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

said. His colors were muted compared ta Cernunnos, but they were the same emeralds an’ jades, overlaid with a yellowish concern. “Now we are in his realm, Father. We do not belong here. Keep me close, or risk yourself.”
    I was learning all kindsa interesting things. I wondered if Jo had an inkling that Cernunnos’s safety was tied up in the kid’s, but I bet she did. It didn’t seem like the kinda thing she’d share, though. She wasn’t the type to go around telling people how to hunt a god. Not unless she was the one who needed to hunt it, I guessed, but even then I wasn’t sure she’d want to let everybody else know what was in her arsenal. She still had some wild ideas about keeping the rest of us safe, or doin’ it all herself. I guessed that was part of why I loved her, and prob’ly part of why Mike Morrison did too, even if it made us both crazy sometimes.
    “What’s that mean,” I asked, to distract myself. “We’re in his realm now, I reckon you mean the Master, but—we ain’t gone that far.”
    “Can you not feel it?” Brigid asked.
    I could, a’course, the way the air was closing in around us an’ a chill was coming up, but Jo and me had talked a lot about this Master fella and she was pretty certain he came from a lot deeper in the elemental planes than a walk through Irish countryside could allow for. On the wrong side of time or not, the country outside that cavern entrance was what Jo called the Middle World, the one ordinary folk lived in all the time. There was an Upper World, too, where she’d met a thunderbird, an’ a Lower World where a lotta demons were trapped, among other things. After dealin’ with the wendigo she’d told me she’d fallen through the Lower World into another level that looked a lot like Hell to her, an’ that was a lot closer to where this Master was coming from. No way had we traveled that far, no matter how fast and wild the Hunt ran.
    But in the middle of convincing myself of alla that, I tripped over the explanation. I looked around at the blackness tryin’ ta eat us all up, and said a word I’d learned in Korea that didn’t quite have a translation. Just as well, too. “I was thinking it looked like a hell hole when we rode up. You’re telling me it really is ?”
    “One of many. There are places on this earth where he has broken through and where his denizens are vomited up into our world.”
    I wrinkled my nose like the image came with a smell. I wasn’t sure it didn’t, for that matter: the air sure wasn’t right. “So you’re saying it’s a hellmouth. That’s just dandy. I don’t suppose you got Buffy on hand to help deal with it?”
    Their auras went flat. I guessed I couldn’t blame ‘em: Jo wouldn’ta known what I meant either, and she was at least from my end of time. Sometimes I thought the girl had deliberately stayed away from all the pop culture that talked about magic. Not consciously, maybe, but deliberately. When I’d met her she’d wanted nothing at all to do with magic, but over the past year it’d become clear she’d been aware earlier on in her life that it existed. I had to hand it to her: when Joanne ran away from something, she ran but good.
    “It don’t matter,” I said as much to myself as Brigid. “Let’s get down there and lay this binding spell before any vampires claw their way outta the hellmouth to eat us.”
    As soon as I said ‘em, I knew I was gonna regret those words forever. Maybe not straightaway, but it was the same as sayin’ “At least it ain’t raining,” and I knew better than to say something like that. Brigid’s aura sparked like she was telling me they’d known better than to say “At least it ain’t raining” in ancient Ireland, too, an’ then we made our way toward a dark light that started shining in front of us.
    It didn’t get brighter, that light. It stayed steady until all of a sudden we were in a rough-hewn round room, and the weight of the cauldron pulled us