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Nude, except for a harness of leather belts and silver hooks, her hair falling around her in black dreads, she stood smeared with fresh blood. The dark red rivulets mixed with blue runes tattooed on her skin.
Her presence slapped me: glacial, hard, cruel, terrifying like a wolf’s howl heard at night on a lonely road.
“It’s her,” Julie whispered. “The woman by the lake.”
Her eyes glowed, streaked with radiant sparks. The sparks erupted into amber irises, suddenly as big as a house, all consuming, overpowering…The black bottomless pupil loomed before me and I knew I could sink into it and be forever lost.
So that’s what the eye of a goddess looks like.
She looked past us and raised her hand to point over my shoulder. Chains clanked.“Come!” I recognized the voice: I had heard her in my head.
Red peeled himself from the pile of trash. I had known he was there for a while. He had crept in when the fight was almost over, followed me, and waited there in the garbage, while I sat by Bran, numb.
Probably biding his time for a good chance to stab me in the back.
Julie startled. “Red!”
I caught her by the shoulder and kept her put.
“You desire power…”
Red swallowed. “Yes.”
“Serve me and I will give you all the power you want.”
He trembled.
“Do you accept the bargain?”
“Yes!”
“Red, what about me?” Julie broke free of my grip. I didn’t hold her too hard. This was her last chance to be cured.
“I love you! Don’t leave me.”
He held his hand out, blocking her. “She has everything I want. You have nothing.”
He stepped over Bran’s legs and trotted to Morrigan’s side like the dog he was. It had come full circle: from the ancestor who had broken free of Morrigan, through countless generations, to the descendant, who willingly put on her collar.
Bran’s body had barely cooled. She showed no signs of grief.
I looked at her. “You recognize me.”