No Dominion (The Walker Papers: A Garrison Report) by CE Murphy

the edges of silver, blurring and blending into brightness that made me wonder if the guys behind me Saw this way, an’ if I was a big ol’ silver lug to their eyes. Jo had been real pleased about that, when she’d triggered the Sight in me. My grey eyes had turned silver, she said, when everybody else’s she’d tried it on had gone gold like hers did. Nice to know I held my own, even in mojo-land.
    “It pulls at me.” Brigid sounded strained.
    I nudged Imelda forward a few more steps, tryin’ ta catch up in the glow-in-the-darkness. “That’s what it does, doll. I didn’t much see the thing on my end of time, but Jo talked to me about it after she destroyed it. She said it makes you just wanna jump in. That it offers peace.”
    Cernunnos gave a snort. “There is no peace to be had in his grasp.”
    “I’m just reportin’ what the lady said, Horns. How the hell did they make that thing, anyway?”
    “Through the sacrifice of a willing victim,” Brigid murmured. “The cauldron is forged from my sister’s soul.”
    I spent a couple seconds wondering how that was possible, then remembered I’d just met an elf with a living silver arm, and that that wasn’t the strangest thing I’d seen by half. All I said was, “That’s how it’s destroyed, too, is with a willing soul. Why don’t we just do that now?”
    Cernunnos turned, green fire blazin’ off him. “Do you wish to make that sacrifice yourself? Because I could not even if I wished to, Brigid’s soul belongs to another, and my riders are dead men. You are the only one among us who could make that choice.”
    I clacked my teeth shut. The right thing to do was dive straight into the damned cauldron, and I knew it, but I sure as hell didn’t want to. Not even knowing it might save a few lives back on my end of time. Truth was, if Jo was at my side and I could say g’bye, I’d do it in a heartbeat. But I’d promised her I’d be safe, and I hated breaking that promise. After a minute, Cernunnos, looking smug, turned away again, an’ I muttered, “Son of a bitch,” without meaning him at all.
    “Willing is not enough,” Brigid said softly. “Even I, with my soul bound to another, might crawl in it willingly to break its spell. But it calls to me so strongly I think anyone who enters it does so willingly. Not wisely, perhaps, but willingly.”
    I dropped my chin to my chest, remembering more clearly what Jo had said. “Innocent. Not just willing, but innocent.” This time saying, “Son of a bitch,” was due to relief that I hated feeling. I oughta be better than that, ‘cause it might break Jo’s heart, but I knew she’d forgive me for dying if I took the cauldron along with me. But while I mighta been a decent human being, I wasn’t an innocent one. Not much of anybody who fights in a war is, no matter how hard you might try to keep your hands clean. And I hadn’t, because you don’t, not when your life and your buddies’ lives are hanging on it.
    “Ah.” Brigid’s colors went dark with unhappiness. “Innocence, of course. And to sacrifice one unwillingly would only make us into the thing we stand against. How did Joanne—” Her breath was loud even over the horses’ hooves against the rocky floor. “No. Better not to wonder, and to be satisfied knowing it will one day be destroyed.”
    “She had help.” I wasn’t gonna go into it any more than that, but something in Brigid’s aura relaxed, which made me feel better. A guy doesn’t like making pretty women tense if he can help it.
    A clatter from behind us made the three—four, counting the silent kid—of us straighten an’ look back, for all that I didn’t know if Bridey and Horns could see anything. The cave’s mouth was a cut-away of light, still not lettin’ any seep in, and the last of the Hunt’s riders had just passed through it. Between one breath an’ the next, the air got thicker, like I was tryin’ ta breathe in coal dust.
    “Now,” the boy rider