Morrigan's Cross - Circle Trilogy 1 Part 5

"You look as you did," Hoyt replied. "Yet not. It's more than the garb you wear, or the hair. You move differently."

"I'm not what I was, and that you should remember. Our senses are heightened, and become more so the longer we survive. Fire, like the sun, will destroy us. Holy water, if it's been faithfully blessed, will burn us, as will the symbol of the cross, if held in faith. We are repelled by the symbol."

Crosses, Hoyt thought. Morrigan had given him crosses. Part of the weight eased from his shoulders.

"Metal is fairly useless," Cian continued, "unless you manage to cut off our heads. That would do the trick. But otherwise... "

He rose again, walked over and picked up Hoyt's dagger. He flipped it in the air, caught the hilt neatly, then plunged the blade into his chest. Blood seeped out on the white of Cian's s.h.i.+rt even as Hoyt lunged to his feet.

"Forgot how much that hurts." Wincing, Cian yanked the blade free. "That's what I get for showing off. Do the same with wood, and we're dust. But it must pierce the heart. Our end is agonizing, or so I'm told."

He took out a handkerchief, wiped the blade clean. Then he pulled off his s.h.i.+rt. The wound was already closing. "We've died once, and aren't easily dispatched a second time. And we'll fight viciously anyone who tries. Lilith is the oldest I've ever known. She'll fight more brutally than any."

He paused, brooded into his wine. "Your mother. How did you leave her?"

"Heartbroken. You were her favorite."

Hoyt moved his shoulders as Cian looked up into his face. "We both know it. She asked me to try, to find a way. In her first grief, she could think of nothing else."

"I believe even your sorcery stops short of raising the dead. Or undead."

"I went to your grave that night, to ask the G.o.ds to give her heart some peace. I found you, covered with dirt."

"Clawing out of the grave's a messy business." "You were devouring a rabbit."

"Probably the best I could find. Can't say I recall. The first hours after the Wakening are disjointed. There's only hunger."

"You ran from me. I saw what you were-there had been rumors of such things before-and you ran. I went to the cliffs the night I saw you again, at our mother's behest.

She begged me to find a way to break the spell."

"It's not a spell."

"I thought, hoped, if I destroyed the thing that made you... Or failing that, I would kill what you'd become."

"And did neither," Cian reminded him.

"Which shows you what you're up against. I was fresh and barely knew what I was or what I was capable of. Believe me, she'll have cannier on her side."

"Will I have yours on mine?"

"You haven't a prayer of winning this."

"You underestimate me. I have a great deal more than one prayer. Whether a year has pa.s.sed or a millennium, you are my brother. My twin. My blood. You said yourself, it's blood, first and last."

Cian ran a finger down his wine gla.s.s.

"I'll go with you." Then held that finger up before Hoyt could speak. "Because I'm curious, and a bit bored. I've been in this place for more than ten years now, so it's nearly time to move on in any case. I promise you nothing. Don't depend on me, Hoyt. I'll please myself first."

"You can't hunt humans."

"Orders already?" Cian's lips curved slightly. "Typical. As I said, I please myself first. It happens I haven't fed on human blood for eight hundred years. Well, seven hundred and fifty as there was some backsliding."

"Why?"

"To prove that I could resist. And because it's another way to survive-and well-in the world of humans, with their laws. If they're prey, it's impossible to look at them as anything more than a meal. Makes it awkward to do business. And death tends to leave a trail.

Dawn's coming."

Distracted, Hoyt glanced around the windowless room. "How do you know?"

"I feel it. And I'm tired of questions.

You'll have to stay with me, for now. You can't be trusted to go walking about the city. We may not be identical, but you look too much like me.

And those clothes have to go."

"You expect me to wear-what are those?" "They're called pants," Cian said dryly and moved across the room to a private elevator.

"I keep an apartment here, it's simpler."

"You'll pack what you need, and we'll go."

"I don't travel by day, and I don't take orders. I give them now, and have for some time. I have a number of things to see to before I can leave. You need to step in here."

"What is it?" Hoyt poked at the elevator walls with his staff.

"A mode of transportation. It'll take us up to my apartment."

"How?"

Cian finally dragged a hand through his hair. "Look, I've books up there, and other educational matter. You can spend the next few hours boning up on twenty-first-century culture, fas.h.i.+on and technology."

"What is technology?"

Cian pulled his brother inside, pushed the b.u.t.ton for the next floor. "It's another G.o.d."

This world, this time, was full of wonder.

Hoyt wished he had time to learn it all, absorb it. There were no torches to light the room but instead something Cian called electricity. Food was kept in a box as tall as a man that kept it cold and fresh, and yet another box was used to warm and cook it. Water spilled out of a wand and into a bowl where it drained away again.

The house where Cian lived was built high up in the city, and such a city! The glimpse Morrigan had given him had been nothing compared to what he could see through the gla.s.s wall of Cian's quarters.

Hoyt thought even the G.o.ds would be stunned by the size and scope of this New York.

He wanted to look out at it again, but Cian had demanded his oath that he would keep the gla.s.s walls covered, and he would not venture out of the house.

Apartment, Hoyt corrected. Cian had called it an apartment.

He had books, so many books, and the magic box Cian had called a television. Indeed the visions inside it were many, of people and places, of things, of animals. And though he spent only an hour playing with it, he grew weary of its constant chatter.

So he surrounded himself with books and read, and read until his eyes burned and his head was too full for more words or images.

He fell asleep on what Cian had called a sofa, surrounded by books. He dreamed of the witch, and saw her in a circle of light. She wore nothing but the pendant, and her skin glowed milk-pale in the candlelight.

Her beauty simply flamed.

She held a ball of crystal aloft in both hands. He could hear the whisper of her voice, but not the words. Still, he knew it was an incantation, could feel the power of it, of her across the dream. And he knew she was seeking him out.

Even in sleep he felt the pull of her, and that same impatience he'd sensed from her within his circle, within his own time.

It seemed for an instant that their eyes met across the mists. And it was desire that pierced through him as much as power. In that instant, her lips curved, opened, as if she would speak to him.

"What the h.e.l.l is that getup?"

He came awake and found himself staring up into the face of a giant. The creature was tall as a tree, and every bit as thick. He had a face even a mother would weep over, black as a moor and scarred at the cheek, and surrounded by knotted hanks of hair.

He had one black eye and one gray. Both narrowed as he bared strong white teeth.

"You're not Cain." Before Hoyt could react, he was hauled up by the scruff of the neck where he was shaken like a mouse by a very large, angry cat.

"Put him down, King, before he turns you into a small white man."

Cian strolled out of his bedroom, and continued lazily into the kitchen.

"How come he's got your face?"

"He's got his own," Cian retorted. "We don't look that much alike if you pay attention.

He used to be my brother."

"That so? Son of a b.i.t.c.h." King dropped Hoyt unceremoniously back on the sofa. "How the h.e.l.l did he get here?"

"Sorcery." As he spoke, Cian removed a clear packet of blood from a locked cold box.

"G.o.ds and battles, end of the world, blah blah."

King looked down at Hoyt with a grin.

"I'll be d.a.m.ned. I always thought half of that c.r.a.p you told me was, well, c.r.a.p. He's not much for conversation before he's had his evening fix," he said to Hoyt. "You got a name, brother?"

"I am Hoyt of the Mac Cionaoith. And you will not lay hands on me again."

"That's a mouthful." "Is he like you?" both Hoyt and King demanded in unison.

Wearily Cian poured the blood in a tall, thick gla.s.s, then set it in the microwave. "No, to both. King manages my club, the one downstairs. He's a friend."

Hoyt's lips peeled back in disgust. "Your human servant."

"I ain't n.o.body's servant."

"You've been reading." Cian took out the gla.s.s and drank. "Some vampires of rank have human servants. I prefer employees. Hoyt's come to enlist me in the army he hopes to raise to fight the big evil."

"The IRS?"

In better humor, Cian grinned. Hoyt saw something pa.s.s between them, something that had once only pa.s.sed between himself and his brother.

"If only. No, I told you I've heard rumblings. Apparently for a reason. According to the gossip of the G.o.ds, Lilith of the Vampires is ama.s.sing her own army and plans to destroy humanity, take over the worlds. War, pestilence, plague."

"You can jest?" Hoyt said in barely suppressed fury. "Christ Jesus, Hoyt, we're talking about vampire armies and time travel. b.l.o.o.d.y right I can joke about it. Going with you is likely to kill me."

"Where are you going?"

Cian shrugged at King. "Back to my past, I suppose, to act in an advisory capacity, at least, for General Sobriety there."

"I don't know if we're to go back, or forward, or to the side." Hoyt shoved books over the table. "But we will go back to Ireland. We will be told where we travel next."

"Got a beer?" King asked.

Cian opened the refrigerator, took out a bottle of Harp and tossed it.

"So when do we leave?" King twisted off the cap, took a long slug.

"You don't. I told you before, when it was time for me to leave, I'll give you controlling interest in the club. Apparently, that time's come."

King simply turned to Hoyt. "You raising an army, General?"

"Hoyt. I am, yes."

"You just got your first recruit." "Stop." Cian strode around the counter that separated the kitchen. "This isn't for you.

You don't know anything about this."

"I know about you," King returned. "I know I like a good fight, and I haven't had one in a while. You're talking major battle, good against evil. I like to pick my side from the get."

"If he's a king, why should he take orders from you?" Hoyt put in, and the black giant laughed so hard and long, he had to sit on the sofa.

"Gotcha."

"Misplaced loyalty will get you killed."

"My choice, brother." King tipped the bottle toward Cian. Once again, something silent and strong pa.s.sed between them with no more than a look. "And I don't figure my loyalty's misplaced."

"Hoyt, go somewhere else." Cian jerked a thumb toward his bedroom. "Go in there. I want a word in private with this idiot."

He cared, Hoyt thought as he obliged.