“I might be able to start us off.” Bryce’s voice, as soft and weary as it was, seemed loud in the sudden stillness. “I remember the sound, and what happened right before it—but there’s more, I can feel it. Maybe talking it out will help bring back what happened after.”
Under any other circumstances, Kevin would probably have laughed at the identical stern expressions worn by Lasair and Setanta as they regarded their scair-anam and master. Not now, though. “Try. Please.”
Bryce nodded; leaning back into the circle of Lasair’s arms, he closed his eyes. “I could tell when the Marfach got here—or maybe it just woke up, I’m not sure. The three of us Faded into the dancers’ lounge—”
A quick slice of Bryce’s hand cut off the ensuing round of exclamations. Kevin wasn’t part of the chorus; he was too busy trying to forget what his own accidental Fade had felt like. And, frankly, feeling sympathy for Bryce.
“Do you all mind? I’d like to get this over with.” Bryce grimaced. “We found the fucker poking around behind the bar, looking for the way downstairs. I sent Lasair and Setanta to collect the rest of you, while I tried to figure out a way to get the Marfach downstairs—”
“So it could feed directly off the nexus?” Conall looked ready to chew nails and shit tacks, as Kevin’s Marine sergeant father was fond of saying.
“So what plans you all managed to come up with in between peacock-posturing the other night could stand a chance of being carried out.” Bryce opened his eyes long enough to shoot the mage a narrow-eyed glare. “Do you mind?”
“Sorry.”
Kevin was pretty sure Conall wasn’t.
Bryce sighed. “The Marfach found me right after they left...”
* * *
The pain, Jesus God the pain. The Marfach had used a piece of one of the broken bottles behind the bar to slash the shit out of the soles of Bryce’s feet.
And the red of his blood was mixed with brown.
“Now you can take us to this new entrance. And we’ll follow right in your footsteps.”
At least the nausea at the thought of what he was about to do kept his mind off the pain as he led the cackling naked male out of the service entrance, through the new hidden door, and down the stairs. Or maybe it was the pain keeping his mind off the nausea. Whatever.
He felt the ward snap and shatter when his blood, mingled with the Marfach’s pollution, touched it. The way was left standing open; there was no going back now, even assuming he could catch the leering lecher behind him off guard and run off on his lacerated feet.
Unless, of course, he was willing to admit he didn’t stand a fucking chance against the monster alone...
“What the fuck did you do to the nexus?” the male roared.
Bryce hadn’t seen the nexus for a couple of weeks, and he didn’t see magick well at the best of times, but even so, he was appalled by the sight at the bottom of the tight spiral stairs.
The air over the wellspring looked as if it was thick with tiny razor blades—blades that went invisible when edge-on, and could barely be seen the rest of the time. He wasn’t sure what those blades would do to the skin of someone who couldn’t channel, and he sure as hell had no desire to find out.
The nexus itself... all Bryce could think of was a hurricane. Or the ghost of one, anyway. Complete with hell’s own lightning.
And if it looked this bad to him—
Bryce turned. The Marfach’s arm was thrown up to shield his eyes. Its eyes. What the fuck ever.
No time to plan, no time even to think.
Bryce slipped past the creature, ignoring the wrenching in his gut and the screaming of his feet.
It was much easier to apply a choke-hold from behind, after all.
“What in the—”
Bryce grabbed his right wrist with his left hand and used all the strength of both arms to tighten his hold on the Marfach’s throat. He really ought to be lifting it off its feet, too, but it was a hell of a lot heavier than anything its size had any business being, and it didn’t budge. Other than to thrash around and try to throw him off, anyway.
Time for phase two.
Gritting his teeth against the bile he knew was about to rise in his throat, Bryce opened up the sinkhole inside him and started to drain the Marfach’s clotted evil energy.
Even choked screams from the Marfach were enough to make Bryce’s ears bleed. Grimly he clung to the monster, doing his damnedest to shut out everything except the task at hand.
With any luck at all, he’d live long enough for the Fae he loved to be the one to kill him.
* * *
Lasair’s expression was as grim as Kevin had ever seen it. “You made a promise, sumiúl.”
“No, I didn’t.” Bryce tilted his head back against Lasair’s chest, the image of exhaustion. “I kept my mouth shut when you asked me to make one. And even if I had agreed, you only asked me not to take unnecessary risks. This was a necessary risk.”
Rian held up a hand, cutting off whatever Lasair’s retort would have been. “Did that bit of the tale jar anything loose for anyone?”
Lasair arched a brow. “Indeed, Highness.”
Kevin winced.
As did several others, including Bryce. “Sorry, Rapunzel.” Bryce’s hand covered Lasair’s, where it rested on his side. “I know you needed me to promise.”
Lasair sighed deeply, bowing his head until his cheek brushed Bryce’s dark hair. “I did. And you needed...”
“For you to have a chance to live.” Bryce’s eyes opened to dark slits, just enough to let him glance around the room. “All of you.”
The silence that followed was broken only by the soft sloshing of the water.
Finally, Lasair dropped a kiss in Bryce’s hair. “I will tell what I remember, and see where the tale leads.”
* * *
“How would you like to learn orgasm denial?”
One of the most entertaining aspects of Fading—entertaining when matters were less urgent, anyway—was the ease with which one could drop into the middle of a conversation. Josh’s voice, coming from the bedroom and pitched in an intimate register, was perfectly audible to Fae hearing even from the middle of the living room, where Lasair and Setanta had taken form.
As was Conall’s groan. “I can’t even think about that so close to the nexus right now. I’m having to use every féin-dúltú trick I picked up in 300 years as it is—I haven’t dared have so much as a wet dream for a week now.”
Well, at least that problem was about to be solved.
Lasair raised his hand to rap gently on the bedroom door.
Instead of a knock, a sound like frozen air shattering pierced his eardrums.
Setanta howled, a pitiful cry of puppy distress.
“What the hell?” The door slammed open and bounced against the bedroom wall. Josh was sitting up in bed, his tattooed hawk and dragon starting to peel themselves from his body; Conall had apparently just vaulted out of bed wearing nothing but an expression of horror, probably at the fact that he had just channeled magick, if the conversation he had just overheard was any indication.
Lasair had no time for any horror other than the one undoubtedly going on under their feet. “The Marfach is headed for the nexus chamber, and Bryce is with it.”
Conall went pale as paper.
“He sent me to summon everyone. Starting with the two of you.” Even as he spoke, Lasair realized it was going to be impossible to follow his scair-anam’s orders. He could no more continue to leave Bryce alone with the monster than he could shape-shift.
Josh picked up a pair of jeans from the floor. “You’d better get down there, d’orant. I’ll follow on foot—”
“Wait.”
Josh paused, one leg in his jeans; Conall had already pulled on a rumpled pair of sweatpants, and his narrowed gaze indicated a lack of inclination to wait for anything.
“What?” the two chorused, one mildly, the other sharply.
Setanta whined softly; Lasair rubbed gently behind one soft ear as he replied, “Bryce is alone with the Marfach. When I agreed to be the one to summon the Defense of the Demesne, I told him not to put himself at unnecessary risk. I am as sure as I can be that he ignored me.”
Conall and Josh exchanged a long, unreadable look. Slowly, Josh nodded. “I’ll do it.”
The red-haired mage appeared to be trying very hard not to frown. “Do it quickly, dar’cion. There’s a limit to how much I can accomplish without you—and when it comes to containing the Marfach, that limit isn’t anything worth sending to the Queen’s table, not if you want to impress her.”
Skirting the foot of the bed, Josh took Conall into his arms and kissed him, quickly but not hastily, a kiss so thorough and so sensual as to send magick rolling off the abruptly aroused mage in palpable waves. “That ought to hold you till I’m done here.”
Conall’s contented sigh turned into a yelp as Areán and Scathacrú detached themselves from Josh’s skin and settled onto Conall’s pale, slightly freckled chest and arm.
“I’ll be damned.” One corner of Josh’s mouth turned up. “They’ve never done that before.”
“They tickle.” Conall tiptoed and nipped Josh’s chin. “Hurry up and come get them.”
* * *
The second rush of unlocked memories—memories that couldn’t possibly be his—left Kevin dizzy and disoriented, in a way Bryce’s human memories hadn’t. He started to slide down the wall to sit on the floor, but remembered the water on the floor just before gravity would have committed him. “Rhoann, could you do something about the water?”
The blond-crested Fae started. “I... yes. Of course.” Touching his fingertips to the water, he closed his eyes. A lattice of light spread outward from his fingertips, visible even to human eyes, skimming the surface of the murky water; when it faded, the water was gone. Even Kevin’s trousers were dry.
Of course, this meant the tiny corpses surrounding Terry, all chitinous teeth and barbed tails, were left high and dry. Kevin gritted his teeth and looked away.
The Marfach had been here. And now it wasn’t. And neither was Tiernan.
“Who’s next?” he croaked.
Conall glanced uneasily around the room. “I think that would be me.”
* * *
He’d suspected—no, he’d known—that Lasair wasn’t going to do the prudent thing. If prudence was even a workable concept any more; the Marfach warped logic, sense and practicality around itself the way a black hole toyed with gravity. Still, Conall couldn’t help but be a bit pissed off when he arrived at the top of the spiral stairs alone.
The roaring from the bottom of the stairs left him little time to be pissed off. Barefoot, and still more than half-hard from Josh’s perfect kiss, he raced down the stairs, following a trail of brown bloodstains toward the uncanny light below.
The juxtaposition of beauty and hellscape in the nexus chamber was like a belt sander applied directly to a Fae’s hypersensitive senses. Swirling clouds like the mist foaming off Niagara Falls rose in a lightning-shot column over the nexus; the untethered magick of the wellspring was a slow-motion cyclone of potentially lethal glitter.
And the Marfach, in its filthy matted male form, lay on its back, howling with rage, on top of Bryce, who had an arm around its throat and was slowly draining fouled magick from it. Lasair and Setanta stood just out of range of the creature’s flailing limbs, each trying to find a place to leap into the fray.
Idiots, all of them.
And Conall included himself in that category. “Let go, Bryce!”
He didn’t dare tap directly into the ley lines, not here at the unstable center of everything, but the clouds over the nexus were almost as potent an energy source as the lines would have been. Plenty for what he had to do first, anyway.
He drew in the mist of ley energy, his arousal alone enough to convert it to living magick, leaving him light-headed and bizarrely giddy.
How do I get it off Bryce without letting the magick touch it? Conall hadn’t seen the world-shaking battle that had preceded the Sundering, of course, but Cuinn had gotten drunk one night in Purgatory and had let himself be persuaded to try to describe it. Conall had no interest in being hauled into the very maw of evil with a binding made from his own twisted, warped magick, and even less interest in suiciding before he and his magick could be turned against the rest of the Demesne.
Air. Air was his element, his ally. He was no elemental like Rian, nor even half of one like Rhoann, but he knew air with nearly the intimacy of a lover.
Channeling all the magick he could hold alone, he called out to the air—specifically, to the air in the Marfach’s lungs. Thar amaic—come away, come out of the monster, leave it to its own ruin. Thar amaic.
Come away it did, and the Marfach kicked and thrashed and would have cursed, but it needed air for that. And when the kicking and thrashing grew weaker, Conall summoned the wind, a great blast of air like a fist that knocked the monster to lie against the far wall, twitching like a broken toy.
This couldn’t last long, though. Conall could feel the magick pouring out of him, and without Lochlann there was no way to replace it as fast as he lost it, and without Josh there was no way to control the channeling to spend it more slowly. A different channeling was called for, one that would only deplete him if the Marfach tested it.
He traced an arc in the air with a fingertip, whispering urgently to the air to tell it what he wanted and setting the channeling free. It took most of his remaining strength not to fall to his knees as he let go of the channeling that was draining him; he dared not let the Marfach see his weakness when it woke up.
Hurry, Josh, dammit.
* * *
Josh had drawn Conall close at some point during the mage’s sharing, and now rested his cheek on Conall’s ginger hair. “I’m sorry I took so long, d’orant.”
Conall shook his head—gently, so as not to force Josh to move. “I wasn’t the only one who needed you.”
Kevin’s jaw was starting to hurt from keeping his teeth so tightly clenched. When did you call us?—did you tell Tiernan not to come?
Rian cleared his throat. “I’m guessing my consort and I were your next call, though I don’t remember receiving it.” The young Prince Royal’s mouth twitched in what looked like the precursor to a wicked smile. “Good job you called when you did, though, because a few minutes later and the two of us would have arrived in something less than a state of grace.”
Cuinn’s laugh was short and harsh. “The call was perfectly timed for us to do exactly that, dhó-suil. And frankly, I could have used a few more minutes’ worth of the Royal mouth, considering what was waiting for us...”
* * *
Cuinn’s erection had made it nearly impossible to button his jeans before he and his liege Faded. The sight greeting him on his arrival in the nexus chamber, however, would have been the buzzkill to end all buzzkills without Rian’s arms around him from behind, his Fire-warmed breath in Cuinn’s ear.
Tell me what you need from me. Rian’s Belfast lilt, mind to mind, was ordinarily enough to give Cuinn a hard-on all by itself, accompanied as it usually was by unspeakable pleasures.
Now? Brain bleach, for starters.
If I had any, t’would be yours.
Cuinn could feel Rian’s shudders—even a Fae raised in the human world, with no inkling of the existence of his race’s mortal enemy, reacted instinctively to its presence. The male form of the Marfach was kneeling on the floor at the edge of the wellspring, clawing at the Stone, its curling yellowed nails splintered down to the nailbeds and bleeding. It snarled incoherently, eyes wild.
Conall stood in one of the small clear spaces between the nexus and the wellspring. He didn’t seem to be actively channeling, yet he also didn’t seem to be nervous about the fact that there was nothing between him and agonizing death other than four or five yards of air. Hell, even Setanta, standing guard over Bryce and Lasair on the far side of the chamber, didn’t seem all that worried.
Holding Rian’s hand, Cuinn edged toward Conall between Scylla and Charybdis, the proverbial rock and the proverbial hard place. Sure, he was going to have to assay the wellspring, or the nexus, or most likely both, before too long, but there was no sense in diving into either before he had to—his mother hadn’t raised any fools.
Well, yes, she had. But hopefully he’d learned a thing or two in a couple of thousand years.
“Mind bringing me up to speed, Twinklebritches?”
He thought he’d spoken mildly enough, but apparently the mage’s nickname still had the power to irk him. “Céd d’chacairt tabh i’r den chosa, a’s ná iarr orth sluasad a’fál ar isacht.” Which translated, roughly, as pull your shit-cart around back of the stable, and don’t ask to borrow a shovel.
Cuinn caught some serious side-eye from his liege lord, as Rian stepped carefully around him on his way to see what he could do to help Bryce and Lasair.
Well, maybe pissing off the master mage while he was busy holding off an evil force bent on destroying two worlds wasn’t such a hot idea at that. “I’ll use my bare hands if I have to, I promise.”
Conall sighed. “Sorry. It tried to go into the wellspring just now, but it couldn’t. I haven’t seen any hint that Janek’s still in there, but whatever solid form it has, it got from him, so I’m guessing that’s what’s keeping it from going through.”
“Reasonable guess. And incredibly fucking lucky for the good guys. And speaking of which, do you happen to have any idea why it hasn’t come charging out of there to put an end to us?”
The ginger mage actually smiled. “I had a word or two with the air—not quite elemental magick, but pretty close. If it stays where it is, it’s allowed to keep breathing. More than a step or two in any direction, though, and all the air in its lungs decides to be... somewhere else. And no living magick there for it to feed on.”
“Just how sure are we of that?”
“What are you—oh, mac’fracun.”
Son of a whore, indeed. The Marfach had apparently just noticed the untethered magick being spat out of the wellspring, and was trying to warp it into something it could consume. Tiny, arc-welder-bright sparks of living magick went an unhealthy, almost radioactive shade of green, then bruise-purple, then charred to black and dropped to—and through—the floor.
It was like watching an unimaginably ugly bug zapper kill fireflies.
Not all of the fireflies died, though. A few survived long enough to be consumed. Then a few more, and a few more.
“We’re going to have to get it over to the nexus somehow,” Cuinn murmured.
“I’m open to suggestion.”
* * *
“We must have been next.” Maelduin shifted Terry into a more comfortable position across his lap. He spoke slowly, weighing his words, studying the room as if the walls and the floor whispered to him. “When I arrived, the only others here were those who are already in the tale.”
Kevin recognized that gaze, the measuring stare of the blade-dancer. If he’d needed any more evidence that there had been a battle here, the scian-damhsa’s appraisal would have provided it.
“I remember trying to draw it out, to lure it to the nexus.” Maelduin frowned. “Using my sword. Which is not here. And swordplay was the last thing on my mind when I lost my memory, I promise you that.”
Terry turned bright red. “I, um, might be able to fill in that piece.”
* * *
“You have to Fade.” Fortunately, Terry had a fairly good idea where Maelduin had thrown his jeans, and they hadn’t gone far. He glanced up, leaving the delicate business of settling his half-hard cock and avoiding the zipper to his sense of touch. His eyes were needed to convince a stubborn Fae to do as he’d been told.
“Not when you cannot.” Maelduin, already dressed, reached under the bed for his sword.
“They need you, not me.”
“I need you.” From the look on Maelduin’s face, that obviously settled the issue.
“Point taken. But judging from what Josh said, they need you five minutes ago. I’ll follow as fast as I can, I promise.”
“The subway is too slow.”
Jesus, the Dimple of Obstinacy was coming out on Maelduin’s chin. “Where are the keys to your bike?”
Maelduin paused in the act of buckling on his sword-belt. The sight of his own personal blade-dancer strapping on his weapon never failed to leave Terry weak in the knees, even when that blade-dancer was being a git. And was getting ready to throw himself between two worlds and the personification of hatred, pain, and death. “You hate my bike.”
“Hate’s too strong a word. Do I wish you’d gone for that sweet little Yamaha? Hell yes. But I can handle your Harley if I have to. And I think I have to.” Terry was proud of the way his voice remained steady. Letting Maelduin know he was scared shitless for him wasn’t going to make an already daunting task any easier.
Of course, he’d reckoned without the acuity of Fae hearing, and the ferocity of his particular Fae’s love. Before he could move, he was being crushed against Maelduin’s chest, feeling lips pressed against his close-cropped curls.
“If you’re brave enough to let me go, I have to be brave enough to go without you.”
“You’re the brave one.” Terry’s voice was muffled in Maelduin’s chest, but that was okay. He knew the Fae could hear him. “All I have to deal with is a chopper built for someone eight inches taller than I am.”
Maelduin’s finger on Terry’s chin tipped his head up, to meet a warm blue faceted gaze, a hint of a smile, a lock of long blond hair falling softly against his cheek, a gentle kiss. “Juliet’s keys are in the drawer of the nightstand,” he murmured. “Hurry.”
Then Terry’s arms were around nothing at all, as Maelduin Faded.
Terry closed his eyes, the better to stop seeing his SoulShare’s image hanging in the air where it wasn’t any more. When he was sure it was gone, he blinked, hard, and slid open the drawer on the front of the black lacquered table next to the bed. Yes, there were the keys to the Harley, right on top of three strands of anal beads, a battery-operated butt plug, and last month’s issue of Deadpool: Classics Killustrated.
And something else, a faintly glowing purple stone a little smaller than the palm of Terry’s hand. Maelduin’s comhrac-scatha. He wasn’t sure why he picked it up, or why he slipped it into a front pocket of his jeans.
He didn’t stop to ask questions, though. When a Fae was involved, there was always a chance he might get an answer, whether or not he really wanted one.
* * *
Clearing his head of the peculiar fuzziness that came with sharing the memories of other people, not to mention Fae who didn’t really think like other people, was taking Kevin longer each time it happened.
“...must have happened right before we got there. Because I can remember now, a little. Maelduin, trying to get the Marfach’s attention.”
He became aware of his surroundings again partway through something Garrett was saying. God damn it. He needed to remember, too—was just short of desperate—but there was nary a stirring in the darkness of the memories that were still his alone.
Conall nodded. “I remember that too. The nexus didn’t care much for me trying to fuel a channeling from it, and the way it was acting I didn’t dare draw from it much longer. You and Lochlann solved that problem nicely.”
Everyone in the chamber suddenly remembered exactly how Lochlann and Garrett had solved that problem, and Garrett, at least, went red to the roots of his curly dark-blond hair. “You know, it wasn’t easy just switching on the four-alarm animal magnetism. Especially when I’d been expecting to find Janek down there swinging a red-hot poker or some damn thing, not half a minute before.”
“You’re an artist, grafain.” Lochlann slid his arm around Garrett’s waist. “It took both of us to give Conall what he needed.”
Peri struggled to sit up; Fiachra helped him prop himself against the wall, then laced an arm with his to hold him upright. “We must have followed you in, then.” Strangely, his voice sounded more like Falcon’s than his own, but hoarse. “We’d been on our way out for the night when Josh called—I think I lost Falcon’s wig on the way over here.”
Fiachra passed an open-palmed hand over Peri’s bleached-blond spiky hair, drawing a smile from the bedraggled drag queen. “It’s an interesting look.”
“You know better than that. Falcon never goes out without her hair.” Peri flashed a quick smiled, then sobered. “I don’t think the monster paid much attention to us once we got here—it was trying to figure out if it was safe to attack Conall.”
At fucking last. Kevin remembered a flutter of sea-foam green disappearing into the magickal doorway in the alley, right before the Merc’s brakes squealed and caught.
And more...
* * *
“I refuse to go up against the Marfach in a fucking penguin suit.” Tiernan was shedding his tuxedo almost as fast as he undressed when sex was on offer, while simultaneously channeling open the dresser drawer into which he had stuffed his jeans. “You go on down and start the car, I’ll be along in a minute.”
Kevin stared incredulously. “I did not hear that.”
“What?” Tiernan didn’t bother to look up; no innocent expression was going to make Kevin buy the notion that Tiernan was going to get into the Merc with him of his own free will.
“I’m not sure trying to save the world will be any easier after a panic attack than it would be in a penguin suit. Or have you forgotten your last ride with me?”
“Not likely.” Tiernan shimmied into a pair of jeans. “Have you seen my leather jacket?”
“I’m pretty sure it’s downstairs by the fireplace, where you threw it after we got home last night. Look—”
His husband wasn’t in a looking mood; he was already out the bedroom door, barefoot and shirtless, and Kevin had no choice but to follow if he wanted to continue the conversation.
Or monologue, more like. “You heard Josh. The Marfach is already at the nexus. We don’t have time for both of us to take the long way there. They need you.”
“And you don’t?” Tiernan took the last five stairs in a jump he made look easy, skirted Kevin’s weight machine, and bent to pick up his black leather jacket.
“I...” Kevin frowned. “Of course I do. But what does that have to do with—”
Still circling his shoulders to settle the jacket, Tiernan clasped both of Kevin’s hands in his. “Now it’s my turn to ask you—do you remember our last ride together?”
“I’m not likely to forget it.” Kevin repressed a shudder. It hadn’t been long after he’d first been approached at Purgatory’s bar by a Fae with fornication and not much else on his mind, not long after he’d found himself imperfectly SoulShared with that same Fae. The Marfach hadn’t yet been freed from its prison in the ley lines, but the flaw in their Sharing had given it a way into Kevin’s mind. And the hell-ride through a sleet storm to Purgatory, with Tiernan clinging desperately to the inside door handle of the Mercedes and turning several shades of green, while Kevin fought off one blinding mental attack after another by a being bent on torture, was permanently seared into Kevin’s memory.
From the way Tiernan was looking at him, it almost seemed as if his Fae husband was sharing the memory with him. “Exactly.” Blond hair fell over one blue topaz eye as Tiernan nodded. “If I go on ahead of you, that’s all I’m going to be thinking about until you get there. I don’t know how much good I’ll do you if the bodlag does come after you... but if it wants you, it’s going to have to take me first.”
“I love you.” The words were silent, Kevin’s voice being caught behind the outsized lump in his throat.
Tiernan’s responsive grin was pure wickedness. “I know.” He channeled magick, and the keys to the Mercedes flew off their hook by the door to the garage; he snagged them in midair and handed them to Kevin. “Let’s go do this.”
By the time the car was backed halfway out of the garage, Tiernan was as pale as Kevin had ever seen him, and his knuckles were paler still where he clung to the inside door handle.
Kevin knew better than to ask whether his husband had changed his mind. And he hoped like hell that Lucien’s odd Fae gift, protection from police scrutiny, extended to the Merc, because if his trusty old car could fly, it was going to do it tonight.
* * *
“And I remember your arrival.” Rhoann was smiling—a faint smile, but still a smile. “I remember thinking that I had never heard brakes make a sound like that before.”
“Me either.” Kevin managed not to wince at the memory Rhoann’s words called up, but a few of the Fae weren’t as successful. “But it beat getting into an argument with the back wall of the bodega across the alley.”
“You would’ve lost,” Lucien deadpanned. “I used to be a mechanic. Trust me on this.”
“I’ll leave that assessment to the expert.” Remembering that Tiernan had made it as far as the club was a relief... but Kevin’s memory ended with that glimpse of Falcon’s gown disappearing into the hidden door. “Can anyone pick up the story from there?”
Lucien nodded, passing an open palm over the top of his bald head, wiping away sweat. “I think I can.”
* * *
“What are we doing down here?”
Mac was making good time down the stairs, but Lucien was beating him handily—him and Rhoann, who was hanging back to pace Mac.
“I just need to see—Crisse de câlice de tabarnak d’esti de sacrament!”
Lucien took the last few stairs in a bound and raced over to the bar. They didn’t have time to waste, but he couldn’t just pass by the ruin someone had made of the bar. Not when it was giving him flashbacks like a son of a bitch. Shattered bottles, alcohol all over the floor—it reminded him all too much of the wreckage his fight with the Marfach had left behind in the old Purgatory.
“Holy shit,” Mac breathed.
“Every time I think I understand a human word, I find I am wrong.” Rhoann was studying the huge swimming tank, as if he expected to find it had met the same fate as the bottles. “What is holy about this shit?”
Mac smacked the Fae’s arm lightly. “I can never tell when you’re serious.”
Lucien stirred the broken glass with the toe of his boot—stopped, staring. “Is that blood?”
“Looks too brown to me—even for dried blood.” Mac scratched his head. “But in this light, who can tell?—and there are footprints of the stuff heading toward the back door.” He pointed toward the service entrance, leading out to the back alley. “So you may be right.”
“Maybe it’s the Marfach’s.” Lucien skirted the wreckage and made his way toward the service entrance, careful not to step in the blood, or whatever it was. “Janek always bled brown.” He hawked and spat off into the shadows. Janek’s name tasted worse in his mouth than the Marfach’s did.
“Hey?”
Josh’s voice echoed down the front stairwell—if he’d called out just a few decibels louder, Lucien would have gladly traded his left hairy nut for a pair of Depends.
“Back here,” Mac called, in the same tone.
The eerie green glow of the safety lights concealed Josh as much as it revealed him easing around the half-open black glass door. “What the hell happened down here?”
“I’m going to go out on a limb and guess it had something to do with the Marfach.” Lucien thought he was doing a decent job keeping the memory of getting his skull caved in by their very own basement monster out of his voice.
Until Rhoann loomed up close behind him and Mac took his hand. Oh, well. Things could be worse.
“Do you want to wait here, laród-ar-Fuzz?” Rhoann’s breath tickled Lucien’s ear hairs. “Mac can help me if I need to channel—”
“Merde de merde,” Lucien growled. “I’m not going to scream and faint. And I need to tear off a strip of that tattooed hide as much as anyone.” He squeezed Mac’s hand, though, just the same.
“Let’s move.” Josh herded the three of them toward the back door.
The door opened onto the alley with a hydraulic-assisted hiss. Lucien had barely gotten a foot out the door when a squeal like a sow being tortured sliced into his eardrums.
“Christ, did it get out?—is it up here?” Mac shoved past Lucien, with Rhoann and Josh right behind him.
No, no flayed pig, and no murderous monster. Just an old Mercedes, the smell of scorched rubber, a white-faced Kevin and a green-faced Tiernan.
And a trail of bloody footprints, wet and brown, leading straight to the hidden door and, as soon as the keyword was spoken, down the stone steps.
* * *
By the time Kevin was sure he’d fully emerged from the shared memory, Lasair was kneeling on the floor in front of Bryce, examining the soles of his feet. Setanta was helping—or, more precisely, “helping,” still holding his right front paw off the floor but eagerly sticking his cold wet nose in where it didn’t belong.
It was hard to tell whether Bryce was wincing or smothering laughter. “Setanta, if you lick that, so help me God—”
“Your blood is red, sumiúl.”
That has to be a good sign. The wall between Kevin and his memories was still bugging the hell out of him, but if Bryce’s formerly polluted blood was running red again, it stood to reason there was good news on the other side of that wall.
Hopefully Tiernan was there, too.
Conall was smiling, for possibly the first time since everyone had awakened. “You have no idea how happy I was to see you come down those stairs.” He was, of course, looking straight at Josh, in a way that shut out the rest of the room.
“Oh, yes, I do.” Josh still looked like he’d been through the proverbial wringer, but his answering grin lit up his face. “I felt it for myself when you Faded into me.”
* * *
Took you long enough.
Josh chuckled inwardly. Noted and logged. The glow of Conall’s delight, and the rush of his relief, took any conceivable sting out of his words. You seem to be doing just fine without me, though.
Like hell. His SoulShare’s inner voice went from light to weary in less than a breath. Lochlann and Garrett got here just in time... but it cost me so much to keep the damned monster contained before they got here, I haven’t been able to recover.
Josh wasn’t sure whether the impulse to squeeze Lochlann’s hand came from him or from Conall, but he supposed it didn’t really matter. Before Josh had arrived, Lochlann had been feeding Conall living magick—ley energy tapped from whatever source Lochlann had been able to call to himself and transmuted in his body into the form a Fae could use—but only at the rate Conall could take in on his own. Now, with full access to Conall’s legendary channeling capacity restored, the magick rushed into their shared body as if Lochlann had turned on a pressure washer.
Scathacrú spun crazily overhead, bumping his golden head against the ceiling, giddy on the rush of power. And Areán perched on the head of the leather chaise at the heart of the nexus, looking for all the world like a cat stoned out of his mind on nip.
Relax, d’orant. I’ve got this.
Did you just actually tell me to relax? Josh felt Conall grin. Because if you did, you realize you’re in charge of my relaxation, and chances are I’m going to need some very shortly.
Josh didn’t have a lot of breath to spare for laughter, the way the magick was thundering through him, but he found enough. You genuinely are a horndog, baby. Don’t ever change.
* * *
Everyone shared in Josh’s remembered chuckle. Almost everyone—Coinneach still sat cross-legged on the floor, listening intently, roots curling out from his fingertips and trying against and again to penetrate the living Stone without success. And Setanta just looked confused, nosing gently at the palm of Bryce’s hand.
Kevin’s heart felt like it was trying to kick him in the ribs, as his memory yielded up to him, and to everyone else, laughter that wasn’t there.
* * *
“Nice to see our draoi ríoga’s functioning properly.”
Tiernan’s soft laughter was all Fae, all wickedness, and despite their desperate situation, it jump-started a delicious heaviness in Kevin’s trousers. Which was all right, since Kevin was probably going to have to give Tiernan the same sort of help Garrett and—apparently—Josh were giving their scair-anaim, and Cuinn and Rian were starting to give each other, very shortly.
“How’s your, um, functioning?”
Tiernan’s arm slipped around Kevin’s waist. “Do you need to ask?” He leaned in for a quick nip at Kevin’s ear, but Kevin noticed his gaze never left the Marfach.
Maelduin was trying to lure the male form of the monster toward the nexus, or drive it there, going from leaving himself a lot more vulnerable to attack than any Fae with a sense of self-preservation ever would to feinting, as quick and light as the flicker of a snake’s tongue. But the Marfach didn’t startle, and it didn’t seem all that interested in scoring itself a Fae, either.
“It looks sluggish,” Kevin whispered. “Bryce must have done a real number on it.”
“Good eye.” Tiernan, too, kept his voice low. “We’ll make a Fae out of you yet.”
“I’ll settle for having a little Fae in me from time to time.”
More of that uncanny Fae laughter drew a soft groan from Kevin, no more than a breath.
“You make my point perfectly, lanan.” Crystal fingers worked their way up Kevin’s side. “Could I persuade you to toy with me a bit? Maelduin’s making a gallant effort, but it looks as if he could use some help.”
Obediently, Kevin moved to shield Tiernan from view with his body—not that he’d ever minded being on display for or with his husband, but he drew the line at sharing him with the Marfach. All the same, a chill skittered down his spine as he tongued Tiernan’s earlobe between his lips and took firm hold of his hard-muscled ass. “You do remember you’re unarmed, right?” He tried to make the murmur as sexy as possible. “Let the kid handle the slicing and dicing.”
Tiernan snorted softly, grinding against Kevin with a slow heat that probably would have gotten the two of them thrown out of any dance club in D.C. other than Purgatory. “I’m never unarmed. And if there’s anything left of Janek in that monster, it’s going to come after me a lot more readily than it will ever follow Maelduin.”
You had to go and remind me of that, didn’t you?
He didn’t say it out loud, but he might as well have. Tiernan pulled back, just far enough to look Kevin in the eyes. He smiled, that perfect wicked smile that had snared Kevin the moment he’d laid eyes on him.
“S’vra lom tú, elafantabod.”
“Seriously?”
But elephant-dick made Kevin grin, as Tiernan had surely intended.
Something over Kevin’s shoulder caught Tiernan’s attention. It didn’t take a genius to guess what.
“Hai, feol’marh!”
Something about Tiernan’s challenge reminded Kevin of a fish-hook, or maybe a matador’s lance. He turned, just in time to see the Marfach look up—slowly, as if its filthy matted head was the heaviest thing it had ever lifted.
Eyes the fitful glowing red of burning bone peered out from under wiry brows.
The monster smiled.
Kevin’s mouth went dry.
“There’s nothing left here of poor Meat but his meat.” The Marfach cackled. “But we do owe him your head, I suppose. It’s the least we can do to honor his memory.”
Gently but firmly, Tiernan moved Kevin aside. “I specified dead meat.” Eyes that had been warm and teasing moments before were now the eerie impossible blue of glacier ice. “And you look about as lively as carrion. But if you think you can take me, you’re welcome to try.”
* * *
Oh, shit. Shit. SHIT.
Kevin balled his hands into fists to stop their shaking. “You all can quit staring at me.” He thought his voice was remarkably even, under the circumstances. “That’s all I remember.”
Fae were notoriously bad at following directions. “Tiernan’s rinc’marh made me ashamed I ever called myself a blade-dancer.” Maelduin’s hand enfolded Terry’s. “Even unarmed, he drove the monster where he wanted it, kept it in place, let it go when he willed.”
Cuinn nodded. “He was buying us time—Conall was recovering his magick, and he and I were trying to figure out what the fuck to do with the bodlag.”
Kevin could see it all as they spoke, the lethal grace his husband wore as naturally and as lightly as his beautiful smile. Why did they remember that, and not me?
Terry cleared his throat. “I think that was where I came in. And Maelduin, just for the record, I am never driving Juliet again. I will ride behind you. I will ride in front of you. I will wrap my arms around your neck and fly like a flag in the wind of your passage. But I am never driving that bike again.”
Despite the growing tension in the room, Maelduin laughed softly. Kevin almost did, too—the memory of Terry’s feet not quite touching the ground when he was forced to stop at a light would have been worth at least a chuckle, any other time.
“You rode her when it mattered—”
“Oh, shit.” Fiachra’s whisper, barely audible, was still enough to cut Maelduin off mid-reassurance. “Now I remember.”
* * *
Not everyone looked away from the death-dance when Terry stumbled down the stairs—the sciain-damhsa, in particular, were laser-focused on the Marfach, and Fiachra suspected that not even the building coming down around them—again—would change that.
But enough were distracted to give the monster the idea that some odds, somewhere, had shifted in its favor. The space around it warped, and suddenly Tiernan faced the monster in its most nightmarish form, a thing like a scorpion with powerful jaws, dripping fangs, and a tail made of small copies of itself, arching up over its back to brush the ceiling and ending in a lethal barbed stinger.
And it laughed. The sound made Fiachra want to jam knitting needles into his ears.
“I HAVE PLAYED WITH YOU LONG ENOUGH. I HUNGER.”
Fiachra’s truthsight had never been more of a curse.
The Marfach’s jaws extended toward Tiernan—but its tail stabbed down toward Peri.
“Básagh gan’anma!” No channeling Fiachra knew could save Peri. But he needed none. He leaped and caught the giant barb in his arms, knocking it aside to smash into the floor with a force that would have shattered any stone not living.
The Marfach didn’t bother to look away from its primary prey. It didn’t need to, not when its tail had a thousand times a thousand tiny minds of its own.
That tail wrapped around Fiachra. He had just enough time to feel the tiny monsters jostling for position against his skin—then the Marfach found its meal, the magick in every cell of a Fae’s body.
Fiachra’s flesh began to melt.
* * *
Fiachra’s jaw was clenched against screams Kevin remembered all too well from his own experience with the Marfach; Peri’s arms were tight around him, a living reminder that the melting the dark Fae remembered—that they all remembered, now—had never happened.
Or it had been healed, somehow.
“Yes...”
The breeze, the whispering of leaves spoke for the first time since the sharing of memories had started. Coinneach wasn’t staring at the floor any more; he locked gazes with Fiachra, a new light in his eyes.
“Yes. I heard you cry out, even over the thunder of the magick through the wellsprings. Blood calling to blood. And I came.”
Kevin remembered the moment now, though he hadn’t realized right away that the creature in the wellspring was Coinneach. He’d heard stories—the Gille Dubh weren’t called the “Dark Men” solely for the color of their skin. They had another form, one they rarely took.
One that the Marfach itself should have had screaming nightmares about finding in its closet, or under its bed at night.
Dark Coinneach roared, a lightning-shot gale.
And with that roar, it was as if a dam burst. No—as if a tsunami came ashore, a horrible unstoppable force, like last year’s horror in Japan, driving everything before it.
Everything. Everyone’s memories, all at once.
Kevin remembered...