Dark Isle (Celtic Legacy Book 2)

  Dark Isle

  The only way of finding the limits of the possible is by going beyond them into the impossible.

  Arthur C. Clarke

  1

  I had never felt such a yawning chasm of despair as the one that opened within me while sitting in that helicopter as it flew us away from Ashling. My sister, the one person I loved better than any other, had just been left behind. The only thing I had to combat the depression that threatened to roll me under its tide of pain, was anger. Anger at myself, Luke, my mother; all of us were, in some way, responsible for not getting Ashling out. My heart gripped that anger for all it was worth and held on; I let the fury burn away the pain in my soul.

  “You know, perhaps I could come with you to Ireland. I mean, after all, this whole debacle has interrupted my vacation there,” Mom said. As she spoke, I knew I’d never call her that again; from then on, she’d be Darcy to me.

  Luke answered her; I didn’t even hear the words. A low thrum of anger rippled through me, and I did everything I could to not lash out and to keep my hands still in my lap. Cora’s coils tightened across my shoulders and she let out a low hiss of irritation.

  Ignore the fool, Quinn. She does not understand the great gift that both of you girls are. Cora’s voice inside my mind did little to soothe the raging anger. If Darcy had been honest with us, if she had told us of our heritage, we wouldn’t be here now. Ashling would not have been captured by the Fomorii and I would not . . . no, I would still have to face the prophecy, but at least I could have been prepared for it. Trained for it.

  The last few days had been a whirlwind. From the moment our grandfather, Blake, had Quickened my blood, nothing had been even close to normal. Spinning the events through my mind, I tried to see where I could have changed things. Could I have stopped the Fomorii from kidnapping Ashling? Or could I have done more to rescue her? Then there was the emotional tug of war as Bres pulled my heart in one direction and Luke another. I glanced at Luke, taking in his perfect golden features and blue eyes. He seemed so arrogant and sure that he was the other person the prophecy spoke of; that he was the man I was supposed to fall in love with. Bres was the son of Balor, my enemy, but he’d helped me survive the Labyrinth, and had been the only reason I’d even gotten close to rescuing Ashling. In the end I’d still come away without her. I scrubbed my hands over my face, my mother’s words finally reaching my ears.

  “Quinn, you and I should go to the spa when we get to Ireland; I know this great little . . .”

  Wrenching my seatbelt off, I stood shaking above her my voice low and controlled, yet still icy with intensity. “Shut up. Right now, before I throw you from this helicopter.”

  Darcy’s green eyes, so like Ashling’s, widened, and her hand fluttered to the base of her throat. “You’re threatening me?” she whispered.

  “No threats. I’ve had enough. As far as I’m concerned, you are not my mother. No mother would sacrifice her children for her own safety,” I said, the certainty of the words filtering through me slowly. I could still see her face as she offered up Ashling for her own escape; the image wouldn’t leave me. Her eyes filled with tears and I felt . . . nothing. “That won’t work on me anymore, Darcy. You and I are done.” I thought of the one moment that she’d attacked Balor and given Ashling a chance to get to me, and my heart softened a little. Of course, she’d never been in any true danger; Balor hadn’t wanted her. My heart closed over, the old wounds sealed off for good this time.

  Darcy let out a little sob and buried her face in her hands. Even if the tears were real this time it was too late for remorse. She’d lost her chance to be anything but the woman who gave birth to me, certainly not someone I would ever call mom again.

  That was harsh Quinn, Cora said. The pain in her voice nearly undid me, but I steeled myself against the emotions that were swirling. Grief, foremost, but a keen sense of being alone in this world overrode even that. A pang around my heart took me back to the days when I’d still dreamed of having a father. Someone who loved me unconditionally; unlike Darcy.

  “I don’t care if it was harsh,” I said aloud, spreading my legs for better balance as the helicopter dipped in an air current. Fists at my side, I stared down at Darcy, a cold well of anger keeping any tears I would have shed at bay. She sniffled, her small shoulders shaking as she cried, and still I could feel nothing but the pain she had inflicted on me and Ashling. The years of neglect had finally burst through the damn of control I’d kept such a tight rein on. A part of me was relieved. No longer did I have to try to make her love me.

  Luke stood up and his hip brushed mine as he bent to speak into my ear. “Ease up, we’ll drop her off, and you can be done with her then. No need to rub salt in the wound, Quinn.”

  Glaring, I shoved him away from me. “Did either of your parents betray you to the enemy? If it was a choice of their child’s life, you, and themselves, would they have handed you over?”

  He didn’t answer; he didn’t have to. We all knew what he would say. No parent who truly loved his or her children would do as Darcy had, and we all knew it. He reached for my hand, his eyes soft.

  My anger took a new direction. “Don’t touch me. It’s your fault we left her behind.” Luke’s jaw tightened.

  “Balor would have killed you,” he said.

  I blew out a sharp puff of air. “You don’t know that.”

  Luke threw his hands above his head. “I DO know that. Damn it, why can’t you listen? Balor is your enemy. You are destined to kill him, which means it is in his best interest to end your life.”

  “Then why didn’t he when he had the chance?” I yelled.

  All the fight seemed to go out of Luke; his shoulders slumped and he shook his head. “I don’t know.”

  I turned my back on him. That was just it; nobody really knew what was going on, not Luke, not Cora, and seemingly not even Balor. Luke wasn’t the only one confused about Balor’s actions towards me.

  The helicopter dropped without warning and my feet hovered above the floor for a split second before gravity yanked me back down. I tumbled to one knee as the pilot’s voice came over the speaker. “Hang on; we’re getting a bit of turbulence.”

  Stumbling to the window, I peeked out to see the east coast of Vancouver Island speeding towards us. Except for a few spots where there were buildings right on the coast, a thick line of forest met the ocean and even this high up I could see the spray from the waves. I squinted and looked closer. The waves shouldn’t have been so visible; they usually didn’t get very big within the Strait of Georgia.

  I realized another earthquake was occurring. They hadn’t let up and now they were causing miniature tsunamis that raced into the shore.

  My thoughts turned back to Ashling. I didn’t really want to leave; this was where Ashling was, and I felt in my heart that if I was to have any chance at finding her, it wouldn’t be by trekking half way across the world for training. I needed to stay here, close to where she was.

  “You should buckle up Quinn,” Luke said as he put his hand on my elbow. As if I was an invalid. I jerked my arm away from him as the helicopter dipped yet again and we were both thrown back a few steps.

  “No, I don’t want to see anything!” Darcy shouted, startling me. I spun around to see her gripping her head in her hands, her face twisted up as if she were in pain.

  Cora slipped from my shoulders and slid over to Darcy. “What is it? What do you see?”

  The wind buffeted the helicopter, yanking us around as if we were marionettes; our limbs jumped and jerked in seeming spasms. For a moment it stole the attention from Darcy and whatever it was she was experiencing.

  The pilot’s voice crackled over the radio. “Hang on folks. It’s too rough to land. We’re going to have to ride this out.”

  Luke grunted he gripped a handle above his head, and we were tossed about inside the cabin. Darcy did nothing to stop her body from being thrown around. She just continued to hold her head, her lips moving silently. Cora had wrapped herself around Darcy’s neck. Quinn, come take your mother’s hand.

  My fingers found a handle on the edge of one of the seats and I held tight. “Kinda busy at the moment!” I shouted back as yet another gust of wind hit us hard, spinning the helicopter about like a top.

  Now, Quinn! Cora’s command compelled me to loosen my fingers and inch my way across the floor to where Darcy remained strapped in her seat. I thought it was just so I could give her comfort.

  I was wrong.

  As our fingers touched, Darcy’s mind seemed to slam into mine and I saw what she was seeing. Below us, on the edge of the coast and partially hidden by the thick forest, were two figures. One, I recognized. Tall, imposing, pitch-black hair and violet eyes marked Balor as easily as if he had a sign above his head. The other, though, was no one I knew. Shrouded in a cowl, the other figure hovered above the ground.

  “I thought you had mastery over the winds, Banshee Queen,” Balor said, his voice dripping with disdain.

  The Banshee Queen raised her arms and let out a long, low hiss. “Question me not, Fomorii. They will die.”

  Outside of what I was seeing I could feel the helicopter shaking and shuddering as the winds continued to increase.

  Balor nodded. “I doubt that, but you will slow them down; it is all I require of you little queen.”

  The Banshee Qu
een snapped her fingers. “You are close, that close to Chaos? Why do you not just let them fly away, far from us?”

  He answered her as he turned, and walked into the forest. “I made a promise.”

  Another hiss from the Banshee Queen, and then I was back in the helicopter, the metal struts screeching around us.

  “She’s breaking apart!” The pilot yelled over the radio.

  The helicopter jerked forward, and the air around us went silent as the rotors whined to a stop. One last shudder and the only thing between us the ground below gave up the ghost.

  We were spinning as we fell, the wind ripping at the metal sheeting that covered the helicopter. The pilot screamed, and I caught a glimpse of him being sucked through the open door, his body spinning out like a rag doll.

  We have a problem. A very, big problem. Cora said, anxiety filling her words even though they were only in my mind. I couldn’t stop the scream that burst out of me. What was left of the helicopter flipped upside down, and I found myself staring at what lay below us: rocky, hard ground.

  We were going to miss the water by a mere three or four feet. The tide was out and the jagged, rock-strewn coastline rushed towards us in spits and starts. Apparently the Banshee queen wasn’t in a hurry to let us drop; the wind continued to spin and toss us about, like a child with a ball.

  I let out a groan, wishing the water was closer. But I had learned long ago you couldn’t bank on wishes. My heart, already hammering, seemed to stutter. Or could wishing save us?

  Reaching for that part of me that held my powers, I put everything I had into bringing the water closer. I had nothing to lose; no one would even know I’d tried if I failed.

  The waves didn’t seem to move at first; then the water began to rush forward, the tide coming in with a speed that just might keep us from being smashed on the rocks below.

  What are you doing?

  The wind slammed us, shooting us towards the rocks. It was too late; we were too close to the ground. I pulled on everything I had, commanding the water to meet us. A geyser burst upwards and the ocean met and encompassed us while we were still thirty feet up. The wind buffeted uselessly against the helicopter as it bobbed on the surface.

  For a split moment everything froze; and then the water rushed in the broken windows, and open door spilling into the cab.

  The water quickly filled the interior of the helicopter. I pinched my eyes shut as it rose above my head. I felt cradled by the ocean, the water still warm from the shallows and tide pools. Opening my eyes, I saw the interior of the helicopter was outlined in stark relief. Luke had Darcy by the arm and was swimming towards the surface, out through a smashed window. Cora swam towards me and curled around my right arm.

  Lower the water, Quinn.

  With a few strokes I exited the sinking helicopter and reached the surface, slowly releasing the power as I swam. Blinking, I tread water, as I searched for my companions. The water was still, as if contained by walls, though I could see by the horizon that it was receding, lowering us to the ground.

  “Luke?” I called out, unable to see him.

  He waved, his head bobbing above the water at the far edge of my sight, Darcy cradled in his arms.

  “We’re here. What the hell just happened?”

  Cora loosened her grip on me. “That’s what I’d like to know.” Her black eyes were staring straight at me, but there was nothing really for me to say.

  I loosened my connection with the water further and it picked up speed, flowing quickly back into the ocean until our feet touched the sand and the tide was once more where nature intended.

  “Quinn, what did you do?” Cora asked.

  Before I answered her, I looked up and down the shoreline, stumbling forward. Was the Banshee queen still here, or had that all been in my mind?

  A glance over at Darcy was all I needed to confirm that what I’d seen had been real. She wouldn’t meet my eyes and she still had one hand covering an ear. “Is she gone?” I asked.

  Darcy nodded and then caught herself, her eyes flicking up to mine for one horrified second.

  Luke and Cora said nothing, only watched the exchange. Again Cora questioned me. “What did you do?”

  I cleared my throat. “It was like when I called for Ashling in the mirror, I just . . . wished for it. I wanted it bad enough that I made it happen.”

  Luke limped towards me; blood trickled down his leg. “Here’s the thing, Quinn. Calling on Ashling, that is something all Tuatha can learn to do, it’s one of our abilities.”

  I nodded, wiping my face. The saltwater was drying fast in the summer heat and already my skin felt sticky and my clothes stiff. “Okay. What has that got to do with this?”

  “Controlling water isn’t. It’s something that, other than the Fomorii, only the old gods can do; and even then, there is only one of the old gods I know of that could have managed something of that magnitude.” He waved his hand towards the water.

  My knees started to weaken and I slumped to the wet sand. “What are you saying?”

  Luke crouched beside me and took my hands in his. “I don’t know for sure, but I don’t think your father is dead. I think your father is very much alive and well. Because the only person you could have gotten that ability from—to control water like that—is Lir.”

  I frowned, “Who?”

  Luke helped me to my feet.

  “Lir is one of the old gods; not truly a Tuatha, but something more. He could control all the waters, and he was very well known for his taste in women. He particularly liked women with green eyes.”

  We all turned to look at Darcy, who stood, her face bright red from the tips of her ears to the base of her collarbone.

  Luke snorted, “Isn’t that right, Darcy?”

  2

  “My father is alive?” I asked the question, my voice cracking with surprise. I shouldn’t have been taken off guard by the fact that my mother had lied to me. Not after everything else she’d done.

  I wiped my hands on my jeans in an attempt to get the sand off my skin. “Never mind, it’s not like it matters now.” I turned my back on Darcy, and faced Luke. “Come on, we’d better go.”

  We had been lucky, I guess, to fall where there weren’t a lot of people to notice our “miraculous” survival. Or the sight of a helicopter being tossed about in the sky. Then the distant sound of sirens reached my ears. On second thought, maybe someone had noticed. I picked up my pace; after my last encounter with the police, when Ashling first went missing, the last thing I wanted was to deal with them now that I’d been in a helicopter crash that I’d survived without a scratch.

  Feet slipping in the wet sand, and then in the loose gravel closer to the road, I kept up a quick pace.

  “What about me?” Darcy yelled after us.

  Turning to face her I lifted both eyebrows. “What about you?”

  “Are you just going to leave me here?”

  I nodded once. “Yup.” With my back once more to her I headed towards the road.

  “Are you really just going to leave her there?” Luke said, catching up with me.

  Again I nodded. “She’ll be fine, she always is. She’s never needed me or Ashling.” At one point in my life, speaking that truth would have hurt; it would have made all the old wounds open back up. But not now. Whatever relationship we’d had was over and done with.

  Darcy followed at a distance, backing off a little whenever I turned to glare at her. It was a bit like shooing away a stray animal that thought you had something for it to eat. More than anything else now, it was just irritating. Then again, I did want to know what the hell had happened on the helicopter; why Darcy had seen Balor and the Banshee Queen, and how she had shown me.

  We slogged through the rocks and rough pampas grass, then we finally scrambled up on to the road. Staring up and down the road, I stopped as I tried to place where we were. It seemed familiar, but there are a lot of backwater roads on the east coast of Vancouver Island. “I think we’re close to a gas station. There’s one up the road if I’m remembering right.” I glanced over my shoulder, catching Darcy’s eye. “Try to keep up,” I said.