Probably the dragon.

  “The old dwarf was powerful,” Rory said. “You know one of his children returned later to wreak the same sort of havoc.”

  “A copycat if I ever heard one. Just some bugger using the legend to be an asshole murderer. Probably killing off rivals or some such.”

  “You’re very much a product of this century,” Rory commented. “Cynical and disbelieving.”

  She laughed. “Rory, I am talking out loud to a dragon I can hear in my head, carrying a sword of myth, and fighting supernatural evils of a night. I believe in plenty. I just like to toss a little reason and logic into the mix to keep things interesting.”

  Rory snorted, releasing a plume of smoke followed by a very short, contained burst of flame. His glans had heated up for the work ahead.

  She gestured at the bodies. “They seem still enough. Want to give them a blast. The burying is going to take the rest of the night as is.”

  The hard part about heroing wasn’t so much the dispatching of evil monsters but the inevitable cleanup afterward.

  Rory aimed his stream of fire very tightly and for only a few short bursts. He had to remain standing several hundred yards away from his targets because of the sheer volume of fire that left his mouth in even a short, controlled shot. But after seven thousand years of practice, his aim was impeccable.

  “If you’d been practicing chess as much as you practiced with your aim,” she said, admiring the small circular area of charred remains and just a little burnt grass, “I’d never be able to beat you.”

  “That was a compliment I think,” Rory said.

  She chuckled.

  Sliding her sword back into the scabbard on her back, she headed toward the bones. They’d bury them in a remote spot in the Kerry mountains, a place hard to reach by even avid hill walkers, with the hopes the graves were never disturbed.

  The thought that there was a bigger evil out there somewhere nagged at her as she gathered the mounds of bones together into neat little piles. She’d only stuffed two reusable plastic shopping bags into her fleece pockets, so one of these creatures was going to have to share with another. Maybe she’d mix the bones all up this time and just bury them in three random piles. She’d been trying to be respectful about the remains, since these had been people at one stage. She had no idea why these people were being turned into vampires, and it wasn’t her place to say whether they were good or bad before they became neamh-mairbh. But needs must and she only had the two bags.

  She made an effort to keep one set of bones together and only mixed up the other two. The one who’d managed to retain some strength during its daytime sleep, that one got its own bag. That one could have been trouble. She wanted to be very careful about its burial. Better to be safe than have to fly out and cut it in half again.

  When the bones were collected and she’d brushed her foot over the burnt grass to scatter it and try to hide the destruction somewhat, she glanced around the field. The cows had calmed down, despite the continued presence of a giant golden dragon. They were dipping their heads to eat or dozing on their feet, and a few had even folded their legs and settled into the grass for a longer nap. Whatever Rory was doing to make himself seem harmless to the prey animals, it must be working. Cows really weren’t very smart.

  The lights hadn’t come on in the farmer’s house thankfully. It was a good quarter mile away from the field, but still. There’d been flashes of dragon fire, and if that didn’t attract any attention, it was a good night. To make things even nicer, the rain finally stopped.

  “Ready?” Rory asked, squatting down so she could climb up to her spot on his shoulders.

  She took in a deep breath. The stench of dead had been burnt away. Only torched grass—which smelled sort of nice—and cows remained.

  “Ready,” she said. She set the thick plastic bags down in front of Rory. He’d carry them hooked around a claw as she needed both arms to stay on his back. She paused at his knee, scanning the area again.

  “Anything wrong?” he asked.

  “Not sure,” she said. “My instincts are jumping, but I can’t sense anything in the area.”

  “You afraid we’re missing one?”

  “It would have risen by now. They don’t stay in the ground when there’s a meal to be had. The drive to feed is too strong. Overrides self-preservation.” She murmured the last, her attention diverted. She didn’t sense any more of the neamh-mairbh, but she was sensing…something.

  “Maybe we fly over the farm after we bury the bones,” she said quietly. “Just double check, make sure.”

  Rory glanced up at the sky. “We should have time if we stay high enough and don’t take too long on the mountain.”

  She nodded absently, still scanning the field. The cows had started to move away from the fence, laying down in a less compact collection. Humming a little under her breath, she climbed onto Rory’s shoulders and braced for the liftoff. A nagging bother followed her as they left the farm behind.

  3

  They landed to one side of an isolated ridge in the MacGillycuddy’s Reeks, in a slight vale that wasn’t often visited by hill walkers because it was a hell of a lot easier to reach from dragon-back than it was from the ground. The area was a rocky, windswept place not suitable for much but rain and a few hearty scrub grasses. The brown and green grass and purple sandstone rocks made for a harshly beautiful contrast to the green fields and lake in the distance below. Though, none of that was truly visible at the moment. Not even any lights from nearby towns or villages. If she didn’t know better, she could fool herself into thinking she and Rory were on the remotest spot on Earth where no humans dared go.

  The air was cold at this height and smelled of frosty earth. The clouds had run ahead of the wind, leaving the sky clear and full of bright starlight, with no moon to speak of. In fact, if not for Rory’s faint golden glow, she’d have a hard time seeing the landscape.

  Joan picked a flattish area and cleared aside a few larger rocks to get at the muddy soil so Rory could use his significantly-stronger-than-a-shovel claws to dig out the graves. While he made two holes, she gathered up some suitable flat rocks she could use as cairns to cover the graves.

  The digging and burial went without incident. She didn’t even try to sort out the two bodies in the one bag. There were two skulls, so she put them both in first and covered them over with the remaining assortment of blackened bones. Her fingers tingled on contact with the third set as she scooped them out of the plastic shopping bag. More magic there maybe? They felt more…alive.

  No, that wasn’t quite the right word. The neamh-mairbh weren’t alive technically, even when they were moving about, and never felt like the living world of things. But in these bones, this set from the one who’d had more speed and oomph coming out of the ground, there was more here.

  She placed the charred bones into a separate grave from the other two remains, putting the skull in first again in a slightly deeper part of the hole, and then piling the rest of the bones on top, using the wider area to ensure the skull was completely beneath the rest of the skeleton. It wasn’t quite like burying the body head down, but it was the best she could do with what she had left to work with.

  Once the deed was done, she shook her hands to release the tingling. Bit like static shock, only this feeling lingered. Bad magic. As she and Rory pushed stony dirt over the bones, she swore the ones in the single grave started to glow, a hint of that same ghastly green that lit their eyes when they were walking about.

  “You seeing that?” she asked her companion.

  Rory let out a soft snort. “Lot of magic in that one. Stinks more than the others.”

  “Wonder why?” she murmured, not expecting an answer. But the difference was enough to keep her cautious and leery.

  Once they had the holes filled, she started piling loose rocks carefully atop the two graves. She kept the cairns small and as unobtrusive looking as possible, trying to shape them to fit the environment. Couldn’t have unsuspecting humans knocking them aside or kicking them over, or worse yet, digging under them looking for ancient Irish relics. They’d buried a few other bodies in this section of the Reeks—not all of the neamh-mairbh because it wouldn’t do to have too many in the same place, but a few. Even though she knew what their graves looked like, she still had trouble distinguishing the cairns she’d built from the rest of the surrounding rocks.

  As she started on the pile over the creature whose bones had been glowing, she noted the ground was warmer than it should be. “Something’s weird about this one,” she said to Rory. “I don’t like it.”

  “He’s my son,” a new voice said.

  Joan spun to face the new threat, her sword in hand—pulled so instinctively she didn’t actually remember the move—Rory at her back.

  A man-shaped creature stood a hundred yards away, a black form against the background darkness. His only discernable features were his wickedly glowing green eyes and a green-tinted light around his mouth that highlighted a razor-sharp row of teeth.

  “The very man in charge,” Joan said, realizing she was facing whoever had started this run on neamh-mairbh. “And to whom do I have the pleasure of speaking?”

  The creature growled.

  “Not much of a name,” she said. “What do we think?” She directed this comment to Rory.

  “I think he’s Abhartach,” Rory said, his wings making a slight movement, a bare adjustment that created a soft breeze around Joan.

  “Can’t be,” she said. She narrowed her eyes at the creature. “I know you can talk as you just did,” she said to him. “Care to give us more of an introduction than a grunt.”

  The man-shaped thing said, “I am Abhartach, returned for my revenge.”

  “Told you so,” Rory said in her head.

  “Nope,” she said aloud, “can’t be. Nothing has disturbed his grave up there in the north. Would have been on the news. No. You are something else.” She murmured the last to herself, trying to gage what, exactly, she was facing.

  Maybe a demon of some kind? Or one of the eviler Fae? The legends were spare and mixed about what had given Abhartach his magic. Depending on which religious context the story was told in, some said he learned from a druid, others the devil, some from a goblin, and others didn’t actual specify. Those were the least helpful of the legends, really.

  He was definitely a naemb-mairbh, and from the feel of him, the stench of magic flowing from him, she’d say he was one powerful old vampire. But the original Abhartach?

  Rory’s wings fluttered up a stirring of dirt and rocks again. He leaned in close to her back, though he didn’t have to to speak to her since his voice was in her head. “He’s old,” Rory said. “Not recently made. But…not as old as the Abhartach. You’re right.”

  He sounded so reluctant to admit that, she wanted to preen.

  “He’s risen recently. Been buried for…several centuries I’d say.”

  “From the smell?” She wasn’t being facetious. Rory had a hell of a sense of smell. Especially for magic. All Joan could smell was the reek of rotting meat and the power of the vampire in front of them. But she couldn’t get specific in diagnosing the details of that power. That’s why she and Rory were a team.

  A puff of steam wafted over her shoulder from the dragon’s grunt of assent. “Tricky magic. True Abhartach magic. Like the others, he won’t ever die.”

  “He’s not the Abhartach, but he’s got that magic?” She asked quietly, but a faint noise from the vampire made her certain he’d heard.

  “Yes,” Rory said. “Ancient Earth magic. Not much of it around these days.”

  “Faery?”

  “Not…quite. Definitely old gods’ magic from ancient Ireland, but not Tuatha de Dana. The Fomorians. Not even sure how this one would have found it, even a few centuries ago. They’ve been legends for millennia.”

  “You ever meet any?”

  “Story for later.” Rory straightened away from her back, giving her room to move.

  The creature had taken a few steps closer, slowly but near enough Joan could now see he was wearing clothes. At least she got an impression of loose shirt and pants through the darkness. Everything about the being was shadow and dark except for his glowing green eyes like toxic waste and the glow from inside his mouth that lit up the outline of his teeth.

  “So,” Joan said to the creature. “You’re old enough. But not the old dwarf king. A vampire though.”

  “I’ve risen for revenge.”

  “Yeah, got that. On who?”

  “Everyone.”

  “That’s gonna cover a lot of ground.”

  “I will drink your blood to feed my son. He will rise. They will all rise. We will resurrect the old gods and this world will be ours again.”

  The rocks she’d set over the two fresh graves started to shiver and the ones over the grave with the glowing bones jumped aside. Leaving that particular chunk of ground unprotected.

  Joan set her shoulders, adjusted her stance and grip on the sword. “A fight it is then,” she said.

  The creature’s smile widened, its glowing eyes brightened, and between one heartbeat and the next, it flew at her. Moving in a blink to reach for her throat.

  She swung her sword up to block the attack, sliced the vampire across his stomach, and lurched to one side as Rory swung out a foreclaw to knock the creature aside. It flew back at her, ignoring the dragon to go for Joan’s throat again. The vampire’s fingers were longer than a human’s and tipped with spiked fingernails that resembled bird talons, a smaller version of Rory’s. But she didn’t assume they were any less deadly.

  The vampire swung those talons at her as she ducked and drew her sword across his stomach again. He moved away too fast for her to make the cut deep. And to her irritation, the shallow wound healed as she watched. The skin beneath his shadow clothing was white as bleached teeth, and a black substance she assumed was blood dribbled across that whiteness, the smell of rot growing stronger. But other than the blood, there was no evidence of injury.

  The vampire laughed and flew at her again. She swung for a reaching arm, but again the creature moved so fast she only cut his arm instead of removing it as she’d intended. The vampire kept her between himself and the dragon as well, making it difficult for Rory to blast off a shot of fire without catching Joan in the crosshairs. The vampire flashed close to her again, and this time she barely got her sword up in time to block the swing of his clawed hands.

  If she’d been an ordinary woman, she’d never have seen the creature coming. He moved faster than anything she’d seen before. A blink and he was close. Another blink and he was yards away. She fought on instinct, because she couldn’t have thought fast enough to keep up with the vampire, her movements born of the last thirty years of training and practice.

  Thirty years wasn’t nearly long enough, apparently.

  She raised her sword and stabbed forward, impaling the blur of motion as it flew at her again. The creature allowed itself to slide down her sword, pulling in close enough they were momentarily trapped together. Bone scraped across metal, the sound a grating in her ears. There wasn’t as much muscle and organ resistance as there would have been if the vampire had been made of actual living flesh, which threw her a bit off balance. He held the sharp edges of the base of her sword, his face in hers, the stench of rot and death so strong she choked on it.

  “You will help me raise them all,” the vampire said.

  She jerked her sword upward, slicing toward his throat. She didn’t have enough room to cut all the way through, but she was stronger than the average human and her blade was exquisitely sharp, so despite the awkward position, she managed to move the weapon up a few inches on the creature’s body, opening the hole in his chest. She was aiming for his heart, but she needed better purchase to get the momentum to cut through bone. She stepped one foot back, widening her legs, then leaned into the vampire.

  The creature laughed and released the sword. She jerked it up again in the same instant as he slashed her cheek with one taloned finger, his other hand grabbing for her throat. She dove away from the hand going for her throat, dragging her sword awkwardly with her. The foot-long chunk she’d taken out of the vampire’s chest closed almost as soon as it appeared, like water filing in a hole.

  Her cheek stung fiercely, fire burning from the wound down her left side, and behind the burn, numbness. She blinked and her left leg collapsed under her, dropping her to her knee.

  Oh oh.

  She couldn’t move her left side, not even a little, and though she was right handed, she was now stuck in one place and with only one hand to swing a sword best maneuvered with two hands against her current threat. She could use the thing one-handed, and did often, but that was when she could move her body and use momentum.

  The vampire’s laughter echoed through the hills, and the ground next to Joan, the covered grave of the creature’s son, started to jump and shiver, the dirt moving and shifting as if something beneath was moving.

  “Rory,” she called. “Think it’s time.”

  The dragon launched into the air with a powerful beat of his wings, churning up dust and grit. So much she could no longer see the vampire laughing a few hundred yards away and had to squint against the sudden sandstorm. She removed her scabbard with her right hand, gripping strap and sword together awkwardly, and tossed the leather holster aside while maintaining her hold on the sword.

  “Your dragon cannot save you now,” the vampire said, its voice carrying through the swirl of wind. “You cannot run from death. And I am the death bringer.”

  The ground next to her jumped again. Bones that glowed green poked out of the earth, reaching hands still faintly charred from dragon fire. She could sense Rory circling overhead, angling his big body until he was lined up just right.

 

1 2 3 4