“Morgan, come back!” It was Hunter’s voice. A hallucination, I told myself, and slipped back into the fog.
“No! I won’t let you go. Not like this.”
I forced my eyes open. Hunter stood in the doorway. A new aura of power seemed to flicker around him, his own sapphire light tinged with a purplish glow I’d never seen before.
Was he really there? How had he gotten away from Ciaran? Where was Ciaran? I couldn’t imagine that Hunter had single-handedly overcome such evil. It had to be a dream.
“Seeker.” The viper advanced on him.
Not a dream. My heart leaped wildly in my chest.
The weasel hurled a ball of blue witch light at Hunter. It found its target, and Hunter gasped in pain.
I struggled to pull myself out of the deadening fog. Hunter. I had to help him. Mentally I began my draw-power chant again. An di allaigh…
Power stirred inside me, faint as a hummingbird’s heartbeat. But there.
In my mind I sang the chant again and again until I felt a thin, steady stream of magick pouring into me. And then I sent it all to Hunter. Help him, I charged it. Make him stronger. Heal his wounds.
Hunter blocked a blow from the jackal, then turned and shot me a quick look of gratitude. I love you, Hunter, I thought. You’ve got to survive this.
Then Hunter chanted a spell in a language I didn’t recognize. The fine garnet inlays on the table began to shudder. I watched wide-eyed as their forms rose into the air, glowing with the bloodred light of the gems. They were sigils, I realized. Hunter was calling them up.
The masked witches moved away from him, and I felt their terror. “Impossible,” one murmured. “There’s no way a Seeker could know how to use those sigils.”
How did he do it? I wondered with distant amazement. Could the council really make him that much stronger? He seemed practically invincible.
The witch in the bear mask charged Hunter, but the witch never made it. He let out a sickening scream as he hit one of the glowing red sigils. He crashed to the floor, where the sigil ate at him the way fire ants devour a body.
And then Hunter was at my side, his athame out, its blade slicing through the spelled ropes that bound me. I felt him lift me from the table, murmur, “Thank God you’re still alive.”
“Hunter, no,” I whispered. “Save yourself.”
“Shhh,” he whispered. “It’s all right.”
But the fog was washing over me, drawing me under again. And this time I let it take me.
Time had passed, I don’t know how much. There was only Hunter and me, and we were on the sidewalk. He set me on my feet gently. “Do you think you can walk?” he asked.
“Yes,” I said, though I was still terribly weak. Then Hunter was pulling me away from the house.
We got as far as the Museum of Natural History, where we both collapsed on the steps. It was dark and cold, and our breath came out in little clouds of vapor.
“Are you all right?” Hunter asked.
“I think so. My power…they didn’t take it.”
“No,” he said softly. “You fought off an entire coven of Woodbanes. Thank the Goddess. I was nearly out of my mind with fright for you.”
That was when I started to cry, great, gulping sobs that felt like they’d never stop.
Hunter folded me into his arms and held me. For a long time I stayed there in the shelter of his arms, crying until I had no more tears. Even after I stopped crying, I stayed there, listening to the steady sound of his heart, thinking it incredibly precious.
“I must be a mess,” I said, finally breaking away to blow my nose. That’s when I noticed Hunter’s face was as tear-streaked as mine. “Hunter?” I asked uncertainly. “Are you okay?”
He nodded. “I’d better send a message to Sky, let everyone know we’re all right.” He concentrated for a moment, and I knew the message was being sent. “Here,” he said then, taking off his jacket and draping it over my shoulders.
“How did you find me?” I asked. “I called you, but I got no answer. Ciaran was blocking my messages.” I shuddered.
“I finally found Ciaran’s ex-lover, and she told me where the coven was,” Hunter explained.
“What happened to the Amyranth witches?” I asked.
“Still in the house. Recovering, I imagine. I hit them pretty hard, but I don’t think I did much permanent damage,” Hunter said. “I was more concerned with getting you out alive.”
“But they’re still there.”
“Yes. I’ve sent a message to the council, but I doubt they’ll get there before Amyranth clears out of that house. They’ll surface again, though,” he added grimly.
A kid came up to us, clutching a fistful of individually wrapped roses. “Hey, mister, want to buy a flower for the lady?” he asked.
Hunter stood up. “Yes, God, yes, I ought to buy her an entire bouquet, but”—he reached into his pocket and pulled out his billfold—“I’ll take one. Keep the change.”
“Thanks,” the boy said, his face lighting up as he realized Hunter had given him a twenty.
“That was generous,” I said as the boy ran off and Hunter dropped down beside me again.
He shrugged. “I’m feeling generous and grateful—and phenomenally sorry. So much more than sorry.” He handed me the flower. “Morgan, I don’t know how to apologize.”
“For what? You don’t have anything to apologize for,” I protested. “I’m the one who charged in there like the Mounties to the rescue.”
He gave me that stern Hunter look. “You did, and remind me to give you a hard time for it someday, but the truth is—this was all my fault.”
I snuggled closer. “How do you figure that?”
“Isn’t it obvious? I should have realized Amyranth wanted you.”
“Stop blaming yourself,” I told him. I ran my hand along his smooth cheek. He was so dear to me. “It was the council who got it totally wrong. How could they have thought the target was Ciaran’s child?”
Hunter didn’t say anything.
“I guess I shouldn’t blame them,” I added grudgingly. “I mean, I did see myself as a wolf cub in the dream. But obviously that didn’t mean what we all assumed it meant.”
Hunter gazed at me with an expression of pity and grief. “Oh, Morgan,” he said. “I thought you already knew.”
“Knew what?” Sudden, nameless dread lodged somewhere below my heart, a dark, cold mass.
“The dream meant exactly what we thought. The council didn’t get it wrong. The target was Ciaran’s child.”
“But Killian was never their captive and—”
“Never mind Killian. There’s one thing none of us knew,” he interrupted, his voice gentle. “Not even Ciaran—until he did tàth meànma on you. He saw Maeve holding you as an infant—and he heard what she said about your eyes. Morgan, Angus had blue eyes. Yours are brown…like your father’s.”
“No.” I started to shake again as I understood what he was saying. “That can’t be. It’s impossible. I won’t believe—”
Hunter put one hand on the side of my face. “Morgan, you are Ciaran’s child.”
14. Tainted
May 25, 1985
I tried to forget her, I swear it. I returned to Scotland. Had another go with Grania and the little ones, every bit as miserable as the other times. Killian is an interesting one, though. He has more innate power than Kyle and Iona combined. He could be a real find. Still, I can’t share a roof with any of them, not when it’s Maeve I ache for. She’s a craving in my heart, a sickness in my blood. I wake and fall asleep to her memory. I love her as much as I hate her. She is with me every minute.
But the truth is, she remains with Angus, damn him. Time and again I’ve tried to persuade her to leave the worthless fool. And time and again she refuses.
I wonder sometimes what would be if she gave me a chance, if she saw who it is I’ve become in these years since she first rejected me. The heart she would not accept from me, I gave to the darkness. My power has grown beyond what I ever believed possible. I have served the darkness well, and it me. There is nothing on this earth that frightens me and very little that can stand against me. Would the good witch of Belwicket be able to accept that? I must believe that our love would open her to her own true Woodbane nature and that she would revel in it as I do.