Salty Dog Page 15

  “The Queen sends her regards,” a child’s voice whispered into my ear. I jerked away, but I was too nauseous, the pain too intense, to move that quickly, and I ended up retching onto the stone. Someone nearby must have finally noticed what was happening, because I heard them scream for help, drawing a small crowd of gawkers. I could see their feet gathered around me through my tears, and I felt oddly embarrassed to have puked in front of so many people. I wanted to look up, to reassure them and say I was alright, but I couldn’t; my was body so tense, so traumatized, it refused to budge.

  “Clear the way!”

  Another pair of boots, though these were closer, so close that the pool of my vomit lapped against them. So gross. And yet even my revulsion felt like a distant thing—a luxury I couldn’t afford. The boots quickly gave way to a face, one I thought I knew, as the man knelt down. A man with a hawkish nose and steady eyes. He was speaking, but I couldn’t catch the words. I blinked, or thought I blinked, except it’s not a blink if you can’t open your eyes, is it?

  Someone shook me.

  “Ceara!” the man screamed.

  “Bran?” I asked, eyes fluttering open, able to speak somehow past chattering teeth. I was so damn cold, and I’d fallen onto my side, at some point. The crowd had gotten larger. But Bran didn’t answer me. Instead, a woman thrust him back, and suddenly there was Blair, her mouth slack, eyes horrified, squatting beside me. She spun on her heels. “What did you do to her?!” she shrieked.

  “Not…him…” I croaked, trying to sit up. Of course, I had no idea whether or not she heard me, because—halfway up—my body gave out, my head striking the stone floor as I collapsed. Ironically, it didn’t even seem to hurt. In fact, I felt a comforting warmth spread through me. I swirled into unconsciousness, the tormented groans of the damned hounding me towards sweet oblivion. Distantly, someone screamed, although it sounded inhuman somehow…a howl, maybe? Either way, that was the sound which chased me down a dark, dark tunnel with no end.

  27

  I woke to the smell of sulfur and brimstone—not exactly reassuring scents. Of course, no smell could have terrified me more than the sight of the hulking, bestial creature looming over me. With eyes like pools of liquid amber, the druidic marks on its snout literally burning from within like hot coals, and teeth as long as my fingers, the hound was a reflection of a horrific nightmare. And not just any nightmare. My nightmare. I’d woken in a cold sweat more than once remembering that shadowy figure as it padded behind the curve of a distant hillside, though in the dream it had emerged to chase me across the plains—always chasing, but never catching, its breath hot on my heels, teeth snapping mere inches from my back.

  “No, no no…” I tried to scramble away, but even that slight movement tugged at something near the base of my spine, a ripping sensation that threatened to make me sick. I screamed, clawing at the dirt, unable to decide which was worse: my pain, or being torn to shreds by a colossal hound.

  “Stop moving, or it’ll get worse.”

  The voice was deep, so much so that—as close as the hound was to me when he spoke—I could feel it in my chest. But no, that wasn’t simply his voice, I realized. It was his paw; he’d pinned me in place to stop me from struggling further.

  Or to stop me from getting away.

  “Please, let me go,” I whispered, sounding frail and broken, my voice hoarse from screaming.

  “Once the fire is ready,” the hound replied, mouth moving slow and uneven, the words spilling from a throat that should have been unable to form them. He raised his gigantic head, ears cocked, nose twitching. “They’re coming for you. We’ll have to hurry.”

  “Who?” I asked. “What am I doin’ here?” Memories began to assault me one after the other, though they were disjointed. Blair screaming. Boots in a vibrant liquid. Pain lancing through me from behind. Pain from above. A howl…a howl. “Wait, was that ye? The one howlin’?”

  The hound glanced down at me. “I’ve been keeping an eye on you all this time. Seemed like a waste to let you die in the street.” He shook his shaggy head, ears flopping in the process. “Your friends didn’t like me dragging you off.”

  “Are they alright?” I asked, trying to sit up.

  He pressed down harder on my ribcage. “I left them alive, if that’s what you mean. They’ve been tracking us since this morning.”

  “Where are we? Why’d ye take me?” A dozen other questions flew through my mind, so many I couldn’t keep up with them all. Who had attacked me? And why? What did the hound mean he’d been watching me “all this time”?

  “Because you’re dying,” he replied, gruffly.

  “That’s impossible,” I said, shaking my head. “No one—”

  “Dies in the Land of Youth?” he interjected, lowering his snout, eyes locked on mine, the markings flashing brighter for just a moment, tendrils of steam slipping out to caress his jowls. “Except you aren’t from the Land of Youth, are you, Morrigan’s daughter?”

  I frowned, fighting past my terror to meet that glare. “What d’ye mean?”

  He snorted and rose, withdrawing his paw. “Humans are the worst. Tell me, what did I say when you first got here? Small sips, tiny bites. Small sips. Tiny bites.”

  The hound disappeared from sight, though I could still hear him moving about, grumbling under his breath, though it sounded remarkably like panting from where I lay. Now that his gargantuan muzzle wasn’t obscuring my view, I could see the night stars overhead. I could also tell there was a fire burning nearby; smoke billowed towards the sky, and I felt a faint heat caressing my left side. I considered rising, but the memory of how much pain it had caused when I tried to escape was too fresh. Besides, it didn’t seem like the hound had any interest in eating me as I was. Maybe that’s what the fire was for?

  The thought made my stomach churn.

  “Then you go and chug a whole waterskin and lose yourself,” the hound growled, shuffling closer. “Not to mention all the feasts you’ve attended since. And Manannan wonders why I hate humans.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talkin’ about,” I admitted, unable to follow the hound’s train of thought—to me it sounded increasingly like the ramblings of a crazy person. “But…what is it you’re plannin’ to do to me?”

  “Save your life, apparently.”

  “Me life?”

  “You’re dying, remember? By the Dagda, your species’ frail minds never cease to amaze me.” The hound reappeared above me, though upside down this time, his chest and throat more prominent than his face. “You were stabbed. Remember that part?”

  I nodded, though my attention was all for the hound’s massive, muscular chest and neck; it reminded me faintly of the aurochs Lady Aife had tamed—as if he’d been designed to prowl a world that no longer existed.

  “Whoever stabbed you used a blade from the human realm,” he continued, his voice patronizing, as if he were speaking to a child. “I’m not sure how they smuggled it in, but the wound is festering. It’s killing you.”

  “The human realm? But that’s closed…” And yet, something—a gut feeling perhaps—told me otherwise. What had Bran said when we’d first met? Something about my existence being impossible? I couldn’t remember.

  “To the Blessed People, yes. But not to you.”

  “Why not me?”

  The hound huffed, almost a sigh. “Couldn’t Manannan have sent me someone with a lick of sense?” He padded away again. “What do they call you, now, anyway?”

  “Ceara,” I replied, too dazed by everything that was happening to ask about the person he kept mentioning, though the name did sound somewhat familiar. Part of the druid chants, maybe? “Ceara Light-Eater.”

  The hound stilled, the night falling silent except for the crackle of flames. “I’ve heard that name. They chant it in the city, sometimes. The tribe with the spears has mentioned it, too, on their hunts.”

  “You have been watching me…”

  “Not close enough, it seems. I had
to keep my distance, especially once you were taken to the mountains. The Blessed People aren’t fond of my kind. They’d hunt me down if they knew I was out there, as they once did my brothers and sisters.”

  I nodded, recalling my earlier conversation with Bran and his brothers. “They fear the return of their gods.”

  The hound yipped a few times, and I realized he was laughing. “If only they knew what they were harboring this whole time, they’d have sliced your throat a long time ago.”

  “What do ye mean?” I asked, though I feared I already knew the answer. That I’d known it all along. The voice in the back of my head was silent, but I could feel it there all the same, practically purring with pride. “You’re sayin’ I’m what, a goddess?”

  “Not yet,” the hound replied. “But you’ll have to become one, and soon.”

  “Why?”

  “Because your mother’s dying, and now, so are you.”

  “My mother?”

  But the hound didn’t answer. “The fire’s ready,” he said, instead. He approached, slid his muzzle under my shoulder, and shoved me onto my side. The pain was excruciating, like having my spine yanked out from the base of my back. “Stop squealing,” he demanded. “This will help.”

  While I lay there whimpering, I felt him move away. I realized I was lying in sand—coarse grains pressed against my face. I strained to listen and recognized the sucking refrain of the surf as it beat along the shore. A beach, then. But I didn’t have time to wonder where we were any longer; I sensed heat approaching my exposed back. Too much heat.

  “What are ye doin’?” I demanded.

  “Cleansing the wound,” the hound replied, though his words were garbled, guttural. Then, without warning, he pressed that wicked, searing heat against my wound.

  The last thing I remembered was the stench of sizzling flesh.

  I’d have preferred sulfur and brimstone.

  28

  There are times in a person’s life when they have cause to sit back and reflect on the decisions they’ve made, the people they’ve wronged, the path they’ve taken. Usually those moments are provoked by some life-altering event, or a seminal conversation, or perhaps a drug-induced epiphany. Either way, the result is a gut check which pokes at our misconceptions, makes us question our sense of reality.

  This was nothing like that.

  This was like someone tossing a Molotov cocktail onto my gasoline-riddled limbic system. This was electroshock therapy delivered in a bathtub full of eels. This—waking up with not one, not two, but three voices screaming in my head at once—was the closest thing to hell I could ever have imagined.

  Hands snatched me up the instant I awoke, pinning me to a breast that felt familiar and unfamiliar at the same time. Earnest faces studied mine, their expressions haggard and pained, bathed in the light of a nearby campfire. Three of them—the Crows—squared off against a hound the size of a horse.

  Cathal.

  The name rose unbidden, as did the memory of our first meeting on the beach—of a beast rising from the sand like a poster-pooch from The Land of the Lost. From there, a slew of other memories cluttered my mind, a puzzle with pieces I couldn’t begin to place, with edges that made no sense. I shook my head, mumbling something unintelligible, unable to form coherent words. The arms wrapped around me clutched tighter. Too tight. I struggled to get away, though it hurt; my lower back was on fire, the pain a dull ache that wouldn’t go away no matter how I twisted or turned.

  “It’s alright, Ceara,” a woman whispered into my hair. “It’s me. It’s Blair.”

  Blair. More memories. A woman lying naked on the bed, the smooth curve of her back exposed as she slept, her body taking up our side of the bed. Her brilliant smile when we’d first kissed her, our argument too heated for anything else, how she’d snatched at our clothes as if she’d tear them off us. Our clothes. But not my clothes. Not my side of the bed.

  Hell, not my bed.

  “I’m not Ceara,” I said. My voice was raspy, my throat raw from overuse.

  The arms around me stilled as Blair froze. Eyes swiveled to me—even those of the three brothers. Bran, Finann, and Llew. The Crows. Ceara’s memories of them flooded my consciousness: the rough stubble of Finann’s cheek beneath our lips, the gentle guiding gesture Llew made when escorting us to a waiting horse, and Bran watching us…always watching.

  The remaining two took a moment longer to place. Scathach I recognized first, the redhead wrapped in a white fur cloak, studying the flames of a nearby fire, using the tip of her spear to scoot a lump of smoking wood across the sand. But there was something about the way she moved, the way she held herself, that reminded me of someone else.

  “What’s wrong with her?” the last figure asked. Tristan. That was his name, though his name proved hardest to recall; his face looked damaged, his eye swollen, lips puffy, almost unrecognizable. His arm was in a sling. He’d lost a fight, it seemed.

  Probably lost his footing.

  I lurched out of Blair’s arms, pressing my hands to my ears, the clamoring voice in my head too much to bear. Scathach—no, Lady Aife, I realized—shooed Blair away, leaving me to kneel alone in the sand. More memories threatened to come roaring back. I could hear her, hear them—there were two voices whispering in my mind now—vying for control, demanding my attention.

  “Make ‘em stop,” I begged. “Oh God, make ‘em stop.”

  Lady Aife jerked back as if I’d slapped her, face stricken.

  “I told you,” Cathal grumbled. “She’s not of this world.”

  “But how?” Lady Aife asked. “I thought…I thought that—”

  “That you’d stumbled on a goddess reborn?” Cathal was shaking his shaggy head, and I realized he was sitting upright like a trained poodle, looking as non-threatening as possible. “Not exactly. Besides, I’d have thought you and your sister would have learned your lesson by now.”

  “Scathach has nothing to do with this, pup,” Lady Aife growled.

  Cathal snorted. “Why do you think she ran out onto that battlefield? She thought you were her.”

  “Wait, she’s—” I began.

  “You and I aren’t speaking right now,” Cathal barked, glaring at me. “If you’d listened to me in the first place, none of this would have happened. Now, let the adults talk.”

  I snapped my mouth shut, struck by another wave of recollections. Cathal’s warnings. His advice. How I’d thrown it all away, irrationally, believing I’d find Scathach on the battlefield and that she would protect me.

  Foolish. Reckless. Childish.

  Ceara’s words, chastising me inside my own head. I ground my teeth, trying to drown out her thoughts with my own. But another slithered in—the same voice I’d listened to when I’d stepped out onto that battlefield. A voice which longed to fight and fly and…yeah that, too.

  A voice we couldn’t ignore.

  Somewhere, a bird’s shrill caw split the night air.

  We lowered our hands and surveyed the beach, sensing the tension riding the air, the potential for violence. Swords and spears were already drawn. It wouldn’t take much. A little distraction, and we could make a break for it. We shifted our weight, sliding one foot forward, prepared to make a move, to steal a weapon from the wounded one—Tristan.

  “Don’t,” a man said. We turned to find a tall, cloaked figure with a slender blade pressed against our throat. We froze, acknowledging the dead look in his eyes; this one would kill us without remorse.

  “Amergin—” Bran began.

  “Bard,” Cathal growled, cutting off the elder brother, “what do you think you’re doing?”

  “She’s possessed by the battle awen,” the bard replied. “Can’t you see it?”

  Cathal sniffed the air, then cursed. “No, but I should have.”

  “Battle what?” Tristan asked.

  “It’s rare. In Fae they speak of it as one’s wild side,” the bard replied. “In the mortal realm, I believe it’s known as one’s id
—though their understanding of it is simplistic at best. Regardless, her impulses are ruling her, right now. She’s lost control of herself.”

  “How do we get Ceara back?” Blair asked, hand covering her mouth, eyes wide.

  “You misunderstand me. The woman you knew as Ceara Light-Eater is no more,” Amergin replied.

  “But you said she’s possessed, which means—”

  “The ‘she’ I was referring to is not Ceara. Hound,” Amergin’s eyes flicked to Cathal, though his sword never for a second wavered, “do you know her true name?”

  Cathal dipped his head. “She’s called Quinn MacKenna, Morrigan’s daughter.”

  The bard’s sword twitched, and we felt blood running in tiny rivulets down our throat. “That’s not possible,” he said, softly.

  “Times change,” Cathal replied, sardonically.

  “Then the awen—”

  “Inherited,” Cathal said, cutting the bard off. “She’s yet to master it, though, it seems.”

  “I still don’t understand,” Blair interrupted, stepping close, kneeling to meet our eyes. “Ceara…” she reached out, sliding her fingers across our face.

  My face.

  “No,” I growled. “Not Ceara.”

  She yanked her hand back as if I’d snapped at it. The sword at my throat fell away almost instantly, which was good; I wasn’t about to let the bastard cut me a second time. And yet the tension I’d felt earlier not only remained, it seemed to have gotten worse.

  “Is it true?” Bran asked, planting a sword nearly as tall as he was into the sand, no longer remotely focused on Cathal. “What the hound said, I mean. Are you the Morrigan’s daughter?”

  “That’s what they keep tellin’ me,” I replied, rising gingerly to my feet. I brushed the sand off my…dress. Jesus Christ, I was wearing a dress! For some reason, both voices—until now still lingering somewhere in the darker confines of my brain—fell immediately silent, my disdain too powerful for either to overcome. I groaned, fighting the urge to tear my hair out.