The Bitter Seed of Magic

Chapter Fifty-Three

The figure looked half giant, half long-haired orang-utan, if you discounted his broad, mostly human face with its glowing orange eyes, and the heavy scimitar-like horns that were as long as my arms sweeping to either side of his head above his twitching furry ears. He was naked, apart from the orange hair, the heavy gold chain round his neck and a small brown leather loincloth. Underneath the thick hair his skin was covered in an intricate swirling pattern of red, gold and black ink that shimmered with latent power.

He had to be the Morrígan’s son: MacCúailnge, the Old Donn.

He was also the spitting image of The Mother’s photofit.

Hmm. Maybe she didn’t need a camera after all.

He was also a ghost.

My phobia hit. I pressed my lips together hard, stifling the shriek in my throat. Fae don’t leave ghosts—not naturally, anyway—but the Old Donn was definitely a ghost, however impossible that was. Which meant he couldn’t harm the living, at least not outside of All Hallows’ Eve. Or at least that’s the way normal ghosts work. And if he wasn’t normal … well, I’d find out soon enough.

He flicked a long cowlick of paler orange hair out of his eyes and grinned, showing brown stumps of ground-down teeth. ‘I’m the MacCúailnge,’ he pronounced, ‘and I’m afther believin’ me darlin’ mother, the Morrígan, has delivered you here to do my bidding.’

‘Yeah? Well, you can forget that idea,’ I said, pleased my words came out dry as dust despite the little phobic-fuelled voices in my head telling me to scream and run and don’t stop until I was far, far away. ‘I’ve got one dictatorial male in my life already. No way do I need another. So how about we try doing this the democratic “help-each-other-out” way?’

‘“Help” … ?’ The glow in the MacCúailnge’s orange eyes turned crafty. ‘I might be afther considerin’ it, seeing as I’m wantin’ something in return.’

Figured. I pursed my lips at him, wondering just how helpful a non-corporeal ghost could actually be, and if I really needed to ask him what he wanted when no doubt the clip-clop of little bull hooves was going to be the answer. I sighed. ‘Go on then, tell me what you want.’

He raised his bushy eyebrows. ‘Why, a body and me freedom, me darlin’. Forty years of bein’ without them both is quite the trial.’

A body? I narrowed my eyes at him. ‘What sort of body?’

‘A new one, of course.’ He waved a huge hairy arm towards the Stepfords. ‘This wee wizard man here’s been promisin’ me one for a rare long while now, but none o’ these wee girlies are strong enough for the MacCúailnge.’ A sly expression crossed his face and he crouched down so he could look me in the eyes. ‘Unless you’ll be willin’, pretty sidhe?’

The Morrígan’s little fertility mix of spit and Finn’s donation that she wanted me to drink made even more horrible sense. She didn’t want a grandson; she wanted a new body for her son. Her kidnapper rapist murderer son.

‘No,’ I said, as rage filled my veins with icy determination, ‘no way. You don’t deserve a new body, not after what you did to Rhiannon, and not after what you’re doing now. You’re the reason your wizard pal’—I jerked my head at the ‘paused’ Dr Craig standing within the Old Donn’s ghostly presence—‘has been able to kill these faelings. You should have stopped him.’

His large orange eyes did a slow blink, then his expression turned to dismay. ‘The wee lassies have been dyin’?’ His shoulders lowered and he shot a bushy browed frown at the Stepfords. ‘The wee wizard man ne’r told me that. And you have the right of it, pretty sidhe, I should have been afther stoppin’ him from doin’ such a foul thing in my ain home.’

Ri-ight. I gave him a suspicious look, not sure whether he was for real or not. ‘So, are you going to stop him now?’

‘I’m thinkin’ there’s not much I can do like this, pretty sidhe.’ His ears flattened. ‘Not while the wizard man here has harnessed what little power I still possessed by wearin’ me ain skin.’

Nice! Except— ‘That’s it: he’s used your power to Glamour them,’ I muttered. ‘Damn; that’s why I couldn’t catch him with mine.’ I looked him over speculatively, then tugged on the orange furry cape. ‘Okay, everything stopped when I grabbed your skin here, so does that mean I’ve got control of your power now?’

‘Maybe if you were wearin’ my hide, you would.’ His wide nostrils flared pensively. ‘But mind, once ye leave go of your hold on me, time will all be afther startin’ again.’

He’s wylde fae, murmured my cautious voice, and they’re always tricky, not to mention he gave in way too easily on the whole new body thing. Or that it wasn’t a coincidence that he’d appeared right at the opportune time. And where was Jack? I squinted up past the Old Donn to see Jack in his raven form perched on one of the wooden chandeliers. He was the Morrígan’s bird, and the Old Donn was the Morrígan’s bull.

And I knew what the Morrígan wanted.

Wearing his hide was a definite no.

But it wasn’t the only source of juice here.

This was Between, after all, malleable if you had enough will and power, and if the magic liked you—I glanced at the suits of armour—which it sort of looked like it did … I closed my eyes, sent a quick prayer to The Mother, and focused on what I wanted: enough time, plenty of space, and a perfect aim—

Something brushed against me, a shy questing touch of an unfamiliar consciousness. It— No, she, offered aid … power freely given. I took half a second to quell my natural cynical response that whispered about unspoken obligations, then, eager and grateful, I opened the part of me that absorbs the magic and accepted. Power flooded into me like a tsunami, filling and stretching and reshaping until the barrier between us dissolved and it settled like a warm weight inside my soul. I took a shaky breath, then another, and with the third a rush of searing heat drenched sweat over my body, my bones vibrated like a magical tuning fork as the stone floor trembled beneath me, and the tart apple taste of cloudberries slipped down my throat and poured steadiness into my limbs.

‘Well, pretty sidhe, what say you?’ The Old Donn’s question held a note of eagerness he couldn’t quite hide. He’d been waiting a long time.

I opened my eyes and gave him a wry smile. ‘Nice offer, but I’ve had a better one.’ I released my hold on him, and he winked out of sight.

The grandfather clock rattled and squeaked, then resumed chiming.

Thirteen chimes for the hour, then eleven gongs for the time.

Twenty-four seconds.

I held my hand up and caught the Stun spell Nurse Ratched threw at me and zipped it straight at Nicky just before she stuck her hoof in Helen’s skull, wincing as Nicky dropped like a Stunned dryad. Luckily Helen was there to cushion her fall.

Twenty-one seconds.

I caught Nurse Ratched’s next Stun spell and tossed it straight back, grinning as she too dropped like a Stunned dryad. Sadly, there was nothing soft for her to land on.

Nineteen.

I called a Stun spell from the shackles tied at my waist and, yelling at the nurses there to stay back, flung it gently towards the circle of hospital beds. The spell splashed harmlessly to the floor in a burst of green stars.

Fifteen.

I focused on the gold chain around Dr Craig’s neck and cracked the sun-bright magic, rolling awkwardly to the side as he collapsed almost on top of me.

Thirteen.

I scrambled to my feet, grabbed the Old Donn’s furry hide and ran for the empty hospital beds stored next to the double doors.

‘Just a short distance,’ I muttered, and the distance obligingly shortened, so much so that I hit the metal beds in a bone-jarring skid just as the first deeper chime sounded.

‘Okay, a bit too helpful maybe,’ I murmured as I shoved myself in among the cover of the beds.

Nine.

I hunkered down and quickly gauged the distance to the circle of Stepfords. They were almost fifty feet away in the far corner now, but still much too close. ‘They need to be so far away that they’re just tiny, tiny figures,’ I murmured.

Seven.

The room started stretching, new wooden beams springing up to support the high ceiling like a line of trees popping out of the ground.

Five.

The room kept growing, and more wooden chandeliers dropped down on ropes from the high roof, their candles springing into flaming light as they did so.

Four.

The figures shrank into the distance.

Three.

I focused on the Knock-back Wards on the double doors.

Two.

‘Somewhere safe for everyone,’ I prayed.

One.

I cracked the magic—

—and the world exploded.