Unshapely Things

CHAPTER 16

A shrill screaming filled the air, punctuated with flashes of color. I huddled close to the ground, my heart racing in what I wanted to think was excitement but really was ordinary fear. Something closed in on me, something dark and huge. I fumbled for the dagger in my boot. As I pulled it from its sheath, it blazed with a white light. A scream rent the air.

I awoke in darkness. Cold air pressed against my skin, and the hard stone floor beneath me felt more unforgiving than ever. The torch had gone out. My breathing seemed louder than it was, fast and ragged from the nightmare. I took deep breaths to slow my heart rate and shake off the dream.

My knees crackled when I stood. I rubbed my arms to bring blood to the surface. Every time I dozed off, I felt colder when I woke up. It wasn't so cold that I would die, but it was damned uncomfortable in the meantime. I wind-milled my arms to try to force more blood into my hands. It only helped a little.

I still had light, I had gone over the room. While I found a fair-sized inventory of old office furniture, a hidden exit did not appear. The only outlets were two small drainage grates in the back, which the rats probably found convenient.

In darkness, boredom set in, followed by sleep. The faintly luminous face of my watch displayed the progression of time with agonizing precision. Every time I awoke from a nap, I was equally surprised whether five minutes or two hours had gone by.

Around four o'clock in the morning, my certainty that they would not be so stupid as to leave the door unlocked lost to my fear that they were that dumb, and I was even dumber for not trying. I tugged at the handle. It was locked. I went back to sleep.

The silence gave me a sick, frustrated feeling in the pit of my stomach. I had never been imprisoned before. I had been trapped under various circumstances but always in the context of moving events. I had known that just on the other side of a door or up on a roof or just a block away in a car, someone knew where I was and was coming to help. Now events were moving, but I had been taken out of the flow. I had no control. Not enough time had gone by for me to lose hope, but outside was a different matter. Outside Midsummer was coming. Night would fall and with it the official new moon of Midsummer's Eve. Someone would die, but this time chaos would break out. I dozed off again.

Breakfast came in a paper bag dropped out of a blaze of light from the corridor that was cut off when the panel slammed shut. I groped around until I found it. The reek of greasy fries plumed out of the bag so strongly I could smell it through my congestion. Burgers, fries, and a water bottle. The food was cold and the water was warm. Not my usual morning fare, but my stomach had given up trying to tell time somewhere around midnight. At least the crinkle of burger wrapper was a new sound.

I still had Briallen's dagger. Before the torch died, I had tested the strength of the door. The wood was old, but by no means rotten. Hacking around the hinges until they fell off would take a while, and the elf goons would stop me before I got very far. I'd only end up losing the dagger. I might be able to take at least one of them out if I tricked them inside. But that was the oldest gimmick in the book.

I didn't relish stabbing one of the guards. They didn't seem to have an agenda other than being macDuin's strong-arms. That didn't mean I liked them any better, but I doubted they had signed on for the job expecting to get killed. Maybe I'd just wound them really, really bad. I stared at the door, willing it to open, and eventually fell asleep again.

Some hours later, I lifted my head from my knees. I had the vague sensation of being awakened by some kind of noise. Voices could be heard out in the corridor, rising and falling in intensity. At least two. A moment later, I realized one of them was a woman's. A third voice chimed in, low and urgent. The guards had company. I couldn't make out what was being said, but the tenor was rising.

The voices grew louder as they approached.

"I don't care. The plans have changed," the woman said.

"He said tomorrow," one of the elves said in German.

"I'm not leaving without him. We don't have time."

The door flew open, and blinding light hit me full in the face. Amplifying the effect was the vision of a fairy in full blaze of anger, her wings flaring up and out. I held up my arm to deflect the glare after so much time in the dark. My eyes ran as I blinked hard to focus.

"Keeva?" I said.

"Come on, Connor. I don't want any trouble from you either."

"I want to call macDuin," said one of the elves.

Keeva spun toward him. "He's busy, you idiot. Why do you think he sent me?"

Something didn't feel right. My sense of perspective seemed to be off as I looked down at her. Keeva was tall enough to look me in the eye, yet I found myself staring at the top of her head.

"Keeva?" I said again.

"Let's go, Connor. I'm on a schedule."

She grabbed my arm and pulled me into the corridor.

She shot a sideways look at the elves. I could see them more clearly then. They were pissed off and confused. Keeva peered into the dark storeroom. Standing so close to her, I could see a mild blurring about her features.

"MacDuin wants you to go to the bookstore in Kenmore Square and wait for us. We'll be there in half an hour," she said to the elves.

The spellcaster stepped forward. "That's not the plan."

She sneered at him. "Oh, I'm sorry. I'll tell Lorcan to check with you next time."

They exchanged glares. Keeva grabbed my arm again and forced me down the corridor. The elves had remained where they were, angry uncertainty on their faces. Keeva straightened up again and stared them down. "Get moving. I'm not going to tell you again."

"We really have to move," she said under her breath as she passed me. We hustled up the corridor away from the garage. Another oaken door blocked the far end, and it took no more mystery than a good hard tug on the metal ring in its center to open it. As we passed out of sight of the corridor, I couldn't resist the urge to smile and wave to my former captors. I had to admire their nerve. They still hadn't moved.

We were in yet another corridor. This one had electricity, but only a few lights. I looked down at my rescuer. "Um, Keeva, your orange roots are showing." She looked at me from under her brow. For a disconcerting moment, another visage hovered behind Keeva's. Air rippled across the face, and it faded away. So did the wings.

Meryl crossed her arms and tapped her foot. "If you wanted a perfect glamour, I would be more than happy to lock you back up for another couple of hours."

I held up my hands in surrender. "I'm not complaining. It was long enough."

She frowned at me. "I would have been here sooner if someone hadn't thrown something at Muffin and scared him half to death."

"The rat? That was your rat?"

She twirled her hand over her head. "Cute little guy with a tuft of hair on his head that looks like a muffin? Let's just say we're on good terms. Hurry up. Those two idiots might still decide to follow us."

We made our way through a series of twists and turns, the lights becoming brighter with each step. Meryl's knowledge of the lower corridors of the Guildhouse was either me product of careful map study or incredible nosiness.

"How did you know I was here?"

She shot me an annoyed look over her shoulder. "Who do you think tried to peel the roof off their car? I didn't think fast enough. I should have blown out the tires. I was on my way back here when you drove past me again and right into the service alley. I was too exhausted to try anything then." She opened a door and held it for me. "Those are the dumbest elves I've ever met."

We came out in a corridor not far from the storage area Meryl had shown me days ago. She pulled a slip of paper out of her pocket and opened it. "Here's the spell I found. It blasts a hole between dimensional barriers using fey blood and hearts. I translated it into ogham since I knew you were more comfortable with that than Fomorian. Some of it I just put in phonetically. And that asterisk is pronounced like this." She made a thick, throat-clearing sound.

"Where the hell did you learn Fomorian?"

"Let's just say I had an interesting childhood. So, do you need any more favors, or are you deep enough in debt to me as it is?"

"Do you have a cell phone I could borrow?"

She sighed heavily and pulled a cell out of her pocket. "Go. Before I regret getting you out of that hole."

"Thanks, Meryl. I won't forget this." Impulsively, I kissed her on the top of the head and ran down the corridor to the elevator.

"I'm not paying your roaming charges!" she yelled, as the doors closed. Meryl's impersonation had given me an idea. I called Keeva. She picked up on me second ring. She wasn't surprised to hear from me. I breathed a short sigh of relief. I hoped it meant she didn't know I was supposed to be trapped in a dungeon.

"Keeva, I need to know where macDuin is."

"Connor, I don't need you screwing things up for me with macDuin."

"He just kidnapped me and had me locked in a storeroom for the last twenty-four hours. I think he's behind the murders."

She didn't speak for a moment. "Do you know how paranoid you sound right now?"

"Keeva, I can prove it. But right now, we have to find him and stop him. I think he's still loyal to his old politics from the war and wants to establish a dominant fey world here. He's going to open some kind of dimensional rift, and it's going to make Convergence look like a hiccup."

"Okay, I was wrong. Now you sound paranoid."

The elevator doors opened as I looked at my watch. It was already almost 8:00 P.M. The sun would be setting soon. The main corridor on the first floor was empty. Midsummer's Eve was a Guild holiday. The security guard looked startled as I breezed past the reception desk.

"Keeva, trust me. I have the spell he's going to use. If you won't meet me, just tell me where he is."

"You have a spell?"

It didn't seem the time to express any doubts. "Yes."

I paced on the sidewalk under the dragon lintel. It never helped to push Keeva.

"He's home. I'll meet you there." She hung up.

I let out the breath I hadn't realized I was holding.

I debated whether to spend the money for a cab, then laughed. The end of the world was coming, and I was worried about my budget. I flagged down a black-and-white Town Taxi. MacDuin lived in the Charlestown Navy Yard, and the driver was all too happy to take me there. Any destination that forced a route through the winding streets of downtown automatically meant a hefty fare.

I called Murdock. Loud street noise made him difficult to hear.

"Where the hell have you been?" he said.

"Long story. Your brother Bar still has Shay under surveillance, right? If he's with me big elf that acts like a child, pick them both up. And be careful. The elf is dangerous."

"Okay. I'll get the long story?"

"I hope so. Do you have this number on caller ID?"

I heard him fumble with his phone a moment. "No," he said.

So like Meryl to block her number. I gave it to him. "Call me if you get him, Murdock. And call me fast."

"Done," he said.

I put the phone away. Working with Murdock was a hell of a lot easier than with Keeva.

We did a stop-and-go creep around the Common. As we reached the top of Beacon Hill, I steeled myself to start blurting directions. If the driver continued down the other side, we would run into one of the few streets that led into the Weird from downtown. I checked my watch again. The parade on the Avenue would be just reaching its peak, and the streets would be an inescapable traffic jam. He saved me the trouble of being annoying by turning off on a side street. Once off the Hill, we weaved through twisting streets to the Charlestown Bridge.

As we turned into Charlestown, I pulled out the piece of paper Meryl had given me. The spell was simple, but long. As I mentally sounded through the words, I could hear the ancient cadence of the Celts, only darker, more primal-sounding. Meryl had provided a rough translation. It didn't have the rhythm of the Fomorian, but it still read like a paean to the world. It was a calling to forces greater than the individual, deep forces that bound together reality. The verses sang to the ancient elements of life represented in the five cardinal points of a pentagram.

I could see now what Meryl meant by the oddity of the spell. Paradox seemed to run through it, giving an honoring to bindings yet asking for freedom; asking for release within the bounds of flesh. Yet, it had its own logic. Something wanted out, and out badly.

Below the spell and its translation, Meryl had written two more spells. They were formal in the very ancient tradition of the Tuatha de Danann, powerful spells of binding. Next to each of them, she had drawn large question marks. They were spells that did the opposite of the Fomorian one. A layman might call them counterspells, but true counterspells were devised to defend against specific spells. Meryl's notes were informed guesses. Good ones, but guesses nonetheless.

A queasy feeling crept into my stomach. Nothing that powerful had been uttered in over a thousand years, probably longer. No one had a reason to. And I didn't have the ability to give the words the power they needed. I hoped Keeva would have the strength to hold the de Danann spells long enough for them to work. The easiest course was to stop macDuin before he even began the ritual.

The cab pulled into the parking lot of the Charlestown Navy Yard. I gave the driver a tip so big, I left him staring at his palm.

The Navy Yard no longer retained its original function. Shipbuilding had left Boston long ago. The old buildings had gone derelict until someone had the idea of making them residences. Everyone thought the people who moved in were crazy to pay exorbitant prices to live in the middle of a crime-ridden neighborhood. They got the last laugh though. More development had spread around them, and the condos were worth ten times what the original owners had paid for them.

Keeva was nowhere in sight. No one was in the area at all. Across the way, a few cars sat near the edge of the pier. Beyond them, boats of all sizes dotted the harbor. Their slack sails waited in the humidity for a breeze. I moved down the sidewalk to macDuin's unit. The door stood ajar. I didn't need instinct to call up my body shields. The familiar tingle spread over my head and chest. Comforting, but useless. I was tired and had little energy to do them much good.

I slid along the inner wall of the entryway and tilted my head to listen inside. I could see part of the foyer where an area rug lay askew. Without taking my eyes away, I reached down and slipped the dagger from my boot. An open, unattended door is never a good sign.

I tapped the door with my toe, and it fell back against the inside wall. A faint current of air-conditioning radiated against my face. I could see the entire entryway, a mail table with fresh-cut flowers, small oil originals above it, anatne archway to the living room beyond. To the left, stairs led to the second floor. I could hear no signs of movement.

I eased into the entryway. Something glistened on the third step. I didn't need to be a hematologist to recognize fairy blood. As I moved closer, I could see another spot on the railing near the top. I leaned forward and closed the front door. Without knowing who had left the trail of blood, I didn't want any surprises coming in behind me.

I darted a look into the stairwell. The landing was empty. Testing each step for noise, I made my way to the second floor. More bloodstains showed on the walls and floor. In a technical sense, I was contaminating a possible crime scene, so I did my best not to disturb anything. The bedrooms on the second floor were empty. The blood trail continued up.

As I crept up the last flight, the top floor came into view. The stairs led to a room that stretched from the front of the building to the back. Great beams crisscrossed the ceiling. As my eyes came level with the floor, I looked under a couch that had been positioned against the railing. Someone lay on the floor, a man by the look of the bare feet facing me. I could see no one else in the room. Unless someone was lying on the couch, the townhouse was empty except for me and the prone figure.

I walked up the last few steps and almost slipped on a broken ward stone on the floor. I picked up a large chunk of it and recognized it as the same material as the wards from the other murders. Whatever purpose it had served had been destroyed with the stone. Coming around the couch, I stopped in surprise.

MacDuin lay on the floor. He had been stripped naked and pinned to the floor like a butterfly. Ward stones held his wings flat, just like the other victims. His chest had been split from collarbone to abdomen and wrenched open. It had been done with such force that his lungs were splayed to the sides, and the heart appeared to have been torn out instead of cut.

I edged around the body to get a closer look. Too late, I felt a tingle across the nape of my neck. Even as I pulled back, the field of another ward stone grabbed me, and I froze in place. I let out an angry sigh, cursing myself for stupidity. I had taken the lack of any sensation of a ward as a sign that there were none.

The wards on the wings were too small and far away to be the culprits. The ones at the other murder scenes had been keyed to each other to hold the wings back. Even given my recent propensity for walking into traps, I didn't think it was too much to assume these stones were any different, but obviously I was wrong. I tried rolling my eyes to the extreme, but couldn't place the offending stone and only hurt my eyes.

I stared into macDuin's face. He hadn't gone easily. An open cut on his cheekbone looked like the result of a punch. It had probably thrown him into the ward field I was in now, and the rest had been by the book for the murderer.

In the dead silence, a familiar sound caught my ear. French doors at the back of the room led to the balcony. The distinctive hum of fairy wings in motion whirred from the same direction. Most fairies dampened the noise unless they didn't care if someone heard them coming. I let out a sigh of relief when Keeva fluttered into view. She brought herself down onto me balcony with long practiced ease. She reached for the door and paused when she caught sight of me. Her lips compressed into the thin line that I had learned long ago meant annoyed condescension. She opened the door.

"Well, well, well, don't we make a pretty picture?" She held her arms loosely at her sides, waiting for me to respond. XjhTcan't talk?" She paced near the door, making exaggerated thoughtful poses. "Let me see, what could have happened here? Could it be the great Connor Grey is trapped?" She gave me a sideways smirk. I tried to throw as much anger into my eyes as I could under the circumstances.

"Imagine my surprise when I find my dear, beloved boss sliced open and a former, troubled employee poised over him with a dagger. I do wish I had a camera." She stopped moving and faced me again. "You do know how much macDuin would have loved this moment." She leaned forward with just her upper body and peered down at the body. "He doesn't seem to be enjoying it though. Pity."

She looked at me again and shook her head. "I have to hand it to you, Connor. You do know how to be in the right place at the wrong time. MacDuin said you would spoil everything. He wanted to frame you for the other murders, you know. And now here you are, conveniently located next to another body. Maybe I'll pick up on that little aspect of his plan."

She slipped a knife from her belt and hefted it in her hand. Glancing at me once, she paced again without speaking. A bead of sweat slipped down my spine. I watched her move back and forth. She looked down at her knife again. She knew. She knew about Corcan. But macDuin was dead. Someone else had to be controlling Corcan. A new dread gripped me, and I pressed as hard as I could against the ward-spell.

"No," I said. It came out strangled and the spell bore down around me again.

Keeva smiled broadly. "Very impressive. I think it's time to put you out of your misery, don't you?"

She direw the knife. My heart hammered in my chest as I watched the hilt leave her hand. The knife flew at me with nauseating slowness, light catching the blade as it soared across the room. It's been said that me doom of the world can rest on the edge of a knife. For once, I believed it. The knife whistled past my ear and stuck into a beam somewhere above me. A loud report rang out as something fell. I stumbled free and almost landed on macDuin.

I turned in confusion. Another ward lay broken on the floor. I spun back to Keeva. She just stood there with her arms crossed and a smile playing on her lips.

"That… wasn't.. funny!"

She shrugged. "Sorry. I couldn't help myself."

I put my dagger back in its sheath and slipped it into my boot. Given my condition, it wouldn't be much help against Keeva anyway. "What the hell happened here?"

She walked over to macDuin and squatted by his side. "He was like this when I got here. Heart's gone." She stood, wiping her hands on her thighs.

"Why did you let me walk into a trap?"

She poked me in the chest. "I didn't let you do anything. The front door was open when I got here, and I thought you had done something stupid like go inside. I got rid of the ward at the top of the stairs, but the angle was bad for the other one, so I went around to the balcony. I'm surprised you didn't sense it."

I rubbed my nose. "I've been having trouble smelling anything."

Keeva bit her lower lip and looked away. "Promise you'll let me explain?" I cocked my head to the side in confusion. She reached out and placed her hand on my forehead. I felt an odd shifting of pressure, as though I had ridden in a fast elevator and my sinuses were catching up a second late. I could breathe again. I sneezed and gagged once very hard. Between macDuin's exposed organs and the killer's essence, the stench in the room was overwhelming. I grabbed Keeva's arm.

"What the hell did you do to me the other night?"

She wrenched her arm away with no trouble and stepped away from me. "I saved you a trip to the hospital. When macDuin realized you knew Gethin's essence, he wanted me to block you. I refused, so he sent his henchmen after you. You should thank me. I got them and macDuin off your back."

"Gethin? Then he knew Gethin is here?"

She looked at me in confusion. "Of course he did."

"I thought Lorcan was using Corcan to commit the murders."

She shook her head. "Wow. No, Connor. You're way off. Corcan didn't commit the murders. Gethin did. I thought you figured out the ritual? Gethin's dying from genetic defects. MacDuin told me he had a spell to cure himself. He's more fairy than elf and was murdering the prostitutes for their hearts. He needed them to purge his elfin essence. As best we could tell, he needs Corcan as a final purging vessel to accept his elfin essence."

"Then why was macDuin trying to end the police investigation?"

She stared at me in confusion. After a moment, she nodded. "Connor, Gethin's name is macLorcan. MacDuin and Gerda Alfheim had an affair during the war. He's macDuin's son."

Stunned, I lowered myself onto the couch. The image of macDuin laughing at me in the basement of the Guild-house rose in my mind. He had realized I didn't know. And he didn't tell me. And he had intended to frame me. I looked over at the body and tried to feel bad he was dead.

"I can't believe this. He was willing to let people die just to protect his son?"

"MacDuin was trying to stop him, Connor. He didn't want anyone to know. He was afraid the press would find out the killer was a son he had with a radical activist. Connecting him with Gerda Alfheim would bring his old war collaboration ties out again. He really had put all that behind him, but his reputation would never have recovered again. Especially not with Maeve. With the Fey Summit winding down, she can't afford anyone being suspicious of her motives."

"You were helping him."

She smiled. "I did more than help. I caught the bastard. Two days ago. MacDuin was keeping him locked up here until after Midsummer so he couldn't kill anyone else and complete the ritual."

Now I understood the sensation of more wards in the house. A closed door at the back of the room vibrated with blocking wards. I went over to it. "This is where he kept him?" Keeva nodded. I opened the door. Inside was a small alcove room with just a bed. Above it was a window with a shattered frame. Gethin must have gone out that way and set the trap for macDuin. That wasn't what grabbed my attention, though. A pentagram was painted on each of the four walls and centered on the ceiling was a fifth. Gethin had drawn them in his own blood.

Realization swept over me. "We have to leave right now. I know where he's going to do the ritual."

Keeva gestured at MacDuin. "The ritual is over, Connor. Gethin got his last heart from his own father. He's probably fully fairy by now."

"Think, Keeva. The hearts are not here. This is about more than healing Gethin. Didn't you wonder about the pentagrams?"

I handed her the spell Meryl had given me. The color drained from her face as her eyes moved down the page. She gave the paper back. "This isn't the spell macDuin showed me. Where do you think Gethin is?"

"Castle Island. Shay was going to take Corcan there for the fireworks. Gethin must be meeting them."

She strode onto the balcony, shots of light beginning to course into her wings. In the gathering dusk, she glowed above me as she lifted into the air. I stepped beneath her, and she hooked her hands under my arms from behind. My stomach dropped as my feet left the tiled flooring. We soared above the building.

The setting sun smeared streaks of orange and red across the horizon. To the east over the harbor, the sky had faded to a flat gray. Too anxious to wait for full nightfall, people were already shooting off cheap fireworks, little bursts of color to the south over the Weird and South Boston. We made straight for them.

Black clouds sprang up in the east, lightning flickering among them. A gust of wind hit us, and Keeva veered sideways. Reacting to my fear, my body shields materialized. Keeva almost lost her grip on me as the shields made me harder to hold. She dug her fingers painfully into my arms as I tamped the shields back down. We were out over the water, the downtown skyline slipping past. The surface of the harbor shimmered in a haze of white foam. A stronger gust of wind battered us, and we dropped a dozen feet before Keeva recovered. We skimmed near the surface of the water, where fish were running in all directions, sending up a frenzied spray. People on boats scrambled to pull in their sails.

Keeva began chanting, trying to use the wind's energy to work with her. Her flight stabilized as we shot over the Weird. Old Northern Avenue was a blaze of color and movement. People jammed the length of the street, dancing and flying in celebration. Keeva kept us just above the fray, weaving in and out of other fairies. We joined a small convoy of people flying out to Castle Island for the fireworks. Away from the distractions of the Weird, apprehension replaced excitement on faces turned toward the dark cloud bank that had spread rapidly over the harbor.

Castle Island came into view, its shores lined with hundreds of people. Fort Independence spread out below us, its five sides of granite rising thirty feet above the crowd. It was the biggest damn pentagram in the city. A green parade ground should have been visible at its open center, but a sallow haze of light glowed instead. The essence that radiated off it pulsated with malevolence.

"I can't get through that," Keeva yelled. She banked to the right and brought me down in the parking lot. On the opposite side, more people filled the causeway that looped around Pleasure Bay. Keeva and I pushed our way through the crowd.

I pulled out the cell phone and called Murdock. "Where are you?" I said.

"I'm at the front gate of Fort Independence." I closed the phone. Someone let off firecrackers, and the crowd roared its approval. I grabbed Keeva's sleeve and pointed at the fort. I had to yell to be heard. "Front gate!" She nodded once and grabbed me again. We launched over the crowd and flew up the hill. Coming around the nearest rampart of the fort, I could see Murdock scanning the crowd, his hand resting on his holstered weapon. Keeva dropped me right next to him.

It says something about the world we live in that Murdock didn't blink an eye at my arrival. "What's going on?" he asked.

"The end of the world. What happened to Shay and Corcan?"

Murdock jerked his thumb at the closed gate. It stood about fifteen feet high with iron hinges. An unlocked chain dangled from the door rings. Even with all the fey milling about, I could feel the sealing spell on the door. "They went in there. Door won't budge."

I turned to Keeva. "It's a spell, not a ward."

She rested her hand on the panel of the door to sense the level of power. Pulling her hand back, a ball of white shot from her palm and raced around the edges of both doors. She tugged one of the rings, and the door opened. I guess they weren't expecting high-powered company.

Inside, a passage glowed with the same sickly light we had seen above. A wrongness throbbed on the air that even Murdock could feel by the look on his face. He unholstered his gun, gave us a nod, and went in. Keeva rolled her eyes and pushed past him. "That gun isn't going to do much good here, big guy."

The far end of the corridor framed the parade ground in a simple arch. In the center, a naked, bone white figure stood, fairy wings undulating out from either side of him. Dark almond-shaped eyes stared from a worn face of ecstatic triumph. Seeing Gethin macLorcan in person made me realize that Shay's police sketch really had looked nothing like Corcan Sidhe. I had been seeing only the superficial similarities.

Shay lay crumpled on the ground just on the edge of the lawn. Ignoring him, Keeva walked onto the grass. Murdock trailed behind her with his gun drawn as I leaned down to check Shay. I couldn't tell if he was breathing. I wondered if he knew how over his head he had been. Pulling my dagger, I stepped up behind Keeva. The blade felt warm and alive in my hand, its runes grabbing the light around it.

Gethin had drawn himself inside another pentagram. Spirit jars sat at the five points, filled with herbs and water and the unmistakable shapes of hearts. Corcan lay at the center, his head near Gethin's feet. His body was rigid, and he stared straight up without seeing.

"You've done enough," said Keeva.

Gethin brought his gaze down, inspecting her with coal black eyes. His ears were not so much rounded as stunted points.

"I've just begun," he said. The voice. At once raspy and clear, like someone who had been smoking all night and talking too loud. It wasn't a voice to forget. Neither was his essence. Stinkwort and I had been so close the other night. We could have saved the last victim and even macDuin if we had been faster. His essence still felt wrong, but it had become muted, more fairy in nature, with a distasteful edge to it. As I moved closer, the hair on my arms bristled. He had already sealed the circle around the pentagram and erected a protection barrier. Most sane people did that with themselves on the outside.

"You don't have to do this. You got what you wanted," I said.

His eyes shifted to me. "What I wanted? No. What I wanted was to claim my mother's noble heritage. Instead, I must wear the disgusting wings of my traitorous father."

Keeva had circled around the pentagram. She kept one hand near her waist and flexed at the wrist. She was gauging the strength of the shield. When she reached the point opposite me, she shook her head. She hadn't found any weakness.

"You can't do this," Keeva said.

Gethin's face twisted into a sneer. "Only you think in terms of cannot." He spread his arms out. "Look at my power, de Danann. Look at your own. You waste yourself. If more of you had joined my mother's people, we would be ruling this place. Instead, you cower before the humans, content to take the dregs they offer."

"Let Corcan go. You don't need him anymore," I said.

"I need him to open the way. I am keeping my word to my mother, unlike my father. She found me a cure. Now we will cure the world." He began to chant. I recognized the spell. Good ol' Meryl had hit the nail on the head. Gethin was opening a door into chaos. Wind picked up in speed. Outside me fort, someone shot off a roman candle that glimmered red-orange through the hazy light of the protection barrier Gethin had erected. More explosions went off as the first display of fireworks appeared overhead.

"This spell will kill you!" I shouted. He faltered for a moment.

"You're wrong. It opens the door for The Defeated Who Will Conquer. They will ally with us, and we shall rule together." He had the fevered gleam in his eye of the rabidly insane. There wasn't going to be any reasoning with him.

He began chanting again. He raised a hand, and a burst of yellow light tore through the barrier and into the sky. It seemed to fly up forever and scatter among the clouds. A heavy silence spread around us except for Gethin's guttural muttering. Off in the distance, a moaning broke out. The ground vibrated with a deep thrumming. A torrent of air pounded down out of the sky, throwing us off our feet.

I lifted my head against the pressure. A towering wall of water ringed the walls of the fort, a dark, malevolent green surging toward the open sky all around and above us. Gethin had called up the sea. The wind died down. Confused shouting came from outside the walls, and more stray fireworks arced against the darkness.

Keeva flew to my side. "We can't penetrate the pentagram. The shield's stronger than anything I've seen."

"That's not the real problem." I looked up at the wall of water around us. "That's where all hell's going to break loose."

"Will someone please tell me what's going on?" said Murdock. He had not taken his eyes or his gun off Gethin.

I pointed at the seawall. "That is the gateway to a dimensional prison. The Dananns spellbound some critters called Fomorians. Gethin's breaching the barrier to let them out. They're big and nasty, and they're not going to be very happy to be here."

"Sorry I asked." He cocked his gun and aimed at Gethin. "So why don't I shoot him?"

"You can't see the barrier around the pentagram, but it will stop a bullet."

Gethin continued chanting, facing each of the points of the pentagram in turn. He picked up a stone blade and crawled around Corcan, inscribing runes into the ground. Pinpoints of light appeared in the spirit jars and raced around the hearts. They pulsed with an eldritch glow. Five columns of red light shot from them and pierced the clouds that capped the ring of water around the fort. A tremendous clap of thunder broke, the force of its vibration almost knocking us to the ground again. Above us, the clouds revolved in a circle like the beginning of a tornado. The center rippled and tore open, widening like the pupil of a dead eye. Oddly, no stars shone in the blanket of black. The surface of the wall of water rustled like a windblown curtain. Figures moved beneath the surface, huge unshapely things, vague and undefined.

"Keeva, use the binding spell to bind us all in here. We have to block Gethin's access to the water."

She closed her eyes in concentration. She shook her head. "I don't have your recall, Connor."

I fumbled in my pocket for Meryl's note and thrust it at her. "Learn quick. I'll try and distract him."

I flung myself at the pentagram. The invisible barrier yielded a few inches, then threw me off. Gethin didn't even notice. My dagger had gone flying when I landed on the ground. As I picked it up, the runes on the hilt glimmered. Bracing for the inevitable pain, I forced some of my own essence down my arm, and they burned brighter. The blade had some ability in it even if I couldn't access most of my own.

I approached the barrier again and slashed at it. A shower of sparks rent the air, pitting my skin with burns. Gethin did not stop chanting, but he glanced at me that time. I slashed again. More sparks cascaded over me, and I stumbled away. Gethin stretched out his arm, and a charge of energy hit me in the chest. I fell on my back.

I sat forward, clutching the hot, sore spot on my chest. It hurt like ten fists had pummeled me.

"Got it," said Keeva. She launched herself into the air above Gethin and began to chant. As she flew above us, a faint trail of blue light began to appear behind her. She had en the shorter spell by the sound of it. I could sense the weaving of her words bonding to the top of the battlements of the fort. The spell wouldn't take down the seawall, but if she managed to close Gethin inside the spell, his own spell would be trapped.

I hit the barrier again. This time I was prepared for Gethin's countershot and rolled out of the way before it even left his hand. It hit the wall behind me, and Keeva screamed. The power from Gethin's bolt had latched on to her spell. It went wild. She was spinning out of control, her face contorting in pain. I watched helplessly as she spun faster and faster in the air. With a burst of electric blue fire, she vanished from sight.

I screamed for her. No answer came. My senses trembled with the power of the shield capping the parade ground. I could feel her essence permeating it, but I could not feel her physical presence anywhere. In the sudden quiet, I heard laughter. I turned back to the pentagram. Pure joy lit Gethin's face as he raised the stone knife over Corcan's heart.

"No!" Murdock shouted.

I shouted, too, but too late. He fired his gun. The barrier burst into a fury of white light as it absorbed the bullet, folding in at the point of impact. The bullet funneled inward. Just when I thought it would stop, it grazed Gethin's arm as he brought it down. He recoiled and dropped the knife. The funnel of light reversed itself, bouncing back to where the barrier had been.

"Get down!" I yelled to Murdock. He either didn't hear me or didn't understand. The funnel flattened out at me barrier and exploded outward. It took him in me shoulder and flung him off the ground. He sailed limply through the air and landed with a sickening mud. His body tumbled out of sight into the entrance passageway.

Gethin dropped to his knees. The bullet had only grazed him, but clearly it had stunned him a little. As he stretched one hand out for the fallen knife, he rested the other on the ground. Time moved slowly for me as I stared at that hand. The one steadfast rule of any protection barrier around a pentagram is that only the one who casts it can break it. I stared at his hand, fully halfway outside the invisible barrier. I flung my dagger. He screamed as it pierced him between the knuckles, pinning his hand to the ground. Before he could react, I grabbed the hilt of the dagger and yanked him the rest of the way out of the pentagram. The barrier dissipated immediately.

Gethin screamed and launched himself on me. His fist connected with my cheekbone and knocked me to the edge of senselessness. He straddled me and flailed away as I tried to block the blows with my arms. I swung at him with the dagger. He deflected it, and it flew from my hand. He hit me again.

As he brought his fist up for another blow, he paused and looked up. Blood was running into my eyes, but I saw lights in the sky above us, flickers of blue and green, yellow and pink. They were like fireworks, only moving with a purpose. Gethin pulled back onto his feet and shot bolfs of white light upward from his palms. The lights swirled and danced away from it, but kept coming.

I shook my head to clear it. I could hear chanting.

The sounds resolved into words, a phrase repeated over and over. Ny a wrug agas dhestrewy jy.

It wasn't a chant. It was a war cry. We will destroy you.

I laughed in disbelief. It was Cornish. The People had arrived. By the hundreds, flits spiraled into the parade ground screaming for all they were worth. The Power of their dance surrounded me, filling my body with essence, like the day Stinkwort had performed the sun greeting with me. Only this time it was off the scale. The black mass in my head receded. I dragged myself to my feet. The block was gone. I could tap my essence. All of it. I had my ability back. I picked up my dagger and called out to Gethin. I pointed my dagger at him. "Hey, asshole. Know what happens when you use a knife for a wand? It hurts like hell." Energy coursed down my arm and shot out the blade. It hit him in the head, and he collapsed. The flits swarmed all over him. Gethin struggled and screamed under a fury of color. The flits were screaming right back at him. One broke away and flew toward me, his sword held aloft.

Stinkwort hung in front of me, his body bathed in blood. The flush of battle euphoria suffused his face. "I said we'd get the bastard!"

"You must have called in every clan in the country."

He fluttered back. "Near enough. You okay?"

"It'll hurt more in the morning."

Joe gave me a great big grin. "It always does. I have to stop them before they kill him."

"What are you going to do with him?"

His grin broadened into that impossible smile. "He's a fairy now. We're going to give him fairy justice." With that, he shouted in Cornish, and every single flit vanished. Gethin had disappeared, too. They had taken him. Only one place dispensed fairy justice: Tara, where Maeve ruled with a cold hand.

Corcan had not moved. I bent at his side to check for a pulse. It felt faint, but it was there. I turned his head toward me. Gethin's knife had nicked his cheekbone when it fell. A bead of blood trembled at the edge of the cut. As if in slow motion, it detached itself and dripped. Up. Startled, I stepped back. Before what that meant occurred to me, the droplet floated out of my reach.

It gathered speed as it rose. I watched helplessly as it shot up to the seawall. The sea had not fallen back. The water shimmered where the blood made contact, and a black and sinuous crack appeared. It bulged, turning blacker, and something stepped through. A mass of gray darkness coiled in the air and descended. It touched the ground on the other side of the pentagram and resolved into a mass of quivering flesh. An arm uncoiled, thick and greenly scaled, and then a head no more than a lump attached at the shoulder, with a single bulbous eye and a mass of teeth. I'd seen pictures that I thought were nightmare exaggerations. This was no exaggeration. The Fomorian unfurled, a sickly gray torso supported by thick, black stumps for legs. It smelled like the rot of a thousand fish left in the sun.

It swiveled its body around until its eye found Corcan. It shambled a few steps toward him, and I raised my dagger.

"Back off." I have no idea if it understood me, but it stopped. Its eye rotated up. My body shields activated, the real ones, covering my entire body in a cushion of protection. It felt good to have them back, but I wasn't too thrilled at the cause.

It howled and lifted an arm. A sword appeared, a great length of jagged ebony iron. I couldn't tell whether it had it when it fell or had just conjured it from somewhere. It hefted the sword and eyed my dagger warily. While I held its attention, I used my free hand to work a protection spell over Corcan.

The thing raised its blade and swung at Corcan. In a shower of green sparks, it bounced off the barrier I had made. My protection spell evaporated like a mist. I shot a bolt of energy at the ground, and the Fomorian leaped back. I stepped between it and Corcan and recast the protection.

The blade swung toward me. Dodging away, I clawed my left hand at the air. White lightning crackled from my fingertips. It caught the creature in the chest, and it let loose an unearthly howl. The eye began to glow. My limbs suddenly grew heavy. I could feel some kind of spell draping over me. I tried to shake it off, but I didn't understand how it worked. I crumpled down. The Fomorian came toward me, sword raised. My hands were anchored to the ground. A mistake. I waited until it was ready to bring the sword down, and I tapped into the essence of the earth around me. The ground between us erupted in a shower of mud. The thing lurched sideways, its sword striking my leg with a glancing blow. Red pain lanced through my knee.

I scrambled toward the fallen thing and plunged my dagger into its thigh. It screamed again. A fierce heat blistered up my arm. I jerked the dagger out and fired bolts of pure energy at it The Fomorian flailed wildly, scrabbling away. It flung the blade at me. My shields absorbed the impact, but the power of the thing knocked me off my feet again. I landed hard on my side and felt ribs crack. Curling into the pain, I crawled away. It thrust a hand out and more heat blazed across my body. I smelled a nasty burning odor and realized my hair was on fire. I rolled again, grunting against the pain in my side as I batted at the flames.

As it reached for its weapon again, I used the simplest of spells to send the sword soaring out of the parade ground. The thing bellowed in fury, dragging itself to its feet. I held the dagger out and shot the same bolt of energy I had used on Gethin. He only hesitated a moment, shrugging it off. With a roar, he surged forward and punched me in the face. Blood gushed out of my nose.

The energy from the flits was wearing off. The darkness in my head gnawed at the edges of my mind. It hadn't gone away, only receded from the essence supplied by the flit clans. I wasn't going to make it. The Fomorian was too strong. I had no idea how to counter his strength, never mind his power. He hit me again. My head snapped back against the ground. He crouched over me and began swinging. Blow after blow struck me, sending me skittering across the ground. The only reason I wasn't dead was that my body shields blunted the force. But they were only blunting the blows. I began to lose consciousness. He hit me again, and I went airborne. I landed hard against the wall and slumped to the ground. A wet sound rattled in my chest I felt the unmistakable pain of a rib puncturing my lung.

I was burning out. Channeling essence through the body is exhausting under the best of circumstances. I could feel lots of things broken inside me. I didn't have much time left before nature took its course. In desperation, I called up the one thing I had strength for. A deep white fog hissed around me, hiding me from sight. I could see the Fomorian, but he couldn't see me. He stumbled around in the druid fog, bellowing in anger. Twice he almost trampled Shay's still-inert body. It didn't matter if he did. I couldn't stop him. He would eventually find Corcan, rip open his body, and use the blood to let more of his kind out of the sea barrier.

Trying to breathe as shallowly as possible, I stared up at the full moon. I wasn't any good with Moon spells. As Briallen said, they work best for women. I eased myself up against the wall as the thing clawed against the ground nearby. With painful steps, I inched my way around the perimeter. If I could get out, I could get help. There had to be a fairy outside the walls who could at least help me contain the thing.

I was halfway to the exit when I stopped. Confused, I looked up again. The moon stared back at me. It wasn't supposed to be there. It was the first night of the new moon. The sky should be empty. Why would I see a moon that shouldn't be there? An ancient, dry voice welled up in my memory.

Not your moon.

Not your moon. I tried to think, but I was too tired. If it wasn't my moon, what was it? Virgil somehow knew I'd see a moon that wasn't mine. He didn't know what it meant. Damned gargoyle. I didn't know what it meant either. I wished Briallen were with me. She would matter-of-factly point out the obvious to me. I felt dizzy and slumped against the wall. I jerked my head up. Had I blacked out? The Fomorian seemed farther away than before. Or closer. I couldn't really remember. I felt like lying down. Maybe just for a bit. Something slipped out of my memory. Briallen. Something about Briallen. Briallen would know what to do with the moon. But she was locked in her trance. Right. Only I could wake her. That was what she had said. She should see this moon. A sick feeling welled up in my stomach. What would happen to her if I died? Would she sleep forever? Or would she waste away until she died?

I could almost see the darkness in my mind now. It was biding its time, like it knew it would win eventually. I laughed. It was only going to win a dead body.

The Fomorian was snuffling along the perimeter of the wall now. He was looking for me, and he would find me. I felt bad about Briallen. I hoped she wouldn't be too disappointed. I fumbled in my pocket for the cell phone. I decided to leave a message for her if she woke up. She would need to know what she was up against. No signal. I tossed the phone away, wincing at the pain. The Fomorian swung his head around at the noise and moved toward it.

I wished she could know I had my ability back at the end. She would have been happy for me. My head felt heavy, and I let my chin fall to my chest. I tried to will away the pain and focus on happy memories. Times when I didn't know how tough it was going to be, when I thought practicing simple levitations in Briallen's house was the tough stuff.

I picked my head up. The darkness in my head hadn't won yet. It was returning, but I could still feel my abilities. I still had them, and I was about to die an idiot. I had one more shot. It would probably kill me, but I had to try. I placed my hands against the ground and pulled as much essence out of the earth as I could. My vision flashed red as my mind screamed at the effort. I was the only one who could reach her. I didn't need a fucking cell phone. When I couldn't hold any more, I released all the essence in one massive sending. I called Briallen.

Exhausted, I collapsed to the ground. Blood stung my eyes. I pawed at them feebly. The creature still haunted the edges of the fort. My vision blurred as I let my head loll against the ground. I stared up into the sky, the strange moon a pale blur. Its surface seemed to ripple. I tried to clear my vision, but the moon just rippled again. It folded in on itself, a twist of white light that cascaded down from the sky like an unwinding ribbon. Soundlessly, it hit me like a tidal wave.

My body convulsed as essence coursed through my veins. Spikes of pain shot through my broken body, and I screamed. I think I did lose consciousness for a moment. I opened my eyes. The darkness had fled from my mind again. The pain went with it. I couldn't feel anything. Nothing but Power.

Amazed, I pulled myself to my feet. My body vibrated with more Power than I had ever felt. I could feel Briallen. My eyes swept the parade ground, but didn't see her. But I could feel her. Realization swept over me. She was inside me. Somehow, I could feel Briallen's essence inside me. And feel her Power. I could tap it.

I lifted the dagger. The runes on the blade flared with a ghostly pale fire. It became a thing alive in my hand, pulsating. And growing. Essence flowed down my arm. The blade stretched and grew into a burning sword of red flame.

Sensing the surge of power from me, the Fomorian turned. I watched his eye home in on me. He charged through the fog, black lighting coursing around him. I grasped the sword with both hands and pointed the blade. With a shout, I tapped all the essence inside me. A crackle of blazing red energy burst from the focused tip of the blade. Crimson fire raced across the field. A ball of fierce hot light engulfed the Fomorian, blinding me with its intensity. I heard a screeching wail of pain.

And then nothing.

Phantom black spots flickered in my eyes as my vision cleared. The Fomorian was gone. Scorched earth marked the spot where he had stood.

I swayed on my feet. My body felt like an empty husk. I couldn't feel anything inside. Not Briallen. Not even my own essence. I had purged everything out of me. The darkness in my head settled back in, cutting off any ability to tap essence. Again. I fell to the ground.

I watched the seawall fall back and heard the crashing surge of a flood outside the fort. The strange moon faded away, and the stars came out. Cold, crisp stars in the blanket of night sky. Only for a moment though. The clouds that had hung over the city all day swirled back and blotted out the light.

Time felt suspended. I don't know how long I lay there. I could feel blood and sweat saturating my clothes. I could sense broken bones and worse inside me. But I didn't feel any pain. A bad sign. A very bad sign. Not far off, Corcan and Shay lay, still not moving. In the dark entryway to the fort, I could make out Murdock's inert body. And Keeva. Keeva, I didn't feel at all. Not her essence. Not her body. Nothing. She was gone. Meryl had dreamed it. She had seen this final moment. It was going to end with everyone around me dead and me not far behind. I whispered an apology to all of them.

A fat drop of rain hit me on the face. Then another and another. Curtains of water gushed down as the clouds opened. It felt cold and good in a distant way. In the darkness of the passage beyond Murdock, something moved. A tall, pale shape shimmered there, moving toward me. The image resolved itself into that of a woman walking. She paused on the edge of the parade ground, seeming to take in the carnage. Slowly, she came to me across the grass, stark white and beautiful. Even her hair shone white. She smiled through tears streaming down her face. Gently, she reached out a hand and placed it on my forehead. "Sleep," Briallen said. And I did.