Guy Kay - Ysabel

He hadn’t known much, in fact. His right hand was tingling, from the force, the fury, of what he’d just done.

He looked at Cadell again. The remnants of the broken-off horns were gone, he saw. The man stood, golden-haired, as he had at Entremont.

Ned felt an unexpected sorrow. A loss of something, of majesty. He swallowed. “I don’t know how I did that,” he said. “I didn’t know you’d saved Greg.”

“He’ll be all right. Didn’t deserve death so soon, though he’s a fool.”

“He isn’t,” Ned protested weakly. “We’re way over our heads. We’ve lost someone.”

Cadell looked at him, then lifted his head, as he had before, looking above the trees. Ned saw him register that Kim was coming. The big man shook his head.

“We all lose people. I told you truth. So did Brys, in this. She is gone. There is no such person in the world any more.”

“How are we supposed to accept that, or explain it?” Ned asked.

The Celt shrugged. Not my problem, the gesture seemed to say. But Ned was too worn out, too spent, to be angry again.

“Carry on with your lives,” Cadell said. Golden, magnificent, the resonant voice.

Ned remembered Phelan saying the same thing to them—him and Kate—just days ago. Cadell put a hand up and ran it through his long hair. “If you stray near to us you are going to be hurt or killed, or end up hopelessly between two worlds. You are close to that already, yourself, whoever you are.” His voice was unsettlingly gentle again.

I am not your enemy.

They heard a car below them, changing gears to climb.

“Farewell,” the big man said. He lifted one hand, straight over his head.

An owl was in the air where a man had been. It was flying away, north again, over hedge, field, towards the ridge beyond the houses set back from the road, then it was gone.

Ned looked at his hands. He felt like one of the X-Men, a comic-book freak. His fingers weren’t tingling any more, but he didn’t feel any kind of power, either.

Aunt Kim’s lights appeared. The red car came to a stop behind the van. Ned heard her door open and close, saw her approaching, moving quickly, almost running. Her white hair gleamed in the headlights.

He had never been so glad to see anyone in his life.

His aunt looked at him and stopped dead.

“Ned. What happened? Who was here?”

“Cadell, and a druid. There was a boar blocking the road, they sent it, and then they…” It was pretty hard to talk.

“Sent it? Why, Ned?”

“They thought we might know where she is.”

She looked around. “Where’s Gregory?”

“Present, ma’am.”

Ned turned quickly. Greg was sitting up, propped on one hand, rubbing at his chest with the other.

“Oh, God. What happened to you?”

“Got whomped by the druid guy. Good thing I’m way tough. Viking blood, all the way back.”

Ned shook his head. “Cadell blocked it.”

“You’re kidding me.”

“No.”

“Why’d he do that?”

“Scared of our telling Phelan, Ysabel learning they were down here. Or maybe he’s…not so bad.”

“You mean I’m not way tough?”

Aunt Kim managed a smile. “I think you’re tough as horseshoe nails, Gregory. But let’s go up to the house. I don’t like it out here after dark. Not tonight.”

“Hold it,” Ned said.

His hearing seemed to be sharper, too. But a second later the others heard it. Then they all saw the bobbing flashlight beam above them on the roadway.

“Ned? Greg?” It was his father.

“We’re here!” Kimberly called. “It’s all right.”

The searchers appeared a few seconds later: his dad, Steve, Kate, hurrying down the slope. Ned saw that his father was carrying a hoe. Steve had a shovel. Kate held the flashlight…and a hammer.

“We saw the van’s lights, then they stopped,” his father said. “We got nervous.”

“And charged to the rescue? Like that?” Greg said, standing up carefully. He was still rubbing his chest. “Jeez, you look like extras storming the castle in Frankenstein. All you need’s a thunderstorm and accents.”

Ned’s father scowled. “Very funny, Gregory.”

Kate giggled, looking at her hammer. “I couldn’t find a stake,” she said.

Dracula wasn’t that far from the truth here, Ned thought, with risen spirits abroad.

This was all release of tension, and he knew it. They’d been scared, now they weren’t—for a while, anyhow.

“Ned, you okay?” his father asked.

Ned nodded.

It occurred to him that no one had seen what he’d done to Cadell. Greg had been flat on his back, out cold. Ned decided to keep that part to himself. He looked at his aunt.

“What was the name of that figure?” he asked. “The one you mentioned. With the horns. From when we met Cadell.”

Aunt Kim hesitated. “Cernan. Cernunnos. Their forest god.” Her expression changed. “He had them again?”

“Yeah.”

She shook her head. “So much for my powers of intimidation.”

“He left when we felt you coming.”

“As an owl?”

Ned nodded. “I think he was worried about you, or at least unsure.”

Aunt Kim made a wry face. “Probably scared of Peugeots. Famous for bad transmissions.”

They were trying to calm him down, Ned realized. He must look pretty freaked out. He managed a smile, but he didn’t seem to be fooling anyone. He kept remembering what he’d done, the feeling of it.

“Let’s go up,” Kimberly repeated. “You two can tell us what happened, but in the house.”

His father said, “Right. Greg, I’ll drive. You can ride shotgun with this.”

Greg eyed the hoe. “Thanks, boss. That’ll make me feel so protected.”

He had to be in considerable pain, Ned thought, remembering Greg flying backwards and that crumpled landing. He wasn’t letting on, though. People could surprise you.

Ned wanted to smile with the others, joke like them, but he couldn’t do it. He stared at his hands again. What he was feeling was hard to describe, but some of it was grief.

This time, when he came downstairs in the middle of the night his aunt was in the kitchen, sitting at the table in a blue robe. He hadn’t expected anyone—she startled him. The only light was the one over the stove-top.

“You get insomnia too?” she asked.

Ned shook his head. “Not usually.”

He went to the fridge and took out the orange juice, blinking in the sudden light. He poured himself a drink.

“Kate sleeping?”

She nodded.

He walked to the glass doors by the terrace.

“Did you go out? It looks beautiful, doesn’t it?” He saw the moon above the city.

“We’re better off inside, dear. It isn’t a night for wandering.”

“But I did go wandering,” Ned said, looking at the pool and trees. The cypresses were moving in the wind, which had picked up again.

“And because I did, Melanie’s gone. If we hadn’t gone up—”

“Hush. Listen to me. The two of you went because Kate was halfway inside the rites already. She said so. You said so, how different she became. She was starting for the fires when Melanie came.”

It was true. It wasn’t a truth that made you happy.

“I could have said no.”

“Not easy, Ned. Not in this kind of situation. You were in it too.”

He looked at her. “Did you ever say no?”

His aunt was silent for a time. “Once,” she said.

“And what…?”

“Long story, Ned.”

He looked away, towards the moon in the window again. He crossed back and sat at the table with her. He said, “Did you see that Veracook put rowan leaves on the window ledge?”

Aunt Kim nodded. “Probably outside all the doors, too, if we look. The past is close to the surface here, Ned.”