Aika wasted several days trying, unsuccessfully, to leave the city. Apparently no one was being allowed in or out until security had been sorted. She slept in shelters set up in the Underground, to the earth-shattering dance of bombs overhead. Chaos ensued as people desperately tried to restock Great-Granddad’s WWII air raid shelter in the garden, or sought other alternatives. News media were calling it the Second Blitz.
Numbness pervaded her still, her mind and heart skittering away from the loss of her Jamie-boy. All thought processes were focused on leaving at first opportunity. In the meantime, she was running out of money, and patience.
She didn’t fear the grief so much as she did the anger. It lay banked within her, waiting for a single spark to set it off into a firestorm.
Finally she had little choice but to follow the directions given to her at the police station. Perhaps whoever had gotten her out of jail could also get her out of London.
She hadn’t known what she expected when she found the address—but she certainly hadn’t expected a pub. It was called The Tree and Flame. She rolled her eyes, and entered.
Surprisingly, hardly anyone at all occupied the space appearing larger on the inside than it did from the street. One or two people at the polished oak bar, a few more scattered among the tables. These days every gathering place in the city tended to be stuffed to the rafters, waiting for news or more bombs, whichever came first.
Aika looked around as she sat at the bar. There didn’t appear to be any spears or cauldrons in evidence. There was, however, a sword on the wall behind the bar. She felt as though it were staring at her.
“Ah, there you are.” The innkeeper emerged from the backroom, hefting a large stew pot. “Certainly took your time, didn’t you?”
Aika stared, the resonance of recognition washing over her. “You?”
The old man raised his eyebrows at her. “Who were you expecting, Winston Bloody Churchill?” He wanted to know in a rough Irish brogue. He looked up at the ceiling, reflective. “Then again, considering the circumstances…”
“How did you find me?” She demanded. “And who are you, anyway?”
He tsked at her. “Is that any way to speak to family?”
“Family?”
The bar patrons shuffled up to the bar. The rich, meaty smell of lamb stew permeated her nostrils and made her stomach rumble as he ladled it out into ceramic bowls. “Hungry?”
Another gurgle from her stomach answered for her. He nodded and ladled her a portion, setting it in front of her. People began trickling in through the front door, in ones and twos.
He shoved the stew pot to the end of the bar, along with the stack of bowls and cup of spoons. “Help yourselves, you lot.”
Aika spooned the stew into her mouth. It was heavenly. “Will there be enough?” she asked as more people came in.
“Always is.” He leaned across the bar on crossed elbows. “Now then. Your Gran was a devout woman, as I recall. A Brighid’s cross in the family room, revered the old ways? And your Mum was a bit of a Wiccan?”
Old Irish superstitions had spiced every day of her childhood, and her grandmother had believed Brighid to be their family’s patron saint. “You knew them?”
He tapped his head. “Family, remember?” He looked to the rafters again, this time in recollection. “Mum and Da died young?” He nodded to himself, as if it all fit on the puzzle board of this mind. “Sometimes I get the generations mixed up. We Irish do love our extended families.”
“I’m sorry,” Aika said wearily. “But I still have no idea who you are, or what you want from me.”
“Not me, specifically. My daughter.” Electrum eyes gleamed at her, not so startling in broad daylight as they had been on the train. “My girl, you carry the blood of champions in you.”
Aika slipped from her stool, certain how this old man was crazy. “Thanks for the stew, but I have to be going. How much do I owe you?”
“Your life.”
“What?”
“Saved it, didn’t I?” He reached up and removed the sword from the wall. “Here, hold this a moment. That’s all I ask.”
He laid it across her palms, the cool, slick metal warming to her touch almost instantly.
“This thing is actually real?” she asked, fingers curling about the blade involuntarily. She nicked herself, a bead of blood welling to the surface of her skin. “Ow! Bloody He—!”
The world shifted.
Aika collapsed into nothingness, landing on her hands and knees. The sword slid away from her, making no sound. Her lungs burned, and contracted.
A firm hand at her elbow levered her up. “Breathe, girl. That’s it.”
“Where are we?” she asked in a small voice. A landscape of black infinity surrounded them on all sides. She felt no atmosphere here, no weight of the world, no gravity of living. It was simply…nothing,
“Between time and space,” he said, as if this explained everything. “And the best place to continue our conversation, away from prying ears and eyes.” He grinned. “You won’t find your way out of here alone, so you may as well make yourself comfortable.”
Aika had always been resourceful. Perhaps, by the time she puzzled it out, things would begin to make sense. “Alright. Talk.”
“In the beginning,” he intoned, then stopped with a chuckle at the look on her face. “Not really. But quite a long time ago—centuries, a millennium, doesn’t really matter—our Brighid pulled together a sort of network, if you will. They’re gates into the Otherworld, made up of stone circles, hill forts, even a chapel or two when Christianity came along. The space between worlds at these places is…soft. People like you and I can step between them.”
“And your pub is one of them.”
He tapped the side of his nose, eyes brighter than ever in the dark. “Of my own making, yes. But it’s the chapel at Kildare I’m wanting to talk to you about.”
“The one with the never-ending flame?”
“That’s the one. You know the history?”
She snorted. “I thought you knew my Gran.” She sighed. “The story goes Brighid lit a flame there as a sanctuary for women. It was said no man was able to pass.”
“Nineteen priestesses took turns guarding the flame,” he said. “With Brighid being the twentieth. But they weren’t guarding it from men. They were guarding it from anyone with evil intent. The sanctuary, you see, was for the innocent. And they weren’t priestesses. They were champions, directly descended from Brighid, called Keepers of the Flame.”
Aika stifled laughter. “And you think I’m one of them.”
“Blood knows blood, my girl.” He nodded to the sword, hanging in the void where she’d dropped it. “The job’s yours, if you want it.”
Aika’s breathing steadied as she tried to sense the world around her. This may be the nothing between time and space, but it was also a pub. Therefore, somewhere on the edges of this place, lay the way back. She thought she might detect a soft murmur of sound, somewhere. A feeling of light and density.
The smell of smoke and fear.
“To what purpose?” she asked, to keep him talking.
“The apocalypse is coming,” he said, frankly. “You know what happens then. Only the angels and demons you read about as a child aren’t reality. They’re here, among us, biding their time. And just who do you think is going to lose out when the big clash comes? Humanity.
“Nineteen champions,” he said, as though it were a mantra. “Fifty-four contingents. All to keep them safe.”
Something rocked overhead, like thunder. He didn’t appear to notice. She reached for it, letting it brush against her nerve endings.” Fifty-four contingents of what, exactly?”
“The warriors that came before. Anyone with our blood, or revered and fought for us, sacrificed their lives for their people as we taught. All waiting on the other side of this,” he waved his hand, “until Brighid’s call.”
Aika felt a tug, and knew she had it—a single, shining thread leading the way
back. “I’m sorry. I really am. But I’m not meant for this.” And she stepped back, returning to the world.
The old man stared. “Well, I’ll be buggered—she’s a natural.” He grinned at the void over his shoulder. “Did you see that?”
A woman stepped from the infinite shadow. Her hair curled to her knees, neither blond, nor brunette, nor red. Her eyes flickered brown and green. gray and blue before flashing electrum. She was all women, and every woman. “Difficult to miss.”
He shook his head, watching the spot where Aika had exited, as though he could see the hole she left closing in. “Why do they always do a runner?”
“Perhaps, Father, ‘tis your delivery.” She bent to retrieve the sword, clasping the pommel in both hands.
“Impertinent child.” But his tone was affectionate. “She’ll be needing that, when she’s ready.”
“You mean once she’s discovered the rest.” She nodded. “I’ll keep it safe for her.”
“Are you certain?”
“Did I not forge it?” She sighed, watching Aika’s stumbling retreat on the other side of the void. “I weep for this world, and her part in it. But in the end, she will be the best of us.”
CHAPTER FOUR