The Stag Lord Read online

  “Cor.” Bann pressed his hands against the door. “Calm down. Now,” he ordered. “Lift up on the latch, then slide it—”

  “It’s stuck.” The latch jingled as the boy clawed at it, moaning in terror.

  The sound sliced a wedge from Bann’s heart. He stepped back, lowered a shoulder, and threw himself against the door. The latch snapped. The door slammed against the back wall, just missing his son, and rebounded back, whacking Bann on the head as he landed on one knee on the concrete floor. Even as he scrambled to his feet, the boy was clawing at his arm like a tomcat gone berserk, gibbering in terror. His fingernails gouged Bann’s skin, leaving stinging lines.

  A shadow flitted past just outside the opening.

  Cor screamed.

  Whirling around, Bann whipped the knife from its sheath as he placed his body between his son and the monster, straining to hear over a heart trying to punch its way free of his ribs. Out of sight, the hiss-whisper-crunch of gravel being displaced, possibly by a foot—or a hoof—made his testicles tuck up good and proper between his legs, huddling for protection much like Cor was now huddled in the corner next to the toilet. A corner of Bann’s mind noticed that the boy was weaponless.

  Tightening his fingers around the hilt of his blade, he shifted his stance, finding his center. Unbidden, the Song of his people began to whisper in Bann’s head. It sang an offering of strength and speed for the warrior who followed the Old Way.

  He told the Old Way to go screw itself. I don’t need your help. I don’t need my people’s help. I don’t need anything but for the world to leave me and mine alone.

  The shadow ghosted past again. Even as his mind registered the shape, a magpie landed a few feet away with a scrape and a flutter. It cocked its head at the outhouse and the man hovering in the doorway before mincing about, searching for scraps of food.

  Bile flooded Bann’s throat in relief. Forcing his muscles to relax, he hawked and spat at the bird, which hopped to one side with a squawk-ka-ka. “Just a bird. Just a gods-be-damned bird.” He spat again, then turned to the boy.

  Taking his father’s proffered hand, Cor pulled himself to his feet, face pale and smeared with tears. He glanced over as the bird strutted past again.

  “And just where was your knife?” Bann hated himself for stomping on the boy while he was still white-lipped with fear. He did it anyway.

  Cor pulled the switchblade from his pocket and held it up. He stiffened in anticipation.

  Bann raised a hand, then relented with a light cuff on the head. More caress than chastisement. “Next time, I best see that weapon out and in use.”

  “Yes, sir.” Cor sniffed. He dragged the back of his hand across his nose, leaving a snail’s track of mucus along his upper lip.

  “Here.” With his free hand, Bann stretched out his T-shirt and wiped Cor’s face. Wrapping an arm around the boy, he pulled him close, wishing he could somehow suck the child inside of his skin, his father-body a fortress. “All right, now?”

  “Yeah.” Still shaky, Cor wobbled outside. He kicked a rock at the magpie, missing the target as Bann knew he would.

  He gets his affection for animals from you, he said silently to his wife.

  His dead wife.

  His slaughtered wife.

  2

  JOINING HIS SON OUTSIDE, Bann took a cleansing breath, trying to slow his pulse. Adrenaline surged through his body like a shot of good whiskey after bad sex. Or was it bad whiskey after good sex? Not that he had much desired either in over a year. A breeze picked up, flowing down from the western foothills, chivvying the storm clouds along and drying sweat-soaked clothes and bodies.

  “Come.” Bann led Cor back across the street and over to the picnic table. They hopped up on top and sat side by side, the top of the boy’s head level with Bann’s shoulder. He remembered when he would balance his firstborn—and now my only—along his forearm, the infant’s head supported by the father’s cupped hand.

  While the man examined the surrounding rock formations, the boy spoke to the toes of his shoes. “Sorry I freaked out.”

  “As am I for speaking carelessly.” Bann laid a hand on Cor’s neck, the skin still slick with fear-sweat. He tightened his hold and shook the boy gently from side to side, a rocking motion meant to comfort both of them.

  After a few minutes, Cor cleared his throat. “Dad, can we…” He paused as if afraid to finish the sentence.

  “Can we what?”

  “See if there’s any of our people around?”

  Bann’s chest tightened. “I told you before: we are done with them. Our people”—he spat out the words—“can go to Hell.”

  “Then why’d we come to Colorado if you didn’t want to—”

  “We’re not having this conversation again, Cormac Boru.” He hoped the use of the boy’s full name would send a message. It did not.

  Cor shrugged off his father’s hand. He looked up. “Maybe the ones around here aren’t like the ones back home.”

  “Whether they are or not makes no difference.” Boru stepped down off the table, mouth sour from denying his son the one thing he wanted most in life. Well, besides having his mother alive, he thought as he headed toward the camper.

  “But, Dad—”

  Bann kept walking.

  “Can’t we at least find out?”

  Bann kept walking.

  “You’re not even listening to me!” Cor’s shrill voice pinged around the campsite.

  Bann kept walking.

  “Asshole!”

  Bann froze. A thump and a crunch of gravel pulled him around.

  Cor stood in front of the picnic table, fists clenched by his side. Ready for a fight. Spoiling for a fight. Guess I’m not the only one on an adrenaline high, he thought. Even from several yards away, he could see the flush creeping along the boy’s cheeks, a clear sign he was pissed as hell.

  Make that two of us. “What did ye call me?” His accent, always carefully hidden, rose to the surface.

  “Asshole.”

  His own anger flared. A voice whispered in his head to let it go this time. You’re both weary from too much terror and too many miles. He ignored it. “Bold words from a boyo who was gibbering in terror, trying to hide behind a toilet only a few minutes ago. I’m surprised ye dinna wet yer trousers.”

  Cor’s face paled at the attack. He looked away, lips twisting as he fought to absorb the blow. Before Bann could apologize for being petty—for being, as he often cautioned his son, a little man—the boy bolted.

  Careening through bushes, Cor ran, tears like acid in his throat. Ignoring his father’s command to “get your arse back here,” he struck a hiking path leading through the maze of sandstone. Picking up speed, he ran westward into the labyrinth. Shadows pooled in the hollows and empty spaces while the tops of the rock spires were red-tipped from the setting sun, like manicured nails.

  Or bloodied claws.

  After a few minutes, he slowed to a walk. Panting, he looked around. Cliffs rose on either side of him, forming a gully of rock. He stretched out both arms as he walked, fingertips almost touching the sandstone on either side.

  Thrilled to be free of his father’s obsessive supervision, but also jackrabbit nervous about being by himself, he let his feet wander. A corner of his mind wondered why his dad hadn’t caught up with him yet. A bigger part was relieved he hadn’t, knowing that the level of disrespect he just shown would earn his bottom an up-close-and-personal session with Dad’s hand. Or worse, Dad’s belt. Not that his father had actually ever used it on him, but the threat was always there. One never knew with grown-ups.

  He emerged from the canyon and found himself on a narrow shelf overlooking a drop of about ten feet into a ravine filled with scrub oak and the occasional piñon and juniper. A well-used trail appeared and disappeared as it wound through the vegetation along the bottom.

  The clouds sank lower, as if trying to smother him. The darkening sky reminded him of home and lingering on the back porch with
his mother, watching as his father prepared to disappear, once again, into the woods crowding the back wall of their home in rural Pennsylvania. Time for us Knights to be about our business, hunting the goblins that would hunt us, his father had said. A single ray from the setting sun had turned the bronze dagger in his father’s hand into a flame as he had paused to wave the weapon in a farewell.

  His mother had never waved back.

  Is Dad going to be gone all night? Cor had asked, every fiber in his small body on fire to be allowed to go hunting with his father and the other Knights of their people.

  All night. His mother’s voice had been oddly flat. But her hand on his shoulder had been warm and gentle as she steered him back inside with a promise to read two chapters of Shiloh to him before bed.

  I get to be a Knight like Dad, don’t I? He thrust an imaginary blade into the air, ducking under the swipe of a goblin’s paw, its black-tipped fingers crawling at his face. He stabbed again, teeth clenched as the beast exploded in a cloud of ash. Eat bronze!

  We’ll see, son.

  Cor hated that expression. It usually meant no. Or worse. It meant his parents would talk late into the night, with low, angry voices that hissed and spat, filling the house with a coldness that made him creep down the stairs on tiptoes to breakfast the next morning. He was sure he could see his breath when he entered the kitchen.

  But his mother’s face, the face that Cor knew was the most beautiful in the entire round world, had always made the coldness go away when she turned from the stove to smile at him.

  “Mama,” he whispered before he could stop himself. Eyelids burning, Cor scrubbed a forearm across his face, then sucked in a breath and let it out in little hitches which sounded suspiciously like sobs. “Stupid crybaby. Just shut the hell up,” he whispered, using the raw language to shock his emotions into submission. Bold words from a boyo who was gibbering in terror, trying to hide behind a toilet a few minutes ago. I’m surprised ye dinna wet yer trousers. His father’s words raked him bloody. “You shut the hell up too,” he muttered.

  The air grew colder. He squatted down and tucked his arms between stomach and thighs, resting his forehead on his knees. A strange lassitude made his joints ache, like he had aged a century in the last year. He closed his eyes.

  A nightmare image exploded in his head. An image of his mother’s body, pinned to the large oak in their backyard, like a sacrifice. She hung from a set of antlers, driven through her chest and into the trunk; her head flopped over onto her shoulder from a snapped neck.

  A figure stood by the foot of the tree, the oak his father had always called the gods’ tree. In the boy’s mind’s eye, the creature turned and looked at him.

  Cor’s eyes flew open. With a gasp, he lurched to his feet, swiveling on his heel as he tried to watch every direction at the same time. He held his breath, desperate to hear his father’s voice or footsteps. Silence filled his ears in a warning. No breeze. No birds. Not even a distant car. It was like the whole world had decided to call it quits for the day.

  He thought he heard feet crunching on gravel echoed in the tunnel behind him. He spun around to face the opening and took a step back.

  Into thin air.

  Windmilling his arms, he fought the losing battle against gravity and almost won. For just a second, he swayed on the edge of the ledge. Then, gravity shook its head no and pulled him. He landed with a sickening crunch. It was like being hit with the side of the entire planet. Which it was.

  A white-hot pain tore him apart.

  Then nothing.

  For a moment, Shay Doyle thought someone was committing suicide. Frozen with disbelief, she watched a body plummet from the ledge overhead, limbs flailing. The figure landed with a crunch and a thud in a thicket of scrub oak just a few yards from where she had paused to retie her running shoes. She sprinted over, ignoring the scratches from the underbrush, and knelt down. Her heart sank. “Oh, damn.” It’s just a kid.

  The child—the boy—lay in a twisted heap on his back, one arm caught behind him in a way that made her hiss in sympathy. Pressing her fingers against his throat, she caught a heartbeat. Not as bad as some I’ve healed. Praying that, for once, she might get service this deep in the park, she pulled out her cell phone and checked the screen. “Of course not.” Shoving the device back into the leg pocket of her running tights, she pulled off her hoodie and tucked it around the boy as best she could. Only clad in a tank top, she ignored the bite of the cooling air. Trying to decide whether to risk moving him or go for help, she checked her watch and peered along the path. Running full out, I could make it to the park entrance in twenty minutes, but they’ll be closed by then. A soft moan pulled her head down.

  The boy stirred, eyes squinted with pain and confusion. His lips moved.

  Shay leaned closer. “You’re all right,” she said in a slow, clear voice. “But you need to stay still and don’t move. I’m going to help you. Can you tell me your name?”

  “…or.”

  “Tor?”

  “Cor!” A shout echoed from overhead—a man’s voice, raw with panic.

  Shay rose and took a few steps back from the cliff. “He’s down here,” she yelled. “He fell. He’s alive, but injured.” She pushed back through the bushes a few more steps until she could spot the figure above her. “If you follow the edge of the shelf toward the south, it drops down enough—” Before she could finish, he sprinted away. Less than a minute later, she could hear the snapping of branches as he charged back up the ravine toward her. How did he climb down so fast?

  The next instant, he appeared, moving quickly for someone more rugby than soccer. “Where is he?” The skin around his blue eyes was tight with fear.

  The same shade of blue as hers. For a split second, she started to say something, then gave herself a mental slap. Others have blue eyes. It’s not just us, she reminded herself.

  “Is he your son?” She led him over to the thicket.

  Not answering, the man hunkered down next to the small form. As she watched, he cupped the boy’s cheek with a workman’s hand and leaned closer. “Cor, lad.”

  One eyelid fluttered, then opened. The other eyelid followed. Shay could see the same hue—an uncanny blue—as the man’s. A faint warning bell of no effing way began ringing in her head.

  “D-Da?”

  “Here, son.”

  “Mmm…arm hurts.”

  “I know.” The man gazed up and down the boy’s body. “What else?”

  “I-I don’t…know. All over.”

  Shay knelt next to them. “Sir, I’m a heal… I mean, I have medical training. Let me examine him more thoroughly, then we’ll figure out how to get him to a hospital.”

  “No. No hospital.”

  “What?”

  “It’s…against our religion.” The man handed Shay’s shirt to her. “Thank you for helping him. I’ll take it from here.”

  “Look, he may have internal injuries, maybe a broken collarbone. Most likely a concussion as well. He needs to be—”

  “No.”

  “At least let me help you—”

  “I dinna ask ye for yer aid.”

  It was the Irish brogue as much as the abrupt dismissal that made Shay’s eyes widen, then narrow. The warning bell began pealing louder. Out of habit, she glanced at the man’s neck. No torc. But that doesn’t mean anything. “So, do you have a plan?”

  “I’ll immobilize his arm, then carry him home,” he said. She noticed he was careful to veil his accent again.

  Shay tried once more. “You’ll cause more injury by moving him then by letting a trained professional—”

  “I know injuries and how to treat them, miss.” He nailed her with a glance. “And I would not put my son in danger without making certain I would not harm him further.”

  She acquiesced, albeit reluctantly. “I hope you know what you’re doing.”

  “I do.” He slid his hands under the boy. “Son, I’m going to move your arm. It will hurt.”
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  “‘Kay,” he whispered.

  The man paused, then spoke without looking at Shay. “Would you hold his other hand?”

  Shay shifted to the boy’s far side. She took his hand, noting how cold and clammy it felt. “You squeeze all you want, Cor. Okay?” The boy nodded.

  As the father eased the trapped limb free, the wail of pain made both man and woman wince. After laying the arm across the boy’s chest, the man peeled off his own T-shirt. “Help me sit him up. I’ll use this”—he indicated the shirt—“for a makeshift sling.”

  Focused on her patient, she nodded. “You could’ve used mine, but go ahead.” She looked up. “Let me hold—”

  Shay’s jaw sagged. For a split second, she couldn’t move, her eyes riveted on the tattoo decorating the man’s bare right shoulder. The Celtic knot formed an emerald spider web over the swell of muscle. “Son of a bitch,” she breathed. Her gaze traveled up. “I should’ve guessed.”

  “Guessed what?” Apprehension clouded the man’s face.

  Without speaking, Shay reached up and pulled her tank top lower to reveal the identical mark tattooed over her heart. “That you’re Fey, too.”

  3

  AN INVISIBLE FIST SOCKED Bann in the gut. “I don’t know who or what you think I am, but—”

  “Really? You’re really going to try to convince me that you got that tat on a whim?” The woman pointed her chin at his arm. “That’s the mark of our people.”

  Wanting to scoop Cor up in his arms and bolt, Bann shook his head. “You’re wrong. This is just a—”

  “And judging from its look”—she learned forward to peer more closely—“you had it done with a thorn.”

  “No, I—”

  “By a Druid. In the Old Way. Yeah, I’ve seen this before.” She nailed him with her gaze. “Nah, you’re Fey, like me. A Knight of the Tuatha Dé Danaan,” she declared, using the more modern pronunciation of tua day dhanna.

  “No longer.”