Sally yawned.
“Who are these people, exactly?” Thor tripped on a bit of uneven pavement and regained his balance with a frustrated growl.
“Yeah, you’re going to hate them.” Sally glanced back at Freya and Freyr, who had dropped back to walk beside his sister. “What’s up with them?”
“Don’t ask,” Thor replied.
“It’s a long story,” Heimdall said, then paused while Sally led them through a throng of men and women in matching blue jerseys standing outside a packed pub. They clapped each other on the back and chanted their team’s fight song. Many of them were obviously inebriated.
“Not even noon, and the locals are already off their asses.” Thor rolled his suitcase over the toes of a particularly vociferous young man. The kid kept singing without interruption.
“Look, I know it’s a stereotype,” Sally said. “How Irish people are drinking all the time, but—”
“But stereotypes exist for a reason,” Heimdall replied. “It’s not your job to defend the whole country.”
Sally shrugged. “Yeah, I know, but—”
“Did you ever stop to consider why the people here like their Guinness?” Freyr appeared at Thor’s side. “That maybe there’s a deep pain here, in the land itself, and that drowning their sorrows in a pint or two, or twelve, is often the only way to tolerate it?”
Thor shot Freyr a rough look. They approached another drunken crowd, this time clad almost entirely in orange and spilling out of another loud and overflowing pub.
“I think this lot has had a good bit more than a couple of pints,” Thor said as they passed.
Freyr smiled with a glint of mischief. “Thanks for making my point for me.”
Thor stopped and frowned at Freyr in confusion. Freyr laughed and kept moving, pulling both his and his sister’s suitcases behind him.
Sally led them through the Palace Street Gate of Dublin Castle and across the succession of cobblestone parking areas toward the castle gardens.
“It wasn’t me,” she explained to Heimdall as they hurried along. “I mean, it might have been. By accident. I wasn’t trying to do anything, I swear. I was just going to classes and studying hard . . .”
“Doing all the normal things you weren’t able to do back in Portland,” Heimdall finished her thought. “Because you’re always caught up in our dramas instead.”
And here they were again. Sally wasn’t sure that she would classify saving the world from Ragnarok and fending off Køjer Devils as dramas, but Heimdall had a point. At least this time it was Heimdall saying it instead of Sally stewing in her private thoughts. Should she feel validated or depressed to have her truth spoken aloud?
“It was my roommate,” Sally said.
They wound their way through the Garda Síochána Memorial, dedicated to the Irish police officers killed in the line of duty, and exited onto the grass circle at the center of the castle gardens. Clare stood on the green, arguing with Niall and gesticulating with histrionic emphasis. Niall was shrinking away from her. He noticed Sally’s approach and smiled in relief.
“The scene of the crime.” Sally gestured toward the grass.
Heimdall parked his suitcase at the edge of the green. While the others spread out along the perimeter of the circle, Freya brushed past them and stepped onto the grass.
“Freya,” Freyr cautioned.
“The Black Pool,” Freya whispered. She walked about halfway toward the center of the circle, ignoring Sally’s friends as they stood gaping at her. She surveyed the unfamiliar buildings, gates, and pavement that lined the sacred space. She shivered.
Sally followed her onto the grass but didn’t get too close. “What is the Black Pool, exactly?”
“I told you!” Clare took a bold step forward. “It’s the sacred well of Ireland. Kind of like The Morrigan’s swimming pool. Or maybe her bathtub.”
Niall sighed in existential pain.
Freya turned to Sally with a sad frown. “I should have prepared you better for your time here.” She placed a hand on Sally’s shoulder. “I honestly believed there wouldn’t be any trouble for you, that all of this was long past.”
She looked down at the grass.
“They filled it in,” Freyr said to no one in particular. “This was the site of the original settlement.” He looked askance at Heimdall and Thor. “When the Æsir invaded.”
Sally sank to her knees and rested her palms against the damp grass. “So this really is Vanaheim.”
Clare’s face brightened. “See, Sally? I told you this place was sacred. There’s a huge amount of history here! And magick like you wouldn’t believe.”
Sally shook her head. “Not now, Clare.”
“Maybe your friends would like to know what’s really happening here.” Clare smiled at Freyr in particular. “The very soul of Ireland makes its home in this place—”
Freya rounded on Clare and grabbed her by the shoulders.
“Quiet!” she demanded. “You have no idea what you’re speaking of.”
“That’s not true!” Clare tried to shrug out of Freya’s grasp, but Freya held her firmly in place. “You should have seen the mists I called up last night, and the figure of the goddess that started to take shape right over there.” Clare pointed toward the center of the circle. “Bave,” she said in triumph.
Freya’s eye grew wide and she struggled against the urge to slap the girl across the face for her careless utterance. “You did this?”
Sally looked at Heimdall. “I told you it wasn’t me.”
Freya released Clare and studied her. Finally, Freya shook her head and stepped away. “No, it wasn’t her.”
She glanced at Sally. “Not entirely.”
Sally got an itchy feeling at the back of her neck and tried to shake it off. She kept telling herself that none of this was her fault—the mists or the shadowy figure of the fireflies or the rampaging faeries. But at least two people had already died, and more were bound for hospitals. As soon as Freya looked away, Sally felt better.
Freya wandered around the garden. She studied the grounds and paused to look up at the sky every few paces.
Niall watched as Freya moved past him, then he walked over to Sally. “This is your trouble from home?”
Heimdall stuck out his hand to Niall. “Heimdall.”
Niall’s eyebrows shot up as he shook Heimdall’s hand. “That’s an unusual name for an American, isn’t it?”
Heimdall gave a forced smile in reply.
Niall turned to Thor and extended his hand in greeting. “I’m Niall.”
Thor grumbled and walked past him. “This is no time for pleasantries.” He growled at a nearby trio of Japanese tourists and sent them scurrying.
Freyr stepped up beside Niall. “You’ll have to forgive my grumpy cousin.” He nodded toward Thor. “We’re here on official business.”
“Freyr!” Freya called from the center of the grass circle. “She’s not here. She’s awake.”
Freyr whistled through his teeth.
“Who’s not here?” Thor asked.
Heimdall got a sour look on his face. “Where is she?”
Freyr glanced around the garden, clenching and unclenching his fists. “Close. And I don’t think we want to find out just how close.”
Clare lifted her chin. “I’m quite powerful, you know.”
Freya ignored Clare and walked toward Sally. She rested a gentle hand on the Rune Witch’s shoulder. “Sally?”
“No!” Sally took a step back. “I’m telling you, it wasn’t me. I didn’t do this.”
Freya sighed. “Maybe not intentionally.”
“Crap!” Sally stomped on the ground, then looked up at Freya. “I’m sorry. I know this is sacred ground, but I was trying to stop her.”
“It was me!” Clare stormed over and stood in front of Freya. “I called down the Moon. I called up the sleeping goddess of the Black Pool!”
Freyr grabbed Clare’s shoulder and forced her to face him. �
�And precisely why would you want to do something as fantastically bone-headed as that?!”
At that outburst, even Thor backed away from Freyr.
It took a few seconds for Clare to find her voice. “I, uh, I wanted to connect with the local spirits of Ireland,” she stammered. “I wanted to introduce myself as a visiting witch and include them in my magickal work.”
“She wanted a faerie housekeeper,” Sally added.
“Sally and I did attempt to prevent this.” Niall stepped toward Freya.
Sally sighed and motioned between him and Freya. “Niall, Freya. Freya, Niall.”
“Freya?” Niall looked hard at Sally, then cast suspicious glances at Heimdall, Thor, and Freyr.
Sally shrugged. “Long story. Just go with it.”
“Right.” Niall gestured toward the center of the grass. “We were here last night, trying to fix what Clare had already done. When it happened.”
“What had Clare done, exactly?” Freya asked.
Niall frowned. “Of that we’re not certain.”
“There were these fireflies,” Sally said.
“The Morrigan’s sentinels,” Niall added. “Nothing to worry about these days.”
“I called them!” Clare crowed.
Freya stepped closer to Sally. “And you knew your friend was casting spells? In this space?”
“No!” Sally replied. “I mean, not exactly. I thought she was just playing at being a witch. I didn’t know she could actually do anything.”
“Now wait just a second!” Clare shot Sally a murderous look. “I studied long and hard before I even got here—”
“Not long enough.” Freyr cursed, his voice heavy with a disappointment more crushing than any blood-curdling shout. He looked at Sally. “Rent-a-witch here says she raised mists in this place? That a figure began to take shape?”
“You should have seen it!” Clare exclaimed, her eyes alight. “It was just like something out of Lord of the Rings. It was better than Twilight! And it was all me.“
Freya looked at Niall. “And you thought you could fix it.”
Thor inhaled deeply and stepped forward. “ENOUGH!”
Glass rattled in the windows of the surrounding buildings. The few tourists who were ambling through the gardens made hurried exits.
“YOU!” Thor pointed a meaty finger at Freyr. “Explain what’s happening here.”
Heimdall rested a calming hand on his brother’s bicep. With an exasperated sigh, Thor backed down.
Heimdall turned to Freya. “Talk to me.”
“As near as I can tell,” Freya said as she nodded toward Clare and Sally, “these two have managed to awaken Badbh.”
Clare gasped in delight. “I told you!”
“Badbh?” Thor clenched his teeth.
“The goddess of the cauldron,” Freya sighed in defeat. “The keeper of the Black Pool of rebirth. One of the three sisters of The Morrigan.” She glanced at her brother. “Our grandmother.”
“She’s your blasted grandmother!” Thor’s voice boomed against the close walls of Sally’s apartment, followed not even a second later by a crash from the kitchenette.
Eyes closed, Freya was curled up in one of the upholstered armchairs. She had no doubt that Sally’s “fireflies” had flung out the contents of yet another of the kitchen cupboards.
“Freyr.” She gestured to her brother, sitting on the floor beside her.
“You want to keep the cursing to a minimum?” he addressed Thor in a cooler tone. “Sally’s parents are going to have to pay for all of this, you know.”
The floor of Clare and Sally’s sitting room was littered with empty bags and grease-soaked newspaper cones—in addition to the mess the fireflies had made the night before.
Clare insisted the pixies would clean up. Freya left it to Sally to remind her roommate that her initial spell hadn’t worked and they had considerably more serious concerns at the moment than an untidy apartment. Clare had not taken kindly to the rebuke.
Once that particular spat came to a head, Clare had disappeared into the shared bathroom and Sally started picking up the takeaway boxes, discarded napkins, and other remnants of dinner. She had to crawl beneath Thor’s legs to grab the last of the crumpled soda cans.
“Sally, I’m sorry,” Heimdall said from the upholstered armchair opposite Freya. “We’ll get this sorted out.”
“I’m getting used to it.” Sally carried another load of trash to the refuse bin in the kitchen. Niall lifted the lid for her.
The Vanir twins and the Æsir brothers had been arguing all afternoon—and all through a dinner of takeaway noodles and a dozen orders of fish-and-chips. In between bouts of yelling, Sally caught them up on Clare’s spells, their visit to the marketplace, and the pesky sparks that had been plaguing her ever since Clare took her new talisman to the castle gardens.
Thor took up most of the small sofa with his legs stretched out on the rickety coffee table. The television was on, with the volume turned down. Niall hovered in the kitchenette threshold, fetching water and making tea for anyone who asked.
“Can’t you do something about these little buzzards?!” Thor growled as a pair of tiny lights zoomed past his head and ruffled his beard. The empty bookcase in the corner rattled and creaked as though it were trying to detach itself from the wall.
Though Sally’s “fireflies” had no apparent interest in leaving the flat, Freya had placed wards on the doors, windows, and air vents to keep them from escaping.
“I understand the need to contain them,” Thor continued, “but they’re worse than a swarm of angry tatzelwurms.”
“We can’t have them reporting back to Badbh.” Freya leaned back in the chair and closed her eyes again.
Freyr got up from the floor. “Sally, do you have an empty jar? Something with a lid?”
Freya steadied her breathing and started drifting as the conversation continued around her. She tuned out the activity in the flat. Her breath slowed further, and she followed the beat of her heart into the shadows of shamanic space.
She felt unaccountably cold. She tightened her shoulders to keep from shivering.
“Your composure does you credit, young one,” the crackling voice came out of the darkness. “You did well today.”
Freya blinked her eyes open and found herself standing again in Badbh’s cauldron. The old woman stood before her, hands folded serenely. She’d been waiting.
“Grandmother, you must stop this,” Freya said. “You are putting innocents at risk!”
Freya had retched when Sally told her about the traffic accident that took the lives of a young mother and her child. She didn’t imagine the Trinity students strapped to the bog goblins’ trebuchet or those who were about to be set on fire by the manglarees would have fared much better if she hadn’t intervened.
The old woman laughed. “Innocents, you say? You’ve developed quite a soft spot for these creatures who infest our lands and poison our rivers.”
The crone stepped closer and ran a clawed finger along Freya’s jaw line. “Has your brother grown as soft and weak as you?”
Freya’s stomach tensed. She wanted to lash out at Badbh. She wanted to challenge her openly, but they both knew she didn’t have the strength.
The old woman laughed again. Her eyes were cold fire. “You dare to make demands of me? You, who brought the enemy to my sacred well?”
Freya took a shaky breath. The cauldron was filled with Badbh’s familiar scent of blood and battle smoke. “We meant no offense, grandmother. I needed to gauge your power for myself.”
This seemed to please the aged woman. She paused to run her taloned hands through her dark hair. “You came to renew yourself?”
Freya lifted her chin. She had to choose her words carefully now more than ever. Her grandmother was playing at distracted indifference, but Freya could feel the rage coming off her in waves.
“It is not yet my time for the Black Pool.”
The crone nodded once. “Not
your time, perhaps, but the Tuatha de Danann will not be denied their rightful king.”
Water began trickling into the massive cauldron from all sides. It tickled Freya’s bare toes and soon covered the tops of her feet.
“Grandmother! There can be no king in Vanaheim!” Freya shouted as water ran down the curved sides of the cauldron. “What you are doing will bring war!”
The water reached Freya’s calves and continued to rise.
Badbh smiled, showing the sharp points of her stained teeth. “Then war we shall have, granddaughter. How certain are you of your allegiance?”
Before Freya could answer, Badbh raised a clawed hand and pushed sharply at the air in front of her. Freya felt herself thrown backward out of the cauldron and out of her shamanic vision. She jerked awake in the chair in Sally’s flat with a violent gasp.
“Freya?” Freyr was immediately at her side, with Heimdall and Thor looming over his shoulder. “What is it?”
Freya blinked and tried to get her bearings. Sally offered her a glass of water, and Freya drank it down.
“I’ve taken care of the sentinels.” Freyr held up a glass jar of at least a dozen agitated fireflies raging against their confinement.
“That’s good,” Freya replied.
Heimdall knelt on the floor beside her chair. “Tell me.”
Freya clenched her jaw and shook her head. She grabbed the television remote from the coffee table and clicked through local channels looking for news of faerie mischief in the city or out in the country. Nothing. She turned off the television.
“I’ve been keeping an eye out,” Heimdall said.
“It’s not too bad then.” Thor stretched his arms wide and yawned. He settled back onto the sofa, which groaned under his weight. “Not yet, anyway.”
“This isn’t good news.” Freyr sat on the floor and rested the jar of fireflies in his lap. “It means that whatever Badbh is up to, she’s already influencing the consciousness of Ireland. Otherwise, what happened on campus would be all over the national broadcasts.”
“Ireland. You mean Vanaheim, right?” Sally stood beside the sofa.
Freya sighed and rubbed the back of her neck. “I’m guessing this isn’t what you had in mind when you said you wanted to go abroad for your first year of college.”
Black Pool Magic (Rune Witch Book 3) Page 10