“My son, you would kneel before what you have never truly believed?”
“I have come to believe in many things.”
“Then believe this,” Morrigan said. “You are precious to me. Each of you. All of you. I’ve watched you travel here, through the light and the dark. And you, daughter of my daughters, will you not kneel?”
“Is that what you need?”
“No.” And she smiled. “I only wondered. Rise up, Larkin. You have my gratitude, and my pride.”
“Would either of those come with an army of gods?” Blair asked her, and earned a shocked hushing sound from Larkin.
“You are my army, you and what you both carry inside you for tomorrow and tomorrow. Would I ask this thing of you if it were not possible?”
“I don’t know,” Blair answered. “I don’t know if gods only ask the possible.”
“And yet you come, you prepare, you battle. So you have my gratitude, my pride, and my admiration. This, the second month, the time of learning is nearly done. So will come the time of knowing. You must know if you are to win this thing.”
“What, my lady, must we know?”
“You will know when you know.”
“See.” Blair spread her hands. “Cryptic. Why does it always have to be cryptic?”
“It frustrates you, I know.” There might have been a laugh in Morrigan’s eyes as she stepped closer. But there was no doubt of the affection in the brush of her fingers—warm and real—over Blair’s cheek. “Mortals may see the path the gods have carved, but it’s up to them to chose a direction and f
ollow it. I will tell you that you are my hope, you and the four with you who forged the circle. You are my hope, the hope of mankind. You are my joy, and the future.”
She touched Larkin’s cheek now. “And you are blessed.”
She stepped back, the laughter gone. In its place was a sorrow and a kind of steely strength. “What is coming must come. There will be pain, and blood and loss. There is no life without its price. The shadows will fall, dark upon dark, and demons rise from it. A sword flames through it, and a crown shines. Magic beats like a heart, and what was lost can be regained if that heart is willing. Give these words to all the circle, and remember them. For it is not the will of gods that will win the day, but the will of humankind.”
She vanished with the light so Blair stood with Larkin on the edge of the cursed ground.
“Remember it?” Blair lifted her hands, let them fall. “How are we supposed to remember all that? Did you get it?”
“I’ll remember it. It’s my first conversation with a goddess, so I can promise you I won’t be forgetting the details of it.”
They flew again, away from the valley to the first of the three points Blair had devised for traps. They set down in a green glade with a pretty river winding through it.
Standing beside the river, she took out the map the six of them had worked on. “Okay, if we go by the fact that our portal stands in nearly the same spot here as it does in Ireland, then we make the big leap of faith that the same would hold true for Lilith’s way in, the cliffs are roughly twenty miles west.”
“They are, as you see here.” He traced his finger on the map, along the coastline. “And caves as well, which she could use for her base.”
“Could,” Blair agreed. “And she might put some troops there. But it makes more sense to base closer to the battleground. Even if she doesn’t, at some point she’ll have to move west to east, and if she’s taking the most direct route, she’d have to cross this way. And this river.” She nodded toward the water. “Smarter to cross it near this point, where it narrows. Moira said she took care of the mojo.”
“She had the holy man brought here, as you wanted. The water was blessed.”
“Not to question your holy man, but I’d feel better if I checked it out.”
She dug in her pocket for a vial of blood. “Courtesy of the vampire you skewered into the ground the other night. Let’s try a little chemistry.”
Larkin took the water bag to the river to fill it. While he was there he cupped his hand, sampled straight from the river itself. “Fresh and cool in any case. Pity its not deep enough for a swim just here, or I’d talk you out of your clothes again.”
“On the clock here, pretty boy.” She crouched down beside him and opened the vial. “Just a couple of drops. It’s either going to work or it’s not.”
He tapped a few drops into the vial. And the blood bubbled and steamed with the water mixed with it.
“All right! You’ve got yourself a happening holy man. Look at that boil.” She straightened to do a quick happy dance. “Picture this. Along marches the evil vampire army. Gotta cross the river, if not at this point, at some point. Crap, going to get our feet wet, but we’re the evil vampire army, we’re not afraid of a little stinking water. Then they start across. Man, I can just hear it. ‘Yipe, yipe, shit, fuck!’ Splashing across, splashing back, just making it worse. Wet feet, hell. Searing, burning feet—worse if some of them panic and knock each other down, slip. Oh joy, oh rapture.”