Sea Lord (28 page)

“When?”

“I would say a few months after Dylan and Regina’s child.”

So soon.
The demons had targeted Regina as soon as she became pregnant.

“Is it . . .” He paused, worry weighting his tongue. Tightening his throat.

Maggie’s eyes glinted in the dark. “Human?”

He didn’t give a damn if their baby was born with flippers and a tail, as long as his wife was happy. And

safe.

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“Healthy.”

Maggie smiled. “The baby is fine. I am fine. Never better.”

“Good.” He pulled her into his arms, holding her slim, naked body close. “I’m shaking,” he confessed.

“I noticed.” She kissed him. “Do not worry, my love. You will be an excellent father.”

Oh, God.
All the blood left his head. Good thing he was already lying down. “You’ll be a wonderful

mother.”

“I hope so.” She laughed breathlessly, sounding young and uncertain. “I do not have much of an example

to follow.”

Caleb thought of his mother, who had abandoned him, and his father, who had drowned his grief and

resentment in the bottle.

“Neither do I,” he said dryly.

But Maggie’s joy left no room for doubts.

“Oh, your family!” she exclaimed. “We must tell them.”

Fear stabbed him. “Not yet.”

“Yes,” she insisted. “Now. I’m so happy. I want them to be excited, too.”

“Maggie . . .”

“Everything will be fine,” she told him. “Everything is wonderful. What could possibly go wrong?”

16

THE TENSION IN THE CAVERNS WAS AS THICK AS the steam or the smell of sulfur. Blue mage

light ran over the dank walls and rippled on the surface of the water.

Conn had summoned the lights for Lucy’s sake, to keep her from stumbling in the dark. Her eyes were

not attuned like selkie eyes to see below the surface.

She did not belong here, whatever he had told her in the tower.

Conn fought to keep his face carefully blank and his thoughts even more carefully focused. Lucy had

earned the right to stand with his wardens. And the full and unfortunate truth was he might yet need her

and her power.

The children of the sea did not command this portal to Hell, formed and framed by rival elements, by

earth and fire. Conn and his wardens could not close a gap between continental plates. But they could

seal it, plugging the rift with their magic like crofters caulking mud between the stones of a house.

If Conn could bind their strengths together. He glanced around the circle. The selkie were solitary by

nature. They did not work easily or well together. Even here, even now, their energies pulled against his

control, darting in every direction like fish caught in a net.

Deliberately, Conn relaxed his clenched fists, letting his thoughts float below the cloudy surface of the

pool, sending his spirit drifting down through the warm, bubbling currents, spiraling into the murky depths,

dragging the wardens after him like an anchor chain in the dark.

Sweat poured from his face. Rushing filled his ears, his head, as his spirit self sank down through the

silken water, down through the mineral silt.

His eyes stung. His lungs burned. His spirit continued its descent, his body anchored at the side of the

pool. The wardens’ presence tugged behind him like so many buoys on a line. Lucy floated above him,

sunlight on the water.

He must go deeper still to seal the portal.

Down
through the scalding water where the blue-green algae bloomed.
Down
, until the heat killed all life

and nothing grew, breathed, moved but rock and the water trickling through the rock.

Conn’s temples throbbed. He had been too long in his tower, in the clear light, in the cold air. The

pressure of the deeps crushed his chest. His doubts churned like sediment, clouding his mind.

And still he pushed, filtering down, down through tiny passages in the stone, seeking the bright molten

thread, the rent in the world, the balance between earth and fire.

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He could not breathe.

The roaring in his ears was not water, but fire. Smoke and darkness blinded him. Vibrations shook him,

like the sound of an approaching army on the road or the shudder of a burning house before it collapsed

in flames.

He had been noticed.

Someone was coming.

Gau.

Did he feel, just for a moment, Lucy tremble above him?

“
My lord Conn.
” The voice was in Conn’s head, Gau’s voice, unformed by lips or tongue but still

recognizable. Breathless, if words without air could be so described. The demon lord must have hurried

to intercept him. “
This is a surprise.
”

Conn’s anger flared, a gout of rage that ate the soft tissues of his mouth and scorched his throat.
Not a

surprise, you sodding son of a bitch. You violated Sanctuary.

But rage was Gau’s weapon, Conn recognized. To distract him, to deflect him from his purpose.

If Conn engaged the demon at this level, he could not win. He might not survive.

He stopped his eyes and ears. He made himself like water, clear and calm, sinking down through layers

of stone, disintegrating as he went.

He felt Enya like a flash of quicksilver and Griff, steady and persistent as rain. Morgan cut his own path

through the rock, a spear of ice. Lucy . . .
Where was Lucy?

Fear flickered, bright, consuming.

Another trap, Conn realized, and focused his thoughts toward the portal.

There.
A red, seething gap in the wounded crust of earth, boiling with energy. The gateway to Hell.

Gau was with him, in him, still. The demon’s words burned in his mind like holes through paper,

scorching, empty.

You cannot do this.

Do not provoke our enmity.

Do not . . . Do not . . .

Your father knew better.

Will you risk the peace for this? For her.

Lucy
.

The thought formed, his or Gau’s, their minds so close Conn could no longer separate them. The demon

leaped on her name, fed on it, on her image, fueling his energy and Conn’s fears.

She is not worth this.

The daughter of Atargatis
, Conn spoke or thought.

But mortal. A human. She will not live. Nothing lasts that is not of the First Creation.

Their thoughts clashed, thrust, parried, their arguments sharp and flexible as steel. Conn had withstood

the demon’s assault on his emotions, but Gau’s mental challenge lured him to fight. His intellect had

always been his strength and his weakness. His arguments quickly out-paced his wardens. Soon he was

alone, locked in furious mental combat with the demon lord.

You broke the peace.

You disturbed the balance.

An act of aggression . . .

Self-defense . . .

The portal blazed. Heat scorched his hair, his flesh, his his hope. His nostrils clogged with the stench of

burning.

Give her to us
, the fire sang,
and we will have peace again.

Conn opened his mouth to defy the flames, and the fire rushed in, eating his tongue, searing his throat and

lungs.
Give her to us, or we will destroy Sanctuary.

He staggered. Mind and heart were dead and dry as bone. He must . . . What? There was something he

wanted. Something he must do.

Close the gap.
A whisper like water.

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Lucy.
Her name sizzled, a drop in his mouth. He gasped, pressed between hundreds of feet of rock

above him and the fiery pit below.

Close the gap.

He shook as he laid down lines of magic, emptying himself to form a tissue seal across the door to Hell,

spilling himself into the spell.

Too little
, Gau whispered.
Too late.

A vision scorched Conn’s brain and shriveled his soul. His wardens lost, trapped like sea creatures

abandoned by the tide, each in his private pool, his separate Hell. Dying. Drying up.

The flames howled.

Desperately, Conn drew magic like moisture from his flesh and bone, poured it out like blood.

He drained himself out like a cup of water into the burning sand.

And felt his strength, his spirit, evaporate away.

Lucy’s nose itched.

She fought not to scratch. She didn’t want to make a move that might disturb Conn or distract the

wardens from whatever they were doing, standing around, staring into the pool.

The surface of the water trembled like a dreamer’s eyelids. The air was hot and close. Lucy measured

the time in heartbeats, fighting to stay awake. What was going on?

In the beginning, she’d at least had a sense of the others’ presence. They glowed in the dim cave like

gemstones in a mine: Conn, brilliant and hard as diamond, and Griff with his great warm ruby heart. The

one Conn called Morgan, dark as onyx; and the woman beside him, round and shining as an opal.

But as the minutes—hours?—passed, Lucy’s awareness of them faded. Maybe if they were holding

hands, the way children did in line, for comfort and to keep from getting lost . . . But the selkie did not

touch.

“
I touch you,
” Conn had objected. “
I have been inside you.
”

The memory made her smile.

The blue lights had dimmed. An effect of the steam? Or was everybody else nodding off, too?

The heat was stunning. Numbing. Lucy’s head drooped. A bead of sweat rolled down her nose and

plopped onto her shirt.

With a surreptitious sideways glance, she wiped her nose on her wrist.

No one noticed.
Good.

No one moved.
At all.

In fact . . .

Lucy frowned, a funny quiver in the pit of her stomach. In fact, they barely appeared to be breathing.

“Conn?” Her voice shivered like the surface of the water.

No answer. The quiver spread. Grew.

“Conn!” Her cry bounced off the cavern walls and ran into the corners. Just like in her nightmares.

“Griff?
Conn.
”

Pain consumed him.

Pain and burning. He stretched across the mouth of Hell like a prisoner on a rack, like melted wax on the

seal of a bottle. His bones ran with fire. Flame coursed through his veins, pumped his heart.

Lucy, my heart . . .

He had not thought to love her. The selkie did not love. Or die. He would live forever in agony as long as