Ann Gimpel (21 page)

“Dewi,” Fionn muttered. “She’s got to be behind this. She’s the one who opened your mind to the Old Ones’ language.”

More Gaelic. They’d been hunting Dewi for centuries, but she’d hidden herself, ostensibly deserting them after they’d sent her to spy on the Lemurians. They argued about what Dewi had up her sleeve, masquerading as Orione. Aislinn heard
MacLochlainn
over and over, but couldn’t decipher the parts before or after.

Once she finished her meal, she asked, “What are you saying about me?”

“I thought you understood Gaelic,” Fionn said in perfect English.

“I do—sort of. But not when it’s so fast.”

“It doesna matter,” Arawn said. “According to Fionn, ye are not interested in Irish history. Besides, it would take far too long to give you a crash course in your ancestry. The short version is that your family and Dewi have primordial links dating back to the fifth century. She would protect you. ’Tis part of an ancient bond.”

Her eyes narrowed in thought. “It’s not so much that I’m not interested, but it feels a bit overwhelming.”

Aislinn had begun formulating questions, when Gwydion flowed from his chair to an upright position in one supple movement. Like Fionn, he was incredibly light on his feet for such a large man. “I would look on that spell in the attic that defeated you, lass.”

Rune padded into the kitchen, a rabbit clutched between his jaws. Aislinn hoped everyone would remember not to implicate Marta in whatever had happened to her parents. “We’re going back to the attic,” she told the wolf. “You can stay here and eat. Bella will keep you company.” She glanced meaningfully at the raven.

Aislinn led the way to the back staircase. Fionn trooped after Gwydion. She smiled to herself.
He doesn’t want to leave me alone with one of his buddies. Is he really afraid I’ll take a shine to one of them?
Aislinn couldn’t help herself. She laughed at the absurdity of it. Fionn was almost more than she could handle. The last thing she needed was two of him.

“What’s so funny?” Fionn asked, but she just shook her head, grateful he hadn’t chosen that particular moment to read her thoughts.

Once in the attic, Gwydion stalked to the corner Aislinn indicated. He raised his staff, spoke words in a language she didn’t recognize, and the length of polished wood in his hand came alive with light. The minute it did, she saw a spell hovering around two crypts.

Fionn pulled her toward the stairs. “Guard your eyes, lass. His spells can get extremely bright.”

She waited, peering through spread fingers, but nothing happened.

“What manner of being made this?” Gwydion asked, sounding curious.

“Why, I suppose she was human.” Aislinn dropped her hands to her sides.

“Nay. Not possible.” Gwydion turned to face them. “Magic spreads from the two lying here to the rest of the house and beyond—far beyond. I do not think the house is illusion, yet I wonder what will happen to it—and whatever is linked to it—if I break the enchantment. I need to know more before I charge in, else I could rupture something that canna be fixed.” He hesitated for a beat. “I wouldna be quite so cautious but for the link to Taltos that we already know is here.”

Fionn stepped away from her. “Let me help. We can explore it further.”

The Celts raised their hands and chanted. Aislinn watched intently. Magic fascinated her. It always had, even when she’d thought it the purview of fairy tales. The crypts became clearer as the mists shrouding them moved aside. Made of shiny stone that looked like beige marble, they glowed warm against the dark of the attic. She repositioned herself so she could see beyond Fionn and Gwydion. The bodies lying in the crypts were amazingly well preserved. They didn’t look dead. The faces were pink, the flesh full. What had Marta done? Were her parents sorcerers? Had they cooperated, or been duped?

Gwydion’s staff blazed with blue light that made her eyes ache. Fionn moved to the far side of the crypts, hands extended, chanting in the odd language Gwydion had used before.

The woman sat up and tossed a leg over the side of her crypt. Gray hair cascaded over her shoulders. She shook her head, as if she’d been asleep. Brown eyes fluttered open. She gazed from Fionn to Gwydion. “I am guardian of the gate,” she pronounced. “How dare you disturb me?” A second leg followed the first.

From the expression on Fionn’s face, it looked like he’d commanded her to stay put, but his magic wasn’t doing the trick. The woman was pushing right through it.

Fionn shouted for Arawn and Bran. Footsteps pounded on the attic stairs. They raced to Fionn’s side, apparently strengthening his binding.

The woman tried to get the rest of the way out of her crypt, but this time, she couldn’t move. Her lips drew back into a snarl. “I tell you, I hold the gates. Destroy me at your peril.” A crafty look crossed her face. “I can do just as good a job with the gates if I’m awake.”

Her gaze drifted about the room. “Where is that daughter of mine? Last I remember, she got Dad and me good and drunk on something.” She reached for Fionn’s leg, almost grabbing a handful of fabric before he sidestepped out of her way. “So long as I’m up,
boys
, how about a little fun? You’re a likely looking bunch, and I’ve been asleep for ages.” She tried for a come-hither look, but all she managed to do was look like a whore well past her prime.

Fionn and Bran grimaced.

The man in the other crypt stirred and made a low moaning sound. “Who dares disturb me?” emerged from his half-open mouth as a breathy sigh, words slurry. His voice sounded rusty. It must have surprised him, because his eyes popped open. They were the same muddy brown as the woman’s.

Gwydion’s hands sketched something in the air. Aislinn saw the protections around the two resurrecting themselves.

“Aye, good idea,” Arawn muttered, adding layers to the enchantment as he shoved the woman back into her crypt.

“You’re putting them back to sleep,” Aislinn gasped. “Why? I thought the whole point was to see what they know.”

“Hush,” Fionn said. “We’ll explain later.”

Because she didn’t see the point in watching four magicians work on a binding she’d done her damnedest to unravel, Aislinn went back down the stairs.

“Did they free them?” Rune asked.

“Yes and no.” Aislinn poured more mead and settled in to wait.

It didn’t take long before the men returned, but when she got to her feet, she was decidedly tipsy. It felt good. “Well?” she said, hands on her hips. Then she looked at Rune. “Maybe you might not want to listen to this.”

“She was my bond mate. I have a right.”

“Aye, that he does.” Gwydion pulled out a chair and sat heavily. “They truly are guardians. They hold the pathways open between this world and many others. If we destroy them, there willna be a way to return the dark gods to their realms.”

“Or to oust the remainder of the Lemurians,” Bran added. “Thank Christ ye dinna destroy the binding, lass.” He tugged out a chair for himself and gestured for everyone to sit.

A sudden chill marched down her spine. Had her naïveté almost doomed Earth?
I have no business dabbling in arcane magics. None. I don’t know enough.
She shivered, remembering her impressions from the photographs she’d found in the study. “You said they weren’t human. Did you figure out what those things upstairs are?”

“We think so,” Fionn answered. He threw his leg over a chair, picked up the mead bottle, and drank. “Hmph. Nearly empty.”

“There would be more where that came from,” Arawn said.

“You didn’t answer me.” Aislinn felt like a nag, but she had to know.

“The ones in the crypts were not exactly spilling secrets,” Bran said dryly, “but we believe they are the product of humans who mated with Lemurians.”

“If that is true,” Fionn added, looking grim, “it means the Lemurians plotted for years to create gateways to allow the dark to infiltrate Earth so they could ally with their power. The last Surge was only one piece of a much-larger puzzle. Though they do not look it, the Old Ones are a dying race, which is why they attempted to blend their bloodlines with humans. How they managed to have such a pairing take is beyond me.”

“How does Marta fit into all of this?” Aislinn was mystified.

“That’s easy,” Arawn said. “The Lemurians struck a deal with some greedy humans—likely scientists. Who knows how they twisted DNA to come up with viable offspring. The two in the crypts are brother and sister. Marta was their child.”

“Were they the only ones?” Aislinn asked. A macabre fascination filled her, along with an understanding of why Marta was so tall.

“We have no idea,” Gwydion replied. “But if the Lemurians have been successful bringing human DNA into their bloodlines, their alliance with the dark may well prove unstoppable.”

“I told you we needed to act,” Fionn muttered.

“Aye, that ye did,” Bran agreed. “And here we thought ye were simply besotted with the MacLochlainn.” He shrugged. “At least we know the feel of the hybrid race now. ’Twill make it easier to hunt them.”

“No wonder Marta went mad.” Aislinn felt disgusted and impressed at the same time. The woman must have been amazingly powerful to trap her parents into holding the gates between the worlds so she could travel back and forth to Taltos and probably other places as well.

Then she remembered the wolf. “Rune. I’m sorry.”

“I wondered why she did not smell entirely human.” The wolf was on his feet, clearly agitated. “She raised me. I thought all humans smelled that way until I met others.” A growl emanated from the back of his throat. “I should have asked more questions.”

“It wouldna have mattered,” Gwydion said. “She wouldna have answered.”

Aislinn went to Rune and knelt next to him. She searched for a way to tell him Marta hadn’t been in her right mind. That maybe human intelligence couldn’t coexist in the same body with anything Lemurian, but he shook her off and left the kitchen. With a worried-sounding squawk, the raven followed him.

“There is much we do not know,” Arawn said. “Marta may have embraced her Lemurian side or despised it. Mayhap she only hated her parents. I am not as certain as Gwydion that the two above hold all the gateways. Yet, they hold enough of them that it would be foolhardy to disturb the binding.”

Aislinn stumbled to her feet. “From what I overheard in Taltos, Marta hated the Lemurians and did everything in her power to subvert them. How soon can we go back there and obliterate those bastards?”

“’Tis the dark gods who have to go,” Bran said thoughtfully. “Without them, the Lemurians would not have enough power to bother anyone.”

“And the human-Lemurian spawn—if there are more of them,” Fionn added.

“Tricky of them,” Gwydion muttered, “to be making something that looks so like a human that we never would have thought to look twice.”

“So Taltos isn’t the answer?”

Aislinn looked around at the men. No one answered her. For some reason, she felt thwarted. She’d found something she could handle, but it wasn’t the salvation she’d hoped it would be—not for Earth, and not for her. Even if she’d been able to destroy the harmonic, it wouldn’t have affected the dark gods at all. A complex strategy she could only begin to guess at linked the Convergence and its Surges to the Old Ones, the dark gods, and their minions. She hoped they could figure it out before it was too late. Maybe her nerves were playing off the urgency in Marta’s journals, but she didn’t think any of them had much time left.

“We need to talk with Dewi,” Fionn said thoughtfully.

“Aye. If nothing else, mayhap she can tell us why she is still in Taltos and not with us,” Arawn muttered, sounding annoyed by the dragon’s defection.

“Don’t we need more of a plan than that?” Aislinn demanded. The beginnings of a headache pounded behind one eye. She knew she needed sleep.

Gwydion nailed her with his sharp, blue gaze. “Humans are hasty, lass. Better to take the time to make sure of your strategy than to bludgeon your way through something and make a fatal mistake.”

She thought about the crypts and winced. “Touché. Think I’ll catch a couple of hours’ sleep before I fall on my face.”

Fionn got to his feet and placed an arm around her shoulders.

They hadn’t made it five feet down the hallway when Arawn called him back. “We need you here, Fionn, not rutting in yon bed. Bid the lass a good night, then return to us.”

Chapter Twenty

A
islinn didn’t even remember the rest of the walk to her bed. She woke once to find Rune stretched out beside her, snoring softly. Part of her thought she should go look for Fionn, but before she could force her body out of the warm nest she’d made under the covers, she fell back asleep.

Something tugged at her shoulder. She ignored it. She wanted to stay asleep. She’d been dreaming that she was riding Dewi, soaring above a medieval-looking castle while wearing tight-fitting leather breeches, lace-up boots, and a form-fitting leather jacket. The deer hide garments cut the wind so she was toasty atop her mount, gloved hands curved around spines growing out of Dewi’s shoulders. She hadn’t realized it in the dim light of the cavern, but the dragon’s scales were blood red.
We make quite the pair,
Aislinn laughed to herself.
My hair almost matches her coloring.

“Yes, Daughter,”
Dewi spoke into her mind.
“We were made for one another. Never forget that.”

“Aislinn. Wake up. ’Tis important.” Fionn’s voice was insistent. He tugged harder at her shoulder. Then he bent and kissed her neck, nuzzling it.

“Go away.” She tried to sink back into her dream, but it was impossible. She rolled over and put her arms around Fionn’s neck. “I was having the best dream.” She pulled him toward her. “Lie down as long as you’re here.”

“Nay, lass. There’s not the time for that, though I dearly wish it were otherwise. Ye must be up.” He straightened and gazed fondly down at her. “Ye’ve nearly slept the clock round as ’tis.”

“You sound like my mother—in more ways than one.”

He inhaled audibly and blew out a breath. “Ye must hurry, Aislinn. We have been talking with Dewi. She wants you to come to her. Now.”

“Why didn’t you say so?” Aislinn sprang out of bed, realized she was mostly naked, and shrugged. It wasn’t anything Fionn hadn’t seen before. “I was dreaming about her.”

“Why am I not surprised?” He handed her clothes from off the floor. Warmth spilled from his eyes as he helped her dress.

Aislinn pulled the flannel shirt over her head and slithered into Marta’s pants. She hunted in the semi gloom for her boots and a pair of socks. “What did the dragon have to say?”

Fionn fired his mage light so she could find her other boot. “I think I’ll let her tell you. Ready?”

She followed him down the hallway, took a turn through the kitchen, and they went out through the back door. “Where’s Rune?”

“Right here.” The wolf ran to her. The new day yielded just enough light for her to see his eyes gleaming gold. He looked happy.

“This way.” Fionn led her around to the back of the house. Dewi lay on her belly, but Gwydion, Arawn, and Bran still had to look up to meet her whirling gaze.

“My MacLochlainn,” Dewi purred and stretched out a taloned foreleg. “I have waited long for this.” Her voice was musical and multi-toned. It reminded Aislinn a bit of the Old Ones when they spoke English.

The dragon’s words sank in, and Aislinn stopped in her tracks. “What do you mean?” Even though the men seemed to be looking right into Dewi’s eyes, Aislinn avoided them. What if they sucked her in and she couldn’t get away?

“You are the last of the Cenél nEgoghain, child. Eoghan was son to Niall Niogiallach. I brought him into his own as sacral king of Tara over a thousand years ago. The clan lived in Lochlann, a place of myth and magic far to the north—”

“Stop.” Aislinn shook her head. “Too many names. I’ll never remember, let alone be able to pronounce any of them.” She glanced at Fionn. “There’s that Irish history you wanted to force feed me.”

“A wee bit,” he conceded.

“Come closer, child. I will not eat you. I promise.” Dewi lowered her snout and puffed a tiny flame Aislinn’s way.

I rode her in my dream…

“It was not a dream.” The dragon chuckled. Smoke curled from her nostrils. “Come.” She crooked a claw at Aislinn and then glanced over one shoulder to her broad back in clear invitation.

“I-I can’t,” Aislinn whispered.

“Och aye, ye can and ye will.” Fionn came up behind her, placed a hand on either side of her waist, and gave her a none-too-gentle shove. “Ye wouldna want to risk offending her. She is sacred to us.”

Aislinn’s heart pounded. She tried to swallow, but her mouth was dry as a riverbed after a year-long drought. The men parted to let her through. Heat engulfed her as she got closer to Dewi.

Aislinn laid a hand on the glittering scales. They were beautiful. Looking up at the huge body, she spied the two horns she’d grasped in her dream, but how on earth would she ever get to them? “Could one of you bring me that ladder over by the garage?” She barely recognized her voice as her own. It sounded thin and shaky.

One of the men stifled a laugh. “Come to the front, lass. She will pick you up.”

“Oh.” Aislinn let herself be herded to the proper position. When the dragon’s curved talons closed around her waist, she shut her eyes, afraid to look.
What if she drops me?

“I could, but I won’t. Not unless you give me reason. Open those eyes. Put your hand on my shoulder and swing yourself up. Catch one of the horns on my back or my head if you need help.”

Aislinn felt awkward, but somehow, she ended up astride Dewi. She looked down at Rune, Bella, and the men. It was a long way to fall, and they hadn’t even left the ground yet. Fear thrummed a tattoo against her neck and chest. She tried to get herself under better control.
This will be just like in my dream.

“Only better.” Dewi laughed and spread her enormous crimson wings. They were covered with leathery skin, not scales. A couple of pumps, and they were airborne. Aislinn held the horns at the base of Dewi’s neck in a death grip. She focused on a small pattern of scales right in front of her, terrified to look down. Even that felt like too much, so she squeezed her eyes shut tight.

“Your eyes are closed,” the dragon chided. “How will you ever learn to fight from my back if you cannot even open your eyes?”

“Is that why we’re doing this?”

“Do you know nothing of your ancestry?” Despite the wind rushing past them, Aislinn heard a note of incredulity in Dewi’s question.

“Not the ancestry you mean.” Aislinn forced her eyes open. At first, she looked outward, marveling at the vista of east central Nevada spread below her.
Okay, this isn’t so bad.
She realized she was breathing again. Her heartbeat, though far from normal, had slowed enough that she wasn’t worried about passing out and falling to her death. Dewi flew in large, lazy circles, with Marta’s house as an epicenter.

“Hang on.”

“Whoa, I was just getting comfortable.”

The dragon laughed again. “I know. But child, we do not have the luxury of you spending a hundred years learning to ride me. You will sit upon my back and lead the charge against the dark.”

“Me?” Aislinn’s voice came out as a squeak.

“And who else? When I ride to war, it is with one of your blood astride me. That is how it has always been.”

“Who was the last?”

“That would be Ian Gwinn MacLochlainn.”

“When?”

Dewi laughed. Fire belched from her mouth. Smoke swirled and eddied past Aislinn. “I do not keep track like you humans, but sometime during the seventeenth century. Or maybe it was the sixteenth.” The dragon banked, turning sharply first one way, then the other. After the initial swoop that left her stomach behind, Aislinn found it was rather like a carnival ride. She grinned, face plastered into the wind. “I think I’m going to like this.”

“Of course you will. You were made for this, as was your mother. Too bad she fled the Old Country before her magic ripened.” Something—maybe sadness, maybe disappointment—hung beneath Dewi’s words.

The circles tightened as they got closer to the ground. At what seemed like the last minute, Dewi spread her wings like huge sails, and they landed far more lightly than Aislinn would have thought possible.

She threw a leg over, prepared to slither down Dewi’s side, but the dragon reached back and plucked her down, depositing her into Fionn’s arms. “My scales are sharp,” Dewi said. “That would not have been a good way to dismount.”

Aislinn wriggled out of Fionn’s grip. So full of life she wanted to embrace the entire world, she danced around the yard, weaving in and out of the men with Rune nipping at her heels and barking. An undercurrent of Gaelic followed her. The only thing she made out was something like,
let the lass have this moment. ’Twill end all too soon.

Aislinn spun and wove her way back to men and dragon. “Amazing!” She breathed deep. “Simply amazing.” She looked right into Dewi’s eyes, no longer afraid. “When can we do it again?”

“Soon. You need practice marshaling your magic in flight—and hitting targets from the air.” Something warm brushed Aislinn’s face and traveled down her body. Dewi was breathing on her, marking her. The warmth felt maternal somehow, with a tenderness that brought tears dangerously close to the surface.

With her scales glimmering in light from the newly risen sun, Dewi became progressively more insubstantial. In moments, she was gone. Aislinn wrapped her arms around herself. Without the dragon’s warmth, the chill of the dawn ate into her. “Where did she go?”

“To gather as many of us as she can find in the Old Country—and other places.” Gwydion’s voice was deadly serious. “We go to war, lass. The sooner we mobilize worldwide, the better our chances will be.”

“Yes, either we oust the dark, or surrender to them. There is no middle ground,” Arawn snapped.

“You’re only just now realizing that?” Aislinn stared at them, arms akimbo. She sounded rude, but didn’t care. “Christ, I’ve known that ever since I watched my father die at their hands three years ago.”

Fionn motioned for her to be quiet, but she ignored him. “Whoever Dewi went to find, I’ll bet it’s not the humans I’ve fought side by side with. Who’s going to tell them what’s happening?” She scanned the group, but the men seemed to be looking elsewhere. “We need to warn them. Remember, the Old Ones gave us our orders. That’s how we knew where to go and who to fight. We had no idea they were in league with the dark.”

The more she thought about it, the madder Aislinn got. Finally, she picked up a good-sized rock and chucked it at a nearby fence. It plonked off, and she chucked another. “Pretty fucking convenient, if you ask me. No wonder we never made any headway.”

She ran to Fionn and grabbed his arm. “We have to let what’s left of my race know. Otherwise, the Old Ones will lure them right to their doom. Plus, they’ll fight for us. I know they will. They want to rid Earth of the dark more than anyone. We’re the ones who’ve suffered most, watching everyone we ever loved die.”

The tears that had threatened earlier overflowed and streamed down her face, but she didn’t care if they made her look weak.

“Just how are ye proposing to do that?” Fionn’s voice was gentle.

She brushed at her wet cheeks impatiently. “I know where some people are. I could tell them. They could tell others. It would be like a chain.”

“How long would that take?” Gwydion, who’d walked over to them, asked.

“I don’t know. Does it even matter?”

“Ye canna save them all—” Gwydion began.

“I know that,” she broke in. “The important thing is that we at least try to warn as many as we can. We could start right here. There must be people between here and the Utah line.” Spinning on her heels, she ran for the house.

Fionn and Rune dashed after her. “What are ye doing?” Fionn called.

“I’m going to get a few things together. Then I’m leaving. There’s nothing for me to do here right now.” Pounding up the steps, she slid through the wards and into the house.

“If ye insist on going, I’m coming with you,” Fionn said. “But hold up, there are things ye need to know that might make this easier.”

“I am coming, too.” Rune panted. “We are bond mates. That means we stay together.”

“What things?” Aislinn was in the bedroom, tossing things into her rucksack.

“Ye have all the human gifts—”

“Ridiculous,” she spat, not bothering to look at him. “I had Mage and Seeker—”

“And ye added Healer and Hunter in the blink of an eye,” he interrupted. “That leaves Seer. We discussed it while ye were getting to know Dewi and agreed ye must have that talent as well. MacLochlainns carry all the gifts. I told ye that ye had magic long afore the Surge. ’Tis not my fault ye dinna believe me.”

“So?” She tossed her pack over one shoulder. “I’m ready to go. I plan to use my Seeker skills to find others like me.”

Fionn closed on her, blue eyes glittering. “Use your Seer skill first. It will show you a number of…probabilities. The best part is if ye doona like the future ye see, sometimes ye can change it.”

“I suppose you have all five gifts, too?” She looked hard at him.

“Och aye, lass. And a few more to boot.” He took her hands, his gaze never leaving her face. “This willna take long. Let me help.”

He hummed a low, hypnotic melody. Without understanding how she knew what to do, she picked up a harmonizing thread. Not unlike the day she’d slipped inside his head, a scene blossomed before her. She was back near her cave. Bodies lay strewn in the streets. Coming close, she recognized many of them, and her heart ached. Somehow, Travis wasn’t there. Did that mean he was still alive? Was any of this real? Or was it a future that hadn’t yet happened?

She asked a Seer’s question, trying to sort what was real from what her eyes showed her. The bodies vanished, and she heaved a sigh of relief. Shelving her Seer magic in favor of Seeker skills, she went looking for others like herself and found them in caves and grottos, hiding from things that were trying to kill them. She tried to communicate, but no one recognized her presence, no matter what she did. She wondered what sort of magic rendered her totally invisible. Whatever it was, she needed to learn more about it. Though it was a problem now, she could think of lots of situations where it would be a boon. Finally, she grabbed a stick and wrote her message in the dirt. She put it lots of places so people would have to see it.