Blood Sacrifice (12 page)

I did as he asked. Convenient this new face-to-face chat app. Made it a lot easier.

“Dad, we’re in a jam,” I said, reverting to daughter mode. “Gigi’s gone and scarpered and we’re in a bit of a mess. You have any ideas?”

His calm expression didn’t change, but he shook his head in a slow negative. “I’m sorry, Keira, but she left without saying much. Just that she needed to see someone about something important.”

“She’s our bloody matriarch, our clan leader. How can she just walk off the premises without leaving some sort of way to contact her?” I rubbed my jaw, which was
starting to hurt from the tension. “Dad, what’s going on? This seems really odd to me. Don’t you think?”

“Well, yes, somewhat.” He paused a moment. “She’s never really done this to my knowledge, Keira.” Dead silence.

I closed my eyes against the worry that began to cross his face. This wasn’t normal. For my entire life with him, he never lost his cool, never seemed to lose the innate calm that permeated his body. I’d not ever doubted that my dad could handle anything. He’d been born to a small branch of the clan in what later became northern Scotland and had seen his share of true battle—the kind fought with hand weapons, as well as magick. Very little fazed him. Only now, I could feel his anxiety almost as clearly as I felt my own.

“Dad?” I said. Adam had stopped stroking me, his hand frozen in place on my back. He’d felt it, too.

My father gave a huge sigh and rubbed his face. “Keira, Gigi told me about the Challenge. It’s not good.”

“Did she show you the photos of the parchment?”

“Yes.”

“Just ‘yes’? Nothing else?” I prodded.

“She gave it to some of our more linguistically able scholars,” he said. “Gigi set this task on them before she left.”

“It’s really that difficult?” I asked. “I mean, I understand that perhaps Tucker and I don’t have the requisite knowledge of the language. After all, it’s not exactly modern Welsh.”

“I only caught a glimpse, but it’s not Pictish, nor anything I’m familiar with. And Adam?”

“He’s right here, Dad. Behind me. Can you see him?”

“No, I mean how did he fare in the translation?”

“Huw, it’s extremely odd construction,” Adam said, as he leaned forward so the phone camera lens could capture him. “Seems a blending of many variations of the Old Tongue. The repercussions of mistranslation could mean our losing the Challenge.”

Dad grimaced. “I was afraid of that.”

“It’s the tiny discrepancies that can make all the difference,” Adam continued. “Like the arguments of Bible scholars translating Aramaic—was it ‘maiden’ or ‘young woman’—that’s what we’re facing here.”

I gaped at Adam as all of a sudden, I truly understood the precariousness of our position. I’d assumed that eventually, we’d figure this out. After all, it was language and language could be translated. But now I got it. Nuances could mean everything. That Bible thing, I’d read about it some time ago, where some scholars said the original work meant Mary, mother of Jesus, was referred to as a young woman, not a virgin. Needless to say, that upset the traditionalist religions, considering how much of their faith and beliefs were tied up in the whole virgin birth thing. If that kind of subtlety is what we were dealing with, our chances could be even worse than I thought.

“I don’t know what to tell you, Son,” Dad said. “You’re about as right as you can be. We’re doing our best here, but it’s been pretty tough going. Three or four of the scholars will agree on a phrase and just as many will argue against it. We’re getting nowhere. I’ll go back to help as much as I can, but language translations just isn’t my strong suit.”

“What I don’t get,” I began, as the implications sank in. “How did Gideon, my own contemporary, manage this? He’s no scholar of dead languages.”

“He’s not?” Adam seemed taken aback. “I’d assumed…” His words trailed off. “That makes little sense.”

“Exactly,” Dad agreed, nodding enthusiastically. “That’s part of the overall puzzle. Gideon’s always been a bit of a dilettante, studying whatever suited him or took his fancy. He’s never been good with completion.”

I handed the phone over to Adam so I could pace. Did it help? Not really, but standing there hunched over a phone screen wasn’t doing much to relieve my tight muscles. Pacing could at least work out some of the energy. “He had help, obviously.”

“I’d assumed as much,” Adam replied, “but whom? Aoife seemed less than interested in this entire situation, insofar as the Challenge itself. Your mother?”

I shrugged as I fiddled with a piece of tile that I’d found on the ground. “Maybe? I know so little about her.”

Dad snorted. “Branwen? She was as much of a pawn as I was,” he said. “We did our duty by our respective families, that was all. She was no scholar, either.”

“But then why is she here?” I insisted. “Why is she helping Gideon?”

“She’s what?” Dad’s mouth dropped open. His image wavered, blinked out and then came back. “Sorry,” he said. “A wee burst of unintentional magick.”

“You didn’t know my mother is here?”

“No. Though it doesn’t change my evaluation of her ability to write this Challenge,” he said. “This is the work of someone old, someone craftier than your mother.”

“My father might have been able to do it with help,” Adam ventured. “But it’s not like him.”

I pushed one of the chairs we’d sat on earlier under the small table. “He did sell you to the vampires,” I reminded him. “Though he has seemed to be helpful now.”

“‘Sell’ is a bit harsh, Keira,” my father chided. “Back in the day, in those days, rather, kings made these sorts of arrangements all the time. Marriages for power and money, fostering children. You’re young. Grew up in the modern world and amongst humans. I’m not sure the latter was as good of an idea as it sounded at the time. I think you missed out on being raised within clan.”

“It’s not as if you all weren’t with me,” I protested. “I had the same childhood lessons as the rest of the clan kids.”

“Only then it was you and Marty, no one else.” Dad’s face grew sad. “Sometimes I wish I could just go back and undo some things.”

“It wasn’t your fault,” I said. “Whatever you think I missed out on or didn’t get to do, you were the one who came back for me. You rescued me from Below, from living a life as an outcast child.” I started to sniffle, tears welling up into my eyes. How had this turned from a discussion about where my great-great-granny had gone to my father blaming himself for not raising me properly? How could he even feel that way? There was nothing I’d not do for him or any one of my brothers, my clan. They’d raised me from perdition—from hell, really, if you can think of the Christian hell as a place of abuse and torture. I’d been ignored, abandoned and mocked. Yes, and abused physically sometimes, a harsh word turned into a slap. Lack of proper warm clothing. Lack of proper food. Seven years of this hell, knowing only that I was unwanted and a freakish child. I had no magicks, or so they’d thought. I was worthless.

“Huw, we’ll phone back later,” Adam said. “See what you can do to find Minerva.”

“Will do,” my dad said. “Keira, honey, I love you. We’ll help you get out of this, I promise.”

I nodded, even though he couldn’t see me from where I was standing. “Thanks, Dad.” I managed to get the words out.

Before I could take another breath, Adam was there, holding me. “I can’t stand this,” I said. “Breaking down like this. There’s not time—”

“There is always time,” Adam said. “You’ve had a lot to deal with over the past few days. You’ve not had a chance to relax, to just be.”

“No, not so much,” I chuckled through a few tears. “Stupid life and stupid, stupid genetic heritage.” I wiped my face. “I thought I’d had this down, you know. After those three training months at the enclave. I really had accepted being heir, being part of the political machine. I could do this. But now…” I sighed and looked Adam in the face. “If it weren’t for you,” I said, I might have chosen to run.”

“Away from Minerva?” Adam smiled gently. “I can understand that.”

“From a lot of things, I think. I don’t like being this angry, this anxious. Anger on behalf of someone else, yeah, I can do that. That’s part of the gig. Having to be angry because someone’s decided to not let me exist peacefully in my own house, on my own land? Makes me insane with it. I just want to fight, to bring it to the table and let it all out. One big knock-down, drag-out fight to the finish. Don’t you ever feel that way?”

“Constantly.”

“Really?” Was he just humoring me? “You’re usually
so…” I gestured to him. “Like now, you seem to be taking this in stride.”

“I’m not going to play the age card,” Adam said. “When I was a young vampire, even though many years older than the rest of the others in true age, I knew that the only way to survive was to temper my instincts and emotions. It’s not that I don’t get angry. I’d just rather get even.” White teeth flashed, fangs and all. “Don’t underestimate my emotion.”

“No, I can’t do that,” I said. “When you needed to, you got us to Niko in time… even though I don’t know how, exactly.”

“Nor do I,” he confessed. “But I had to do something.”

I nodded. Niko had been captured, taken by a group of nasty white supremacist types who’d stumbled across a local werewolf pack. Through some sort of magick—his or mine—Adam, Tucker, and I had bent through space and arrived at the place Niko was being held. Suffice it to say that there wasn’t anyone left alive after we got through with them. It was the first time I’d seen my brother go Berserk—the old-fashioned Viking way. Adam, though, he’d coolly dispatched the others.

“We will prevail, Keira,” Adam said. “This situation will not break us. I have every faith.”

“In whom?” I wondered aloud. “You’re Unseelie Sidhe and a vampire, faith seems to be the province of humans raised in a religion.”

“In us, of course.”

Us. I knew him to mean all of us, not just him and me. Our family. Our blood-bonded Protectors. We weren’t your typical couple with two point four kids, but
then what other family included the heir to the Unseelie Court and a large vampire clan, heir to the most powerful supernatural clan in the world, vampires, shape-shifters, necromancers, and the like? Oh yeah. Pretty much just us. Then “us” would have to do.

“Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.”

—Sun Tzu

F
our hours later, Tucker and I came back loaded for bear—or at least research. We’d hit every bookstore and library within a ten-mile radius and then some. There’d been no point in the four of us remaining in the chapel room to hem, haw, and stay frustrated with our lack of resources, so we’d decided that it was time to put up or shut up. Since it was still daylight, Mohammed couldn’t go to the mountain, so Tucker and I took on the task of bringing the mountain to Mohammed.

“Help me with this?” Tucker asked as he attempted to juggle three boxes of books. Niko leaped up to help while Adam took a couple of the laptop boxes from my own pile of treasure.

“Did you buy out the entire Apple store?” he joked. “Four laptops and what else?”

“A couple of those portable Wi-Fi routers, some stuff to set up a network.” I shrugged. “I’m not sure what half of this is, but Tucker knows.”

“I figured we could set up this room as a sort of HQ,” Tucker said. “Get some more furniture. At least something more comfortable. Set ourselves up with wireless Internet service and a local network so we can share information as needed. There’s a huge hard drive there to set up as kind of a central file drop point to save stuff.”

“We bought all the books we could find on Faery lore,” I said as I stacked boxes along one wall. “Tucker managed to charm his way into a couple of university libraries and I glamoured us out of there.”

“Why the libraries?” Adam asked as he began to search through one of the book boxes I’d placed on the table. “We can buy whatever we like.”

“Only not,” Tucker said. “Here, feast your eyes.” He dumped a box on the floor in front of Adam, who immediately squatted and opened it.

“How?” Adam reached in, his hand nearly trembling. “These are fifteenth-century manuscripts,” he whispered.

“Exactly.” Tucker beamed. “I raided four or five different special collections.”

Niko’s eyes grew wide. “You stole from libraries?”

I put a hand up. “I know, I know, it sucks, but you know what sucks more? Us being killed or whatever if we can’t figure out this damned Challenge. We will put them back.” Or at least leave them somewhere and file an anonymous tip, I thought. “I hate the thought as much as you do, but what choice did we have?”

Niko subsided. “I suppose you are right.” He joined Adam, who was gingerly lifting what looked like a rolled scroll encased in leather onto the table.

“Ack, do not put that there,” I yelled. “That table is
filthy with crumbs and such from lunch. Here wait, let’s get this place cleaned up a bit more before we settle, okay?”

Adam placed the scroll back in the box with a careful nod. “Agreed.”

Tucker looked around the room. “Don’t suppose we can rustle up some brownies?”

“I take it you don’t mean the chocolate kind.”

“Those, I bought. I meant the other kind—and not Girl Scouts.”

“Really,” I drawled. “Geez, bro, you allergic to housework all of a sudden?” After relishing in his sheepish look, I laughed. “Stand back. I’ll take care of this.” With a few well-placed spells, the room brightened considerably. The years-old paint and dirt on the walls now scrubbed clean, the floor spotless. I tossed in a few light balls in the upper corners to give us more to work with. Despite my efforts, the place was still rather barren, but at least it was more than clean.

The men all laughed and set to moving about the chairs, table, and boxes to best figure out a setup for the computers and the rest of the electronics. Niko squatted in front of the mini-fridge, which was now plugged in and humming happily. He began to shelve food, his moves efficient and neat.