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took an iron ladle from the handle of the cauldron, and stirred the nauseating brew. Chicken bones, with shreds of rotting meat still clinging to them. No human. Thank God for small favors.
The magic wave died. The technology regained its control, snuffing out the knot of magic above the cauldron.
I slapped the lid back onto the cauldron and moved on to the altar. A few black feathers had stuck to the blood. A long curved knife, sharpened to a razor edge, lay on the table. Black runes, etched with hot wire, covered the handle of the knife. The pieces clicked together in my brain. Now the chicken in the fridge made sense.
Julie finally braved the room. “Is that human blood?”
“Chicken.”
“So what, she did voodoo or something?”
“Voodoo isn’t the only religion that uses chickens. Europe has a very long tradition of divination using bird entrails.”
She looked blank.
“You behead a chicken, cut it open, and try to foretell the future by how its guts look. And sometimes”—I used the knife to raise a blood-spattered rope from behind the altar to show her—“you don’t kill the chicken first.”
“That’s just sick. What kind of people did that?”
“Druids.”
Julie blinked. “But druids are nice.”
“The modern Order of Druids is nice. But they didn’t start out that way. Have you ever seen any girl druids?”
She shook her head. “They’re all guys.”
“So why was Esmeralda messing around with druid rituals?”
Julie stared at me. “I don’t know.”
“Neither do I.”
I had a feeling that she had done it because someone had instructed her to do so. The sick premonition that had made me shiver at the edge of the pit returned full force. The deeper I got, the less I liked this.
I crouched before the wicker chest and opened it, half-expecting more grisly chicken remains. Books.
MacKillop’sDictionary of Celtic Mythology ,Myths and Legends of Ancient Ireland by McClean, Awaken the Celt Within by Wizard Sumara, andMabinoghen. Three books on Celtic rituals and one about King Arthur.