Seduction: A Novel of Suspense (45 page)

Theo was out of breath, gasping for air. So was Ash.

“You stupid fool,” Theo said. “You’re insane! Do you know that?”

With his arms restrained, it seemed the fight was going out of Ash. He stopped resisting. Lay still. Theo took a breath.

And then with a burst of sudden energy, Ash jackknifed and threw Theo off, smashing him into the wall. Jac heard the impact. She gasped.

Now Ash held Theo to the wall, the two of them exhausted, out of breath and energy. But the brothers’ anger was fierce. In such close quarters, if they started fighting again, one shove could result in a fatal head wound.

She had to stop them. But how?

Jac’s right hand was clasped around her wrist, covering the bracelet up as if protecting it from the destructive energy in the cave. There was something beyond what was here and now. In the shadows of this room were the answers she needed in order to understand what had happened to her since she’d arrived, and maybe even longer than that.
Jac knew that something more important than her work had brought her to Jersey. That she’d needed to come here to help Theo. Destiny or fate or magic or alchemy or the collective unconscious or a mystical secret, whatever Theo’s grandaunts or Malachai wanted to call it, had brought her here.

What if our souls are connected to each other and flow together in and out of time like a giant woven tapestry? What if it was that simple and that real? The laws of physics state that energy cannot be destroyed, and we are made of energy. When each of us dies, that energy reenters the atmosphere. What if it does become part of the collective blanket of souls? Threads of energy that connect us each to the other. What if it is our obligation to follow them, despite the knots and tangles, through to the end?

Jac was certain that as long as she had the red thread Eva had tied around her wrist, she could venture out and search for the answers she sensed were waiting and work her way back.

Maybe if she took this psychic journey she could discover who she was to these two men and who they were to each other.

When she was younger, Theo had saved her life when he pulled her out of the lake. Tonight he had saved her life again when he pulled his brother’s fingers from around her throat.

Owing him for both, she also owed herself whatever knowledge there was to be gathered. Maybe it was time to learn why she was so afraid of this ability she’d had since childhood. Instead of running away from this gift or this curse, the moment had come to understand who she was and what it was.

Jac closed her eyes. Inhaled the fragrant air, identified the sweet notes of the amber resin that wasn’t supposed to have a scent. Inhaled again. Took the drug into her lungs. Felt the dizziness. Saw the room wave around her. Saw the shapes begin to change. Began to think another’s thoughts . . .

Owain knelt before Brice and bowed his head. The ceremony was under way—father and son engaged in the honored tradition of passing the priesthood on to the next generation. Brice was clothed in the white robe befitting a novitiate. He wore a crown of leaves Gwenore had woven for him, sewing six small talismans into the halo, six being the holy number. They were bits of stone and shell that she had inherited from her mother, who had inherited them from her mother before that.

Owain had watched his wife these last few days with a heart that grew so heavy he didn’t think he would be able to keep it from breaking. Gwenore had not slept but had stayed up burning candles, sewing the robe and the crown, preparing for this honor.

And weeping.

Owain had wept too but secretly. When he was around his wife he tried to keep his emotions in check.

For the last two weeks she had tried to hold on to some hope that there would be a reprieve from the gods. Every morning she’d brewed herbal potions for Owain to drink so that he could engage with the spirits and find an alternative sacrifice, another way to interpret the visions.

Every night he prayed to the Sky Father, to Sucellos, to Lugh, to
send other dreams. And every morning he took their meager offerings to the elders whose job was to divine the wishes of the spirits. But the senior
vates
saw no other solution.

The Roman soldiers were on a rampage and would reach Jersey soon. There were not enough men or boys on the island to fight the onslaught. The only hope was divine intervention. A storm bad enough to capsize the Roman ships. A plague.

But in order to engage the spirits, a sacrifice was required. And the gods had told Owain in dream visions that the sacrifice they required was Brice, the only son of the highest priest in all the land. To be offered on the solstice and no later. Given up willingly and with honor.

And now that day was here.

The Druids and the witches and the
vates
and princes had gathered for the anointing feast. They drank mead and ate toasted bread cakes. Owain painted his son’s feet with the herbal dyes that Gwenore had prepared, and they were now stained a royal purple from the thistle and violets and sage that grew wild on the island. Owain remembered when those feet fit in his hands. When Brice was a baby and he used to let the boy stand on his palms and dance with him in the tall grass behind the house. Those small baby feet now supported his son as he faced his mortal end.

Owain felt the tears coursing down his face.

Brice, who had been schooled in the ceremony that would initiate him, put his hand on his father’s head and said as he had learned, “I accept the responsibilities of being a priest, thank you, Father. I will be true to our people and try to be worthy of their trust.”

Owain stood. He put both hands on his son’s shoulders and turned Brice around so the boy faced the east wall of the temple, where the sun entered and cut across the structure and illuminated a series of runes carved into the rocks on the floor.

Together father and son, now priest and priest, walked the dozen steps to the opening. This was called the holy walk, symbolizing the path a priest takes in his life, toward the light, toward knowledge, toward the mystical secrets that are revealed only to him.

They reached the ritual bath fed by a sacred spring. The last act of
every novitiate was to be submerged in the water, to be cleansed, then to emerge unsullied and ready to interact with the spirits and gods.

The pool also had another use, one Brice didn’t know about. It was the last step in what was known as the Threefold Sacrifice.

Owain leaned forward and pressed his lips to his son’s forehead.

“This is a great honor you do your people.” Owain’s voice broke. He couldn’t continue. Couldn’t say the words that he had said at every other ceremony like this that he’d presided over. He grabbed his son, held him close. He whispered to the boy, “I wish I could give myself instead of you.”

Brice looked up at his father. He didn’t understand.

Owain didn’t explain. He put his hand gently on the boy’s head and pushed so Brice’s head was again bowed. Owain would not, could not let his son see what was coming. At least the boy would not know what horrible thing was to befall him.

It was time. Owain tried to bring his hand up for the blow. The first of the death efforts. For one second Owain looked away from Brice, out at Gwenore. Desperately he wished she could somehow stop him.

He brought up his hand.

Whether it was because she understood what his eyes implored her or she was acting out of a mother’s great and abiding passion, he didn’t know. But Gwenore ran forward and threw herself at Brice, pushing him out of the way, so that it was her head that Owain’s stone came down on.

She fell, blood streaming from the wound. Her eyes were wide, looking up at her husband. “Me instead, please.”

Owain bent down to her, this woman of his soul. She lay at his feet, perhaps mortally wounded. After all these days of thinking it would happen, his heart was finally shattering. How could he do what had to be done? How could he do his job, knowing what it would do to her? To him?

One of the elders came forth and put his hand on Owain’s shoulder. “You have an anointed task to perform,” he said. “The entire tribe is depending on you.”

Owain had been trained his whole life to obey. He didn’t know any other way.

Brice was kneeling by his mother. Holding her in his arms and cradling her. Her blood staining his white robes. As grown up as he had seemed during the ceremony, he was now a boy again, crying on his mother’s shoulder.

Owain became enraged. Even though a moment before he’d silently begged her to, now he was angry at Gwenore for interfering when she knew better. At Brice for not being man enough to hold his emotions in check. At himself for the agony he would bring upon the only two people he loved in the world.

This torture was taking too long. Owain inspected Gwenore’s wound and saw it was superficial; scalp wounds bled more than seemed possible. He pulled her up by the arms and pushed her to the side of the temple. Then he grabbed his son and quickly, without giving mother or son a chance to speak to each other one last time, brought the stone down hard on his son’s head.

The young man dropped first to his knees and then fell forward so that he lay prostrate at Owain’s feet. All he could see was the top of the boy’s head and the back of his neck. The soft skin where the downy hair stopped growing. The very spot where, when Brice was a baby, Owain would put his face and smell the infant’s innocence.

No, he could not think of these things.

No, he could think of nothing else. He was doing the most horrible thing imaginable, even if it was for a higher purpose. He must feel the sacrifice. Let it destroy him too. He didn’t care. He couldn’t really live after this. He would do his duty but his life . . . his life would be worthless.

Owain pulled the garrote out of the pocket of his robe and wound it around his son’s neck.
This I do for the spirits
. Pull, tighten.
This I do to honor the gods
. Pull, tighten.
This I do for the good of our tribe, for the sustenance of our people, for the future of us all
. Pull, tighten.

Whose blood was on the stones now? Mother’s? Son’s? Only Owain’s had not yet been shed. The river of blood flowed toward his feet, was dyeing his toes red, was slippery, was warm. He could not
allow himself to think that this was his son. This was instead his gift to the gods.

With all the strength he possessed, Owain lifted Brice, dragged him to the pool and pushed him into the ritual bath. Within seconds the water darkened with the boy’s blood. Brice was not moving, not fighting or struggling for breath. But still Owain held him under the water. Longer and longer. The ritual had prescribed steps. A threefold death had to happen in sequence and with haste. A clean death. An honorable death. That was the least he could give his son.

He did not hear Gwenore crawling toward him. Did not sense her approaching until suddenly he felt her leap upon him like a wild animal, beating on his back, spitting on him. Cursing at him.

Owain didn’t loosen his grip on Brice. Even as Gwenore bit and kicked him, Owain kept Brice submerged. He couldn’t break the sacred act now. He had to do this thing. Had to bring it to its end.

The elders came and dragged Gwenore off and Owain was left to his death watch.

When he was certain that all his son’s life force was spent, Owain lifted the boy in his arms, and whispering his name over and over, carried him out of the temple and down to the cave on the beach to his final resting place, the most sacred on the island, where only priests were buried, where one day Owain would join his son.

It was a journey meant to be undertaken by the head priest alone. But Owain no longer felt like a priest. The burden he carried was too heavy.

Owain laid his son at the entrance to the cave and lit the first candle. Using that to guide his way, he walked inside, lighting other candles along the way and then setting fire to the pyres he had organized the day before. Each was part of the ritual burial. Six fires made from dried hazel twigs, sage, mistletoe and bits of the golden rocks the tribe treasured.

Once all the fires were burning, cleansing and scenting the air, preparing the cavern for the acceptance of the sacrifice, Owain carried his son deeper inside.

In the innermost chamber, Owain laid Brice on the sacred hearth.
Then he dipped his bunch of dried wheat into the candle’s flame and touched it to the hazel kindling.

The fire sizzled. More of the scent of burning wood, sage, mistletoe and the sweetness from the golden rocks filled the air.

And then, there, alone in the cell that seemed like a prison to him now, he lifted his son’s body one last time and set him up on the flames. And when the first orange tongue licked at the boy’s skin, Owain began to scream.

Owain was not required to stay, but he chose to. It was the ultimate honor. And so he stood guard, engulfed by the heat and sweet, terrible scent. Watching as the beautiful boy was consumed by the brutal god of fire.

For the second time that day, Owain did not hear Gwenore coming. Not expecting her or anyone, he was caught by surprise and had no time to react when she crept into the chamber and, without saying a word or even acknowledging that he was there, as if she were wading into the sea on a pleasant day, Gwenore walked into the fire that was consuming her son and took her baby in her arms.

Her hair, her beautiful hair, caught fire first, and the halo around her head burned brightly in the dark.

Owain buried his head in his hands, but now he could not weep. He tried to tell himself that this was only one end. They all believed that their souls would live on, be reborn, find each other again one day, and the echo of them would pay in the next life for the mistakes they had made in this one.

The elders came for him the next day but he would not go with them. Owain remained there for the next twenty days, sitting vigil, slowly, slowly, slowly starving to death, mourning his wife and his son, his past and his present, and fearing for his future soul. And theirs.