A Hollow in the Hills (18 page)

Jinx struggled against the spells but they closed around him, tighter than an iron maiden. They burned beneath his skin like iron too. The silver that pierced his skin flashed, bright points of agony, and he couldn’t help himself. Couldn’t stop. Holly spoke … no, Holly
commanded
, and he had to obey. His body and mind, so used to doing her will, complied at once.

Magic. It had to be magic. Her magic, which had woven itself around him, through him for his whole life. She was his blood, his kin. It only made her hold on him stronger.

Somewhere far off Izzy was shouting his name. He could hear her and it tore him apart inside to hear the anguish in her voice. Izzy, who wouldn’t give up on him, who wouldn’t leave him, not like he’d left her.

He looked up into Holly’s face, her perfect, impervious face and saw the loathing in the depths of her eyes. And the triumph. She had him. She knew it.

And so did he.

‘Doesn’t she understand you yet?’ asked Holly, almost gently but with an all too familiar mocking lilt.

He wanted to answer. He wanted to tell her to go fuck herself, but he couldn’t move. His voice didn’t belong to him now.

‘Jinx, please …’

‘Still begging. Do you ever do anything else, Grigori-child?’

‘I never begged
you
.’ Izzy said it with a matching venom. ‘I never will.’

‘Oh, you will. If not for yourself, then for him.’

‘What are you going to do to him?’

‘What I always intended to do to him. He’s mine. My property. He could have just been an unwanted runt, a by-blow, but I’ve given him purpose.’ She reached out and stroked his hair. Jinx wanted to recoil, to throw himself away, to change and run as fast as he could in the other direction, but he couldn’t.

Instead, he had to endure her touch. She took the second wire, slender and glowing like the one Osprey had wrapped around his neck. This one joined the first. It sizzled against his skin, but this time he couldn’t scream, couldn’t tear at it. He couldn’t move. Only suffer in silence and frozen stillness. And that terrible brightness surged up inside him again, engulfing him, threatening to blot him out completely.

‘Let him go!’ Izzy cried, her voice filled with the echo of his anguish.

‘Or what? What exactly will you do Grigori? Surrounded
by the Fear. Eochaid can take you now if he wants. No one will stop him. You’re alone. Useless.’

And then there was another voice. ‘Not quite alone, mother.’

Silver stepped from the gate to the Sídheways, magic already kindling at her fingertips. Holly’s own magic, stolen from her when Silver broke her touchstone.

But Holly didn’t seem perturbed.

‘You? Grown a spine now, have you?’ Holly stepped forwards, past Jinx. He lurched to his feet and turned, ready to follow her, though it was the last thing he wanted to do. Light coursed through him, Holly’s power surrounded him. He had no choice. ‘Let me tell you, Silver, I’ll have it all back in no time at all. Now, Jinx and I are leaving.’

‘Over my dead body.’

‘That can be arranged too. It would be a pleasure. But a waste I fear.’

‘I’m not letting you take him anywhere.’

‘Your precious little nephew? Or my weapon. That’s what he is, remember? That’s what I made him become. And now it’s time for the next step. Get out of the way, Silver. Or I’ll unleash the Fear on you, daughter or not.’

Silver just smiled. It wasn’t a pleasant expression. It mirrored Holly’s. Mother and daughter. Closest they could be among the Aes Sídhe. Matriarch and heir.

‘You forget something, as usual, Mother,’ said Silver. ‘I have something you’ll never have.’

‘And what’s that?’

‘Friends.’

The Portal rippled behind her and the fae came through, more of them than Jinx would have expected. There were banshees there, and leps, quite a few bodachs. And Cú Sídhe. Silver must have sent word to Brí to have that many of his people behind her. How she did it, he didn’t know. He’d only been minutes ahead of her. But with the amount of magic Silver now controlled – housed in Dylan, but hers nonetheless – anything was possible.

Holly didn’t flinch, but she hesitated. That alone should have given Jinx a glimmer of hope. But it didn’t; he couldn’t hope.

He was trapped. If she left, she’d take him with her. Holly would never forgive him for almost breaking free of her. He stared at Izzy, tried to tell her with his eyes alone, prayed she’d pick up his thoughts.

And behind her, the other girl reached out. She took Izzy’s hand in hers and leaned forward, whispering something. Jinx strained to hear but he couldn’t. Slowly, Izzy nodded and returned her gaze to him again.

‘Jinx, if you can hear me … remember the hill? Remember what you said to me that night? You can remember, can’t you? Please.’

She sounded so desperate, so afraid for him.

Remember? It was seared into his memory. He’d thought he’d lost her. He’d thought he was lost himself and that they had unleashed hell on earth in the form of two vengeful
fallen angels.

He’d said he was sorry. He’d begged her forgiveness. He’d told her he loved her. He’d said all those things that the Sídhe could not say, and only Izzy’s magic had let him do it.

Did she think that had changed? After the way he had treated her, it was a fair assumption. But he hadn’t changed, his feelings hadn’t changed. He just couldn’t move.

Then he saw what Izzy was holding. The knife. The one she’d used to stab herself with on the hill. And previously… previously, she’d tried to kill Holly and almost killed him in the process.

Or the angel had. He wasn’t sure any more.

Was she trying to warn him? Why would she warn him when she knew what happened before? Did she want him dead? That was it. He was Holly’s again, and she wanted him dead.

Izzy moved, just as quick, with all the training that her father must have put her through. He wouldn’t have thought her capable, but the hard glint her in eyes told him all he needed to know.

She flung herself at Holly, who folded back out of reach, the leader, letting others fight for her. Jinx did the only thing he could imagine doing, the thing everyone seemed to expect of him – he threw himself between them.

The knife glanced across his side, cutting but not stabbing. Not like before. A line of pain rather than the agony of the last time. She twisted aside at the last moment, pulled the strike and her elbow caught him right in the solar plexus.
Breath went from his body and she landed on him, pinning him down, Holly forgotten. The other girl dived on him to help her.

‘Silver!’ Izzy shouted. ‘Get us out of here. Now!’

Holly turned on her with a rage, but they were already up, dragging him with them, heading for the gateway. He tried to struggle, tried to break free. He couldn’t let them take him. Not like this.

He needed to stay with Holly. She owned him, she commanded him. If he left her –

The bodach that met them at the gate loomed over the two girls, and when he took hold of Jinx, there was no hint of escape. It was like being seized by stone. And Jinx recognised him – the one he’d fought. The one he’d beaten. He didn’t even know his name.

‘Get him through,’ Izzy shouted. ‘Get him to safety now.’ She’d tricked him, he realised that now. She’d counted on him needing to protect Holly because of all the obedience beaten into him over so many years, because of all her spells and enchantments, because Holly still owned him, in spite of his will and his heart. And Izzy, had counted on that and used it to trap him.

To save him. But she hadn’t. She couldn’t get Holly out of his head, could she?

Jinx by Jasper
…

He glanced back, and Holly was there on the rise. As the other fae faced off against the Fear – not engaging yet, but
ready if the need arose – Holly lifted both her hands out to either side and whispered words. Words that carried on the breeze, but words meant for him alone.

Words that struck him like a physical blow.

Jinx felt the piercings in his body turn white hot, the tracery of tattoos twist and tighten, digging barbs into and beneath his skin. Her curse winnowed into his veins, plunged into his mind. The wires that had burrowed beneath the skin of his neck ignited like strips of potassium. He arched his back as agony shook him like a terrier, and then he crumpled into darkness, welcoming oblivion.

Chapter Nineteen

Beyond Dubh Linn

T
hey emerged onto a crowded College Green, right under the looming edifices of the gate to Trinity College and the Bank of Ireland.

Life swirled around them. City life, Dublin life. Someone started pointing and shouting, but to be honest most of the people just ignored them.

‘He’s seeing through the glamour,’ said Silver. ‘Must be a bit of old blood in him. We ought to check him out.’ She nodded to one of the Cú Sídhe – not Blythe or her brother, Izzy was sure she would remember them.

‘Leave him,’ Izzy said, in a voice much louder than she’d intended. She was shaking again. She couldn’t stop. ‘No one will listen to him anyway. He’s just high or something. Why bother about it?’

The guy had stopped shouting now. He’d noticed that they
were watching him and backed away, terrified. Of course he did. Izzy knew how scary they could be. Even Silver.

Especially Silver.

The guy turned and ran, cursing and shouting as he did so, dodging in and out of the pillars of the bank. People folded out of his way, desperate to avoid him, and Izzy felt a pang of pity. Did he start taking drugs because he could see the fae around them? Or did the drugs have some weird cocktail effect on his mind, opening up his perception to the world of Dubh Linn and its inhabitants? Which one messed with his sanity more?

‘This way,’ said Silver. ‘Quickly, we don’t have much time. The door is a fixed point, but it’ll only open to where we want to go for a little while.’

Izzy sighed. Of course it would. Why would anything be easy? But they needed to get out of sight. And they needed to get help for Jinx.

She reached out for his dangling, limp hand and squeezed it gently. He felt so cold.

If they told her he was dead, she’d believe it. And it would shatter her to tiny pieces.

‘Let’s go then. Lead the way.’

Ash came up beside her. ‘Are you okay?’

‘Yeah, I … are you?’ She was taking all this remarkably calmly.

‘I guess.’ She looked around nervously but she hadn’t freaked out yet. ‘They’re friends of yours right? I mean… I
know they aren’t …’ She swallowed the words she wanted to say. Normal, perhaps? Or human? She’d seen everything. She’d used the Sídheway with them, seen them as they actually were – Silver lithe and graceful, shimmering with power; the Cú Sídhe animal in humanlike form; the bodach, a towering hulk of muscle and brawn that could be a tree or a rock formation. And Jinx of course. Jinx all hard lines and paler than pale skin, with his metallic eyes.

But then she’d seen every nightmare in that mist. She’d seen Eochaid just as clearly as Izzy had.

‘They’re good, aren’t they?’ Ash tried again. She stared at Silver’s back, the way her hair shimmered as she walked.

‘Good.’ Izzy wasn’t sure she’d use that word. ‘Maybe. Sometimes. But I think … they’re kind of on our side for now. So long as we’re on his.’ She nodded at Jinx. And so long as
they
were still on his. Izzy didn’t know how long that would be.

And which side was Jinx on?

He’d bowed down to Holly, knelt before her, her servant again. He’d looked at Izzy like he didn’t even know her, and at Holly like she was a goddess. And they’d all seen that. She knew Jinx had struggled to be seen as more than just Holly’s assassin. Her dog. Had he just undone it all? From the glances some of the fae were giving him, they thought so.

They crossed the road, Silver stopping the traffic by will alone it seemed, and headed up until they were almost at the place where College Green became Dame Street. A few horns blared, a few voices cursed, but no one seemed to quite know
why. A freak traffic jam, a brakelight backlog without obvious cause.

Silver stopped. The pedestrian crossing signals flashed wildly behind her, the beeps loud and insistent, but she didn’t pay it any attention. They stood outside a doorway. Just an arched wooden door in a redbrick building squeezed between two entirely different grey ones, one pale and ornate with black metalwork, the other windowed in a regular pattern. But this building was different, a strip of red bricks set back, barely wider than the door itself, as if the building had been pressed together between the tectonic plates of its neighbours. Over the door, a white – or rather off-white with pollution – plaque depicted a ship. There were no windows. Nothing else. Just a strip of redbrick, all the way up.

The Tiny Building, people sometimes called it. A Dublin oddity. Izzy always assumed it was part of one of the buildings on either side, when she ever thought about it at all. Now she wasn’t so sure.

Silver wasted no time. She knocked rapidly – a quick staccato rhythm both purposeful and whimsical – and from inside came an answering knock. A code, Izzy realised. Silver knocked again, just once and this time the knock boomed, drowning out even the noise of the traffic right behind them.

The door opened. ‘Inside,’ said Silver. ‘Quickly.’

What else could they do? Izzy glanced at Ash, who looked resolute but freaked. Of course. What else would she be?

Izzy nodded to her, and stepped inside.

Into Dubh Linn. Into something more than Dubh Linn.

The fading evening light streamed around her, multi-coloured as if it fell through stained glass. She’d only seen that effect in churches before. All around her, huge ferns and exotic palms shifted in a breeze she couldn’t feel, cutting that rainbow. High overhead she could see a dome, made of scalloped slivers of coloured glass, the source of the amazing light. A greenhouse, she realised, but huge and ornate, like the ones at the Botanical Gardens but with the glass coloured like the canopy of the Olympia theatre. It stretched up above her, maybe a hundred feet.

‘Where are we?’ she asked.

‘We call it the Liberty,’ said Silver briefly. ‘A sacred space, a place of freedom, of our own Sídhe jurisdiction, where we are answerable to nowhere and no one else. Once we had many such Liberties but now … well, this is all that is left. A little bubble of safety. At least we should be safe here. I’ve asked the others to meet us. Your father included.’

‘And Jinx?’

Silver glanced back at him and there was no disguising the concern on her face. ‘I hope one of them can help him.’

‘One of who?’

‘The Council.’

‘
Your
Council? Brí and Amadán and all that lot? Are you crazy?’

‘Maybe. But I don’t know what else to do. There are few as skilled as your mother in the arts of healing—’

‘She’s not my mother,’ Izzy interrupted, almost automatically.

Silver ignored her, ‘—but those who are, I’ve asked them to come too. There is magic here far beyond anything I know. Holly… Holly didn’t share.’

‘I imagine.’ She couldn’t. Not having Holly as a mother. Holly had infiltrated every aspect of Silver’s life, controlling every tiny detail. That was what Holly had done, wasn’t it? She’d given Silver just enough rope and then tied her up with it.

If it hadn’t been for Dylan.

Speaking of whom, ‘Where’s Dylan?’

Silver flinched at the mention of his name. ‘I don’t know. He has a gig tonight.’

‘I thought you’d be there. I thought—’

‘That I follow his every move? Hardly. Neither of us are there, are we?’

Izzy regarded her carefully. It wasn’t the whole truth. Silver had to know something. Dylan had become the reservoir of all her power. She
ought
to know where he was. For that reason alone.

And Izzy wasn’t sure which frightened her more – that Silver clearly didn’t know where he was, or that Izzy could see through her so clearly.

They reached the centre of the Liberty and the jungle of plants thinned out to reveal a lawn. Chamomile, she realised, as they walked over it. The scent rose as their feet crushed the
plants, which bounced back up as if they’d never been there once they had passed. Here and there exotic flowers burst out of the earth in clumps, bright and violent, the colours clashing. Some of them Izzy could name – bird of paradise flowers, oriental lilies, and about half a million different orchids – and others that she couldn’t, because she wasn’t sure they really came from her world. Or if they had they’d gone extinct thousands of years ago. But here, they bloomed, they thrived. There was no sense of season. Just life. Wild and dangerous, life.

In the centre of the green a single pillar of stone rose from the grass. It was twice her height, at least, and bigger than she was at the base, but it tapered as it went up. Not to a point. This wasn’t a stone version of the Spire on O’Connell’s Street. This was something else. Much older. She could tell, just by the vibrations in the air around it.

‘The Vikings called it the Stein,’ said Silver. ‘They used it when they settled here, as a place to meet, to discuss, and to find a workable solution with us. It wasn’t easy. Not one of us had any time for them but life has to go on. Peace had to be negotiated so we did that. The Long Stone… it’s so much older though. It once stood alone here and no one would dare come near it. This was our place, our Liberty. The Milesians had more sense. Even the Nemedians … anyway, it was long ago.’

‘Why is it here? Why does no one know about it?’

‘We moved it here, out of Dublin and in here. To make a
sacred place, a meeting point. To be the focal point of the Liberty, to hold it in place. Weren’t you listening?’

‘There’s a Long Stone pub,’ said Ash, her voice unexpectedly near. Izzy and Silver stared at her. ‘It’s just over by Trinity. And a stone there too.’

‘It’s a copy. A bad one,’ Silver replied. ‘Come, we need to get Jinx looked at and to get on with this. Follow me.’

Izzy frowned at Ash for interrupting. She’d been getting somewhere. She wasn’t sure where exactly, but Silver was talking. For once. And now she wasn’t any more.

Brightly coloured silk tents had been set up at various points around the central lawn. It looked like some kind of medieval fair. The material moved in the breeze as well. A breeze that didn’t touch them, that didn’t seem to touch anything but the plants and the tents. Silver led them to a pale blue one and the bodach laid Jinx down on the low bed covered in more sumptuous fabrics.

‘I’ll bring help as soon as it arrives,’ she told them. ‘And I’ll send refreshments, if you need them. Don’t leave. This place … it may look beautiful, but it’s dangerous. Understand?’

Of course she did. Izzy knew that about everything connected with the fae. Every last one of them. Even Jinx. Even Silver.

Perhaps, especially Silver.

And like that, she was gone.

‘Right,’ said Ash. ‘Well, great.’ She tried her phone and cursed at it. ‘No signal. Figures.’

Izzy swallowed hard. ‘I should … I should probably explain.’

Ash gave her one of those looks, almost worthy of Mari. ‘Really? Do you think? That’d be great. Because at the moment it’s all kinds of crazy and I can only go so far with the flow. Want to start at the beginning?’

Dylan knew this was so far out of ‘not good’ that it might as well have been a budget airlines arrival point somewhere on the continent. He’d need to take the handy shuttle bus to get even in the vicinity of ‘not good’, and pay twice over to reach anywhere near ‘all right’. But he couldn’t let Clodagh know that. She was barely holding it together as it was, and he couldn’t let anything happen to her. She’d been Mari’s friend since junior infants. They’d always been together, a pair of little princesses. While he’d hung around with Izzy, Clodagh and Mari had spent their lives like sisters. The sister she never had, but always wanted. The sister who would do whatever she said.

Which meant, by extension, Dylan needed to look after her. Because he’d failed to look after Mari, and Izzy was nowhere to be seen.

The Magpies drove way too fast, while Clodagh and Dylan slid from side to side in the back seat of a car that had never heard of a seatbelt. They hung on to each other, trying not to listen to the conversation up in front.

‘So I says to him, ‘are you starting?’ And then he did. So I brutalised him.’

‘Y’did not.’

‘I did too. And then his old wan starts in as well. But I wasn’t taking her on, was I?’