“Forbidden!” It screamed and launched itself at me. Where Ashling hadn’t been able to penetrate the glass, the monster—the Fomorii—did easily. Its arms shot through; its clawed fingertips wrapped themselves around my throat, squeezing tight.
Like I hadn’t been strangled enough lately. I let go of the mirror, using both hands to pry at the thing that had me in its vice-like grip. I could hear Ashling screaming, though I could no longer see her. The monster’s arms were dark green, almost black, and slick with some sort of slime. The ooze made grasping it impossible. I floundered, my vision slipping in and out as spots appeared in front of me. At the last moment I wished for my knife; if I had it I could at least damage the thing that held my life in its hands.
The cool bone handle was suddenly in my right hand. I didn’t think about how it got there, just used it to slash at the beast in the mirror. The blade cut into the Fomorii’s right arm, slicing through it as if it were soft, slimy green butter.
The Fomorii let out a howl, and the last of my own powers burst out of me uncontrolled, shattering the mirror. The shards of the mirror cut through the Fomorii’s arms, amputating them at the elbows. The two limbs fell into the sink with a spurt of blood. I pried the fingers off my throat and drew in a lungful of air. The cool tang of the ocean had never tasted so good on my tongue. I took another breath and felt it flood my body with oxygen.
I gripped the handle of my knife and leaned on the counter. Where had the blade come from? I shook my head and looked around the bathroom. There were spatters of blood and shards of mirror all over the counter and the floor. I didn’t care. Ashling was alive, there was no doubt in me now, and that knowledge fuelled me for the next hour while I cleaned the bathroom. The mirror went into the wastebasket; I would have to pay for that no doubt. I held up the dark green, slimy appendages. “What the hell am I supposed to do with these?” I muttered.
I found a black plastic bag under the sink, and I slipped the arms into it, grimacing each time I had to touch them. Disgusting. I stuffed the bag into the back of the closet. I would have to get them out at some point, but all I wanted right then was to shower and go to bed. I was beyond exhausted.
As the water sluiced over me I went over the next few steps in my mind. The monster in the water—the Fomorii that had grabbed me—what had it said?
“Can you hear me little Tuatha? I wonder if you know me deep in your soul? We are coming for you.”
Wringing my hair out, I quickly braided it; the tip ended in the middle of my back. Bres and Luke were Tuatha and they said I was too. Which meant that Ashling was as well; that would explain why Luke was so sure they would kill her. She was their enemy, as was I. Slipping into an oversized t-shirt and a pair of shorts, I curled up in the bed. My eyelids drooped and I struggled to stay awake. Though my heart and spirit were willing, my body was done in by the day’s events. I would be no good to Ashling if I was stumbling around sleep deprived.
Tomorrow I would start hunting for a way through the Barrier.
9
I woke in the middle of the night, the moon shining on the water and reflecting in through my windows. A tingle of awareness tickled along the edge of my skin. A soft intake of breath was all I heard before a body glided forward in the moonlit night.
I sat up and scrambled away from the figure, my mind still foggy with sleep.
“Get out of here!” I yelled, an image of the Fomorii coming for his lopped off appendages filling my mind. Damn, where was my knife? It slid into my hand as if beckoned, and I gripped the handle, not even questioning the how of it.
The lights flicked on, though they were muted as if the power was low. A tall figure stood at the foot of my bed, a dark cape shrouding him from head to foot. I caught the flash of his violet tinged eyes as he tipped his head.
“Bres, what the hell are you doing here?” I said, my fear quickly turning to anger as I lowered my knife. How had he gotten in anyway?
The dim light illuminated his face, and I realized my mistake. It wasn’t Bres.
The stranger lifted his hand and pointed a finger at me. I froze, suddenly unable to move. He took two strides and, before I could even attempt get out of his way, he had me pinned up against the wall. A sharp pinch of my wrist between his fingers and my knife dropped to the floor.
“Ah Quinn, so like your mother, if one can look past those eyes of yours.” He breathed out the words and they caressed my skin, leaving behind a trail of frost on my cheeks. I stared into his face; he had the same violet eyes as Bres, the same dark hair. He looked as if he could be an older version of Bres, which was disturbing. The only true difference was the pointed teeth that glinted out from between his lips as he spoke.
“Don’t you hurt her!” I yelled at him, struggling in his grip. My instincts were screaming at me to run, fight, so something. Though he didn’t look it, I had no doubt the stranger was one of the Fomorii.
He let out a grunt. “I would never hurt your mother.” He tipped his head and stared at me, one eyebrow raised. “You have the look of your father too. That is a pity. I wonder, do you carry other traits of his? Are you a fool?”
I’d never met our father, never knew him at all. Our mother wouldn’t even tell us his name. But that didn’t mean I would allow some stranger to bad mouth him. “You have no right to speak of him, you don’t know him.”
He laughed and my legs went weak. “I know him better than you do, his daughter.” He let out a sigh. “I won’t enjoy this. But it’s necessary, for Ashling’s sake.”
“You have her, don’t you? And Mom. Please let them go.”
“You don’t deserve them. They’re mine. I am keeping them—Ashling especially—where they’re safe from you and your Tuatha treachery.”
“NO. I would never hurt her! I love Ashling, she’s my baby sister.”
The stranger snorted. “You know the prophecy, all of it?”
“Enough, I know enough, not that it matters. I don’t believe in this stupid prophecy,” I said.
“Then how do you explain me? Hmm. How do you explain the Fomorii you saw with your own eyes, the Barrier that now stands between you and the ocean. How do you explain the power that even now I can sense rippling through your body?”
“I don’t know,” I whispered.
The stranger loomed over me. “I should kill you now, but I can’t. Even I am not that cold, even I believe that there is power in each of us to change our destiny. Not to mention, a promise, is a promise.” He lifted his hand to my face and caught a tear on the tip of his finger.
I couldn’t move, spellbound, his words confusing me. What promise was he talking about? “Please give her back. I’d do anything to have her back.”
“No. You will leave her and become a pawn of the Councils,” he said, his purple eyes delving into my own. “I will not have that for her. She has too much beauty, she is too much like her mother. I will keep her for my own.”
The room darkened and I could feel him—there is no other way to describe it—begin to draw on his power and it was a dark and fearsome thing. I did the only thing I could think of.
“LUKE!” I screamed.
The stranger’s eyes snapped away from mine as the door was kicked in. Bres, sword bared, stood in the doorway.
The stranger looked from me to Bres and back. A slow smile spread across his face. He locked eyes with me once again.
“You are trespassing on my lands. I will give you until midnight tomorrow to leave. If you are still here I will consider it an attack on me, and your life will be forfeit.” A crack like the sound of thunder filled the room and in a swirl of darkness, he was gone. The lights dimmed and went back out.
Bres was suddenly in front of me, his eyes hard and his jaw twitching. “Did he hurt you badly?”
I shook my head. “No, he didn’t hurt me. He was starting to draw on his power—what was he going to do?”
Bres gave me a sharp nod. “You did ta right thing Quinn. He was preparing to wipe your memory. It would be a sure way to end any role you would play in ta prophecy without killing you.”
A lump formed in my throat. I didn’t doubt him, not for an instant. If Bres had been a second later . . . I shivered at the thought of all my memories being wiped like a dry erase board.
Luke appeared in the doorway, a sword in his hand. “You can leave now Bres, I will take it from here.”
Bres frowned. “I’m to be protecting her as much as you are Luke.” The two men stared at each other, neither one backing down.
I waved my hand between them, catching both of their attentions. “Hello. Listen to me. The guy, whoever he is, has my sister and my mom. We have to find out who he is, where he’s got them!”
They stared at me as if I was speaking Chinese. Did they not understand how important this was?
“We know who he is Quinn, and we know where your sister and mother were taken,” Bres said. His accent seemed stronger than it had been before.
It was my turn to stare. “What?”
“That was Balor. He is the ruler of the Fomorii,” Luke said, sitting down on the edge of the bed.
“He doesn’t look like the others,” I said, thinking of the bulbous eyes and slimy black skin the Fomorii I’d already met.
Bres gave me a wry smile and a wink I didn’t understand. “Ta more powerful ta Fomorii, ta more human they look.”
“We can’t go after them Quinn,” Luke said, his hands clasped loosely in his lap. “I’m sorry, but the likelihood is they’ve both been killed already.”
I was shaking my head even before he finished speaking. “No, I saw Ashling. She’s still alive. And Balor, he said she was beautiful; that he was going to keep her for his own. Does that mean what I think it does?”
Luke and Bres exchanged a look, one that tightened my heart with fear for my sister. “Tell me,” I said.
“She’ll become his mistress, if all goes well.” Bres lifted a hand to stall me but I barrelled over him, my voice hitting octaves and decibels I hadn’t known I could reach.