Blood Magick (22 page)

“So . . .” Grabbing a biscuit, and another for his pocket, Boyle considered. “The four of us go where Fin followed today, and hunt from there. Connor and Meara catch Cabhan’s attention so he’s after them, and the lair’s clear of him. If we find it, Fin takes this crystal, shifts in time back to the fecking thirteenth century, plants the thing in the cave, comes back, and we’re all off to the pub for a round.”

“That’s the broad strokes of it.” Branna patted his arm. “We’ll fix the small, and important details of it. So we don’t go until we do. None of us go near the place.” She looked directly at Fin. “Is that agreed?”

“It is,” he said, “and I’ve some ideas on a few of the details.”

“As have I.” Satisfied, and only a little angry still, Branna took a biscuit for herself.

I
T
WOULD
TAKE
NEARLY
A
WEEK
BEFORE
B
RANNA
WAS
fully satisfied, and those days took precious hours away from perfecting the poison. Still, she considered it all time well spent.

The timing would be tight, and the circle would be separated at several stages—so every step of every stage had to be carefully plotted.

They chose early evening, so routines could hold and they’d still have an hour or more of light before dusk.

In her workshop, Branna carefully placed the crystal she’d chosen and charmed in a pouch.

“You must place it high, facing the altar, where it will reflect what’s below,” she told Fin. “And you must move there and back quickly.”

“So you’ve already said.”

“It bears repeating. You’ll be tempted to linger—as I would be in your place—to see what else you might find, what else you might learn. The longer you’re there, in his place and in his time, the more chance there is of you leaving some trace, or of him sensing you.”

She placed the pouch in a leather bag, then held up a vial. “Should it go wrong, should he come back before you’re done, this should disable him for a few moments, long enough for you to get back to me, Iona, Boyle in our time. It’s only if there’s no choice.”

She pouched the vial, added it to the bag. Stared down at it as she wished what he needed to do didn’t need to be done. “Don’t risk all for the moment.”

“As all includes you, you can be sure I won’t.”

“Touch nothing of his. Don’t—”

“Branna.” He cupped her face until their eyes met. “We’ve been over it all.”

“Of course. You’re right. And it’s time.” She handed him the bag, went to get her jacket. “Iona and Boyle will be here any minute.”

“When this is done we’ll have a window to look in on him as he too often looks in on us. And we’ll be able to give all the time needed to the poison that will end it.”

“I’m uneasy, that’s the truth.” She didn’t know if it helped to say it, but did know it was foolish, and maybe dangerous, to pretend. “The closer we come to the end of it, and I believe we will end it, there’s a pull and tug in me. It’s more than confidence and doubt. I don’t understand my own feelings, and it makes me uneasy.”

“Be easy about this. If for now, only this.”

She could only try, as there was no room for doubts, and no time to delay as Iona and Boyle pulled up outside.

She picked up a short sword, fixed the sheath to her belt. “Best be prepared,” was all she said as Iona and Boyle came in.

“Connor and Meara are on their way.”

“Then we’d best be on ours.” Branna reached for Fin’s hand, then Boyle’s. When Iona took Boyle’s other hand, they flew.

Through the cool and the damp, through the wind and over the trees, across the river, then the lake with the castle of Ashford shining behind them.

They landed softly, in a stand of trees, in a place she didn’t recognize.

“Here?”

“It’s where I lost him. It’s been hundreds of years since Midor and his cave,” Fin pointed out. “Some houses not far, some roads, but as with Sorcha’s cabin, I think the place where Cabhan was made will remain, in some form.”

“There’s a quiet here.” Eyes watchful, Boyle studied the lay of the land. “A kind of hard hush.”

Feeling the same, Fin nodded. “We’re a superstitious breed, we Irish, and wise enough to build around a faerie hill without disturbing it, to leave a stone dance where it stands. And to keep back from a place where the dark still thrums.”

He glanced over at Boyle. “We agreed to stay together, but it’s fact we’d cover more ground if we split up.”

“Together,” Branna said firmly, as she’d expected him to suggest it. “And if the dark still thrums?” She drew out a wand with a tip of glass-clear crystal. “The light will find it.”

“I don’t recall that being in the plan.”

“Best to be prepared,” she repeated. She lifted her wand to the sky until the tip pulsed light. And watched Merlin circle above them.

“Between my wand and your hawk, we should find the lair. It pulls north.”

“Then we go north.” Boyle took Iona’s hand in his again, and the four of them headed north.

•   •   •

ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE RIVER CONNOR AND MEARA
walked in the woods. He’d linked with Roibeard, who swooped through the trees, and with Merlin, who watched the rest of the circle travel another wood.

“It’s a pleasure to finally have some time to go hawking with you. It’s been too long since we just took an hour for it.”

“I need to practice more,” Meara responded, easy and casual, though her throat was dry. “So I’m full ready when we add the package.”

“We could’ve come on horseback.”

“This will do.” She lifted a gloved arm for Roibeard, and though the hawking was a ploy, enjoyed having him.

“Would you want a hawk of your own?” Connor asked her.

She glanced at him in genuine surprise. “I’ve never thought of it.”

“You should have your own. A female if you find one who speaks to you. Your hawk and mine could mate.”

The idea brought a smile as it seemed a lovely thought, and a normal one. “I’ve never tended to a hawk on my own.”

“I’d help you, but you’d do well with it. You’ve helped often enough with Merlin when Fin’s gone rambling. We could build a place for them when we build our house. If you’re still in the mind to build one.”

“I’ve hardly thought of that either, as I’m barely making strides on the wedding.” She let Roibeard fly again. “And there’s Cabhan to worry about.”

“We won’t think of him today,” Connor said, though both of them thought of little else. “Today we follow Roibeard’s dance. Give us a song, Meara, something bright to lift Roibeard’s wings.”

“Something bright, is it?” She took his hand, swung his arm playfully as they walked. But she wanted that connection, the physical of it, as they both knew the music could bring Cabhan.

They’d planned on it.

She decided on “The Wild Rover,” as it was bright enough, and had a number of verses to give Cabhan time to be drawn in, if it was to happen.

She laughed when Connor joined her on the chorus, and any other day would have prized the walk with him, with the hawk, with the song in the pretty woods where the snowmelt left the ground so soft and pools of white still clung to the shady shadows.

When he squeezed her hand, she knew the ploy had worked. And it was time for their part of the scheme.

Her voice didn’t falter as she saw the first wisps of fog slithering over the ground, nor when Roibeard landed on a branch nearby—a golden-winged warrior poised to defend.

“I could still your voice with a thought.”

Cabhan rose from the fog, and smiled his silky smile when Meara stopped singing to draw her sword. “And so I have. You risk your lady, witch, strolling through the woods without your sister to fight for you.”

“I’ve enough to protect my lady, should she need it. But I think you know she does well protecting herself. Still . . .” Connor ran a finger down Meara’s blade, set it alight. “A little something more for my lady.”

“What manner of man has his woman stand in front of him?”

“Beside him,” Connor corrected, and drew a sword of his own, enflamed it.

“And leaves her unshielded,” Cabhan said and hurled black lightning at Meara.

Connor sent it crashing to the ground with a hard twist of wind. “Never unshielded.”

•   •   •

ACROSS THE WATER, THE PULSE OF BRANNA’S WAND QUICKENED
. “Close now.”

“There.” Fin pointed to a wild tangle of thickets edged with thick black thorns, snaking vines dotted with berries like hard drops of blood. “In there is Midor’s cave. I can feel the pull, just as I felt the burn when Cabhan crossed the river. The way’s clear.”

“It doesn’t look clear,” Iona said. “It looks lethal.” Testing, she tapped the flat of her sword on one of the thorns, listened to the metallic clink of steel to steel. “Sounds lethal.”

“I won’t be going through them, but through time. Though when this is done we’ll come back here, all of us, and burn those thorny vines, salt and sanctify the ground.”

“Not yet.” Branna took his arm. “Connor hasn’t told me Cabhan’s taken the bait.”

“He has. He’s nearly there, and the sooner I’m in and out, the less time Connor and Meara have to stand against him. It’s now, Branna, and quick.”

Though it filled her with dread, they cast the circle, and she released Fin’s hand, accepted it would be done.

“In this place,” she chanted with the others, “of death and dark, we send the one who bears the mark through space, through time. Powers of light send him through, let our wills entwine. Send him through, and send him back by the light of the three.”

“Come back to me,” Branna added, though it hadn’t been part of the spell.

“As you will,” Fin said, his eyes on hers, “so mote it be.”

His fog swirled, and he was gone.

“It won’t take long.” To comfort, Iona put her arm around Branna’s shoulders.

“It’s so dark. It’s so cold. And he’s alone.”

“He’s not.” Boyle took her hand, held it firmly. “We’re right here. We’re with him.”

But he was alone in the cold and the dark. The power here hung so thick and dank he felt nothing beyond it. Black blood stained the ground where Cabhan had shackled and killed his mother.

He scanned the horror of jars, filled with the pieces of the woman who’d birthed him, which Cabhan had preserved for his dark magicks.

The world Fin knew, his world, seemed not just centuries away, but as if it didn’t exist. Freeing the demon, giving it form and movement had drawn the cave into its own kind of hell where all the damned burned cold.

He smelled brimstone and blood—old blood and new. It took all his will to resist the sudden, fierce need to go to the altar, take up the cup that stood below a cross of yellowing bones, and drink.

Drink.

Sweat coated his skin though his breath turned to clouds in the frigid air that seemed to undulate like a sea with the fetid drops sliding down the walls and striking the floor in a tidal rhythm.

Something in its beat stirred his blood.

His hand trembled as he forced himself to reach into the bag, open the pouch, take out the crystal.

For a moment Branna was there—warm and strong, so full of light he could slow his pulse again, steady his hands. He rose up within the fog, up the damp wall of the cave. He saw symbols carved in the stone, recognized them from Ogham, though he couldn’t read them.

He laid the crystal in a chink, along a fingertip of ledge, and wondered if Branna’s charm could be strong enough to hide it from so much dark.

Such deep, fascinating dark, where voices chanted, and those to be sacrificed screamed and wept for a mercy that would never be given.

Why should mercy be given to the less? Their cries and screams of torment were true music, a call to dance, a call to feed.

The dark must be fed. Embraced. Worshipped.

The dark would reward. Eternally.

Fin turned to the altar, took a step toward it. Then another.

•   •   •

“IT’S TAKING TOO LONG.” BRANNA RUBBED HER ARMS TO
fight a cold that dug into her bones and came from fear. “It’s nightfall. He’s been more than half an hour now, and far too long.”

“Connor?” Iona asked. “He’s—”

“I know, I know. He and Meara can’t hold Cabhan much longer. Go to Connor, you and Boyle go to Connor and Meara, help them. I’ll go through for Fin. Something’s wrong, something’s happened. I haven’t been able to feel or sense him since he went through.”

“You’ll not go in. Branna, you’ll not.” Boyle took her shoulders, gave her a little shake. “We have to trust Fin to get back, and we can’t risk you. Without you, it ends here, and not for Cabhan.”

“His blood could betray him, however much he fights it. I can pull him out. I have to try before. Ah, God, Cabhan, he’s coming back. Fin—”

“Can we pull him back, the two of us?” Iona gripped Branna’s hand. “We have to try.”

“With all of us, we might . . . Oh, thank the gods.”

When Fin, his fog thin and faded, fell to his knees on the ground at her feet, Branna dived for him.

“He’s coming,” Fin managed. “It’s done, but he’s coming. We have to go, and quickly. I could use some help.”

“We’ve got you.” Branna wrapped her arms around him, looked at Iona, at Boyle, nodded. “We’ve got you,” she repeated, and held on to him as they flew.

His skin was ice, and she couldn’t warm it as she pulled him over treetops, over the lake, and the castle aglow with lights.

She brought him straight to the cottage, set the fire to roaring before she knelt in front of him. “Look at me. Fin, I have to see your eyes.”

They glowed against the ice white of his face, but they were Fin’s, and only his.

“I brought nothing back with me,” he told her. “Left nothing of me. Only your crystal.”

“Whiskey.” But even as she snapped it out, Boyle sat beside Fin, cupped Fin’s hands around the glass.

“I feel I’ve walked a hundred kilometers in the Arctic without a single rest.” He gulped down whiskey, let his head fall back as Connor and Meara came in.