“A corpse army? How horrid!” Stella wrinkled her nose. “You said necromancers are rare, so I’m guessing none of the warring factions currently have one working with them.”
“Correct. You already have a very astute grasp of Otherworld politics, Stella. My sources tell me that Moncoya has uncovered the identity of possibly the most powerful necromancer of all time. The arrival of this unparalleled sorcerer was predicted centuries ago by another great necromancer, one whose very name has become enshrined in legend.”
“Who was that?”
“You would know him by the name he took during his time on earth. At that time, he called himself Merlin.”
“Well, yes. As sorcerers go, they don’t come much more well-known than Merlin,” Stella conceded. “You said necromancers are mortal, yet you just said he took the name Merlin here on earth. That implies he wasn’t human.”
“That’s because he wasn’t. Merlin was a hybrid. He was born of a mortal mother and a nonmortal father.”
“And there is really someone around today who Merlin predicted would come along and be this all-powerful necromancer? That’s mind-blowing stuff. I’m surprised he’s managed to keep it quiet. You’d think the press would be all over him like a rash. Talk about celebrity status.” Stella leaned across him as she spoke to look out the plane window. They were close enough to the ground now to see the lights of the individual cars, although, given that it was now the early hours of the morning, they were few and far between.
Cal’s breath was warm on her cheek when he spoke. “The necromancer of the prophecy is not yet aware of his or her own powers.”
“If that’s the case, how does Moncoya know who it is?”
“Merlin’s prophecies are well-known, but often cryptic. This one is no different.” Cal quoted the words, like a child remembering lines from a play. “When the three-tailed comet returns to Iberia’s skies and the brightest star has seen five and twenty harvests, then he who claims the heart of the necromancer star will unite the delightful plain. During Merlin’s time, Otherworld was referred to by many names, one of which was ‘the delightful plain.’” He was watching her face closely.
“You’re right. That is a pretty vague prophecy.” She leaned back in her seat. Cal’s eyes seemed to bore into her and she frowned, trying to get a sense of what he was attempting to convey to her. Her mind was stubbornly refusing to process what was behind his words. Part of her—a really big part, the biggest imaginable part—didn’t want to do this next bit. The plane wheels touched down in the same instant that it hit her like a punch in the gut.
“Oh, no. No. No.” She shook her head to punctuate the increasingly emphatic words. “Stella means star... And I’m twenty-five? And the comet appeared when I arrived in Spain... Iberia? Come on, Cal, this is all too far-fetched for words.”
In the end, it wasn’t the fact that he didn’t try to persuade her or even the trace of pity in the silver depths of his eyes that struck the most fear into her heart. Those things no longer mattered. Not when, just as the plane taxied to a halt and the passengers began to unbuckle their seat belts, she looked again at the youth next to her.
He smiled directly at her and she was momentarily dazzled by the faun-like perfection of his features. His eyes were his most striking feature. Even greener than her own, the irises had an outer ring of pure gold. As the implication of his beauty dawned on her, she turned to Cal. He was staring over her head at the young man. In the merest blink of an eye later, she looked back again. Despite the fact that the plane doors were still closed and the aisle was filled with passengers waiting to disembark, the youth had gone.
“I don’t understand how he could be there one second and gone the next.” Stella was almost running to keep up with Cal’s long strides, but he didn’t indulge her by slowing down.
“A sidhe can move faster than you can blink.”
“Can they also make themselves invisible?”
“No. It’s much more likely he shifted. He will have simply changed his form and become one of the other passengers. Someone you wouldn’t look at twice. The harassed-looking woman over there whose roots are showing or the grumpy old guy with the cane.”
They were walking briskly, weaving through the throng of people, following the signs to passport control. “What does it mean? Him being there...sitting next to me?” Even to her own ears, Stella’s voice sounded very small.
“It’s a message from Moncoya. He’s letting us know we can’t hide from him. Keep hold of my hand.” As he spoke, Cal’s eyes were scanning the crowd constantly.
“Believe me, I have absolutely no intention of letting go.” To prove it, Stella twined her fingers more tightly between his.
“Shit.” This comment was dragged from him as he assimilated the fact that all of the automated passport control machines were out of order. Three manned desks were open and long, slow-moving lines had formed at each. They joined the end of one of these.
“This must be a coincidence. Surely?” Where had that nervous flutter in her voice come from?
“Perhaps.”
As words went, that one was less than reassuring. Stella cast an anxious look around her. The room was a huge, high-ceilinged, impersonal square. Other people were pouring in behind them so going back the way they had come was not an option. The only exits were beyond the barriers at which passengers had to display their passports. Two uniformed police officers stood to one side of the desks, surveying the crowd of people. In the line for the desk to the right of theirs, four young men clad in colorful ponchos and hand-knit alpaca sweaters caught Stella’s eye. They all carried panpipes and looked like walking advertisements for the Peruvian tourist industry. On closer inspection, it seemed they had not fully embraced the Andean lifestyle, since each one of them wore a headset beneath his wide-brimmed leather hat.
The line shuffled slowly forward. Stella was aware of the tension in Cal’s whole body that was somehow managing to communicate itself to her through the clasp of his hand. Turning to look at the line to their left, she was briefly distracted by the antics of what appeared to be a bachelorette party. Clad in tiaras, tutus and—bizarrely—galoshes, the six women looked as though they had been partying hard for days. “Have I missed some hot new trend? What is it with the headsets?” Stella wondered, noting that the women in the bridal group were all wearing them under their tiaras. Cal, tightly wound with inner tension, didn’t respond.
As more passengers surged in from newly arrived planes and the room became even more crowded, they were increasingly jostled. Still holding Stella’s hand in one of his, Cal also drew her close, sliding his other arm about her shoulders so that she was pressed up against the hard muscle of his chest. In spite of the circumstances, Stella took a moment to enjoy the sensation. “No matter how chaotic it gets, don’t move away from me.”
Stella glanced up at him, at the taut muscles of his jaw and the rigidity around his eyes. Was he tired, or was there something more to it?
Just then the poncho-wearing group shimmied closer and one of the men caught Stella’s eye. As he did so, he spoke into his mouthpiece. Immediately, the other three men turned in her direction. They were all remarkable for one thing. Their good looks. She glanced across at the women in the bachelorette party. The disheveled, hungover look of minutes earlier was gone. Each one of them could have been a glamour model, except for one fact. They were all tiny.
“Er, Cal...”
“I know. It doesn’t matter what they do, stay in contact with me.”
“There