Mark Del Franco - Unfallen Dead

I pursed my lips. “Great. Now I’ve managed to piss off an entire otherworld dimension.”

“Teleport!” Meryl exclaimed.

“What?”

She grabbed me by the arms and shook me. “You said you teleported. Teleport us back to Boston.”

Joe shook his head so vigorously, his hair splayed out. “You can’t. You have to use a portal.”

“You lost me,” I said.

“Teleporting is one of the Ways. It’s a place, not a portal.”

“Then teleport us to the henge. We can skip over the plain,” said Meryl.

Joe grinned. “Now you get it.”

I looked inside myself, testing my inner vision, letting the spear feel my desire. It vibrated in my hand, and the misty tunnel opened in my mind. Far off, a gray light smoldered, vague and indistinct. “I think I can do it.”

Meryl glared. “What do you mean ‘think’?”

I shrugged. “I missed you by a few hundred yards when I did it last time.” I gazed at the Dead, estimating the distance between their front line and the entrance to the henge. “That’ll be close enough. I can outrun them.”

“That’s not good enough. Take me with you. I can shield us if you come up short,” she said.

I looked at Joe. “Can I do that?”

He shrugged. “She’s too big for me, but she’s small enough for you.”

I compressed my lips as I thought. “Let’s do it.”

“Meet you at the henge,” Joe said. He saluted and popped out.

Meryl hugged me with a fierce grip.

“Ready?” She didn’t speak but nodded into my chest.

I closed my eyes. The misty tunnel spiraled off in my inner vision, a streak of pink vanishing through it. The spear trembled as it felt my desire for the gray essence of the standing stones. The dark mass in my head shifted, as if trying to avoid the light. It hurt. The damned thing always hurt. I ignored it and visualized moving through the tunnel toward the gray smudge. The spear reacted by pulsing with a violent white light. I tightened my grip on Meryl as my head spun with dizziness. The dark mass sliced sharply in my head, and the spear pumped white light into me. I screamed. My body wrenched forward, harder and more painfully than before. Everything twisted to a smear of color, light and sound merging into something new and its own, as a dark fire clawed at my mind.

The pain subsided. My eyes burned, and I couldn’t see. I stumbled on firm ground, sinking to my knees. The pungent odor of grass filled my nose. Everything hurt. Everything. Hands grasped my shoulders, pulling me back. I lay against something warm and soft. Black spots flashed as consciousness threatened to leave.

“Dammit, Connor. You’re hemorrhaging.” Meryl sounded far off.

Something pressed down on my chest. A hand. My body shields fluctuated on and off as essence flowed into me. A warm tide of light spread from my chest, up my neck, and into my head. The dark mass spiked against the essence. Pain pierced my head as the light and dark grappled. The light winked out. I came to, nestled in Meryl’s arms. I felt damp. It didn’t smell like sweat. It was the raw tang of blood. I was saturated with my own blood. “I want a shower.”

She tracked a finger on my cheek and showed it to me. “Your face is a mask of blood.”

Blinking more blood out of my eyes, I tried to smile up at Meryl’s concerned face. “I hope this gets easier with practice.”

She laughed. “You’re stable. I hit you with a healing spell, but I had to use essence from the henge. It might not be enough.”

Joe flew position over our heads, his sword out as he stood guard. I took the fact that he was concentrating on something instead of talking to mean we weren’t out of the woods yet, so to speak. I pushed myself up.

We had hit in the center of the stone circle like a bull’s-eye and landed beneath the pillar stone. On one side, several Dead clustered, calculating looks in their eyes as they observed us from across the circle. More Dead trailed in from the avenue entrance.

Two portals in the circle showed clear night skies crisscrossed by searchlights. People were rioting around standing stones. Stonehenge in England was unmistakable, and the other had to be Carnac in France. In both portals, panicked Dead faced us from the living side, pressing against the openings. They had crossed and couldn’t get back. The veil was closing as the sun rose. That wasn’t the way it was supposed to work. When Samhain ends, the Dead go back to TirNaNog. Apparently, though, not tonight.

Another portal showed a place I recognized. I had been there once a long time ago. A bonfire burned high into the sky. Druids in court attire and Danann fairies in battle armor moved in smoky torchlight. To either side, ranks of Celtic warriors faced the portal, swords drawn and shields up, guarding Tara.

Only one other portal showed through to the living side. Boston Common was empty of everyone except the police and Guild security. In front of the portal, on the TirNaNog side, Ceridwen stood. She no longer hid behind a glamour, revealing golden wings in their full brilliance. Her eyes glowed with a wild white light as she guarded the Boston portal, the prone bodies of the Dead at her feet.

Ceridwen’s face hardened with anger when she saw me. She walked over the bodies around her. The Dead standing near backed away. A Dead elf tried to slip to the Boston portal behind her. She casually shot an essence-bolt at him. She didn’t hold back, but hit him with a full blaze meant to kill. He fell in silence, and his essence winked out. Tomorrow, he would wake up somewhere in TirNaNog as if death were only an inconvenience.

“Nice shot,” said Meryl.

“You have doomed Tara over the life of one person,” she said to me, not bothering to acknowledge Meryl.

“Nice to see you, too,” I said.

She held her hand out. “Return the spear. I need to bring my warriors into TirNaNog to protect the Tara portal.”

I handed it over. “All you had to do was ask nicely.”

Ceridwen examined it, glancing once at me before throwing it at one of the Dead standing nearby. The spear left her hand at speed, stopped in midair, then dropped like a stone. As she crouched to retrieve it, it faded from sight and reappeared several feet away.

Ceridwen looked devastated. “It no longer responds to me.”

“I noticed,” I said. The spear shone in my mind, a line of white essence, as if it were an extension of me, bonding to my essence beyond any words of command. I held my hand out. The spear lifted and returned.

Ceridwen’s eyes flashed brighter. Fearfully, she looked to the dark portal with the bonfire. Figures moved in and out of the frame, soldiers in silhouette against the flames. “That’s Tara, isn’t?” I asked.

Ceridwen nodded.

“They don’t look unprepared,” I said.

“They are not, but they are underdefended,” she said. “I was to bring the New York and Boston warriors here to act as a first line of defense. I needed the spear to activate the spell to bring them here.”

“You got yourself in all right,” I said.

She drew herself up, doing the imperial monarchy pose. “We are a queen of Faerie, druid. We need no talisman to walk the Ways. You command the spear. I will give you a spell for you to bring my warriors in.”

“I know you read my file, Ceridwen. It’s no lie that my abilities are blocked,” I said.

“The spear responds to your command. You must put aside your petty anger and do as I say.”

I held the spear up. “You don’t know what you’re talking about, Ceridwen. You think you commanded the spear? You’re wrong. The spear doesn’t do whatever I want. It reacts when what I want serves its purpose. I can feel when I’m doing something it wants me to do.”