Magick (Immortals and Magick Book 2) (16 page)

“Well, just be prepared to be pulled back if something goes wrong.”

“Yes ma’am.” I smiled to ease the tension.

We walked on, coming out of the woods to see Noah standing on the back deck, two cups of coffee in his hands.

“Come back for him, if nothing else.” Harley said fervently, almost feverishly.

“I’m coming back for all of you.” I said softly, but thoughts of never seeing Noah again caused something inside me to quake in fear.

A knock on the front door surprised me out of my musings. I had been sitting at the breakfast bar, staring into my cup of coffee, and going over the plan for my travel. I wasn’t expecting anyone, so I approached the door with trepidation. I couldn’t get a read on whoever was out there, which upped my nervous factor. The last time that happened, Gemma had paid us a visit.

“Who is it?” I asked the door, standing a few paces back from it in case it flew open.

“It’s Gareth.”

I was a little nonplussed. We were all friends, sure, but it’s not like Gareth and I hung out and threw back some beers on a regular basis. Or whatever it is he drank to look normal when he went out and about.

“Can I come in?” He asked, laughter in his voice.

“Oh, gosh! Sorry!” I rushed forward and opened the door to see him standing there. He still had a small smile on his face.

“If you’re looking for Noah, he’s not here. He’s over at Written.” I said as I shut the door behind him. We stood in the entryway, and I felt slightly awkward. Gareth was a friend, a very good friend, but we had never been alone together. I couldn’t imagine what he would want with me.

“I know. It was you I came to see. I wanted to give you some background on Padraigan. I thought maybe it would help.”

“Oh yeah, that’s right. You were going to tell me something about that at dinner the other night.”

He smiled again, a bit ruefully.

“Yes, until someone dropped a bombshell.”

“Well, you know me, I’m all about dropping bombs.”

We stood there in silence for a moment, until I remembered my manners.

“Let’s go sit in the living room.” I gestured towards the great room, and followed him in.

“Um…..can I get you anything?” What did you offer a vampire who comes for a social call? He didn’t eat in front of us to keep up appearances, and Noah and I didn’t keep a stocked refrigerator of blood on hand for him.

“No Teagan, it’s all right. I really don’t need anything. I just want to give you some possibly helpful information on Padraigan.”

“Oh well, okay. Let’s sit down.”

We settled into the suede couches, across from one another, and I prepared for my Padraigan tutorial.

“I’ll just get right to it. No sense wasting more time. First things first: Padraigan is old. Very, very, very old. He predates me by at least 3000 years. I suspect he’s older than that.”

Something in my demeanor must have struck Gareth as odd, because he stopped talking. I was trying to process the fact that a body could still be up and walking around after three thousand years. Gareth himself was just over 200 years old, which in my uneducated way, figured was pretty damn old for a vampire.

“Wait. So. Wait. Let me process this. Padraigan is at least 3000 years old? And you think he could be OLDER?”

Gareth scooted closer to me and took one of my hands in his. He chafed them, which was oddly soothing, considering his skin was so cold. He must not have fed recently, my bewildered mind thought, its lame attempt to shy away from the fact that I was planning on entering the lair of a millennia old vampire with nothing but my witchy super powers.

“Yes, but there’s more to it than his age. Before he became a vampire he was a powerful sorcerer, learning his trade when the world was still full of magick.”

“This is not getting any better. Is this supposed to be a pep talk? Because if so, it sucks.” I could almost feel my skin turning green with the nausea that sprang into my belly.

“No, no, not a pep talk. Just background so that you know what you’re up against.”

“Oh so information to stop me from going tonight. It’s scary, I admit, but I can’t be deterred. I won’t be.” I shot up from the couch and moved to stand by the windows overlooking the forest. The day was sunny, with a few clouds moving through, which made the forest sparkle emerald one minute, and deep green the next.

“Teagan, why do you have to be so thickheaded?” I heard Gareth sigh from behind me, and it lit a fire in me.

“Thickheaded? I don’t think so Mr. Vampire Man. I’m trying, just like everyone else in our circle, to fight this jackass. If you have a different point to make than the one that I’m getting out of this, then talk to me like I’m a five-year-old and help me understand.”

With a long-suffering sigh, Gareth tried again. To his credit, he didn’t speak slowly, like he would to a five-year-old.

“What I want, what I’m trying to do, is give you as much information as possible about Padraigan. Knowledge is power, as the saying goes, and the more you know, the better you are for it. Padraigan wasn’t always the-jackass, I believe the term was that you used-, but rather a good and decent human being. I know that’s difficult to comprehend, but it’s true. Three thousand years can change a person, aye?” He asked, cocking an eyebrow at me. I nodded, finally seeing where he was taking his point.

“As I was saying, he was once a powerful sorcerer, and respected amongst others of his kind. He was a well-regarded healer as well, which is ironic, considering all he wants to do now is destroy. He had a life-mate, and children, as well. Then there was Nathaira, who was his undoing.”

Something that could be mistaken for pity was in Gareth’s voice, which was something I had never heard reflected for Padraigan. As if we both knew the story was about to take a turn for the worst, we moved back to the couches and sat down. I picked up the coffee mug I had carried in with me, but it had turned cold. I set it down again.

“Who was Nathaira? Don’t expect me to pronounce it with that lilt that you have.” I smiled at him.

“Well, it doesn’t really matter how it’s pronounced; she was named well, for it means serpent in Gaelic. Wicked woman, that one.”

“I love it when you get all Scottish.” I grinned at him.

“Too bad Noah isn’t Scottish.”

“True. I don’t know that I could keep my thoughts on normal conversations if he were. Anyway, this is entering weird territory. So how do you know she was a wicked woman? You obviously wasn’t around for that part of history.”

“She’s a legend amongst vampires. You can’t live a decade as a vampire without hearing of her. She was born, as near as anyone can place it, around 2000 BC. She was already a vampire when she crossed paths with Padraigan. Or so they say. No one really knows how old Padraigan is, as I said earlier.”

“How far back in the historic record do vampires exist? I mean, modern man has only been around for, what, 50,000 years? Do they go back that far?” I was having a hard time wrapping my head around the time frames we were discussing. I had a hard time remembering that I was almost 30.

“There is no definitive answer for that. I would assume for as long as man has walked the earth. Back to Padraigan. Nathaira saw Padraigan, saw the power he possessed and contrived to bring him to her side of things. Padraigan refused, despite Nathaira’s persuasions, and she responded to the rejection by slaughtering his entire family.”

“And instead of doing the honorable thing and avenging his family and killing her snaky ass, he joined her? That makes no sense.”

“No, he tried to avenge them, at the first, but she was near as powerful as himself, if not more so. She ended up driving him insane, and in his weakness, was able to turn him. Together, they made a formidable pair. Both sorcerers, both vampires, both certifiably insane.”

“So is there any redemption in him? Can we appeal to his better side?”

“I don’t think he has a better side anymore, to be honest. I think that part of him died when his family died. He craves only power, pretty things, and immortality. Which is why he comes after me. He has it in his head that I’m going to poison the vampire water supply with the cure, if ever we find it.”

“Oh my god! Hold the phone, Gareth made a joke! Wait, what’s that sound? I think I just heard icicles forming in hell.”

“Ever the jokester, Teagan. Well, it’s why we keep you around.” He flashed a grin at me, and I melted a little. Damn those vampire looks, even if he was my brother of sorts.

“I try. So, how does this help me to..to..do battle with him. Spy on him. Whatever I’m going to be doing tonight.”

“I would hope that you have an idea of what you are going to be doing tonight, otherwise you’re more insane than Padraigan.” He admonished. I pasted on a contrite face. He apparently didn’t find the humor in my words.

“It helps you so that you have a better idea of what this creature is capable of. There is no remorse in him, no soft center to appeal to, no sense of decency to rely on. He will try anything, anything at all, to hurt us. He has no morals, no sympathy. He’s only his anger, power and insanity. He will hurt you, if he knows you’re there. He will sever the ties that your mind has to your body without a second thought. He will not hesitate to kill you.”

Although these were things I had known in my mind after seeing what he and Anna had gone through with Padraigan, stated so baldly left me speechless for a moment. The house was so quiet after Gareth finished speaking that I could hear a carpenter bee thumping solidly at the window, looking for a meal the treated logs wouldn’t provide. For a moment, I envied its simple little bee life.

“So Pollyanna, do you have any wise words of advice that can help me?” I asked, swallowing hard past the lump in my throat.

He looked at me, kindness in his white-blue eyes.

“Don’t be seen.”

When Noah came home, I was still sitting on the couch, Gareth having let himself out after our little non-pep-talk. I heard him open the front door and call out my name, but I was so deep in my own thoughts that I was almost meditating, my mind a whirlwind of scenarios and plans and ways that I could call the whole thing off without looking cowardly.

He sat down next to me and kissed my forehead softly, running a hand down my hair and giving my pony tail a light yank.

“Penny for your thoughts?” He asked, moving his hand to my neck, where he began to lightly knead my knotted muscles.

I let out a muffled laugh.

“Why you’d even pay a penny when you can get them for free is beyond me.”

“Eh, that would be cheating. Gareth called me.”

I looked at him sideways, a bit suspiciously.

“Then you can probably guess what my thoughts are right now. You can still keep your penny.”

He cocked his head to the side, contemplating the world outside the big prow windows. Then he shrugged.

“I know where your thoughts are. Mine would be too. Hell, mine are there. I don’t want you to do it. I definitely don’t want you to go there alone, and how you’ve convinced me of it is beyond my comprehension,” he paused a moment, as if searching for the right words, “but you wouldn’t be the woman I love if you didn’t get in there with your scrappy self and be some kind of super spy. I don’t like it, but I have to respect your decision.”

I wiped a stray tear away from my eye, nodding silently.