She circled the body, trailing over the painted Ogham symbols, and after the second revolution each symbol glowed with white incandescence when she passed. With the completion of her second turn the drying blood that had spilled from the initiate’s body glowed, and with the speed of one much younger, the Vate swooped in to take the head between her hands and breathe in the expulsion of trapped air that escaped from the dead man’s unmoving mouth. With that last expulsion of gas the body convulsed and grew rigid, heels planted into the ground, back bowed so the head came to rest at a sharp upward angle. She raised her head, eyes glowing with fire, “I ha’ found th’ high priestess.”
Chapter 1
Brenawyn McAllister swallowed the bile forcing its way up as she passed the 97th mile marker on the New Jersey turnpike. She slowed to let a tractor-trailer block her view of the mangled guardrail, but nothing stopped the surfacing images of the Jeep, a grotesquely twisted, blackened husk once representing a life. Liam’s.
A slave to the demands of routine, her eyes were riveted to the rearview mirror’s reflection before the truck had cleared it. This was the last time she would pass here, and she needed to see one last time. The tattered tails of a faded yellow ribbon tied to the rusted metal, a ribbon that she had tied there, snapped taut in the wind as the truck passed, a beacon screaming “traitor.”
It was three fucking years ago.
It was yesterday.
To learn about the accident through empty platitudes, and later through the report that mocked her in its factual clarity, it gave her no release, no closure.
Breathe.
Her nightmares were enough. Living here, passing here every day, was too much to bear. She had to get out or die alone.
Brenawyn watched the sunset from the George Washington Bridge, the beginning of twenty-nine-mile bumper-to-bumper traffic with no surcease. By the time she crawled over the Connecticut border she itched for a moment’s reprieve from her torture device to stretch her stiff back and cramped legs. The Challenger, with manual transmission, was one of her few splurges, but the pleasure of driving it was lost in the hours spent crawling along I-95.
The mile and half mile marker signs for the Darian rest stop taunted her. She could see it in the distance, its Golden Arches lit, as if from an ocean away. An hour later, she finally pulled into the only available spot in the parking lot. The vibrations of shifting gears woke Spencer and he jumped up and danced around the front seat. Brenawyn could barely hook the leash onto his collar.
“Hold still, dog. Oww! Stop stepping on me. Ouch! Remind me to get your nails trimmed.”
Spencer licked her face and whined. “All right, I know. Five hours is a long time to be stuck in the car. I know. I have been stuck in here too. I couldn’t help it, though.” Throwing a glance back at the congested highway, “People who can’t drive should stay home.”
Yanked by her dog the second the car door opened, she swore that she’d leash train him yet, no matter how long it took. Tongue lolling out the side of his mouth, he pranced in circles around her, bumping her legs and stepping on her toes. Adjusting her hold on his lead, Brenawyn led him to the scalped grass.
Here, she let out the retractable leash enough to allow him to sniff everything within a five-foot range. She glanced around, her father’s voice in her head—always be aware of your surroundings, Bren—and saw the odd shadows the cars cast in the poorly lit lot. Faceless silhouettes moved on missions to and from the building. Music thumped from an open car somewhere nearby; she could feel the bass in the soles of her feet. No one looked threatening. No one looked friendly, either.
“Okay, time to go, Spence.” Turning around, she dragged the dog back to the car, opened the door, and struggled to get him in as he whined. “Just hush. I’ll be right back.”
She opened the restroom door and, a fetid odor hit her. Lazy gnats buzzed low over the stagnant water pooled beneath the sinks and around the toilets. She hesitated for a moment, considering her less than adequate foot attire. Why had she drunk the whole extra-large coffee in the car? It left her no choice but to brave the bathroom. “God, I hope that’s water,” she prayed as she navigated around the larger pools. She inspected the stalls—no paper, no paper, not flushed, no paper, God knows what on the seat, and no paper. Rooting around in her purse, Brenawyn excavated the last two tissues from their plastic sleeve. If only she had replaced them with a new pack before she left, though two were better than nothing. Choosing the first stall with no paper, Brenawyn closed herself within the small space.
The adjacent stall’s hinges squeaked as she turned to flush the toilet with her foot. Hands braced on either side for balance, Brenawyn glimpsed an arthritic hand reaching under the stall wall. “I’m sorry, there is no extra paper in here. I had to use a tissue myself.” But there was no other response than the hand withdrawing.
Brenawyn jumped and dropped her purse when a screech bellowed out from the adjacent stall. She knocked on the stall wall, concerned, but as she bent to retrieve her fallen bag, the gnarled hand darted under the wall again to clamp onto her ankle. Heart pounding, she pivoted and wrenched herself loose from the bony claw’s vise-like grip.
The shrieking continued and the claw found her again. Shit, this was just the sort of thing her father had warned her about. She pulled the handle. The door didn’t budge. Panicked, she yanked on it. Nothing. The latch. Undo the latch first. Brenawyn stomped on the wrist, feeling a wet pop reverberate through the sole of her shoe.
She flung the door open and dashed out. I fall, I’m dead. Her flip flops slipped and squeaked across the floor; she lost one along the way. She left it. She crashed into the door and pitched herself into the arms of an unsuspecting man walking into the shared restroom vestibule. “Are ye hurt, lass?”
Dazed, Brenawyn clutched the wall of muscle, finding brief comfort, and she looked up into bright blue eyes, but she had to get away. “Sorry. Don’t go in there.”
The safety of the car beckoned in the distance; Spencer was barking and clawing at the window. She threw her bag on the hood and frantically searched through it, dumping half its contents before she found her keys. She fumbled, her fingers stiff and awkward, before finally grabbing the keyless remote. Pressing both the unlock and panic buttons, she scooped up her purse, whisked the wallet, passport, and other junk strewn across the hood into the bag, and threw herself into the car, jabbing the buttons over and over again long after the first contact locked the doors. Spencer stood over her lap, hunched low, growling out the window.
The panic alarm screamed. No one in the packed lot paid attention. Finally finding the right button, she disengaged the alarm before she jammed the key into the ignition, started the car, and revved the engine. Wrestling the dog to the passenger seat, she didn’t see the woman approach. Her head whipped to attention, eyes locked with the old hag as the car rocked from the impact of the woman’s fists on the hood of the car.
“Shit.” Brenawyn threw the gearshift in reverse without looking and careened out of the parking space, the smell of burnt rubber filling her nose. Spencer rushed into the backseat and growled at the woman.
Brenawyn craned her neck to get another look, but the woman was gone. A car horn blared and she slammed on her brakes seconds before plowing into the hag. She ripped through the gears as she threw the car into first. Twisting her neck to judge the distance, “What the fuck is going on?” Three hundred or more feet between the car and the parking space—no one could move that fast.
The old woman stood in the middle of the bypass road, cradling her arm, ignoring horns and screeching brakes. She raised her arms, the left wrist hanging at an impossible angle. Eyes glowing with red incandescence met Brenawyn’s stare.
“Oh, hell no!” She popped the clutch and whipped the wheel to swerve around the woman.
A line of cars waiting for their chance to sit in traffic materialized beyond the building, but Brenawyn leaned on the horn and took the shoulder. Gravel hit the undercarriage like machi
ne gun fire as she flew past the stopped cars at breakneck speed.
~ ~ ~
The car roared to life as she approached, and she could see by the quick punctuated movements of Cormac’s shadowed figure that he was angry. She slid onto the passenger seat as quick as her joints would allow and was greeted by tension rolling off of the impertinent Bard. He stared ahead, slamming his hands against the steering wheel three times before throwing the gearshift in reverse.
She put her hand on his arm. “Och, let her go,” she asserted.
He pivoted in his seat to face her, shaking his head, “Wha’?”
“We need ta think and organize in light o’ this new development. Go ta th’ hotel. I need ta consult th’ prophecies.”
“But—”
She interrupted, “Ye will respect me, child. Doonae think I forgot tha’ ye were willing ta give up yer apprentice so easily.” She scrutinized him sitting there, knowing he needed to be reminded of his place. “I wonder wha’ kind o’ picture ye would paint for me with yer own blud.”
He lowered his eyes, shrinking away from her in the confines of the car. She leaned toward him and whispered, “Thaur is nay prophecy concerning ye, and if ‘tis required of him ta be th’ scapegoat, perhaps it falls ta ye ta become my next volunteer.”
He drew back further, disjointedly, until his head made a satisfying clunk against the closed window. It took a moment longer, too long for her tastes, for the fight to go out of his frame. Perhaps the time was coming to show him his place.
“Call in th’ Shaman,” she demanded.
“I doonae like him.”
“Yer opinion wasna asked. Call him.”
“He’s irrevocably set in his ways.”
“Yes, and we will use tha’. Th’ priestess needs ta be found and we ken who she is.” She looked out at the parking lot, contemplating her next words before continuing. “We are no’ th’ only ones looking for her.”
“Aye, but if he learns o’ our plans?”
“How much ye disclose is yer decision. Ye seem no’ ta trust him, but yer reasoning holds verra little interest ta me. Tell him enough ta find who is responsible for dropping th’ veil.”
“We doonae need Sinclair.”
She disregarded his obstinacy. “He’ll be compelled ta take up th’ mantle and destroy whoe’er stands in th’ way. Once she is found, Cernunnos will call th’ Shaman back ta th’ Stalking Grounds, making him impotent ta interfere with our plans.”
“Thaur is no way for him ta escape once thaur?”
The Oracle sighed. “Even if thaur was, he has nay soul, thanks ta yer acolyte’s hoor. She made sure ta destroy his reliquary. He only exists through his connection ta th’ Wild Hunt, but he is th’ Shaman. He will be released on th’ four days o’ adoration when his participation is required, but then will be at th’ mercy of th’ Wild Hunt for rest o’ th’ wheel o’ time.”
“Those four days are enough ta disrupt my—our—designs.” Cormac protested.
“Patience, my child. Only ‘til Saimhain will we be vulnerable.”
Chapter 2
The shoulder opened a bit when the acceleration lanes gave way to the highway. Bypassing agitated drivers, a few cars followed Brenawyn’s lead on the shoulder, and twenty minutes later, she passed the last of highway construction. Roaring past, ignoring workers as they yelled and waved at the cavalcade of cars, she shifted into fifth gear. The more distance between herself and the old woman, the more the knot eased in her chest.
Spencer turned from the back window and shook himself, lather flying. He didn’t sit, but poked his upper body between the seats to perch partially on the console, standing watch, his jowl stuck on an exposed canine.
Brenawyn now noticed the dashboard plastic peeled away like paper straw wrappers, and the frothy saliva drying on the windshield. Claw marks punctuated by—she looked down at the dog’s paws—dry blood.
The car ate up the highway, and by the time the Salem welcome sign appeared on the horizon, Brenawyn had trouble discerning the truth from figments of her tired imagination. Thrown off by the state of the unkempt bathroom, the woman probably just wanted toilet paper. Perhaps she couldn’t hear, or spoke another language? The woman’s red eyes were definitely her wild imagination’s doing, and the distance from the parking spot to the bypass road a perception issue. But the dog’s response?
As if hearing it would make it be so, she said, “Yep, that’s it, I’m just tired.” Catching sight of Spencer’s reflection in the rearview mirror, “Don’t look at me like that. It was just my imagination and that’s that!”
Brenawyn turned the corner, and the car’s headlights did nothing to illuminate the long shadows on her grandmother’s familiar street. She slid into a parking spot in front of The Rising Moon, the establishment her grandmother owned. The store’s windows were dark, as were those of the residence above. It was too early to announce her arrival, but lights shone from the bakery across the street, as if calling all ships home. Not too early for fresh croissants.
As the car door swung wide, the offending lone flip flop slapped the pavement, reminding her to retrieve her antibacterial wipes from the glove compartment. She rubbed several pads on her feet and donned another pair of dollar store sandals that she grabbed from the backseat. “Kills ninety-nine percent of bacteria—it will have to do until I can scrub my skin off.”
She shuddered as she bent to grab the discarded flip flop, holding it at arm’s length between two fingertips while trying to handle the dog that bolted out of the car like a rushing tidal wave. He crashed into the door, making it strain against its hinges, and she lurched as the dog tripped her, fumbling the shoe.
“God damn it, dog,” rubbing her stubbed toe. “It’s combat boots for me from now on.” Retrieving it again and hobbling on her injured foot, she tossed it into the nearest trashcan on the curb.
Spencer took two steps and sniffed the air. His hackles rose and he moved in front of Brenawyn, herding her with his bottom in the direction of the car. Brenawyn looked into the deep shadows afforded by the broken streetlamp halfway down the block. “Jesus.” She stepped around him and yanked on his lead. He fought, his nails scrabbling on the asphalt, choking on the strained collar, but she won and hurried across the street to the safety of the lighted, public bakery.
~ ~ ~
Alexander Sinclair was among the few midnight denizens who stalked the bakery for freshly baked bread. He had to remember to eat. Tonight, following a lead, he had slogged through miles of construction traffic tailing the mark, only to be led to a rest stop, where it appeared for an instant that his search would finally bear fruit, but he was too damned eager.
The Oracle was there again, as she always was: the shadow, the tool of his nemesis. What her name was, where she came from, it didn’t matter. She was The Oracle. The enemy was getting bolder, using her for other than interpreting omens—he was desperate. Time was running out. Never before had she made direct contact. Alexander wouldn’t have believed it had he not seen her slam her fists on the hood of that car, nor sift time to appear again, an obstacle barring the escape route. From his perch, he had done what he could for the fleeing woman, casting a spell, bringing down the veil between worlds for a fraction of a second, enough to set the dog off in warning.
This time, it had been enough.
He couldn’t be seen taking action in direct opposition to the Order. Theirs—his—was a holy mission, to hold the balance until the Priestess was revealed. But he knew after centuries even the most devout could be tempted. Convincing the elders of this, most of whom turned a blind eye to the corruption that fractured the group, was an insurmountable feat. They refused to believe that one could be turned by avarice.
Brought out of his ruminations by the appearance of headlights turning the corner, his instincts screamed until he activated his runes and stepped back into enhanced shadows. The car door opened. What were the odds that the very woman he had saved tonight was coming here, less than a bl
ock from where he lived?
Alex started at the dog’s growl—interesting that the dog was so attuned to magic. He took a few steps to the curb, unwilling to leave cover completely lest his concealment be discovered. He squatted, touched the asphalt with his fingertips and waited for his spell to move through the man-made material to reach the dog across the street. The dog quieted within seconds.
He watched the woman cross to the bakery, choose a table near the entrance, and tie the unruly dog’s leash to the bars of the wrought iron fence. He waited until she went in and then sprinted across the street. The two dents on the hood confirmed what he already knew to be true.
He had to meet her, talk with her, learn if she was a likely candidate; but it would be counterproductive if he scared her. He knew what she’d see—a large, hulking man. So when the woman emerged with a Styrofoam cup and a brown paper bag, it was to find Alex petting her dog. Animals had a way of disarming people. He could see she was surprised to find him there. She hesitated a moment, scanned the area, and then approached, depositing the cup and bag on the table.
Alexander focused on the dog, speaking Gaelic nonsense to it before looking up and taking in a lovely view of her toned calves. The sight ended slightly above her knees where the lace trim of her shift—her dress—started. She was tall for a woman, with a figure that made a man’s hands ache to hold.
“Good morning.”
Alex flashed a smile and stood, despite the dog’s protests at the sudden neglect. She had a mass of dark hair tied into a floppy knot on top of her head, with wisps falling around her shoulders. “Oh, haló. Nice animal ye ha’. Well-built and friendly.” He patted the dog one last time. “I am Alexander Sinclair.” Taking a step toward her, he held out his hand.
Wide eyes, as green as new grass before a storm, met his gaze. The woman’s stance changed, posture straight, feet spread slightly apart, and her eyes darted to the open gate, aware of the change in the environment his presence made, but she took the hand that he offered, “Brenawyn McAllister, nice to meet you.”
Fate's Hand: Book One of The Celtic Prophecy Page 2
