The Calling

11. Fated

Samhain, 1983

The rumors are true. She lives. Ballynigel was razed to the ground by the dark wave, yet Maeve Riordan and that fawning blue-eyed half-wit, Angus Bramson, managed to survive. Goddess, I’ve lost track of the number of times I’ve wished them both dead and in everlasting torment. Especially her. In the space of two enchanted weeks she opened my heart and destroyed my entire life. My marriage became a hollow sham, my home a prison. Grania hates me. The children…well, they respect my power, at least.

I’m leaving Scotland, leaving Liathach. The coven has grown in strength and magick as never before. We took part in the destruction of Crossbrig, which gained Liathach their much coveted Wyndenkell spell books. But the Liathach witches are weak, fearful. They’ve been ruled too long by Grania’s family. They think I’ve led them into danger. They want to retreat. Well, let them. But I won’t be a part of it.

I don’t care about leaving Liathach. I should have done it years ago. All that matters is that I find Maeve. She has done the impossible. She survived the dark wave. I’ve scryed, and I’ve seen her. I know that she still holds me in her heart, that we are still meant to be together. I can’t live without her another day. Now I must find her.

The only question is whether it will be to tell her how much I love her…or to kill her.

— Neimhidh

The house was old, a part of the city left over from the nineteenth century. The worn stonework had a faded elegance, and the thick tangle of wisteria vines reminded me of the Briar Rose fairy tale. A sleeping princess hidden behind a wall of thorns…But Killian was no fictional princess, and I was no rescuer prince. Now that I’d found it, what on earth was I going to do?

I crossed the street to another pay phone and called Bree again. She’d just gotten back to the apartment.

“I found it,” I told her. “It’s right on the corner of Central Park West and Eighty-seventh. Have you heard anything from Hunter?”

“Nada,” Bree answered. “Any idea where he might be?”

Nothing immediately jumped to mind. Hunter was always so careful and secretive about his work. He told me only what he thought I needed to know.

“Um…there’s a Mexican witch’s shop he took me to off Hudson Street. She’s the one who told him about the woman he’s searching for. She might give you the address.”

“I’ll find her,” Bree promised. “But first I’ll leave a note here in case he comes back.”

“I’m going to stay here and keep an eye on the house,” I told Bree. “If you find Hunter, will you tell him to meet me here?”

“Okay. But call me again in twenty minutes,” Bree ordered. “I want to know that you’re safe.”

I promised I would. Then I sat down on one of the park benches that offered a clear view of the house. It was not a day for sitting outside. The air was damp and bitter cold. Within a few minutes I could hardly feel my feet.

But I could feel the house. Even though I was across the street from it, I could sense powerful magick wrapped around it.

I thought I saw a flicker of movement in one of the upper windows, and a knot of dread lodged itself in the middle of my chest. I wished I could go off searching with Bree, I really did. The idea of staying here on my own across from this house that practically oozed evil terrified me—especially knowing that Ciaran might be inside.

I hunkered down in the cold, concentrating on the house. No one came in or out. Nothing more moved in the windows. Even the wisteria branches barely moved in the icy wind. There was a bleak stillness about the house that suddenly made me wonder if I was wrong and the place was completely deserted. Magick can fool most people, I reminded myself. But not me.

I extended my senses to see what sort of magickal defenses or traps there might be. I picked up resistance at the door, a warding spell of some sort, but it didn’t feel very serious. The house wasn’t nearly as heavily spelled as Cal and Selene’s house had been. I couldn’t sense any electronic security systems, either, just the requisite New York combination of heavy-duty locks on the door. Only one of those bolts was actually shut. Strange.

I glanced at my watch. It was nearly three o’clock. I wondered if Bree was having any luck finding Hunter. Was there some way I could find out what was going on in the house at that very moment? I could search for Killian’s aura.

I concentrated, trying to remember what it had been like. A pattern traced itself in my mind’s eye so clearly that I could almost hear Killian’s voice. And then what I was hearing were cries. I felt the struggle again, the helplessness, the overwhelming sense of terror and despair.

The vision was gone as quickly as it had come, but I knew what it meant. Killian was in the house, captive yet reaching out, crying for help. Maybe he wasn’t calling to me specifically, but I had an awful feeling I was the only one who had heard him.

I couldn’t wait for Hunter to show up. “Hang on, Killian,” I muttered. “I’m coming.”

I stood up and immediately began to tremble. Who was I kidding? I was a seventeen-year-old witch with all of two and a half months’ experience in my craft. And I was about to go up against a coven of evil Woodbanes and the witch who’d killed Maeve and Angus? Maeve and Angus had been trained in Wicca from the day they were born. If they hadn’t been able to stop Ciaran…The odds were beyond insane. Ciaran had killed Maeve, his mùirn beatha dàn. What would he do to me, her daughter?

Yet I couldn’t discount the dreams and visions. I was sure I’d had them for a reason. I could almost hear Hunter reminding me that according to Wicca, nothing is random. Everything has a purpose. I wouldn’t have been given those visions if I hadn’t been meant do something about them. Even the fact that the school boiler had burst now seemed part of some inevitable plan. I was here in New York City because it was my fate to save Killian.

“Goddess, help me,” I murmured. I drew in deep breaths, calming and grounding myself. I had all of Alyce’s knowledge and more raw power than most blood witches ever encounter. I was strong, stronger than I’d been three weeks ago when Hunter and I had fought Selene and defeated her. If Ciaran was in that building, didn’t I owe it to Maeve to try to stop him once and for all?

I can do this, I told myself. I was meant to do this.

I walked up to the house and stepped onto the first of the three stone steps—and stopped as a feeling of dread snaked around my insides and whispered in my mind,Turn away. Come no farther. Go back.

I tried to step onto the second step, but I couldn’t. Terror immobilized me, the feeling that taking that one step would seal my doom.

It’s a repelling spell, I told myself. It’s designed to keep you out. But there’s nothing really behind it. I willed the spell to show itself to me. There was a moment of resistance before I saw a glimmering on the winter air. The rune Is—the rune of obstacles, of things frozen and delayed—repeated again and again, like a series of crystalline icicles. I visualized the warmth of fire melting the runes of the warding spell, and within seconds I felt their power weaken.

The spell snapped, and I reached the top step. I found another spell on the door itself. I felt a surge of exhilaration as I realized I knew exactly what to do. It seemed so clear. Either the binding spells weren’t all that complicated, or I was stronger than I realized.

This time I drew power up from the earth, from the roots of the wisteria, from the bedrock below. I gathered all the energy poured into the city streets by the myriad inhabitants of New York City. A boisterous, defiant power swelled inside me. I let it build, then flung it at the spell that guarded the door. The spell shattered. The one bolt that had been shut on the other side of the door shot open. And I stepped into the house, nearly surfing on the wave of my own magick.

I stood in a high-ceilinged foyer. The floor was inlaid marble, patterned in black and gray. A staircase led to the upper floors. I sent a witch message to Killian. Where are you? Lead me.

The next instant I was flat on my back, hit with a binding spell stronger than anything I’d ever experienced. It forced my arms flat against my sides, clamped my legs together, pressed down on my throat so I couldn’t utter a sound, compressed my chest so that I fought for every breath. Oh, Goddess. Maybe I wasn’t as strong as I’d thought.

Quickly I cast a spell to loosen all bindings.

It did nothing. My mind reeled in panic.

I tried the spell that had worked so brilliantly just a few minutes ago. I extended my senses out and down, searching for a connection with the ground beneath me. The hollow echo that came back was mystifying. It was as if the earth itself was empty, flat, drained of anything to give. And I was left in a place where waves of dark magick swirled around me.

Alyce, I thought. Surely Alyce knew something that would help. A spell came to me then for bringing light in the midst of darkness. I began to visualize a single white flame, growing brighter, hotter, blazing through all the dark energy, consuming it, purifying the space around me.

I almost blacked out as something that felt like a blade of jagged ice plunged into my stomach. It’s an illusion, I told myself, remembering how Selene had attacked me with pain. I willed myself to go beyond it, to keep picturing the flame devouring the darkness.

Another blade drove into my back. “Aaagh!” My own strangled cry panicked me. I felt the icy blade cut through skin, muscle, bone, and the flame in my mind guttered out.

As if to reward me for losing the spell, the pain stopped.

I glanced down at my body. There were no bloody knife wounds. They had been an illusion. But the binding was real. I couldn’t move. I glanced around me, searching for the source of the power that was holding me prisoner. There—I felt magick like a dark, oily cloud swirling across the town house’s pristine floor. The magick of several witches, working together.

Nausea rose in the back of my throat. I was completely overpowered. What had I done? How could I have been naive and stupid enough to believe I could go up against an entire coven of Woodbanes? The second I’d walked into the house, I’d walked into their trap.

A slight figure in a black robe and a mask walked toward me. The mask showed a jackal’s face, carved out of some sort of dark wood and horribly exaggerated, with an enormous snarling mouth. My fear ratcheted up another notch. Other masked figures appeared: an owl, a cougar, a viper, an eagle.

“We’ve got her,” the jackal said, in a voice so perfectly neutral, I couldn’t tell if it was male or female.

“Where’s Killian?” I demanded. “What have you done with him?”

“Killian?” the witch in the owl mask repeated. The voice was distinctly female. “Killian isn’t here.”

“But you’re going to drain him of his power!” I said stupidly.

A giddy, high-pitched laugh erupted from the jackal’s mouth. “Oh, no, we’re not.”

“We never wanted Killian,” the owl said.

“You’ve been misled,” the viper agreed, and all of them burst out laughing. The viper’s narrow golden eyes glittered as it stared at me. “You’re the one we’re going to drain.”