Blood Magick

by Nora Roberts

  Connor only grinned, a quick flash from a handsome face, a quick twinkle in moss green eyes. “Now he’s dry all the faster, and you don’t have a wet towel to wash.”

  Iona and Boyle came in, hand in hand. A pair of lovebirds, Branna thought. If anyone had suggested to her a year before that the taciturn, often brusque, former brawler could resemble a lovebird, she’d have laughed till her ribs cracked. But there he was, big, broad-shouldered, his hair tousled, his tawny eyes just a little dreamy beside her bright sprite of an American cousin.

  “Meara will be right down,” Iona announced. “She had a call from her sister.”

  “All’s well?” Connor asked. “Her ma?”

  “No problems—just some Christmas details.” Without being asked she got out flatware to finish what Connor started, and Boyle put the kettle on for tea.

  So Branna’s kitchen filled with voices, with movement—and she could admit now that she’d had coffee—with the warmth of family. And then excitement as Meara dashed in, grabbed Connor and pulled him into a dance.

  “I’m to pack up the rest of my mother’s things.” She did a quick stomp, click, stomp, then grabbed Connor again for a hard kiss. “She’s staying with my sister Maureen for the duration. Praise be, and thanks to the little Baby Jesus in his manger!”

  Even as Connor laughed, she stopped, pressed her hands to her face. “Oh God, I’m a terrible daughter, a horrible person altogether. Dancing about because my own mother’s gone to live with my sister in Galway and I’ll not have to deal with her on a daily basis myself.”

  “You’re neither,” Connor corrected. “Are you happy your mother’s happy?”

  “Of course, I am, but—”

  “And why shouldn’t you be? She’s found a place where she’s content, where she has grandchildren to spoil. And why shouldn’t you kick up your heels a bit, as she won’t be ringing you up twice a day when she can’t work out how to switch out a lightbulb?”

  “Or burns another joint of lamb,” Boyle added.

  “That’s the bloody truth, isn’t it?” So Meara did another quick dance. “I’m happy for her, I am. And I’m wild with joy for my own self.”

  When Fin came in Meara launched herself at him—and gave Branna a moment to adjust herself, as she had to do whenever he walked in her door.

  “You’ve lost a tenant, Finbar. My ma’s settled once and done with my sister.” She kissed him hard as well, made him laugh. “That’s thanks to you—and don’t say you don’t need it—for the years of low rent, and for holding the little cottage in case she wanted to come back to Cong.”

  “She was a fine tenant. Kept the place tidy as a church.”

  “The place looks fine now, it does, with the updates we’ve done.” As Iona took over the table setting, Connor grabbed his first coffee. “I expect Fin will have someone in there, quick as you please.”

  “I’ll be looking into it.” But it was Branna he looked at, and into. Then saying nothing, took Connor’s coffee for himself.

  She kept her hands busy, and wished to bloody hell she’d done that little glamour. No restless night showed on his face, on that beautiful carving of it, in the bold green eyes.

  He looked perfect—man and witch—with his raven black hair damp from the rain, his body tall and lean as he shed his black leather jacket, hung it on a peg.

  She’d loved him all her life, understood, accepted, she always would. But the first and only time they’d given themselves to each other—so young, still so innocent—the mark had come on him.

  Cabhan’s mark.

  A Dark Witch of Mayo could never be with Cabhan’s blood.

  She could, would, and had worked with him, for he’d proven time and again he wanted Cabhan’s end as much as she. But there could never be more.

  Did knowing it pained him as it did her help her through it? Maybe a bit, she admitted. Just a bit.

  She took the platter heaped with pancakes she’d already flipped from the skillet out of the warmer, added the last of them.

  “We’ll sit then, and eat. It’s your Nan’s recipe, Iona. We’ll see if I did her proud.”

  Even as she lifted the platter, Fin took it from her. And as he took it, his eyes met and held hers. “You’ve a story to go with them, I’m told.”

  “I do, yes.” She took a plate full of bacon and sausage, carried it to the table. And sat. “Not an hour ago I sat here and had a conversation with Sorcha’s Brannaugh.”

  “She came here?” Connor paused in the act of sliding a stack of pancakes onto his plate. “Our kitchen?”

  “She did. I’d had a restless night, full of dreams and voices. Hers among them. I couldn’t be sure of the place as it was vague and scattered as dreams can be.” She took a single pancake for herself. “I was here, getting my first cup of coffee, and I turned around. There she was.

  “She looks like me—or I like her. That was a jolt of surprise, just how close we are there—though she was heavily pregnant. Her son comes today—or not today, as in her time it was still a fortnight to Samhain.”

  “Time shifts,” Iona murmured.

  “As you say. They’d gone to Ballintubber Abbey on the way here. That’s where the dream took me.”

  “Ballintubber.” Iona shifted to Boyle. “I felt them there, remember? When you took me to see it, I felt them, knew they’d gone there. It’s such a strong place.”

  “It is, yes,” Branna agreed. “But I’ve been there more than once, as has Connor. I never felt them.”

  “You haven’t been since Iona’s come,” Fin pointed out. “You haven’t been there since the three are all in Mayo.”

  “True enough.” And a good point, she was forced to admit. “But I will, we will. On your wedding day, Iona, if not before. She said the others, those before us, guard the place, so Cabhan’s barred from it. He can’t go in, see in. It’s a true sanctuary if we find we need one. They, who came before, gave light and strength to the three. And hope—I think she needed that most.”

  “And you,” Iona said, “all of us. Hope wouldn’t hurt us either.”

  “I’m more for doing than hoping, but it gave her what she needed. I could see it. She said—in the dream, and here—we will prevail. To believe that, and they’ll be with us when we face Cabhan again. To find the way. To know, if it isn’t for us to finish, another three will come. We will prevail.”

  “Though it takes a thousand years,” Connor added. “Well then, I’m fine with hope, fine with doing. But I’ll be buggered if I wait a thousand years to see the end of Cabhan.”

  “Then we find the way, in the here and the now. I had pancakes once when I went to Montana in the American West,” Fin commented. “They called them something else . . .”

  “Flapjacks, I bet,” Iona suggested.

  “That’s the very thing. They were brilliant. These are better yet.”

  “You’ve rambled far and wide,” Branna said.

  “I have. But I’m done with rambling until this is done. So, like Connor, a thousand years won’t suit me. We find the way.”

  Just like that? Branna thought and struggled against annoyance. “She said they’d be with us, next time we faced him down. But they were there on Samhain, and still he got away from us.”

  “Only just there, or barely,” Connor remembered. “Shadows like? Part of the dream spell we cast, that could be. How would we bring them full—could it be done? If we could find that way, how could we not end him? The first three, and we three. And the three more with us.”

  “Time’s the problem.” Fin sat back with his coffee. “The shifts. We were there on Samhain, but from what you say, Branna, they were not. So they were but shadows, and unable to take part. We have to make the times meet. Our time or theirs, but the same. It’s interesting, an interesting puzzle to solve.”

  “But what time and when?” Branna demanded. “I’ve found two, and each should have worked. The solstice, then Samhain. The time should have been on the side of light. The spells we
worked, the poison we created, all done to mesh with that specific time and place.”

  “And both times we wounded him,” Boyle reminded her. “Both times he bled and fled. And the last? It should’ve been mortal.”

  “His power’s as dark as ours is light,” Iona pointed out. “And the source of it heals him. Longer this time. It’s taking longer.”

  “If we could find his lair.” Connor’s face turned grim. “If we could go at him when he’s weakened.”

  “I can’t find him. Even the two of us together failed,” Fin reminded him. “He has enough, or what feeds him has enough to hide. Until he slithers out again, and I—or one of us—can feel him, we wait.”

  “I’d hoped by Yule, but that’s nearly on us.” Branna shook her head. “I’d hoped we could take him on by Yule, though that was more from a wanting it done than a knowing it was the time. I haven’t found it in the stars. Not yet anyway.”

  “It seems to me we have an outline of the work needed.” Boyle lifted a shoulder. “Finding the day, the time. Finding the way to bring the first three into it, if that’s a true possibility.”

  “I believe it is.” Fin looked at Branna.

  “We’ll study on it, work on it.”

  “I’ve time this morning.”

  “I have to go into the shop, take stock in. I’m barely keeping up with the holidays.”

  “I can help tomorrow, my off day,” Iona offered.

  “I’ll take it.”

  “I want to finish a little shopping myself,” Iona added. “My first Christmas in Ireland. And Nan’s coming. I can’t wait to see her, and to show her the house—well, what there is of it.” She leaned into Boyle. “We’re building a house in the woods.”

  “She changed her mind on the tiles in the big bath again,” Boyle told the room at large.

  “It’s hard to decide. I’ve never built a house before.” She looked at Branna. “Help me.”

  “I told you there’s little I’d love more. Give me tomorrow, and we’ll spend an hour or so over wine at day’s end for looking at tile and paint samples and so on.”

  “Connor and I start talking about what we might want our place to look like, sitting in the field above the cottage here. And my brain goes to mush instantly.” Meara swirled a bite of pancake in syrup. “I can’t really get my mind around the building of a place, and the knowing down to the color of paint on the walls.”

  “Well, come for the wine and we’ll play with yours as well. And speaking of houses,” Branna added as she saw the door opening to her early-morning thoughts. “The lot of you have places—Boyle’s, Meara’s. There’s no need for all of you to pack yourself in here every night.”

  “We’re better together,” Connor insisted.

  “And there wouldn’t be the idea that sleeping at Meara’s flat would mean oatmeal for breakfast most mornings?”

  He grinned. “It would be a factor.”

  “I’ve a fine way with oatmeal.” Meara poked him.

  “That you do, darling, but did you taste these pancakes?”

  “I confess even my famous oatmeal can’t rise up to them. You’re after a bit of space,” Meara said to Branna.

  “I wouldn’t mind some, now and again.”

  “We’ll work on that as well.”

  “It seems we’ve plenty to be working on.” Boyle rose. “I’d say we have to start with clearing up Branna’s kitchen, and getting to the work that makes our living.”

  “When will you be back from your shop business?” Fin asked Branna.

  She’d hoped the divergence of talk had distracted him off that, and should have known better. More, she admitted, avoiding working with him couldn’t be done. Not for the greater good.

  “I’ll be back by two.”

  “Then I’ll be here at two.” He rose, picked up his plate to take it to the sink.

  • • •

  MAKING A LIVING HAD TO BE DONE, AND IN TRUTH, BRANNA enjoyed the making of hers. Once her house was empty and quiet, she went up to dress for the day, banked her bedroom fire to a simmer.

  Down in her workshop she spent the next hour wrapping the fancy soaps she’d made the day before. Adding the ribbons and dried flowers to the bottles of lotions she’d already poured.

  Candles she’d scented with cranberry she tucked into the fancy gift boxes she’d bought for the holiday traffic.

  After a check of the list her manager had given her, she added salve, bath oil, various creams, noted down what needed replenishing, then began to carry boxes out to her car.

  She’d intended to leave the dog home, but Kathel had other plans and jumped right in the car.

  “After a ride, are you? Well, all right then.” After one last check, she slid behind the wheel, and took the short drive to the village of Cong.

  The rain and the cold discouraged any tourists pulled to the area in December. She found the steep streets empty, the abbey ruins deserted. Like a place out of time, she thought, with a smile.

  She loved it, empty in the rain, or full of people and voices on a fine day. While she sold straight out of her workshop from time to time—especially to those who might come in hoping for a charm or spell—she’d chosen to place her shop in the village where the tourists and locals could easily breeze in. And as she was ever practical, where they might exchange some euros for what she made herself.

  She parked in front of the whitewashed building, the corner shop on the pretty side street where the Dark Witch was housed.

  Kathel jumped out behind her, waited patiently despite the rain while she unloaded the first box of stock. She elbowed open the door to a cheery ring of bells, walked into the lovely scents, the pretty lights of what she’d made herself, for herself.

  All the lovely bottles, bowls, boxes on shelves, candles flickering to add atmosphere—and that lovely scent. Soft colors to soothe and relax, bold ones to energize, hunks of crystal placed just so for power.

  And of course, the fuss for the holiday with the little tree, the greenery and berries, some ornaments she bought from a woman in Dublin, the jeweled wands and stone pendants she bought from a Wiccan catalog because people expected such things in a shop called the Dark Witch.

  And there was Eileen, her pixie-sized body up on a step stool, cleaning a high shelf. Eileen turned, her bold green glasses slipping down her pug of a nose.

  “Well now, it’s the lady herself, and glad I am to see you, Branna. I hope you’ve come with more of those cranberry candles, for I sold the very last of them not fifteen minutes ago.”

  “I have two dozen more, as you asked. I would’ve thought too many, but if we’re fully out, you were right again.”

  “It’s why you made me manager.” Eileen stepped down. She wore her dark blond hair in a scoop, dressed always smart—today in tall boots under a pine green dress. She was barely five feet altogether, and had borne and raised five strapping sons.

  “More in the car then? I’ll go fetch them in.”

  “You won’t, no, as there’s no need for both of us to be drenched.” Branna set the first box down on the spotless counter. “You can unpack and keep Kathel company, for he insisted on coming along.”

  “He knows where I keep special treats for lovely, good dogs.”

  His tail wagged as she spoke, and he sat politely, all but grinned at her.

  Branna went out into the rain again, Eileen’s laugh trailing behind her.

  It took three trips, and a truly thorough drenching.

  She waved her hands, down from her hair to her feet, drying herself as Connor had dried the dog that morning. Something she would have done for few outside her own circle.

  Eileen didn’t so much as blink, but continued to unpack the stock. Branna had chosen Eileen to run her shop, and manage the part-time clerks, for many practical reasons. But not the least of them was the wisps of power she sensed in the woman, and Eileen’s acceptance of all Branna was.

  “I had four hearty tourists—in from the Midlands—come
to see The Quiet Man museum, have lunch at the pub. They stopped in, and dropped three hundred and sixty euros among them before they headed out again.”

  And not the least of those practical reasons, Branna thought now, was Eileen’s knack of guiding the right customer to the right products.

  “That’s fine news on a rainy morning.”

  “Will you have some tea then, Branna?”

  “No, but thanks.” Instead, Branna pushed up her sleeves and helped Eileen unpack and place the stock. “And how’s it all going?”

  As she’d hoped, Eileen kept her mind off her troubles by catching her up with village gossip, with news of her sons, her husband, daughters-in-law (two, and another in June), grandchildren, and all else under the sun.

  A scatter of customers came in during the hour she worked, and didn’t leave empty-handed. And that was good for the spirit as well as the pocketbook.

  She’d built a fine place here, Branna reminded herself. Full of color and light and scent, and all tidily arranged as her organized soul demanded—and as artfully displayed as her sense of style could wish.

  And she thanked the gods again for Eileen and the others who worked for her, that they dealt with the customers, and she could have her time in her workshop to create.

  “You’re a treasure to me, Eileen.”

  Eileen’s face flushed with pleasure. “Ah now, that’s a lovely thing to say.”

  “A true one.” She kissed Eileen’s dimpled cheek. “How fortunate are we as we both get to do what we love and are bloody good at, every day? If I had to work the counter and such as I did in the first months I opened, I’d be mad as a hatter. So you’re my treasure.”

  “Well, you’re mine in turn, as having an employer who leaves me to my own ways is a gift.”

  “Then I’m leaving you to it now, and we’ll both go on with what we love and do bloody well.”

  When she and Kathel left, Branna felt refreshed. A trip to her shop tended to lift her mood, and today’s had lifted it higher than most. She drove through the rain on roads as familiar as her own kitchen, then sat a moment outside her cottage.

  A good morning, she thought, despite the dreariness of the day. She’d spoken to her cousin, one of the first three, and at her own kitchen table. She would think and think long and hard on the hope and faith needed.

  She’d taken good stock into her shop, spent an hour and more with a friend, watched people take away things she’d made with her own hands. Into their homes those things would go, she mused. Or to others as gifts and mementos. Good, useful things, and pretty besides, for she valued the pretty as much as the useful.

  And thinking just that, she lifted a hand and had the tree in her front window, the lights around the windows of her shop twinkling on.

  “And why not add some pretty and some light to a dreary day?” she asked Kathel. “And now, my boy, we’ve work to do.”

  She went straight to her workshop, boosted the fire while Kathel made himself comfortable on the floor in front of it.

  She’d told Fin she’d be back by two, knowing she’d planned to return by noon. A bit later than her plan, she noted, but she still had near to two hours of quiet and alone before she had him to deal with.

  After donning a white apron, she made ginger biscuits first because it pleased her. While they cooled and their scent filled the air, she gathered what she needed to make the candle sets on the new list Eileen had given her.

  It soothed her, this work. She wouldn’t deny she added a touch of magick, but all for the good. All in all it was care, it was art, and science.

  On the stove she melted her acid and wax, added the fragrance oils, the coloring she made herself. Now the scents of apple and cinnamon joined the ginger. With a dollop she fixed the wicks in the little glass jars with the fluted edges, held them straight and true with a slim bamboo stick. The pour required patience, stopping to use another stick to poke into the apple-red wax to prevent pockets of air from forming. So she poured, poked until the little jars were filled and set aside for cooling.

  A second batch, white and pure and scented with vanilla, and a third to make the scent—for three was a good number—green as the forest and perfumed with pine. Seasonal, she thought, and the season on them, so a half dozen sets should do.

  The next she made perhaps she’d bring in spring.

  Satisfied with the work, she glanced at the clock, saw it was nearly half-two. So the man was late, but that was fine as she’d had time to finish as she’d wanted.

  But she’d be damned if she’d wait for him on the next job of work.