“We can do this later if you need a break,” Anthony added. I waved him off.
“I’d rather get it over with. Then I can collapse on the couch and listen while the rest of you come up with a brilliant plan,” I replied, only partly kidding.
Teag rolled the lone earring toward me. The single cultured pearl on a gold stud had been fairly expensive, the kind of loss someone would miss—if they weren’t consumed by trying to summon the power of the ancient dead. The earring fit what we knew about Carmen, a woman who had left behind a privileged upbringing. I wondered if she even noticed it was missing.
I felt Mrs. Teller’s gaze on me as I reached for the earring. She gave me an appraising look, not falling for my reassurances about being all right. Then again, all of us around the table except Anthony knew first-hand about the cost of magic, and what kind of price our gifts sometimes demanded.
My fingers folded around the earring, careful not to poke myself with the sharp post. I definitely didn’t want to draw blood, not with an object like this. The strain from the readings made my hand shake, and I took a deep breath to steady myself. My magic latched onto the resonance of the earring with a sudden jolt, and I found myself in Carmen’s dining room.
I realized that what I saw happened before she packed up and moved out because Carmen sat at a dining table spread with spell books and ritual objects. I saw the shallow bowl that I’d glimpsed in the previous vision and guessed it was a scrying tool. Two silvery objects caught my attention. One was a rune-inscribed brooch and the other a dagger with elaborate engraving. They looked familiar, and then I realized that I had seen both before. These were the stolen items from the Museum and the Archive. Up close, I could see the intricacy of the carvings, and feel the old power both resonated.
A small brazier the size of an incense burner sat on a protective pad, filled with glowing embers. Carmen reached into a velvet pouch and withdrew a handful of small seeds, then dropped them into the brazier. Smoke rose as they burned, and she leaned into the aromatic wisps, inhaling deeply.
I felt my head spin as the smoke filled my lungs, and my body felt strangely light. The room pulsed in time with my heartbeat, and the colors throbbed. Carmen’s voice rose in a chant, rising and falling, her words slurred. The tethers that kept my soul in my body seemed loose as if I could float away. That idea felt both thrilling and terrifying.
Carmen’s dining room dimmed, and I saw a cold, rocky shore on the verge of a dark sea. The shadowy forms of boats drifted in the moonlight. A bonfire near the cliff sent flames leaping into the sky, and when I looked up, the Northern Lights arced like a blazing ribbon of green fire.
Silhouetted by the bonfire stood a giant of a man. His dark cloak shimmered with iridescent colors like starling feathers, falling across broad shoulders and powerful arms. I could not see his face because a headdress in the shape of a bird’s head obscured his features.
Giddy with the smoke, drunk on the borrowed power of Carmen’s incantation, I watched the man turn. Across time and distance, I swore he knew we were watching him, and that shadowed face looked right at us. Although I couldn’t see his eyes, I felt his attention on me, and my skin prickled as my gut clenched. And while I knew that the scene was of the memories imprinted on Carmen’s lost earring, that the vision her smoke produced was in the past, still I also had the sense that the man, Holmgang, somehow knew that I was there, and his oppressive stare imparted a warning.
The scene vanished and I felt myself falling. Strong arms caught me, and I heard chanting again, but this time Alicia’s voice led the litany. Gradually, my head cleared, and I realized that I lay stretched out on the couch, with the others crowding around worriedly.
“What happened?” I asked, still groggy.
Secona, still wearing Alicia’s body, sat on the edge of the couch. She pressed a length of woven fabric into my hand, and almost immediately I felt the last of the fog lift from my mind. “The woman in the vision you saw burned henbane seeds. Very dangerous—and a way seers throughout the ages have gone walking without their bodies.”
“A hallucinogen?” Anthony mused.
“Yes, but more than that,” Mrs. Teller replied. “Not all hallucinations are false. In the hands of a skilled practitioner, henbane, peyote, wolfsbane, belladonna, and others can produce astral projection and clairvoyant visions…if they don’t kill you.”
Teag knelt next to me, bearing both another cold glass of sweet tea and several ibuprofen. “Did you see what I saw?” I managed, pleased that my words weren’t as slurred as Carmen’s.
“Yes, in all three cases,” Anthony replied. “And I stand in awe of your courage, all of you. Five senses are overwhelming enough for me.”
Teag steadied me as I sat up to drink, then fixed pillows so I didn’t have to lie flat and could see everyone as they dragged chairs into my line of sight. “So what did everyone get out of all that?” I asked, grateful that Teag kept my glass refilled.
“We know what happened to the missing relics,” Teag observed.
“And the visions linked Carmen to both Holmgang and the Wild Hunt,” Secona replied. “But calling to something is very different from commanding it. I wonder if she realizes that.”
“What now?” Mrs. Teller asked. “We don’t know where Carmen is, or when she’ll make her next move. And while Carmen might not be able to control the forces she’s toying with, we aren’t guaranteed to be able to stop them, either.”
Baxter suddenly sat up from where he lay on the floor, ran to the foyer, and barked like he’d lost his mind. My head hurt too much for me to worry about the newcomer since I knew the warding would prevent a stranger from entering. But I was surprised to see Donnelly and Rowan enter. Rowan bent down and murmured a few words to Baxter, who immediately stopped yipping and ran in a happy circle around her feet before trotting off toward his food dish.
“Did you learn that from Sorren?” I asked. “That’s cheating.”
Rowan chuckled. “Sorren can glamour the dog. I just reminded him of his food.”
“Sneaky,” Teag replied.
I frowned, trying to make out what Rowan carried. Then I realized she had a wooden staff, about three feet long, darkened with age and inscribed with complicated markings. “Where did you get the staff?” I asked.
Teag gave me an apologetic look. “Forgot to mention that. While you and Mrs. Teller were out, Secona said that if the Nicholson family had a history of Weaver witches, there should be a staff, especially if their power dates back to the Norse times. I remembered that clothes press in one of the bedrooms at the mansion had a bunch of old walking sticks in the corner. Didn’t think anything about them at the time, so it never occurred to me before now that there might be a Seiðr’s staff in with the canes and hiking poles.”
“Archibald and I offered to go look, and Teag pulled a few strings through your friend at the Archive to get permission,” Rowan supplied.
“That’s no ordinary walking stick,” Mrs. Teller said, coming around the couch to get a closer look. Rowan held the staff in the light so we could all see.
“Those are Norse runes,” Secona said, rising from her seat to examine the staff. “It is a Seiðr’s tool, one of considerable power.” She ran a hand above the surface of the wood without touching it. “It still holds echoes of its last user’s magic, but they’re very faint. No one’s channeled energy through it in a long time. A pity, because it’s badly starved.”
“Starved?” Anthony echoed. “Are you saying that the staff is alive?”
Secona’s expression grew pinched as she struggled to explain. “Not as you think of life. Not sentient, like a person or an animal. But…reactive, and instinctual. A staff becomes an extension of the witch who wields it. It resonates with energy and magic—and memory. It…responds…over time to the imprint of its master’s power,” she said.
“And when such a staff isn’t used for a long time, the magic…dries out,” Secona continued. “Almost as if the energy is a sap
running through it and keeping the staff primed for use. Without magic, the staff grows brittle, physically and in its energy. This will need to be cleansed and charged before we can use it against Holmgang, but once restored, it will be a fine weapon indeed.”
I thought about the walking stick that Sorren had given me, a gentleman’s sword-cane that once belonged to his maker, Alard. While my wooden spoon athame drew on memories of my grandmother to let me summon a white-cold force, Alard’s walking stick channeled my energy into a bolt of flame. I might not have the kind of power that either Secona or Holmgang possessed, but I understood what it felt like to have a bond with my athame. So I could only imagine what a seasoned, very old staff might be able to channel in the hands of an ancient and powerful sorceress.
Donnelly cleared his throat when we were all done ogling the Seiðr staff. “I think I have the last piece of the puzzle, the way to connect Carmen to the Wild Hunt,” he announced. “I just need to summon a couple of ghosts, and make them spill a few old family secrets.”
Chapter Sixteen
My curiosity over the chance to see Archibald Donnelly work his necromancy when I wasn’t fighting for my life won out over the dregs of the headache from my vision. The daylight had faded to twilight as we trooped out into the walled garden that served as my backyard since Donnelly said he worked best when he could stand between earth and sky.
I knew he could marshal his considerable magic inside if need be, but I also understood that just because you can do magic under certain conditions doesn’t mean that’s the most effective way. And if he wanted to use my garden to stop an ancient horror and a mad Norse warlock, I wasn’t going to say no.
Rowan and Secona helped Donnelly prepare. He walked in a circle around a small grassy area, going to the left and then to the right. He repeated the effort, creating a second, concentric circle. Donnelly withdrew a bone wand from inside his jacket, and I wondered if it was the relic entrusted to Sorren in Alard’s will.
Sundown, that time when it’s no longer day but not yet night, was a time of power, perfect for thinning the Veil to the other side. Donnelly looked normal, in a tweed jacket with a knit scarf over a button-down shirt and khaki pants. Only his wild white mane might suggest otherwise. But standing there in a blessed circle holding a relic of power in the half-light of dusk, Archibald Donnelly looked every bit the necromancer that he was, even without the trappings of a flowing robe or flapping cape.
When he spoke words of power, they had a guttural sound, harsh and clipped, like the grinding of rock against rock. Nothing at all like Secona’s almost musical chant or Carmen’s nasal, sing-song invocation. I felt Donnelly’s power like a brooding storm, an electric crackle in the still air. The temperature dropped until our breath puffed in white clouds and I couldn’t help shivering, both from cold and from the rising energy all around me.
Donnelly dropped several items onto the ground outside the warded circle—a man’s ring, an old riding crop, and a silver medallion that might once have hung from a champion’s ribbon.
“Oliver Nicholson, Maxwell Lawton, I command you to come forth!” Donnelly’s voice brooked no disobedience, and he thrust forward with the bone wand. Its tip ripped into the still night air, opening a dark gash. In the next instant, the gray forms of two men stood inside the second circle.
The ghosts appeared nearly solid, but ashen in both skin and clothing, like a faded black and white photograph. They wore clothing from the late 1800s, and from the cut of their suits and the way they held themselves, I knew they had been men of means. Nicholson, no doubt, had once owned the plantation that bore his name. The Lawton name was equally renowned in Charleston society. Neither spirit looked pleased at the summons.
“What do you mean, sir, troubling us like this?” The man on the right demanded. He resembled one of the portraits at the plantation, so I felt sure he was Nicholson.
“This is an outrage,” the shorter gentleman on the left agreed.
“Silence!” Donnelly thundered, and both ghosts obeyed. “I want to know what unholy bargain you struck to win that medal, and I will know if you tell me less than the full truth.”
The two ghosts looked by turns furious, then worried and both spoke at once, arguing about Donnelly’s right to call their spirits. Finally, when Donnelly would brook none of their arguments, they fell silent, like men awaiting their sentence.
“Nicholson—this was your idea?”
The taller man gave a curt nod, with a miserable expression, as if he wished to be anywhere else. “We never thought it would go this far.”
“You never thought at all, except about winning your damned blue ribbon,” Donnelly snapped. “How did you work the spell?”
“I found a book,” Lawton said, raising his head defiantly. “A fellow I went to university with knew Latin, and he had studied at seminary, so he had a flair for ritual.”
“A half-trained priest and an old grimoire, and it never occurred to you that you might be selling your souls for a horse race?”
“It wasn’t just any race,” Lawton said, a spark of anger animating his ghostly features. “It was the Derby.”
“Since I’m cleaning up your mess a century—and dozens of dead men—later, forgive me if I’m not impressed,” Donnelly retorted. “Now, out with the rest of it. What happened?”
I marveled at the power it must have taken for Donnelly to require two unwilling ghosts to answer his summons, and then compel them to show themselves so clearly and speak aloud. Suddenly, my headache felt like the mark of a rank amateur.
“We’d only started the club,” Nicholson replied, sounding petulant. “But we’d all been horsemen for years. Spent a bloody fortune on horses and jockeys, trainers—the whole lot. Wanted to see some payback for our investment.”
Lawton turned on him. “Can’t you admit that we wanted to show up those bastards from Newport who strutted around like they owned the place? The nerve, coming to Aiken, down here, after what their army did to our state—”
“Enough!” Donnelly rumbled. “You wanted to win, badly enough to do anything. Lawton found a book and a priest. And then what?”
Nicholson’s jaw clenched with anger. “We’d get what we wanted. And show up those sons of bitches in the process.”
“This deal you made. What did it involve?” Donnelly looked like judgment incarnate. The ghosts shrank back, and I thought about what it took to strike fear into the hearts of the dead.
“We would win the Derby that year,” Nicholson replied. “But when he needed replacements for his Hunt, we would give him what he needed.”
“I swear we thought he just wanted horses and dogs,” the other ghost said. “Not us and our sons.”
“More than your sons,” Donnelly countered. “Your grandsons on down through the generations. Was the glory of a shiny cup and a bouquet of flowers worth it?” He did not give them time to reply. “Who holds your deal? A demon? A dark witch? Lucifer himself?”
“We never asked his name,” Nicholson replied. “But he had a head like a horned goat.”
Donnelly looked like he might burst a blood vessel at the sheer magnitude of the ghosts’ stupidity and greed. “Well, that narrows it down—not by much. Just a slew of demons, Krampus, Perchta…”
“Perchta.” Alicia’s quiet voice silenced us all. “He is known to lead the Wild Hunt, depending on who is telling the tale. It would be like him to make such a bargain.”
Donnelly turned back to the ghosts, glowering with anger. “What were the terms—exactly?”
Nicholson fidgeted. “I didn’t handle the actual negotiation myself. Our friend the lawyer looked it over—”
“You outsourced reading the contract with a supernatural being?” Donnelly shouted.
Nicholson’s ghost shied back. “We really didn’t think it was binding, since there was a question about whether or not the jurisdiction was real—”
“Son of a bitch!” Donnelly rumbled. “So you signed and figured your lawyers
would wiggle you loose later, is that it?”
Nicholson shrugged, and I suspected the approach had served him reasonably well in life.
“Could the contract be assumed by someone else?” Donnelly pressed.
“I don’t know—it was a long time ago,” Nicholson hedged. “But the terms were clear. It was only supposed to last seventy-five years.”
“I’ll take that as a yes,” Donnelly said, a look of utter annoyance on his face. He looked back to the ghosts. “You belong to neither heaven nor hell, so there’s nothing I can do for you. Go back to whence you came, and watch this sorry business play out.” He waved a hand at them in dismissal, and both ghosts vanished.
Donnelly broke the wardings and opened the circle. He looked tired, but the working that fatigued him would have killed a less powerful witch. “Well, you heard it,” he said, pulling out a kerchief to mop his brow. “All this, over a horse race.”
We headed into the house, where both sweet tea and bourbon were in demand. “So Carmen might have been able to ‘buy out’ Perchta, or at least make a second deal?” Teag asked.
“If she planned to summon Holmgang, perhaps she promised Perchta additional resources for his help,” I suggested. “Although I’d think the original deal would have given her what she wanted—but since the disappearances continued after when the first deal should have ended, someone must have re-upped.”
“That would be the second time a Nicholson horse won the Derby and the Preakness,” Teag supplied, looking up from his laptop. “Man, their negotiator sucked. Didn’t even net them a Triple Crown.”
“When would it have ended again?” I asked.
“If the terms of the second deal were the same as the original bargain, the term would have been up earlier this year,” Teag answered.
“So maybe Carmen found out about the bargain and didn’t want to let her family off the hook, not when the Hunt was going to claim its due from the current family members who caused her grief,” Anthony mused.
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