THE MIST VANISHED AND BRAN AND I POPPED out onto the stone floor of the Oracle's dome. Teleportation was overrated. Sure it got you where you needed to go fast, but hanging weightless in the mist gave me a nasty case of vertigo. On top of that, I had to cling tenaciously to Bran to be teleported, and he had trouble keeping his hands to himself.
Torches and feylanterns lit the dome. I hadn't expected anyone to be here but despite the late hour, the three witches of the Oracle waited on the platform, alert and awake. They didn't even blink, when we materialized in the middle of the floor. Apparently, we were expected.
To the left of the Oracle stood four other witches, two about my age and two older. Some of them wore the distinct blue tattoos that matched the swirls on Bran's chest. Witches from Morrigan's covens?
Bran bent over and sneezed. "I hate this fucking turtle." He raised his head and grinned at the group on the side. "Ladies."
The two younger witches went from bewildered to flirtatious in the blink of an eye.
I walked up to the platform and handed the still warm tube to the mother-witch. She took it. "He gives the blood in good faith," I said. "He doesn't expect anything. But I hope the memory of his gift will endure."
The Oracle rose. As one, the three witches bowed.
"See?" Bran jerked his thumb at the three women. "That's how a woman should treat a man. Next time you see me, I want you to do just like them."
"Hell will freeze over first," I told him.
The witches sank to their seats.
"We had a bargain," I said.
The crone glared at me. "A bargain with the likes of you means nothing."
"This might be a hunch, but I think you don't like me," I told her.
Her fingers curled into claws on the armrests of her chair.
"Maria," the youngest Oracle whispered. "Violence isn't necessary. The Oracle never goes back on its word."
"Could've fooled me."
She pointed to the four witches on the side. "They speak for the senior covens of Morrigan. They are here as witnesses. Tell us what you want to know and I will open your eyes."
"Here is what I suspect: Esmeralda wanted power and formed her coven, but she lacked education and training. The coven probably began by worshipping Morrigan, but whether by accident or on purpose, Esmeralda permitted Morfran to insert himself into their rites and take over."
The seven witches focused on me. The atmosphere in the dome grew tense. I plowed on.
"I suspect that Morrigan has the ability to manifest during the flare, when the magic is at its deepest. She does it by using a magic cauldron. Morfran wanted life just as much and either taught Esmeralda how to duplicate the cauldron or had her steal the cauldron that had been in the possession of legitimate Morrigan covens."
Either I had hit the nail on the head or the four representatives of Morrigan got a simultaneous case of serious constipation, because their faces turned red and strained.
"I think that Morfran is in cahoots with the Fomorians, but I don't know why. I need to know what happened after the rite was performed, what happened to Julie's mother, and what's the significance of the necklace the little shaman boy named Red carried."
"Where is the necklace?" Bran suddenly came to life.
"I'm not telling you."
He spread his arms. "Why not? I'm the good guy here!"
"I don't know that. It's a trust issue. Until somebody explains this mess to me, nobody gets the necklace."
"I'll explain." The middle witch of the Oracle leaned back. Above her, the mural shifted. The black lines crawled. The outlines of Hekate grew faint while the cauldron before her solidified.
"Two generations ago at the start of the Shift, Morrigan entrusted her covens with a magic cauldron."
"They did a bang-up job taking care of it," Bran said.
The mother-witch pinned him down with her stare. "Hush."
"We didn't know," one of Morrigan's witches said. "And she hasn't spoken to us since the last flare."
The middle witch silenced her with a wave of her hand. "Now then, the cauldron is her way into our world. Its magic only manifests during a flare. Morfran wanted the cauldron so that he too could experience life. He made a deal with Morrigan's enemies, the Fomorians, the sea-demons. In exchange for their help, he would release them, through the cauldron, from the Otherworld. They're not gods. They need little magic to exist here. They will become his first worshippers in this world."
"But I killed at least ten of them. How many came through?"
"You don't kill them," Bran said. "They don't stay dead unless I leave one of my shafts in them. As long as the cauldron feeds on the magic of the flare, they continue to return to life. The closer they are to the cauldron, the harder it is to disable them."
Great. Fantastic. "Couldn't you have told me this sooner?"
"It's a trust issue," he told me, mimicking my voice. I felt like smacking him.
"Okay, but how did the Fomorians get the cauldron in the first place?"
The witch sighed, folding her hands on her lap. "Through the ages Morrigan's Hounds have protected the cauldron, and only they have power over it."
On the walls the hounds raised their muzzles in a silent howl. Men, just like Bran, stolen from humanity through a fool's bargain.
"The covens of Morrigan thought the cauldron was secure, because nobody but a hound could move it from their gathering place. But they didn't know that years ago one of Morrigan's Hounds strayed."
On the left a drawing of the hound stretched and became a man.
"He left Morrigan for a woman and the terms of his bargain forced her to let him and his progeny live."
Things snapped together in my head. "Red. That little bastard is a descendant of the hound who got away."
The witch nodded.
"That means he can carry the cauldron. He stole the cauldron?"
The four witches of Morrigan looked like they wanted to be anywhere but here.
"I saw the imprints of the cauldron's legs. It's huge. Red's arms are this big around." I touched my index finger to my thumb. "How in the world did he carry it? And how could you not notice the giant cauldron being dragged away?"
"We were so used to it sitting there, it took a little while to realize it was gone," one of the witches said.
"You can shrink it," Bran said. "Small enough to fit in your pocket."
"Or slide onto a necklace. Oh crap. Wait, you said the cauldron is keeping the Fomorians alive, so they have the cauldron. What's on the necklace then?"
Bran shrugged his shoulders. "The lid. The boy stole the cauldron for the witch, but I crashed the party just as they finished the rite and the first Fomorian crawled out. While I was busy being the hero, he took off with the lid."
"What does the lid do?"
"It controls the cauldron."
I fought an urge to grab him and shake him until the whole story fell out. "How?"
"You put the lid on one way and it's the cauldron of plenty. You put the lid on the other way and it's a gateway to the world of the dead. Right after the first batch of Fomorians came through I closed the cauldron, turning it into the cauldron of plenty. It still keeps them alive, but unless they can get ahold of the lid, they can't open the gateway again to let Morfran out."
"What happens if Morfran gets to appear instead of Morrigan?"
He grimaced. "It's a simple bargain, woman. He gets life and the cauldron. They get life and freedom. If he appears, he will release the horde of sea-demons into your city. They want revenge on Man. Use your head to imagine what will happen next."
I looked to the Oracle. "Is he telling the truth?"
The youngest Oracle nodded. "He is."
"One last thing. Why did you keep stealing the maps?"
He sighed. "The cauldron must sit on the crossing of three roads. It won't shrink for the Fomorians, so they had to physically drag it somewhere. There are only so many places where three roads cross. The cauldron of plenty doesn't shine with magic the way the cauldron of rebirth does. Hard to sense where it is. I was misting to each crossing of the roads near the pit, trying to find the cauldron."
That made sense. "Okay. The Pack has the lid," I told him.
He grinned. "This shouldn't be too hard."
Thin tongues of mist swirled around his feet and dissipated into the air. Leaving him standing in the same spot.
"You're still here."
"I know that!" He rocked forward. Mist puffed and vanished. Again. Again. "Something is wrong. You!" Bran pointed at the youngest Oracle. "Find the Shepherd!"
A hint of a smile brightened the youngest Oracle's face, highlighting her fragility. At first I thought she was laughing at the absurdity of Bran's order, but her eyes glazed over, gazing somewhere far, past us, into the horizon only she could see, and I realized that using her gift filled her with joy. She leaned forward, focused, smiling wider and wider, until she laughed. The music of her voice filled the dome, exuberant and sweet. "Found him."
The dome quaked. Steam rose and the far wall faded into early dawn. Under the gray sky, mist drifted, caught on familiar steel spikes that thrust from the ground littered with metal refuse. A Stymphalean bird perched on a twisted spire of railroad rails, crushed and knotted together, as if some giant had tried to tie them in an angler's knot. The Honeycomb Gap.
The mist parted and I saw Bolgor the Shepherd perched on a mound of rusty barrels. A faint breeze stirred the cloth of his monk's habit. A huge hulking silhouette towered behind him, still shrouded in mist, holding a cross. Ugad, fully regenerated. How nice, I could kill him again.
A tall form strode through the mist. The metal refuse crunched and groaned, protesting the weight, and a monster stepped into the clearing. Tall, broad shouldered, wrapped in steel-hard muscle and clothed in gray fur, striped with slashes of darker gray.
Curran.
What the hell was he doing?
"You first," he said. His jaws were big enough to enclose my skull, his fangs were longer than my fingers, but his diction was perfect.
Behind the Shepherd, Ugad shifted the cross forward, setting it down with a heavy thud. I saw a small, thin body stretched on the pole, legs tied, arms spread wide on a cross-piece. Julie. Oh God.
I grabbed Bran by his shirt and dragged him to me. "Take me there now!"
"I can't!" he snapped.
My heart tried to break through my chest. Slayer smoked. Julie's eyes were closed, her color so pale she might have been dead already.
I would have given my right arm to be there now.
Curran raised his hand, displaying charms and coins dangling from his claws.
Bran howled. "What's he doing? Stop, you whoreson! No!"
"The child for the necklace. As agreed," Curran said.
The Shepherd's whisper raised the tiny hairs on the back of my neck. "You shouldn't have come alone, beast."
Reeves burst out from under the metal scrap. They swarmed Curran, falling onto each other. In a blink he was covered with a mound of squirming bodies.
I clenched my fists, expecting him to break out. Fight, Curran. Fight back. Any moment the bodies would come flying and he'd burst free from the pile of flesh. Any moment...My neck constricted as if caught by a garrote. The reeves screeched.
"No, no, no! Damn you, sonovabitch, do something!" Bran hurled his crossbow into the vision. It pierced the image and shattered against the wall.
A jaguar crashed into the Shepherd. He gave no warning, no snarl, no sound at all. Huge fangs flashed and the Shepherd's head drooped to his chest from the broken neck. Jim paused for the briefest of moments, reveling in the kill, and chased after Ugad.
Four beasts darted from the mist, snapping and biting at Ugad's legs. A wolf let out a short snarl.
Huge hands thrust through the reeves and tore them aside. Curran emerged. Red gashes marked his fur. Now I understood the plan: he had expected a double cross and chose to bear the bulk of the assault, buying time for the shapeshifters to retrieve Julie.
The reeves scrambled back to him. He grasped one, tore it in two, and hurled the twitching remnants to the ground. The reeve went liquid. The puddle of its slime twisted upward in a corkscrew and solidified into the reeve. She was once again whole.
"Why isn't she dying?"
"The cauldron's too close," Bran said through clenched teeth.
They couldn't win. The best they could do was to break away.
Curran swiped at another reeve, crushing her head like an eggshell. She went liquid too and re-formed within seconds.
"Stop killing, dimwit! Maim! Maim them, you son of a whore!" Bran yelled.
Two dozen yards away Ugad stomped and spun about, raking at the shapeshifters with his enormous fists. They lunged at his feet, driving him forward, into the metal spikes. Ugad spun. The huge barbed tail swung like a club and smashed a shaggy body. The shapeshifter flew through the air and bounced off the metal shell of a ruined car. The beast crashed to the ground, stunned.
Ugad jumped. As if in a nightmare, I saw his huge foot stomp onto the prone beast and heard the crunch of broken bones. Blood sprayed. The monster turned, leaving a nude human body broken on the ground. I saw the shock of electric-blue hair stained with bright red spray. I clenched my fists. I could do nothing. I couldn't make it stop. I just watched, helpless.
The jaguar leaped onto Ugad's head. The giant hurled the cross aside to pummel at the new threat. The cross spun on its base, teetered, plunged, Julie hanging limp like a ragdoll, about to be crushed. A slight, sand-colored shape leaped forward and caught the cross inches from jagged iron. Andrea ripped Julie off the cross.
A whip of green tentacles struck her, ripping fur and skin from her thigh. Raw muscle, red and wet, glared through the wound. The Shepherd hissed. He was once again whole, his rags flaring about his thin body. Andrea ran. Tentacles slapped her. She cried out. I winced. Andrea kept going.
One step.
Two.
She fell.
Her hand clawed the ground, as she clutched Julie to her, crawling away.
The tentacles scoured her again and again. Andrea curled into a ball, trying to shield Julie with her body.
The wolves broke from Ugad and rushed the Shepherd. Tentacles flailed like green ribbons echoed by startled yelps of pain.
Ugad pummeled at his head, trying to knock the jaguar off, but hit his own horns. The huge cat hung on, his claws wedged. Watery blood drenched Ugad's massive forehead. Jim dug deeper, clawing at the eyes. Ugad charged in a mad rush, crushing the iron under his feet, straight into the forest of metal spikes.
Jim leaped straight up.
The monster's huge body hit a spike.
Jim landed awkwardly, slipped, and slid, rolling down the sheet of corrugated metal. His fur left a long red smear. He tried to rise, but his feet slipped out from under him.
Metal emerged from Ugad's back, awash with crimson. He strained and pushed himself off the spike. Ugad turned, oblivious to the hole in his torso, stomped over to Andrea's prone form, and kicked her. She flew from the impact and crashed into the refuse. Ugad scooped Julie off the ground, an odd, imbecilic expression of satisfaction on his ugly face...and found himself looking at Curran.
Little by little, fighting for every inch, bleeding from wounds, the Beast Lord had gained ground. Curran thrust his clawed hand into the hole in Ugad's torso and ripped a red clump out.
To the right, the Shepherd stretched his arms. His robes tore, revealing his thin, awkward body. Tentacles swirled around his shoulders and snapped forward to catch metal spikes. The tentacles contracted and the Shepherd flew past the wolves and clutched at Curran's back. As one, the reeves clumped onto Curran's limbs, exposing the necklace wrapped around his forearm. The Shepherd's icy eyes flared with hungry fire. His mouth unhinged and serrated teeth bit into Curran's arm and the monisto wrapped around Curran's wrist. Coins went flying as the cord snapped under the Shepherd's teeth.
Curran screamed and I screamed with him.
"Idiot!" Bran hit his head with the heel of his hand.
Tentacles whipped. A bloody hole gaped in Curran's arm. The Shepherd withdrew, back toward the hangar. Three of the reeves followed in a gaggle, swiping Julie out of Ugad's arms, while the rest of the reeves clamped onto Curran's feet. The giant stared at Curran stupidly, turned and ran to the hangar, blood spraying from his body.
The wolves fell upon the reeves. Curran shook like a dog flinging water from his fur.
Ugad's body punched through the thin metal wall and through the gaping hole I caught a glimpse of the pile of crates.
"No!" Bran's mouth gaped open.
Ugad hit the crates head-on. Shards flew, revealing a metal cauldron as tall as me. Bran swore, biting off words like a pissed off dog.
Magic hit in a huge choking tide. The witches went down to their knees. The vision wavered and the dome quaked.
"The flare..." the youngest Oracle whispered. "It's here..."
The magic crashed into me, and my body drank it in, more and more and more. No head rush this time. No pause. Just power, pure power streaming through me.
The Shepherd hovered over the cauldron. His body doubled over and a gush of liquid spilled from his mouth, carrying a glittering spark with it. The spark hit the cauldron and expanded into an enormous lid. He must have bit it off the monisto and swallowed it.
Curran was almost to them, a trail of broken reeve bodies in his wake.
Ugad gripped the lid and leaned back. His thick arms bulged. With a guttural snarl, he tore the lid free of the cauldron, opening the gate to the Otherworld.
Like a storm cloud with a mind of its own, a blotch of darkness mushroomed above the cauldron. Within that shadow, a deeper darkness appeared, hinting at a humanoid form, huge and misshapen. Two hands thrust from the gloom as if welcoming an ovation. Feet in black boots solidified on the cauldron's rim. Thick forearms emerged into the light, their bulging muscle crisscrossed by shiny strips of scar tissue and dotted with warts. The darkness slunk back, an eager-to-please pet, revealing first a chest in a scalemail enameled black, and then a pale face.
His nose protruded forward, too long, too flat, like the carapace of a horse skull, like an enormous beak, sheathed in a meager layer of flesh and tapering to a sharp, horn-tipped point. Below the nose a massive jaw supported two rows of oversized teeth. One of the incisors jutted like a boar tusk falling just short of touching the left cheek. His eyes, small and white, sat deep under Neanderthal eyebrows. Between the eyes cartilage broke through the skin to form a thin, sharp ridge that vanished into his fleshy forehead.
It was as if the skulls of a horse and a human had somehow been blended into a horrid whole. A human face stretched over the meld, with barely enough meat and skin to cover the bone. This thing could not be man.
Behind him the darkness slithered and gained shape, solidifying into long black hair and a thousand crow feathers, streaming like a mantle behind him.
Morfran.
He raised his hand and spoke a word.
A gray bubble popped into existence by his fingers and began to expand. It swallowed his hand, then his head, then his feet. Instinctively I knew I didn't want the bubble touching Curran.
The Beast Lord hesitated.
"Run, Curran!" The words left me even though I knew he couldn't hear.
The bubble gulped the cauldron.
My heart clenched. "Run!"
Curran turned on his heel and ran, swiping Jim's body off the ground.
"Andrea!" I screamed, but he couldn't hear me.
The bubble hid the Shepherd and the vision faded.