Blood Magick

by Roberts, Nora

  “Couldn’t Connor go with him, or Boyle, or any of us?”

  “If it was meant to be Connor or Boyle or any of us, it wouldn’t have been me pulled into the dream that took us to Midor’s cave. I can deal with it, Meara, as he can, though I know it’s no easier for him than for me.”

  “He loves you, Branna, as deep as any man can love. I know it hurts you for me to say it.”

  “No, you don’t hurt me.” Branna rubbed a hand on Meara’s thigh. “I know he loves me, or some part of him does. Some part always will. Love’s powerful, and it’s vital, but it’s not all.”

  “Do you blame him still for his lineage?”

  “It was easier when I did, when I was so young, so shattered, I could. But not blaming him doesn’t change the facts of it all. He’s Cabhan’s blood. He bears the mark, and that mark came on him, manifested after we’d been together. If there’s any of that lingering in me that blames him, well, it blames myself as well.”

  “I wish you wouldn’t,” Meara replied. “I wish you wouldn’t take on blame, either of you.”

  “My blood, his blood. He bears the mark as much because of Sorcha as Cabhan, doesn’t he? I think now that we’re older and know more than we did, we both understand we’re not meant to be together.”

  “If we defeat Cabhan, would you still feel that way? Still believe you couldn’t be with him, and happy?”

  “How can I say? How can I know? It’s fate that drew us together, and fate pulled us apart. Fate decides these things.”

  “I don’t believe that for a minute,” Meara said, with heat. “We decide our own fate, by our choices, our actions.”

  Branna smiled, sat back. “You’ve a point there. Of course we’re not merely puppets. But fate deals the hand, to my way of thinking. How we play the cards matters, but we only have the ones we’re dealt. What would I do if fate hadn’t dealt me you? I wouldn’t have a friend who’d know to come give me her shoulder.”

  “It’s always here for you.”

  “I know it. I’m built to stand on my own, but God, it’s good to lean now and then. I can wish I didn’t love him. I can wish I could look back at the girl I’d been and say, well now, she had her fling and her disappointment, her bit of heartbreak. Now she’s moved on. But whatever cards I hold, he’s one of them. And ever will be.”

  “We could take more time, try to find another way.”

  “We’ve waited too long already. We deserved to take the time for family and friends, but it’s time to turn back to duty. I’m prepared for it, I promise you.”

  “Would you want me to stay after it’s done? I mean after all of it, for me to stay. Me and Iona?”

  “We’ll see how it all goes. But it’s a comfort to me to know, should I be needing you, you and Iona would be here. Before we worry if I’ll be needing comfort, we go back, Fin and I, and find what this Midor is to Cabhan and Cabhan to him. And if the fates deal the cards, we learn how and when to stop him.”

  She tipped her head to Meara’s shoulder. “I know Fin to be a good man, and that steadies me. I once tried to believe he wasn’t, because it made it simpler, but that was wrong and foolish. At the end of it all, if I can know I’ve loved a good man, I can be satisfied with that.”

  9

  SHE’D PREPARED FOR IT, EMOTIONALLY, MENTALLY. Branna told herself the spell, the dreamwalk, was not only a necessary step, but could and should go forward without personal issues.

  She and Fin had reached a place, hadn’t they, over the past months where they could work together, talk together without anger or heartache?

  They were adults now, far from the starry-eyed children they’d been. She had a duty to her bloodline. And Fin, to his credit, had unstinting loyalty to their circle.

  It would be enough.

  And still as they gathered together in her workshop, long after dark settled, she had to hold back trepidation.

  “Are you sure about this?” Connor brushed a hand down her back, earned a quick look and a mental push.

  Stay out of my head.

  He left his hand warm on the small of her back. “There’s still time to find another way.”

  “I’m completely sure, and this is the best way. Fin?”

  “Agreed.”

  “Cousin Mary Kate, are you certain you don’t want to join the circle?”

  “You should go as you’ve been, and know I’ll be here to help should you need it.”

  “Nan’s our backup.” Iona gave her grandmother’s hand a squeeze, then stepped forward.

  They cast the circle, for ritual and respect, for protection and unity. Together Branna and Fin stepped inside it. He wore his sword on his belt, she a ritual knife.

  This time, this deliberate time, they wouldn’t go unarmed.

  “From this cup we drink this brew so together in dreams we ride.” Branna sipped the potion, handed the cup to Fin.

  “With this drink we travel through another time and place side by side.” Fin drank, handed off the cup to Connor.

  “Within our circle, hand in hand, we travel over sky and land.” They spoke together, eyes locked, as Branna felt the power rising up.

  “Into dreams, willingly, there to seek, there to see Cabhan’s origin of destiny. Full faith, full trust in thee and me, as we will, so mote it be.”

  Fin held out his hand; Branna put hers in it.

  In a flash of light, in a burst of bright power, they flew.

  Through the wind and the whirling, fast, so fast it whisked the breath from her lungs. She had a moment to think they’d made the potion too strong, then she stood, swaying a little, in the starry dark. Her hand still gripped in Fin’s.

  “A bit too much essence of whirlwind.”

  “Do you think so?”

  She shot him a smirking glance. His hair looked as wild as hers felt. Though his sharp-featured face seemed grim, satisfaction mixed with it.

  She felt about the same herself.

  “There’s no point in sarcasm, as you had as much to do with the formula as I.” Branna shook her hair out of her eyes. “And it got us here, for that’s the cave.”

  In the cold, starry dark, the mouth of the cave pulsed with red light. She heard a low hum, like a distant storm at sea from within. But without, nothing moved, nothing stirred.

  “He’s in there,” Fin told her. “I can feel it.”

  “He’s not alone. I can feel that. Something wicked, that brings more than a pricking of thumbs.”

  “I should go in alone, assess things.”

  “Don’t insult me, Finbar. Side by side or not at all.”

  To settle it, she started forward. Fin kept a firm grip on her hand, laid the other on the hilt of his sword. “If it turns on us, we break the spell. Without hesitation, Branna. We don’t end here.”

  She might have swayed toward him, such were the needs the dream spell stirred. But she steadied herself, stood her ground. “I’ve no intention of ending here. We’ve work to do in our own time and place.”

  They stepped into the mouth of the cave, the pulsing light. The hum grew louder, deeper. Not like a storm at sea, Branna realized. But like something large, something alive, waiting at rest.

  The cave widened, opened into tunnels formed with walls damp enough to drip so the steady plop of water on stone became a kind of backbeat to the hum. Fin bore left, and as Branna’s instincts said the same, they moved quietly into the tunnel.

  His hand, she thought, was the only link to the warm and the real, and knew he felt the same.

  “We can’t be sure when we are,” Branna whispered.

  “After the last time we dreamed.” He shook his head at her look. “I don’t know how I know, but I know. It’s after that, but not long after.”

  Trust, she reminded herself. Faith. They continued on with the humming growing deeper yet. She could all but feel it inside her now, like a pulse, as if she’d swallowed the living dark.

  “It pulls him,” Fin murmured. “It wants to feed. It pulls me thr
ough him, blood to blood.” He turned to her, took her firmly by the shoulders. “If it—or he—draws me in, you’re to break the spell, get out, get back.”

  “Would you leave me, or any of us, to this?”

  “You, nor any of the others come from him. You’ll swear it, Branna, or I’ll break it now and end it before it’s begun.”

  “I’ll end it, I swear it.” But she would drag him back with her. “I’ll swear it because they won’t draw you in. You won’t allow it. And if we stand here arguing over it, we won’t have to break the spell, it’ll end on its own time without us learning a bloody thing.”

  Now she took his hand. A spark shot between their palms before they moved forward.

  The tunnel narrowed again, and turned into what she recognized as a chamber—a workshop of sorts for dark magicks.

  The bodies of bats, wings stretched, were nailed to the stone walls like horrific art. On shelves skeletal bird legs, heads, the internal organs of animals, others she feared were human, bodies of rats, all floated in jars filled with viscous liquid.

  A fire burned, and over it a cauldron bubbled and smoked in sickly green.

  To the left of it stood a stone altar lit by black tallows, stained by the blood of the goat that lay on it, its throat slit.

  Cabhan gathered the stream of blood in a bowl.

  He looked younger, she realized. Though his back was to them as he worked, he struck her as younger than the Cabhan she knew.

  He stepped back, knelt, lifted the bowl high.

  “Here is blood, a sacrifice to your glory. Through me you feed, through you I feed. And so my power grows.”

  He drank from the bowl.

  The hum throbbed like a beating heart.

  “It’s not enough,” Fin murmured. “It’s pale and weak.”

  Alarmed, Branna tightened her grip on his hand. “Stay with me.”

  “I’m with you, and with him. Goats and sheep and mongrels. If power is a thirst, quench it. If it’s hunger, eat it. If it’s lust, sate it. Take what you will.”

  “More,” Cabhan said, raising the bowl again. “You promised more. I am your servant, I am your soldier. I am your vessel. You promised more.”

  “More requires more,” Fin said quietly, his eyes eerily green. “Blood from your blood, as before. Take it, spill it, taste it, and you will have more. You will be me, I will be thee. And no end. Life eternal, power great. And the Dark Witch you covet, yours to take. Body and power to our will she must bend.”

  “When? When will I have more? When will I have Sorcha?”

  “Spill it, take it, taste it. Blood from your blood. Into the cup, through your lips. Into the cauldron. Prove you are worthy!”

  All warmth had drained from Fin’s hand. Branna pressed it between hers, gave him what she could.

  “I am worthy.” Cabhan set the bowl down, rose to take up a cup. He turned.

  For the first time Branna saw the woman in the shadows. An old woman, shackled and shivering in the bitter cold.

  He walked to her, taking the cup.

  “Have mercy. On me, on yourself. You damn yourself. He lies. He lies to you, lies to all. He has chained you with lies as you have chained me with iron. Release me, Cabhan. Save me, save yourself.”

  “You are only a woman, now old, your puny powers leaking. And of no value but this.”

  “I am your mother.”

  “I am already born,” he said, and slit her throat.

  Branna cried out in shock and horror, but the sound drowned in the rising roar. Power swam in the air now, black as pitch, heavy as death.

  He filled the cup, drank, filled it again. This he carried to the cauldron, poured through the smoke. And the smoke turned red as the blood.

  “Now the sire’s with it,” Fin said, and Cabhan went to a bottle, poured its contents into the cauldron.

  “Say the words.” Fin’s fingers, icy in Branna’s, flexed, unflexed. “Say the words, make the binding.”

  “Blood unto blood I take so the hunger I will slake and the power here we make. From the dam and from the ram mix and smoke and call dark forces to invoke my name, my power, my destiny. Grant to me life eternal and sanctuary through this portal. I am become both god and demon and reign hereby over woman and man. Through my blood and by my power, I will take the Dark Witch unto me. I am Cabhan, mortal no more, and by these words my humanity I abjure.”

  He reached through the smoke, into the cauldron, and with his bare hand, pulled out the amulet and its bloodred stone.

  “In this hour by dark power I am sworn.”

  He lifted the amulet over his head, laid the glowing stone on his chest.

  The wind whirled into a roar as Cabhan, his eyes glowing as red as the stone, lifted his arms high. “And I am born!”

  From the altar leaped the wolf, black and fierce. It sprang toward Cabhan, sprang into him with a deafening scream of thunder.

  Something howled in triumph, and even the stones trembled.

  He turned his head. Through the dark, through the shadows, his eyes, still glowing, met Branna’s.

  She lifted a hand when his arms shot out toward her, prepared to block whatever magicks he hurled. But Fin spun her around, wrapped around her. Something crashed, something burned.

  And he broke the spell.

  Too fast, too unsteady. Branna clung to Fin as much to warm him—his body burned so cold—as to keep herself from spinning away.

  She heard the voices first—Connor’s steady as a rock and calm as a summer lake—guiding her. Then Iona’s joining his.

  Don’t be letting go now, Connor said inside her head. We’ve got you. We’ve got both of you. Nearly home now. Nearly there.

  Then she was, dizzy and weak-limbed, but home in the warmth and the light.

  Even as she drew a breath, Fin slipped out of her grip, went down to his knees.

  “He’s hurt.” Branna went down on her own. “Let me see. Let me see you.” She took his face, pushed back his hair.

  “Just knocked the wind out of me.”

  “The back of his sweater’s smoking,” Boyle said, moving in and quickly. “Like Connor’s shirt that time.”

  Before Branna could do so herself, Boyle pulled the sweater up and off. “He’s burned. Not so deep as Connor’s, but near the whole of his back.”

  “Get him down, face-first,” Branna began.

  “I’m not after sprawling down on the floor like a—”

  “Have a nap.” With that snapped order, Branna laid a hand on his head, put him under. “Face-first,” she repeated, and had Connor and Boyle laying him out on the workshop floor.

  She passed her hands over the scorching burns covering his back. “Not deep, no, and the poison can’t mix with his blood. Just the cold, the heat, the pain. I’ll need—”

  “This?” Mary Kate offered her a jar of salve. “Healing was my strongest art.”

  “That’s it exactly, thanks. We’ll be quick. It hasn’t had time to dig into him. Iona, would you take some? I’ve a bit of a burn on my left arm. It’s nothing, but we’ll want to keep it nothing. You know what to do.”

  “Yes.” Iona shoved up Branna’s sleeve. “It’s small, but it looks angry.”

  But it cooled the moment Iona soothed on the salve. The faint dizziness passed as well as her cousin added her own healing arts. Steadier, she could focus fully on Fin.

  “That’s better, isn’t it? Sure that’s better. We could do with a whiskey, if you don’t mind. We went a little faster than I’d calculated, and coming back was like tumbling off a building.”

  “I’ve already got it,” Meara told her. “He looks all clear again.”

  “We’ll just be making sure.” With her hands on him, Branna searched for any deeper injury, any pocket of dark. “He’ll do.” Relief stung the back of her throat, rasped through her voice. “He’s fine.” She laid her hand on his head again, lingered just a moment. “Wake up, Fin.”

  His eyes opened, looked straight into hers. “Fuc
k it,” he said as he pushed up to sit.

  “I’m sorry for it, as it’s rude to give sleep without permission, but I wasn’t in the mood to argue.”

  “She was burned, too,” Iona said, knowing it would shift Fin’s temper. “On her left arm.”

  “What? Where?” He’d already grabbed Branna’s arm, shoved her sleeve up.

  “Iona saw to it. It was barely there at all, as you shoved me behind you, covered over me as if I wasn’t capable of blocking an attack.”

  “You couldn’t have, not that one. Not with the new power so full and young, and him flying on it like an addict on too much of a hard drug. He had more in that moment than he has now, or I think ever since. And he hungers for that wild high again.”

  Connor crouched down. “I’ll say this. Thank you for looking after my sister.”

  “Now I’m ungracious.” Branna sighed. “I’m sorry for that as well. I’m still turned around. I do thank you, Fin, for sparing me.”

  She took the whiskeys from Meara, handed him one.

  “He took you for Sorcha. In the dark, near to hallucinating, he felt you—when the power came full, he felt you, but took you for Sorcha. He meant to . . .”

  “Drink some of that.”

  “So I will.” Fin tapped his glass to hers, drank. “He meant to disfigure you if he could, so no one would see your beauty, so your husband, he thought, would turn from you. I saw his mind in that moment, and the madness in it.”

  “A man would have to be mad to slit his own mother’s throat, then drink her blood.”

  “That’s purely disgusting,” Meara decided. “And still if we’re going to hear about it, I’d rather hear all at once, and when we’re all sitting down.”

  “That’s the way. Fin, put on your sweater now so you can sit at the table like a civilized man.” Mary Kate handed him the sweater. “I’ll just look around the kitchen, Branna, see what you might have I can put together, as I’ll bet everyone could do with a bit of food.”

  While Mary Kate put together a wealth of leftovers from the Christmas feast, Branna sat—relieved not to be doing the fixing—so she and Fin could tell the story.