Dark Isle (Celtic Legacy Book 2) (7 page)

“Put me down, I’m gonna puke.”
I gasped out, feeling the bile rise in the back of my throat.

Hands gently lowered me to a
moss
-
covered mound where I promptly heaved until my stomach was empty. Wiping my mouth with the back of my hand, I coughed and turned around.

“Thanks Luke
,
”
I said, then blinked and stared. It wasn’t Luke who’d rescued me
;
in fact, I wasn’t entirely sure that I had been rescued at all.

The girl looked to be no more than twelve or thirteen years
old
, and
had long brown hair that trailed to the ground
. But it was
her eyes
that
held my attention.
The
pupils
were s
ha
ped
like
a cat
’
s
,
and
they were two different colours, the left one blue, the right a vibrant
spring
green. She smiled at me, showing
pointed teeth like a
Fomorii
, though to be fair they were much smaller and more dainty in appearance
. I scrambled backward
s
,
and Called my knife. In a split second the bone handle warmed under my fingers. We were deep into the grove
;
I had no idea where Luke and Cora were.

She lifted her hands. “
Shhh
.
N
o harm. None. No hurt.”

Her voice was downright hypnotic and I fought the urge to lay my head down and let her croon to me. I lifted my knife. “What are you?
Fomorii
?”

She let out a trilling laugh that set the birds o
ff in the trees around us. “No.” She put her hand to her chest, “B
ean sidhe.”

I blinked and shook my head. “I don’t know what that is.”

Smiling, her teeth glinting in the light
,
she crouched down. It didn’t make me feel any safer so I scooted back.

“Bean sidhe,
Banshee
. But
there is a name
too.
Would
you like to know it?”

Banshee. Like the Queen who’d helped down our helicopter. But she was young.
I cleared my throat. “Okay, what’s your name?”

She curtsied
,
her
knee
-
length skirt brushing the moss. “
Aednat is happy to meet you
.
” She pronounced it slowly for me but even so, I had her repeat it for me until I got it.

“A-nit.” I frowned, drawing out the sounds
.
“Is that right?”

There was a crackling of bushes and the girl lifted her head
;
she
sniffed the air. “Tuatha boy is coming
;
hurry Tuatha don’t like bean sidhe.” She held her hand out to me.

“I’m Tuatha
,
”
I said
,
and again she trilled
, her laughter dancing along the edge of my skin.

“Only very little. Mostly not.” She beckoned to me
.
“Come, hurry, Tuatha won’t help. You will help.”

“Help what?”
I was beyond confused
, yet again.

Luke burst through a small bush, his sword levelled at the girl
’
s chest. “Step away from her
Banshee
!” He roared.
Cora streaked into the small glen, her mouth open wide, fangs bared.

I jumped up
;
put myself between them. “Luke,
Cora,
stop
! S
he’s just a little girl.”

“She’s a bloody
banshee
!
N
ow
we know
why people are going missing
: they must be colonizing this area or something
, turning it into a new Enchanted forest
.” He growled, his sword not wavering an inch.

“Stop it!” I yelled. “She just saved me.
I think.”

Luke slowly lowered his sword. “
I’m not
sure she didn’t call the beast
just
to make it look like she was saving you
.
They are master manipulators, Quinn.
And now, with evidence that there are banshees here, it all makes sense.
”

“What do you mean?” I asked, not following his line of reasoning.

“
Well, with the way you describe the area, and what they were saying on the radio, Cathedral Grove sounds a lot like
the Enchanted Forest
, and with her
,
” he pointed at Aednat
.
“
She
pretty much clinches it
,
”
h
e
said, his shoulders sagging. I lifted my eyebrows and Luke
quickly
explained.

“The Enchanted Forest
is
a part of Ireland
where the Banshees ruled. They would draw their strength from it. It’s old, very, very old
, just like Cathedral Grove
.” he waved his arm as if to encompass everything around us. “
Travelling in t
he forest in Ireland was
supposed to bring you great powers
, but only if you
made it out again
.”

“And what
about
the missing people?” Cora asked
.
“What do you think is happening to them?” She asked it like she already knew the answer. His fingers tightened on mine.

Luk
e opened his mouth to reply, but Aednat interrupted him. “Please, too much time here in one place.”

Her
small hand slipped into mine. “
Hurry
, we must go, the
Queen
will know that we are here
;
it isn’t safe.”

The frown on Luke’s face slipped
,
leaving only a pasty white visage. “The
Queen
?”
I wanted to smirk at him.

Aednat nodded. “She try to kill
Aednat
. Now she try to kill you. We must go.
Aednat
help
s you, you help Aednat
. We friends.”

She tightened her grip on my fingers and past the strange eyes and hypnotic voice I could see something all too familiar.

Fear.

The decision I made was an easy one.
“She’s coming with us
,
”
I said.

“What?” Luke croaked out, his sword tip dropping to the green moss.

“We can’t leave her here. You know how powerful the Queen is
,
”
I
told him
, not letting go of Aednat’s hand.

“Quinn, be reasonable
;
maybe she’s young, but she’s still on the wrong side. She is our enemy, all Banshees are
,
”
h
e
said, as if that was the end of the conversation.

“Tuatha not like Banshees
,
” Aednat whispered,
tuck
ing
her head into my side. I stroked her hair. “I’m not leaving her, Luke. And you agreed that I would lead.”

That did it.
“Ah crap, why the hell not
?
”
h
e
muttered.

“Aednat will lead us out. Aednat knows the way.” She tugged on my hand. I glanced back to see that Luke had scooped up Cora and they too were following.
A howl filled the air, not like a wolf or a dog, but like a rabbit’s death scream. High pitched and chilling.

“Hurry, we must hurry. Bad
Queen
, mean
and nasty
. She comes.”

Driven by the sound of what was apparently a Banshee, w
e started to jog
.
Aednat le
d
the way taking twists and turns I couldn’t keep track
of
,
which was not comforting in the least
. What if Luke had been right
,
and Aednat was just leading us into a trap? Tension filled me
,
and I couldn’t help but wonde
r if I’d made the right choice, or if I’d yet again screwed up.
A second howl echoed out behind us, driving my concerns from my mind.

Fifteen minutes rolled by, each one like a weight on my chest.
We were deep into the
grove;
the air was thick and muggy with the scent of living things, both fresh and old. I let out a sneeze. We kept jogging, jumping over downed logs, ducking under low hanging tree branches, following a path only Aednat seemed to be able to see.
I was
growing more and more
sure Luke had been right.

“Aednat, how long?” I whispered.

“
Soon
. You see.”

We came upon
the junction of two trails, paths that were clearly worn down to the hard pan.

Luke came up behind me and spoke softly into my ear. “This doesn’t look good, be ready to fight.”

Aednat gave a tug on my hand and I followed obediently. She brought us to an arbutus tree, its glossy red
and
smooth bark twisted and gnarled into a perfect arch across the path.

“Step through
,
”
s
he
said, doing just that, her body disappearing into thin air.
I paused, my senses tingling. The decision was taken from me. A flash of movement to the right followed by a
hair
-
raising screech forced me into action.
I stumbled forward, the bright light making me blink, my eyes watering with the intensity of it.

Luke and Cora followed, Luke spinning to face the pathway with his sword bared. Aednat pushed past him and touched the bark of the tree. The whole thing shivered, the
n the
bark
beg
a
n
to peel and lose its bright red colour.

“There, they can’t follow us now
,
”
s
he
said, smiling up at me.

“Where are we?”
I asked as my eyes adjusted.
W
e were
still
surrounded by trees, but there was
the
very
familiar
sound of water
rushing
over
sand.

Aednat smiled up at me. “Other side of Island. Safe here from
Banshee
Queen
.”

She’d brought us back to where our journey had started. We were on the west coast.

Making our way through the canopied forest, we quickly found a spot where we could see out onto the sand. It was covered in sleeping Fomorii sunbathing like sea lions. Every once and a whil
e one would groan and roll over
,
scratching at its armour
ed
hide.

Aednat
stared at the Fomorii, her eyes unreadable
. “Bad Fomorii, they are friends with
Queen
.”

Luke leaned forward. “What do you mean,
‘
friends
?’
”
Even now he doubted what I’d seen through Darcy’s eyes.

Aednat snarled. “Balor, he come to nice
Queen
, tell her of beautiful place far away from Ireland. Place that she can have for her own, no Tuatha to fight her. She only have to help guard new place. But
before good queen can settle in, bad banshee takes crown through nasty trick.
Now,
Bad
Queen
is cruel to people, she beat Aednat, killed her friends. Then she
starts stealing humans
.”

We crept back into the forest. Luke’s face was thoughtful and I wondered if he’d
finally come to the conclusion that Cora and I were right all along. The
Banshee
Queen
was not our friend any more than Balor was.