"You don't have to do this. You got what you wanted," I said.
His eyes shifted to me. "What I wanted? No. What I wanted was to claim my mother's noble heritage. Instead, I must wear the disgusting wings of my traitorous father."
Keeva had circled around the pentagram. She kept one hand near her waist and flexed at the wrist. She was gauging the strength of the shield. When she reached the point opposite me, she shook her head. She hadn't found any weakness.
"You can't do this," Keeva said.
Gethin's face twisted into a sneer. "Only you think in terms of cannot." He spread his arms out. "Look at my power, de Danann. Look at your own. You waste yourself. If more of you had joined my mother's people, we would be ruling this place. Instead, you cower before the humans, content to take the dregs they offer."
"Let Corcan go. You don't need him anymore," I said.
"I need him to open the way. I am keeping my word to my mother, unlike my father. She found me a cure. Now we will cure the world." He began to chant. I recognized the spell. Good ol' Meryl had hit the nail on the head. Gethin was opening a door into chaos. Wind picked up in speed. Outside me fort, someone shot off a roman candle that glimmered red-orange through the hazy light of the protection barrier Gethin had erected. More explosions went off as the first display of fireworks appeared overhead.
"This spell will kill you!" I shouted. He faltered for a moment.
"You're wrong. It opens the door for The Defeated Who Will Conquer. They will ally with us, and we shall rule together." He had the fevered gleam in his eye of the rabidly insane. There wasn't going to be any reasoning with him.
He began chanting again. He raised a hand, and a burst of yellow light tore through the barrier and into the sky. It seemed to fly up forever and scatter among the clouds. A heavy silence spread around us except for Gethin's guttural muttering. Off in the distance, a moaning broke out. The ground vibrated with a deep thrumming. A torrent of air pounded down out of the sky, throwing us off our feet.
I lifted my head against the pressure. A towering wall of water ringed the walls of the fort, a dark, malevolent green surging toward the open sky all around and above us. Gethin had called up the sea. The wind died down. Confused shouting came from outside the walls, and more stray fireworks arced against the darkness.
Keeva flew to my side. "We can't penetrate the pentagram. The shield's stronger than anything I've seen."
"That's not the real problem." I looked up at the wall of water around us. "That's where all hell's going to break loose."
"Will someone please tell me what's going on?" said Murdock. He had not taken his eyes or his gun off Gethin.
I pointed at the seawall. "That is the gateway to a dimensional prison. The Dananns spellbound some critters called Fomorians. Gethin's breaching the barrier to let them out. They're big and nasty, and they're not going to be very happy to be here."
"Sorry I asked." He cocked his gun and aimed at Gethin. "So why don't I shoot him?"
"You can't see the barrier around the pentagram, but it will stop a bullet."
Gethin continued chanting, facing each of the points of the pentagram in turn. He picked up a stone blade and crawled around Corcan, inscribing runes into the ground. Pinpoints of light appeared in the spirit jars and raced around the hearts. They pulsed with an eldritch glow. Five columns of red light shot from them and pierced the clouds that capped the ring of water around the fort. A tremendous clap of thunder broke, the force of its vibration almost knocking us to the ground again. Above us, the clouds revolved in a circle like the beginning of a tornado. The center rippled and tore open, widening like the pupil of a dead eye. Oddly, no stars shone in the blanket of black. The surface of the wall of water rustled like a windblown curtain. Figures moved beneath the surface, huge unshapely things, vague and undefined.
"Keeva, use the binding spell to bind us all in here. We have to block Gethin's access to the water."
She closed her eyes in concentration. She shook her head. "I don't have your recall, Connor."
I fumbled in my pocket for Meryl's note and thrust it at her. "Learn quick. I'll try and distract him."
I flung myself at the pentagram. The invisible barrier yielded a few inches, then threw me off. Gethin didn't even notice. My dagger had gone flying when I landed on the ground. As I picked it up, the runes on the hilt glimmered. Bracing for the inevitable pain, I forced some of my own essence down my arm, and they burned brighter. The blade had some ability in it even if I couldn't access most of my own.
I approached the barrier again and slashed at it. A shower of sparks rent the air, pitting my skin with burns. Gethin did not stop chanting, but he glanced at me that time. I slashed again. More sparks cascaded over me, and I stumbled away. Gethin stretched out his arm, and a charge of energy hit me in the chest. I fell on my back.
I sat forward, clutching the hot, sore spot on my chest. It hurt like ten fists had pummeled me.
"Got it," said Keeva. She launched herself into the air above Gethin and began to chant. As she flew above us, a faint trail of blue light began to appear behind her. She had en the shorter spell by the sound of it. I could sense the weaving of her words bonding to the top of the battlements of the fort. The spell wouldn't take down the seawall, but if she managed to close Gethin inside the spell, his own spell would be trapped.
I hit the barrier again. This time I was prepared for Gethin's countershot and rolled out of the way before it even left his hand. It hit the wall behind me, and Keeva screamed. The power from Gethin's bolt had latched on to her spell. It went wild. She was spinning out of control, her face contorting in pain. I watched helplessly as she spun faster and faster in the air. With a burst of electric blue fire, she vanished from sight.
I screamed for her. No answer came. My senses trembled with the power of the shield capping the parade ground. I could feel her essence permeating it, but I could not feel her physical presence anywhere. In the sudden quiet, I heard laughter. I turned back to the pentagram. Pure joy lit Gethin's face as he raised the stone knife over Corcan's heart.
"No!" Murdock shouted.
I shouted, too, but too late. He fired his gun. The barrier burst into a fury of white light as it absorbed the bullet, folding in at the point of impact. The bullet funneled inward. Just when I thought it would stop, it grazed Gethin's arm as he brought it down. He recoiled and dropped the knife. The funnel of light reversed itself, bouncing back to where the barrier had been.
"Get down!" I yelled to Murdock. He either didn't hear me or didn't understand. The funnel flattened out at me barrier and exploded outward. It took him in me shoulder and flung him off the ground. He sailed limply through the air and landed with a sickening mud. His body tumbled out of sight into the entrance passageway.
Gethin dropped to his knees. The bullet had only grazed him, but clearly it had stunned him a little. As he stretched one hand out for the fallen knife, he rested the other on the ground. Time moved slowly for me as I stared at that hand. The one steadfast rule of any protection barrier around a pentagram is that only the one who casts it can break it. I stared at his hand, fully halfway outside the invisible barrier. I flung my dagger. He screamed as it pierced him between the knuckles, pinning his hand to the ground. Before he could react, I grabbed the hilt of the dagger and yanked him the rest of the way out of the pentagram. The barrier dissipated immediately.