Dark Isle (Celtic Legacy Book 2) (2 page)

The pilot’s voice crackled over the radio. “Hang on
folks. It’s too rough to land. We’re going to have to ride this out
.”

Luke grunted
he
gripped
a handle above his head,
a
nd
we were tossed about inside the cabin
.
Darcy did nothing to stop her body from being thrown around. She just continued to hold her head, her lips moving silently. Cora had wrapped herself around Darcy’s neck.
Quinn, come take your mother’s hand.

My fingers found a handle on the edge of one of the seats and I held tight. “Kinda busy at the moment!” I shouted back as yet another gust of wind hit us hard, spinning the helicopter about like a top.

Now, Quinn!
Cora’s command compelled me to loosen my fingers and inch my way across the floor
to where Darcy remained strapped in her seat
. I thought it was just so I could give her comfort.

I was wrong.

As our fingers touched
,
Darcy’s mind seemed to slam into mine and I saw what she was seeing. Below us, on the edge of the coast
and
partially hidden by the thick forest
,
were two figures. One, I recognized. Tall, imposing,
pitch
-
black hair and violet eyes marked Balor as easily as
if he had
a sign above his head. The other
,
though
,
was no one I knew. Shrouded in a cowl, the
other
figure hovered above the ground.

“I thought you had mastery over the winds, Banshee Queen
,
”
Balor said, his voice dripping with disdain.

The Banshee Queen raised her arms and let out a long, low hiss. “Question me not, Fomorii.
They will die.
”

Outside of what I was seeing I could feel the helicopter shaking and shuddering as the winds continued to increase.

Balor nod
ded
. “I doubt that, but you will slow them down;
it
is all I require
of you little queen
.”

The Banshee Queen snapped her fingers. “You are close
,
that close to Chaos?
Why do
you not just let them fly away, far from us?
”

He
answered her as he
turned
,
and walked into the forest. “
I made a promise.
”

Another hiss from the Banshee Queen
,
and then I was back in the helicopter, the metal struts screeching around us.

“She’s breaking apart!” The pilot yelled over the radio.

The helicopter jerked forward
, and the air around us went silent as the rotors whined to a stop. One last shudder and the only thing between us the ground below gave up the ghost.

We were spinning as we fell, the wind ripping at the metal sheeting that covered the helicopter. The pilot screamed
,
and I caught a glimpse of him being sucked th
rough the open door, his body spinning out like a rag doll.

We have a problem. A very, big problem.
Cora said, anxiety filling her words even though they were only in my mind.
I couldn’t stop t
he scream that burst out of me. What was left of t
he helicopter flipped upside down
,
and I
found myself
staring at what lay below us
:
r
ocky
, hard ground.

We were going to miss the water by a mere three or four feet.
The tide was out and the jagged,
rock
-
strewn coastline rushed towards us
in
spits
and starts
.
Apparently t
he Banshee
q
ueen
wasn’t
in a hurry to let us drop
;
the wind continued to spin and toss us about, like a child with a ball.

I let out a groan
, wishing
the water w
as
closer.
But I had learned
long ago
you couldn’t bank on
wishes.
My heart, already hammering
, seemed to stutter. Or
c
ould
wishing save us
?

Reaching for that part of me that held my powers, I put everything I had into
bringing the water closer.
I had nothing to lose
;
no one would even know I’d tried if I failed.

The waves didn’t seem to move
at first
;
then
the water
began to rush forward, the tide coming in with a speed that just might
keep us from being smashed on the rocks below.

What are you doing?

The wind slammed us, shooting us towards the
rocks
.
It was
t
oo
late
;
we were too close
to the ground
. I pulled on everything I had, commanding the water to meet us.
A
geyser burst upwards
and
the ocean met
and
encompassed
us while we were still
thirty
feet up.
The wind
buffeted uselessly against the helicopter as it bobbed on the surface.

For a split moment everything froze
;
and then the water rushed in the broken windows,
and open door
sp
illing
into
the cab.

The water quickly filled the interior of the helicopter.
I pinched my eyes shut
as it rose above my head
.
I felt
cradled
by
the ocean, the water still warm from the shallow
s and tide pools
.
Opening my eyes,
I saw
the
interior of the helicopter was outlined in stark relief. Luke had Darcy by the arm and was swimming towards the surface, out through
a
smashed window. Cora swam towards me and curled around my right arm.

Lower the water, Quinn.

With a
few strokes
I exited the sinking helicopter and
reached the surface
, slowly releasing the power as I swam
. Blinking, I tread water
, as I
searched
for my companions
.
The water was still
,
as if contained by walls, though I could see by the horizon that it was receding, lowering us to the ground.

“Luke?”
I called out, unable to see him.

He waved, his head bobbing above the water
at the far edge of my sight,
Darcy
cradled in his arms
.

“We’re here. What the hell just happened?”

Cora loosened her grip on me. “That’s what I’d like to know.” Her black eyes were staring straight at me, but there was nothing really for me to say.

I
loosened
my connection with the water
further
and it
picked up speed,
flow
ing quickly
back into the ocean
until our feet touched the sand and the tide was once more where
nature intended.

“Quinn, what did you do?”
Cora asked.

Before I answered her, I looked up and down the shoreline, stumbling forward. Was the Banshee queen still here, or had that all been in my mind?

A glance over at Darcy was all I needed to confirm that what I’d seen had been real. She wouldn’t meet my eyes and she still had one hand covering an ear. “Is she gone?” I asked.

Darcy nodded and then caught herself, her eyes flicking up to mine for one horrified second.

Luke and Cora said nothing, only watched the exchange. Again Cora questioned me.
“What did you do?
”

I c
leared my throat.
“It was like when I called for Ashling in the mirror, I just
. . .
wished for it. I wanted it bad
enough that I
made
it happen.”

Luke lim
ped towards me; blood trickled down his leg
. “Here’s the thing, Quinn. Calling on Ashling, that is something all Tuatha can learn to do, it’s one of our abilities.”

I nodded, wiping my face
. The saltwater was drying fast in the summer heat and already my skin felt sticky and my clothes stiff
. “Okay. What has that got to do with this?
”

“Controlling water isn’t. It’s something that
, other than the Fomorii,
only the old gods can do
;
and even then, there is only one
of the old gods
I know of that could
have
managed something of that magnitude.”
He waved his hand towards the water.

My knees started to weaken and I slumped to the wet sand. “What are you saying?”

Luke crouched beside me and took my hands in his. “I don’t know for sure, but I don’t think your father is dead. I think your father is very much alive and well. Because the only person you could have gotten that ability
from
—
to control water
like that—
is Lir.”

I frowned, “
Who?
”

Luke helped me to my feet
.

“Lir is one of the old gods
;
not truly a Tuatha, but something more. He could control all the waters, and he was very well known for his taste in women. He particularly liked women with green eyes.”

We all turned to look at Darcy
,
who stood, her face bright red from the tips of her ears to the base of her collarbone.

Luke snorted
,
“Isn’t that right
,
Darcy?”

2

“My father
is alive
?” I asked the question, my voice cracking with surprise. I shouldn’t have been taken off guard by the fact that
my mother had
lied to me. Not after everything else she’d done.

I wiped my hands on my jeans in an attempt to get the sand off my skin. “Never mind, it’s not like it matters no
w
.” I turned
my back on
Darcy,
and faced Luke. “Come on, we’d better go.”

We had been lucky, I guess, to fall where there weren’t a lot of people to notice our “miraculous” survival. Or the sight of a helicopter being tossed about in the sky
.
The
n the
distant sound of sirens reached my ears. On second thought, maybe someone
had
notice
d
. I picked up my pace
;
after my last encounter with the police
,
when Ashling first went missing, the last thing I wanted was to deal with them now that I’d been in a helicopter crash that I’d survived without a scratch.

Feet slipping in the wet sand, and then in the loose gravel closer to the road, I kept up a quick pace.

“What about me?” Darcy yelled
after us
.

Turning to face her I lifted both eyebrows. “What about you?”

“Are you just going to leave me here?”

I nodded once. “Yup.” With my back once more to her I headed towards the road.

“Are you really just going to leave her
t
here?” Luke said, catching up with me.

Again I nodded. “She’ll be fine, she always is.
She’s never needed me or Ashling.
”
At one point in my life, speaking that truth would have hurt;
it would have
made all the old wounds open back up. But not now
.
W
hatever
relationship w
e’d had was over and done with.

Darcy followed at a distance, backing off a little whenever I turned to glare at her. It was a bit like shooing away a stray animal that thought you had something for it to eat. More than anything else now, it was just irritating.
Then again, I did want to know what the hell had happened on the helicopter
;
why
Darcy
had seen Balor and the Banshee Queen, and
how she
had show
n
me
.