Unfallen Dead

CHAPTER 33

Viten rocked Powell’s body. I leaned down and ripped the silver-branch brooch from her coat. The colors leached out of her skin and clothes as she lost her physical substance, then she faded out into the air. Stricken, Viten clutched at her disappearing form until his empty hands groped at nothing. Somewhere in Boston, her dead body would turn up. He lifted red-rimmed eyes toward me. “You could have given me a few more moments.”

I slipped the brooch into my back pocket. “You’ve got eternity, right? Get out of my sight before I shove this spear through your chest.”

He rose with an imperious look and stooped for his sword. I stepped on it. “You won’t be needing that.”

Viten tried to stare me down. Like I said, that doesn’t work much with me. “Someday, sir, you will find yourself here. I will be waiting.”

“Thanks. Be sure to tell your funeral director I like Guinness,” I said.

Viten sauntered down the trail.

I picked up the sword and made a few swipes with it. It had a fine edge, the grip a little small, but a decent balance. I held the pommel toward Meryl. “For those times when an essence shock to the head is not enough.”

She tested its balance, then batted her eyes at me. “How thoughtful of you. Too bad you didn’t take his sword belt, too.”

I slid my belt off. “You’re just trying to get my pants off again.”

She snorted. “Trying? You’re a guy. A simple ‘take your pants off’ works.” She coiled the belt around her hips, looping it around the steel buckle to form a frog to slide the sword through. She tested the draw a couple of times, then rested her hand on the pommel. “I’m good.”

I don’t know what it is, but a woman with a sword works for me. Always. Granted, the pumpkin orange hair is unusual, but with Meryl, it completes the package. And the boots. The boots work, too. Meryl walked to the opposite side of the clearing, where the path took up again.

“This is the way to the henge?” I asked.

“You didn’t come in this way?”

I shook my head. “I sort of teleported.”

She chuckled. “ ‘Sort of’? Okay.”

Pink essence burst in my face. I was so on edge, I fell back with the spear up and my sword ready. Joe hovered away in outright panic. “What the hell is going on?”

I’d been trying to get Murdock not to overreact when Joe shows up, and here I was startling like a newbie in the Weird. I relaxed like nothing happened. “Hey, buddy. Fancy meeting you here.”

“Me? You’re in Anwwn, then I felt you teleport, and you’re surprised?” I couldn’t even begin to pronounce the Cornish word he used for teleport.

We made our way up the path. “Long story, Joe. How the hell did you get here?”

He flew a random pattern beside us that he used when he was on guard. His hand clutched the empty air at his side, which meant he was ready to pull his glamoured sword. “Flits always get into Anwwn on Samhain. Well, not always, but before, when the world made sense, and we could visit our dead friends proper every year. Except the Way finally opens and everybody’s running this way and that trying to get out and people not where they’re supposed to be. I almost wish I stayed home tonight and went to a bar. Hi, Meryl.”

“Hey, Joe.” She grinned, like they had some mild secret they weren’t sharing. I haven’t figured out what she thinks of Joe. He doesn’t come around much when she’s with me, but they each seemed amused at the other’s existence.

He twirled in front of us. “Are you guys Dead?”

“No, dead tired, though. You never mentioned teleporting is tiring,” I said.

Joe shook his finger. “And that’s another thing. What the hell is that? All of sudden, I felt you in this horrible rush of nothing, then I go and look and here you are.” He narrowed his eyes at me. “You’re really not Dead, right?”

I shook my head. I held the spear out to look at it. “I have it on good authority that this buppy is called a sliver of the Wheel.”

Joe’s eyes bulged. “Where did you get that?”

I shrugged. “A fairy queen. It’s the traditional method if I remember correctly.”

Joe pounded his fists against his forehead. “I’m either too drunk or not drunk enough.”

“Story of my life lately,” Meryl said.

The sunlight dimmed as we hurried down the trail. A bank of clouds moved in, charcoal and thick, materializing in the sky with an unnatural speed. “I thought it didn’t rain here,” I said.

Joe checked the sky. “Sure it does. Usually at night, though, and it always smells like fresh.”

“Fresh what?” asked Meryl.

He dropped his eyebrows at her. “Fresh like fresh. It’s not a difficult concept.”

“Well, it wasn’t night a minute ago, and those clouds don’t look happy,” I said.

Joe fluttered up to get a closer look through the break in the tree canopy. “Something’s not right.” He flew higher until we couldn’t see him above the trees. When he popped back in our faces, his face was troubled. “I don’t like it. I can’t see behind us. There’s a nothing like nothing. It’s just… nothing.” He looked over at me, his eyebrows shooting up. “Oh! It’s like the nothing in…”

“I got it, Joe. Let’s just get out of here,” I interrupted. I knew what he was going to say. Joe had talked about nothing like that once before with me. It was what he called the darkness in my head.

We moved faster, concentrating on the path. After several tense minutes in the unchanging forest, the trail ended at the broad expanse of the grassy plain. Joe stopped so abruptly, I bumped him into an aerial stumble.

In the gray twilight of the overcast sky, clouds of blue and mauve did a slow churn, heavy with the threat of rain. Miles distant, a smudge of gray essence marked the position of the stone circle. A mass of people pressed toward it from every direction, hundreds, maybe thousands, of the Dead. The air vibrated with a riot of species signatures. The Dead moved in a vast ring that contracted as they advanced on the stone circle. In the gap between their front line and the end of the portal entrance, a company of riders burned with a brighter essence. They weren’t locals. I recognized the essences of living people. “That’s got to be Bergin Vize down there.”

Meryl shaded her eyes to see what I was talking about. “What the hell is he doing here?”

“He’s going after Tara,” I said.

Joe snickered. “Not if they get caught.”

At a glance, the massive crowd looked like it was making for the stone circle. Joe had pointed out what wasn’t immediately obvious. The crowd was closing in on Vize, not the henge. “The Dead are chasing them.”

Joe flew slow arcs in front of us. “Yep. Lots of people like it here, but lots don’t. If a Dead person kills a live person in Anwwn, they get to change places.”

Meryl looked intently across the plain. “Yeah. I was supposed to be Viten’s Get Out of Jail Free card.”

A mile off, the edge of the crowd nearest us shifted and broke from the rest. It was pretty clear where they were heading. I stopped. “How do they know if someone’s alive, Joe?”

He laughed and looped in the air. “Living essence lights up like a Beltane fire here. The chase is fun.”

Meryl stopped, too, realization sweeping over her face. “Everyone’s essence?”

Joe hovered between us with a puzzled look. “Of course. They never catch flits, though. Well, almost never.”

“But you can get away, right?” I asked.

Joe fluttered to the ground and shrugged. “Depends on how good you are at fighting and running. They ignore you only if you have the blessing of Anwwn to be here.”

Meryl and I looked at each other again. “I missed the queue for a blessing, did you?” she asked.

The frayed edge of the crowd had become a wedge pointed right at us. “We’ve been spotted.”

“What do you… Oh!” Joe said, jumping back into the air. He finally got it.

Meryl unpinned the serpent brooch from her jacket. “Let’s dump the silver branches, Grey. We’ll fade back.”

I gestured with the spear. “I don’t think leaving this lying around is the smartest idea.”

Joe peered at the spear. “I’ll take it back if it will let me.”

“That only solves one problem.” I held my arm up. The silver filigree from the spear wound around it in a branching vine pattern. I pushed at it with my body shield. It became colder but didn’t move. “It’s bonded to me.”

Meryl blanched. “Your entire arm is a silver branch?”

Smiling weakly, I held my arm up. “Technically, I think just the forearm, but it’s all kind of connected.”

Meryl whirled toward the open plain. The crowd was within a half mile. I came up behind her and hugged her close against my chest. “Go, Meryl. I’ll avoid them as long as I can and make my way to the henge.”

Joe flew toward us, his face upset. “You won’t have much time if you don’t go back direct-like. Samhain is almost over. I can feel the portals closing.”

Meryl broke my embrace and reattached the serpent brooch to her jacket. “Come on. I’ll shield you, and we’ll run for it.”

I shook my head. “It’s got to be five miles to the henge, Meryl. I know you’re strong, but even you can’t maintain a shield for both of us that long. Besides, the moment we set foot in it, that mob is going to turn into a mosh pit with us in the center. I came to get you out, and you’re getting out. Go. Please. I’ll be fine.”

She had that look in her eyes, the one that says she won’t take no for an answer. “I’ll believe that when I hear a better plan.”

“I’ve never seen such a storm here. It’s almost like Anwwn itself is angry,” said Joe. The forest behind us had gone dark. The clouds deepened from dark gray to black, streaks of rain rippling like curtains in the distance. A strange darkness was behind it, a negation of space that felt devoid of essence. I shivered at the familiarity of it. It felt like nothing. Joe was right. It felt like the thing in my head. Lightning flickered, followed by a long roll of thunder.

I pursed my lips. “Great. Now I’ve managed to piss off an entire otherworld dimension.”

“Teleport!” Meryl exclaimed.

“What?”

She grabbed me by the arms and shook me. “You said you teleported. Teleport us back to Boston.”

Joe shook his head so vigorously, his hair splayed out. “You can’t. You have to use a portal.”

“You lost me,” I said.

“Teleporting is one of the Ways. It’s a place, not a portal.”

“Then teleport us to the henge. We can skip over the plain,” said Meryl.

Joe grinned. “Now you get it.”

I looked inside myself, testing my inner vision, letting the spear feel my desire. It vibrated in my hand, and the misty tunnel opened in my mind. Far off, a gray light smoldered, vague and indistinct. “I think I can do it.”

Meryl glared. “What do you mean ‘think’?”

I shrugged. “I missed you by a few hundred yards when I did it last time.” I gazed at the Dead, estimating the distance between their front line and the entrance to the henge. “That’ll be close enough. I can outrun them.”

“That’s not good enough. Take me with you. I can shield us if you come up short,” she said.

I looked at Joe. “Can I do that?”

He shrugged. “She’s too big for me, but she’s small enough for you.”

I compressed my lips as I thought. “Let’s do it.”

“Meet you at the henge,” Joe said. He saluted and popped out.

Meryl hugged me with a fierce grip.

“Ready?” She didn’t speak but nodded into my chest.

I closed my eyes. The misty tunnel spiraled off in my inner vision, a streak of pink vanishing through it. The spear trembled as it felt my desire for the gray essence of the standing stones. The dark mass in my head shifted, as if trying to avoid the light. It hurt. The damned thing always hurt. I ignored it and visualized moving through the tunnel toward the gray smudge. The spear reacted by pulsing with a violent white light. I tightened my grip on Meryl as my head spun with dizziness. The dark mass sliced sharply in my head, and the spear pumped white light into me. I screamed. My body wrenched forward, harder and more painfully than before. Everything twisted to a smear of color, light and sound merging into something new and its own, as a dark fire clawed at my mind.

The pain subsided. My eyes burned, and I couldn’t see. I stumbled on firm ground, sinking to my knees. The pungent odor of grass filled my nose. Everything hurt. Everything. Hands grasped my shoulders, pulling me back. I lay against something warm and soft. Black spots flashed as consciousness threatened to leave.

“Dammit, Connor. You’re hemorrhaging.” Meryl sounded far off.

Something pressed down on my chest. A hand. My body shields fluctuated on and off as essence flowed into me. A warm tide of light spread from my chest, up my neck, and into my head. The dark mass spiked against the essence. Pain pierced my head as the light and dark grappled. The light winked out. I came to, nestled in Meryl’s arms. I felt damp. It didn’t smell like sweat. It was the raw tang of blood. I was saturated with my own blood. “I want a shower.”

She tracked a finger on my cheek and showed it to me. “Your face is a mask of blood.”

Blinking more blood out of my eyes, I tried to smile up at Meryl’s concerned face. “I hope this gets easier with practice.”

She laughed. “You’re stable. I hit you with a healing spell, but I had to use essence from the henge. It might not be enough.”

Joe flew position over our heads, his sword out as he stood guard. I took the fact that he was concentrating on something instead of talking to mean we weren’t out of the woods yet, so to speak. I pushed myself up.

We had hit in the center of the stone circle like a bull’s-eye and landed beneath the pillar stone. On one side, several Dead clustered, calculating looks in their eyes as they observed us from across the circle. More Dead trailed in from the avenue entrance.

Two portals in the circle showed clear night skies crisscrossed by searchlights. People were rioting around standing stones. Stonehenge in England was unmistakable, and the other had to be Carnac in France. In both portals, panicked Dead faced us from the living side, pressing against the openings. They had crossed and couldn’t get back. The veil was closing as the sun rose. That wasn’t the way it was supposed to work. When Samhain ends, the Dead go back to TirNaNog. Apparently, though, not tonight.

Another portal showed a place I recognized. I had been there once a long time ago. A bonfire burned high into the sky. Druids in court attire and Danann fairies in battle armor moved in smoky torchlight. To either side, ranks of Celtic warriors faced the portal, swords drawn and shields up, guarding Tara.

Only one other portal showed through to the living side. Boston Common was empty of everyone except the police and Guild security. In front of the portal, on the TirNaNog side, Ceridwen stood. She no longer hid behind a glamour, revealing golden wings in their full brilliance. Her eyes glowed with a wild white light as she guarded the Boston portal, the prone bodies of the Dead at her feet.