SB
Hunter pulled over while we were still a mile from Cal's. He cut the engine and turned to me.
"Why are you stopping?" I said urgently. "Let's go! If she has Mary K."
"I know, and we'll get there. But first, send Sky and Alyce a witch message," he said. "I'd send it, but yours will be stronger. Tell them to contact the council and get reinforcements to Selene's as fast as they can. It will take a couple of hours at least, but maybe they can get here in time to help us."
"Should I ask Sky and Alyce to meet us there now?" I asked. "We could all join our powers. ."
He shook his head. "They aren't equipped for this battle," he said gently. "Neither are you, if it comes to that. But this is about you, about what Selene wants from you."
"I'll be strong enough," I said, not at all sure that was true. "If she's done anything to Mary K."
"What's important is that you use your own powers," Hunter said, looking at me intently. "Use your powers, coupled with Alyce's knowledge. Feel the power within you. Know it absolutely. Selene is going to try to use illusion and fear to break you down. Don't let it work."
I looked into his eyes, feeling dread. "All right," I said shakily.
He started the engine. Five minutes later he was turning down the street that led to the huge stone house where Cal and Selene had worked their magick.
Darkness was all around us. It was barely five o'clock but wintertime, and the sun had sunk below the horizon, obscured by ominous-looking clouds. I could feel that soon the sky would open and start dumping snow and ice.
Mary K., I thought as Hunter parked down the street, out of sight of the big house. My sweet sister. Although we shared no blood, I felt we had always been sisters in spirit: destined to be related to each other, to love each other as family. In some ways she was so much savvier than Ishe knew what to wear, who to hang out with, how to flirt and be cheerful and charming. But in some ways she was so naive. She trusted most people. She believed that her faith would protect her. She believed that if she was good enough, everything would work out. I knew better than that
"Pop the trunk," I told Hunter, and he did. I knew I would need every ounce of power I could possibly have: I was still feeling the draining effects of the tath meanma brach. Without more than a moment's awkward hesitation I stripped off my coat sweatshirt and undershirt and put on my mother's robe, the thin emerald green silk instantly warming me in the cold night air. I felt my cheeks heat with a blush as I unsnapped my jeans and pushed them and my underwear down. Of course then I realized I still wore my sneaks and socks and had to kneel and get out of them to get out of my pants.
Then I stood, feeling completely comfortable in the robe and nothing else even though it was winter in upstate New York. Like a Wiccan force field, I thought, picking up Maeve's wand and athame.
"I wish I'd had time to collect my own robe," Hunter said, frowning. He pulled out his athame. Thus armed, we began to move quietly toward the house.
We were immediately aware of a darkness of magick all around. Keeping to the shadows of the hedge that surrounded the property, I cast out my senses and felt a miasma of black magick emanating from the house, from the stones themselves. The green Jaguar sat in the circular driveway, and to my eyes it seemed to glow and pulse, almost as if it were radioactive. I realized that I was terrified and tried to release my fears.
In unspoken agreement we paused, and together we wrapped ourselves in cloaks of illusion, of vagueness, of shadows. With no effort I pulled spells out of Alyce's memory and called them to me, as familiar to me as Dagda. Under any other circumstances I would have felt thrilled with my new ability, but now I merely fretted. To any lesser witch we would certainly be undetectable, but would these spells work on Selene? She was so powerful that I doubted it.
We looked at the house, with its gaping black windows, its air of recent neglect. Dried leaves had blown onto the porch and steps and remained unswept.
"How did she get in?" I whispered. "The house was spelled against her."
"The council did its best," Hunter replied softly. "But Selene has powers and connections we don't fully understand. The question is, how can we get in? The front door will be a trap."
I crouched down for a moment, examining the house. Then an idea came to me, and I stood up. "Come with me."
Without waiting for his response, I strode along the hedge until we reached a break in the tall shrubbery to the right of the house. We crunched across dead grass, around to the back, where a narrow metal staircase led up to the third-floor attic. Cal's old room. I started climbing, my bare feet making hardly any sound.
"We spelled all the entrances," Hunter reminded me quietly.
"I know. But you can break your spells; you made them. And I don't think Selene will expect us to come in this way." The whole time I climbed, I was feeling with my senses, searching for my sister, for Selene's presence, trying to get through the spells of privacy that cloaked the house. I could feel nothing except an aching, bone-deep weariness, the faint edges of nausea around the rim of my consciousness, and the seeping of tendrils of dark magick writhing in the air all around me.
At the top of the narrow staircase was a small wooden door. Cal used to use it to get from his room to the backyard and to the pool beyond. I stopped for a moment, pressed my hand against my brow, closed my eyes, and concentrated.
It wasn't as if everything suddenly popped out at me in neon colors. But as I thought, willing magick to show itself to me, the layers of the spells on the door slowly and faintly began to glimmer. I was vaguely aware of Hunter, next to me, becoming very still and alert as the sigils and markings of spells shone with a slight sheen around the door frame. I saw the oldest markings, those of Cal himself, spelling the door so that it would open only to his command. I can't say how I knew these spells were his, how I knew what they were and how he had made them. It was more like seeing a daisy and thinking, Daisy. It was clear and instantaneous.
It was also clear that Cal's spells had been mostly obliterated, I guessed by the International Council of Witches. Their spells were complicated and gleamed brightly. I didn't know the council members well enough to recognize their handiwork but felt that I saw traces of Hunter's handwriting, his personality in the spells. Again I could never have explained it or proved it. I just knew.
Overlying everything were dark, spiky spells of illusion and repulsion that I recognized as Selene's handiwork. She had used an ancient alphabet and an archaic set of characters, and just seeing the spells written there brought forth a wave of fear that I tried to dismiss. Selene's work glowed the brightest: she had cast these spells recently.
"All right," breathed Hunter next to me. I kept the spells in sight as he began slowly and laboriously dismantling them, layer by layer, saying the words that unknit the spells, dispersing their energy and power. My head was beginning to ache with a sharp, piercing pain at my temples as I strove to concentrate. The cold wind seemed to intensify, and it buffeted us as we stood on that narrow staircase outside the attic of the stone house.
At last the spells were taken apart, and then it was simple for Hunter to magickally undo the mechanical lock of the door. It swung open silently, and with a glance at each other, Hunter and I stepped through.
Inside, Cal's room was as he'd left it that night he'd tried to kill me. With a quick scan I saw he had taken some of his books, and probably some clothes, since his dresser drawers were pulled askew. But it didn't appear that he'd been staying here.
The room was startlingly familiar, and it brought an unwelcome ache to my heart to see the place where Cirrus had had circles, the chair where I'd opened my birthday presents from Cal, the bed where we had lain and kissed for hours.
As noiselessly as possible, we did a quick search of Cal's room. I held my athame before me and on virtually every surface turned up runes, sigils, other markings: the magick Cal had worked in this room. But other than the marks, and some dangerous tools and talismans, we found nothing, no sign of Mary K. or of Cal's or Selene's whereabouts.
"This way," Hunter said, his voice no louder than a whisper, and motioned toward the door that led to the rest of the house. When he opened the door, I almost recoiled. Now I could sense Selene, feel her dark presence. She had been working black magick in this house: its bitter and acrid aura clung to everything. It felt like the very air was contaminated, and I was afraid.
Gently Hunter brushed his hand against my hair, my cheek. "Remember," he whispered. "Fear is one of her weapons. Don't give in to it. Trust your instincts."
My instincts? I thought, panicked. We both knew how reliable those had been in the past. But I knew that was the wrong answer, so I just nodded, and we started down the narrow back staircase to the second floor. Maeve's wand felt slim and powerful in my left hand, and the athame felt as protective as a shield. But I still felt vulnerable as I crept downstairs and was glad Hunter was beside me.
Cal's room took up the entire attic, and on the second floor were five bedrooms and four bathrooms. Here, as upstairs, the dusty floors were undisturbed until our feet traced patterns on them. To a rational mind, that meant that no person had walked here since the house had been shut. But witchcraft is not bound by laws of rationality.
Searching as a witch was different than searching as a person. I used my eyes and ears, but more important, I used my senses, my intuition, my Wiccan instinct that warned me when danger was near and what form it would take. Between me, my tools, and Hunter, we made short work of the second floor. None of the rooms looked touched, but more telling, none of the rooms felt touched. I didn't detect Selene's unmistakable aura in any of the bedrooms: she hadn't been to the second floor.
The only time I felt anything at all was when I paused before an open window in the last bedroom. I felt a faint chill there, as if I stood beneath an AC vent, but the window curtains were motionless, and then I picked up on it: Cal. Cal had been here; he'd stood here with a lit candle not long ago. The day Bree, Mary K., and I had come back from Practical Magick and I had seen him. His traces lingered here still.
Hunter came to stand by me. Our eyes met, and he nodded. He felt it, too. Taking my elbow, he led me to the main staircase, the wide, ornately carved steps leading to the first floor. The rich carpet looked dull, dusty, and my nose tickled as our feet stirred motes into the chill, silent air.
Selene's presence felt stronger with every step. In my hand, the hilt of the ancient Belwicket athame seemed to grow warm. Then I knew: Selene was in her library, the hidden library that I had seen only once, a lifetime ago, when I had discovered Maeve's Book of Shadows on Selene's shelves. When Hunter had come here, he hadn't even been able to find the concealed door. In fact, the council witches themselves hadn't been able to break the spells that guarded Selene's secret lair.
Today would be different. Today we would get into the hidden library because today Selene wanted us to. She had taken my sister to try to make me come here. In an instant I saw the whole plan: Selene had been trying to get into my mind and had been thwarted by my ability to block her. Had she then turned to my sister? Mary K. had been withdrawn and sad for weekswas Selene working on her mind even then?
Since she had first met me, Selene had been courting me, through her son. She had commanded Cal to get close to me, and he had. She had wanted him to make me love him, and he had. She had wanted him to convince me to join their side, to ally my magick and Maeve's coven tools with theirs. This I had refused. Since then she had wanted two things: my compliance or death and Maeve's tools. And now here I was, in her house, at her bidding, just as she had planned.
Today we would finish what had been set in motion the day we met. With a sudden, chilling certainty I knew that Selene intended for only one of us to survive this encounter: her. By the end of the day she wanted me dead and she wanted Maeve's tools. No doubt she also wanted Hunter dead. Mary K. probably didn't matter much to her, but as a witness, she would have to die as well.
I almost sagged against the stair rail as these thoughts flashed like lightning across my mind. If I were a full, initiated witch, I would be quaking in my boots at the idea of facing Selene Belltower. If I had the entire council standing behind me, wands raised, I would still feel a cold and desperate terror. As it was, there was only me and Hunter, and I was just a barefoot, talented amateur from a small town.
I gulped and looked at Hunter, my eyes wide and filling with hopeless tears. Jesus, get me out of this, I thought in panic. Please, God. Hunter watched me, his eyes narrowed, and then he reached out and gripped my shoulder hard, so hard, I winced. "Don't be afraid," he whispered fiercely.
Yeah, right, I wanted to scream. Every cell in my body wanted to turn, run, and get the hell out of here. Only the image of my innocent sister, trustingly getting into Selene's car, kept me in place. I felt nausea rise in the back of my throat, and I wanted to sit down and start crying, right there on the steps.
"Morgan, come." Selene's voice spoke in my mind.
My eyes widened, and I looked at Hunter. His face showed me that he hadn't heard it.
"Selene," I whispered. "She knows I'm here." Hunter's face hardened.
Leaning over, he put his mouth close to mine. "We can do this, love. You can do this."
I tried to focus, but I couldn't stop thinking that I might die today. A deep despair started in the pit of my stomach, as if I had swallowed a cold stone the size of my fist.
But there was nothing to be done. Mary K. was here. She was my sister, and she needed me now. Hunter was by my side as I took a step downward, my bare feet making no sound on the thick carpet When we reached the bottom of the steps, the parquet floor was cold and dust covered. Here, at last, were signs of disturbance. I saw dim outlines of footprints, swept mostly away by something soft and heavy the bottom of a cape? A blanket?
I turned and headed down the hallway toward the large kitchen. Halfway down the hall I stopped and looked to my right. The door had to be around here somewhere, I knew. The door to Selene's library.
16. Selene
June 1982
Praise the Goddess. I finally had my baby boy. He is a big, perfect baby, with fine dark hair like mine and odd, slate-colored eyes that will no doubt change color later. Norris Hathaway and Helen Ford attended as midwives and were absolute lifesavers during labor. Labor! Goddess, I had no idea. I felt I was being rent in two, torn apart, giving birth to an entire world. I tried to be strong but I admit I screamed and cried. Then my son crowned, and Norris reached down to twist out his shoulders. I looked down to see my son emerge into the light, and my tears of pain turned to tears of joy. It was the most incredible magick I've ever made.
His naming ceremony will be next week. I've decided on Calhoun: warrior. His Amyranth name is Sgath, which means darkness. It's a sweet darkness, like his hair.
Daniel didn't come to the birth: a sign of his weakness. He slouches around, mooning over England and his whore there, which makes me despise him, though I can't stop wanting him. He seems pleased with his son, less pleased with me. Now that our baby is here, flesh and blood, beautiful and perfect, perhaps Daniel will find happiness with me. It would be best for him if he did.
Now that I've had the baby, I'm hungry to get back to with Amyranth. They were in Wales and then in Germany in the past several months, and I was gnashing my teeth with envy. The Germany trip yielded some ancient books on darkness that I can't wait to seeI can already taste them. It will be intensely fulfilling for me to watch Calhoun grow up within the arms of Amyranth, their son as well as mine. He will be my instrument, my weapon.
SB
Selene wasn't going to make it too easy: it took Hunter and me several minutes to even find the dim outlines of the concealed door. Finally I managed to come up with one of Alyce's revealing spells and, using my athame, detected the barest fingernail-thin line in the hallway wall.
"Ah," Hunter breathed. "Well done."
I stood by, concentrating, lending my power to Hunter while he carefully, slowly, and methodically dismantled the concealment and closure spells. I felt Selene's magick as bursts of pain that needled into every part of my body, but I thought about Mary K., and I tried to ignore them.
It felt like hours later that Hunter passed his hand down the wall and I heard the faint snick of the latch opening. The door, barely taller than Hunter's head, swung open.
The next instant I clamped my mouth shut as darkness and evil surged through the doorway like a flood tide, coming to suck us under and into the room. Instinctively I stepped back, throwing up ward-evil spells and spells of protection on top of the ones Hunter and I had already placed on ourselves. Then I heard the soft, dark velvet of Selene's laughter, from inside the library, and I forced myself to take a step forward, across the threshold, into her lair.
It was dark in the room. The only light present was coming from several black pillar candles on wrought-iron holders taller than me. I remembered the layout from the only other time I had been here: it was a big room, with a high ceiling. Bookshelves lined the walls, connected by brass railings and small ladders on wheels. There was a deep leather couch, several glass display cases, Selene's huge walnut desk, a library table with a globe, and several book stands holding enormous, ancient, crumbling tomes. And everywhere in the room, in every book and cushion and rug, was Selene's magick, her dark magick, her forbidden spells and experiments and concoctions. The needlelike pains intensified as I scanned the room for Mary K.
Hunter moved behind me, coming into the room. I sensed danger coming from him, a deep, controlled anger at Selene's obvious misuse of magick.
"Morgan!" Mary K.'s soft, young voice came from a dark corner of the room. I cast out my senses and detected my sister huddled against the far wall. Sweeping the room for signs of Selene, I walked quickly to Mary K. and knelt down beside her.
"Are you okay?" I murmured, and she leaned forward, pressing her face against me.
"I don't know why I'm here," she said. Her voice was thick, as if she'd just woken from a deep sleep. "I don't know what's going on."
I was ashamed to tell her she had been merely bait, intended to lure me here. I was ashamed to admit that she was in terrible danger because of me and my Wiccan heritage. Instead I said, "It'll be okay. We'll get you out of here. Just hold on, okay?"
She nodded and slumped back down. Just in touching her I had felt that she was spellednot strongly, but enough to make her lax and docile. Rage sparked deep in my stomach, and I stood. Hunter was still close to the door, and I saw he had prudently wedged a small wooden trunk in its opening. Where was Selene? I'd heard her laugh. Of course, it could have been an illusion, a glamour. I was panicking: would I be locked in and trapped here? Would Selene set me on fire? Would I burn to death after all? My breathing quickened, and I peered into the darkest shadows of the room.
"Selene will try to scare you," Hunter had said. "Don't be fooled." Easier said than done. I stepped closer to one of the pillar candles and focused on it. Light, I thought. Fire. There were candles in holders on the walls, and around the room were candelabras filled with tall black tapers. One by one I lit them with my mind, sparking them into life, into existence, and the shadows lessened and the room grew brighter.
"Very good," said Selene's voice. "But then, you're a fire fairy. Like Bradhadair."
Bradhadair had been Maeve's Wiccan name, the name given her by her coven. It had been in her Book of Shadows, and probably no one else alive today knew about it. I swung toward the sound of Selene's voice and saw her appear in front of one of the bookcases, stepping out from a deep shadow into the light. She was as beautiful as ever, with her sun-streaked dark hair and strange golden eyes, so like Cal's. This was his mother. She had made him what he was.
Like me, Selene wore only her witch's robe, which was a deep crimson silk embroidered all over with symbols I recognized as the same ancient alphabet she'd used for the door spell. It had been taught to Alyce only so she could recognize it and neutralize it: it was inherently evil, and the letters could only be used for dark magick. Because Alyce had learned it, I knew it, too.
"Morgan, thank you for coming," Selene said. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Hunter circling the room, trying to put Selene between me and him. "I'm truly sorry I had to resort to these means. I assure you I've caused no harm to your sister. But once I realized you wouldn't respond to an ordinary invitation, well, I had to get creative." She gave me a charming, rueful smile and seemed like the most attractive person I'd ever seen. "Please forgive me."
I regarded her. Once I had admired her intensely, envied her knowledge and power and skill. Now I knew better.
"No," I said clearly, and her eyes narrowed.
"It's over, Selene," Hunter said in a voice like ice. "You've had a long run, but your days with Amyranth are done."
Amyranth? What's that? I wondered.
"Morgan?" Selene asked, ignoring Hunter.
"No," I repeated. "I don't forgive you."
"You don't understand," she said patiently. "You don't know enough to realize what you're doing. Hunter here is simply weak and misguided, and who cares? He isn't worth anything to anyone. But you, my dear. You have potential I can't ignore." She smiled again, but it was creepy this time, like a skeleton baring its teeth. "I offer you the chance to be more powerful than you could possibly imagine," she went on. I could hear the sibilant swish of her robe as she moved closer to me. "You are one of the few witches I've met who's worthy of being one of us. You could add to our greatness instead of draining us. Youand your coven tools."
My fists instinctively tightened on my wand and athame, and I tried to release the tension in my body. I had to stay loose and calm, to let the magick flow.
"No," I said again, and my senses picked up the instantaneous flare of anger from Selene. She quickly clamped it down, but the fact that I even felt it meant she wasn't as much in control of herself as she needed to be. I took a deep breath and went against every instinct that I had: I tried to relax, to open myself up, to stop protecting myself. I released anger, fear, distrust, my desire for revenge: I kept thinking, Magick is openness, trust, love. Magick is beauty. Magick is strength and forgiveness. I am made of magick. I thought how I felt after my tath meanma brach, how I felt that magick was everywhere, in everything, in every molecule. If magick surrounded me, it was mine for the taking. I could access it. I could use it. I had the power of the world at my fingertips if I chose to let it in.
I chose to.
The next moment found me doubled over, gasping, as a wave of searing, biting pain hit me. I gagged, choking on the horrible cramping agony, and then I was on my hands and knees on the floor, sucking in breath and feeling like I was being turned inside out.
"Morgan!" Hunter said, but I was only barely aware of him. Every nerve in my body was being flayed, every sense I had was occupied with the exquisite, soul-consuming torture. My hands, still gripping the tools, clawed into the carpet as an invisible ax cleaved my belly in two. In disbelief I stared at myself, expecting to see guts and blood spewing from my body, but I was whole, unchanged on the outside. And yet I was gasping, writhing on the ground as my insides were eaten by acid.
It was an illusion. I knew it intellectually. But my body didn't know it. Between spasms I glanced up at Selene. She was smiling, a small, secret smile that showed me she enjoyed causing me agony.
"Morgan, you're stronger than that!" Hunter snapped, and his words seeped into my consciousness. "Get up! She can't do this to you!"
She's a playground bully, I thought, my breath coming in fast, shallow pants. When I had bound Cal and Hunter, had knocked them to the ground, I had felt the dark, shameful pleasure of controlling another person. That's what Selene was feeling now.
It was an illusion. Everything in me thought I was dying. But I was more than just my thoughts, more than just my feelings, more than my body. I was Morgan of Kithic and of Belwicket, and I had a thousand years of Woodbane strength inside me.
I feel no pain, I thought. I feel no panic.
Slowly I rose back up to my hands and knees, my mouth parched, sweat popping out on my forehead. My hair dragged on the ground, my hands were claws around my tools. My tools. They were not Maeve's. Not any longer.
I feel no pain, I thought fiercely. I am fine. Everything in my life is perfect, whole, and complete. I am strength. I am power. I am magick.
Then I was standing tall, my back straight, my hands at my sides. I looked calmly at Selene and for one fraction of a second saw disbelief in her eyes. More than disbelief. I saw the barest hint of fear.
Whirling, she turned to face Hunter and threw out her hand. I saw no witch fire, but Hunter immediately raised his hands and drew sigils in the air. His chest heaved as he pulled in breath, and though I couldn't actually see anything, I knew that Selene was trying to do to him what she had done to me and that he was resisting it. I had never seen so much of his power, not even when he was putting the braigh on David Redstone, and it was awesome.
But it wasn't enough for us to resist Selene. We had to actually vanquish her. We had to render her powerless somehow. I searched Alyce's data banks, concealed within my brain, and began to sift through the encyclopedias of knowledge she had acquired in her lifetime.
How do you fight darkness with light? I asked myself. In the same way that sunlight dispels a shadow, came the unhelpful answer. I almost screamed with frustrationI needed something practical, something concrete. Not mumbo jumbo.
The edge of my senses picked up a slight breathing soundMary K. She sat, as motionless as a doll, her open eyes unseeing, in the shadows of the corner. Without thinking, I quickly called up spells of distraction, of turn-away. If Selene looked at Mary K., I wanted her to shift focus slightly, to see nothing, to not remember my sister's presence.
Hunter and Selene were facing each other, and suddenly Hunter surprised me by snatching up a crystal globe from a shelf and humming it at Selene. Her eyes widened and she stepped sideways, but the globe hit her shoulder with an audible thunk. In the next instant she flung out her hand and an athame flew across the room, straight at Hunter. It reminded me too much of that awful night weeks ago, and I flinched, but Hunter deflected the knife easily, and it glanced off a lamp and fell to the ground.
What could I do? I had no experience at things whizzing through the airI had never practiced controlling physical things like that. In this battle I would need to use magick and magick alone. I would need to use my truth.
I saw Hunter pull out his braigh, the silver chain that was spelled to prevent its wearer from making magick. Coupled with some spells, it was enough to stop most witches.
But Selene merely glanced at Hunter with contempt, dismissing his threat and turning to me. Walking quickly across the room, she said, "Morgan, stop this foolishness. Call off your watchdog. You have it in you to be one of the greatest witches of all time: you are a true Woodbane, pure and ancient. Don't deny your heritage any longer. Join us, my dear."
"No, Selene," I said. Inside me, I consciously opened the door to my magick and with a deep, indrawn breath allowed it to flow. The first strains of a power chant began to thread their way into my mind.
Her beautiful face hardened, and I once again realized what I was up against. Hunter had said that Selene had been wanted by the council for yearsthat she had been implicated in countless deaths. Clinging to calmness, I nevertheless wished every member of the council would suddenly burst through the open door, capes waving, wands brandished, spells spouting from their lips. Coming here alone had been desperate. It had been crazy. Worse, it had been stupid.