the creatures usually kept hidden under their clothes or wrapped in glamour—wings. The membranes were dark, but so thin what little light filtered in from the street turned them nearly translucent. The bones were delicate, and tipped in wicked claws.
The sluagh leapt, using his wings to propel himself into Finn.
Can’t let him get to Faolan. They must have been watching, waiting for the other sluagh to show himself, and the harp. Dub didn’t see Scath, but that also didn’t mean he wasn’t here.
Cu Chulainn let out a roar and swung his sword, fighting off a bald warrior the size of Shar. A second man, shorter but nearly as wide, charged Mell, propelling the two of them through the front window of the pub and out into the street.
Dub took a precious few seconds to sketch a silence rune, hoping none of the neighbors came to investigate. The last thing they needed was to involve the human guardi in this mess.
Finn cried out and Dub sprang toward the sluagh, who was just pulling a knife from the sidhe’s shoulder. Dub’s sword sliced through the left wing, shredding the membrane. The sluagh pulled away from Finn and jumped to the side, shrieking. The sound was piercing enough the fae could have passed for a banshee.
It slashed out and Dub caught the thing’s wrist, twisting. Bone snapped with a sharp crack and it shrieked again.
I will make you scream forever. Dub swung his opponent around and into the stone hearth, relishing the crash and the smear of blood it left behind. As had happened earlier with Cu Chulainn, his anger surged forward and took control, and this time he allowed it to reign.
Stalking past broken chairs and splinters of wood, he snagged the things hair and, barely avoiding the flashing claws on the wings, flashed his sword into the pocket of space, freeing his fist. He wanted the hand to hand, to know his own flesh destroyed, and not a mere sword. Dub struck the sluagh across the check; teeth flew and more bone snapped. He hit again.
A hand landed on his shoulder and he spun, growling. Finn stepped back from him, one hand raised in surrender. The other hung limp at his side. The sidhe grinned, small flecks of blood on his lower jaw and blending with his hair. His green eyes sparked. “It’s out, Dub. You’re not accomplishing anything anymore.”
Dub looked back at the limp figure in his hold and grunted. Dropping it, he wrested control of himself. Mell and Cu Chulainn stood in the street outside, two more figures at their feet.
“Got yerself?” Finn asked.
Dub gave him a sharp nod. He didn’t, not quite, but it was good enough.
Finn surveyed him a moment longer then spun away, opened the front door, and stepped up to the others, speaking low. Soon, the four of them were gathered in the pub’s common room, three bodies sprawled before them.
The room was a wreck. The booths and the bar were pretty much the only things intact, and for that, at least, he was grateful. His blood still pumped, and his hands tingled. The fight hadn’t been nearly long enough, not with only three opponents and four of them fighting.
“They’re not going to like this,” Finn said.
“Who?” Mell asked, a crazy grin firmly in place.
If only our goddess could see us now. What would she think? No doubt the Morrigan would have been munching popcorn and sipping minerals—fizzy drink, Bat would call it. But what would Bat think of this?
Finn pulled out his mobile with the good arm, keeping the other close to his side, and hit a button. “Criedne? Yeah, vacation is officially over. Need you to get the team over to the Dubros. There will be cleanup involved as well. May as well come with the patrol unit, flashing lights and all. We’ll have the glamour in place in a few minutes.” He listened for a few moments more, made affirmative sounding noises, and hung up.
“I’m going to go pack up some of our things.” Dub couldn’t stand there any longer, just waiting. He wasn’t letting Bat anywhere near the place. She’d need a few jumpers, socks, her boots. Wait, had she been wearing her boots earlier? He couldn’t remember. He set off for the stairs, scanning ahead of him just in case.
“Just pack it all up. We’ll need to scan for any glamours or traps that may have been laid on the items before they go to her,” Finn called to him. He didn’t even pretend that Dub wasn’t going only for Bat’s things. “And are there any bandages around here? Dammit, this stings.”
Mell let out a short laugh. “I’ll get you something, then go help Dub. At this rate, the
only person who will have anything to wear is the goddess.”
“And grab that other sluagh!” Dub called down. “I’d rather him—and the harp—in here with us than out there!”
He paused outside her door, then crossed the hall to his own room. They couldn’t stay at the guardi’s headquarters indefinitely. He knew where they could go, but he’d need a few things of his own first.
Chapter Eleven
Bastie,
Well, things are beginning to move along with my immortals. My giant pirate confessed that he was afraid he’d be too jealous, which was what I was afraid of, of course. But he also confessed that he is willing to try.
These men are not walking away from me.
But, you probably already knew that, did you not?
There are also new updates on the situation that is developing here, but I am not sure I should text you.
Please answer when I call.
- Bat, the floundering goddess
BAT
Bat stared at the shard, then glanced at Ari, who now sat across from her. The men of ba had shifted down the table and taken the places vacated by Dub, Mell, and Finn. Shar was still beside her, one hand resting lightly on her hip, while Ailis remained in her own place as well. The green-haired woman had been strangely silent since Bat’s conversation with the raven.
Ari’s knowledge of Balor had been spotty. Puchi was the one who’d dealt with the Fomoiri leader most of the time, back in Egypt and then on the ship while on the way to Ireland. When they’d reached the new land, Balor had helped them unload, then lingered, saying he needed to make sure it was secure. When they discovered the Fir Bolg were already there, he said the Fomoiri needed to stay, that the men of ba would be insufficient to keep the vessel safe. Then he’d confiscated it. Ari and the others had followed, keeping track of the vessel, but they trusted Balor. He’d been Seth’s right hand for so long that there was no reason to doubt him.
When the waters began to rise, he used that as an additional excuse to stay. And when they finally receded, he told the Fomoiri that Seth had sent word and instructed them to stay in this new land. But the stories from his mouth gradually changed, his version of events twisting until they didn’t resemble the truth in any way. By that time, the men of ba were competing with both the Fomoiri, the de Danann and the Druids for possession of the vessel. Their band was not large, and until Balor was gone, they did not have the power to take and conceal the vessel.
The Legends That Remain Page 10
