Finn's Choice (2 page)

Gideon and Kel O'Shea like each other, but they act like nobody else knows. Except it is
so
obvious to the rest of us.

And Tara Butler? At first, she and I didn't get along, mainly because she's got a worse temper than me. And she and Lochlan can't stand each other. Me? I don't know what I think. Tara and I are kind of friends. Sometimes. When she's not biting my head off. I'll say this about her: she is fearless.

Anyway, at the Festival, I had to reveal my ability to kill goblins with my blood, which made some of our people furious at Gideon because he didn't tell them that he had discovered the lost Spear (that would be me.) Long story short: in the middle of everything, this goddess, the
Scáthach
, found out about me.

Just writing her name gives me the heebie-jeebies.

The
Scáthach
is one bat-crazy goddess who's got this history of taking warriors with special powers away to her island for special training. She made this big deal that it was her ancient right to train
me, not Gideon.

Why does everything have to happen to me? Why can't I just have a normal apprenticeship and become a Knight and spend the rest of my long life wiping out goblins with a bronze weapon? Can't fate just go pick on someone else for a change?

I don't want to go. I don't want to leave my friends. I'm happy here. This is my home. A real home. And Gideon is…well… Gideon.

He doesn't want me to leave, either. He promised me, on Knight's honor, that he won't let the
Scáthach
take me away.

Man, if I could have just one wish…

Standing under the large tree in his back yard, Finn MacCullen shivered as he went through his now-daily ritual. The chill of the mid-October dusk burrowed through his fleece into his bones, and set up winter camp in the marrow. Head tilted back, he kept his eyes glued on the branch over his head and the last leaf dangling from it. Abandoned by the others, the leaf seemed determined to hold fast, even as the early evening breeze tugged it this way and that, like a trout caught on a fly fisherman's line.

A gust swirled his hair, its dark red color a match to the next-door neighbor's out-of-place-in-Colorado maple tree. Jamming his hands into his jacket pockets, he listened with one ear to the sounds of the neighborhood. A car or two drove past on the quiet cul-desac. Garage doors hummed open. Voices called.

As he listened, he realized he missed the usual dim drone of a television announcer's voice from Mrs. Martinez's house next door.
She'd always had the volume turned up to accommodate her elderly hearing. A “House for Rent—Fully Furnished” sign now stood sentinel on her front lawn. Finn remembered that Gideon had seemed saddened to hear she had moved to Albuquerque to live with her son and daughter-in-law. In a note she had left tucked in their front screen, she had thanked Gideon for being a considerate neighbor. She also said she would light a candle for them every week at Mass.
To keep you safe from the brujas
, she had written. Finn wondered what a
bruja
was.

Just as the first star popped into view over the mountains west of High Springs, the leaf gave up. With an almost audible sigh of resignation, it let go and drifted downward, landing on the ground next to Finn's shoe.

Finn tensed. Shoulders hunched, he examined the sky, wishing his master and Knight of the Tuatha De Danaan, Gideon Lir, would get back.
Like, right now
. He strained to hear the growl of his master's pickup truck. Stepping back from the tree, he scanned the darkening sky, fighting the sudden desire to run for the back door.

Maybe it was just a metaphor
, he thought.
Maybe she won't really appear. I mean, how would she know the exact moment our tree lost its last leaf?

“Because she's a
goddess
, that's how,” he muttered under his breath, thinking back to last month when he had first met the
Scáthach
at the annual gathering of their people:

A dark mass, trailing inky clouds behind like a meteor, plummeted toward them from the sky. It grew larger as it approached, a human-sized falling star
.

Just before crashing, the shape slowed over the meadow, a few yards from the edge of the crowd. A grumble, like the sound of drawn-out thunder, emanated from it. It hovered above the grass for a moment, the smoke swirling and twisting, as if dancing with itself. Finn's jaw dropped when the sooty cloud thickened and transformed into a woman. She stepped down out of mid-air and onto the ground, dusting her hands off
.

Clad in dark leggings tucked into boots made of soft leather, she wore a long, belted tunic of emerald green and trimmed with a running Celtic rope design along its hem and flared sleeves. Her hair, a darker auburn than Finn's, flowed all the way to her waist. Tall and powerfully built, she wore a dagger at one hip and a bow and quiver across her back. A spear was clutched in a tanned hand
.

A low rumble, more of a vibration than a sound, booted Finn's heart into a gallop. Head swiveling like the agitator in a washing machine, he edged toward the back door. The rumbling grew louder, mimicking the roar of blood in his ears. Pausing by the picnic table near the house, he pulled his hunting knife from the belt sheath. Its bronze blade seemed puny. Feeble. Not up to the challenge.
Wow. I just described myself
.

The wind increased. Ruffling his hair, it rolled down the mountains, skateboarded across the tops of the western foothills, and slammed into the woods crowding the far side of the yard's back wall. Thick-waisted pines bowed in homage to what, or rather,
who
, was approaching, while the scrub oaks and the few scattered aspens simply flailed their bare limbs with excitement.

Or terror.

It could go either way.

In Finn's case, it went the terror route. The muscles in his entire body vibrating like strings on a harp, he tightened his grip around his knife, not sure why he'd drawn it—because using such a weapon against a goddess whose claim to fame was training
all
the hero warriors of the Celts since the dawn of time was kind of stupid—but still.

On the heels of the wind, a single black cloud raced toward him from the west, growing larger with every second. Leaves swirled around the back yard in a mini-tornado, stinging Finn's face. He staggered a step, eyes squinted. Heart pummeling the inside of his chest, he watched as the cloud slowed over the far end of the yard. Hovering in mid-air, it coalesced into a woman.

The
Scáthach
.

Stepping down out of the air, the goddess was armed just as Finn had seen her last, complete with a spear and a bow and quiver slung across her back. Shaking back her hair, she glanced around, curiosity on her tanned face.

Remembering just in time, Finn dropped to one knee and bowed his head, looking down at the dried grass. Out of the corner of his eye, he watched her boots walk closer. His scalp tightened when she stopped in front of him. Not sure if he was supposed to greet her or wait until spoken to, he opted for silence.

“MacCullen.” The
Scáthach's
voice echoed in that cavern-y way that made the hairs on the back of his neck stiffen. “Stand before me.”

Finn clambered to his feet. For a long minute, the goddess eyed him, starting with his shoes, then moving upward to pause at the gold neckpiece around his throat. Apparently less than impressed by the torc, the ancient symbol that signified a Tuatha De Danaan's first kill, and that every Knight wore with pride, and every apprentice dreamed of earning, she peered behind him at the house.

“Where be the Black Hand?”

Just in time, Finn remembered Gideon's instructions on how to address the goddess. “Greetings, Lady. He had to run an errand. But he'll be back any second,” he added hurriedly.

“I will wait.”

A long pause. Finn shifted from foot to foot.

Leaning on her spear, the
Scáthach
raised an eyebrow. “Are ye not going to offer me the hospitality of yer home, then?”

Son of a goat!
“Um. Yeah. I mean. Yes, Lady.” Feeling like a biggest dork-skull in the world, he led the way to the back door, dried leaves crunching under their feet. Trying to visualize what Gideon would do in this situation, he opened the door, then stepped to one side. She swept past him, ducking slightly to keep the tip of the bow slung across her back from hitting the top of the doorframe.

Somehow, she seemed to make the small kitchen feel smaller in a way that even Mac Roth, the enormous red-headed Knight and Gideon's boon companion, never did.

Finn swallowed. “Um. Do you want some…some tea?”
Do gods even eat or drink? And where the heck is Gideon?

“Tea.” The
Scáthach
looked at him as if he had grown a second set of nostrils.

Finn nodded.

“Nay. Mead, if ye please.” Unslinging her bow and quiver, she took a seat at the table and laid the weapons on the floor after leaning the spear against the wall.

Within reach.

What's mead
? Finn stood rooted in place.

“Or ale.”

Ale. That's like beer. I think
. Finn walked to the refrigerator and opened it.
Am I supposed to just hand it to her
? He thought, staring at the brown longnecks tucked away toward the back.
Gideon always uses a glass, but Mac Roth usually drinks it straight from the bottle. How do adults know all this stuff? Blast it, Gideon! Come. Home. Now
.

With a growl and crunch of gravel, a vehicle pulled into their driveway. Finn's heart rose. “Excuse me, please.” With a sigh of relief, he hurried out of the kitchen and around the shabby furniture of their living room to the front door. Wrenching it open, he stepped out onto the porch just as his master rounded the stone wall separating the yard from the driveway.

A head taller than an average mortal and dressed simply in jeans and a canvas hunting jacket over a faded but clean denim shirt, the black-haired Knight moved with the easy grace of a wolf. Or a warrior. Or both. A torc, similar to Finn's, peeked out of the open collar of his shirt.

Closing the wrought-iron gate behind him with a clang, Gideon
paused at Finn's sudden appearance. “What has happened?” His eyes, the same intense blue as Finn's and the distinguishing feature of their people, narrowed. He glanced around as he approached, hand reaching around for the hunting knife he carried in a leather sheath beneath his shirt tail.

“She's here.”

“The
Scáthach
?” Gideon pronounced it
ska-ha
with a faint whiff of an Irish brogue.

“Yes, sir. She's in the kitchen.”

Silent even in workman's boots, the Knight hurried along the flagstone walkway and took the steps two at a time. Pausing to lay a hand on Finn's shoulder, he lowered his voice. “Stay quiet unless necessary. And do not speak of Iona of the Hills.”

Skin crawling in the way it always did when he thought of the sorceress who once had tried to kill him and his master, and now wanted to aid them for reasons she had only half-explained, Finn nodded. “Since we haven't decided to accept her help or not.”

“Aye. Nor should you mention the Steel family. The less the Lady knows of our friendship with mortals, the better.”

“Why?”

“She is of the Old Ways and has a low opinion of mortals. So keep mum.” He led the way inside, pausing to toss his jacket on one of the coat pegs by the front door.

Relieved to have his master between him and the goddess waiting in the kitchen, Finn trailed behind, glancing to his left at the stone fireplace taking up most of one wall. Rows of weapons
rested horizontally on pegs above the mantel. On the opposite wall, tucked under the stairs leading up to the second floor of their small house, was Gideon's battered but tidy desk.

The thought of leaving this house, this home, and spending the next twelve years training with the
Scáthach
instead of Gideon made Finn's heart clench like a boxer's fist inside his chest. In the five months since becoming an apprentice, he had not only learned how to hunt goblins around their suburban neighborhood, but he had also discovered a surrogate for his long-dead father in the Knight. Not that he would ever say anything like
that
to Gideon.

But, sometimes, he wished he could.

He stepped into the kitchen and lingered by the doorway. Mouth dry, he watched as his master rose from a kneeling position in the middle of the room at a gesture from the goddess.

“Lady
Scáthach
. I welcome you and offer you the hospitality of our home. Will you take refreshment?”

Her eyes, emerald chips over high cheekbones, flashed once at Finn. He swallowed when a look of amusement flitted across her face. For just a moment, she looked, well, not exactly pretty or even kindly, but at least less scary.

“Thank ye, no. I changed me mind.” Retrieving her weapons, she rose and slung her bow and quiver across her back. As tall as Gideon—
and maybe as strong
, Finn thought—she fished what looked like dull round disks out of the small pouch hanging from her belt. They clinked as she rattled them in her fist, like a gambler shaking a pair of dice before a toss, then opened her hand and presented
them. Four iron medallions, each slightly larger than a silver dollar, lay on her palm. Her eyes gleamed with challenge. “I reached back to your people's earliest beginnings as inspiration for the first trial. Choose,” she said to Finn.