When the Stars Threw Down Their Spears: The Goblin Wars, Book Three (33 page)

It would be stronger here. It had to be.
This
was where the song had entered the waters, given them borders and boundaries, separating them so Mag Mell could be born.

The desire to find out what was beneath the still surface was so powerful it dulled her grief, shoved all thought of war, all the pain in her arm, away. She touched the surface again and heard the song, this time sweet and good as it had been before, and behind it, the roar of mighty waters calling her out of Mag Mell. Out of the multiverse.

The sound of eternity. A sea without end, which raged on shores beyond the borders of existence.

Aiden’s whip
cracked
and Teagan pulled her hand away.

“Good job, boyo,” Finn said. “But it’s a bit loud. We need to be quiet.”

Gil was still standing behind Teagan.

“You said phookas can’t come here?” she asked.

“They’re not supposed to.” Gil’s ear twitched. “I’m a man.”

Teagan’s image in the pool was gone when she leaned over the waters again. In its place, a tiger paced a kitchen floor before a lamb.

“Next time, put a rock in the inner tube, Tea,”
the tiger said, in Aileen Wylltson’s voice.
“It’ll be more useful. You have to think your way through things, even in the midst of it.”

Teagan remembered that conversation. Finn had taken a beating in the alley behind their house. The bullies had been after Lennie, and he had stepped in, even though he had a cast on his arm. Teagan had done her best to help, smacking one of the bullies with a bike inner tube she’d grabbed from the garbage. It
would
have worked better if she’d put a rock in it.

“Aileen! Don’t encourage violence,”
the lamb said in her father’s voice.
“There are civilized ways to deal with things like this.”

“I’d have civilized the hooligans on the spot,”
the tiger growled.
“It was the right thing they did, and you know it, John.”

Teagan smiled. Mom had never wanted civilization. She’d wanted justice.

The tiger in the pond stopped pacing and looked directly at Teagan, its eyes molten gold.

“Use your brain, girl,”
it said, then it turned to the lamb.
“You were saying?”
it asked politely.

“That
The Jungle Book
should never have been illustrated. Kipling’s words were meant to be imagined.”

Teagan sucked in her breath. More than a memory, then.
This
conversation had never happened. At least not while she was listening.

“
Image
is the root of
imagine,
”
the tiger said.
“And imagination is the only way we can approach truth, because truth is bigger than our physical world. Edward and Charles Detmold did a brilliant job of imaging Kipling’s words. There was truth in those illustrations. It’s time to go, Dear.”
They turned and started walking away together.

“Did you know that the story ‘Tiger! Tiger!’—the one where Mowgli kills Shere Khan—was inspired by Blake’s ‘The Tyger’?”
the lamb asked.

“As if all of us were like that cat.”
The tiger’s tail twitched.
“I always preferred ‘Letting in the Jungle,’ anyway.”

The howl of a Cú Faoil pulled Teagan back. It was the alpha male. He tipped his nose up and howled again, and something answered him from the direction of the ravine. A phooka, daring him to come and find it. The Cú Faoil all looked eagerly at Seamus. And then more phookas answered, and more.

“That doesn’t sound good,” Abby said.

“Yes, it does.” Teagan stood up slowly. “Gil, do they leave the gates of the walled city open at night?”

“No,” Gil said. “They close them up so nothing sneaks in.” Of course they did. The phookas in the slum city outside the walls were free, but all those inside the city walls wore collars and chains.

“Tea?” Abby had a worried look on her face. “What are you thinking?”

Teagan smiled. Exactly what her mom had suggested.

“I’m going to let the jungle in,” she said.

“What?”

“It was one of my mother’s favorite stories,” Teagan explained. “A wild boy named Mowgli called the elephants to a town and they destroyed it.”

“Elephants?” Abby looked at the dark woods around them. “The cute little guys that hang by their tails from the trees?” She put the palm of her hand to Teagan’s forehead. “Did your fever come back, Tea?”

“It’s a children’s story,” Seamus said.

“Stop being arrogant and listen,” Finn cut in. “The girl’s got a brain like her da. The man loved children’s stories.”

“I’m speaking metaphorically,” Teagan explained. “I’m going to bilocate and lead the phookas who have gathered for the Great Hunt into the town.”

“You can lead phookas?” Seamus asked.

“Yes!” Gil shivered with delight. “She didn’t bend us. She asked us. When she hunted god, it was so good. Like something we were hungry for.”

Glimories, perhaps?
What had the phookas been before they followed Mab away?

“They’ll kill the Fir Bolg as well as the Highborn,” Seamus said before Teagan could ask Gil about it. “I won’t allow it.”

“
You
won’t allow it? Nobody asked you, McGillahee,” Finn said. “If we don’t do something, this whole world will die.”

“You said you were very good at running, Seamus,” Teagan said.

“I take after Caílte Mac Rónáin in that regard.”

Teagan nodded. Caílte had been the only Fianna who could keep up with the hounds.

“I need you to get through the phookas on the other side of the ravine and back to the town. Go in the way we came out, and warn the Fir Bolg. Get them off the streets. Then open the gates and get out of the way.”

“They’ll listen to him?” Abby asked.

“Of course they will,” Finn said. “They think he’s the Mac Cumhaill, don’t they?”

“And after you get in and wreak havoc?” Seamus asked. “What then?”

“I’m going after Mab, and then I’ll find a way to let Raynor in.”

“
We’re
going after her, you mean,” Finn said.

Teagan looked toward Abby and Aiden, and shook her head.

“Oh, I don’t like where this is going,” Finn said. “You can’t do this alone, girl.”

“She won’t be alone.” Gil’s ears were flat. “
I’m
going with her. Me. I can show her where Fear Doirich is.”

Teagan nodded. She’d hoped he would volunteer.
We always know where god is
, the little phooka had told her once.

“Hold on,” Seamus said. “Doesn’t the phooka think Doirich is God?”

“I’m a man,” Gil insisted.

“And what am I supposed to do while you two save the world?” Finn asked.

“I can’t guarantee that all the phookas will follow me to the city. Some of them might just decide to go looking for flesh and blood instead.”
For Aiden, if Mag Mell hasn’t managed to wash the scent of child from the woods
.

Seamus turned to Finn. “You’re really going to trust that she and a phooka boy can do this?”

“Man!”
Gil shouted.

“You have no idea what she’s capable of, McGillahee. Or what Gil’s capable of either, for that matter.”

“I’m afraid I do. I know the stories.”

“I know Tea and Gil,” Finn said, “and I’m not afraid.”

Teagan took Finn’s hand. “I am doing this with or without you, Seamus,” she said. “The life is leaking out of Mag Mell now. Tonight. I don’t have time to think of anything else. Are you going to save Fir Bolg lives, or wait here twiddling your thumbs?”

“I’ll go.”

“The Cú Faoil should be able to deal with any phooka bands you meet on the way,” Teagan said. “They can get you there. You’ve got two hours.”

“How are you going to judge time? Count?”

“I have the moon, and the trees as a fixed reference point. I can estimate.”

“When you reach the sewer,” Finn added, “if Mag Mell doesn’t light your way, just walk against the flow of the water.”

“You’ve crawled through dark sewers before?” Seamus asked.

“It’s a survival skill. I learned it hunting in the underside of Chicago.”

Aiden held up his whip, and Seamus took it.

“Thank you, Aiden.” He whistled at the Cú Faoil, and they leaped to their feet, eager for the fight ahead.

“McGillahee,” Finn called as they left the clearing. “Be careful. I don’t want to have to listen to more Scottish songs about grand attempts.”

“Try not to do anything heroically Irish while I’m away,” Seamus replied. “I’d miss you.”

“May I borrow your shirt, Finn?” Teagan asked when Seamus was gone. He pulled it up over his head and handed it to her. Teagan pulled it down over her own head, then started undressing beneath it.

“That’s a survival skill we learned in middle school,” Abby said. “Girls’ locker rooms can be brutal.”

Tea was wiggling out of her shirt when she heard the first whip crack, loud as a gunshot, and then the sound of Cú Faoil battling phookas.

“It’s started,” Finn said. “And it doesn’t sound that far away.” The phookas must have been on this side of the ravine. That was going to make trying to sleep fun.

“Turn your backs,” she said.

Finn nodded and pulled Aiden away, and Teagan found a place that looked comfortable to sleep, laid out her clothes, and settled down.

Finn and Abby were talking, their voices low, and the skirmish in the woods seemed to be over. The electric shadow of the almost-storm tickled at her from the ground below.
It’s the life of Mag Mell I’m feeling
, Teagan realized.
She’s trying to fight for herself, but she can’t even muster a storm
. The electric field felt like a net, pulling her down into the moss. Mag Mell still could, it seemed, help her to sleep.

When she sat up out of her body, she had the spark of the half-formed storm in her. It wasn’t as much as she had felt when the lightning struck, but it was enough to light green candles on her fingertips. Mag Mell was giving her all she could. Teagan felt the excitement of the hunt rising, saw Gil start to turn and Finn reach out and pull him back around. She scrambled into her clothes.

“Okay,” she said. “I’m dressed.”

Aiden looked at her wide-eyed when they finally turned around.

“You’re glowing green,” Abby said. “That’s new.”

“It’s that thing she has with electricity.” Finn looked up. “Should we be moving back?”

“No,” Teagan said. “No lightning here, just potential.”

“You’re totally going to regret this in the morning,” Abby said.

“I just overdid it last time.” Even if she did live to regret it, she wasn’t going to refuse Mag Mell’s gift tonight. “Aiden? You know this is just me, right?”

Aiden looked from her to her sleeping flesh and bones.

“Here.” She held out her hand. He took it, and frowned. She should really have explained this to him before she stepped out of her body.

“It’s cold,” Finn confirmed. “But she’s every bit your sister.”

Aiden dropped her hand and walked over to her flesh and blood. He felt her cheek, then pressed his ear to her chest.

“So, what are you going to do now?” Abby asked, as Aiden went on checking Teagan’s vital signs.

Teagan looked at the moon. It hadn’t moved very far up the sky since Seamus had left.

“Wait,” she said reluctantly. “I fell asleep a lot faster than I thought I would.”

Thirty

F
INN
sat on one side of her and Abby on the other, silent as knights keeping vigil while the moon crawled across the sky. Aiden built traps around   her sleeping body using stones and sticks. Gil couldn’t sit still and paced the clearing, stopping every few feet to scent the wind. Aiden had finished half his wall of sticks and had started covering her body with leaves by the time Teagan stood up.

Gil raced over. “Time to go?”

Teagan nodded.

“Give us a minute,” Finn said, making a shooing motion at Gil.

“Come on.” Abby nudged the phooka boy over to examine Aiden’s work.

Finn looked at Teagan for a long moment, then picked a silver-leafed flower from the bush beside him and tucked it into the buttonhole of her shirt.

“Come back to me, girl.” His voice was husky.

“Keep Abby and Aiden safe for me.” Teagan touched the leaf petals. “This doesn’t get you out of a real date with real flowers.”

“And canoodling?” Finn asked.

“Definitely canoodling,” Teagan promised.

“That beats breaking up before you run off,” Finn said, and then was serious again. “Is this going to work?”

“I don’t know,” Teagan admitted. “But it’s not just the best idea I have. It’s the only idea I have.”

Finn pulled her into his arms and rested his chin on top of her head.

“I thought I was unsettling like this.”

“Very,” Finn said. “I’m just not ready to let you go.”

Teagan hugged him back, listening to his heartbeat. “When will you be ready?” she asked when his arms didn’t loosen.

“Never. I’ll never be ready to watch you walk away. I don’t know what to do with myself while I wait.”

“Abby’s going to pray for us,” Teagan suggested.

“I’ve never had time for that,” Finn said. “What’s the sense in saying, ‘Hoy, Almighty, there’s a goblin now, about to squeeze the life out of a creature. Thy will be done.’ I’m standing right there. I know very well what needs to be done, so I get on with it, don’t I? I’ll get it done or die trying.”

Teagan laughed, and he held her out at arm’s length and looked at her. “I’m being serious here, girl.”

“I know. It’s just that . . . Mamieo was right. You’re a saint.”

“I’d be a saint or a martyr or make an ass of myself if it would save you and the boyo. If it would let Raynor in. I’m willing to pray my heart out if it will get you back safely, but I only know Mamieo’s prayer and one other, aside from blessings over food.”

“Mamieo’s prayer,” Teagan said. “Mamieo’s prayer will do.”

Finn pulled her close again, and she closed her eyes.
“I do not ask for a path with no trouble or regret,”
he prayed.
“I ask instead for a friend who’ll walk with me down any path. I do not ask never to feel pain. I ask instead for courage, even when hope can scarce shine through. And one more thing I ask: That in every hour of joy or pain, I feel the Creator close by my side. This is my truest prayer for myself and for all I love, now and forever. Amen.”