The Morrigan's Curse

by Dianne K. Salerni

  Thanks for abandoning me, Stink! It had to be that blasted command of Riley’s to blame. Riley had only meant for Stink to stay away from Evangeline, because brownies skeeved her out, but he’d said liege lady. And Addie was also Jax’s liege.

  Meanwhile, Addie glared at Jax furiously and lifted her arms like she was going to throw her fireballs at him. “My sister is dead, you lying scum. Now I know you’re a Dulac vassal. Dr. Morder said he was going to transport me through brownie tunnels, and if they really do exist, they connect to the Dulac building. I can’t see your arm—so who knows what else is in that hole? Probably a whole bunch of Dulacs waiting to grab me.”

  “Whoa,” said Jax, pulling his arm out of the brownie hole. “Evangeline’s not dead. I just saw her a couple hours ago. Why do you think she’s dead?”

  “Your people told me. Did you not get your story straight with your superiors before you came here?”

  Jax gasped, realizing where her information was coming from. “The Dulacs might’ve thought that when they first captured you—because we put out the story that Evangeline had been killed to prevent them from looking for her. But by the time you escaped, they’d found out she was alive. And they didn’t tell you?” A wave of fury toward his uncle washed over Jax. It might have been a genuine mistake at first, but it had been horribly cruel for Uncle Finn to let Addie go on thinking Evangeline was dead after Angus Balin told him she was alive! “I’m not a Dulac vassal,” he hissed, despising that clan more than ever.

  “Oh, really?” Her voice was sarcastic, but her face showed uncertainty in response to his genuine expression of anger.

  “I’m sworn to your sister, which makes me your vassal, too. In fact,” Jax said, reaching the conclusion at the same time it came out of his mouth, “I’ll bet that’s why you haven’t nailed me with a fireball or run out of the room to get the Llyrs. You’re obligated to protect me, whether you realize it or not.”

  Now Addie looked truly puzzled. She lowered her arms.

  “I know you have no reason to trust me, but your sister’s really worried about you. We tried to rescue you from the Dulacs. We were actually in the building when the Llyrs busted you out. We missed you by, like, minutes.” His eyes wandered toward the open door. This is taking too long. I’ve got to get her into the tunnel before somebody comes along. “Evangeline’s been scrying for you, but you keep blocking her. Not to mention the time you zapped her. You got me too, because I was helping with the spell.” Jax pulled the papers out of his pocket and separated the one with Addie’s handwriting. “We’ve been using this letter you left at the Carroways’.”

  She gasped and stepped toward him. Jax moved closer so she could see it. “How’d you get that?” Her face grew very red, and tears welled in her eyes. “The house burned!”

  “No, it—” Jax looked from Addie to the crumpled tissues on the floor, then back to her face. It just happened for her, he realized. And she doesn’t know! “They’re okay!” he said quickly. “Mr. and Mrs. Carroway—they’re okay! We got there right after you left and saved them. Mr. Carroway had a scalp wound, but that’s all. And we were worried about the baby, but he’s going to be okay, too.”

  Relief flashed across her face, and then she started crying—huge, shoulder-shaking sobs. Not what Jax had been hoping for, but maybe he could take advantage of the moment. He grabbed her arm. “Let’s get you out of here.”

  Big mistake. “Don’t touch me!” she exclaimed, yanking her arm away.

  The door flew all the way open, and a Kin boy burst into the room. Jax barely had time to register that this was the first Kin he’d ever seen wearing expensive, trendy clothes and a modern haircut before he threw himself at Jax.

  Jax ducked and twisted away. He’d gotten better at roughhousing while living with Riley and A.J., but they never really hurt him or played dirty, so Jax was unprepared for a blow to the small of his back and an elbow to his temple. By the time he’d shaken off the pain, he was on the ground, he’d lost the papers in his hand, and the Kin boy had him in a half nelson.

  “Kel!” Addie gasped. “What are you doing?”

  “Are you all right?” the Kin boy asked her. “You didn’t believe this kid, did you? He’s obviously a Dulac spy, come to trick you into going back.” Jax struggled, and the boy tightened his grip. “Quick, Addie! Get help!”

  But Addie looked outraged. “You were listening at my door?”

  “Sounds like he’s the spy,” croaked Jax.

  “Whatever he has from the Carroway house,” Kel said, dragging Jax to his feet and toward the door, “he could’ve gotten it anytime since you left there. Sorry, Addie. It doesn’t mean what you want it to mean. Call my dad.”

  “They’ll kill him,” Addie protested.

  “No, they’ll question him,” Kel grunted. “The Dulacs are Dad’s number-one suspect for who might’ve bought the Pendragons’ possessions at auction. This kid might lead us to the Treasures.”

  “And then they’ll kill him,” Addie said.

  “Dad! Bran!” Kel yelled, hauling Jax into the hallway. “We’ve got an intruder!”

  Jax stopped fighting, pretending to give up. When they reached the stairs, he went limp, startling Kel with his dead weight. Then he threw himself down the steps, dragging the other boy with him. They both tumbled onto the landing where the stairs turned the corner. Jax jumped up first and mounted the stairs toward Addie, who whirled to face a huge, brawny Kin dude striding toward them on the second floor. He wore some kind of leather gear, like he’d stepped out of The Lord of the Rings, and he held a wicked-looking knife.

  “Stay away from him!” Addie shouted, and Jax was surprised to realize she was shouting at the Kin guy, not at Jax. Addie threw both hands out, and the carpet burst into blue flames that leaped four feet into the air. Medieval Warrior Dude backed up, shielding his face with his arm.

  But the magic fire and the Kin were now between Jax and Addie and Addie’s bedroom door. Jax grabbed Addie’s hand. “Come with me!” This time she didn’t complain as he pulled her down the stairs. They’d have to run for the housekeeper’s room. It had the closest door to the brownie hole near the trash cans outside—the one they could use to jump home.

  Kel had staggered to his feet by now and met them on the landing. Jax let go of Addie and punched him right in the mouth. It hurt more than he expected, the pain of impact shooting up his forearm. Kel recoiled, and Jax dashed past him and turned the corner of the staircase—

  —only to find his way blocked by an older Kin man dressed in a long cloth tunic and carrying, of all things, a spear. What are these people, rejects from a Renaissance fair?

  Meanwhile Medieval Warrior Dude leaped through the blue flames and ran toward the staircase.

  “Addie, this way!” Jax vaulted over the banister, dropping to the floor six feet below.

  Behind him, Addie cried out, “Griffyn, no! I invoke my right to protect a vassal!”

  As thrilled as Jax was to hear her acknowledge him as a vassal, it obviously didn’t make a bit of difference to Griffyn, because a knife thudded into a white leather sofa a foot away from Jax. “Holy crap!” He glanced back and almost stopped, because Addie hadn’t made it off the stairs. She was straddling the banister, but Kel had his arms wrapped around her.

  “Run!” she screamed at Jax. “They’ll kill you!”

  Jax dodged, and another knife flew past him. He turned and ran, zigzagging the way his talent prompted him: left, right, duck! Downstairs, he spotted two other Kin, an Amazon Girl with more knives and an ordinary-looking man in modern clothes. He saw no sign of the children from the Carroway house.

  Jax veered toward the kitchen, remembering that the housekeeper’s room had been behind it. This really sucks. I messed up big-time. But even now, he was trying to figure out how he could still pull this off. The Kin wouldn’t be able to reach him after he entered the brownie hole. He could wait for them to let their guard down and come back for Addie.

  He reache
d the exterior door of the housekeeper’s supply room and yanked it open just as instinct urged him to dodge right. But the door opened to the right. So Jax flung himself left to get outside and went sprawling. His knees hit the ground. He caught himself with his hands, scrambled to his feet, and kept going. Then the pain hit, radiating from his torso and washing over him in a dizzying wave. Jax reached backward along his own shoulder, touched something that shouldn’t be there, and pulled it out.

  Pain wracked him, even before he saw the knife in his hand. And the blood.

  He got me. The big guy hit me.

  The world spun and darkened. Jax dropped the knife, his fingers numb. He fell against the trash cans, blinking as his vision grew dim. He had to focus . . . on what? The noise and shouting behind him?

  No. The brownie hole.

  Clenching his teeth against the darkness and nausea, Jax searched for a weird sponginess in the air and a puckered opening. When he found it, he pitched forward and dragged himself inside, even though every movement pierced him with pain. Gravity tried to pull him to the ground, urging him to lay his head down and give up. Instead, he crawled forward. Can’t stop here. Get me home. Get me home.

  Confused images of home flickered in his mind. The mountain house. The house where he’d first lived with Riley. His home in Delaware.

  Not home! He didn’t know where home was, and he didn’t want the brownie tunnel dumping him in an empty house. He’d pass out and no one would find him until it was too late.

  Take me to someone who’ll help me. Someone who cares about me. Take me—

  Again there was an extended, stomach-dropping fall. Jax squeezed his eyes closed, certain that this time he was never going to open them again. Then his face struck something rough and fibrous, and curiosity forced his eyes open, so he could at least see where he was going to die.

  He was lying on a carpeted floor, sprawled facedown. He couldn’t lift his head, but he had a floor-side view of an unfamiliar bedroom. Everything swam before him sickeningly.

  “Jax?” said someone from behind him. Then, in greater alarm: “Jax!”

  He knew that voice. Not who I was hoping for, but . . .

  Jax closed his eyes and surrendered to oblivion.

  20

  “I KNEW I HIT him,” Griffyn exclaimed, picking up the knife. “But where’d he go? There’s no blood trail past this point.”

  Addie stared at the blood—on the ground, on the knife—and felt sick.

  Madoc had a tight grip on her arm. “How’d he get away?”

  “Is there a brownie hole?” Kel asked. “The kid said he could travel by brownie holes. That was how the Morder guy found me, to tell me where Addie was being held. It’s some kind of spell the Dulacs discovered.”

  Griffyn started kicking the garbage cans as if the boy might be hiding inside one.

  “I claimed protection for him!” Addie yelled at Griffyn. “You had no right to hurt him!” Or kill him. The boy had gotten away, but did he survive a knife wound to the back? Addie shivered, overcome with worry for a total stranger. She couldn’t even remember what he’d said his name was. Jack, maybe?

  “How could you have a Transitioner as your vassal?” Madoc demanded. “Especially one from the Dulac clan?”

  Addie shook her head, bewildered. She didn’t know how she could’ve acquired a vassal, nor could she pinpoint the exact moment she’d known he was one. She’d wanted to hit him with her defensive spell as soon as she saw him, but she hadn’t been able to. When Kel yelled for Bran, Addie had been afraid for the boy. And when he grabbed her hand on the stairs, she’d known he was trying to lead her to safety. I should have gone with him when he asked me the first time.

  “You didn’t fall for his lies, did you, Addie?” Kel asked.

  She turned on him. “How much of our conversation did you listen to?”

  “All of it,” Kel declared. “And a good thing I did! He was trying to kidnap you.” Then Kel spilled everything he’d heard the boy say. “Addie wasn’t buying it,” he finished. “Not until he showed her something from the Carroway house, and then she let her emotions get the better of her.” He looked at her with sympathy, like he only had her best interests at heart. “Addie, you said yourself that you saw him in the Dulac building and recognized his mark.”

  Addie glared at Kel tearfully. The letter could have been taken from the Carroway house before the fire. But how had the Transitioner known about Dale’s head wound and the baby? She desperately wanted him to have been telling the truth.

  “He shouldn’t have been able to enter the house,” Madoc insisted. “My wards repel both magical invasion and physical intruders! No one can enter who hasn’t been invited.”

  “The boy must be Adelina’s vassal,” Bran said. “If he was bonded to her, the wards wouldn’t have recognized him as an intruder. Invitation was magically implied.”

  “How could he become her vassal without her knowing about it?” Kel demanded.

  “By swearing himself to the head of her family,” Bran said. Then he looked at Madoc. “Which means she’s not the only Emrys left.”

  Addie felt a flutter of emotion. Was Evangeline really alive?

  Madoc shook her again. “What do you know about the brownie holes?”

  “Nothing!” He didn’t need to be so rough. It was the truth. She knew nothing about them. But now that she’d seen the boy put his arm into one—seen its opalescent ripple in reality—she was able to spot the one hanging in midair behind the trash cans. Can I actually get into it?

  “There’s a brownie hole in her bedroom,” Kel said. “The boy stuck his arm into it, and Addie said she couldn’t see his arm anymore. For all we know, there could be an army of Dulacs with him. In fact, that kid might still be here, and we just can’t see him.”

  That was a horrible thought. Addie looked at the blood on the ground, imagining an invisible boy lying there, hurt, maybe dying.

  “If there was an army of Dulacs with secret access to this island, we would already be overrun,” Bran said. “And the Dulacs would not have sent a mere boy to lead their attack.”

  “Nevertheless, the security of the island is compromised.” Madoc cursed soundly. “I like this house.”

  “They know where we are!” Ysabel called from the doorway.

  “Yes, we realize that,” Madoc said, dragging Addie away from the brownie hole and back into the house. “We’ll move immediately.”

  “But now we know where they are, too.” Ysabel was holding up a handful of papers. “The boy dropped these in Addie’s room. They show where he came from.”

  Madoc passed Addie off to Griffyn. No one was going to let go of her, she realized, for fear she’d disappear just like the Transitioner. Madoc took the papers from Ysabel and leafed through them. Addie glimpsed maps of the northeastern United States. One of them had locations circled in red and a straight line drawn between the coast of Maine and someplace in the middle of either New York or Pennsylvania. Addie couldn’t tell which without a closer look. Madoc frowned at Addie. “Can a brownie hole extend this great a distance?”

  “I told you, I don’t know anything about them,” she said angrily. “Ask Kel. He heard what I said.”

  Bran took the maps from Madoc’s hand, examining them thoughtfully even though the geography of America was unfamiliar to him. “I don’t think the Dulacs are involved,” he said finally. “Or any other powerful clan. This was a clumsy attempt to reach Adelina by someone with few resources—most likely the older sister. We only ever had the half-breed’s word she was dead, and he was a proven traitor.”

  Addie trembled from head to toe. The older sister. Addie had buried Evangeline already in her mind. But she was alive. I am not the last.

  “Adelina is valuable as a key to the Eighth Day Spell,” Madoc pointed out. “Any number of people might want to take her from us.”

  “But who else would send an underage boy to do the job?” Bran replied. “A boy Adelina was compelled to protect? I
f he’s a vassal to her sister, this is where she’s located.” He stabbed the end of the red line on the map with his finger. “Furthermore, she’s repeatedly tried to observe Adelina through scrying, and given the failure of this abduction attempt, may do so again.”

  “We’d better leave the island at once,” Madoc said. “Everyone should collect any personal items they want; we won’t be returning.” He looked pained.

  “Very well,” said Bran. “But we’re also going to prepare for another scrying attempt.” He waved the handful of maps. “This gives us exactly the information we need.”

  Addie’s heart sank. Her position as ally and pupil had been precarious at best. But with her older sister resurrected from the grave, Addie had the feeling that she’d just been demoted to hostage.

  It happened on the plane after they’d left the island—a prickling sensation that raised the hairs on the back of her neck and on her arms. Most people would never notice the touch of scrying, but Addie and her siblings had been trained by their father at a young age to be on guard against spies.

  She’d hoped there would be no more attempts. There hadn’t been any since the day before yesterday when Bran had sent his electrical bolt through the spell connection and the boy said they’d been zapped. Maybe Evangeline, if that was who it really was, had been too cautious to try again. But Bran was right. After her vassal failed to rescue Addie and was wounded—please not killed!—Evangeline probably couldn’t resist. Addie was going to have to block the spell the same way she’d done before, this time for her sister’s protection instead of her own.

  The trick was to do it without giving herself away. They hadn’t tied Addie to the chair, but she was under close observation. She didn’t shut her eyes or give any outward sign of concentrating, but turned her head to gaze out the plane window at the clouds. A sea of clouds, she thought. I am completely surrounded by impenetrable clouds.