"Whoever is pushed or falls into this circle is powerful enough to control them?" I pointed out at the seething forms.
"My successor will learn," Cernunnos replied, and his voice was no angrier nor more passionate than before I spoke out. "As I did. And there will be many lifetimes for my successor to discover what I have."
"So you think any of us can do what you do?" I pointed down at
Karre. "Him? How smart can he be, that he arrives in the circle already dead? And Dee?" I stood back from her, looked at her.
"She can't even stand the idea that she's killed someone."
"And you?" Cernunnos said.
"Me?" I showed him my hands, covered with words. "I can't even keep myself together, much less a legion of dead people.
And I'm a cocky little shit who doesn't care about anybody but myself. Ask anybody. They'll tell you."
Cernunnos inclined his thorny head toward me. "That is not truth, piper. I know what is in your heart. And that is why I choose you as my successor."
There was silence. Nothing.
I lowered my hands to my sides. His song was humming in my head. I could feel the deadness of him, the strangeness of him, the old and dark and bitterness of him, flowing around me.
"No," Dee whispered. "Not you, James. You've done enough for me." She looked at Cernunnos. "Take me instead."
Cernunnos shook his head. "No, cloverhand. The piper spoke the truth of you."
"Then take me," Sullivan said. I spun to see him shuffle slowly into the circle, hand still pressed on his side and covered with blood.
"The number in the circle cannot change," Cernunnos said.
"Not until a successor is chosen," Sullivan said. I stepped hurriedly over the consort to offer Sullivan my shoulder. I expected him to refuse it, but he leaned on me, heavy. The movement made more blood run between his fingers, over his iron ring. "You've chosen, and I'm here. And there's nothing to say that once you choose a successor, you can't change your mind. So change it. Take me."
The red-rimmed eyes took in both of us. "Why would I change my mind, Paladin?"
"Because I am everything that James is, but I'm dying."
"Is there any amongst the dead to vouch for you?"
Sullivan paused a long moment, and then he nodded. Outside of the circle, a form slowly rose, a dark, bent shape still crackling with fury. On the other side of the consort, Dee winced.
"I will vouch for him," snarled Delia. "He stole my ward. I died by his hand."
Sullivan reached into his pocket with a shaky hand and withdrew three twigs tied with red ribbon, identical to the one he'd given me. He turned it back and forth before Cernunnos, as if to prove that it really was Delia's.
I didn't really know if I wanted Cernunnos to change his mind. I didn't want Sullivan to die, but I didn't want this for him either.
I wanted this to be over and for him to go back to a normal life despite being touched by faeries. I wanted him to prove it could be done.
Beside me, Sullivan jerked, staggering, leaning on me. I struggled to stay upright and turned my face to the thorn king.
"Cernunnos. Please. Do something."
"Paladin," Cernunnos said, addressing Sullivan. "You are my successor. I name you king of the dead. You keep the dead and the dead keep you. You--"
As Cernunnos spoke, Dee dragged me backwards, away from
Sullivan. I had to jump to keep from stepping on Karre.
"Let go," I said, furious, but then I saw why she was pulling me.
Sullivan was darkening, sucking light into himself. He stretched his arms out on either side of himself, his dark coat swirling and spreading. He bowed his head. I heard Cernunnos' song wailing sickly in my head, and my stomach turned over. I didn't want to see thorny antlers grow out of Sullivan's hair.
But they didn't. We all kept backing away from him, even
Cernunnos, giving him more room, watching him stand there with his arms spread out and his head down. Then, between the blink of one eye and the next, massive dark wings spread behind him. He lifted his head and opened his eyes.
They were still his eyes.
I let out a breath that I didn't realize I'd been holding.
On the other side of Sullivan, Cernunnos broke the circle with a scuff of his foot through the ashes. The second the ashes scattered, the dead rushed at us. Every dark form in the room crawled or flew or scrambled toward the gap in the circle. Delia first of all.
Sullivan said, very quietly, "Stop."
And they did.
He turned toward me. I tried not to stare at the wings. Freaking hell. "James," he said, and his voice was strange and gravelly.
"Take Deirdre and go back to the bonfires. No one will touch you."
He looked at Eleanor when he said this last part. Her mouth was making a small, upside-down "U," her lips pressed together. "As you say."
Behind Sullivan, Cernunnos climbed down the stairs and began to walk down the aisle toward the door. He had laid his burden down, I guess, and that was it for him. Who knew where he was going. Or where he'd come from. Maybe he'd been just a guy, like me or Sullivan.
"Sullivan--" I said, looking from the wings to his face.
"Hurry up," he snapped, and he sounded more like the Sullivan
I knew. "It's Halloween and I'm king of the dead. I don't want to kill you. Go."
"Thanks," I said, and this time, it didn't feel so weird to say it.
I took Dee's hand and we ran.
James
When we emerged from the building, I saw that time glowed faintly at the horizon over the parking lots, though the rest of the sky was still dark. The night of the dead only had a few more hours to go. My eyes turned immediately toward Seward, toward the bonfire that Nuala had stood in.