"I'll be damned," she said, opening the window so she could stick her head out and look down. "Underwater bridges."
"Submersible bastions," Michael corrected.
"Very nice," Alex said, pulling her head back inside, "but wouldn't it be easier to build the place on dry land?"
"Probably, but water has many advantages over land," Michael said. "Byrne and I share common ancestors, and they regarded lakes and rivers as sacred places. Often they would hurl into the water the gold and treasures they had taken in battle, as offerings to the gods to ensure their next victory."
That made about as much sense as the moat approach to domestic security. "Your ancestors were dumb."
Phillipe drove over the linked bridges toward four towers joined together around the massive gateway entrance. The towers surrounding the gateway soared up at least five stories into the night, illuminating it with dozens of torches blazing in enormous iron sconces. Beneath each torch stood a large man dressed in leather and chain mail and armed with a spear, a sword, and a black shield. Each stood motionless at his post, not looking out over the horizon but watching the progress of the car as they passed over the second drawbridge.
"This would make a great credit-card commercial," Alex muttered. "Or a fortress of darkness."
Phillipe braked just before the gated passage through the four towers that led into the compound. Gears slowly cranked, and the heavy wood-and-metal grate in front of them began to rise. A short distance behind it another, heavier gate also lifted.
"Just what is this guy preparing for?" she asked Michael. "A nuclear attack?"
"A castle was a military and community stronghold in our time," he replied. "We had to be prepared for anything."
"Yeah, but two gates? One wasn't enough?"
"In our time, besiegers force storming the castle could be caught and trapped between two portcullises." As Phillipe drove in, he pointed to openings in the walls and ceiling. "The castle's archers would use these murder holes to shoot the trapped men."
"Charming." Alex silently thanked God once more for not having been born in the Middle Ages. "I suppose they poured vats of boiling oil through them, too."
"Not at all," Michael told her. "Cauldrons of oil were heated and dumped from the battlements onto the soldiers trying to ram the gate or scale the walls."
"How humane of you guys." She shuddered.
"It did not always work," he said. "If they were protected under a movable shed, we would take the rotting bodies of dead livestock and—"
"That's okay," Alex told him, putting her hand over his mouth. "I'm not planning to siege a castle anytime soon. Skip all stories that involve maggots."
Michael nipped her palm, making her laugh.
They passed through four more types of barricades before the passage ended in a cobblestone area that Michael called the outer bailey. In front of the castle stood a giant in a hooded dark cloak and a boy in a white shirt and black trousers. Behind them, three rows of warriors with enormous spears stood in formation.
"Oh, look, honey," Alex said sweetly. "Conan and his barbarian army are here." She checked her watch. "How about we head home? If Phil floors it, we could make it back before the Learjet cools off."
Michael laughed. "There is nothing to fear from Byrne and his men. They are merely showing respect."
"To you, maybe. Me, he doesn't know." She looked up toward the battlements. "It had better not start raining dead cows."
Phillipe parked the car and opened the back door for them. Michael helped her out, put his arm around her waist, and bent down to murmur, "Relax, chérie. You will like him, I promise."
"Are you kidding?" Alex surveyed the giant. "I'm going to make him my new best friend."
When they walked up to the waiting Kyn, the suzerain pulled back his hood and stepped forward to meet them. Alex tilted her head to get a better look at Byrne, who had to be one of the largest men, human or Kyn, whom she'd ever encountered. The Scotsman stood half a head taller than Cyprien, who was no shrimp, and had at least seventy pounds on Phillipe, who was built like a tank.
The top of her own head, Alex gauged, almost cleared the top of his belt. Almost.She'd never seen red hair quite the color of Byrne's, or so much of it on a man. It flowed over his shoulders like dark liquid garnet, turning blood red wherever the torchlight flickered over it. It echoed the bold red in the clan tartan and kilt he wore, which should have made him look ridiculous but only added to the aura of real danger. The crowning touch, his barbaric-looking facial tattoos, made him look like the walking, scowling embodiment of the Dark Ages.
Someone said their names, and Michael urged Alex forward with one hand. Usually he introduced her to other Kyn lords, but maybe this time the meeting was supposed to be less formal.
"Alexandra Keller," she said to the suzerain, holding out her hand and hoping she'd get it back.
"Aedan mac Byrne, my lady," the giant said, swallowing her hand in his and bowing over it. "We are honored."
Alex controlled a flinch, but Byrne's gentle, careful touch twanged through her, a thrashing, spark-shooting wire. Through the soundless roar of light in her head, Alex glimpsed a different version of his face, one that was masked in gore and blood that paled around eyes of hellfire. She blamed her talent—she could read the thoughts of any killer—but soon realized that the suzerain wasn't hiding any secretive, murderous thoughts. He didn't think about killing at all.
Death on a short leash. Alex felt panic balloon inside her chest. He's not a killer. He's a weapon.
"Sorry I didn't get to say hello in Fort Lauderdale before I was kidnapped." He wasn't letting go of her, and, right on cue, she was babbling. "You know how it is when you're hypnotized and being kidnapped by a half-crazed vampire king."
Eyebrows a shade darker than his hair arched. "I cannae say I do."
"Right." She'd better get her act together before she said something to offend him. There, that would work. "Has anyone ever made a list of everything that pisses you off?" she asked. When he frowned, she added, "I'd like a copy. You know. So I can memorize it."
He chuckled, and the menacing grooves of his face became laugh lines. "Whatever you do or say, lass, you're safe with me." He patted her hand before he released it and shifted his gaze to Michael. "Seigneur. Welcome back to the Realm."
"Thank you for having us, my friend." Michael clasped hands with him. "We are looking forward to the tournament."
Only an immortal ex-priest like Michael, Alex thought, trying to feel grumpy again, could look forward to watching a bunch of men beat the hell out of one another. The odd thing was, she didn't feel grumpy. Or angry, or nervous. The loose, scalding panic had vanished, and if anything she now felt content and strangely happy—something she hadn't been since coming back from Ireland. Byrne's scent, she remembered Michael telling her, had a calming effect on both humans and Darkyn. Maybe it acted like Prozac on her.
But what the hell had he done to her before that, when she had seen the vision of his face, covered in blood?
"Your presence will inspire the competitors." Byrne turned slightly toward the slim, dark-haired girl standing just to his left. "Lady Alexandra, may I present my seneschal? This is Jayr."
The girl stepped forward and offered her hand instead of bowing. "It is a pleasure, my lady."
"Alex, please. I wasn't a lady even when I was human." Alex breathed in and smothered a groan. Jayr's scent reminded her of the big, warm, icing-slathered cinnamon rolls she used to pig out on at the mall.
"If you are in need of anything during your stay, my lord," Jayr was saying to Michael as she handed him something, "you have but to press two. There is also a radio switch that will summon me directly."
"Thank you," Michael said, pocketing the oval-shaped device she'd given him.
While Jayr introduced Byrne's men to Michael and Phillipe, one of the ceremonial duties performed whenever one Kyn lord came into the territory of another, Alex studied Byrne's seneschal.
Jayr's garments, obviously designed for a teenage boy, made her long frame look even leaner than it was. She held herself differently than a woman would, legs spread farther apart, arms bent slightly, shoulders back. The shorn hair, angular hips, and nearly flat chest reinforced the blurry illusion of an adolescent male, but the big eyes and the full lips were all female.
Is the kid a hermaphrodite? Alex wondered.
Cases of people born with the sex organs of both genders were rare, but not unheard-of, and in Jayr's time there would have been no hormone treatments or sex-reassignment surgery to help her go one way or the other. Other than the deep-set eyes, soft mouth, and long white throat, her body had no noticeable gender characteristics. She could have been a pretty boy or a tough girl.
"My lady?" Jayr gestured toward the archway leading into the keep. "Shall we go in?"
Alex realized she was staring at the girl's chest. "Uh, sure. Lead the way."
The journey to America had been brief but uneasy for one group of Darkyn tourneyers. Driven from Italy by the relentless zealousness of the Brethren, the party could not anticipate how they would be received by their kind in this new world. Completely cut off from any contact with other Kyn for five centuries, they no longer followed the rigid rules of protocol and conduct of the past. Many had never known any Kyn outside their reclusive group. Those among the exiles who had lived under the old ways had discarded much of what they had left behind them so long ago. All knew that this tournament might well prove to be their salvation, or their extermination.
So they came to the Realm quietly, silently, to see how it would be.
The sound coming from below drew one exile to the window. There he stood and looked down upon a good portion of the garrison, armed and assembled for presentation. A subtle aura of power and confidence surrounded a tall, dark-haired male. The deferential positions of the other Kyn marked him as the highest-ranked male. Shadow cloaked him, his woman and the Kyn greeting the visiting dignitary, but as they moved to enter the castle, moonlight revealed what the night had sought to conceal.