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“Looks like they’re expecting us.”
“Cast the circle!” Fallon shouted and, pointing her sword north, called the gods.
They set candle and cauldron, lit the flame, rang the bell, said the words. Defiant, releasing her anger, Fallon deflected bolts of lightning, power against power.
“On this hour of my birth, we challenge the evil that walks the earth. I am The One, born of power and light, destined by blood and choice to lead this fight.”
“We,” Duncan continued, “sister and brother who shared a womb, join with The One to build your tomb. With blood and power the gods foretell, we send dark’s creatures back to hell.”
“We, children of the Tuatha de Danann, are the three,” Tonia shouted. “And here and now accept our destiny. This place, this time, this night, we pledge all we are to the light.”
“Blood joins blood,” they said together as Fallon scored their palms. “Light joins light. Power joins power.”
As they joined hands, the shock of merging snapped light from their palms. As the surge rocked them, swept through them, they gripped tighter.
“Hold on!” Duncan pitched his voice above the gale. “It’s working.”
The force of the wind nearly buckled Fallon’s knees. She watched it snatch the band from Tonia’s hair like angry fingers so the wild curls flew free.
And the undulating earth in the circle of stones began to open, to reveal the maw beneath.
“Finish it!” With the storm raging around them, Fallon drew in her breath.
“Now rise magicks, rise, rise, and strike the creature of death, of lies. Show us the path to find him, and into the pit we drive him and forever our blood will bind him. Here is the vow of the three. As we will, so mote it be.”
The leading edge of the wind died, but what remained blew raw as winter. Inside the stones, the ground held still, and open.
“Is it enough?” Tonia wondered.
“It’ll have to be.” Fallon gestured to a thin stream of light leading into the woods. “We have the path.”
“And we’ve got company,” Tonia added, breaking the connection to nock an arrow.
Duncan enflamed his sword as dozens of Dark Uncanny surged from the woods. “We’re going to need a bigger circle.”
Energized, even eager, Tonia laughed. “Points for you,” she said and let the first arrow fly.
“Keep clear of the pit.” Fallon punched out power, took out three with one swipe. “They waited until we opened it. They want to push us back, into it.”
She leaped on Laoch, shot up to attack from the air.
“I’ll take the left flank,” Duncan told Tonia. “You get the right.”
“Deal.” She dropped and rolled under a fireball, shot a light-soaked arrow.
With a sweep of his sword, Duncan swatted bolts back into the enemy, pivoted to meet the pulsing black blade of another. Sensing movement behind him, he swung to kick out. Faol Ban leaped for the throat of a shifted panther and saved him the trouble.
Fallon’s fire and fury rocked the earth, cut swaths through oncoming power as Taibhse tore through the crows, sent them smoking, screaming into the pit below.
She dived, leaped off. “Take him up,” she shouted to Tonia, then striking, cleaving, burning, moved in to fight back-to-back with Duncan.
“They’re a distraction.” Despite the cold, sweat ran down his face. “A damn good one, but a distraction. They want to drive us into the pit? We drive them.”
She nodded, reached back to grip his hand. “Push!”
It poured out in a kind of rage, hot, savage, strong.
In the screams that followed, the howl of shifters, the flaming blur of elves, they battered them back, back. But worse, the sounds that came, no longer human, as they fell, tumbled, spilled into the pit, tore through the shrieking wind.
A handful broke off, ran.
“If they reach the village,” Fallon began.
“I’ve got this.” Astride Laoch, Tonia circled. “Go, go. I’ll take care of this and be right behind you.”
“She can handle it.” Duncan looked at Fallon. “Ready?”
Together, they charged into the dead woods.
Shadows loomed, shifted. Some breathed, and that breath held death. They felt it, that beat, beat, beat of the dark heart. The pulse of the source.
The light, called by the spell, lay thin and winding.
“It knew it would come to this night.” With sword and shield, Fallon followed the light. “It’s always known. Maybe all of it, all the blood, the battles, the death and misery, was another distraction. Because this is what it’s waited for.”
You’re what it’s waited for, Duncan thought, and stayed close.
The ice-slicked, skeletal trees seemed to slink over the ground as if to block the path. Jagged fingers of branches jabbed out. Duncan sliced one aside with his sword, heard a quick, high-pitched shriek as the severed limb bled black.
“That’s fucking creepy.”
“Enough. Enough.” Sheathing her sword, Fallon used her hands to slice the air. “Clear.”
Those ice-coated trees went still, leaving the path open.
“Distractions,” she repeated.
“Yeah. It’s leading to where we found the girl, the altar.”
“It wants us there. It thinks it wins. It wants us there. Can you feel it? Can you hear it?”
She gripped his hand. “Now I can,” he answered as that pull, that tug nipped inside him like sharp fingers, as the voice echoed softly inside his head.
A woman’s voice, a lover’s. Promising, promising.
They moved on. The pulse beat, faster, louder, a voice of its own that shook inside the belly, that rumbled underfoot. The path widened, then spread to another circle of stones, and the smooth slab of rock resting on them.
On it, the inverted pentagram pulsed red.
“A new dance, a new slab. Petra’s work,” Duncan noted. But not only hers, he said in Fallon’s mind.
Not only hers, she answered. But she’s here. She’s close.
Now, Fallon thought, and once again reached for her sword. At the roar, she looked up, saw the wave of fire, heard the wild laugh.
“And here she is now.” The elation that spurted through Duncan died on sudden, sickening alarm. “Oh, Christ, Tonia.”
She fell from the sky already bleeding, the arm of her jacket smoldering. She struck the side of the altar, tumbled bonelessly off to land at his feet.
“No, goddamn it. No.” Dropping down, Duncan swiped a hand over the jacket to stop the burning, then ran them over his sister to find the wounds.
Fallon leaped forward, threw her shield over them to block a stream of fire.
“There’s too much. I can’t find it all. We need to get her back to New Hope.”
“No.” Tonia found his hand, struggled to clos
e hers over it. “It has to be the three of us. Help me up.”
“You’ve got internal injuries. There’s so much broken. Fallon, help me.”
“Let me see. Let me try.” Her arm trembled holding the shield against the steady barrage of fire, but she closed her hand over Duncan’s, over Tonia’s, searched.
Blinding pain, unspeakable pain, and a light dimming.
“Help me.” Her voice weak, her face pale as the smothered moon, Tonia closed her eyes. “We have to finish this.”
__________
In New Hope, the tower of light shivered, seemed to shrink. In the circle with her mother, Hannah fell to her knees. Around her neck the pendant symbolizing her power glowed.
“Baby.” Katie dropped down beside her. “What—”
“Tonia. She needs me. They need me.” She pushed up, grabbed the medical bag she’d set on the ground for the return. “Tonia. She’s hurt. I can feel . . .” She closed her hand around the pendant. “I have to go. Lana, take me.”
“You’re not prepared. I’ll go, bring her back.”
“I have to go.” Hannah held out the glowing pendant, then took Lana’s hand. “She’s my sister. I was chosen, too.” She looked at her mother. “I was chosen, too,” she repeated. “Hurry. She’s hurt.”
When Lana took her hand, Simon stepped forward.
“I can’t. I can’t take both of you, two unprepared non-magickals.”
He nodded, forced himself to step back again. “Bring our girl home. Bring them all home.”
“I love you.” She looked at Katie, her heart in her eyes. “All I have to protect yours. I swear it. All I have.”
Gathering Hannah close, she flashed.
“My babies.” Katie pressed her hands to her mouth, all but fell into Arlys’s arms. “My babies.”
“You have light,” Mallick called out. “You have a mother’s light and love. Send it!” He drove his own light into the fire. “All here, you have light, you have faith, you have love. Send it.”
Tears still falling, Katie straightened, reached for Jonah’s hand, for Rachel’s. “You helped me bring them, all three of them, into the world. Help me bring them home.”
