Juliet Dark - The Angel Stone

“Oh,” Mac said, his smile fading. “I would have whomped that winged bastard if I’d’ve been there, but I had to keep the circle safe.”

“And a brilliant job you’re doing of it. Can your family hold the plaid against the fire?”

Mac puffed up his chest. “The plaid can withstand anything,” he bragged.

“Not forever, you dunderhead,” Mac’s father, Angus, interrupted. “Best let the lass go, son; she’s got a job to do.”

“That’s right,” I said.

Angus and Mac did something with their hands to make an opening in the tartan field, and I stepped through it. As I did, I stood on my tiptoes and kissed Mac on the cheek. “Thank you, Mac. Try to find Ralph and take care of him—and of Fairwick—if I don’t … well, if things don’t go according to plan in there.”

Mac’s eyes widened and he began to object, but I pinned him with a look I used in class when a student gave me a lame excuse for not turning in a paper.

“I will,” he promised.

“Good. I feel better knowing Fairwick’s in your hands.” I started to go in but thought of something else. “And Mac, the Alphas—some of them may not be as bad as their fathers. Keep that in mind.”

Before Mac could ask me any questions, I stepped through the plaid and into the circle. I could tell when the plaid closed behind me, because I could no longer hear the fire or smell the smoke. Looking back, I saw that the predominantly red tartan was glowing with the reflection of fire, but inside the circle it was cool and still. For a moment I thought I was alone, but then seven figures in black cloaks stepped out of the shadows of the thicket. The one nearest to me pushed back her cloak, and I recognized Moondance.

“We haven’t much time,” she said brusquely. “It’s almost midnight. Are you ready?”

I’d been repeating Wheelock’s spell for the last few hours, but at Moondance’s question I suddenly felt, as I had when I sat down for my orals, that my mind had been rinsed clean of every scrap of knowledge I’d ever imbibed. This time it might actually be true. What if the nephilim attack had erased the spell from my brain? Around me were the hopeful faces of the seven people who had come to help me. They were all looking to me with complete trust. Moondance had let go of her wariness, Leon had dropped his habitual hipster attitude, Phoenix appeared calm and composed for a change, Jen seemed as if she didn’t even have a probing question, the look of worry in Ann’s eyes had been replaced with pride as she stood by her daughter, and Jessica … Jessica’s faith glowed with a purity of trust that took my breath away. Even my grandmother, who had rarely regarded me with anything but a mixture of annoyance and disappointment, was looking at me with complete faith. Each face, glowing in the reflection of the fire that ringed us, was like a smooth white stone dropped into a deep well. A feeling of quiet and calm came over me, and with it, like a stone dropping into the well, fell the words of the spell to become the hallow door.

I nodded to Moondance, then to each of the others, and stepped into the center of the circle, to the empty place where once stood the door and where Bill’s blood had been shed. I took off the brooch, pricked my finger, and let a drop of blood fall on the ground. I recited the first part of the spell.

“My blood binds me to the door.” A red mist rose from the ground and arched over me. I felt Bill’s love for me, so strong that he had sacrificed himself. That love bound me to the door.

“I empty myself so that I contain all things.” I closed my eyes and became hollow inside. I’d felt like this before: when my parents died, when Liam left, when Bill perished. But each time I had been emptied, there were people who stepped into my life to fill that void. Annie, after my parents died. My friends and students, after Liam and then Bill had gone. I thought of all the good neighbors in Fairwick who had filled my life and who were depending on me to save them. They were inside me now. I had only to make myself a bridge from Fairwick to another world. And to do that I had to open myself up to the possibility that somewhere there was still love for me. That was the hardest part of the spell. Since Bill died, I had not allowed myself to think that there could ever be anyone else. It was too painful to hope. I had closed off a part of myself so that I’d never be hurt again. That was the part I had to open now.

“I open myself to love,” I said.

The red mist began to swirl around me. I felt a wrenching pain and then a dizzying lightness. I was inside a maelstrom. Around me, my friends stood in a circle of protection, and outside that circle stood the Stewarts, but none of them could protect me from the hurricane. I was alone here, open, unguarded, at the mercy of every fear and emotion, so torn by the currents of time that for a moment I didn’t seem to exist. In that moment, I became the door. I stepped through my own self, through my own pain and fears, and found myself standing on the threshold of Faerie, its iridescent dusk stretching out below me. I stepped forward …

… right into the path of a galloping horse.

I barely had time to throw myself to the side to escape being trampled. I fell to the ground beside a curved stone wall as the horse thundered past me, its silver hooves flashing mere inches from my nose. I looked up to see its rider glancing disdainfully over her shoulder at me, then tossing her silver-white hair and green cloak as she rode on. Another mount followed close behind, this one gold with jet hooves, its rider cloaked in gold. I recognized them both—Fiona, the Fairy Queen, and her king, Fionn. More horses followed in their wake, all decked in gold and silver and glittering jewels. It was the fairy host riding out on All Hallows’ Eve, just as they did in the ballads of Tam Lin and William Duffy.

William . Was he here with them? I struggled to my feet, pulling myself up on the damp stone wall to scan the faces of the riders as they rushed past me, but they were all cloaked and hooded. How would I recognize him? But then I remembered the ballad and the sign William Duffy had promised his beloved—that he would leave one hand ungloved.

I watched for a rider with a missing glove … and saw him at the end, on a white horse the color of moonlight, cloaked in black, one hand gloved, one bare.

I stepped into the path of the horse, which reared, diamond hooves flashing in the air inches above my head. The rider’s cloak fell back, and I saw his face in the moonlight against the shadow of the cloak. That is how he came to me first, as moonlight and shadow. I reached up, grabbed a handful of cloak, and pulled.

He slid off his horse and landed right on top of me. We both tumbled to the ground, tangling in our cloaks. As we rolled, I felt him changing in my arms, his long, lean muscles lengthening and wrapping around me. When we came to a halt, I saw that I no longer held a man but was held instead by a huge serpent. Its eyes were still William’s, though, so I held on, remembering the story and bracing myself for the next transformation, which, if I remembered correctly …

Dagger-length teeth snapped at me as slippery scales turned to deep fur in my hands. The lion’s great jaws opened wide and roared in my face, but the eyes were still William’s, so I held on …

And was engulfed in flames. I had no eyes to look at this time, and I recalled from the story that this was where the heroine tossed her lover into a holy well.

Which, if I wasn’t mistaken, lay just behind that damp stone wall I’d fallen against. I blindly groped my way to the wall, pulled myself up by my burning fingertips, and dove over, headfirst. As soon as I hit the water, I felt another body in the well with me, arms and legs flailing and dragging me down. There was nothing in the story about the hero drowning the heroine. But then he was pulling me out of the water, pushing me up on his shoulders so I could fling myself back over the top of the well. I turned and reached for him and pulled him, sputtering, sopping, and stark naked, out of the well. His long, lean torso and limbs gleamed like marble in the moonlight. For a moment I was dazzled at the sight of him—I knew that smooth chest, those strong legs—and then I thought to toss my sodden tartan over his shoulders, just in time to cover him before the Fairy Queen rode back to stare down at William from her silver horse.