Shadowmagic - Sons of Macha (37 page)

Behind me I heard Tuan. I turned to see him with his own soldiers. ‘I would advise you to take your hand off my arm,' he said with a very animal-like growl, ‘unless you want to be holding on to the arm of a bear.' The guard let go quickly.

Essa was in the hallway outside the meeting room. She ran at me and I immediately put my arms up to defend myself – this was Essa after all – but she wrapped her arms around my neck and said, ‘Thank the gods you're all right.'

‘Maybe I should go for a late night walk more often.'

Essa pushed back. ‘You weren't walking. You were flying with Tuan.'

‘Oh you know about that?'

‘Everyone knows about that,' Essa said. ‘Your mother performed an emergency Shadowcasting to find out where you were. The casting said you were in the Yewlands. Your father mobilised an entire platoon to figure out a way to get you.'

‘Oh, so maybe they're a little mad at me?'

Essa's face went through four seasons of emotions. She laughed, then her eyes welled up, then she looked like she was going to hit me before she re-hugged me and said, ‘I thought I would never see you again.'

‘Hey, I ain't going anywhere,' I said, smoothing her hair. ‘You're stuck with me for a long time.'

She looked up at me; her face was inches from mine. ‘How long?'

‘For ever,' I said. ‘That is if my mother doesn't kill me in the next ten minutes.'

A cough from behind broke our embrace. It was Dahy. ‘The king demands your presence.' He looked embarrassed at interrupting us.

‘I thought you would be mad at me too.'

‘I'm furious,' the old general said, ‘but kissing a sweetheart in a time of war is an important thing.'

‘Well, Dahy! I never realised what an old softie you are.'

‘Careful, Conor,' he said as he motioned me through the door.

Everybody was there: Mom, Dad, Dahy, Lorcan, Nieve, Fand, Brendan, Nora, Gerard, Eth, two Runelords I didn't know and half a dozen other uniformed types and they all looked awfully mad at me. Dad had that look I had only seen a couple of times before. It was where he was so mad that he actually couldn't get the first syllables out of his mouth. Mom, whom I didn't have as much experience reading, had a face like I had
never
seen before.

I decided to head off what was coming. ‘Bwika's dead,' I said calmly. ‘Codna is king and the Brownies are no longer at war with us. They are on their way back to the Alderlands now.

If Dad found it difficult speaking before, he found it impossible now. It was a nice moment. Mom stepped up. ‘Could you tell us this news again, Conor, and extrapolate a bit.'

So I did. I told them the whole tale leaving out only what I had used on Tuan to blackmail him into giving me a lift.

When I finished Dad said, ‘You could have been taken hostage. You could have compromised us all.'

‘I know it was stupid. I promise I won't do it again, but right now I need to put my head down. Can I go to bed now, Mommy and Daddy?'

I stood up and had one of those head rushes I get when I stand up too fast on the same day that I've been knocked unconscious. Essa jumped up and gave me a hand. We were almost at the door when Graysea burst in.

‘You're safe,' she gushed, taking my arm away from Essa. She placed her hand on my neck and announced, ‘He is exhausted. I am taking him straight to bed.'

Essa looked miffed and took my other arm. For a second I thought she was going to start pulling and I was going to be drawn and quartered by competing women.

Nieve behind me said, ‘Now to our Shadow defences.'

Essa had to stay for that meeting. She let go of my arm and said to Graysea, ‘Take good care of him.'

I thought that maybe I should stay too, but then I figured I had just cut the size of the attacking force by half – that was enough for a day. War would have to be planned without me.

Graysea walked me back to my room and lay down in my bed with me. When I started to protest she shushed me and then sprouted gills in her neck and a fin. I had bruises and rope burns and contusions that were so all over I hadn't even noticed how bad I felt until my mermaid doctor melted them all away.

‘I thought I told you to stop doing that for everybody.'

‘You were right; I was overextending myself in the infirmary. I am now only healing in the urgent cases. But you, dear sweet Conor,' she kissed me on the cheek as she got up and walked to the door, ‘are not everybody. Sleep.'

Sleep came instantly. I had one of those strange movie dreams where I was a private detective. I was waiting in my 1920s decorated office when in came a beautiful client. It was Maeve, the girl from the tea shop in Connemara. She wore red lipstick and a low-cut red dress that had a slit that showed off her shapely right leg as she walked. She said she wanted to find her real mother and I agreed when she paid me in advance – with a pair of Nikes.

I put on the sneakers; they didn't go with my grey suit and fedora but hey, this was my dream. I wandered through countless speakeasies and police stations until, finally, I told Connemara Maeve I had found her mother. Together we drove up a long gated driveway of a Hollywood house that looked like it belonged to a movie star. The door opened and my Irish client came face to face with her mother – it was Maeve. The other Maeve, the outlawed Queen of the Druids, the tree killer that almost destroyed all of The Land with her corruption of Shadowmagic – the Maeve that was brought back from some abyss by the spilled blood of Ruby. She looked at the Irish girl and said, ‘Who are you?'

I turned to my glamorous client but she no longer wore makeup and was dressed in her modest tea-shop waitress's uniform. ‘Tell her,' she said.

I opened my eyes with a start. On either side of my bed stood two burly soldiers in green-stained leather armour. At the foot of my bed a wild-haired woman, also in green leathers, stood staring at me with eyes that had almost no colour at all. I sat up in bed my heart pounding.

‘I was just dreaming about you,' I said.

‘Y
ou were in the Hollylands when I regained form.'

How the hell did she know that?
I thought.
I was hooded
.

Like Maeve was reading my mind she said, ‘I sensed your presence from the hallway. Who are you?'

This was a freaky moment. I had been in a deep sleep and then woke up only to be confronted with the very scary long-lost legendary Shadowwitch and her two eyeless henchmen. Then the realisation hit me that this was one of those dreams within a dream and I relaxed.

‘Buzz off lady; I got more sleeping to do.'

I was about to snuggle down under my covers again when Maeve kind of went see-through and walked towards me. She didn't stop at the bed. When she came to the footboard she just kept coming and walked right through it like it wasn't there. She stood translucent in the middle of my bed like she was waist deep in a swimming pool. Dream or no dream, I instinctively backed up; she didn't look like a healthy thing to touch. I pulled my legs back and then she solidified again. When she did, the bed around her just exploded. The sheets and the mattress ripped apart and the wood frame of the bed cracked in two, sending wood splintering across the room. I ended up on the floor at the Fili Queen's feet and said, ‘OK, maybe this isn't a dream.'

‘I ask again, Faerie, who are you?'

Considering she had trashed my bed by just touching it, I thought that maybe answering her was a good idea. ‘I'm Conor, nice to meet you.'

‘You are Conor, Son of Oisin?'

‘That's me.'

‘Where is your father?'

I didn't have to answer because at that moment, one of the west-wing guards burst into the room with his sword drawn. ‘Stand away from the prince,' he said.

It wasn't until then that I noticed that Maeve's henchmen were unarmed. One of them faced the guard who repeated his command, ‘Back away from the prince.'

The henchman reached towards the confused guard who must have been wondering,
What is this unarmed nut doing?
The guard finally reared back and swung. It was a long wide swing. He did it that way to allow the unarmed man time to get out of the way but he just stood there. A second before the guard's sword hit him, the Fili became ghost-like and the blade sliced through him like he wasn't there. The guard, who had been preparing for impact, fell forward, off balance, and exposed his back. Maeve's man reached his hand into the guard's side and then solidified. The guard screamed but only for a second. There was a crack of bones and a horrible squelching noise. I could only imagine that what had just happened to my bed was what was happening inside that poor guard's body. The guard went limp. It looked as if the Fili was holding him up, then as if to confirm that thought, he went spooky and the guard fell to the floor.

Another guard came through the door and the other Fili dispatched him in exactly the same manner. The floor was now covered with more blood than I had ever seen. And I have seen a lot of blood.

Maeve loomed over me. My feet slid on the bed sheet under my heels as I tried to push myself back into the wall. ‘I tire of asking you questions twice, Faerie. Where is your father?'

‘I am here.' Dad was standing at my door. Two of his honour guard entered the room before him.

‘Don't attack,' I called from the floor, ‘they can kill with a touch.'

Dad stepped into the room. ‘What do you want, Maeve?'

The ghost queen smiled but not in anything resembling a heartwarming way. ‘I want from you what I wanted from your father – Duir.'

‘Duir is not mine to give. Tenure of the Oak Throne is chosen by the Chamber of Runes.'

Maeve threw her head back and laughed one of those laughs that only bad guys and bad actors can do. ‘The clan of Duir builds a magic room that always magically seems to give the clan of Duir their magic Rune. Magically convenient, do you not think?'

‘And you think you deserve the Oak Throne? Why?'

Maeve walked right up to Dad. His guard went to step in between them but Dad stopped him. When they were nose to nose Maeve flickered into her ghost form. It only took a second but in that time she reached into the chest of Dad's bodyguard. He gasped as she solidified and he screamed as her hand came out holding his beating heart.

‘Power,' she said. ‘Duir is mine because this time, you cannot stop me.'

She dropped the heart to the ground and then looked at her hand. It was covered with blood but then she flickered translucent, and the blood fell to the floor – her hand was clean. No one tried to attack or stop her. It was an impressive display of power and ruthlessness.

‘You cannot stop us. I have an army with this power. And your son cannot stop me by corrupting the Brownie prince. We don't need the Brownies.' I was now on my feet. She looked at me and said, ‘We will deal with Prince Codna in time.'

She reached into a pouch that hung from her waist and took out a piece of marble. ‘And I will not be stopped by pieces of the Real World.' She threw the rock to Dad's other guard. I started to shout, ‘Don't touch that!' but didn't have time. He instinctively caught the piece of Connemara marble and instantly was reduced to dust.

‘What has happened to you?' Dad hissed. ‘You are not even Hawathiee.'

‘You are right, son of Finn. I am better than Hawathiee and I shall rule you all. But I am not without a heart.'

I found that statement hard to believe after what she had just done to our guard's heart.

‘I shall give you until sunrise tomorrow to leave. After that …'

She didn't say anything else but she didn't have to. They went see-through and turned to leave. Maeve walked through the door but the bodyguards went through the wall. One of them bumped into my yew banta stick and was surprised that it blocked his way just as if he had been solid. The stick then fell to the ground and he stepped over it.