The Pagan Stone

“You didn’t share this?”

“I’m still verifying. I’m still checking sources. No,” she added after a moment of silence. “I didn’t share it.”

“‘Into the black,’” Gage repeated. “All the lore uses that phrase or a close variation. The dark, the black. The heart of the beast, and only when it’s in its true form. Bestia. And every living thing around it, not protected, dies when it dies. Its death requires equal sacrifice. Blood sacrifice. A light to smother the dark. And you’d found that, too,” he added to Cybil.

“I found some sources that speak of sacrifice, balance.” She started to qualify, to argue-anything-then stopped. They were all entitled to hear it. “Most of the sources I’ve found claim that to pierce the heart, the demon must be in his true form, and the stone must be taken into it by the guardian, by the light. And that light must go in with full knowledge that, by destroying, he will, in turn, be destroyed. The sacrifice must be made with free will.”

Gage nodded. “That jibes with Linz.”

“Isn’t that handy? Doesn’t that just tie it up in a bow?”

For a moment, as Gage and Cybil watched each other, no one spoke. Then Qui

Still watching Cybil, Gage answered. “First, it came as Twisse, not in its true form.”

“I think there’s more,” Cal said. “I’ve been thinking about this since Gage ran it by us. Dent had broken the rules, and intended to break more. He couldn’t destroy it. It couldn’t be done by his hand. So he paved the way for us. He weakened it, made certain it couldn’t become, as Linz says. Not fully corporeal, not in full power. He bought time, and passed all he could down to his ancestors-to us-to finish it.”

“I’ll go with that. But I don’t think it’s the whole story.” Qui

Cybil held up a hand. “There’s always a price.” She spoke steadily. “Historically, gods demand payment. Or in more pedestrian terms, nothing’s free. That doesn’t mean we have to accept the price is death. Not without trying to find another way to pay the freight.”

“I’m all for coming up with an alternate payment plan. But,” Gage added, “we all have to agree, right here and now so we get this behind us, that if we can’t, I take point on this. Agree or not, that’s how it’s going to be. It’d be easier for me if we agreed.”

No one spoke, and everyone understood Cybil had to be the first.

“We’re a team,” she began. “None of us would question just how completely we’ve become one. Within that team we’ve formed various units. The three men, the three women, the couples. All of those units play into the dynamics of the team. But within those units we’re all individual. We’re all who we are, and that’s the core of what makes us what and who we are together. None of us can make a choice for another. If this is yours, I won’t be responsible for making it harder, for adding to the stress, for possibly distracting you, or any of us so we make a mistake. I’ll agree, believing we’ll find a way where all of us walk away whole. But I’ll agree, more importantly, because I believe in you. I believe in you, Gage.

“That’s all I have to say. I’m tired. I’m going up.”

Nineteen

HE GAVE HER SOME TIME. HE WANTED SOME HIMSELF. When he walked to the door of the bedroom they shared, Gage thought he knew exactly what he needed to say, and how he intended to say it.

Then he opened the door, saw her, and it all slipped away from him.

She stood at the window in a short white robe, with her hair loose, her feet bare. She’d turned the lights off, lighted candles instead. Their glow, the shifting shadows they created suited her perfectly. The look of her, what he felt for her, were twin arrows in the heart.

He closed the door quietly at his back; she didn’t turn. “I was wrong not to pass along the research I found.”

“Yeah, you were.”

“I can make excuses, I can tell you I felt I needed to dig deeper, gather more data, analyze it, verify, and so on. It’s not a lie, but it’s not altogether true.”

“You know this is the way. You know it in your gut, Cybil, the same as I do. If I don’t do this thing, and do it right, it takes us all-and the Hollow with us.”

She said nothing for a moment, but only stood in the candlelight, looking out at the distant hills. “There’s still a smear of sunlight at the very tips of the mountains,” she said. “Just a hint of what’s dying. It’s beautiful. I was standing here, looking out and thinking we’re like that. We still have that little bit of light, the beauty of it. A few more days of that. So it’s important to pay attention to it, to value it.”

“I paid attention to what you said downstairs. I value that.”

“Then you might as well hear what I didn’t say. If you end up being the hero and dying out there in those woods, it’s going to take me a long time to stop being angry with you. I will, eventually, but it’s going to take a good, long time. And after I stop being angry with you-after that…” She drew a long breath. “It’s going to take me even longer to get over you.”

“Would you look at me?”

She sighed. “It’s gone now,” she murmured as that smear of light faded into the dark. Then she turned. Her eyes were clear, and so deep he thought they might hold worlds inside them.

“I have things I need to say to you,” he began.

“I’m sure. But there’s something I need to tell you. I’ve been asking myself if it would be better for you if I didn’t tell you, but-”

“You can decide after I say what I have to say. I got an answer on this earlier today from someone whose opinion I respect. So…” He slipped his hands into his pockets. If a man had the guts to die, Gage thought, he ought to have the guts to tell a woman what he felt for her.

“I’m not telling you-or not just telling you-because I may not come through this. That’s kind of the springboard for saying it now. But I’d’ve landed here sooner or later. No getting around it.”

“Getting around what?”

“A deal’s a deal for me. But… the hell with that.” A

Intrigued, she angled her head. “I suppose it is.”

“Don’t interrupt.”

Her eyebrows winged up. “Pardon me. I assumed this was a conversation, not a monologue. Should I sit down?”

“Just shut up for two damn minutes.” Frustration only kicked up the a

“Except you’re here, and not wherever else. Sorry.” She waved a hand when his eyes narrowed in warning. “Sorry.”

“I make up my own mind, and I expect other people to do the same. That’s what I’m saying.” And all at once, he knew exactly what he was saying.

“I’m not here with you because of some grand design dictated before either of us were born. I don’t feel what I feel for you because somebody, or something, decided it would be for the greater good for me to feel it. What’s inside me is mine, Cybil, and it’s in there because of the way you are, the way you sound, the way you smell, you look, you think. It wasn’t what I was after, it’s not what I was looking for, but there it is.”