Raven Calls. C.E. Murphy

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      Chapter Nine

      “What?” At least this time it wasn’t just me. Nuada, Cernunnos and I all blurted the word, though Cernunnos looked an awful lot like the cat who stole the cream as he said it. Me, I finished with, “No way. Are you nuts? Are you crazy? Ride with the Wild Hunt without me to watch your back? Ride off through time on your own? Are you batshit insane? Are you nuts?”

       “I’ve done it before,” Gary said a bit belligerently.

       My hands flew upward and waved in the air like they were trying to escape my wrists. “With Morrison and Suzanne and Billy! You weren’t alone! And you weren’t thousands of years out of time! And—”

       “And I didn’t have the Sight,” Gary reminded me. “And somebody’s gotta go meet Brigid, right? Maybe it ain’t you the cauldron spell gets bound to, Jo. Maybe it’s me. Besides, Horns here ain’t gonna let anything happen to me, are you?” he said to Cernunnos. “Because if you do, you’re gonna have Jo to reckon with, and I don’t figure that’s the kind of reckoning you’re lookin’ for with her.”

       The horned god lifted an agreeing eyebrow, which didn’t reassure me at all. I gargled in frustration. “Come on, Cernunnos! You’re the one who remembers meeting me in the future! You’d remember Gary going gallivanting off with you in the past, too, if it had already happened!”

       Cernunnos’s other eyebrow rose to match the first. “Would I? Perhaps in the past I remember best he came not to Tara with you. Of all mortals, you should realize that there are paths not taken. Nothing is immutable, Joanne. Not even for a god.”

       That was not the answer I wanted, especially after future-Brigid hadn’t particularly seemed to know who Gary was. It lent credence to Cernunnos’s argument. I made throttling motions with my fingers, envisioning the horned god’s neck between them. “Okay, okay, all right, fine, but you just said you needed a force for life—”

       “He may not heal,” Cernunnos said, “but Master Muldoon is as bright a force of life as I have seen, and I have seen many. More, he carries with him the spirit of tenacity, a creature of great age and soul. He—”

       “That’s his spirit animal!” I howled. “I helped him find that!”

       “All the better. It binds him to you and adds some note of your strength to his.”

       Gary looked triumphant. I stomped my foot, afraid I’d already lost the battle. “I said no! God, just because I got you into this doesn’t mean you have to go gallivanting off across time and space to—”

       “Save the world?” Gary planted himself in front of me. He made a big wall of a man, especially when he folded his arms across his chest and puffed up a little. “I’ve told you a hundred times you’re the best thing that’s happened to me in years, Joanie. You got me all tangled up in this crazy fantastic world of yours and brought me back to life after Annie died. I’ve watched you fling yourself into things you got no idea what’s coming, and you do it all because you’re trying to make the world a better place. You keep saying you want to grow up to be like me. Kid, I wish I’d been young like you. Now listen to me. You’re my girl, and I’m doing this thing because it’s what you would do if you could. ’Sides,” he added, gray eyes bright, “this might be my one chance to kick death in the balls. Can’t let an old guy miss that dance.”

       I laughed. I didn’t want to, but I laughed. Then I hugged him, muttering, “If you don’t come back,” which I repeated when I let go of him, except this time I said it to Cernunnos, with a threatening finger added to the phrase.

       He inclined his ashy head, temple bones visibly distorted in the fading light. “You have my word, Siobhán Walkingstick, and that is not a thing I give lightly.”

       “All right. Here.” I thrust my rapier into Gary’s hands. “You can use this, right? I mean, hell, you can do everything else.”

       He took it, but not gingerly. “I’m better with a saxophone, doll, but I’ll make do. You sure? You might need it.”

       “I’m not the one proposing to go face down the man himself. You need it more than I do. Gary, are you sure? Because this is nuts.”

       The big man’s voice gentled. “You can’t do it, Jo. It’s time you learn we’ll go into battle for you, even if you ain’t there.”

       “I don’t want you to.”

       “Good generals don’t.” Gary stuck the rapier point down into the ground, took me by the shoulders and kissed my forehead. “I’ll see you on the other side, darlin’.”

       “Of time. Just the other side of time, okay? No stupid heroics, Gary. Not when I’m not there to save you.”

       “I promise.” Gary let me go, took up the rapier again and turned to Cernunnos. “Mind if I share your ride?”

       Cernunnos looked pained and gestured to the boy who rode beside him. “Share his. The mare is well used to a mortal rider.”

       The mare was the boy Rider’s human mother, transformed. A whole pile of unfortunate things, mostly involving crude comments about riders, immortal and mortal alike, rose to and were compressed behind my lips. I could be dumb, but not that dumb. Gary took the kid’s hand and swung up onto the mare behind him, then gave me a jaunty salute. “Go get ’em, Jo.”

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