They’re here for Connor. Save Connor.
His fingers fell away. With a final cocky smile, Blake turned away and rushed into the fray.
CHAPTER SIX
MAEVE
My heart tore to pieces.
We’ve lost.
In a few moments, I would see my boys cut down by these vicious creatures. Once again I would stand hopelessly on the sidelines and watch someone I love perish at the hands of the fae, and all I’d be left with was the hollow grief of their loss.
I’ll protect them, Maeve.A sweet, singsong voice that wasn’t my own sang inside my head.Make their distraction count.
The voice sounded familiar, but I couldn’t place it. I didn’t have time to wonder who the hell that was or how they were able to get inside my head. I didn’t even stop to see how this mystery voice intended to save my boys. If I’d been given an opportunity, I’d damn well make it count.
I pitched forward again, pushing down the fear that battled against the magic in my chest. crawling around the corner of the pew and into the aisle. Chunks of masonry cascaded from above, hitting the floor and shattering into pieces, showering the battle in a glimmering mist. I scrambled to my feet and bolted toward the front of the church, toward Jane and Connor.
“Don’t you touch my son!” Jane screamed from somewhere in front of me.
“Stay there, Jane!” I cried, scrambling over the pitching ground. “I’m coming for you.”
A Far Darrig leapt down in front of me. Before I could react, it grabbed my shoulders and spun me around, pressing my back against its slimy, furry body and pinning my arms at my sides. I screamed and kicked, trying to position myself the way Arthur had taught me so I could knee it in the groin. I managed to connect with its kneecap, but it didn’t put me down. It slammed something into my forehead.
My skin seared. I screamed as it held the object there and my head cracked open and my skull burned and all I could see were dancing white lights of pain.
My feet left the ground. More hands grabbed my ankles. I kicked and screamed, but it did no good. My mind flailed for something,anything, but the pain was too great. I couldn’t call my magic. I couldn’t see, couldn’t feel, couldn’t think.
The Far Darrigs lifted me higher, shuffling across the floor. They grunted and gibbered in some crude language. I managed to pry open one eye in time to see the great wall of black smoke curling toward me. The void called me, pulling my body closer, willing me to succumb.
“No,” I gasped.
But I couldn’t free myself. They held me over the crack – my body swinging over the gloom. With a jubilant cry, they let go, and I toppled down, down, down into the dark of nothing.
CHAPTER SEVEN
MAEVE
Before I could even scream, I slammed into something hard. My back cracked as pain arced through my body. I flailed my arms out, felt the cool marble of the church floor beneath my fingers. A moment later I glanced up. I was back on the shaking ground in the church. The two Far Darrigs stood over me, staring down at their hands. Grey smoke rose from their fingertips.
The void was gone. It had closed beneath me.
What the hell?
“You…you’ve been baptised,” one Far Darrig whispered, its voice hoarse. The smell of burning flesh clogged my nostrils. Pain seared through my body. I tried to roll over, but every muscle screamed at me to stop that nonsense. I ignored them. On my third try I managed to get up.
Something about my being baptised had hurt them.I had no idea why that would matter, but at that moment I praised my parents and their crazy Christian ideals with every fiber of my being.
My forehead still stung, but the pain gave me a new strength.Whatever they did to me, they accidentally made me into a weapon.
I lurched toward the fae, holding my hands up like a cartoon zombie.
The Far Darrigs staggered back. I slapped one across the face.
That’s for trying to drop me into a void, you bastard.
Black tendrils shot from its skin, and it made a keening wail like a banshee being sucked down a drain. It shrunk away and I hit the other one. I flailed at them wildly, driving them back, back, back until they teetered on the edge of another fissure. I closed my hand into a fist the way Arthur had taught me and slammed it into the nearest fae’s solar plexus. It collapsed backward and sank into the void, the black tendrils consuming its body. The second one whimpered in terror as I shoved it in as well. The last thing I saw before they disappeared into nothingness was their long snouts disintegrating and their mouths open in silent screams.
