Fates demanded as payment for the opportunity at true love. I screamed and raged at them, cursing them by name.
“Maddy? Maddy,” Bahlin said, struggling to keep me subdued without hurting me. Finally he threw me on the bed and dropped on top of me, knocking the breath, and the fight, right out of me. “What is it, a ghrá gheal?
I began to cry, great wracking sobs. I was inconsolable.
“Maddy, love, you must tell me what’s happened? Did Tarrek come to you in a dream walk? I’ll kill the bastard,” he hissed, beginning to roll off of me.
But I wrapped my arms and legs around him and refused to let go. “No. You can’t.”
“Begging your pardon, Maddy, but I can and I will,” he said stiffly.
“No, Bay. Tarrek has taken the cú sith.” I was sobbing again, unable to speak.
“A leanbh, we knew that from the start. Why’s it bothering you so?” He stroked my back, going up to his knees so he was kneeling on the bed. Still I clung to him like a barnacle to a whale.
“One of the cú sith’s abilities is to steal the souls of the living. If Tarrek controls the souls, he’ll control the beings. I’ve seen it, Bahlin. In the dreams I had before I came over here, before the evolution. I just didn’t know what I was seeing. There were bodies, and I thought they were dead, but they weren’t. They were soulless, and they were holding out there hands to me in a cry for help. Don’t you see? They were begging me to save them. He’s building a soulless supernatural army, Bahlin.”
“Oh, great gods.”
“My thoughts exactly.”
Bahlin and I sat clinging to each other for a while, darkness pressing against the window.
“I have to call my weyr, Maddy. As put off as I am with my father and my sister, Da’s the Glaaca, and he’ll be able to pull together more members of different clans and get us some help. We can’t call the fae to help, though they’d be bloody useful. There are the vampires, and the witches and wizards. I think we can count on them.” Bahlin set me gently aside and rose to fetch his cell phone, dialing quickly.
I could hear the rings, one…two…three.
“Da? No, no. Look…” and he told them what was happening. “I don’t know,” he said, some time later. Turning to me he asked, “Maddy? Can they be killed?”
“I don’t know, Bay. Can he just get some of the different clans together and meet us somewhere on the Highlands? We need to meet far enough away from Castle Duncan that Tarrek doesn’t suspect us.”
He nodded his head and went back to the conversation. “She’s not sure, Da. I’m thinking fire, but we’re not all so inclined. If we work together, though…” and off they went, strategizing.
Feeling helpless, I curled up on one edge of the bed. If only I could meditate and reach Tyr again I could ask all the things fear had denied me such a short time ago. I closed my eyes and focused on the sounds of the air conditioner, clicking on, clicking off. But after several minutes, I realized it was useless. I opened my eyes and screamed. Bahlin had apparently hung up with his dad and was kneeling on the floor with his face inches from mine.
“Sorry. Sorry,” he said, clasping a hand over my mouth as I sucked in another breath to scream. “I thought you were gone to Tyr, and I wanted to be here to make sure nothing interceded in your dreams. No screaming?”
I shook my head and he removed his hand. I smiled weakly, and he returned the gesture. I’d come to a decision while he was on the phone. If we stood a strong chance of dying, and tonight was our last night together, I wanted it to be special.
“Bay?” I said softly.
He looked at me warily. “Yes?”
“Kiss me?”
“Any time, mo muirnín.”
He leaned in to me, and I tilted my head to meet his. His large hand grasped the back of my skull and he held me just so, our lips brushing against each other with something akin to trepidation, as if we were new to each other. And in a way we were. Because we’d never come together, truly come together, with intent such as this without something hanging over our heads, whether it was my moral fortitude, his blasted prophecy, or simple fear. For the first time it was just the two of us.