Blood Sacrifice (34 page)

“How did you—” I spat the words. He should not have been able to access the land. I’d warded it when we’d returned home.

“Breach the wards without you knowing?” He waved a hand. “You Called, my dear cousin. Despite our little… differences… I am still family.”

“You’re no family of mine, Gideon Kelly.”

“Get off my land,” Adam growled. “You trespass.”

“It is not your land yet, Nightwalker, your human paperwork means little to the magick. Don’t you feel it?” Gideon whirled like a giddy schoolchild. “It sings.”

Beneath me, a thrum of energy, foul, bitter, oily, shook the ground as if it were trying to break through its prison walls. “When the land rejects you fully, I shall release them.”

“To what end, Gideon?” Behind me, the scatter of running feet as our Protectors approached. Our bond had kicked in, alerting them to our danger. That they’d not sensed Gideon earlier was probably due to the same magick that had allowed him to cross the wards.

“To win.” He threw up his hands and cast something in my direction that I didn’t recognize. I ducked, only to hear the air sizzle with a fire shield. It surrounded us, burning nothing but clear air. We were stuck there until it vanished, or until I could figure out how to remove it. Adam, me, Tucker, Niko. The others clamored outside the shield.

“Go after him,” Rhys yelled. “Bloody wanker!”

“No, don’t!” I yelled back. “Every one of you stay put,” I said. “He’s dangerous and powerful. I don’t want anyone to get hurt. We can’t just—” The fire vanished. Gigi stood there, wiping her hands together.

“Go,” she urged. “We’ll hold the fort here.”

“Hold the…” Then the noise hit us. Screams and cries from behind a storage shed. Flashes of light, green, red, orange through the windows as spells were cast and countered inside the Inn.

“How many?” Adam asked.

“Enough.” Gigi turned to leave, then paused. “The four of you go, quickly. He’s gone to the cemetery to begin his final spellcasting. I wish I could send more but we’ll need everyone to fight here.”

“He can’t do that,” I protested. “He has to wait for the full moon. For Lughnasa.”

“He lied.” Gigi pointed upward. “It’s the dark of the moon. He will use that to his advantage.” She whirled and ran in the direction of the shed. Vampires streamed from the nearby cottages, fangs bared.

We ran toward the gate, toward the van that was parked just inside. Small two-legged creatures bit and clawed at my legs as I passed them. I threw out stings and burn hexes, just enough to make them go away. I couldn’t stop to finish them off, couldn’t waste the energy.

Tucker, whose long legs soon outdistanced mine, pulled open the van door and fumbled under the mat for the keys. We did this out here, on our ranch, left keys in the common vehicles. A gremlin or pixie danced on the roof of the van, its big eyes bulging as it laughed. He held the keys in his hand. With a smirk, he tossed them in his mouth and ate them.

“Never mind,” I yelled. “We can run.”

Adam grabbed my hand and pulled at me. “Keira, stop. Take Tucker’s hand. Niko, come.” In an instant, I understood. We held on tight to each other and Adam muttered the syllables. With a rush, we slid Between, glimpses of Faery light now dimmed flew by us as Adam concentrated. I lent him what power I could, boosting our speed. With a pop, we came back into the mortal world less than a hundred yards from our target—the cemetery gate. He’d done it. Needs must.

“Niko and I will go to the overhang,” Adam said. “You and Tucker can go in the front.”

I headed for the main gate. I needed to warn the priest, to get him out of there—if he wasn’t already dead. “Tucker, cover me, yeah? That bloody priest is camping out here.”

“What the bloody blazes is he doing here?”

“Guarding it, he said. Wolf now?”

“Yes.”

We pulled off our clothing and shifted, picking up
the discarded clothes in our teeth. We were on the same wavelength. Normally, I couldn’t care less, but I did
not
want to face Gideon naked. We slinked closer to the tent. Antonio’s fire was out, a tendril of woodsy smoke curling into the sky. Damn it. Was he taken? Was he hurt or killed?

I shifted back and pulled on the shirt and pants. “Tucker,” I whispered. “Stay wolf for now. Go left. See if you can find the priest. I’ll check to the right. If you find him and he’s alive, get him the hell out of here.”

The furry head nodded in understanding and slid left, behind a tombstone, keeping to the shadows. The final sliver of the moon still hung in the sky. Gigi was wrong, it wasn’t the full dark of the moon yet, but just barely not. It was plenty for me to see by, though.

I crouched and crawled my way around the perimeter, trying to sense anything out of the ordinary. Beneath me, the Darkness roiled, hungry, anxious to escape its prison. Where was Gideon? I couldn’t reach out to feel him, as I didn’t want him to find me first. For all intents and purposes, I was practically blind and deaf. I couldn’t use the senses I’d been born to use—the Talents drilled into me by Gigi, by my trainer, my aunts. Seeking, sounding, finding, all perfectly honed and great things to have, but each carried with it a signature energy trace. He’d know I was here.

A metaphysical thump sounded, its vibration cutting through me like a sonic boom. I fell onto a patch of burrs, biting my lip against the yell that wanted to break free. Fuck. What the hell was that? Then I knew. The door to Faery had slammed shut. That wasn’t Gideon who’d done that. He wanted the door open so he could have his Darkness, his Dark Fae join him. I silently
cheered whoever had had the
cojones
to attempt that maneuver.

My knee burned as I tried to crouch again. Damn it. I must have scraped it against stone, not even noticing. I cast a small healing spell, then froze, listening to hear if anyone reacted. When I heard only silence, I began to move again, this time, more carefully. I’d gotten all of three feet when I heard his voice.

“Looking for me, dear Cousin?”

“When you look into an abyss, the abyss also looks into you.”

—Friedrich Nietzsche

I
rolled and ducked, tossing a binding spell in his direction. I still hoped that we could capture him, force him to undo the magick that bound this place to a sacrifice.

“Too easy, my dear.” He taunted me from behind a tombstone. “I expected that.”

“Expect this, bastard.” I rose, and using both hands sent a ball of mage fire forward. It sparked, slid across the face of the large stone he’d ducked behind and splattered uselessly onto the dry grass. I didn’t worry about the fire spreading, mage fire only ate flesh, not vegetation. Our own special version of napalm.

Behind me, a commotion. I ducked again, scooting away from my current position. Three vampires ran by, pursuing a couple of sharp-toothed pixies. I’d laugh, but the situation was far too serious for humor. Maybe later. If we survived this.

A flash blasted my eyes as a spell flew by me. I
blinked, glad he’d missed me, but then Darkness wrapped around me like a cocoon. I couldn’t see, hear. My shouts stopped short, the sound cut off by the roiling Darkness. It smothered me in its density, shutting down too many of my senses. I dropped, crouching as low as I could, hoping to minimize myself as a target. I felt heat as something else whizzed by me. I rolled to my right and scuttled backward as soon as I faced upward.

“Dissipate, damn you,” I whispered, struggling to remember the right word, the right spell to counter the blinding.
“Claro.”
As it shredded, I tore the blinding spell away from my face and tossed it aside like so much dirt.

I sprang to my feet, hands out throwing defensive shield spells as I took stock of the situation. Two vampires down to my left. A small brown fey hung on the back of one of Gideon’s fighters, long claws and teeth tearing skin, long tongue lapping up the free-flowing blood. At least three red-clad bodies sprawled behind him. Where had these people all come from? Had the fight at the Inn spilled out here, or were there more soldiers? I hoped it was the former.

Where the hell was Gideon?

Tucker’s Berserker roar from behind startled me into another defensive roll. I recovered as quickly as I could, frantically trying to see if my brother needed help. Long arms swung wildly, an axe clutched in each hand. Tucker’s face and hands were stained red with other people’s blood, his braids dark and wet with it. An axe crunched bone as it met the slim neck of a dark elf—one of Gideon’s Dark Fae, I wagered.
Good for you, Tucker
, I thought. Good for you.

“Keira, duck.” I flattened as a silver knife flew
through the air, thudding into a nearby live oak. A hand reached down.

“Andrea. Didn’t know you’d come.” I straightened my shirt and brushed off some grass and twigs. “Enjoying the fight?”

A fierce grin appeared on her face. She was skinny, but taut with muscle, blond hair slicked back into a tight ponytail. “I got at least five of them before I got through the gate,” she said. Wait. Gate. Vampires. Cemetery. Oh, yeah. No longer consecrated. It was getting hard to keep up.

“Where are Adam and Niko? I sent them to the overhang, but I don’t know if they made it there.”

She nodded, her eyes searching, keeping vigilant. “Yes, they are there. Adam meant to shut the door to Faery, to keep more of these creatures from coming out.”

“So he’s the one who did that?”

“He was able to close it?” She grabbed my arm and pulled us to one side, ducking behind a small statue of a young angel. “How do you know?”

“I felt it,” I said. “The door slammed shut.”

“Good. That Sidhe queen went up there with him.”

“Angharad?”

“Yes, I believe that was her name,” Andrea said. “Tall blond bitch with an attitude?”

I laughed. “That’s her, all right.”

Andrea pulled the silver knife out of the tree trunk with little effort, even though it was buried halfway to its hilt, at least four inches. “This will come in handy.”

“It’s silver.” Vampires were allergic to silver.

She shrugged. “The handle isn’t. There are a few things crawling around that dislike silver as much as we do.”

“Then go for it.” I prepared to continue my journey toward La Angel and I hoped, Gideon. “You seen my cousin?”

“The raving lunatic megalomaniac? He’s around somewhere.”

Oh, I was liking her more and more. We’d never gotten to know each other before she’d left the ranch to run security at Adam’s estate in Great Britain. I was looking forward to a few girl chats with someone as deadly as I could be. Liz was great, but she was a pilot by trade and had few fighting skills. I could already see Andrea and I bonding over sparring sessions, us against my brothers. That would be a right treat.

“That’s the one,” I began to say when her hands pushed me and I stumbled over a low tombstone, my arms flailing. A silver blade, flat and deadly sliced through the air. With horror, I watched as it continued its arc, through flesh, sinew, and bone, to exit the other side of Andrea’s thin neck. She fell, lifeless. Without a coherent thought, I pushed mage fire through my hands. It sparked and hit the Fae square in the face. His flesh dripped and sizzled as the fire ate its way inside, flesh falling in fiery gobbets to the ground. I watched in grim satisfaction.

“Die you bloody bastard,” I whispered. Andrea’s pale hair, gory with blood, was the last thing I saw as I slipped away intent on finding my final prey.

I had a hunch that Gideon was at the cave, doing whatever he could to reopen the door. The sounds of fighting were beginning to diminish, which must mean that only a few of his extra special brand of nasties had made it out before my guys and the Wicked Bitch of the Seelie Court had slammed the door against the rest. I
stifled my anger over Andrea’s death and kept moving, trying to hear Gideon’s voice. Raving lunatic megalomaniacs weren’t ever too quiet in the movies I watched. They liked to gloat. Maybe there was an Evil Overlord Handbook or something, like a football playbook. I could imagine it now: Tonight, we’re running the Shotgun Split End Cross Halfback Draw, followed by an off-tackle Rant and Rave for good measure.

Sure enough, I heard the noise before I saw him. He was at the base of La Angel, three dead Dark Fae at his feet. He paced forward and backward, then would stop, turn to the cave mouth and fling his hands forward, muttering another spell. I watched, ready for action, but too amused to do anything about it. After several tries in various languages, he screamed, “Why won’t you bloody open?”

“Try saying
‘Mellon,’
” I called as I stood up and revealed myself. Oh, sarcasm, what a lovely, lovely weapon. I knew he’d read
Lord of the Rings
and would get the reference. I also knew it would piss him off.

With a growl, he whirled, a bolt of the same blinding spell arcing out from his fingertips. This time, though, I was ready. I dropped and rolled to the right, coming back up into a crouch behind the tombstone of one Josiah Bartlet.

“You bitch,” Gideon snapped. “What did you do to the door?”

“I did nothing,” I called from behind my hiding place. “It wasn’t me.”

“Then who the—”

“I believe you’re looking for me.” The drawling voice made me cheer inside. “
Son
. Or should I say,
former
son.”

I leaped up to see Angharad standing like some goddess of destiny at the mouth of the cave, hair and dress as tidy as if she’d stepped out of her boudoir.

“
You
shut it? Why?” Gideon demanded. “We were working together. You’ve named me de facto heir until the child is born.”

“No longer. When I agreed to your proposition, there was no mention of you placing a curse on this land, of subverting Challenge by encumbering it. You have broken not only Truce, but trust, Gideon son of Raven. You are riven from my family. You may no longer claim blood ties to the Seelie Sidhe.”

“Your daughter is pregnant with a child you bound to me. A blood-bond you created. We did the ceremony.”

Angharad laughed. “You truly believe that I would blood-tie my own flesh-and-blood to someone without his proving? There was no true bond since there is no child. A glamour only.”