The Fairytale Curse (Magic's Return Book 1) (33 page)

“Who’s the Dagda?” Zac asked.

“The Morrigan’s husband. The chief god of the Celts.”

And his damn cauldron was heavy, but I didn’t dare hand it to Zac to carry. The urge to keep it safe was almost primal. Its magic called to the aether in me, but it didn’t make it any lighter. Damn it, if I had to be saddled with the job of saving one of the Sidhe’s four treasures, why couldn’t it have been a lighter one? The Spear, maybe?

The Spear! Oh, my God, I was an idiot.

“I know where we can find safety!” I started to jog down Art Gallery Road as best I could with the heavy cauldron in my arms. “St Mary’s Cathedral.”

We’d passed it in the bus, just before arriving at the gallery this morning. It was right on the corner where Art Gallery Road began, a beautiful old collection of spires and towers that looked like it had come straight out of
The Hunchback of Notre Dame.

“Let me carry that,” Zac offered, but I shook my head and ploughed on.

I was panting and drenched in sweat by the time we got to the Cathedral. Its honeyed sandstone walls glowed in the sunlight. The entry was at the opposite end of the building, but I paused to get my breath as soon as we passed through the iron fence.

“What’s that?” Zac was looking back the way we came.

I looked back too and saw a dark cloud gathering above the distant Art Gallery.

“Bad news,” I said. Then I squinted at a running figure. “Hey, is that Sona?”

He shielded his eyes with his hand. “Yeah, I think it is. Sona!” He waved at her, and she waved back. “Over here.”

Too late I remembered it might be Puck again, wearing another face. But she seemed genuine enough as she dashed across the road to join us. At least, she didn’t try to grab the cauldron or attack us. But maybe she was just too out of breath.

“Hang … on.” She bent over, hands on her knees, and panted for a moment.

I watched the cloud swirl above the Art Gallery, feeling like a sitting duck.

“Come on. We’d better get inside.”

“Where are we going?” Sona asked, looking back fearfully. “What’s going on?”

I gave Sona the short version as we hurried around to the entrance, which was at the top of a flight of stairs overlooking a large plaza. I took the stairs as fast as I could and gained the safety of the church at last.

The cauldron buzzed angrily against my hands and its crimson glow faded almost to nothing as I carried it through a door covered in a reassuring amount of iron scrollwork. The warders had said the Sidhe couldn’t enter a church. Perhaps even their magical objects felt the hostility of Christianity.

We slid into a pew at the back and I laid down my burden with relief, stretching my aching arms.

“What now?” Zac asked. Sona still looked gobsmacked by my quick summary of events, and now I knew she was the real deal since she’d had no trouble entering the church.

“Don’t know.” I hadn’t thought past reaching sanctuary. What could we do now but sit and wait to be rescued? Of all the times to be without my phone—I didn’t know the phone number of a single person connected with HQ except for Mum and Dad, and they were in the air at the moment, out of contact. Everyone had assumed that Simon and Kyle would be with us if an emergency arose. Now I couldn’t even tell anyone at HQ what was going on, or where we were.

The stained glass windows along the sides of the big cathedral dimmed as suddenly as if night had fallen in sixty seconds. Lights blazed inside the church, but the windows were black. Sona huddled closer to Zac, lost for words for a change.

I left them sitting there and wandered around the echoing interior, cauldron in my arms. Where was the Spear of Lugh? I couldn’t see anything that looked like a spear, though I suppose it might have been disguised as a giant candelabra. There were a couple of those. There were a few spears in the paintings that hung on the walls, mainly held by Roman centurions, but no physical spears in sight.

I guessed it was good that I couldn’t find it. If I couldn’t, then hopefully the Sidhe couldn’t either, if they did somehow get inside. The cauldron, subdued as it was by its surroundings, still glowed faintly to my sight. The spear was obviously better hidden.

There was a crash as something hit a window and I jumped.

“What was that?” cried Sona, eyes wide with fright.

As I hurried back to them it came again, and again, and soon it sounded as if it was hailing outside, as hundreds of bird bodies hurled themselves at the windows.

“It’s the ravens. Don’t worry, they can’t get in.”
I hope.
Silently I urged the windows not to shatter under the onslaught. There was lead running through the stained glass—pity it wasn’t iron, but at least it should strengthen the windowpanes.

“Isn’t there somewhere else we could go?” Sona asked. “Somewhere smaller?”

It was a big cathedral. The roof soared above us, arched and vaulted. The cavernous space was daunting, it was true. I felt exposed just sitting here in the pews.

Back near the entry stood a wrought iron gate, guarding a set of stairs carved from sandstone that led down beneath the floor of the church.

“What about this?”

The sign said it was the crypt, and tickets were available from the gift shop. Fortunately the gate wasn’t locked. It creaked ominously when I pushed it open.

Sona pulled a face. “Do you think they have dead bodies down there?”

“I’d rather dead humans than live Sidhe.”

We spiralled down the stairs and found a much larger space than I’d expected. It wasn’t as big as the cathedral above, but you could have held a decent-sized church service down here. Carved pillars held up the vaulted arches of the ceiling, and a beautiful mosaic decorated the floor. Inlaid tiles formed the pattern of a giant Celtic cross bigger than a basketball court. The intricate Celtic knotwork would have been decoration enough, but there were also what looked like creation scenes from the bible in large circles at the points of the cross. The biggest circle, where the arms of the cross met, depicted a gorgeous glowing sun and moon. It was all very serene and beautiful. Not a body in sight. If they were here they were safely tucked away under the tiled floor. Down here the birds’ assault on the windows was only a muffled noise. Nothing to be afraid of.

“Better?” I asked.

Sona nodded. After a moment the birds fell silent. That made me uneasy, wondering what the next development would be.

I didn’t have to wait long.

“Violet,” a voice boomed.

We all jumped.

“Is that Miss Moore?” Sona whispered.

Deep and resonant, the voice sounded like it belonged to someone as big as the cathedral itself. Must be magic.

“The Morrigan,” I said.

“Violet, you clever girl,” the Morrigan said. The voice reverberated off the walls, echoing through the whole cathedral. “What a good idea of yours to hide in there!”

She sounded so approving. Smug cow.

“You know I can’t come in there, don’t you? Of course you do! So I’m afraid you’re going to have to come out.”

As if. Wild horses couldn’t drag me out there. I clutched the cauldron a little closer. Much as I hated relying on other people, I was in way over my head. Time to sit tight until the cavalry arrived.

“Why don’t you come to the door and have a little peek? You’ll be perfectly safe, but you need to know what the consequences of disobedience will be. Not for you, you understand. For your sister.”

Oh, no.

My head whipped round, as if I could see up the stairs and through the walls.

“Don’t listen to her, Vi,” Sona said.

I looked at Zac, and saw the horror I felt mirrored in his face. She had CJ. Of course she did. Hadn’t CJ thrown herself at the Morrigan, straight into her blue burning arms, so that I could escape?

I made a little noise of distress. Zac came over and put his arms around me, the cauldron glowing softly between us.

“I have to go up there,” I said. “I have to see.”

He nodded. “She might be lying.”

But I could tell he didn’t believe she was.

I took the stairs two at a time, Zac and Sona hard on my heels. At the cathedral’s entrance, a nightmare scene met our eyes.

Every square centimetre of the huge plaza below was covered in ravens. The ground was black with them, heaving like the fur of some huge animal breathing. Every lamp post, every tree branch, every last seat and bike rack—everything we could see—had disappeared under a sea of black birds.

And all their beady eyes were staring right at us.

We stood just inside the doorway, gazing out in horror. Only the steps of the Cathedral themselves were clear. On the bottom one stood the Morrigan, CJ by her side. CJ didn’t move or speak, but her eyes were wide with fear, and I could see the tracks of tears on her cheeks.

“There you are,” said the Morrigan.

Blue fire sparked around her head. The sky above roiled with heavy thunderclouds, though the day had been sunny a few moments ago.

“I see you have the cauldron,” she said. “Give it to me and I will let your sister live.”

“That might not even be CJ,” Zac whispered urgently.

True. And wouldn’t I feel like a fool then, if I handed over one of the four great treasures to “save” Puck’s miserable hide?

“I can’t take that chance,” I said.

Stuff noble gestures and saving mankind. If it was a choice between mankind and my sister, guess who lost out? The warders couldn’t expect me to do any more. I’d done my best to save the cauldron. It was hardly my fault if they were so useless at protecting the damn thing that it ended up back in Sidhe hands. At least we still had the other three treasures.

“Give me a minute,” I called to the Morrigan, then drew back out of sight.

“Don’t take too long,” she said. “I’m not a patient person.”

We huddled in the foyer of the church, looking at each other in despair.

“What does it even
do
?” Zac asked. “What does she want it for?”

I shrugged. “She wants it because it’s theirs, I guess, and we used it to force them out of our world a long time ago. Maybe they think they can use it to get back again.” At this point I hardly cared.

“They seem to be back already,” Sona pointed out.

“Only a couple of them, and they had outside help.” And if I ever found out who that traitor was, I’d kill them myself. I was so sick of this whole stupid mess. Where were the warders when you needed them? They should have been dealing with this, not me. “As for what it does, it’s a magic cauldron of never-emptiness. Whatever you want, it can dish out an endless supply.”

“Anything? You mean like jewels and clothes and stuff?” Trust Sona to think of clothes.

“Only food, as far as I know.”

I blinked as an idea came to me. The tales I’d read had only mentioned food, but that didn’t prove anything. I put the cauldron down on the worn tiles of the foyer and turned all my longing on it. Threw my heart at it, as Puck might have said.

Then I reached in and pulled out three very peculiar pieces of equipment. The cauldron—not surprisingly—defied the laws of physics, since they were much bigger than the cauldron itself. Sona’s eyes grew huge as I handed her one.

“On the count of three, Violet,” the Morrigan called.

“What the hell are they?” Zac asked.

“One,” said the Morrigan.

“No time!” I turned his over and showed him the On button. “As soon as I give her the cauldron, come out and blast her with these.”

“Two!”

I grabbed the cauldron and ran to the door.

“I’m here!”

Behind me Zac and Sona moved into position. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Zac give me the thumbs-up.

“Just in time.” The Morrigan lowered the wicked-looking knife she’d been holding at CJ’s throat. A thin trickle of blood dribbled down my sister’s neck where the knife must have nicked her. “Bring it to me.”

I took one step out from the shelter of the cathedral. The ravens shifted and rustled, the sound like a great wind sighing through the plaza.

“Let her go.”

“Bring me the cauldron.”

Slowly I descended the steps, trying to watch her and the ravens at the same time. There was no sign of Puck. I hope that didn’t mean Zac was right and he was standing in front of me pretending to be my tear-streaked sister.

When I was halfway down I moved to one side. All the ravens turned their heads to track my movements. The hairs on the back of my neck rose. So creepy.

I set the cauldron down on the step beside a statue of some archbishop, then walked back to the centre.

“Now let her go,” I said.

The Morrigan gave CJ a little shove. Dazed, she staggered up the steps to join me, but the Morrigan wasn’t watching us any more. Her attention was on the cauldron.

“Now, Zac!”

I dragged CJ back up the steps as Zac and Sona leapt out of hiding and turned their condensors on.

The Morrigan screamed, a piercing inhuman shriek of pain. Every raven in the plaza lifted into the air, the sound of all those wings like thunder. I bolted back inside for the third condensor, then ran down the steps.

“Form a triangle!” I yelled above the noise, and ran out into the plaza, buffeted by raucous, maddened birds, making a rough triangle with the Morrigan at the centre. I could hardly see where I was going, my vision filled with black feathers.

A dark rift opened in the stormclouds above, and screeching ravens disappeared into it. They twirled and writhed like a living tornado, sucked into the hole in the sky. The Morrigan’s black hair stood on end, whipping around her head like snakes.

“It’s working!” Zac’s face split in a grin as he marched down the steps, his condensor trained on the Morrigan.

And it was … for one brief, glorious moment. Then the Morrigan raised her arms and blue fire shot from her fingertips. Zac yelped and dropped his condensor, now a blasted ruin. Sona’s and mine followed in quick succession.

The Morrigan’s eyes flashed red. “Is that all?”

I stepped back, suddenly alone in the middle of a plaza of angry ravens. More than half of them were gone, but enough remained to do some serious damage. They settled around me in a loose circle, their beady eyes malevolent.