Chapter Twenty-One
Along the Stream

“I love these berries, Wanda,” Patty commented, piling them into her cloth sack. “They’re too good to leave here for the rabbits.”

“Mmmmmhmmmm,” agreed Wanda, looking up at her sister. “Girl, you can’t carry all of those berries. They will weigh you down.”

“Oh, please,” Patty said, waving her sister off. “I’ll eat half of them before we leave anyway.”

The sisters shared a laugh but quieted themselves quickly when they heard voices from over the hill. They flew low and fast just above the ground and came to a streambed where they hid themselves in the bushes.

“Who do you think these fools are, Patty?” Wanda asked. “Ain’t hardly nobody ever come out here.”

Patty shrugged. “Let’s go find out.” Before Wanda could protest, her sister had already zipped across the trickling stream and up the small bank into the high grass on the other side.

“No patience in that girl,” Wanda declared and carefully followed Patty.

The sisters looked out and saw two men and three women standing fairly close to the old megaliths. Wanda knew right away that she was looking at Magicks of some kind.

“What do you think they’re doing here?” Patty asked.

“Not sure,” Wanda replied.

The runes on the moss-covered megaliths lit up and the structures began to hum. A massive flash radiated from the base of the megaliths, extending hundreds of feet into the sky. Wanda and Patty shielded their eyes and had to blink several times before they could see again.

“What was that!” screeched Patty.

Wanda shook the spots out of her eyes and looked back at the megaliths. There were a dozen Ruas pouring out of the megaliths, some on all fours like spiders while others were bounding out like apes. All Wanda knew was that she had never seen anything more frightening—that is, until she looked high in the sky and spotted the Niseag with its dragon-like wings. The beast spiraled down and landed gracefully in the high weeds. A man leapt off the creature and landed near Conchar.

“Lord Elathan,” Conchar accompanied his greeting with a low bow.

“Where’s Dullahan?” Elathan asked.

“He was destroyed by the protector,” Meghan said, averting her eyes from her master.

The news did not catch Elathan by surprise, nor did it stir any sort of emotion. “Are the rest of you strong enough to join my crusade?” He stared down each one of his followers. “I do not tolerate weakness!” he screamed.

The followers were silent and shaken. Oscar was oblivious to Elathan’s arrival and walked past the golden god, nonchalantly holding one of the coffers. He walked directly to the spot that Toren O’Neal had died and stopped.

“Ah, the Seeker has begun,” Elathan noted. “Conchar, you will need to help hold his mind since linking to a tether could melt a human’s mind, especially a tether as large as the one he’s searching for.”

Wanda and Patty flew frantically away from Sam’s Creek and sped back towards their CCH home. “We need to go tell somebody about this, Patty,” Wanda whispered.

“Who we gonna tell?” Patty asked.

“There was that good-looking boy back at the house,” Wanda suggested.

“He ain’t been there for days,” Patty reminded her sister.

Wanda gave it a little more thought and remembered that Brendan had a roommate. Maybe they should tell him.

…

The cleanup effort had already begun in Corways. The Gnomes had properly buried their kin and the Leprechauns had already collected their dead, moving bodies to the burial grounds just on the edge of the village.

Brendan, Lizzie, and Frank helped out wherever they could by lifting and carrying away rubble, moving the injured, and just being helpful in general. Lizzie knew time was growing short to help their father.

“What are we going to do about Dad?” Lizzie demanded.

Brendan was silent. He didn’t know how to respond. “We don’t even know where they took him, Liz.”

“It really burns me that Meghan double-crossed us,” Lizzie said, her eyes showing a glint of purple.

“Calm down,” Brendan said. “She fooled us all, especially me.”

Frank carried a broom over that was the size of a paintbrush and held it up. “How am I supposed to sweep with this?” He read their faces and knew they were in a serious conversation. “What’s up?”

“Just talking about how to get Dad back,” Lizzie filled him in.

“Look, if anyone has the means to do it, it’s you two,” Frank said, nodding to Brendan before he kissed Lizzie on the cheek and left.

Brendan and Lizzie looked back to each other. Brendan pursed his lips and then said, “I hope he’s right.”

…

Oscar’s mind was as clear of thought as it had ever been, thanks in part to Conchar’s control, but also because he was standing on the cusp of an inter-realm tether. No human had ever attempted to connect Earth to the Otherworld realms. Only gods could do that, but here he was, the Seeker, a Bloodline Protector of the Earth, trying to do that very thing.

Oscar looked out at the burned patch of ground. It was a huge circle and Oscar was standing at the center point. He had to find the proper placement for each of the three stone coffers. Conchar’s voice assured him that he could be successful if he just concentrated.

Oscar studied the points of the circle with great care. He had to find the right place for Farron’s coffer. He saw something on the ground at the edge of the circle that caught his attention. It was a small hint of a light about the size of a lightning bug, only it was unmoving. He took a few large paces across the radius and placed the coffer down directly on the point of light. Instantly the runes on the sides of the stone box began to move.

“Splendid,” Elathan said as he watched Oscar walk over and select a second coffer. “Soon, my children, Earth will once again be connected to Otherworld.”

…

“Yeah, I’m kind of a big deal on the team,” Ken said to the girl on the other end of the phone. “Should be starting, you know.”

Tap, tap, tap!

Ken glanced over and saw two small women flapping their wings outside his second story window.

“Open up!” Wanda yelled through the glass.

Ken shook his head and tried to gesture for them to go away.

“You better open up, fool, or we’ll turn you into a toad!” Patty threatened.

That got Ken’s attention. He hung up the phone and opened the window. “Okay, okay! Don’t turn me into a toad!”

The fairy sisters fluttered into his room and landed on his bed. Wanda stepped closer to Ken, causing him to jump up and move to the bed across the room.

“Jumpy, aren’t we,” Patty accused.

“I’m fine over here,” Ken reassured. “What do you want?”

“Where’s Brendan? We have something very important to tell him,” Wanda declared.

“He’s gone. I don’t know where he is.”

Patty scratched her head. “Can’t you call him or text him or something?”

Ken glanced to the cell phone in his hand. “Sure. What do you want me to tell him?”

“Besides that he is a fine-looking human,” Patty said, fanning herself off with her wings.

Wanda slapped Patty on the back of the head. “Girl, this is important.”

Ken texted exactly what they told him to even though it didn’t make any sense to him. “I hope Brendan has a clue.”

…

Oscar walked from the center of the circle to a second point of light. He placed Isobel’s coffer directly on the center of it. Again, the runes shifted and moved, tuning themselves to the Otherworld frequency. Oscar walked over and picked up the last coffer.

…

Brendan walked through Corways with a lot on his mind. The others were busy around the village, especially Dorian and Garnash, the respective leaders of their clans. Dorian was dealing with another crisis when she learned that both Queen Usis of the Merrows and Wardicon of the Sidhes had been killed by Elathan. Not only did this change the leadership of those clans, it gave them all an insight into what kind of god Elathan was. He was decidedly an evil one.

The idea of facing off against a god intrigued and frightened Brendan at the same time. His powers had grown by leaps and bounds and he felt like he was invincible. Then again, he would have to try and match powers with a god, and that was a sobering thought.

Brendan made it to Dorian’s house, but she wasn’t there. He took out the handkerchief that his father had given him and revered it. It was a symbol to him of a father’s belief in his son. Brendan wondered how he was expected to do nothing for his father.

He pulled open a few cabinet doors, absently searching for something. He really didn’t have anything in particular in mind. Maybe there was a relic that could tell him where his dad was. Maybe there was some magical device that could help him.

He looked down as his cell phone vibrated. He pulled it out and read the text. It was from Ken and it read: Wanda & Patty saw odd ppl by a stream. 2 men, 3 women. Large Niseag, Ruas, & guy came out of megaliths.

“I know where they took Dad!” Brendan exclaimed to the empty house.

“Don’t do it!” boomed Toren.

Brendan dropped his cell phone with the sudden appearance of Toren’s spirit. “You nearly gave me a heart attack!”

…

The Seeker had the final coffer on the last dim point of light on the perimeter of the circle. The symbols moved and repositioned themselves, just as the previous two had done, and a low hum began to resonate from the boxes.

Elathan turned to Conchar. “Get him out of the way.” Conchar did as he was told and then Elathan faced the Three Sisters of Death. He pulled the three charms of Nuada out and allowed them to dangle in front of the Banshees.

“With Nuada’s own symbols of bondage, you will set us free.” The Banshees each took the charm that was used with their tomb and looked expectantly at their master. “Open your prison and bring on the megalith union!”

…

Brendan marched past the spirit and into the center of the street.

“You have to leave this be,” Toren ordered. “You can’t save your father now.”

“Yes, I can,” Brendan replied. He strode directly to the obsidian megaliths that Meghan and her sister had left behind.

“If you go, Brendan, you will not only be facing three Banshees and the most powerful wizard who ever lived, but also Elathan, the Bringer of Death!”

Toren’s face flashed in and out of clarity, but Brendan could see how serious his ancestor was. Brendan shook his head and stepped into the center of the megaliths. An ancient chant began to surface in his mind; though he didn’t really know the words, they spoke to him. He could travel on the tether. These were the words that he needed to use. His mind was made up.

“Toren, you have told me on a couple of occasions to just do nothing, to seek out Bibe, and wait it out, but I can’t do that. Elathan has my dad and he’s already killed Usis and Wardicon. I will not sit back and let him die, too!”

He whispered the chant as it came to his mind and the runes lit up. Brendan never took his eyes off of Toren. He was disappointing the old warrior, but this was something that he had to do. It took ten seconds, and then he was gone.

…

When Brendan stepped out of the megaliths near Sam’s Creek, it was like he had stepped into an electrical storm in the middle of a tornado. The field was crawling with Ruas, and in the center of it all three Banshees were hovering above a burned-out circle chanting words from a language that Brendan didn’t know existed.

“Open the tether!” Elathan sang. “Open our path to Otherworld!”