Earth's Requiem(77)

The sound of a sharp slap and a scuffle ensued. Though Aislinn listened for several minutes, hoping to find out more, conversation halted abruptly.

A flurry of movement up ahead sent her racing back down the tunnel. Aislinn didn’t know if the Old Ones had somehow sensed her presence, but she wasn’t waiting around to find out. She tried for silence, but rocks crunched under her boot heels. She ran by feel, using Rune’s hyper-tuned senses for guidance.



“Back again, little one?” trumpeted in her mind.

She screeched to a halt, gaze scanning the darkness. Rune vibrated against her. He’d be growling if she hadn’t told him to maintain silence. Aislinn flattened herself against the tunnel wall. Pulling Rune next to her, she disengaged from his mind to keep him safe.



“Dewi?” Her mind voice was tentative. She didn’t want to antagonize the creature in case Fionn was wrong about who it was.



“You know my name.” The dragon sounded pleased. “And I know yours. MacLochlainn. I recognize your blood. Flee, child. I will keep the Mu-spawn at bay. They revere me, but only because they have mistaken me for another.”



Herding Rune, she sprinted for her rock pile. She’d hoped to find out more, but maybe this was good enough for a first trip. It seemed the dragon would be an unexpected partner. Don’t get too excited, she told herself, recalling it had been Marta’s ally, too. Maybe Dewi wasn’t all that picky, since it looked as if Marta had murdered her parents.



Risking a small tendril of magic, Aislinn hunted for her marker, gratified to see it flare twenty feet ahead. She started her spell before they got there and slipped through the space in the rocks as soon as it was big enough to accommodate her and Rune.

As the door scraped shut, making so much noise that she was certain it would give them away, she heard Dewi assuring the Old Ones there’d been no one but them in the tunnels all day. Heart pounding in her throat, Aislinn collapsed onto the dirt. She hadn’t realized how frightened she was. That’s because I didn’t let myself think about it.



Rune sidled up next to her and lay down, putting his head in her lap. “I was useful.”

“You certainly were.”

“That means I can go next time.”

Until Rune said it, Aislinn hadn’t realized she planned to go into Taltos again. Once she heard it spoken, though, she knew she’d return over and over. Either she’d destroy Taltos or die trying. For a moment, she wondered if Dewi could help Fionn. He wasn’t back yet. If he were, he would have been waiting in the basement to chastise her. Or worse, he would have come through the gateway after her.

Calling up her mage light, she got to her feet. The first thing she needed to do was locate Marta’s parents. The Old Ones seemed to think she’d done something to them, which probably meant bones were located somewhere around this house.

“Rune, did you know Marta’s parents?”

“No. She never talked about them.”

Aislinn trod carefully. She didn’t want to upset Rune, who’d idolized Marta, despite the fact she’d treated him like a child. “The conversation you helped me overhear when you merged with me… Well, it suggested Marta’s parents may be somewhere in or around this house. Could you either look for them, or lend me your senses?”

“We can do both, starting with the basement, since we are already here. What am I looking for?”



Well, what are we looking for? “I’m not sure. Corpses or people in some sort of stasis. Not dead, but not exactly alive, either.”

Rune made a whuffy sound, his attempt at humor. “Anything unusual, then.” He bent his nose to the wall nearest them and walked a circuit. Merging her senses with his, Aislinn stayed put. No need for her to follow along.



When they didn’t find anything, she jumped them to the kitchen, where they kept looking. By the time that she stood at the top of a spiral staircase leading to the attic, she wondered if the Old Ones might have been mistaken. They’d searched everywhere else, including the yard and a falling-down garage out back with two cars in it: a Subaru wagon and a Toyota sedan. Since they sat well outside Marta’s wards, both had been looted for parts.

The attic door was locked. She blasted it with magic, but it didn’t budge. Fanning power around her, she discovered more warding. Fortunately, Marta hadn’t been particularly creative. She’d found one type of warding that worked and used it over and over.

It still took Aislinn close to half an hour to hack her way through. When she stepped into the large room running the length and breadth of the house, the air had a stillness to it that reminded her of a mausoleum. A few pieces of antique furniture were scattered about—mostly tables and chairs. Old chests with black metal banding and hasps sat in a row against one wall. There were no windows, and unlike the rest of the house, dust was thick.