by Lily Velez
“The authorities have apparently gotten tired of coming all this way to break up one hangout after another. What happened the other night, though, was the final nail in the coffin.”
That ‘final nail’ referred to an incident involving a local group of teens setting up temporary shop within these four walls. Since the place was rumored by the townspeople to be haunted (and I imagined the graveyard of dead animals out back didn’t help to quell those rumors), what better way to prove your grit than to stay in a witch’s house all through the fearsome night? As the reports went, the teens had originally planned the sleepover for Halloween, not realizing authorities patrolled the cottage every year on the thirty-first to prevent such stunts.
Undeterred, they’d rescheduled for earlier this week, when everyone’s guard would be down. And something had happened that night, something that was enough to send the teens running out of the cottage screaming. Word spread fast around Rosalyn Bay, and it wasn’t long before the whispers started about Elizabeth finally rising to exact her vengeance, hence why there were more offerings than usual outside on the patio.
The five of us knew this had nothing to do with Elizabeth, though. Whatever had spooked those teens had been nothing more than the spirits of the damned I’d inadvertently released back at Uisneach, the hill where the Connellys and I had waged war against demons to stop their uncle Seamus, his Reaping, and the awakening of a Soul-Eater, a frightening creature that would’ve destroyed anyone who wasn’t a witch.
I still thought about that terrible black tree often, the one that had sought to drag Jack to his waiting home in the forsaken lands of the Otherworld. To save him, I’d destroyed it. In doing so, I’d set loose scores of the damned. They’d been laying low for a brief spell, but it looked like they were finally ready to make themselves known, which meant it was time for us to act.
“Let’s get this over with,” Jack said as he caught the robe Connor tossed his way.
It was floor-length and black as night except for the gold embroidery on its hems, which featured triple spirals. We’d all worn a robe just like it when we’d summoned The Triple Goddess, Brigid, at the menhirs not too far from here. My fingertips ghosted down the inside of my arms, where the goddess’s runes had once glowed. Though I couldn’t presently see them, I knew they were there.
Jack pulled on the robe, his face disappearing in the shadows of the hood. The accoutrements of our ceremonial rituals gave off somewhat somber airs, but they also radiated power, nowhere more evident than in the way the robe hung from the mantel of Jack’s shoulders, shrouding him with an otherworldliness that I couldn’t pull my eyes away from. It was alluring, mesmerizing. I practically felt compelled to lay an offering before him, so deific did he look.
He strode to the center of a sigil Rory had already drawn on the floor with charcoal. It was another breathtaking design, one I assumed enhanced a witch’s ability to communicate with the dearly departed. I looked forward to the day when the boys would formally begin teaching me sigils and spellcraft.
Connor, Lucas, and I assumed spots on the sigil’s cardinal points. Rory took up the final point only after gently setting his new fox in a quiet corner. Once everyone was situated, Jack turned his palms so they were facing the ceiling.
In one swift motion, he lifted them above his head. As he did, the candles surrounding us flared tall and bright like rocket blazes. Their flames were hot against my face. I could almost pretend I was basking in the sunlight of a clear, summer day. Jack closed his eyes, slightly bowing his head as he began to intone a chant in Irish.
“Éirí,” he began. Arise. I only knew what it meant because Jack had explained how this would all work on the ride over. Even with that knowledge, the word still sounded exotic, still danced around my bones like a living tapestry.
Despite the warmth from the candles, I shivered. Sure, I’d seen the spirits of past Daughters of Brigid, and I’d seen the boys’ grandfather Maurice’s spirit as well before he’d gone on to the Land of Youth. But I’d never seen the spirit of someone so damned their eternal home was in the forsaken lands of the Otherworld, the place where demons dwelled. I half expected an infestation of them to flood the cottage any second now and rip us all to shreds.
“Éirí, éirí, éirí,” Jack continued, his voice growing louder.
The windows trembled in their frames. No, the entire cottage trembled. Beer bottles rolled across the floor, charging into each other with loud, sharp clinks. A whimper cut into the air as Rory’s fox pressed itself as deep into its corner as it could go.
That was when the whispers surrounded us. It was like a hundred hushed voices speaking simultaneously. Maybe even a thousand. They were the same blood-chilling voices that had come out of the tree at Uisneach, every incoherent syllable like an icy harpoon straight to the heart. The voices of the damned.
I jerked away when invisible fingertips ran down my arm, barely resisting the urge to ditch the ritual and bolt out of the cottage just as those teens had done. Despite my fears, I had to stand my ground. This had been my doing. I’d put the people of Rosalyn Bay in danger, and now it was on me to fix it. I steeled myself and squared my shoulders, ready to face whatever materialized before us.
Except Jack suddenly stopped. And when he did, the building instantly stilled and the whispers died away as if sucked into a vacuum. He yanked off the hood of the robe, those dark amber eyes faraway.
“What is it?” Connor asked.
Jack didn’t answer. He seemed to be listening for something, sensing something the rest of us could neither see nor hear. A second later, he strode to one of the back windows, yanking the ratty curtain away to peer out.
His posture buckled, every muscle in his body stiffening.
“We need to get out of here,” Jack said. “Now.”
3
Scarlet
The trees were a blur as we raced past them, their gnarled arms vainly reaching for us with long, dark fingers. Connor, Lucas, and Rory stayed close in the SUV behind, the vehicle’s headlights blinding in the darkness. The Jaguar’s convertible top was still down, so the wind whistled past my cheeks in icy blasts, drawing tears from my eyes and blowing errant strands of hair that had escaped my ponytail all across my face.
My heartbeat pounded against my chest in a frantic staccato, and my stomach was clenched so tight I was surprised I didn’t fold in on myself in pain. It didn’t help that the Jaguar was a right-hand-drive model or that we were speeding down what I still saw as the wrong side of the road. With every sharp turn, my pulse worked itself up into a hysterical rhythm, so certain was I that I’d fly out of the car and straight into the neighboring woods.
But it didn’t matter how fast Jack drove. Even now, as we dangerously approached the car’s top speeds, the hoofbeats kept pace with us, their menacing sound seemingly everywhere.
Everywhere—and then, suddenly, right in front of us as a dark figure astride a horse charged out of the woods and onto the road mere yards ahead of the Jaguar.
Jack instantly slammed his foot on the brakes, throwing my body against my seatbelt, the searing edges of which were sharp against my neck. The tires screeched, the stench of burnt rubber invading my nose, and then more tires squealed as Connor did his best to avoid rear-ending us. I didn’t turn around to see how many inches had kept us from a collision. My eyes were riveted to the sight before me as a trap door in my stomach gave way.
The horse rider was dressed head to toe in black, from a flowing cape that billowed in the wind to the boots at rest on the saddle’s stirrups. The horse itself, as black as the garments its rider donned, was a mammoth beast, larger than any horse I’d ever seen before, the type of stallion I imagined kings and knights had once rode into battle, with massive hindquarters and a thick, long neck. One powerful kick from an animal like that would’ve rendered even the mightiest of men dead.
It wasn’t until the horse turned so that it was in profile, though, that terror fluttered through my chest. As i
t was only then that I saw the rider more clearly and realized something very, very wrong about him.
He had no head.
The horse reared back, kicking its legs in the air with a furious bellow. Then, without preamble, it charged right for us.
The Jaguar lurched forward as Jack accelerated. He swerved the car onto the shoulder of the road to miss horse and rider before continuing on. I twisted in my seat just as Connor parroted Jack’s maneuver, narrowly avoiding our pursuer.
“What on earth is that?” I asked once we were back on the road, practically breathless as I tried to calm my palpitating heart.
“The Dullahan,” Jack responded, his eyes darting to the rearview mirror. “Also known as death’s herald.”
A wicked shudder shot through me. “Why is he chasing us?”
“The Dullahan is thought to be the embodiment of the ancient Celtic god, Crom Dubh. He was worshipped by an ancient king of Ireland, who regularly sacrificed humans to Crom Dubh by way of decapitation. When the king died, his traditions died with him, but Crom Dubh refused to be so easily forgotten. Legends say he used to regularly leave his home in the Otherworld and scour the Irish countryside, where he’d assume the form of his victims to sate his appetite for human life.”
“I thought gods couldn’t walk among us outside of their feast days.”
“They can’t. Stranger still, the Dullahan hasn’t been sighted in ages. It doesn’t make sense that he’s here now.”
Unease pooled into the pit of my stomach. Was I the reason for this? When I’d broken open the portal to the Otherworld, had more than just the damned escaped?
I’d already suspected as much, given my dad’s present affliction, which I still hadn’t worked up the nerve to tell Jack about. Every time I attempted to, I choked on my own shame and guilt. For a Daughter of Brigid, I’d made a spectacular mess of Uisneach, putting people’s lives at stake because I couldn’t control my own powers. So confessing to Jack that we also had a demon problem on top of the spirits of the damned…it just wasn’t high on my list of things I looked forward to doing. Not after everything he’d already been through and was still presently dealing with.
“So what does the Dullahan want? To decapitate us?”
“He doesn’t need to,” Jack said. “The Dullahan only has to say your name, and the moment you hear it, you’re dead.”
Wonderful.
Jack’s phone trilled, momentarily startling me. “It’s probably Connor,” he said.
I reached over and pulled the phone out of his coat pocket. Sure enough, Connor’s name appeared on the screen. I answered and put him on speakerphone.
“What’s the plan?” Connor asked.
Jack’s grip was knuckle-white on the steering wheel. He checked the rearview mirror again. I did as well, my insides tying themselves into knots when I sighted the Dullahan and his ebony stallion thundering through the night. They were impossibly gaining ground on us, the horse’s hooves pounding against the road in a frightening crescendo.
“There’s a fork coming up soon,” Jack said. “We split up.”
“No way in hell.”
“It’s our best chance at losing him. I’ll keep straight. You bear right. Trust me.”
There was a long pause on the other end before the usual string of curses left Connor’s mouth in a mutter. “You damn well better know what you’re doing.”
Minutes later, we were upon the fork in the road. We sped down the lane, fast as a shooter in a pinball machine. Connor guided the SUV to the right as planned, disappearing around a bend of trees. I held my breath as I waited to see who the Dullahan would choose to pursue.
He chose me and Jack.
My stomach somersaulted.
“Now what?” I asked, my throat pinching around the words.
Surprisingly, Jack was perfectly unperturbed. In fact, he looked relieved.
I blinked. It took a moment for realization to settle in. “You wanted him to follow us.”
“You didn’t think I was hoping he’d pursue my brothers, did you?”
When he put it like that, I guessed I should’ve predicted his intentions.
“Of course, I would’ve preferred you be in the SUV with them, hence why I insisted on it when we left the cottage.”
“I didn’t like the idea of you driving by yourself,” I said. “And I guess a part of me hoped you wouldn’t do something reckless and sacrificial if I was with you. So much for that, huh?”
The corner of his mouth quirked up. Jack’s playful smiles were so rare that I wanted to tuck this one into a hope chest. It loosened something in me, and I almost laughed. Almost.
The spell instantly broke when Jack floored the gas pedal. In the rearview mirror, the Dullahan’s terrifying reflection was closer than I expected it to be. He was easily keeping pace with us.
“Please tell me you have a plan. Will we be able to outrun him?”
“We aren’t going to outrun him. Not technically at least.”
“Is there a way to kill him then?”
“His only weakness is gold. Unfortunately, I don’t have any on me, so we’re going to have to get a little creative.”
The legs of the Dullahan’s horse moved like machinery, such that it wasn’t long before he was right beside the car. I made the mistake of looking his way. I wish I hadn’t. The horse itself looked possessed. Red sparks flew out of its flared nostrils, matching the molten lava that made up the angry slits that were its eyes.
But the rider was the more frightening of the two. His hand rested upon something perched against his saddle brow. There was a mark on the back of that hand similar to Jack’s demon’s mark. It smoldered like a new brand, blazing bright. I didn’t think too much of it because I realized with disgust what the hand was resting upon. It was the Dullahan’s head.
It was gruesome, a disfigured thing with sagging flesh that seemed to melt right off the skull. A maniacal grin split his face from ear to ear, one that lengthened when the Dullahan’s red gaze locked on mine, his eyes hungry for my death. His cracked lips parted, and I was sure he was about to speak my name.
He didn’t get the chance. Jack swerved toward the horseman to run him off the road. The Dullahan momentarily fell back. Undeterred, he came to the car’s other side, shrouded in shadows that seeped off him like smoke. Jack repeated the same move as before, and again, the Dullahan drew back.
But he didn’t stay back. And this time, when he came to the car’s side, he rammed his horse’s body against the Jaguar. It was as if someone had swung an oversized sledgehammer into the vehicle. I could feel the impact reverberating in my bones, my muscles, my heart. Jack nearly lost control of the car. We veered off course sharply, rolling over uneven earth and fallen tree branches.
Before we ended up in a ditch, Jack guided the car back onto the road. The Dullahan was waiting for us there, close enough for me to smell the sweat off his horse’s flanks as we streaked down the narrow lane side-by-side. In a lightning-quick move, his hand shot out and clamped down on my shoulder.
A scream flew out of me. With one swift jerk, I was halfway out of the car, my seatbelt straining. The Dullahan’s head cackled, a deranged sound that twisted my gut. Once more, he opened his mouth to speak my name.
“Scarlet!”
It took a bruising heartbeat for me to realize it was Jack who’d spoken, not the Dullahan. Panic flashed across Jack’s eyes, and he quickly latched onto my arm. At first, I thought he was only trying to keep me inside the car. Then I felt a surge of raging magic flood into me, through me, and out my other hand, a powerful explosion of air blasting from my palm and pummeling the Dullahan’s horse hard enough for the beast to crash to the ground.
Jack yanked me back onto my seat, keeping his hand on my arm a few moments longer, as if to assure himself I was still beside him, still alive. The residue of his magic continued glowing in my chest in embers that electrified me.
“If he comes that close again,” Jack said, “lean away and
plug your ears. Do whatever you have to do to keep yourself from hearing him.”
He spun the volume dial on the radio until it could go no further, blasting the music to drown out the Dullahan’s voice. Ironically, according to Connor, Jack, purist that he apparently was, had initially been diametrically opposed to installing the radio when he’d come into possession of the car, not wishing to mar the Jaguar’s period integrity. Funny that the radio of all things could very well be the hero that saved our lives tonight.
Horse and rider gathered their bearings soon enough, and before a full minute had passed, they were already tailing us, an indomitable pair. Our high-speed chase was unending, and in the moments when I wasn’t entirely focused on keeping my heart inside my chest, I wondered if Jack really did have a plan that didn’t entail us rocketing down rural roads all night.
Eventually, the woodlands gave way to open landscapes, the star-studded night sky stretching over us like a blanket. Jack flew off the road and blazed across a pasture, the car jerking over the bumpy terrain. Judging by the briny smell in the air, we were nearing the ocean and the many coastal cliffs that stretched along Rosalyn Bay’s edges.
Except there was a problem.
My heart cartwheeled. “Jack, I think that’s a dead-end up ahead.”
“It is.”
“It’s a cliff. We’re heading straight for it.”
“I know.”
We barreled down the road toward that cliff edge as if we had a death wish. I gripped my seat on either side of me. “Jack?”
“Do you trust me, Scarlet?” I didn’t know how that heartbreaking, Irish accent of his could sound so melodic even now.
I turned to him, and our eyes locked on each other, and crazy as it was, I knew my answer. “Yes,” I said.
