Back Door Into Purgatory Page 2

  “Never listen to a golden robot, especially when his head’s on backwards.” Conall couldn’t help smiling, though it didn’t last long. “Damn. I don’t dare go down there to see what came through.” A glance at his erection straining against its cat’s-cradle of rope was all the explanation he needed to give. The presence of a Fae, and that Fae’s inner store of living magick, near a wellspring shedding untethered magick always produced unfortunate results; the presence of an aroused mage, with his personal magick in a state of hyperactivity, would be the kind of trouble bards wrote songs about. Usually centuries after the fact, once the dust had settled.

  “Want me to go check it out?”

  “Depends—did Lucien ever get around to installing the lights? You can’t see by magick-light, after all.”

  “He did it last week, he said.” Josh wriggled the tip of his smallest finger through a gap in the ropes, finding and stroking Conall’s taint.

  “Your fingers ought to be illegal.”

  Conall closed his eyes, focusing what was left of his attention on his memory of the tingle of sympathetic nexus energy. It traced the signature of something small, something non-living, something mostly non-magickal. “It should be safe for you,” he said slowly. “But put a shirt on.”

  “Way ahead of you.” When Conall opened his eyes, Josh had already slipped a sweater over his head. “I’ll be back in two shakes.”

  “Shakes of what?”

  * * *

  The closer Josh came to the bottom of the tight spiral staircase leading down into the nexus chamber, the more his skin crawled. He wasn’t afraid—no, his skin was literally crawling. Not only did Scathacrú and Árean want out from under his shirt, he was pretty sure he could feel the inked vines and flowers covering his shoulder pollinating, with a little help from the bumblebee he’d thought was such a cute touch. And he was very, very happy he’d asked Terry to ink the wolf on his left thigh instead of doing it himself; he had plans for his balls later, plans that didn’t involve having them eaten by a tattoo.

  What the hell is going on down here?

  Coming around the last bend of the staircase gave him a partial answer to that question, at least. The wellspring that had grown to take up about a third of the subterranean chamber’s floor had been even more agitated than had become normal for it, since the incident with Maelduin and Terry a couple of days ago. And now the great nexus, the Grand Central Station of ley and elemental energy, was matching it snit fit for snit fit. Where the wellspring threw off what looked—and occasionally felt—like solid shards of living magick untethered from its source, the nexus was spinning off clouds of turbulent ley energy, a miniature hurricane.

  Fortunately for everyone—and for the continued structural integrity of the nearly-completed Purgatory over Josh’s head—the two energies didn’t have any interest in fraternizing, and in fact maintained a DMZ of sorts. Josh hoped the truce held long enough for him to find what he’d come for and get out again.

  Squinting into the energy clouds, Josh barely made out what looked like a light-colored patch on the battered black leather chaise at the heart of the nexus. All this, for that? He edged closer to the spiraling ley energy, circling to find the spot on the perimeter where he could get closest to the object, whatever it was, without having to step into the nexus. Not that it would be dangerous for him to do so, not really. But he wanted to get in and out before Scathacrú figured out that it could probably burn a hole in his shirt and escape.

  ...not really dangerous?

  Chuckling, Josh darted into the cloud. His hand closed around the object on the chaise—heavy paper, from the feel of it. Areán shrieked—not out of pain, just for the hell of it, as far as Josh could tell—and Scathacrú, never one to take a back seat to its inked sibling, responded with a clicking sound, like a pilot light on a gas stove trying to catch.

  Oh, shit.

  Josh pivoted on the ball of his foot and ran for the stairs.

  * * *

  “The next time I have to go down there, would you mind channeling me an asbestos shirt first?”

  Conall blinked at the hole charred in the sleeve of Josh’s sweater, a hole through which a flash of golden-scaled dragonet-hide was barely visible. “How about a firefighter’s jacket instead? And maybe a hat? And suspenders. But no belt.”

  “My darling horndog.” Josh grinned, a sight that never failed to tighten whatever trousers Conall happened to be wearing. Or, in the present case, the loop of rope binding his balls to his cock.

  “So glad you noticed,” Conall gasped.

  “Too tight?”

  “Just right.” Conall’s curiosity was almost as great as his arousal, but trying to crane his neck to see what Josh was carrying would only make matters worse. Or better. “So what came through the nexus?”

  Josh held out a sheet of parchment; the air around it was distorted in an eerily beautiful way, as if something about the parchment, something about its essence, changed from one moment to the next. Or might change. “Only this.”

  If Conall’s hands had been free, he might have pinched the bridge of his nose. “I think I recognize that channeling. Mind bringing it a little closer?”

  “Sorry.” Josh held the parchment in front of Conall’s face. “Better?”

  “Yes, thank you.” Conall squinted, not because the writing on the parchment was blurry, but because it was unstable. “Dammit. It’s d’aos’faeinen.”

  “Want me to call Cuinn? He can read it—”

  “No, no.” And not just because of the comments the snarky Loremaster would undoubtedly make when he saw Conall’s condition. “Not d’aos’faein, d’aos’faeinen. A whole different animal.” He started to sigh, but stopped before cutting off circulation to his cock. “The writing itself is unstable—I’m not sure if whoever wrote it did it this way on purpose, or if the faeinen is a side effect of coming through the nexus with things the way they are right now, but that doesn’t really matter. It takes a channeling to stabilize and read it—I know it, I learned it a couple of hundred years ago, but that makes it a newfangled notion to a Fae Cuinn’s age. I don’t think he ever picked it up.”

  By now, Josh barely blinked when reminded of Conall’s age, which suited Conall just fine. After 300-plus years of the most stringent self-control he was capable of, it felt wonderful to have a partner who wasn’t intimidated by him. Who could treat him... well, like a twink. Take him in hand when the situation called for it.

  And the smile on Josh’s face was all about taking Conall in hand. Or mouth, or whatever was needful.

  “You going to want help with that channeling?”

  Damn, his scair-anam even knew the exact vocal pitch that would get him off. “Yes, please.”

  A Fae’s ability to channel magick was strongest when he was aroused. Conall’s ability had always been greater than any, even during his centuries of self-denial... and when Josh went to work on him, he was fairly sure the limits of his ability had yet to be discovered.

  Conall sucked in a breath through clenched teeth as Josh teased his taint with the tip of his tongue and his cock swelled against its rope cradle. “Damn... you know that’s my favorite... but I need you to keep the parchment in front of my face, or I won’t be able to read it.”

  “Sorry, my bad.”

  “You look about as sorry as Bragan in the Sea King’s harem.”

  “The Sea King had a harem of ginger mages?” Holding the parchment in one big hand, Josh teased at Conall’s cock through the spaces left by the rope with the other.

  “You. Are. Not. Helping.” But, of course, he was. Even his low laughter was helping; Conall could feel magick surging through him like a rip tide, and he hadn’t even started the channeling yet.

  “Sure I am. If I really wanted to not help, I’d...” The tip of a finger pushing aside the rope and slipping into Conall’s eager hole up to the second knuckle finished Josh’s sentence for him.

  Conall’s response was monosyllabic, as’Faein, and sublimely filthy. Riding the crest of his arousal, he whispered the first key-words of the channeling and did his best to focus on the writing in front of his nose instead of the fingers teasing his most teaseable places.

  “They’re pairs of words. Mostly.” He sucked in a breath as Josh palmed his cock over the thin ropes. “The first one... as’Faein, I think they’d be osclór and nartú. And fellate me with an oven mitt, there they go.”

  “No oven mitt handy, I’m afraid.” Josh’s tone was matter-of-fact, just as Conall’s had been. “I’ll have to do it the old-fashioned way.”

  “Wait till I’m done, or I’ll never make it to the end of this list.” Conall groaned softly, a groan that ended in a strangled laugh at his partner’s angelic expression. “And let me concentrate.”

  “Cheeky minx.”

  Conall stuck out his tongue, then forced himself to concentrate. “Osclór means ‘opener’ or ‘one who opens.’ And nartú means ‘strength.’”

  “Odd.” Josh traced a fingertip up Conall’s auburn treasure trail, until its path was blocked by a half-hitch. “You’d think ‘one who opens’ would be paired with ‘one who closes.’ Or ‘strength’ with ‘weakness.’”

  “That’s awfully linear thinking for a Fae.” Carefully, Conall channeled more magic into the parchment. “The next pair is... it looks like an archaic form of tobar, and soladán. Tobar in Faen means a well, but the older form...” Conall blinked. “I will bet you anything you like that it’s the d’aos’Faein word for ‘wellspring.’”

  “Since only one of us here speaks Faen, you could lose that bet and I would never know.”

  “I’m right. Just accept it.” Josh’s lips sealed around the head of Conall’s cock, and Conall forgot how to breathe for a blissful second or t
wo. “Soladán—” He cleared his throat. “Soladán means a channel. Like a river, not magickal channeling.”

  Josh’s eyebrows went up, what little Conall could see of them. “A well and a river?”

  “No, a wellspring and a... wait.” Something about the shape of the words... “Not a wellspring, or a channel. The Wellspring. The Channel.”

  “You lost me.”

  “No, I didn’t, but I may cry if you don’t keep licking.” Conall let his head drop back with a breathless laugh as Josh’s tongue teased at his length. “They’re names. The list is a list of names. Lochlann is the Wellspring, with his gift for calling the ley energy.”

  “And Garrett’s the Channel, helping him guide it.”

  “I could have sworn I said something along the lines of ‘keep licking.’” Conall grinned. “So osclór and nartú should be names, too.”

  “Maybe they’re ours.” Fortunately, Josh’s free hand more than made up for what his tongue wasn’t doing. “You call me your strength.”

  Conall would have nodded if he could have. “And I’m the one who opens the nexus. Or I was until it went crazy.”

  Josh frowned, licking up a bead of fizzy Air Fae precum. “Why would the Loremasters use what for all we know might be their last chance to send us a message, to send us a list of our own names?”

  “Speaking as something of an expert in Fae psychology, it would be a better use of our time to save figuring that out for after I finish translating.”

  “Roger that.”

  “I’d rather you roger me.”

  “Not till you’re finished.”

  Conall squeaked as Josh’s thumb slid into him. “Show me the damn parchment again.”

  Grinning, Josh obliged, and Conall let the magick flow out of him anew, doing his best to focus. “Nidantór, Breathea. The... oh, hell. Unraveler? Unmaker? And the Judge, that word’s pretty much the same in d’aos’Faein and Faen.”

  “Neither one of those sounds familiar. Unless the Judge is something to do with Fiachra.”

  Conall shook his head, as best he could. “I doubt it. Fae don’t really have what you’d call a judicial system, and the Loremasters wouldn’t have any reason to associate police with judges.”

  “I was thinking more of his Truthsight.”

  “Oh.” Reason and logic were difficult in Conall’s situation, but he tried. “Maybe. But that would make Peri the Unmaker, and that makes no sense at all.”

  “True.” Josh stroked one of Conall’s swollen testicles with the flat of his tongue, making Conall yelp. “What’s next?”

  “Quite possibly me passing out.”

  “The day I exceed your pleasure threshold, the world will be ending around us.”

  There was nothing to be said to that, because Josh was probably right. “Parchment, please. Erm... this next one’s three.”

  “Rhoann, Mac, and Lucien, then.”

  “I’m not so sure about that. Glanadorh, Coromór, Farthor.” The wavering magick was starting to make Conall’s eyes water. “The Cleaner, the... One Who Makes Level? Not sure about that one, it could be the One Who Makes Equal. And the Sentry.”

  “That could be Lucien.” The human fireplug who had been, and would be again, Purgatory’s head bouncer had a sixth sense, the gift of his Fae SoulShare, that let him keep police and other ill-wishers out of the club and away from the man and the Fae he loved.

  “It could. But the other two don’t fit Rhoann and Mac.”

  Josh slowly worked his tongue into the bend where Conall’s drawn-up thigh met his torso, tickling the oh-so-sensitive skin there. “Think we’re barking up the wrong tree?”

  “Not sure I need that mental image. Coinneach would have way too much fun with it.” Conall wasn’t sure how he was managing to form words, though long hours of magickal work with his lover and partner and SoulShare undoubtedly helped him concentrate. “Let’s leave it for now.” He drew a deep, unsteady breath. “Scian-omprór and Nachangalte. The Blade-bearer and the Unbound.”

  “Tiernan.”

  “Or Maelduin.” Conall closed his eyes, just for a second, to stop their watering. “Crangaol and Síofra, the Tree-kin and the Changeling.”

  “Finally, an easy one.” Josh worked his fingers through the binding criss-crossing Conall’s chest and pinched his nipple, hard enough to make him yelp. “Fiachra and Peri. And I have to say, I like the Changeling as a name for him. Falcon’s a beauty.”

  “She is.”

  “I think you just got harder.”

  “I think you’re right.” Conall set himself against a wince as the binding around his balls tightened. “Care to get that parchment back here?”

  “Sorry-not-sorry.”

  Conall squinted through another wave of pleasure, at words which disappeared almost as fast as he read them. “Damn. Another three, which makes no sense. Gastiór, the Binder, Laoc, the Warrior, and Caomhnór, the Guardian.”

  “Well, Mac has to be the Warrior.” At 65, with a sort of agelessness gifted him by his SoulShare, Mac was still every inch the ex-Marine.

  “Yes, but we already know Tiernan’s the Guardian, the Guardian of the nexus.” Conall huffed out a short, tight breath. “Maybe these aren’t names after all.”

  “Or maybe the Loremasters are doing something we don’t understand. Yet.” A soothing hand cupped Conall’s ass-cheek, while a decidedly un-soothing thumb traced along his taint. “Don’t give up, d’orant.”

  “Never give up, never surrender.”

  Josh winked. “That’s the spirit.”

  Conall gave himself a moment to enjoy the ripple of delight Josh’s smile sent through him. “The last two are Fánadh and Ngarradh. The Wanderer, and the... damn, I’m not sure. It’s similar to one of the older words for the Sundering.” The final desperate act of the Loremasters, parting two worlds and walling them off from one another, with a barrier formed of their own essences—a barrier which the Fae of Purgatory had to break down, somehow, without loosing the Marfach on the Realm. Which would probably require them to kill the embodiment of evil, a creature legend said could only die if it could be made to forget what it was.

  Sure, that was going to happen.

  “Can I put this down now? And are you okay?”

  “I... yes, I’m all right. Just thinking.” The parchment was blank, the magickal wavering gone. “If this was the Loremasters’ last message, I’d be considerably happier if I knew what they were saying.”

  “We can talk it over with the others. Later.” The sofa cushions dipped as Josh knelt between Conall’s drawn-up legs; Conall couldn’t see what his partner was doing with his hands, but the metal-on-metal jangle of a steel-tipped belt being undone was just as telling as the sight would have been.

  “Please, yes,” Conall whispered, his voice abruptly gone.

  It took him a moment to realize why Josh’s responsive smile brought effervescent tears to his eyes; he knew the slight curve of his scair-anam’s lips much better from the inside, from those times when he Fade-walked into Josh’s body to borrow his strength, allowing him to channel magick too powerful for even the greatest Fae mage of the last two millennia to handle alone. I know you, that smile said. I know exactly what you want, what you need. And I want more than anything to give it to you.

  Josh leaned forward, took his weight on his hands, and brushed his lips across Conall’s. “Want me to unbind you?”

  “No.” Conall swallowed a lump in his throat. “Take me. Just like this.”

  Chapter Two

  Tobar, Soladán

  Garrett slumped against the mirrored wall of the Colchester’s elevator, trying to keep weight off his injured leg in a way that didn’t make it hurt more and concentrating on not cursing. Well, not cursing too loudly. Not that it mattered, when there was a Fae—and a Fae’s hearing—waiting for him.

  Lochlann, in fact, was waiting outside the elevator doors when they opened again. So much for being quiet.

  “What did you do, grafain?” His partner’s disheveled dark hair hinted at an interrupted nap, but the aquamarine gaze that raked him from head to toe missed nothing.

  “Tested the new poles,” Garrett muttered.

  Lochlann shook his head, and before Garrett could react, his scair-anam had picked him up and was carrying him back toward their suite.