Flashback: Siren Song (A Yancy Lazarus Novella)
Author: James Hunter
Date: 2000-01-01 05:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Fantasy Action and Adventure; Mystery Supernatural Witches and Wizards; Dark Fantasy; Paranormal and Urban Fantasy; mage; Warlock; Box Set (Episodes 1 - 3); Strange Magic; Bigfoot; Flashback: Siren So
Description: PRAISE FOR SIREN SONG: Hunter's writing is as low-down, gritty, and insidious as the blues Yancy Lazarus loves. Just like the mysterious music drifting through the jungle toward Yancy's squad, Siren Song will get under your skin and sink its hooks into your mind. —eden Hudson, Author of Halo Bound (the Redneck Apocalypse series) +++++++ The year is 1969. Yancy Lazarus—bluesman, gambler, future world-class mage and fix-it man—is just a dumb, unlucky kid serving with the 3rd Battalion 3rd Marines in Vietnam. With just a few weeks left to go until Yancy gets shipped back to the States, he’s just
Rights: James A. Hunter and Shadow Alley Press, Inc.

Contents

Summary

ONE: Beginning of the End

TWO: Quiet Morning

THREE: Black Ops

FOUR: Tuatha De Danann

FIVE: Introductions

SIX: Satisfaction

SEVEN: Single Combat

EIGHT: The Lowdown

NINE: Quarters

TEN: Warm-Up

ELEVEN: Here Comes the Boom

TWELVE: Three Boons

THIRTEEN: Death Stroke

FOURTEEN: Verdict

Books, Mailing List, and Reviews

About the Author

Dedication

Special Thanks

Copyright

Summary

The year is 1998.

Yancy Lazarus—bluesman, gambler, mage, and professional fix-it man—has been working for the Guild of the Staff for over twenty-five years. Handling ugly problems no one else wants to touch. Mostly by breaking things, blowing ’em up, or otherwise meting out Guild-sanctioned justice, Rambo-style.

His next assignment will be his last.

A Guild operative, with a headful of dangerous secrets, has gone missing inside the court of the High Tuatha De Danann: ye olde Irish gods of badassery. Yancy—along with fellow wet-works man James Sullivan and Judge Ailia Levchenko—is dispatched to retrieve the missing operative or, barring that, make the perpetrators behind the operative’s disappearance pay a steep, bloody price for crossing the Guild.

But with pissed-off godlings gunning for him on every side, a little kidnapping might be the least of Yancy’s worries.

The Guild investigators are gonna have to navigate the murky waters of court politics, ferret out a traitor, and devise a way to put the kibosh on an inter-dimensional invasion if they want to avoid being murdered horribly. And even if they do get to the bottom of the diabolical mystery, nothing will ever be the same, because one of their number isn’t coming home …

ONE:

Beginning of the End

March, 1998

It’d been two weeks since James hauled our collective asses out of the imploding throne room of the Tuatha De Danann. A lot had happened in those two weeks.

I spent the first week on life support in the ICU—non-responsive, hardly breathing, real touch-and-go. The Guild brought in a specialist to treat me, a spark plug of a man named John Ritter, but no one had been optimistic. Not after the hell my body had endured. A pair of black eyes. Busted-ass ribs. A shoulder closely resembling a shark-attack victim. More lacerations and bruises than a high-speed car-crash casualty.

The doc had put my chances for survival at ten percent and my chances at full recovery—which meant survival without brain damage and my powers intact—at less than five. Not a lot of folks taking that action, believe you me. Brain damage wasn’t really a big deal. Shit, I doubted most folks would even notice. My powers, though? Without my powers, I’d be up shit-creek without a paddle, a boat, or a life vest, while being mauled by shit-crocodiles.

But here I am: more or less intact. Yay for me.

What can I say, I’m one lucky son of a bitch.

Woke up on day five with a headache that felt like one-half migraine and one-half lobotomy—could barely open my eyes without projectile vomiting all over the room. By day six the skull-shattering migraines had passed, but not the nausea. By day seven, I could eat again, just weak broth and crackers, but it was better than being force-fed through a swizzle stick. And by day eight, I took a shot at tapping the Vis—the unseen force holding existence together and keeping the world spinning merrily along.

Some folks think of the Vis as magic. But it’s not. Not really.

I suppose I can understand why some dumb Rube might get that notion stuck in their head, but it’s really more like advanced physics. Magi can manipulate the energy undergirding Creation—change it, shape it, and direct it according to our will. Period. End of story. Nothing fancy or mystical about it, at least not when you get right down to the heart of things.

The doc asked me to conjure a flame, something I’ve always been good at. It took me three hours, and several more bouts of projectile vomiting, to summon a sputtering fire barely capable of lighting a birthday candle.

And even managing that was like digging a hole to China with a plastic Taco Bell spork.

Still, the doctor seemed genuinely impressed, flabbergasted even. Shook his head in disbelief while he explained it could take a year or two for my powers to return fully, but that they would return. A year or two is a long time. Maybe not in the grand scheme of things, and especially not for magi, who live substantially longer than most folks, but two years is still two years.

Honestly, I hardly cared, because day eight was also the day an emissary from the Tuatha De Danann showed up in my hospital room. A fresh-faced boy in a tunic—couldn’t have been older than sixteen, this kid—popped by with an invitation for me. An invitation direct from the king himself. A wedding invitation. King Dagda was to marry the Morrigan in the ceremony of the millennia. The emissary dropped off the letter and skedaddled in a wink, which was damned smart on his part, since I would’ve pitched his ass out the window if not for the fact that I was mostly bedridden.

I read that letter ten times if I read it once:

All ye Lords, Ladies, Knights, and Honored Acquaintances of the Court:

Be it known, by royal decree of the King, that all folk of the Court shall stand in attendance to the noble marriage of King Dagda the Good and Wise and Morrigan the Phantom Queen on the tenth day of April when the clock strikes the sixth hour of the eve.

In light of recent events, it has been decided that a cessation of all hostilities should ensue for the greater good of all; to this end, this royal marriage shall serve as an accord of truce, thusly uniting previously differing factions and ushering in a new era of peace and prosperity for the Tuatha De Danann. Following the nuptials, ten days of feasting and celebration shall be observed. In honor of this auspicious occasion and in keeping with tradition and court custom, all debts are absolved, all grievances forgiven, and all wrongdoing pardoned by decree of the King and future Queen.

We stand as one,

King Dagda the Good and Wise

Beneath that, in a postscript, was a private message just for me:

I won. But, please feel free to visit whenever you like, I will enjoy watching you suffer under the weight of my victory. If your health permits, I would enjoy your presence at my wedding and inauguration. Plá ar do theach. A curse on your house.

—The Morrigan

It’d been seven days since the invitation. Fifteen since my dicey escape from Tír na nÓg, the Land of the Young and home of the High Tuatha De Danann.

Currently, I was sitting on an antique wooden chair—thing felt like it was made from an ol’ timey washing board—in a waiting room. I traced my fingers over the embossed lettering of that damned invitation as I bided my time, nervous as all hell for what came next. Facing down an army of Irish nightmares had been one of the worst experiences of my life, but now I was about to face down a group nearly as intimidating: the Elder Council of the Guild of the Staff.

Once the doc had discharged me, I’d spent every waking moment preparing for this meeting. Filing reports, calling in favors, coordinating with battle strategists, paying house calls to anyone in the Guild I could find. Sure, the Morrigan was currently wearing Ailia’s body like a Halloween costume, but Ailia was still technically alive. A Guild agent, a top Judge, was alive and for all practical purposes being held as a prisoner of war by a foreign supernatural nation.

Would it be costly to get her back and bring the Morrigan to justice for her crimes? Without question. Every strategist I’d talked to painted a grim picture of the prospects, especially since the Tuatha De Danann had, apparently, solved their spat and unified, but this is what the Guild was about. This was everything. Why the Fist of the Staff existed. To ensure that supernatural asshats couldn’t take shots at Guild members free of repercussions.

Now I just needed to convince the Elder Council.

An old wooden door creaked open to my left, admitting a petite woman with splashes of gray in her hair wearing thick robes of dark navy. Mage Wycliffe, the council secretary. She regarded me through a pair of wire-rimmed glasses perched high up on her nose. Her face was cool, professional, devoid of pity or emotion of any kind. A real cold fish, that one. Looking at her sent a wave of goose flesh running across my arms and up my spine; sweat broke out on my brow. I slipped the invitation into my coat pocket and absently scrubbed my hands on my jeans.

“They will see you now, Mage Lazarus.”

I cleared my throat, nodded, and stood on wobbly legs. Holy shit—I felt like some angsty teen getting called in to the principal’s office. I couldn’t help the nerves, though. This was just too big. Everything was riding on what happened in that room. I closed my eyes and took a few deep breaths, trying to shove down the claustrophobic panic mounting in my chest. After a moment I opened my eyes and nodded again, then followed Mage Wycliffe into the Council Chamber.

The room was filled with old-fashioned, red-cushioned church pews housing men and women dressed in flowing robes in a multitude of hues, all looking at me with stern faces unmarred by compassion or care. Walls of gray stone, smooth from the grinding passage of age, surrounded me on all sides like a prison and reminded me of the gray archways from the Tuatha De Danann throne room.

The thought made me shiver.

Slender candles resting in silver, wall-mounted candelabras shed dim yellow light. Stained-glass windows in greens, blues, purples, and reds all stared down on the unfolding scene. In one glass panel, some saint lifted a hand in benediction while birds and other forest critters surrounded him. In another, Daniel—long beard and wispy white robes—stood unperturbed in the midst of a pride of hungry lions, gazing around, unworried.

Right now, I kinda felt like Daniel. All the mages around me seemed like a bunch of bloodthirsty lions, just waiting to take a bite. Unlike Daniel, I wasn’t under God’s protection, and I wasn’t sure I would leave the room without at least a few scratches.

I walked forward like a man headed to the gallows and deposited myself in front of twelve robed figures arrayed in a semicircle on a platform at the front of the room, which was actually a repurposed chapel.

The Elder Council of the Guild of the Staff.

I locked eyes with the arch-mage standing center stage. She was a striking woman with smooth skin, high cheeks, and bright green eyes, searching and calculating. Her hair was a mass of silver, hanging all the way down her back. Though she looked to be in her late fifties, Arch-Mage Borgstorm had to have a couple hundred years under her belt and was about as savvy as magi came. She was also cold, calculating, and political to her teeth. Had she been in the lions’ den, I would’ve felt bad for the lions.

“Mage Lazarus,” she said, “the council will now hear your petition.”

I shuffled about on nervous feet, then shoved my hands into my pockets so I wouldn’t fidget. “There’s not much to say that hasn’t already been said,” I replied, a ghost of a quiver in my voice. Friggin’ nerves. “Pretty sure everyone in this room’s heard my story. Everyone here knows what happened. Everyone here knows what needs to be done. The Tuatha De Danann manipulated us, and the Morrigan committed a heinous crime against the Guild. The only appropriate response is a declaration of war.”

The silence around me was deafening. No one seemed to be breathing; not even the crickets had the kindness to humor us with a little awkward-silence filler.

“These are serious charges, Mage Lazarus, with sweeping and severe consequences for every member of this Guild. Truly the gravest of matters. Our decision must be based in wisdom and logic, not in retribution or the heat of passion. Though the council has already deliberated on the issue, it will ultimately be for the broader council to rule in this matter. So before we render our verdict, and for the sake of thoroughness, I would like you to offer your accounting of events once more. On the off chance that some member of this esteemed body is not familiar with the details you have already provided to the council. Please begin …”

TWO:

Quiet Morning

Sixteen days before …

Warm sunlight trickled in around the closed curtains, spilling its light into the room as a handful of overly cheery birds chirped away, breaking the morning quiet with their sing-song voices. I stretched out with a groan, flexing muscles still sore from my last assignment. A friggin’ minotaur—bull-headed freak from the far-flung regions of Outworld—had worked me over like some surly butcher laying into a slab of beef with a sledgehammer. Brain-dead, muscle-clad prick.

I glanced down at my ribs, a blotchy patch of blacks and blues now fading to yellow, then lazily turned my gaze to the digital clock sitting on the nightstand beside me. 8:12 in the A.M.

Damn bit earlier than I liked to get up. Stupid birds. Where’s a friggin’ worm when you need one?

I pressed my eyes closed and shot out an arm, lazily questing for Ailia’s sleeping body. My hand passed over a depression in the mattress, now covered by the sheets and blanket. Already up and about, then. I rolled onto my side with another groan, snagging her pillow and pulling it into my face, taking a deep whiff: sweet lilac from that fancy salon shampoo she used, mixed with something else. Something earthy and indescribably Ailia. Like good Scotch dancing with fragrant cigar smoke.

I pulled the pillow away and took another deep breath—my nose caught a second scent, one almost as delicious: the meaty aroma of sizzling bacon.

God bless that woman.

I pushed myself upright, flinging the sheets aside, then clumsily gained my feet. I tottered for a moment as I prodded my right thigh; a bastard of a nasty bruise enveloped a big chunk of my leg. Pretty much everything above the kneecap and below the groin. That douchebag minotaur had a kick that could rival any Muay Thai fighter in the world. Luckily he hadn’t busted my femur—the terrible discoloration was the result of a glancing blow if you can believe it. I eased onto the limb, letting my muscle adjust to the weight.

Better. A little.

I bent over and fished my underwear off the floor, then, after an awkward tap dance, managed to shimmy into my drawers before limping over to the door and pulling on a ratty flannel bathrobe.

My stomach growled, rumbling and burbling in angry, impatient agitation as I made my way into the living room, following my nose toward the cozy dining room. The lights were all off, but Ailia had tied the curtains back, letting natural light fill the space with the soft morning glow. Through the window, I spotted a dark line of clouds lingering on the horizon, marring an otherwise beautiful morning. Could be a storm coming. Not unusual for mid-March in the Big Easy.

Any thought of future storms slipped from mind completely as my gaze landed on Ailia, rooting my attention firmly in the present, where it belonged. She was in the kitchen, back to me, as she turned delicious slices of porky-goodness with a pair of tongs. She wore plaid boxer shorts—mine—and a white undershirt. Also mine. Her long blonde hair was tied back in a ponytail, which swayed and bobbed as she worked.

An amused smile played across my lips as I watched her.

She hated cooking.

She was a lot of things—smart, sexy as a bona fide pinup girl, a generally great human being—but chef extraordinaire was not one of ’em. Sometimes, though, especially after a tough mission, she would do this for me. She’d wake up early and throw on some bacon and eggs. Usually, the eggs would be overcooked and the bacon too seared, but it was a sweet thing to do. I took another shuffling step forward, and the hardwood floorboards creaked beneath my feet.

She glanced over her shoulder at me—one eyebrow cocked, the ghost of a lopsided grin on her lips, a silky strand of hair hanging across her forehead.

It was a look that said, you just gonna stand there, or are you gonna do something?

She’d given me that same look the first time we’d crossed paths, and though I’d seen it tattooed on her face a thousand times since, I still always thought of the first. Despite our overlapping social circles—we both were full members with the Guild of the Staff—we’d never formally met during any Guild function. Ever. Not even in passing. We were both sorta outcasts in our way, though for different reasons.

No, the first time we’d met had been in a beat-to-shit greasy-spoon dive, over Hub-side. A nasty little place that served passable southern-style food and live music after 8:00. Though I’m a lot of other things, deep down I’m a bluesman, and that night I happened to be standing in on rhythm guitar and mouth-harp for The Uprightmen: a mostly good-natured blues crew of halfies, run by a buddy of mine. Lumpy, ugly son of a bitch—the offspring of an African Popobawa and a prostitute from Mobile, Alabama—named Hadley Okafor. Helluva horn player was Hadley, decent vocalist, too.

Ailia had been sittin’ in the back, by the bar, nursing a White Russian, listening to us belt out tune after tune, dipping her foot and nodding her head as couples moved on the dance floor, bumpin’, grindin’, grooving’, while tobacco smoke twirled and glasses clinked. Eventually she moseyed onto the floor, this was midway through our set, right as we fell into the Blues Brothers’ rendition of “Riot in Cell Block Nine.” A slow, gritty number with attitude through the roof. Bass drum pumping—thud, thud, thud—Hadley, red-faced and damn near bent double as he worked his alto sax. Lester Creedy—slick-talking son of a fir darrig—did an okay job on the black and whites, his knobby red fingers dancing along the keys.

Ailia, all by her lonesome, sauntered onto the dance floor like she owned the damned thing, and started swaying. Long limbs and tight body all sinuous grace as she twirled and turned. Dirty red and amber overhead lighting played across her blonde locks—made it look like a halo of fire framing her face. As the number wound down, she stopped, only for a moment, and glanced back over her shoulder at me. Offered me that same enticing, cocksure look, then strode off the floor. An invitation:

You just gonna stand there, or are you gonna do something?

You’d better believe I did something.

“Eggs are on the table,” she said, motioning with the spatula. “Along with the Tabasco sauce.” She spoke perfectly good English, but the words held the faintest trace of a Russian accent. Not that she would ever admit to being Russian. She was Ukrainian—and unabashedly proud of it—despite the fact that she’d worked for years in a covert psychological-ops branch of the Soviet GRU: the USSR’s primary Intelligence Directorate and rival to the KGB.

She’d defected a long way back, though, even before the fall of big Red.

“I know what you think of my culinary skills,” she said, “but I expect you to finish the plate, moi kotik”—my cat. “You need to get your strength back.”

“Course I’ll finish the plate. I don’t know where you get the idea that you’re not a great cook,” I lied, aiming for genuine and almost nailing it. “Your eggs are good. Seriously. Best in the whole world, and I’ll punch any asshole who says otherwise.”

“Liar,” she said. Then she smiled, red creeping into her pale cheeks.

Sure I was a liar, and we both knew it, but sometimes a lie holds more truth than the actual truth. Her food was, admittedly, terrible, but the thought behind it made it something more.

“Now go and sit,” she said, “before the eggs are overcooked and cold. I’ll be done burning this bacon any minute.” She turned back to the stove, busying herself once more, flipping a slice here and there, pulling a few pieces off the skillet and dropping them onto a small mound of already scorched pig belly perched on a chipped ceramic plate.

I lumbered over to the boxy dark-wood pub table and pulled out a padded barstool. A seat with a view of the kitchen, so I could watch her work a little more, uninterrupted. I pulled over the plate and poked at what passed for eggs-over-easy with my fork: hard, rubbery, the edges seared dark brown. More like eggs-over-burnt. Whatever. I cut home with the fork and crammed the “breakfast” into my pie-hole. Nope. Not good. Not even close.

Okay, so all that romantic crap about loving making food taste better?

Yeah, complete bullshit—which, coincidentally, is more or less what the food tasted like. Maybe love made Ailia’s cooking great in theory, but my tongue still insisted the food was garbage. Complete and utter rubbish.

I unscrewed the Tabasco sauce and dosed the eggs, a rain of spicy red, then shoveled more food—food in the strictest sense of the word, at least—into my mouth. I ate slowly, enjoying the relative quiet and the view. Even accounting for the cooking, the morning was damn near perfect. We’d been an item going on nine years, but even in all that time there were still too few moments like this. Now, we weren’t married or anything. That was something I wasn’t ever liable to do again—not after Lauren. Not after how I left things with her and the kids. Walking out the way I did. But this was as close as I’d ever get to that: two people, enjoying a quiet morning, eating some questionable food together.

There was a sizzle and a pop of bacon grease.

“Derr`mo,” she swore, the sound harsh and very Russian, even with her smoky voice. I smiled as I chewed. After another few moments, she brought over a plate stacked high with mostly blackened and very crisp bacon, amply smothered in grease. My mouth watered at the thought.

Generally, I love all things pork—ribs are at the top of the list, but bacon is a close second. And even bad bacon is still hands and feet above most other foods. Heck, take anything and top it with bacon and you’ll see a noticeable improvement. Bacon could even make disgusting health food like kale palatable. Ailia plopped the plate down and glanced at the eggs, most of which had already vanished down my throat.

“Glad to see your injuries haven’t affected your appetite,” she said.

I grunted, still chewing, then swallowed. “You know, I think maybe they are affecting my appetite. Truth be told, your food actually tastes better than normal. Brain damage maybe?”

“I knew you couldn’t go a whole morning without saying something.” She eyed my discolored ribs through my open bathrobe. “If you weren’t so terribly pitiful looking, I might be offended.” She sniffed, frowned, and headed back to the kitchen. She tinkered around for a long beat—the scrape of ceramic on tile, the burble of liquid, followed by the clink of silverware—then came back out with a fat mug of steaming joe in either hand.

She slowly eased the cups down, careful not to fumble a single drop of black gold, a cardinal sin in our household, before sliding onto a padded stool next to me.

I abandoned what was left of the eggs, taking a swig of too hot coffee, burning my mouth a little and not caring one lick. Dark and bitter and just perfect. God that was awesome. This morning had just gone from perfect to perfect-plus—an infusion of trucker-fuel will do that to just about any situation. Kinda like bacon, actually.

She sipped her coffee, inspecting my bruises a bit more over the edge of her mug. “They’re healing, but you still look like shit. You know how important it is for me to have my arm candy looking in top form, right? How can I show you off to all those stuffy women in the Guild with ribs like that? And that face.” She cringed when she said the word—nose crinkling, forehead furrowing—as though my battered mug actually offended her. She reached out a hand and rubbed it over my check, one finger caressing the edge of a major-league black eye. “No, it’s no good. What will people think? Let me fix them,” she said, and it wasn’t much of a suggestion.

I sighed and pulled away, setting down my coffee and gently drawing her hand from my skin. “I said no.”

“You let me patch you up last night,” she offered innocently, before taking a long sip of joe.

“I am grateful, Ailia, you know that. If it wasn’t for you, my ribs would still be completely black instead of mostly yellow.” I shook my head and looked away, refusing to meet her eyes. Didn’t want her to use her feminine wiles—and yes, she most certainly had feminine wiles—to guilt trip me into compliance. “But you shouldn’t have done that either,” I finally mumbled. “You’ve already done enough. Too much.”

“Stubborn.” She mock-pouted, tsked a few times, and crossed her arms under her breasts, amplifying her substantial cleavage. Something I was considerably grateful for.

“That’s not gonna work either.” I pulled the plate of bacon my way, lifting a slice off the top of the mound.

She always tried to do this, to fix me. My unofficial Guild handle was the Fixer, but somedays I thought the title suited her far better. Whenever I came home from assignment completely beat to shit—which was more often than not—she’d be there waiting to patch me up and make me strong and healthy as a rodeo bull amped up on steroids.

And she could do it.

She had one of the most magnificent healing talents in the Guild, a power rivaled by few others, but it was also a double-edged sword. Her power was … well, strange. Maybe it had something to do with her training as a Spetsnaz with the GRU, or her heritage—her ancestral line was full of powerful magi—I don’t know. Neither did she. Shit, no one really knew why she was the way she was, not even the higher highers on the Elder Council. There were even whispers, always in dark hallways or behind closed doors, that she wasn’t fully human. Some said a rare breed of halfie, the distant descendant of a natural-born mage and some otherworldly denizen of Outworld.

She was an empath: an exceedingly rare gift in a place where rare gifts were common as table salt. She could heal me alright, but in doing so, she’d get the benefit of living through every single blow I’d taken as though she were experiencing it herself. There’d never be a mark on her, no physical wound to look at, but her mind would live through the pain. She healed a lot of field operatives, Judges and Fist members both.

Her strange gifts and uncertain heritage made her an outsider of sorts. And, though I suppose what folks said could’ve been true, it made no difference to me.

“Sorry, darlin’,” I said, “I know better. Not gonna put you through that.”

She primly crossed her legs, pursed her lips, and inspected her fingernails, ignoring me. After an uneasy pause: “I will tie you down and do it without your permission if you don’t listen to common sense—”

A knock at the front door cut short her threat.

“We’ll talk more about you tying me down later.” I arched an eyebrow at her, then smirked as crimson stole back into her cheeks. I always thought Europeans were supposed to be less puritanical than us Yankees, but if she was any indication, that was a bunch of horseshit. She blushed like some country bumpkin, boot-ass Marine stepping into a strip joint for the first time.

I scooted away from the table and moseyed toward the front door; I could feel her eyes on my back the whole while. Watching me, still blushing. I weaved between the burnt leather couch and the upright piano on the far side of living room, angling for the door.

Another knock, this one more forceful and impatient.

“I know you’re in there, pally,” came a muffled voice.

THREE:

Black Ops

The voice belonged to James Sullivan, lieutenant commander of the Fist of the Staff, the mage special enforcement division, and my partner in crime. Well, technically he was my supervisor—being my superior in rank, age, and experience—but he was more like a brother than a boss. A douchebag, older brother.

“Hold your horses, dickbasket,” I called back. “I’m moving as fast as I can here. A friggin’ minotaur strung me up and used my torso as a piñata yesterday.” I edged past a wobbly table near the door, which housed a bowl with my apartment keys and some random junk: a few matchbooks from various bars, a crumpled pack of cigarettes, a handful of loose pocket change. I leaned into the door, stealing a look through the peephole just to be on the safe side.

Lots of things from Outworld could mimic someone’s voice, so it always paid to be cautious.

A tall fella with broad shoulders leaned against the door, resting his weight on one outstretched hand. He looked maybe thirty-five, had the bearing of a movie star, and sported short, wavy brown hair, styled in a rakish 1920s ’do. He wore light gray slacks, a matching dinner jacket with a black waistcoat underneath, and a crisp white button-up with a fat striped tie disappearing below his vest. The look was something right out of The Great Gatsby, and it screamed James Sullivan from wavy hair to wing-tipped toe.

Whereas I’d been a child of the ’60s, James had spent his late teens during the roaring twenties and he’d never left them behind. At least not the fashion or the funny flapper-speak.

“Yeah, alright,” I grumbled through the door. “Stand back while I disarm the wards.”

“We’re on the clock. Don’t have all day here, so how’s about you get a wiggle on it, huh?” James replied before scooting back a step.

“You wanna try walkin’ through this door with the wards intact, be my guest, bub. Hope you didn’t have plans to not die horribly, though.”

I breathed out, pushing the air from my lungs, before opening myself to the well of power undergirding all matter and Creation. James, Ailia, and I are all magi, secret practitioners with the ability to draw on the Vis. I siphoned off a thin trickle of power, just enough to braid together the complicated pattern of earth, fire, and air—all wrapped together in willpower—necessary to disarm the industrial strength defensive wards built into the steel door.

Those wards were nasty things, built upon the domicilium seal-—the super-real energy barrier that builds up on a mortal’s home as said mortal shuffles their way across the carpet of life—protecting my apartment.

I lived in a shady part of the 9th Ward, so common-place Rube crime was always a problem, but a complex series of glamour constructs ensured vanilla mortals never gave my pad a second glance. And for those folks and beasties powerful enough to see through the glamours, there was a second set of offensive wards, souped-up enough to reduce even your battle-hardened horror-show into a pile of ash. A mess that could be swept up into a dustpan and dumped out the window.

A hum of pent-up energy built in the air as the wards disengaged, followed by a small burst of harmless static. I unlatched the deadbolt, pulled back two more heavy-duty sliding locks, and jerked the door open. Took a little muscle, since the damn thing weighed a couple hundred pounds. What can I say, as a fix-it man for a group with a metric shit-ton of known enemies, security is a very important quality, especially since I’m a big fan of not being murdered and fed to alligators.

The door swung inward on silent hinges, admitting James.

He offered me a curt nod and a thin smile as he scanned my apartment; his lukewarm smile quickly morphed into a sneer.

“I always forget how awful this place is,” he said, brushing past me. “Why? Why live in this dump?” His gaze swept over the well-worn leather sofa, the chipped Goodwill coffee table, and the small entertainment set holding a T.V. that’d seen better days. There were a few pieces of art gracing the walls. A couple kung-fu movie posters from yesteryear, a print of The Empire Strikes Back, some framed records—Leadbelly; Robert Johnson, the king of delta blues; B.B. King’s Live at the Regal; Muddy Waters—but nothing too hoity-toity.

That B.B. King album, though, was an original 1965 LP, signed by the man himself.

“Despite the fact that the Guild hasn’t had a cost of living increase since 1973,” James continued, “I know your stipend is more than enough to get into some place nicer. And never mind all the extra off-the-books income. The Elders might not know about your trips to Vegas, but you’re not foolin’ me, pally. You should be livin’ in a mansion.” His eyes flitted across my meager belongings. “A cardboard box with carpet would be an improvement over this hovel.”

“Good mornin’ to you too, shitbird. Why don’t you please come on in and promptly throw yourself out the window,” I grumbled while motioning him toward the dining room with my free hand. He nodded and beelined for the pub table, his eyes falling on the unfinished plate of eggs.

“What can I say, I’m a man of simple tastes,” I said as I shut the door, reengaged the locks and wards, then carefully pushed the Vis away from me, closing my link to the source. Holding all that power was intoxicating. It made everything better: every sense as clear as fine glass, my mind sharp as a razor, and energy to rival a line of coke. Like breathing in pure life and power. And, like any drug, it was seductive, dangerous. Addictive even.

Too much juice could push you over the edge and burn you out for keeps, forever destroying your ability to harness that power—every mage’s worst nightmare. Or it could just kill you outright. Truth be told, dying would be a damn bit better than the alternative.

By the time I limped back over to the table, James had already taken my seat, eaten the remainder of my eggs, and struck up a conversation with Ailia.

“Yeah. That’s cool.” I pulled out another barstool. “Go ahead and make yourself at home. Not like that was my breakfast or anything.”

“No time for you to finish, I’m afraid.” He picked up a piece of blackened bacon, regarded it for a moment as if weighing whether to risk eating more of Ailia’s cooking, then decided against it. He set the bacon back down and looked for a napkin. When he couldn’t find one, he leaned over and wiped his fingers on one of the window curtains, because heaven forbid fancy-pants James Sullivan lick his fingers clean like a normal friggin’ person.

Ailia watched him do the deed with a frown plastered on her face, but said nothing. As the hostess, she would never say anything—she did sniff in disapproval—though I had no doubt she was contemplating a myriad of ways to make him suffer. Like whipping up a traditional Ukrainian home-cooked meal and forcing him to come over for dinner

Maybe she’d make some seld’ pod shuboi—herring under a fur coat—a dish that vaguely resembled a purple cake, but was actually a mashup of salted herring, vegetables, and grated beets, glued together with heaps of mayo. Or maybe she’d serve him some kholodets—basically pickled meat in Jello, ’cause that’s a real thing that exists in the world—with a side of salo: cold, raw pig fat.

“He says we have a mission,” she offered after a second, before issuing another disapproving sniff as she eyed the curtains. Yep, James was definitely coming over for a meal in the not-too-distant future.

“That’s right, all three of us.” James tapped a manila folder laying on the table, embossed on the front with the Guild of the Staff’s seal: a boxy shield with a gnarled staff running diagonally across its front, the whole thing flanked on one side by a snarling griffin and a stoic-faced sphinx on the other.

“The hell?” I snagged the envelope from his fingers. “This is a total crock. I got done working a case yesterday. Yesterday, James. The minotaur in Huntsville.”

“Was that only yesterday? How’d that go?” he asked. “I must’ve forgot all about that mission because I didn’t see the report filed.”

I waved off his protest.

Reports.

I was proud to be part of the Guild, they’d done a lot for me, but sometimes the endless labyrinth of red tape and the veritable ocean of tightwad bureaucrats made the job not worth it. And they were so anal about their reports: incident reports, after-action reports, expense accounts, training files, fitness evaluations, psychological evaluations, promotion evaluations, safety briefs, liability and insurance filings. On and on ad nauseam. By the way they acted, you’d think the world was on the verge of utter annihilation if you forgot to file one of those friggin’ reports. And that barely scratched the surface of things.

In theory, I understood why those reports were important, but I wasn’t a Judge. I wasn’t arresting perps or investigating dubious goings-on. That shit wasn’t for me. I worked with the Fist of the Staff and my job was to go in after the Judges had already thoroughly investigated and fix shit. Mostly by breaking things, blowing ’em up, or otherwise meting out Guild-sanctioned justice, Rambo-style. I was a glorified grunt, a trigger-puller: point me at the bad guy and let me work.

“First,” I said, sticking a finger up in protest, “things with the minotaur could’ve gone better.” I jerked back the lapel of my bathrobe, showing off my festive black, blue, and yellow body art. “And second”—another finger went into the air—“I haven’t had time to file anything. It was eleven thirty by the time I finally got home. That would be yesterday.”

“Hum. As your supervisor, I suppose I can let it slip this time,” he said, smugly adjusting his fat tie while trying to keep a straight face. The jerk knew exactly what I thought of report writing and where those reports could be shoved. “But I expect to see something by week’s end. Old Iron Stan will have my balls in a vise grip if he doesn’t get that write-up.”

I grunted and picked up a piece of bacon. Yeah, Stanley Quinn—the Fist Leader and our boss—was more by-the-books than anyone other than Arch-Mage Borgstorm. A great battle-mage, better than great, even, but a hard ass like you wouldn’t believe. The way I figured things, only the most bureaucratically inclined ever made it to the uppermost echelons of the Guild ruling body.

Not that I cared. I had the political ambition of an Amish farmer.

“Don’t worry about it, James,” Ailia replied when I said nothing. “After we get done with this mission, I’ll make sure the report gets written and filed.” She shot me a steely-eyed stare, lifted her coffee mug, and took a sip. It was a look that said James and I were both going to be eating kholodets and salo.

“I don’t know what he’d do without you,” James said. “He’d forget to pay the rent, the utility company would be out for blood, and the Guild clerks would have an aneurysm over all the missed paperwork. He’d probably wind up a homeless reprobate, living out of the back of a car, playing the piano for beer money.”

I couldn’t tell if he was joking or not, so I just ignored him, focusing on my delicious bacon. Whatever. So maybe I wasn’t the best with bills and reports or stupid “grown-up” skills, but I could take care of myself just fine. Honest.

I pulled over the mission folder James had deposited on the table and flipped it open, revealing a glossy photo within: a pasty white guy with a spattering of freckles, a swath of red hair, a slight under bite, and a potbelly. He wore a grandfatherly cardigan, a muted plaid cabbie hat, and a pair of dark slacks. Guy looked like he belonged on the set of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood. Either that or in a nursing home. I set the photo on the table and took a look at the PR 192, the Guild’s personnel report, underneath:

Scott Hoehner.

Though he’d been classified as a Judge, in reality he worked with I.S. 2—the Guild deep-intel division. And his last assignment had been as the Guild’s diplomatic envoy to the Tuatha De Danann, the Irish court of ancient gods and goddesses: some awfully big movers and shakers in the supernatural world. Dangerous creatures: powerful, wily, and as unpredictable as a flash flood.

For all of Scott’s unassuming and grandfatherly appearance, the guy was a no-shit secret agent. Even more curious, most of the specifics on this file had been redacted. Completely blacked out, removing the details on a dozen different operations. Still, from what I could see, the guy was obviously badass squared. Combat training. Advanced marksmanship. Urban warfare techniques and procedures. Jungle, desert, and arctic survival courses. Not to mention black belts in both Shotokan karate and Brazilian jujitsu. And he spoke five different languages: English, Latin, Gaelic, Hebrew, and Greek.

Jeez. I barely got by in English.

Scott Hoehner was a highly motivated hard charger who put James Bond to shame.

“What’s it say?” Ailia asked, reading the disbelief on my face.

I just shook my head and pushed the folder her way.

She spent a few quiet moments scanning the details, her eyes widening slightly at the corners. “How is it I’ve never heard of him before?” she asked after a long pause. “I thought I knew every Judge and S2 operative in the field. Even if not personally, then at least by reputation.”

“Hardly,” James replied. “S2 maintains twenty or so off-the-books agents, like Mr. Hoehner there. Low-profile plants working in liaison positions throughout Outworld. Intelligence gatherers, mostly. The majority hold official offices, but are trained to dig up secrets no one wants dug up. We’ve got operatives positioned in every Fae court, most of the major Vampiric households, and scattered through the upper ranks of the old gods and principalities.

“Of course,” he continued, “for security purposes, they’re black-ops agents—no official connection to S2. Work off the books so the Guild can have plausible deniability should anything ever go wrong. The network is a closely guarded secret, and the full list of operatives is known by only Borgstorm and Iron Stan.”

“Holy shit,” I said. “So this guy’s a major player?”

He shrugged and plucked at the cuff of his jacket. “After reading his personnel report? I’d say so. The Judges and the Fist are the Guild’s visible deterrent to the supernatural nations, but I.S. 2 does more of the dirty work than anyone knows.”

“So what happened?” Ailia asked.

“He disappeared is what happened. According to the brief I received this morning, Mr. Hoehner had been cagey for months. He left encrypted messages at various prearranged dead-drop sites. Apparently, he suspected someone within the court was watching him. He refused to break cover, though, because he believed he’d stumbled upon a conspiracy which held the potential to unbalance the Tuatha De Danann.

“Two weeks ago, he stopped reporting to his handler. Disappeared. Poof, gone. His working cover was as the Guild ambassador, but no one from his office has heard from him or seen him. He’s got a lot of secrets, does our Mr. Hoehner. Secrets that might well compromise any number of other S2 agents and covert Guild operations.”

He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled free a cream envelope, also embossed with the Guild’s seal. “The boss gave me the recovery order a few hours ago, signed by the arch-mage. It’s a blank-check warrant, authorizing us to recover the ambassador or execute punitive justice on any and all parties found culpable in his disappearance or death. Ailia’s to conduct the investigation. You and I”—he nodded at me—“are going as her escorts.”

Ailia reached across the table and patted my arm. “You get to be my thug, how sweet.”

James nodded his head and grinned. “You always were the smart one,” he said. “Time is essential. There’s a good chance the ambassador is already dead—better than even odds, I’d say—but maybe not. If whoever has him is after info, which is a safe bet, it could take weeks to break through the mental barriers he has in place. A small hope, but there it is all the same.”

“Well shit,” I replied. “Any idea what we’re up against specifically?”

“The Irish pantheon,” he said without missing a beat. “Maybe all of them. Now get changed. We have nobles to entertain. Heaven knows I hate being seen in public with you normally, but in that”—he pointed at the bathrobe—“well, I’d be ashamed to line a bird cage with that.”

FOUR:

Tuatha De Danann

I sat next to Ailia on a plush, chocolate-brown divan in a lavish antechamber: white marble floors, inlaid with a huge Celtic cross mosaic crafted from gold leaf and slabs of speckled greenstone. Fluted pillars surrounded the room; coils of vibrant green ivy sprouted from the columns, twining their way from bottom to top. A fireplace of carved granite, depicting some ancient battle scene from some dusty mythology, held a roaring jade flame—unnatural, almost spectral—which washed the room with strange light and uncomfortable heat.

Sweat trickled down the small of my back. Natural or not, that friggin’ fire was putting out enough juice to melt an iceberg.

I almost wanted to remove my heavy-duty, Kevlar-lined jacket, but my bone-deep desire for self-preservation kept the coat firmly in place. If there were shenanigans afoot—and there were, no question—the coat could mean the difference between breathing for another day and winding up in a shallow grave as a limbless torso. Me? I like my limbs right where they are.

So far, we’d been welcomed with open arms to Tír na nÓg, but that meant all of jack-shit.

In my experience, the more someone smiles and assures you nothing is amiss, the more likely they’re gonna try to shank you in the kidney when you’re not looking. That’s especially true for the supernatural crowd. And true-squared for the Tuatha De Danann. Clever, shifty bastards, the whole lot of ’em. They thought it was the height of cool to kill without ever getting their hands dirty. Generally speaking, subtlety was the name of the game with this pack of hyenas.

James paced across the floor—back and forth, back and forth—his brown wingtips click-clacking on the elegant tile as he moved. Absently, he twirled his black cane, the motion as restless as his ever-shifting feet. “I don’t like this,” he said, not bothering to stop his anxious movement. “It feels off, if you understand me. Not anything I can put my finger on—I wouldn’t expect anything so obvious from this crowd. But it’s still off.

“Felt like this back in Crimea. August 1942 this was, right in the heart of the Second World War. Guild sent me and a few other bruisers out to investigate some rumors circulating about Ahnenerbe SS officers, rounding up various”—he twirled his free hand through the air—“occult objects for the Reich. Was supposed to be a low-level recon assignment. Quick. Easy. In. Out. But I had this same feeling then.” His pacing continued, but his story didn’t.

“What happened?” Ailia asked after a time. “With the Ahnenerbe troops?”

“Hum?” he replied, seeming to come back to himself.

“Crimea?” she prompted again.

“Oh that. Messy business, that was. We stumbled on a whole platoon of low-level spell-slingers working under the thumb of a demonic Katallani. That lot—sent by Himmler himself, the wretched bastard—was attempting to secure ingredients for some Nazi researcher conducting experiments near Auschwitz. Attempting to construct a working philosopher stone.” He shook his head, gaze distant, as he ran a hand over wavy hair that didn’t need it. “Ended up in a week long firefight, pinned down behind enemy lines. Lost four good men in that engagement.” He lapsed into silence once more.

I’d rarely seen James so shaken, and holy hell did it leave me feeling nervous.

James Sullivan was an old hand when it came to the preternatural, and he was one of the best in the business—I mean he’d fought against the Ahnenerbe during World War Two for Pete’s sake. His unease spread to me like some infectious disease, an airborne paranoia-virus making me fidget and sweat. For about the gajllionth time, I rechecked my weapons: monster-slaying hand cannon tucked away in my shoulder rig? Check. K-Bar at my belt and speedloaders in my pocket? Check and double check. Baby Glock, stowed away in a holster at the small of my back? Yep, present and accounted for.

I slipped a hand into my coat and ran a finger over my final piece of inventory: a Vis-imbued garrote. A thin cable of silver and iron wire with a pair of brass, sigil-covered handles on either end. That bad boy was one of a kind, forged by Wayland the Smith—a depraved and completely insane Norse god of old—and empowered by the senior-most members of the Elder Council. Just running a hand over the thing made my skin crawl. Evil sonofabitch, but damn effective. Especially against magi or other creatures that relied on the Vis.

It was the sign of my office—and a damn bit more practical than some shitty badge.

Ailia leaned into me, her mouth brushing along my cheek before halting at my ear. “Stop it,” she whispered. “The worry is coming off you in waves.” She glanced at James. “I need at least one of you to be calm and collected. Our hosts are narcissistic manipulators. They’ll pick up on your anxiety and use it against you. Use it against all of us. So stay calm. After all”—she paused, drawing back to regard me—“there’s no guarantee this is going to end poorly. Usually you only show up after the investigation, but this time you must remember everyone is presumed innocent until I can prove otherwise. Perhaps there will be no fighting at all.”

She shrugged as if to say, nothing is certain and who can say?

I grunted and withdrew my hand from my pocket, glad to have my bare flesh away from the choker. “You’re right,” I said with a nod before leaning back, working to relax tense muscles. Unsuccessfully for the most part. “Sorry.”

“Nothing to apologize for.” She offered me a reassuring smile and took my hand in hers, our fingers intertwining. “You are what you are. I understand that and love you for being you. But”—she paused, shrugged—“a little optimism once in a while wouldn’t kill you, I think.”

“Except when it might kill me,” I muttered, recalling all the occasions my totally justifiable paranoia had saved my skin.

She gave me a peck on the cheek and leaned away, her smile now resigned, sad.

I rolled my eyes. “Stop doing the look,” I said with a grimace. “You know it drives me nuts when you look at me that way.”

“A conversation for another time, I think,” she said, still staring at me with her gloomy gaze.

I rolled my eyes and sighed. “Nope. I don’t wanna feel like there’s something unsaid between us. Especially not when I need to be focused on this assignment. So just speak your piece. Get it out of your system.”

She pulled her hand away from mine and looked at me sideways, her lips tightening into a thin line. “Maybe it’s time you take a break from enforcement for a while,” she finally said. “You’ve been working with the Fist for twenty-five years, Yancy. Twenty-five. It’s too much. You’re entitled to a break.” She faltered, her big blue eyes scanning my face. “The work’s taking a toll on you.” She reached up and ran a finger over my ear, then lingered on the black eye I’d refused to let her heal. “And not just physically. You didn’t always used to be so …” She reached up as though to pluck the right word from the air. “Cynical. So tightly wound.”

“Phff. I’m fine. I’m practically a ray of friggin’ sunshine, hot cakes.” I grinned, trying to sell it, not really buying it myself.

She raised an eyebrow and crossed her arms. “Sometimes when you lie, Yancy, I don’t mind. When you say my cooking is good. When I ask if my butt looks fat and you say no, even though I know it does. Those lies are okay. But this lie? It isn’t. It’s dangerous, even more so if you actually believe it. The work is taking a toll on you. I know the Guild is important to you, but there are other ways you could serve. Even if you stepped down and became a Judge—do something with a little less bloodshed. It would suit you. Or you could work in the training division. You could easily get an instructor post at the Judge’s academy, or as a combat trainer in one of the preparatory schools.”

I snorted and looked away. “Who’s lying now? Like I could ever be a teacher for a bunch of snot-nosed kids who think they’re better than me. And we both know I don’t have the disposition, temperament, or paper-work-related know-how to be a Judge. I wouldn’t last a week doin’ that.”

“Then we could take a break together.” She was damn near pleading now. “Leave the Guild to fend for itself for a few years. It’s not like we need the money. Buy a motorhome and travel across the country, see the world a little. Don’t you think we deserve that?”

“Look, now’s not the time for this.”

“Which,” she replied with a sniff, “is why I said we should have this conversation later, but you”—she uncrossed her arms and jabbed me in the chest with a finger—“insisted, so we’re having it now.”

I grumbled for a moment. Damn women with their know-it-all logic and unflappable argumentative abilities. “Ailia, I know how you feel about my line of work, but this is what the Guild needs from me. I may not always like what I do, but it needs doing. If not me, then some other poor schmuck would have to do it—”

“Then let some other poor schmuck do it for a change,” she said, her voice tender but firm, a sword blade sheathed in velvet. “The world won’t end without you—”

A grand set of double doors opened with a clack, cutting off whatever Ailia was about to say next, a fact which I was grateful for since it was obvious she was moving into the checkmate phase of that particular argument.

James ceased his restless pacing, while Ailia and I rose.

A wiry man of maybe thirty-five with jet-black hair and a bird-beak of a nose glided into the room like a male peacock strutting his stuff before all lesser fowls. He wasn’t a big guy, shorter than me—and I’m average height at best—but he held himself with confidence. I could tell, even at a glance, he was a smart bastard. Cunning. Exactly the kind of shitheel who would smile at you while secretly working to plant a knife in your spleen.

The newcomer wore … well, I’m not really sure what in the hell to call it. A man dress, maybe? Some kind of flowy, green garment, cinched at the waist with a strip of black leather. He also sported some kinda dopy looking black cloak secured at the front with a Celtic knot broche made of dull gray metal—pewter, I’d wager—studded with a handful of emeralds. He held a very business-like spear in one hand: an elegant thing of dark wood, with a golden blade that gleamed in the flickering firelight. And he looked comfortable with it. Dangerous. The weapon was a part of him, an extension of his body like an extra limb.

Still, all things considered, the guy was kinda homely and plain-Jane. Bit of a letdown and not at all what I’d expected.

“What an honor it is to meet the three of you.” The man spoke with a slight Irish accent and positively beamed at us, a huge grin breaking across his face like a wave on the shoreline. That devilish grin, which seemed to stretch from ear to ear, transformed his features, lighting up his eyes and flooding the room with a nearly palpable warmth. “I’m Lord Lugh,” he offered enthusiastically, “Chief Ollam of the Tuatha De Danann, and I’ll be your guide to the wonderful land of the Tír na nÓg.”

“Ollam?” I asked.

He waved his free hand through the air as though the title were of no consequence. “Just a fancy word for poet. I’m basically one-part court bard, one-part court jester, and one-part court Casanova.” His manic grin widened a hair and he waggled his eyebrows at us. “Speaking of which. Who is this vision?” He sauntered over to Ailia—who, being the proper lady that she was, extended a polite hand, which he took without a thought.

“A pleasure to make your acquaintance,” she said, offering the spare man a neutral, professional smile and a respectful nod of the head. “I am Ailia Levchenko, Judge of the Guild.”

“The pleasure is mine, of course,” he replied, voice rich, his words slick as a pad of butter in a hot skillet. “Many beautiful women have graced these halls, but rarely one with such beauty and such talent.” He bent at the waist, offering her a graceful bow, before gently brushing the back of her hand with his lips in a kiss that lingered too long. Eventually, he straightened. “Perhaps, when our business is concluded, I could treat you to a night the likes of which you’ll never forget.”

“Hey Casanova,” I said, hands balling into fists as I instinctively reached for the Vis, ready to roast this turd-monkey to a crisp on principle. “How’s about you pick your friggin’ tongue up off the floor before I decide to bury my boot ankle deep in your piehole. She’s with me.”

James slid next to me and planted a hard elbow in my ribs. “Court decorum,” he whispered, voice harsh and unamused. “I’m warning you, now is not the time and these are not the people. Understand me?”

I hesitated for a split second before nodding in reply, a curt bob of my head.

Douchebag Lugh regarded me over the top of Ailia’s hand, head canted to the side, curiosity and amusement warring for control over his chiseled features.

“My deepest apologies, Lord Lugh,” James said, voice suddenly light and jovial. A good ol’ boy extending a warm greeting to an old friend. “My associate here is a rough fellow by nature. Not accustomed to fine society, I’m afraid. Still, he wishes to offer an apology.” He gave me another sharp prod in the ribs with his elbow. “Isn’t that right?”

I sighed, tracing one boot toe along the ground. “Please forgive me, Lord Lugh,” I finally said after an uncomfortably long pause. “I’ve just been informed my courtly manner is a bit rusty. You have my apologies. What I meant to say was, pick your friggin’ tongue up off the floor before I decide to bury my boot ankle deep in your piehole. She’s with me, my Lord.”

The lanky man dropped Ailia’s hand and shuffled back a step, regarding me with a twinkle in his emerald eyes. “What a silver tongue you have,” he said, mocking. “You must be Yancy Lazarus. Your reputation for jest is not exaggerated I see. And that must make you”—he carefully regarded James—“Lieutenant Commander James Sullivan. Truly a pleasure. As a mischief deity by nature, I must confess I am extremely interested to see how this all plays out. Already, you three are more entertaining than the dusty old farts the Guild usually sends our way.

“Now, I do so hate to cut this short, but I’m afraid we must be going. The esteemed members of the Royal Court have convened. Your petition has been presented, and His Majesty has graciously agreed to submit to your questioning. As a rule of thumb, gods detest waiting—especially on mortals. So, if it pleases you, follow me.” He gave us a wink, wheeled about, and glided back the way he’d come on silent feet, not bothering to see if we followed. James simply nodded, his faced hardened with resolve, then moved into action, back to his usual form.

Ailia waited just long enough to grab my arm. “I expect you to behave, Yancy,” she scolded before stepping after James, leaving me to bring up the rear.

We made our way down a short hall as opulent as the antechamber. Ridiculously gaudy wall-mounted lamps of filigreed gold and silver lit the way with more green firelight. Nooks and crannies dotted the hall, each filled with priceless artwork or sculptures, while elaborate paintings and tapestries decorated the stone walls.

Lugh hooked a left at an intersection of connected passageways and marched on, taking turns seemingly at random from there. It only took a handful of minutes for me to be completely lost in the sauce. There was no rhyme or reason to his leading; more than once I found us trudging through hallways that we’d already passed through—the custom, one-of-a-kind art was a dead giveaway that something was seriously off.

I mean at one point we passed a seven-foot-tall marble giraffe statue, which upon closer inspection, actually turned out to be a giant dick—literally—with legs. So inhumanly gross, I don’t even have words for it. Then, three turns later, I shit you not, we passed the same walking shlong. How many giraffe-themed wongs could one place possibly have?

After fifteen minutes of hiking—and it was a hike, since our tour guide moved at a near-jog—Lugh paused in midstride, his foot hanging in the air, as though some invisible barrier prevented him from going a single step further. He carefully set his foot back down and executed a smart pivot, turning to face us.

“We have arrived,” he said matter-of-factly.

Except that was impossible since we were still standing in an empty hall. A hallway exactly like all the others. In fact, if I didn’t know any better, I’d say we were in the exact hallway we’d first started in after leaving the waiting room. Lugh smirked, smug and self-satisfied, as though reading my thoughts, and waved behind us. Slowly, I turned and found myself staring at a set of double doors, big enough to accommodate a visiting T. rex. Shit, big enough to accommodate an oversized tour bus full of visiting T. rex.

“The hell is going on here?” I asked, glancing back over my shoulder at our guide.

Lord Lugh padded forward without a mark of concern marring his face. “A quick word of caution, friends,” he replied as he neared the door. “You must not venture into these halls without an escort. His Majesty’s palace is ever changing. Without a proper guide—either one of the High Nobles or one of the lesser blood—you will find yourself hopelessly lost. Stranded for all eternity, which would really be a spot of rotten luck.”

Without further word, the cocky little shit strode forward and rapped on the door three times, the noise booming out like a series of thunderclaps. The sound hung in the air for a tense moment, lingering, waiting, and then the doors swung inward of their own accord, moving with a stealthy, silent grace.

While we waited, Lord Lugh slid up beside me and clamped one hand over my elbow, his grip snug, almost painful. “A quick proverb for you,” he muttered into my ear, “one I think a man of your skills and inclination will understand and take to heart. A wolf in any other shape is still a wolf. Nothing more, nothing less. Deal with it like a wolf.” He released my arm and patted my shoulder. “Deal with it like a wolf, Mr. Lazarus.”

FIVE:

Introductions

A red carpet—so embroidered with gold even Scrooge McDuck would’ve found it tacky—stretched out before us, beckoning us into the room beyond the doors. Except room wasn’t exactly the right word.

Hell, I wasn’t sure there was a word for what I was looking at. We were in a circular clearing of sorts: the ground covered with grass so vibrant it looked spray-painted on. A riot of flowers ran amok, their petals so pristine and colorful it hurt the eyes. A small, slow moving stream meandered on the right. A handful of short trees, elegant slender things which seemed to mimic the form of dancing humans, dotted the space and bore luscious fruits studded with actual gems—rubies, diamonds, emeralds, sapphires—and glowed with warm amber light.

Around the clearing loomed giant stones, hulking gray slabs propped upright with yet another huge gray slab of rock running across the top like some sort of monstrously oversized doorway. Could be I was way off, but if I didn’t know any better, I’d say we were standing inside Stonehenge. Obviously not the Stonehenge nestled in the rolling hills of Wiltshire, but certainly some Outworld equivalent. A primal nexus.

Stranger still, each gray-stone archway peered onto a different landscape.

One looked over a beautiful coast, the sky overhead stormy and dark, the waves battering against some forgotten, rocky shoreline. Another led to a forest filled with towering oaks and wild apple trees, a tangle of dense vegetation blanketing the ground—a wild place, as ancient as they come. A forest untouched by humanity. A third peered onto arid badlands chock-full of stunted trees, rolling dunes, and dusty bleached bones jutting out like skeletal fingers clawing at the sky.

At the far end of the red-and gold-covered carpet, which cut through the clearing like a knife blade, sprawled a throne of ancient granite and twisted tree roots—almost a natural formation, which the massive archways had been painstakingly built around. Its simplicity was shocking, as was the man occupying the seat.

The guy was a giant—like literally gigantic, maybe nine or ten feet tall—and so broad and muscled he looked deformed. His skin was rough and gray like the stone around him, his facial features crude and malformed, like an artist had started carving a humanoid statue, then got bored halfway through and said screw this, I’ve got better shit to do. He wore a man dress just like Lord Lugh—though white instead of Lugh’s green—and rested one thick-knuckled hand on a gnarled wooden club, which must’ve weighed in at half a ton. The only thing that screamed “king” was the circlet of gold wrapped around his lumpy, lopsided brow.

Besides the king, I counted nine guests occupying the unnatural clearing. A few looked more or less human, but there were also some outright weirdos.

A scantily clad woman with neon-blue hair and an honest-to-goodness fishtail lounged in the slow-moving stream. She had a furry brown otter with oddly thoughtful eyes wrapped around her neck like a living scarf. Beside her stood a man with skin the color of a restless, wind-tossed ocean, both feet planted firmly in the stream, as though he didn’t dare leave the trickling brook.

Another lady had wings, covered with metallic-silver feathers, instead of arms, while a third—surrounded by a nimbus of gold and so beautiful it physically hurt to look at her—had lacey butterfly wings poking out of her back.

Their outfits ranged from elegant silks and furs covered in embroidery, to simple clerical robes, to … well, not much by way of anything, as was the case of madam butterfly. Though my gaze didn’t loiter, I can say the lady did au naturale like a champ. One and all, though, exuded an air of outright snobbery. Pompous jackasses, sitting on pedestals, looking down their friggin’ noses at us. And they were looking down on us—it was in the way they stood: chins raised, arms crossed or hands planted on hips, slight sneers curling lips. They thought they were better than us. They expected us to bow and scrape for ’em, like their shit didn’t stink.

James, intuitively sensing my immediate and intense annoyance for the high and mighty douches assembled before us, rapped me on the shin with his cane. Just a quick tap—hard enough to get my attention, soft enough not to seriously hurt—which said everything that needed saying.

Keep your attitude in check.

I nodded my understanding. And I really would try to keep myself in line. Yes, they were snobs, but they were also terrifying, otherworldly beings that had existed for eons and could likely crush me on a whim.

Ailia, clearly feeling the same sense of trepidation, stole a handful of deep, calming breaths, steeling her resolve, before gliding several paces into the room. A few feet away from the sprawling throne of marble and wood, she paused, offered a deep curtsy—despite the fact that she was wearing a no-nonsense suit—then dropped to one knee before ol’ stone face, head bowed.

“High King Dagda,” she said, eyes downcast. “I thank ye for the hospitality of your court and for agreeing to indulge our investigation into the disappearance of the Guild ambassador, Scott Hoehner.” Her language was awfully formal and held the ring of an old world ceremonial greeting. Just the kind of fine attention to detail she excelled at.

The king inclined his stony mug a fraction of an inch. “Rise and be welcome, Judge Ailia Levchenko. I take great pleasure to see the Guild has dispatched their finest.” He smiled, an unnatural gesture revealing blunt, crooked teeth. “And you’ve brought companions, no less.” He paused, studying us coolly, his awkward smile transforming into a pucker. “James Sullivan, Lieutenant Commander”—he dipped his head a fraction of an inch toward my partner—“and Yancy Lazarus. The Fixer.” He said my unofficial title with more than a little distaste, his lips curling down at the corners as if he’d just swallowed something particularly revolting. No polite head nod for me, I noticed.

Well, screw him and the giant, ugly horse he rode in on.

I knew damned well how things were, and I knew how folks—both inside and outside the Guild—viewed me. I was an unavoidable, distasteful evil. But a necessary one. Guild muscle: a gun-toting, power-slinging thug with an enchanted garrote. A walking bomb. A knife in the dark, waiting for a turned back. James often played the part of the diplomat, while I only ever played the part of demolition man.

“You must expect a great deal of trouble to drag along these two,” the king continued, “but your worry is needless. Though my people are known for their guile, I can assure you my court is innocent in this matter. Things are not as they once were. With the rise of humanity, the world has changed much. I speak on behalf of all my nobles when I say we see the tremendous value in our partnership with the Guild of the Staff. And, I personally vow that if there is some clear evidence of wrongdoing uncovered, we will ensure the guilty party is disciplined appropriately.”

His cadence was slow, regal, and he spoke with the surety of old mountains—an unwavering strength of conviction. I wanted to believe him. But once again, I reminded myself that the more someone protested their innocence the guiltier they likely were. Especially among this lot of jackals. Maybe I was just one big, cynical, pessimistic jackass, but I couldn’t believe ol’ King Dagda had kept his throne for so long without being the craftiest of the craftiest. That, or he simply beat people into lumpy piles of paste with that ginormous club.

Either way, he was someone to keep an eye on.

“On behalf of the Guild,” Ailia said, rising from her knee, “I thank you for your openness. Now, if you wouldn’t mind, Your Grace, I’d like to make my way among your nobles and introduce myself, then I’d like to see Ambassador Hoehner’s personal quarters.” She glanced around, scrutinizing and parceling up each of the assembled nobles in turn. “Is this everyone, Your Excellency?”

The giant frowned, eyes drifting for a moment, before slowly waving one hand through the air. “No. Our kind have been around for a long time, and the court has grown. Many of the lesser blood roam these corridors and more still roam the world. But, I can assure you, no one in the court of the Tuatha De Danann do anything without one of these esteemed lords and ladies knowing of it. If there is wrongdoing afoot, you will find the overseer of such mischief here,” he said. “Since you are new to these halls, Judge Levchenko, please permit me to make a round of introductions.”

James and I took up a position near the entryway, standing shoulder to shoulder as we watched on, silent but alert. Though a round of introductions might seem innocuous enough, they were anything but. Being an empath had a lot of drawbacks, but it also made my blonde-haired girl the perfect sleuth and the best Judge the Guild had at its disposal.

Just a brief touch and a slight probe of power and Ailia could pick up a myriad of hidden emotion, even among creatures as old and powerful as the Danann. Sure, she wouldn’t be able to ferret out the hidden thoughts of every one of these fancy folks, but if someone was hiding some major league deception, she’d pick up at least a whiff of it with her enhanced senses. A living lie detector.

Which also made her a dangerous liability.

The king swept one massive, malformed hand toward our guide, who’d taken up a position on the king’s right. “I trust you have already met Lord Lugh, our Chief Ollam.” It wasn’t a question. “He is brother to me and, I am sure beyond doubt, blameless and above reproach in this matter.” Lord Lugh bowed at the praise. “He will assist you while you sojourn among us, just as he assisted your ambassador.”

“Indeed we have had the pleasure of his company, Your Highness,” Ailia replied, glancing at the spear-wielding crap-basket. “He has been most helpful.”

Lugh leered like he’d just won the first-place prize at the county fair. Everything about that guy rubbed me the wrong way, but despite my desire to punch him in the mouth, I said and did nothing. Maybe I’m not the best with impulse control, but when the heat’s on, I know how to bite my tongue and stay my fist, regardless of what anyone else says.

King Dagda grunted in acknowledgement, one hand tightening around the handle of his skull-crushing club. “And there,” he said, motioning toward a shirtless meathead with glimmering, iridescent tattoos running over his shoulders and arms in elaborate swirls, “is Oghma. He too is brother to me, and champion at arms of the court.”

I sized him up as the king yapped. Big ol’ son of a bitch and definitely a card carrying member at Thugs-R-Us. The meathead held a beefy battle-axe—flared steel head on one side and a monstrous railroad spike of hurt on the other—so enormous I wouldn’t have been able to pick the sucker up off the floor. Champion at arms meant one thing: enforcer. He was my counterpart. The Tuatha De Danann version of a fix-it man. If things went south with these goons, there was a good chance Oghma was the guy I’d have to dance with, which was unfortunate since it looked like his favorite dance was the Eviscerate-Your-Foe Boogie.

“Again,” Dagda intoned, rubbing thoughtfully at his craggy chin, “I would trust my life to Oghma. You have my personal assurance that he is above reproach in this affair. He would never act without my express permission.”

Ailia carefully padded over to the aforementioned meathead and offered him a curtsy and a hand, which Oghma reluctantly accepted. Ailia held the proffered hand for a long beat, which meant she was digging into something the mook probably would’ve liked to keep hidden. Eventually, though, she dropped his oversized mitt and gave him a smile; what amounted to a thumbs-up in my book. Could be Muscle-head McGee really was innocent, which would be a lucky break considering the guy could probably knock my head into the lower stratosphere without breaking a sweat.

Dagda nodded his approval. “And here is Nechtan.” The king waved toward the most normal looking fella of the lot—a bald-headed guy with a thick beard of gray, sporting a brown robe with silver scrollwork at the hem and cuffs. “Nechtan is our steward and faithful to our court. Isn’t that right?” he asked, his tone implying Nechtan’s faithfulness was anything but certain.

“Enough with this farce.” The words slashed through the air like an executioner’s blade. The speaker materialized from a pool of inky shadow on my left, slinking her way into the center of the room, back straight, shoulders square, gaze frosty as the Rockies, contempt plastered across her face.

Somehow I’d missed her when we’d entered the room, which was saying something since it was my job to notice threats and this lady practically screamed I’m going to murder you and turn your skin into a rug. She stood over six feet—all long limbs and graceful curves, with red hair nearly black, cherry lips, and eyes so dark they made midnight look like noonday. Like huge, rough-cut chunks of obsidian, those eyes. A cloak, composed of gauzy crow feathers, trailed down her back and framed heavy ebony-black armor studded with cruel silver spikes.

She moved like a panther on the prowl, and the way she wore that armor said it wasn’t for show. This woman was a finely wrought battle-axe: equal parts beauty and death, ready to strike and kill. And she was beautiful, no question about that. But not in the way you’re probably thinking. She wasn’t beautiful like a supermodel or a rose. No, she was beautiful in the way broken glass can be in the right light. Or in the way a forest fire can be as it rages across the landscape, lapping at the trees with tongues of flame and devouring the tall grass.

She was utter destruction wrapped in a veneer of grace and civility.

She was a wolf if ever I saw one.

“You parade us before these mortals like show dogs,” she spat, paying us no mind as if we were beneath her notice, while circling the room, locking eyes with each noble in turn. “You ask us to kowtow to these insects, when we should be crushing them underfoot and demanding their tribute. Is this the kind of leadership we need?” she asked, voice rising with barely concealed fury. “You all know my disagreement with our king’s decrees in this matter, but surely you must now see the weakness in this. The foolishness of it.”

The king tensed, forehead furrowing—great fissures running across his skin—jaws clenching, turning his cheeks into rocky panels. I’m sure as shit no empath, but even I could see rage and hate boiling beneath the surface of his carefully maintained exterior. “Allow me to present the Morrigan,” he said, then sighed long and deep.

SIX:

Satisfaction

“I need no introduction,” the Morrigan replied, voice as cold and desolate as the arctic tundra. “If these mortals do not know me, it only serves to demonstrate what fools they are in truth.”

And she was right. I’ll be the first to admit I’m not exactly a scholar of Irish mythology, but I sure as shit knew who the Morrigan was: The Irish War-Walker. The Chooser of the Slain. The Raven Lady. The Phantom Queen. She was a bat-shit crazy war goddess with the personality of General Patton and the disposition of Vlad the Impaler. A real nice gal from all accounts. Unless, of course, you didn’t enjoy being flayed alive, disemboweled, then force-fed to wild animals—’cause that was pretty much her thing.

“Now is not the time for this, Morrigan,” Lugh said. “No need to air our private business out before visitors to our court.”

“Visitors.” She laughed, a raspy sound that reminded me of the cawing of a raven. “They represent a foreign power invading our sovereign land. A foreign power which you”—she rounded on Dagda—“have invited into our halls. Halls which have witnessed the rise and fall of nations. You have invited them into my home and granted them disciplinary authority over us. What better time is there to discuss these matters then when your Highness’s”—she said the word like a curse—“weakness is on display for the whole court to witness?”

“It is not weakness to understand which way the wind blows and adjust accordingly,” the king replied sternly, sausage fingers clenching into a fist. “You have always thought strength is all that matters, but it is not the strongest that survive. It is the most adaptable. And it is not as though an alliance with the magi is without precedent in our long history. Did not the Druids help us overthrow the Fomorians so long ago? They demonstrated their power and worth then, yet you doubt their successors now? Good relations with the other nations is survival. You have no subtlety in you, Morrigan, your single-mindedness has turned you into an obsolete weapon not fit for this day and age.”

She cawed, her feather cloak bristling as she cackled. “You talk of survival, but we are godlings.” Her eyes narrowed to pinpricks of inky-black. “So why would we make deals with these humans? Perhaps the lesser beings of Outworld need fear their kind, but not us. These creatures have no power over us. You talk of our history, of the Druids of old, yet you forget they worshiped us and understood their proper place.”

She paused, turning slowly to regard our meager party, weighing us, measuring us, judging us. “Besides,” she finished, “these three certainly are no Mathgen, Figol mac Mamois, or Dían Cécht. You,” she spat, fiery glare landing on me like a hammer blow. “You are an enforcer, here to execute your Guild’s judgment in this matter, true?”

Ailia moved in a flash, interposing herself between me and the Morrigan before I could open my trap and stick my foot into it.

“Please, Lady Morrigan,” she said, lowering her head in a show of submission. “We are here only to investigate the disappearance of our ambassador. If there is any wrongdoing, it will be left to your court to dispense justice. These men are only here as a sign of respect—they are among the Guild’s most fearsome warriors. We thought only to honor your court by showing respect to your strength. If we failed to send our best, what message would that give? That we thought you weak? That we believed the Tuatha De Danann deserved anything other than the finest the Guild can offer? I can assure you, no offense was intended.”

The Morrigan planted gauntleted hands on hips and jeered, a flash of white teeth. “Yet, I am offended nonetheless. Offended by your presumption.” She dropped her hands and took several measured steps toward Ailia, hips swaying as she moved. “Offended that my kin and kith—beings of legendary renown and power, one and all—are beckoned by the command of our oafish monarch and forced to stand before the likes of you.” Several more steps, until she was within spitting distance, which made me more than a little nervous.

A cold sweat broke out on my brow, fat beads of perspiration gliding down my temples as I shifted my weight on anxious feet and casually brushed at my side, feeling for my revolver. I didn’t know how this was gonna play out, but I didn’t see a way this was gonna end without at least a little bloodshed. This Morrigan had her back up, and she didn’t intend to let us walk away unhindered.

“Offended,” the Morrigan continued, taking a step closer, “by you and your imbecilic lackeys defiling this”—she swept one arm through the air—“sacred space with your odious presence. I may have tolerated the scurryings of your ambassador, but this I will not tolerate. I demand satisfaction.”

A sharp intake of breath rolled through the room, then the chamber descended into a pregnant silence, filled with the possibility of violence to come.

“On what grounds?” Lugh demanded, the joking trickster-deity suddenly gone, replaced by a hard-edged man who expected answers. “They haven’t slighted you. There is no reasonable cause.”

“Weren’t you listening?” she asked, facing him and giving him an I-got-you-right-where-I-want-you stare that looked downright feral. “Their very presence in this room is a slight that demands retribution. My demand is not within the spirit of the law, perhaps, but certainly within the letter of it. And it is my right as the High Blood. Or would you and your brothers further dishonor our customs by denying me my lawful rights as a high lady of this court?”

A grumble of muted protests trickled around the room like the low, deadly buzz of angry bees. Obviously, there were some deep political undercurrents here that we hadn’t been anticipating, and we’d managed to blunder in and kick the friggin’ hornets’ nest. Great. Perfect. ’Cause that was exactly what we needed.

Lugh shared a long look with Dagda, who, after a time, simply shrugged.

“Unforeseen, but there is naught we can do,” the king rumbled, reaching up and rubbing at his neck with one huge hand. “She speaks true. It is her right, even if a gross misinterpretation of it.” He sighed, then regarded us solemnly from his throne. “The Morrigan believes her honor has been diminished by your presence among us as equals. To redress this grievance, she has challenged you, Ailia Levchenko, to single combat—though, let it be known that you may elect a champion to stand in your stead.”

“This is an outrage, Your Majesty,” Ailia said, voice calm—not gentle, exactly, but commanding and self-assured. “Obviously, this is nothing more than a crude attempt to hinder my investigation.”

King Dagda sighed again, then folded both hands over the end of his club, thick fingers restlessly dancing up and down. “I have no doubt it is as you say. These rules are barbaric, and little used, but such is still our custom. Most of the members of this court understand the need for change, yet our laws are not so fluid and easily adjusted.” He shrugged huge shoulders, broad as a small car. “Unfortunately, I cannot disgrace the customs of the court, which have stood for millennia.”

“And if I refuse?” Ailia asked.

The Morrigan moved in an eyeblink, darting in the last few steps and lashing out with her fist, a casual backhand slap that smashed into Ailia’s cheek and dropped her to the floor. “That is enough from your lips,” she said. “I have demanded satisfaction, and it will be met or I will see you three cast out as exiles.”

“Gladium potestatis,” I muttered, conjuring up my Vis-wrought sword in a burst of azure light.

A thin, single-edged blade of blue, about three feet in length and looking as fragile as fine lace, appeared in my outstretched hand. It wasn’t a real sword—just a construct of air, no different from any of the other workings I could conjure—but it was plenty sharp enough to slice and dice with the best of ’em.

James, following my play, drew a thin silver blade from the cane he habitually carried. Glimmering arcane runes and sigils were worked into the steel and burned with an otherworld light, channeling the rage I knew was burning him up.

“You wanna dance, lady,” I said over the hush that had enveloped the room, “then we can boogie. But you touch her again”—I nodded toward Ailia, who was picking herself up from the floor, gently probing her cheek as she stared at the Morrigan with hollow-eyed resolve—“and I’ll nuke your feathery ass back into the stone age where it belongs. Keep screwing around with us and you’re gonna find out exactly why you should be scared of the Guild.”

She leveled her dead black eyes on me, ruby lips curling back in a snarl, willing me to flinch, to look away.

Inside, my stomach was turning flips and my heart was thumping against my ribs in double time, but still I held her gaze.

This is exactly what Lugh had warned me about with his stupid wolf proverb. This woman might’ve been clad in raven feathers, but she was a vicious, rabid wolf at heart—a predator right down to her core. I could see that plain as the delicate nose on her face. And the only way to deal with an animal like that is to stand your ground, unflinching. And if that fails, you have to beat the beast to death with a big friggin’ club. Creatures like the Morrigan only understand the language of power and violence, and I fully intended to let her know that was my mother tongue.

Her sneer vanished, but her raven-eyed gaze never faltered. “Bold talk coming from a hairless ape. I have shoes in my closet older than the pair of you. You are children interfering in the affairs of your elders. Your betters.”

“This doesn’t need to get ugly,” James said, edging to the right, positioning himself in case we ended up attacking, which seemed to be more likely by the second. “This is a diplomatic errand, Lady Morrigan, and so far your ill-tempered outburst has only demonstrated who the child here really is. Don’t push this or you’ll regret it. My friend might not have much tact, but he makes up for it with honesty. Screw around with us and watch the entire Fist, every council member, and every Judge descend on Tír na nÓg. Maybe you can defeat the three of us, but the Guild will ensure there isn’t enough left of you to fill a mop bucket.”

“Enough talk.” She held up her right hand, and with a flourish—like a magician pulling a rabbit out of a hat—swirls of inky black shadow appeared in her palm. Tendrils of smoke wrapped around her fingers and whipped at the air, writhing in some unfelt breeze. A moment later she jerked her hand free, but instead of pulling out a cutesy bunny, she drew out a scythe, its double-handed shaft built of solid smoke with arcane symbols carved along its length, all of which glowed like the fiery tip of a fat cigar. The curved scythe-blade looked to be yellowed bone or maybe old stone.

“I ask again,” Ailia said, wiping away a smear of blood from a fat lip, “what if we refuse?”

The Morrigan carelessly draped her scythe over her shoulder as she turned to regard Ailia. “If you refuse to accept my challenge,” she said, voice cool and pleased, “the three of you will be cast from this land, exiles from the golden hills of Tír na nÓg, unable to return on pain of death. Moreover, you will prove yourselves, and your Guild, to be cowards of the first order. The rules of single combat are simple: the first to draw blood wins. Only traditional weapons may be used”—she waved her free hand toward me—“no firearms, no magic, though I will allow your man to use his Vis-blade.

“Should you grow a spine and choose to accept, I’ll even be a good sport about it.” The Morrigan casually paced around the room in a slow circle, twirling her weapon with a grace and skill that was downright unnerving. “First I will even the odds and duel both of your men-at-arms as one, such is my confidence. A token to my esteemed brothers and sisters, a demonstration of just how little we have to fear from the esteemed warriors of the Guild. Second, Judge Levchenko, you wanted to ask questions, yes? Well. I will answer whatever questions you have until first blood is drawn. After all, I wouldn’t want anyone to think I’m stalling your investigation.”

I caught James’s eye with a glance, then nodded toward Ailia—this was her show, so ultimately it was her call.

Stick around, likely have our asses beat into the dirt by an Irish war goddess, or be exiled forever and fail to find out what’d happened to the Guild ambassador. No good options there, but I’d abide by whatever Ailia decided. I trusted her to make the right call.

Ailia dithered only for a moment, biting at her lower lip, eyes unfocused, then gave a curt nod, do it.

SEVEN:

Single Combat

I moved inside the space of a breath, darting in before the Morrigan could prepare for an assault. Although sword fights in movies or TV shows often drag on forever and a day, most real sword fights end in the first few moves: a quick rush and a brutal, unexpected strike could finish this thing before it got out of hand. I stepped and lunged, thrusting my sword forward—tsuki—only to find the Morrigan’s scythe handle crashing into the side of my blade, diverting the strike left and off course.

With a curt smile, she sidestepped, the motion effortless and unconcerned, before pivoting, spinning her scythe with a flourish, then whipping the curved blade toward my face. I shifted right, dropping into a back stance, my sword flashing up into an overhand block, uke-nagashi.

A sharp clang reverberated through the room as my counter caught the incoming blow mere inches from my skin. A second later, the blade slipped off my upraised katana—water rolling from an umbrella—leaving her exposed for the briefest of moments.

Lightning quick, I stepped in, pulling my sword around and up in a diagonal slash.

The blade edge smacked into smoky scythe handle and, before I could readjust and launch another attack, a booted foot shot out and caught me square in the gut, throwing me back five or six feet, leaving me doubled over, wondering where all the air had gone. I wheezed and groped at my ribs with my free hand. Screw me sideways, that hurt. It wasn’t exactly like I was going into this fight fresh: my middle was already littered with bruises from the minotaur and this certainly wasn’t gonna help the healing along.

Still. Holy shit could this broad pack a wallop.

“So these are two of the Guild’s finest,” the Morrigan said, pacing back and forth, edging closer to James with every step. “I expected better. Admittedly, it’s been an age since I fought a member of the Guild—must’ve been around the Spanish Inquisition—so maybe my memories are hazy. Still, Judge Levchenko, I would be quick in asking whatever questions you have in mind. Can’t image this will take long.”

“Did you abduct Ambassador Hoehner?” Ailia asked, voice cool and level, though I could hear the thread of worry underlying the words.

“Bold and to the point,” she replied. “I like that.” She moved as she spoke, charging James in a single, fluid motion, weapon zipping and twirling. James feinted right, then ducked in with a quick thrust followed by a daring slash aimed at her thighs.

She deflected the blow with embarrassing ease—hell, James didn’t even come close to scoring a hit, and only some fancy footwork kept the Morrigan’s counterattack from skewering him like a luau pig.

“The man was nothing to me,” the Morrigan replied to Ailia’s question, not even breathing hard. “Though, I think we both know he was no simple ambassador.” She danced around James, raining a flurry of blows down like a barrage of merciless hailstones: slash, pivot, twist, thrust, reset. James was a damn fine swordsman, a fencer by trade, which was the only reason he was keeping his head above water. I knew him well enough to know he was giving it his all, and even with that he was barely managing to parry each stroke.

He never even came close to offering a counterattack—she was too damn fast and seemed to be everywhere at once.

I mean I knew she only had two arms and a single weapon, but the way she moved left me doubting what my eyes saw. She flowed from stance to stance, attack to attack, the motions so quick, graceful, and fluid they looked choreographed. I’ve been a longtime fan of cheesy old kung fu flicks—The Jade Bow and The Buddha’s Palm series were great, and Enter the Dragon was outta this world—and she moved like Bruce Lee kicking the holy living crap out of a room of underpaid extras.

“He was a spy and a nuisance. Perhaps not in an official capacity, but a spy all the same,” she said, staff and blade whirling like a cyclone, cutting through the room with a steady whoosh of displaced air. “A scuttling cockroach always poking his head into affairs that were none of his concern. I didn’t take him, but his disappearance doesn’t surprise me, and it does please me a great deal.” She paused at the last, then launched into a ruthless series of jabs, thrusts, and slashes. Weaving here, spinning there.

Lashing out low, she caught James’s knee with the shaft of her weapon, before twisting her upper body and batting James’s sword away, leaving his guard wide open and his torso exposed.

She could’ve drawn first blood, then, but didn’t. At the last possible second, she halted the attack, which would’ve carved through his neck like a butcher’s cleaver. She was toying with him. With us. Demonstrating just how far out of our depth we were.

Instead of coldly murdering him on the spot, she lashed out with a foot, which slammed into his thigh with a crack and left him reeling.

“Could use some help here!” James wheezed, chest heaving, his breathing labored as he backtracked on wobbly legs, trying to gain some maneuvering room.

“On it,” I hollered, pushing myself upright. I pulled in one more deep lungful of air and shot in, sword at waist level, elbows slightly bent, blade canted to the right of my body. It took me all of two seconds to close the distance, and with a heave, I sent the blade sailing through the air in a horizontal arc—yoko-giri—an attack meant to disembowel an opponent, to spill ropy guts and gore onto the floor. If landed, it’d be a killing blow against any mortal.

Against someone like the Morrigan, though? Well, she’d shrug that shit off without a thought. Such was the advantage of being a nigh-immortal deity.

She laughed as my blade whistled through the air.

Strangely, her laugh wasn’t one of menace. It was one of fierce joy. I’d heard plenty of women laugh just like that, mostly when they were out on the dance floor bumping and grinding to some gritty ol’ blues number. It was the sound of a woman having herself one helluva good time.

James, seeing the brief opening, pressed his advantage, parring her scythe, riposting, then dipping in, sword cane outthrust. She moved with the sinuous elegance of a serpent, sliding sideways, avoiding James’s thrust by millimeters, then turning toward me at the last possible moment, pirouetting like a ballerina on center stage.

She never stopped laughing.

She followed up the smart pivot with a mule-kick, her heel catching James in the groin and tossing him gracelessly to his ass.

His sword cane clattered to the floor nearby as the poor schmuck clutched his nether bits, a string of colorful, 1920s flavored profanity filling the air.

In the same instant, her weapon artfully diverted my slash, stopping my sword with a shriek and a brilliant flash of blue light. I scrambled left and hooked my blade down, jabbing low with my sword tip, hoping to angle past her guard and land a hit on her ankle. A nick was all I needed. Just enough to draw blood. Instead, the shaft of her scythe swept out, catching my ankle and sweeping one foot from beneath me.

I staggered, teetered, arms pinwheeling, desperate to regain my balance. Knowing she had me dead to rights and I couldn’t stop her.

“Besides,” the Morrigan said to Ailia as I swayed like a drunk about to take a tumble, “you would know if I killed this ambassador of yours. Unlike most of the members of this court, I don’t much care for subtlety. If I’d done the deed, I would’ve paraded his head around on a pike for the world to see. A display of my power and absolute disregard for your Guild. I don’t apologize for what I am, nor do I hide it.” She cocked her head—an oddly crow-like gesture—and promptly slammed an ebony-plated fist into my face, which ended any hope I had of staying upright.

I dropped, legs giving way, back slamming into the ground with a thud.

I didn’t stay there, though, waiting for her to leap through the air like some badass Irish ninja and slice me into fish bait. Instead I used my momentum and the force of the blow to carry me into a backward roll, which brought me to my feet, blade up and at the ready, chudan.

Or as ready as I could be, considering. My face was slick with perspiration, my shoulders tight with fatigue and tension, my hands trembled, the sword blade quivering minutely. On top of all that, I was gonna have one helluva black eye from that blow, and since I already had a black eye from tangling with the minotaur, there was a damn good chance I was gonna wind up with raccoon eyes.

Just my luck. Do you have any idea how hard it is to get people to take you seriously when you look like an adorable backyard rodent?

That was assuming, of course, the Morrigan didn’t decide to murder me outright and stick my head on a pole, which wasn’t out of the question at this point. Sure, this fight was hypothetically to first blood, but that didn’t preclude the possibility of her lopping the head from my shoulders. And the longer we played this little game, the less sure of survival I became.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m a fair hand with a sword—I’d spent a lot of time practicing back in my Marine Corps days when I’d been stationed on Okinawa, and I’d learned a metric crap-ton since then. But this lady fought as naturally, as intuitively, as other people eat or breathe or sleep. If I could’ve used my powers, well that might’ve been a different story—though might is the operative word—but as things stood, I didn’t have a ghost of a chance. Not against her and certainly not by myself.

A Twinkie at a fat-kids’ camp had better odds of coming out in one piece.

I circled right, not eager to engage her one-on-one, but wanting to keep her attention long enough for James to get his shit together.

“If you had to guess,” Ailia said, her tone neutral, though I could see the worry creasing her forehead, “who would you say does have a motive?”

“Who doesn’t have a motive?” the Morrigan replied. “That secretive little mouse could’ve stumbled into any number of dangerous plots. Perhaps he found out that Aengus”—she motioned toward a golden-haired man who looked like he belonged at the Playboy mansion—“is sneaking around with Fand.” This time she swept an arm toward the bird-feathered woman. “Who is married to our dear Manannan.”

There was a brief round of shocked gasps, and the weirdo with the sea-water-tinged skin tensed, hands edging toward a sleek silver sword at his hip.

“Oh please,” the Morrigan said, “like anyone here didn’t already know. The point is we all have our secrets and none of us are overly fond of some outsider digging into our dirt. Being a spy is a dangerous business. A business where accidents can happen very easily.”

James was finally back on his feet, sword once more in hand as he repositioned himself, sandwiching the Morrigan between us. Generally, if you’re stuck fighting two enemies simultaneously it’s important to prevent them from flanking your sides or getting behind you, for obvious reasons. Hypothetically, James and I had the upper hand here—not that it really mattered, since the Morrigan was as fast and slippery as a greased up king cobra.

“And what about your secrets, Lady Morrigan?” Ailia said, buying James and me some time. “What secret might our ambassador have stumbled upon that you wouldn’t want getting out? Maybe it was the secret that you still have feelings for King Dagda. Feelings he doesn’t share.”

The Morrigan paused, eyes narrowing, porcelain face screwing up in a grimace of rage. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. I have nothing but utter disdain for the oaf who pretends to rule us.”

“That’s not what I hear,” Ailia said with an indifferent shrug, before running one hand absently through her hair. “I did some reading on the way over—some of the ambassador’s old reports. Isn’t it true Dagda once courted you? This was before he was king, of course. Just another peasant then. Courted you until you divulged plans to defeat the Fomorians at Cath Maighe Tuireadh. The battle where the Tuatha De Danann overthrew the Fomorians, and Dagda became king.”

She paused, thoughtfully tapping her bottom lip with one finger. “But, I seem to recall reading that he left you after that. Tossed you in the garbage like a used-up candy wrapper. He abandoned you for another woman, isn’t that right? A beautiful, nubile river goddess who bore him a son.” She casually cast a glance toward the playboy, Aengus—the dude who was apparently screwing around with the feather-armed freak show. “Or maybe I just read wrong.”

“Bitseach!” the Morrigan swore, voice low and icy as a winter wind sweeping over a graveyard. She spun away from me, focusing on Ailia, which was exactly the kind of misstep I could exploit. “I will gut you, you wretched striapach. I will cut the conniving, lying, slanderous tongue from your mouth and feed it to the crows. Pluck the eyeballs from your face and slice the lips from your head. Rip your arms and legs from your body, until you are but a torso hanging on to a wretched imitation of life.”

James and I shared a brief look as the Morrigan spoke, a glance between partners who’d fought a thousand fights together, and then he was moving, bolting in, sword high—a bold, obvious, flashy attack that’d be easy for the Morrigan to counter. He didn’t have a prayer of hitting her with that kind of play, but boy was it attention grabbing as all hell.

The Morrigan effortlessly parried the strike, but between blocking the attack and her laser-like focus on Ailia, she didn’t notice as I positioned myself to her rear and stole forward on silent feet, padding in a foot at a time while my heart pounded in my chest. I reached into my coat pocket as I moved, hands shaking minutely as I pulled free my Vis-imbued garrote, then wrapped the wire twice around my fist.

This was it.

A handful of feet out, I lunged, lashing out with my blade, timing my attack so James and I struck simultaneously.

Somehow, impossibly, she repelled James’s blow a split second before swinging her scythe around and catching my blade as I made to run her through the back. But now we were damned close, she and I—our bodies mere inches apart, only separated by the tension of our weapons. With a screw-you grin breaking across my face, I dismissed my sword-construct with a whisper of will. The azure katana fizzled and died in an instant, and suddenly, the pressure separating me from the Morrigan was gone, disappeared in a puff of air.

Before she could stop me, I threw my weight forward, chest slamming into her back, momentarily knocking her off balance.

From there, it took only an eyeblink to get my hands up and string the choke wire across her throat. I did it with a practiced ease that came from years of muscle memory. Smooth. Quick. Efficient. Completely automated.

I’d done this same thing often enough to be good at it even if I hated myself a little for it.

Let’s face it: there’s no honor in sneaking up behind someone and strangling them to death. But here’s a pro tip: there’s really no honor in killing. Period. I am and always have been a pragmatist, and a quick, quiet hit-job is nothing if not pragmatic.

I jerked the wire tight and heard the strangled gasp as warded silver and cold iron bit into her skin. The Tuatha De Danann were not fae—though closely related—so the cold iron didn’t burn her the way it would a High Lord of Winter, say, but I’m sure it hurt plenty all the same.

She flailed about with her scythe, but she no longer had a target to strike at. James had retreated well out of reach the second I moved, and she couldn’t hit me, not pressed against her back the way I was.

I could feel the panic mount in her and take hold, her limbs flapping and flailing like a drowning woman fighting to break the surface of the water. In a way she was drowning. The Tuatha De Danann were godlings with a wide array of powers, and though they didn’t use the Vis the way magi did, that didn’t mean their power wasn’t derived from the Vis. It was a part of them, flowing through their veins the way blood flows through humans. They lived off the stuff. With the garrote wrapped around her windpipe, all of her supernatural abilities would slowly drain away.

Not permanently, but for long enough to suit my purposes.

In a last-ditch effort, she dismissed the scythe in a puff of sooty smoke and bucked back—a bull fighting to throw its rider—slamming into me with the force of a car crash. I held, if barely, and I cranked down tighter, biceps bulging as her fists and elbows hammered at me, digging into my hands and arms and ribs. The blows hurt, but not enough to dislodge me, especially when I was so close to victory.

She threw her weight back again, and this time we went to the floor, her on top, me on bottom. Most fights end on the ground anyway, and though it’s not where I prefer to be, I can handle my business on the deck if push comes to shove. I wrapped my legs around her middle and locked my ankles, hands shaking as I ratcheted the garrote tighter, knowing she couldn’t have more than a few seconds of breath remaining in her. Her fingers darted to the wire digging into her neck, clawed nails frantically fighting to find purchase, to break my deadly choke hold.

“Enough!” The king’s voice boomed out. His command rang through the room like a drill instructor hollering through a friggin’ bullhorn. The single word demanded instantaneous obedience.

Because A) I’m not a complete moron and B) the king seemed to be on our side, I let up on the garrote.

The Morrigan broke away in a blur, gaining her feet and recalling her scythe with a flourish. Before I could do much more than wiggle into a sitting position, she was sprinting at me, weapon raised high, absolute murder in her eyes. She held my death warrant and I was way too spent to do a damn thing to stop her. Before she could impale me, however, the colossal meathead with the battle-axe—Oghma, brother to the king and champion of the court—was suddenly looming between us, angular face tense, muscles flexing in anticipation of violence, axe raised in my defense.

How about that? A little help from the home team. Small victories are always worth celebrating.

“Morrigan,” Dagda said, his voice a whip crack. “I said enough. You will dismiss your weapon and abide by the ancient rules of our people or face exile yourself. The fight was to first blood, and you have lost. Accept your shame and apologize to Judge Levchenko for slapping her.”

I was so downright exhausted from the scuffle that it took me a minute to figure out what exactly had happened. But then I saw the wound: a thin line of crimson ran across the Morrigan’s neck, right where my garrote had been. The blood stood out in sharp contrast against her pale skin and was as obvious as a surrender flag. Her weapon vanished in a flash of shadow, but she was shaking with fury, eyeballing James, Ailia, and me in turns.

“As the good king says,” she hissed through clenched teeth, “you have won the duel and so, Judge, you have my apology.”

The way she said “apology” made it abundantly clear that the only thing she was sorry for was not massacring the whole lot of us when she had the chance.

“Now, with my apology rendered, let me also offer a word of advice.” She curled and uncurled her hands, lips stretching into a thin, unpleasant gash in her face. “A battle is not the war. And our war has only just begun. Flee from this place. Run as far as you can because I will see this debt settled. Plá ar do theach.”

Now I’ll be the first to admit I’m not a Gaelic scholar, but that last bit sounded awfully curse-ish to my ears. Had a certain eat-shit-and-die ring to it.

The Morrigan turned, then gave me one more long I’m-going-to-make-you-eat-your-own-heart look over her shoulder, before exploding in a blast of inky smoke, which coalesced into a cloud of ravens. Tar-black wings beat at the air as the mass of birds tore from the throne room, disappearing between a pair of giant standing rock columns and into the arid desert with the stunted trees. Gone.

For now …

EIGHT:

The Lowdown

The room of high nobles was silent as the cloud of ravens dispersed, leaving everyone to stand around, awkwardly shuffling their feet through too-green grass. “I should think that is enough excitement for one day, don’t you all?” King Dagda said after a time, breaking the unnatural quiet. No one dared to reply. “Yes, quite enough excitement,” the king said again. Then he issued a huge sigh, the sound of a very tired man. “Lord Lugh, won’t you please take our guests to the ambassador’s chambers, then see them to their quarters for the evening.”

Dagda stood, towering over everyone else in the clearing, eyes spearing each remaining member of the court in turn. “Everyone else”—he hefted his ginormous club and slung it nonchalantly over his misshapen gray shoulder—“you are to remember what happened here today. One of our number vanquished in a trial of arms by a mortal mage. Despite what some of you may think, I am no fool and know well what real strength is. Some of you have given ear to the Morrigan, but clearly she is on the wrong side. For now, you are all dismissed, but no one is to leave the grounds until Judge Levchenko is done with you. That is all.”

The remaining members—some regarding us with open looks of hostility while others eyed us with a mix of curiosity and trepidation—all nodded and politely bowed their way from the stone-encircled clearing. As each guest moved between the stone archways there was a brief flash of opalescent light and then they were gone, disappearing to wherever they’d come from to begin with. Eventually, only the king, Lugh, and Oghma remained, all three sharing uneasy looks.

Then the king nodded to some unheard request. Oghma offered a brief bow in response and immediately spun on his heel, stalking off toward the same portal the Morrigan had disappeared through. Meanwhile Lugh—the cocky little shit—swaggered toward us, his green tunic swishing as he moved, his golden spear thumping on the ground with every step.

He grinned, a shifty smile full of mischief, as he planted himself before us, hip cocked out, hands intertwined around his spear. “I was right about you all—vastly more entertaining than I ever could’ve dared for. Openly fighting the Morrigan in single combat, inside the throne room of Tír na nÓg. And to win no less? Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant.” He shook his head in wonder, still smiling like a loon. “The three of you must need a trio of wheelbarrows to carry your balls around in—no offense intended to the lady, of course.

“The absurdity of it all has me giddy,” he continued. “I mean this is the kind of thing bards pen epic ballads about. And since I”—he hook a thumb at his chest—“happen to be a bard, I can assure you this one is going down in the history books. She will be so peeved, our Morrigan. Absolutely distraught, I’d wager. I’ll have to take a little poetic license of course”—this he said more to himself than to us—“the battle really needs to last ten or twelve hours. That’s the proper length for an epic.”

He looked at me and rubbed his chin, bottom lip thrust out in thought. “And I’ll probably have to embellish things a bit where you’re concerned. You’re just so damned ordinary looking. A great epic really needs a hero of great stature—a man like Beowulf, say. Though I suppose I could go in the other direction: homely, hunchbacked, inarticulate. The epitome of the antihero.” He eyed me, taking in the leather jacket, travel-worn jeans, and scuffed boots. “The antihero definitely suits you better. Besides, that tack would be far more embarrassing for our hotheaded war goddess. To lose a battle, which she instigated, against some travel-worn mortal lackey. She’ll never live it down.”

He threw his head back and laughed, the sound of a man who maybe wasn’t playing with a full deck of cards.

I grumbled and withdrew my Vis-imbued K-Bar from the leather sheath at my hip. I frowned at Lugh as he rambled and began to clean my fingernails with the knife’s tip. “Keep talking, jackass,” I mumbled.

Ailia wheeled around on me and punched me right in the gut, expertly aiming for my bruised ribs. I pricked my finger with the K-Bar as her blow landed, and a fat bead of blood welled up on the pad of my index finger. I swore and stuck the digit into my mouth.

“That’s enough, Yancy,” she said. “I’m running this operation, not you. I understand you’re use to solving problems with your fists, but this isn’t that kind of job. Not yet.” She pinched the bridge of her nose. “Perhaps what happened with the Morrigan was unavoidable, but I will not have you picking fights with every noble in Tír na nÓg. We need to work with these people, do you understand that? They have information and answers that we need. If you insist on pissing off everyone that might be inclined to help us, we’ll be dead in the water.”

“The hell you talking about?” I countered, pulling my bleeding finger from my mouth. “I’m not picking fights with anyone. First off, this clown”—I waved at Lugh, who only grinned good-naturedly at my insult—“has been takin’ pokes at me since we got here. And second, that lady challenged us to a duel, then slapped you in the face. You can’t expect me to put up with that kinda garbage. And third, James and I were sent here to watch your back, and that’s all I’m doing.” I glanced at James. “Come on and back me up on this one, man.”

He cleared his throat, shrugged, then went about adjusting and straightening his dinner jacket, which had been mussed in the scuffle. “She’s got a point, pally,” he replied. “You’re a damned-fine battle-mage, Yancy—not as good as me, obviously, but passable. Your bedside manner, on the other hand, is like bathing in a vat of acid. We’re friends, old boy, and I still have to fight the urge to punch you in the face ninety percent of the time I’m with you.”

“You are such a colossal shit-trumpet, you know that?” I said with a glare, eyes narrowing into slits.

“You’ve perfectly illustrated my point—right this very moment. I literally want to launch you into a low-earth orbit and watch you suffocate,” he replied.

“Dick,” I muttered under my breath.

“And, for the record”—Ailia planted hands on hips—“you weren’t sent here to watch my back, you were sent to assist me in my investigation, which means I’m the one calling the shots, not the other way around. So unless you want to be confined to our quarters indefinitely, you’d better shut your mouth and start being a team player, okay?”

I said nothing.

“Okay?” she prompted again.

I adjusted and readjusted my jacket, then stowed my K-Bar in its sheath, all the while refusing to meet her accusing stare.

Life is so unfair sometimes. Most times. Hell, pretty much every minute of every day. I’d fought a mythical Irish war goddess in a duel and had won. Someone should’ve been giving me a medal for valor, but instead I was surrounded by a trio of jerks and was getting a very public ass chewing. I swear I get less respect than a guy standing on a street corner with a bullhorn and a sandwich board proclaiming “The End is Near.”

“Fine. Whatever,” I finally consented.

“This is precisely why I love humans so much,” Lugh said as his laugh-fest finally subsided. “You’re all so … so alive. So in the moment. The Tuatha De Danann, we aren’t like that. My kind is fixed. Unchanging. Self-important with nary a sense of humor in sight. The Morrigan is always the Morrigan: petty, cruel, vindictive. Oghma, bless his stupid soul, will never be more than a walking pair of biceps, while Aengus will never be more than a strutting phallus. I miss being with regular people. So unpredictable and creative. Temporary.” He sighed, his smile fading, dying. “Well, enough of that. Best we get a move on it. Let’s get you to the ambassador’s quarters.”

He led us to the massive double doors, which silently swung inwards, revealing the elegant hallway we’d first entered from.

“Please stay close,” he said, glancing over his shoulder at us. “These hallways can be quite confusing to outsiders and I would hate to see one of you”—the bastard thumbed his nose at me—“fall behind and get lost.” With that he stepped out, strolling down the ornate marble hallways filled with priceless treasures and ancient artifacts.

“Lord Lugh,” Ailia said as we walked, the sound of our footfalls too damn loud and echoing around us, “would you mind if I asked you a few more questions?”

“Well, if your question is whether or not I’m available, the answer is yes. Very available. Also experienced, if you take my meaning.”

I grunted and, despite Ailia’s admonishment, my hand instinctively crept toward the monster pistol—think the ill-behaved Frankenstein-spawn of Dirty Harry’s .44 Magnum—stashed away in my shoulder rig. Ailia had accused me of picking fights, but this dude was just asking for it. Everything he did seemed to have the sole aim of pissing me off. James put a hand on my shoulder and squeezed. Cool it and let her work, the gesture said. I grumbled for a long beat, then rudely shoved both hands into my coat pockets so Lugh couldn’t see me ball my hands into fists, all the better for smashing his friggin’ nose in. Douche-hole.

“I think we both know that’s not what I’m interested in,” Ailia said, though she offered him a coy smile.

“A shame,” he replied. “Though I readily admit to being a hopeless flatterer and sycophant, I wasn’t lying when I said the court has rarely hosted a person with such beauty and talent.” He was quiet for a time, shifting his spear from hand to hand as he ambled. Finally, he puffed out his cheeks in a groan and threaded one hand through his black locks.

“Fine. Fine,” he said. “If it’s politics you want to talk about then let’s talk politics. Here’s the deal, you can ask whatever you’d like. Whether I’ll answer is an entirely different matter. The court is in a delicate position right now, and some of our inner workings aren’t for outside ears. Even beautiful ones. Still, it certainly can’t hurt to ask. Considering how entertaining you three have been thus far, I might even be inclined to tell you the truth just to see what you’ll do next.”

We moved on in silence for a beat, hanging a left down a short hallway with an arched window—the first window I’d seen—which looked onto rolling hills of green dotted with white trees covered in purple foliage. Even though it was early evening here, the gigantic moon overhead, paired with a host of stars, shed enough silver light to illuminate the landscape for miles. A flock of birds, about the size of large quails, with shockingly blue feathers roosted in the tree branches.

I’ve been a crap-ton of places, but I’d never seen trees or birds like those.

“You said the court is in a delicate position,” Ailia said. “Why? The Danann have been around for a very long time and Dagda has been king since the Fomorian War. As you said, your people are not known for readily changing, so why should there be turmoil in the court now, when it has been stable for a thousand years or more?” She paused, letting the question hang in the air like a dark cloud.

Lugh offered no response as he led us down another connecting hallway, this one nearly identical to the hallway we’d departed from a second ago.

It had the same arched windows and the same view. Shit, I was pretty sure it was exactly the same landscape—same trees, same weird-ass birds. Every detail, identical. Except for one: now the trees were thirty feet out instead of a hundred, and the birds looked as large as eagles instead of quails. From this close I could see their beady red eyes, like smoldering red coals, and jagged reptilian teeth jutting down around their beaks. They looked hungry. And mean.

“They say you’re the best Judge the Guild has to offer,” Lugh offered eventually, taking no note of the strange scenery or the freaky-ass birds. “I can see why. Your intuition is spot on.” He nodded his head thoughtfully, and not for the first time, I got the sense that there was much, much more to the easygoing trickster.

“We are not prone to change, and that in itself is the problem. You see, although we may not change, times do. Though we’ve had alliances with humans in the past, the Morrigan was right: we were worshiped and served, and our partnerships were hardly alliances between equals. But that was before the rise of modern man. There are six billion humans these days—six billion—and that number keeps climbing. Projections show that number will reach seven billion by 2010. A billion new souls in twelve years. And, worse still, humanity has become more technologically advanced than we ever could have dreamed of.

“Aeroplanes that ferry men through the sky. Medicine that can cure even the most crippling of maladies. All human knowledge, easily accessible through your interweb—every person connected to ever other person through a box on a desk. Humans are amazing creatures in their way. Their mortality, their finiteness, has given them a drive to live, to succeed, unrivaled in Otherworld.” He shook his head at the sheer scope of it all. Strangely thoughtful, even. “And the weapons you’ve managed to make.” A hint of awe coated the words.

“In bygone days my kin could slaughter an army of sword-wielding humans. Now humans have machine guns and tanks. Aerial fighter planes and antipersonnel mines. They’ve split the atom and can cause devastation on a scale undreamt of by the old godlings. As a whole, humanity is a thousand times more dangerous than we could ever hope to be. The landscape has changed, and humans are now far closer to the top of the food chain than anyone would care to admit.

“Since the magi represent humanity in the supernatural community, it only stands to reason that we should make you friends instead of enemies. My brother, Dagda, sees the reality of this and realizes our survival depends on doing something we have typically been very bad at doing: changing. Making deals. Being team players. We’re terrible team players. Even worse than your Mr. Lazarus. Unfortunately, many of our esteemed nobles do not feel the same way. They’ve buried their heads in the sand, insulated themselves from reality. Bunch of shortsighted fools. And now they rally around the Morrigan, who is the most vocal opponent to Dagda’s strategy of modernization and integration. Old Guard versus New Guard, and the rest is politics as usual.”

The conversation lapsed into an uncomfortable lull.

“I’ve read many of the old stories, the great sagas,” Ailia said, changing tack seemingly at random.

Except I knew that wasn’t the case. Abruptly switching topics was a common interrogation technique used to catch people in lies by making them react quickly, before they could fabricate a dishonest answer.

“In many of these tales,” she continued, voice emotionless, almost uninterested, “you are depicted as the King of the Danann, not your brother. Simultaneously—and I truly mean no offense—King Dagda is often depicted as … Well, how can I put this?” She pursed her lips as she thought. “Brutish, I suppose. Strong, powerful, but not particularly bright. You, on the other hand, are a master of every art. A peerless warrior, extraordinarily intelligent. Even your proper court title, Chief Ollam, is far more distinguished than you’re letting on. The ambassador had much to say of you in his reports. According to him, the head Ollam of a province is equal to any provincial king. Perhaps not in power, but certainly in social standing.”

“How thorough of him,” Lugh replied, annoyed. “But, for what it’s worth, this is a conversation I can get behind. I could literally hear you talk about how great I am all day. Several days, even. Or nights, if you ever change your mind.” He looked back and waggled an eyebrow at her.

“Intelligent and humble,” she replied, straight-faced. “Is it true you led the Danann to victory against the Fomorians? Didn’t you defeat Balor Birugderc, the Demon-Eyed, the Strong-Smiter, the King of the Fomorians?”

“Aye,” he said, “and what a story it is. Frankly, though, I’m fascinated to know what your interest in the subject is.” His tone was even and oddly neutral.

She tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear. The sound of our clicking shoes rang in the air, click, clack, click, clack, click, clack. “I suppose I want to know how you fit into the picture,” she offered. “It seems to me you would make a very good king, should you want the job.”

Lugh stopped, turned, and smiled at her, crow’s feet sprouting at the corners of his eyes. In that moment, he looked much older than thirty-five. For a blink he was ancient, with fine silver hair and twinkling eyes that held far more wisdom than mischief. Then it was gone, and only the old Lugh remained.

“No need for subterfuge, Judge,” he said. “Just speak your point and be done with it. What you really want to know is whether I have aspirations for the throne. Some secret motive for manipulating the Morrigan in order to depose Dagda so I can usurp his kingship.” He shook his head. “I don’t normally speak so directly, especially not in these halls, but I will let it be known that Dagda’s cause is my own.

“The truth is I love my brother dearly, and he is a good king. Wise, just, benevolent, progressive. The best, truly. Plus, he looks kingly—given, he’s ugly as the inside of a chamber pot, but it’s in his bearing.” He paused, running a hand over his smooth jawline. “Sadly, he was made to be king in a different age, an age where crushing someone with a club was the way folk resolved their disputes. You will also notice that I never said he’s particularly smart. About that the legends are largely accurate. Which is where I come in.” He bowed his head and swept an arm down his front, a model showing off the latest trends in swimwear. “I’m small, sneaky, untrustworthy, have little political ambition, and I’m an excellent spy—not unlike your missing ambassador in point of fact.

“Now, I’m not saying anything openly. But I suppose it could be reasonable to assume that Dagda, Oghma, and I have an unwritten compact of sorts. A Triumvirate. That’s what the Romans called it. The first Roman triumvirate was unofficial—Julius Caesar, Pompey Magnus, and Marcus Crassus. That one didn’t work out so well, but the second one made history. Perhaps even influenced us over here in Britannia—in the long, long bygone days, this was. All of this is hypothetical, but in such a hypothetical situation, I can quite assure you that all three members of the Danann Triumvirate would be wholly committed to the cause. If the Morrigan were to gain power and have her way, all three would have a great deal to lose.” He stopped abruptly, spinning around to face us.

My hand instantly shot for my gun while I breathed in life and power, forming the weaves for a quick and dirty friction shield.

“No need for that,” Lugh said, nodding toward my pistol. “We’ve arrived.”

I stayed my hand, leaving my gun stowed in its holster, but not letting go of the Vis now coursing through me. I turned just a hair, which was more than enough to see the doorway now occupying the hallway I’d walked through a handful of seconds ago. I sighed. Screw this place. So far Tír na nÓg was climbing up my list of locations I never wanted to visit again. Ever.

All the people here were twisted, two-faced assholes. Not a straight shooter in the bunch—the noticeable exception being the Morrigan, who wanted to grind my bones into dust and use my gelatinous remains as a jump rope. Even the hallways were two-faced sons of bitches that didn’t have the damned decency to stay put. I couldn’t wait until we could put Tír na nÓg in the rearview mirror and get back to life as usual.

NINE:

Quarters

Lugh edged past us, heading for the door that now filled the hallway: a heavy bastard of dark wood with delicate silver inlays covering the surface in elaborate swirls and patterns that seemed to defy logic. Twisting here, turning there, connecting in nonsensical ways. Looking at the door was like staring at the love child of one of those Magic-Eye puzzles and an M.C. Escher painting. Complicated custom-built wards. Powerful things that’d be one helluva deterrent to unwanted guests.

Lugh fidgeted at the door handle for a moment, turning the silver knob this way, then that, before pulling a fat, ol’-timey skeleton key—dangling off a ring full of similar keys—from his robes and inserting it into a lock. He jiggled the key, metal clinking against metal as he worked, before the door popped open with a creak of wood and rusted metal. “There we have it,” he said. “These damn doors are old. Can be a bit unreliable at times, at least if you don’t know how to caress them just right. A lot like women, I suppose.”

Ailia didn’t acknowledge the innuendo, but rather slipped past him, pushing the door open and offering us all a good look at the room beyond:

The walls were old gray stone, like something you might find in a historic castle, but everything else was new, modern, and sleek. Polished, dark wood floorboards ran underfoot. A massive marble fireplace—cold and dead—occupied the right wall, flanked on either side by arched windows, which overlooked a sprawling forest filled with an assortment of pines and firs. Those windows also offered a downright spectacular view of the night sky overhead—velvety black, near-bursting with pinpricks of diamond light.

Hot damn, the place was classy as shit.

An area rug of browns and grays sprawled in the center of the floor was topped by a heavily padded couch and an accompanying pair of mocha-brown leather armchairs. The chairs sat opposite a small table with a chessboard. Further in, near the back wall, I spotted the ambassador’s desk, a hulking mahogany thing, which probably weighed a friggin’ ton and seemed to demand respect. It was the kinda desk a high-ranking politician might use to receive guests, and the bookcases on either side—chock-full of dusty, complicated legal texts and arcane grimoires—only served to solidify that air of power.

Someone had ransacked his work space.

File folders and papers were strewn about; pages were splayed out on the desktop, while others littered the floor. Several tomes had also been pulled from the bookshelves and carelessly tossed on the ground.

Though the office had clearly been searched, there were no obvious signs of struggle. Nothing broken. No bloodstains, scorch marks, or body parts laying around. The ambassador wasn’t much to look at, but the guy damn near had a license in badassery and an advanced degree in shit-kickery straight from the University of Beat-Downington, so I was reasonably certain he wouldn’t have gone without a fight.

And those wards on his outer door should’ve been more than enough to keep someone out—even one of the High Danann. Unless of course someone had a key, effectively bypassing all those pesky wards. Someone like Lugh.

“Thank you for your assistance,” Ailia said to our guide, the dismissal clear in her words. “Now if you wouldn’t mind, we would like to take a look around.”

“Of course,” Lugh replied smoothly, then made to step into the room. Ailia caught him by the shoulder, curling her fingers into the fabric of his tunic, or whatever the hell it was called. “Alone. You can wait for us out here, but we need to have a look by ourselves. Having you with us could further contaminate the scene—we’ll be looking for residual constructs and wards.”

Lugh grunted and frowned. A brief look of uncertainty passed over his narrow face, then disappeared as fast as it’d come while he slipped back into the hallway. “A bit unorthodox, I suppose, but then what about this situation is orthodox?” He offered her a deep bow, which bordered on mocking, and ushered us into the room like some kind of overly smug door-butler.

Ailia eyed him for a second, and knowing her as well as I did, I could tell she was warring internally about something, though I wasn’t sure what.

After lingering for an uncertain moment, she turned toward James and me and jerked her head toward the room, proceed. James obeyed without hesitation, heading in while he opened himself to the Vis, drawing deeply as he formed a simple construct of air and spirit—a wispy probe, used to detect wards and other Vis workings that might be invisible to the naked eye. I halted long enough to see Ailia through the doorway and into the room proper, then turned to Lugh.

“Not to be offensive”—I offered him a frosty smile—“but am I supposed to tip you? You know, like a bellhop?” I patted my pants pocket absently. “I hope not, ’cause I don’t have any cash on me.” I grimaced. “Boy do I feel red in the face, sorry about that.”

His fingers drummed restlessly on his spear shaft as he rocked back and forth on his heels. “No tip required,” he said at last, “though maybe I can offer you one. I’m a mischief deity by nature, but not all my kin are so open to humor. There are some who might be inclined to take real offense at some of your quips, and our people are well known for their long memories and creative solutions when it comes to revenge. Just a friendly bit of advice.” He flashed me his teeth, in a smirk that leaned toward a snarl. One that never reached his eyes.

“Thanks,” I replied, holding his gaze. “I’ll keep it in mind. Now, if you’ll excuse me, Lord Lugh, I have business to get down to.”

My newfound deference seemed to mollify him a bit and brought a smug grin back to his face.

“We’ll be sure to let you know when we’re ready to have you chauffeur us around some more,” I said, because dammit I just couldn’t help myself. The dickface was begging for it. “Oh, and I’ll check with James to see if he has any spare ones for you.” I pushed the door shut in his stupid face before he could respond.

I turned, only to find Ailia standing a few feet away, glaring death at me with both hands on her hips in a stance I was well familiar with. It was the same stance a senior staff NCO would take right before commencing the dressing-down of a lifetime. She clicked her tongue angrily. “I thought we talked about this? Why must you needle him like that, eh?” I glanced at James, who stood a ways back, studying the ambassador’s quarters in meticulous detail while trying to suppress a shit-eating grin. No help on that front. “These people are dangerous, Yancy. Why can’t you get that through your head?”

“Come on,” I replied with a shrug, then hooked a thumb toward the door. “You really think we should be worried about Lord Lugh? I know the guy’s a godling, but he seems pretty harmless. I mean his official title is court bard. The dude’s a poet—he ain’t no Oghma.”

“Didn’t you listen to anything I said on the way here? Lord Lugh is far from harmless. For one, Dagda might be the royal figurehead of the Danann and Oghma might be court muscle, but Lugh is the brains. And a crafty opponent is far more dangerous than some stupid meathead who excels at nothing more than swinging a club.” She stepped closer and jabbed me in the chest with a finger. “Or shooting an oversized gun. Two, Lugh is also an accomplished warrior, so you mustn’t underestimate his capabilities. He defeated Balor, King of the Fomorians, in single combat on the field of battle. And the spear he wields? Areadbhair. It is a weapon without equal.

“Last”—she grabbed the lapel of my jacket and drew me in close—“he’s hiding something from us. I don’t know what, his mind is too heavily fortified, but he knows more than he’s letting on about. I can’t say if he’s implicit in the ambassador’s disappearance, but I wouldn’t rule it out either.” She let go and eased back a step, solemn, concern tattooed in her eyes.

“People with secrets are dangerous, Yancy. And that holds especially true for the Danann. Now, let’s be professionals and do our jobs.” She pointed toward the rear of the room. “Check out the bedroom and bathroom—make sure we’re not missing anything there. James”—she turned away from me, spearing Sullivan with a glare—“stop grinning like an idiot and check the sitting room. I’ll take the desk and work space.”

I stomped off, heading for a connecting hallway at the back of the room, grumbling the whole way. Damn, but I was getting the raw end of things lately. I loved Ailia, but maybe there was a good reason we didn’t work together more.

I shoved my way past a heavy door at the rear of the living space, which let into the ambassador’s sleeping quarters. A cursory visual sweep of the room turned up all of jack shit, not that I’d expected much else. There was a sprawling bed—untouched and unslept in—a heavy antique wardrobe, a nightstand, and a simple desk with an innocuous chair. On the left was a connecting master bathroom: a spacious, modern thing, despite the medieval castle motif, with a huge porcelain tub and a stand up shower big enough for two.

I probed the room with a construct of spirit and air, searching for hidden wards and traps, but that too was a bust.

I stole a quick peek in the bathroom, found nothing, then moseyed over to the wardrobe, flinging back the hardwood doors and casually rummaging through the contents. Suits, slacks, fancy silk ties, and ugly-ass old-man sweaters. Everything looked pretty standard, but I kept my probe of spirit out, tendrils of power washing over the interior and exterior of the cabinet, searching for anything that might’ve been hidden to untrained eyes. Magi—especially paranoid S2 operators like the ambassador—were well known for taking extraordinary precautions when stashing sensitive information.

If he’d discovered something dangerous, there was slim chance he would’ve stored it in his regular files or desk contents. He’d be too-damned smart for a slipshod play like that.

After a few minutes of careful scrutiny, however, I turned up nada. The wardrobe was just a stuffy wardrobe filled with outdated clothes that made me a little nauseous to look at. The ambassador might’ve been a badass, but damn, he dressed like my granddad. Well, a granddad I suppose, though certainly not my granddad. My granddad had been a hardnosed drunk: part tobacco farmer, part riverboat gambler, and all knobby knuckles and quick fists. Papa Dude—that’s what we called him, and no, I have no idea why—wouldn’t have been caught dead in the Mister Rogers garb hanging in this closet.

“I’ve got something out here,” James called, his voice echoing off the stone walls and high ceilings.

I shut the doors to the wardrobe and headed back out into the foyer to find James sitting in one of the armchairs, staring at the chessboard, one hand rubbing at his chin, a look of intense concentration on his face. Ailia carefully set a stack of papers she’d been going through down on the desktop, and the pair of us made our way over.

“The chessboard has a ward built into it,” James said as we approached, though he never took his eyes from the board. “It’s subtle, though. Almost missed it. Some sort of locking mechanism. I can feel the weaves I need to use to unlock it, but something seems …” He paused, searching for the right word. “Off,” he finally finished with a shrug. “Like there’s a missing piece.”

I grunted, drew more deeply from the Vis, and extended my own senses toward the intricately carved chessboard.

I immediately understood James’s assessment.

The board throbbed with a dull, almost hidden power—a complex knot of Vis, equal parts earth, fire, water, and air, all bound and shaped by thin braids of spirit and willpower. It was a lock alright, and by carefully feeling out the dips and grooves in the pattern I could more or less discern the shape of the key. In my line of work, knowing how to pick a regular Rube lock is an essential skill, but picking Vis locks isn’t so different, even if immeasurably more complicated. The dips and grooves in the pattern were deliberately missing pieces to a complex puzzle, which needed to be filled in with the right elemental constructs in order to spring the locking mechanism.

Only a mage could open this type of ward, and only a handful of magi, like Judges or Fist members, would have the training to bypass someone else’s locks. But even as I fiddled and tinkered with different weave patterns, I realized James was right—some essential part to this puzzle was gone, and without it, this lock wasn’t gonna budge.

I startled a little at Ailia’s smoky chuckle. I glanced back over my shoulder at her, frowned and looked a question at her, what gives?

“The missing piece—it’s a chess joke.” She motioned toward the table. “Look at the board.” I carefully surveyed the layout on the tabletop. It appeared someone had stopped the game mid-play, but there weren’t any obvious pieces missing. I gave it a thorough once-over, though, just to be sure. Yep: pawns, knights, bishops, rooks, kings, queens. I’m no Bobby Fischer—chess isn’t really my bag—but I knew enough to say with certainty that all pieces were present and accounted for.

I rubbed at my temples, massaging away a growing migraine. “Yeah, I still got nothin’,” I said with a shake of my head.

Ailia smiled and strutted past me—a star pupil making her way to the chalkboard—pausing momentarily to pat me on the cheek. “It is good you are so pretty. It is not a literal missing piece, but a misplaced piece. The setup on the board is one well known to any average chess player. The black pieces are arrayed in an opening maneuver known as the Ruy Lopez. And the white pieces are in a formation commonly called the Stonewall Attack. Or, I should say, the formation is almost the Stonewall Attack. One piece is out of place.”

She padded to the table, bent over, offering me an unobstructed view of one of her best angles, and picked up an intricately carved, white marble knight. Without hesitation, she shifted the knight to the center of the playing field.

“You’re so full of shit,” I said, staring at the table, mouth slightly agape. “You’re making all that chess stuff up, right?”

The corners of her lips turned up, then she stood and crossed her arms across her chest. “What can I say, I am a woman of mystery and intrigue. Despite what you may think, moi kotik, there are many things you do not know about me.”

“Yeah, but how didn’t I know you were some kinda chess guru? That seems like the kinda thing that would come up eventually.”

“And so it has come up. Eventually,” she replied flippantly. “Besides, I am no chess guru.” She waved a hand through the air as though to wipe away my assertion. “Little better than a novice compared to any master player, and I haven’t played in years. In Russia, my dear, mathematics, critical thinking, strategy, and the art of analysis are held in the highest regard—instead of your television, we had calculus and chess to entertain us as children. Now try the ward.”

I frowned and extended my senses, only to find the ward was now responsive to my probe. James was already working away, face knotted in concentration as he shifted between various elemental configurations in the way you might twist and turn a Rubik’s Cube. I ignored him and focused on the dips and peaks—applying a hint of fire here, a touch of magnetic force there, twisting in strands of earth, speckles of water and air, and fine flows of spirt. After only a few long moments, my jumbled working slipped into place—a hand into a glove—my construct mingling with the one built into the chessboard, until they were a single, working whole.

“Bingo,” I muttered.

A brief flare of light and an uncomfortable burst of heat filled the room as the fireplace to the left belched out a gout of red flame accompanied by the grating sound of shifting stones. The fire guttered in an instant, leaving a cold fireplace in its wake, but a fireplace which had changed. The back row of gray stone, smudged with black soot, had pulled away to reveal a cavity with a single manila file folder inside, tied shut with a length of brown twine, like a Christmas present, and sealed with a blob of red wax. A creamy sheet of neatly folded paper sat on top of the folder, one corner tucked up under the twine.

We all stared at the innocuous file for a long uncomfortable moment as if it might actually be some kinda deadly serpent, coiled and waiting to bite. I guess, in its way, the manila folder was exactly that. The ambassador was missing—captured, maybe dead—and the reason had to be tucked away between the covers of that folder. Once we opened it and read its contents, we’d be marked. Huge targets painted onto our friggin’ backs, and whoever was responsible for the ambassador’s abduction would have no choice but to come for us.

They’d have no choice but to make sure we didn’t leave Tír na nÓg alive.

James stood from the chair and cleared his throat. “Well it’s not going to read itself, is it?” he asked, then lumbered forward, squatted down, and retrieved the report from its hidden compartment. Still squatting on his haunches, he drew out the note on top and scanned the contents. He snorted, stood, and extended the note to Ailia. “Our Ambassador Hoehner is one clever cat, I’ll give him that.”

Eyebrows raised, face a picture of curiosity, Ailia accepted the note with a nod and gave it a once-over—a ghost of a smile emerging on her lips—before handing it to me:

Attention: Judge Ailia Levchenko

If you are reading this note then, obviously, I’m missing, likely in a great deal of trouble, or possible dead—a grisly reality every S2 agent is prepared for. Since such is the case, let me say how thrilled and relieved I am to have such an astute operative working on my behalf. Despite what others in the Guild may say or believe, I’ve always held you in high regard and have a great deal of respect and admiration for your talents.

And, in answer to your unspoken question, no, I am not a clairvoyant. If such were the case, I should think I would’ve avoided going missing in the first place. Rather, I know well the workings of the Guild, and I feel superbly confident that they will have dispatched the best—you, Ms. Levchenko—to deal with this matter. Furthermore, I know of no other Judge capable of decoding my chessboard ward.

On to the matter at hand: Things in the court are perilous just now and deadly dangerous for any outsider unwise or unfortunate enough to get caught up in the riptide of Danann politics. No one here is as they seem and all are constantly positioning and repositioning for power or influence. Be cautious in your dealings and always assume you are being lied to and manipulated. The evidence contained within this folder should be self-explanatory, so I won’t belabor the point. One last piece of advice: be wary of Lord Lugh. He is something of a friend to me, yet he is also shrewd, devious, and calculating—such craftiness is as much a part of his nature as the scorpion’s need to sting the frog. Good luck and Godspeed.

Best Regards,

Scott Hoehner, Ambassador

P.S. Should you find me dead, please alert my brother Bartholomew—he is the executor of my will and trust. Furthermore, if possible, please see my remains are brought back to the Guild; I should like to be buried in my family plot. I saw little of them in this life, but perhaps I’ll be able to redress that grievance in the world to come.

After reading the note a couple of times through, I glanced up to find James and Ailia both staring at me. I folded the note up and handed it to James, who still held the folder in his hands. He stared at Ailia and me, shifting his gaze back and forth, nervously running his fingers over the twine securing the flap. “Once we open this, there’s no going back. Everyone understands that, correct?”

“Don’t be a drama queen,” I said. “We’re already past the point of no return.”

“No we’re not,” James said gravely, pinning me in place with his stare. “Whatever is in here is damning evidence and it could get us all killed. We’re in a foreign kingdom with no means of retreat, and we may well have an angry and spiteful godling gunning for us. If we leave this with Lugh—seal unbroken—perhaps we could walk away. Chalk this up as a bad mission and leave the Danann to straighten things out for themselves. Not a great option, I’ll admit, but that is precisely why Ambassador Hoehner is black-ops. So we can disavow him if need be.” He faltered, carefully rubbing his thumb against the waxy seal. “So what do we do here?”

Tension stretched out between us, filling the room with its weight. The weight of expectation. The weight of responsibility. The weight of consequence.

Shit. What a friggin’ mess this was.

Maybe James was right. Maybe we were in over our heads, and the best thing to do was call it quits and chalk the mission up as a loss. Bad ops happened sometimes. An ugly unfortunate truth, but there it was all the same. We could just hand over the folder to Lugh and diddy-bop our asses right on outta this place. Leave these Irish pricks to sort out their own issues.

Or, we could suck it up, take a look at the evidence, find out who the big-bad was, then bust some heads and get our ambassador back. Certainly not the easy route, but probably the right one.

Shit.

Before anyone could speak, I swiped the folder from James and broke the string without ceremony. “Might be we’ll regret this,” I said, “but we’re not gonna turn this folder over to Lord Lugh. Black ops agent or no, someone took one of ours—a man who has given his life to serving the Guild and making the world a better and safer place. I ain’t gonna leave him behind, not if there’s even a slight possibility he’s alive. That’s what the Guild is about, that’s why we do this.” I handed the folder over to Ailia.

She nodded—jaws set, body tight—accepted the documents, then sat in one of the chairs and riffled through the papers. James and I left her to it, knowing she was better at the brain work than we could ever hope to be. I made my way over to one of the windows, popped a squat on the ledge, and pulled out a pack of slightly smashed Reds. I tapped a cigarette free, stuck that bad boy between my lips, and conjured a flickering ball of flame, lighting up and inhaling deep before dismissing the little fire construct with a wave of my hand.

James joined me. “Can I get one of those?” he asked, nodding toward my smokes, his voice low and sullen, completely lacking all the charm and panache he usually exuded.

“Since when do you smoke anything other than fancy cigars?”

“Since you volunteered us for a death mission.”

“Give me a break,” I replied, sliding out the pack and working another smoke free. “Nothing’s changed—this is the same mission it always was.”

James slipped the cigarette up to his mouth and lit it, watching the cherry spark to life with a flare of Vis-wrought power. “I suppose,” he said, the words disturbing the plume of gray smoke hovering before him. “But I have this bad feeling, deep down in here.” He thumped his gut with his free hand. “I’ve been antsy about this job since we got it, but now? Now I feel like things are about to go sideways.” He shook his head. “I just dunno. But you’re right about the ambassador. We don’t leave our own behind.”

We waited in quiet, puffing our smokes while the rustle of pages floated through the otherwise still night air.

Eventually, Ailia flipped the folder shut, a stern, haunted look plastered over her features. “It’s bad,” she said, standing. “We need to get to Lord Lugh, and we need to wake the king before it’s too late.”

TEN:

Warm-Up

Lord Lugh led us down the ever shifting hallways of Tír na nÓg, bound for the throne room and an impromptu audience with the king, while Ailia filled us all in on the details.

A military coup.

War.

And naturally the Morrigan was at the heart of things.

Apparently the ambassador had happened upon a conspiracy, an alliance between the Morrigan and the Fomorians—dark supernatural beings of murder and death, who’d run these parts until the Danann had overthrown their nasty asses a couple of thousand years ago and had driven them deeper into Outworld as exiles.

Except now it seemed the Morrigan thought the Fomorian brand of crazy might be the way of the future—with her at the helm of the loony-bus, of course. Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven. Milton said that, I think.

“How long before they attack?” Lugh asked, looking back at us, though never slowing his pace, which was damn near a jog.

“The ambassador thought it would be in a matter of weeks,” Ailia replied. “He was hoping to bring his findings to the king before the Morrigan could finish her battle preparations, which is probably why he went missing in the first place. Taken as a stopgap measure to prevent him from ruining things.”

“Even so,” James added, “the Morrigan must’ve known the Guild would send in a recovery party. That’s standard operating procedure.”

“Yeah, but it still bought her time,” I replied. “A week easy, which is more than she would’ve had, had Hoehner blabbed to Dagda. And I’ll bet dollars to donuts the Morrigan’s army has been working double time to make up for the setback.”

“I’ll go one further,” Ailia said. “I’d wager they are preparing their offensive as we speak. Surely she must suspect we now know the truth, which means the best window of opportunity for her to act is now—before the court can organize or we can call for reinforcements.”

“Lord Lugh,” James called from the rear, “I need numbers. How many of your people can we count on to fight with us?”

“Dagda and Oghma, obviously,” Lugh said. “Manannan will fight with us. Fand as well.”

“I wouldn’t be certain,” Ailia interrupted. “The ambassador couldn’t be sure, but he left plenty of notes suggesting a number of court members will be notably absent during the Morrigan’s insurrection. Nothing concrete, just suspicions. From what I read, the ambassador doesn’t believe these court members will openly oppose Dagda, but neither will they be present to offer aide in the critical hour.”

Lugh nodded, his pace picking up a step. “That’d be just like them. Sit things out and see how the cards fall. Necthan and Boann will almost certainly fall into that camp. Aine, too. Brigit and Aengus could go either way.”

After a long, straight cut of hallway, we hit a T-juncture unlike any we’d seen before. Instead of marble walls, priceless artwork, and tacky gold and silver filigree, the juncture was all ancient black rock, pitted and weathered by long years, yet solid enough to stand for a couple thousand years more.

Lugh faltered, his steps weary, his back knotted with tension, uncertainty damned near oozing off him as he adjusted and readjusted his grip on his spear. He drew to a halt and glanced down the left-hand path, then the right. I edged forward a few steps, only to find myself staring at more black stonework, completely obstructing both pathways.

A dead end.

Oh shit. Whatever this was, it couldn’t be good.

“This isn’t right,” Lugh said, his words uncharacteristically somber. He inched closer and ran his fingers over the pitted surface of the wall. “No, this isn’t right at all. Trickery is afoot. Prepare yourself for battle.”

“What’s happening here?” Ailia said, stealing up beside me and glancing down the connecting passageways just as I’d done a moment before.

“As you’ve surely noticed,” Lugh replied, “the hallways of Tír na nÓg are shifting. Fluid.”

I only paid him half a mind as I opened myself to the Vis, drawing in sweet life and raw power, feeling time slow in herky-jerk fashion as energy pumped into my veins like live electricity. I started forming weaves and constructs, ready to whip up a hasty defense or a hard-hitting offense, depending on what the situation called for. I also drew my behemoth monster-smiting pistol. Though most regular handguns did little to the supernatural predators in the big-wide-world, this bad boy could leave pancake-sized holes of justice in even the most stalwart baddies.

“The halls are ever shifting,” Lugh continued, “because Tír na nÓg itself is ever shifting—the landscape changes constantly based on star alignments, the ebb and flow of ley lines, the configuration of waypoints. Complicated stuff, very hard to predict. We elder members of the court can manipulate the landscape—at great cost, understand—at least for short periods of time.”

“Hate to cut off the dissertation,” James interrupted from behind us, “but we have company. They don’t look particularly friendly. Or well dressed.”

I wheeled around, bringing my pistol up and to the ready, finger on the trigger. Like the intersection before us, the hallway behind us had undergone a transformation. All the finery vanished, replaced by more black stone and inky shadow which, twenty feet out, opened onto a landscape I’d glimpsed briefly in the throne room. The same landscape the Morrigan had fled to after our tiff: Arid badlands. The ground caked with dusty gray sand. The skyline interrupted by jagged peaks of obsidian stone far in the distance. A clump of stunted, malformed trees off to the right.

More concerning was the line of ass-ugly visitors—ten of ’em—loitering at the hallway’s entrance.

Willowy, vaguely humanoid creatures with pinched, hard-angled faces and lipless, fishlike mouths filled to overflowing with hundreds of needle-sharp teeth. Pronounced horns protruded from the back of their skulls and curved toward the dark sky overhead. Each of the sons of bitches stood seven feet or taller: all ropy muscle, covered in slick gray skin, which blended perfectly with the landscape around them. Unlike the Tuatha De Danann—finely dressed beings who exuded an air of civility, at least superficially—these creatures were garbed in dusty leather armor trimmed in dirt-caked fur, studded with dull metal rivets, and inscribed with arcane runes and symbols.

The Fomorians. Yay for us.

They stared at us with jet-black eyes that held no trace of humanity and not even the faintest whiff of empathy. Looking at them was like looking at a walking nightmare. Like looking at a pack of hungry piranha that’d just gotten a scent of blood.

Standing dead center, with thuggish creeps spread out to either side, was the Morrigan. Crossed arms, cruel smile, and a smoldering stare that promised a slow and painful end. ’Cause yeah, why wouldn’t things end this way?

James had his sword out in a wink, and positioned himself between our group and the Morrigan’s. The point man, ready to lead the charge. He lowered his sword until the tip rested lightly on the ground before him, then carefully folded both hands over the pommel. “First, let me start by wishing you a good evening,” he said, sounding neither worried nor rushed. He looked like a man at his leisure, discussing the morning news with the neighbor before heading off to work for the day.

He certainly didn’t look like some poor schlub facing down a squad of Irish demons, and a casual observer would also never guess he was a man on the verge of extraordinary violence. But I knew the truth. James wasn’t the sort to tip his hand with big talk or showy displays of power. As in many things, we were opposites in that respect. No, he was the kind to smile and nod, cool and calm, right up until he planted a knife in your gut and exploded the brain matter out the back of your friggin’ skull.

“Second,” he continued, “thank you for saving us the trouble of hunting you down. As I assume you must already know, our Judge has uncovered evidence implicating you in the disappearance of the Guild’s ambassador, Scott Hoehner. Your crime is a serious one, and as lieutenant commander of the Fist of the Staff, I hereby charge you with capital offenses against the Guild and her people. Return our ambassador or his remains to us immediately and I will consider leniency in your sentencing.”

She laughed, the cold cackle of a crow. “And if I fail to comply?” she asked after her laughter died.

I pushed up next to James, pointed my hand cannon at her porcelain face, and cocked the hammer back with an audible click. “Then we get to finish our duel, and this time we’re not gonna stop at first blood. Nope. We’re gonna unleash a whole can of Guild-sanctioned whoop-ass on you and yours. And, assuming you’re still alive when we’re through, you’re gonna have to scrape your goons off the ground with a spatula.”

She didn’t laugh this time. Instead she absently caressed her throat, as if recalling the finale to our last encounter, even though no wound remained on her pale skin. Not a mark. “Oh the plans I have for you,” she said. “I will be happy to finish what we started earlier, but sadly, we will have to forgo the pretense of the missing ambassador, since I truly am not responsible for his disappearance.”

“Right,” I said, “and I suppose the fact that he uncovered evidence of your insurrection against the court is one big coincidence. I’m not half as dumb as I look.”

“No. You are far more foolish.” She gave a rueful shake of her head. “As though I cared about the scampering of some insignificant Guild spy. Dagda has seen my revolt coming for ages—it was inevitable—and a little forewarning would change nothing. No, the only thing that pretentious spy could accomplish was alerting the Guild of my plans. Something else that concerns me not at all. The Guild would never dare interfere in the politics or disputes of a sovereign nation.

“For all of his sneaking about,” she continued, “your ambassador uncovered a bit of party trivia—useless at best and utterly meaningless at worst.” She looked past us for a moment, locking her viper’s gaze on Lugh. “No, I am quite sure you can lay the disappearance of your ambassador squarely at his feet. Our dearest Lugh has played you all from the moment you arrived.” She sneered her contempt, though whether for us or Lugh I couldn’t be sure. “A smiling spider, ensnaring you crude creatures in intricate webbing of his design. But none of that is of any consequence now, since I’m going to murder you all slowly and feed you piecemeal to the crows.”

“That is where you are wrong, Morrigan,” Lugh replied, slicing the mounting pressure in the air like a knife. “You have always underestimated humanity and their defenders, and so it will be to your downfall. Crude, short-lived beings they may be, but the magi wield a big stick. If you pursue this revolt, things are going to turn out poorly for you and yours. King Dagda has the boons of the three. In their hands”—he nodded at us—“your coup will be in vain and, at best, you will find yourself living out a very long, very lonely exile.”

“Do you think you are the only one with eyes and ears?” the Morrigan asked. “Many in the court are sympathetic to my cause. I know Dagda has the boons, just as I know why you summoned these three monkeys. But it is already too late to stop—the wheels of my war machine are in motion, my forces underway—and I plan to rob you of these hairless apes before Dagda can ever get the boons in their grubby little hands.” A vicious grin cut across her creamy face. “Much to my personal satisfaction, They. Will. Die.”

That final word, die, hung in the air like the knell of a bell, and then she inclined her head, a minute bob, which sent the Fomorians surging into action, flowing around her in an uneven line that spanned the entire length of the hallway.

The lanky creatures moved with an aquatic grace—oil slipping along the surface of water—mouths yawning in wicked snarls.

James, the closest to the action and never one to shy away from a good brawl, darted in, sword cane in one hand, his other hand out, palm up. He swept his arm left to right, weaving fine streams of water and air, which coalesced into a barrage of icy spikes, clear as glass and sharp as obsidian. The hail of the projectiles, like a cloud of frozen arrows, filled the air and slammed into the frontline fighters: slashing exposed limbs, slicing through armor, and chewing into the flesh beneath.

A few temporarily fell back, wails of pain ripping from lipless faces as hands floundered at the frozen spikes protruding from chests and stomachs and legs. Most, however, didn’t even bother to notice—if anything, the agonized cries of their compatriots spurred the others to even greater levels of violent hate. Screeches of bloodlust filled the hallway as the creatures moved. And the whole while, the Morrigan stood in the back, surveying the battle with dead black eyes.

“You two hold the line while Lugh and I find a way out,” Ailia shouted, her voice amplified by a simple Vis construct so it carried over the din of battle.

“On it,” I called, unleashing a flurry of rounds into the line of scary-ass monsters stampeding toward us like a herd of pissed-off elephants. Despite the severity of our plight, I didn’t fire haphazardly—especially since such pray-and-spray shooting would’ve run the risk of hitting James. Instead, I took my time, lining up my shots to ensure the few rounds I had would do maximum damage. There’s an old saying I’ve hung onto since the Corps: Slow is smooth, and smooth is fast. I believe that all the way to my soul, especially when it comes to shooting.

I exhaled, letting the gun barrel drop to a natural rest, then squeezed the trigger a trio of times, clack, clack, clack. Since I didn’t know how tough these rotten sons of bitches were, I opted for the Mozambique Drill: a double tap to the chest, followed by one to the ol’ noggin. There was a burst of gore the color of liquid mercury as the rounds tore into the first target, and, before I could stop, think, and assess, I shifted my aim just a hair, targeting the second beast: clack, clack, clack.

The pair of Fomorians staggered back, metallic blood splashing through the air as they died. One pitched over, colliding with a second onrushing creature—they went down in a tangle of lanky limbs, silver-gray blood, and squeals of outrage. My other victim leaned drunkenly against the pitted wall, one side of his head missing, though the dickbag was still, somehow, upright. Wasn’t gonna let that shit stand.

I reached into my coat pocket and pulled out a speedloader—a circular metal plate with six rounds preloaded in position. With practiced ease, I flipped out my revolver’s cylinder, slammed down on the ejector rod—letting the spent brass rain to the floor—slid home the fresh rounds, and pushed the cylinder shut, locking it in place with my thumb. Then, I hefted my pistol and fired once, another round to the head, which removed the other side of his face. He toppled, a faceless pile of meat. I pumped three rounds into a thrashing baddy on the floor, then pivoted at the hips and blasted another encroaching creature in its ugly-ass grill. One shot punched through his face, while the other tore out the side of his neck, leaving a huge channel wound behind.

That creature staggered, clamped hands to his ruined throat—blood spurting around his thick fingers—then tumbled to his knees. He reached his other hand toward me, pleading, silver goo frothing from his ruined mouth as the spark of life drained from his black eyes. Almost sad, that.

But I had no time for mourning or reflection. I put the dead from mind as I stowed my gun, sliding it into my shoulder rig, then turned and unleashed a javelin of flame, thick as my wrist, into the wall of gray flesh still lumbering toward me.

Orange tongues of fire burst from my left palm and licked over another of the creatures. For a time, the beast fought on, throwing himself into the blaze as waves of flame swirled around him. Then he caught like a pile of dry tinder. He threw up claw-tipped hands and howled, an agonized shriek, as flickering fire ran over his clothes and clawed at his skin. He fell, thrashing, rolling, arms and legs flailing as the scent of rotten, smoldering salmon, left over-long on the grill, wafted through the hallway with its cloying stink.

A terrible stink that overwhelmed my nostrils and turned my stomach.

I took several long, deep breaths through the mouth, trying to ignore the stench as I looked for James. After a moment, I caught a glimpse of his flashing sword—blade glowing white-hot like a piece of steel fresh from the forge, superheated by flows of flame—as he fought off a trio of creatures that’d managed to box him in. He was doing fine, considering the circumstances: lashing out with fists and feet while he sheared off hands and arms with frightening ease, his blazing sword cauterizing wounds in its wake. But the Fomorians were tough sons of bitches, made to take a lickin’ and keep on tickin’.

I threw out my left arm, hand flying open, and with an effort of will, conjured up a gout of silver force—equal parts air, spirit, and willpower—which rolled along the ground like fast-moving fog. The cloud of primal destruction enveloped a pair of James’s opponents. Silver tentacles, almost alive, slithered around arms and legs and torsos. With a snarl splitting my face, I clenched my fist, exerting my will. The silver mist reacted in an instant, tentacles flexing and contracting, ripping the creatures apart in a violent spasm of force. Body pieces cartwheeled through the air in a truly sickening display of carnage.

They were fish-faced monsters, sure, but that would still be one helluva memory to shake.

Watching those limbs fly apart at the seams reminded me of Corporal Martin, who accidentally stepped on a rigged 105 round in the Vietnam bush—back in ’69 that was. We’d been on patrol and he’d stumbled a little, stepping into the gloomy shade of a squat palm tree, then boom. Terrible sound as light washed over him, through him, made his face and arms shine with a heavenly radiance before he blew apart—his remains hung from the trees. Made me sick to think about.

Sudden motion in my peripheries drew my attention and banished the grisly thought—I glanced back just in time to see a lanky body cannonballing toward me.

ELEVEN:

Here Comes the Boom

The demonic assclown hit me broadside, arms wrapping around me, one blocky shoulder driving into my chest, and then we were both headed for the floor. I crashed into the stone like a car smashing head-on into a brick wall, and I felt every moment of the impact. My hip screamed in anguish. My ribs—still black and blue from that friggin’ minotaur—protested unfair work conditions. And my head … Pain exploded inside my skull and stars erupted in my vision as my head bounced against the ground.

It didn’t help one bit that the Fomorian landed on top of me—and he was one heavy S.O.B. believe you me—shoulder driving deeper into my gut, forcing the air from my lungs. Head reeling, vision blurry, I weakly gasped for breath, which is when an armor-plated elbow smashed into my face, knocking my head to one side and opening a shallow gash along my forehead. My body went into survival mode: chin tucking down to protect my throat, forearms and fists flashing up into a high guard, which mostly covered my face.

Still, more blows rained down, a hail of bony knuckles and pointy elbows, which slammed into my forearms, biceps, and shoulders—though a few glancing blows did slip past my hasty defense and smacked into my face and scalp.

Holy shit, things had escalated quickly.

My vision narrowed at the edges, black creeping in and intermingling with the white stars still loitering in my eyes. Even with my head reeling and my ribs aching, I knew what needed to be done. I drew more deeply from the Vis, calling on the steady power of the earth below me: pulling in bedrock strength and wrapping my senses in a cloak of unshakable rock, which deadened my senses to the hurt and filled me with the fortitude to survive.

The pain, capering through my body like a parade of drunk college kids at Mardi Gras, faded to a dull roar, now just ambient background noise. Understand, that doesn’t actually mean I’d healed my wounds. Nope, not even close. I’d just woven a construct that allowed me to ignore all the gibbering wails of misery my body was shouting at the top of its metaphorical lungs. Temporarily, it was a fantastic idea, since it’d let me keep on keeping on. Long term, though, that kind of ploy is dangerous—pain is your body’s way of saying STOP, moron, and ignoring that pain is a great way to end up with irrevocable, long-term damage.

Unfortunately, Present me was getting my ass beaten into meat-slurry, so Future me would just have to suck it up and deal with the consequences like a big boy.

The Fomorian leaned back, just for a moment, and, with the renewed strength of earth flowing in my limbs, I bucked my hips upward. The move wasn’t pretty to look at, but it did buy me the space I needed to slip one hand underneath me and pull the Baby Glock from its holster. Unfortunately, I had to lower my guard in the process; naturally, the douchehole Fomorian exploited the shit outta that opening by lobbing a ferocious haymaker into the side of my temple, which left me momentarily seeing double.

Whatever. I’d still have the last laugh.

I tucked the petite Glock into the creature’s exposed belly and pulled the trigger, emptying all ten rounds into gray flesh. The Fomorian bucked and convulsed as the rounds sank home, but instead of dying—which really would’ve been the respectful thing to do—he just groped at his stomach and bled on me. Inconsiderate jerk. Since he didn’t have the good grace to keel over, though, I needed to do something. Anything really.

On instinct I tossed the Glock, reached up and grabbed hold of his leather armor and pulled his weight into me while I brought my head up with a jerk. My forehead slammed into a bony ridge with a couple of nostril slits right above his fish-maw. Though the freak didn’t have a traditional nose—there’s a sentence you should pray you never have to say—my head still landed with a crunch of fragile bone and a spray of sudden, silver blood.

He tried to pull away, but before he could, I hooked my arm around his neck and pulled his bulk down onto me so he wouldn’t be able to pummel me in the face with his fists anymore. With one hand, I fumbled my Vis-imbued K-Bar from the sheath at my hip and promptly drove the blade into the Fomorian’s side, sliding it in just beneath the ribs, prison-style. A gout of warm liquid sputtered out and washed over my fist, though I tried to ignore that particular detail, because gross. Even with the grossness of the situation, however, I still found stabbing the asshole to be extremely cathartic.

The horn-clad prick writhing around on top of me shrieked in agony, his body momentarily going rigid as I ripped the blade free. Then the son of a bitch did something I wasn’t expecting: he bit me. Jagged yellow teeth sunk down into the meat of my trapezius—that often overlooked muscle between the neck and shoulder—and powerful jaws dug in like a dog sinking its teeth into a thick-cut steak. My jacket, equal parts leather, Kevlar, and slash-resistant fabric, prevented the teeth from breaking the skin, but that didn’t deaden the crushing force of his jaws.

Pro tip for you: though, on a day-to-day basis, you may not think much about your trapezius muscle, don’t let someone, or something, bite it, ’cause that sucks a bag full of smelly shit.

The teeth bored deeper into my muscle while the Fomorian whipped his head left and right, working his serrated piranha fangs deeper into the fabric every second. Even if he didn’t penetrate the meat of my shoulder, the guy was damn close to snapping my collarbone. Couldn’t let that happen, not if I wanted to live through this—which was quite high on my priorities list. With gritted teeth, I thrust my K-Bar home again, this time jabbing the blade into his lower back, near the spine, hoping to slice something important and paralyze him.

And then—almost as suddenly as it’d come—the crushing pressure was gone. Poof. Just like magic.

But it wasn’t my slipshod bladework that’d done the trick—instead, Snappy McGee had simply let go, his eyes glassy and oddly vacant. He pulled his body from mine and stood over me, covered in his own gore, jagged chunks of intestine drooping from his belly, swaying like a lightweight sailor after a long night of heavy drinking.

The hell was going on here?

Not wanting to waste such an excellent opportunity to not be torn limb from limb and cobbled into a tacky wall display for some ancient, dusty demon, I hastily crawled back, pushing with my heels and pulling with my hands. My shoulder bumped into Ailia’s leg. I glanced up at her and saw the same vacant, thousand-year stare in her eyes that I’d seen in the Fomorian’s eyes a heartbeat before. But there was something else there too. Anger—a metric shit-ton of it. And control.

She was in his head.

Compelling him.

Compulsion—slipping inside of someone’s thoughts and stripping them of their free will—is an ugly, nasty business, and one that’s sort of illegalish, at least if done against a human. And it’s illegal for a damned-good reason. Monkeying around in a human brain can break a person’s mind, erase their personality, even twist them into something contrary to their nature, and let’s face it, folks, that shit’s about as evil as things come. It’s basically rape of the mind. It’s also easy to do if you have the right inclination, but holy shit does it leave you feeling dirty and gross on the inside.

I know from a lot of personal experience.

I’m a fair hand when it comes to glamours and compulsions, maybe even better than fair. But Ailia was better. Maybe the best. That was partly due to her being an empath. Being able to connect with people so easily also allowed her to slip past even the most fortified mental barriers like smoke wafting under a locked door. Usually Ailia avoided wandering down that dark and perilous road, but not always. Like now, for example. Nope, right now she was elbow deep in the Fomorian’s gray matter and she wasn’t playing nice.

The Fomorian, responding to some unheard command, calmly walked over to the nearest wall and, with no muss or fuss, rammed his face into the weathered black rock with every ounce of strength remaining in him. Over and over again—thunk, thunk, thunk—throwing his whole body into each blow while his teeth broke away and his face caved in: eye sockets shattering, eyeballs rupturing, mouth full of bloody pulp. After five or six brutal rounds of self-inflicted bludgeoning, the Fomorian keeled over, limbs twitching, body convulsing, bloody foam bubbling from his deformed maw.

Finally, mercifully, he fell still. Dead.

I love Ailia, but it’s easy to forget just how friggin’ scary she can be. When it came to offensive, hard-hitting battle constructs, she didn’t have much going for her, but that didn’t mean shit. I’ve got a crap-load of battlefield training and that Fomorian had been half a bite away from gnawing off my arm, and Ailia had gruesomely murdered him without lifting a finger. And she wouldn’t regret it, not for a second. She’d rejected a lot of her Spetsnaz training, but when she decided it was time to kill, she worked as coldly and efficiently as a buzz saw.

I shivered involuntarily as I clumsily gained my feet.

She was by my side in an instant, slipping in under one arm, taking some of my weight onto her. She said nothing, though. And what could she say? We both knew exactly how unforgivably vile what she had just done was. Making a creature do something against its survival instinct would’ve required her to fry his mind, to wipe his identity away on the neural level.

Still. She’d saved my life. And who was I to judge her anyhow? Not like I hadn’t done some morally ambiguous things in my days. Love overlooks a multitude of sins, they say, and I guess that’s true.

I surveyed the scene through a blurry haze.

James was standing behind a wall of razor-tipped spikes jutting from the floor, a hasty defensive barrier of conjured stone, temporarily holding the remaining Fomorians at bay. It wouldn’t last long, and that was bad news bears: though the Morrigan was nowhere to be seen, she’d called in backup. We’d started the little throw down against ten of the Fomorian bastards and had whittled their numbers down significantly. Now, a whole friggin’ platoon, twenty-five strong, was dashing through the dusty badlands, kicking up a cloud of debris and grit as they moved, snarls plastered on malformed fish-faces, weapons raised and ready to kill.

They would descend on us in a handful of seconds, and we’d be hard-pressed to stop ’em.

“The way is open!” Lugh hollered, his voice booming and frantic. “But I can’t hold it open for long.”

James was hurling molten balls of gold from one hand and waves of freezing ice from the other, scorching enemies here, and spearing ’em there. It was a damn good bit of battle-crafting, but not good enough against a small army. Not indefinitely.

“Thirteen-Alpha!” I hollered even as I prepared the weaves we would need for the joint working.

James faltered, casting a sidelong look at me over one shoulder. “Don’t screw it up or we’re all dead,” he shouted before turning back to the fray. A halo of white—invisible to all save me, or any other mage—enveloped him a moment later, clothing him in brilliant light as he prepared to bind.

Any mage, by themselves, can dish out a world of face-melting, bone-breaking, soul-crushing hurt, which is the reason why supernatural baddies of most persuasions tread warily around our kind. But the most powerful constructs take more than one mage to pull off. They take a team working in concert: sharing flows of energy, weaving different braids together to construct a single mega-construct far more powerful than the sum of its parts.

Binding.

Since James and I had worked countless ops together, we had a whole playbook of joint workings good for just about any situation imaginable. Including: outnumbered-outgunned-and-pinned-down-in-a-narrow-hallway. In our line of work, that scenario happens quite a bit more often than you might imagine.

Since I could draw far more Vis than James, my job was to gather in all the power we’d need, in just the right quantities, then open myself to James so he could siphon that energy from me, providing the force and willpower, shaping the massive flows of Vis into something useful and deadly. The only problem? Thirteen-Alpha was a delicate working, and one misstep on either side of the equation could create a feedback loop that would certainly kill the approaching Fomorians, but would also smoke our asses good and final.

But hey, it still wasn’t as risky as letting a bunch of demonic Irish dipshits turn us all into a savory deli platter. Sometimes you just gotta roll the dice and hope they don’t come up snake eyes.

First, I summoned a huge reserve of air, then drew on earthen-power from the strange stone surrounding us. A delicate lacework of magnetic force and ever-shifting water, wicked from the air, joined the mix, twining around the other elemental forces, binding them in place with a vise grip of willpower and force.

In a heartbeat, the construct I wanted took a rough shape: a hazy cloud, invisible to most eyes, which pulsed with a fierce purple light, shot through with thin strands of gold. The weight of the primal power was intense and the individual weaves slick—holding the damned thing together was like trying to juggle a quartet of hungry, ill-tempered mountain lions.

And the construct was only half done. The other half was entirely on James’s shoulders.

Last, I conjured a column of energy, this one a twisting pillar of raw, unshaped Vis and will—the weaves nearly identical to those used for heavy-duty glamours—and pushed the column out like a battering ram. The working collided against James like a gale force wind, rocking him forward as the nimbus of light surrounding him exploded in intensity from a pale white to a blinding gold. As the binding took hold, temporarily giving James access to all the power flowing through me, the pressure of maintaining the complex working vanished.

I was no longer in the driver seat, so to speak. The power still raged through me, sure, but now I was a passive member in the equation: a conduit, a battery, while James formed the rest of the working. With a veritable Mack truck of will, he forced the last element into place: Vim. With his sword blade, he scored a shallow gash across the back of his hand; the crimson blood flared along the weapon’s edge and evaporated into a misty red haze that swirled and swayed in the air before joining the working.

Vim is the stored life energy of creation, a divine power that ebbs and flows in the veins of every living thing—humans most of all. One of the most powerful substances in the world. Powerful enough to even stave off death, which is why vampires need to drink the stuff by the friggin’ bucket-load. It’s not the blood itself that sustains them, it’s the Vim, the life energy, stored within. And with enough Vim, a mage could supercharge any working into something a thousand times more destructive, which was why so many of the most powerful ol’ timey rituals called for human sacrifice.

As the Vim joined the elemental party, the construct shifted, purple light giving way to a rolling, tumultuous cloud of orange that manifested in the air. Inside the volcanic cloud, arcs of electric blue light flashed back and forth as terrible static built around us. A bona fide lightning storm in a bottle.

With a final shout, James dropped his sword cane and threw both hands outward, fingers splayed out like a maestro bringing a song to its crescendo, and the orange cloud responded in kind. It surged forward, washing over James’s hasty defensive barrier, quickly swallowing the approaching ranks of Fomorians, momentarily obscuring them from view.

Then the terrified howls began—interrupted by the sizzle-crack of an electric chair on full-tilt—while dizzying blasts of purple-white energy flashed, briefly outlining the convulsing forms of Fomorians dying horrible deaths.

James leaned over—knees quivering, hands trembling, breaths coming in quick, shallow pulls—grabbed his sword, and hightailed it toward us. “It’s unstable,” he yelled, feet smacking against the floor as he sprinted our way.

Well shit.

Ailia and I spun, her still supporting most of my weight, and followed James’s lead: running for everything we were worth, which sadly wasn’t much at that point.

Lugh stood twenty-five feet off. What had once been a dead end of black stone was now a yawning opening, which led directly into the Stonehenge-inspired throne room. While we ran, the latent charge in the air built and built and built, the hair on my head and arms rising to rigid attention.

James swooped in beside me, swung under my other arm, then promptly hoisted me onto his shoulder in an awkward and painful fireman’s carry. My gut and chest burned with every step he took, as his shoulder was jabbing into me with considerable force, but we were making damn good time. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw James shove Ailia onward. “Run!” he hollered. “Don’t worry about us, this is par for the course.” That was a total, bold-faced lie.

Had I not been bouncing up and down on his shoulder, trying not to puke or pass out, I would’ve called shenanigans. Nothing about this situation was even remotely close to normal.

Still, it got her ass sprinting ahead, which I was grateful for. No reason for all of us to go out in a final blaze of fiery glory.

I watched—mounting horror waltzing with blooming awe—as the tremendous lightning cloud, engulfing the host of Fomorians, began to break apart like a festive doom-themed piñata.

Without James focusing his will and holding the massive amounts of energy in the construct together, the working was tearing itself apart as the various elemental forces ripped free and dissipated. And all that ripping and tearing—moving from a high energy state to a lower energy state—made for a very lively fireworks display. Huge gusts of wind slapped against my face as the lightning cloud devolved into a churning, twirling, lightning tornado.

Yes, an honest-to-goodness lightning tornado.

The vortex—its base as wide as a towering redwood—roared through the barren desert-scape, discharging white-hot bolts of energy that left patches of slick glass in its wake. Simultaneously, the churning cloud scooped up distorted, charbroiled bodies and tossed them into the air like some toddler scattering their playthings. Worst of all, this terrifying construct was only the beginning. In a minute—or maybe even only a handful of seconds—that tornado would devolve further, imploding in on itself and releasing the remainder of its pent-up energy in a single blast that’d make any military-grade bunker-buster envious.

The explosion came much sooner than I’d anticipated.

One second a spiraling whirlwind of certain destruction filled my vision, and the next, a light erupted from the tornado’s center. A light so bright, even after I closed my eyes in response, a purple afterimage was stained on the back of my eyelids. A rumbling detonation followed, the crack-bang of a thousand claps of thunder, and a whump of hot air slammed into my face. Then I was weightless, my body sailing ass over teakettle, my arms and legs flapping and waving as I fell.

TWELVE:

Three Boons

The blast had thrown me away from James and, somehow, I’d ended up on my back in the thick grass carpeting the throne room, vacantly staring toward the cavernous, gem-studded sky overhead. One of the strange fruit-covered trees towered nearby, casting a pale shade over my face. I just lay there, breathing hard, mentally scanning my body and ensuring all my limbs were still where they belonged.

My head throbbed like someone had taken a jackhammer to the inside of my skull.

Just thinking about my ribs and chest left me feeling nauseous.

And my friggin’ shoulder? That son of a bitch felt like the survivor of a bear mauling, which wasn’t too far from the mark.

I was also honest-to-goodness smoking-—and I’m not talking cigarettes here, though that would have been one helluva good idea. No, curls of steam and blue-gray smoke literally wafted off my jacket from the heat of that final explosion. I absently rubbed at my face and realized my eyebrows had been singed off in the process. My skin was also too tight and tender, like I had a helluva sunburn, and my cheeks felt suspiciously smooth—the five o’ clock shadow I usually sported was gone. Insult to injury right there. The hair on my head was mostly intact, though, and all my limbs were present and accounted for.

So what if I looked like a naked mole-rat? I was alive and more or less okay. Take your victories where you can get ’em, am I right?

After a few seconds I pushed myself up onto my elbows and surveyed the scenery. I was expecting to find some world-class, scorched-earth devastation, but surprisingly there was none. Not to the throne room proper, at any rate. The brilliant-green grass was still immaculate, the monolithic ring of pillars surrounding us stood untouched, and the riot of flowers looked untroubled by our plight. No blackened earth to be seen and no mound of crispy, charbroiled critters. The hallway we’d come from, and the arid, desolate desert beyond, were gone. Vanished. Just like my eyebrows. And all the corpses along with it.

Instead I was left staring at the massive double doors, currently closed tight, sealing off the throne room completely.

Next to the doors sat a very ashen-looking Lugh, sweating profusely, pulling in great lungfuls of air as though he’d just finished running a friggin’ marathon, his spear leaning against the doors. “That was something. Put my heart crossways, it did,” he said, panting. “Let’s not try to do that again if we can avoid it.”

With a groan, I pushed myself to my feet. Well, I tried, but didn’t quite manage it. Ailia shuffled over to me, moving with a weary obstinacy, and offered me both hands. Reluctantly, I let her help me up.

She slid around me once I was standing, carefully positioning herself between me and Lugh, before running a hand over my face, tracing a finger along one of my missing eyebrows. She looked no worse for the wear, and I was suddenly thankful as all hell that James had pushed her on ahead of us. “Oh, moi kotik, are you okay?” she asked. “For a moment I thought …” She trailed off, then looked away, reaching up and wiping away a lone tear with the back of one hand. “It doesn’t matter what I thought.

“The important thing is you’re alive. Though your poor face. Luckily I’m not with you for your looks.” Her lips quirked at the corners, but I could tell she wasn’t really feeling it. “When this is done, say we can ago away for a while. Just the two of us. You can play your music. I can read good books until late in the night and sleep in the next morning. We can travel. Go to the beach, spend time in the mountains. Please, Yancy?”

I looked down at her and smiled, then drew her into a bear hug, my arms enfolding her. I squeezed her tight, despite the fact it felt like someone was karate-chopping me in the solar plexus. I kissed her forehead, then rested my nose in her hair, taking in a big whiff of that fancy soap she used, desperate to banish the scent of charred meat and death.

“Alright,” I whispered, pitching my voice low so the promise was for her ear alone, then pulled away far enough to offer her a real kiss. Our lips touched: hers soft and tender, mine rough and splattered with baked-on blood—some mine, most Fomorian. She leaned into me despite that, and suddenly a wave of power rolled out from her, invading my senses like a splash of cool water on a scorching-hot day, and all the hurt and ache in my body melted away. Well, not completely, but enough that it no longer hurt to stand or to hold her tight.

She slumped and dropped away, a small cry of anguish escaping her lips. Her skin was pale, clammy, and washed-out as though she were recovering from a bad case of flu.

“Let me sit a moment,” she wheezed, her voice suddenly tired, stretched thin. “I’ll be okay in no time.” She patted my too-smooth cheek. “In no time.”

Carefully, gently, I lifted her into my arms—a groom carrying his bride across the threshold—and deposited her by a stone pillar, near where James was laying. After I made sure she was seated and comfortable, I scooted over and popped a squat near James, assessing him with a critical eye. He was awake, though he looked drained, the weariness bone deep. Slugging out a hasty battle like that, even though it’d lasted only a few minutes, was exhausting. Imagine running a triathlon with a fridge strapped to your back and you’re in the ballpark.

He also looked pissed.

Probably that was because his normally fine attire was slashed, burned, and stained in a multitude of places with splatters of silver and streaks of crimson. Worse still, his neat, wavy 1920s ’do was all kinds of screwed up and his eyebrows hadn’t fared any better than mine. In fact, I’d say his brows looked worse: the explosion had singed away his entire left eyebrow, but only a partial swath of his right, leaving behind a comically small tuft of hair. Yeah, that little teardrop shaped splotch loitering above his eye was definitely worse.

“Good work in there,” I said, trying not to stare or laugh.

He nodded, just a tired bob of his head, but said nothing.

“You okay?” I asked after a moment.

“Swell,” he finally said. “But once I can pull my ass off this floor, I swear someone is going to have a very, very bad day. Also, as a side note really, you look awful—like a cucumber with eyes and a nose. You should stay away from cameras for a while, I think.”

I reached over and patted him on the shoulder. “You ever hear the one about throwing stones in glass houses?” I asked.

He reached up, fingertips gingerly sketching over the mostly smooth skin along his brows. “I’m going to murder someone,” he said through gritted teeth.

“At least we’re on the same page,” I replied. “Now you lay there and fume. I’m gonna go punch that douchebag”—I jabbed a thumb toward Lugh—“in the nose. Maybe more than once. Then I’ll get us some answers. Kay?”

He nodded and laid his head back, closing his eyes and taking a few deep breaths through his nose.

With that, I stood up—feeling a damned bit better thanks to Ailia’s unasked for intervention—and ambled over to Lord Lugh, who stood near the massive entryway doors, grasping his spear in one hand. “Let’s not do anything hasty,” the Danann noble said, though a crooked, nervous grin told me he expected something very hasty indeed.

I didn’t disappoint him.

Without preamble, I walked straight over, cocked my fist back, and threw my whole weight into a wicked right hook, which caught him full in the side of the face and dropped him to the floor like a sack of cement. Guy knew he had it coming—he didn’t even try to avoid my swing. He took the blow like a contrite parishioner doing penance. After a moment, he regained his feet and offered me another lopsided grin followed by a shrug. “I’ll admit, maybe that was warranted.”

“Nope, that was just warm-up.” I threw another fist into his gut. He doubled over in a whoff, spear landing in the grass as he clutched at his knees. “You’ve been gaming us since the moment we got here,” I said, “and since you almost got us killed, I think a couple of shots doesn’t come close to making us even. So, you’d better start talking, douchenozzle, or I’m gonna skip to the part where I stop punching you and just set you on fire. Sound like a plan?”

He flopped down onto his ass, sprawled his legs out, and slumped back against the doors, somehow deflated. He casually brushed his palms on his tunic, completely unconcerned by my threats to start an impromptu barbeque with him as the main course. “So I wasn’t completely forthright,” he said after a time. “Perhaps I know where the ambassador is—not dead, nor even hurt, just in an undisclosed safe house far from the Morrigan.”

“Where I come from, that’s called being a dirty, no-good bullshiter. The real question, though, is why?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” Ailia said. I stole a look over my shoulder and caught her shaking her head. “Zadrota”-—idiot, she said to herself. “I can’t believe I didn’t see it sooner. You and Dagda knew the Morrigan was planning a revolt with the Fomorians. You already knew what was in the ambassador’s report. But you also knew the other lords and ladies were leaning toward the Morrigan, so they weren’t likely to come to your aid.” She messaged her temple with one hand. “And you couldn’t request help from the Guild directly because it would make you look like a lapdog.

“More importantly,” she continued, “you knew the Guild wouldn’t help anyway—not since we have a non-intervention policy when it comes to internal political disputes.” She slapped her hands against her legs in frustration. “The Guild would never pick sides in a bloody civil war, especially if there was a good chance your faction would be the losers. Too much risk for too little reward.

“But if you framed the Morrigan for the disappearance of our ambassador, you could force the Guild to take action. So you convinced Mr. Hoehner he was in danger, removed him to a safe house, ransacked his room, and invited us here—knowing we would eventually uncover his findings and blame the Morrigan. Then we’d be forced to execute judgment on her, and if anything happened to us, the Guild would retaliate.”

“You are exactly as good as everyone says you are,” Lugh replied, looking past me toward her. “Unfortunately, uncovering that truth now is absolutely pointless. First, I am not admitting to anything, but even if you were correct, I have committed no crime against the Guild, and I can hardly be blamed if you had come to an incorrect conclusion based on evidence gleaned from your own spy. The Guild would have no course of action to pursue against me or my king.”

I grunted, hands curling into tight fists. “You’re a real son of a bitch,” I said. “But you know what, it doesn’t even matter, ’cause this isn’t our problem, not anymore. This is your mess, so you can clean it up your damned self. We’re done here.”

“Well, you see that’s where you’re wrong,” Lugh replied, that damned mischievous smirk spreading on his narrow, conniving face. “The Morrigan is no dunce—she’s been around an awfully long time, and she has surely reasoned out that she is being framed. So, at this stage in the game, her only possible course of action is to strike and win the throne before you can summon reinforcements from the Guild. If she’s occupying that chair”—he gestured toward the earthen throne—“she’ll be the sitting monarch of the Tuatha De Danann and the Guild won’t seek restitution for your deaths. Simple as that, which is why she’s marching on us, army in tow, as we speak.

“Now, you three are certainly free to leave whenever the fancy takes you, but since we are currently in a state of emergency, I must inform you that the court cannot provide you with an escort to navigate the ever-changing hallways of Tír na nÓg. You’re welcome to try and traverse them yourselves, but there’s a good chance you will become hopelessly mired for all eternity.” He frowned and shrugged, as though to say sorry for the slight inconvenience. “So until the court resolves its business, you’re stuck here, I’m afraid. Though feel free to sit on the sidelines while the court settles this dispute.”

“Wait, oh no.” He held his hand up to his mouth, feigning surprise as though he’d just realized some cruel turn of fate. “The Morrigan has a personal blood vendetta against all three of you, so should the current administration fail to turn back the Morrigan and her army of bloodthirsty, demonic monsters—I hear they also like to eat people—then surely you will be next in line. Oh, what rotten luck.”

“You dirty, underhanded son of a bitch. You shanghaied us. I bet you set this up from the beginning.”

He shrugged. “Again, in your hypothetical situation, I suppose that is possible. Your ambassador and I played chess often, and one of the things I’ve learned about chess is this: you must always be planning several moves ahead, and you can never depend on only a single strategy. Is it possible I arranged your disastrous introduction to the court, forcing a confrontation between the three of you and the Morrigan, thus giving you a very good incentive to join my cause should things unravel?” He shrugged again, then casually regarded his fingernails. “Well I suppose someone with the right devious inclination could do that.”

My urge to string him up from his heels and slowly lower him into a vat of acid was increasing exponentially by the moment. I even found my hand inching toward the garrote in my pocket, my mind playing through all the ways I might choke the life from Lord Lugh’s smarmy, assholeish, know-it-all body.

“In truth, though,” Lugh continued, “all of this talk is neither here nor there. The fact is an army of Fomorians—led by a murderous, vindictive war goddess—is about to invade this room, and we’re all stuck in here together for better or worse. It seems like we would all mutually benefit from pooling our resources and working together. Should we win the day, I will personally open one of these way-portals”—he waved a hand toward the gray stone archways, currently looking into empty black space—“and see all of you free from this place.”

Instead of the garrote, I drew my hand cannon, hefted the bad boy, and leveled the barrel at Lugh’s head. “If you can wave your hand and open us a portal, then do it now.”

Lugh crossed his ankles, folded his hands primly, and frowned. “I have no incentive whatsoever to do that. I want you stranded here, one way or the other, until the bitter end. And, on a positive note, I think if we work together, we have a real chance of winning this thing. You see, Oghma is currently shoring up our defenses to buy us a little time, while Dagda is fetching a secret weapon—”

A crack of power ripped through the room, followed by a flash of emerald light and the crisp sent of ozone, as the gigantic king strode through an opalescent portal hanging in the center of the room. He held a small dark wood chest, bound with simple brass fittings, in one oversized hand. His half-ton club was in the other.

“Ah, speak of the devil and he appears, no?” Lugh offered with a smile.

“Have they agreed to give battle with us?” Dagda asked as he marched forward, the portal snapping shut behind him with a sizzle of raw power.

James stood, face hard, eyebrows—well, what was left of ’em—furrowed, gaze seething with barely restrained anger, arms folded across his broad chest. “As the acting commander for this mission, I have decided we will fight with you under the terms offered by your man, there”—he canted his head at Lugh—“but I swear to God above you’re going to pay for this treachery.”

“That is something I’m prepared to live with,” Lugh said, lazily climbing to his feet before ushering us toward Dagda, who sprawled in his ginormous throne. “Now let’s get you three prepped for battle.”

James nodded as he stalked forward, planting himself a few feet away from the sprawling chair of tree roots and stone.

“I would apologize for the guile we have used against you,” Dagda said, tone grave and heavy, “but I wouldn’t mean it, nor do we have the time for empty regret and hand wringing. The Morrigan is close and her army is … formidable. Oghma, capable as he is, will not delay them for long.”

“And you expect the three of us to make a difference against an army?” James asked, voice dripping venom.

“We will have an army of our own, as you shall soon see,” Dagda replied. “But even so, it will not be enough. With you three, however, I believe we can prevail.” He carefully unhinged the top of the chest and flipped back the lid, revealing the contents within: an underwhelming assortment of ol’ timey junk that even Goodwill would probably toss in the shitcan. A dented, beat-to-shit chalice. A tarnished silver necklace—a braided ring with a couple of stylized ravens on the ends, called a torc. And a wood-handled hand scythe, like a farmer might use to harvest a crop of wheat.

“Holy shit,” I said, face flat as an airport tarmac, “how can we possibly lose with that worthless pile of crap in our corner? We’ll have the edge on them for sure.”

King Dagda said nothing, but offered me a long, unamused stare, the corners of his uneven mouth drooping. “Once, long and long ago, we didn’t rule these lands—they belonged to the Fomorians. Evil tyrants who governed with an iron fist and demanded the darkest of dark sacrifices. Once we, the Tuatha De Danann, served under their heel like peasants … Until we didn’t. Until we said we would live as slaves of despotism no longer and threw back the Fomorians, forcing their ilk into the dimmest corners of creation where they belong.”

He paused, blunt, ugly face pensive as he stared at the knickknacks in the wooden chest. “But we didn’t do it alone. Though the Morrigan may not think highly of the magi, our kind has reason both to fear and respect your people. Our people were not the only ones to suffer under the Fomorians—humans, little more than chattel, bore the brunt of their cruelty. Working the land only to turn their crops over to corrupt masters. Children stolen away from parents and offered in profane rites. Young women taken to warm Fomorian beds against their will. The Druids came to us, three of them. Mathgen Earth-shaker, Figol mac Mamois, the Firebrand, Dían Cécht, the healer.

“On behalf of humanity, they pledged themselves to us in an alliance to overthrow the Fomorians. These”—he nodded toward the items in the box—“are their boons. Ancient instruments which dramatically amplify the abilities of the wielders. Immensely powerful tokens. And dangerous. The boons are linked—each artifact balancing out the others—and should one of you fall, the other two may well perish in turn. Such was the fate of Mathgen, Figol, and Dían Cécht, though their boons were collected and held in trust, should the need for their use ever come again.”

“And it just so happens you have a super-secret weapon of mass destruction that needs three magi, just, you know, lying around in the ol’ junk drawer,” I said. “What a lucky break.”

“Don’t be a fool,” the king replied with a ponderous shake of his head. “Luck is for amateurs and coincidence a fluke. My brothers and I have ruled the Danann for three thousand years. Three thousand years of pretenders to the throne. Three thousand years of political intrigue. Three thousand years of changing times and shifting sands. We make our own luck.”

“We were picked,” Ailia said, edging forward, staring at the items in the chest. “Every part of this mission was one big magic trick. Everything we found, every interaction and conversation, every sight and sound were all just slight of hand and misdirection. You specifically summoned the three of us, knowing things would turn out this way.”

“Just so.” The king dipped his chin in gracious acknowledgment.

“Now,” Lugh said, taking a position next to Dagda, “the question is, will you three bear the boons? Have we deceived you all terribly? Obviously. But will you take your justifiable indignation to the grave or will you choose life?”

“You leave us little choice,” Ailia said, strutting forward and fishing the dented chalice from the chest. “There is a Russian proverb: Beda nikogda ne prihodit odna—trouble never comes alone.” A shimmering ruby haze exploded from the chalice as Ailia embraced the Vis. “You have forced our hand in this, but it may bite you in the end.” She smiled, the look hard and anything but friendly. “Trouble never comes alone, and I think this is but the beginning of your troubles. Of all our troubles.”

THIRTEEN:

Death Stroke

The throne room had undergone some radical renovations as we’d prepared to give battle to the Morrigan and her Fomorian horde. All of the stone archways—interdimensional gateways tied to sites all over Inworld and Out—had been barricaded: temporarily cut off from the ley lines which powered them, and further sealed shut by impenetrable walls of gnarled vines and thorn-covered vegetation. Though Lugh assured us an emergency exit could be conjured if the need arose, to me it looked like we were boxed in good and solid.

Apart from extraordinary measures, the only way in or out was through the massive double doors, which served as the primary entryway to the room.

Still—despite being backed into a corner like wild animals—I felt uncharacteristically optimistic about our chances. I mean, sure, there was a tight knot of fear churning in my guts, swelling and growing with every passing second, morphing into a creeping dread with teeth and claws that gnawed and scratched at my insides. But I worked to beat that ugly, snarling fear-beast into submission because we did have some damned-good reasons for optimism.

First, we had one helluva good defense perimeter set up. We’d created a pair of impressive bulwark barriers, which protected our flanks while also creating a tight bottleneck in the middle of the throne room. Breaching the walls would be damned near impossible, so the invading ground element would have little choice but to fight their way through the narrow funnel, which would turn into a friggin’ slaughterhouse. All those gibbering Fomorian, attempting to push and shove their way through an eight-foot opening, would make for easy pickings.

I paced to and fro on the right-hand berm—an earthen monstrosity of black, pitted volcanic magma, called from the deep places of the earth and cooled with huge geysers of water. Mostly, I looked down on the green grass below, waiting for the arrival of the Morrigan, doing my damnedest to ignore the boon in my palm: the ol’ timey hand scythe. The boon of Figol mac Mamois, the Firebrand. All of our fancy, Vis-wrought barriers had been painstakingly crafted without the use of the boons. James, Ailia, and I knew we were gonna have to use the boons eventually, but we were reluctant.

Screwin’ around with ancient artifacts and weaponry you didn’t understand was always dangerous business and a good way to kill or maim yourself in a terribly gruesome fashion.

Opposite me, loomed a massive wall of blue ice—ten feet high, five feet thick, and imposing as all hell—conjured from the bubbling brook that ran the length of the throne room.

Ailia was there, sitting atop the glacier-barricade, knees crossed Indian style, eyes closed, chest rising and falling in deep, rhythmic breaths. Meditating. Preparing. She held the dented chalice—the boon of Dían Cécht, the healer—in both hands, the base of the cup resting in her lap. Her face was utterly serene, smooth and natural and beautiful. She looked like she was sleeping, though, in reality, I knew she was as sharp and focused as a surgeon headed into the operating room.

The second reason for optimism? We had James Sullivan, the lieutenant commander of the Fist of the Staff, calling our plays, and there was no one better in the business. That flapper asshole was hovering—yeah, hovering—twenty or so feet above us, suspended in the air on one of the huge gray slabs of stone, which had to weigh a couple of tons easy. He’d tapped into the ley lines—metaphysical aquifers of raw Vis—beneath the throne room, and had leveraged that sustainable energy to magnetically charge the ginormous hunk of rock. Turned the slab of stone into a flying platform repelled from the earth’s magnetic field and held steady by massive flows of air.

Badass to the max.

Guy had an eagle-eye view of the battlefield; from up there, he’d be able to direct Ailia and I while simultaneously raining down death on anything unlucky enough to be below. I glanced up at him, just for a moment, then let out a long sigh. I was optimistic, true, but if things went sideways here—and in a brawl like this, things could go to nine kinds of hell in a blink—this might be the last time I ever saw that douche-waffle. He wore the tarnished silver torc around his neck, the boon of Mathgen Earth-shaker, and absently twirled his sword cane in one hand, the blade sailing through graceful arcs. His eyes were hazy, out of focus, and I knew he was going through a slew of battle scenarios:

What if the enemy flanks us on the right? On the left? What if they have aerial units? How should we respond? Should we need to fall back, where should we go?

Yeah, if anyone could get us outta this shit-storm, it was him.

And third, we had an army.

Yeah, did I forget to mention that? ’Cause that was a big plus. I mean it wasn’t a huge army, only a hundred strong, but an army is still a friggin’ army. On that point, at least, Dagda hadn’t been completely full of shit. The fighters were spectral creatures, their flesh emerald green and semi-translucent, with bits of yellowed bone peeking through in places. The Warriors of Renown: heroic Irish spirits bound to the throne of the Tuatha De Danann and summoned from Tír Tairngiri—the Land of Promise—to wage battle.

Some were short and squat, others tall and lean, many were beefy, and a spattering were fat as hell. A handful of women dotted the ranks as well. The weapons they bore were as thoroughly diverse as the warriors themselves—great-swords, battle-axes, spears, pole-arms, bows, slings—but, uniformly, they held their assorted weapons with an unnerving confidence. Each also had neon-green glyphs and sigils running over their ghostly bodies in elaborate swirls, and despite their differences, one and all were fierce as machete-wielding, armor-clad grizzly bears.

I wouldn’t want to tangle with ’em, that’s for damn sure.

They loitered before the door, forever-silent snarls marring undead faces, ethereal muscles tense as they waited for battle.

Lugh waited among their number, standing at the front of the formation, ready to engage the Morrigan when she came charging through those doors. The conniving, shitheel trickster god had donned leather armor—supple and worked in gold—over his customary green robes. He didn’t look worried, not in the least. If anything, he looked bored, like a schmuck stuck in line at the DMV just waiting for someone to call his number so he could handle his business, head home, and find something better to do with his afternoon: like watch the golf channel.

Dagda, on the other hand, was behind me, sitting atop his throne, well behind our formidable defensive perimeter. Like Lugh, the Danann King had opted for a wardrobe change, exchanging his flowing white robes for battle armor which resembled the bastard progeny of an M1A1 Abrams tank and a Mad Max flick: all thick heavy steel and protruding spikes. The armor was mostly for show, however, since Dagda wouldn’t actually do any fighting—at least not in the physical sense of the word. Hell, the guy couldn’t defend himself even if he wanted to since he was literally rooted to his seat: green vines and dry brown tree roots grew into his arms and legs like thick cables of IV tubing.

No, Dagda wouldn’t be fighting. Instead, he’d be commanding the ghostly soldiers through the vegetation growing into him from the throne itself. From what I had gathered, the Warriors of Renown were inescapably bound to serve Tír na nÓg, and Tír na nÓg was, in kind, inescapably bound to the will of the throne. So, instead of hooking and jabbing up close and personal, Dagda would wage war through the spectral fighters—seeing through their eyes and manipulating each being as an extension of himself. Instead of one powerful warrior, Dagda was a hundred peerless fighters. Pretty neat trick when it gets right down to it.

A rumbling boom jarred me from my thoughts as the doors rattled in their frame, bowing inward from the force of whatever had hit ’em.

Holy shit, holy shit, holy shit.

My fingers clenched tight around the scythe in my sweaty hand. I’d waited as long as I could, but there was no more time to stall.

This was it.

BOOM-CRACK. The doors flexed appreciably, the wood straining against the brass bands and rivets holding them together, groaning from the sudden pressure.

It was now or never.

A third and final BOOM-CRACK reverberated throughout the room as the doors ruptured; splinters, bits of metal, huge chunks of wood, and a blinding cloud of dust exploded inward. A deadly shower of debris and shrapnel, which brought with it the sound of music: The shrill cry of bagpipes marched through the doors; an army of bass drums hammered out a thunderous cadence, which vibrated the ground beneath me; and the sing-song trill of flutes weaved and drifted along the other melodies. Celtic battle music at its finest.

I guess if we had to do this, at least we could have some tunes.

I pushed the air from my lungs in a steady exhale, held for a heartbeat, then inhaled life and power, not directly drawing from the source, but rather siphoning a torrent of Vis through the scythe, using the tool as a buffer. Then, the innocuous scythe burst to life with a flash of white-hot light so epic it momentarily blinded me.

Time seemed to lurch and grind to a herky-jerky halt—stealing a deep breath all its own—as power flooded into my veins: a cascade of magma, a lightning blast, a force of nature looking to burn me up and strike me down and drag me kicking and screaming into the heart of a raging sea storm. So. Much. Power. More power then I’d ever handled before. And as that power washed through my fragile body, a new sense bloomed inside me, unfurling in the back of my mind like the petals of a flower.

An awareness of James and Ailia: for better or worse, we were bound together in that moment, bound by purpose and by the driving, primal force undergirding all Creation.

Bound by the boons.

I could sense Ailia, could feel her fear and worry, but above that, her fierce love for me shone like a golden sun, pulsing in time with her heartbeat.

And I could feel James, a writhing ball of mixed emotions. Boiling rage. Anxious anticipation. A hunger for the killing to come. All tied together by an unshakable determination to see the three of us home safe.

As I watched a plank of wooden shrapnel cruise toward me in slow motion, I realized the three boons where simply filters. Empty vessels that worked together to draw and hold an overflow of Vis while tying the wielders of the boons together as one, spreading around the gigantic force so no one drew too much. Really it wasn’t so different from the binding I’d done with James when we’d made our daring getaway. Just bigger. I’d been the vessel then, a battery filled with juice to be channeled. These boons were ginormous, supercharged batteries of awesomeness.

I smiled as the lazily cartwheeling chunk of wood drew closer to my face, then casually conjured a shimmering dome of blue light, which stopped that pesky piece of shrapnel dead in its tracks. More bits of wood and brass slammed into the shield with a flare of blue-white light, then dropped to the ground as, all at once, time resumed its normal flow.

Oghma, the battle-axe wielding meathead, came flying through the billowing cloud of debris like he’d been fired from the smoking barrel of a friggin’ Howitzer—thanks to a ferocious right hook from the Morrigan. Big ol’ beefy bastard streaked through the air—doubled over in pain, back bowed, arms and legs streaming out in front of him—and bowled into Lugh, who stood with one arm raised, covering his eyes against the swirling rubbish. The brothers collided in a smack of flesh, but instead of tumbling to the ground in a pile of limbs, Lugh, who couldn’t have weighed more than a buck seventy-five, absorbed the impact without moving an inch.

Guy didn’t budge. Color me impressed.

As the dust and wood debris finally settled, I caught my first glimpse of the Fomorian army, and holy shit were we boned. Three hundred of ’em—maybe four? It was tough to tell—spread out across the now-familiar bleak gray desert-scape. I’d expected to be outnumbered, but we were talking three or four to one here. And we weren’t just facing Fomorians. I’d been prepared for the countless fish-faced dickheads, but there were others things occupying their ranks besides. Creatures I’d only ever read about in the Guild’s bestiaries:

Positioned at the rear of the sprawling formation was a small platoon of women, each and every one of ’em a knockout—hair dark, skin flawless and creamy, movements stately and regal. All sported long flowing gowns of white, and each held an instrument of one sort or another. They were obviously the source of the jams, and though I wasn’t sure what they were, I was putting my money on Bean Sidhe: cousins to the High Fae of Winter.

Next came a cadre of shriveled, pale-faced women—faces skeletal, eye sockets empty, noses sheared away from decay—who littered the ranks of the Fomorians, driving the battle squadrons onward with dangling whips of gleaming bone and bloody muscle and ropy sinew. They were Dearg Due. Exceedingly rare Irish vampires. The shrunken women loomed high above the others, twenty feet or more in the air, and crept about on ropy tentacles of black hair like a school of nightmarish octopi.

And then there were the hulking, quadrupedal sluagh. Frog-like beasts of muscle, scales, and bristly hair, which lurched along the uneven terrain, bearing Fomorian riders on their broad backs. The sluagh were stupid creatures that stared out on the world with vacant, bulbous yellow eyes, luminous in the night, which sat above wide gullets ringed with spikes and teeth. Not unlike the Cŵn Annwn—hellhounds of the Wild Hunt—the sluagh were said to track down the souls of the wicked who attempted to flee from judgment.

At the head of the encroaching army, like the tip of a thrusting spear, was the Morrigan, riding on one of the sluagh, curved scythe raised high, a small murder of crows circling overhead, their wings beating at the air with a steady rustle. As the battle music rolled over us, she slowly scanned the room, pausing for a moment as her implacable gaze met mine. A snarl blossomed on her face and then she was moving. With a gurgled roar, nearly lost beneath the waves of music, the sluagh charged.

Oghma, now back on his feet, and Lugh threw themselves at the Irish war goddess, weapons lashing and shouts of battle rising up as the trio began their dance. They moved like lightning and smoke, the three of them—striking, deflecting, ducking, dodging—so fast my eyes could hardly follow. Didn’t matter though, because I didn’t have time to watch anyway. The troops had arrived.

Dagda’s spectral warriors surged forward; a platoon of ghostly fighters encircled Lugh, Oghma, and the Morrigan—ensuring they would fight free from interference—while the rest crashed into onrushing ranks of Fomorians and other assorted horrors.

The carnage was intense and immediate. Ghostly green blades sliced through Fomorian armor, spilling strings of stinking guts to the ground. Fomorian weapons hacked through conjured limbs and yellow bone, leaving behind piles of ectoplasmic goop in their wake. Sluagh were split in two by great war axes. In turn, the sluagh slashed with razor-tipped talons, scoring deep gashes in the unlucky, or used their powerful jaws to rip away anything they could get their teeth on. And the vampiric Dearg Due—few in number, but deadly—swayed above the fray, lashing out with wicked bone-whips or lobbing shimmering red globs of acid. Blood magic.

Dagda’s Warriors of Renown fought better, harder, taking two or three Fomorians for every casualty, but there were casualties. Plenty of ’em.

“Engage!” James commanded, his voice booming out like a gun blast. “Hold the line.”

Then I went to work:

I murdered them wholesale.

Cutting ’em down with spears of white flame like a butcher at a slaughterhouse. Ripping hundred-pound hunks of stone from the ground and cannonballing them into onrushing enemies. Smashing bones, crushing skulls, scattering invaders wherever the boulders landed. I built mini cyclones of flame, which raged in the distance, killing scores of creatures, massacring them before they could ever dream of bringing the fight to us. I called up meteors of stone and rained down hot death from above.

Not pretty, that, but effective. Pragmatic.

I also caught snatches of the larger battle as I fought: Lugh, Oghma, and the Morrigan sparring—dancing back and forth—her sluagh mount dead and abandoned.

Sizzling balls of wobbly lightning, courtesy of James, descended into the midst of the enemies, wreaking havoc wherever they went. Leaving a trail of smoking bodies behind.

Ailia perched atop her frozen berm, a blue dome encircling her as she compelled a group of Fomorians ten strong. Commanding them to hold the left side. Turning them loose against one of the tentacle-haired Dearg Due. Forcing them to rip the rag doll woman apart like a swarm of ants taking down some larger insect.

And all the while the music thundered.

It was a mess. One bloody, chaotic, noisy mess. Impossible to keep track of all the moving bits and pieces, so mostly I kept my head down and focused on defending my little piece of the pie while James called out commands. Fomorians came by the bucket-load. So did the Dearg Due and sluagh. It didn’t matter, though, not with that scythe in my hand.

It was exhausting work, sure, but with the boon of Figol mac Mamois, the Firebrand, in my hand I felt like a god. The entirety of the Elder Council couldn’t have matched the power James, Ailia, and I were slinging—the utter destruction was without equal. It was revolting, stomach-churning work, but I put all that from my mind. Now wasn’t the time for conscience or regret. Too late for any of that. We were committed, and the only way out was for those monsters swarming the grass below me to die. Now was the time for action, for fire, and death.

And, for a time, we were winning. For a time, we were dominating:

James, Ailia, and I were serving up death in bulk, like the Costco of slaughter—delivering corpses by the pallet-load.

Dagda’s spectral warriors were beastly, holding the line, ensuring the Fomorians and their allies never gained the walls or breached the bottleneck. Shit, they gained ground, even if it was an inch at a time.

Lugh and Oghma didn’t seem the equal to the Morrigan, but neither did she seem up to the task of breaking their resolve to hold.

We were still outnumbered, sure, but in another fifteen or twenty minutes, there was a damn good chance the Fomorians would be holding the short stick when it came to forces. And once that happened, they would break.

Morale is just as important to a battle as numbers or weapons or terrain. Strip the enemy of their will to fight and that’s the end of the line.

Then, Lugh and Oghma fell before the Morrigan.

Damned if I know how it happened. One moment the three of them were duking it out—the clang of weapons ringing in the air as they landed titanic hits—then, in an eyeblink, the Morrigan loomed over the pair of godlings, who were suddenly buried under a mound of Fomorian bodies. My best guess was a sudden charge had managed to break through the ring of ghostly warriors, leaving the warring godlings’ flanks wide open. A simple mistake. But a terrible one. The kind of mistake that costs lives. The kind of mistake the Morrigan had surely been waiting for.

It felt like I was watching the first domino, in a very long run of dominos, topple.

Click.

Now unchallenged, the Morrigan bolted toward the bottleneck between our defensive berms, springing high into the air, then descending like a plague on Dagda’s ghostly warriors. The pale fighters rallied, but didn’t stand a chance. Not against her.

She moved through their ranks like a shadow, slipping from fighter to fighter; her reaper scythe flicked back and forth, dispatching the reserve of undead soldiers guarding the entryway. The Warriors of Renown—who’d proved to be resilient and damn effective against the Fomorians—gave way to the Morrigan like morning fog evaporating with the rising of the sun. As she carved her way through, her fish-faced soldiers, along with a handful of Dearg Due and sluagh, flooded past the defense, like water breaking through a hasty dam.

The breach of our defenses: click, the second domino.

James barked out commands—his voice boomed around me, amplified by weaves of fire and air—but the words were all gibberish in my head. There was just too much for my brain to process. Too much of everything, all crashing in on me at once. Too many noises. Too many enemies. Too many bits of information all flying at me from every angle, demanding my attention, demanding immediate action. Complete sensory overload.

My body switched onto autopilot, co-opting the controls, falling back on my years of training as a Marine, as a martial artist, as a killer for the Guild. I needed to stop the influx of enemies, so I turned my fraying attention toward the breach, hurling flame into the crowd, snatching up bodies with constructs of silver force, pulling the earth apart at the seams, and opening great craggy rifts that swallowed pockets of invaders whole. But there were too many of ’em. Like trying to patch the hole in the bottom of a ship’s hull with Scotch tape and superglue.

“Seal the gap, Yancy! The gap.” James’s words came again, finally piercing through the fog in my brain.

Of course. The bottleneck. I needed to close the bottleneck.

With a heave of will, I reached deep into the earth, tapping into one of the powerful ley lines deep below, using that river of unformed power to pull more magma up to the surface. A lot of it. Even more than I’d used to form the craggy black wall beneath my feet.

The ground trembled as I worked, the berm below me cracking, chunks of rock breaking free and falling. The earth buckled near the bottleneck, swelling up like a blister, and then the geyser of magma broke through the thin crust of surface. Thousands of pounds of molten rock—red and orange and black—vomited thirty feet into the air, before splashing down on the unlucky sons of bitches to either side of the opening. Maiming or killing indiscriminately, both the invaders and any of Dagda’s ghostly troops too near.

But the real goal wasn’t to kill, it was to halt the inrush of new bodies. To stop the hemorrhage in our battle line long enough to come up with a better plan. Basic triage care, really.

I threw out my left hand and huge swells of wind and water, summoned from the stream nearby, whooshed into the air, colliding into the magma in an explosion of melt-your-face-off steam. Howls and shrieks filled the air as creatures died. But one wail rose above the rest.

“Help! Someone!” The cry came from my left, from Ailia. It was a cry of desperation and panic. It took me only a moment to find her: she’d been knocked from her frozen barricade, and was standing face-to-face with the Morrigan. Ailia had a shimmering blue defensive barrier around her, temporarily protecting her from physical attacks, but that shield wouldn’t hold for long. The Morrigan was circling her, dealing punishing blow after punishing blow to the Vis-wrought shield with her wicked scythe. Flashes of blue-white light exploded with every hit.

My stomach turned, my vision narrowed, and sweat ran down my face as I watched. This was bad. Ailia was a lot of things, but she’d never hold her own in a knock-down-drag-out with someone like the Morrigan. Not in a million years.

James was occupied protecting Dagda—still immobile on his throne—and Lugh and Oghma were fighting their way free from the press of Fomorian bodies, which meant it was up to me. But the Morrigan was too damn close to Ailia for me to risk throwing any kinda big, flashy, Vis-conjured sucker punch. I needed to be closer. Intimate. There was nothing else to do. So I jumped, throwing myself from the wall and onto the grass below: click, the third domino toppling. My feet slammed into the ground, but I immediately dropped into a smooth, gliding roll, using the momentum of my fall to bring me back to my feet.

Ailia and the Morrigan weren’t far, maybe thirty feet, but between us were two dozen Fomorians, four or five sluagh, and a pair of Dearg Due.

“Gladium potestatis,” I whispered, conjuring up my Vis-wrought sword as I sprinted into the writhing mass of enemies. The creatures converged on me, but I didn’t care. I was a coiled spring, a trigger pulled just to the point of firing. My body was sharp, focused, filled with shaky-hand adrenaline as I reacted on instinct: gales of silver force tossed enemies from my path, scattering them like bowling pins. Spears of white-hot flame cut down a pair of sluagh on the left, leaving only smoldering bones behind.

My blade flashed out as though I were working through a kata: I was a hurricane of motion, spinning and bobbing, slashing and hacking, diving and rolling as I moved ever closer to Ailia. Claiming a Fomorian hand here—kesa giri—and an arm there—yoho giri. Conjuring flame and earthen spears with my other hand as I moved, unstoppable with the power of the boon working in me.

I was ten feet out, almost within striking distance, when that fourth domino clicked and fell. The Morrigan had pushed Ailia up against the wall, leaving her no room to maneuver, no room to get away, and all the while the vindictive war goddess was hammering away at Ailia’s shield. The blue light was fading in places, wearing thin under the tremendous strain of the Morrigan’s brutal assault. Not good.

Then, just as I broke free of the last of the enemy troops, something twisted around my ankle. A strand of black hair, thick as a rope, thanks to one of the strange Dearg Due. The fifth domino, click. The most important moment of my life, the moment everything hinged on, and some fucking monster tripped me. I stumbled forward, unbalanced, fighting desperately to regain my footing; my next step came down on a piece of wood—debris from the door—and that put an end to my fruitless struggle.

I pitched forward, face planting in the grass, teeth coming down hard on the tip of my tongue as my temple clipped a piece of gray stone which must’ve broken free during the battle. For what seemed like the gajillionth time, white pinpricks of light exploded in my vision and black stole in from the periphery. I closed my eyes, only for a second or so it seemed. I blinked my eyes open a moment later—the immense racket of the battle crashing over me like a wave—and wildly searched for Ailia.

I didn’t have to look long.

She was ten feet away, dangling from the Morrigan’s scythe blade: back arched, legs limp, arms splayed out, face a portrait of shock and pain.

Wide blue eyes—both fading and frantic—sought me out, finally ceasing their mad search when they landed on me. She held my gaze and, for that moment, everything else was gone. The battle, the dead Fomorians, the Morrigan, Lugh, James. All of it, vanished. For that split second everything in the world faded to black, until it was only us, sharing a long look. Our last look, which reminded me of that first look, so long ago, back into that smoky club.

That same look which said, you just gonna stand there, or are you gonna do something?

Except this time there wasn’t anything I could do. There wasn’t anything anyone could do.

She smiled at me, a frail, feeble thing, then mouthed the words I’m sorry. I love—

She didn’t finish saying it, though.

A horrible cough racked her body; dark-crimson blood frothed at her lips and poured down her chin and neck.

The Morrigan’s cawing laughter shattered the tenuous pause like a hammer smashing a lightbulb, and everything flooded back in: a tsunami of sound, explosions of battle, the wails of the dying. A suffocating wave of smells—voided bowels, the coppery stink of blood, the scent of burnt meat and sulphurous fire. An explosion of sights—Dagda struggling to his feet from the throne; Lugh twirling his spear and slicing the throat of a Fomorian; James snarling, sword outthrust as a streak of silver force bowled into a trio of fish-faced beasts.

Then, everything was red.

Crimson—the color of roses, of love, of the blood dribbling from Ailia’s mouth—stole into my head, followed by a shriek of agony and madness. A shriek that I realized was coming from me. The power coursing into the scythe in my outstretched hand, surged, welled, and exploded, threatening to rip away everything that I was, everything I stood for.

With Ailia gone, the three boons were no longer in synch, so all that power was now divided between me and James. Too much power. A second later, I felt James’s boon fade, gutter, and die. He’d cut himself off from the Vis, and suddenly the power of all three boons rested on my shoulders. A crushing weight, which left me squirming on the ground.

As Dagda had mentioned, the boons needed to be used in concert. Anything else was too risky. Deadly, even. But I didn’t care. Didn’t care about caution or warning. I only needed to worry about those things if I wanted to walk away from this battle. And I didn’t want to walk away. Not anymore. I was death and destruction and the only thing that mattered now was ending the Morrigan. With a snarl, I pushed myself onto wobbly legs, lungs laboring for breath.

The power swelled in me, threatening to rip me apart like an overripe melon, and I let it.

Fire exploded from the floors and walls.

Grass burnt to ash.

Flowers vanished.

The gray stone slabs encircling us cracked, many melting to pools of black slag as ever more magma, conjured from deep within the earth, exploded out.

The throne room trembled at my wrath. A cloud of reds and golds coalesced overhead, churning high above the barren desert beyond the throne room. Globs of molten rock rained down on the remnants of the Morrigan’s tattered force—a hail of flaming arrows that slew any creature unlucky enough to be below.

“Stop!” I heard Lugh call through the crash of stone and the sizzle of molten rock. “You’re going to kill us all.”

The ground trembled and bucked beneath me, straining from my power and knocking me to my hands and knees. But I didn’t care and I certainly didn’t stop. Lugh could go fuck himself—this was his doing anyway. His and Dagda’s and the Morrigan’s. Their scheming. Their treachery. Their war. Ailia had told him this could come back to bite him. And now I was a rabid dog off the leash.

The immense flows of raw power were wriggling from my tenuous grasp, and great weaves of unformed Vis, brilliant white that occasionally sparkled with rainbow light, bled off me like steam. That unformed power wafted away, shaking the foundations of the room and threatening to pull the whole friggin’ throne room down onto our heads. And since this place wasn’t simply a physical place, it was a metaphysical one—a nexus of power with hundreds of ley lines buried deep below—the power seeping from me was undoing the links that held the fabric of existence together.

I was a hairsbreadth away from burning out, a hairsbreadth away from unmaking this reality and turning Tír na nÓg into a black hole. And I didn’t have two-shits to give. I let the power consume me, kill me and the world around me. The whole while I laughed. A mad, deep roar while tears streamed down my face.

Something smacked into my back; for a brief moment I thought a rock had fallen on me, but a second later a voice whispered into my ear. “Yancy, you need to stop,” James Sullivan said. “Ailia wouldn’t want this.”

Something cold slipped around my neck—a slick length of wire. “Don’t fight—I’m doing this for your own good,” James said. Then he yanked back, and a length of wire bit into my skin. I started to heave and gasp. Started to choke. On instinct, I dropped the farmer’s scythe and fought to get my fingers in beneath the choker. Useless.

That crafty son of a bitch had lifted my garrote from my coat pocket and was using it against me.

The red, which had invaded my head, faded as the Vis slipped through my fingers, leaving me an empty, used-up husk. James pulled me in tight against him, the thin line of wire cutting into my skin while he wrapped his legs around me, ensuring I couldn’t get away.

I couldn’t fight anymore, so I lay there waiting for things to end however they were going to end as I searched for Ailia. If I was going to die, she was the last thing I wanted to see. I found her sprawled out on the floor, blood trailing from her mouth and pooling on charred earth, just the faintest spark of life still lingering in her eyes.

The Morrigan towered over her body.

The war goddess looked much worse for wear: blood—silver, red, black—decorated her body in great splatters. Her raven-feather cloak was burning merrily like a yuletide log, which made me smile a little. She smiled at me in return, but it was an ugly grimace that made the bottom of my stomach drop out altogether. Then, in a flash, she exploded in a puff of inky smoke and raven feathers. The cloud of black hovered in the air for only a second before descending on Ailia in a tornado of shadow, swirling into Ailia’s open mouth like water circling a bathtub drain.

My heart fluttered with a sigh of relief as Ailia sat up, but my hope withered and died when I saw the Morrigan’s dead-black eyes staring out at me from behind Ailia’s lovely face.

“I’ve opened a way!” I heard Lugh scream over the chaotic din of battle and destruction. “Get him out of here.”

James grunted, unlocked his legs from around my torso, hooked hands beneath my armpits, and slowly dragged me away, presumably toward some portal I couldn’t see. The Morrigan watched me go, a cruel grin splitting her—no, Ailia’s—face.

“Death is easy,” she whispered, though the words reached my ears with no problem at all, “but living is So. Much. Harder. I am the Chooser of the Fallen, and I have chosen your Ailia to be my vessel until her mind is gone and her body is gray, withered, and old. I curse you with life, Yancy Lazarus: live and watch your love die slowly, forever at my tender mercies.”

She threw back her head and cawed as I finally slipped away into unconsciousness, into nightmare.

FOURTEEN:

Verdict

Sixteen days after …

I shifted awkwardly from foot to foot as I finally fell silent, my throat sore and parched from speaking for so long. A nasty feeling boiled deep in my guts as I eyeballed the members of the Elder Council. That story was damn tough for me to tell, and I knew it couldn’t have been easy to hear, but as I surveyed those twelve faces, I saw no more sympathy than when I’d first lumbered into this gloomy room.

“Do you have anything else to add?” the arch-mage asked.

I shook my head.

“Very well. The council has already discussed this matter in great length, and after reviewing your reports and the reports of Lieutenant Commander Sullivan and Ambassador Hoehner, the council has decided to recommend not pursuing hostilities against the Tuatha De Danann or the Morrigan. Perhaps, had the Morrigan been a rogue element, things would be different.

“But,” she said after a time, “since she is to be queen in a months’ time, we believe hostilities are not prudent. However, you call for war, so the Elder Council may only offer guidance on the issue. Ultimately, the senior mages assembled here must vote. All those in favor of abstaining from open conflict, as per the guidance of the Elder Council, please affirm with an aye.”

A round of “ayes” circulated through the room, including eleven of the twelve Elders on the platform before me. My heart fluttered; my stomach clenched into a knot as though someone had just sucker punched me in the gut.

“All those opposed?” the arch-mage asked.

I watched, dumbfounded as a handful of souls stood, faces solemn, eyes downcast, and mouthed nay. James Sullivan was among their number, of course, along with Benjamin Altschuler—a mousy guy from the Junior Council—and a few others. Notable among the dissenters was Black Jack, the twelfth member of the Elder Council. A beefy white guy who hailed from Pretoria, South Africa, he’d been the leader of the Fist before Iron Stan and had worked more black ops than anyone else in the Guild.

“We are sorry for your loss,” the arch-mage said once the dissenters had all sat. Her tone was as cold and professional as ever and she sounded like she was consoling me on the loss of a beloved cat. “Alright, if that is all,” the arch-mage said, “then Secretary Wycliffe, please escort Mage Lazarus from the meeting so we can finish voting on tonight’s other agenda issues.”

The gray-haired woman who’d ushered me into the room placed a small hand on my shoulder, this way if you please.

I batted her mitt away.

“Now you listen here, it’s not right, dammit,” I said to the whole room, my voice rising, the words hard. “The Morrigan can’t just take her without retribution. Ailia is one of us, she’s a member of this Guild, and we protect our own, right?” I looked around at the assembled men and women in the pews, not sparing any of them my wrathful gaze or the heat in my voice. “That’s why we have the Fist of the Staff. That’s why you recruited me to do all the shit I’ve done.”

“That will be quite enough, Mage Lazarus,” the arch-mage said. “We are fully aware of your contributions to the Guild. You are, however, a junior member without the experience to make these kinds of decisions. There is a very good reason you are not allowed to pick your own assignments.” Her voice was all no-nonsense business, her tone one that commanded immediate compliance. “You simply lack the requisite familiarity which is so necessary to understanding the complicated and often delicate nature of the supernatural nations. We’ve heard your case—there’s no need to hold up this assembly with your drama. Now, moving on.”

“Don’t feed me that line of shit.” Gasps of shock filled the room. Lots of these folks had a bone to pick with the arch-mage, but there are some things that just aren’t done. Just aren’t said.

Her gaze froze me for a moment, and energy built in the air around her. “Considering your current emotional state,” she said coolly, “I will overlook your gross breach of protocol and uncouth demeanor. But I expect you to be civil or you will be removed and penalized. Harshly.”

“I’m about to go uncouth all over everyone in this friggin’ chamber, you hear me!” I yelled, my face flaring with heat. “I’ve put my ass on the line for this organization. I’ve fought nightmares and monsters, saved members of this Guild, rescued family members. And now when it’s one of our own? When it’s my Ailia, you’re gonna turn your backs? Bunch of cowardly, self-serving, sniveling ostriches. Sticking your friggin’ heads in the sand. It’s no wonder the Morrigan felt ballsy enough to snatch up a full-fledged member—”

“Enough!” The word was a whip crack in the air. “The Morrigan is a powerful being and waging war with her could incite a large-scale conflict with the greater Tuatha Dé Danann and their considerable allies in the Endless Wood. Not prudent. Better to let the slight go.”

“A slight?” The word tasted flat and sour in my mouth. “This is a person we’re talking about. And you’re just going to move for appeasement?” I turned to the assembled crowd. “It could be any one of you next time. Now that the Morrigan has shown that we won’t even protect our own, other monsters will come. You hear me? They’ll pick us off one at a time until we’re too weak to stop them.” I turned back to face the council. “You just ask Hitler how well appeasement works.”

Arch-Mage Borgstorm was of Swiss and Polish descent and from the Old World, no less, so my remark had to have hit home.

“Remove him from the proceedings,” she said, her words calm, clipped, precise. “It is clear that Mage Lazarus is not currently of sound mind.”

Two men approached from my left, and a man and a woman closed from the right. I knew them all well, like family even. The other four members of the Fist of the Staff.

“Let’s go, Yancy, no need to make more of a scene here,” said the Fist Leader, Iron Stan, a stocky, powerfully built German man with a blunt face and muddy hazel eyes. Nearly as old as the arch-mage and hands down the best battle-mage the Guild had. I couldn’t take him in a fight if he was blindfolded, gagged, and had both arms and both legs tied behind his back. Scary good.

“How?” I asked. “How can you do this to me? You knew Ailia, how can you betray her like this?”

“Duty,” he said, creeping closer. “Our duty is to the wellbeing of the Guild first, and the Elder Council determines what is best for the whole Guild, not just a select few. Come now. We can finish this outside.”

I spun to the two approaching figures on the left, James Sullivan and Trisha Galindo. “You too?” I asked.

Trisha just nodded.

James smiled an apology. How could he go along with this heaping pile of political bullshit?

“It’s okay,” James said after a moment. “Let’s just get outta here, huh? Grab a drink, some excellent Scotch maybe, work through this. Look, I know this is bushwa too, Yancy, but now is not the time or the place. Let’s go. Blow off a little steam, maybe light up a cigarette and get zozzeled.” Trisha nodded in encouragement.

The betrayal worked its way into my gut, a sharp pang that kicked at my kidneys, a knife burning hot in my back.

“I’m done with all you cowardly sons of bitches. Done with you!” I screamed. “If you ever come to me again, I’ll nuke the whole fucking bunch of you!” Tears streamed down my face. These people were supposed to be my comrades, my family. I’d bled for them, left my real family for them. Given everything they’d asked and more. But now, when I needed them most?

Finally, I saw the Guild for what it was: a load of shit. And it hurt. Deep, deep down.

I pulled the garrote from my jacket pocket—James had been kind enough to return it to me after damn near choking me to death with it—balled it up, and hurled it at the arch-mage. A brief burst of blue light stopped the garrote from smacking her in the face, but I didn’t care. Not really. “From now on, you can do your own fucking dirty work, you coldhearted bitch. I hope all of you choke to death on your fucking hypocrisy. I hope the monsters come for you so I can watch and laugh while you choke. While the people you love choke.”

James’s hand landed on my shoulder, fingers biting down, his gaze equal parts concern and fear. “Let me help you out, buddy.”

I smacked his hand away too, a sneer contorting my face. “I think I can find my own way out just fine, buddy-fucker.” With that I turned on a heel and strode down the carpet, offering the Guild my back while I flipped the whole lot of ’em the bird.

Books, Mailing List, and Reviews

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And lastly, if you need more Yancy Lazarus ASAP, pick up the first three novels (plus Flashback: Siren Song) in the Lazarus e-book boxset: www.Amazon.com/dp/B019JI1516

Or you can check out the first episode in my other Urban Fantasy series, MudMan—starring a dysfunctional, socially awkward, vigilante, shapeshifting golem—which takes place in the same Lazarus universe. Though Yancy Lazarus isn’t the main character, it’s still an awesome book, so pick it up here: www.Amazon.com/dp/B01BX7PT7M

About the Author

Hey all, my name is James Hunter and I’m a writer, among other things. So just a little about me: I’m a former Marine Corps Sergeant, combat veteran, and pirate hunter (seriously). I’m also a member of The Royal Order of the Shellback—’cause that’s a real thing. I’ve also been a missionary and international aid worker in Bangkok, Thiland. And, a space-ship captain, can’t forget that.

Okay … the last one is only in my imagination.

Currently, I’m a stay at home Dad—taking care of my two kids—while also writing full time, making up absurd stories that I hope people will continue to buy. When I’m not working, writing, or spending time with family, I occasionally eat and sleep.

Dedication

For my beautiful wife, Jeanette. You’re my Ailia—without you, I’d probably wind up as a homeless reprobate, living out of the back of a car, and writing silly stories for gas money. Don’t laugh, we both know it’s true. With all my love.

Special Thanks

I’d like to thank my wife, Jeanette, and daughter, Lucy. A special thanks to my parents, Greg and Lori. A quick shout out to my brother Aron and his whole brood—Eve, Brook, Grace, and Collin. Brit, probably you’ll never read this, but I love you too. Here’s to the folks of Team Lazarus, my awesome Alpha and Beta readers who helped make this book both possible and good: Dan Goodale, Nell Justice, Jen “Ivana” Wadsworth, eden Hudson, and Scott Hoehner. They read the messy, early drafts so that no one else had to; thanks guys and gals. And of course a big thanks to my editor, Tamara Blain who rocked this book (if you need editing, go to her, she’s seriously awesome: www.acloserlookediting.com/ ).

—James A. Hunter, May 2016

Copyright

Flashback: The Morrigan is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2016 by James A. Hunter and Shadow Alley Press, Inc.

All rights reserved.

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