An Immortal Descent (7 page)

Her mouth pursed in worry. “You’re going now because there’s no telling when we’ll have another opportunity. I’m no longer tied to the spring to renew my power, and only cross when I need time away from the human world.”

“But—”

“We need you at full strength, Selah, as much for yourself as for everyone else involved. Consider the consequences if one of us fell sick or were mortally wounded, and you lacked the adequate power to fuel your gift?”

Any further arguments died on my tongue. Under such a scenario, there would be no choice but to rob my soul to feed another. I had done that once before, and nearly died in the process.

Biting my lower lip, I took Julian’s hands. His skin felt cold and clammy, and he offered no response at the pressure of my fingers around his. I looked at Justine, panicked. “I don’t know what to do.”

“You’ll be fine, Selah. Just keep hold of his hands no matter what.”

I bobbed my head in a frantic nod and tightened my grip.

“We should be far enough away from London by now, but just in case, stay out of sight until you’re sure no one else is there. Cate knows I have the stone and that your power is low, so if you do get pulled through All Hallows, there’s a good possibility she’ll be waiting to pounce the moment you show yourself.”

Smoke stung my eyes. “What can she do to me?” I was a grown woman after all, and had every right to run away on a dangerous quest if I wanted to.

“I’m not sure exactly, but I wouldn’t be surprised if she knew a way to trap your spirit in the Otherworld long enough to reach Bristol to claim your body.”

Well, that would be a cheap trick indeed.

Julian groaned again, and Justine struggled to keep him aright.

“It’s time to go,” she said. “Recite the words, and then pray to God that the stone pulls you to Wales or Ireland.”

Anxiety thumped in my chest as habit moved my lips.
Brigid Buadach
,
Buaid na fine
,
Siur Rig nime
,
Nar in duine
,
Eslind luige
,
Lethan breo. Riar na n-oiged
,
Oibel ecnai
,
Ingen Dubthaig
,
Duine uallach
,
Brigid buadach
,
Brigid buadach.

Twice more, I raced over the Gaelic words. The room began to waver in and out of view, and for the first time in my life, I dreaded what may be waiting on the other side.

Chapter Five

The Weight of a Soul

Darkness came first, so complete I didn’t know whether my eyes were opened or closed. Nothing moved. Silence flooded my ears. Distance lost its meaning, and for all I knew, we could have been standing in something the size of a cupboard. Or in the limitless regions that existed between the worlds. Even time seemed to stop. I flexed my fingers, realizing the feel of Julian’s hands was my last hold on reality, the one reason I knew I still existed beyond my own mind.

Where are we?

It had to be the pathway. And from what Justine said earlier, it must now be reaching out to either the nearest or the strongest sidhe.

Please not London... Please not London...

The darkness quivered. Even blind, I knew the space had just taken form, similar to a tunnel. Then a breath of air grabbed us, pulled us forward into what felt like a giant yawn. Light flashed, illuminating a stone altar. It looked familiar though somewhat hazy, and the usual rectangular lines stretched to strange proportions. I blinked again, and it was gone, vanishing just as quickly as it had first appeared.

The darkness returned, and Brigid’s fire ignited like a torch in my center. No longer bound by my physical body, my soul moved toward the Otherworld, drawn home to the place of its birth. I submitted, expecting at any moment to be enveloped in the garden’s protective mist, when my arms snapped taut as though tethered to an anchor. My grip faltered, and I scrabbled to keep a hold of Julian.

“Don’t let go!” Justine’s frantic voice echoed, thin and far away.

I squinted at the dim light that flickered deep inside Julian, just enough to give a shadowy outline to his form. His head hung forward. His bare feet dangled in midair. In truth, he looked no more than a specter, and a greatly diminished one at that.

Understanding came quickly. Having traversed the pathway, he now lacked the power to cross over. The Otherworld continued to beckon, pulling against Julian’s dead weight, and I was soon caught in a contest between the two.

Ballocks!
Justine had told me not to let go, but that presupposed I had a choice. What would happen if my grip failed? Would Julian return to his body at the inn, or be stuck here between the worlds? This last thought terrified me most, of Julian drifting aimlessly in the darkness like a rudderless ship.

The Otherworld grew more persistent, and my hands started to slip.

“Help him!” Justine cried.

In a fit of panic, I sent a burst of fire straight into Julian. He jerked, and I clenched my hands tighter around his. The light momentarily grew stronger inside him, followed by the slightest movement. Sending another burst, I pulled for all I was worth. This time the Otherworld grabbed hold, propelling us forward. The darkness shifted to a familiar mist. Relief flashed through me, intense and short-lived as my feet touched the ground a split second before I found myself yanked off balance.

A sudden impact jarred my teeth together. The mist settled over me like a thick blanket, playing havoc with my senses. Disoriented, I stayed absolutely still except for the unsteady breaths that passed through my nose. Dirt scratched at my bare legs and feet, while something just as solid yet infinitely softer pressed against my cheek. With a tentative hand, I started to pat the area around me, freezing the moment my fingers curled around well-formed biceps.

A gasp hit the back of my throat. I had landed atop Julian, who was sprawled on his back, apparently unaware of his part in breaking my fall. The whole of my torso rested on his, and under different circumstances I would have given more thought to the close contact, and how we were separated by nothing more than two thin pieces of linen.

I lifted my face from his chest and strained my ears for any hint of sound. A full minute must have passed before I glanced back at Julian. The mist clouded his face, but from such a close distance I could see that his eyes were closed.

“Julian,” I whispered.

He didn’t respond.

“Julian!” The whisper turned to a frantic hiss.

Nothing.

I shook his shoulder to no avail. The man was dead to the world.

Bugger.
Scooting off him, I stood and moved the few steps to where the grass began. Life seeped into my feet, vibrant yet significantly older than the garden linked to my home in the Colonies. The very air throbbed with ancient power, just like the garden at All Hallows.

My thoughts spun to Cate, and it took every bit of control not to run.
Julian will never make it back
,
I reminded myself. And Justine would be well put out if I just left him here in the mist.

With a slow breath, I forced myself to consider the facts. The garden may have felt like the one I had recently visited, but that alone did not make it the same. To be sure, most of the sidhes in England and Ireland would have a similar feel, as they were opened centuries, if not millennia ago. At more than one hundred miles from London, chances were we had linked through Wales, or been pulled across the Irish Sea.

The notion calmed me somewhat. Steeling my nerves, I dug my toes into the ground and leaned forward to see past the mist. Trees and flowering plants came into view along the garden’s edge. Thick grass carpeted the interior, and a cloudless sky stretched overhead. Brigid’s fire pulsed through it all, rendering the colors more vivid and the scents richer than anything I had ever experienced in the mortal world.

A small spring gurgled near the center, with a silver cup nestled on its grassy bank. Sunlight dappled the surface, reflecting from the one source that could restore Julian, so long as I could get him to drink.

Narrowing my eyes, I did a slow survey of the perimeter for any signs of life or flash of white amongst the vegetation. I even closed my eyes to better listen for the smallest noise. Everything appeared as it should, at the peak of life and entirely void of other goddess born. Satisfied, I turned to retrace the few steps, dreading the prospect of dragging Julian all the way to the spring.

The mist immediately thickened, and I moved with extra caution so as not to trip over him. One delicate step followed another, and then another when the toes of one foot snagged on what felt like Julian’s shoulder. Raising my sheath to mid-thigh, I squatted behind him and patted blindly around in search of his armpits to secure a hold. Using my legs for leverage, I hoisted his upper body off the ground and stepped backward, heaving him with me.

We made it all of ten steps before my arms gave out. With a grunt, I sank to the grass, catching Julian’s head in my lap at the last second. Dark curls fell across my face in a disheveled mess. I tossed them back and wiped an arm across my forehead, rather amazed by the thin layer of sweat when my physical body was untold miles away in Bristol.

Glancing behind me, I cursed at the distance that remained to the spring. Stripped of his body, Julian should have been light as air. So why did it feel like I’d been hauling a sack of bricks around? My current form could have had some bearing, being spirit as well. Or had my physical expectations somehow joined me in the Otherworld?

I looked back at Julian to find his olive coloring leached away. “We’re almost there,” I murmured, brushing the hair from his eyes.

My hand froze as I stared unblinking at the raven black strands that fanned out against my skin. Grappling for a reason—any reason—to explain the darker color, my eyes popped when the lines of his face began to waver, the forehead broadening and his jaw becoming misshapen.

A startled cry broke from me. The face belonged to Julian, and yet not. He appeared a distortion of himself, sapped of strength and unable to hold even his spirit together.

Shoving my cape beneath his head, I jumped to my feet and raced to the spring before he wavered to the point of disappearing. Water sloshed over the edge of the silver cup in my haste back, soaking my hands by the time I knelt next to Julian and lifted his head up. His lips were already parted, and I tilted the cup to bring a small trickle of water to his mouth.

It dribbled out, spilling from the corners and over his bottom lip.

Oh, no, no, no...

Panic welled up inside me.
I tipped the cup once more, and a scream gathered in my throat when the water dribbled out. In a matter of seconds, the remaining color left his skin, reminding me all too much of a corpse.

“Come on, Julian. Don’t be so stubborn.”

I stared at him so hard my eyes hurt. Nothing happened, despite my hope that a few drops had found a way to his core. Desperation took hold, and my fingers twitched to be of use, though my gift was intended to heal physical bodies, not fill depleted souls. But it had worked in the passageway between, surely it would be enough to help him swallow.

Fire flooded my hands, enough to create a small inferno that would have shaken his world if he were conscious. “Hold on...”

His lips twitched, the movement so slight it could have been a trick of the imagination. Then they twitched again, and the fire receded unused as I lifted the cup to his mouth. This time only about half of the water ran down his chin as the other half went to the back of his throat. I repeated the process over and over until the cup was empty.

Setting it aside, I cradled his head in my lap. “Come back, Julian.” The words sounded a cross between a plea and a demand.

Long seconds passed before the color began to creep into his cheeks, infusing the olive skin with reddish tones.

Oh, thank heavens.

Stirring, Julian pulled in a deep breath. Then his eyes cracked open, and he stared at me in obvious confusion.

“Selah?” he said tentatively.

“Yes, Julian. It’s me.” I tucked a lock of hair behind his ear, heartened to see that it had lightened the few shades to its original dark brown.

His gaze moved beyond me to a cluster of trees laden with a crimson fruit unknown to the mortal world. “Are we in the Otherworld?”

“You don’t remember crossing over?”

He frowned. “My last memory is being helped up some stairs at the tavern. Where did you find an altar?”

“Miss Rose brought some sort of stone that allowed us to link to a passageway from Bristol. I’ve no idea where we came through, just that I almost lost you in between.”

He raised a brow in question.

“Your spirit stopped moving, and I had to fight the Otherworld not to let go.”

Understanding filled his face. “Yet you held on even after everything I did to you.”

I cupped his cheek, overwhelmed by how close I had come to losing him. “Of course I did.”

He turned into my hand, and his chest lifted with another breath.

“Feeling better?” I asked.

“Like I’ve been brought back from the dead.”

I shuddered from the thought. “You were certainly close enough. Near the end, you didn’t even look the same.”

Julian stilled. “How so?”

“The changes were subtle, but for a short time you appeared an aberration of yourself.” My mouth tightened reflexively. “All I could think was that your spirit had grown too weak to hold a proper form.”

He held my gaze with a steadfastness that made the back of my skull prickle. “Did it frighten you?”

“Very much so. I feared you would fade away before I got any water down your throat.”

“And now what do you see?”

A handsome man with a devious air about him.
I smiled. “Just you, Julian. The same as you’ve always been.”

This seemed to please him. He nestled deeper into my lap, and his eyelids drooped with sleepy contentment.
Inhale
.
Exhale
. His warm breath passed through the thin sheath to my inner thigh.

I stiffened. “Can you sit?”

He didn’t move other than to open his eyes. “If I must.”

“It would be best.” Scooping my hands beneath his shoulders, I lifted him the best I could.

Julian sighed and dug an elbow into the grass to push up. We were sitting close together, almost too close as he peered at me through sooty lashes. “I assume I’ve been forgiven.”

The events from the riverbank seemed ages ago. My bruised torso said otherwise, but Julian’s near death had managed to deflate most of my anger. Even so, I leveled him with a stern look. “I’m willing to consider it, so long as you promise never to use your gift or your strength against me again.”

He ran a hand over his chin in thought. “Are you prepared to make a similar promise?”

I choked on a breath. “Are you serious? When was the last time I tied you to a tree?” Or the first time for that matter.

“You made me angry, and I reacted without thinking.” He turned his palm to me, the one I’d healed after burning him less than a week ago. “You of all people should understand how easily these mistakes happen.”

“I already apologized for hurting you.”

“As did I at the riverbank.” A sardonic curve crept over his mouth. “I begged your forgiveness while on my knees if memory serves.”

I despised the way he twisted the truth to cast himself in a better light. “You’ve forgotten the part about almost killing me if Miss Rose hadn’t intervened.”

One shoulder rose and fell in a show of nonchalance. “Tit for tat.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

He fisted his hand, then opened it again. “The night you marked my palm, your fire reached the crest of my shoulder. What do you think would have happened if it had touched my heart?”

Words failed me...because I knew such a shock could have killed him.

“Did you wish me dead?”

I shook my head. “Never.”

“Then we are the same. We both succumbed to our anger and temporarily lost control of our power.”

He had conveniently omitted his role of aggressor in both instances, but I was done arguing the finer points. “So now we’re even? Is that what you want to hear?”

Julian tilted his head to the side, frank appraisal glittering in his eyes. “You know what I want to hear, Selah.” His gaze dipped to my lips, evoking the taste of strawberries.

My cheeks warmed at the memory of our kiss. “We are not discussing this again.”

“Why do you insist on ignoring the truth? Our temperaments and gifts are so perfectly matched, it’s as though we’ve been made for each other.”