Through Time-Slamming (17 page)

Chapter Sixteen

RECONNAISSANCE WAS A thing Deimne usually enjoyed, however this time it was difficult to think of anything other than the fact that the bastard monsters were stealing his time with his daughter. More than anything, all he wanted to do was be with Frankie and hear about her dreams and her needs. He wanted to tell her stories of their heritage, get to know her, and allow her to know him. He was a father and that was all he wanted to be.

Frankie should have all his attention. She should have all his time, every minute that she wanted should be hers.

He found himself adoring her. She had such a sweet and caring nature and there was great wisdom in such a young life. He could only imagine what she would grow up to be.

He had always come first. He had always put his needs first in the past and it struck him as momentous that he now first thought of Frankie’s needs above his own.

How very odd.

As Morrigu’s Castle came into view Deimne shifted into Sluagh invisibility. It was one of his special powers. Although other Daoine and Seelie Fae would be able to see through it,
Unseelie could not.

He smiled at the notion of tricking the Dark Princes and getting what his Queen needed for their next move.

He had during his flight, already received news via his mind link with Queen Mab regarding the atrocities being committed in Dublin.

He was certain from his experience and observations of the Royal Seelie that they would contain it, but the human authorities would now be drawn into battle with their armies. Soon the land he loved, his beloved Scotland, his glorious Highlands, and his sweepingly lovely Ireland would be covered with blood.

Containment first and aggression next. That is what he had told Queen Mab and she had agreed.

First, he would follow through with Queen Aaibhe’s idea. She was a brilliant Daoine and the Seelie were lucky to have had her, he proudly thought. Then a rush of darkness swept into him and he sucked in air and steadied himself as he felt the Dark Magic frigid power.

Pestale was somewhere below.

He would have to get this done as quickly as he could for he had always been concerned about the power of Dark Magic. Queen Mab maintained that white magic was always stronger than dark, but he wasn’t so sure.

The plight of the humans flitted through his mind and he found himself surprised by the empathy that he felt for their present situation. He had discovered over the centuries that humans could be most endearing when they least realized it. He had always held himself aloof from them, but he had not always been blind to their many trials and tribulations. On the whole, he thought that the human race was an undeveloped life force who did not have immortality to protect them. In spite of their fear of death they were forever diving in to save one another or an ideal to secure their freedom. Indeed, it was his race’s duty to keep the Dark Ones at bay and out of their world. Perhaps they would develop into a finer race in the end.

He thought of Frankie’s mother. He had adored her. He could not remember a time when he believed he cared for a female to the point of bonding. That had not happened for him, but he had come close with Frankie’s mother. She had been a beauty whose soul had called to him. How had he not seen that she was a Fios?

Had he known, he would have insisted she come with him to Sluagh and be his mate. Indeed, he now believed they would have been happy. He should have insisted they raise their child together. He should have, but she seemed to love that farmer human of hers and his pride had been jolted. And now, because he had wanted to please her, he let her do what she said
she needed
to do.
She was now gone. He had made a poor decision. He should never have given up his right to be with his child.

Now he would set that right and he damn well meant to make this world free of the abominations presently traversing his dear Ireland and Scotland. All so that Frankie’s life would be carefree.

As he circled the Grampian Mountains that hid Morrigu’s Castle, he cloaked himself in his Sluagh shield in addition to his invisibility. He felt he couldn’t be too cautious when it came to Pestale and his black power.

Pestale had an uncanny way of guessing what and where the Royals would go and do and he was forever preparing his little surprises for them.

Deimne’s flight brought him directly over Morrigu’s castle. He hovered high in the clouds. His great white, glittering wings were strong as they worked to keep him in place as he surveyed the scene below.

Maxine Reigate came to mind.

She was a High Druid Priestess and had the powers of a Fios although she was not one in the true sense. She had threatened him with the wand upon their first encounter. It made him smile for she was not an immortal. She was so brave. She was his friend and he had learned a great deal about humans from her, as he had from Shee Willow. He had learned to trust what they told him was his gut.

He knew now what that meant and his gut was screaming that something below was very wrong.

Death hissed its hoary tune.

Destruction pounded in his ears.

And then he knew why…

Even as detached from human sufferings and daily lives as he had forced himself to be, he saw the villages around the castle and felt a wave of sorrow and convulsion of sympathy shake his inner core.

The villages whose charming little shops and narrow avenues had teamed with locals going about their business only an hour ago, lay still and desolate. There was naught but scattered bones.

Clothed skeletons, some on steps, in the streets, on the curbing, and inside those charming shops. Shops now devastated with broken windows and doors. Some hanging from their hinges with only the skeletal remains of humans left behind everywhere.
Horrific.

He knew why. Pestale had set the lowly non-shifters on the town. He had sent them in to feed during the night, before the humans would know what hit them.

He had chosen the non-shifters caste for they were the only ones able to multiply simply from feeding.

A sudden need to return to Tir where he had left his daughter to train with Nuad came over him. He wanted to hold and kiss her head and make certain none of this horror touched her. And a sudden warm feeling came over him. He was no longer the last of his kind, for he had Frankie.

His attention returned to Morrigu’s Castle and he felt the pulse of the Unseelie below. He could hear them grunting with pleasure as it sent a shiver of repulsion through his Daoine blood. Daoine were always one with nature and Unseelie were the unnaturals.

The Unseelie had been created
not
by the
Wheel of Life
and not in the natural way, but by the Dark King’s science and magic combined. It had gone all wrong.

Frankie’s eyes flashed into his mind and he was determined to be a part of making her life special. In order to do that he had to find a way of sending the demons back to their hellhole.

He increased the volume of his hearing as he flew closer to the castle and began taking mental pictures of the interior with his built-in radar. Just as he was preparing to leave, he heard the sound of the human machines in the air; what they called helicopters.

Soon the tragedy below would be on the news.

Panic would be rampant as it now was in Dublin. Scotland and Ireland would band together, but they didn’t stand a chance without the Seelie Fae. The Seelie had to maintain their invisibility. No one could know they existed or life would never be comfortable for Fae again.

The Team was running out of time.

And then he saw Pestale looking up towards in the sky as though he could see him.

No, Pestale could not see him.

He immediately shifted back to Queen Aaibhe’s quarters.

Chapter Seventeen

DUBLIN HAD BEEN cleansed of Unseelie, but Jazz wasn’t done. She turned to Trevor and said, “I have to do something first before we go back.”

“What?” he frowned at her for the Queen had recalled them.

“I have to give them a head’s up. I have to tell them to use iron for bullets and rockets. They need to know.”

“And how do you propose to do that?”

“With finesse. Want to see?”

He grinned wide. “My Jazmine Decker always has something up her sleeve. Yes, I want to see.”

Protected by their invisibility, Jazz shifted into the military’s headquarters and looked around until she saw him. The man in charge was a four star general.

She went near him and whispered in his ear, “The monsters can be killed with iron. Make bullets and rockets of iron. You saw some men using iron rods, didn’t you…iron…”

She smiled as she stood back and listened to the general snap off orders to get as much iron as they could collect.

That would help them.

She turned to Trevor. “Okay, that will give them a chance.”

He touched her cheek, “My goddess.”

She laughed, “No. you hellion. Come on, the Queen calls.”

They shifted in and found all the Royals gathered with the two Queens in what had been set up as a war room.

Three dimensional blueprints of Morrigu’s Castle had been laid out on the long dark oak table and everyone stood staring down at them as Deimne shifted into the chamber.

A flick of his wrist produced yet another blueprint only he did not set it down, but raised it to eye level for contemplation.

“Why has Pestale enlarged the dungeon from its original size? It extends into a tunnel of sorts that was not there before,” Trevor pointed out.

“An escape route for his non-shifters?” Jazz asked.

“No, my love. I don’t see an exit,” Trevor said thoughtfully.

Breslyn said grimly, “I don’t like this. What can he be planning?”

Radzia walked around the lifelike prints, hands on her hips, “what is that huge gold chain thing for?” She pointed. “There…in the wall of the tunnel.”

Aaibhe turned to Mab who shook her head and said, “It is impossible to see into the mind of a deranged Dark Fae, for Pestale is no more than that.”

“With all due respect Queen Mab, I disagree,” Jazz answered while frowning. “To allow ourselves to fall into the trap of underestimating Pestale simply because he is evil would be a mistake.” She shook her head. “If he has enlarged the original dungeon, Pestale must has a very good reason. It is important to remember that while we may not understand his line of thinking, he is very clever.”

Jazz stood back and Trevor ran a hand down her back as they waited for the Queen to speak. Aaibhe looked at Mab who looked concerned, but folded her hands together and nodded her head for Aaibhe to proceed. “What do you think he could possibly want to use this new alteration of the castle dungeon for?”

“To house something he needs,” Breslyn said thoughtfully.

“Indeed. That may be so, my Prince, but what?” Aaibhe said.

“Pestale has had a long time to gather his trinkets—artifacts that belonged to the Dark King. I am new to all of this and can only imagine how powerful those artifacts are. You, my Queens,” Jazz said careful to give them both their due, “would know what the Dark King had in his possession and perhaps left behind for his Princes to find. We can only speculate what Pestale means to do with those artifacts. We do have to be ready to counteract anything he throws at us. The fact that he has some gold chain in a tunnel adjacent to a dungeon that he had enlarged has to worry us,” Jazz concluded.

“He means to capture something—someone and hold them there, but why enlarge the tunnel? All the Royal Seelie could have fit in the original dungeon,” Trevor mused.

“The gold chain is key. I know of no gold chain that ever was used to control or trap a Royal Seelie. There is nothing in our past to…” Breslyn mused more to himself than to anyone.

Aaibhe gasped and all eyes centered on her as she spoke. “I remember the story of the Dark King and Queen Bridget.” She looked at Deimne. “When the Gorka tore through Danu skies and we lost so many.”

Deimne frowned. “The Gorka was captured and taken to a secret location while we still had our Danu. The dimension that holds the beast was created by Queen Bridget and the Dark King before their final falling out.” He shook his head. “How would Pestale know of it? How?”

“Because at one time,” Z said, “when I was in the Dark Realm I learned how he was a welcome son at the Retreat the Dark King kept with Crystal—before he tried to seduce his father’s woman.” She shrugged. “Who knows what he learned during those early years.”

“Yes, but I doubt that the Dark King would have told him where the Gorka was kept. He always understood the importance of that secret. Even I do not know where they located the Realm that holds the Gorka,” Aaibhe said thoughtfully.

“But my cousin, I remember stories about a gold chain created from a spelled chalice and Danu dust…” Mab interjected.

All conversation ceased as the implication of this was driven home.

“Pestale means to capture the Gorka and bring it here to the Human Realm,” Deimne breathed in horror.

“To set it upon us, to destroy all the Royals,” Aaibhe said grimly and turned to Mab. “We must retire immediately and find a way to spell an artifact just as Queen Bridget did.”

“We can’t do it without the Danu Dust or the
Twalla
,” Mab said. “The Gorka was impervious to most of our magic.”

“There is more,” Deimne said. “Pestale allowed his non-shifters to devour the residents of not one,
but three
villages. The people in those towns were totally wiped out--consumed. Those abominations will soon multiply.”

Z spat angrily, “Bastards!”

“That caste is helpless against us. They are no more than numbers we will easily put away and are meaningless in the fight we will take
to them
,” Queen Mab offered impatiently.

“So to sum things up we have the possibility of a thing called a Gorka, which from its name does not sound good. And we have hordes of monsters about to be released into the world,” Jazz summed up. “I’m guessing he wants large numbers of Unseelie out and about to distract us. They are perhaps meaningless to us, but not to humans who we have sworn to protect. He will keep setting them on the cities, distracting us from our purpose. I don’t think he has guessed our purpose, which is to bring our fight to them, but he doesn’t have to if he is keeping us forever at bay.”

“My Jazmine Decker is very right,” Trevor put in. “We must take the fight to him soon, before he can use the portal and send his creatures into the cities, and before he can find and retrieve the Gorka.”

“In the meantime, my mate has whispered into the ears of one of the human generals. She has told him to create bullets and rockets out of iron. That should help the humans defend themselves which will free more of our warriors,” Trevor added.

Radzia moved to Danté and he touched her cheek as she looked up into his golden eyes, and pulled at his auburn braid. He collected her and brought her in close and whispered a word of reassurance into her ear.

“We can also get the message across to the smaller communities,” Z said. “I’m not affected by iron. Next time the Unseelie attack a village, I’m going in holding an Unseelie up by its grossness and slicing its head off with an iron bar and telling everyone around that iron can kill ‘em. How is that?” Z said with a wide smile.

Trevor and Danté grinned and Jazz did a high five with Z and said, “I like that. I like that a whole lot.”

“A thought,” Aaibhe cut in quietly. “We will have a great deal to repair in the Human World when we finally get Pestale under control, and my brave warriors we shall. However, we will have to find a way to make the humans forget that we, the Seelie Fae, and our Druids exist. They have witnessed us in the fight to help them and even after we enacted the Féth Fiada, they knew something they couldn’t see what was killing the monsters. We shall have to take care of that.”

Breslyn grinned, took up his dark blond long hair and tied it at the nape of his neck with a leather string. “Leave that to me. I think I have the answer.”

“Are you going to share?” Jazz asked.

“Not just yet. One thing at a time, Jazmine Decker,” he answered.

Jazz didn’t like that Trevor had them all calling her by her first and last name as though they were one.

~*~

Pestale stood with his muscular long legs spread wide apart. He pushed the long black strands of his free flowing hair back and tied them with leather to hold them in place against the harsh wind.

His eyes scanned the horizon as his sandals scraped along the stone flooring of the castle’s open parapet. He bent his elbows onto the stone ledge and gazed past the moat far below, past the stockade and down into the green valley.

Everything about Morrigu’s Castle called to and settled him. He discovered that he loved this place. The moment they had arrived at the castle in the Highlands, he knew. And then he stepped within its walls and he felt the power surge through him as he realized this was where he belonged.

He was a Royal. A Dark Prince, but a Royal all the same. This was Morrigu’s Castle and therefore his own. He was going to rename it eventually.

The land spoke to him. He was certain it whispered his name. He would be King of all the Universe.

He would rule and his word would never be challenged. In the end, all would benefit from his rule. The humans, though slaves would no longer suffer war. He would be the sole arbitrator of all. He would lay down his law. He was strong enough to wipe out all opposition until there was none. Then he would allow the humans their track of earth and their pleasures as long as they served him well.

Pestale grimaced as thoughts of Morrigu filtered through. As of late, she was no longer focused on ruling the Universe.

She was too involved with the male human, what was his name—Dude. No, the human used that word, but he wasn’t Dude. He was Ray Wicken.

He seemed to think he was magical, maybe even a warlock he said. This had made Pestale grin. He was a fool, but harmless.

Ray Wicken didn’t know what real magic was, but he seemed to be good for Morrigu so Pestale had allowed him to live.

He liked that this Ray had such a calming influence over her. It pleasured him to see her so happy. How odd that he cared so much.

The human male seemed to comfort her. He had been at first slightly jealous, but he put that sensation to rest as the human was useful as a good diversion for her.

Pestale was not emotional and although he could be kind when it suited him, he was not inclined to be. However, Morrigu was different. He had always felt an empathy with her. She had been used and then mistreated by his father. She had been discarded as though she was nothing, just
as he
had been. Besides that, she was in a manner of speaking, his mother.

Her genes were in part his genes, and perhaps now, she might enjoy the pleasures she was entitled to experience—the pleasures the Dark King had denied them all.

He did find it odd how devoted this male human was to Morrigu. Their time together had been a short one thus far and yet the two were inseparable. Pestale had investigated and found that Morrigu had not even compelled him to be with her. He remained enamored with her, smiling and laughing as though it was meant to be.

He no longer believed in such things. He had once thought that Royce was meant to be his, but he had been wrong. If this human male disappointed Morrigu then he would send him in pieces to whence he came! But for now he was a good diversion for her, as Hordly and he were too busy to look after her many needs.

Suddenly a shiver swept through him blasting its way into his head, giving him a warning. He looked up into the cloud splattered sky. Something high above made his blood tingle with dread. But what could it be?

He couldn’t see anything, but he certainly felt the magic. He was sensitive to all kinds of magic, whether it was white or dark. He sensed something
hovering
in the atmosphere.

Only one winged Fae remained,
Deimne.

Was it the Sluagh high above?

What would the Sluagh want? What could the Sluagh learn hovering above his castle?

Pestale didn’t like this. He wasn’t ready for an attack by the Seelie Fae. If it was the Sluagh then he needed to be prepared for the winged Fae’s next visit.

The Sluagh was the only Fae capable of hiding himself from Unseelie. This fact swept through him, irritating him to his core.

How dare the Sluagh fly over his castle! It was further proof that he, the first of the Dark King’s sons was more Unseelie than Seelie Fae. For a Seelie Fae would have seen through his invisibility.

Damn his father’s dark magic! With Morrigu’s DNA and the Dark King’s DNA so much a part of him, why hadn’t he turned out completely Royal Seelie?

He knew the answer, of course, for his father had explained it once. It was simple—his father had erred.