"Don't tell anyone about his powers," Monique ordered. "We can't afford to let this slip out. I'll arrange to meet him—soon."
"Are you close by?"
"Ireland, at Geata Na Chruinn."
Olivia had a brief image of the old castle brooding over the downs, and to the west was a sea of silver. She had never been there, but she knew the castle intimately. She'd seen it once, in Monique's memory, when they were girls, still just playing with their powers. The image conjured wistful feelings, and Olivia yearned to see Monique soon.
"Come quickly," Olivia begged.
"Do you have a gun?" Monique asked.
"Yes."
"Keep it handy."
After the phone call, Olivia wondered how she might create some kind of link to Bron, enlarge his compassion.
There is a reason why muses had been worshipped as gods. In ancient villages, as people sang and danced around the campfire, there were times when a dancer would leap in the air and twirl, and all who saw how high she leapt would declare in wonder, "Allah!" God, "I see god in you!"
Art was considered divine, and those who had great skill were thought to have been touched by the gods.
In time, the saying got shortened and corrupted to "Ole!" So that still today, in parts of the world, when someone does something magnificent and worthy of praise, the audience shouts god's name.
Olivia could not easily give Bron memories of love. Oh, she could manufacture such memories, but she had qualms about becoming that invasive. Still, she could give him something that he craved. She could give him the gift of music.
So late that night she went into his room, and lightly touched him. For a moment, she peered into his memories, looking for moments when he felt loved, and when he had given love in return.
She found very little. Bron was so alone inside. The harder that she tried to reach him, the more he would build up walls to protect himself. She wasn't even sure if he could love anymore. It was as if part of his brain were stunted, as if it had atrophied from lack of use, and had died.
She might be able to cure him over time, but that would be a call for the Weigher of Lost Souls.
Oh, he'd never hurt anyone on purpose. He wasn't intentionally cruel.
In searching his memories, she found a song that he was composing—a guitar solo, as beautiful and as dark as a summer's night. She listened to the imagined riff, and her heart broke—a nightingale's song that had never been sung.
Bending her head in thought, she reached into Bron's mind and began to teach him, to prepare him for the moment when he would have to play....
Chapter 17
Beautiful Creatures
"History shows that the meek can never inherit the earth. The meek inherit only what the powerful abandon."
Blair Kardashian felt humiliated. He was a good agent, and his acolytes had worked hard, but they had not been able to generate any leads on the pair of masaaks.
Perhaps that justified sending reinforcements, but did they have to be dread knights?
The agents who appeared at the hotel—three men, one woman, were all brutally handsome, and all dressed in black leathers, with silver bling. It wasn't a fashion statement; it was a uniform. The leather jackets and pants were equipped with a padding made of spun selenium crystals, far stronger than Kevlar.
But it was not the clothing that dismayed him: it was the demeanor of these people. They glided across the floor as smoothly as if they were skating on ice, while their eyes roved the room, like those of mountain lions, hunting with a cool regard. There was a deadly grace in the way their hips rolled. It came from decades of practicing martial arts, of being exquisitely aware of their centers of balance, of always being prepared to instantly attack or defend.
The woman threw a suitcase on his bed, opened it to reveal black helmets and night goggles.
The lead hunter, a man with spiked hair bleached white, asked, "So you have pictures of the targets?"
"Just the boy," Blair admitted. He held out his cell phone, showed the image of Bron, climbing into his car.
The dread knight dismissed the picture with a sneer. "Show me the woman," he said, and reached up to grasp Blair's cranium before he could object.
Chapter 18
A Tribute to a Huntress
"We are more wondrous than we know."
Bron woke amid dreams of Whitney. He'd seen her soulful green eyes peering up at him from behind a living curtain of honeysuckle that parted like hair. White and golden flowers trailed down her bare arms.
In the dream, she was more than human, something wild, like a fawn, quick and playful and dangerous.
She had been singing in the trees, and he realized now that he'd dreamt that she'd been a creature of legend, a wood nymph perhaps, singing in a deep forest, secreted by vines and secluded within the shadows of weeping willows. She sang, but her song was incomplete.
His guitar needed to accompany her.
Bron's eyes flew open. He'd dreamt of that guitar riff, and in the dream it had been perfect. He went to his guitar.
He heard a creak in another room that might have come from the weight of a footfall. He froze. He wanted privacy.
A little voice inside reminded, "You're going to a high school for the performing arts."
He felt stupid trying to hide from Mike and Olivia, but it was the crack of dawn and he didn't want to wake them.
He took his guitar and crept out the back door, where he stood in the mist and gazed into the fields. Not a hundred feet from the house was a herd of elk—a bull, five cows, and six calves. The huge bull had six tines on each antler, which were still in velvet, so that they were covered with wheat-colored fuzz.
The bull fed contentedly. Two cows lay under an apple tree, while at the edge of the yard, the other animals grazed, legs straddled and heads lowered as they cropped the grass.
The sun wasn't yet peeking over the mountains to the east, though the sky was colored in ribbons of violet and plum, ruddy orange and gold. The air smelled of a drenching fog.
Bron did not want to disturb the animals, so he struck south, hoping to circle the herd, but had not gone ten yards when the bull raised its massive head, gave a whistle of warning, and loped away. The herd followed, and the bull slowed, letting the cows and calves take the lead while he guarded them from danger.
The bull gazed back over its shoulder. It hesitated, as if it might continue its watch, but at last strode away.
Humbled by the majesty of the animal, Bron crept to the barn. He climbed into the hayloft, looked out over the valley, and saw several deer down among the Oreo Cookie cattle. The animals would be his audience.
He sat for a moment, relishing the touch of his Yamaha guitar. It didn't have a single scratch or scuff. The back was made from rosewood, while the surface was all of spruce. He caressed the wood, laid his cheek along the neck and just enjoyed the scent.
He closed his eyes, touched the strings, positioned his grip, and strummed once.
He was gone. For a solid hour Bron began to pick, thrilled at the way the guitar strings responded to his touch. The nylon strings were easy on the fingers of a beginner, and the music came mellow. But he found himself hungering for steel strings. They gave a pithier sound, greater volume. Mastering them would be hell on the hands.