“Scáthach,” Cernunnos said, not slowing his stride. “Here I thought you would never leave the Otherworld.”
“I have my duty.”
“And I have mine.”
Scáthach stepped forward. “Betraying your king?”
Cernunnos laughed, the sound echoing in the night between the rasping breaths of the lights. “Soon, I will have no king.”
Niamh and Seamus spread out on either side of Scáthach, swords in hand. All three had their backs to the Shoppe, so they didn’t see how the witchmarks Bran drew in the air created a glowing circle on the ground. Bran’s magic was soft and golden, a stark contrast to the coldness of the lights now ranged on the road.
“We will not let you take the bean sí,” Niamh said flatly.
Cernunnos reached up to touch the glowing sphere that hung around his neck. “I have her voice. You have the child. One of us will have both before the night is over.”
“I won’t let you take my sister again,” Bran snapped.
“A Fae can never call a witch family.”
Scáthach held her ground. “If the Dagda knows about the bean sí?—”
“He knows nothing of her,” Cernunnos cut in. “He only knew acoven had been whittled down in this area, and I was sent to finish the job. Imagine my surprise when I discovered the bean sí and a supposedly dead dream.”
Cillian didn’t miss the way Cernunnos looked at him, the Fae lord’s attention something he couldn’t hide from. “And what do you want with me?”
Cernunnos’ smile stretched wider. “Your death would do nicely.”
One of the monsters threw back its head and howled, its neck splitting down the middle to its chest, multiple tongues flicking out of the cavity like tentacles. Others clawed at the road, damaging the asphalt, ready for the kill. They surged forward with howling voices, feet thundering against the ground.
Jupitercawedfuriously above them, the raven’s cries drowned out by Bran’s startled shout. Cillian stepped closer to the other man, putting himself between the oncoming lights and the Gallagher siblings on instinct, hand clenching in the air for a weapon he didn’t have.
Scáthach moved, becoming a shadow that was difficult for him to track as she ran for Cernunnos. Niamh and Seamus met the lights halfway, swords flashing as they dodged grasping claws and terrible maws full of teeth. The sounds the monsters made were hair-raising, but worse than that was the way Cernunnos laughed as he blocked Scáthach’s strike with his own glaive conjured up out of thin air. The garland of blue flowers tangled around his antlers swayed in the air as he met Scáthach blow for blow.
She had him as an adversary, but the lights were also a threat she had to be aware of. Niamh and Seamus were busy with their own targets and couldn’t come to her rescue. Cillian couldn’t worry about Scáthach, not when one of the monsters got past Niamh and charged at them.
It was the same creature he’d seen in the forest when he’d ran after Bran. Its thin form gleamed white in the moonlight, that crescent moon horn on its head like a crown. It screamed at them, the sound horrendous, but its speed was no match for the unmoving force of Bran’s magic.
It crashed into the circle around the Shoppe, gold light flaring in the air where it clawed furiously. Cillian rocked back on his heels, looking over his shoulder at Bran. The other man had the grimoire open in hisleft arm, his other outstretched toward the fight. Witchmarks glowed in the ink of the tattoo on his arm. Golden magic sparked in his eyes, and the weight to the air had its source from him. Aisling clung to him, her face as pale as her hair, eyes wide as she watched the nightmarish fight happening beyond the protective circle of Bran’s magic.
“How long can you keep your magic up?” Cillian asked.
Bran’s jaw was clenched, muscles in his neck tight with the strain. “Hopefully long enough for Scáthach to get Aisling’s voice back. But we have a bigger problem. Cernunnos is ripping up the forest from its roots.”
Cillian thought about the roots Damarus had summoned to wrap around their throats back in the Otherworld. If Cernunnos did the same here, he knew the Fae lord wouldn’t hesitate to break their necks.
The monster in front of them screamed its fury before it staggered away from the golden barrier. Behind it, Seamus rose into view, sword dripping with black blood, his armor spattered with it. His eyes snapped with fury when they met Cillian’s for an instant before the knight turned to attack the monster again. Seamus drove it back, clearing the area around the front of the Shoppe.
The ground rumbled, moving in a way it never had before. For a split second, Cillian thought it was an earthquake. Then Bran swore, and when Cillian looked back, the grimoire’s pages were flipping over on their own, his fingers drawing another witchmark in the air over it.
“Can you keep the forest at bay?” Cillian asked.
“I’ll try.”
Cillian jerked back around, staring at the fight. Niamh was easy to make out now, the lightning crackling around her arms illuminating her like a target. Her magic was a threat that had fried one of the monsters, its smoking, burned corpse lying on the road. She’d done it to watch Scáthach’s back as the other warrior fought in lockstep with Cernunnos, the both of them limned with magic.
Cillian’s eyes caught on the glowing sphere hanging from Cernunnos’ neck. Scáthach had been right. Cernunnos had brought Aisling’s voice with him, covetous like how Ainmire had been, always wanting to hold on to what they thought belonged to them.
The lights regrouped, and Seamus shouted at Niamh, who let looseanother bolt of lightning at a monster with skin hanging off its ribs like tassels. The lightning only made it stagger but didn’t kill it, and the snarl it let out made the hair on the back of Cillian’s neck stand on end.
