Bay of Sighs (The Guardians Trilogy 2)

“Maybe Bran should set off that chain reaction. Finger in the eye,” Riley commented, “and a boot in the balls.”

“The boot’s wasted if we’re wrong,” Doyle pointed out.

“I can shift up there, take a quick look.”

“No.” Sasha cut off Sawyer’s suggestion sharply. “You need to stay away from there. And it’s not time. I can’t tell you why or how I know that. It’s just not time.”

“Okay. We save the boot in the balls. And we listen.” Sawyer tapped the recorder. “We keep listening.”

“A bit more,” Bran corrected. “Tonight, all weapons, all ammunition. We’ll be adding power there, and draw the light from the moon to seal it.”

The ritual, while simple enough, required all six, the potion Bran had brewed for days, and faith.

“You want us to put all our weapons into a big pot of goo.”

Bran arched his scarred eyebrow at Riley. “It’s a cauldron, and it’s hardly goo.”

She leaned over the cauldron, studied the thick blue liquid. “It looks like goo. A little like what my great-aunt Selma puts in her hair.”

“Hair, or fur?” Sawyer wondered, and got a sneer.

“It’s pure,” Bran explained, “and powerful. Not so very different from the light bombs, but in another form. This will coat blade, bullet, bolt—bracelet, and what is used to propel them, with that light and power.”

Annika laid her right hand on her left bracelet—only she could remove what Bran and Sasha had created for her. “It takes trust.” She unclasped the left bracelet, then the other. Held them out.

“With your hand, your faith, put them in.”

Carefully, Annika laid the bracelets on the surface of the liquid, watched them sink beneath.

“Well, hell.” Sawyer took his combat knife, his dive knife, followed suit. And with some reservation, unholstered both his guns.

“You have to believe,” Annika commanded.

“Yeah. Yeah. Well, I’ve never believed in anybody the way I believe in the five of you. So . . .” He put his guns in the cauldron, added all his ammo.

Sasha put in her bolts. “The crossbow won’t fit all the way under.”

Bran brushed a hand over her hair. “It will.”

With a nod, she set it in, bow first, and realized she shouldn’t have been surprised when it simply slid in, vanished beneath the blue.

“Okay, here goes. You’re one hell of a wizard, Irish. If I didn’t believe that, I wouldn’t be here.” Riley added knives—three—guns—two—ammo. Then pulled out her pocket knife. “Might as well hit them all.”

“Didn’t think of that.” Sawyer added his multitool. “You never know.”

“I’ve had this sword longer than any of you have been alive. Longer than your parents and grandparents have lived. So trust me, this is faith.” Doyle lowered his blade into the cauldron, then his bow and bolts, his knives, his gun, ammo.

Finally, they added the underwater weaponry.

“It’s the clown car of cauldrons,” Sawyer decided, and made Riley hoot out a laugh.

“Here is trust,” Bran began. “Here is unity. And here is power.” He pointed at the moon. “The goddesses three created the stars. The goddesses three set us on this path. They guard, and now we guard against the dark, against all who would twist the pure into the profane.”

He lifted his other hand, began to draw it back slowly, as if pulling a great weight. As he pulled, white light spread over the blue. And now his voice reverberated, shook the air.

“In this place, in this hour, we call upon your light and power. Celene, Luna, Arianrhod, hear us, moon daughters, through air and earth and waters, and stir this brew with light, brilliant and bright. And with these weapons we employ, only evil to destroy. So pledge I, your son.”

He looked to Sasha, took her hand. “So pledge I,” she said, “your daughter.” And took Doyle’s.