Shades of Avalon (9 page)

She had to know her concern about me becoming like Zeal or even Lucien, the Council leader who tried to kill Triona before she ripped his heart out, was way off. Maybe I’d been over-zealous recently…okay, there was no maybe about it, but my points were valid. My concerns about exposure and keeping the humans already in our lives protected from the lingering dangers of the Guardian world were real. I was right, but Amanda was right too.

I got about twenty paces down the street before I changed my mind and turned in the other direction.

“Hey, you!”

I swung around to see Emma jogging down the street after me, still wrapping a gauzy scarf around her neck. The weather had warmed, but dark gray clouds closed in overheard and threatened rain. Emma wore a waterproof jacket that came down past her hips and gave the impression she had been washed in glistening black oil. She caught up with me and huffed out a couple of rushed breathes.

“You should go back to the house,” I told her firmly. “You shouldn’t be out walking alone right now.”

Emma scrunched her nose. “I’m not alone. Besides, we’ll be back before they notice I’m missing.”

I hummed, unsure, weighing up the options. If I sent her back, she would be one more person for Triona to look out for, although I suspected John could look after himself. I had to think of Amanda. Emma would be safe with me.

“I have no idea where I’m going,” I said with a casual shrug and began walking again.

“Don’t worry,” she replied. “I’ll take care of you.”

I chuckled at the irony.

“I’ll have you know, I placed at the national level in archery for my age two years running before I stopped competing. John used to say I could shoot an arrow before I could hold spoon.”

I held my hands up and smiled. “I get it. You’re a bad ass with a bow. Where’s your weapon?”

Emma scratched her temple and laughed. “You got me. I’ll just have to use brute force.”

“Why did you stop competing?”

“It didn’t seem so important when my brother started acting weird.”

“Weird in what way?” I asked.

She wrinkled her nose and pursed her lips as though smelling something foul. “Like I said earlier, he was staying up north and wouldn’t take my calls. I found out he’d taken up sword training again—”

“Sword training?” I cut in before she could continue.

“Your eyes got huge just then.” She dropped her hand, and I made an effort to control my surprised expression.

“I don’t like swords much. What’s with all the old world weapons? Are the British expecting an invasion?”

“Old family tradition. So, your turn,” Emma said matter-of-factly.

“Excuse me?”

“Isn’t that what we’re doing here? You show me yours, and I show you mine.”

I did a double take and snorted a laugh at this pocket-sized girl’s audacity. Her expression of innocence didn’t even flinch. As much as I hated the idea, I accepted she would eventually learn the whole truth now that John’s memories had been restored. He’d already said too much in front of her—not to mention my woeful choice of words—and now she wouldn’t give up. First, I needed some answers.

“How old are you, Emma?”

“I’m almost seventeen.” She hesitated a moment. “I’m guessing not much younger than you.”

“I’m almost twenty,” I said and laughed because the “almost” seemed crucial all of a sudden, like a kid adding the half year onto their age.

“And you’re married, right? That girl—Amanda.”

I nodded. Her mouth wrinkled up and distorted off to the side as she considered the information. What made perfect sense to Amanda and me didn’t necessarily appear rational to others. We saw no point in waiting to marry.

The area was mostly residential, many of the houses similar to John’s. By the number of doorbells and intercoms, I presumed a number of them were divided into apartments.

“Your brother has quite the stuffed wallet.” It was more an observational prompt than a question.

“It was our parents’ money, and it’ll be mine too, or it will be at eighteen. Johnny had a—” she hummed and sighed, groping for the correct word “—difficult relationship with our dad. When our folks died—”

“A car accident,” I interjected.

Her head gave a quick bob in affirmation.

“Ours too,” I said, although it wasn’t an accident. It was an assassination. Emma didn’t need to know that. She needed to trust me and believe we had common ground.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered sadly.

“Me too…for your parents, I mean.”

“Anyway,” she continued, “John wanted to do things his own way. He’s smart, really smart, but he didn’t want to be one of those guys who fell back on Daddy’s money. He wanted to prove something to himself. Once he did that, he got over his aversion to family money.”

“Why would he keep the extent of his wealth a secret?”

“He must have had a reason.”

I scraped my fingers across my scalp, wondering what it might be.

We had reached the park, and I followed Emma in relative silence through a shaded walkway past sports fields and budding flower beds. A building with arched walls housed a gallery and coffee shop where staff were closing up for the day. Along the promenade, I studied the colorful murals depicting the area in Victorian times. There was a deep sense of history in the area. Triona must have loved London in her time here. Our parents had met in this city when they were teenagers. It bothered me I had no idea where. Maybe it happened in this park.

Eventually flowerbeds and brick gave way to denser wooded areas speckled with small areas of grass and hidden patches of flowers just waiting for a hint of spring to burst into color. Here and there, some had grown tired of waiting, and flashes of purple, white, and yellow peeped through the green.

I sent a text to Amanda, telling her Emma was with me and we’d be back soon. I didn’t want her to worry.

“The park will be closing soon,” Emma said once I put my phone away.

“And you want answers too?”

Emma sucked in a deep breath and released a nervous chuckle. She ran a finger under her eye, smudging black makeup to the side. “I’m not so sure I want them. I need them. I’ll drive myself crazy otherwise.” She walked a straight line beside me, heel to toe.

We passed fewer people here, but I lowered my voice regardless. “Do you believe in magic?”

Her eyes widened. “Do you mean Vegas magic or Dungeons & Dragons magic?”

I arched an eyebrow.

“I’m with John Lennon on this one.”

“John Lennon?”

“The Beatles,” she exclaimed, aghast and shook her head dismissively. “Americans…”

“I know who the Beatles are. I didn’t realize they were magicians too.” I grimaced and bumped her shoulder, earning a smile.

She was teasing. “In answer to your question, I believe everything exists until it’s disproved.”

I rubbed the back of my neck, easing the knotted muscle there because I wasn’t sure why I wanted to tell the truth. It flew straight in the face of keeping her out of this. I compromised by telling myself I wouldn’t share everything. “Way back in time, the world consisted of two types of beings living in symbiosis, humans and magical beings called Guardians. They lived in a place legend now refers to as Atlantis.”

I waited for a reaction. Emma hardly twitched. Her eyes stayed trained on her feet, and her red lips crushed together tightly, so I went on.

“Time passed, and the Guardians left to explore the world. Guardians live for centuries so when they returned generations later, humans took them for invaders. A war ensued, and the human civilization rose while they drove Guardians underground. The Guardians were called Tuatha Dé Danann—”

“I’ve read about this,” she cut in. “You’re talking about Ireland.”

My mouth opened, but words failed me for a moment. I knew nothing about my real heritage before last summer, but it seemed Emma had read up on European legends. That would make this considerably easier.

“Yeah,” she rambled on, walking a few paces ahead of me. “They possessed a spear, a sword, a cauldron, and a stone.” She stopped and bit her lip, counting something off on her fingers, then began walking again. “Lia Fáil. They lived in the underworld and began stories of the Fae and banshees and leprechauns.”

“They were never leprechauns,” I corrected her.

We both halted mid-step. The surrounding trees in the secluded area dampened the sounds of the city and daylight faded quickly. Emma met my eyes, her false eyelashes fluttering like butterfly wings. I noted how they looked deeper into me now. Her inquisitiveness had multiplied tenfold.

“We…” I experimented with the word tentatively. “We were driven to live in secret, forbidden to mate with humans. Those exposed were often hunted down and killed.” I broke off speaking and measured her steady heartbeat and constant breathing. If her direct gaze didn’t tell me otherwise, I might have sworn she wasn’t listening to me at all.

“You’re talking about Ireland,” she mused aloud. “My brother went to Ireland last year.”

“Our father was human, but Triona and I also carry the royal bloodline of the Guardians, straight from Dagda. Triona took your brother’s memories because he knew things he didn’t want to know.”

“Why give them back?” she asked with interest, devoid of accusation.

“Triona’s soul mate is missing. She believed John might be in danger too. When she saw him, she knew something had gone wrong.”

“So she came back to protect him?”

I nodded.

Emma rolled her neck back and stared up at the darkening sky, breathing deeply. The action echoed John’s earlier physical reaction, and I saw the similarity between them for the first time. She looked back at me and opened her mouth to speak. Her lips slapped shut, and she turned away, walking in a small circle, heel to toe. I began to recognize this as a habit.

“I’m attempting to disprove,” she murmured to herself in a voice choked with uncertainty. “Lennon was right—believe.”

I closed my eyes and pressed my thumb and forefinger against them, rubbing hard. No more than seconds had elapsed when my eyes flashed open to a shuffle of movement and a terse scream. Emma flew toward me, knocking me backward over bench. We landed in a heap on muddy ground.

I pushed her off carefully and crawled to my knees, at once alert to the warm, slick liquid on my hand and the sound of crashing metal.

I blinked once and then a few more times for good measure, staring at the three figures fighting in the small open space on the other side of the bench. I scrambled backward, tugging Emma with me. She weighed nothing in my arms. Shock had drained the fight from her.

This could not be real. Who was the woman battling with the two men? Where did they come from? She had Claíomh Solais—the Sword of Light—and that couldn’t be good. At Tara, Zeal had turned the sword on Amanda before Triona had burned it to ash. Against any rational explanation, the long broad sword radiated light, blinding me with each wide sweep through the air. No other weapon would ever strike such fear in my heart because of what it almost cost me. My stomach revolted, and I twisted, emptying the contents on the ground at the memory of the same blade piercing Amanda’s chest. Acid burned my throat, and the instinct to flee set in with a vengeance.

“Stay down,” the woman roared. “Protect the girl.” She had to be a Guardian. She moved with the grace of a dancer, using phenomenal strength to lunge and thrust the heavy sword through the air. She ducked and weaved away from her attackers as if she knew their next move before they did. It was mesmerizing.

Her long brown hair whipped behind her at each turn, her muscles flexing and cording with each powerful swipe of the blade. The woman spun again, going low to miss a blow from a sword carried by one of the heavyset men.

The men could have passed for twins, identical in size and black clothing, with shaved heads and sharp square jaws. They would have been handsome too, if their faces weren’t twisted in rage. She twirled to a split stance, driving the sword home with a grunt to slice across one man’s torso. The woman pulled back with a jerk and an expression of intense resolve. Her jaw locked tightly, and her eyes flashed with cool malice as she vaulted headfirst and glided through the air. The sword descended and cut the other man’s throat like a warm knife passing through butter.

The enemy of my enemy is my friend
, I told myself, knowing that was complete bullshit. I had no idea what this woman wanted. Perhaps she was just getting them out of the way so she could finish us off herself.

I looked down at Emma. She gripped her upper arm where four neat slashes through her jacket and the sleeve of her turtleneck exposed open wounds. They didn’t appear deep from what I saw, but blood soaked through the fabric. I fixed her hand securely over the wound.

“Keep pressure on it,” I instructed.

She nodded with wide eyes darting beyond the bench. It had been a sucker shot, but I couldn’t figure out how the guy had gotten close enough to take it. I closed my eyes for a second. He must have been watching us, waiting for an opening. I was too distracted to notice him.

“Hold on,” I told Emma. The hairs on the back of my neck prickled.