Shadow Spell

19

THEY HAD TEA, WITH WHISKEY FOR THOSE WHO WANTED it, in the living room of the cottage. Branna set out a plate of gingerbread biscuits and considered her domestic duties done.
“Where do we begin?” she wondered. “Do we still agree on Samhain?”
“It gives us a fortnight,” Boyle pointed out. “And from what I can see we could use the time. But . . .”
“But.” Fin opted for whiskey and poured himself two fingers, neat. “He’s come at us hard. We weren’t ready for him, and that’s clear enough.”
“It was my fault.”
“Fault isn’t the point of it, Meara,” Fin interrupted. “He lurks and slithers about at his will, and could come at any one of us in a moment of vulnerability. He’s been at Iona, and now at you. From the pattern of it, if we don’t end this, he’ll go at Branna next.”
“Let him come.” Branna calmly took a sip of tea.
“You’re far too cocksure of yourself,” Fin snapped back. “Arrogance isn’t power or a weapon.”
“You’ve never had trouble wrapping yourself in it good and tight.”
“Stop.” Connor stretched his legs out, shook his head. “The pair of you. Save the pokes and barbs for when we’ve time for them. He may well go at Meara again, but she won’t be foolish a second time.”
“My oath on that.”
“And it’s just as likely he could take a pass at Boyle, or Fin or myself if he saw an opportunity.”
Risking having an accusation of arrogance tossed at him, Connor shrugged. “And though I think Fin’s right, if he tires of going for Meara, he’ll turn his attentions on Branna, knowing that doesn’t speak to what we do, when we do it, and how we send him on to hell for all and done.”
“He’s right. Protecting ourselves, that’s defense—and it’s essential,” Iona added. “But it’s our offense that needs to be perfected.”
“She’s been watching matches with me.” Boyle gave her a quick grin. “We were close the last we went for him, sent him off bleeding and howling. But it wasn’t enough. What will be?”
“The potion’s stronger than it was, and that makes it a risk. One we’ll have to take.” Fin flicked a glance at Branna, got her nod.
“We thought to take him by surprise on the solstice,” Connor pointed out, “and he took us. Even then, as Boyle said, we got close to it. If we make our stand at Sorcha’s cabin, he’ll have the advantage of shifting the time, and we couldn’t know when he’d take us, or if he could, as he did, manage to separate us so we’d end up scattered, using power to reform again.”
“If not there,” Meara asked, “where?”
“It’s a place of power, for us as well as him. I think it must be there. But you’re right, Connor,” Branna added. “We can’t be separated. I’m thinking the three as a unit, and Fin, Boyle, and Meara as another—and those joined in a way that can’t be broken. This we can do—and this we will do this time.”
“Can we block him from the time shift?” Iona wondered.
“We could, I think, if we knew how he does it. But to counter such a spell, we’d need the elements of it. It’s working blind there,” Branna said in frustration.
“We shift first.” Connor leaned forward, took a biscuit. “You’re not the only one who can study and ponder and plot.” He gestured toward Branna with the biscuit, then bit in. “But you’re the only one who can make such brilliant gingerbread. We take the offensive, and shift from the start.”
“And how, scholar, should we find the way to do that—which will take considerable doing—would we lure him to when we are?”
“We know the way to do it already,” he reminded his sister. “Iona did it herself when she’d no more than gotten her toe dipped in her own magickal waters.”
“I did?” After a blink, Iona pumped her fist in the air. “Go, me.”
“I’ve done it myself,” he added, “alone and with Meara, and met our long-ago cousins.”
“Dream travel?” Branna put down her teacup. “Oh, Connor, that’s a reckless thing.”
“It’s reckless times, and we’d have to be smart about it.”
“It’s bloody brilliant,” Fin said, and earned Connor’s grin, Branna’s scowl.
“He’s talking of casting a dream net over the six of us at once.”
“I know it. That’s what’s bloody brilliant. He’d have to be on the same level, wouldn’t he, to come at us? And it would be in the time and place of our choosing.”
“He couldn’t turn it on us,” Connor pointed out, “as he wouldn’t know the elements of the spell we cast, any more than we know the elements of his. It’s him who’d have to come to us, and he’d lose the power to shift our ground.”
“Give me a moment.” Boyle lifted a hand, then used it to scratch his head. “Are you saying we’d go against Cabhan in our sleep?”
“A dream spell’s different from natural sleep. It’s not like you’re lying there snoring them off. You’ve done a bit of it yourself,” Connor recalled. “Pulled in with Iona into her dream—and didn’t you give the bastard a good punch in the face while you were at it?”
“I did, and woke with his blood on my knuckles. But a dream battle? I’ve accepted all the lot of you can do as I’ve lived with it most of my life, but this strains the tether.”
“He’d never expect it,” Meara speculated. “Can it really be done?”
“All six at once, and with no one left behind at the wheel you could say.” Struggling to look at the pros, the cons, the balance of them, Branna shoved both hands through her hair. “Sure it’s nothing I’ve ever done. I’d be easy trying it with the three, facing him off that way, and the three of you back here—Fin at that wheel for certain to steer us back should we lose balance or direction.”
“It’s the six of us,” Meara said decisively, “or not at all.”
“Meara, I’m not talking this through in the way of insulting you. Any of you. But dream casting six together, and two of them without powers.”
“Not so cocksure now?” Fin asked, with just a little bite.
“Oh, feck off,” Branna snapped.
“And back at you, darling, for suggesting that I or Boyle or Meara would stay back like obedient pups while you waged the war.”
“That’s not my meaning.”
“It’s how it feels.” Meara turned to Connor. “And you?”
“The six of us,” he said without hesitation, “or none at all.”
“All or none,” Boyle agreed.
“Yes.” Nodding, Iona took his hand. “If anyone can work out how it can be done, Branna, it’s you.”
“Ah, Jesus, bloody hell, let me think.” She shoved the teacup aside, poured whiskey—more generously than Fin had.
She tossed it back like water.
“I’ve always admired your head for whiskey,” Fin said as she shoved to her feet to pace.
“Be quiet. Just be quiet. Six at once,” she repeated as she paced, “in the name of Morrigan, it’s madness. And two of them armed with nothing but wit and fist and sword for all that. And one of them bearing Cabhan’s mark. Just shut up about it,” she snapped at Fin, who’d said nothing at all, “it’s fact.”
“They’re armed with more than wit and fist and sword, and have more than a mark unearned.” Connor spoke quietly. “They have heart.”
“Do you think I don’t know it? Do you think I don’t value it, above all?” She stopped, closed her eyes a moment. Sighed. “You’ve turned this upside down on me, Connor. I need to work my way through it. It’s not like one of us going into a magickal dream and taking along the one lying with us, the one we’ve been intimate with. And that has its own risks, as both Boyle and Iona know well.”
“It’s not, no. This would be a deliberate and conscious thing, a planned thing, a casting of our own.” Connor lifted his hands, spread them, palms up. “With as many protections as we can build into the spell. But there’ll be risks, yes, but risks however we go about it. And on Samhain, when the Veil thins, is the perfect time for this.”
He rose, went to her, took her hands. “You’d leave them behind if you could—and I would as well. That’s for love and friendship—and because this is a burden and duty that came to us. To you, to me, to Iona. Not to them.”
He kissed her hands lightly. “But that would be wrong for so many reasons. We’re a circle, three by three. It was always meant to be the six of us, Branna. I believe that.”
“I know it. It’s clear to me as well.”
“You fear you’ll fail them. You won’t. You won’t, and the burden of it isn’t yours alone.”
“We’ve never done it before.”
“I’d never floated so much as a feather before I came here,” Iona reminded her. “And now?”
She lifted her hands, palms up. The sofa where she sat beside Boyle rose smoothly, soundlessly, did a slow circle, then lowered back to the ground.
“Fair play to you,” Fin said, amused.
“You taught me, you and Connor. You opened me to what I have and what I am. We’ll figure out how to do it, and do it.”
“All right. All right. I can’t stand one against five. And it is a bloody brilliant idea. Reckless and frightening and brilliant. I know a potion I could tinker with that should work, and we’ll write the spell—and I’ll need every hour of that fortnight.”
“And you have us to help you tinker,” Connor pointed out.
“I’ll need you all as well. Still, I’d be easier if we have what would be a kind of control outside the dream net.”
“Would they have to be right here—with us, I mean?” Meara asked.
“Physically you’re meaning?” Connor glanced over at her, considered. “I don’t see why.”
“Then you have your father, the two of you. And there’s Iona’s grandmother. That’s blood and purpose shared, isn’t it? And love as well.”
“And more bloody brilliance!” On a laugh, Connor turned to Meara, plucked her straight out of her chair to spin her around. “That would do, and do very well. Branna?”
“It could—no, it would. And if I’d cleared the buzzing out of my head, I’d have seen it. Iona’s Nan, our da, and . . .”
She turned to Fin. “Your cousin Selena. Would she be willing? Three’s a better number than two, and gives it all power and blood from each of us. Three would balance, I’d think, should we need to be righted again.”
“She would be more than willing. She’s in Spain, but I’ll contact her. I’ll speak with her about it.”
“Then that part’s settled. I’ll study on it.”
“I have been,” Connor told her. “The potion, to open the vision, shared by all inside the ritual circle. Best done outside, in the air. We take our guides as well, the horse, the hound, the hawk.”
Branna started to speak, reconsidered. “You have studied on it.”
“I have. Fin, your horse, your hawk—and I don’t suppose you can come up with a hound in the next fortnight? Three for three.”
“I have one. I have Bugs.”
“Little Bugs?” Iona began, thinking of the barn dog at the big stables.
“Little as you are, game as you are. Three for three,” Fin repeated with a nod. “Horse for Boyle, hawk for Meara, hound, such as he is, for me. It’s well thought, Connor.”
“It’s you who must link them to the others, as they come from you.”
“So I will.”
“And so inside the circle, our circle and our guides,” Connor said. “Our circle, the six, hands joined as the spell is spoken, as the spell is cast. And minds linked as well, which I will do. Minds, hearts, hands linked, and we go together, on the dream, to the night of All Hallow’s Eve, to Samhain, in the year Sorcha’s Brannaugh, Eamon, and Teagan returned to Mayo.”
“Their presence adds power.” Branna sat again, reached for a cookie herself. “The night the Veil thins. We may draw their power, and Sorcha’s with ours. No, he could never expect this. There’s time enough to perfect the potion and the spell. And then, to draw him there. That’s for Meara.”
“It’s for me?”
Branna huffed at her brother. “You haven’t spoken to her of it.”
“Between one thing and the other, no. It’s you he wants to use this go,” Connor told her, “so it’s you who’ll use him. You’ll sing him there.”
“Sing?”
“Music, light, joy—emotions. Flames to his moth,” Connor explained. “When he comes, it must be as quick as we can make it, giving him no time to slip away again.”
“We go much as we did on the solstice,” Branna began.
“No.” Now Fin pushed to his feet. “We failed there, didn’t we?”
“We have a new strategy, a stronger weapon.”
“And if he once again manages to draw the three apart again, even if only for a moment? If the spell, the ritual, the end, must come from you, then he must be held off while you cast him out. We engage him. Boyle, Meara, and I. We cost him blood and pain before. We’ll do worse this round. We’ll do worse while you do what’s best.”
“Do you want his end, Fin, or do you want his blood?”
“I want both, and so do you, Branna. You can’t shed it for gain or for joy.”
“Nor should you.”
“And I won’t. We won’t. But we’ll shed it and worse in defense of the three. In defense of the light. If there’s joy in it as well? A witch is still human for all that.”
“I’m with Fin on it,” Boyle said. “Iona’s mine. And all of you my family. I’ll stand for her, for you. I won’t stand back.”
“They’ve said what I’d say.” Meara shrugged. “So that’s done.” She set her hands on her knees. “So, as I have it, in a fortnight’s time, we’ll all—including horses, hounds, hawks, go dreaming ourselves back a few centuries. I’ll sing, and like the Pied Piper’s tune to rats, that will lure Cabhan. Three of us fight, three of us cast the spell to destroy him. When the job’s done we take our bows, then wake up back here where we should take another bow for certain, as we’ve vanquished evil. Then I suppose we should all go to the pub for a pint.”
“That puts it all in a nutshell,” Connor decided.
“All right then. I think there should be whiskey all around as we’re all raving lunatics.” She let out a breath, picked up a biscuit and bit in. “But at least one of us does indeed make brilliant gingerbread.”
Amused, Connor poured whiskey all around, lifted his glass, tapped it to Meara’s. “Whether we’re victorious or buggered, there’s no five others I’d rather stand with. So f*ck it all. Sláinte.”
And they drank.
* * *
THEY HAD WORK TO DO AND PLENTY OF IT. BRANNA BARELY left her workshop. If her nose wasn’t in a spell book—Sorcha’s, her great-grandmother’s, her own—she was at her work countertesting potions or writing spells.
When the life around them allowed, Connor joined her, or Iona or Fin. Meara found herself in the position of fetching, carrying, cooking—or splitting that chore with Boyle.
As often as she could she pulled one of them out for sword practice.
And all watched the woods, the fields, the roads for any sign.
“It’s been too quiet.” Meara easily parried Connor’s advance on one of the rare occasions she managed to drag him away from work or witchcraft.
“He’s watching, and waiting.”
“That’s just it, isn’t it? He’s waiting. I’ve barely seen a shadow of him for days now. He’s keeping his distance. He’s waiting for us to make the move as he knows we’ve one to make.”
She thrust, feinted, then swung up, nearly disarming him.
“You’re not paying attention in the least,” she complained. “If these blades weren’t charmed I could’ve sliced your ear off.”
“Then I’d only half hear your voice, and that would be a pity.”
“We should go at him, Connor.”
“We’ve a plan, Meara. Patience.”
“It’s not about patience, but strategy.”
“Strategy, is it?” He twirled his free hand, stirred a little cyclone of air. When she glanced toward it, he moved in, and had his sword to her throat. “How’s that?”
“Well, if you’re after cheating—”
“And Cabhan will play nicely, of course.”
“Point taken.” She stepped back. “What I’m saying is we should feint.” She jabbed, shifted, jabbed again. “Make him think we’ve gone at him, let him score a point or two. He’ll think we’ve made our move, so he won’t expect it when we do.”
“Hmm. That’s . . . interesting. Have you anything in mind?”
“You’re the witch, aren’t you, so you and your like would have to come up with the ritual of it.”
Lowering her sword, she worked through what she’d only half baked in her head.
“But what if we did it near here—near the cottage where we could retreat, as retreat would be part of it. Let him think he’s routed us.”
“That’s a hard swallow, but I see where you’re going. Come on then.” He grabbed her hand, pulled her into the workshop where Branna funneled a pale blue liquid into a slim bottle. Iona crushed herbs with mortar and pestle.
“Meara’s an idea.”
Eyebrows drawn together, Branna focused on the liquid sliding gracefully into the bottle. “I’m still working on the last idea that’s come around.”
“It’s perfect, Branna.” Iona stopped as Branna slid a crystal stopper into the bottle.
“And how many dream spells for six, and their guides, have you cast?”
“This will be my first.” But Iona smiled. “And it’s perfect. You should have seen the stars,” she told Connor and Meara. “Tiny blue stars rising up, circling around the cauldron as she finished it.”
“I think it’s right.” Branna rubbed the small of her back. “I added the amethyst as you suggested, Connor, and I think it’s right. It needs to cure out of the light for at least three days.”
She lifted it, carried it over to a cupboard.
“Let me make you some tea,” Iona began, but Branna shook her head.
“Thanks, but no. I’ve had enough tea these last days to do me for six months. I’m after some wine.”
“Then we’ll have some wine while you hear Meara’s idea. Better, don’t you feel like cooking something?” Connor tried out a winning smile. “Aren’t you feeling a longing for your own kitchen, darling? This is the sort of idea that goes well with a good bowl of soup, and the full circle of us.”
Meara gave him a shove. “I think it’s a good idea, and it should be heard by everyone. But I can make the soup while you sit and have your wine.”
“I’ll make it, because despite the fact that my brother’s thinking with his belly, I do miss my kitchen. We’ve vegetables in the garden still.” She pointed at Connor. “Go fetch some.”
“What’s your pleasure?”
“Any and all. I’ll make it up as I go. And since you’ve had some fine idea, Meara, you can tell me of it while I have the wine. I don’t see why I should wait for the others. Leave that, Iona. We’ll get back to it. Let’s have a little kitchen time.”
Meara thought she was doing some making it up as she went as well. And by the time everyone arrived, she’d refined things a bit.
“So,” she finished, “by doing something now without any real stake in winning, we’d have him thinking we’d made our attack, bungled it, or at least failed at it. We’re forced to retreat to the cottage—where we’re protected. Confused-like, you know? And bitter. If we’ve had our arse handed to us, he wouldn’t think we’d launch another attack in a matter of days.”
“If we go halfway, he could do real damage,” Boyle pointed out. “Why not go full-out?”
“We still need the time left for the plan we settled on. I’ve been working the spell around the night we chose,” Branna explained. “I wouldn’t want to try it on another. It must be Samhain.”
“Her point is by losing we have a better chance of winning.” Connor gave Boyle a bump on the shoulder. “And I know losing, even by design, goes down hard.”
“We’d have to make it flashy. He won’t be fooled by something that looks weak and tossed together.” But Fin smiled. “And we could give plenty of flash. Fire and storm, quake and flood. We throw the elements at him. It wouldn’t be right—not on its own in any case, but it would be loud and strong and it would feel bloody fierce.”
“A call to the elements.” Now Branna began to smile. “Oh, we could make it fierce indeed. Even rock him on his heels a bit. We’d need to shield, for we’ve neighbors here. The field—the rise behind the gardens.”
“That’s farther than I’d thought,” Meara began. “If we’re going to be routed, that’s a long road to retreat and safety.”
“We don’t retreat,” Connor said. “At least not at a run. We fly.”
“Fly?” Meara let out a long breath. “I think I’ll have some more wine on that notion.”
“That makes a statement, too.” Iona did the honors with the wine. “We’re defeated, and have to fly to safety. When would we try it?”
“We’re on a waning moon.” Connor glanced toward the window. “That could be useful. I’d like a go at it tonight, but I think closer to the real attack. Two nights more? If we get any singes from it, we’d have time to mend them.”
“Two nights more.” Branna walked over to stir her soup.
* * *
EVEN A FEINT REQUIRED PLANNING.
The three added more protection around the house. If Cabhan believed them weakened, he might try to come in for the coup de grace. They couldn’t afford a single chink.
Meara thought of it as a kind of play. Though some would be scripted, and she’d gone over her part of it a dozen times and more, some would have to be written and delivered on the spot.
“I’m nervous,” she confessed to Connor. “More nervous than I was on the solstice.”
“You’ll be fine. We all will. Remember defense is the first goal here. Offense is just a happy bonus.”
“It’s nearly time.” As if to warm them, she rubbed her hands together. “He may not even come.”
“I think he will. He’ll believe you’re weak, and that we’re fractured. He’ll see a chance, want to take it. It’s family he doesn’t understand, and the bonds of friendship. But he’ll understand what we lure him with.”
He took her hand, walked with her into the workshop where the others had already gathered.
Even for this, Meara thought, the ritual must be kept.
So they lighted the ritual candles, watched while the smoke from the cauldron rose in a pale blue.
Branna took the ritual cup she placed in the circle, and spoke words familiar now.
“This we drink, one cup for six, from hand to hand and mouth to mouth to fix with wine our unity. Six hearts, six minds as one tonight as we prepare to wage this fight. Sip one, sip all, and show each one here answers the call.”
Three times they passed the cup, hand to hand, mouth to mouth.
“A circle are we, two rings forming one three by three. Tonight we ask for strength and power to see us through the dark hour. Four elements we will call to bring about Cabhan’s fall. Fire, earth, water, air we’ll stir into a raging sea. As we will, so mote it be.”
The three closed the circle.
“We’re ready. The circle’s been cast, the spell begun. If we have time to cast a circle on the rise, so much the better.” Branna looked at Meara. “You’ll know when to start.”
She hoped so.
They walked to the rise, carrying candles, cauldron, weapons, and wands, shielded from sight—but for Cabhan’s. Connor told her they’d left a window for him.
As they topped the rise, he reached for her hand. She pulled sharply away.
And the play began.