The Silent Goddess: The Otherworld Series Book 1 (18 page)

              “See Annie,” he would say, the light lilt of his Irish accent shining through.  “History and legend are not so far apart.”  His bright blue eyes, so much like her own would shine with knowledge the ages had forgotten.  His dark hair would fall over his forehead as he looked down at her.  “You remind me so much of your mother.  Grab hold of her strength now, you know she’s never far.  But only say her name when you have need of her.  For names carry power.”

              “But how will I know when to call her Da?” Her childlike voice asked knowing very well she was never to utter her mother’s name.

              “You will know my princess. It will hit you here,” he said pointing to her heart as her childish belly laugh bubbled out of her.  “And then the skies will open,” he said opening his mouth wide.  “And your enemies will…drop,” he said as his fingers tickled her belly and her own peals of laughter drowned out the playful memory she had long forgotten.

              “Aye,” Knackers mused scratching his long goatee.  “If the fair folk come it might work.”  His voice dragged Annie from the past.

              “Are there truly that many here?” Fiona asked.

              “Aye,” Knackers replied nodding absently.  “I’ve to find Duncan.  Where’d that Grant go?”

              Annie narrowed her eyes and leveled Knackers with a glare.  Her mind was racing with recent revelations she had forgotten, however briefly about him.  “Why do you need to find him?”

              “Oh dear,” Fiona exclaimed as her hand flew to her mouth.  “He never told ye, did he?”

              “Told me what?”  Annie managed to grind out through her clenched teeth.  Images of stolen embraces and quick passionate kisses played in her mind’s eye.  A warming sensation flooded her veins as she felt him buried deep within her soul.  In that intense moment she remembered.  Her mind reveled against the impossible but her heart knew the truth.  Words, feelings and emotions bubbled and frothed deep within her.  But only one word managed to break free.  Her lips and memory both new and old debated the word, the name and like a ragged cry it tore out of her throat and became spoken truth.  “Oisin!”

              “Aye,” Fiona acknowledged softly.  “Though now tis more myth than truth.”

              Duncan sat quietly studying the creature of betrayal that sat opposite him in the darkened pub.  At one time she had been beautiful and regal; her allegiance unquestionable.  Time had eroded everything.  The husk of a human she had chosen to encase her tainted soul in sat provocatively across from him a knowing fake smile etched on her perfectly shaped and equally sinful mouth.  Duncan smiled back at her barely containing his own hatred.  This creature had been his ultimate friend and ultimate betrayer.  Even with the chance to escape her own prisons she toyed with him.  Whether unwilling or unable she refused to choose a side.

              In disgust he shoved himself away from the scarred wooden table and away from her.  She shot to her feet and captured his head between her two gracefully manicured hands.  She lowered his head to her red painted lips and at the last possible moment twisted her head to whisper seductively in is ear.  He heard her breathy proclamation as his eyes found the furious gaze of Kat flanked by Griffin and Robert.  His eyes took in the sight and knew without a doubt that he was damned.

              His hands clenched into fisted claws as he reached up to pry Mandy’s hands away from his face.  He knew what it looked like, and she had meant it to seem that way. 

A seductive wench to the end she had played him well. Knowing nothing from this viper’s mouth could speak truth he tore her hands away from him.  With a crushing grip he squeezed the delicate bones of her mortal shell’s wrists hoping she would feel the physical pain.

              “You have damned her,” he spat as his angry grip intensified.

              “No,” she winced as the physical manifestation of her pain intensified in her eyes.  “I have given you the key by which to free her.”

              He relished the sound her fragile mortal bones made as they cracked and broke under his forceful grip.  He shoved her away from him.  She landed almost gracefully on the wooden stool behind her.  Her golden brown eyes shining with rage and another emotion Duncan failed to recognize as his own rage over took him.  His vision blurred as everything took on a hazy red tinge.  His anger rode him hard as he dragged in deep heaving breaths in an attempt to calm the battle lust that threatened his sanity.

              “Don’t fight it Dark Warrior,” Mandy chuckled.

              Duncan’s eyes flew to her as the mortal form Caelia had assumed transformed into the visage of the Battle Queen.  Her victorious eyes morphing and changing before him, her face stretching as her painful grimace turned into a knowing smirk.  “Hold that rage and use it,” she commanded in a powerful voice that had him struggling to stay on his feet.

              The image remained long enough to make its mark.  As the dogs began to howl and bark in alarm he knew the danger was close.  He blinked once and the mortal Mandy sat in front of him dumbfounded from the invasion of two powerful beings vying for control over her delicate mind.  He blinked again and he was racing towards the newly formed night and the horrors yet to come.

Chapter Fourteen

Annie’s Army

          “This is a terrible idea, “Knackers grumbled.  Even Annie was beginning to agree with him.  Back in the safety of her kitchen the idea had seemed brilliant and simple; in short, find as many friendly Fae as possible and use them to defeat the Redcap.  Annie had been shocked to find out that Pete, stinky Pete, was Fae, a Fir Darrig or Ratboy.  Even more startling was the fact that he had three brothers who smelled worse than him.  They tended to like the shallows of the wharf during low tide so Annie, accompanied by Knackers waited on the dock for Pete and his brothers to make an appearance.

             “I thought you said they were the good guys,” Annie mumbled as her eyes flicked across the horizon looking for Pete.

              “Aye,” Knackers replied.  “Usually,” he added under his breath.

              Annie spun around to face him.  His glamour, or disguise, gave him a few extra inches in height so she didn’t have to look down at him as much but he still barely reached her shoulder.  His cat like eyes looked up at her warily.  Although his feline features, including his tail, were no longer visible he still retained his shaggy gray goatee and at the moment his hairy hands were tugging on it nervously.  Annie tried to retain her anger but his outfit was ridiculous.  He wore a garishly loud Hawaiian shirt and tattered khaki colored board shorts that seemed to accentuate his bowed legs.  She refused to let her eyes drift below his knobby hairy knees, his feet in flip flops was a sight she never wanted to see again.   In all he looked like a gnarled, short overly hairy fisherman on holiday.

              “Knackers,” she growled her anger beat her sense of humor.  “You said Pete could be trusted.”

              “Aye an’ I also said the swans would be here too,” he replied pointing to the spot where the swans usually were at this time of day.

              Annie squinted up at the setting sun.  It’s fading glow illuminating the golden eagle on top of the Custom House.  She was still close to home, close to the safety and security of her house and life, her old life. She sighed heavily closing her eyes.  If she believed in wishing she would wish for the boring comfort of her old life.  Two days, that was all it had taken to turn her world completely upside down.  All the stories of her youth were true, Faeries were real magic, no magick was real; and worst of all there was some kind of Faerie princess sleeping inside her.

              “Sleeping- frickin’- beauty,” she muttered.

              “What?” Knackers asked puzzled.

              Annie’s nose twitched as she recognized the distinctive odor of stale cigars and filth that just defied description.  “She thinks she’s like sleeping beauty,” cackled a familiar voice.  “She may be right too.”

              Annie looked over her shoulder towards the small pier that docked the Friendship.  Standing a few feet away were the Fae she and Knackers had come to find.  A gust of wind blew off the ocean sending Pete’s special and too personal aroma, rocketing towards Annie and Knackers.  Annie tried hard not to wince but could do little about her eyes watering in offense.  Knackers however refused to be so polite.

              “Bloody hell mon,” he gasped turning his head away from the foul wind.  “I’ve been in sewers that smell better than ye!”  He threw an arm over his face in an attempt to shield his offended nose.  When that failed he took several steps to the right.  “Ye need to be down wind mon!”  He waved a hand in the direction he wanted Pete to go.  Pete let out a wheezing laugh that showed his yellow teeth off before moving to appease Knackers.  As he passed Annie raised her hands to cover her nose and mouth trying to convince herself that she was stifling her laughter instead of shielding her own nose.

             
“Honestly he smells better than most,”
a sleepy voice inside her head.

Annie’s watery eyes widened.  “Good god,” she shouted into her hands.

“Goddess,”
replied the sleepy voice before once again falling silent.

              “I know, “Knackers’ muffled voice said.  “He smells like the he took a bath in a well-used chamber pot.”

              Annie shook her head at him.  He obviously thought she was commenting on Pete’s stink, instead of the voice, or rather goddess, in her head.  She debated on clarifying her comment but quickly decided against it; it would keep till later.

              “I’m sorry Pete,” she said removing her hands from her face.  Now that he had moved the smell was tolerable.  A few more gusty breezes and the air smelled clean again.  She cleared her throat stalling for time as her brain raced to find the words to begin.

              Knackers, sensing her distress got right to the point.  “Are ye here ta be an ally or no’?”  His green eyes narrowing as he looked at Pete.  The sun was rapidly sinking behind the buildings and Annie did not want to be outside once it became dark.

              Twilight, she had been warned was dangerous.  Twilight was an in between time.  The veil that separated the natural world from the Otherworld was thin during the in between making it easier to slip between worlds.  If a being was in the wrong place a hole could appear and they could get lost in one place or another; or worse get stuck in between.  Many humans got lost or stolen when the veil was thin; and as each year passed more and more holes had begun to appear in the veil.  It was a weakness the Unseelie had been abusing for years, quietly stepping through the veil during twilight to come and wreak destruction once night fell.  The Unseelie thrived in the dark, living off the chaos they could create, feeding greedily on the negative energy that festered and grew in the darkness of the natural world.  Fixing the veil was the only solution, and to do that the sleeping princess/goddess had to be freed from Annie.  How that was to be accomplished had yet to be revealed because Duncan had disappeared.

              “An ally of course,” Pete replied after a drawn out pause; his raspy voice drawing Annie back from the deep pools of thought in her mind.

              Knackers squinted angrily at Pete, “Took ye long enough.”

              Pete lifted one bony shoulder in a lazy shrug.  “Just giving Annie time to catch up,” he said winking a milky blue eye at her.  “Besides you are fun to mess with,” he said pointing a crooked finger at Knackers.

              “Why ye-“

              “Enough,” Annie bellowed with enough anger to startle not only her two companions but herself as well.  Her eyes darted between the two Fae waiting for one of them to speak.  When she was sure she had their attention she continued.  “Fine we have Pete and his brothers,” she said nodding her head at Pete who nodded back in agreement.  “Fiona, Riana and Devon,” she said looking at Knackers.  “And a very confused human who has nothing but fading recollections of stories her father told her.”  Her confidence was quickly fading.  She buried her face in her hands and shook her head as tears threatened to fall.  Her allies, against a very scary blood thirsty demon-like creature, consisted of three very small people and four unreliable yet smelly ones.  She was unsure if any of them had any magick or weapons strong enough to help her defend the goddess she harbored.

              “Ye’ve got Duncan,” Knackers said laying a soothing hand on her arm.

              Annie pulled her hands away from her face.  Her eyes overflowed with tears as she stared unblinkingly at Knackers’ hand on her arm.  She wanted to accept his reassurance, but the small doubtful part of her became loud and overbearing as it struggled to rise up to the surface.  On the heels of her doubt came anger and then fear.  All of these emotions were knew to her, and as each vied to play the leading role another sneakier and more deadly emotion, hate, exploded out of her with such violence that she shook under its power.

              “Duncan,” she spat.  “That duel man who one second spouts beautiful words weaving the illusion of caring and then the next stumbles, no jumps!”  She said as her voice lost some of its power.  The hurt of Duncan’s actions was working its way into her mind.  “Away from me, afraid to even offer me the slightest causal touches,” her voice trailing off to the quietest of whispers.

              “He never told ye?” Knackers asked in astonishment as he slowly withdrew his hand.

              “Thought the boy was smarter than that,” Pete muttered.  The two exchanged a glance as they seemed to communicated silently.  “Tell her,” Pete said to Knackers.  When he hesitated Pete growled at him.

              “Lassie,” Knackers said with a heavy sigh.  “Yer mo-, um the Battle Queen put a wee bit of a curse on Duncan.  The boy, well he loves you deeply.  An’ the queen knows this too well.  She was afraid that he’d take one look at ye and forget.  So she cursed him.  He canno’ touch ye or else it would cause pain ta both of ye.”

              Annie listened quietly wanting to believe.  In all honesty with everything she had witnessed it wasn’t that hard to believe.  If a Redcap and a demon dog were real a curse could be too.  The demon dog-.  Duncan had thrown Annie behind him when they had spotted the dog. She had heard him hiss as though he was in pain but she had felt no pain.  In fact if anything she had wanted him to touch her again, she had wanted it so much that at the time she ached with it.

              “Trust me lass he wants to, ye’re all he cares about,” Knackers reassured her.  “After the Redcap attack he picked you up himself he did and laid you to rest on yer bed.  His chest suffered a mighty blister from the contact but he wanted to make sure ye were safe.”

              “Then why was he letting Mandy crawl all over him earlier?” Demanded a very angry Kat. 

              Annie blinked rapidly clearing her blurry vision.  Kat, Griffin and Robert had joined the pity party Annie was holding and if looks could kill everyone in the vicinity would be a corpse on the ground.  Kat was very, very frightening when she was angry, and right now angry did not do the fury in her eyes justice.  The air around her seemed to crackle and pop.  Her raven hair floated and drifted around her shoulders as if it were alive with static electricity.  Even Griffin’s usual calming influence was powerless to reel in the anger that was radiating from Kat’s tiny frame.  That is when Annie noticed that not only was Kat beyond pissed so were Griffin and Robert.

“Mandy?”  Annie whispered.  All her friends nodded in unison.

“Annie you’re not the only one he fooled,” Kat said as Annie stumbled backwards.

A tiny bubble of angry laughter bubbled up her throat and escaped out her tightly clenched mouth.  “He even tried to convince me that he was Oisin,” she said shaking her head in disbelief.  “I almost believed him.”  Words kept pouring out of her mouth as she gave voice to her inner monologue.  “I fell for it too, I mean why not?  He’s gorgeous right?  Well what girl wouldn’t want a guy like him?”  She kept talking oblivious to the concerned looks on her friends’ faces as she continued to ramble.  “Then he says don’t doubt how much he wants me- my god he’s good because I totally fell for it.  Then he protects me from that hell hound.  That was really hot by the way, scary but hot.”

Kat nodded her head with every word Annie spoke, Robert looked slightly terrified at Annie’s breakdown and Griffin just looked pissed.  Knackers and Pete tried to speak but couldn’t seem to find the right break in Annie’s tirade.  It wasn’t until Annie heard a loud pop that she finally stopped talking.  She spun towards the origin of the sound and found herself face to face with Mandy.  Her body moved before her mind had time to process the information from her eyes.  Annie’s fist clenched, her arm drew back then propelled forward into the beautiful blonde’s face.  In the time it took to blink Mandy was lying flat on her back holding her bleeding nose.

              Instead of screaming and writhing in pain Mandy did something that really shocked the group.  She laughed.

              “There’s the Sidhe goddess,” she said spitting out a mouthful of blood.

              No one moved.

              No one breathed.

              All eyes were focused on the beautiful, bleeding waitress lying on the ground laughing manically. 

              Kat broke the spell of silence first.  “Why the fuck, are you in armor?”

              Annie gasped, Kat hardly ever cursed, but more importantly she was right.  The slutty waitress bleeding at her feet was dressed in some form of armor.  Annie frowned in confusion trying to place a time when she had seen armor like this.  In many ways it was akin to what she had seen heroines in fantasy video games wear.  The chest plate was molded to her shapely torso, doing a better job of covering her ample chest than most of her usual non-existing tops did; her long legs were encased in a similar but more flexible metal.  A small round shield with the etched image of a swan lay besides her.

              “I like you little druid,” Mandy said smiling up at Kat.  Slowly she got to her feet never taking her eyes off of Kat.  “To answer your question I am in armor because war is coming and I have a debt to repay.”  She shook her head and the face they had all come to know and secretly hate slipped off as if it were a child’s party mask.  The new face that stared back at them was the same and yet very different.  Gone was the smug pretty face with its sneering mouth and lustful eyes.  If Mandy was beautiful this new version was breath taking.  Her pale blue eyes now sparkled like deep dark sapphires.  Her pale complexion began to warm and glow; her skin seemed smoother like porcelain.  Her lips grew fuller the line more serene.