Morrigan's Cross
Page 12

“Forgot how much that hurts.” Wincing, Cian yanked the blade free. “That’s what I get for showing off. Do the same with wood, and we’re dust. But it must pierce the heart. Our end is agonizing, or so I’m told.”
He took out a handkerchief, wiped the blade clean. Then he pulled off his shirt. The wound was already closing. “We’ve died once, and aren’t easily dispatched a second time. And we’ll fight viciously anyone who tries. Lilith is the oldest I’ve ever known. She’ll fight more brutally than any.”
He paused, brooded into his wine. “Your mother. How did you leave her?”
“Heartbroken. You were her favorite.” Hoyt moved his shoulders as Cian looked up into his face. “We both know it. She asked me to try, to find a way. In her first grief, she could think of nothing else.”
“I believe even your sorcery stops short of raising the dead. Or undead.”
“I went to your grave that night, to ask the gods to give her heart some peace. I found you, covered with dirt.”
“Clawing out of the grave’s a messy business.”
“You were devouring a rabbit.”
“Probably the best I could find. Can’t say I recall. The first hours after the Wakening are disjointed. There’s only hunger.”
“You ran from me. I saw what you were—there had been rumors of such things before—and you ran. I went to the cliffs the night I saw you again, at our mother’s behest. She begged me to find a way to break the spell.”
“It’s not a spell.”
“I thought, hoped, if I destroyed the thing that made you... Or failing that, I would kill what you’d become.”
“And did neither,” Cian reminded him. “Which shows you what you’re up against. I was fresh and barely knew what I was or what I was capable of. Believe me, she’ll have cannier on her side.”
“Will I have yours on mine?”
“You haven’t a prayer of winning this.”
“You underestimate me. I have a great deal more than one prayer. Whether a year has passed or a millennium, you are my brother. My twin. My blood. You said yourself, it’s blood, first and last.”
Cian ran a finger down his wine glass. “I’ll go with you.” Then held that finger up before Hoyt could speak. “Because I’m curious, and a bit bored. I’ve been in this place for more than ten years now, so it’s nearly time to move on in any case. I promise you nothing. Don’t depend on me, Hoyt. I’ll please myself first.”
“You can’t hunt humans.”
“Orders already?” Cian’s lips curved slightly. “Typical. As I said, I please myself first. It happens I haven’t fed on human blood for eight hundred years. Well, seven hundred and fifty as there was some backsliding.”
“Why?”
“To prove that I could resist. And because it’s another way to survive—and well—in the world of humans, with their laws. If they’re prey, it’s impossible to look at them as anything more than a meal. Makes it awkward to do business. And death tends to leave a trail. Dawn’s coming.”
Distracted, Hoyt glanced around the windowless room. “How do you know?”
“I feel it. And I’m tired of questions. You’ll have to stay with me, for now. You can’t be trusted to go walking about the city. We may not be identical, but you look too much like me. And those clothes have to go.”
“You expect me to wear—what are those?”
“They’re called pants,” Cian said dryly and moved across the room to a private elevator. “I keep an apartment here, it’s simpler.”
“You’ll pack what you need, and we’ll go.”
“I don’t travel by day, and I don’t take orders. I give them now, and have for some time. I have a number of things to see to before I can leave. You need to step in here.”
“What is it?” Hoyt poked at the elevator walls with his staff.
“A mode of transportation. It’ll take us up to my apartment.”
“How?”
Cian finally dragged a hand through his hair. “Look, I’ve books up there, and other educational matter. You can spend the next few hours boning up on twenty-first-century culture, fashion and technology.”
“What is technology?”
Cian pulled his brother inside, pushed the button for the next floor. “It’s another god.”
This world, this time, was full of wonder. Hoyt wished he had time to learn it all, absorb it. There were no torches to light the room but instead something Cian called electricity. Food was kept in a box as tall as a man that kept it cold and fresh, and yet another box was used to warm and cook it. Water spilled out of a wand and into a bowl where it drained away again.
The house where Cian lived was built high up in the city, and such a city! The glimpse Morrigan had given him had been nothing compared to what he could see through the glass wall of Cian’s quarters.
Hoyt thought even the gods would be stunned by the size and scope of this New York. He wanted to look out at it again, but Cian had demanded his oath that he would keep the glass walls covered, and he would not venture out of the house.
Apartment, Hoyt corrected. Cian had called it an apartment.
He had books, so many books, and the magic box Cian had called a television. Indeed the visions inside it were many, of people and places, of things, of animals. And though he spent only an hour playing with it, he grew weary of its constant chatter.
So he surrounded himself with books and read, and read until his eyes burned and his head was too full for more words or images.
He fell asleep on what Cian had called a sofa, surrounded by books.
He dreamed of the witch, and saw her in a circle of light. She wore nothing but the pendant, and her skin glowed milk-pale in the candlelight.
Her beauty simply flamed.
She held a ball of crystal aloft in both hands. He could hear the whisper of her voice, but not the words. Still, he knew it was an incantation, could feel the power of it, of her across the dream. And he knew she was seeking him out.
Even in sleep he felt the pull of her, and that same impatience he’d sensed from her within his circle, within his own time.
It seemed for an instant that their eyes met across the mists. And it was desire that pierced through him as much as power. In that instant, her lips curved, opened, as if she would speak to him.