No Dominion The Walker Papers - By CE Murphy Page 0,35
that could get worked in too, and did my best: “I call on time to bend before me. I call on the wind, and the earth, and the sea. I call on fire to help bind thee.”
Stone cracked behind Cernunnos like it had heard me calling on it. A thin track of sunlight spilled through from way up above, lighting his ashy hair to silver and making his budding horns stand out in sharp relief. Brigid gasped and I looked her way. She held her hands out, fire blazing down from the tattoos banding her upper arms, not burning her. She was a conduit, not a martyr.
Wind howled down the crack in the stone, bringing fresh air that swept away the coal-thick taste in the cavern. The kid leaned into it with a fierce grin, and all of a sudden I heard his blood rushing like it was water on a shore. It made sense: water wore everything away, even immortality, an’ the kid was what tied Cernunnos to a mortal cycle. The idea flitted away, letting me concentrate on what I had to say. The others were chanting now, repeating what I’d said, and I threw everything I had at the cauldron. “In Cernunnos’ name I set this spell, and swear we four will hold it well. By these words and by our will, by our power and by our skill, we bind thee for eternity.”
Power slammed out of all four of us an’ crashed against the cauldron. It lit up in every color we carried, silver and white, red an’ gold, an’ a hundred shades of green from the god and the kid. Fire burned a pattern in it, an’ water ran in crashing waves all around. Time was fluid and liquid, splashing through and over everything, an’ earth grounded the thing. Then quick as a flash it was gone, but sunlight caught the cauldron’s curve. In it I Saw all the magic we’d just poured in, an’ I Saw how black rage boiled inside the cauldron but couldn’t get out. Every one of us staggered, exhausted, but after a couple seconds Cernunnos lifted his head to bare a grin like I never wanted ta see again. I didn’t notice mosta the time, but his teeth were pointed like a predator’s, an’ right then he looked like he was gonna go for a throat.
He didn’t, though. He just grinned, and through that grin, hissed, “He comes. We must not be here when the battle meets, else he will hold the advantage. Ride. Ride!”
CHAPTER FIVE
We burst outta the hellmouth like the Hunt was after us, not like we were them at all, an’ careened through the sky with dogs howling and birds screeching and all of us roaring from the bottoms of our souls. Roaring defiance at the dark god that was coming to mow us down, roaring triumph at having bound his cauldron into uselessness, roaring out our fear and our hope and our determination to go down like warriors. I felt like a kid again, a damned dumb kid back in Korea, usin’ my voice to scare away my own fears ‘cause I knew I’d never scare the enemy otherwise.
Brigid rode beside me, the boy tucked between her and the horse’s neck. She wore a leather breast plate over her white robes like it wasn’t worth commenting on that it had just appeared outta nowhere. But then, Jo conjured the sword I was currently wearing outta nowhere all the time, so it prob’ly wasn’t worth commenting on. I gave a shout meant to be a question. She glanced at the kid, yelled, “It’s to safety I’ll bring him now!” and peeled away from the rest of the Hunt, the gold mare thundering through the sky.
Cernunnos tried ta look like he wasn’t watching them go, but I caught him glancing after them anyway. He scowled. I shrugged, and under the howl of the Hunt, said, “You gotta do what you can to keep ‘em safe, Horns. It don’t always work, but we gotta try.”
“I do not need your understanding.”
“You got it anyway.” That was as much time for talk as we had, ‘cause all of a sudden we were above Knocknaree, an’ there was a hell of a fight going on below.
I’d run across a couple of demons in my time. Some of ‘em Joanne had unloosed on Seattle, and another one we’d gone hunting. That one had been slippery, half in this world and half outta it.