Read Online No Dominion (The Walker Papers: A Garrison Report) by CE Murphy - Free Book Online Page A

thin skin of his temples, antlers tryin’ ta get out. If you never met his eyes, you might think he was just some poor sap with some kinda genetic misfortune to his name. Me, I couldn’t hold his gaze.
    My Joanne, though, she couldn’t look away. She was six feet of intensity, leaning in toward Cernunnos like they were drawn together by invisible wire. Most folks looking up at a god like that would seem like supplicants. Even Jo had, first time she saw him. Now it was more like she was holding herself back from pouncing. I knew the man in Joanne’s life, the man she was in love with. Looking at them together, I saw her love running deep, keeping her tied to the earth. Looking at her with Cernunnos, I saw how high she could fly.
    An’ prolly how fast she could burn, too, ‘cause mortals ain’t meant to soar with the gods. But nobody blamed Icarus for trying, and I thought it prob’ly took everything Jo had to say, “I can’t,” when Cernunnos said to her, “Come with me. Ride with me to Knocknaree and fight by my side. Let us change the future that you know. Let us defeat death in these backward days of history, and see what new world awaits us.”
    Joanne pressed her eyes shut like it was killing her to say no, but she shook her head. “I can’t. You know I can’t, Cernunnos. I’ve ridden with you three times already. Once more and…”
    Cernunnos got a hunter’s smile and leaned down toward her. “And thou’rt mine,” he said softly enough I shouldna been able to hear, but I could. “Be mine, young shaman. Be mine, for thou hast no idea what we shall become.”
    I looked away, uncomfortable. I didn’t belong watching these two doing their dance, and neither did Nuada.  
    Jo shook her head again and Cernunnos straightened in his saddle, making a face as if ta say, “ Women .” But instead of saying it aloud he only said, “A pity,” not just to Jo, but to the rest of us too. “It would have been good to challenge the troublesome one so early in his bid for earthly power, but even I will not ride against death without a force for life at my side.”
    Without quite meaning to, I opened my mouth and said, “I could go.”
     
    All three of ‘em said, “What?”, and for a couple seconds I wondered that myself. Thing was, though, it needed doing. We’d gotten thrown to the wrong end of time, me an’ Jo, an’ a whole lot of things had gone wrong since we’d gotten here. A king had died, an avatar of evil called the Morrígan had cut my throat, and an avatar of good named Brigid had taken a hit for Joanne that woulda dropped her. To top it off, Brigid had realized Jo was the key to binding a death cauldron made by a guy we called the Master: somebody, or something, whose only purpose in existing was to corrupt and kill. We weren’t fooling ourselves. Binding the cauldron was gonna get his attention, and that meant there was gonna be a fight. We’d been planning to get ourselves to the other side of Ireland in order to do the binding and face the fight, but our only way across was Cernunnos.
    An’ Jo had just made it real clear she couldn’t ride with him. But we were coming from the other end of time, so we knew the cauldron got bound. It got destroyed, too, eventually. On our end of time, after the binding spell started coming loose. So the binding happened, an’ that meant somebody had to go do the heavy lifting. I figured I was that somebody.
    Jo, though, wasn’t having any of that, from how she looked. She came right at me, like being up close would make her extra clear. “No way. Not a chance. Are you nuts? We’re a million years out of time, Gary, and you want to go riding off with the Wild Hunt without me at your back? Are you crazy? Are you nuts ?”
    I shoved my hands in my pockets. “Ain’t like I haven’t done it before.”
    Joanne waved her hands in the air, voice rising as fast as they did. “With Morrison! And Suzy! And Billy! And that was in our own time!