Blade Dance

Ann was scared. Heart-pounding, gut-churning scared. The Fae who could only be Davin’s father, Sean, had tossed her into the van like a rag doll. He’d wrenched her arms behind her back and bound her wrists, then thrust a gag into her mouth before she’d even had a chance to scream. His speed and strength had been terrifying—and decidedly inhuman. There was another Fae driving whom she thought she recognized from her visit to Finn’s old house so many months ago. And with them was Nancy McTeer, who alternately sobbed for her missing child and screamed abuse at Ann.

Sean ripped the gag out of her mouth. “Where is my son?” he snarled. He had the face of a handsome young scholar or cleric—almost pretty—so at odds with his dress and demeanor. He wore a skin-tight cotton shirt with long sleeves that picked out every muscle in his chest and frayed blue jeans of the same expensive indigo denim as his girlfriend’s. There were sheath knives strapped to his biceps and thighs and a leaf-bladed sword across his back.

“I don’t know,” said Ann. “He didn’t come to school today.”

The Fae at the wheel turned and said, “She’s lying.”

“How can she lie when a Fae questions her, Patrick?” asked Nancy.

“She visited the house a few months ago,” said Patrick. “Finn was fascinated with her because his voice didn’t work on her. He thought she might be a thin-blood or something.”

That was news to Ann, and unwelcome news, because if they believed she was lying to them . . .

Sean smiled slowly. It wasn’t a nice expression, despite his pretty face. “I’ll just have to beat it out of her, then.”

“Finn won’t like that,” warned Patrick.

“Finn would do the same if it were his own son in the mix,” Sean shot back.

“He would,” agreed Patrick. “Yes, he would. But he wants the girl, so I doubt he’ll appreciate you rearranging her lovely face.”

Ann felt light-headed and cold. The van turned a corner, throwing her against one wall and knocking her nearly senseless. A second later it lurched to a halt. Patrick killed the motor.

“Finn is one Fae,” said Sean, smiling again. “The Fianna follow him at their will and pleasure. They won’t back him against me in this, and he’s only a single blade against the two of us.”

“His son is a sorcerer,” said Patrick.

“His son is more interested in fucking Miach’s pretty granddaughter than casting wards for the Fianna. He’s not likely to put himself out to help his old dad protect some ginger slut.”

“Maybe not,” conceded Patrick. “But he’s summoned the Penitent to Boston.”

Sean’s eyes turned hard. “Then I guess we’d best break the bitch, fast.”

They reached for her and she screamed, but as they dragged her out of the van, she saw why the Fae didn’t bother to silence her. They were in a desolate neighborhood of shuttered warehouses hard by the water, with nary a soul in sight. The lights of Boston twinkled across the water, too far away for anyone to hear or help her.

She screamed anyway, until Sean struck her a blow across the face that left her momentarily stunned. A taste, she realized with growing terror, of what was to come.

Inside, the warehouse was stuffed with flat cardboard boxes, row upon row, stacked to the ceiling, muffling sound. Patrick flipped a single bank of fluorescents on as Sean threw Ann to the ground beneath the flickering lights.

“Where is my son?” barked Sean.

He didn’t wait for her to answer. He struck her another blow across the face, and this time Ann tasted the hot, coppery bloom of blood. And all the years she had spent practicing calm and avoiding conflict came back to bite her on the ass. Her anger didn’t rise. She felt weak and small and she hated that.

“I don’t know,” she said. Her lips were numb and her jaw ached, but she spoke anyway. “I told your wife—I told Nancy. I promised Finn that I wouldn’t call child services. I haven’t seen Davin at all since he left school yesterday.”

Sean shook his head. “You don’t understand, do you? I am going to hurt you. And I am going to keep on hurting you until you give me my son.”

She’d always been tough. Skinned knees and banged elbows had never slowed her down as a child. If Sean had gone on beating her in silence, she might have gone on taking it, but his words fanned the sleeping coals of her anger. His assumption, that he had the right to hurt others to get what he wanted, that no one would stop him, snapped something fragile inside Ann. “I don’t know where he is,” she snarled.

It was like a dog warning an abusive owner to back off. She was showing her teeth. Fool that he was, he didn’t see them.

Sean struck her again, knocking her to the ground. She heard a buzzing in her ears. Horrible, maddening. It grew louder, instead of quieter, as she got back to her feet, and in that moment she remembered that this was what it always felt like right before—

Finn allowed Iobáth through the door first. He didn’t entirely like it, but Iobáth had the best sword arm, and Garrett would otherwise be all the more vulnerable if the Druid was present and he needed to cast a silence. Finn himself followed closely.

There was no Druid in the warehouse, thank Dana, only Patrick and Nancy watching Sean Silver Blade, who was standing over Ann. Ann was crouched on the ground, her red hair a tangled veil covering her face.

“Get away from the girl,” snarled Finn. He had planned a more diplomatic salvo but could not keep the concern, the anger, pent any longer.

Sean didn’t bother to turn. He just shook his head and swung.

His fist connected with Ann’s jaw, knocking the young teacher to her knees.

Finn darted forward and seized Sean’s curled fist before he could strike another blow. “The girl is mine,” he said.

“This bitch stole my son,” Sean screamed. He rammed an elbow into Finn’s stomach and broke free, raising his fist to hit Ann again.

And lovely, brave fool that she was, Ann was already back on her feet. She pushed the hair out of her face. When Finn saw her eyes, he froze. They were glowing red.

Finn stepped back. She had never looked more beautiful. It took his breath away. And cast him back two thousand years. He had not seen her kind since . . . before the fall.

He knew, then, that she didn’t need him to defend her now.

Sean didn’t see it yet. He was looking straight at her, but he didn’t see her eyes. Or maybe he saw, but it had been so long since any Fae had encountered one of her kind that he didn’t truly understand.

Finn both saw and understood. He removed his hand from Sean’s shoulder and took another step back.

Ann Phillips—or the power inside her, ancient and magical—gave a tinkling, silvery laugh and sprang.

She knocked Sean clear off his feet and smashed the flat of her small hand into his face. She took hold of his right arm and wrenched it up and to the side with a pop and a crunch that announced that Garrett’s services would be required tonight after all. Not for a charm of silence but because soon joints would need to be returned to sockets and broken bones would need to be mended.

Ann tilted her head slightly, surveying the room like a dancer searching for a new partner. Her eyes, glowing red like coals, lighted for an instant on Patrick. She only sneered and continued scanning the room for prey. Her gaze fell on Iobáth and lingered. A worthy adversary, but the Penitent was not the Fae for her.

Finn MacUmhaill was.

He stepped into her line of vision.

She blinked at him, doe-eyed, cocked her head, and circled him, licking her lips.

“What the hell is going on?” asked Nancy McTeer, as Finn fell into step with Ann, partners in a dance.

“Get out,” Finn said to his friends and followers. Ann was his now, and his alone.

Patrick took hold of Sean and started dragging him away. Smart man.

“Are you sure?” Iobáth asked. “She has the blood, Finn. I can see it in her eyes. A match for many of us Fae, if she’s been trained.”

“I know,” said Finn. “But I don’t think they train berserkers in the elementary schools.” At least he sincerely hoped not. He didn’t fancy a broken nose and dislocated shoulder, but they were risks he was willing to take to dance with a berserker. She was beautiful, splendid, with the power coursing through her. He’d wanted her when he’d thought she was just a human woman with a temper.

He burned for her now that he knew what she really was.

“I want my son,” slurred Sean, through what was more than likely a broken jaw.

“She doesn’t have your son,” said Finn. They were going to have to find the boy, as soon as Ann’s eyes returned to their normal color and they didn’t have the first berserker in two thousand years—angry and spoiling for a fight—on their hands.

“Pretty man,” rasped the creature Ann became when anger ruled her. She rolled the syllables over her tongue like honey, slow and sweet. “You think you can hurt me?”

The warehouse emptied out behind him.

“I know that I can’t,” said Finn, taking a step toward her, breaking the circle and taking their dance in a new direction. “That’s what makes it so much fun.”

She swung at him, and he twisted and dodged. She sprang toward him, and he braced himself, taking the impact and allowing it to carry him to the ground. Then he rolled with her, pinning her under him. She snarled and twisted. He expected the first kick . . . but failed to anticipate the second. She flipped them over so she was straddling him and, with her uncanny berserker strength, she pinned his hands above his head.

He hadn’t been so turned on in two thousand years. She twitched her hips and ground herself against him, sighing with pleasure, because berserkers lived entirely in the vexed space between sex and violence, thrived on it.

“My lovely, lovely Ann,” he said. “It’s my mouth you want beneath that swollen cunny, that I promise you.”

Her lips curled into an expression—almost a caricature—of carnal intent. Suiting actions with words, she replaced her hands on his wrists with her knees, keeping him pinned fast to the ground. He might struggle free, of course—perhaps—but he didn’t want to. She wrenched her little velvet pencil skirt up, revealing white cotton panties with a spreading bead of moisture dotting the gusset. She wrenched them aside and lowered her dainty pink center to his waiting mouth.

He flicked his tongue out to swipe her bud. She tasted honey sweet and lemon tart, and her little nub grew tauter, transmuting in arousal from flesh to iron. He flicked again, swiped and swiveled and picked up the pace when she began to growl and whimper.

Her movements were uninhibited. She was using him to get off. It was pure and selfish, and the most erotic thing he had ever experienced. She screamed once at her climax, then slid forward onto her elbows, spent.

Finn turned her over and pulled her into his lap. She looked up at him, her eyes now brown again and dazed, but indisputably oh-so-satisfied.

“My lovely, lovely Ann,” he said again. “Just what the hell are we going to do with you?”

—right before one of her fugue states. Only this time, the curtain didn’t fall over sight or sound or memory. She lived it. All of it. Breaking Sean’s nose and his arm. Sparring with Finn. Briefly. And then . . .

Oh god!

Everything had been heightened. Senses, needs, desires. Everything had been possible. Even what she wanted with Finn. What she had needed, and taken, from Finn.

And now he was holding her. The climax had shattered a tension in her that she hadn’t even been aware of. “What did I just do?” She ought to be ashamed and embarrassed. If past experience was anything to go by—although, frankly, all bets were off here—he was about to laugh at and belittle her.

“You, my lovely girl,” he said, combing through her hair with his fingers as though he could be happy doing that, and just that, all day. “Why, you just went berserk.”

“That’s not exactly news to me.”

“But I mean it quite literally. You’re a berserker. It’s what you are, what you do. Or at least it’s what your kind used to do. I haven’t encountered one of you in two thousand years. And even then, not at such . . . close . . . quarters.”

She didn’t like the sound of this at all. “Does that mean I’m some kind of Druid?” she asked. “The creatures you hunted and killed?”

Finn shook his head. “Not a Druid. No. Not that. Nor a Fae. You’re human enough. Almost. Well, not entirely. The gift of the berserker was present in the Fomoire, the strange people who were already in Ireland when the Fae arrived. The berserkers were fearsome Fomorian warriors with ingrained instincts to protect the weak, and hair-trigger tempers. In their berserk state, with a modicum of martial training, they’re the equal of any Fae. Since it was not a power present in our race, we tried to breed with berserkers and create a warrior class to complement the Druids. But the two groups despised each other. Your trace of Fae blood is why you are not swayed by my voice, and it is one of the reasons the Druids hated your kind. Indeed, when the Druids staged their revolt, they slaughtered the berserkers first.”

“All of them?” asked Ann.

“Well. Evidently not. Though your existence surprises me. We believed the Druids had, in fact, killed all the berserkers, down to babes in their cradles.”

It was too much. All of it. She didn’t want to be a berserker. She didn’t want to think about mass slaughter. And she didn’t want to think about what she had just done with this man. Creature. Fae.

“I want to go home,” she said. Away from all of this. A hot bath and a good meal and a night’s sleep, and she would wake up and this would all be forgotten. Wouldn’t it?

She climbed to her feet. The slickness between her legs was a tangible reminder of what she had just done with this Fae, with Finn. Her body ached in all kinds of places, and there were already bruises forming where she had been tumbled about in the van and manhandled by Sean.

The warehouse seemed suddenly cold now that she wasn’t in Finn MacUmhaill’s arms, and the urge to return to his embrace was strong. She fought it. She didn’t know if she really wanted to be part of this strange and frightening new world.

“You can’t go home yet,” he said. He rose in one smooth movement and reached out to touch her bruised cheek. “If we don’t do something about that eye, you’ll have a shiner in the morning.”

“I’ll put a bag of frozen peas on it,” she said.

“Peas will only take the swelling down. My son can heal the damage.”

“Is your son a doctor?”

“Better. He’s a sorcerer. He can make sure you don’t end up with a black eye tomorrow, which you might have a difficult time explaining at work.”

“Or to the police,” she replied evenly.

“You could charge Sean with kidnapping, but since he’s the one with a dislocated shoulder and a broken arm, it might not be such a clear-cut, straightforward case.”

“Oh my god,” she said. It was her worst nightmare. She’d hurt someone again. “I had it under control,” she said accusingly. “Before this. Before . . . before meeting you.”

He cocked his head and looked at her. “How, exactly, did you control your berserk state?”

“I learned exercises that helped me to manage my anger,” she said.

“You mean you learned tricks to suppress your birthright and abilities. Not how to call on your power when needed, like the moment Sean snatched you off the street. If you had control of your berserker, you could have summoned it to fight him off. You wouldn’t have needed any rescue.”

“Yes, but no one snatched me off the street before I met you.”

“That’s what I tried to tell you the other night. Our world is dangerous, Ann. But the other night I thought that you had a choice, that you could walk away from it and us. You can’t. I see that now, and so should you. That part of you that is Fae and berserk will always be with you, even if we—you and I—never cross paths again.”

“I want to go home,” she repeated.

“And I’ll take you. Just as soon as you let Garrett take a look at your cheek.”

She was in a decidedly unsavory neighborhood with a pack of criminals, so she didn’t have much choice. Ann followed Finn outside where the air blowing off the Charles was brisk and fresh. The strange Fae with the long white-blond hair and the broadsword was there, leaning against the hood of the van. The one they had called Patrick was slouched beside the warehouse door, looking nervous.

“Bring me my car,” Finn said to him.

“We have the van,” said Patrick.

“We are not driving Miss Phillips home in the van you used to abduct her. Bring me my car.”

Patrick had the good grace to look sheepish before he nodded and vanished into the earth. Ann supposed he had passed. She was just glad Finn hadn’t suggested taking her home that way.

The door to the van was rolled back and her kidnapper was sitting in the opening. Another, younger, Fae had a grip on Sean’s arm. The younger one made a short, sharp motion, and Ann heard Sean’s shoulder pop back into place.

“Now let’s see the wrist,” he said.

“No,” said Finn. “Set his bones in a splint. He can suffer while they mend.”

“I was within my rights,” said Sean. “The girl took my son.”

“I didn’t,” said Ann. “I haven’t seen him since the end of school yesterday.”

“You,” interjected Finn, looking right at Sean, “conspired with a Druid to work magic in my domain. Nothing you did from that moment was lawful because you were no longer a member of the Fianna.”

“The boy was going soft, encouraged by her,” said Sean. “He needed the ink, and your son refused because of your quarrel with him.”

“I would have refused anyway,” said the young Fae who had set his arm, who must be Garrett. But that couldn’t be right. Garrett couldn’t be Finn’s son. Finn looked barely thirty. Garrett was clearly in his twenties . . . Ann’s mind reeled even as the conversation went on around her.

“Your son was too young to have his destiny chosen for him,” Garrett continued to Sean. “I told you that. The marks you wanted would have forced him down one path in life, following the sword. Just because that was your choice doesn’t mean it will be his.”

“We need to find my boy,” said Nancy McTeer. “If child services doesn’t have him, then where could he be?”

The Fae with the long hair stepped forward and spoke. “The answer is obvious. The Druid has the child.”

Nancy McTeer screamed and collapsed. “This is your fault,” she wailed at Sean, pointing. “Your fault for having him marked.”

Ann had the feeling of having walked in on some family drama, the awkward guest at the dinner party when the secrets start to come out and the cutlery begins flying.

“It doesn’t matter whose fault it is,” said Finn. “We have to find the Druid and recover the child.”

“You’ll help us?” Sean asked, incredulous.

“For the boy’s sake, yes,” said Finn.

“Show me where you last saw the Druid,” the long-haired Fae with the sword said to Sean, “and I will track him.”

“Go with Iobáth,” Finn said, nodding. “Call me as soon as you find something.”

Sean, Nancy, and the long-haired Fae—Iobáth—departed. Ann sat in the van’s open door and allowed Garrett to examine her. He ran his hands down her arms and legs, over her rib cage and stomach, then up to her face. His palms felt strangely warm against her cheeks, and for a brief moment his touch stung. Then he stepped back and turned her face this way and that.

Ann noted how closely he resembled Finn. The same hair, the same eyes, the same feral chin balanced by high, wide cheekbones.

“You’ve got no broken bones or internal injuries,” he said. “And I’ve taken care of the bruises.”

“It won’t change how she feels the next time she walks down a street by herself,” said Finn pointedly.

“And how am I to blame for that?” asked Garrett. “For not tattooing Sean’s child?”

“No. You were right to refuse Sean,” said Finn. “But your wife knew, or suspected, what Ann was when she sent her to my house the first time.”

Another jarring piece of information for Ann to process. She had gone to Finn’s house that day because little Garrett MacUmhaill had missed over thirty days of school during his second-grade year. Nieve MacCecht, the child’s mother, had given Finn’s address as her residence. Wrongly, Ann had assumed that Finn was the boy’s father. Finn had corrected her, claiming that the child was his nephew, but that couldn’t be right either. Everything she had heard tonight indicated that little Garrett was in fact Finn’s grandchild.

She stood up and felt faint. She must have swayed, because before she knew it, Finn’s hands were on her shoulders steadying her, and he was looking into her eyes but talking to Garrett. “Are you sure about the internal injuries?”

“Yes,” said Garrett.

“I’m fine,” said Ann. “Just tired.”

“Hungry, probably, too,” said Finn. “Berserking takes a lot out of you.”

Now that she thought of it, she was hungry. And not for the cold cereal sitting on top of her refrigerator. “I’m starving,” she said.

“I’ll have dinner for us sent to your house,” said Finn.

“Takeout does sound good,” she said.

Her Fae rescuer whipped out a new smartphone, which confirmed her suspicions about Finn MacUmhaill’s relationship to modern technology. A few clicks and he seemed satisfied. There were only a few places that delivered to her end of Charlestown anyway, mostly pizzerias and Chinese restaurants, but Ann didn’t care what it was as long as it was hot.

She didn’t know much about cars. She had never owned one herself because Boston’s public transportation was so good and parking was so difficult to find, but even she could see that the little silver coupe that pulled up with Patrick at the wheel was a ruinously expensive model. Patrick left the motor running and the door open, and Finn slid smoothly behind the wheel while Patrick went round the other side and held the passenger side open for Ann.

Garrett followed them to the car, stood at the driver’s side window, and asked, “What about the Druid?”

“The Penitent will call when he runs him to ground,” said Finn.

Garrett nodded, but he didn’t step away, and Ann sensed that he was waiting for something. She leaned across the console and said, “Thank you. For treating my bruises. And for rescuing me.”

“You’re welcome,” said Garrett. “My son wishes he could do second grade over again just to be back in your classroom.”

“Mr. Feeny has that effect on people. Tell him third grade doesn’t last forever,” said Ann.

“You’re good with children,” he said, stepping away from the car. “That must come in handy with my father.”

Finn sighed. “Wait until your son is grown, Garrett. Fatherhood looks easy when it’s all seesaws and bicycles and swimming lessons. It gets harder when it’s alcohol, cars, and girls.” He rolled the window up and put the car in drive. They shot off down the narrow road hugging the water.