Remnants of Magic (39 page)

Kaitlin swooned in Donovan’s arms and he drew her tighter against him. Her hot tears coated his cheek where she pressed against him. Her arms wrapped tight around his neck. They Touched still, where their skin made contact. The twist of confusion and hurt deepened as the next vision came to life before them.

From behind a tapestry, Kaitlin spied on the Seelie king, Manannan, speaking intently to Lugh, who still wore the denim and hooded sweatshirt from before. Though it was something the earthborns might wear, it seemed wholly out of place on the Seelie warrior. She couldn’t hear every word spoken, but she heard enough. “The preparations are underway. Danu will perform the ritual for the Unseelie to submit their magic.” Manannan embraced Lugh as a conspirator. “I am entrusting you now. Allow none to disrupt this ceremony, for the consequences would indeed be dire for all involved. Take up your spear once more and be our Champion. Lead the guard as no one but you might.”

Kaitlin’s fingers twisted in the back of Donovan’s shirt. The memories shredded her. All her beliefs crumbled. Lugh wasn’t the Champion she took him for, but the servant of this unscrupulous Seelie king. She’d never trusted Manannan, but she’d trusted Lugh. How could he claim to care about all Sidhe, even the Unseelie, and be a part of this?

An aching moan tore from her as she gave over to the memory she most dreaded…

Kaitlin peeked around the doorway into the throne room and then stifled a shocked gasp.

Four Sidhe encircled Manannan. To one side, the Unseelie queen and her king writhed within the binding enchantment of a green mist that clutched at them like the unrelenting vines of a snare weed. On the other side, the Seelie queen and the Sidhe All-Mother shared the same blank and unmoving stares. The force of their enchantment enraptured them completely, trapping them in a trance. Neither of the Seelie women moved in the slightest as Manannan conjured his magic.

Before Kaitlin’s horrified eyes, the Seelie king summoned his bloodhound magic.

The fey were equal measures magic and physical. As he rent all magic from the Unseelie and from his wife, their physical bodies disappeared like mist before him, disintegrating into nothing. Only the spiraling mass of their combined magic flowed like a burning wind of light and power into his being. Manannan roared with his joy.

Kaitlin covered her mouth, to stifle her scream, but nothing escaped her. Not even her breath, which she held.

“And now, all the magic of the fey shall flow through me!” He yelled at Danu, who blankly waited as if she were nothing more than a statue. “No longer shall the All-Mother rule, but rather the All-Father! A god, born to command all magic!”

And with that, he stabbed a silver blade into Danu’s breast. The All-Mother didn’t scream. Her hands gripped Manannan’s shoulders as a sob escaped her. She slumped to her knees before him. And like the others, her magic began to slowly unravel and spiral about them.

“Grant me your power with your final breath.” Manannan bent to cover her mouth with his, consuming her power in a death kiss.

Kaitlin screamed as the shattering of her connection to the All-Mother ripped through her magic. Propelled by the pain, she raced into the room. She flung herself against Manannan, knocking him away from Danu, and they collided hard onto the floor. Growling, Manannan shoved her away. He rushed upon his knees to Danu and yanked her up unceremoniously by the front of her dress even as the world gave a great shudder.

“Dead!” He flung her down. Then he spun toward Kaitlin. “You! You did this!” He dove for her before she could scramble away. Manannan snatched her by the throat.

Even as her vision began to blacken, the world shifted violently once more. Manannan glanced out of the balcony, at the great crack spreading across the sky.

With a magic he should not have been able to perform through the wards shielding the castle, he teleported them away.

Where they teleported to, Kaitlin didn’t know. He flung her to the stone tile floor at the feet of men dressed in robes. The very wizards she’d long been warned about.

Manannan snarled, “Take her. She’s worthless to me.”

Blackness closed around her as the wizards descended upon her.

For a long while, she clung to Donovan. Finally, Kaitlin tilted her head back. Tearful green eyes glittered as she searched his face. “What happens now?”

In the months since the Mounds Collapsed, he’d discovered that Lugh had survived. The Seelie could have made himself known, but instead slithered in the shadows. Scheming.

And now Donovan knew that Manannan survived as well. He’d not come forth either. Not only had he slain the All-Mother and three other Sidhe in his bid for ultimate power, but he betrayed one of his own people into the hands of the wizards. The Seelie bloodhound had gone more than feral. He’d gone insane. Although some of the Sidhe played at being gods ages ago, they’d known better than to believe their own hype. Manannan wanted more than dominion over magic, he wanted dominion over all magical creatures alive. To make himself into the god he believed himself to be.

“I will find out what they are planning,” Donovan swore, “ and I will stop them.”

Chapter Nine

The next afternoon, wearing his blindfold and headphones, Malcolm rode on the back of Bryce’s motorbike. Bryce controlled his fire loads better than he used to, so his flames burned pretty low to his skin. No one else saw or felt the flames Bryce put off all the time, like Malcolm did. Leastwise, it didn’t burn as he hung on to Bryce’s belt loops and stayed as far scooted back on the seat from him as he could. Nothing good about getting a singed crotch, should Bryce just suddenly flare up.

Tracking magic this way was loads easier than with the teleporting. Once Malcolm caught the strand he wanted, it was just a matter of pointing Bryce in the right direction. It wasn’t all that far really. No more than a couple hours, and he could feel the tug on the strand losing its slack as they got close.

“Just over there a piece.” Malcolm pointed, and felt the tilt of the motorbike as Bryce leaned into a turn.

Glancing behind them, Malcolm saw the figures of Trip and Kieran following them. It was weird to see just the magic. The shape of their bodies and the aura of power around them glowed. Because the car wasn’t enchanted, it was invisible to Malcolm with the blindfold on. So it was like Trip and Kieran flew along in the air, just sitting on nothing.

The more he gave himself over to his magic senses, the more the world opened up to him. Magic moved all around them. He’d catch glimpses of lesser fey like points of light across a landscape of misty energy. The ley lines moved like pipes far below them. The Great Veil stretched across the bowl of the sky like a rotunda kilometers overhead.

Life was magic.

And no one could see it but him. Like his own secret world.

How cool was that?

All except no one ever understood what he was talking about. Mostly Donovan tried to understand, but he didn’t for-real understand. Not the way Malcolm did.

“Just there.” Malcolm pointed, and then he peeled up the blindfold to see whereabouts they were.

Bryce turned his head some and Malcolm knew he’d said something. He pulled off the headphones and left them hanging about his neck. “What?”

“She’s in a museum? Are you sure?” Bryce repeated as they swung around back, while Kieran drove the car around front.

“Not a hundred percent, but close to it.” The person in this place sure as heck was someone both he and Kie had Touched, with Kieran’s magic being the stronger fiber in the thread he’d followed.

Because London had attacked both Malcolm and Kieran, plus a bunch of other fey, Donovan put a hit out on her. And it was the earthborns’ job to take her down for what she’d done. But as far as Malcolm was concerned, anybody that had even a trace of his stolen magic in them deserved to die. It made Malcolm sick to think about all the people he’d been forced to Touch. And whether it was this London chick or some other sicko, Malcolm wasn’t leaving until he got back what they stole from him. Even if he had to dig it out. That’s what the long knife strapped to his thigh was for.

The inside of the museum was set up kind of weird. Or maybe it was perfectly normal, and he just didn’t know about it on accounta he’d never been in one before. You could either go down a long hallway, with windows to the outside on one side and archways into the different display rooms on the other, or you could just go from room to room to room through the archways in each connecting wall. The place was practically deserted today. Each room they glanced into was full of displays, but no visitors, or even guards or anything.

Heading in with Bryce jogging along side of him, Malcolm spotted Trip and Kieran coming from the other way. He waved them over and pointed toward the room at the far end. “She’s just there,” Malcolm whispered.

Even though they’d not made a sound or anything to give themselves away, the moment they peeked through the archway, London was already looking right at them. The thread of magic led directly to her, just like he’d thought. But she wasn’t the only thing with magic in the room. Two of some kind of lesser fey cowered in the corner, which didn’t make sense, since no one seemed to be threatening them. Maybe they were scared of the other guy in the room, and Malcolm couldn’t blame them on that score.

The bloke’s magic was messed up. On the outside, he looked like any other Sidhe Malcolm knew— tall, fit, and handsome, only with blond hair. But his magic didn’t have nearly the radiance. The heart of his magic burned in his chest like a fist-sized sun pockmarked with inky sunspots. The shafts of light streaming from it flickered with a hint of shadowy flames in the mix. Splotches of black stained the magic in his extremities like he’d dipped them in tar.

“We’ve been made.” Bryce coiled a dense ball of flaming magic between his hands. He flung it out in a stream at the human, who flinched and gasped, but didn’t dodge away fast enough.

She didn’t need to.

The Sidhe bloke jumped in front of her. He reached out and snatched the flaming stream right out of the air, gathering the magic between his hands. The man smirked at them as he squashed out the flames.

Bryce humphed.

“That’s not good,” Trip agreed.

Kieran grimaced. “We’re going to get our asses kicked.”

Malcolm pushed between them, gripping the hilt of his long knife. “No. His magic is diseased. We can take him. You lot distract him. I’ll go around and kill London.”

Not waiting for them to agree, Malcolm sprinted around into the adjacent room so he covered the other exit. When he peeked into the room, Kieran, Trip, and Bryce were already sparring with the blond Sidhe.

Trying to spar with him anyway. Mostly missing and getting spun around. The bloke dodged their magic like an acrobat; jumping and twisting and flipping. Nothing the Unseelie did hurt the Sidhe, who played with them, rather than fighting, like what Donovan did during training.

All the while the human huddled near a display case. And Malcolm could see why.

Among a scattering of bric-a-brac something glowed with a magic unlike anything he’d ever seen before. The magic on the thing twinkled and flexed, radiating colored light. It sang to him, the magic did, in a language he didn’t know. Even still, Malcolm understood it. It whispered to him. Urgent murmurings stroked at his mind, beckoning.

And in that moment… something changed.

It was like his eyes focused for the first time. Or his mind turned over a new understanding. His head titled a little, more than listening to the whispers in the magic. The words went into him. The meanings etched inside of him, like runes. It caught him up in the power like the threads in the weave of magicraft.

More even than the music from the lass, this magic needed him. It cried out for him so strong that nothing else mattered.

Malcolm rushed into the room. Even as the human scrambled away from him, Malcolm hauled back and kicked the display. When it crashed to the ground the glass shattered all over the place in a twinkling mess. Malcolm snatched up the thing of magic; a carved flute fashioned from something like bone. Just clutching it in his hand jolted him with a rush of power. His whole body tingled like crazy. A thousand fey voices whispered in his mind at once.

One of the lesser fey shouted, “The artifact!”

It snapped Malcolm out of his awe.

The blond Sidhe stopped fighting. The glare he aimed at Malcolm was all kinds of pissed off.

Smirking, Malcolm showed him the flute. “Betcha were looking for this.”

The Sidhe narrowed his eyes, all but saying, “Now, I’m gonna kick your ass, boy.” From within the putrid sun in his chest, a black sickness roiled forth. It sizzled and bubbled like demonic lava that consumed the threads of light within the man.

Malcolm gulped.
Not good.

Kieran leapt onto the bloke’s back. “Run, Malcolm! RUN!”

Didn’t need to tell him twice. Malcolm spun about, smashing into London and knocking her down. Then he ran like the sluagh were after him. He tucked the flute into his waistband so he could pump his arms faster. Racing down the long hallway for the exit, he heard running footsteps right on his trail, going faster than his. He could feel the heat of the magic as the Sidhe reached out for him. Getting closer… And closer…

Just as a fist snatched the back of his jacket, Malcolm leaned forward, shucking out of it. Suddenly he felt the slip of teleportation that flung him, still running, into the parking lot.

“Get on!” Bryce kicked the motorbike to life. Malcolm jumped on the back, grabbing tight so he didn’t fall off as Bryce hit the gas. Hopefully, the others made it to the car and would be right behind them.

Malcolm risked a backward glance. The Sidhe still grasped his jacket. The look on his face was pure fury. The black tar within his magic surged with anger, threatening to overtake what little remained of the light.

The bloke had been after the flute, Malcolm knew it as sure as anything.

But the magic had called to
him
. It wanted
him
.

The power from it seeped into him like the Touch, only different. Glorious and awesome like nothing… nothing he’d ever felt before.

Pumping a fist into the air with triumph, Malcolm howled with the glory of it all.