Startled, I glance at Manannan. He looks just as shocked as I am.
“That’s impossible,” he says. “We trapped her just as we trappedhim.” He jerks his bearded chin toward me.
“And I looked in the place where you told me to search,” replies Lloyd-Henry. “There was nothing. No trace of the divine or other supernatural influence. The ritual you and the other gods performed was either temporary or it did not work at all. Perhaps she fooled you into thinking it did.”
A laugh surges up inside me, and I can’t resist letting it out. “She tricked you.” I grin at Manannan. “Of course she did. She’s been free this whole time, weaving her threads through the tapestry of the world.”
“Meddling, you mean,” growls Manannan. “Well…fuck.”
Lloyd-Henry vents a rasping chuckle. “I suppose your plan won’t work now, eh?” When I throw him a confused glance, he explains.“Manannan asked me to raise the Morrigan, and then he planned to tell her that her new existence was all thanks to him. He hoped that in her gratitude for the resurrection, she would forgive him for scheming with the other gods to confine her.”
Manannan swears loudly and sends a great fist of water smashing into the bleachers. Metal snaps and plastic chairs crumple. But in the wake of the damage, his shoulders slump. I recognize that posture, that loss of purpose. A sense of helplessness, feeding his external fury.
“There is a word I’ve learned recently,” I muse. “Might be useful if you ever do encounter the Morrigan.”
“And what is that?” growls Manannan.
“Grovel,” I say simply.
“Grovel? The fuck does that mean?”
“You can look it up when we get back to my lair,” I tell him. “I can give you some tips.”
“You’re both fools.” Lloyd-Henry’s voice is a thread on the verge of snapping. “Talking of moving on, of accepting death—trapped by sentimentality, with no sense of vision—it is insufferable!”
He falls to his knees, releasing a cry of anguish before shifting into stag form. The shift doesn’t seem to offer him relief, however. He stamps and tosses his head, screaming as only a deer can. The stag morphs into a crow, then a dog, then a panther, each form becoming more frenzied than the last, until he is switching forms too fast for me to perceive any of them.
Manannan and I instinctively back away. No power that either of us possess can help him. We listen to his garbled shrieks and stare at the amorphous whirl of limbs, antlers, mouths, and tails that was once our summoner until, with one final unearthly whimper, the matter of which he was composed loses all integrity and plops to earth, a steaming pile of red flesh and black ichor.
If he could have found peace within himself, if he could have accepted his defeat, he might have survived. Or perhaps, as he said, he had cheated death once too often, and Fate herself decided to snip the cord of his life one final time.
I tilt my head, surveying the mass, wondering if he’s really gone. Wondering how I should feel. I think I am experiencing gratitude and sympathy, both of which seem appropriate for the man who was instrumental in my resurrection.
“I am going to find Christine and Raoul,” I tell Manannan. “You can come with me or wait here.”
Without waiting for his decision, I take the steps of the bleachers three at a time. My conversation with Lloyd-Henry was one I needed to have, but now that it’s over, the urgency to be with my singer and my poet is back, full force.
I only hope I was right to trust their strength and cunning, to let them pursue Raoul’s sister on their own, injured as they both were.
When I reach the top of the stairway, I encounter two of my ghosts drifting aimlessly in midair.
“Where did the wolf and the girl go?” I ask.
“That way,” replies one. “They climbed up to the roof. Two wolves and a woman, but one wolf is dying. Can you smell it, my lord? The sweet aroma of death?” The ghost giggles, and her companion joins in with a wailing laugh.
I rush past them, a curse on my lips. I feel as if, like Christine, I have two hearts—except they are both outside my body, beyond the shelter of my ribs.
All I care about is reaching them in time.
32Raoul
Shifters do not heal as quickly as vampires. For us, it’s a matter of hours, not minutes.
My joints ache from being slammed against the ground by my sister. Philippa also tore into my right flank at one point, and the pain of those torn muscles hampers my ability to track her as quickly as I want to. But I do my best.
I don’t attempt to return to my human form. When we find my sister, she will likely still be in wolf form, so it would be foolish to switch. And I’m not ready to have the power of speech again. Not ready to talk about what happened, how I drove a dagger into the heart of one of the people I love best, the girl who defended me all those years ago, who trusted me enough to sing with me that night at the Alouette. The girl who came so beautifully on my tongue.
What if Christine hadn’t spoken my own lyrics to me at the right moment? What if I hadn’t found the strength to break the control of Philippa’s voice? What if I had killed the woman that Erik and I adore? I don’t think he would have been able to forgive me. I couldn’t have forgiven myself.
