The Calling s-7

by Cate Tiernan

  “Perhaps because we’re in New York,” he said. “Or perhaps…” He trailed off, looking still more troubled. Then he reached out and took my hand. “There’s something I’ve got to tell you. Something I learned today. It will bring up painful thoughts for you.”

  Icy fingers of dread walked up my spine as I sensed the weight of whatever news Hunter was carrying. I gave him a weak smile. “Go for it.”

  “The name of this wolf-masked leader is Ciaran,” he said.

  “Ciaran?” I felt sick. “It—it can’t be the same Ciaran. I mean, surely there’s more than one Ciaran in the world.”

  “I’m sure there is,” Hunter agreed. “But this Ciaran is a powerful Woodbane witch in his early forties who comes from northern Scotland. I’m sorry, Morgan, but there really isn’t any doubt. He’s the one who killed Maeve and Angus.”

  I realized I’d never had any idea of what happened to Ciaran after he set the fire that killed my parents. “I guess I assumed he was back in Scotland,” I said lamely. “But he’s here in New York City?”

  Hunter nodded, his eyes on my face. I sat there, trying to process this new information. Ciaran—alive. Here. Within my reach.

  Within my reach? What the hell did that mean? I asked myself bitterly. What would I do if I ever came face-to-face with him? Turn and run the other way, if I had any brains at all. He’d been more powerful than Maeve and Angus together. He could crush me like an ant.

  “We also found out that Ciaran has three children,” Hunter went on. “Two of them, Kyle and Iona, still live in Scotland. But the youngest is here in New York. You’re not going to believe this.” He paused. “It’s Killian.”

  “Killian?” My jaw dropped. “The witch we met last night?”

  Hunter nodded grimly. “He was all but sitting in my lap, and I didn’t realize he was the one.”

  I downed the last gulp of my now cold coffee. “That’s too much of a coincidence.”

  “There are no coincidences,” Hunter reminded me, stating one of those Wiccan axioms that I found so annoying and cryptic.

  I thought of the terrified wolf cub in my dream. “That means Killian is Amyranth’s intended victim?”

  “That’s what it looks like,” Hunter said.

  “Oh God. First Ciaran kills my mother and father; now he’s gunning for his own son.”

  “Ciaran gave himself to the darkness a long time ago,” Hunter said. “It’s all of a piece. A man capable of killing the love of his life is capable of killing his own son, too.”

  “What else did you find out? Do you know where he lives? What he looks like?”

  “None of that. I’ve just told you everything.” Hunter crumpled his empty coffee cup and launched it at a trash container a good fifteen feet away. The cup went in.

  He hopped down off the wall and helped me off. “I’ve got to try to find Killian and see if I can suss out why Amyranth wants to drain his power. Maybe he has some sort of special ability they need. In any case, he may have valuable information about the coven, and if I play my cards right, he could become a valuable ally for the council.”

  “I’m going with you,” I said impulsively.

  Hunter was suddenly holding my upper arms and scowling at me. “Morgan, are you crazy? You can’t come with me—especially now that we know Ciaran is the leader of Amyranth. The last thing I want is for him to become aware of your existence. I wish to God you’d stayed in Widow’s Vale. In fact, I should take you to Port Authority right now. You can catch the next bus back upstate. I can bring your car and your things back in a day or so.”

  In a flash we had reverted to our old antagonistic relationship. “Let go of me,” I said, furious. “I don’t take orders from you. When I go back to Widow’s Vale, I’ll be driving my own car, thank you, and I’ll go when I’m ready.”

  For a long moment we just glared at each other. I saw Hunter struggling to keep his temper in check.

  “If you stay,” he said between his teeth, “you’ve got to give me your word that you’ll keep a low profile. No flashy magick on the street. In fact, while we’re in the city, I want you to avoid any magick that isn’t absolutely necessary. I don’t want you drawing any attention to yourself.”

  I knew he was right, much as I hated to admit it. “Okay,” I said sulkily. “I promise.”

  “Thank you.” Hunter’s grasp relaxed.

  “Be careful,” I said.

  He kissed me again. “That’s my line. Be careful. I’ll see you tonight.”

  I hurried back to Columbus Avenue. As I neared the restaurant, I passed a father carrying his little son on his shoulders. The boy was laughing, as if it were the greatest treat in the world.

  It made me wonder about Killian and his father. Was there ever a time when they were close? What would it be like to be the child of a father who was devoted to evil?

  Maybe, I thought, it explained Killian’s recklessness. Maybe he was running away from the darkness. That, I thought with a sigh, I could certainly understand.

  Bree and the others were on their way out when I got back to Murray’s.

  “Perfect timing,” Bree said as she stepped out of the restaurant. “Do you want to come to the Museum of Modern Art with me and Sky?”

  “I opted out,” Raven said. “I’m going to see a movie down in the Village.” I didn’t know Raven well enough to be sure, but she was talking more loudly than usual, and I had a feeling it meant that things between her and Sky were still tense.

  I glanced at Robbie. He looked so miserable, I was certain that he hadn’t been invited on the museum trip. I tried to remember: Was Bree always this ruthless in relationships? Or was Robbie getting special treatment because he was the one she actually cared about? Either way, her behavior made me uncomfortable.

  “No thanks,” I said, my voice curt. “I’m not in the mood.”

  Bree shrugged. “Okay, we’ll see you back at the apartment.”

  I started for Broadway. Since I was unexpectedly on my own, it occurred to me that now would be a good time to see if I could find Maeve and Angus’s old apartment. I thought of the promise I’d made Hunter, to refrain from anything that might draw unwelcome attention to me. But looking for my birth parents’ old apartment wouldn’t do that, I reasoned. I’d just have to make sure I avoided using magick during the search.

  A ray of late-afternoon sun emerged from the clouds as I walked, and that bit of brightness seemed to lift the mood on the street. Two skateboarders whizzed by while a woman assured her reluctant poodle that it was a beautiful day for a walk. I suddenly realized that Robbie was trailing behind me.

  “Robbie,” I said. “Where are you going?”

  Robbie gave an overly casual shrug. “I thought I’d hang with you. Is that okay?”

  Robbie looked so miserable and abandoned that I couldn’t say no. Besides, Robbie was special. He’d been with me when I found Maeve’s tools.

  “I’m not going to a very scenic part of the city,” I warned. “Um—I was kind of trying to keep this quiet. You know, discreet.”

  Robbie raised his eyebrows. “What, are you going to score some dope or something?”

  I swatted him on the shoulder. “Idiot. Of course not. It’s just…Maeve and Angus had an apartment in Hell’s Kitchen before they moved upstate. I want to find it.”

  “Okay,” Robbie said. “I don’t know what the big secret is, but I’ll keep my mouth shut.”

  We walked on in silence. I was the one who finally broke it. “I think your restraint is admirable,” I told him. “If I were you, I would have decked Bree a long time ago.”

  He grinned at me. “You did once, didn’t you?”

  I winced at the memory of a horrible argument in the hallway at school. An argument about Cal. “I slapped her across the face,” I corrected him. “Actually, it felt awful.”

  “Yeah, that’s what I figured.”

  I tried to think of a delicate way to put my question. “Did things go—okay—between you two l
ast night?”

  Robbie took a deep breath. “That’s what’s so weird. It was great. I mean, as great as it could be with Raven snoring right next to us. We just cuddled. And it felt good to be together, totally warm and affectionate—and right. It was sweet, Morgan, for both of us, I swear.”

  “So, what changed this morning?” I asked.

  “I don’t have a clue. I woke up, said good morning to Bree when I saw her in the kitchen, and she snapped my head off. I can’t figure out what I did.”

  I thought about it as we waited at the bus stop. I wondered how much I could tell Robbie without betraying what Bree had told me. After about ten minutes of waiting, a bus finally lumbered to a stop. We managed to snag seats together, facing the center aisle.

  “Maybe you didn’t do anything wrong,” I said, grateful for the blasting heat. I loosened my scarf and peeled off my gloves. “Or maybe what you did wrong last night was to be right.”

  Robbie massaged his forehead. “You just lost me.”

  “Okay, maybe last night things were every bit as great as you thought they were,” I said. “And maybe that’s the problem. When things are good is when Bree has trouble trusting them. So that’s when she has to mess them up again.”

  “That makes absolutely no sense,” Robbie said.

  I gave him a look. “Did I ever claim Bree was logical?”

  We got off at Forty-ninth Street and began walking west. “We’re looking for number seven-eight-eight,” I told Robbie.

  He glanced up at the building we were passing. “We’re nowhere near.”

  We waited for the light on Ninth Avenue to turn. Ninth Avenue looked pretty decent, with lots of restaurants and small shops selling ethnic foods. But as we kept walking west, Forty-ninth Street became seedier and seedier. The theaters and little studio workshops were gone now. Garbage was piled by the curb. The buildings were mostly residential tenement types, with crumbling brickwork and boarded-up windows. Many were spray-painted with gang tags. We were in Hell’s Kitchen.

  I knew that this neighborhood had a long history of violent crime. Robbie was wide-eyed and wary. I cast my senses, hoping to pick up any trace Maeve might have left. At first all I got were flashes of the people in the neighborhood: families in crowded apartments; a few elderly people, ailing and miserably alone; a crack junkie, adrenaline rocketing through her body. Then I felt the hairs along the back of my neck rise. In the worn brickwork of an abandoned building I saw vestiges of runes and magickal symbols, nearly covered over by layers of graffiti. It didn’t feel like Maeve’s or Angus’s work. That made sense; they had renounced their powers completely when they fled Ireland. But it was proof that witches had been here.

  “This is it,” Robbie said as we came to a soot-streaked redbrick tenement with iron fire escapes running down its front. The building was narrow and only five stories high. It seemed sad and neglected, and I wondered how much worse it had gotten since Maeve and Angus had lived in it nearly twenty years ago.

  I couldn’t pick up any trace of my birth mother, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t something inside the building. If only I could get into the actual apartment where she’d lived. Three low stairs led to a front door behind a steel-mesh gate. A sign on a first-floor window read Apartments for Rent, Powell Mgmt. Co. I rang the bell marked Superintendent and waited.

  No one answered the bell or my pounding on the steel gate. Robbie said, “Now what?”

  I could try a spell, I thought. But I wasn’t supposed to use magick unless I absolutely had to. And this didn’t qualify as an emergency.

  “Can I use your phone?” I asked Robbie. I called the management company on Robbie’s cell phone. To my astonishment, the woman on the phone told me that apartment three was available. I was so excited, my voice shook as I made an appointment to see the place the next day. It was meant to be, I thought. Obviously.

  “I hate to bring this up,” Robbie said when I hung up. “But you look like the high school kid you are. I mean, why would anyone show you an apartment?”

  “I’m not sure,” I told Robbie. “But I’ll find a way.”

  7. The Watch

  August 20, 1981

  This morning at dawn I took Maeve for a walk along the cliffs. We were both still floating on the joy of last night. Yet I knew I had to tell her. I expected it to shock, possibly hurt her, but I was certain she’d forgive me in the end. After all, we are mùirn beatha dàns.

  Maeve was going on about where we’d live. Much as she loves Ballynigel, she does not want to stay here her entire life; she wants to see the world, and I would love nothing more than to show it to her. But her happy ramblings were like blows to my heart. At last, when I could stand to wait no more, I told her, as gently as I could, that I was not yet free to travel with her, that I had a wife and two children in Scotland.

  At first she only looked at me in confusion. I repeated what I’d said, this time taking her hands in mine.

  Then her confusion was replaced by disbelief. She begged me, weeping, to tell her it wasn’t true. But I couldn’t. I could not lie to her.

  I pulled her close to kiss away her tears. But she would have none of me. She yanked her hands from mine and stepped away. I pleaded with her to give me time. I told her I couldn’t afford to enrage Greer—not if I wanted to take her place. But I swore I’d leave the lot of them as soon as I could.

  She cut me off. “You will not leave your wife and children,” she said, the anguish in her eyes turning to fire. “First you betray me with lies. Now you want to destroy a family as well?” Then she told me to leave her, to get away.

  I couldn’t believe she was serious. I argued, cajoled, begged. I told her to take time to consider. I said we’d find a gentle way to go forward together, that, of course, I would provide for my family. But no matter what I said, I could not dissuade her. She who had been so soft, so yielding, was suddenly like iron.

  My soul is shattered. Tomorrow I return to Scotland.

  — Neimhidh

  When we got back to Ninth Avenue, Robbie took off on his own. I went back to Bree’s father’s place. We hadn’t made any group plans for the evening, and the apartment was empty. For a while I couldn’t settle down. I was too revved up—from the news about Ciaran being here in the city, from having found Maeve’s old building. Was the watch still there? I wondered. If it was, would I be able to find it? I tried to scry for it, but I was too wired to concentrate. Finally I curled up with the book on scrying that I’d bought in SoHo and read for a while.

  The sun had almost set when I sensed Hunter walking down the hall. I couldn’t quite believe my luck. Were we really going to have a chance to be alone together in the apartment? I rushed into the bathroom and quickly brushed my teeth and my hair.

  But the moment Hunter opened the door, I realized this was not going to be a romantic interlude. He walked in, took off his scarf and jacket, gave me a curt nod, then went to stare morosely out the window.

  I went to stand beside him. Despite his mood, I immediately tuned in to our connection. I couldn’t have defined either of them, but this was completely different from my connection with the man in the bookstore. Hunter touched everything in me. It was a delicious tease to stand near him, not physically touching, and let myself feel how his presence stroked my every nerve ending into a state of total anticipation.

  He reached out and caught my hand in his. “Don’t,” he said gently. “I can’t be with you that way right now.”

  “What happened?” I asked, feeling a twinge of alarm. “What went wrong?”

  “My finding Killian. I didn’t. Either he got wind of the fact that a council Seeker is looking for him or Amyranth has already snatched him because I can’t find him anywhere.”

  “Did you try—”

  Hunter began to pace the length of the living room. “I found his flat, rang his doorbell and his phone. I went to the club, found out the names of some of his friends, and asked them. I’ve sent him witch messages. He doesn’t a
nswer any of them. I even took out my lueg and scryed right on the street. That’s how desperate I was for a lead—any lead. And none of it has done a bit of good,” he finished bitterly.

  He dropped onto the couch and ran a hand through his hair. “I simply don’t know where to go next with this. I’m going to have to contact the council again.”

  “Want me to try scrying?”

  “I’ve scryed my way to Samhain and back again and I haven’t seen a trace of Killian.”

  “I know. But I scry with fire,” I reminded him. “I might get a different result.”

  He shrugged and reached for a thick, ivory candle on the coffee table—one that Bree must have bought the day before—and pushed it toward me. “Be my guest,” he said, but his voice was skeptical.

  I settled myself cross-legged on the floor. I focused on my breathing, but my thoughts didn’t slip away as easily as they usually did. I wondered if I’d be able to transfer what I’d done with the crystal to fire. Whether this time I’d be able to control the vision.

  “Morgan?”

  “Sorry,” I said. “I got distracted. Let me try again. You want to see where Killian is right now?”

  “That’d be a start.”

  “Okay.” Again I focused on my breathing. This time I felt my mind quieting and the tension draining from my muscles. I stared at the candle’s wick, thought of fire, and the candle lit. I let my eyes focus on the flame, sinking deeper into my meditative state until the coffee table, the room, Hunter, even the candle itself faded from my consciousness. There was only the flame.

  Killian. I let a picture of him as he’d been at the club fill my mind—confident, cocky, laughing, with that heady mix of danger and delight in his own power.

  I focused on the fire, asked it to give me the vision that I sought, to show me Killian as he was right now. I asked it to let me in, and I sent my energy toward it. I couldn’t touch it the way I’d touched the crystal. The fire would burn me. But I let my power flicker beside it, calling to its heat and energy.