The Hound at the Gate (30 page)

Too bad. I knew her first
.

The voice scoffed.
A girl isn't a prize you claim. Especially girls like Savannah. They are more—

“Um…Finn?” Savannah's brow puckered. “What's the matter?”

He blinked. “Nothing.” Giving himself a mental shake, he launched into the events surrounding the Festival. When he finished, his friends sat silent.

“Every single task?” Savannah repeated in disbelief.

Rafe fingered his lion-hair bracelet, twirling it around his wrist in thought. “It would help if you knew what all the tasks were, so you could start training for them right away. Like
now
.”

“No kidding.” Finn blew out a long breath. “Even just knowing which
weapon
to start with would help.”

“Well, not that I'm an expert or anything, but if you want, I could show you some moves with my
assegai
,” Rafe said, speaking of the traditional Zulu spear gifted to him by his South African grandfather.

“And I can run the practice dummy anytime you want,” Savannah added. “Whatever you need, just ask. We want to help.”

Warmth spread through Finn's chest at his friends' words. “Thanks.” He glanced at the kitchen clock and began clearing the table.

The twins helping, he hurried through his chores. His heart did a loop-the-loop every time Savannah looked at him. Or spoke to him. Or edged around him to carry another stack of dishes. He found himself dropping bowls in the sink and forks on the floor—he was almost relieved when they were finished with the kitchen and headed into the living room.

Gideon looked up from his desk. “Savannah. Rafe. Give my regards to your parents.”

“We will.” Savannah nodded and smiled, then started to follow Rafe out the door. She paused. “And Finn? Let me know what I can do to help. Okay?” She gave him a quick, one-armed hug and left.

The same aroma, something flowery or vanilla-y, that he'd always associated with her, drifted from her black curls to his nose. He watched her all the way across the street, jogging with an easy stride that he knew from experience could bury his butt on a cross-country race, until she vanished inside the open garage.

After closing the door, he turned around, a faint smile still on his face. It faded when he noticed Gideon leaning back in his chair and gazing at him with a knowing half-grin. A really annoying, knowing half-grin.

Oh, yeah?
Finn thought.
Well, two can play at this game. So bring it, master
. “Go ahead. Say it. But just remember, if you tease me about Savannah,” Finn said with a smirk of his own, “then I get to tease you about Kel O'Shea.”

A black eyebrow shot up in admiration. “Oh, well struck, MacCullen. Well struck.”

After changing into his oldest jeans and T-shirt, Finn joined his master in the back yard. He grimaced when he saw the Knight already doing push-ups to one side of the practice dummy.
I hate calisthenics
. Without a word, he dropped to the dried grass beside his master and began his first set. He could feel Gideon's eyes on him.

“Chest to ground, boyo.” The Knight switched to one-armed push-ups.
Show-off
, Finn thought. “And straighten your back. Your arse is sticking up in the air like a—”

“Seven…eight…nine…” Finn counted louder, pointedly ignoring the Knight.

“Wow, what a drill sergeant,” said a woman's voice from the back wall. “Marines have nothing on you, Lir.”

Iona.

Even as Finn rose, Gideon was already on his feet. Whipping out his knife, he sent it flying at the sorceress with a curse.

“Hey!” Flinging herself to one side with a magic-enhanced move, Iona ducked behind the wall. “Before you kill me, I've got some information you might want to hear!” she shouted.

Gideon ignored her. “Finn! In the house!” he ordered, reaching to his ankle sheath for another blade.

“It's about the
Scáthach
.” The sorceress' disembodied voice floated over the wall. “And that deal you struck with her concerning the kid.”

“And how do you know about that?” Gideon growled.

“I know someone who knows someone.” She peered over the top stones, brown eyes wary. “Are you going to give me a chance to talk or not?”

“Not,” Finn chimed in. Crouching down with eyes fixed on the enemy, he scrabbled at his pant leg and pulled his knife free.

“Trust me, Lir,” Iona said, ignoring Finn. “You're going to want to hear this.”

Gideon paused, then pointed his weapon at her. “You have one minute.”

She stood up, shaking brunette curls from her face. “Didn't it seem a little odd to you that the
Scáthach
agreed so quickly to O'Neill's suggestion?”

Finn's stomach lurched.
How the heck does she know all this?

“Aye, it did. You now have forty-nine seconds.”

Iona rolled her eyes and continued. “She wouldn't have made that deal if she thought Finn had a chance of succeeding. You know that, right?”

“I do.”

He does?
Finn recoiled at the admission from his master.
Why didn't he tell me?

“I can help you.” Emboldened, Iona leaned on the wall, a manicured fingernail tapping the bronze sheathing. “I can teach you and him some little-known, but pretty handy tricks.”

“And just why would you help us?”

“Because I don't want her to claim the kid. Then she'll have access to his power as well as her own. Not a good thing.”

“But all I can do is kill goblins,” Finn said.

Iona snorted. “There's more to your blood than you know.” She turned to Gideon. “Now, do you want my help or not?”

“Why do you care if the
Scáthach
gains power?” The Knight's frown deepened.

“Because I annoyed her recently.
Really
annoyed her. Totally unintentional, but now I'm on her hit list.”

“She wants to kill you?” Finn asked.

“Worse. She wants to make me,” Iona shuddered, disgust twisting her lovely features, “
mortal
. But the only way she can do that is with a double shot of both her own power and Finn's blood. So, what do you say? Partners?”

“No,” Gideon and Finn said at the same time.

Her eyebrows shot up. “Why?”

“Because…because…” Finn sputtered. “You tried
to kill us
!”

“But I didn't,” Iona pointed out.

“True, you did not.” Gideon nodded in agreement, then flipped his knife around so he held the point of the blade between his thumb and fingers. “Well, your time is up. Prepare to die,” he said in a conversational tone, and started for the wall. Finn followed.

Iona stumbled backward, almost going over the lip of the ravine that separated the woods from the neighborhood. She held out a hand as if to stop him. “Wait! You're going to kill me with no more thought than that?”

“No, I'm going to kill you with my knife.”

“I know what the first trial is going to be!” she shouted in desperation as he reached the wall.

Master and apprentice hesitated. They looked at each other. “Keep your blade at the ready,” Gideon said to Finn in an undertone, then raised his voice. “And what will be the first task?”

“I'm not telling you until we come to some agreement. Can we talk inside instead of yelling back and forth over this wall? I doubt you'd want your neighbor to hear us.”

Mrs. Martinez couldn't hear if the entire graduating class of the Air Force Academy landed jets in her back yard
, Finn thought. He grabbed Gideon's arm in protest. “We can't let Iona in our house. Remember what you told me?”

“Easy, lad.” Gideon waved Iona over. “We'll speak in the yard.”

They waited while Iona sauntered over to the wooden gate set to one side. It opened at a wave of her hand and cowered against the stones until she passed through. “You're really not going to invite me in?”

“And give you free rein to enter our home at will? Not bleedin' likely.”

“Fine.” Passing too close to his master for Finn's comfort, she paused in front of the Knight and looked him up and down. “Good to see you again, by the way, even though you look a mess.”

Ignoring her comment, Gideon gestured toward the picnic table near the kitchen door. After she took a seat on the end of a bench, the Knight leaned a hip on the corner of the table across from her. Nerves kept Finn on his feet.
Plus, one of us needs to be on guard
. He tightened his grip on the heft of the knife, his palms slippery with sweat. With a hasty swipe, he dried one, then the other, then resumed his vigilance.

“Here's the deal,” Iona began. “I help the kid pass every trial—”

“That would be deceitful.” Gideon locked eyes with the sorceress. “And not in keeping with the arrangement I made with the goddess.”

“Hey, I'm not planning on using
my magic
to help him pass. Why, She of the Poor Fashion Sense would perceive any enchantment faster than you can say Xena, Warrior Princess. No, all I'm going to do is show you two some helpful tricks. A few extra tools in the tool belt, you might say. In return, you promise not to hand the kid over to her.
Ever
.”

“It's
Finn
, not
kid
,” Finn said through gritted teeth.

“Whatever. Are we agreed?”

Gideon narrowed his eyes. “And how do we know you won't double-cross us like you did the Amandán? Which, I've heard, have been hounding you.”

“I can handle those creatures. The goddess? Not so much.”

Finn tensed when his master ran his knuckles along his jaw.
He's thinking about it. Maybe…maybe she
can
help
.

“A moment, please.” Gideon beckoned to Finn.

He followed his master inside. Standing side by side, they stared through the window at the sorceress gazing around the yard with boredom.

“Are you going to take her up on her offer, Gideon?”

“Although it reeks of a deal with the very devil himself, I am tempted.”

Anything to keep from going with the Scáthach
. “I-I think we should do it.” He scrunched up his face. “I mean, I need all the help I can get.”

“We.”

“What?”

“
We
need all the help
we
can get. And if fate turns against us,
we
will find a way to stay together.” His master cuffed him, his hand lingering on Finn's head for a moment. “Gideon's Spear, ye ken?”

Finn forced a grin past the fear and worry churning in his gut, determined to at least act like a hero. “Aye, I ken.”

Keep reading for a preview of book four in

The Adventures of Finn MacCullen

Coming 2016

Standing under the large tree in his backyard, thirteen-year-old 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 his 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 sound of the neighborhood. A car or two hummed past on the quiet cul-de-sac. Garage doors rumbled open.

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 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 abruptly decided to move to
Albuquerque to live with her son and daughter-in-law. In a note she'd 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.