CDouglas_author Douglas

1. Gage - Eve of Samhain, Scotland, One Week Ago

I only just caught sight of Nora as she walked past the library window. Her face was pale, her eyes unseeing of what was in front of her.

I knew that look. I’d seen it on my father’s face when I razed our house to the ground. I’d also seen it on my grandfather’s face moments before he died. A realization so profound that all sense of rational thought had fled.

Something had happened.

Without hesitation, I jumped up and ran after her. Flinging open the large, cavernous double doors that led out to the picturesque back lawn of the castle grounds, I raced after her like the devil, my feet silent across the dew-touched grass. Dusk had fallen and a frigid breeze rent the lengthening shadows as the sun slowly lowered in the sky.

What the hell had made Nora forget all sense of safety and leave the Estate?

Tonight, on the eve of Samhain, the veils between the worlds were at their thinnest. Tonight, the wind carried whispers of the dead, and untold evils that were waiting to cross over from their world into ours. Tonight, all hell would break loose, and one of them would be our greatest enemy—Talorgan.

The only relative safety tonight was within the walls of the castle, for the wards that usually protected the lawn area and surrounds weren’t as stringent as the wards woven into the very stones of the castle itself.

As I followed after Nora, I could feel the air changing around us, sense the darkness drawing near. My eyes scanned the lawn, piercing the shadows that lingered around the forest to the north, and the ornamental gardens with their carved statues to the left and right. There was no one around, but there was no guarantee it would stay that way. Not tonight.

Conscious of the inevitable fall of darkness, I called out to the one treasure I had to protect at all costs. “Nora!”

She didn’t hear me, her attention focused inward. But as I drew near, I caught sight of the paper she held clenched tightly in one hand—the letter that had arrived earlier today. I’d recognized the harsh, slashing strokes, smelled his scent all over it. It was written in her son’s hand.

Which was impossible given Andrew had been dead for the last three years.

The letter had sparked my suspicions, but I didn’t push Nora for what was in it. Not after I’d thoroughly checked for some sort of enchantment before giving it to her. My curiosity burned, but given there had been no sniff of foul play, I had no right to push her for what was inside.

However, something within that letter had shocked her. Enough so that she had forgotten to stay inside the walls of the castle tonight. Which begged the question: What the hell was in the letter?

I sensed another change in the air then; the frigid breeze now carried more than just whispers and icy fingers from the snow-capped peaks of the Cairngorm mountains. The hair rose on the back of my arms.

“Nora!” I shouted again.

But although she was only twenty meters ahead of me, Nora neither heard me nor slowed. Her stride was automatic, oblivious to the otherworld senses around us, oblivious to the change that hovered in the air.

I could feel it as I sprinted, understood with certainty that the scales of nature were about to turn, and death would arise triumphant once the sun finally dropped behind the horizon. Even now, its last rays of light were sinking, inevitably plunging the world into darkness.

In the next breath, I was upon her. And as my hands grabbed hold of Nora’s arm, the sun’s light was extinguished. The tattoo at my nape burned as if scalded by hot water. In the same moment, the stretch of lawn in front of us was abruptly distorted as the silence in the air was fractured by a victorious whine of power.

I knew that sound. I knew its portent. And that omen became truth as the fabric between our world and the Underworld was viciously ripped apart by a red portal on the edge of the forest. It twisted and turned with a turbulent velocity that propelled us backward.

As if becoming aware of her surroundings and what was happening, I heard Nora give a startled cry. She didn’t fight me, and I managed to keep hold of her arm as I dug my heels into the damp lawn. The urge to protect the Daughter of Winter was a pounding mantra in my head, a boiling in my blood. Everything in my being clamored to keep her safe. Shrieking wind whistled past my face, no longer cold and frigid, but hot, smoky, and arid.

I raised my hands, squinting against the parched wind, trying to discern what threat was coming through the portal. A large, lumberous shadow moved, and a beast with shaggy, dark green fur stepped through. My heart froze as the portal abruptly snapped closed behind it, trapping it within this world. The beast’s glowing eyes immediately fixed on us, and in the sudden shocked silence, it let loose a deep, bone-chilling howl that made my flesh crawl.

The creature was unmistakable.

It was a Cù-Sìth, a beast that was supposed to be myth rather than reality. But the large, shaggy hound that stood before me clearly wasn’t a myth. It was said there were only three of them, three favored hellhounds who ruled the Underworld alongside their master—the Dark God Arawn. The god who our greatest enemy worshipped, the god with whom Talorgan had made his fatal deal, confining countless generations to a prophecy that chained us all to its knees.

It was said that a Cù-Sìth was a harbinger of death—an executioner on behalf of its master. And it was said that if the hound howled a third time, death would fall to its prey. The beast had already howled once. If the stories held true, it was a reckoning of what was to come.

I knew then that this visitation wasn’t pure chance. This was a planned execution, and Nora, the last surviving Daughter of Winter, was the prey.

I didn’t hesitate to wrench Nora behind me, shoving her in the direction of the Estate.

“Get inside!” I whipped out, low and urgent, not taking my eyes off the large hound who mauled the ground with paws the width of a man’s hand. “Alert the others.”

Its lips peeled back from its muzzle in a parody of a ruthless smile as it watched Nora sprint for the sprawling castle behind us. As if it knew that it had time to play before catching its prey—time to maul me.

I knew the castle’s protective walls were one hundred meters away, but I didn’t look back to make sure Nora arrived safely, for even though she was sixty-five, age would not be a hindrance. Her countless years of physical training would kick into gear. Besides, the danger lay in front of me, not behind me, and my role was always to be her shield.

The hell hound howled again, an echoing roar that assaulted my eardrums. There was no more time to lose. Taking a deep breath, I centered myself, tunneling into the well of my power. My magic responded instantly, siphoning the natural energy from the land around us. This area was a vacuum of power, a sacred site that had once been home to the Winter Goddess, Cailleach. Her prophecy dictated my actions, and my role as Guardian was enhanced by drawing on the power that resided in the trees around us, and the still waters of the mountain pool hidden from view.

That ancient power responded, allowing me to draw its energy into my veins. But I didn’t stop there, for there was also power in the remnants of the sun’s natural warmth, and in the resting heat within the stone walls of the castle sprawled behind me. The void inside me filled with power, hot and potent. I clenched my fists, readying my fire. In response, flames crackled at my fingertips and a roar of heat rippled over my skin. I tasted smoke on my tongue and reveled in the fiery warmth that bloomed in my chest.

Fire was my gift. My inheritance.

I readied my stance, preparing to unleash the fury inside me.

The hound spoke. Its voice was guttural, deep, and bone-jarringly ancient. “Puny Druid. No match for me.”

I didn’t respond with words. I raised my palms and thrust them toward the hound, unleashing the fire that raged inside me. The stream of red-orange flame was a torrent of heat.

But it never touched the hound; its reflexes were too fast. As soon as the fire left my fingertips, it sprang into the air and soared above me. The muzzle that descended was a snarling, twisted mass of hate, the canines viciously sharp and ferocious.

Its enormous paws hit my chest, and I fell backward onto the damp grass. The air whooshed out of my lungs as the weight of the beast pinned me to the ground. I felt its long claws latch and hold onto the skin under my leather jacket, tearing in deep, lethal slices. Ignoring the pain, shutting off the receptors in my brain, I threw my body sideways, away from the muzzle that sought to latch onto my throat and tear into my jugular. At the same time, I slammed my hands into the beast’s sides and channeled into its body the heat I’d created.

The hound howled in rage, but there were lashings of pain in that noise and I could smell the unforgiving stench of burnt fur. Using the distraction of its pain, I wrenched myself out of its grasp and rolled to my feet, ignoring the pull of cut sinew above my right pectoral.

The hell hound paused, its head cocking to the side in an eerie replication of a human. Then it spoke, and its voice was a dark, gravelly serration of sound that sent a piercing jolt of pain to my temples. “You are more than just a pretty face. I haven’t had a worthy opponent in eons. I will enjoy this.” Its muzzle peeled back, and a large tongue rolled out of its mouth to slaver the side of its jaw. “Besides, Druid blood tastes better than any other.”

I ignored my writhing anger, which hammered for release, not losing focus on the shift of the animal’s sinews, and the bunch and release of the muscles in its haunches. It was a language that screamed the beast's next move and was my only advantage in this fight. But then the hound shifted as its attention focused on something behind me.

A cold stillness hit my belly. Nora.

I took a chance and whipped my head around, my blood freezing as I saw Nora standing in front of a dense roiling mass of red and black smoke. And now that I was focusing on my other senses, I could smell the unmistakable signature on the air—acrid smoke and burning flesh.

Talorgan.

“Fuck!”

The Cù-Sìth was a diversion. The real danger had been behind me the whole time!

Talorgan had most likely planned this. Knew I would send Nora running back to the Estate for the safety behind its walls. But she hadn’t reached it. And Nora was no match for Talorgan. Not now. She was too old to win this battle alone, her bones too brittle, her reflexes too slow.

At that moment, I abandoned the fight with the Cù-Sìth, turned my back to the hound, and sprinted toward her. It was a fool’s race. I’d only managed to gain ten meters before a powerful force hit me in the back. The motion propelled me forward, face-first into the soft earth as viciously long claws raked the length of my spine. My back was on fire, and this time I couldn’t stop the cry that erupted from my lips, couldn’t stop the agony that rippled through me. As I lay stunned, without the wits to put up a fight, the hound snapped its jaw around my arm, wrenching me onto my back.

Panting, I lay there, staring up at its cavernous maw of grisly teeth. I could see the blood that ran down its muzzle, the color vivid against its dark green fur. I could smell the iron on the air.

My blood.

The hound knew I was almost broken, knew it had bested me. It reared up to the heavens and loosed a bark of triumph. The sound echoed to my very marrow for that cry, it was for me. I had become its new prey, and the grip of the chase was upon it. But I’d been biding my time while it pinned my chest, and in that moment of its conceit, my questing fingers finally found the handgun shoved under the waistband of my jeans. As soon as my hand clenched around its familiar grip, I didn’t hesitate. I yanked it out and aimed it dead center at the beast’s chest.

Using the last vestige of my power, I squeezed the trigger.

The bullet, laced with a blaze of orange heat, shot forth to spear the hound’s chest, right into its heart. The beast’s head reared down, shock causing its jaw to go slack as the fiery bullet hit its target. I saw the hound’s split-second decision to lunge at my throat for a final killing bite, but before it had time to give effect to that desire, the bullet exploded, and the hound became a living, breathing fireball. It yelped, pain and terror overtaking all reason. Springing backward off my chest, it twisted and turned in frantic leaps, seeking relief from the burn that scoured its skin. There was a high-pitched whine as if the air had been vacuumed, then in the next second, there was a contained explosion, and the hound disintegrated into ash.

Groaning, not sparing a moment to consider what type of injuries I carried, I pushed to my feet. Moving was pure agony as I felt every slashing tear pull and flow with a torrent of blood. I could feel my power diminishing, like quicksand through my fingers. But I couldn’t stop, couldn’t rest. I had to get to Nora, the last Daughter of Winter.

I looked in her direction. That roiling mass of black and red smoke had taken form during my desperate fight with the Cù-Sìth, and now a figure cowled in red stood before her, a hand held out as if in request. Nora had fallen to her knees. She was holding something out to Talorgan.

My heart ceased. No! Not the pendant!

Desperate, I closed my eyes, searching for any last remnants of strength. I found the small ember that eternally burned, the spark of my power. There was a whisper of energy there, just enough to manipulate. I fanned its flames, building it higher, ignoring the tang of iron in my mouth, the warning that I was verging on burnout.

I trained all my consciousness on Nora. “Fight!” I rasped out in a ragged breath, sending the message soaring down our internal thread.

Her emotions snapped back down our shared line. She was scared, screaming at me to help. I could feel her clawing panic at the trap that Talorgan was spinning around her. Nora knew she had lost.

I fanned that ember even higher, pushing my gift to exceed its limits. I felt sweat spring out on my brow, and my breath grew short as the burn of my gift smothered the oxygen in my lungs. Not sparing another moment, I drew a rune in the air and flung my hands toward the hooded form just as he reached out to accept Nora’s offering.

A stream of scorching orange flame hurtled from my palms and smashed with a blinding force into the side of Talorgan’s form. The blast coalesced into the air, flames and smoke twisting and colliding. Choking, coughing, I strained to catch sight of them both, but the air was too thick. Then there was movement, a fast-moving swirl of black and red. The whine on the air was unmistakable—a portal!

I lunged to my feet, desperate to reach Nora, but even as I did so, I knew the effort was in vain. I’d never reach her in time. But that didn’t stop my desperate dash, an innate need that was born of a prophecy thousands of years old.

Before I’d taken four steps, the smoke vanished. I halted, stumbling to a shocked halt. For Talorgan had gone, but he’d left Nora—all alone.

On trembling limbs, fighting burnout and exhaustion, I stumbled toward the form that lay prone on the grass. The lights from the castle allowed me to see that Nora was on her back, limbs askew. There was so much blood. It was all over her body. Even her graying head had a nasty slash across the right temple, a river of red tracking down the side of her face. I put my hands lightly on her chest, relieved to feel a small tremble. She was still breathing, but the skin of her face was gray.

I opened my senses, dredging up the last scrap of my power to search her body for the extent of her injuries before that ember completely died. The wounds were numerous, and they were fatal.

I snarled, desperation closing in.

My voice roused her, Nora’s eyelids fluttering open. “Gage,” she rasped weakly. “The pendant…did he get it?”

“No,” I had already checked that it was still around her neck. “You still have it. Save your energy—don’t speak!”

Relief shone in her gaze, but then she coughed, blood flecking from the side of her mouth. “How bad…?”

“Bad.” There was no point lying.