Valley of Silence (25 page)

It struck with a force that sent him staggering back. But as her cry of triumph echoed away, he continued to stand whole and unharmed.

“How?” was all she said as she stared at him.

He felt the imprint of Moira's locket against his heart, and the pain was sweet. “A magic you'll never know.” He sliced out, scoring across the scar of the pentagram. The blood that welled from the wound was black and thick as tar.

Pain and fury brought the demon to her eyes, the killing red. Now her screams rang as she came at him with a new and wild strength. He slashed back, spilled more blood, drove as he was driven as the locket seemed to pulse like a heart on his chest.

Her sword ripped down his arm, sending his clattering against the rocks. “Now you! Then your whore!”

When she charged, he gripped the wrist of her sword arm in his bloody hand. She smiled at him. “This way then. It's more poetic.”

She bared her fangs to strike at his throat. And he plunged the stake she had made for him into her heart.

“I'd say go to hell, but even hell won't have you.”

Her eyes went wide, faded to blue. He felt the wrist he held dissolve in his hand, and still those eyes stared into his another moment.

Then there was nothing but the ash at his feet.

“I've ended you,” he declared, “as you ended me so long ago. That's poetic.”

The ground under his feet began to quake. So, he thought, it comes.

The black stallion leaped from the rocks, scattering ash. “You've done it.” Moira vaulted from the saddle into his arms. “You've beaten her. You've won.”

“This saved me.” He dragged her locket out, showed her the deep dent in the silver from the force of the stake. “You saved me.”

“Cian.” As the rock behind her split like an egg, she jumped down, and her face went pale again. “Hurry. Go, hurry. It's begun. Her blood, her end, was the last of it. They've started the spell.”

“It's you who beat her, you who won. Remember that.” He pulled her into his arms, crushed his mouth to hers. Then he was flying onto the horse, and was gone.

Everything around her was chaos. Screams and shouts through the haze, the moans of wounded, the rush of the enemy in mad retreat.

A gold dragon speared through it, Blair on its back. With the ground rippling in waves under her, Moira lifted her arms so Larkin could cradle her in his claws. She flew over the quivering land toward the high ridge.

On it, Hoyt gripped Moira's hand. “It must be now.”

“Cian. We can't be sure—”

“I gave my word to him. It must be now.” He raised their joined hands, and together they lifted their faces, their voices to the black sky.

“In this place once damned we hold the power, and we wield it in this final hour. On this ground blood was shed in blackest night, theirs for dark and ours for light. Black magic and demon here are felled by our hand, and now we claim this bloody land. Now call forth all we have done. Now through dark we raise the sun. Its light will strike our enemy. As we will, so mote it be.”

The ground trembled, and the wind blew like a fury.

“We call the sun!” Hoyt shouted. “We call the light!”

“We call the dawn!” Glenna's voice rose with his, and the power grew as Moira clasped her free hand. “Burn off the night.”

“Rise in the east,” Moira chanted, staring through the smoke that swirled up around them while Larkin and Blair completed the circle. “Spread to the west.”

“It's coming,” Blair cried. “Look. Look east.”

Over the shadow of mountains the sky lightened, and the light spread and speared and grew until it was bright as noon.

Below, fleeing vampires burned to nothing.

On the rocky, broken ground, flowers began to bloom.

“Do you see that?” Larkin's hand tightened on Moira's, and his voice was thick, reverent. “The grass, it's greening.”

She saw it, and the sweet charm of the white and yellow flowers that spread over its carpet. She saw the bodies of the fallen on the meadow of a lush and sun-lit valley.

But nowhere did she see Cian.

T
hough the battle was won, there was still work
. Moira labored with Glenna in what Glenna called triage for the wounded. Blair and Larkin had taken a party out to hunt down any vampires that might have found shelter from the sun while Hoyt helped transport those whose wounds were less severe back to one of the bases.

After rinsing blood from her hands again, Moira stretched her back. And spotting Ceara wandering as if in a daze, rushed to her.

“Here, here, you're hurt.” Moira pressed a hand to the wound on Ceara's shoulder. “Come, let me dress this.”

“My husband.” Her gaze roamed from pallet to pallet even as she leaned heavily against Moira. “Eogan. I can't find my husband. He's—”

“Here. He's here. I'll take you. He's been asking for you.”

“Wounded?” Ceara swayed. “He's—”

“Not mortally, I promise you. And seeing you, he'll heal all the quicker. There, over there, you see? He's—”

Moira got no further as Ceara cried out and in a stumbling run rushed to fall to her knees beside where her husband lay.

“It's good to see, good for the heart to see.”

She turned, smiled at her uncle. Riddock, his arm and leg bandaged, sat on a supply crate.

“I wish all lovers would be reunited as they are. But…we lost so many. More than three hundred dead, and the count still coming.”

“And how many live, Moira?” He could see the wounds she bore on her body, and in her eyes the wounds she bore on her heart. “Honor the dead, but rejoice in the living.”

“I will. I will.” Still she scanned the wounded, those who tended them, and feared for only one. “Are you strong enough to travel home?”

“I'll go with the last. I'll bring our dead home, Moira. Leave that for me.”

She nodded, and after embracing him went back to her duties. She was helping a soldier sip water when Ceara found her again.

“His leg, Eogan's leg…Glenna said he won't lose it, but—”

“Then he won't. She wouldn't lie to you, or to him.”

On a steadying breath, Ceara nodded. “I can help. I want to help.” Ceara touched her bandaged shoulder. “Glenna looked after me, and said I'm well enough. I've seen Dervil. She came through very well. Cuts and bruises for the most of it.”

“I know.”

“I saw your cousin Oran, and he said Sinann's Phelan's already on his way back to Castle Geall. But I haven't found Isleen as yet. Have you seen her?”

Moira lowered the soldier's head, then rose. “She did not come through.”

“No, my lady, she must have. You just haven't seen her.” Again, Ceara searched the pallets that stretched over the wide field. “There are so many.”

“I did see her. She fell in the battle.”

“No. Oh no.” Ceara covered her face with her hands. “I'll tell Dervil.” Tears flowed down her cheeks when she lowered her hands. “She's trying to find Isleen now. I'll tell her, and we'll…I can't fathom it, my lady. I can't fathom it.”

“Moira!” Glenna called from across the field. “I need you here.”

“I'll tell Dervil,” Ceara repeated and hurried away.

Moira worked until the sun began to dim again, then exhausted and sick with worry, flew on Larkin to the farm where she would spend one last night.

He would be here, she told herself. Here is where he would be. Safe out of the sunlight, and helping organize the supplies, the wounded, the transportation. Of course, he would be here.

“Near dark,” Larkin said when he stood beside her. “And there'll be nothing in Geall that will hunt in it tonight but that which nature has made.”

“You found none at all, no enemy survivors.”

“Ash, only ash. Even in caves and deep shade there was ash. As if the sun we brought burned through it all, and there was none of them could survive it no matter where they hid.”

Her already pale face went gray, and he gripped her arm.

“It's different for him, you know it. He'd have had the cloak. He'd have gotten it in time. You can't believe any magic we'd bring would harm one of our own.”

“No, of course. Of course, you're right. I'm just tired, that's all.”

“You'll put something in your belly, then lay your head down.” He led her into the house.

Hoyt stood with Blair and Glenna. Something on their faces turned Moira's knees to water.

“He's dead.”

“No.” Hoyt hurried forward to take her hands. “No, he survived it.”

Tears she'd held for hours spilled out of her eyes and flooded her cheeks. “You swear it? He's not dead. You've seen him, spoken to him?”

“I swear it.”

“Sit, Moira, you're exhausted.”

But she shook her head at Glenna's words and kept her eyes on Hoyt's face. “Upstairs? Is he upstairs?” A shudder passed through her as she understood what she read in Hoyt's eyes. “No,” she said slowly. “He's not upstairs. Or in the house, or in Geall at all. He's gone. He's gone back.”

“He felt…Damnation, I'm sorry for this, Moira. He was determined to go, straight away. I gave him my key, and he was going by dragon-back to the Dance. He said…”

Hoyt took a sealed paper from a table. “He asked if I'd give you this.”

She stared at it, and finally nodded. “Thank you.”

They said nothing as she took the paper and went upstairs alone.

She closed herself in the room she'd shared with him, lit the candles. Then sitting, simply held the letter to her heart until she had the strength to break the seal.

And read.

She would weep. A human heart needed to shed such a deep well of tears. Lying on the bed where they'd loved each other for the last time, she pressed the letter to her heart, and let it empty.

 

New York City
Eight weeks later

 

H
e spent a great deal of time in the dark, and a
great deal of time with whiskey. When a man had eternity, Cian figured he could take a decade or two to brood. Maybe a century since he'd given up the love of his endless bloody life.

He'd come around, of course. Of course he would. He'd get back to business. Travel for a while. Drink a bit longer first. A year or two of a sodding drunk never hurt the undead.

He knew she was well, helping her people recover, planning the monument she would build in the valley come the next spring. They'd buried their dead, and she herself had read every name—nearly five hundred of them—at the memorial.

He knew because the others were back now as well, and had insisted on giving him details he hadn't asked for.

At least Blair and Larkin were in Chicago now and wouldn't be hammering at him to talk or get together with them. You'd think humans, after spending such an intense amount of time with him, would know he wasn't feeling sociable.

He was going to wallow, goddamn it. The lot of them would be long dead, by his estimation, before he was finished wallowing.

He poured more whiskey. He told himself at least he had enough standards left not to drink it straight from the bottle.

And here were Hoyt and Glenna nagging at him to spend Christmas with them. Christmas, for bleeding Judas's sake. What did he care for Christmas? He wished they would go the hell back to Ireland and the house he'd given them and leave him be.

Did they have Christmas in Geall? he wondered, running his fingers over the dented silver locket he wore night and day. He'd never asked about that particular custom—but why should he have. It would likely be Yule there, with burning logs and music. Whatever, it was nothing to him now.

But she should celebrate, Moira should. Light a thousand candles and set Castle Geall glowing. Hang the holly bushes and strike up the bloody band.

When the hell was this pain going to ebb? How many oceans of whiskey would it take to dull it?

He heard the hum of the elevator and scowled over at it. He'd told the shagging doorman no one was to be let up, hadn't he? He ought to snap the idiot's neck like a used chopstick.

But no matter, he mused, he'd locked the mechanism from inside as second line of defense.

They could come up, but they couldn't get in.

He could barely drum up a curse when the doors slid open, and he saw Glenna step into the dark.

“Oh for pity's sake.” Her voice was impatient, and an instant later, the lights flashed on.

They seared his eyes so that this time his curses were loud and heartfelt.

“Look at you.” She set aside the large and elegantly wrapped box she'd carried in. “Sitting in the dark like a—”

“Vampire. Go away.”

“It reeks of whiskey in here.” As if she owned the place, she walked into his kitchen and began making coffee. While it was brewing she came out to find him exactly as he'd been.

“Merry Christmas to you, too.” She angled her head. “You need a shave, a haircut—and one day when you're not sulking I'm going to ask how you accomplish that sort of thing. A shave,” she repeated, “a haircut, and since whiskey's not the only reek in here, a bath.”

His eyes remained hooded, and his lips curved without a whiff of humor. “Going to give me one, Red?”

“If that's what it takes. Why don't you clean yourself up, Cian, come back to the apartment with me? We have plenty of leftover Christmas dinner. It's Christmas Day,” she said to his blank look. “Nearly nine o'clock Christmas night, actually, and I've left my husband home alone because he's as stubborn as you and won't come back here without an invitation.”

“That's something anyway. I don't want leftovers. Or that coffee you're making in there.” He lifted his glass. “I've got what I want.”

“Fine. Stay drunk and smelly and miserable. But maybe you'll want this, too.”

She marched over to the box, hefted it, then brought it over to drop it in his lap. “Open it.”

He studied it without interest “But I didn't get anything for you.”

She crouched at his feet now. “We'll consider your opening it my gift. Please. It's important to me.”

“Will you go away if I open it?”

“Soon.”

To placate her, he lifted the lid with its silver paper and elaborate bow, brushed aside the top layer of sparkling tissue.

And Moira looked out at him.

“Ah, damn you, damn you, Glenna.” Neither whiskey nor will could hold against the image of her. Emotion shook in his voice as he lifted the framed portrait. “It's beautiful. She's beautiful.”

Glenna had painted her in that moment Moira had drawn the sword free from the stone. The dreaminess and power of it, with green shadows, silver mists, and the new queen standing with the shining sword pointed toward the heavens.

“I thought, hoped, that having it would remind you what you helped give her. She wouldn't have stood there without you. There'd be no Geall without you. I wouldn't be here without you. None of us would have survived this without each one of us.” She laid a hand on his. “We're still a circle, Cian. We always will be.”

“I did the right thing for her, leaving. I did the right thing.”

“Yes.” She squeezed his hand now. “You did the right thing, an enormous and pure act of love. But knowing you did the right thing for all the right reasons doesn't stop the pain.”

“Nothing does. Nothing.”

“I'd say time will, but I don't know if it's true.” Sympathy swam in her voice, in her eyes. “I will say you have friends and family who love you, and will be there for you. You have people who love you, Cian, who hurt for you.”

“I don't know how to take what you want to give me, not yet. But this.” He traced his finger around the frame. “Thank you for this.”

“You're welcome. There are photographs, too. Ones I took in Ireland. I thought you might like to have them.”

He started to lift the next layers of tissue, then stopped. “I need a moment.”

“Sure. I'll go finish the coffee.”

Alone, he uncovered the large manila envelope, and opened it.

There were dozens of them. One of Moira and his books, and with Larkin outside. One of King reigning over the stove in the kitchen, of Blair, eyes intense, sweat sheening her skin as she held a sword in warrior position.