Blood Magick (7 page)

She nodded as though she’d felt the same. “We should call the others. We should have our circle in full. If this is his place.”

“There.” He saw it, dark against dark, the mouth of a cave hunched in a hillside.

He would not take her in, Fin thought. Would not take her there, for within was death. And worse.

Even as he thought it, the old man stepped out. He wore rough robes, worn hide boots. Both his hair and beard were a long tangle of gray. Both madness and magick lived in his eyes.

“You are too soon. You are too late.” As he spoke he held up a hand. Blood dripped from it, blood spread over his rough robes.

“It’s done. Done, as I am done. You are too soon to see it, too late to stop it.”

“What is done?” Fin demanded. “Who are you?”

“I am the sacrifice. I am the sire of the dark. I am betrayed.”

“I can help you.” But as Branna started forward, power roared out of the cave. It swept her back, Fin with her, sent the old man falling to the ground where his blood pooled black on the earth.

“Dark Witch to be,” he said. “Cabhan’s whelp to come. There is no help here. He has eaten the dark. We are all damned.”

Fin pushed to his feet, tried to shove Branna back. “He’s in there. He’s in there. I can feel him.”

But as he made to leap toward the cave, she grabbed at him. “Not alone. It isn’t for you alone.”

He whirled toward her, all but mad himself. “He is mine; I am his. Your blood made it so. It’s your curse I carry, and I
will
take my vengeance.”

“Not for vengeance.” She wrapped herself around him. “For that would damn you. Not for vengeance. And not alone.”

But he woke alone, covered with sweat, the mark on his arm burning like a fresh brand.

And could still smell her on the sheets, on his skin. In the air.

The dog quivered against him, whining.

“It’s all right now.” Absently, he stroked. “It’s done for now.”

He showered off the sweat, grabbed pants, an old sweater, pulling the sweater on as he went downstairs. He let the dog out, barely noticed the rain had stopped and weak winter sunlight trickled down.

He needed to think, and clearly, so started for coffee. Cursed at the banging on his front door.

Then thought of Maggie, hurried to answer even as he thought her out, settled himself the mare was doing well.

He opened the door to Branna.

She walked through it, shoving him back with both hands.

“You had no right! Bloody bastard, you had no right pulling me into your dream.”

He grabbed her hands by the wrists before she could shove him again. And he thought again she all but glowed, but this was pure fury.

“I didn’t—or not by intent. For all I know you pulled me into yours.”

“I? What bollocks. You had me in your bed.”

“And willing enough while you were.” As he had her hands she couldn’t slap him, but she had power free enough, and shot him back two full steps with it. It burned a bit as well. “Stop it. You’d best cool yourself off, Branna. You’re in my home now. I don’t know if I pulled you, you pulled me, or if something else pulled us together. And I can’t shagging think as I haven’t had so much as a cup of fucking coffee.”

With that, he turned, strode off toward the kitchen.

“Well, neither have I.” She strode after him. “I want you to look at me.”

“And I want my fucking coffee.”

“Look at me, Finbar, damn it. Look at me and answer this. Did you pull me into your dream, into your bed?”

“No.” He shoved a hand through his hair. “I don’t know, I just don’t know, but if I did, I did it in my fecking sleep and not meaning to. Bugger it, Branna, I wouldn’t bespell you. Whatever you think of me you shouldn’t think that. I’d never use you that way.”

She took a breath, then a second. “I do know it. I apologize, for of course I know it when I calm myself. I’m sorry, I am. I was . . . upset.”

“Small wonder. I’m not doing so well myself.”

“I could do with coffee myself, if you don’t mind.”

“Right.”

He walked over to the coffeemaker—the type she’d been toying with indulging in, as it did all the fancy coffees and teas and chocolates besides.

“Will you sit?” He lifted his chin toward the little glassed-in bump where she imagined he took his coffee in the morning.

She slid onto one of the benches thickly padded in burnt orange, studied the turned wooden bowl—as glossy as glass—full of sharp red apples.

They were adults, she reminded herself, and couldn’t shy away from discussing what had happened in that big bed.

“I won’t, and can’t, blame you or any man for where his mind goes in sleep,” she began.

“I won’t, and can’t, blame you or any woman for where hers goes.” He set her coffee, served in an oversized white mug, on the table in front of her. “For it could’ve been you as easily as me.”

She hadn’t thought of it, and found herself baffled into silence for a moment. To give herself time to think, she tried the coffee, found it doctored exactly as she liked.

“That’s fair enough. Fair enough. Or, as I didn’t give myself the chance to think of it before this, it could’ve been other powers entirely.”

“Others?”

“Who can say?” More frustrated than angry now, she threw up her hands. “What we know is I came or was brought to your bed, and in this dreaming state we began what healthy people might begin.”

“Your skin’s as soft as rose petals.”

“Hardly a wonder,” she said lightly, “as I use what I make, and I make fine products.”

“For those moments, Branna, it was as it once was with us, and more besides.”

“For those moments, both bespelled. And what happened, Fin, when we joined? In that moment? The lightning, the storm, the light then the dark, and we were thrown into another place and time. Can it be clearer, the price paid for those moments?”

“Not to me, not clear at all. What did we learn, Branna? Go back to it.”

She folded her hands on the table, deliberately, firmly, set emotion aside. “All right. Into the dark, thick woods, no moon or stars, great wind moaning through the trees.”

“A river. The rush of it somewhere behind us.”

“Yes.” She closed her eyes, took herself back. “That’s right, yes. The river behind, power ahead. The dark of it, and still we went toward it.”

“The cave. Cabhan’s lair, I know it.”

“We saw nothing of him.”

“I felt him, but . . . it wasn’t as it is now. Something else.” He shook his head. “It isn’t clear at all, but though I don’t know where we were, I sensed something familiar all the same. As if I should have known. Then the old man was there.”

“I didn’t know him.”

“Nor did I, but again it felt as if I should. We were too soon to see, he said, and too late to stop it. Riddles. Just fecking riddles.”

“A time shift, I’m thinking. We weren’t in the now, but not when we could know more. He called himself the sacrifice.”

“And the sire of the dark. He bled and bled. Mad and dying, but there was power in him. Fading, but there.”

“Cabhan’s sacrifice?” Branna wondered, then sat rod straight. “Cabhan’s sire?” she said even as she saw the same thought in Fin’s eyes. “Could it be?”

“Well, he was whelped from someone. Ah, Cabhan’s whelp, he called me, and you Dark Witch to be. He knew us, Branna, though we’d yet to be born in his time. He knew us.”

“He didn’t make Cabhan what he is.” She shook her head, let herself feel again what she’d felt. “There wasn’t enough in him for that. But . . .”

“In the cave, there was more.” Calmer now, Fin relaxed the hand he’d fisted on the table. “Did the old man conjure more than he could deal with, bring the dark in, give it a source?”

“Cabhan’s blood—his sire. And the sire’s blood spilling out. His life spilling onto the ground. In sacrifice? God, Fin, did Cabhan kill his own father, sacrifice his own sire to gain the dark?”

“It must be blood,” Fin murmured. “It must always be blood. The dark demands it; even the light requires it. Too soon to see. If we had stayed, would we have found him, just coming into the power he has? Just coming in, and not fully formed?”

“It happened then, as the old man lay dying. It erupted, didn’t it, heaving us back, breaking whatever spell had taken us. And it was cold, do you remember, did you feel? It was brutally cold for an instant before it was done, and I woke in my own bed.”

Fin pushed up, restless, pacing. “He couldn’t have wanted us there—Cabhan. Couldn’t have wanted us anywhere near his lair, or to have us gain any knowledge of his origin.”

“If we’ve the right of it.”

“He didn’t bring us there, Branna. Why would he? The more we know, the more we can use to end him. Other powers you said. And I say other powers sent us there, whether those powers are without or within us.”

“Why only we two? Why not the six of us?”

“Dark Witch to be, Cabhan’s whelp?” He shrugged. “You know very well you can’t always logic out magicks. We need to go back, learn more.”

“I’m not after having sex with you so we can travel back in time to Cabhan’s cave.”

“But you’d give your life for it.” He waved her off before she could speak. “I don’t want sex as a magickal tool, even with you. And I want to be full in control on the next journey, not taken by other forces or means. I have to think on it.”

“I’ll have your oath.”

“What?” Distracted, he glanced back, watched her rise from the table, her hair long, loose, a bit wild. Her eyes somehow calm and fierce at once.

“Your oath, Finbar. You won’t go back alone. You won’t move on this without me, without our circle. You aren’t alone and won’t act alone. Your word on it, here and now.”

“Do you see me so reckless, so hell-bent on my own destruction?”

“I see you as I did on Samhain when you would have left our circle and safety to go after Cabhan alone, even at the risk of never coming back to your own place and time. Do you think so little of us, Fin? So little you’d step away and leave us behind?”

“I think everything of you, and the others, but he’s my blood, not yours.” The words held a bitter taste, but were all truth. “And still I won’t act alone. I won’t because if I go wrong I’d risk you, and the others. Everything.”

“Your hand on it.” She held out her own. “Your hand on it, to seal the oath.”

He took her hand in his. Light streamed out between their fingers, sizzled and snapped like a wick just fed the flame.

“Well. Well, now,” he said quietly. “That hasn’t happened in some time.”

She felt the heat, the spread of it through her—both comfort and torment. Would it grow, she wondered, if she moved to him, if she reached for him?

She drew her hand from his, stepped back.

“I need to tell the others before they scatter for the day. You’re welcome to come.”

“You’ll deal with it.” And he needed some distance from her. “I’ve things to do.”

“All right then.” She started back, him with her, to his front door. “I’ll be working with Iona today, and we’ll see what we can do. It might be best for us to meet, all of us, but not tonight. A little time more to sort through it all. Tomorrow night if it suits you.”

“You’ll be cooking.”

“My lot in life.”

He wanted to run his hand over her hair, just feel it as he’d felt it in the dream. But he didn’t touch her. “I’ll bring wine.”

“Your lot in life.” She stepped through the door when he opened it for her, then turned, stood for a moment with the morning mists around her. “You’ve built a good house, Fin. Handsome for certain, but it has a fine, strong feel to it.”

“You’ve seen hardly more than the kitchen.”

“Well now, that’s the heart of a home. If you could come tomorrow at around three, we could work before the others come for supper.”

“I’ll work it out, and be there.”

He waited while she walked to her car, surprised when she stopped, looked back again with a quick, saucy smile.

“I should’ve mentioned, your skin’s not far off from rose petals, but in a manly way, of course.”

When he laughed, the tension in his belly eased even as she drove away from him.

A
FTER
B
RANNA
TOLD
HER
TALE
,
ASKED
HER
CIRCLE
TO
think on its meanings, she put in another request.

“I’d like the house cleared of men tonight, if you don’t mind, and to spend it with my women here, with wine and paint samples and such. If you could do me a favor, Connor, Boyle, would you invade Fin’s house, and stay there? Do whatever men do with an evening free of females. I don’t want to know what that might be.”

When Connor hesitated, she drilled her finger in his belly. “And don’t be after thinking the three of us need the protection of men. Two of us are witches same as you, and the other could kick your arse into next week if you riled her.”

“I take pains not to rile her. All right then. What do you say, Boyle, we’ll drag Fin off to the pub, then stagger back to his place?”

“I’m for it. He’ll want the company, I expect,” he said with a glance at Branna.

“Want it or not, he needs it. I’ll be in the workshop. Iona, when you’re done here, I’ll put you to work.”

“I’ll be here by six,” Meara told her, and waited until Branna left the room. “A terrible hard thing for both of them. I don’t know how they stand up to it. So let’s give them some fun and ease tonight at least.”

“That we can do.” Boyle rubbed a hand on Meara’s shoulder, turned to Iona. “It’s good you’ll be with her today.”

She hoped she could help, would know what to say—what not to say. And when Iona went into the workshop, Branna was already at the stove, with a dozen mirrored bowls set out on the counter.

“I’ve an order for these, so want to get them done straight off, and I’ve a mind to make up some sets—the small bottles—of hand lotion and scrubs and soaps. Put them together in the red boxes they sent me too many of, tie them with the red-and-green-plaid ribbon. Eileen can put them on special, as the company didn’t charge me for the overstock as it was their mistake. Some will wait till the final moment for the holiday shopping, so they should move well enough.”

Iona went with instinct, crossed over, and, saying nothing, put her arms around her cousin.

“I’m all right, Iona.”

“I know, but only because you’re so strong. I wouldn’t be. Just so you know, I’d get behind you if you just needed to cut loose.”

“Cut what loose?”

On a half laugh, Iona eased back. “I mean rant, rave, curse the heavens.”

“No point in it.”

“The ranting, raving, cursing
is
the point. So whenever you need to, I’ve got your back. I’ll get the bottles, the boxes. I know where they are.”

“Thanks for that—for all of that. Would you mind running the little sets into the shop once we’ve done them? I’d like them out as soon as we can.”

“Sure. But do you just want them in stock, or do you want me out of here?”

Her cousin, Branna thought, had finely honed instincts. “Both, but you, just for a little while. I’m glad to have you, but for just a little while I could do with some alone. And when you come back, we can begin the more essential work between us.”

“All right.” Iona got out the boxes, began to assemble them. “How many of these?”

“Half dozen, thanks.”

“I think you’re right if you want my opinion.”

“About the boxes?”

“No, not about that. About what happened. About it being another power that pulled you and Fin together.”

“I’m not sure I’m right, or I’ve concluded just that.”

“It’s what I think.” She brushed at her cap of bright hair, glanced up. “Maybe—I hope I don’t push too hard on a sore spot—but maybe both you and Fin want to be together, maybe that wanting stirs up from time to time, and maybe last night, for whatever reason, was one of those times.”

“A lot of maybes in your certainty, cousin.”

“Circling around the sore spot, I guess. There’s no maybe in the wanting or the stirring. I’m sorry, Branna, it’s impossible not to see it or feel it, especially the more we all bind together for this.”

Branna kept her hands busy, her voice calm. “People want all manner of things they can’t have.”

Sore spot, Iona reminded herself, and didn’t push on it. “What I mean is, it’s very possible the two of you were a little vulnerable last night, that your defenses or shields were lowered some. And that opened the door, so to speak, to that other power. Not Cabhan, because that absolutely makes no sense.”

“It hurt us.” And left a terrible aching behind. “He lives to hurt us.”

“Yes, but . . .” Iona shook her head. “He doesn’t understand us. He doesn’t understand love or loyalty or real sacrifice. Lust, sure. I don’t doubt he understands you and Fin are hot for each other, but he’d never understand what’s under it. Sorcha would.”

Branna stopped working on the candles, stared at Iona. “Sorcha.”

“Or her daughters. Think about it.”

“When I think about it, I’m reminded Sorcha’s the very one who cursed all that came from Cabhan, which would be Fin.”

“That’s true. She was wrong, but that’s true. And sure, maybe, considering he killed her husband, tore her from her own children, she’d do the same thing again. But she knew love. She understood it, she gave her power and her life for it. Don’t you think she’d use it if she could? Or that her children would?”

“So she, or they, cast the dreaming spell? Where we were together, and all defenses down, so we came together.”

She began to walk about, deliberately, running it over in her mind. “And when we did, used the power of that to send us back. But both too soon and too late.”

“Okay, think about that. Sooner, whatever happened in that cave might have pulled you in, beyond what you could fight. Later, you wouldn’t have spoken with the old man—potentially, and I think right again—Cabhan’s father.”

Iona got out the ribbon, the bottles as Branna worked in silence.

“I think you saw what you were meant to see, that’s what I’m saying. I think we need to find a way to see more—that’s the work. They can’t hand it to us, right? And I think—sore spot—it had to be only you and Fin together because the two of you need to resolve—not gloss over or bury or ignore—your feelings.”

“Mine are resolved.”

“Oh, Branna.”

“I can love him and be resolved to living without him. But I see now too much of it was hazed in my mind. All that feeling I couldn’t quite set down. You have good points here, Iona. We saw what we were meant to see, and we work from that.”

She glanced over, smiled before she poured more scented wax. “You’ve learned a great deal since the day you came to that door, in all that rain, in that pink coat, babbling away with your nerves.”

“Now if I could only learn to cook.”

“Ah well, some things are beyond our reach.”

She finished the candles, and together she and Iona made up the half dozen pretty gift sets. When her cousin set off to Cong, Branna took her solitude with tea by the fire, with Kathel’s head in her lap.

She studied the flames, let her thoughts circle. Then with a sigh, set her tea aside.

“All right then, all right.” She held her hands out to the fire. “Clear for me and let me see, through the smoke and into the fire, take me where the light desires.”

Images in the flames, voices through the smoke. Branna let herself drift toward them, let them pull her, surrendered to the call she’d felt in the blood, in the bone.

When they cleared, she stood in a room where another fire simmered, where candles flickered. Her cousin Brannaugh sat in a chair singing softly to the baby at her breast. She looked up, her face illuminated, and said, “Mother?”

“No.” Branna stepped out of the shadows. “No, I’m sorry.”

“I wished for her. I saw her when my son came into the world, saw her watching, felt her blessing. But only that, and she was gone. I wished for her.”

“I asked the light to take me where it willed. It brought me here.” Branna moved closer, looked down at the baby, at his down of dark hair, and soft cheeks, his dark, intense eyes as he suckled so busily at his mother’s breast.

“He’s beautiful. Your son.”

“Ruarc. He came so quick, and the light bloomed so bright with his birthing. I saw my mother in it even as Teagan guided him out of me and into the world. I thought not to see you again, not so soon.”

“How long for you?”

“Six days. We stay at Ashford, are welcome. I have not yet gone to the cabin, but both Teagan and Eamon have done so. Both have seen Cabhan.”

“You have not.”

“I hear him.” She looked toward the window as she rocked the baby. “He calls to me, as if I would answer. He called to my mother, now to me. And to you?”

“He has, will again, I imagine, but it will do him no good. Do you know of a cave, beyond the river?”

“There are caves in the hills, beneath the water.”

“One of power. A place of the dark.”

“We were not allowed beyond the river. Our mother, our father both forbade it. They never spoke of such a place, but some of the old ones, at gatherings, I heard them speak of Midor’s cave, and would make the sign against evil when they did.”

“Midor.” A name, at least, Branna thought, to work from. “Do you know of Cabhan’s origins? There is no word of it in the book, in Sorcha’s book.”

“She never spoke of it. We were children, cousin, and at the end, there was no time. Would it help to know?”

“I’m not sure, but knowing is always better than not. I was there, in a dream. With Fin. Finbar Burke.”

“Of the Burkes of Ashford? No, no,” she said quickly. “This is the one, the one of your circle who is Cabhan’s blood. His blood drew him to this place, and you with him?”

“I don’t know, nor does he. He is not Cabhan, he is not like Cabhan.”

Now Sorcha’s Brannaugh looked into her own fire. “Does your heart speak, cousin, or your head?”

“Both. He’s bled with us. You saw yourself, or will on Samhain night. And you will judge for yourself. Midor,” she repeated. “The light brought me here, and it may be for only this. I’ve never heard of Midor’s cave. I think this may be buried in time, but I know how to pick up a shovel and dig.”

They both looked toward the tall window as the howling rose up outside.

“He hunts and stalks.” Brannaugh held her son closer. “Already since we’ve come home a village girl’s gone missing. He pushed the dark against the windows, swirls his fog. Beware the shadows.”

“I do, and will.”

“Take this.” Shifting the baby, she held out her hand, and in it a spear of crystal clear as water. “A gift for you, and a light.”

“Thank you. I’ll keep it with me. Be well, cousin, and bright blessings to you and your son.”

“And to you. Samhain,” she murmured as Branna felt herself pulled away. “I will tip my arrows with poison, and do all in my power to end him.”

But you won’t, Branna thought as she sat in front of her own fire again, studying the crystal in her hand. Not on Samhain.

Another time, gods willing, but not on Samhain.

She rose, tucking the gift into her pocket. Choosing her laptop over the books, she began to search for Midor’s cave.

•   •   •

“I COULDN’T FIND A BLOODY THING THAT APPLIED TO THIS.”
Branna sat, poking at the salad she’d made to go with a pretty penne and a round of olive bread.

“I’m not sure you can Google the cave of a sorcerer from the twelfth or thirteenth century.” Meara slathered butter on the bread.

“You can Google near to every bleeding thing.”

“Is it an Irish name? Midor?” Iona wondered.

“Not one I’ve heard. But he might’ve come from anywhere, from the bowels of hell for all we know, and ended up dying in front of that cave.”

“What about the mother?” Iona gestured with her wine. “Midor had to sire Cabhan—if we’ve got that right—with someone. Where’s the mother? Who’s the mother?”

“There’s nothing, just nothing about any of this in Sorcha’s book, in my great-grandmother’s. Maybe it’s not important after all.” Branna fisted her chin on her hand. “And bollocks to that. Some of it must be or Fin and I wouldn’t have gone to that shagging cave.”

“We’ll figure it out. Ah, this pasta’s brilliant,” Meara added. “We will figure it out, Branna. Maybe it’s Connor’s absolute faith rubbing off, but I believe it. Things are starting up again, you see? You having visits with Sorcha’s Brannaugh, you and Fin going on dreamwalks after a bit of a dream shag.”

Iona hunched her shoulders, then relaxed them again when she saw from Branna’s face Meara handled it just right.

“Wasn’t much of a shag,” Branna admitted. “It took premature ejaculation to a new level entirely. Fate’s a buggering bitch, I say. It’s all, Here you are, Branna, remember this? Then it’s, Well, remembering’s all you’ll get. And it’s back to the blood and the dark and the evildoings for you.”

“You’re tired of it.” Iona reached over, rubbed her arm.

“Tonight I am, that’s for certain. No one’s ever touched me like Fin, and I’m tired enough of it tonight to say so out loud. No one, not my body or my heart or my spirit besides. And no one will. Knowing that, well, it can make you tired.”