Moonheart (67 page)

"Yeah, but..."

Collins drew him aside, out of the patrolman's hearing. "I'm going to level with you. But you'd better keep this under your hat or there'll be all hell to pay. We've got a leak— a big leak and high up."

Deverell held up a hand. "I don't want to hear any more."

"But you'll do as I ask?"

"By the book. No matter who he is, until your people give me a release, this has got nothing to do with civilians. Period."

"Thanks, Deverell. That's one I owe you."

As he watched the two policemen confer, Walters knew that he had made a mistake in coming here. He had been unable to sit at home, waiting for something to break, and with Gannon gone, there had been no one he could trust to come in his place. Not that he was even certain what he would do, once he was here. He had planned to play it by ear— some combination of concerned citizen with a liberal mix of the informed advisor. Instead, all he had managed to accomplish was to tie himself to what was happening here tonight. Not a good move. Definitely not one of his best ideas.

As Deverell approached he knew the best thing to do now was to make a strategic retreat. He would have Williams make sure that he remained unconnected to this incident. It would be simple enough if he left immediately— before speaking to the Lieutenant. He turned to one of the men with him.

"Stall him," he said, indicating Deverell and turned rapidly away, his other bodyguard flanking him.

From his own position, Collins saw the move and nodded to himself. Right, he thought. Gotcha. He pulled out his walkie-talkie. "Give me Superintendent Madison."

There was a moment's silence, then: "Hang on."

"Dan?"

"I've got something for you, Wally. J. Hugh Walters made an appearance here not a few minutes ago. Tried to bully his way in, but as soon as we went to talk to him he took off like a scared rabbit."

"Walters?" Madison's voice sounded strained.

"You okay, Wally?"

"We're... yeah. We're okay. We're on our way out, Dan. You'd better get on the blower and call up more men. A lot more men."

"What the hell did you find in there?"

"You don't want to know."

"What about Tucker—"

"I'll tell you all about it when we're out."

Madison cut the connection, leaving Collins staring at the silent communicator. Wally sounded in a bad way. Collins knew he wasn't going to like what the Superintendent had to tell him. He wasn't going to like it one bit.

Tucker reacted first. He'd been leaning against a wall, half watching the proceedings, the other half of his mind planning on how they'd get by the tragg'a to have their showdown with Mal'ek'a. But before Tom changed, before he spoke, before the others were even aware that something was wrong, he
knew.

He swept his gun up from the floor, aimed between the rathe'wen'a and fired. The bullet passed through Mal'ek'a, not bothering it in the least. Blue started for Tucker, Maggie was hauling at his arm trying to hold the Inspector back, and then they all knew and understood what he'd been doing.

Tucker flung himself between Ha'kan'ta and another of the rathe'wen'a and hit Mal'ek'a with a shoulder block. Something... some force... picked him up and flung him across the room. He smashed' into the wall, his breath whooshing out of him. He tried to sit up, but he couldn't see straight. There was a sharp jabbing pain under his heart. One or two ribs were cracked— maybe broken. He couldn't use his left arm.

He pushed himself up with his right arm, but his legs wouldn't hold him. The room spun in his sight. Get up, he told himself. Stop screwing around, Tucker! But there was a pounding in his head. Concussion, he told himself, as he still fought to get up. You've got a concussion, that's all. You've—

Everything went black and he collapsed where he lay. The rathe'wen'a at the door turned from her post to face Mal'ek'a's sudden threat, pouring her concentration into the battle of wills between her drum-kin and the dread one.

Blue started for Mal'ek'a, hesitated when he saw what happened to Tucker. Got to be some way, he was thinking as he turned to see the Inspector hit the wall. He still had Ur'wen'ta's totem stick thrust into his belt. He took it out to use against Mal'ek'a, then saw the tragg'a coming up the stairs.

He meant to shout a warning, but it never left his lips. The tragg'a tore the rathe'wen'a from her post by the door and dragged her down amongst them. The warning left Blue's throat as an inarticulate roar of anger. As the creatures came up the stairs, pounding the rath'wen'a woman under their paws, he lunged at them. The first caught a boot in the face and fell back into the others, but they were swarming like rats on the stairwell.

"Goddamn motherfucking sons of stinking bitches!" Blue roared. He had the advantage of being above them, of holding a small opening where they could only get at him one at a time. He matched their fury, howl for howl, savage as the devil-bear that was said to have sired them on the darkness.

Sally had been coming to his aid, the .38 held in a sweaty hand, but at the sudden berserker rage that overtook him, she stepped back, stunned. She looked to where Maggie crouched beside Tucker, the Margolin pistol in her hand, to the rathe'wen'a that encircled Mal'ek'a and Sara, to Jamie sitting slack-jawed in the easy chair, his eyes unfocused.

"Oh, God," she mumbled, and the gun shook in her hand.

"Blue," she pleaded, not daring to touch him in case he turned on her. He frightened her more than the tragg'a did. "Please... Blue,..."

He never heard her. His entire being was focused on each tragg'a that met him at the stairtop. He was beyond fear now— just as the creatures had overcome their fear of Ur'wen'ta's totem. He struck one or two of them down with it, choked on the stench of searing flesh as the stick burned them, felt the stick break, fought then with his bare hands.

The rathe'wen'a fought a battle of another sort. In the realms of the spirit the drumming of their sen'fer'sa was locked in a struggle against the power of the being they called the Dread-That-Walks-Nameless. Named, they could have power over it, for names have power. Unnamed, they could only try to hold their own against it. They worked to keep the spark that was Sara's soul from being snuffed out, to keep the ring of power from the monster's grasp. They fought inside Sara, used the ring's power to aid them. But the ring, clasped in Mal'ek'a's hand, was also used against them.

When their drum-sister died at her post by the door, the loss of her sen'fer'sa at first strengthened rather than weakened them. As they felt her soul spin away, their anger grew and fed their hearts; but the struggle slowly turned against them. While they grew weaker, Mal'ek'a seemed to grow more potent, and his darkness seeped into their souls, stilling the drumming note by note. Mal'ek'a grew blacker still, grew like the heart of all darkness.

Soon, they knew, he would have them— as surely as his tragg'a had taken their drum-sister. And then indeed all would be lost. For Mal'ek'a would emerge stronger still, and all the worlds would be his battleground. The dark of his soul would spread until nothing remained but shadow. His shadow. And he would still be unnamed.

Jamie had felt Mal'ek'a's presence vanish in the east wing and reappear in Sara's tower. It was a puzzle that his mind stored away for later reference. For now he was concentrating on the House, and the souls of his father and grandfather that inhabited it still.

How can you still exist?
he asked.

It was a gift,
the House's spirit replied.
From a Horned Man. A gift and a curse.

I don't understand.

The druid is our kin, James. We are his only descendants. It is we that must set his evil right.

Thomas Hengwr is
our
ancestor?

The House shifted in agreement.
He sired the first o four forefathers— on a serving woman in King Maelgyn's retinue. From that small bastard boy our line sprang. Our people lived in Wales— then called Gwynedd. They moved to Cornwall— then called Kernow. Finally they came across the Atlantic to settle in the Ottawa Valley. That was Simon Tamson, your great-great-grandfather.

But why did you have to wait so long to tell me this?

The time was not right, James. It would have served no purpose. That was what the Horned Man said. It was not until Hengwr came to you a few nights past that I knew the moment had come, but your soul was closed to me. I did what I could to keep the evil at bay, but I needed you, before the monster could be confronted.

This... Mal'ek'a?

It is not Mal'ek'a we face, but the evil of our ancestors given a life of its own. Mal'ek'a
is
Thomas Hengwr— separated from him these many long years, but still one half of the druid's soul.

No!

The House sighed.

When the bard Taliesin imprisoned Thomas Hengwr in the longstone, only one half of Hengwr remained trapped. The other half escaped to wreak its evil on the world. But sooner or later they had to meet again, the one to destroy the other, for there could not be two of them in the world. It upsets the balance. Twice the Horned Man slew Hengwr's evil half, and twice it rose again— more powerful than before. It can only be killed by one of us, James. Only one related to it by blood can destroy it forever.

But...

We must stop it, James. Though it costs us our admittance into the Summer Country.

Stop it?
Jamie asked.
How?

Enough, Mal'ek'a cried to itself. With the ring attached to both Sara and it, with the rathe'wen'a augmenting Sara's strengths with their own to sustain her, this struggle could go on for too long, serving no purpose.

Mal'ek'a moved toward the rathe'wen'a and they backed away. It dragged Sara with it, slowly crossing the room to where Blue fought the tragg'a. Sally shouted a warning and threw herself against the biker, pushing him against the wall, out of the doorway. Blue turned to her, eyes blazing, hesitated.

"Dear God!" Sally cried at the blind battle-rage in his eyes. She backed away, saw him take a step toward her, arm uplifted, stagger, then collapse to the floor.

Mal'ek'a reached the doorway.

It must not escape my confines!
the House cried to Jamie.

The moment for understanding was past. Jamie knew he could only act now and question those actions later. Together with the House, he called up the blue fire that took its birth where the stone cellars rooted deep in the earth, called up the earth currents and set its magefires crackling through the House.

The door slammed shut as Mal'ek'a reached it.

Blue fires leaped from the door knob as it closed its free hand about the brass fitting. The House's power was not strong enough to damage it, but combined with the attack of the rathe'wen'a, it was enough to weaken the dread one. The drum magic increased as Ha'kan'ta and her kin took advantage of the opening in Mal'ek'a's defenses, but the creature recovered too quickly.

Enough, Mal'ek'a roared to itself a second time. It bent its will to the small hand trapped in its own scaled paw. Under its power, the skin began to blister and blacken. Mal'ek'a meant to sever the hand from Sara's arm, so severing the rathe'wen'a's connection to itself. And then, with the ring fully in its power, Mal'ek'a would deal with drumming and drummers.

Terror was all that Sara knew when Mal'ek'a invaded her mind. Terror and pain. Helplessly she fled before Mal'ek'a, deep and deeper inside herself. The monster followed relentlessly.

They sped down a dark corridor of her mind, towards a golden spark that flickered at its further end. The very core of her being wavered there like a guttering candle. They raced towards it, Sara and the evil thing that had invaded her, dropped through layers of memories and thoughts. Like in a bad dream, the spark never seemed to come any nearer.

Sara took the pain of her body and used it to propel her further. She took the degradation that Mal'ek'a brought into her mind and fed it to her own need for speed. And then the spark was a hand's-breadth away. Mal'ek'a's fetid breath was on her neck. She could feel its claws tear at the back of her soul's body-shape. And then she was inside the spark, holding that last barrier against her tormentor.

And there, in that last secret place, she found hidden away, the moonheart air. Lorcalon. Taliesin's first gift to her. Mal'ek'a hadn't taken it from her yet. To Mal'ek'a it would be nothing. It was such a small thing. But it soothed the raw edges of her nerves, gave her a moment to breathe. For one brief instant she held the sound of harping close to her, a harping that was as sweet as summer rain, deep as the echoing drums, peaceful as a forest pool, bright as a star.

She faced Mal'ek'a from that innermost core, looked into the features of the man she'd once known, briefly, as Thomas Hengwr. The moonheart tune gave her a last strength, and as Mal'ek'a cut her to her soul's marrow she raised what last strengths she could and joined minds with the monster.

The thrust of her soul caught Mal'ek'a by surprise, though it did not hurt it. But in that moment she knew Mal'ek'a as well as he knew her, and the same truth that Tamson House had revealed to Jamie was hammered home. They were kin. She and his monster. She was descended from it, from its evil.

You
are
Thomas Hengwr,
she moaned.
Dear God in heaven.

The same blood that flowed through the monster, that quickened the cancerous life in it, flowed through her veins. Once only half alive, it had swallowed Thomas Hengwr, buried the old druid's spirit in a welter of its own evil, and now it was whole. Her ancestor. Her blood! She remembered something about the sins of the fathers being reaped by their children... She was doomed. By Mal'ek'a's blood, she was damned.

Tomasin Hengwr t'Hap,
her soul murmured, giving Mal'ek'a its true name.