Incongruous golden sunlight spilled over my hands, sunset revealed by the falling walls. I took a little heart from that: it seemed like a tether back to the Middle World, and although I wasn’t at all sure I could get myself home, I thought I could at least shove Cat back into reality. I wished I dared call Coyote and ask for his help, but I lacked the concentration and was afraid that if I succeeded, it would open a channel straight from Aibhill to him, and that would be unacceptable. I had to do it on my own. Just this once, and I’d apologize to him later.
Easy enough to say, when I doubted there would be a later. My laugh broke and Caitríona seized my arm. I said, “It’s okay. We’re going home. I’m going to open a path back home. As soon as you see it, run. I’ll cover you and be right on your heels.”
“We won’t save Sheila if we run! The fight will be over, we’ll—”
“The fight’s already over. Do as I say, Cat. Just do as I say.” I had nothing left for words. Coyote was so good at opening passageways between the Middle and Lower Worlds. I tried to remember how he did it, calling yellow roads and low red sunlight. The light tinted more toward crimson, either the oncoming night or a successful path. I decided it was the path and envisioned it more fully, remembering what it had looked like when Coyote sent me into the Lower World to fight the wendigo. Caitríona gasped, signal that she saw it, too, and I said, “Run.”
She ran, and I shut the road down behind her.
Surprise changed Aibhill’s voice for a moment. Deepened it enough that I could shake off the very, very worst of the effects and raise my head to look at her. She stared at the space where Caitríona had been, then turned an enraged gaze on me. She was still beautiful. Even with her wild white robes stained with Méabh’s blood and the glittering dust that had once been Gancanagh, even with the voice that tore me apart and held my mother captive, she was beautiful. I wanted evil to be ugly, or to wear black hats. That, after all, was why I’d bought my dramatic white leather coat.
For some reason, thinking about the coat gave me the wherewithal to get on my feet. I wasn’t kidding myself. I wasn’t going to be able to fight that voice, not with it cracking bigger and bigger pieces off my shield, but I wasn’t by God going to go out on my knees. I wished like hell I had my sword, even reached for it, then bit back a sob when it didn’t appear. When it, like Gary, was lost to me. My left arm was completely useless, but I shook my right hand until silver-blue power shone through it. Maybe I could take her out with me, one last explosive release of magic that would no doubt shut down my ability to call it forever, but that was okay, since it wasn’t looking good for the home team anyway.
Aibhill recognized what I was doing, and gave me a stunning smile. We circled each other, me surprised I could move at all, and stopped when we’d reversed positions. She had the setting sun to her back, golden glow making her all the more angelic, and it felt like the sun had lent her every ounce of its nuclear power when she opened her mouth and screamed again.
My shields flaked away, leaving every weary aspect of me on display. Leaving my despair over Gary and my love for Morrison and my concerns for Aidan all right there for the taking. Leaving Petite, my Mustang, the one lifelong love affair I’d had, out in the open. Leaving my perception of Petite reflecting the state of my soul there for her to see. Leaving Billy and Melinda and their kids and my coworkers and my fondness for Cernunnos and my protective streak over Suzanne Quinley and my foolish pride in learning swordplay and my regret over my fencing teacher’s discomfort with my shamanism and on and on and on, all of it raw and exposed and coming apart beneath the sounds of her never-ending screams.
I was saying my last prayers when Gary rode out of the sunset and shoved my sword through the bitch’s back.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Aibhill’s scream turned to a squeak. She slid forward off the rapier, blood bright over her white gown and astonishment vivid on her pretty face.
Her astonishment had nothing on mine. I stood where I was, shock still, with the vestiges of screams faltering around me. With my shields shivering themselves back together, now that they were no longer under assault. With my heart holding still in my chest and my lungs empty of air, because I was afraid if I breathed again, if my heart beat again, that the vision of Gary would disappear once and for all and he would be gone from my life forever.
Forget Aibhill. Forget Lugh and Nuada and Cernunnos and all the other inhumanly gorgeous people I had ever encountered. I had never seen anything as beautiful as Garrison Matthew Muldoon, seventy-four years old, white-haired, broad-shouldered like a linebacker and with a smile to break the hearts of girls young enough to be his granddaughter. Not that he was smiling now. He sat straight in his saddle, expression solemn as he looked at the woman he’d just killed. Aibhill, whose body slowly degraded from beauty to age as I watched. It would get worse, I thought, and I didn’t want to see the transition from age to extreme age, then to dust as the life force lent to her by the banshees bled away. I wondered what was happening to them, and whether we’d saved Sheila, and then Gary looked up and did give me that movie-star grin, and said, “H’lo, darlin’. Did I miss anything?”
What air was left in my lungs rushed out and I ran forward on willpower alone, no oxygen, no thought, just the need to crash into my best friend’s arms and hug him as hard as I possibly could. He even slid off the horse quickly enough for me to do that, and we both thumped against the animal as I flung myself into his arms. He bent his head over mine and we stayed there until I could draw breath again, which only happened after black dots and stars started dancing in my vision. “Do you have false teeth?”
Gary guffawed. “What kinda question is that, doll?”
“It’s just your teeth are so perfect and I know you used to smoke and I always thought they had to be false and then she said you’d be at Méabh’s tomb and a skeleton was and it had false teeth but they weren’t perfect that was how I knew it wasn’t you but I was so scared and I was sure at first it was and do you?”
Gary set me back and beamed at me. “’Course I do. Got in a fight just after Korea and two of ’em got knocked out. I had the doc pull ’em all. He was furious ’cause I had good teeth, but everybody loses their teeth eventually, so I figured no point in waiting. So what’s this about Méabh’s tomb? Never been there.”
“No, you have to have been, she said you’d be waiting at her final restin—” The breath went out of me again and I got cold. “Her final resting place.”
I did not want to turn around. Did not want to look toward Méabh, who I’d forgotten about in the past minutes. But I couldn’t not, either, not after the day we’d spent together. I grabbed Gary’s hand, both unwilling to ever let him go and reluctant to look at Méabh without support. He gave me a reassuring nod, and I clenched my fingers harder around his and made myself look.
She was horribly still. Eyes open, staring toward the exposed sky. I made a sound, but it didn’t get past my throat. Gary very gently tugged me into motion, and then we were running toward her and collapsing on our knees at her side. Her chest rose and fell, minute motions, but it was something. It was enough, with Aibhill no longer mistress of this domain. I shot a glance at the banshee queen’s body: shriveling now, falling bit by slow bit into white dust. Another minute and she would be nothing. Relieved, I reached for the healing power, and instead was taken aback by another voice I hadn’t expected to hear again.