Now and for Never (30 page)

“He'll march on Big Hill at sundown and then set it alight.” Marcus pointed to the rise of land off to their left. “As far as I can see it's the highest point in the whole archipelago, and I've no doubt you can see it from miles around. He'll have skins full of fuel with him—lamp oil most likely. It makes for a bright, angry flame.”

“And hey—bonus convenience—that's where Milo and Connal and I will be opening the rifts. You know? That might just work in our favour.” Clare looked around. Off to the west, the rolling hills dropped off toward a broad, undulating lowland that swept toward the sea. “Only … what if Paulinus doesn't go that far? What if he just starts a fire on the downs and calls it a day, hoping the whole place'll go up?”

Marcus shook his head. “I don't think so. The sun's been doing a good job of drying things out, but with all that heavy rain last night Paulinus won't risk trying to set any of the lower hills ablaze. If it doesn't catch, or the flames douse in a damp hollow, he'll have wasted his one good move. No. He'll risk it all on a push to the hill. I know he will. If he plans to set up permanent shop here, he's got to start things off with a pretty big bang.”

“Wow. Does being a soldier in the Roman army actually train you to think like that? Yuck.” When Marcus's expression turned rueful, she felt bad for saying that. “I mean … uh, that's useful intel. Good to know. If that's where he's headed, then that's where we'll let him go.” As they resumed walking she was silent for a while. “I hope we can count on Al to get herself and Llassar to the festivities …”

“She'll do it, Clare.” Marcus turned a confident smile on her. “She's escaped from a Roman prison tent before. She can do it again.”

“Yeah …” Clare nodded, remembering the time Al had escaped from Morholt's warehouse and managed to steal, then wreck, his car. “She's good with the Houdini like that. You're right. She'll be there.”

“Once Paulinus's men start to march on the hill,” Marcus continued, “I can lead the Celts, and what's left of Mallora's skraeling, around to flank them. I'm sure the skraeling will be more than eager to help once they see what we're doing. If the Legion balks on their way to the summit, we can drive them toward it if necessary.”

“Right,” Clare said. “And then, with Connal and Milo's help, I can send Gaius Suetonius Paulinus's sorry, soon to be ex-governor's ass back to Somerset. Along with his men. And then Llassar will be free to head back to Norfolk with the stolen loot.”

She felt in her pocket for the map Milo had drawn, sensing a rightness in the plan and a growing hope. Generally speaking, Clare was lousy at planning. But this … this was going to work. And fix the world. And then they could all go home.

That is,
Clare thought,
once we find Al and her skinwalker pals
—

“Clare! Down!”

The long grass in front of Clare parted and all she saw was teeth and claws. And big, black eyes. In a flash of yellow fur
and muscle she found herself flying through the air, her arms wrapped around her head to protect her face from the daggerlike teeth of the massive feline that had tackled her. Not that it would do any good. She braced herself for the mauling once they hit the ground, but was shocked when the cat—a
cougar
—twisted in mid-air and took the brunt of the fall on its flank. Before Clare could even catch a breath it twisted again and leaped to its feet, massive paws braced wide, head down and snarling at her as if warning her not to move. Even if she hadn't been tangled hopelessly in her borrowed cloak, Clare wouldn't have twitched a muscle.

Only a few feet away, Marcus's muscles were doing a great deal more than twitching. He was engaged in a strenuous hand-to-hand—or rather, hand-to-paw—struggle with a bear.

A bear.

A black bear. It didn't seem completely full-grown—it was still lean and long-limbed and didn't have the roly-poly shape of the bears Clare had seen wandering around near a motorists' rest stop on vacation with her parents in the Rockies once—but it was still a freaking
bear
. As Marcus grappled with the creature, trying to reach the sword that was sheathed at his side, Clare saw that the bear was favouring its left front leg. Dried blood was matted on its fur. When it tried to put weight on it, the limb buckled and Marcus was able to break away. He reached for his sword and drew, lifting it high above his head, his expression pure Legion killing machine.

“No!” Clare shouted and, heedless of the snarling cougar, thrashed herself free from her cloak and leaped in front of Marcus. The sword in his hand wavered. “Mark!” she shouted. “Drop it! You already wounded him once. Last night.”

“What?”

The bear had backed off. Clare knew it must have been the manimal that Marcus's sword had tagged in the cave, the evidence captured in that one digital image.

She turned slowly toward the two wild animals, her hands raised. “Drop the damn sword,” she muttered out of the side of her mouth.

Marcus did as she asked and raised his own hands.

All Clare could do was look into the huge dark eyes of the werecougar who stood glaring at her and think,
Al must have been so terrified.
Then there was a blurring of motion. Her next thought was
Or possibly a little drooly.

For where there had stood a sleekly muscular golden cougar was now a young man. A super hot, half-naked young man with long dark hair flowing past his shoulders, muscles that looked sculpted out of stone, and a mesmerizing, golden-eyed gaze that both compelled Clare not to look away and terrified her to the core.

Marcus's armour creaked as he drew himself up to his full height. To his credit—and hers, she supposed—neither moved a muscle as the young man stalked around them in a full circle. As he did, Clare became aware of other shadows moving in the long grass, coming closer—another, slightly smaller cougar, a pair of coyotes. They stared at her with human intelligence. It was disconcerting.

The shirtless young man was also barefoot. He wore only a pair of what looked like suede leggings belted with a wide strip of fur with the same dark-gold coloration as his animal alter ego. When he'd finished his circuit and stopped directly in front of them, Marcus took a single step forward. “Manaw?”

The young man frowned. Then he nodded once.

Marcus put a hand on his chest and said, slowly and clearly, “Marcus.” Then he pointed to Clare. “Clare.”

Manaw's golden eyes flicked back and forth between them and he nodded again. Then Marcus pointed in the direction from where the shape-shifters had come. “Allie,” he said, and made a flapping-wing gesture with his hands.

Manaw nodded again. Moving with a distinctly catlike
grace, he stepped closer and then touched first Marcus and then Clare on the forehead. The shimmer magic did its thing— much more smoothly than usual—and suddenly Clare could understand the handsome young man when he said, “Well met and welcome. Sorry I stole your friend.”

AFTER MAKING MANAW
promise that he and his toothy pals would do everything in their power to make sure Al made it through the coming encounter unscathed, Clare left Marcus alone with the shape-shifters to plan strategy while she climbed back down the cliff to conduct her own consultations.

She spent the rest of the afternoon going over the elements of the ritual—the makeshift, cobbled together, no-one-hasever-done-this-kind-of-thing-before ritual—with Connal and Mallora. Comorra had insisted on lending her more than capable hand in the fight (Clare wondered if she wasn't secretly hoping she could get within striking distance of Paulinus), and so was off sharpening weapons, checking her shield and armour for any needed repairs, and securely braiding her hair before coiling it tightly around her head. The other Celts—those who'd come over on the ship as slaves and the ones already there with Connal and Comorra—likewise went about the business of preparing for battle. Some of them sang.

Morholt, for his part, swanned around offering unsolicited advice and acting as if he was indispensable to the whole endeavour. Which, Clare sighed inwardly—noting the contours of the Snettisham Torc in his jumpsuit pocket—he really sort of was.

“Thanks for the tips,” Clare said finally, sitting back on her heels and wiping her brow as Mallora finished going over for one last time what she thought Clare should do.

Clare had gone to confer with the Druidess only to find her lying pale and drawn-looking on a bed of furs and blankets in
her cave. After hearing all that Clare had to tell her, Mallora expressed both satisfaction and, surprisingly, gratitude. She would be staying on the island with Connal and her niece, she went on, at least until she regained the strength she'd lost in getting them all to the island in the first place. Clare was relieved to hear it. She didn't want anything to further endanger the Druidess—or her resulting progeny—but she made Mallora double-dog promise that she or her descendants would see to it that the diary found its way back to Britain so that it could one day pass into Piper Gimble's fingerless-gloved hands.

“And you've only got about two thousand years to make that happen, so don't dawdle!”

She sat with Mallora for a few more minutes, listening to what sage wisdom the Druidess could offer on the upcoming mega-ritual. Her advice chiefly consisted of variations on a theme:
“You will know what to do. Listen to your soul. Pay attention to the voices of the magic. Let the flow take you. Reality is a tapestry woven from many loose threads. Pull on one end and affect the whole pattern …”

Stuff like that.

“Great. Awesome. Thanks, Yoda,” Clare sighed, waving as she ducked out of the cave, leaving the Druidess to her rest. She wasn't entirely certain she'd gleaned anything useful, but on the other hand she felt that if she'd had a light sabre handy she could have tapped right into the Force.

Back in her own cave, Clare carried on with her preparations. She checked and double-checked the vial of Boudicca/ Curator Special Blend blood Al had given her, making sure it was still tightly stoppered. She rearranged the contents of her bag so that nothing was bulging or awkward, and then she carefully popped the memory card out of her camera and put it in her back pocket for safekeeping. She meticulously rewrapped the shiny red device in its layers of Faraday cage
foil. It had already served its purpose, true, but she liked that camera, and if she could keep it from going shimmer-kablooey on the return trip through time, she might as well try. She tucked the camera into a deep corner of her bag and checked the contents one last time. Then one last,
last
time. Clare hated packing for trips. She either underpacked or overpacked and always felt like she was forgetting something.

Which was why she ignored the feeling. It was par for the course. It would have been weird if she
hadn't
felt like she was forgetting something. Right?

“Clare?” Morholt popped his head into the cave, startling her by not, for once, referring to her as “Clarinet” or “Miss Reid” with a healthy dose of snide intonation.

“Uh. Yeah?”

“It's time.”

And that, simply put, was the most profound statement Clare had ever heard.

21

M
ilo reached out a hand to help Piper negotiate a steep bit of uneven ground on the way up to the top of Big Hill. In the far distance a pair of shaggy ponies watched them climb, placid and uncaring. Beneath his windbreaker Milo's skin itched with the designs he'd painted there with eyeshadow. Along with the vial of blood Maggie had stolen from the hospital, he carried a bag of beach sand he'd use to create a magic circle in which to perform his upcoming magic tricks.

It had taken some time to calm Piper down after the whole mirror, mirror on the wall episode, but she seemed to have finally gotten hold of herself. Maybe a little too much. She seemed way too calm, in fact. No … more than calm. Sad, almost. In an effort to cheer her up as they walked, Milo found himself rambling on about his cousin and Clare—and even Mark O'Donnell—and how good it would be to see them all again. To be together.

“It'll be like at the end of
Return of the Jedi
when everyone gets back together and has a party with the Ewoks on Endor. Except less cheesy. And we'll invite the original old Anakin Skywalker, not the CG young one.”

Piper, of course, didn't bat an eye at the reference and Milo realized with a bit of a start that he deeply missed having to explain something like that to Clare.

“I'll be Han and Clare can be Leia and … uh …” He glanced over and saw that Piper was frowning. “Piper? You okay?”

“Yeah … just thinking.”

Thinking with a side order of bursting into tears, apparently.

Milo stopped in his tracks as, beneath the lenses of her goggles, Piper's eyes filled. Her shoulders curled forward, heaving with sudden sobs. As she turned away from him, Milo could only stand there, astonished. What on earth had he said to upset her so?