Ysabel (33 page)

If it mattered.

Maybe it did, he thought suddenly. If they were killed here, the others would at least know why. And how else would they ever learn? His hands were shaking. He saw Greg murmur something. Ned’s father nodded, briefly.

The druid said, “There was a world here once. A way of knowing the world. It was torn from us, and it can be reclaimed.”

Ned saw his father straighten his shoulders. He crossed his arms on his chest, in a gesture Ned knew. “Is that it?
That
is how you see this? You want to roll back two thousand years of Greek and Roman culture? Can you possibly be serious?”

Edward Marriner’s relaxed, chatty tone was gone.
You could say his voice was as cold now as the other man’s.

The druid’s expression flickered. Maybe he hadn’t expected such a response. Ned sure hadn’t, and he still wasn’t there yet, wasn’t getting it. He was trying to catch up, to understand what was being said.

“They would be near to immortal,” Brys said. “More powerful than you can imagine, if this story were ended with that death. And if they understood their task, the
need
we have. Am I serious, you ask? A fool’s question. The world can change. It always changes.”

Edward Marriner’s reply was quick, sharp with scorn. “A fool? I think not. I hear you. You just want to decide
what
it changes to. Aren’t you being just a tiny bit arrogant?”

The druid’s mouth tightened. “Believe me, I have known change shaped by others. I lived it. All my people did. I am unlikely to forget. Arrogant, you say? And the Romans were not?”

Ned’s father looked away, past the other man. It was, Ned thought, a hard question. He was remembering that arch this morning: Romans on horses, wielding swords, Gauls dying or dead or chained, heads bowed and averted. He thought of the smashed walls at Entremont, siege engines. Or the enormous arena such a little distance from here, a twenty-minute walk through two thousand years of power.

Edward Marriner said, more softly, “The Romans? They were all about arrogance, and conquest. But yours is the greater, even so: the idea that two millennia can be
run backwards. That they
should
be, whatever the cost.”

“Cost? Measuring it out? A Roman thought.”

Edward Marriner laughed aloud, a startling sound in that still place. “Maybe. Is it why they were able to destroy you? Because they worked that way? Weighed cost and gain?
Thought
about things?”

He was asking a lot of questions, Ned decided. He was pretty sure his first guess was right: his dad was stalling. Was that what Aunt Kim had said to Greg, to delay? For what? He was thinking fast: maybe Kate was dialing on
her
phone, as they stood here. Maybe she was calling 911, or whatever, here in Arles.

Something occurred to him.

He stepped forward and said, loudly, “Enough of this already! What the hell? You guys think because this is a cemetery you can just add new bodies to the count? Is
that
the gig here?”

Greg looked quickly over his shoulder at Ned, his expression stricken.
I was right
, Ned thought.
They wouldn’t have known where we are!
The Marines or the cavalry riding, nowhere to go.

The druid’s expression, also turning to him, was bleak. “Have a care,” he said. He looked back at Ned’s father. “We need only deal with the young one. He matters. I don’t know why yet. You and the other are of no concern to me. I am content to have you walk away.”

“Content? The young one is my son.”

“Children die. All the time. You have others?”

“None.”

“Ill-judged on your part.”

“Screw yourself,” Edward Marriner said, and added an even harsher string of words. The stalling part of this appeared to be over.

Greg moved to stand closer to Ned’s father. They were right in front of him again. The druid made no movement at all, but the wolves stood up.

Showtime
, Ned thought. Three wolves began circling wide, the others moved slowly forward.

By the tower with Aunt Kim he had grabbed a branch. There were no branches on the swept-clean ground here. And there hadn’t been seven animals then, either. He remembered last night on their road, sweeping his hand, scything the horns from Cadell’s head. He didn’t remember
how
he’d done it, only the rage that had driven the motion. He tried to find that within himself. He knelt and scooped some gravel.

“Keep them off your face,” Greg said quietly. “Punch in the throat if you can. Kick underneath. Then run past the guy. The gate’s unlocked, remember. Get to the road . . .”

Punch in the throat
.

A wolf. Real good plan.

“I say it again,” Brys rasped. “Only one of you matters. The other two can leave.”

Greg said, calmly, “You heard the man. Screw yourself.”

Gregory was actually ready to die here defending Ned, trying to save Melanie, and Ned realized he
knew hardly anything important about the man. A wise-cracking, burly, bearded guy who owned a truly ridiculous bathing suit and mocked his own bulk by doing human cannonballs into a swimming pool.

Ned’s my new hero
, he had said the other day, because Ned was meeting a girl for coffee. Some hero.

“She was here,” Ned said suddenly. “Do you know it?”

The druid took a half-step backwards. He rattled a handful of quick words like pebbles; the wolves stopped. They sat down again, the flanking movement suspended.

“Explain!” Brys said. “Do so now.”

Ned stepped up beside his dad. They wanted him behind them; he wasn’t going to allow it. “Back to back to back,” he murmured. “When they come.”

That was how they did it in movies, wasn’t it?

He made himself take his time, even smile. Time was the whole point. He thought of Larry Cato, improbably: shit-disturber, professional pain in the ass. Times when that might be useful.

He said, “You like giving orders, don’t you? Especially when Cadell’s not around. What would happen if he was here? Should I guess?”

The druid’s mouth opened and closed.

“Same as last night, maybe? He gets pissed off. Sends you to your room without supper. Right? Which tomb here’s yours?”

He was close to Greg now, speaking loudly. It was possible Aunt Kim hadn’t gotten the first hint about where they were.

“Where is she?” the druid said doggedly, ignoring the mockery.

“Another question!” Ned said. “Why do you expect an answer from me? Should I just do to you what I did last night to him?”

He had no way of doing it, but maybe
they
wouldn’t know that. “Grow some horns,” he taunted. “I’ll use them as targets. Or use the wolves, if you prefer.”

“You cannot kill them all before they—”

“You
sure
of that? Really sure? You have no idea what I am.” That, at least, made sense, since Ned didn’t, either. “Tell me something else: if you’re planning to off me here, why should I give you
anything
I know? What’s my percentage, eh?”

The druid said nothing.

“I mean, you are really bad at this, dude. You need to offer something to make it worth—”

“If you care for your father’s life, you will tell me what you know. Or he dies.” The words were flat, blunt, hard.

Maybe, Ned thought, the guy wasn’t so bad at this after all.

“I said they could leave,” Brys went on. “But I can alter that. If you know she was here, you know where’s she’s gone.”

“Are you stupid?” Ned said. “If I knew where she was, would I be
here
?”

That, too, was true, but it might not keep them alive. Did logic work with druids? Inwardly he was wishing he were religious, so he could pray to
someone, or something. He was stalling for all he was worth, and had no idea what sort of rescue could come. He didn’t think a bored gendarme arriving at the gates would stop––

He looked at those gates. The others did too, even Brys, because there was a sound from there. Then another. Something landed with a distant clatter on the shaded pathway.

And then, improbably, a really big man could be seen taking a hard, fast run from the edge of the road, propelling himself up the far side of the gate, arms and legs moving, and then—with what had to be exceptional strength—
vaulting
himself over the sharp, spiked bars at the top, in a gymnast’s move.

Ned saw him in the air, looking like a professional athlete. The illusion of an Olympic gymnast held, briefly, but this man was way too big. He landed, not all that smoothly, fell to one knee (points deducted, Ned thought). He straightened and stood. It could be seen that he was wearing faded blue jeans and a black shirt under a beige travel vest, and that his full beard was mostly grey beneath greying hair.

“Goddamn!” the man said loudly, bending to pick up his stick. “I am
way
too old to be doing this.” He was some distance away, but his voice carried.

Coming forward—favouring one knee—he proceeded to add words in that language Ned didn’t understand. His tone was peremptory, and precise.

“Be gone!” the druid snapped by way of reply. “Do you seek an early death?”

The man came right up to the group of them and stopped, on the other side of Brys and the wolves.

“Early death? Not at all. Which is why I can’t leave, if you want the truth. My wife would kill me if I did, you see. Ever meet my wife?” the very big man said.

Then he looked at Ned. A searching, focused gaze. Wide-set, clear blue eyes. He smiled.

“Hello, Nephew,” he said.

CHAPTER XIV

N
ed felt his mouth fall open. The jaw-drop thing was happening way too often. It was majorly uncool.

“Uncle Dave?” he said.

His voice was up half an octave.

The smile widened. “I like the sound of that, have to say.”

The grey-bearded man looked over at Ned’s father. “Edward Marriner. This would be even more of a pleasure elsewhere. I hope it will be soon.”

Ned glanced at his dad, whose expression would have been hilarious any other time. It made him feel a bit better about his own.

“Dave Martyniuk?”

The other man nodded. “To the rescue, with a really bad landing.”

“I saw that. You okay? I’m afraid the gate was open,” Edward Marriner said. “We picked the lock to get in.”

Ned’s uncle’s face became almost as amusing, hearing that. He swore, concisely.

“It
was
a dramatic entrance,” Ned’s father said. “Honestly. Bruce Willis would have used a stuntman.”

The two men smiled at each other.

“Your wife’s coming down on Air France 7666 from Paris,” Dave Martyniuk said. “Flight gets her to Marignan around 6 p.m. Then, what . . . half-an-hour cab ride to your villa?”

“Bit more.” Ned’s father checked his watch. “We might have time to meet her.” Neither of them was even looking at Brys, or the wolves, Ned saw. Edward Marriner hesitated. “How do you know the flight?”

Martyniuk shrugged. “Long story. Mostly to do with computers.”

“I see. I think. You keep an eye on her?”

The other man nodded. He looked awkward, suddenly. “Only when she’s . . .”

“I know. Kimberly told us. I . . . I’m very grateful.” He grinned ruefully. “Assuming we get out of here alive, she will try to dismember you, very likely. I’ll do what I can to protect you.”

“I’d appreciate that. Meghan’s formidable.”

“Oh, I know. So’s her sister.”

“Oh, I know.”

“Enough. We can kill four of you as easily as three,” the druid said.

Ned turned to him. So did the others.

Assuming we get out of here alive.

Brys had shifted position so he could look at all of them, left and right.

Aunt Kim’s husband—Ned hadn’t pictured him as being nearly so
big
—shook his head. “I’m not sure, friend. You don’t know enough about me, and you’re a long day past Beltaine, losing strength. So
are the spirits you put in those wolves.”

“How do you know that?” the druid snapped.

“The spirits? Beltaine? Cellphone. Wife. Mentioned her. Knows a
lot
, trust me.”

Then, abruptly, the exaggeratedly laid-back style altered. When next Dave Martyniuk spoke, it was in that other language again, and the voice was stonehard. There was authority in it, and anger. Ned understood nothing, except for what sounded like names. He heard
Cernunnos
and something like
Cenwin.

But he saw the impact on the druid. The man actually grew pale, colour leaching from his face. Ned had thought that only happened in stories, but he could
see
it in Brys.

“Go home,” his uncle added, more gently, speaking French. “You should have gone last night. This is not the hour or the life for your dreams to be made real. My wife asked me to tell you that.”

Brys was still for a moment, then drew himself up as if shouldering a weight. A small man, standing very straight.

“I do not believe she knows anything for certain. And in any case,” he said, “why hurry back to the dark? I
will
learn what the boy knows. And he will not interfere any more. I can achieve so much.” He gestured at the branch Ned’s uncle had thrown over the gate and picked up. “You think you can fight eight of us with that?”

Dave Martyniuk, unperturbed, nodded gravely. “I think so, yes. And there is a reason for you to leave. You
know there is. Will you risk your soul, and these? If we kill you here you are lost, druid. The three of them can return, but not you.”

“How do you
know
these things?”

Something anguished in the question.

“Same answer. My wife.”

With a sharp, startling movement, Martyniuk levelled the branch in front of himself and cracked it hard across his good knee, breaking the stick in two.

“Ouch!” he said, and swore again.

Then he threw half of it across the open space.

Ned saw it flying. It was actually beautiful, spinning into light, shadow, light again under the leaves. One of the wolves sprang for it, jaws wide, and missed—it was arced too high.

Ned’s father caught the thrown branch with unexpected competence and then—
much
more unexpectedly—stepped straight forward and swung it hard, a two-handed grip, sweeping flat. He cracked the leaping wolf in the ribs as it landed. There was an ugly sound. The animal tumbled, to crumple against a grey, tilting stone.