The Crossing (Immortals) Read Online Free

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single tear tracked down Gilraen's leathery cheek. "She's
verra bad off, Mac Lit. I fear... I fear she's dying."
    Mac's gut clenched. "No. I'll take her to Annwyn at
once. She'll heal there."
    Gilraen shook his head. "We'd have brought her to the
gates already, if 'twere possible. 'Tis not. Her heart flutters like hummingbird wings, and her breath is the faintest
whisper. She canna be moved."
    "Why didn't you bring her immediately? As soon as you
realized what had happened?"
    "By then Was already too late. The spell struck that
quickly and caught us unaware. We thought this type of evil finished with, we did. The clan's seen nary a demon or
ogre in over a year." The lines bracketing Gilraen's mouth
deepened. "Ye assured us it was safe to leave the protection
of the city, Mac Lir. We returned to the countryside with
high hopes."

    The reproach hit home with a painful strike that made
Mac feel like the lowest of worms. He'd spent the last year
roaming the world-performing, brooding, grabbing stale
pleasures. If he'd been home in the Highlands, alert and
looking after his responsibilities, he might have neutralized this threat before it occurred.
    The spell-caster had left no trail, Gilraen had said. And
yet... Mac frowned, concentrating. Faeries were highly
sensitive to magic, but Mac's senses were infinitely sharper.
He inhaled deeply. There was a whiff of spent death magic
in the air. The barest trace.
    It was a sour stench, like milk left out in the sun. Such
rankness was only to be expected where death magic was
concerned. But what took Mac by surprise was the accompanying undercurrent of... sweetness. Like lilacs in springtime. Like laughter. Like life magic.
    Now, that was exceedingly odd.
    For the first time in months, Mac's curiosity stirred.
    "What it is, Mac Lir?" Gilraen's wings lifted and buzzed.
"What do ye sense? Demons? Unseelies?"
    "Neither. There's a residue of death magic, yes, but
there are traces of a life magic spell as well."
    "Death and life magic, cast together? It makes no
sense!"
    "You're right. It doesn't," Mac murmured. "But both
kinds of magic were cast here. And I'm certain there was
only one spell-caster."
    "But who?"
    "A human, most likely. Very few races other than humans can handle both death and life magic." But none, to
his knowledge, did so simultaneously.

    Gilraen gave his beleaguered hat another half twist. A
stray leaf fluttered to the ground. "What human would
harm a faerie child? Faeries are good luck for humanfolk."
    True enough. Which only made the situation that much
more bizarre. Mac scrubbed a hand over his face, momentarily startled by the scratch of whiskers. Six months earlier, after seven hundred years of not needing a razor, his
beard had come in with a vengeance. He still couldn't get
used to it. He felt like a bloody werewolf under the full
moon.
    The rage bubbling inside him was certainly worthy of a
werewolf. What scum of a human would dare harm a
faerie infant? He itched to start tracking the villain, but
right now the sick child was his first priority. "Take me to
Tamika, Gilraen. Gods willing, I'll be able to heal her."
    Gilraen's wings buzzed. "I hope so, Mac Lit. I hope so."

     

Dear Goddess. She'd gone too far this time. Too, too far.
    And now an infant lay dying.
    Artemis Black gripped her moonstone pendant, her
clenched fist pressing into the hollow at the base of her
throat, and held herself very, very still. Bile burned in
her throat; the Cadbury chocolate-and-hazelnut bar she'd
gulped in lieu of breakfast churned in her stomach. The
faerie clan's life essence, trapped inside the pendant, burned
her palm.
    Her senses were raw; she could feel every nuance of the
energy bound to the stone. The panic and fear of the young
ones, the grief and anger of the elders. But those sensations
were new, and faint. Far more vivid was the life of the
faeries before she'd cast her spell: fellowship and feasting,
dances under the