Back Door Into Purgatory

  Back Door Into Purgatory: Book Nine in the SoulShares Series Copyright © 2019 Rory Ni Coileain

  All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  For more information contact:

  Riverdale Avenue Books

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  Cover by Scott Carpenter

  Digital ISBN: 9781626015210

  Print ISBN: 9781626015227

  First edition, September 2019

  

  Prologue

  November 15, 2013 (human reckoning)

  The Realm

  The soft chiming of Aine’s water-clock, three hours before dawn, found her in the empty, echoing space between sleep and wakefulness. No sleeping-draught, and no channeling, would have let her sleep soundly tonight, not when she knew what was happening not five minutes’ walk from her bower.

  Yawning, she sat up and reached for the sheer robe draped across the end of her sleeping-couch; as she settled the robe over her shoulders, she ran a quick channeling through her thick red hair. Nothing elaborate, just enough so as not to arrive at the Pattern-tower looking as if she’d turned and tossed the entire night.

  Her fellow Loremasters would know, though. They always did.

  Picking up parchment and quill and inkstone, she stepped down from her bower. The grass was cool against her bare feet, the breeze gentle and scented with night-blooming flowers. The light of floating Fire-flies was enough to light her path, but a sliver of the full moon was already showing itself above the distant hills to the east.

  Aine shuddered at the reminders of what was to come.

  Once, I could have walked between the worlds, as easily as I cross this greensward. Centuries ago, before the Fae and human worlds were sundered, before the Pattern blocked every road from world to world, a Fae who knew the way could step from one world into the next—easily, in the places where the walls between worlds were thin. But a Loremaster could walk where she would, in those days.

  When she Faded into the tower, Dúlánc’s tabhse was waiting for her, kneeling in a meditative pose near the center of the web of the Pattern. ‘Ghost’ was, of course, not what the eldest Loremaster’s image was at all—what Aine saw was a projection of the embodiment of his soul, emanating from the Pattern beneath her feet. Calling him his own tabhse was simply a concession to his sense of humor.

  She knelt facing the elderly Fae, setting aside her writing implements and arranging the skirts of her robe and night-dress as carefully as if they were the finest gown and she were his guest at a wine-tasting. Only when every last fold was settled to her liking did she meet his gaze. “Is it done?”

  His eyes were his answer; his nod merely confirmed it. “The Foreseeing is complete.”

  “And?” Aine wished she could be as calm as Dúlánc seemed to be, but she had never been much good at that. She was more like Cuinn, the youngest of them, and could not quite keep the edge of her fear from her voice.

  “The endgame has begun.” The Loremaster sighed deeply, soundlessly. “There are many paths forward for those who must fight; all but one end in chaos, and blood, and two worlds begging in vain to have the twisted evil of the Marfach’s tainted magick removed from them.”

  “All but one?” Aine arched a brow. “And where does that one path end?”

  “Darkness. The darkness of our own unknowing.” Dúlánc shrugged, the barest lift of his shoulders. “One path would not reveal its end to us, no matter how we pressed.”

  “Then that is the path our Fae in the human world must take.”

  “Yes.” Dúlánc’s voice was thin, even for a tabhse, revealing the strain hidden behind the serene eyes. “The one path we cannot see.”

  Aine glanced up at the sole round window in the row of slits; the moon was not yet visible, but the glow in the night sky heralded its coming. Her coming, if Cuinn’s tale was to be believed. “Am I to send them a message?”

  “Yes.” Dúlánc turned his head to follow the direction of her gaze. “And then we must prepare to hold the portal with all our strength. That much we know.”

  Aine reached for her writing implements; spreading the parchment on the clear stone in front of her, and channeling a few drops of water onto the inkstone, she touched quill to stone, then looked up. “What am I to tell them?”

  Dúlánc was silent for the space of a few breaths, his tabhse looking around at the brilliant strands of silver-blue wire embedded in the stone of the floor, the strands holding the souls and the bodies of over a thousand Loremasters, who had given up everything else they were to form the last line of defense against the ancient enemy of their race. “We dare not direct them. If we tell them what to do, they will fall from the narrow way, and we—and they—will lose everything.”

  “It has ever been thus.” Actually, the reply that came first to Aine’s mind came in Cuinn’s remembered voice. No shit, Sherlock, what was your first clue? She had never been sure whether the prohibition against giving directions to the Fae of Purgatory was necessary because of the innate nature of the elaborate magickal construct designed to bring the Realm, the human world and the monster seeking to destroy them both into alignment at the perfect time, or because of the essence of Fae stubbornness. Probably both. “Then what shall I write?”

  “They do not need to be reminded of what they must do—they need to be reminded of who they are. Or, in some cases, who they have become, since they left us. If they remember, they will do what is needed.”

  Impossible to keep Cuinn’s words, or at least his tone, from her lips any longer. “Could you possibly be any more cryptic? I do have all night, after all.”

  Dúlánc laughed. “We miss having you among us, chara. Very well; listen closely.”

  Taking her lower lip between her teeth, Aine wrote, in flowing d’aos’Faein script:

  Osclór, Nartú

  Tobar, Soladán

  Nidantór, Breathea

  Glanadorh, Coromór, Farthor

  Scian-omprór, Nachangalte

  Crangaol, Síofra

  Gastiór, Laoc, Caomhnór

  Fánadh, Ngarradh

  “Make haste, sister.” Dúlánc’s voice was even softer than it had been, as she finished writing and blew gently on the parchment; he was fading from view as he spoke. The magickal lights went out, one by one, as he vanished, leaving only the light of the full moon flooding the chamber, nearly centered in the round window.

  Aine wondered if her cohorts could hear the hammering of her heart, disembodied as they all were. Leaving quill and stone on the crystal floor, she stood and channeled her mageblade. The sword of pure truesilver, the price of a Demesne’s worth, appeared in her hand; bound to her, and to her protection, it was about to be tested as no sword had ever been.

  She bent and placed the blade flat on the floor and stepped onto it. The metal was cold and hot at once under her bare feet, surely too slender for her purpose. But she had no choice. Writing directly on and through the Pattern no longer worked; this was their last chance to send a message to the exile Demesne.

  And the only way to be sure their missive survived the hammer-winds and passed through the Pattern was for a Loremaster to channel an equal force to drive it through, without being driven through it herself.

/>   The moon cleared the window-rim, burning white surrounded by the blackness of the night. Aine wondered that the full moon had ever seemed benign to her. Does she hate us, for her captivity?

  A breeze caught at the hem of her robe, playful, teasing. A gust darted up under her gown, then tugged. Tugged harder. Wind circled her, no longer teasing, wrapping robe and nightgown around her legs.

  I would have done better naked. Aine clutched the parchment and stared at the floor, waiting. Waiting for the crystal to fall away, for the floor to be full of stars.

  A blast of wind rocked her, forcing her to step off the sword-blade. She snatched her foot back and planted it firmly on the hilt of the sword, before she was even aware of the chill of the stone.

  Crystal vanished. All that was beneath her now was the Pattern, wire-blades as thin as a thought, capable of slicing soul from soul. And all that was between her and such a fate was the sword on which she balanced, barefoot and buffeted by a captive hurricane.

  She had to act now, swiftly, while the way was open, and before she could fall again. She braced herself against winds pushing her this way and that, whirling, their voice a low ragged howl shaking the walls of the confined space, and held the parchment out in front of her. The gale caught it like a sail, tried to wrest it from her.

  I have a tempest of my own.

  Closing her eyes, she channeled Air. Living magick and elemental answered her summons, welled up from within her and flowed through her and trembled in her outstretched hands. The wind rocked her, battered her—but she was finding its rhythm now, balancing on the sword as if it were an unbroken riding-eagle.

  And when the wind blasted upward, she was ready; she spread her hands atop the parchment, palms down, and released her own whirlwind.

  The winds fought briefly over the precious sheet, but Aine poured magick into her captive gale, and the Loremasters’ message vanished through the deadly lacework.

  The wind roared, like a living thing. Perhaps it was. It had been conjured to hunt, and it had been cheated; nothing in the tower looked or smelled or tasted like prey, save the red-haired Loremaster in her lilac robes, balanced precariously on her mageblade.

  It was easier with her eyes closed; her body knew what to do, when to push back, when to lean away. She wished she could close her ears, to distance herself from the insane howling of the gale, but she could not spare the concentration for such a channeling.

  Surely it’s nearly over—

  The wind blasted Aine from behind, a stooping gryphon complete with a paralyzing roar. Caught off guard, she fell forward.

  And landed on her knees, on cold crystal, in a chamber gone silent and still.

  She huddled on the stone, gasping for breath. She had done her part; the Loremasters’ message had gone to the human world. It was sealed away now, on the far side of the portal.

  Perhaps forever.

  * * *

  Cape Horn

  Wind. Harsh, gusty, bitter cold wind. Warm, though, compared to what they remembered.

  Their eyes opened, although they had no memory of closing them. They lay sprawled on a shelf of rock, with stones cutting into their cheek, their naked body. Most of what they could see was a gray blur; squinting made it less blurry but no more colorful.

  The crash of surf solved the riddle. More fucking ocean.

  How long have we been here? This time the female’s voice was relegated to the inside of their shared head.

  “Who the fuck knows?” The male had intended to snarl, but realized just in time that loud noises were probably the worst possible idea as far as their head was concerned.

  The female ignored him. Of course. The sun is still in the sky.

  “Which means exactly fucking nothing.” He wished she would stop talking. Their head was pounding louder than the surf. Fading sucked, even when the mortal body being force-Faded was dead.

  Hsssst.

  The male was ready to tell the female exactly how he felt about being shushed—but then he heard what she’d heard. The sound of something being dragged across rocks. Faint, gasping moans.

  Maybe something was dragging itself.

  Jagged rocks dug into the male’s flesh as he struggled up onto an elbow. Ignoring the pain, he squinted down along the shelf toward the ocean. Toward, not at. Fuck him if he was going to look straight at the ocean. None of them could remember their own making, naturally—so none of them could remember how it had been fucked up enough to leave them vulnerable to drowning.

  “Dios querido... solo un poco más...”

  The male could barely hear the human’s voice, but at least now he knew which way to look. The rock shelf fell away off to their left, toward the pounding surf. A battered, bloody mess that the male was pretty sure was a human female clawed her way up the incline, trying to put some distance between herself and the splintered shell of a small boat, half in and half out of the—

  Water be fucked. The male returned his attention to the human, who obviously hadn’t seen him, or them, yet.

  He suddenly realized how very hungry he was.

  Look at her. The female’s voice had that thick quality it took on when she was desperate to get laid, or looking for one of her orgiastic blood feedings.

  “Not much else to look at besides the fucking water.” No, the human hadn’t heard him—she seemed fairly preoccupied with not dying.

  The energy around her, you witless scour of smegma.

  The male rolled his eyes, but looked just the same. And blinked, and looked again. The human’s skin danced with fractals of light. Not living magick, but something like it.

  Life. There was something like awe in the female’s voice. Or maybe it was just hunger.

  “Do they all have that? Why haven’t we seen it before?”

  He felt the female shrug. Meat’s senses were, no doubt, unequipped to perceive it. But now that he is gone...

  The human continued to drag herself up the slope, oblivious to the presence of the watcher, or watchers. She left bits of herself behind on the rocks, bits that lingered until they were washed away along with the trickles of blood from her wounds by waves coming entirely too fucking close.

  It’s like watching an ant with only one leg try to crawl out of a puddle of gasoline. The female’s voice was dreamy, unfocused.

  “How would you know that shit?”

  There was a long pause, long enough for the human to make it another couple of feet up the incline. Long enough for the life energy to fade, and spark, and fade again.

  Meat must have told us about it once, she replied, almost as if she’d forgotten the question. It sounds like something he would have enjoyed.

  He’d nearly forgotten the question himself. “Poor Meat.”

  He could feel the female roll her eyes. He kept this energy, this beauty, from us. Waste no time feeling sorry for him.

  “I wasn’t—”

  EAT IT, YOU FOOLS.

  The male had almost forgotten what it felt like to have his blood—their blood—turn to ice in his veins.

  The obscenity was right, though. If it looked like magick, it probably tasted like magick. And he was hungry. They were hungry.

  The human finally saw him when he hitched himself up to crawl toward her. It was hard to tell what she was thinking; her stare could have been dumbfounded gratitude for rescue, or a silent scream. It was hard to tell, with one of her eyes swollen nearly shut beneath a huge knotted bruise and the other covered with long wet dark hair like seaweed.

  But she reached out as he got closer. Even a naked man with filthy dreadlocks, long yellow fingernails, and a hard-on bleeding where it had been cut by the fucking rocks was probably preferable to lying on the slope waiting for the tide to come in.

  The male mostly agreed with the human about the tide.

  Hurry.

  The male didn’t bother responding to the female’s voiceless hiss. His attention was riveted on the human’s hand, reaching up and out toward his own. “That’s it
. You can do it.”

  “Ayuadame...”

  Her rasping plea for help didn’t need any translation.

  Neither did the Marfach’s answer.

  The male grabbed the human’s wrist and pulled. Not a physical pulling—as soon as he touched her, he knew what they all needed, and he took it, sucking in the faint filigree of life-light.

  The human screamed, or tried to. Her back arched, her body twisted, her fingers clawed feebly at the air.

  Her pain had its own taste. It was sweet.

  Too soon, it was over. The human’s body went limp, her head hit the rocks with an unmistakably final-sounding thump. Her light died with her.

  You killed her too quickly.

  The male had no patience for the female’s whining. “We’re starving, you idiot. We don’t have the luxury of fine dining.”

  Yet.

  As meager as it was, this feeding would give them strength for another Fade, let them follow whatever it was that drew them toward their former tool. Somewhere closer to civilization, with more lives to take.

  And when Bryce finally led them to the great nexus...

  The male cackled.

  A whole world of humans to feast on.

  And then a Realm of Fae to destroy.

  Chapter One

  Osclór, Nartú

  “You’re going to have to keep your head down in order for me to tie off that last—oh, hell.” Josh straightened. “I know that look.”

  Conall sighed. “Sorry, dar’cion.” He didn’t bother contradicting his partner; it was bad enough that he’d been snapped out of his delicious state of willing submission by a familiar frisson of energy along his spine. “Something’s come through the nexus.”

  Josh went instantly from mildly irritated to wide-eyed alert. “I thought that wasn’t supposed to be possible any more.”

  “I believe I said it was ‘highly unlikely,’ rather than impossible.”

  “You were quoting C-3PO at the time. The odds sounded pretty impossible to me.”