I looked up Halloween and bingo, there it was: sowen—gee, why didn’t I think of spelling it S-a-m-h-a-i-n?
Samhain had its origins, like many modern holidays or celebrations, in pagan times. As the sidhe-seers had been inclined to erect churches and abbeys on their sacred sites, the Vatican had been wont to “Christianize” ancient, pagan celebrations in an if-you-can’t-beat-them-and-don’t-want-to-join-them-rename-it-and-pretend-it-was-yours-all-along campaign.
Scrolling past the various names, etymology, and pictures of jack-o’-lanterns and witches, I read.
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Samhain: the word for November in the Gaelic language marks the beginning of the dark half of the Gaulish year, with Beltane adventing the light half.
Great. So, these past few months hadn’t been the dark ones?
Technically, Samhain refers to November 1, christened All Saints’ Day by the Vatican, but it’s Samhain night— Oiche Shamhna, October 31st, that has long been the focus of ritual and superstition.
Celts believed All Hallows’ Eve was one of the liminal (Latin, meaning threshold) times of the year, when spirits from the Otherworld could slip through, and when magic was most potent. Since the Celts held that both their dead and the terrifying, immortal Sidhe resided in mounds beneath the earth, on this night both could rise and walk freely. Festivals were held and large communal bonfires were lit to ward off these evil spirits.
I read entry after article, astonished by how many countries and cultures held similar beliefs. I’d never given any thought to the origins of Halloween, just happily collected the candy, and in later years had a blast with the costumes and parties, and enjoyed the great tips if I was working.
Bottom line was the walls between our world and the “Otherworld” were dangerously thin on the last day of October, at their most vulnerable at precisely midnight, the crack between one half of the year and the next, the threshold between light and dark, and if anything was going to try to get through, or if anyone—say an evil ex-Fae with vengeance issues—wanted to bring them crashing down around our ears, that was the time to try it.
Certain nights of the year, lass, Christian had told me, my uncles perform rituals to reinforce our pledge and keep the walls between our realms solid. The last few times, some other dark magic rose up, and prevented the tithe from being fully paid. My uncles believe the walls won’t last through another incomplete ritual.
Certain nights. Wouldn’t last through another incomplete ritual.
Was Samhain the night the MacKeltars’ next ritual was to be performed? Were we that close to disaster—two short weeks away? Was this the meaning of O’Bannion’s snide threat?
I thumbed redial and called the ALD again. Again, there was no answer. The waiting had been making me crazy all day, and now I didn’t just need to warn him, I needed answers. Where was he?
Powering down my laptop, I locked up and headed for Trinity.
Surprisingly, I dozed off, slumped sideways against the wall outside the locked offices of the ALD. I think it was because I felt like Mac 1. 0 there, in the brightly lit hallway, on a college campus, surrounded by the happy sounds of youth that didn’t have a clue what was waiting for them out in the real world.
I woke to someone touching my face and my inner sidheseer exploded.
The next thing I knew, Christian was on the floor beneath me, and my spear was at his throat. My muscles were rigid. I was ready for a fight; my adrenaline had no outlet. Dreams had shattered the moment I’d felt myself touched. My brain was cold, clear, and hard.
I took a deep breath, and ordered myself to relax.
Christian nudged the spear from his throat. “Easy, Mac. I was just trying to wake you. You looked so sweet and pretty asleep. ” His smile was fleeting. “I’ll not be making that mistake again. ”
We separated awkwardly. As I’ve said before, Christian is a man, and there’s no mistaking it. I’d been straddling him much the way I’d straddled Barrons recently. Either my spear hadn’t intimidated him or he’d managed to . . . well, rise above it.
Speaking of my weapon, his gaze was fixed on it with fascination. It was emitting a soft, luminous glow. “It’s the Spear of Destiny, isn’t it?” He looked awed.
I slid it back in my shoulder harness and said nothing.
“Why didn’t you tell me you had it, Mac? We’d been bidding on it, trying to buy it. We thought it was out there on the black market. We need it now more than ever. It’s one of only two weapons that can kill—”
“I know. It kills Fae. That’s why I have it. And I didn’t tell you because it’s mine and I’m not giving it up. ”
“I didn’t ask you to. There’s nothing I could do with it, anyway. I can’t see them. ”
“Right. And that’s why you shouldn’t have it. ”
“A little touchy, are we?”
I flushed. I was. “Someone tried to steal it from me recently, and it went badly,” I explained. “Where have you been, anyway? I’ve been calling you all day. I was getting worried. ”
“My plane was delayed. ” He unlocked the door, and pushed it open. “I’m glad you’re here. I was going to call you as soon as I got in. My uncles have an idea they want me to talk to you about. I think it’s a terrible idea, but they insist. ”
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“Samhain is the night your uncles have to perform the next ritual, isn’t it?” I said, as we stepped inside. “And if they don’t get it right, the walls between our worlds are going to come down and we’re all screwed. ” I shivered. It had sounded weirdly like I’d just made a proclamation: The walls between our worlds are going to come down and we’re all screwed.
Christian closed the door behind me. “Smart girl. How’d you figure it out?” He gestured to a chair opposite his but I was too wound up to take it. I paced instead.
“The sidhe-seers mentioned Samhain. They want . . . ” I trailed off and looked at him hard, searching his gaze for . . . I don’t know . . . maybe a big, block-lettered message that said YOU CAN TRUST ME, I’M NOT EVIL. I sighed. Sometimes you just have to take a leap of faith. “They want the D’Jai Orb to try to reinforce the walls. Would it work?”
He rubbed his jaw and it made a rasping sound. He hadn’t shaved in several days and the shadow beard looked good on him. “I don’t know. It’s possible. I’ve heard of it, but I don’t know what it does. Who are these sidhe-seers? You’ve found more of your own, then?”
“You’re kidding, right?” He knew so much about Barrons, and the Book, that I’d assumed he also knew about Rowena and her couriers, and probably V’lane, too.
He shook his head.
“You said you followed Alina. Didn’t you see other women out there, watching things that weren’t there?”
“I had reasons to watch your sister. She had a photocopy of a page of the Sinsar Dubh. I’ve had no cause to watch others. ”
“I got the impression your uncles knew everything. ”
Christian smiled. “They’d like that. They think quite highly of themselves, too. But no, for a long time we believed all the sidhe-seers had died out. A few years ago, we discovered we’d been wrong. How many have you come across?”
“A few,” I hedged. He didn’t need to know. V’lane and Barrons knowing about the abbey was bad enough.
“Not the truth, but it’ll do. You can keep the numbers to yourself. Just tell me this: Are there enough to put up a fight if we need them to?”
I didn’t sugarcoat the sour fact. “Not with only two weapons. So, what’s this terrible idea of your uncles’?”
“A while back, they had a run-in with Barrons, and they’ve been toying with the idea since. They’re no longer toying. Uncle Cian says power is power, and we need all of it we can get. ”
I narrowed my eyes. “What kind of run-in? Where?”
“At a castle in Wales, a month and a half ago. They’d been c
hasing the same relics for some time, but never actually tried to rob the same place, on the same night. ”
“Those were your uncles? The other thieves that were after the amulet, the night Mallucé took it?” The night V’lane had snatched me out, sifted me off to a beach in Faery!
“You know where the amulet is? Who is Mallucé? And they aren’t thieves. Some things shouldn’t be loose in the world. ”
“Mallucé is dead and no longer matters. The Lord Master has it now. ”
“Who’s the Lord Master?”
I was astonished. What did he know? Anything of use? “He’s the one who’s been bringing the Unseelie through, the one who’s been trying to tear the walls down!”
He looked blank. “He’s the one who’s been doing the magic against us?”
“Duh,” I said.
“Doona be ‘duh’ing me, lass,” he growled, his burr thickening.
“How can you know so many things, but none of the important ones? You’re the ones who are supposed to be protecting the walls!”
“Right, the walls,” he said. “And we’ve been doing it. To the best of our ability. With our own blood. Can’t try much harder than that, lass, unless you want us to revert to the archaic ways and sacrifice one of our own, an idea I just went home to explore, but was forced to conclude wouldn’t work. What about the sidhe-seers? Aren’t they supposed to be doing something, too?” He cast my accusation of slacking off on the job right back at me.
“Yes. As a matter of fact they were. They were supposed to be protecting the Book. ” I distanced and acquitted myself.
His opened his mouth, closed it again, then exploded, “You’re the ones who had the Sinsar Dubh to begin with? We knew somebody was guarding it; we just didn’t know who. Och, for the love of Christ, lass, what did you do with it? Lose the bloody thing?”
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I clarified my pronouns again. “They lost it. I’m not part of them. ”
“You certainly look like a sidhe-seer to me. ”
“Don’t be trying to blame me, Scotty,” I snapped. “Your uncles were supposed to be keeping the walls up. The sidheseers were supposed to be guarding the Book. The Fae were supposed to strip the LM’s memory before they dumped him on us, and I was supposed to be home with my sister playing volleyball on a beach somewhere. It’s not my fault. None of this is my fault. But for some idiotic reason, I seem to be able to do something about it. And I’m trying, so get off my back!”
We faced off, breathing fast and shallow, glaring at each other, two young people living in a world that was coming apart at the seams, doing their best to stop it, but realizing rapidly just how long the odds were. Tough times make for tough words, I guess.
“What’s your terrible idea?” I said finally, in an effort to get things back on track.
He inhaled and released it slowly. “My uncles want Barrons to help them hold the walls on Samhain. They say he’s Druid trained, and not afraid of the dark side. ”
I laughed. No, he certainly wasn’t afraid of the dark side. Some days I was pretty sure he was the dark side. “You’re right. It’s a terrible idea. Not only does he know you guys have been spying on him, Barrons is mercenary to the core. He doesn’t give a rat’s petunia about anyone but himself. Why would he care if the walls come down? Everybody’s afraid of him. He has nothing to lose. ”
“What did you just say?”
“In a nutshell, he doesn’t care. ”
“You said he knows we’ve been spying on him? How?”
I gave myself a mental smack in the forehead. I’d completely forgotten the reason I’d come here in the first place. I hastily recounted how Barrons had used Voice to interrogate me about my recent activities, and that visiting Christian had been one of them. I told him I’d been trying to reach him all day, to warn him, and when I hadn’t managed to get in touch with him by four, I’d come by to wait for him. When I finished, Christian was regarding me warily.
“You let him do that to you? Push you around like that? Force answers from you?” The tiger-gold gaze swept me up and down, the handsome face tightened. “I thought you were . . . a different kind of girl. ”
“I am a different kind of girl!” Or at least I had been when I first came to Dublin. I wasn’t sure what kind of girl I was now. But I hated the look in his eyes: aloofness, censure, disappointment. “He’s never done it before. We have a complicated . . . association. ”
“Doesn’t sound like an association to me. Sounds like a tyranny. ”
I wasn’t about to discuss the complexities of life with Barrons, with anyone, especially not a living, breathing polygraph test. “He’s trying to teach me to resist Voice. ”
“Guess you aren’t very good at it. And good luck. Voice is a skill that can take a lifetime to learn. ”
“Look, you guys were planning to talk to him anyway. I’m sorry, okay?”
He measured me. “Make up for it, then. Talk to him for us. Tell him what we want. ”
“I don’t think you can trust him. ”
“I don’t, either. I told my uncles that. They overruled me. The problem is we aren’t sure we can keep the walls up, even with Barrons’ help. ” He paused then said grimly, “But we know we can’t without him. ” He opened a notepad, tore off a scrap of paper, wrote on it, and handed it to me. “Here’s where you can reach me. ”
“Where are you going?”
“You think Barrons won’t be coming after me? I just wonder what’s taken him this long. My uncles told me if he ever got wise to me, I should get out, fast. Besides, I told you what I came back to say, and they can use me at home. ” He moved toward the door, opened it, then paused and looked back at me, golden eyes troubled. “Are you having sex with him, Mac?”
I gaped. “Barrons?”
He nodded.
“No!”
Christian sighed and folded his arms over his chest.
“What?” I snapped. “I’ve never slept with Barrons. Subject that to your little lie detector test. Not that I see how it’s any of your concern. ”
“My uncles want to know exactly where you stand, Mac. A woman who’s having sex with a man is a compromised source of information, at best. At worst, she’s a traitor. That’s how it’s my concern. ”
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I thought of Alina, and wanted to protest that it wasn’t true, but what had she betrayed to her lover, believing them to be on the same side? “I’ve never had sex with Barrons,” I told him again. “Satisfied?”
His gaze was remote, a tiger assessing its prey. “Answer one more question, and I might be: Do you want to have sex with Barrons?”
I gave him a hard look and stormed from the room. It was such a stupid question, and so far out of line, that I refused to dignify it with a response.
Halfway down the hall, I drew up short.
Dad’s told me all kinds of wise-sounding things over the years. I haven’t understood a lot, but I filed it all away because Jack Lane doesn’t waste breath, and I figured one day some of it might make sense. You can’t change an unpleasant reality if you won’t acknowledge it, Mac. You can only control what you’re willing to face. Truth hurts. But lies can kill. We’d been having a talk about my grades again. I’d told him I didn’t care if I ever graduated. It wasn’t the truth. The truth was I didn’t think I was very smart, and I had to work twice as hard as everyone else to get passing grades, so I’d spent most of high school pretending not to care.
I turned slowly.
He was leaning in the doorway, arms folded, looking young and hot and everything a girl could want. He arched a dark brow. What a gorgeous guy. He was the one I should be thinking about having sex with.
“No,” I said clearly. “I don’t want to have sex with Jericho Barrons. ”
“Lie,” Christian said.
I headed back to the bookstore, flashlights on, watching everyone and
everything. My brain was too stuffed with thoughts to be able to sort them out. I walked, and watched, hoping my gut would piece things together into a plan of action, and notify me when it was done.
I was passing the Stag’s Head pub when two things occurred: the black ice of a Hunter dusted me, and Inspector Jayne squealed to a stop in a blue Renault, flung open the passenger door, and barked, “Get in!”
I glanced up. The Hunter hovered, great black wings churning ice in the night air. It terrified me in my special sidheseer place. But I’d seen and done a lot since my last encounter with one of them, and I wasn’t the same anymore. Before it could speak in my mind, I sent it a message of my own: You’ll choke on my spear if you make one move toward me.
It laughed. With a whuf-whuf of leathery, midnight sails, it rose into the twilight and vanished.
I got in the car.
“Slump,” Jayne fired at me.
Raising both eyebrows, I slumped.
He drove to a brightly lit back parking lot of a church—I could see the steeple from where I crouched—pulled in between cars, and turned off the lights and engine. I sat up. The parking lot sure was packed for a Thursday night. “Is it some kind of religious day?”
“Stay down,” he barked. “I won’t be seen with you. ”
I withdrew to the floorboards again.
He stared straight ahead. “The churches’ve been packed for weeks. The crime hike is scaring people. ” He was silent a moment. “So, how bad is it? Should I get my family out?”
“I would, if it were my family,” I said frankly.
“Where should I take them?”
I didn’t know what the rest of the world out there was like in terms of Unseelie, but the Sinsar Dubh was here, an evil centrifuge, distilling people to their darkest essences. “As far from Dublin as you can. ”
He continued staring straight ahead in silence, until I began to fidget impatiently. I was getting a cramp in my leg. There was something else he wanted. I wished he’d hurry up and get to it before my foot went to sleep.
Finally, he said, “That night, that you . . . you know . . . I went back to the station and . . . saw the people that I work with. ”
“You saw that some of the Garda are Unseelie, “ I said.
He nodded. “Now I can’t see them anymore but I know who they are. And I tell myself you did something to me, somehow, and it was all a hallucination. ” He rubbed his face. “Then I see the reports coming in, and I watch what they do, or rather don’t do, like investigate a bloody damn thing, and I . . . ”