Remnants of Magic (40 page)

Chapter Ten

Probably, if Kieran hadn’t had a hand on his shoulder, propelling him forward, Malcolm would’ve still been outside, studying the magic on the flute. Even still, he never looked up, letting Kie push him along through the crowd in the Glamour Club. Malcolm only halfway paid attention, even as he dropped into one of the stuffed chairs around Donovan’s usual table.

Even just holding the magic in his hands stole his breath. With his fingers on either end of the flute, he could see all of the flowing enchantment changing and blending before his eyes more hypnotically than a lava lamp. The energy flowed up his arms and into the rest of his body, making him feel weird and floaty in a really cool way. Like he’d spun around and around and around until he fell down and then just let the world spin around him.

He knew people talked around him. Kieran’s voice had that hushed seriousness it got sometimes when Malcolm freaked him out. Donovan and Tiernan questioned him, getting short answers. But their voices were just murmurs in the background, half blended out beneath the whispers in the magic. All these voices. That bit sounded dwarven, deep and rolling. Another sounded pixie, high pitched and fast. All speaking at once. All saying something different. All talking in different languages. And all of it going right into Malcolm, even though he couldn’t have repeated any of it.

Someone nudged him. “Malcolm.”

“Huh?” Completely clueless as to what might have been said before the nudge, Malcolm blinked over at Donovan as he crouched down so they were on eye level.

The boss had that quiet, serious look going on. Sometimes he was scarier when he was dead still than when he raged. He’d seen it the night Donovan saved him. It was the expression he’d had right before he slaughtered a roomful of vampires and goblins. It had been flat terrifying then, and it was still that way now. “Did this Seelie’s magic look tattered or Fading?”

Malcolm blew out the breath he’d been holding. Leastwise that Donovan-look hadn’t been because of him. ‘Cause if Donovan ever got a notion to kill anybody, they were dead. Flat out. But more than not wanting to get squashed under a mountain, Malcolm just really didn’t want to ever disappoint Donovan. He owed him everything. Trusted him with everything. And not even the magic of the flute was more important than that. “Bang on. His magic was all kinds of messed up. Like, diseased. Really kinda gross.”

Tiernan leaned closer and murmured, “Has to be Lugh, but what’s he doing bashing around with that enchanted human you’ve been after?”

“He wanted this.” Malcolm offered the flute to Donovan. As important and special as the magic was, nothing trumped his loyalty to the Unseelie leader. Because no one else had his back the way Donovan did. All he needed to do was look at the leather bands around his wrists, or the scars beneath it, to remember what he owed him.

Donovan considered the flute for a minute, and from the blank look Malcolm could tell that he didn’t even get the slightest hint about the magic it possessed. “What am I missing?” He handed it back.

“I…” Words abandoned him. “It’s…” Stroking the length of the magic, Malcolm traced the flow in the pattern. The texture in the threads felt like flexing grains of sand, like the threads weren’t really smooth, but knotted fibers. “It’s important.”

As his fingers drew back from the magic, fine little hairs lifted like static built up between them. The more he stroked the magic, the more the threads stuck to his skin like spider webs. And when he drew his fingers away from the flute, the threads danced to their own music, reaching and wiggling like it was feeling for something. “Wonder why it does that.”

As he watched the movement of Malcolm’s hands, trying to decipher the gestures, Donovan’s cell phone rang,checking it he looked at the bloodhound. “Malcolm, you’re calling me?”

“What?” Malcolm patted his pockets, in case he was accidentally butt-dialing. Only his phone wasn’t on him. Twisting around, he looked for his jacket, and then he remembered. His eyes went wide. “Oh, crap! The bloke got my phone when he snatched my jacket!”

That dark look coming over him again, Donovan straightened as he answered, “Well, the phone says ‘Malcolm,’ but I am looking right at him. So who is this?”

Cutting a look at Tiernan, like some understanding passed between them, Donovan growled, “Seelie,” like it was an insult. “What do you want?”

Malcolm tilted the flute this way and that, watching the hairs sway, feeling for something. At first he thought it was reaching for him, only it wasn’t. He twisted around to look where they pointed.

The Glamour that covered the door to the back hallway glowed like bright pink cotton candy to Malcolm’s eyes. Everyone else just saw the illusion of a wall that made the door invisible and hard to find unless you knew where to look. Pretty much everyone in the club knew about the door, though, but only the Sidhe and a few others were allowed to go back there. Malcolm moved the flute about to double check. Yep, the flute wanted to go that way.

Donovan watched Malcolm even as he spoke into the phone. Or really, he watched what Malcolm was doing with the flute. “What do you want it for? What are you scheming this time, Seelie?”

“No.” Malcolm’s fingers tightened on the flute, shaking his head with the first upset of panic. “No, he can’t have this. The magic chose
me
. It wants
me
.”

Donovan raised a hand, meaning Malcolm should hush. And with that gesture alone, Malcolm relaxed some. Donovan might not feel the magic himself, but he took Malcolm seriously most of the time. Unlike most everybody else who thought Malcolm was some kind of nutter.

Into the phone, he snarled, “Ha, you are no Sidhe’s Champion.” Everyone near Donovan backed away, and he’d not even raised his voice. “The Champion would not let the Mounds fall. The Champion would not let his people be exiled. The Champion would not allow one court to be ground beneath the heel of the other.”

So this Seelie was the one getting Donovan’s back up. Well, Donovan could drop a mountain on that creepy bloke and it wouldn’t bother Malcolm one bit.

He glanced back down at the flute. At the little threads waving in the air. Moving the flute about like a compass, Malcolm watched the direction it pointed. Yep, it definitely wanted to go toward the Glamour. Staring at the magic, Malcolm got to his feet.

“Meet me at Cantwell’s Castle at midnight. Bring your second.” Donovan beeped off the phone and dropped it into his pocket. As Malcolm started past him, Donovan caught his shoulder.

“This way.” Malcolm pointed with the flute.

Aware that Donovan and the others followed him, Malcolm focused on the magic. It knew where to go. It knew what it wanted. It pulled Malcolm along without him even having to try. Like the magic was wrapped up around him and carrying him in the current of its power, and all he did was make sure his feet stayed under him. The flute vibrated in his hand as they pushed past the curtain of Glamour and through the door to the back hall. The voices in the magic talked faster. Louder. Getting excited as he got nearer.

At Donovan’s office door, Malcolm whispered, “In there.”

The moment Donovan opened the door for him, the flute flared up with a golden light. Malcolm sucked in a breath and then glanced at the others. Even as bright as it was, none of them saw what he saw. Once he started forward, the magic drew him again. Knowing right where to go. He crouched down next to Donovan’s desk and stroked his fingers over one of the drawers. Malcolm tried to speak, but it came out in a choked murmur of need.

Even as Donovan slid open the drawer, Malcolm’s skin shivered with the sudden gust of power. Unable to breathe, he reached inside for a golden torc that glowed like molten enchantment. Fibers of magic reached from it to the flute. When Malcolm brought the two closer to each other, the fibers on each reached for the other. And when they touched, a new light glowed all about them.

The light spread slowly, like it was thick with power. The frantic whispers stopped. An awed silence stilled everything about them for a breath.

Only Tiernan’s voice broke the stillness with a whisper. “Danu’s torc.”

The fibers reached and hooked and twisted. The magic about each morphed into shapes. Weird, complicated shapes. Only…

Heart beating frantically, Malcolm knew what to do. Somehow, the magic already told him. Had prepared him to do it. His hands shifted automatically, like in a dream, passing the flute over the torc just so... Teasing the magic to respond.

The energy around the flute rolled and hooked down toward the torc. And on the torc a latch shape appeared that matched the hook.

It took a few seconds of tilting and twisting the flute, but finally Malcolm released it.

It hovered in the magic inches about the torc. Suspended in the air.

Donovan crouched down to stare at the floating instrument, and then at Malcolm with a questioning look.

To which he answered, “They fit.”

Slowly, the voices began murmuring again. The magic had more to tell him.

Much more.

Chapter Eleven

“So why’re you stripping your shirt off? Are you going to box with the Seelie, then?” Tiernan hooked his thumbs into his belt loops, affecting a bored stance when Donovan knew better. The younger Sidhe never really let his guard down, no matter how laid-back he acted.

Donovan tossed his shirt over Tiernan’s shoulder. “Parley under the Cloak of the Raven. No rank. No privilege. Just two captains meeting on neutral ground.” Inhaling deeply of the invigorating chill of the night, he cleared his lungs of the heat and humidity that could build up in the Glamour Club on busy nights, and almost every night was busy since they opened. Any more regulars and they’d need to expand.

“Sounds like bull shite. Something the Courts would come up with to play their war games. I say we wallop his arse and slap him around until he fesses up.”

“You didn’t bring that shock collar, did you?” Donovan narrowed his eyes at his ‘second.’ The earthborns hadn’t reached the skill level to back him up just yet, but Tiernan’s allegiances weren’t guaranteed and his obedience hinged on the understanding that Donovan could, and would, beat his hide if it came down to it.

“Maybe.” By which he meant ‘hell, yeah.’

“Keep it stowed. I honor my word.”

Donovan stared down his second until Tiernan backed off with a shrug and a “Whatever.”

The terms of the Cloak of the Raven didn’t preclude animated discussion, just not full-out combat. No head shots, weapons, or deadly magical force. He’d not have asked for it, but the Seelie made it the requirement for their meeting. Whether it was because he was Fading or because he had some other nefarious purpose didn’t really matter. Donovan wasn’t going to let him walk away without having his answers.

Tiernan’s pale eyes almost glowed in the weak moonlight as he glanced past Donovan toward the ruins of the castle. “So that’s the famous Lugh? Doesn’t look all that badass.” But Donovan could tell it was bravado and not truth that Tiernan spoke.

Waiting, Donovan intentionally kept his back turned. He’d known Lugh survived the Collapse. The same couldn’t be said the other way around. Through the ground, Donovan felt the Sidhe’s light footsteps as he approached alone. He had the right to bring a second, but hadn’t. Either he had no worthy allies to call upon, or he’d grossly underestimated the situation.

The voice he’d known for thousands of years spoke his name in that cultured, elven accent. “Donovan?”

Only now that the Seelie had come within a few paces of him did Donovan turn to face him.

The last time he had clapped eyes on his enemy, Lugh barred Donovan from rescuing the Unseelie queen and her consort from Manannan’s clutches. Even still… even then… he’d believed this Seelie possessed a modicum of honor, if not any good sense. So when the Mounds began to crumble around them and the All-Mother’s life hung in peril, Donovan sacrificed himself to hold up the Mounds and sent Lugh to rescue Danu. Even as their world struggled in the death throes, Donovan had faith in Lugh. That he’d have done anything to save the Mounds.

He’d been deceived.

“Jhaer…” Lugh froze, invoking the name Donovan had not used since the Collapse, calling up memories of the Elite whose existence ceased when the Court he served had died. “But you perished…”

Each word Donovan spoke beat like an accusation. “Buried alive in a mass grave with all the Sidhe you murdered.” He hissed through his clenched teeth, “But I did not die.”

Lugh backed away a step, scrambling to reformulate his plan of deception, no doubt. “You blame me? You know I was of no complicity in the Mound’s Collapse.” Running into Donovan had caught him flatfooted. Even in this Seelie attempt to divert the facts, they both knew it for what it was. Not so graceful when faced down by the one Sidhe who knew the truth.

“Bloody liar!” Donovan stormed after him. “You conspired to crush the Unseelie! To dominate all magic! To kill Danu!” Beating his chest with his fury, he repeated, “I warned you! And you refused to listen to me!” Pointing at this Seelie, he snarled, “You! You stopped me! You stood in my way! The Collapse was your fault!”

“What are you playing at? You know me better than to even jest such insults.” The Shining One didn’t gleam so brightly now. The Fade stripped him of the surface glow that had been as much a part of him as his hair color and his superior manner. The stain of fatigue darkened circles beneath his dark blue eyes. A cauterized scar of a bullet or arrow wound marred his left shoulder. Quite a bit worse for wear. “You’ve never been one to twist lies to win advantage. Rising from the dead must have shattered your mind.”

Even after all that happened… All the death and destruction… Lugh still coveted his Seelie games of power. Malcolm was right. That flute meant something to Lugh. Otherwise, he’d not squander the effort to reclaim it when he was so close to Fading. “I’m not Seelie. I don’t need lies and deceit.” Donovan snarled, “What are you up to, Lugh?”

Lugh’s indignation rising, he proclaimed, “I have only
ever
served the Sidhe. Everything I’ve
ever
done, I’ve done for our people! Which you bloody well know!”

“Liar!” Donovan’s fists clenched, wanting to pummel Lugh until he’d beaten that self-righteous expression from his face. “What do you want the flute for?”