Dark Isle (Celtic Legacy Book 2) (3 page)

We slogged through the rocks and rough pampas grass,
then we
finally scrambled up on to the road
.
Staring up and down the road
, I stopped as
I tried to pl
ace where we were.
It seemed familiar, but there are a lot of backwater roads on the east coast of Vancouver Island.
“I think we’
re close to a gas station. There’s one up the road
if I’m remembering right
.”
I glanced over my shoulder, catching Darcy’s eye. “Try to keep up
,
”
I said.

Within a few moments of walking,
we could indeed see
a gas station
in the distance.
The red and yellow
sign shimmer
ed
in the heat waves
that rose
off the
blacktop
, the angle of the hill so steep it looked as though the sign was only a few feet off the ground
. It was probably a half hour walk, all uphill.

My clothes were starting to
seriously
itch as t
he salt water dried on my skin, but that wasn’t really what was bothering me.
I paused in our walk, waiting for Darcy to catch up to us.
“
You showed me something, in the helicopter
;
how did you do that?”

Her eyes darted sideways. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

My eyebrows lifted of their own accord. “Really? So the whole rocking about, holding your head, crying that you didn’t want to see anything. . . .
that was nothing
?”

Lips tightening
,
she continued to look away from me. I poked her in the arm. “Darcy, stop lying to me. How did you show me Balor and the Banshee Queen?”

Cora and Luke gasped in unison, giving me a nice stereo affect.
Luke recovered first. “Wait, what?”

“Yes, I’d like to know exactly what
’
s going on, Darcy
,
” Cora said, her tongue flicking out towards my mom.

Darcy squared her shoulders, but her voice shook
and her body quivered.
“I didn’t see anything, I don’t know what you are talking about. Now leave me the hell alone.” She spun on her heel and strode back down the hill, her hand out
,
thumb extended to the vehicles passing by.

Luke called out after her, tried to get her to come back, he even tried to Charm her. The effect of it
, though,
was lost on her retreating figure. I watched her go. It was no surprise to me that she left as soon as I questioned her.
Just like always, she ran the minute things got hard, when she might have to do the difficult thing. Like be honest with her daughter.
As we watched, an older BMW pulled over
and she jumped in, gone once more from my life.

Anger blossomed through me; I clenched my hands, but managed to keep the emotion out of my voice. “Well, can’t say that was a shock.” We stood on the side of the road, heat waves baking the salt into our skin. An apple tree
,
thick with the start of little fruits
,
was just off the side of the road up against a rusted old barbed wire fence.
The s
hade would be worth a few scratches. I made my way through the long grass and plunked myself down
, a breeze off the ocean cooling the sweat on my face
.
The sirens had stopped, leaving the air free of any noise except the birds.

Cora tightened around my shoulders, a comforting presence. Some of the anger drained away.
“Tell us what you saw, Quinn. Your mother . . . there is no excuse for her behaviour. Even when someone has a good family, they can still turn out bad.
”

I tipped my head back so I could look her in the face. Her dark eyes were unblinking, but it was
the
regret I heard in her voice that caught my attention. “Did you know my family?”

One bob of her head is all I got. I guess even Cora didn’t want to admit to know the people I’d grown up with. I couldn’t blame her. I plucked at the long grass and ran it through my fingers. I just needed to sit a minute
;
the adrenaline had disappeared
and without it
my body was fatigued beyond belief.

Luke
followed us into the shade,
shaking his head
;
his blond hair st
anding
up as if he’d spiked it on pu
rpose. “Did you really see Balor and the Banshee Queen?
”

“Yes
.
S
he
was the one controlling the wind
,
”
I said, twisting the grass in my hands into a braid.

Then he asked the question I’d been wondering myself. “Why didn’t they just kill us?”

I took a deep breath and blew out slowly. “Balor said he made a promise. That was why he didn’t let us just fly away or kill us.” I paused and thought about that conversation. “
It
doesn’t make a lot of sense, but it was like he was sad.” Neither one of them had anything to say to that, though my own thoughts
continued to
swirl around the brief conversation between Balor and the Banshee Queen. I finished the braid and began to loop it into a noose. “
Wh
o
is Chaos?”

Cora sucked in a sharp hiss,
and I lifted my eyes to hers.
Luke looked confused
, but not freaked out, which by the way Cora tightened up on my shoulders, she was
.

Luke does not know about Chaos, few outside the old gods do.

I thought on that a minute.
Why can’t Luke know?

Luke was watching us, his eyes narrowing. “It’s rude to speak mind to mind when there are others around.”

Lifting herself off my shoulders into a cobra stance
,
Cora bared her f
angs at Luke, shocking me and sending Luke back a step.

“Cora,” I said, keeping my voice low
.
“
I
t
can’t be all that bad
,
can it?”

She whipped around, her fangs now in my face. What the hell was this all about? I kept very still
,
and she lowered her head, snapping her mouth shut. “It is not something I ever thought I’d face again, I do not want to believe that Balor would be so stupid as to seek Chaos out.”

Again her tail flicked and she began to bare her teeth, though I didn’t think her actions were directed at me or Luke. She was afraid.

“In
t
he old days, long before the Fomorii, long before the Tuatha, the old gods ruled. We were, for the most part
,
good
—
but arrogant
.
W
e
believed that we could rule all; rule forever. We were worshipped by all peoples, everywhere, and were known by different names. But we were the same gods. But humans, they were arrogant too, and they wanted the power of the gods. So those who sought to replace
us
made
a
deal with a demon from the furthest reaches
:
Chaos.
T
hey summoned her with blood and fire
,
thinking they could control her. All they did was
unleash her on the world
.” Cora paused, I nodded for her to go on.

“
A few of us
saw
how
truly
dangerous
her
powers were to
everyone, human and gods alike,
so we
decided to trap her and lock her away.
Her pride and ego made it easy
to trick her
.
We thought her
prison
,
once hidden
,
would hold her for all time. B
ut
it was not
to be. I
t was found by a particularly cunning human. He seduced Morgana, the only one who knew where the prison lay
, and gained the knowledge he needed to once more free Chaos
.” Cora’s tongue flicked out; a soft sigh escaped her.

“
Morgana? Like as in Morgan Le
F
ay
?
”
Even I knew the stories that revolved around that one. Sorceress, enchantress, possible half sister to the famed King Arthur. I opened my mouth to ask
for the whole story
, but Cora stalled me.

“There is
, of course,
more to that s
tory, but
now’s not the right time to tell it
. Right no
w
, we need to focus on Chaos
,
”
s
he
paused
.
I nodded and she went on. “
We were only able to fool her the on
e time. Once she was freed for the second time
, no line of deceit could convince her to step into one of our traps.”
Cora took a breath
, her scales catching the sunlight, then
continue
d
. “Chaos was so strong, and so cunning. She would m
ake you believe that what you did
in the name of her destruction was right, that she would help you succeed. She would befriend those who were afraid, those who let their strong emotions rule them. She
would give them
what they want
ed in return for favors
. Little easy things, things no one would ever know about. Then she
would take over their hearts
.
If she gained control of someone particularly powerful, she could even control the elements
.
The
Mt. Vesuvius
eruption
was
caused by her
.”

Her words stirred a strange mixture of horror and recognition within me. Maybe I was wrong, but I had to ask.

“You mean
THE
Mt. Vesuvius?”

She nodded. “That is only one
of the
disasters
she caused
.” Cora flicked her tail in obvious irritation. “The
sinking of
Atlantis
was the final catastrophe before we,
all
the old gods, banded together to lock her up
again
.
It took all of us.
There
was a battle that left many of
us
dead, or so injured they hid themselves away.
But it was Arthur who dealt the final blow to her. Excalibur was
the only physical weapon that c
ould cause Chaos injury. We caged her for a second time, and
since then
she
’s
remained locked away
, and
the world
has been
safe from her destruction
…
It was a dark day, even though we did what we had to do to protect the world.
”

“
Shit
.”
Chaos sounded worse
than Balor
;
it was the difference between a calculating
bad guy
and a psychotic
demon
. Calculating, you could talk
to
, maybe even convince them that they were wrong. But the psychotic one, not so much.

Luke snorted and we both turned to him. “That is not in any of the histories, Cora. Your brain has been addled by the heat I think.”

I frowned at him
, irritated by his arrogance
.
How could he not see the truth of Cora’s words?
“Then why were Balor and the Banshee Queen discussing Chaos?”

He shrugged. “Maybe because they knew you were watching? Balor would say anything to throw you off. You said it yourself,
he has no reason to let
us live, which makes me think
the helicopter crash was due to
a freak storm
,
not
Balor and the
Banshee Queen
.
I think the vision was to
mislead
us.
”

“You must decide what you believe
, Quinn
,
”
Cora said
.

Luke frowned a
t her.
“
Even if she believes you, Cora
,
she can’t do anything about it. I have to get her to the Council
,
and have her trained.
”