Catch & Hold-Legend (Legend series) (16 page)

And there with his black leather cloak flapping in the wind, his arms outstretched with his hands pointing to the heavens, stood the warlock, Aaron Dunbar. His hair was a mass of tangled gray waves—astonishing, as it had been an attractive chestnut color just a week or so ago—and was blowing about his face, a face I barely recognized. He was chanting at the top of his lungs in ancient Gaelic. He either didn’t care or didn’t realize that we were only a hundred feet behind him.

It occurred to me that I had come a long way from the girl who had gone out to lunch with the man he had once been—or had he already dipped too deep into black magic to have really been a man even then? Looking at him now, I couldn’t think of him as a man. He was riddled with black, protruding veins all over what had once been a handsome, almost boyish face. He was a black magic warlock, and I sensed he was now probably one of the most powerful warlocks that had ever existed.

I hadn’t seen the black magic in him before, but now I’d have to be blind not to see it! There was no missing what he had become, and for a short moment it was mind-boggling. How had I missed what he was becoming? Because what he was now was smacking me alongside my head and calling me an idiot.

~ Seven ~

“WHAT WENT WRONG, Gaiscioch?” Pestale asked on a frown.

“I don’t know … I should have been able to stay out of the Dark Realm longer, but no sooner did I step onto Irish soil than I was pulled back—forcefully pulled back.” I shook my head over the problem, allowing him to believe I was deeply concerned.

I had used Morrigu’s blood again, but it hadn’t worked with the gypsy relic I had been toying with in the weapons room—but then I knew it wouldn’t work. It needed Royal Seelie blood, and I had that, was saving that. When Radzia MacDaun had shifted into the war room for the maps, she had been wounded and her blood had dripped onto the floor. It had been an easy thing to scrape it up and preserve it. It was Radzia’s blood that would allow me final access to Ireland, and it was Ireland—Killarney, Ireland, not Dublin as Aaibhe and her Royals believed—where I would emerge with my army.

I had been putting on a show for Pestale because I knew he was suspicious of me. I believed also that he was compiling his own plans, but he still needed me to open a portal. I knew he would follow me out with the Dark Army we’d assembled, but I would be waiting for him on the other side with my death weapon. He didn’t know I was aware he had one of his own … and would be ready for him.

He had promised Morrigu to escort her out, and I knew it was because he believed I meant to leave her behind in the Dark Realm. I was not sure what he felt for Morrigu—I had thought him incapable of pity, but I was not so sure anymore. Where would he have acquired such a mundane emotion? Perhaps he wanted to save her to help him in future endeavors.

Fool—she was quite mad and would be more trouble than she was worth, but the subject was moot because I planned to kill them both.

There was the problem of his brothers, of course. I had to get the death sword from him before they did …

All very complicated, and I could see him staring at me, wondering what I was thinking.

He didn’t know I broke off a fragment of the Dark King’s mirror—Morrigu’s ancient and powerful mirror. She never knew the trick of using it as a portal, but I did …

That fragment was safely hidden behind a door of black magic—and Morrigu at that point was aware of only one thing: her sexual needs.

Black magic had begun to race through my veins, and it was attempting to take charge of my Seelie blood. I could not allow that, for then the ring of Tir would deny me.

I hadn’t expected to use so much of the dark arts. What was also a surprise was Pestale. I had thought to find him more steeped in black magic … and yet? I was not sure he needed it. I knew now that his creator, the Dark King, had tried to make the four Royal Houses using his own Seelie DNA, but it didn’t quite work. Without the Wheel of Being, something went wrong, each brother missing something, and yet, Pestale was very different from the brothers that followed him. He was their leader, obviously, but there was something in the recesses of his dark eyes …

The black magic was changing me, altering my mind patterns. I thought in black magic, not Seelie magic … and at times it was disconcerting and difficult to control. He watched me more and more, and sometimes I almost felt his loathing.

“Gaiscioch, you need to stop using black magic. It is addictive, and it can swallow you up and spit you out empty and useless. I need you to focus on the job at hand—getting the hell out of here and entering the human World. It is all I have ever wanted, and I will have it with or without you, so pull yourself together.”

“How dare you speak to me like that!”

“Why, because you are a Seelie?” Pestale scoffed. “I am a Royal—my father’s blood flows through me. My father’s teachings are a part of all that I am.”

“And you are still an abomination, created outside the
Wheel of Being
!” I spat at him, and for a moment as he took a menacing step my way I believed we would come to blows. It was a useless activity, and I wished I had held my tongue.

He inclined his head. “As you say, and yet still a Royal, which you are not.”

I stared at him. He was an arrogant devil, and he was right … he was a Royal with Royal powers given to him by the Dark King. If Morrigu was to be believed, Pestale had apparently been his father’s favorite until he had tried to seduce the Dark King’s human mate.

That was the end of their relationship.

Morrigu had told me Pestale’s story during one of her lucid moments. Apparently he had been merely playing, intrigued beyond his control, nothing more, he told the Dark King. However, his father turned his back on Pestale, not because he had tried to seduce Crystal but because he had harmed her during the process when she tried to escape him.

He watched me now, his black, penetrating gaze as always hidden by his half shaded eyes. His brothers lesser than he were completely obedient to his will. He was an enemy I didn’t need.

“I wonder, Gaiscioch, are you holding out on me?” Pestale’s voice was low and lined with cunning. “However, you will have to share the particular spell you are trying to use so that I might be able to … alter it to fit the needs of the portal.”

“I don’t believe that will be necessary.”

“Then you will not succeed.” Pestale shrugged. “No matter—I have given the situation a great deal of thought and believe I have a solution … at least for me and my brothers.”

“Indeed.” I had noticed Pestale’s emerging dominant behavior.

“Yes, we are Unseelie and, as I have pointed out, Royals, while you, Gaiscioch, are merely Seelie.”

I heard something threatening in his tone but casually inclined my head for him to proceed.

The Dark Prince smiled at me, but there was a touch of menace in that smile. “The portal is being spelled to allow lower-caste Unseelies to escape, which is a useless effort at this juncture. However, if it were altered and managed, I do believe my brothers and I would be able to use it, and our army would follow us through. That would be a much better solution as
we, my brothers and I,
are not interested in just feeding … in fact, under my tutelage I believe my brothers could manage three separate divisions of Unseelie soldiers.”

“That is not part of my plan,” I couldn’t stop myself from snapping at him.

“Perhaps not, but your plan isn’t moving fast enough. We need to move at Samhain when magic is at its strongest, especially for us. You won’t get out by then … not the way you are working. Your scope is too limited.”

“I disagree.”

“Nevertheless, and again as I have pointed out to you, with or without your help, I shall make an effort to use the portal and do some earthly scouting before I lead a division of
my
Unseelies forward.” Pestale’s tone told me he had already discovered a mode of escape.

I decided not to answer as I shrugged and left him. How had he accomplished this? What had I done? Had I showed him the way? And now I had a dangerous enemy. I heard Pestale’s laughter at my back. Here was one more Dark Fae that needed killing …

In the meantime, Pestale didn’t know that I had the Mirror fragment. I had managed to send it through to Inverness as a test. My mistake was that the Unseelies went for the schoolyard instead of the empty warehouse they had been directed to lead it to.

Feeding is all they think about
. I should have known better than to entrust the mirror to them. They were merely to lead it, as it was spelled to follow. Their puny minds obviously couldn’t comprehend the larger picture—all they knew was that tender children were nearby for the slaughter.

The Mirror fragment was easily retrieved, but it was an experiment I had desperately wanted to conclude. I’d wanted to see if I could travel through the fragment to and from its counterpart—the remaining mirror on this side.

The main body of the Mirror stood hidden in Morrigu’s bedchamber. I believed she had even forgotten it was there.

Perhaps I was going about it all wrong? Perhaps all I needed to do was shift once I was within the main Mirror’s aura and then take the fragment with me as I stepped out?

Then I could use it to bring over as many abominations as I chose …

I didn’t want to waste the Daoine’s blood. I knew that Radzia’s blood would open the portal for me. Daoine blood—that was the Dark King’s failsafe, his key ingredient to everything he did. He had nothing to fear, as he was the only Daoine in the Dark Realm. There wasn’t enough to test my theory. If only I had enough of her blood …

“You are a brilliant Fae,” I told myself. One of the odd traits I acquired in the Dark Realm was the one in which I talked to myself. I tried to catch it and put a stop to it, for it was beneath me and, yet, somehow comforting.

Returning to Morrigu’s orb, I slowly moved my hand over the glowing glass, and the fog within its diameter began to clear.

Everything was falling into place. I knew that the warlock would draw them. He was my best chance of getting what I needed, so to clinch the arrangement I gave him the Hallow.
By now they should be there … ah, just as I thought.

Danté and the Daoine princess. From her expression, I could see she was surprised by the warlock’s appearance and wondering how much power he really did have.

I could taste something bitter coming up my throat …

Hate—hate had a flavor and a force that was pulsing in me—I had to be careful lest it take over. I had to make certain my warlock was successful. “Aaron … do you hear me?” I had set up a link between us, but because I was stuck here in the Dark Realm, I was not able to perfect the link and couldn’t always get through. “Aaron …”

“Yes, yes, my lord, my king,” Aaron’s mind answered me fervently, and I felt excitement tense my body.

“You remember what you need to do?”

“Yes. Everything you asked of me will be done.”

Perhaps the warlock would be successful; perhaps he would be able to get the blood with the Seelie Hallow I had given him.

Wait—what is that?
I felt the pull. He had opened the Mirror with the Hallow. I hadn’t been sure he would be able to do it … but there I saw her in the Mirror.
Today
, I thought triumphantly,
I will get her blood. Today Radzia MacDaun, Daoine Princess, will be cut and bleeding, and I will gather her blood and use it to get out of the Dark Realm
. But in the meantime, I first had to make certain Pestale was occupied.

I had used the voice of compulsion on the warlock—he could not disobey me. I could feel his fear, but I’d ordered him to be brave—he had no choice, and I needed him to throw them off balance with his behavior.

“Warlock … get to her … stab her with the sacred knife I have given you and get her blood smeared on the Hallow—
now!
”

* * *

Aaron Dunbar turned, and I suppose the curving of his lips was meant to represent a smile. Then he said my name, “Radzia … finally.”

“You don’t get to speak her name!” Danté stepped towards him.

I touched Danté’s arm. We needed to observe him a bit longer, for something was off here; something was seriously off.

I couldn’t help but stare at Aaron. What the hell had happened to him in such a short span of time? He stood there a completely different person than the one I knew and had spent time with—he was almost unrecognizable.

He looked all distorted; the black tattoos covering his neck and face looked three-dimensional, and black veins streamed up his neck like snakes. Ugh, ooh, don’t like snakes.

When he spoke, it was in the voice of many. Danté whispered, “He speaks as one with warlocks that have moved onto another plain. Apparently he has won their support as a whole, and that is what is making him so powerful.”

“Warlocks are black magic, and black magic is nothing against white magic, and both are nothing against Royal Seelie magic,” I said, just a bit too cocksure. My father had taught me that so long ago. Reminding me of my father’s words helped to ease the insecurity Dunbar’s appearance made me feel. It was time to bring Aaron Dunbar down. I took a step forward in the warlock’s direction, but Danté held my arm and pulled me back.