The Web (Fianna Trilogy Book 2) Read online

  But the Fianna had the poor, of which there were plenty. And the poor had nothing to lose.

  Diarmid drilled Will one more time, and then stepped to the half barrel sitting by the stoop. Diarmid sluiced water over his head, letting it run down his bare back and chest, washing away sweat and dust. He welcomed the exertion, because as long as he was training, he couldn’t think of her brown eyes flashing at him through a drenching rain. Or her words—I hate you!—or how she’d chosen Patrick Devlin. Or of the heartbreak that dogged him, or the way he’d endangered them all.

  But now the thoughts overwhelmed him again, as they did every moment he was still. That night a month ago when they’d retreated, Finn had been furious, and his rage hadn’t lessened in the days since. “You had a hundred chances to show her the ball seirce. Instead you let the veleda fall into the hands of the Fomori. What choice do you think she’ll make now?”

  The gods knew how often Diarmid had berated himself. He had no excuse except that he’d hoped Grace might be the girl he was waiting for, the one who could ease his loneliness, who loved him for himself and not because she was compelled. He had wanted more than anything to see true love in her eyes, and to corrupt her hatred into some obscene parody . . . it seemed the worst sort of betrayal. A lie he couldn’t live with.

  But he couldn’t tell Finn that. Because she wasn’t just a girl he wanted, she was the veleda. Without her, they would fail. Without her, the Irish in this city were doomed. And he’d let her fall into the hands of the enemy. He deserved Finn’s anger. Diarmid had let himself forget the most important thing of all: he was under a geis to kill her during the ritual on Samhain—and there was no getting around it.

  Just then, Finn rounded the corner. Their leader had been gone all day, and he looked stormy now. Finn gestured impatiently for the Fianna to follow. Practice was over.

  They fell into line behind him: white-blond Ossian and his son, Oscar, Diarmid’s best friend; dark-haired Keenan; skinny Goll with his newsboy’s cap; bald Conan, wearing that stinking fleece no matter that the day was brutally hot. The stairs were dark as pitch, reeking more than usual—who knew why—and hot as an oven, and the tenement room they shared was no better, even with its single window open to let in whatever breeze reached the top floor.

  Cannel, their Druid Seer, was napping on a mattress that Ossian had scrounged from somewhere, while Aidan, Grace’s brother, sat listlessly at the table, sending purple sparks back and forth between his fingers. The already scarred and bloodstained table was now blackened with burns too.

  Aidan glanced up, his penetrating gaze going directly to Diarmid, as it often did. Diarmid ignored him with difficulty. He was aware of Grace’s brother every moment. Aidan was a reminder of Diarmid’s failures—not just losing Grace, but also his failure to see the power in Aidan when he’d first had the chance. This was another cause for Finn’s anger; for some reason, the Knoxes—both sister and brother—left Diarmid blind. And the way he’d been feeling lately made him wish he’d never met either of them.

  They gathered around the table. The smell of Conan’s filthy fleece filled the room—Diarmid wanted to throw the thing out the window. Goll kicked Cannel lightly in the ribs so the man grunted and came fully awake. “What is it? What’s going on?” the Seer asked.

  “A meeting.” Finn leaned into the table, bracing his hands on the top. He’d tied his golden-red hair back in a queue, but loose strands clung to his face. His pale eyes burned. “Our spies tell us that Patrick Devlin and the Fomori are looking for an archdruid.”

  “An archdruid?” Oscar echoed. “What for?”

  “The veleda,” Cannel said, running a hand through his thinning red hair. “She truly must not know the incantation for the ritual. You said she seemed not to remember it.” He looked at Diarmid, who looked at Aidan.

  The sparks arcing between Aidan’s fingers extinguished. “It’s been a long time, hasn’t it? Things get lost.”

  “The spell might have been buried in songs or stories. You remember nothing like that? Nothing passed down?” Finn asked.

  “Everything was passed down. Every story you can imagine. But no spells, and if there was anything in a song, I never heard it. But Grace has strange dreams, you know. Maybe there’s something in them.” Aidan nodded at Diarmid. “He might know.”

  Diarmid was taken aback. “I might?”

  “She talks to you, doesn’t she? You know about her dreams.”

  “She said they were of battles and lightning. Ravens. That’s all I know.”

  Finn’s mouth tightened. “The incantation must be in her mind somewhere. Buried deep maybe, but there. We have to find a way to discover how much she truly knows. And to get her out of Fomori hands. She’s already been there too long.”

  Even a day was too long with one of the Fomori, charming and persuasive as they could be, evil hidden beneath beauty and guile. Diarmid had never expected to look upon any of them again. He couldn’t forget the shock of seeing them in the alley that night, enemies from battles fought so long ago they were like dreams. The Fomori had changed too. The poisonous, one-eyed Balor was still a giant, but no longer the size of a small building. Except for the blue lightning blazing from his fingertips and the long tangles of hair flying about his head, the sea god Tethra looked like any other man. Only Bres, Miogach, and Daire Donn had looked just as they always had, but they were men descended from the Fomori, not gods or monsters themselves. And Lot . . . so beautiful she took one’s breath, bringing to mind the last time Diarmid had seen her, when he’d refused her advances and she’d graced him with the sight of those gnashing teeth in her breast.

  Diarmid shook away the image. Grace would be helpless against their allure. Unless she remembered the stories and believed them, which she might not do, given that Patrick was her fiancé, and Patrick believed the Fomori were reasonable.

  “Devlin’s got her guarded,” Oscar said. “Fomori warriors everywhere. It won’t be easy to get to her.”

  “I’m thinking we’ll need persuasion.” Finn stared at Diarmid.

  Diarmid shook his head. “Not me. You heard her. She hates me. And Patrick knows what I look like. Send Oscar.”

  Oscar said, “Aye, I’ll find a way. I’ll bring her back, and Derry can work his magic then. Perhaps Aidan could—”

  “No.” Aidan’s blue eyes were stony.

  Finn said, “No? If you don’t mean to help, why did you join us, stormcaster?”

  Diarmid recognized the deadly tone that had cowed greater men than Aidan Knox. But Grace’s brother seemed unaffected. “If you want her, you won’t do something as stupid as send Oscar when we all know it should be Diarmid who goes.”

  In exasperation, Diarmid said, “By the gods, I’ve already—”

  “It needs to be you,” Aidan stated. “She’ll be worried enough over my disappearance that she’ll elude Patrick’s guards if I ask her to. But it’s not me who will convince her to do anything. That has to be you.”

  Everything Diarmid disliked about Aidan was in those words. “It doesn’t trouble you at all that she worries about you, does it? Or that your mother does the same.”

  “It’s none of your concern.”

  “I’ve seen the misery you put them through. It’s because of you that she has to marry Patrick—”

  “I’m trying to help you.”

  “But ’tis her you should be helping. She’s your sister, and you know what I have to do—”

  “Things may not be exactly as you imagine them,” Aidan said.

  Finn broke in. “The two of you are in charge of it then. Get it done quickly. In the meantime, we’ll start looking for this archdruid. The Fomori clearly think it necessary. And we should be prepared for the fact that the veleda knows nothing.”

  That was it, over and decided. Oscar came up to Diarmid with a mug of ale. “She’s the veleda, Derry. That’s al
l that matters. That’s what you have to remember.”

  “I know,” Diarmid said.

  Oscar’s green eyes shone in the half-light of evening. “I’ll tell you what—let’s go out. We’ll go to the Bowery, get a couple of lasses. We’ll find one who’ll make you forget your mooning.”

  It sounded good, actually. Some soft and sweet-smelling lass to bury his hurt in. To forget one kiss in other kisses. Diarmid was halfway to agreeing when he saw Aidan. Grace’s brother had his knees drawn up, hands dangling between as he again sent sparks jumping from one finger to another.

  Aidan made Diarmid uncomfortable, and he wasn’t sure why. It had always been so, from the first time they’d met. There was something about Grace’s brother that left Diarmid uneasy, but what?

  For one brief moment, their gazes met, and Diarmid felt a connection, a thread spun between them, that startled him into looking away. He had too many troubles; he had no wish to make Aidan another.

  But he knew then that no other lass would be easing his pain tonight. He couldn’t leave and he couldn’t pretend, and he couldn’t bear Aidan knowing how he was betraying Grace.

  Betraying her. Now that was something to laugh at, wasn’t it? She wanted nothing to do with him. How could he possibly betray her?

  But he felt it would. He couldn’t explain why and he didn’t try. “Not tonight, brother,” he said to Oscar. “Not tonight.”

  Diarmid woke deep in the night, sweating. Burning. The straw he slept on scratched his suddenly too-sensitive skin. Besides Ossian’s snores, all was quiet. He rose as soundlessly as he could, stepping over Oscar and Keenan to get to the window, which was open—always open—and pulled himself out. His foot no sooner touched the rail of the fire escape than he realized someone else was already there. He knew who it was even before he saw him.

  “Couldn’t sleep either?” Aidan whispered.

  Diarmid hesitated. It was too late to go back inside without insulting Aidan, and besides, Aidan looked as if he expected Diarmid to do just that. So Diarmid gestured toward the metal grating, and Aidan moved to make room for him to sit.

  “I miss the drink,” Aidan said. “Keeps me up at night. Never thought I’d be so thirsty, and Finn won’t let me near the ale.”

  “He wants you stronger,” Diarmid said.

  “He wants the impossible.”

  “Sometimes, aye.”

  The brick was rough against Diarmid’s bare back. The night air pulsed against his skin. He felt restless and haunted. He longed to be alone.

  Aidan said, “There’s . . . something about you. I wish I understood what it was.”

  “What d’you mean?”

  “I don’t know—that’s the problem. Grace needs you, that’s all I know. I don’t even know how I know it, if that makes sense. And what makes it worse is that I’m damn certain I don’t want you within twenty feet of her.”

  “I can’t blame you for that.”

  “I don’t mean because of the geis. I see the way you look at her. And I saw the way you kissed Lucy Devlin too.”

  “Oh.”

  “Yes. Oh.” Aidan’s gaze bore into him. “I’m helping you because something tells me I need to, and I don’t know why. I mean . . . you’re supposed to kill her, yet . . . I don’t understand any of this. Not the damn stormcasting or these strange dreams I have . . . or you. But I promise: if you hurt her, Diarmid Ua Duibhne, I will burn you into oblivion.”

  Diarmid laughed. It was all so absurd he couldn’t help himself. And he was surprised when Aidan joined in. The moment was quick, over nearly as it started. Their laughter died, the sound lingering oddly in the air.

  Aidan said, “I know you don’t think much of me. But I love my sister. More than . . . well, more than anything else, I think.”

  That surprised Diarmid too. And it was a relief. He’d seen for himself Grace’s affection for her brother. Maybe it wasn’t so one-sided after all.

  “Protect her,” Aidan said. “That’s all I’m asking of you. Just . . . protect her.”

  Diarmid opened his mouth to respond when he heard a sound below. He wasn’t sure what it was—a footstep, perhaps, or a cough—but he froze. He saw a shadow on the street, a huge, moving shadow that coalesced into people—into men. Rushing footsteps, a torch.

  Diarmid jerked to his feet, pulling Aidan with him. “It’s a raid!” He plunged through the window, shouting, “Get up! Get up! It’s a raid!”

  The others woke instantly, grabbing weapons that were never far from their beds. He heard the shouting outside, and Aidan saying, “What raid? Who?”

  “We’ll have need of you, stormcaster,” Finn said, grabbing a dagger. He yelled, “Get out, however you can! We won’t be caught in this room like rats in a cage!”

  Diarmid jerked his shirt over his head, and seized his daggers—shoving one into his belt and one in his boot—and then he was following the others back out the window, sending the fire escape ladder screeching and clanging into the midst of the gang who’d now entered the yard. Not just any gang either, but Fomori warriors, most of them deformed in some way—lame or one-armed, or one-eyed, just as they had been in the old days. The gods of chaos attracted those society dismissed, and that hadn’t changed in the modern world. Fianna streamed from the tenement door into the yard and found themselves surrounded.

  Oscar threw himself off the ladder and into their attackers. The moment Diarmid set foot on the ground, he was trapped, but still he sliced and danced and moved. Though the attackers—fifty or more, it seemed—were all maimed in some way, they were quick and lethal.

  Diarmid stabbed one, then twisted and lunged, neatly gutting another. His hands were slick with blood. He heard Finn yell, “Now, stormcaster!” and then the crack of thunder and lightning. Purple light filled the sky. He glanced up once to see Aidan on the fire escape, arms raised, his dark hair standing on end, limned by the blaze so he looked as if he were glowing, and then the fight overwhelmed Diarmid again. He stumbled over bodies; his boots slipped on blood.

  Then he saw someone bending to the cesspool by the privies with a torch.

  The pool erupted, flames skittering across its surface, water on fire—something he’d never before seen. Flames leaped to consume the rickety privies. And then he saw more torches, men setting them to the splintering wood of window frames and stairs. Smoke rose in dark and poisonous clouds, obscuring Aidan.

  The building caught within moments. Windows flashed with flame, the brick outer walls containing it at first as the inner timbers, doorways, sills, and plaster walls caught. The fire whooshed upstairs, rushing into empty spaces. People spilled out of the smoke, sliding down their fire escapes, screaming. There was only chaos and smoke and heat until Aidan opened the clouds to bring a drenching rain.

  But the rain didn’t quench the fire, which devoured the cheap wood and plaster as if they were nothing. Diarmid heard Finn yell, “Aidan! Get out!” and glimpsed Aidan coming down the ladder, lightning electrifying the metal as he came, which seemed not to faze him at all. After that, Diarmid saw nothing but fists and knives. He heard nothing but thunder and screaming.

  And then Finn grabbed his arm. “Take the stormcaster and get out of here.”

  “But I—”

  “Do it,” Finn snapped. “The two of you get the veleda. Take her to the Dun Rats. D’you understand me? Take her there and keep her until I send for you. We can’t wait any longer to secure her. Until I know we can keep her safe, you’ll stay there.”

  “I can’t leave you to fight alone. You need me.”

  “We need her more. And Diarmid—use the ball seirce.”

  The night was alight with the flaming pyre of the tenement. Diarmid saw Cannel huddling in the shadows with frightened women, crying children.

  “Go.” Finn pushed him. “Now.”

  Diarmid didn’t like to leave any of them, n
ot in the middle of the fight. But Finn bellowed, “Do as I say, curse you! Go!” And so Diarmid was off, running toward Aidan, while behind him it sounded like the end of the world.

  July 20

  Grace

  I woke, panicked, from a dream of fire. Flames raging and purple lightning glowing eerily through black smoke. Children crying and women screaming and the screech of ravens. It was a moment before I realized there was no smoke. No fire. No screaming. I was in my room at Patrick’s house.

  I closed my eyes and fell into another dream, where my brother called, Come, and Hurry. I ran toward him but no matter how fast I ran, he only got farther and farther away, and then darkness slammed between us. I wasn’t alone in the darkness—someone else was there, too, watching and waiting. Not Aidan, but a familiar presence, and then it too disappeared.

  And in its place came Derry, looming over me, his face pale and his hair falling forward to hide the lovespot, and I could only think, Touch me. Kiss me.

  The dream lingered after I woke. Except for the fire, I’d had some version of it nearly every night. I hadn’t seen Derry for weeks; why wouldn’t the spell just fade? And dreaming about Aidan only made me worry. Where could he be?

  I’d slept late. When I went downstairs I found the others already gone, Patrick to the store—Devlin Hatters and Tailors—and Mrs. Devlin and Lucy to make calls. Which meant I was left to my own devices for the day. Not that there was anywhere I could go. There were Fomori guards at every door, watching my every move.

  I ate a quick breakfast and then went back to my room. My window didn’t look out onto anything interesting, only the house next door and the narrow, shaded yard between. It made me feel closed in, trapped. I grabbed the book on my nightstand—one of Patrick’s, Irish poetry of revolution and bloodshed—and settled down to read. But I couldn’t concentrate. I kept hearing my grandmother: “Aidan will know. There is a key . . . The sea is the knife . . . You must find the archdruid. He can help you.” I knew Patrick and the others were doing all they could to find the archdruid, but still I felt I should be doing something.