Chapter 25
Chapter Twenty-Five
Cillian took the stairs up from the basement two at a time, finding the Fae had left the Shoppe and were back outside.
Niamh heard them, looking over her shoulder as they exited the building.
Her gaze flicked to Bran, who had brought his coven’s grimoire with him. “Your magic touched the entire forest.”
Bran scowled at her. “How else was I supposed to find the lights?”
“Most witches wouldn’t have that reach.”
The contemplative look she gave Bran had Cillian stepping between the two. “What now?”
“We wait,” Scáthach said, the metal-shod butt of her glaive ground into the dirt. She faced the trees, not them, her fierce focus on the surrounding dark. “The lights will come to us, and so will Cernunnos.”
“You seem real certain you can beat him when lots of people in this world consider him some kind of god,” Bran said.
“Do you?”
“No. Witches who know better don’t pray to Fae.”
“Our gods left us so long ago they are nameless to us. We were told to make our own way, and we did, until we were banished. This world is not how it was when we ruled.”
“Probably for the better.”
“You poison the land. There is no pride in that.”
Cillian winced, knowing she was right but not up to refereeing an argument. “So what’s the plan when they do arrive?”
“You’d be safer in the building since you don’t remember how to fight,” Seamus said, sounding almost apologetic, like Cillian’s supposed memory loss was his fault.
“Cernunnos will need to see we have the bean sí,” Scáthach said.
“Aisling stays with me,” Bran said.
Cillian nodded. “And I’ll stay with them.”
Scáthach shrugged, as if their decisions didn’t matter. “Just stay out of our way.”
Niamh approached, the light spilling out of the doorway behind them making the edge of her sword shine a little.
Cillian didn’t know anything about bladed weapons, but thought he must have, in some other life.
He thought, in some far, distant, fractured corner of his mind, he knew what it felt like to pick up a sword.
“Scáthach asked me to use lightning in the fight.”
Summer was always so hot and dry, everything brittle and ready to burn with just one spark.
The people who called Pelham home would be barricaded behind their doors with iron nailed to the frames, hiding from the lights.
They’d have to leave to outrun a wildfire, and Cillian didn’t know if any of them would.
Not with the threat of lights haunting the woods.
“Maybe not the best idea. If you set the forest on fire, we’d have to deal with that on top of the lights,” Cillian said.
“I could put out any fire with rain.”
Bran snorted. “There’s a whole damn reservoir to the east of us. It won’t flood, and there’s no waterways nearby you have to worry about, but wouldn’t fighting in a storm make it harder?”
Cillian nodded. “He’s right.”
Niamh took them at their word. “Then I will call a storm as a last resort. The lightning I will call if it is safe.”
They lapsed into silence, continuing to stare into the dark all around them.
Seamus did slow circuits around the Shoppe, getting eyes on the forest behind them.
The night breeze was warm, even with the sun long since set.
Cillian’s nerves were strung tight, and he nearly jumped out of his skin when Bran touched his lower back.
“Sorry,” Bran said, staring straight ahead, a soft golden glow lining the pages of the open grimoire he held in his other arm. “Look.”
Cillian followed Bran’s gaze, squinting into the darkness for a moment before something caught his eye deep in the woods across the road. The flickering glow he thought he’d seen appeared again, almost like the warning flash from a lighthouse.
The lights were out there.
“You should head into the basement where the circle is,” Bran said to Aisling.
She immediately shook her head, pointing furiously at him and then the ground, making her choice known.
Bran let out a frustrated noise that had Cillian grabbing Bran’s free hand and squeezing it. “I need to know you’re safe.”
Aisling shook her head again and stared at him stubbornly. She crossed her arms over her chest and stayed where she was.
“I’d feel better at having her within sight,” Cillian admitted.
Bran shot him a pained look. “I can’t worry about you both.”
“Then we’ll compromise. Come on, let’s stand on the porch.” He didn’t know how safe they’d be if the lights surrounded them, but if they had to run for the basement, they’d already be halfway there if they were on the porch.
They retreated to a spot in front of the door. Jupiter cawed a warning from the roof, and Cillian looked at the road, a chill crawling through him at what he saw.
In the distance, the forest was full of lights floating between trees, brightening the dark in a way the unsuspecting might think was safe when, in reality, it was nothing but a nightmare.
It made him wish for his rifle. He didn’t trust the magic that was inherently his, despite the instances of subconsciously using it. With no control, he risked hurting bystanders and the people he loved, and that wasn’t what he wanted. He had a sinking feeling he wouldn’t have a choice.
The scent of rot grew in the air, and they couldn’t even blame what clung to their clothes from the wyrding.
The leaves rustled louder, the movement clearly not from the wind.
Cillian froze as the lights came out of the woods, the soft illumination flowing back into the bodies of the monstrous creatures who used to be human, used to be witches.
Now, they were nothing more than a vicious nightmare, and Cillian couldn’t stop the rush of fear that coursed through him, pricking at instincts that told him to run.
The monsters that had chased them through the woods before were there, along with more than a dozen other horrific-looking creatures, all led by Cernunnos, the smile on the Fae lord’s too-beautiful face one Cillian would never trust.
Scáthach lifted her glaive, spinning it to adjust her grip, holding it level to the ground so the bladed end pointed at the forest. “Cernunnos.”
“Scáthach,” Cernunnos said, not slowing his stride. “Here I thought you would never leave the Otherworld.”
“I have my duty.”
“And I have mine.”
Scáthach stepped forward. “Betraying your king?”
Cernunnos laughed, the sound echoing in the night between the rasping breaths of the lights. “Soon, I will have no king.”
Niamh and Seamus spread out on either side of Scáthach, swords in hand.
All three had their backs to the Shoppe, so they didn’t see how the witchmarks Bran drew in the air created a glowing circle on the ground.
Bran’s magic was soft and golden, a stark contrast to the coldness of the lights now ranged on the road.
“We will not let you take the bean sí,” Niamh said flatly.
Cernunnos reached up to touch the glowing sphere that hung around his neck. “I have her voice. You have the child. One of us will have both before the night is over.”
“I won’t let you take my sister again,” Bran snapped.
“A Fae can never call a witch family.”
Scáthach held her ground. “If the Dagda knows about the bean sí—”
“He knows nothing of her,” Cernunnos cut in. “He only knew a coven had been whittled down in this area, and I was sent to finish the job. Imagine my surprise when I discovered the bean sí and a supposedly dead dream.”
Cillian didn’t miss the way Cernunnos looked at him, the Fae lord’s attention something he couldn’t hide from. “And what do you want with me?”
Cernunnos’ smile stretched wider. “Your death would do nicely.”
One of the monsters threw back its head and howled, its neck splitting down the middle to its chest, multiple tongues flicking out of the cavity like tentacles.
Others clawed at the road, damaging the asphalt, ready for the kill.
They surged forward with howling voices, feet thundering against the ground.
Jupiter cawed furiously above them, the raven’s cries drowned out by Bran’s startled shout. Cillian stepped closer to the other man, putting himself between the oncoming lights and the Gallagher siblings on instinct, hand clenching in the air for a weapon he didn’t have.
Scáthach moved, becoming a shadow that was difficult for him to track as she ran for Cernunnos.
Niamh and Seamus met the lights halfway, swords flashing as they dodged grasping claws and terrible maws full of teeth.
The sounds the monsters made were hair-raising, but worse than that was the way Cernunnos laughed as he blocked Scáthach’s strike with his own glaive conjured up out of thin air.
The garland of blue flowers tangled around his antlers swayed in the air as he met Scáthach blow for blow.
She had him as an adversary, but the lights were also a threat she had to be aware of. Niamh and Seamus were busy with their own targets and couldn’t come to her rescue. Cillian couldn’t worry about Scáthach, not when one of the monsters got past Niamh and charged at them.
It was the same creature he’d seen in the forest when he’d ran after Bran. Its thin form gleamed white in the moonlight, that crescent moon horn on its head like a crown. It screamed at them, the sound horrendous, but its speed was no match for the unmoving force of Bran’s magic.
It crashed into the circle around the Shoppe, gold light flaring in the air where it clawed furiously.
Cillian rocked back on his heels, looking over his shoulder at Bran.
The other man had the grimoire open in his left arm, his other outstretched toward the fight.
Witchmarks glowed in the ink of the tattoo on his arm.
Golden magic sparked in his eyes, and the weight to the air had its source from him.
Aisling clung to him, her face as pale as her hair, eyes wide as she watched the nightmarish fight happening beyond the protective circle of Bran’s magic.
“How long can you keep your magic up?” Cillian asked.