The Arrow (Children of Brigid Trilogy Book 1) (27 page)

Cain looked up at the sky shrouded in morning fog and thought for just a brief moment that he knew what. it felt like to fly.

In the kitchen of Brigid’s Keep, a war tribunal gathered around the big plank farm table. Lia, William, and Jana sat beside men and women Fynn had never met but who wore the tattoos of Brigid’s disciples. They all stood when Fynn entered the room.

“We need you to get a bodyguard that can enter the Keep without bursting into flames,” Lia said. “The Mayhem demon is useless.”

“I don’t need a bodyguard,” Fynn said. “And Eli is not useless.” The mugs on the table rattled as the rosebushes scraped against the window in a sudden gust.

“Why are you defending a demon?” Lia said with a laugh. “Are you sleeping with him too?”

Fynn didn’t answer.

“Oh, hell no,” Lia said. The wind rose to a shrieking gale. The kitchen door banged open, tossing rose petals and garden dirt across the kitchen floor.

“Don’t you dare judge me.” Fynn pulled her close and whispered in her ear. “Not everybody wants to be a twenty-six year-old virgin.”

The kitchen door beat against the wall as the whole building moaned. William held his head in his hands, stringing curses. The disciples looked down at the table like children stuck in the room while the parents were fighting.

It was Jana who stood up.

“That’s enough,” she said.

“It’s not all about you and what you want, Fynn.” Lia would not back down. “You’re a goddess, do your job.”

“I didn’t ask for this,” Fynn said as plates crashed to the floor.

“It’s not about you.” The beams of the house whined as the winds rose to hurricane strength.

“I said that’s enough.” Jana’s voice rose to the rafters. She moved between them in an act of courage that made the other disciples flinch. “Enough,” she said, spreading her arms between the sisters like wings.

The storm ceased, leaving heavy silence.

“New rule,” Jana said. She was a tall woman. “No goddess fights in the house.”

“Here, here,” William said, banging the table with his cup. “Tell ‘em, Jana.”

From overhead there was the booming motor of a helicopter approaching the roof of the Keep.

“The medivacs are all in,” Lia said, looking at the ceiling. “That one isn’t ours.”

“Down to the basement with you,” Jana said to Fynn. “Stay there until we say you can come out.”

Chairs scraped against the floor and weapons clattered. William wrapped his arm around Fynn’s shoulders. He ushered her through the Keep down into the maze of the basement halls. The engine roared overhead as the helicopter landed. The basement smelled of mildew and gun oil. They went to the room for the bows and arrows.

Lia and Jana meant to keep her safe there. The three Mayhem demons couldn’t enter the Keep, a reality that kept out Eli. Yet the roof could be under siege by lesser demon armies, mercenaries with automatic weapons, witches with daemonium blades. But it wasn’t any of those coming for her family. It was one lonely man. Fynn knew this. She was the one who had called him.

The longbows rested against the walls. Fynn filled a quiver with arrows while William stood by with his eyes set like stones.

“You’re not going to try to stop me?” she asked, shouldering the quiver.

“You are the Arrow,” he said. “Your job is to protect us.” Her father would not fight destiny. He was the only one left among them with that kind of sense.

“I am the Arrow. I am.” The weapons were light on her back. She ran up the back stairs, hoping the way to the roof would be clear, praying that her aim would be true.

Cain swallowed his vertigo as the helicopter swung around over the tops of the trees. The pilot circled the Keep a few times as Cain instructed. He wanted to be sure he was ready. This had to be executed just right.

The sight of the Keep awakened in him a longing that he did not have time for. Nostalgia would make him weak. His memories of the Keep were lovely ribbons of long afternoons in the meadows, watching Fynn run through the high grass. Her long bronze colored hair flew behind her like a flag on fire in the sun. She was so beautiful and free. Mirrored sunglasses hid his eyes and he was glad of it. His pilot didn’t need to see him get misty.

Cate was a cruel mother. His life was heavy even then between trying to shield his brothers so that they could stay together in the Keep as long as possible. He had known that their time in that paradise would be short. When Eligos the youngest turned four, Cate left to begin her evil work and her sons trailed behind her like poisoned ducklings.

Hope was just a myth back then. Hope had been no more real than Santa Claus. Only when he was with little Fynn could he feel somewhere deep inside that his happiness could someday become real.

Today was his day.

The helicopter rested on the landing pad on the broad white roof of the Keep’s main hospital building. The high walls wove around the compound in a haphazard way. With a cold and clinical eye he saw that the old fort was a waste of human effort and will. The residents of the Keep thought the walls and stockpiles and healing centers would keep them safe from what was coming, but they wouldn’t. Cain Pharmaceuticals was five times the size of Brigid’s Keep and possessed the advanced technology of destruction. The medical doctors, midwives and mystics of Brigid’s Keep were barely adversaries. Even William the Story Keeper with his long stories by the fire could not in his wildest imagination devise a plan like Cate’s to bring down a whole world one destroyed soul at a time. She didn’t have to storm any walls. People would beg Cain Pharmaceuticals for their own destruction as long as they packaged it in a euphoric little party drug called Nine.

He thought of the rows of brand new demons, their sheets stained in fresh blood. With Fynn by his side he would be able to convince himself that everything that had happened in his life had been nothing but a string of bad dreams. Cain and Fynn would live together and become old together, with no children to interrupt their happiness. He would be so good to her that she would forgive him for what he would have to do at first. With her entire family and community destroyed and the whole world burning, she would understand why he had to do it. He would attend to her every whim and desire and she would be happy and he would be good.

In time, Fynn would make him good. She had called him to rescue her. He had not had to take her against her will, inject her with Nine, or come to her veiled in witch magic. She had called him. It was all he could do to keep from jumping out of the helicopter before it landed.

Cain stooped under the swooping blades. His long black coat flapped behind him. He knew he looked like a powerful man. It was a good impression to make on his true love. He wanted her to forget the lovesick boy chasing her in futile games in the meadow, or the businessman she shunned at the party. He was her hero, saving her from pain and death even before she was aware that it was coming.

Cate and Cara had wanted Fynn’s heart in a box. He would never let Fynn out of his sight again. After all these centuries, the Triple Goddess had remained intact. Since the Goddess first manifested in a girl child in the earliest human times, the line had remained unbroken. That girl had two daughters, and then her daughters had daughters, hundreds and hundreds of daughters through the centuries. Not until now had the line been broken. The death of Mother Brigid would have left them weak without the power of the Three.

The time of the Goddess Brigid was over. The last remaining heir would find comfort with him. To be the last protector of the Goddess as the time of great death began was a gentleman’s honor.

A cluster of Brigid disciples waited for him. He signaled for the pilot to turn off the engine. The roar of the blades died down.

He called Fynn’s name. Just her name.
Fynn Kildare.

His eyes went fuzzy even in the clear morning light. Fynn had called him just an hour before, raspy with panic. She had to get away, she’d said. Her father had seen the impending demon storm in the story fire. Save me, she whispered. Her voice was a caress over the phone that overwhelmed him with desire.

It was all finally happening. He would save her. The Keep guards could not stop him. He drew the gun from the holster that he wore strapped on his back. The world was about to end, leaving him with everything. He could be whomever he wanted now. Any movie hero in any movie he had ever seen, that could be him. Whatever hero he chose to be, it would always be Fynn at his side, his leading lady, his only love.

There was a doctor and an operating room prepping for her even as he walked across the tarmac towards the ridiculous group of Keepers. The operation would be done that night. They would leave soon after and she would heal in the privacy and safety of their new home on the remote island that nobody had even bothered to map.

Cain knew in that instant that he had gotten away with it. With all of it. He would have everything he wanted. He would rescue Fynn from these deluded hippie freaks and he would have his salvation. He would have it and she would give it to him.

He raised his gun to use it to bludgeon a tattooed woman standing in his way. No need to waste bullets on sheep. Then a great white light exploded from behind her. He raised his hand to shield his eyes, but the light was burned into his retinas and he couldn’t see anything.

And he was afraid. He was the little boy in the Keep again, terrified of his mother, sulking around, eavesdropping under windows and around corners. If he brought his mother enough information, enough snippets of overheard conversations he didn’t understand but could recite word for word it might be a good day. She might leave them alone, or else hurt them less. He feared the day when Mother Brigid would see his mother and her sons for the traitors they were and kick them out like she would a nest of scorpions from under the bed.

His vision cleared and the woman walked towards him. His heart leapt and at first he thought it was her, his only love. She had the same dark emerald eyes like none he had ever seen on another girl. But it wasn’t Fynn. It was her sister.

“You’re dead,” he said. Fynn had called him an hour before, crying. She’d said that Eligos had killed Liadan. With her mother and sister dead she was all alone, except for him.

But the woman who was Lia looked grim but alive. It was impossible that she was alive. No one could escape Eligos. His brother was nothing if not thorough in his death work.

“You are not a friend,” Lia said. She had a pack slung across her back and a big old-fashioned bow in her hands.

“I’m here for your sister,” Cain said. “She knows I’m here.” He had to hide his confusion. All that mattered was getting Fynn and getting out. He was stupid to come with just his pilot. The only real power he had was in his gun.

“You can’t keep her from me,” he said. “I’m here to save her.”

There was movement behind Lia. He squinted his eyes and the light abated so that he could see her. Fynn came towards him like an angel.

“Fynn, stop,” Lia said. “Go back downstairs.”

But Fynn did not stop. He opened his arms so that she could find refuge in them, so that he could take her away. He would carry her running to the helicopter.

The sun shone on her hair so that it looked like fire playing around her perfect angelic face. She pierced him with her dark green eyes and he fell to one knee.

“I love you,” he said. His voice was a mere squeak.

“You think I can save you.”

“We can save each other,” he said. He couldn’t have felt more naked if he took off every shred of his fancy clothes right then and left his suit in a puddle on the tarmac. The pilot called his name but Cain ignored him.

Fynn cupped his jaw in her hand. He felt the heat of her touch, the power and light that had blinded his eyes now flowing through her palms and softening him. She would blind his heart if he let her. An arrow buzzed his shoulder, so fast he felt its impact but not the pain. He fired a wild shot off towards Lia. He missed her but a woman crumpled near where she stood.

Lia yelled a name.
Jana.

Fynn pressed against him. She pulled at the lapels of his coat. “Get me out of here,” she said.

He gave the pilots the thumbs up sign. He jumped to his feet, put his arms around Fynn and hustled her across the landing pad. It wasn’t until they lifted off the roof that he looked down at the Keep disciples huddling around the dropped woman. Lia knelt in a puddle of the woman’s blood. Cain grabbed for Fynn’s hand.

“We’re doing it, aren’t we?” he dared to ask. “It’s happening.”

“It’s happening,” she said. Her hand was small in his. He raised her knuckles to his lips.

He didn’t dare say more. He didn’t even dare look at her, but held her hand like an anchor as they swept over the Keep’s grounds and toward the sea.

Fynn stood on the balcony of the Vine Theater. She had a direct line to the middle of the stage, cast in a cold blue light. The Ritual Madness drummers thundered under Komo’s Dionysian spell. They were an encroaching stampede of wild horses. They were the heartbeats of the gods.

Below, the crowd moved like one living organism. They swayed and rocked together. Cain sat behind her, flanked by guards. He reached for her hand. “Sit beside me,” he said. “Talk with me.”

The balcony was empty except for the two of them and a few guards in the back. Cate had arranged for a V.I.P. audience to fill the floor. They all wanted to be as close as they could get to Komo. They pushed against the stage’s edge. Their desire hung in the air like storm clouds. Komo loped onto the stage and the crowd exploded.

“Applause,” Cain said. He sounded almost too tired even to mock the show. “Please sit.”

Fynn did as she was told. “I remember you,” she said. It was the weariness that dawned familiar. He had been older than her but not as old as he’d seemed. He was ancient with care and worry, even as a teenager. Now though he was a grown man she sensed a soul that was stunted and bent to nearly breaking with despair.

“You were a sad boy,” she said. The guards shifted their eyes to each other.