trembling hand on it, felt its iced surface, its alluring promise as the dark smothered her.
Through the curtain she heard Petra’s mad laugh, saw the red glow of the fire scorching the sky. In her mind she saw sickness, death, war, murder, the plague of black magicks. So much loss, so much brutality.
It has always been so, and so it will always be. Brother killing brother over a patch of grass or a whoring woman. Children starving while others grow fat on fists of candy. The world burning for greed and ambition. These are who would hunt you, burn you, destroy you for what you are to save themselves. For your power. Come to me, lie with me. They are but toys to be played with, broken, and cast aside. We are forever.
“Can you hear them?” She took another step, another as the excitement of what wrapped her so close hummed over her skin, beat like moth wings. “Can you?”
Their screams? Their lamentations?
She felt the blood on her hands. Tonia’s, Duncan’s, her own. “Their song of faith.” She pulled her sword, cleaved through the dark. “You won’t drink my light. You’ll burn in it.” And, clasping the hilt in her bloodied hand, drove the sword into the pentagram and through the stone slab.
It writhed. It snapped and clawed. Screaming, she forced power through the blade, into the stone, into the heart.
“I am Fallon Swift. Child of the Tuatha de Danann. Daughter of Max Fallon, of Lana Bingham, of Simon Swift. I am The One. I am your end.”
The slab cracked, spewed out blood and stink. The force of it threw her back, stole her breath as she slammed into the ground. The beat slowed; the pulse grew weak. Lungs laboring, she pushed to her feet. And her moment of triumph was stillborn as dark seeped from the shattered stone, rose thin, but rose, into the murky sky.
“No.” She heaved light at the remains of the altar, turned it to dust, spread fire over the dust. Then praying, flashed.
* * *
Wounded or not, Laoch flew, with Duncan on his back. Near the circle, Hannah and Lana continued to treat Tonia. She raced to them, shield lifted to guard.
“It’s wounded, it’s weak, but I didn’t finish it. How’s Tonia?”
“Wounded and weak.” Hannah’s breath came fast, but she held tight to Tonia’s hand. “I’ve done all I can here. Your mother’s trying more. We need to get her to surgery.”
“Not until we finish.” Tonia spoke through gritted teeth. “Help Duncan.”
“I will. I—” And she saw that dark crawl over the sky, saw it wrap around Petra, slide and slither into her. “Take this.” She shoved her shield at Hannah. “Use it.”
She spread her wings, shot up.
“It’s in her! What’s left of the source is in her now.”
“Hey, cuz!” Eyes black pools with what lived in her now, Petra swung toward Fallon. “We’ve been waiting for you.”
Fallon dived under the whip of the dragon’s spiked tail, swooped beneath the armored belly. Before she could try to strike the eye, it spumed out fire.
“I am filled!” Petra flung out her hands, spewed out lightning from her fingertips. “Like fireworks! Like my favorite holiday. The Fourth of July, when my daddy killed yours.”
With a flick of her hand, she batted away a stream of fire from Duncan’s sword, followed it with a wind that nearly unseated him.
Petra’s hair flew—black-and-white—then coiled like snakes to lash at the air. “You can’t touch us with your puny powers now. I have the heart in me. All promised is mine.” Lifting her arms, she called the crows to circle and swipe with smoking wings. “How about some of this!”
She threw out fire that speared into arrows and rained on the shield Hannah fought to hold.
“You have to help them.” Tonia nudged Lana’s hands away. “You have to help them. She—it—they’re getting stronger.”
“Keep that shield up, Hannah.”
Lana ran out from under its protection, pushed power up. Flamed it out.
Me, she thought, frantic. Come for me. You won’t have my child, you won’t have Katie’s. Come for me!
Petra flung bolts, fire, wind in all directions, her face bright with glee as the dragon’s tail slashed. Whipped around as Lana’s power rocked the air.
“Look who’s here.” With great good cheer, she shot bolts of lightning at Lana’s feet. “Dance, dance, dance. You killed my mummy, bitch. Now you can watch me kill yours. Fire in the hole!” she shouted, and laughed as the dragon breathed it.