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.”
12. Ciaran
February 28, 1984
The beginning of spring is a time to sow the seeds of dreams for the coming year. Here in a tiny village called Meshomah Falls, I am a boy again, full of fantasies and dreams, eager to welcome the promise of spring. I found her. Today Maeve and I saw each other for the first time since I left Ballynigel. I knew in that instant that she still loved me. That nothing had changed, that it had all been worth the wait. Goddess, I see the universe every time I gaze into her eyes.
We waited until evening, for she insisted on making some excuse to poor, pathetic Angus. Then she led me out beyond the town, through a narrow band of woods, across a meadow, and up a hill to a field. “No one will see us here,” she said.