A Caress Of Twilight

Chapter 40

We all turned to the bed like a slow-motion scene from a movie.

"Did you say Taranis?" I asked.

"Are ya deaf, girl?"

"No," I said, "just surprised."

Bucca frowned up at me. "Why?"

I blinked down at him, thought about it. "I didn't think Taranis was this crazy."

"Then ya ha' not been payin' attention."

"She hasn't seen Taranis since she was a child, Bucca," Doyle said.

"I apologize then." He looked at me critically. "She looks like Seelie sidhe."

I wasn't sure what to do with the compliment. I wasn't even sure if, under the circumstances, it was a compliment.

Lucy walked around to the far side of the bed. "Are you saying the King of the Seelie Court had you raise these hungry ghosts?"

"Aye."

"Why?" she asked. We seemed to all be asking that question a lot today.

"He wanted them to kill Maeve Reed."

Lucy just stared at him. "Okay, I'm lost. Why should the king want the golden goddess of Hollywood dead?"

"I don't know why," Bucca said, "and I didna care. Taranis promised to give me enough power to "recover some of what I'd lost. I was finally willing to join the Seelie Court. But he promised it to me on condition of Maeve's death, and that I could control the Starving Ones. Many o' them were friends of old. I thought they were like me and would welcome a chance to return, but they are no longer Bucca, or sidhe, or even fey. They are dead things, dead monsters." He closed his eyes and took a deep shaking breath.

"The first time I faltered, they attacked me, and now they feed, not to return to the old ways, but because they are hungry. They feed for the same reason that a wolf feeds. Because it hungers. If they gain enough lives to return to something close to sidhe, it will be so awful that not even the Unseelie Court will be able to match the horror of them."

"Not to complain," Lucy said, "but why didn't you tell all this to the social worker or the ambassador?"

"It was when I saw Nicca, and even the goblin, that I knew I'd been a fool. My time is past, but my people live on. As long as me blood is walkin' around, then the Bucca are not dead." Tears glittered in his eyes. "I tried to save meself, even if it meant destroying what was left of me people. I was wrong, terrible wrong."

He reached out for Nicca's hand this time, and Nicca took his with a smile.

"How do we stop them?" Doyle asked.

"I raised them, but I cannae lay them. I have not the strength."

"Can you tell us the spell?" Doyle asked.

"Aye, but that da' na mean you can do it."

"Let us worry about that," Doyle said.

Bucca told us how he'd planned to lay the ghosts. Lucy actually took notes. The rest of us just listened. It wasn't a matter of magic words, more of magical intent and just knowing how to think it through.

When he'd finished telling us everything he knew about the Starving Ones, I asked, "Have you been hiding the Nameless from the Unseelie Court?"

"Girl, have ya not been payin' attention? Taranis is hidin' it."

"You raised that for him, too?" I couldn't keep the surprise out of myvoice.

"I raised the Starvin' Ones with a little help from Taranis, but Taranis raised the Nameless with only a little help from me."

"He was one of the main powers behind its casting," Doyle said.

"Why would Taranis do that?" I asked.

"I thought he meant to take some of his power back from the thing," Bucca said, "and mayhap he did, but it didn't work out like he'd planned."

"So Taranis is controlling the Nameless," Galen said.

"Nay, lad, do not ya un'erstand yet? Taranis freed it, gave it orders to kill this Maeve, but he no more controls it than I do the Starvin' Ones. He hid what he had done, but it is the thing itself that is hiding it now. Taranis was not half-panicked when he realized that, I tell you. He was scared, and he should be."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"When I tried to send the Starvin' Ones through Maeve's wards, they couldna reach her. They turned on me, and found other prey. I saw the thing that you call the Nameless. It will breach her wards, and once it has killed her, then what will it do?"

"I don't know," I said softly.

"Anything it damn well pleases," Bucca said.

"What he means," Rhys said, "is that once the Nameless kills Maeve Reed it won't have a purpose anymore. It will just be this huge powerful thing, and it will destroy everything around it."

"Now there is a smart boy," Bucca said.

I looked at Rhys. "How do you know that for certain?"

"I gave most of my magic to that thing. I know what it will do, Merry. We have to keep it from killing Maeve. As long as she's alive, it will keep trying to kill her, and it will keep trying to hide its presence until it's done that. Once she's dead it'll just explode all over the city. The most alien energy the fey had to offer will be let loose in Southern California. The thing will stomp through L.A. like Godzilla through Tokyo."

"How am I supposed to convince Peterson that some ancient fey magic is about to stomp the city?" Lucy asked.

"You aren't," I said. "He won't believe it anyway."

"Then what are we going to do?" she asked.

"We're going to go keep Maeve Reed alive. Maybe convince her that Europe would be good this time of year. Maybe just keep her moving ahead of it until we can figure out something else."

"Not a bad idea," Rhys said.

"I take it back," said Bucca. "You're a smart one, too."

"Glad to hear that," I said. "Does someone have a cell phone?"

Lucy had one. I took it from her, and she gave me Maeve Reed's number out of her little notebook. I dialed, and Marie, the personal assistant, answered. She was hysterical. She began to scream, "It's the princess, it's the princess!" Julian took the phone from her. "Meredith, is that you?"

"Yeah, Julian, what's wrong?"

"Something's here, something so psychically big I can't even begin to sense all of it. It's trying to get through the wards, and I think it's going to do it."

I started for the door. "We're on our way, Julian. We'll send the police on ahead of us."

"You don't sound surprised, Meredith. Do you know what this thing is?"

"Yes," and I told him as we ran through the hospital toward the cars. I told him what it was, but I didn't know if anything I told him was going to help at all.