Blood Magick (8 page)

Iona started to speak, but Meara shook her head, silenced her.

“I didn’t need to be reminded of it. It was cruel, but magick can be. Here’s a gift, and oh, look what you are, what you have. But you can never be sure what you’ll pay for it.”

“He’s paid as well,” Meara said gently.

“Sure I know it. More than any other. It was easier when I could be angry or feel betrayed. But what needs doing can’t be done with anger and hard feelings. Letting them go brings back so much. Too much. So I have to ask how do I do what needs doing when I feel all this? It needs to be let go as well.”

“Love’s power,” Iona said after a moment. “I think even when it hurts, it’s power.”

“That may be. No, that
is
,” Branna corrected. “But how to use it and not be swallowed by it, that’s a fine, thin line, isn’t it? And right now I feel weighed and unbalanced and . . .”

She trailed off, laid a hand lightly on Iona’s, the other on Meara’s. “Beware the shadows,” she murmured, looking out the window where they dug deep pockets in the wall of fog.

“No, sit easy,” she said when Meara started to rise. “Just sit easy. He can’t come in to what’s mine, try as he might. But I’m sitting here in my own kitchen acting the gom. Sitting here, sniveling away so he can slide around my walls and windows, feeding on my self-pity. Well, he’s fed enough.”

She shoved away from the table, ignoring Iona’s quick, “Wait!” Striding straight to the window, she flung it open, and hurled out a ball of fire, then another, then two at once while the fury of her power snapped around her.

Something roared, something inhuman. And the fog lit like tinder before it vanished.

“Well now.” Branna closed the window with a little snap.

“Holy shit.” Iona standing, a ball of fire on her palm, let out a shaky breath. “Holy shit,” she repeated.

“I don’t think he liked the taste of that. And I feel better.” After dusting her hands, palm to palm, she came back, sat, picked up her fork. “You should put that fire out now, Iona, and finish your pasta.” She sampled her first bite. “For it’s brilliant if I say so myself. And, Meara, if you wouldn’t mind texting Connor. Just letting them know to have a care, though I don’t think Cabhan’s up to tangling with them tonight.”

“Sure I’ll do that.”

“He thought to take a little swipe at the women,” Branna said as she ate. “He’ll forever underestimate women. And he thought to lap up some of my feelings. Now he’ll choke on them. It’s light he can’t abide.” With a flick of her fingers the light in the room glowed just a little brighter. “And joy, and we’ll have some of that, for it’s not much makes me happier than picking out colors and finishings and the like.”

She scooped up more pasta. “So, Iona, have you thought of travertine for the master bath?”

“Travertine.” Iona let out another breath, and managed, “Hmmm.”

“And we’ve still details on your wedding to see to, and have barely talked of yours, Meara. There’s joy here.” She took her friends’ hands again. “The kind women know. So let’s have more wine and talk of weddings and making stone and glass into homes.”

•   •   •

CONNOR READ THE TEXT FROM MEARA. “CABHAN’S BEEN AT
the cottage. No,” he said quickly as both his friends pushed back from the table. “He’s gone. Meara says Branna sent him off with his tail burning between his legs.”

“I’ll see better outside, out of the light and noise. We’ll be sure,” Fin added, and rose, walked out of the warmth of the pub.

“We should go back,” Boyle insisted.

“Meara says not to. Says that Branna needs her evening with just the women, and swears they’re safe, tucked up inside. She wouldn’t brush it off, Boyle.”

He opened himself, did what he could to block out the voices, the laughter around him.

“He’s not close.” He looked to Fin for verification when Fin came back.

“He’s that pissed, and still on the weak side,” Fin said. “Away from the cottage now, away from here. I should’ve felt him. If we’d been there . . .”

“Only shadows and fog,” Connor put in. “It’s all he’d risk yet. But the pub’s done for us, isn’t it? Back to your house?”

“Easy enough to keep watch from there, whether Branna likes it or not.”

“I’m with you. No, I’ve got this.” Boyle dug out some bills, tossed them down. “You never got around to talking to Connor as you wanted.”

“About what?” Connor asked.

Fin merely swung on his jacket, and bided his time as half the pub had something to say to Connor before he left. The man drew people like honey drew flies, Fin thought, and knew he himself would go half mad if he had that power.

Outside, they squeezed into Fin’s lorry as they’d decided—after considerable discussion—one would do them.

“It’s the school I wanted to discuss,” Fin began.

“There are no problems I can think of. Is it adding the hawking on horseback, as I’ve given that considerate thought?”

“We can talk about that as well. I’ve had partnership papers drawn up.”

“Partnership? Is Boyle going into it with you?”

“I’ve got enough on my plate with the stables, thanks all the same,” Boyle said, and tried to find space to stretch out his legs.

“Well, who’d you partner with then? Ah, tell me it’s not that idjit O’Lowrey from Sligo. He knows his hawks sure enough, but on every other point he’s a git.”

“Not O’Lowrey, but another idjit altogether. I’m partnering with you, you git.”

“With me? But . . . Well, I run the place, don’t I? There’s no need for you to make me a partner.”

“I’m not having the papers for need but because it’s right and it’s time. I’d’ve done it straight off, but you were half inclined to building, as much as you’re for the hawks. And running the school might not have suited you, the paperwork of it, the staffing and all the rest of the business. But it does, otherwise you could’ve just done the hawk walks, and the training. But the whole of it’s for you, so well, that’s done.”

Connor said nothing until Fin stopped in front of his house. “I don’t need papers, Fin.”

“You don’t, no, nor do I with you. Nor does Boyle or me with him. But the lawyers and the tax man and all of them, they need them. So we’ll read them over, sign them, and be done with it. It’d be a favor to me, Connor.”

“Bollocks to that. It’s no favor to—”

“Would the pair of you let me out of this bloody lorry if you’re going to fight about it half the night as I’m stuck between you?”

Fin got out. “We’ll pour a couple more pints in him, and he’ll be signing the papers and forgetting he ever did.”

“There aren’t enough pints in all of Mayo for me to forget a bloody thing.”

The edge in Connor’s voice had Boyle shaking his head, leaving them to it. And had Fin laying his hands on Connor’s shoulders.

“
Mo dearthair
, do you think I do this out of some sense of obligation?”

“I don’t know why you’re doing it.”

“Ah, for feck’s sake, Connor. The school’s more yours than mine, and ever was. It wouldn’t
be
but for you, as much as I wanted it. I’m a man of business, am I not?”

“I’ve heard tell.”

“And this is business. It’s also the hawks, which are as near and dear to me as you.” He lifted his arm, gloveless. In moments Merlin, his hawk, landed like a feather on his wrist.

“You care for him when I’m away.”

“Of course.”

Fin angled his head so the hawk rubbed against him. “He’s part of me, as Roibeard is part of you. I trust you to see to him, and Meara to see to him. When this is done, with Cabhan, I can’t stay here, not for a while in any case.”

“Fin—”

“I’ll have to go, for my own sanity. I’ll need to go, and I can’t say, not now, if I’ll come back. I need you to do this favor, Connor.”

Annoyed, Connor gave Fin a hard poke in the chest. “When this is over, you’ll stay. And Branna will be with you, as she once was.”

“Ending Cabhan won’t take away the mark.” Fin lifted his arm again, sent Merlin lifting off, spreading his wings in flight. “She can’t be mine, not truly, while I bear it. Until I can rid myself of it I can’t ask her to be mine. And I can’t live, Connor, I swear to you, knowing she’s hardly more than a stone’s throw away every night and never to be mine. Once I thought I could. Now I know I can’t.”

“I’ll sign your papers if it’s what you want. But I’m telling you now, looking eye to eye, when this is done—and it will be done—you’ll stay. Mark it, Finbar. Mark what I say. I’ll wager you a hundred on it, here and now.”

“Done. Now.” He slung an arm around Connor’s shoulders. “Let’s go have a pint and see if we can talk Boyle into making us something to eat as we didn’t get that far at the pub.”

“I’m for all of that.”

•   •   •

SHE COULDN’T SLEEP. LONG AFTER THE HOUSE WAS QUIET,
Branna wandered through it, checking doors and windows and charms. He was out there, lurking. She felt him like a shadow over a sunbeam. As she walked back upstairs, she trailed a hand over Kathel’s head.

“We should sleep,” she told him. “Both of us. There’s more work to be done tomorrow.”

In the bedroom she built up the fire, for warmth, for the comfort of its light. She could walk through those flames in her mind, she considered, but knew whatever visions came might not bring warmth and comfort.

She’d had enough of the chill for now.

Instead, once Kathel settled, she took out her violin. He watched her as she rosined her bow, thumping his tail as if in time. That alone made her smile as she walked to the windows.

There she could see out, toward the hills, toward the woods, into the sky where the moon floated in and out of clouds, and stars flickered like distant candles.

And he could see in, she thought, see her standing behind the glass, behind the charms. Out of his reach.

And that turned her smile potent.

Look all you want, she thought, for you’ll never have what I am.

She set the violin on her shoulder, closed her eyes a moment while the music rose up in her.

And she played, the notes lifting out of her heart, her spirit, her blood, her passions. Slow, lilting, lovely, power sang through the strings, shimmered its defiance against the glass, against the dark.

Framed in the window, the firelight dancing behind her, she played what both lured and repelled him while her hound watched, while her friends slept, while the moon floated.

In his bed, alone in the dark, Fin heard her song, felt what lifted out of her heart pierce his own.

And ached for her.

S
HE
TOOK
THE
MORNING
FOR
DOMESTIC
TASKS
,
TIDYING
and polishing her house to what Connor often called her fearful standards. She considered herself a creature of order and sense, and one happiest when her surroundings echoed not only that order, but her own tastes.

She liked knowing things remained where she wanted them, a practical matter to her mind that saved time. To be at her best, she required color and texture and the pretty things that brightened the heart and appealed to the eye.

Pretty things and order required time and effort, and she enjoyed the housewifely duties, the simple and ordinary routine of them. She appreciated the faint scent of orange peel once the furniture was polished with the solution she made for herself and the tang of grapefruit left behind once she’d scrubbed her bath.

Fluffed pillows offered welcome as a soft, pretty throw arranged just so offered comfort and eye appeal.

Once done she refreshed candles, watered plants, filled her old copper bucket with more peat for the fire.

Meara and Iona had set the kitchen to rights before they’d gone off to the stables, but . . . not quite right enough to suit her.

So while laundry chugged away in the machines, she fussed, making a mental list of what she wanted at the market, a secondary list of potential new products for her shop. Humming while she planned, she finished the last of the housework with mopping the kitchen floor.

And felt him.

Though her heart jumped she made herself turn slowly to where Fin stood in the doorway that led to her shop.

“A cheerful tune for scrubbing up.”

“I like scrubbing up.”

“A fact that’s always been a mystery to me. As is how you manage to look so fetching doing it. Am I wrong? Did we agree to work this morning?”

“You’re not wrong, just early.” Deliberately she went back to her mopping. “Go put the kettle on in the workshop. I’m nearly done.”

She’d had her morning, Branna reminded herself, her time alone to do as she pleased. Now it was time for duty. She’d work with Fin as it needed to be done. She accepted that, and had come to accept him as part of her circle.

Duty, she thought, couldn’t always be easy. Reaching a goal as vital as the one sought required sacrifice.

She put away her mop and bucket, put the rag she’d tucked in the waistband of her pants in the laundry. After taking just one more minute to gird herself for the next hours, went into her workshop.

He’d boosted the fire, and the warmth was welcome. It wasn’t as odd as it once had been to see him at her workshop stove, making tea.

He’d shed his coat, stood there in black pants and a sweater the color of forest shadows with the dog standing beside him.

“If you’re wanting a biscuit we’d best clear it with herself first,” he told the dog. “I’m not saying you didn’t earn one or a bit of a lie-down by the fire.” He stopped what he was doing, grinned down at the dog. “Afraid of her, am I? Well now, insulting me’s hardly the way to get yourself a biscuit, is it?”

It disconcerted her, as always, that he could read Kathel as easy as she.

And as she had with him in the kitchen, he sensed her, turned.

“He’s hoping for a biscuit.”

“So I gather. It’s early for that as well,” she said with a speaking look to her dog. “But he can have one, of course.”

“I know where they are.” Fin opened a cupboard as she crossed the room. Taking out the tin, he opened it. Before he could offer it, Kathel rose up, set his paws on Fin’s shoulders. He stared into Fin’s eyes for a moment, then gently licked Fin’s cheek.

“Sure you’re welcome,” Fin murmured when the dog lowered again, accepted the biscuit.

“He has a brave heart, and a kind one,” Branna said. “A fondness and a great tolerance for children. But he loves, truly loves a select few. You’re one of them.”

“He’d die for you, and knows I would as well.”

The truth of it shook her. “That being the case we’d best get to work so none of us dies.”

She got out her book.

Fin finished the tea, brought two mugs to the counter where she sat. “If you’re thinking of changing the potion we made to undo him, you’re wrong.”

“He’s not undone, is he?”

“It wasn’t the potion.”

“Then what?”

“If I knew for certain it would be done already. But I know it brought him terror, gave him pain, great pain. He burned, he bled.”

“And he got away from us. Don’t,” she continued before he could speak. “Don’t say to me you could have finished him if we’d let you go. It wasn’t an option then, and will never be.”

“Has it occurred to you that’s just how it needs to be done? For me, of his blood, for me, who bears his mark, to finish what your blood, what cursed me, to end him?”

“No, because it isn’t.”

“So sure, Branna.”

“On this I am. It’s written, it’s passed down, generation by generation. It’s Sorcha’s children who must end him. Who will. For all those who failed before us, we have something they lacked. And that’s you.”

She used all her will to keep her mind quiet as she spoke, to keep her words all reason.

“I believe you’re essential to this. Having one who came down from him working to end him, working with the three, this is new. Never written of before in any of the books. Our circle’s the stronger with you, that’s without question.”

“So sure of that as well?”

“Without question,” she repeated. “I didn’t want you in it, but that was my weakness, and a selfishness I’m sorry for. We’ve made our circle, and if broken . . . I think we’ll lose. You gave me your word.”

“That may have been a mistake for all, but still I’ll keep it.”

“We can end him. I know it.” As she spoke, she took the crystal from her pocket, turned it in the light. “Connor, Iona, and I, we’ve all seen the first three. Not in simple dreams, but waking ones. We’ve connected with them, body and spirit, and that’s not been written of before.”

He heard the words, the logic in them, but couldn’t polish away the edges of frustration and doubt. “You put great store in books, Branna.”

“So I do, for words written down have great power. You know it as I do.” She laid her hand on the book. “The answers are here, the ones already written, the ones we’ll write.”

She opened the book, paged through. “Here I wrote you and I dream-traveled to Midor’s cave, and saw his death.”

“It’s not an answer.”

“It will lead to one, when we go back.”

“Back?” Now his interest kindled. “To the cave?”

“We were taken there. We’d have more, learn more, see more, if we took ourselves. I can find nothing about this man. The name meant nothing to Sorcha’s Brannaugh. We need to seek him out.”

He wanted to go back, thought of it every day, and yet . . . “We have neither the place nor the time. We’d have no direction, Branna.”

“It can be done, it can be worked. With the rest of our circle here to bring us back if needed. Cabhan’s sire, Fin, how many answers might he have?”

“The answers of a madman. You saw the madness as well as I.”

“You’d go back without me if you could. But it must be both of us.”

He couldn’t deny it. “There was death in that cave.”

“There’s death here, without the answers. The potion must be changed—no, not the essence of it, in that you’re right. But what we made, we made specific to Samhain. Would you wait until Samhain next to try again?”

“I would not, no.”

“I can’t see the time, Fin, can you? I can’t see when we should try for him again, and without that single answer, we’re blind.” She pushed up, wandered the room. “I thought the solstice—it made good logic. The light beats back the dark. Then Samhain, when the veil thins.”

“We saw them, the first three. The veil thinned, and we saw them with us. But not fully,” he added before she could.

“I thought, is it the solstice, but the winter? Or the spring equinox? Is it Lammas or Bealtaine? Or none of those at all.”

Temper, the anger for herself in failing, bubbled up as she whirled back to him. “I see us at Sorcha’s cabin, fighting. The fog and the dark, Boyle’s hands burning, you bleeding. And failing, Fin, because I made the wrong choice.”

On a half laugh—just a touch of derision in it, he arched his eyebrows. “So now it’s all yours, is it?”

“The time, that choice,
was
mine, both of them. And both of them wrong. All my careful calculations, wrong. So more’s needed to be certain this time. This third time.”

“Third time’s the charm.”

Huffing out a breath, she smiled a little. “So it’s said. What we need may be there, for the taking, if we go back. So, will you go dreaming with me, Fin?”

To hell and back again, he thought.

“I will, but we’ll be sure of the dream spell first. Sure of it, and of the way back. I won’t have you lost beyond.”

“I won’t have either of us lost. We’ll be sure first, of the way there, and the way back. It’s Cabhan’s time, his origins—we agree on that?”

“We do.” So Fin sighed. “Which means you’ll be after bleeding me again.”

“Just a bit.” Now she lifted her eyebrows. “All this fuss over a bit of blood from a man who so recently claimed he’d die for me?”

“I’d rather not do it by the drop.”

“No,” she said when he started to pull off his sweater. “Not from the mark. His origins, Fin. He didn’t bear the mark at his beginning.”

“The blood from the mark’s more his.”

She did what she did rarely, stepped to him, laid a hand over the cursed mark. “Not from this. Yours from your hand, mine from mine, so our blood and dreams entwine.”

“You’ve written the spell already?”

“Just pieces of it—and in my head.” She smiled at him, forgetting herself enough to leave her hand on his arm. “I do considerable thinking when I clean.”

“Come to my house and think your fill, as your brother left the room he uses there a small disaster.”

“He’s the finest man I know, along with the sloppiest. He just doesn’t see the mess he makes. It’s a true skill, and one Meara will have to deal with for years to come.”

“He says they’re thinking the solstice—the summer—for the wedding, and having it in the field behind the cottage here.”

“They’re both ones for being out of doors as much as possible, so it suits them.” She turned away to fetch a bowl and her smallest cauldron.

“They suit each other.”

“Oh, sure they do, however much that surprised the pair of them. And with Boyle and Iona before them, we’ll have spring and summer weddings, new beginnings, and the gods willing, the rest far behind us.”

She got out the herbs she wanted, already dried and sealed, water she’d gathered from rain on the full moon, extract distilled from valerian.

Fin rose, got down a mortar and pestle. “I’ll do this,” he said, measuring herbs.

For a time they worked in easy silence.

“You never play music in here,” he commented.

“It distracts me, but you can bring in the iPod from the kitchen if you’re wanting some.”

“No, it’s fine. You played last night. Late in the night.”

Startled, she looked up from her work. “I did. How do you know?”

“I hear you. You often play at night, late in the night. Often sad and lovely songs. Not sad last night, but strong. And lovely all the same.”

“It shouldn’t carry to you.”

His gaze lifted, held hers. “Some bonds you can’t break, no matter how you might wish it, no matter how you might try. No matter how far I traveled, there were times I’d hear you play as if you stood beside me.”

It tugged and tore at her heart. “You never said.”

He merely shrugged. “Your music brought me home more than once. Maybe it was meant to. Bowl or cauldron?” he asked.

“What?”

“The herbs I’ve crushed. For the bowl or the cauldron?”

“Bowl. What brought you home this last time?”

“I saw Alastar, and knew he was needed. I bargained and bought him, arranged for him to be sent. But it wasn’t time for me. Then I saw Aine, and knew she was for Alastar, and . . . more. Her beauty, her spirit, called to me, and I thought, she must come home, but it wasn’t time for me. Then Iona came to Ireland, came to Mayo, walked by Sorcha’s clearing through the woods to you. In the rain, she walked in a pink coat, so full of excitement and hope and magicks yet untapped.”

Stunned, Branna stopped her work. “You saw her.”

“I saw she came home, and came to you, and knew so must I. He would see, and he would know. And he would come, and with the three I might finally end him.”

“How did you see Iona—even to her pink coat?” Flummoxed, Branna pushed her hands at her hair, loosened pins she had to fix in again. “She’s not your blood. Do you ask yourself how?”

“I ask myself many things, but don’t always answer.” He shrugged again. “Cabhan knew her for of the three, so it may be through him I saw, and I knew.”

“It should remind you, when you doubt, the blood you share makes our circle stronger.” She lit the candles, then the fire under the little cauldron. “Slow heat builds to a steady boil. We’ll let that simmer while we write the spell.”