P.C. Cast - Burned

Then the helicopter landed, and Darius was helping him unbuckle Zoey. Stark dropped to the ground. Darius and Aphrodite carefully handed Zoey to him, and he cradled her in his arms, trying to shield her from the worst of cold, wet wind whipped up by the helicopter’s massive blades. Darius and Aphrodite joined him, and they all hurried away from the helicopter, though the pilot hadn’t been exaggerating. They weren’t even on the ground for a minute when the copter took off.

“Pussies,” Stark said.

“They’re just following their instincts,” Darius said, looking around them as if he expected the bogeyman to jump out of the mist.

“No shit. This place is super creepy,” Aphrodite said, moving closer to Darius, who tucked her hand through his arm possessively.

Stark frowned at them. “Are you two okay? Don’t tell me the doom-and-gloom vamps got to you.”

Darius looked him up and down, and then shared a glance with Aphrodite before answering. “You don’t feel it, do you?”

“I feel cold and wet. I feel pissed off that Zoey’s in trouble and I haven’t been able to help her, and I feel annoyed that dawn is only an hour or so away and my only shelter is a shack the vamps said is a thirty-minute walk back the way we came. Are any of those things the “it” you’re talking about?”

“No,” Aphrodite answered for Darius, though the Warrior was also shaking his head. “The “it” Darius and I feel is a strong desire to run away. And I do mean run. Now.”

“I want to take Aphrodite out of here. To get her away from this island and never to come back,” Darius said. “That is what all my instincts are telling me.”

“And you don’t feel any of that?” Aphrodite asked Stark. “You don’t want to carry Zoey the hell outta here?”

“Nope.”

“I think that’s a good sign,” Darius said. “The warning that is inherent in the land is somehow passing over him.”

“Or Stark’s just too muscle-brained to be warned,” Aphrodite said.

“On that upbeat thought, let’s get going with this. I don’t have time to waste on spooky feelings,” Stark said. Still carrying Zoey, he started toward the long, narrow bridge that stretched between an outcropping of the Scottish mainland and the island. It was lit by torches that could barely been seen through the soupy mixture of night and mist. “Are you two coming? Or are you going to run screaming like girls away from here.”

“We’re coming with you,” Darius said, catching him in a couple of strides.

“Yeah, and I said I wanted to run. I didn’t say shit about screaming. I’m not a screamer,” Aphrodite said.

They’d both sounded pretty tough, but Stark hadn’t even gotten to the halfway point of the bridge when he heard Aphrodite whispering to Darius. He glanced at the two of them. Even in the dim torchlight he could see how pale the Warrior and his Prophetess had become. Stark paused. “You don’t have to come with me. Everyone, even Thanatos, said there’s absolutely no way Sgiach is going to let you guys on the island. Even if all of them are wrong, and you do get on, there’s not much you can do. I have to figure out how to get to Zoey. Alone.”

“We can’t be at your side while you’re in the Otherworld,” Darius said.

“So we’re watching your back, and there’s nothing you can do about it. Zoey would be totally pissed at me when she gets back in there”—Aphrodite pointed at Zoey’s body—“and found out Darius and I had let you do all this crap alone. You know how she is with her one for all, all for one, mentality. The vamps wouldn’t bring the whole nerd herd here, something I can’t really blame them for, so Darius and I are picking up their slack. Again. Like you said, stop wasting time you don’t have.” She waved her hand at the darkness in front of them. “Go on, I’m just gonna ignore the crashing black waves below us and the fact that I know for damn sure this bridge is going to break any moment and drop us into the fucking water, where sea monsters will drag us under the spooky black waves and suck out our brains.”

“That’s really what this place is making you feel?” Stark tried, unsuccessfully, to hide his smile.

“Yes, asstard, it is.”

Stark looked at Darius, who nodded in agreement because instead of speaking, he was obviously choosing to clench his jaw and shoot suspicious glances downward at the “spooky black waves.”

“Huh.” Stark quit even attempting to hide his smile and grinned at Aphrodite. “Just water and a bridge to me. Damn shame it’s freaking you out so badly.”

“Walk,” Aphrodite said. “Before I forget you’re holding Zoey, and I push you off this bridge so that Darius and I can run back the way we came, screaming or not.”

Stark’s grin only lasted a few more feet. It didn’t take an ancient “go away” spell to sober him up. All it took was Zoey’s unmoving weight in his arms. I shouldn’t be messing with Aphrodite. I need to focus. Think of what I decided to say to them and, please oh please, Nyx, let me be right. Let me say what will get me on that island. Unsmiling and resolute, Stark led them across the bridge until they stopped in front of an imposing archway made of an ethereally beautiful white stone. The torchlight caught veins of silver in what Stark thought had to be a rare marble, so that the arch glittered seductively.

“Oh, for crap’s sake, I can barely look at it,” Aphrodite said, turning her head from the archway and averting her eyes. “And I usually love sparkly things.”

“It is more of the spell.” Darius’s voice was rough with tension. “It’s meant to repel.”

“Repel?” Aphrodite glanced at the archway, shuddered, and then looked hastily away again. “‘Repulse’ is a better word.”

“It doesn’t affect you, either. Does it?” Darius asked Stark.

Stark shrugged. “It’s impressive, and it’s obviously expensive, but it doesn’t make me feel weird.” He moved closer to the marble and studied the archway. “So, where’s the doorbell or whatever? How do we call someone? Is there a phone, or do I yell, or what?”

“Ha Gaelic akiv?” The disembodied male voice seemed to come from the archway itself, like it was a living portal. Stark looked into the dark with bewilderment. “It’ll be in the English tongue, then,” the voice continued. “Your unwanted presence here is all that is required to summon me.”

“I need to see Sgiach. It’s a matter of life or death,” Stark said.

“Sgiach isnae concerned with uze wains, even if it be a matter of life or death.”

This time the voice sounded nearer, clearer, and it had a Scottish accent that was more growl than brogue.

“What the hell is a wain?” Aphrodite whispered.

“Sssh,” Stark told her. To the faceless voice he said, “Zoey isn’t a child. She’s a High Priestess, and she needs help.”

A man stepped out of the shadows. He was wearing an earth-colored kilt, but it wasn’t like those they’d seen on their hurried trip through the Highlands. This one was made of more material, and it wasn’t prim and proper-looking. This vampyre didn’t have on a tweed jacket with a frilly shirt. His muscular chest and arms were bare as he wore only a studded leather vest and forearm guards. The hilt of a dirk glinted at his waist. Except for a strip of short hair down the center of his head, his hair was shaven. Two gold hoops glinted at one ear. The firelight caught the gold chieftain’s torque he wore around one wrist. In contrast to his powerful body, his face was deeply lined. His close-cropped beard was completely white. The tattoos on his face were griffins, claws extended onto his cheekbones. The overall and immediate impression Stark got from him was that this was a Warrior who could walk through fire and emerge not merely unscathed, but victorious.