"I am the Destroyer, Iona," Morgan shouted. "Didn't your father ever tell you that?" She felt tall and terrible, and even as Iona struggled against her internal force, Morgan's power swelled and rose. She was the conduit for power that had been held deep within the earth for centuries. It was gathering now, rising, and pouring out from her. Sky grabbed one hand, sending her power to Morgan.
"Ciaran is powerless. You are powerless!" Morgan cried, pointing at Iona.
Iona stood there, shocked and with the first glint of fear on her face. But she wasn't beaten yet. Harsh, dark words were pouring from her lips, and her arms moved, writing sigils in the air. A slow rumbling shook the sand beneath their feet, and Morgan whirled to see its source. The cliff above the cave was spitting, the rocks being rent with the last bit of Iona's stolen power. Even with Ciaran bound, she had enough power to craft a spell that was rending thousands of tons of black basalt, fracturing a hill of stone. Rocks and pebbles, boulders and shards, began to rain down on them.
Morgan hurried toward the sea, with Sky following close behind. Morgan grabbed Moira's hand and yanked her backward. Hunter was looking up at the wall of rock, then at Iona, and Morgan rushed forward to drag him into the water.
"It won't be enough!" Iona shouted, laughing.
Huge waves of stone tumbled down the side of the hill, thudding into the sand, bouncing off one another. In a split second Morgan had made her decision. Scaoil, she thought, and she sent her power out in a tightly coiled knot that knocked Iona squarely on the chest. Her back hit the rough wall by the cave, and in the next instant a huge boulder tumbled down, sweeping her thin body to the ground like a stick puppet. Moira cried out and covered her face, looking away. Morgan gathered Moira to her, still urging everyone backward. They were up to their necks in the frigid, salty water, and still cannon-ball-size rocks were striking the water all around them. Morgan treaded water, keeping Moira, Hunter, and Sky in sight. Her face crumpled as she saw two of the withered witches pinned beneath a house of rock. The cave had been crushed, no doubt killing any who had been inside.
Eventually the hill was nothing more than a crumbled rock pile, half as tall as it had once been. There was only a small area of sand still visible, and slowly, all holding hands, the four of them made their way through it, shivering uncontrollably as the cold air hit their wet bodies.
Teeth chattering, Morgan turned to look at her family, all of them.
"It's over," she said wonderingly. "It's over." Tears of joy washed the salt from her eyes, and then they were all hugging, crying, laughing.
"Thank the Goddess." Morgan felt completely and utterly drained but so thankful.
"Blessed be," Sky said, smiling and shaking her head.
Morgan.
Morgan froze, blood draining from her face. Hunter, Sky, and Moira all looked at her quizzically, and she held up one finger.
Iona's voice was surprisingly strong in Morgan's thoughts. How had she survived the rock slide in her weakened state?
Morgan. This isn't over, Iona said. At this moment Lilith and Ealltuinn are making their final move-on Belwicket. You're not home to protect it By the time you get back, everything you knew and loved will be a black, smoking plain. You see, I am my father's daughter. A dark wave. As soon as Morgan thought the words, her whole body shook, as though a shock of ice water moved through her veins. She felt dizzy. No. It can't be. Not Belwicket. Not her coven, her home!
"You're lying!" Morgan shouted desperately, looking back at the stunned faces of her family. "You haven't the power! You haven't the skill!"
"Perhaps not," Iona's voice replied from behind Morgan. Stunned, Morgan spotted Iona crawling weakly from a small space beneath several fallen rocks. She was battered-a huge cut bled fiercely on her arm, and she limped, scarcely able to stand-but she was alive, Iona reached the sand and cackled, enjoying Morgan's stunned expression. "You bound Ciaran," she said. "But you didn't bind me. And what you don't realize is that I am not relying only on my own power"-her voice was weakened now, no better than a desperate hiss-"but also that of my ally, Lilith Delaney. It's Lilith who cast the dark wave spell. That was what she truly wanted all along-to rid her country of the so-called good Woodbanes, like Belwicket. It was just a fortunate coincidence that I wanted their future high priestess dead."
As Morgan opened her mouth to reply, Iona suddenly extended her hand and spat out a chain of ugly words. "Feic thar spionnadh! Theid sedltachd thar spionnadh!"
Morgan barely had time to react as a sharp spear of energy, glinting silvery blue in the sunlight, sped toward her. Automatically she threw up a blocking spell. She was shocked that Iona would try to hurt her in her weakened state-what possible good could it do her? But then her thoughts turned darker, Iona was clearly beyond reason. She was crawling blindly toward a single purpose-hurting Morgan. As Iona's attack reached Morgan, something unexpected happened. Morgan had long known that her element was fire, and so she called on the power of fire to add strength to even her most basic spells. But as Iona's sharp spear of light reached Morgan, it bounced off the shield she'd created and turned to roaring orange flame. Before Morgan could take in a breath, the flame turned upon Iona and consumed her.
"No!" Iona wailed as the flame overcame her body. The fire grew, and soon an oily, roiling black smoke-eerily like the smoke that had invaded Belwicket's circle-emerged from the fire. Morgan gasped. In a matter of seconds the flame burned to nothing and winked out. No evidence of Iona's body remained on the beach. No smoke, no charred earth, nothing. Morgan stared, disbelieving, at the spot where Iona had stood. She's dead, she thought finally. Evil serves no purpose. It consumes you. But before she could react further, she remembered Iona's final promise.
"We have to get home as soon as possible," she cried, turning back to her family and running for the crude boat they had rented only hours before. "There's a dark wave coming for Belwicket!"
19. Moira
They had to swim back to the beach where they had left their boat, since rock slides had destroyed most of the original path. Sky, Morgan, and Moira held on to Hunter, helping him along. They climbed on board with difficulty, and Morgan and Sky pushed the boat off the sandbar. Sky started the motor, and then the island was in back of them and they were headed out to sea. Moira shivered, not only because she was freezing and wet and her face burned where Iona had raked it: what had happened on the island had been far worse than anything she could have expected. All those poor people-dead. That horrible witch, Mum's half sister-dead. Not just dead, Moira thought. Burned to death by her mum's own deflection spell. She'd thought she couldn't be any more horrified by what her mum was capable of, but she'd been wrong. There wasn't even time to react, though. Because the four of them were heading back home, where another, even bigger disaster awaited them Moira had heard about dark waves, of course, but during her lifetime nobody had seen one. When she'd asked her mum about it, she'd explained as best she could-it was a huge, sweeping cloud of evil, made up of tortured souls who were hungry for new energy. A dark wave could kill any number of people, it could level houses, it could leave a village as nothing more than a black, greasy field. Moira was torn between her terror of what they'd find when they reached Cobh and the many other emotions battling inside her at the sight of Hunter, real and alive in front of her.
Hunter shook his head, the slashes on his face covered with dried blood. "I still can't believe it," he said hoarsely. His eyes looked so large in contrast with his gaunt face. "I'm so afraid I'll wake up and find this was a dream."