by Lily Velez
“You’re right. I don’t. Having your family’s help would be ideal. Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like I’ll be getting that any time soon so long as your uncle has his way, so I’ll have to figure things out for myself. If that means dealing with the sluagh on my own, then so be it.”
Connor scoffed. “You mean the way you dealt with them back at your father’s house? You practically served your own soul to them on a silver plate.”
It would’ve hurt less had he slapped me. Anger simmered in my veins. What a jerk. If only he’d known how the sluagh had lured me in, how they’d played my grief against me.
“What’s going on?” Jack strayed into the foyer then, his hair slightly disheveled and those black patches under his eyes more pronounced than usual despite a full night’s rest. Assuming, of course, he’d slept at all.
When he saw one of the front doors open and realized I was dressed for the day, he instantly came to alert. “Where are you going?”
“Nowhere, apparently,” I said, shooting a skewering look Connor’s way.
“You know Seamus has always seen us like sons,” Connor explained at Jack’s questioning look, though the bite in his tone had dropped. Apparently it was only reserved for people he didn’t like. Like me. “We’re the only family he has now, and he’d do anything to protect us. This is him watching out for us, Jack, same as he’s always done. The double ward—”
“Double ward? The ward was only meant to keep the sluagh out. Seamus made it so that we aren’t able to leave either?” Jack strode to the front door to test the force field. Sure enough, it wouldn’t budge for him.
“It’ll only be in place until his return.”
“You knew about this beforehand? And you said nothing?”
“I knew you’d object to it. And I happen to agree with him. In fact, I helped him cast the spell. I’m the totem upholding it.”
“The totem?” I asked.
“Spells of this nature require on-site totems to uphold them,” Jack explained. “They serve as a sort of conduit for the magic. If Connor’s volunteered himself for the role, then he’s the only one who can say the unlocking words that will reverse the spell and cause the wards to drop. If he doesn’t, they stay in place.”
“It’s for the best,” Connor said. “We neither know what we’re up against, nor what we’ve invited in.” He cut a searing glance in my direction at that.
“We already know Scarlet is not the enemy here, Connor. The Seer—”
“To bloody hell with the Seer, Jack! I swear to the gods, would you listen to yourself? You have demons approaching you in broad daylight. Don’t tell me that doesn’t faze you. Or have you stopped caring? Have you become like this one here, who’ll run straight into the arms of demons at the first chance?”
“That’s enough.”
“No, I don’t think it is. Maybe it’s time you confess to Scarlet why Seamus and the rest of us are so insistent you sit this little demon-ridden escapade out.”
My eyes ping-ponged between them in the tense silence that followed. “What is he talking about?”
Connor shook his head. “As I suspected. You’ve told her nothing about it, have you? You’ve gone on about our histories. You’ve told her a fair share of our witching secrets. But you’ve withheld this one truth from her. You knew it would send her running in the opposite direction faster than anything else.”
“You know,” I said, “you can stop talking about me as if I’m not standing right here.”
Their eyes remained locked on each other, though, as if I hadn’t spoken. Jack’s jaw was clenched tight, a single muscle pulsing at his cheek. Connor met him measure for measure, the hardness in his own gaze like stone.
“Go on, Jack,” he said. “Tell her.”
I couldn’t imagine what more could be hiding beyond the smoke and mirrors. I shook my head. “Jack, whatever it is—”
“I’m cursed,” Jack said flatly. He finally pulled his eyes away from the gravitational force of Connor’s unbreakable stare and set them on me. There was a storm in them, fragments of both anger and despair. Perhaps a portion of worry too, as if he thought he might scare me away just as Connor had said.
“You know I’ve already heard all the stories.”
“Not this one.” Unceremoniously, he unfastened his watch and then showed me the inside of his wrist, where I’d first seen that burn scar.
But it wasn’t a burn at all.
It was more than that.
It was a brand.
And the pink, raised skin formed a strange design. Within a circle was a stylized X. The X was intersected by a vertical line. And to the right of the top half of the line were two dots like a semicolon. Together, the symbols looked foreign, unworldly.
“It’s a demon’s mark,” Jack explained. “My mother and father had spent years trying to conceive children early on in their marriage. Just when they were about to lose hope, they became pregnant with me. They called it one of the happiest times of their lives.
“But when my mother went into labor with me, it was the start of a very difficult childbirth. At one point, the midwife didn’t believe either of us would survive. My father couldn’t stand to lose us, so he fled into the night and petitioned a crossroads demon for a favor. Spare our lives, and he would give the demon anything in return.
“The demon granted my father his request. My mother survived childbirth, and I came into the world healthy and strong…and Marked. Because, as with all such bargains, there was a catch. My father had offered anything, and so the demon’s price was the very son my parents had spent years longing for.
“The demon didn’t take me away right then and there, of course. A baby was of no use to him. He wanted me to be raised in the witching ways and allowed to come into my power. Then, on the Old Moon during my eighteenth year, he’d finally come to collect the debt owed him.”
There’s a price on your head, the demon disguised as the Xavier player had said days ago, and I intend on collecting it.
My pulse stuttered as dread pooled in my stomach. Cursed. The unbelievable stories Thomas and Liam had shared did, in fact, hold some truth. But in a frightening way none of the townspeople would’ve ever expected. In a way I would’ve never expected.
I groped for words, my mind whirling. All I could do was stare at the brand on Jack’s wrist. Then I remembered something. Jack was already eighteen, wasn’t he? So…
“When is the Old Moon?” I asked, my voice barely above a whisper.
“It’s what we call January’s full moon.”
My stomach lurched. That was only three months from now. That had to be why the demon had come for him at the rugby game. He and his kind were apparently getting an early start. Jack’s time was slipping away from him fast like sand between his fingers.
My throat dried. “And what exactly happens then? Do you…die?”
Jack was already fastening his watch back into place to cover the mark. “In a sense. My soul will take up permanent residence in the Otherworld. Demons are rarely wasteful creatures, though, so I imagine they’ll find some sort of use for me there. A witch as their puppet would be a powerful weapon to wield.”
He answered so casually, as if discussing nothing more than a summer trip from which he planned to return. Then again, he’d been living with this for eighteen years. He’d probably come to terms with it by now.
“Couldn’t you hide from them somehow?” Was it possible to hide from demons? I had no idea.
“If I renege on the bargain, then the demon will come for one of my brothers instead.”
And naturally he wouldn’t let that happen. My brother’s keeper. The saying fit Jack to a tee. He really was a protector in every possible way.
“Connor’s right. I should’ve been more forthright about my circumstances from the very beginning. There are certain risks involved in keeping company with me where demons are concerned. But my grandfather believed we could break the curse. We were getting closer to une
arthing a way to free me from the demon’s bargain. The night of his death, he’d found something he’d intended on sharing with me, something relative to the curse. It’s one of the reasons I knew he hadn’t taken his life.”
“What are you talking about?” Connor asked him, furrowing his brow. “You’ve never mentioned anything like that.”
“I didn’t want to get anyone’s hopes up in the likely case that we failed. And now with Grandda gone…” He shook his head, his eyes unreadable. Whatever he was feeling, though, he easily shook it off before addressing me.
“I’ll understand if you want to part ways from this point on,” he said. “But I do think we’re better together, the five of us. I still believe you’re the one from the Seer’s message, and as much as you might waver on the idea, no one can deny you’re one of us as well. I can help you come into your magic, Scarlet. More importantly, I can help you save your father. Seamus has turned to The Council, but I believe The Wise Ones can give us the guidance we need right now too, and I’m willing to bring you to them. And inasmuch as I’m able, I won’t let any harm come to you if you agree to take this path.”
His words sent a flutter through my chest, unwound some of the knots in my stomach. I wasn’t going to lie. A part of me was scared. Jack’s confession had increased the severity of the situation by a hundredfold. But even so, crazy as it was, much as it didn’t make sense, I still trusted him. The same way, I realized, I’d been trusting him ever since the demon attack at the rugby game.
I still didn’t understand this world or my place in it—if I had a place at all—but I knew it was far from Jack’s fault that a demon had Marked him as its own. And beyond that, I knew continuing this journey with Jack by my side would be a lot easier than trying to help my dad on my own.
I pushed a long breath out of my lungs. There was no way of knowing whether or not I was making the right decision, but a decision had to be made nonetheless. “All right then,” I said. “Let’s go see The Wise Ones.”
17
“So who are The Wise Ones anyway?”
It was a three-hour drive to our destination, but thanks to a monsoon of a rainstorm, we weren’t making any considerable progress on the road. I’d asked earlier if the brothers couldn’t simply dispel the rain but was told such an exertion of magic, sustained for the length of our journey, would only attract demons. I didn’t press the matter further, given the tension already ballooning in the car between Jack and Connor, the latter having not spoken once since reluctantly saying the unlocking words that brought down the double ward on Crowmarsh.
In all honesty, I was surprised Connor had eventually given in to Jack, though I also got the feeling it wasn’t the first time he’d relented to one of Jack’s absurd ideas. Maybe learning Jack and Maurice had been trying to break the curse had something to do with his change of heart.
“And what about The Council of Elders that your uncle went to see?”
Jack lowered the music as The Four Aces began crooning “Mr. Sandman.” Yet another selection from a by-gone era. I was surprised his brothers hadn’t protested it or tried to change the station. Either they were also fans, or they followed the rule that the driver got to select the music, no questions asked.
“The Council of Elders consists of the seven eldest witches among druidic descendants—or six now rather—who each hail from one of the remaining bloodlines. As I mentioned before, The Council was assembled during The Burning Times. In the beginning, they mainly existed to inspire hope during what was nothing short of a dark era. Over time, they started to take on the role of disputing legal matters: territory lines, inheritances, intermarriage with the Sightless or with witches outside of the druidic clans. They also have the power to excommunicate a witch if he’s believed to be traitorous. In that case, they would take away his powers.”
The words sent a shiver through me. I pulled my cardigan closer. I’d been able to wash my clothes last night while outfitted in borrowed pajamas, and this morning before leaving, Jack had let me forage through a cousin’s closet for additional clothes. They were folded in a backpack and stored in the trunk, joining a few duffel bags the brothers had packed which were filled with an assortment of weapons and other strange tools I didn’t want to think about.
“What constitutes as treason?”
“If a witch loses himself to dark magic, the study of forbidden spellcraft, it’s grounds for excommunication. At that point, he’d be too much of a threat to himself, to his clan, and to the other bloodlines as a whole.”
“Have witches been excommunicated before?”
Jack’s face turned grim. “It’s happened a handful of times over the centuries. Generally, people who practice dark magic have an insatiable lust for power. They seek to upset the natural orders of the world, to tip the sacred balance in their favor. They tend to be so far gone they won’t let anyone stand in their way of acquiring more power, even if it requires lethal means. That’s why The Council removes their powers.
“But it’s been at least a hundred years since anything like that has happened. These days, The Council is more so ceremonial in nature, a formality. Once in a while, they’ll convene to deliberate a question that will restore balance to the clans. Otherwise, they tend to only be consulted by pilgrims who wish to receive their blessing and pursue more advanced studies under their tutelage. My uncle studied under them for a time after his loss, once managing Crowmarsh put him back on his feet.”
“And the Elders live here in Ireland?”
“Yes and no,” Jack said. “They live Elsewhere. It’s a dimension of sorts. Think of the world as you know it as one large room in a house. At any time, you can open a door to step into another room—that’s Elsewhere. There are countless rooms all over the globe a witch can access. It’s only a matter of knowing where a door is and how to pass through it.”
“And the door to see The Council?”
“Tucked away on a mountain peak.”
“If The Council might have the answers we’re looking for concerning the sluagh, then why are we going to see The Wise Ones?”
“At the end of the day, The Council, though I respect them immensely, can only lean on their own acquired knowledge, intuition, and magic. You might put it this way: The Council has a drop of insight whereas The Wise Ones will most certainly have the entire ocean.”
“Then why didn’t your uncle go see the latter?”
“Because my uncle is a pragmatist, and the more practical solution would be to seek the wisdom of The Council. The truth of the matter is The Wise Ones don’t offer counsel to just anyone. They only grant an audience to one whose heart is pure, and they’ve been silent for so long. Of course, no one wants to believe themselves unworthy of an audience, so anyone who petitioned The Wise Ones only to be turned away without an answer decided The Wise Ones no longer held any significance in our lives and should be written off as a remnant of days long past. The last witch who spoke with them did so decades ago, though most don’t believe the incident ever occurred.”
“And who was that person?”
He smiled sadly. “My grandfather.”
The storm worsened, forcing us off the road to take shelter in a shadowy tavern that smelled like nicotine and dirty toilets. I sat in a booth with Lucas and Rory, yellow foam poking out of the torn upholstery. The laminated menus were sticky and sparse, listing a handful of greasy foods that couldn’t tempt even my hungry stomach.
Jack had disappeared for a short period earlier, but now he stood in a far-off corner, his phone pressed against his ear. I realized after a few moments that he wasn’t speaking with anyone, only checking voicemail messages. Now that we’d left Rosalyn Bay and Crowmarsh behind, our cell signals had thankfully improved. Somewhat. I had called the hospital where my dad was staying earlier but had only caught thirty seconds’ worth of updates from the nurse before the call had dropped.
In another corner, Connor was taking his frustration out on a dart board. I wasn’t sure w
hat to make of him at the moment. I had the distinct impression he would’ve preferred to toss me into a ditch along some back road and never have to deal with me again. Admittedly, I couldn’t exactly blame him. I was the reason the sluagh had caught his and his brothers’ scents after all.
I shifted, wincing slightly at the soreness in my muscles. Though I’d removed all my bandages, my body was still recuperating from my confrontation with the sluagh. Jack had offered me another spelled tea this morning before we’d set out, this one meant to rejuvenate my strength, but our current predicament had me wired and antsy. With every passing hour, the window to save my dad was growing smaller and smaller. Sitting around until a storm passed had me feeling like contents under pressure.
I switched my attention to Lucas’s fifth game of solitaire before I worked myself up. With every flick of his finger, a new card from the stock pile flipped over without his touching it. With another flick, he’d send any usable card to a waiting tableau. If no one had noticed Lucas’s hand movements, they’d think a ghost was playing the game. Fortunately, the only other patrons in the tavern were busy nursing their drinks or playing pool.
“Tell me more about the magic,” I said.
Lucas’s eyes glimmered, that mischievous smirk tugging at his lips. “What would you like to know, Scarlet Ibis?”
“For starters, how do you cast?”
“My, my. You’re a quick learner.” He flipped through a few more cards in his stock pile before apparently growing bored with his game. With a twist of his wrist, the cards levitated off the table and made lazy loops and spins as they shuffled themselves into a single deck. Then the deck rested neatly back onto the table. As before, the other patrons were oblivious.
“I guess my real question is how do you get started with waking up dormant magic?”
“Is this you coming to terms with your witchiness, love?” He tugged on my hair playfully. “I think you and I could have a lot of fun raising hell at St. Andrew’s with our magic. We’d drive Jack mad, of course. Stickler that he is.”
