I grappled for something, some sort of marker that any person would know. "What's your mother's name?"
"I don't remember."
I looked at the stars. This mission was doomed to failure from the start. Who was I kidding?
"Blathin," he said. "Her name was Blathin."
He grabbed my hand and pulled me to my feet. "Come! I'm going to show you something."
We ran along the edge of the lake into the trees. Ahead a wooden cabin rose, nestled among the greenery, connected to the lake by a long dock. Bran dragged me inside.
A fire burned in the fireplace. To the right a simple bed stood against the wall, to the left a row of chests sat. Carvings decorated the walls: a tree, runes, and warriors. Many, many fighters twisted by the battle spasm and carved with exquisite detail. Under them on the table lay a scroll, depicting a man with a long staff wearing a monk's cassock. He sat on a rock. Beside him mermaids played in sea waves. The Shepherd...
Bran grabbed my hand, pulled me to a chest, and swung the heavy lid open. A white cloth covered the contents. He jerked it aside. Human heads filled the chest.
"Oh God."
He scooped a mummified head from the chest by a scalp lock and thrust it at me. "All of them are mine."
This was officially the weirdest version of "come down to my place and I'll show you some etchings" I've ever been hit with.
He threw open another chest. I saw a World War I Kaiser helm next to a black motorcycle helmet splashed with painted flames. How old was he, exactly?
The third chest: blades. Turkish yataghan, a katana, a marine officer's saber with Semper Fi engraved in Old English...
"That's nothing!" He tossed the head into the chest, snatched my hand, and pulled me to the back door. It flew open from his kick and he drew me onto the porch.
Behind the house rose a spire of skulls. Taller than me, bleached white by the elements, it bristled with spears thrust through the bone. "See!" He waved his arms, triumphant. "There is more to me. Nobody has that many! My father would shit himself if he saw this!"
No kidding.
"I'm a great warrior. A hero. Each one of those was a fight I won." His face shone with pride. "You're a warrior. You understand, yes?"
So many lives...The pile of skulls towered above me. "How old are you?" I whispered.
He leaped over the rail, took a skull from the pile, and put it in front of me. "My first."
The skull wore a Roman helmet.
I sat down. It was too much to take.
He came to sit next to me. We looked at the skulls. Bran hung his head.
I touched his forearm. "What is it?"
"Nobody will ever know. Nobody but you has seen this. Nobody will ever know what I've accomplished. When I finally die, the only one who'll remember me and all this will be Morrigan."
"She's not the sentimental sort?" I guessed.
He shook his head. "It was a fool's bargain we made. I saved her bird, and she told me to choose my reward."
"What did you ask for?"
"Some would've asked for long life, strong sons. I asked to be a hero. To always have plenty to drink, plenty to fight, plenty of women."
The skulls glared at us with empty sockets in eerie silence.
"If you asked for strong sons, she would've arranged for them to eventually kill you," I said. "You can't win."
"Small solace."
"Yeah.
I touched the Roman helmet. The metal felt ice-cold under my fingers. "The magic wasn't in the world when they were around."
"It was dying," he said. "There was just a trickle left. I slept through its death. When I awoke and fell through the mist, the world was on fire."
The first flare...So many people had died during that week.
"The little girl, Mouse, you called her...I'm trying to protect her and to find her mother. The witches said they would help me but their Oracle needs your blood to heal one of them. It would be a very good thing for her to survive. She means much to many people."
He took the skull away from me and brought it to his face, eyes to eye sockets, teeth to teeth. "What do I care?"
"The Witch Oracle lives through the ages, its members reborn, again and again. If you were to give them your blood, the covens would cherish your memory. Always. You would endure. You would be a hero and you would be known."
He turned to me, his eyes bottomless.
"It would cost you nothing. It would mean everything."
Chapter 22
THE MIST VANISHED AND BRAN AND I POPPED out onto the stone floor of the Oracle's dome. Teleportation was overrated. Sure it got you where you needed to go fast, but hanging weightless in the mist gave me a nasty case of vertigo. On top of that, I had to cling tenaciously to Bran to be teleported, and he had trouble keeping his hands to himself.
Torches and feylanterns lit the dome. I hadn't expected anyone to be here but despite the late hour, the three witches of the Oracle waited on the platform, alert and awake. They didn't even blink, when we materialized in the middle of the floor. Apparently, we were expected.
To the left of the Oracle stood four other witches, two about my age and two older. Some of them wore the distinct blue tattoos that matched the swirls on Bran's chest. Witches from Morrigan's covens?
Bran bent over and sneezed. "I hate this fucking turtle." He raised his head and grinned at the group on the side. "Ladies."
The two younger witches went from bewildered to flirtatious in the blink of an eye.
I walked up to the platform and handed the still warm tube to the mother-witch. She took it. "He gives the blood in good faith," I said. "He doesn't expect anything. But I hope the memory of his gift will endure."
The Oracle rose. As one, the three witches bowed.
"See?" Bran jerked his thumb at the three women. "That's how a woman should treat a man. Next time you see me, I want you to do just like them."
"Hell will freeze over first," I told him.
The witches sank to their seats.
"We had a bargain," I said.
The crone glared at me. "A bargain with the likes of you means nothing."
"This might be a hunch, but I think you don't like me," I told her.
Her fingers curled into claws on the armrests of her chair.
"Maria," the youngest Oracle whispered. "Violence isn't necessary. The Oracle never goes back on its word."
"Could've fooled me."
She pointed to the four witches on the side. "They speak for the senior covens of Morrigan. They are here as witnesses. Tell us what you want to know and I will open your eyes."