Bedeviled (27 page)

“It ain’t pretty, but it’s home.”

“Why the hell am I killing myself to get in shape to take on all that trouble?” Maggie tipped her face into the wind, letting it blow past her, through her, surround her. As a kid she’d loved the wind. It had always made her feel powerful, strong. Yet now she still felt unsettled.

Bezel pushed himself to his feet, waddled over to her and said, “Because. Destiny picked
you
as the lucky lottery winner. Otherworld needs a kick in the ass, and you’re just the human to do it. Some back home figure a mortal’s got no place in Otherworld. Me, I figure you’ve gotta be better than Mab.”

Amused in spite of everything, Maggie said, “Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

He tipped his head back, stared into her eyes and grudgingly admitted, “Yeah, well, you don’t suck so much anymore. You’re learning.”

“Enough?”

He rubbed his beard.

“Aunt Maggie!”

“Training here!” Bezel shouted.

Ignoring him, Maggie turned to watch Eileen jump off the back porch. “What is it?”

“I just talked to Mom!”

“What?” Maggie started toward the girl already sprinting across the lawn. Eileen’s grin was bright as daylight, her eyes were shining and her dark red hair flew behind her like a victory flag. “Is your mom here? At the house?”

“No.” Eileen stopped and grinned even wider. “She’s in Otherworld, but Quinn opened a portal and I could see her. I saw him, too; he was right there with Mom, and the room was so pretty. All these crystals were shining in the sunlight and throwing rainbows around.” She paused. “They must have been prisms, not crystals, I guess. Anyway, it was
way
cool, and wait until I tell Amber. She’s gonna be so jealous that she didn’t see it—”

“Aw, troll spit,” Bezel muttered.

“Tell Amber? You can’t tell her about any of this, sweetie.” Maggie panicked a little. Bad enough her life was screwed. She didn’t want Eileen’s friends thinking she was a weirdo. There was absolutely nothing in the known universe that could be as cruel as a kid to one of their own. “Secret, remember?”

“Not from best friends,” Eileen told her. “There’s a whole best-friend-only rule. Besides, Mom said you told Claire.”

“That’s different.” Maggie caught the mutinous look on Eileen’s face, but couldn’t come up with anything to defeat it on short notice, so she went for distraction. “What’d your mom say?”

Eileen sniffed. “She said she’s fine and I shouldn’t worry and she’ll be back as soon as you kill the queen.”

“No pressure.”

“Now that the hugging portion of the day’s over, can we get back to training?” Bezel glared at both of them.

“She didn’t say anything about where she is?” The question was for Eileen, since it was clear Bezel wasn’t interested in chatting.

“Nope.” The girl dropped to the grass and smiled when Sheba shifted position enough to lay her head in Eileen’s lap. “She only said she was fine and I shouldn’t worry and I should remind you to actually cook vegetables sometimes.”

“My
cooking
?” This was what her sister’s message was?
Remember to make Eileen eat vegetables?
She shook her head, bit back anger that wouldn’t do any good, because Nora was who she was. That wouldn’t change. Instead she asked, “Did Quinn have anything helpful to add?”

“Not really.” Eileen shrugged. “He just kept looking at Mom and smiling a really dumb smile.”

Unexpectedly Bezel laughed. “This is great. Donovan women are mowing down the Fenian warriors. Something even the Tuatha couldn’t do.”

“Who?”

“Oooh.” Eileen turned on Bezel. “I read about them. Tuatha De Danaan.”

Maggie only looked at her, stupefied. “How do you know this stuff?”

Eileen gave her a proud smile. “It’s in my Faery research.” Then she turned to look at Bezel again. “But the legend says the Fae
are
the Tuatha.”

“Oh, please.” Bezel rolled his eyes so high in his head, all Maggie could see were the whites. Very creepy. “Your people get it wrong all the damn time,” Bezel said with a scowl. “You’d think they could manage to write down a damn legend or two, but no . . . ancient vocal storytellers.” His voice went singsongy and sarcastic. “ ‘We don’t need to write it down. We remember. It’s what we do.’ Idiots. The Tua came to Ireland a long time ago and tried to roust the Fenians—the Fae—but Culhane and his boys drove the Tua underground.”

Maggie’s head was reeling. Every time she thought she’d caught up, new information came her way.

“But the legends say that the Fae moved underground and—”

“Why in
Ifreann
would the Fae want to live underground? What? We don’t like sunshine? Do we look like moles to you? The Tua went under because they had no choice. It was go underground or die. They eventually became Bog spirits.” Bezel’s long, wrinkled nose wrinkled even further, like he was smelling something disgusting. “There they stay. They live under the bogs in Ireland, and they’re always plotting ways to get out. Which ain’t gonna happen as long as the Fae are around—” He stopped, tipped his head to one side and studied Maggie thoughtfully. “Hmm. Just another reason for you to take over in Otherworld. Mab’s bored with the whole Tua problem, and one of these days she’s not going to send the warriors to push ’em back into their peat pits. Then they’ll get out and—”

“And what?” Eileen was leaning in toward him, eagerly soaking up everything the pixie had to say.

“Don’t really know,” he admitted. “But it won’t be pretty.”

“This is fascinating. My research tells me that—”

“Hey,” a voice called out from the back of the house, “is this a private confab or can anyone join in and—
Jesus Christ!”

Maggie turned and saw Claire MacDonald stop dead in the yard, her gaze fixed on Bezel, her mouth hanging open and her eyes wide enough to swallow up most of her face. She lifted one hand and pointed a shaky index finger at Bezel. “What the
hell
is that?”

“Time is getting short.”

Culhane turned around, tearing his gaze from the lighthouse just offshore to look at the warrior beside him. He glared the other man into silence. “We all know that, O’Hara. That’s why we’re here.”

O’Hara stepped uneasily from foot to foot, his giant frame rippling with the movement. He threw a quick glance over his shoulder, as if half expecting to see Mab herself striding up behind him. “We should be meeting at the Conclave. We have wards there. Magic to keep us from being overheard. Meeting in the mortal world is risking too much.”

Several of the other warriors murmured in agreement, though none of them was willing to say it aloud. Culhane knew how they felt, though. Meeting here in Castle Bay was a risk. But a calculated one. He wasn’t willing to hold a meeting at the Warriors’ Conclave until he was sure of all of his brothers’ loyalty again. He never would have guessed that a day would come when he wouldn’t trust his men. But these were dangerous times.

His gaze swept the beach, but he barely noticed the few humans dotting the sand. The ocean was gray and frothing with a coming storm. A cold wind blew, scattering sand in its path, and when the first stray drops of rain spat from the sky, the few hardy souls walking the shoreline ran for home.

But the humans didn’t worry him. He scanned the area again, more carefully this time, searching futilely for a shimmer of power. A hint that Mab’s spy, whoever he was, was watching the warriors meet. But there was nothing, and he had to wonder if there actually was a spy at all. Or was Mab simply using what power she had to reach out with her mind to try to catch her warriors in something?

Shaking his head, he pushed those thoughts aside, strengthened the wall of Faery power that kept him and his men hidden, then looked at each of the six warriors he’d summoned in turn. “We meet here because Mab’s grown more suspicious. She knows about Maggie Donovan.”

“What? How? Mab hasn’t been on this plane, and when Maggie was in Otherworld she was at the Conclave.” McCulloch’s voice was deep and rumbling, just below the roar of the ocean.

“She doesn’t know of Maggie herself,” Culhane explained. “Only that the Fae power was released from the amulet and claimed by someone else. She’s charged me with killing Maggie.”

McCulloch grinned. “Then she’s safe.”

“For now,” Culhane hedged. “How Mab knows, I’m not sure. She is either keeping a closer watch on us herself, or—”

“There may be an infiltrator among us.” Riley looked disgusted at the very thought. “Has it come to this, then? Warriors turning on warriors? Isn’t it enough that our own queen treats us no better than bridge trolls? Must we now guard our words from our own brothers?”

Another rumble of outrage and anger rippled from the gathered men, and Culhane felt the strength of the connection among them. He and these six men had been together for millennia. They’d served in the Tuatha wars together, had stood side by side and back-to-back in more battles than he could count. He trusted each of them with his life. What was more, he trusted them with Maggie’s life.

But there were over a thousand Fae warriors, and Culhane wasn’t as sure of all of them. Eyes narrowing, flickering with the cool rage he felt within, he said only, “If there is a traitor in the warrior ranks, we will find him. There’s no place in the Conclave for a brother we cannot trust.”

“I don’t believe it,” Muldoon muttered. “Warriors won’t turn on each other.”

“I hope you’re right,” Culhane told him. “Until we know for certain, though, all we can do is be on our guard. Be wary.”

Curran shifted a look at the others, then said, “We have something else to consider here. There’s talk of revolution among the males, even if Maggie Donovan fails in killing Mab.”

“She won’t fail.” Culhane knew it. He’d been waiting centuries for Maggie’s arrival. According to the words of the prophecy he’d first read so long ago, he knew that she would do exactly as she’d been destined to do.

“There was a riot in the streets last night,” Curran told him. “The warriors were called out to halt it, and we ended having to guard the palace half the night from the crowds shouting for Mab to show herself.”

It was all coming to a head now, and there was no way to avoid it, even if a small part of Culhane wished that he could do exactly that—not for his own sake, but for Maggie’s. The thought of her fighting Mab filled him with dread as with the expectation he’d been nourishing all these long years.

He didn’t want to see her hurt. And could think of no way to prevent it. In the final say, Maggie would have to win or lose on her own. Culhane had never before felt helpless, not in centuries of life. But now knowing that he couldn’t stand before her made him half wish that he’d never heard of Maggie Donovan. That the prophecies were a lie. That he could leave her here to live out a life that wasn’t filled with the promise of risk and danger.

He couldn’t stop fate, though. No one could. It was Maggie’s destiny to fight. He could only do what he might to assure that her destiny to
win
became reality.

“Go back,” he said, taking the time to meet his brother warriors’ gazes one by one. “We don’t want Mab getting even more suspicious. Be watchful. Be ready.”

As each of the men shifted back to Otherworld, leaving him alone, Culhane shifted, too. But he didn’t return home. He went instead to Maggie.

“What is
that
?” Claire repeated, her gaze fixed on Bezel.

“Just watch who you’re calling a
that
!”

“He’s a pixie,” Maggie said, grinning at her best friend. Claire’s long black hair was wind ruffled. Her brown slacks and soft yellow shirt were wrinkled, and that—on a usually impeccably groomed Claire—more than anything told Maggie that her friend had come directly from the airport.

Underneath the surprise at finding a hideously ugly pixie in Maggie’s backyard, there was a shine of worry in Claire’s eyes that explained why she’d rushed home. Still, Maggie asked, “What’re you doing here early? I wasn’t expecting you back for another few days, at least.”

Still staring at Bezel, who was giving her a hard stare back, Claire crossed the lawn to Maggie. Her brown heels sank into the soft grass so that every step was labored. She cleared her throat as she walked a wide berth around Bezel.

“Yeah,” she said, the roll of Scotland in her speech. “Couldn’t stay there any longer. My mother was driving me insane, and besides, I couldn’t stop thinking about you and Nora and—Oh, hi, Eileen. Didn’t see you.”

“Don’t worry about Mom. She’s fine. I just talked to her.”

Relief swept across Claire’s features. “She’s here, then? No problems? Thank the goddess. I was so sure that it was going to be—”

“She’s in Otherworld,” Eileen said matter-of-factly. “But she’s okay. Quinn’s there, too, and—”

“Otherworld?”

“Long story.” Maggie hugged her friend and took a second to enjoy having at least one thread of normalcy back in her life. She’d really missed Claire, and somehow seeing her again made all the other craziness a little easier to take.

“I’ll bet,” Claire said, “and I’d love to hear the whole story at some point, but you have to know”—her voice dropped to a whisper—“I’m still getting images of Nora in danger. Of
you
in danger.”

“A witch?” Bezel spat out that last word, and his face scrunched up with disgust. “You let a witch in here?”

Claire whipped her head around to pin him with a glare. “What’s wrong with witches, you nasty little imp?”

“Imp?”
He fired a hot look at Claire. “I’m no house imp, you eye-of-Newt eater. Do I look like I’m small enough to live in a flour bin? Do I look like I’d
want
to?” That glare slid to Maggie. “Nice friends you got.”

“Witch?” Maggie paid no attention to Bezel, instead staring dumbfounded at Claire. “You didn’t say you’re a witch. You said you were psychic.”

“I am,” Claire countered with a lift of her chin. “I’m also a witch.”

“Cool,” Eileen whispered.

“So why’s there a nasty little imp in your yard?” Claire fired a look at Bezel.

“What’s an imp?” Eileen asked.