The Morrigan's Curse

by Dianne K. Salerni

  Unfortunately, she wasn’t subtle enough to fool Ysabel, who was seated beside her and watching her like a hawk. “She’s casting a spell,” Ysabel declared. “A blocking spell, I think. Someone’s scrying for her now.”

  A hand grabbed Addie’s ponytail and yanked her head back painfully. Griffyn, of course. Leaning over her seat, he placed one of his knives against her throat, the way he’d done before. Her concentration broken, she glared at him balefully. We both know you won’t do it.

  He grinned at her, as if guessing her thoughts. “Father said no lasting damage. But that leaves me a number of options.”

  Ysabel held up a series of signs, one at a time, for the person on the other end of the scrying spell to see—white sheets of paper with simple directions written in thick black marker.

  What they wanted Evangeline to do.

  What they would do to Addie if Evangeline did not follow their instructions precisely.

  Bran crossed the plane to stand over them with his Spear. He motioned Griffyn away and addressed Addie. “You understand, we must show her that we mean what we say.”

  He said it like he regretted what was to come, but Addie didn’t believe him. He enjoyed this. “I really didn’t expect anything else,” she told him bitterly.

  For pride’s sake—and for the sake of the sister who was watching—she tried to be tough. She really did. But when Bran lowered the Spear, it only took about five seconds for her to start screaming.

  21

  THERE WAS A WEIGHT on his chest, and at every breath pain lanced through his body. Eventually Jax was driven to force his eyelids open and investigate.

  A pair of black, glittery eyes in a smushed-up face peered back at him anxiously.

  “Now you turn up,” Jax whispered.

  Stink tilted his head and rotated his ears.

  “Get off him,” growled a voice from nearby. A hand swiped at Stink, and the brownie leaped from Jax’s chest to the headboard of the bed. Immediately, the weight hindering his breathing disappeared, although the pain didn’t lessen much. A man with carrot-colored hair leaned into Jax’s field of vision. This man’s face usually wore a relaxed and rather stupid smile, so it was strange to see Michael Donovan looking angry.

  “Awake, are you?” Donovan crossed his arms. “Usually, when an associate appears on my doorstep with a knife wound, I patch him up and no questions asked. But usually, said associate turns up on the doorstep. He doesn’t fall out of thin air in front of my daughter. So, you wanna tell me how you landed at Tegan’s feet in this condition?”

  Jax licked his dry lips and tried to process the question. On one hand, it was a relief to have Donovan mad at him, because it suggested he wasn’t dying. On the other hand, it was mind-boggling for Donovan—thief, con man, and all-around nuisance—to act like a protective father. Did I really show up at Tegan’s feet? How embarrassing.

  “I didn’t mean to,” he croaked. A flurry of activity in the doorway caught Jax’s attention: a flash of orange hair, a grunt, and the sound of wrestling. There was an eavesdropper to this conversation. Two eavesdroppers, Jax bet. “I was traveling by brownie magic and got dumped off with someone who would help me. I didn’t, uh, specify Tegan. I’m just grateful that”—he tried to swallow, but his mouth was like a desert—“that your family was willing to—” Jax couldn’t stand it anymore. “How hurt am I?”

  Donovan reached for a plastic water bottle, the kind with a straw, and maneuvered it into Jax’s reach. “Drink,” he said gruffly. “I had a healer come. Not the most talented guy in the world, but he does his best, and I helped stitch you up. You were lucky the knife missed all the important stuff.” Donovan shook his head. “You lost a lot of blood, though.”

  Jax sucked on the straw while Donovan held it for him, pausing only to ask, “Did you call Riley?”

  “Call him? It’s the eighth day, Jax. We can’t call him.”

  It was the same day, then. Good. Jax tried to raise himself on one elbow, and intense pain sliced through his torso. He gasped. Donovan put the water bottle aside. “Easy there. You’re healing, best as my associate could do, but you need to rest. Except first, you’re going to tell me what happened.”

  Jax told him the story as concisely as possible: how he’d used the brownie tunnels to reach Evangeline’s sister and how Stink’s desertion had left him unable to use the tunnel magic effectively. Stink ran up and down the headboard, chittering loudly like he was making excuses. “I thought the tunnels would take me to Riley,” Jax finished. “But I was too close to passing out to focus much.”

  “You could use some tips on housebreaking. You made a lot of mistakes.”

  Mindful of the fact that this man had probably saved his life, Jax didn’t mention that he had no interest in housebreaking normally.

  “Sleep,” Donovan ordered him. “The healing magic will keep workin’ on you, but it takes time.” There was another commotion in the doorway, and Donovan frowned. “Hold on . . .” He left the room, and Jax heard a whispered conversation in the hallway. “Okay, but just for a minute,” Donovan said finally.

  Tegan slipped into the room, then hesitated and hung back near the door. Her twin brother Thomas popped in behind her, grinning from ear to ear. “Hey, Jax!” he said cheerfully. “That was awesome. You should’ve seen—” Donovan grabbed his son by the collar and hauled him out of the room, leaving only Tegan.

  Jax wasn’t surprised Thomas thought getting knifed was cool, but he was startled to see Tegan with her eyes and nose all red, like she’d been crying. Jax felt even more embarrassed—and a little sick to his stomach. He must’ve been in really bad shape to scare her enough to make her cry. Tegan didn’t scare easily, and Jax had never seen her cry. Not even when that crazy Kin lord Wylit had threatened to use her as a human sacrifice.

  “You need anything?” she asked from across the room.

  He could use another drink of water, but he didn’t want her giving it to him through the straw like he was a baby. “Move the water bottle closer?” he asked instead.

  She peeled herself away from the wall and pushed a small table closer to the bed, making sure the water was close enough for him to reach without stretching. “Thanks,” he began. “I—”

  “You were stupid,” she interrupted him angrily. “That was a really stupid thing you did. If you’d asked me—”

  “You said you didn’t want to be involved,” Jax reminded her. “You hung up on me.” Tegan scowled, but didn’t argue. “I had to try,” Jax went on. “It was our best shot of getting Addie away from them.”

  “Yes, it was,” Tegan said. “But you did it stupidly. First of all, if you’d told Riley, he could’ve ordered your brownie to stay with you the whole time. If you’d brought Evangeline with you, she could’ve waited safely in the tunnel, completely untouchable by the Llyrs while your brownie found Addie. Then, all it would’ve taken was Evangeline sticking her head out and saying, ‘Come here,’ and Addie would’ve gone with her sister without argument. Riley could’ve had his allies, the Morgans, ready to assault that island the instant you had the girl safely away. And this would all be over.”

  Jax didn’t know what to say. She was right.

  Tegan threw up her hands and started pacing the room. “I didn’t want to be involved,” she muttered. “It’s not our kind of thing. But you’re going to get yourself killed. You’re making me rethink this . . .”

  Jax watched her pace and argue with herself. He heard her say I and me, and something dawned on him that should have occurred to him long ago. He’d been told that talents always ran stronger in one gender than the other and that clans were run by the oldest member of the more talented gender. His cousin Sloane outranked her father because the Dulac talent was female dominated, just like female sensitives were stronger than males. “You’re in charge of your family,” he said, breaking into Tegan’s tirade. “You’re the Donovan clan leader.”

  Tegan shot a look at Jax as she continued to pace. “I let Dad
think he’s in charge most of the time, ’cause it keeps him happy. But yeah, when it’s an important decision, I make it.” She whirled around, hands on her hips, and glared accusingly at Jax. “We’re not the kind of people who save the world!”

  “But you already did, once,” Jax said quietly. Tegan had done her part on the pyramid to help defeat Wylit and repair the Eighth Day Spell.

  “In case you haven’t noticed, my father and brother aren’t the sharpest tools in the shed,” Tegan snapped. “And now I’m going to have to risk their lives because you and Riley can’t manage to rescue one stupid girl or save the world without help. Thanks a lot, Jax.” She stalked out of the room and, just before she closed the door, she stuck her head back in to say, “Jerk.”

  Same to you. That was his usual response, but Jax couldn’t muster the sarcasm to say it. Because something else had finally dawned on him, and it was kind of a shock. Tegan was doing this for him. Just like she’d gone to New York to help rescue Billy—for Jax’s sake, not Billy’s.

  And that was awkward, because Jax didn’t like Tegan very much. Well, he admired certain qualities in her. She was smart and brave; he trusted her at his back in a pinch; she always had a plan—and Jax would pound into dust anyone who tried to hurt her. But he didn’t like her.

  Right?

  He wasn’t aware of falling back asleep, only of Michael Donovan waking him. “Sorry, Jax. But we’re driving you out to Riley instead of making him come here to get you. For some reason.” The last was said with a pointed glance over his shoulder and an irritated tone, so Jax guessed Tegan was issuing orders and her dad didn’t like them.

  Donovan was surprisingly gentle helping him out of bed and into one of Thomas’s shirts. Jax didn’t feel quite so weak or dizzy, and the pain had lessened. He was healing quicker than naturally possible, thanks to Donovan’s “associate,” but it would still take time to recover. Billy’s arm, after what had been a very bad fracture, had taken a week to heal completely even with Jax’s Aunt Marian’s magical assistance.

  Stink scampered at Jax’s feet instead of riding on his shoulder as they followed Donovan out of the bedroom. “Are we in your house in Pennsylvania?” Jax asked. Then he got a glimpse out a window and, spotting a familiar city skyline, realized they couldn’t be.

  “We borrowed an apartment outside New York City for the time being,” Donovan said.

  “Borrowed, as in . . .” Jax wasn’t sure how to finish his sentence. The Donovans had a strange concept of borrowing. This might be someplace they’d broken into, for all he knew.

  “As in borrowed,” Tegan said sourly. “The owner knows we’re here.” She was standing in the middle of a cramped living room, surrounded by over a dozen tanks of propane, stacked cases of bottled water, batteries, and canned goods.

  “You guys preparing for the apocalypse?” Jax asked.

  Thomas grinned proudly. “Just a little side business. After the Impossible Hurricane, we were getting fifty dollars for a carton of bottled water!”

  Jax looked at Tegan, but she stared at the floor and wouldn’t meet his eyes. It was the first time he could ever recall her looking ashamed of her family. “C’mon,” she said. “It’s going to take a couple hours to get there, even with no traffic.”

  Riley and Evangeline must be worried sick by now, Jax thought, checking his Grunsday watch. It was ten thirty at night, and they weren’t going to make it back before Evangeline disappeared. But he could hardly complain about the Donovans taking too long at fetching a healer, stitching up his wound, and giving him time to rest before driving him home. He thanked them again and made a point of not wondering whether the car they put him in was stolen or not.

  They did not, in fact, make it to the cabin before the end of Grunsday. Stink, who’d been dozing on Jax’s lap, shook himself awake just before midnight and leaped through a brownie hole. Donovan pulled the car over as soon as the transition occurred and got out of the vehicle to call Riley. He stood outside of their hearing, although Thomas rolled down the window trying to eavesdrop. After a few minutes, Donovan got back in the car and handed the phone to Jax. “He wants to talk to you.”

  Jax glanced at the twins, wishing they weren’t going to overhear him getting yelled at. “Hey, it’s me,” he said.

  “Jax.” There was a long, long moment of silence, and then Riley asked, “Why didn’t you tell me what you were going to do?”

  “I didn’t know if it would work,” Jax said. “And I was afraid you’d order me not to try it. The flaws in my plan have already been pointed out to me.” He looked at Tegan. “But go ahead and yell if you’re going to. Don’t make me wait for it.”

  “I’m not going to yell.” Riley sounded very subdued.

  Jax glanced at Donovan, wondering what he’d told Riley and why he’d left the car to do it. I had a closer call than Donovan let on, Jax thought. That’s why he’s not acting like himself and why Riley’s not cursing and yelling and calling me an idiot. That’s why Tegan was crying. I scared them all. “I’m sorry,” he said.

  Riley sighed. “Based on what Donovan told me, I think I already know the answer to this question, but I gotta ask—you don’t know where Evangeline is, do you?”

  Jax sat up in alarm. “Ow—what do you mean? Isn’t she with you?”

  “No,” said Riley. “She took the Land Rover late this afternoon without telling anyone, drove off, and didn’t come back.”

  22

  WHEN DONOVAN PULLED UP at the cabin, Riley met them outside. Jax got out of the car gingerly, expecting the usual Jax, you idiot greeting. Instead, Riley walked up without saying anything, put an arm around him, and pulled him close for the nearest thing to a hug he could give Jax without hurting him.

  “Thank you,” Riley said to Donovan.

  “You would’ve done the same for one of mine,” Donovan replied.

  “Come into the house—please,” Riley said, walking Jax to the door with a hand on his elbow as if he was afraid Jax might fall over. For a second it seemed like Donovan was going to decline the invitation, but Tegan got out of the car and followed Riley. Her father sighed.

  Inside, Mrs. Crandall took charge of Jax, helping him into the living room, planting him in a chair with a pillow supporting his back, and shoving a bowl of soup into his hands. Jax felt lucky she didn’t try to spoon it into his mouth. Mr. Crandall rumpled his hair fondly with a mumbled comment about them being happy to get him back in one piece.

  A.J. snorted and said, “Only an idiot with dumb luck like Jax could’ve survived it.”

  Jax grinned gratefully at A.J. for telling the truth. All this niceness was freaking him out.

  “You should go to bed and rest,” Mrs. Crandall urged him.

  “Not until you tell me what happened to Evangeline,” he said around a mouthful of soup.

  “I thought for a while that she took off because she was mad at me,” said Riley, “but I don’t believe she’d leave you, Jax.”

  “Mad at you?” Jax repeated. “I told you to take her on a date, not make her mad!”

  “Well, it didn’t work out like that!” Riley retorted. “I thought she was driving around until she cooled off, except she never came back. You weren’t here either, and until we heard from Donovan, we thought the two of you must be together. I was sure you’d call me after midnight and tell me where you were, but then . . .” He waved his hand helplessly toward the Donovans. The phone call he’d gotten was not what he’d been expecting.

  Jax frowned. Could Evangeline have gone looking for him? No. Before jumping to the conclusion that he was missing, she would’ve asked the Crandalls if they knew where he was. What would Evangeline have done after her meeting with Bedivere?

  Oh . . . no.

  “She scried for Addie,” Jax said. “Something she saw must’ve made her take off.”

  Riley shook his head. “She couldn’t have. There’s no saffron in the house.”

  “She had saffron,” Jax said. “She made me get it and
not tell you.”

  While Riley looked hurt, A.J. looked skeptical. “If Evangeline saw Addie—heck, even if she saw what happened to Jax—why did she leave without telling us? Is she planning to drive to Maine? Alone?”

  Jax gasped. “How do you know where—”

  A.J. held up his phone. “Billy. You may have blocked his number on Riley’s phone, but he has my number, too. Called me right after midnight. What were you thinking, Jax? We needed that information!”

  “I was afraid of what you’d do with it!”

  “Deidre’s on her way to that island now with a team,” Mrs. Crandall said.

  “See!” Jax jumped out of his chair, spilling soup, and reawakening pain all over his back. “Ow! You can’t send Deidre! She’ll blow the place up!”

  “She won’t,” Riley assured him. “There’s no urgency on a Thursday. She’ll survey the place, but Jax—after you found them and escaped, I doubt they’re still there.”

  “Ten’ll get you twenty they’ve flown the coop,” said Donovan.

  “Blondie might not know that, depending on whether she did her witchy scrying thing before or after they hurt Jax,” Tegan pointed out. “It’d be helpful if we could figure out what direction she’s heading.” She turned to her father. “Take Tommy to track her car.”

  “Dad, are you really gonna let her—” Thomas asked his father at the same time Donovan muttered, “Tegan, girl—”

  “We talked about this,” she interrupted them. “I made up my mind.”

  Donovan and his son looked at each other, then headed for the door, both of them grumbling. No one but Jax seemed surprised by how quickly they obeyed. Riley gave a relieved sigh as soon as they were out of the house. He pulled Excalibur from its sheath and laid it on the closest table. The Crandalls pulled their blades out and did the same. Jax hesitated, not wanting to intimidate Tegan with the formality of a meeting with blades on the table.

  But she seemed perfectly at ease. “I don’t carry an honor blade. And not because the Donovans have no honor, which is what some people might think.” Tegan shot a challenging look in Jax’s direction.