The Morrigan's Curse

by Dianne K. Salerni

  Then she vanished right out of his hands.

  Riley and A.J. caught up with him, grabbed him, and turned him around and around between them.

  “Is he okay?”

  “Jax, can you hear me?”

  “Did she say his name? Holy crap, she said his name! That can’t be good!”

  Jax shook them off. “Of course, she said my name. She knows me! Didn’t you recognize her?” When he saw their dumbfounded faces, he remembered. They never met her.

  “That was my cousin!” he said. “Dorian’s sister. That was Lesley Ambrose.”

  24

  THEY TRIED TO LEAVE the Sword behind. Riley opened the safe and ordered Jax to put it inside. Jax did so, compelled by the voice of command, but when Riley started to close the safe door, Jax rammed him out of the way with his shoulder to grab the weapon back. He didn’t mean to; he hardly realized he was doing it until he saw the Sword in his hands again. And he was completely oblivious to the warm wetness running down his back until A.J. pointed out that he’d popped a couple stitches sometime in the exertion of the last several minutes.

  It seemed that Jax was able to put the Sword down, as long as he didn’t leave its vicinity. But he couldn’t hand it to either Riley or A.J., and, as Riley had proved quite painfully, no one could take it away from him.

  There didn’t seem to be any choice but to take the Sword with them, which they’d planned to do in the first place—just not under these circumstances. Riley held Jax by the arm as they walked back to the truck. “Do you understand what you did? By drawing that Sword, you’ve invoked it, and it’s claimed you. No one can take it from you until you’ve killed the person you identified as your enemy.”

  “He’s also protected,” A.J. said. “No one can harm him until the Sword is satisfied. So, if we keep him away from this Griffyn guy, Jax is safe. Which, the way things have been going lately, is maybe a good thing. The kid’s a walking menace.”

  “He’s cursed,” Riley said. “Thirteen years old, and he’s cursed to kill someone. That’s not a good thing, A.J. This is my fault. I shouldn’t have let myself be distracted . . .” He glared at the box of family photographs A.J. was carrying. “I told you to leave those in the shed.”

  “Not a chance. I’m not letting you leave your family behind anymore.” A.J. put the box into the backseat of his truck despite Riley’s protest and removed a first-aid kit from the glove compartment.

  “It’s not your fault, Riley. The Morrigan did this,” Jax said, pulling up his shirt so A.J. could replace the bandage on his back. “She’s been around this whole time, pushing us this way and that. She almost got you drowned when she made me stop the car in that storm, and now she’s managed to bind me to a Kin sword.” Jax scowled. “How did she end up with my cousin? When Evangeline said the Morrigan takes the body of a girl, I didn’t think she meant it literally!”

  “I didn’t either,” Riley said. “I didn’t even believe in the Morrigan until just now.”

  Jax was kicking himself for not recognizing her earlier. Deidre’s men had seen the Girl of Crows in the ruins in Mexico and had described her as wearing a short white dress. That description had stuck in Jax’s mind. But it wasn’t a dress—it was the long T-shirt Lesley slept in. Jax had seen his cousin wearing that shirt. He’d almost made the connection when he saw Evangeline wearing one of Riley’s oversized T-shirts to sleep in.

  Dorian had told Jax that Lesley was prone to sleepwalking. It’d started when her father had forced her into the brownie tunnels in the hope that their magic would awaken a talent in his “dud” of a daughter. Instead, Lesley had started screaming and walking in her sleep, and this most often happened on Wednesday-into-Thursday nights.

  Nights when she was supposedly skipping over the eighth day like any other Normal.

  The sighting of the Morrigan at the pyramid had been on a Grunsday, and so had been Jax’s glimpse of her in Central Park and during the hurricane. She’d been seen at the fall of Oeth-Anoeth on a Grunsday, too.

  But today was Thursday.

  “I’m calling Dorian,” Jax said, taking out his phone and thumbing through his contacts without waiting for permission.

  “Wait, do you think it’s smart to call the Ambroses?” A.J. protested. “Riley?”

  “He has to,” Riley said. “We owe Dorian for getting Evangeline safely out of the Dulac building, remember? And besides, this girl is Jax’s cousin. She’s only what—fifteen?”

  “Fourteen.” Jax hit the dial button.

  The call was picked up almost immediately. “Jax?” came Dorian’s anxious voice.

  “Where’s Lesley?” Jax demanded.

  There was a second of silence before Dorian answered. “How’d you know she was gone?”

  Things went downhill fast from there. Uncle Finn grabbed the phone from Dorian and accused Jax of encouraging Lesley to run away. Riley took the phone from Jax and started yelling back. “I’m not keeping your daughter from you! If there was some plan to send her to me, I didn’t know anything about it.” Jax cringed hearing that, because he and Dorian had discussed the possibility of Lesley seeking sanctuary with Riley if Uncle Finn continued his experiments. “I’ve seen your daughter, though,” Riley said into the phone, “or at least Jax says it was her.”

  Uncle Finn didn’t believe what Riley told him. “It’s true,” Jax insisted, when Riley handed the phone back. “I’ve seen her three times now, but the first two she was too far away for me to recognize her. Why do you think she’s been having nightmares on the night when the eighth day happens? It’s because she’s living parts of it!”

  “Jax,” his uncle roared at him. “I don’t know what your purpose is in spinning this outlandish lie, but if you and Pendragon know where my daughter is—”

  “Where was Lesley on the night Wylit tried to end the world?” Jax shouted back. “Where was she the night the Llyrs broke out of prison? Huh? Were those the nights she had her nightmares? Holy crap, Uncle Finn, I just got away from you people! After what you and Sloane did to me, do you think I’d call you for anything less than an emergency?”

  Uncle Finn faltered, sputtering, and then apparently lost control over the phone.

  “Jax, this is Aunt Marian. Did you really see Lesley?”

  Jax wouldn’t have recognized his aunt’s voice. She’d been crying. “Yes, I swear.”

  “What makes you think the Morrigan is manifesting through my daughter? Lesley wouldn’t hurt a fly!”

  “I know that, but I saw her! Her eyes were all glassy, like she’s sleepwalking. There are crows with her; she disappeared into thin air—and Aunt Marian, she woke up for just a second and asked me to help her!”

  “What do we do?” His aunt’s voice wavered and cracked.

  Jax didn’t like Aunt Marian, but he felt horrible for her. He had no idea what she was supposed to do. He looked at Riley helplessly.

  Riley wiped a hand across his face. “Ask them if they’ll accept Bedivere’s house as a neutral setting and meet us there tonight,” he instructed Jax. “Because right now, I don’t think we can afford to be enemies. We all have too much at stake.”

  25

  “WHAT’S SHE DOING HERE?” Riley exclaimed at the sight of Sloane Dulac in Bedivere’s house. Immediately, A.J. and Mr. Crandall took defensive positions around their liege lord. Jax might have thought that was an overreaction if he hadn’t experienced for himself the power of his cousin’s talent.

  Sloane scowled. “Lesley’s my cousin and a member of my clan.”

  “She’s right,” Bedivere said. “You called on me as a neutral party, and I say the Dulac leader has a place in this discussion.” They were once again in his banquet room, at the table that sometimes served as the Table. Uncle Finn, Aunt Marian, and Dorian were all there. With his relatives out in full force, Jax might’ve overlooked the person slouched in a chair at the opposite end of the long table if it hadn’t been for her orange hair. What’s she doing here? Jax wondered, not with the hos
tility Riley felt for Sloane—just with the awkwardness he now felt in Tegan’s company. Then he saw Mrs. Crandall and realized the two of them must have ended up here after completing their own assignment this morning.

  “Jax! What happened to you?” Aunt Marian came at him like a guided missile. Before Jax could hide behind Mr. Crandall, she had her hands on him. “It’s a knife wound,” she told her husband.

  “A knife wound?” Uncle Finn shot Riley an accusing glare. Dorian’s jaw dropped.

  “Is that a Kin sword he’s holding?” Bedivere also looked at Riley. “The Kin Sword?”

  “He drew it,” Riley told Bedivere grimly.

  “I was tricked into drawing it.” Jax pulled out of Aunt Marian’s hands and tossed the Sword onto the table. “Now it thinks it belongs to me until I kill some big Kin dude.”

  “What?” Uncle Finn marched over and tried to grab the Sword, but recoiled with a gasp the moment he touched it. He turned on Riley. “You let my nephew get stabbed with a knife and bind himself to a Kin artifact? To kill someone?” His hand clenched into a fist.

  “The stabbing wasn’t Riley’s fault,” Jax said quickly. “And he tried to pry the Sword out of my hand—”

  “You let your daughter be taken by the Morrigan,” Riley challenged Uncle Finn. “Torturing her in the brownie tunnels must’ve primed her somehow, or drew the Morrigan’s attention. The stories say she likes suffering and fear.”

  Uncle Finn spoke through his teeth. “Pendragon, I should—” Mr. Crandall moved forward to protect his liege, and Bedivere raised his hand of power to restrain Jax’s uncle.

  “Finn, stop it!” exclaimed Aunt Marian. “He’s right. You’re the one to blame!”

  Jax took a closer look at his aunt. Her eyes were red and puffy. Her hair wasn’t combed into its usual talk-show-host perfection. Most surprising of all, she was staring daggers at her husband. “You did this to Lesley,” she hissed. “I asked you to leave her alone. I begged you.”

  Uncle Finn opened his mouth in shock, but nothing came out.

  “We’re here to talk with Pendragon,” Aunt Marian said, “not fight him. But first I have to take care of Jax.” She turned to her nephew and said in a tearful, broken voice, “Stand still.”

  Jax didn’t move. He didn’t want to see her cry. Aunt Marian placed a hand on his back, and the persistent throbbing of Jax’s injury faded. The pulling sensation from the stitches vanished, and he stood up straighter with a deep breath. “This doesn’t completely heal it,” his aunt said. “Don’t exert yourself too much.”

  “Yes ma’am,” Jax said. “Thank you.”

  She looked up at Riley. “Now you.”

  “I’m fine,” Riley replied gruffly.

  “Pain is like fingernails on a blackboard to a healer. Give me your hand, Pendragon.”

  Riley glowered, but he unclenched the hand he’d used to grab the Sword that afternoon. Jax hadn’t realized how blistered it was. Aunt Marian laid her palm over Riley’s, and when she let go, the swollen blisters had deflated into loose, dead skin. Riley mumbled a grudging thanks, and she tersely replied, “Don’t pick at it,” without meeting his eyes.

  Bedivere cleared his throat. “Now that everyone’s decided to be civil, shall we sit down?”

  They did so, the Pendragon clan and Jax sticking to one side of the table and the Dulacs to the other. While they settled themselves, Tegan leaned forward to peer at the Sword. “What’s the deal with that thing?” she asked.

  Jax couldn’t help himself. “Famous treasure and you don’t know about it?”

  “My dad didn’t tell us Kin fairy tales when we were little,” Tegan snapped. “I know there are four of them, but not the story that goes with ’em.”

  Bedivere said, “There are only three now. It is believed the Arawens destroyed the Cauldron of Dagda rather than let it fall into King Arthur’s hands. It was supposed to feed an army, no matter how large, to their satisfaction. This one, the Sword of Nuadu, protects the life of its owner until the death of the enemy named when it is drawn from its sheath.”

  “What if the owner doesn’t draw it or name an enemy?” Jax asked.

  “Then the Sword wouldn’t really belong to him.” Bedivere glanced at Riley. “Which is how it passed out of Pendragon hands without being used.”

  “Then there’s the Stone of Fal,” Dorian piped up. “It protects the owner’s property from invaders, and the household will always prosper while it’s there.”

  Sloane looked pointedly around the banquet room. “Guess who’s got that one.”

  “It was agreed by the Table that I should take charge of it,” Bedivere said stiffly. “Just as the Pendragons were entrusted with the Sword.” He turned back to Tegan. “The final item is the Spear of Lugh. It also confers protection on the owner, who cannot be defeated or swayed from his purpose while he holds it. Like the Sword of Nuadu, it recognizes only one owner at a time.”

  “Crap,” said Jax. “I think the Llyrs have that one. I saw an old Kin guy with a spear.”

  “When did you see the Llyrs?” Uncle Finn asked. “Is that how you got hurt?”

  “Where was Lesley?” Aunt Marian begged him.

  Jax held up his hand. “Wait. Let me tell it in order.” He started to explain his plan to contact Addie via brownie tunnels but was interrupted by Uncle Finn almost at once.

  “How did you know you could jump locations using brownie magic?”

  “Uhhh . . .” Jax tried not to look at Dorian.

  His cousin raised a hand voluntarily. “That would be me. I told him how to do it.”

  “How would you know?” Uncle Finn turned on his son.

  “I’ve been experimenting.”

  “Since when?” demanded his mother.

  “Since I first found the tunnels,” Dorian declared in a tone of defiance Jax had never heard him use before. “About six weeks before Dad told me about them.”

  While Uncle Finn stared at Dorian in disbelief, Bedivere addressed Sloane. “You told the Table your clan had ended its experimentation with brownie holes.”

  “This was unauthorized. You heard him.” Nevertheless, Sloane looked at Dorian with a combination of speculation and pride.

  “Where does Lesley come into this?” Aunt Marian asked impatiently.

  Jax continued his story, including how he got hurt, and eventually how he came to draw the Sword. When he told them about Lesley begging for help, Aunt Marian put both hands over her mouth and Uncle Finn paled. Dorian looked like he might cry, but he was the one who asked, “How can we save her?”

  Bedivere sighed. “After Riley called me and apprised me of the situation, I did some research. Legends about the Morrigan are often contradictory, but most agree that she takes Normals as hosts for her three incarnations—one girl, one middle-aged woman, and one elderly woman. I’m sorry to say, there are no stories of her hosts returning to their former lives.”

  “Lesley spoke to Jax as herself,” Riley said. “I saw that. For just a couple seconds, she woke up—or snapped out of her trance—or whatever. She’s not gone.”

  “Not yet,” Bedivere said. “But the Morrigan has been borrowing Lesley Ambrose for months to influence events. Until this week, the girl was returned home after each appearance. Now, it seems the Morrigan has taken her and kept her. Why?”

  “I’m more interested in why she took Lesley Ambrose in the first place—out of all the Normal girls in the world,” said Mrs. Crandall. “What Riley said is possible: the Morrigan might’ve been attracted by the girl’s distress, especially if she was suffering in a magical environment.” Here, almost every person in the room shot an accusing look at Uncle Finn, who stared at the table. “Even so,” Mrs. Crandall continued, “it’s an astounding coincidence.”

  “I thought the Morrigan was all about coincidences,” Jax said.

  “Warfare is her primary goal,” Mr. Crandall replied. “And that’s coming.”

  “With both Emrys heirs helping the Llyrs,” Sloane sa
id, “we can expect another attempt on the Eighth Day Spell. The Morrigan is probably behind that, too.”

  “Evangeline is not helping them,” Jax protested. “She’s trying to rescue her sister. If your clan hadn’t kept Addie locked in a cell, neither of them would be with the Llyrs. So, it’s your fault, Sloane—or at least your grandmother’s. Here’s your chance to make up for it. Do you still want to blow them up if we find out where they’re hiding? I know you don’t care about Addie or Evangeline, but what about Lesley?”

  “Sloane,” Aunt Marian said urgently. “What if Lesley is with the Llyrs? What if they have her? You can’t authorize a preemptive strike now!”

  Sloane stared back at her clanswoman and licked her lips in an uncharacteristic gesture of uncertainty. When she didn’t answer immediately, Aunt Marian planted both hands on the table and leaned forward. “You held Lesley on the day she was born. You came to the hospital with your father and asked to hold her. You were four years old. Do you remember?”

  “I remember.” Sloane sat very still. Her expression was the same one Jax had seen on Riley’s face a few days ago, when he was weighing the lives of billions against the safety of one. Finally, Sloane blinked and scanned the table. “Dulac and Bors are changing their vote,” she announced, speaking for her uncle and vassal Oliver Bors as if it wasn’t necessary to consult him. She removed a phone from her purse and apparently sent a group text—if the notifications Jax heard on his own phone and several others in the room were any indication.

  Bedivere nodded approval. “The idea of a sneak attack that could result in genocide never sat well with me. Of course, I don’t know if we’re any nearer to finding the Llyrs. The Donovan family is working with us now, checking properties owned by that Kin company. But there were quite a lot of them.”

  “And I think they’re on to us,” Tegan spoke up. “Some of the places I was taken to had Kin living there recently, including the kids from the Carroway house. I recognized their scent. But every place I saw had been abandoned, probably just this last eighth day. Because Jax tipped our hand. They know we’ve discovered their hiding places.”