Into the Fire (29 page)

“Cedar, I’m serious, she could kill you in an instant. You need to stay back. Let me deal with this.” He crouched, and then ran at the woman, shouting in an unfamiliar language. The woman pulled herself away from Finn and locked eyes with Felix for a split second before he crashed into her. Finn staggered back, dazed, and Cedar ran to him. “Finn, are you—” she started to say, but stopped short, gaping at the scene in front of her.

The leannán sí had been knocked to the ground by Felix’s assault, but when she recovered herself and stood, she was no longer the beautiful woman she’d appeared to be a few moments ago. Her face was a grayish-green that looked like a wax sculpture that had been set too close to the fire. Her eyes were small pricks of red, like stab wounds, and her mouth was a gaping black hole oozing a tar-like substance that ran down the corners of her mouth and dripped off her chin. The chestnut tresses were gone, replaced by a few stray strands of coarse white hair, brittle with decay. Felix ran at her again, but she raised two clawed and withered hands in front of her and met him with a sickening crunch.

Felix staggered back, and Finn ran forward. He grabbed his friend by the shoulders and pointed up to where Jane and Eden
were huddled together. “I’ll take care of her!” he yelled. “Go protect the others! And watch for druids—she might just be a decoy.”

“Finn, no!” Cedar yelled as he sprinted toward the leannán sí. But he didn’t slow down. He leapt into the air and hit the ground on all fours as an enormous lion, his great shaggy mane streaming behind him as he lunged toward his prey. Cedar felt herself being lifted off the ground; Felix had scooped her into his arms and was running back up the hill to where Jane and Eden were huddled together. Eden threw herself at Cedar as soon as Felix set her on the ground, and Cedar hugged her close. “Don’t watch, baby,” she said, turning her daughter’s head the other way. Felix circled around them, his eyes wary.

Below, Finn and the leannán sí were engaged in a dance of death. Finn was crouched low, snarling, and the leannán sí was clutching what was left of her arm, black tar dripping off her stump of an elbow. Before Finn could renew his attack, she was on him in an instant, moving so fast that she looked like a red blur in the green grass. He reared up on his hind legs, swiping at the air with his claws, but she was on his back, her legs and remaining arm wrapped around his body and neck. Cedar saw her mouth close in on the fur between Finn’s shoulder blades and come up dripping. She screamed. “Felix, please! You have to help him!”

“I can’t leave you unprotected!” Felix yelled back, but his face was torn with anguish. As they watched, the Finn-lion reared again, and the leannán sí jumped. He was on top of her in an instant. She struggled to force him off, but then a piercing wail ripped through the air, and Finn raised his shaggy mane, the leannán sí’s throat clutched between his teeth. He threw it down on the ground beside her and then staggered back as her body disappeared, melting into the ground. Finn stumbled and then collapsed, himself once more.

Cedar was the first to reach him, but Felix was close behind her. Jane and Eden followed, clutching hands.

Cedar wiped the black tar off Finn’s face with the hem of her shirt and pushed the hair off his forehead with her hand. “Finn,” she whispered. “Can you hear me?” He didn’t answer. His eyes were closed, but she could see his chest rising and falling with shallow breaths. “Is he okay?” she asked Felix, who had knelt beside her.

Felix gently turned Finn and lifted up his shirt. Between his shoulder blades was a deep gash, a sickly green ring around it. Felix cursed.

“What is it?” Cedar asked.

“He’s going to be fine,” Felix assured her. “But the bite of the leannán sí is even more deadly than her kiss. She’s drained him of almost everything. He’ll recover in time, but I need to examine the wound more closely, draw out the poison—”

“No,” came Finn’s voice in a thin whisper. Felix gently turned him over onto his back again, and he opened his eyes. The whites had gone a pale yellow. “Not enough time,” he said, so softly that Cedar and Felix had to lean forward to hear him. “Find the Lia Fáil, and then worry… about me. Have to… get out of here.” He closed his eyes and leaned his head back against Cedar’s lap. Eden ran up to him and rested her head against his chest.

“Are you going to be okay, Daddy?” she asked in a small voice.

He reached up to put an arm around her, and Cedar could see how much effort it took him. “I’ll be just fine, honey,” he whispered. “You help your mum find that stone, okay?”

She nodded fervently. “Okay, Daddy. I will.” Then she stood up. “Let’s go, Mummy!”

Felix lifted Finn and set him on his feet, but Finn swayed alarmingly and looked on the verge of collapse. Felix hoisted him over his shoulder in a fireman’s hold and started up the hill. “It’s just over here,” he said, veering slightly to the north. Cedar could see it. The Mound of Hostages was a small hill about three yards high, covered in grass. A sheep was standing on top of the hill, grazing,
but as they got closer it gave a soft bleat and ran off. The sun was going down; soon it would be full dark. Cedar picked up the pace.

“So… what was that thing?” Jane asked.

“It’s called a leannán sí,” Felix answered, “but you would probably know it as a succubus. An evil spirit that seduces young men and drains them of life. I don’t know what it was doing here, but I don’t like it. It usually only goes after humans—it should have known better than to tangle with the Tuatha Dé Danann.”

“Finn said she might be a decoy,” Cedar said. “But I don’t see any druids here. Maybe they sent her, thinking she could defeat you both?”

“Unlikely,” Felix answered grimly. “I say we take Finn’s advice and grab the Lia Fáil—if we can find it—and get the hell out of here.”

They walked around the mound to until they came to the entrance, which appeared to lead straight into the side of the hill. “Is it… a tomb?” Jane asked hesitantly

Felix nodded. “It was, many ages ago. It’s been excavated, but if Abhartach says the stone is still here, it’s still here.” A small gate with four iron bars blocked the passage, fastened into the stone at the top by a padlock. Two large standing stones buttressed either side of the entrance. Cedar walked up to the gate and peered through the bars. She couldn’t see where the passage ended, but she knew it could be only a few feet long because of how small the hill was. She reached her arm through the bars and set her hand against the stone wall but felt nothing unusual. Of course it wouldn’t be that easy.

Felix set Finn down at the entrance, slumped against the side of the mound. Finn struggled to sit up straight, his eyes trained on Cedar, as Eden ran over and sat in his lap.

“Go in,” he told Cedar, his voice thin and weak. “Find the stone. Don’t be afraid.”

Cedar looked nervously down the dark passage. She
was
afraid. It seemed impossibly simple that she might be able to walk into this passage and claim the Lia Fáil. But it hadn’t been simple at all, she reminded herself. They’d survived several brushes with death to
reach this point, so maybe this really was it. Maybe it would all be over soon, and they’d finally have the power to stop Nuala for good.

She hadn’t really thought about what would happen after that, about what it would be like to be queen. As she stared into the ancient darkness, she thought of Maeve and wondered what kind of advice she would give her. Would she have been proud? Or would she have insisted that she should leave the Tuatha Dé Danann to their own devices and embrace her identity as a human? Cedar would never know, but she resolved to take Liam out for a pint when all of this was over so that she could learn more about her adoptive mother.

“Take Eden,” Finn whispered, giving his daughter a gentle nudge to her feet. “The stone is supposed to grow warm if it’s touched by a Tuatha Dé Danann, and I’m not sure if your gift of humanity will affect that. But it should work for her no matter what.”

“I can’t see anything,” Eden said, squinting through the bars. “I don’t want to go in there.”

Cedar dug around in the backpack Brighid had given her and pulled out a small flashlight. “Here we go,” she said. “Be brave, my heart. We’ll do this together.”

“Ready?” Felix asked. Cedar nodded.

“Good luck,” Jane said, an anxious look on her face.

Felix snapped the padlock and tossed it away and then set the gate down in the dirt at their feet. “I’ll stand guard out here,” he said. “Take your time. Feel your way around. If one of the stones grows warm at your touch, tell your mum, okay, Eden?”

“I will,” Eden said earnestly, and Cedar nodded, her throat too tight to speak. Clutching Eden’s hand in hers, she ducked her head and crept into the passage. Once inside, she found that she could stand, though Finn or Felix would have needed to crouch. She shivered. The air in the tomb was cold, and it was almost pitch-black as they moved away from the entrance. She wondered how
many bodies had been interred inside this passage and in the hill surrounding them. She switched on the flashlight and started on her left, running her hands over the large standing stones that created the walls of the passage.

“Eden, look at this,” she said. One of the stones was covered in circles, swirls, and a curious X pattern. She traced the largest spiral with the tip of her finger. “I wonder what it means?” she said. “Maybe it’s a map of some kind.…” She shone her flashlight on the
X
and pressed her hand to it, but the stone stayed cold. Eden did the same, and then shook her head. They continued on, shining the light in front of them, looking for a stone that matched Brighid’s description, but touching them all just in case. Eden stayed close to Cedar and ran her fingers over the same stones she did.

Above the standing stones was a layer of smaller rocks that led to the ceiling, which was a few inches over Cedar’s head. She lifted Eden up so that she could touch those stones as well, and then she reached her own hands up to touch the ceiling. She felt what seemed to be more carvings on the stones above her head, and she pointed the flashlight up to look at them. Surely the Lia Fáil wouldn’t be one of the roof stones, she thought, wondering if there was any heavy equipment hidden in one of Brighid’s backpacks just in case. She glanced back through the narrow entryway and could make out Felix’s and Jane’s figures against the background of the darkening sky.

“Can you see anything that might be it?” she whispered to Eden, not quite sure why she was whispering. It just seemed appropriate in this place, like it would in a funeral home or a museum.

“Just lots of rocks,” Eden whispered back. “But none of them feel warm.”

“Same,” Cedar said. “I wish we knew for sure what it looked like… or that it glowed in the dark or something.” She had reached the back of the passage, which was only about four yards from the
entrance. A large rectangular stone sat right at her feet, in front of the back wall. It seemed like it was about the right size for the Lia Fáil, but it felt cold. “Eden, come here,” she whispered, and Eden squatted down beside her. “Touch this one,” she said, placing her hands on Eden’s and pressing them into the rock. “How does it feel?”

“Like a cold rock,” Eden said, standing back up. Cedar stood beside her. She was starting to feel ridiculous, and she wondered if Abhartach had been making a little joke at their expense by sending them here. She swept the flashlight around some more as Eden touched each of the rocks on the other wall. Then something caught Cedar’s eye. When she pointed the flashlight at the standing stone carved with the circles and swirls, an odd shadow appeared at the base. She moved in for a closer look. Propped up at a strange angle next to the stone was a flat rock that was about a foot long on each side. Cedar pulled it away, hoping she wasn’t about to excavate some undiscovered grave. What she found instead was a large gap behind the carved standing stone. And wedged into this gap was a smooth rectangular stone that roughly matched the dimensions that Brighid had described to them.

“Eden!” Cedar called, forgetting to whisper this time. Eden rushed over. “Did you find it?” she asked, her huge eyes reflecting the beam of Cedar’s flashlight.

“Maybe,” Cedar said. Trembling, she reached into the gap and set her hand on it. It was cold, and her heart sank. Then Eden squeezed in beside her and laid her hand flat against the stone.

“Ow!” she cried, yanking her hand back and cradling it against her chest. “It’s burning hot!”

“It is?” Cedar said, touching it again. To her, it felt slightly cooler than the air temperature around them. “Are you sure?”

“Mum, it’s really warm! You can’t feel it?”

They stared at each other for a moment, and then Eden threw her arms around Cedar’s neck and squealed, “We did it!” Cedar
hugged her back, still not quite able to believe it. “You gotta stand on it, Mum, that’s how it works!”

“I know,” Cedar said, reaching in to try and pull out the stone. It was heavy and firmly wedged. “It’s… not… coming…,” she grunted.

“Maybe I can push it from the other side,” Eden said, running around the standing stone. “I can see it, I’ll just push it with my foot.” She stuck her leg into a narrow space and kicked.

“Eden, that’s not going to…” Cedar’s voice trailed off as the stone became dislodged and slid toward her. Cedar peered around the stone at her daughter. “How did you…? Never mind, come around to this side now, and help me lift it.” Cedar worked the stone the rest of the way out of the gap.

“Aren’t you going to stand on it?” Eden asked.

Was she?
Cedar asked herself. Here it was, in front of her—the object they had been pursuing for the past several days. It would only take one step to prove that she was the true queen of Tír na nÓg, the Queen of the Faeries, as Eden liked to put it. But she didn’t feel like the queen of anything. She was dirty and tired, her lover and her best friend were sick, and her mother was dead. She felt completely inadequate for such a title, and she knew that when she stepped on that stone, her whole life would change. Again.

“I think… I think I’ll wait until we’re out of the mound,” she said, grunting as she tried to lift the stone.