A Hollow in the Hills (27 page)

‘If there is a way, she will find it,’ said Ash.

‘I know that. There’s nothing she can’t do when she puts her mind to it. You didn’t – you weren’t there on the hill. You didn’t see her wrest control back from Sorath. She was … she was amazing.’

To his surprise, the angel pressed her fingertips against his cheek, a curiously empathetic gesture. Her touch felt strangely comforting, her skin soft and warm. ‘I was there. I saw it all.’

Reaper came for them shortly after Izzy started to wake, almost as if he had been waiting for her. He led them out of the little room, Izzy at the front of the group, and back to the candle lit chamber. She expected it to be frightening, creepy, this place of the dead, the fact that she was here on Halloween, but there was something curiously peaceful about the place instead, like walking through one of those ancient Abbeys in France, still in use after centuries and crammed throughout out with the sense of all that time. The atmosphere entangled around her spirit and made her feel comforted.

Donn was still seated like a statue. Oldest of them, he didn’t touch anything of the modern human world. Even the glasses were something of an earlier time. She couldn’t tell how old. He barely moved and whether he could see though the dark lenses covering his eyes, he didn’t react. Maybe he really was blind. Perhaps he had seen everything already and didn’t need to.

When they were gathered, he nodded to Reaper who vanished off again. Did he have other servants or just Reaper at his every beck and call? It didn’t seem like much of a life for either of them.

And then something moved in the corner of Izzy’s vision. She turned and saw her there – Mari, standing in the shadows looking wan and fragile.

‘Mari?’ Before Izzy could react Clodagh pushed by her, heading towards the ghost without any trace of fear. Mari smiled and held out her arms in greeting.

‘Clodagh, no!’ Ash cried out, but Clodagh paid her no attention. She embraced Mari, holding her close.

‘I missed you. I missed you so much.’

‘And I’ve missed you.’

‘There’s so much I should have—’ but Mari held a finger to her lips, silencing her.

‘You have to let go, hon. I know it’s hard but you’ve got to let me go.’ She looked up at Dylan and Izzy. ‘All of you. I’m stuck here because of all that grief. Yours, our folks … Please.’

Dylan let out a strangled sob and Ash caught him in her arms, holding him close as he finally broke.

‘It wasn’t your fault, Dylan,’ said his sister softly.

Izzy took a step forward. ‘It was mine.’

Mari stiffened, suddenly glittering with anger. Something passed over her face, something of the rage and darkness her ghost had manifested before. ‘Everything in this world is not your responsibility, Izzy. It isn’t actually all about you. Holly was looking for you, sure. But the banshee was
her
servant and she found me.
She
killed me. Not you.’

‘If I had been there—’

‘You’d be dead, thicko. Anyway, coulda-shoulda-woulda,’ she sing-songed. ‘You weren’t. There was nothing you could do.’

‘But I was,’ Dylan said, his voice thin and tortured.

‘You were busy having your own ass saved,’ said his sister. ‘Dylan—’ She reached out and touched his face. He flinched back, shivered and went still. She looked disappointed. ‘You
just keep punishing yourself and paying for something that wasn’t your fault. Let go.’

He closed his hand over hers.

‘I can’t.’

‘You have to. It’s going to kill you.
She’s
going to kill you. And if she doesn’t one of the others certainly will. The music is wonderful, Dylan, but so are you. Let go.’

‘Just like that.’

‘Because I say so. And I’m a bossy cow, remember? Honestly, the state of you all without me.’

‘There has to be a way to bring you back. To bring you home. Mari!’

She shook her head. ‘Of course there is, but it’s been too long. Far too long. You can bring the spirit back but what good is it without the body. And can you imagine? Ew!’ She screwed up her face and then laughed out loud. The sound shook through them all and all the grief and pain seemed to loosen and fly apart.

‘It’s time, child,’ said Donn. ‘As you say, there is no going back for you. You’ve been dead for far too long. Only someone newly dead can be reborn. Like Jinx by Jasper was. But I don’t like it. I look on it as cheating. Time to move on.’

Mari stepped back. ‘I know,’ she replied, with a surprising amount of respect for her, although she still lingered another moment. Even the Lord of the Dead had only a tentative control over Marianne. ‘Gotta go, guys. See you.’

She smiled and began to fade, until, as they watched she
came apart. Hundreds of fluttering scraps of colour became hundreds of butterflies that scattered into the high dome, swirled around once in a wave of rainbow hues, and then were gone.

She was gone.

‘Time is almost up.’ Donn broke the silence, his dry voice echoing through the dark. ‘Samhain night draws on. Don’t you want the Blade? That’s why you’re here, isn’t it?’

A shimmering line appeared in the air between them, like a crack in the air, breaking through reality to reveal another sun on the other side, just a glimpse of it, so impossibly bright. It bled through the darkness, staining this world with something else, something untamed. In an instant it would consume everything, if she took her eyes off it …

‘There it is,’ he said. ‘Take the weapon. Make it yours.’

‘Be careful, Izzy,’ said Ash.

Donn hissed at her and the angel stumbled back, her face suddenly pale. ‘You’re already here against my better judgement. Have a care, Ashira, or you will never leave. Isabel Gregory, my patience wears thin. Take it, if you can.’

She could. Of course she could. Izzy knew that now. It was fire and she knew fire. It was part of her, Brí’s legacy. It lived in her blood. Still, she hesitated.

‘Just like that?’

‘Yes. It is your choice how you use it. But you cannot heal anyone here. This is a place of the dead. Reaper will show you the way out. In the world above, beneath the Samhain
sky, there you can help him. Is that what you wanted to hear?’

No. She wanted to do it now, right away. But it made a twisted kind of sense, a fae logic, that she couldn’t heal in the world of the dead. ‘And if I heal him, it’s gone again? It just returns to you?’

But Donn didn’t answer. He just watched her, waiting.

‘What’s the price, Donn?’ she asked.

He smiled, a thin, arrogant expression. So knowing and cruel. She hated him for it.

‘You were so eager before, Isabel Gregory? Second thoughts?’ He gazed at Jinx. ‘I want what I was cheated of before. Jinx by Jasper belongs here. You’ll send him to me. And you’ll follow.’

He thought she’d kill Jinx? Some kind of murder-suicide deal? No way on this earth. She opened her mouth to say so, but another voice interrupted.

‘You think you know her,’ said Jinx. ‘But you don’t.’

‘I’d never make a deal like that.’

Donn laughed. ‘It’s not a deal. I don’t need to make deals. Call it a prediction if you like. I don’t know where, when or why, but it will happen. I promise. Go on then, take the Blade.’

Izzy hesitated, her hand trembling.

‘Do it,’ said Jinx. ‘He can’t predict the future.’

She reached out for the blade and felt it curl into her grip. It warmed her palm for a moment and then found the Sídhe fire in her blood and merged with it, like calling to like.

It rushed through her, heady as a burst of adrenaline and she
felt herself waver, as if her body and her spirit were knocked out of alignment. It faded into her, hidden from view. But she could still feel it there, tempting and addictive.

‘Use it wisely,’ said Donn. ‘It will defend you, but it will also beg to be used. And holding it chips away what you are little by little. If you use it to heal him, you can’t use it to kill, Isabel Gregory. Remember that. It will be no defence against the King of the Fear. Be careful how you employ it. And as for the future … we’ll see, Jinx by Jasper. We’ll discuss it one day, just the two of us. Soon.’

Her head still swimming from the effect of the blade inside her, she nodded. ‘You have my word. But I’ll never kill Jinx.’

‘So you say, Grigori. But I know what that fire inside you does. You say it now, but it is not always so easy to give it up again. Heal or kill. That’s your choice. Remember, you must do your duty first and foremost, or everything falls apart.’

He inclined his head towards her, not quite a bow but clearly, from the look of shock on Reaper’s face, more than he had done for anyone else in a long time. ‘Now go. Or the time will be lost.’

Reaper led them from the hall, his expression guarded but as he stopped in the winding corridor, he beckoned to Izzy.

‘A gift, before you go.’ Though he smiled, he glanced back towards the hall where Donn sat. ‘May it guide you.’

‘A gift?’ she asked and felt Jinx step closer. ‘What sort of gift?’

‘And why?’ asked Jinx. Reaper ignored him, his smile only
wavering for a moment.

‘This.’ Reaper opened his hand to reveal her salmon necklace. ‘It was lost. It won’t bring back the memory the Storyteller took, but here at least is the thing itself.’

Izzy smiled and took it in grateful hands. ‘I never thought I’d see this again. Dad gave it to me. A birthday present.’ She put it around her neck and pressed her hand against it. Where it touched the Grigori tattoo it felt unexpectedly cold, but familiar for that. Mum and Dad were a world away, perhaps more. She didn’t know. But having this one piece of her past back made them feel closer. ‘Wow, Reaper, thank you.’

He didn’t reply as he turned away and began opening the gate for them. The way out. Izzy’s heart blossomed inside her. She slipped her hand into Jinx’s again, squeezed his fingers.

‘I’m not sure about this,’ he muttered.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Doesn’t it feel … easy?’

Couldn’t it just be easy for once? Just this once. They were almost there. Once they were back in the library, she could us the blade heal him, to free him of Holly’s spell, and then they’d find a way to deal with Eochaid without the threat of the Shining Ones. It had to work.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Hellfire

T
hey stepped out into fresh air, a cold misty rain and damp grass. The smell of it hit the back of Izzy’s throat, made her skin tingle. It was real. So real. Her world, not that of the dead. The relief that she stood on solid ground and breathed real air made her head spin. The sky was huge and black overhead, the colour of coal. Not the library. Somewhere far from the city centre.

‘Where are we?’ asked Clodagh.

The city spread out below them, lights sparkling like stars overhead. Howth was barely visible behind a bank of rain, but she could make out the silhouettes of the chimneys known as the Pigeon House at Ringsend.

‘It took a lot of time from us,’ said Jinx, his gaze fixed unswervingly on Reaper. ‘Hours. It must be almost midnight. I thought you were an expert.’

‘Well, you’re here and you’re in one piece. A few hours is a small price. I said it was old. With age come a less than perfect reliability. Call it eccentricity. It’s a gate that knows its own mind and sometimes it takes more than anyone can control. Everyone all right?’

Shaken, that was the word for it rather than all right. All the same, Izzy nodded.

‘But why are we here?’ she asked. ‘Why not at the library? Come to that,
where
are we?’

‘I know this place,’ said Dylan. He pointed to their left and the squat, grey structure on the crest of the hill. Graffiti sprawled across the lower half. The stone roof covered a deep darkness and the arched but empty doors and windows looked like demon eyes. So black. ‘The Hellfire Club?’ said Dylan. ‘Who said you lot don’t have a sense of humour?’

‘No one. We’re hilarious. But we didn’t build that here. A cairn stood guard over our gate and a supremely arrogant man had it taken apart and the stones used to build this, his hunting lodge. Imagine. Our own back door. Needless to say, he never had much pleasure of it. No one has since either. My Lord Donn does not take kindly to interlopers, or thieves.’

‘Take note,’ said Ash bleakly.

‘We didn’t steal anything,’ Izzy said. She closed her hand and felt the warmth of the fiery blade in her skin. A curiously comforting feeling.

Izzy had been to Montpelier Hill before. Half the kids of Dublin had, clambering up the steep sides to looked across the
city. Dad had been there, filling in the details, as always. The hill belonged to one William Connolly, called Speaker Connolly, and he had the barn-like hunting lodge built on the site of a cairn, using its stones. The first disaster, a gale, blew the slate roof off. More stones from the cairn were used to construct a stone roof and nothing brought that down, not even arson. Nothing would bring it down. That was Dad’s side of the story. Things took a darker turn, entered into the realm of the urban legends she had loved before she knew how true they were It became the Hellfire Club, used by the notorious gamblers and profligates of that name, and the woods below it were renamed Hellfire wood. There were tales of satanic masses, murders and rapes, debauched and drunken nights where fortunes and souls were gambled and lost. The devil himself was said to have appeared in the form of a great black cat. Those who saw it went mad and died.

It was a ruin now, but a solid ruin. One that would not fall because Donn didn’t want it to fall, she got that now. It was a threat, a reminder and a message from Donn to everyone else. Menace still rolled off it in waves. Graffiti, litter and the remains of fires dotted inside and out. Burnt down candles and messes of animal remains indicated that some practices were not as long forgotten as others.

Did people still practise black magic up here, Izzy wondered? If so, they had no idea what they might disturb. She hoped for their sakes that their magic was all sham and wishful thinking.

Real magic came with a price.

A wave of intense cold sucked all warmth from the air. Izzy could sense unseen eyes as old as the stones and just as unyielding watching her. She shivered and then heard the sound of someone clearing their throat.

‘Well, it’s about time,’ said Holly. There was a flurry of movement as Sídhe of all kind materialised out of the darkness.

The need to run, to escape, swept through her. But only one of them could get away with ease. She knew that even as she said it. ‘Ash! Get help now! Find Dad.’

The angel turned back to her, her face full of shock, but her hesitation was only momentary. Light surrounded her, and the noise of unseen wings almost drowned out the sound of attack. Then she was gone. Something hit Izzy hard in the small of her back, bringing her to her hands and knees. She saw Blight and Blythe transform to hound shape, furious creatures of teeth and claws.

But Jinx didn’t. Izzy looked up to see him trembling from head to foot, filled with rage but unable to do anything. She couldn’t leave him. Not like this.

In moments, the attack was over, the Cú Sídhe overwhelmed and beaten down to unconsciousness. Dozens of Sídhe stood around them, banshee and bodachs for the most part and a small group of Aes Sídhe. No sign of Clodagh and Dylan, thank God. But she couldn’t spare more than a glance for them now. She hoped they were hiding. She hoped they were safe. But no one was safe.

Holly was there.

Jinx fought to transform when Blythe and Blight did, but the silver and the tattoos flared to life, holding him captive. They didn’t stand a chance, not against those numbers. In moments they were defeated and bound, Blight unconscious, his sister still struggling, but unable to break free.

Holly advanced on Jinx with a smile. ‘There you are,’ she said. ‘We thought you might miss the whole thing.’

Jinx edged back, trying to change because it was easier to fight or flee in hound form. But he couldn’t. With Holly there, exerting whatever control she had on him, his body wouldn’t obey.

‘Reaper? What have you done?’ said Izzy, appalled. But Jinx could guess.

‘I didn’t have a choice.’ He turned to Holly, his head held dangerously high. ‘Where is he?’ No one with any sense talked to her that way. But then, Jinx was beginning to think Reaper had lost every scrap of sense he ever had. ‘You promised. We had a deal. Where is he?’

Holly gave Meridian a nod, and her daughter clapped her hands. A young man struggled free of the rest, golden where Reaper was dark, and so beautiful even the Sídhe couldn’t help but watch him as he moved forwards, graceful as a dancer.

As it was, Reaper sobbed, a sound that might have been a name or merely incoherent relief. He threw himself forward
wrapping his arms around the newly freed captive, shaking from head to foot.

‘It’s okay. You’re safe now. I have you. You’ll—’

The knife flashed between them and Reaper froze for a second, shock and horror spreading over his face with the same speed as the blood gushing from his throat. He sank to his knees, his hands trying to stop the flow and failing.

Holly smiled, not even sparing him a glance. ‘Good, Coal. Well done. A clean kill. Welcome to my kith. Now that’s out of the way, let’s see to you, shall we my hound? After all, you wouldn’t want to miss your moment, would you?’

‘Leave him alone!’ said Izzy. She stepped between them, furious and fearless, her hands balled to fists in that way she did when she was picking a hopeless fight. Jinx wanted to tell her to run, to get away, but he couldn’t. He was lost in Holly’s magic, woven around him, through him, inside his skin.

‘Ah, there you are,’ Holly sneered. ‘I’ll get to you in a minute. First we have someone to fetch here. Someone we’re missing. Stay right there. Shan’t be a minute.’

She waved her hand at them and Izzy let out a shocked gasp. He could see her struggle, but she was helpless as he was, locked in position, held in a web of Holly’s magic.

‘What have you done?’

‘Me? Silly girl. Don’t you know not to take gifts from strange men?’ She flicked one finger under the pendant at Izzy’s neck. ‘I like you on your knees, Grigori. It’s more fitting, don’t you think?’ Izzy’s legs gave way and she dropped before
Holly, who laughed as she turned away, ignoring the girl’s sob of frustration and Jinx’s silent, impotent rage. ‘Meridian? Where are they?’

Her daughter Meridian, as beautiful as Holly and Silver, as all of them, smiled a cruel smile. ‘Osprey is just rounding them up now.’

Mist curled around the grass, freezing it where it touched. Dylan pressed against the shadows of the hunting lodge, trying to hide himself and Clodagh. That was how he found the bonfire, a stack of old pallets and bits of furniture, odds and ends gathered together to make an as yet unlit Halloween bonfire.

But it should have been lit by now, shouldn’t it? Like the thousands blazing in the city below them. Bonfires were as ancient as the land, an old tradition of harvest and spring. A celebration. A sacrifice.

With a screech like a demon a firework went up, bursting in a shower of scarlet and yellow. Others followed, the city of Dublin throwing fire into the sky.

A terrible feeling of dread swept over him and he knew he shouldn’t be here, that he shouldn’t be on this hillside, that they should never have split up. Holly was here. It was a trap.

A thud and a snarl sent Dylan to the ground in a tangle of limbs and teeth as something dark as night slammed into his
side. He fought, trying to throw the thing off, but was caught in battle so savage that there wasn’t time. Clodagh screamed his name.

The figure hoisted him to his feet and dragged him across the grass. He could see Clodagh in the creature’s other hand. His fingers knotted in her hair as he hauled her after them, kicking and struggling, in spite of the futility. The ground turned rougher, pitted with overgrown rocks and banks as they were dragged to the remains of the cairn.

‘Enough, Osprey,’ said Holly, her voice coloured with amusement. ‘Don’t kill him. He’s valuable, you know.’ Dylan’s captor dropped him and left him to find to his own feet. The tall Aes Sídhe dressed in shining feathers dusted himself off, preening as he re-joined his mistress.

Another firework sent shards of blue light through the sky overhead and Holly stood there, watching, her arms folded, her eyes like nails in the night, her mouth a hard line of triumph. Izzy was on her knees, Jinx standing helpless beside her. The Cú Sídhe were imprisoned and angel was gone.

For help. He had to hope they’d gone for help.

‘Here we are.’ She smiled. ‘All alone. Did you think you were going to stop me all by yourselves?’ Her guards spread out of the shadows, mostly Aes Sídhe, cruel and beautiful, sleek predators. Dylan and Clodagh were quickly surrounded. Holly approached them, reaching out to lift Clodagh’s chin, studying her face the way a butcher studies a calf. ‘I’ve never understood how humans work. It doesn’t matter how many
I’ve taken apart to find out. Who knows though, maybe you will provide the answer.’

‘Leave her alone,’ said Dylan, sounding braver than he felt.

‘Welcome, Dylan O’Neill. I’ve been expecting you. Awaiting you, in fact. You’re just in time for the main event. In fact, we couldn’t start without you.’

‘Isn’t he just delicious?’ said Meridian, joining her mother and smiling like a vixen in the henhouse. They both eyed him hungrily. ‘All that power in him.’