Page 27 of Dead Air (Moon Murder Mysteries)

Eighteen

“ A re you happy now?” Cenn used his foot to open the cabin door wider so he could carry Niall’s unconscious body to the bed. “Get him some water and don’t let him see a plastic bottle or he’ll faint again.”

MacIlwraith and Oglethorpe rushed in behind them and began gathering items and pushing the freezer and chair against the wall.

“No more than two of you at a time,” Cenn told them. “There’s barely room enough for two of us in here.”

“Got it,” Nelson said, propping his shoulder against the door jamb, his notebook and pencil ready.

Cenn tuned them all out and smoothed the hair away from Niall’s face. All that mattered was that Niall was alright and forgave him. “Niall… Wake up, my love,” he crooned softly, giving his cheek a tender pat. “Come on… Open your eyes, my sweet.”

“Mmm…” Niall smiled, nuzzling his cheek against Cenn’s palm. “I’mma good boy?” he slurred as his eyelids fluttered.

Cenn hummed as he lowered and kissed his brow. “Always my good boy.”

“I had the wildest dream, Cenn. This little bald man was here and…” Niall started as he opened his eyes but they widened and watered when he spotted Oglethorpe. “It wasn’t a dream.”

“I’m afraid not,” Oglethorpe answered, his tone grandfatherly as he approached the bed with a mug of water.

“Okay…” Niall licked his lips. “Did I miss the part where you explained about the nephilumps and campalongs? What happens if you do it with a demon?”

Oglethorpe’s lips pulled in and he swallowed a chirping giggle. “The nephilim and the cambion are the offspring of angels and demons. They can be very powerful—my namesake was the product of such a mating!—but they can also live cursed existences.”

“I can’t have a baby, right?” Niall said, pushing out a relieved breath when Oglethorpe and MacIlwraith shook their heads.

“There will be magick, though,” MacIlwraith warned, his sunny expression darkening with sadness. “The radiation from it made my mother sick and being close to me eventually killed her. I didn’t know if I’d survive the transformation and was scared shitless until the time came.”

“I’m so sorry,” Niall said and used his sleeve to wipe a tear from his cheek, making MacIlwraith smile.

“Me too but I appreciate your kindness. You don’t deserve any of this and I’m hoping you’ll let us help you.”

Cenn let out an irritated groan. “I told you, Niall will be fine and I will find a way to fix this. Hugh Dùbhghlas is canny and cunning but I can outwit the warlock.”

“Only a demon would be this obtuse!” Oglethorpe shook his fist at Cenn.

“I have long had my suspicions about who—or what— Hugh Dùbhghlas’s mother was, but I would bet both of my eyes that he has been bartering and besting demons since he was a child.

Your first and worst mistake was underestimating Hugh Dùbhghlas. ”

“A mistake I won’t make again,” Cenn vowed.

“It’s too late now! You’re already in his trap and I don’t see any solution for you and Niall that doesn’t delight him.”

Cenn’s neck craned, he was suddenly wary and wondered if he had overlooked something else. “How can you be so sure?”

“Obtuse! You see!” Oglethorpe had turned red and was practically dancing, he was so livid. “You have overlooked or forgotten the most basic fact of your demonic existence.”

“What are you talking about?” Cenn laughed belligerently. “I pretty much wrote the book on demons. Sorry, Niall,” he offered Niall a sheepish, apologetic wince, then gave Oglethorpe a bored look. “Everything you know about demons—every wives’ tale, parable, book, and movie is based on me .”

“I take it back, then. You are arrogant and you are obtuse!” Oglethorpe advanced on Cenn, waving his staff. “How is a demon made? How were you made?” He pointed the end at Cenn, making him draw back as he reeled.

“How was I made?” he parroted, momentarily confused.

“You were the first!” Oglethorpe shouted. “How did it begin!” He tapped the black kyanite against Cenn’s forehead but he fell back as if he’d been hit with a sledgehammer.

He was alone and dying in the woods, the screams of his people— his family —carrying through the forest as flames devoured their homes.

Cenn had fallen to his knees and set fire to a handful of yellow stones, begging the darkness to deliver them from the monsters destroying his clan.

The darkness answered, demanding his soul and his service for eternity.

“I have no idea how long I was gone, but nothing was left when I came back,” Cenn murmured, the sound of screams and the smell of their modest roundhouses, smoking and ablaze in the night, faded as he returned to Niall’s cabin.

“My life, my love, my purpose, my pain… All I had was an insatiable hunger for vengeance, to see the world covered in the same darkness that had taken my soul. I was driven by the urge to feed it more souls and to have my own army of lost monsters. That was how I became Cenn Cruach.”

“No! Go back farther! How were you made?” Oglethorpe beat his staff against the floor, hurling Cenn backwards through the last frantic moments of his mortal life.

He ran through the front door of his house and found his wife and children, slaughtered in their beds.

Mindless with grief and fearing for his parents, Cenn stumbled back out into the chaos.

Bewildered by the melee of fleeing and falling bodies, the anguished whinnies of scared horses, the stomping of their hooves, and the screams of women and children, Cenn was struck in the back with a long blade, spear, or sword.

He didn’t know what it was but his parents’ house was burning, along with all the others.

Everywhere Cenn looked he saw violence and destruction.

With no hope left, Cenn fled into the woods, clutching a burning piece of the cruit his father had given him.

The glowing strip of willow burned slowly as Cenn freed the pouch of ancient yellow stones from his belt.

His last breaths were gasped into blue smoke, a prayer to the darkness for salvation.

“I died three times that night. I lost my family and my people, I lost my life, and I lost my soul,” Cenn told Oglethorpe.

“There you have it: the first threefold death and the birth of the first demon. You sacrificed yourself to the darkness and the first sacrifices were made to you, Cenn Cruach, Father of Demons, Lord Smoak,” Oglethorpe bowed dramatically but there were loud, angry growls from the twins as they grew larger and loomed behind Nelson in the doorway.

“Back!” Oglethorpe said, spreading his arms to block the door as he watched Cenn.

“You cannot take him, even without his horde, Cenn Cruach is powerful and cunning. He knows all there is to know of dark magick because he is the one who first spoke those charms. It is his tongue that demons speak.”

Cenn hummed, tilting his head from side to side. “I did leave my mighty army as collateral but the hellhounds, the sun god, and whatever that little pixie is might be able to muster enough strength to best me,” he said with a cocky wink, igniting the feistier hellhound’s temper.

“He is lying and tempting you into a duel,” Oglethorpe warned, shaking his head at Cenn. “There is only one way to truly end a demon. It is the same way you make one.”

“The threefold death,” MacIlwraith guessed and Oglethorpe answered with a disgruntled humph in Cenn’s direction.

“Oh… sugar! ” Cenn clapped a hand over his forehead, stunned at his foolishness.

“ No one is supposed to know about that or else it would be open season on demons. We had them going with that ‘old priest, young priest’ schtick.” He quickly calculated and ran through various scenarios and his confidence evaporated. “He stitched me right up, didn’t he?”

“Indeed. And young Niall as well,” Oglethorpe said with a sad sigh in Niall’s direction.

“Me? How? I’m nothing. I’m a no one,” he insisted, shaking his head but Cenn had a terrible sinking feeling.

“No…” He turned and paced to the open door and everyone cleared as he strolled out onto the porch, reweighing every option and reanalyzing every possible outcome. “I was going to break the deal,” he muttered to himself as he strode back into the cabin. “I’d lose my horde but Niall would be spared…”

Niall’s jaw fell open. “You can’t do that! Why would you do that? I’m not powerful at all or even that special.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure.” Oglethorpe held up a finger and wagged it at Niall but he was watching Cenn. “You’ve already died a symbolic yet significant death. You made a terrible sacrifice when you left your old life and turned up here with nothing but your free will and two mix tapes.”

“Damn it!” Cenn punched at the air. “I was so sure that Dùbhghlas was too wrapped up in his feud with you and the sun god that I’d have the upper hand.”

There was a knowing hum from Oglethorpe.

“It’s a win/win no matter how the cards fall for Hugh Dùbhghlas,” he said, snorting ruefully.

“You deliver young Niall’s soul and he’s one mortal death away from an eternity of servitude.

You fail and Hugh gets you with one strike left.

He gets all of your souls, your free will, and when he has one of his other minions kill you, all that you are will cease to exist and he will have all the powers of Cenn Cruach. ”

MacIlwraith winced, his finger slowly rising. “That would be a very bad thing.”

“No kidding,” Cenn snapped back. “Flick, flick, flick…” He began pacing again. “I wouldn’t mind the ceasing to exist part, if I’m being honest?—”

“Cenn!” Niall protested but Cenn silenced him with a hard look.