Evil within Yourselves Read online

  By now Taliesin’s men were so preoccupied that, vigilant as they had been, they did not see me coming.

  Chapter 2: My Heart is Yours (Tal)

  It had been some time since our band, the Bards, had played together, and Carla and I took a rare moment to just enjoy the companionship and the music. It was Valentine’s Day, after all. Not only that, but it was 2013, a year I was once sure neither one of us would live to see. Both of us still had our share of worries, but tonight we had agreed to take a holiday from them.

  Carla was soloing in Demi Lovato’s “Give Your Heart a Break,” and everyone on the dance floor so successfully moved in rhythm to the music that from where I was standing, the scene looked more like Hollywood choreography than real life. Carla’s raven-black hair sparkled in the lights, her model-perfect face seemed to glow, and her voluptuous body called to me, making me ache to answer. She, too, looked like someone from a movie scene…or from Olympus. Yeah, I know—I’m not the only guy who ever compared his girl to a goddess. I am, however, the only mortal guy in quite a few centuries who could have made the comparison from firsthand experience.

  I was playing the guitar right now, but my solo turn would come next, with Bruno Mars’s “Locked out of Heaven.” We would follow that with a duet: “Breaking Free,” the romantic number from near the end of High School Musical. Corny, I admit, but what can I say? I’m a hopeless romantic, and given the occasion, I could get away with being one. I know life isn’t really a Disney movie, but wouldn’t everything be a lot easier if it were one?

  Carla got enthusiastic applause, especially from the guys, and I started my solo performance. I was putting a little magic into the music—don’t worry, not enough to set off a Dionysian orgy! Just enough to get everyone feeling so good they could escape their troubles as I was doing. The magic the original Taliesin had gifted me with, to say nothing of the musical ability, meant that even on a bad day, putting an audience in whatever mood I wanted was not much of a challenge.

  Maintaining my own mood, however, abruptly became more challenging. I didn’t know why I suddenly felt a twinge of uneasiness. Perhaps something reminded my subconscious of the Halloween party that had turned out to be a trap set by Ceridwen…a trap that had nearly killed me and all of my friends.

  Knock it off, I told myself, but uneasiness continued to gnaw at me. I kept most of my attention on the music, but I allowed myself to glance around the room, looking not just with eyes but with my magical senses as well.

  Nurse Florence, who managed to chaperone every event I attended, seemed completely unconcerned. She was near the back of the gym, dancing with Coach Miller, the only other staff member who knew my secret. Frankly, they looked as if they could use a chaperone! I couldn’t really blame Coach, though; aside from Carla, Nurse Florence was the most beautiful mortal woman I had met in this life. Coach and Nurse Florence looked mismatched, since he was older and pretty ordinary looking. Then again, he had risked his life on Halloween and was willing to put up with his girlfriend’s quick exits whenever an emergency presented itself.

  Carlos, Shar, and Gordy were all dancing with their girlfriends. Jimmie was sitting and talking to his date. I paused a little when I came to him. Even from a distance, I could feel his unhappiness. His date seemed totally into him—and oblivious to what was going on in his head. I couldn’t do much for him right now, but figuring out what his problem was definitely on my to-do list.

  Suddenly I realized what was out of place: Stan and Dan. Dan had come stag, probably still doing his penance for breaking Eva and me up four years ago so he could have her. I was more than willing to forgive and forget; our mutual desire to save Jimmie, Dan’s actual brother and someone I loved like a brother, had helped me to realize the importance of forgiveness, and I wasn’t shy about letting Dan know how I felt. Still, he made of point of coming by himself to this kind of function, ignoring all the girls who would have crawled across half a mile of scorpions to be his date. I knew he had been here earlier, but now he was nowhere to be seen. Of course, he could have stepped outside to get some air. So what?

  Stan’s absence, however, was more conspicuous. He had finally started dating Natalie Kim, a girl he had been crushing on for months before finally getting up the nerve to ask her out. It wasn’t like him to just leave her standing around looking impatiently at the door he must have exited through a few minutes ago. Even if he hadn’t been hot for her, he was too much of a gentleman to just abandon her. Could something be up?

  It took me only a few seconds to find them, standing outside the gym in what appeared to be very serious conversation. They were clearly having an argument, and I could easily have tuned in to find out what was going on, but I didn’t feel any fear from either one of them, so I decided not to poke my nose in where it didn’t belong. Had there been some supernatural emergency, they would have shared it with me. Apparently, there wasn’t one—for once.

  I got applause as enthusiastic as what Carla had gotten when I finished my solo number, and then we started on “Breaking Free.” Staring into her eyes as we sang, my earlier uneasiness faded away…

  Well, that is until a psychic blow like a spike being pounded into my skull hit me with such force I nearly staggered. If this were indeed a magical attack, I had to do something about it without any of the hundreds of students and others in the gym ever knowing what had happened.

  Carla was looking at me with concern. She was too close not to pick up on my sudden pain, though I think I was camouflaging my feelings well enough to keep anyone else from catching on. I could easily have alerted her and gotten her help. I could have done the same with the guys and Nurse Florence.

  I didn’t for one basic reason: at that moment I realized the attack was coming from inside me. There could only be one source for such an attack: my old “buddy,” Dark Me. Only I could do much about him, so I signaled Carla not to worry and tuned in on his evil frequency, which I had tried so hard to jam in recent weeks.

  “Sorry about the headache, dude, but I needed to get your attention,” I heard him whisper from the depths of my mind. The tone was oddly friendly. Most of the time he screamed obscenities or insults at me. He was a sore loser for sure, not at all happy that I had kept control of my body away from him.

  “You got it, but not for long. What do you want?” I mentally whispered back, hopefully keeping our mental conversation too low for Carla to pick up on.

  “I’ve been trying to warn you for days, ever since we returned from Annwn. You just haven’t been listening.”

  “I’m listening now,” I thought impatiently. “Spit it out.”

  “Carla cast some kind of spell on you when you were recovering from that fall from the sky. I don’t know what it was, and I must not have been conscious at the time, but given your sudden change of feelings, I can guess.”

  I wanted to laugh out loud but couldn’t risk that, so I had to settle for laughing inside, laughing in my most derisive way. I didn’t want Dark Me to have any doubt about my reaction.

  “I don’t know what your game is, but you aren’t coming between me and Carla.” Dark Me wasn’t totally evil any more than I was totally good; however, he was a product of the unusual workings of my brain and my ill-advised use of dark magic. I couldn’t trust a word he said…even if what he said made any sense, which it certainly didn’t.

  “Wake up!” he snarled. “Wake up, you pathetic excuse for a hero. You and I always used to agree on one thing: we both loved Eva. I still do. Whatever spell Carla used only affected you, not me.”

  I gave him another contemptuous laugh. “Love? You don’t even know what love is. You just want to distract me for some reason. Well, like all your plans, this one will fail.” I clamped down on him with all my strength, shoving his lies back into his throat. He screamed in protest, and I knew I would have a headache tomorrow, but I had heard the last of him for a while. I hadn’t figured out how to completely reintegrate him with me yet, but I could damn well keep him quiet. br />
  We finished the number, and scanning the audience, I sighed with relief; no one had caught even the smallest glimpse of my inner turmoil. Apparently, I had been able to keep the performance going and deal with Dark Me at the same time.

  However, I hadn’t been able to mask all of the ordeal from Carla. This was the time for one of the band’s scheduled breaks, so she took me in her arms and whispered, “What’s wrong?”

  “Dark Me was getting a little temperamental,” I whispered back. “Nothing to worry about, though. I suppressed him again.”

  “Aren’t you having to do that more and more often?” Even in a whisper, I could hear the concern in her voice. “Perhaps Nurse Florence and I could help.”

  “You remember what Merlin said,” I replied quickly. “I need to be able to handle Dark Me for myself if I am to ever be free of him. If people help me too much, he will win in the end.”

  Carla frowned—just barely, since she needed to maintain the illusion that we were just exchanging whispered I-love-yous. “Merlin doesn’t know everything.”

  I matched her almost-frown with the ghost of a smile. “In my experience, he does. Anyway, Dark Me’s safely tucked away again, so let’s not let him spoil the evening.”

  Carla looked unconvinced, but I gave her my best I’m-too-cute-to-argue-with smile, and she reluctantly dropped the subject. If I had the power to create a girlfriend by magic, I could never fashion one better than her.

  At that moment, I noticed Stan reenter the gym. As soon as he made eye contact with me, he pointed at the door; clearly, I was needed outside. However, I still didn’t sense fear, so at least the campus wasn’t under some kind of supernatural attack.

  “Carla, I need to step outside for a minute,” I told her quickly.

  “Break’s almost over,” she noted, looking around nervously.

  “Change the playlist a little and start with some of your solo numbers if you have to. The guys will follow your lead.”

  “If you need me—” she began.

  “I promise I’ll come get you,” I replied. “I don’t think it’s that much of an emergency, though.” She looked worried again—who could blame her, given recent history? Nonetheless, she didn’t try to hold me any longer, and I raced over to the door.

  Outside I found Stan, Dan, Nurse Florence…and Titania, queen of the English faeries. The hood of her brown cloak partially concealed her face, and she wore what was, for her, a subdued dark green gown, but even so, she stuck out like the proverbial sore thumb. Even without her faerie luminescence glistening in the dark, her sheer beauty would have been eye-catching enough to draw the attention of anyone but a blind man.

  She must have noticed my worried expression, and with a wave of her hands, she shrouded all of us in invisibility.

  “Pardon this intrusion, Taliesin, but there is no one else to whom I can turn.”

  There was a time when I wouldn’t have had the first clue how to deal with royalty, let alone faerie royalty, but by now I was used to drawing on the experiences of the original Taliesin to get me through these situations, even ones like this one that could require diplomatic skill as well as manners.

  I bowed to Titania, but she immediately signaled for me to stop almost before I could complete the motion.

  “Your courtesy is much appreciated, but I fear we have no time for such niceties tonight.” Normally, I could not read the mind of such a powerful being and would not have attempted to, except in urgent circumstances, but I could not help feeling the anxiety radiating from her. She had reason to be anxious, but I had no idea why she thought I could help.

  “I am at your service, Majesty,” I assured her.

  “I am glad of it, for I much need your aid. Only you can save my husband…and me.”

  Just when I thought the universe had no more surprises in store, Titania came along and sent shock waves through my whole body. I could see the others had been caught off-guard just as much as I.

  “Majesty,” I began, uncertain what I wanted to say but knowing I couldn’t just stand there with my mouth hanging open, “forgive me for hesitating, but I do not see what I can do for your husband…or, meaning no disrespect, why I would want to do anything for him. He has allied himself with Morgan le Fay against me. As if that were not enough, he sent me on a quest he hoped would kill me, and, when I actually completed it, instead of accepting the outcome, he tried to murder me outright, threatening my friends in the process.”

  Titania bowed her head in what looked like genuine shame, though I didn’t know her well enough to be sure.

  “Taliesin, I must agree with what you say. He has done all that you claim…and more. Yet I must ask you to come to his aid anyway.”

  “Queen Titania,” interrupted Nurse Florence, “perhaps the Order of Ladies of the Lake could be of service—”

  “The Order will do me no good,” cut in Titania impatiently. “I mean no disparagement to your age-old organization, but they will judge me in the same way you do, and I do not wish to be seen merely as the doting wife too foolish to fully appreciate her husband’s corruption.”

  “I beg your pardon, Majesty,” I said, trying to be as diplomatic as possible, “but what makes you believe I won’t think exactly the same thing?”

  Titania pulled back her hood, allowing her luxuriant black hair to flow over her shoulders. I wondered for a second if she would actually sink as low as to try to seduce me. Surely not with three other people watching.

  “When others wanted to condemn me for my role in Oberon’s plot, you recognized I had been deceived and defended me. You also spoke for mercy to Alexandros, despite his alliance with Oberon and my Olympian cousin, Ares. Alexandros would be spending eternity in Tartarus if not for you. You were willing to look beyond your desire for revenge and seek justice instead.”

  “You were deceived,” I said slowly, “and Alex was a bullied wreck tempted into an evil he would never have pursued on his own. By our standards, he would not be considered fully responsible for his actions. Oberon’s case is not like yours or Alex’s. What defense can you offer for Oberon? What possible extenuation can there be for a king who deceived his own people, his own queen?”

  Titania smiled weakly. “There is wisdom in your words…but Taliesin, you knew Oberon long ago, at King Arthur’s court. He was manipulative, truly. He was…a politician. But was he evil? Was he at all the man he seems to be now?”

  “People change,” replied Nurse Florence, “especially when they have centuries to live.”

  “Majesty, I knew of Oberon at King Arthur’s court, but I would never have claimed to know him personally. Besides, Nurse Florence is right.”

  “Except that he did not change over the centuries,” insisted Titania. “He changed only recently…as if by magic.”

  I was tempted to laugh at Titania’s grasping at straws, but laughing at a formidable spell caster with an army of faeries at her command would have been stupid, and there was something in her glance that would have stopped me anyway. She might be talking nonsense, but she believed it. Of that I was certain.

  “Surely Oberon is too powerful to be conquered by an ordinary enchantment,” I protested, “and if someone powerful enough to enthrall him actually existed, surely magic that potent would be easy for someone like you to detect.”

  Titania shuddered. “I have known Oberon for centuries. Though I cannot sense any alien force working upon him, I know there must be one. Someone has developed the ability to cast a spell both powerful and subtle, undetectable by me because I do not know what to look for.”

  I could have sworn Stan flinched at those words. I made a mental note to ask why later.

  Then I thought I saw something even stranger: Titania looking knowingly at Stan as if she understood why he was flinching. That really had to be my imagination. I needed to stop looking for nuances that weren’t there.

  “We all know Morgan le Fay convinced him she had been his mother in a previous life, but a spell such as you de
scribe is far above anything Morgan could do,” I argued. “Who did you have in mind for this enormously powerful sorcerer? Surely someone with that much might would have shown his hand in some other way.”

  Titania locked eyes with me as if she were trying to gaze right into my soul—or inviting me to gaze into hers. “Someone summoned a demon powerful enough to impersonate Merlin and nearly kill you.”

  Nurse Florence shook her head. “Hell magic is powerful, but I have never known it to be that subtle. Of course, a powerful enough caster might have crafted the spell and summoned the demon as two separate, magically unrelated acts. However, the fact that a demon was summoned doesn’t mean a powerful and skillful caster had to be involved. Anyone with even a little magical ability, plus a willingness to sell his soul and to commit vile enough acts in the service of Hell can raise a demon”

  Titania looked annoyed but tried not to show it any more than she could help. “What about the disappearance of my Olympian cousins? How many souls would it have taken, how many vile acts would have to have been performed for Hell to make Zeus, Hera, and Demeter vanish? And what about the sudden hostility of Ares and Poseidon? I suggest that the same force that corrupted Oberon attacked the Olympians, enchanting some of them in the same way Oberon was enchanted and somehow banishing the others. Do you have a better explanation…any of you?” she added, almost as if challenging Nurse Florence.

  I had to admit it was an interesting theory. When we had found a way to reach Olympus, sent by Oberon on the supposedly impossible quest to bring back the lyre of Orpheus, Apollo had told us of the unexplained absence of the three elder Olympians. Ares, from what I recalled from my Greek lives, was a nasty customer who might have turned to evil on his own, but Poseidon, though temperamental, didn’t seem a likely candidate to turn on his own family so completely.

  “There is one more thing,” continued Titania, perhaps sensing I was wavering. “When the Amadan Dubh stole the lyre, his act, though evil, made sense. He is a musician, after all, and the lyre makes him several times more powerful. But what did Oberon want with it?”