ELEVEN
I hurried back to the bookstore, deep in thought. Not, however, with my head down. I wasn’t making that mistake again today. I won the struggle not to frown at two Rhino-boys that were repairing a streetlamp. What was their deal? Shouldn’t they be supporting their dark brethren, the Shades, and busting out the lights, instead of fixing them?
I couldn’t believe the sidhe-seers had been guardians of the Book and lost it. How had it been lost? What had happened that night twenty-some years ago?
My meeting with the sidhe-seers had answered few questions, and raised more.
What was sowen? How did the D’Jai Orb fit in? How had Barrons gotten it? What did he plan to do with it? Sell it to the highest bidder? Could I steal it from him? Did I want to burn that bridge? Were there any bridges left between us?
If the Orb was my passport to Sidhe-seer Central, I was determined to get it, by fair means or foul. Was Rowena manipulating their efforts to befriend me? Had she allowed Dani to photograph those pages and give them to me, seemingly on the sly?
My short time in Dublin had me looking for games within games everywhere I turned. I’d sure like to get Christian into the same room with a few people and employ his lie-detecting abilities while I asked questions.
Speaking of the Scot, I tried calling him again. There was no answer, again. Grrr. Wondering what exactly constituted “afternoon” in the dreamy-eyed boy’s world, I let myself into the store, opened my laptop, and logged onto the Net.
My search for “sowen” yielded no results. I tried half a dozen different spellings, and was about to give up when a Google search result caught my eye. It was about trick-or-treating, which brought to mind O’Bannion’s earlier crack.
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.
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.”
“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 chasing 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.