Earth's Requiem(61)

Aislinn considered it and wished she’d paid closer attention. “I just don’t know. I suppose I might have been able to use my Mage senses to figure that out. Sorry. I was so nervous, it never occurred to me.” She thought of something and cocked her head to one side. “They must have been real, because they were still there when Rune merged his senses with mine.”

“Hmph. Not the answer I’d hoped for, but it’s good to know all the same. Come closer.” His arm tightened around her shoulders.

He was murmuring wordless endearments, breath warm against her neck, and caressing her shoulder with calloused fingers when something occurred to her. Drawing away slightly, she tilted her head up and gazed at him. “If there are more of you than them, why haven’t you gotten together with your buddies and blown the dark gods back to the hell they came from? I’m pretty sure the Bal’ta and other abominations would go away if that happened. Then we’d just have the Old Ones to contend with.”

“It seems like a long time to you since the dark gods came.”

He posed it as a statement, so she continued to study his face. Of course it was a long time. What was he, brain damaged?

He must have been inside her head, because the corners of his mouth twitched. “Lass, three years is nothing in real time. It is the blink of a cosmic eye. We were waiting to see if the human inhabitants of this planet could rescue themselves. Generally, we do not like to interfere.”

“Were you going to wait until we were all dead?” She bristled and pulled away from his embrace. “Shot to shit in that damned movable vortex? If you had some means to alter what was happening and didn’t use it…”

Fury ripped through her. She’d been fighting with everything she had, even though she knew it wouldn’t be enough. Earth, her Earth, was worth it. And what had he been doing all that time? Nothing! Fucking nothing, that’s what. “Damn you.” She drew back a hand to slap him, but he caught it midair.

“It’s my turn to apologize.” He laid her hand gently in her lap. “We kept thinking humans would mobilize. We really didn’t count on the Lemurians slaughtering so many. By the time we got worried, millions had walked into that damned vortex like sheep—”

“What exactly is it?” she interrupted, still furious. “Do you know?”

“It’s a gateway. They can open it wherever they want.”

“Yes, but where does it go?”



He shrugged. “To hell.” At the look in her eyes, he held up both hands. “Near as we can tell, it emits a highly specific radioactivity that scrambles human brains. It kills instantly. The cells just explode.”

“It sounds…unnatural.” She went cold inside.

“It is. Why do you think there are so many shades? The vortex interrupts their journey across the veil. Makes them forget what their spirits need to do once their bodies are no longer living.” Pain floated behind his eyes.

“Do you think it’s too late?” The anger drained out of her, replaced by fear.

“I hope not.” He set his jaw resolutely. “The silver lining in this cloud is all those humans who discovered they carried magic within them. Were it not for the Harmonic Convergence and all those synchronized Surges, that never would have happened.”

“I’m not sure I understand.”

“The Convergence, and the Surges that followed it, distorted the energies binding this world with others parallel to it. Those energies created the possibility of magic here on Earth, not just for the gods, but for everyone.”

“So everyone who threw their lives away had magic?” she asked, aghast.

“Not all, but many. Just not enough magic to satisfy the Lemurians. They’re up to something. I’ll be damned if I know what it is, though.”

“Mother,” she murmured. “If anyone was magical, it was Mother.” She thought about Tara Lenear’s wild hair and dead eyes once the madness took hold. Sorrow tore through her like a riptide, tears so close to the surface that it took all her will to keep from collapsing into helpless sobs.

His mage light fluttered close. He studied her face. “You, mo croi, my heart, would have found your magic even without the Surges.” She opened her mouth, aching to talk about her mother—to tell Fionn about her—but he shook his head. “Not tonight. We need sleep. I want to be out of here as close to dawn as we can.”





Chapter Fifteen


They’d initiated the jump from underground, even though it meant they couldn’t go as far. Fionn had insisted, saying, “If that dark hellion waylays us the second our heads pop out, we’ll burn a lot of energy that could be spent traveling.”