A Hollow in the Hills

  Which meant, by extension, Dylan needed to look after her. Because he’d failed to look after Mari, and Izzy was nowhere to be seen.

  The Magpies drove way too fast, while Clodagh and Dylan slid from side to side in the back seat of a car that had never heard of a seatbelt. They hung on to each other, trying not to listen to the conversation up in front.

  ‘So I says to him, ‘are you starting?’ And then he did. So I brutalised him.’

  ‘Y’did not.’

  ‘I did too. And then his old wan starts in as well. But I wasn’t taking her on, was I?’

  ‘You’d be mad to.’

  The car screeched to a halt, almost throwing both Dylan and Clodagh into the front seat. ‘So what did you do?’

  ‘Nothing. She started in on him, not me. Crucified his sad little arse.’ He turned back, grinning madly at them both. ‘We’re here. Time to get out.’

  Here was the middle of nowhere, a jumble of rocks and gorse and overgrown green that couldn’t decide if it was going to be one thing or another. Here was the tail end of a mud track up a mountain with nothing but the odd sheep around for miles. But what choice did he have? He’d asked for help. And this was where it led him.

  ‘Right then,’ said Clodagh when he didn’t react. She opened the door and stepped out, stabilizing herself against the car. ‘Damn it, I’m meant to walk in this? Are you, like, totally mental?’

  ‘What do you want, love?’

  ‘Do you want us to carry you?’ They sniggered as they said it.

  She just gave them a withering, princess glare. ‘Like I’d let you.’

  Dylan got out of the car, ready to defend her if he could. But what could he do if they tried anything? He’d do something though. He knew that.

  His fingers itched and he could sense the swirling warmth beneath his skin, just as when the demons had threatened Jinx and Izzy. He’d used the magic inside him then. He could do it again, if he needed to. Couldn’t he?

  He could feel it there. Just out of his reach. All he had to do was grab it.

  ‘Well now,’ said another voice, a booming voice, bright with jollity but laced with something darker. ‘What have we here? Friends, I hope.’

  The nearest rock slid back and a man stepped out of the darkness beyond. He wore a suit so beautifully tailored it didn’t need to say bespoke. That was a given. His hair was silver grey, but his face wasn’t particularly old. It wasn’t young either but rather had a kind of unearthly smoothness about it. The kind he’d seen before in Brí and in Holly.

  He was fae, and he was old. One of the oldest.

  He remembered Izzy talking about them, and Silver had mentioned him. It couldn’t be anyone else.

  ‘Amadán?’ he said, in as respectful a tone as possible. ‘We need help.’

  ‘So I believe.’ He waved a hand at the pair. ‘They called ahead and told me all about it. They saw the Fear as well so don’t fret.’

  ‘You know about them?’

  ‘Oh I know all about them. And that they’re on the loose. Who do you think told Jinx?’

  ‘What are they?’ Clodagh asked.

  Amadán peered at her, like a kindly old uncle until you saw the piercing sharpness of his eyes. ‘Monsters, my dear. The very definition of monsters.’

  ‘And what are you?’ she asked. She tightened her arms around her body in a self-hug that Dylan wished didn’t make her look so vulnerable. It was never good to look weak in front of the fae, especially the Aes Sídhe.

  ‘Oh, I’m a monster too, dear.’

  ‘Leave her alone,’ said Dylan.

  Amadán’s attention swung around to him and Dylan wished he’d shut the hell up instead, just for a moment. Until he realised that Clodagh was in the clear now. Relief and fear made his skin tighten on his bones and the magic fizz up like a bottle had been shaken. ‘I haven’t seen you in months, Dylan O’Neill. Did Silver keep you so very close all this time?’

  He knew that wasn’t true, of course. He knew far more than he was letting on. ‘I … I’ve been around. I have a life.’

  ‘For now. Until she needs much more from you than you’re prepared to give. Now, shall we go?’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Where indeed? Silver has called a meeting and I am most eager to attend. Particularly with you at my side.’

  ‘I’m not standing beside you.’

  ‘Oh I think you will.’ He nodded. One of the Magpies grabbed Clodagh, jerked her close against him and grinned, all his teeth on display. ‘So, shall we go?’ asked Amadán.

  Izzy paced back and forth, waiting for Silver to return. Jinx slept on, but it didn’t seem like normal sleep. He just lay there, still as a corpse. She had to keep checking that he was still breathing, holding her hand against his chest, bending down so she could feel the faint whisper of his breath on her cheek.

  ‘Please wake up,’ she said. ‘Please, come back.’

  But he didn’t respond. He didn’t even seem to hear. It had been hours and he never moved.

  When Ash pulled a pile of cushions down and curled up on them, quickly falling asleep herself – but a normal, noisy sleep – the weight of it all made Izzy crumble. Suddenly they were alone and she didn’t know what to do. She watched Ash carefully, but the other girl didn’t stir. She was exhausted too. Only when she was sure that she wouldn’t wake her friend, Izzy moved closer to Jinx.

  She lay down beside him, held him in her arms and breathed in and out, trying to match her breath to his, her heartbeat to his but it wouldn’t work. When she pressed her face into his back, he felt so cold.

  The tent was of the Arabian Nights variety instead of the bogged down seaside campsite. Lush fabrics surrounded them, silk and satins, all the luxuries the Sídhe lavished on themselves. And beyond those insubstantial walls, the grounds of the strange greenhouse buzzed with life, with that same wild and unpredictable chaos on which the Market thrived. To find it here made everything feel all the more alien to Izzy. She’d thought of it as a peaceful place when they arrived. More and more of the Sídhe were arriving with each passing minute. She could feel it in the air around her, like electricity.

  No one came in. No one dared. Silver had commanded it and suddenly, with the reality of Holly back once more, of Holly raising monsters and killing where she would, no one defied her. Not for an instant. Silver was all they had.

  She could feel their expectation as well, as if they sensed … maybe not what was happening exactly, but the fact that something was happening. The tension was hard to ignore. Added to that, Silver suddenly seemed galvanised, issuing orders and commands, acting like the very thing she denied being, a matriarch.

  Reaching out tentatively, Izzy stroked Jinx’s hair, his forehead, but he never responded. His skin felt cold as ice and it made her shiver inside. She couldn’t lose him. It wasn’t fair.

  Tears stung like needles in the corner of her eyes. She’d shed too many already and the thought of more made her burn with anger, but she couldn’t seem to get rid of the stupid things. This was her fault. All her fault. She wasn’t entirely sure how but she knew it was true. If she’d just stayed home this morning or gone straight home after work, if she hadn’t listened to Art and gone to Bray Head, if she hadn’t been so determined to prove herself …

  She wished she’d done what her dad had said right at the beginning. She wished she’d stayed the hell away from Jinx because if she had he wouldn’t be in this state now, would he? He’d be Silver’s emissary. He’d be safe.

  Instead, he was unconscious, trapped in some spell of Holly’s. Izzy had put him right back in Holly’s path, and now he was lost again. She held him close and shut her eyes. Even though tears leaked from the corners. And Mum would be safe, not a hostage to demons. It was all her fault.

  She tried to sleep, but how could she? If she slept, something even worse might happen to him. None of the fae really cared about him. Anyone could walk in here. She had to guard him. Especially now.

  Izzy bit her
bottom lip and held Jinx’s icy hand even tighter. Dad was going to flip. There were no two ways about it. If someone had already told him, he’d never forgive her. How had she gone from being ideal daughter to this in so short a time?

  Noise outside grabbed their attention. Ash woke up at once, if she had ever really been asleep. She glanced at the pair of them, without any judgement passing over her face, but didn’t speak. Instead she stepped forward, as if to shield them from whoever was coming, and Izzy stood as well. Ready for anything.

  The curtain door was pulled open and Silver entered, followed by the fiery figure of Brí, her red hair aglow, her clothes a million shades of scarlet, orange and gold.

  ‘It’s okay,’ Izzy said to Ash, who nodded, though she didn’t look entirely convinced.

  ‘I should step outside perhaps,’ she said.

  ‘That would be best,’ Silver replied firmly, though not unkindly. ‘I’ll have someone find you some food. You must be hungry. Both of you.’ She looked pointedly at Izzy, but Izzy, just as deliberately, didn’t move.

  Ash slipped by the others, getting out of the way as deftly as possible. Izzy just stared at Brí, waiting. And Brí stared back.

  Izzy’s birth mother made a striking figure, but she wasn’t alone. A young man followed her, his skin very darkly tanned, almost black contrasting with hair of a vibrant unnatural blue, the same hue as his eyes. He paused in the doorway, gazing at her long enough to let her know that he was studying her, taking in every detail he could see. He smiled, but it wasn’t a warm expression.

  ‘He’s here,’ said Silver. ‘If you would …’

  ‘Of course,’ said Brí. ‘Hello, Isabel. In trouble again, I see.’

  She couldn’t back down in face of that. Every instinct in her screamed that she had to defy it. ‘It’s hereditary, isn’t it?’

  Brí shrugged, a beautiful gesture, nuanced and elegant. Dancers would kill to be able to move like that.

  ‘Perhaps. You should ask your father. It seems to be his idiom.’ But she smiled and her eyes glowed like the huge amber gemstone in her necklace, her touchstone and source of her power.

  ‘Izzy, please,’ said Silver, shifting nervously. She didn’t want any trouble. Not now, not here. Not if it might cost her Jinx. She turned to the young man, who was already grinning. He wasn’t even trying to hide his amusement. ‘This is Isabel Gregory. She’s the daughter of the Grigori David and …’ she glanced at Izzy’s birth mother, ‘—Lady Brí.’

  The blue haired boy raised one perfectly arched eyebrow and darted a wicked glance towards Brí. If anything, the matriarch was looking rather smug, although she said nothing. If she didn’t know better Izzy would have said her mother looked proud.

  Silver continued with her introductions quickly, eager to get them over and done with. ‘Izzy, this is—’

  ‘Call me Reaper,’ he interrupted, his voice rich and molten, so deep it reverberated through her like the earth movements of earlier. ‘Well now, what has happened to you?’ He held up a hand when Silver started to speak, silencing her. When she obeyed, closing her mouth and stepping back demurely, it was Izzy’s turn to stare. ‘It’s fine, Silver. You explained everything. Several times actually. We know what’s happening. That’s why we’re here after all. It’s just an expression.’

  He moved all at once, surging through the space between the door and the bedside like a flash of light. But as he reached Jinx’s side, he knelt down and seized his hand in a fierce grip. Izzy gave an involuntary cry of alarm. Reaper looked up at her, the amusement still glittering in his blue eyes.

  ‘Don’t fear, little Grigori,’ said Reaper. ‘I’m sworn to do no harm. I live my life by that code.’ He stared at Jinx, studying him. ‘Oh, but this is remarkable. Who marked and bound him thus? The working is masterful. It must have taken years.’

  A painful silence answered him.

  Izzy glared at him. The tattoos and piercings on Jinx’s body were Holly’s work and had kept him enslaved to her for most of his life. They still did, or so it seemed now. Reaper didn’t have to sound so impressed by it. It was horrible.

  There was new line around his throat, just below the first, a band of Celtic knotwork in the deepest indigo blue, with hints of silver embedded in it, exactly where she’d wrapped the wire around him. Izzy felt her eyes sting and ache just looking at it.

  ‘Holly,’ said Brí at last, her tone thick with loathing. ‘She had him pierced and tattooed all the time she held him. She said it was to stop him favouring his hound form.’

  Reaper ran his hands up Jinx’s arms and across his chest. He framed Jinx’s face with his long-fingered, graceful hands. ‘Oh, it was more than that. She worked this for years. Planned it. It’s too perfect.’

  Izzy’s voice trembled as she spoke. ‘She said he was a vessel. She controlled him completely, in an instant.’

  ‘Indeed she did. There’s quite a power struggle going on in there. Brí, I may need your help here.’

  ‘Me?’ Brí snorted in a completely unladylike manner. ‘This isn’t my area—’

  ‘The Cú Sídhe are. You know more than anyone, my Lady.’

  Brí preened herself a little, mollified by his flattery. Izzy gave her a plaintive look that also seemed to help. At least she hoped so.

  ‘I’m forever healing you and your companions it seems,’ her birth mother grumbled as she approached the bed. ‘Well now, Jinx by Jasper, let me look at you.’ She breathed in deeply and released the air in a long, low hiss. Her fingertips rested lightly on the faint pulse in his neck. ‘So cold,’ she said. ‘Usually Cú Sídhe run hot. Poor baby. What has she done to you?’

  Izzy wasn’t used to hearing such compassion in Brí’s voice. Usually she was screaming blue murder, or being snide and superior. Now she used the tone of voice one would use with a beloved pet rather than a person.

  ‘Can you help him?’ asked Silver. ‘Can you release him from this spell?’

  ‘Holly is so skilled. We may be able to wake him, but to separate the two? It would take a much sharper blade than I have to hand.

  ‘What do you mean?’ said Silver warily. ‘What sort of blade?’ Reaper gave her a speculative look and Silver instantly bristled. ‘What do you mean, Reaper?’

  His voice when he spoke was soft and seductive. ‘Lord Donn’s sword, so sharp it can cut through a whisper or a sigh. He keeps it inside his hollow, deep underground, beneath the mountain, far from the eyes and hands of mortals, angels and demons. And very far from the hands of the fae.’

  ‘Because it’s too dangerous,’ said Brí. ‘Far too dangerous to be free in the world. And far too dangerous to let any of us near it.’

  ‘Why?’ Izzy asked.

  That awkward silence settled again. Everyone tried to avoid making eye contact with Izzy. Except Reaper. She looked up and met his gaze, his piercing blue eyes that looked right inside her. He stared at her for long minutes until she felt weighed and judged. And found wanting? The moment dragged on.

  Finally Reaper answered. ‘They call it The Blade That Cuts. Donn is the oldest of the Aes Sídhe. The very oldest. Once they called him the Angel of Death. He repelled Adam and Eve from the Garden. He torched the cities that are now drowned beneath the Dead Sea. He tore down the tower to heaven. And that sword gave him the power to do all that.’ He turned to look at Izzy and his eyes were so bright, like the gas flame in the boiler at home. They hypnotised her, held her gaze and she couldn’t look away. ‘It also gave him the power to heal. When we were expelled from heaven, he alone brought his angel sword with him. Because no one – not Zadkiel, not Gabriel – none of them would dare to attempt to take it from him.’

  Passion filled his voice as he spoke. His eyes gleamed with an eerie brightness, and Izzy shivered, dragging herself back from him.

  ‘They say if he chose, Donn could use that sword to open heaven’s gates to us again.’ Brí’s voice sounded strangely distant and weak with longing. That wasn’t like her. Izzy felt an urge to look
at her, but she couldn’t seem to tear her own attention away from Reaper.

  ‘Then why doesn’t he?’ Silver snapped, her fragile patience shattering. ‘If he really could. Because we don’t belong there anymore. We’ve changed and he knows it. We belong here, not in heaven. If we went back we’d break it to pieces in less than a day. We’d pick it apart just for fun. Enough. You have work to do, Reaper. You promised to help. You can glorify your master’s name some other time.’

  Reaper laughed and the spell on Izzy shattered. A glamour? It left a sensation like cobwebs trailing over her skin. She’d been standing there spellbound and he could have done anything to her. She backed away, appalled that he could work a glamour on her so easily. If Donn was powerful, so was his servant.

  ‘Whatever you need is at your disposal, Lady Silver.’

  She nodded and turned to go.

  ‘Wait!’ Izzy said. ‘This sword can heal him, but we can’t go and get it? Can we take him to it? Would that help?’

  ‘Enter Donn’s hollow? Are you mad?’ Silver asked.

  ‘I’m completely serious.’

  ‘Izzy, with everything that is happening, with Holly and the Fear, with the threat of the Shining Ones … it’s far too dangerous.’

  ‘I’ll do whatever I have to.’

  They all looked at Reaper who seemed to consider the matter for a moment and then spread his hands out wide, his long, elegant fingers unfurling like delicate plants.

  ‘It’s not impossible. Difficult, but not impossible. At Samhain the door to the hollow stands open. All may come and go. But there will be a price.’

  ‘Isn’t there always?’ Izzy muttered.

  ‘We’ll discuss it later,’ said Brí, moving to Jinx’s side. ‘He needs us. We have work to do here.’