Chapter 29

The Sisters of the Mist: The Nine Morgens of Avalon. Moronoe, Mazoe, Glitonea, Gliten, Cliton, Tyronoe, Thitis, Thetis and Morgan la Fey.

Donnie and his crew landed at the Cardiff International Airport at 8am Greenwich time. Once they reached Wales they chartered a bus to take them from the airport to the South West coast of the country. The bus driver drove aggressively to the distant shore having been offered an extremely large tip by the ever generous Xander. They were heading directly for the docks in a tiny coastal town near the booming metropolis off Swansea. The nearly hour long drive was a quite one. Mostly everyone was feeling a bit jet lagged. They'd spent most of the flight wired and excited about the adventure before them, but now most of them just wanted to sleep and prepare mentally for the task ahead.

Donnie was shocked by the sheer magnitude of the cities that they passed. He had imagined that Swansea was once a tiny fishing village, but that was no more. Now it could boast hundreds of thousands of people. And even though it was the most direct route to their destination it wouldn't be practical at all to try to secure a boat at such a busy harbor front. So Zach had made the call to choose a less busy fishing village nestled into the extreme South West coast of the country.

Now the teens stood on the docks an hour later waiting for some fishing boats to dock and haul their catch so that they could compel the captain to bring them to the remote mystical island of Avalon. They watched from the dock as an old boat laden down with barnacles and sporting a rusty hull made its way towards them. It puttered up to the shore as a brave soul leapt off the side and onto the dock to secure the rickety vessel to the key.

A crotchety old crone barked orders in Welsh from behind the wheel, meanwhile the men on her boat dance to her merry tune and Lauren and Marley fist bumped each other. They had guessed right, the captain was indeed a woman after all.

Three crew members jumped on the dock and three stayed behind to chuck containers of fish at the ones on the shore. They piled them high on the back of a pick-up truck. And with all the helpful hands the job was done in minutes; then the Captain seemed to give them their marching orders in the local language and off they went to complete their last tasks before the end of the working day.

As they drove away she waved a cheery goodbye.

Even though the woman looked as old as Methuselah she leapt from the bow of the boat on to the dock with surprising ease. She fixed them with a warm smile and greeted them in Welsh. The old woman sported deep lines on her face and curly hair in every shade grey imaginable. Her hair resembled a stormy sky on a cloudy day. Her clear sea blue eyes seemed to capture him in their depths as she looked them all over one at a time.

Suddenly the hairs on the back of his neck stood up and everything about this woman was screaming Fae to him. He was beginning to understand as a Cait he should always trust his instincts. And they were telling him now that she was most definitely Enlightened. He couldn't smell it on her, but he could sense it.

When she spoke it was with an accent so thick you could cut it with a knife which made her difficult to understand, but she spoke in unbroken English, so they trusted that she could understand their request.

They had gone over their plan pretty thoroughly on the long flight over. Marley was to step forward to compel the captain and they would stand back until the job was done, but when Marley went to do just that the old woman merely cackled in a witchy way.

Megan obviously sense her otherworldliness too and stormed up to demand, "What are you?'

"Oh Halfling I'd be undine like yurself. They'd be calling me the Hag of the Mist or Gwrach-y-Rhibyn in Welsh.

"What a minute by Hag of the Mist do you mean to tell us you're a Banshee?" Lauren said with a certain amount of incredulity.

"Aye," she lisped in her heavy accent, "but you can call me Delia."

"I thought you were only supposed to come out when someone is supposed to die." Zach asked from his protective stance in front of the group.

"Aye and you'd be right me boyo. That'd be a right assumption to be having. But I guess you'd be calling foreshadowing death me day job." She said with a lurid wink.

Marley backed up and raised her hands to whisper in pigs latin, "Ixnay Uysgay Iway an'tcay ompelcay away ansheebay." From the side of her mouth.

Since everyone was under ninety no one knew how to speak pigs latin, but apparently the banshee had no problem with it, because she just laughed and said, "Oh me dear you don't need to compel me. I'll go wherever me lady tells me."

She strode forward and curtsied dramatically to Megan.

Now you haven't seen anything until you've seen a fullblood old as the hills banshee/fishing trolley captain dressed in dungarees curtsy daintily to a teen girl in crutches.

Megan nearly fell backwards trying to get away from her.

She sputtered when she recovered herself and said, "I-I t-think you have me confused with someone else."

"Nay you be a Merrick as I live and breathe. Come me ladyship I will ferry you where you must go."

Megan looked around at her friends dumbstruck. She seemed locked in place with shock that was until Quinn bowed to her and repeated the captain's phrase in her strange little accent, "Come me Ladyship I be yur humble servant."

And he bowed so deep he nearly touched the ground with the top of his head. Megan used some colorful language of her own and shoved her crutch into the small of his back, letting the jokester know exactly how she felt about being teased about her ancestry.

He immediately lost his balance and would have fallen in the water if CJ hadn't caught him.

"Bro," CJ cautioned in a barely audible whisper from the side of his face, "don't antagonize the local sovereignty."

The kids laughed and piled on board. It was touch and go with Megan she wouldn't accept anyone's help, but in the end she vaulted over like she normally vaulted on to her Kelpie Midnight.

Megan handed the coordinates to the captain and she punched them into her navigation system and with a whir, sputter and sick little cough of the engine they were off.

On their way to the misty island. The Ancient Fae took one look at the coordinates and announced that it would take two hours to get there so the kids settled in. Megan stayed in the middle of the boat. She wasn't completely over her fear of the sea and you wouldn't be either if it had tried to kill you and nearly succeeded, but with Cam's help she was acclimating to it.

If she had been on this boat same time last year she would have been trying to climb everyone like a cat to get off.

It was a choppy day on the Welsh Sea and the boat bobbed to and fro in the waves and swells. Many of the land lubbers were feeling sick in no time -- including Quinn -- which Megan didn't miss the opportunity to tease him about.

Lauren went from person to person spelling most of them to feel better. They had a supply of troll bile with them but it wouldn't help in this instance and besides they needed to keep their entire supply -- nobody was under the illusion that getting into the Cait's court was going to be easy and getting out with the girls was going to be even harder.

It was nearly noon when they finally made it to the Isle. The rough seas had slowed them down significantly – it was a delay they couldn't afford. Ever minute they wasted could mean the worst.

Donnie could sense they were getting close. The fog had kicked up out of nowhere and by the time they got dangerously close it was as thick as pea soup.

Thank Dio they had the exact location or they would have never found it in a million years.

But finally, they broke through the fog and before them floated an island paradise. Crystal clear aqua blue water, white sandy shores that sparkled in the brilliant sun under a gorgeous blue azure sky, and the lush green trees and plants that blanketed the Isle left them all in awe.

Donnie could actually smell the natural vegetation. He could even smell the soil. This place was heavenly and unspoiled by man, and suddenly he wanted to do everything in his power to keep it that way. This place made his heart hurt.

Had all places on earth once lived this vibrantly?

He looked around to see that most of them were experiencing the same visceral reaction to the fauna and flora of the island.

"Welcome to Annwn your majesty."

"Megan sighed out loud and smiled at the craggy captain, "Thank you Delia."

"Delia," she continued, "we need to explore the island but perhaps you can save us some time. Do you know where the lady of the lake resides?"

"Aye me lady the lake can be found on the North East of the Island."

Zach grabbed a compass from his duffle but when the kids looked more closely at it they noticed that the needle spun uselessly.

The Banshee chuckled again and said, "That will nay work here," and she pointed in the direction they should go.

The kids piled out of the boat into the hip high water. Marveling at how warm and inviting it was even for the month of December.

Donnie could tell that Megan struggled not to shift in the surf and she hurried to shore tossing her crutches ahead and swimming the rest of the way.

Once on shore she was soaked but happy. It wasn't cold on the island. It could be confused with a cool summer's day and the kids were grateful, but no one was willing to tempt fate by saying things were going better than they planned. Fate has a way of biting you in the ass when you do that. So they remained vigilant as they worked their way through the dense foliage to the lush lake that they could now see in the distance. Animal of every description scurried away from them as they trudged loudly through the underbrush.

Megan and Cam had worn easy access clothes as they called it. Easy on and easy off -- they had said. Donnie loved his magical world not all shifters needed to undress to change like him but most did and those individuals seemed not to be body conscious.

Megan was one of those shifters and as she walked up on the lake she stripped unabashedly. Cameron did the same. They both understood how little time they had before midnight tonight.

A deadline made by a delusional monarch who had no clue about the limitations of non-magical travel. If Donnie could traverse the Umbra road like his fellow cats he could have been in Italy in minutes, but the paranoid monarch hadn't even considered that when he'd set his ridiculous timeline.

The lake was interesting in the sense that there seemed to be no shallows around it. And the blue was nearly as black as coal hinting at it bottomless depths. Suddenly he was worried that this lake wasn't a physical construct and in being that way there would be no way to locate the scabbard without being given it by le Fay.

If that was the case they had just wasted a trip, and he'd have to face the King without it. He was just resigning himself to that when Lauren pointed up to the sky and said, "Look!"

In the distance he could see birds of various descriptions converging form every compass point of the island. They were converging on their location with unnatural speed. From his vantage point he could tell their forms were too big in the blue sky. This made him wonder if they were of unnatural size too.

Cameron was just tying his seal skin around his waist and Megan was preparing to dive into the lake when they heard Lauren's cry and looked up. They too seemed to grasp the otherworldly aspect of the birds.

It was only a matter of minutes before they were within human sight. Donnie recognized the types of birds as being eight different breeds with varying wingspans. The owl, swan, hawk, raven, dove, falcon, cardinal, and robin swooped down on them in unison forming a protective semicircle in front of the lake. In the blink if an eye they morphed into eight beautiful women in varying colored robes.

The women were all different ages representing the maiden, the mother, and the crone. The lady who had just morphed from the owl appeared to be the oldest of the group. She stepped forward to speak first, but she spoke in a language that nobody understood.

The kids looked around at each other as if to say,' anyone got any clue what she's saying'.

That's when Olivia stepped from behind her over protective girlfriend and announced, "Let me." And she promptly morphed into Oliver her male persona. When she did that the tribunal that guarded the lake seemed to relax and be drawn to his form. Donnie watched and noticed that the eight ladies were not the only ones being affected by his charms; several female members of their crew looked like they had fallen into a trance and were unwittingly following behind him.

It took a few of the unaffected guys snapping their fingers in front of their faces to wake them from their lustful fantasies.

When Ollie finally made his way to the crowd of women he was miraculously speaking the language they had uttered before. For the people who were mystified Marley explained, "He's speaking love speak. As long as his victims are swept up in his seduction web then he will be able to conversing with them in any language they choose."

"Simply put. He can understand her now." Marley finished with a sour look on her face.

They conversed for several minutes and although the other women looked like they would like to say yes to him, the crone kept shaking her head no.

Oliver turned to them then and called out from the tight circle of women around him, "Guys I can't convince their leader to give us the scabbard."

"Did you explain that we don't want Excalibur only the scabbard?" Lauren asked.

"Of course." Ollie snorted indignantly.

"Did you tell them we only want it so we can rescue three eight year old Cait Sith?" Zach called.

"Look it's not my first time at the rodeo here." He said in frustration.

Donnie heard a groan from the back of the cluster of teens and a deep, "excuse me," as Connor forced his way to the front and walked up to the crone. On his way over he had stripped off the black leather gloves he normally wore.

He extended his hand to the crone as if to shake it, and Donnie hoped she understood the universal gesture. Was shaking a person's hand in greeting commonplace in the Middle Ages?

Connor recognized that she was having trouble with the concept so he extended his hand to Ollie and shook his hand saying loudly, "My name is Connor."

Luckily Ollie caught on and said, "Oh I'm Oliver and he patted his chest and repeated, "Oliver."

The women looked at each other and spoke a few words to each other before shaking Connor's hand and telling him their names one at a time.

It turned out that they were a pretty friendly and agreeable bunch, but none could have guessed the affect his touch would have on them.

When the crone face split into a happy grin and left Oliver in the dust to make her way to Connor everyone knew that the scabbard was practically there's, but Connor called over his shoulder.

"We're not out of the woods yet. Ollie you've got to teach me how to say I will love whoever brings me the scabbard."

Ollie's eyebrows shot for the stars, but he uttered the phrase in ancient welsh and Connor repeated it to all the women.

Suddenly it was sheer pandemonium. Everyone one of the women turned faster than humanly possible and dove almost simultaneously into the lake. They disappeared under the dark surface and only moments later the surface seemed to start to bubble with activity.

"Back up everyone this might get ugly." Connor cautioned as he stumbled backwards himself.

The crone was the first to the surface and she leapt out of the water in a high arc to come to rest in front of Connor breathing heavy and looking around at her sisters as they landed on every side of her. They converged on her like a pack of hyenas, looking ready to tear her limb from limb.

Connor seeing what was about to occur yelled, "Give me the scabbard!" While he thrust out his hand to the crone. She threw it at him and it soared through the air.

Everyone of the Morgens dove at it as it passed -- trying desperately to get a piece of it.

The deadly Cancanagh had promised that he would love them if they were the one to give it to him and they intended to be that person. The ancient beings were powerless to his charms.

When he caught it in his hand the other women slumped to the ground and wailed miserably realizing that the crone had won the contest. She had won his love and they could think of no other solution, but to kill her.

They dove for the crone in a display of magic and shapeshifting the likes of which the teens had never seen or would even see again. Connor and Ollie took off at a run from the epicenter of the battle. In a flurry of deadly magic the battle raged on and in the chaos the teens barely escaped.

But once the Morgens realized that their beloved was leaving them, they strove to follow him, but at the same time they continued to battle each other for his affections.

The teens used ever power in their arsenal to get away. Marley had even picked up a still naked Megan and Cameron and threw them on her back to speed across the luscious island.

Donnie morphed right away to a cat he could move faster that way. He yowled as he took off in the opposite direction to the snarling women.

The last one to make it to the boat on the Isle's shore was Travis. The mountain troll had told them several times he wasn't built for running.

It was Connor's making it to the boat that stopped the headlong pursuit of the Morgens'. When he made it to the deck of the boat they fell on their knees on the beach and begged him to return.

Thankfully they no longer wanted to kill each other, but to console each other in their tremendous grief.

The crone seemed to come to her senses first and then the others followed suit. She stood up on shaky legs and called out to everyone aboard the fishing vessel.

They had to ask Ollie to Translate and apparently according to Ollie the crone said:

"The scabbard you hold is an item that no man should possess. Fore when you have the power to fear no one that is when you yourself should be feared." She looked to all her sisters seeming heartbroken by the pain she caused them, "We are normally peaceful beings but we could call up a storm that would swamp your boat at any time, or . . . you can agree to bring the scabbard back after its single use. Agreed?"

Zach spoke for them as their leader. He called over the sound of the crashing waves, "Agreed we will bring it back after we save the girls."

"And if you die in your pursuit?" One of the Morgens asked.

Zach sighed then, but Lauren seemed to think it over before saying, "then it will be easily found in the Court of Caits in Rome where your sister le Fay can retrieve it.

"One more thing," the crone called over the roar of the sea, "If the young man that tricked us ever returns – peaceful or not – we will end his life on sight." When a beautiful white haired maiden moaned sadly the crone cooed, "Be strong Thetis we will always have each other."

When Connor called out, "I'm sorry I promise to never return," and Ollie translated; most of the ancients looked crushed before they morphed back into birds and flew away.

The banshee cackled then and said, "Aye you be very busy making enemies today I see, we best be off then before Le fay shows up. The Morgens are tied to the Island, she my dear children is not, and I have nay wish to meet her on the open sea."

AS they sailed away from the ancient isle Connor who was white as a sheet took off for the stern of the boat to be alone with his thoughts.

Brenna quickly followed to try and cheer him up.

It was a two hour trip to the distant Welsh shore and a four hour plane ride to Italy. When Donnie looked at his watch and saw how late it was; he took a moment to pray they would be on time.

Well they got the scabbard, but will they make it to Italy in time?

Tune in tomorrow to find out.