Crescent Rogue

by Nicole R. Taylor

  “You should at least kiss me once,” she said. “Pretty boy Boone, with your handsome pouty lips. Imagine what they could do…down there.”

  “Who are you?” I growled, shaking her.

  Hannah’s fiery curls shook back and forth, and she began to giggle hysterically.

  “They really gave you the works,” she chortled. “I’m a fae, you dolt. I can’t believe you didn’t recognize me, but I suppose that was the point.”

  My eyes widened, and my grasp slackened on her wrists. She wriggled free and slid her body against mine, taking the opportunity to borderline molest me.

  “Who are you to me?” I asked, attempting to extract myself from her wandering hands.

  “I’m Hannah,” she replied. “I could be your Hannah…if you want. There’s still time to go back.”

  “Hannah,” I said, becoming rather uncomfortable. “Why did you bring me here?”

  “The hawthorn is gone,” she said. “I needed it to survive. It’s too risky to feed off the tree in the village, and it would be a death sentence to even approach the ancient hawthorn in the forest behind the tower house. Aileen would skin me alive, she would, but if I were yours, then I could stay.”

  Could it be that Aileen didn’t know a fae had been living under her nose? I’d spoken to Hannah many times at Molly McCreedy’s and had never sensed anything magical about her. Not once.

  “You’re not making any sense…”

  “Without the tree, I had to do something,” she went on, her fingers tracing over my face. “I’m sorry, Boone, but I was desperate. It is life or death for me, you know. I’ve waited a long time for someone like you, but I’ve waited for a chance to go home longer.” She mewled softly, then kissed me on the lips. “We could’ve had a great deal of fun, you know. Flying, running, making love in whatever form you wanted. I was up for anything…”

  I shoved her away with a growl. “What have you done?”

  Hannah pouted. “I think the question is what have you done, Boone?”

  “Me?” I couldn’t remember a single thing from my past. My first memory was of fear and running. I’d always believed I was the victim, but what if I was the bad guy? What if I was running from my punishment? What if I’d done something terrible?

  “She wants you.”

  “Who?” I exclaimed, my patience wearing thin. “Who wants me?”

  “Carman is coming, and there’s no stopping her,” Hannah said. “She will reign over this realm and open the doorways. This world of technology and humanity…gone.”

  Carman… She was the thousand-year-old witch Aileen had told me about. The witch who’d betrayed her kind and who had been banished from ever returning to Ireland. What did she want from me? Was it just my magic she wanted to suck from my bones, or was she the force I’d been fleeing the night I landed in Derrydun?

  “The doorways… Is that the only reason witches are being hunted for their magic?” I asked. “What have I got to do with a world I don’t belong to?”

  Hannah’s playful expression crumpled into pure anger. “The doorways should never have been closed! I’ve been stuck in a thousand different lives, watching and waiting for my way home to open. But it never does… You know what it’s like to be trapped. You know.”

  Growling, I strode forward and grasped her around the neck, my fingers digging into her throat. I was tired of her games, her trickery. I needed answers like I needed air to breathe. Hannah had lured me here to be caught by Carman, and I had no idea why I deserved to die—if I was to die at all. There was no way I was going down without a fight.

  “Who am I?” I shouted at the fae. “Who am I?”

  A searing burst of magic erupted from her, and her body began to change. Her soft pallor morphed into the rough texture of bark and wood, her eyes shining emerald and her hair threading into long twisting vines. Opening her mouth, a primal cry burst from between her lips, and branches exploded out of her back.

  I let her go, stumbling backward in surprise at her sudden transformation. Her mind reached out and thrust into mine, cutting deep as she sank her claws into me.

  Falling to my knees, I roared in pain as branches whipped around me, throwing me across the clearing. My back hit the trunk of an ancient oak, my head cracking painfully. Before I could move, shards of wood pierced my flesh, slicing through both arms and legs, pinning me in place.

  My entire body shuddered, and my bones snapped…but they didn’t reform. My limbs dangled uselessly, blood oozing from the wounds Hannah had inflicted. Everything was pain and fire. Fire and pain.

  “Don’t try that again,” she said angrily, her voice vibrating through my veins and into my soul. “You can’t change, Boone, I won’t allow it.”

  Raising my head, I saw her clearly for the first time. She stood tall, her entire body resembling an ancient tree, her body covered in bark and moss, her hair tangled ivy, and her eyes…they glowed iridescent green in the darkness. Several branches had erupted from her back and stabbed through my flesh, growing so fast it was impossible to get out of the way.

  A hazy memory nudged the edges of my mind. Her kind didn’t live on the shores of Ireland, but a lot of things had changed in the last thousand years. What was she? I sifted through the haze, trying to find the name of her true form, for that was what stood before me. Her true skin.

  “Spriggan,” I whispered. “Trickster, shapeshifter, fae of the forest…”

  “So you do remember me,” she said with interest.

  “Hannah…” I moaned. “Don’t do this. Do you think she cares about you?” I had no idea what Carman wanted with my magic or me, but I had no other recourse but to bluff.

  “Carman cares,” she said, fire in her voice. “When she has you, she will reward me with what I need.”

  “Magic?” I asked. “Not even she has enough to open the doorways. You said it yourself. Do you really want to keep sucking the life from hawthorns like a parasite the rest of your life? Because that’s the only reward you’re getting if you hand me over.”

  “Lies!” she cried, her ethereal voice tearing at my psyche. A branch burst from her back, growing and twisting over her shoulder. “You don’t even know what you’ve done, and you call me a parasite?”

  “Then end it if I’m such a stain on your kind,” I said aggressively. “End it.”

  She wailed her anger at me, the force burning into my mind, and she struck. The branch streaked toward me, the tip aimed directly between my eyes…

  Then…light burst through my vision, and a cry of pain caused me to gasp, but it wasn’t my own agony. The branch fell to the ground between us, and Hannah’s head whipped to the side.

  “Witch,” she said, snarling.

  Chapter 14

  “Let him go,” a familiar voice commanded.

  My head snapped up, and my gaze collided with Aileen. She stood on the opposite side of the clearing, her expression full of anger I’d never seen in her before. And she’d been angry with me plenty of times since I turned up in Derrydun. Those times, I’d shaken in my boots, but this time… She was pure fire.

  “A witch and a shapeshifter,” Hannah said gleefully. “What a prize.”

  “Boone isn’t yours to win.” Aileen snarled and thrust her hands forward.

  The branches pinning me in place severed with a crack, and I fell, hitting the ground face first. Splinters turned into ash, and my wounds began to bleed unchecked as I lay there. As I attempted to push myself up, agony seared up and down my broken arms. It was useless. My bones weren’t healing fast enough…

  “You’ll pay for that!” Hannah screeched, her unearthly voice full of a mixture of anger and pain.

  She thrust her branches toward Aileen, five more growing from her back, and a high-pitched scream filled the air.

  Aileen’s hands whipped back and forth like she was dancing, bursts of light slicing through the air. Her magic cut through the approaching branches like blades, cutting down Hannah’s attack easily.

&n
bsp; More branches replaced the fallen, then more and more until there were too many for Aileen to cut through. They surrounded the witch, twisting and tangling, pinning her arms against her sides and locking her ankles together.

  “You’re trapped,” the fae said triumphantly. “Where to now, Aileen? Would you like to pay a visit to Carman’s well of magic? Or maybe you would like mine better. Your power could feed me for a hundred years…Crescent.”

  “Like hell,” Aileen said, her voice dripping with hostility.

  “You have no choice. This is the end of the Crescents. Finally…and to think it was me who caught you. Me!”

  I glanced wildly between the pair. But it wasn’t the end. Aileen’s daughter Skye… She’d been hidden all these years…

  While the fae was basking in her own cleverness, Aileen wriggled her hands free, working her arms against the roots that bound her. Then with a quick burst of magic, she was free before Hannah realized what was happening.

  “If I’m going down, then you’re coming with me,” Aileen cried, slamming her palms down on Hannah’s face. “Eat Crescent magic, you bitch!”

  Searing heat exploded from the witch, and I shielded my eyes as the burst of light hit me.

  Hannah wailed as Aileen’s power collided with her, the sound reverberating through my bones. The luster of her branches began to turn gray, the life bleeding from her leaves as they broke away from her stems and fluttered to the ground. The echo of her agony made my head throb, her screams endless.

  Golden light poured from Aileen’s hands as branches and roots circled around the pair in a whirlwind of flying leaves, and it was then I realized the ground was opening beneath them.

  “Aileen!” I cried, dragging myself across the earth. My elbows dug into the ground, the wounds on my arms and legs stinging as I closed the gap. “Aileen!”

  Crescent magic twisted and turned, whipping up a frenzy in the middle of the clearing as she fought the onslaught from the fae. Dirt, leaves, and debris flew around and around like a tornado, stinging my exposed skin. Every time I attempted to drag myself forward, I was pushed back.

  Forcing my magic to flare, I attempted to change my shape. I could be a fox, a gyrfalcon, a black stallion, anything at all to be able to leap to Aileen’s aid, but whatever Hannah had done to my mind stopped me from changing forms.

  My arms and legs were broken, and although I could feel them knitting back together, they still hindered my own magic from taking hold. I was completely helpless.

  Aileen cried out, forcing her magic to flare hotter, and the ground heaved beneath them. Then they began to sink. Down, down…until they were up to their waists in the churning quicksand Aileen’s spell had created.

  The pressure was too much for Hannah to withstand, and the fae disappeared below the surface, her limbs and branches turning gray. The wind ceased, and for an unnatural moment, debris hung in the air, suspended by the remaining charge of the magical battle, then fell back to earth.

  Aileen jerked, her head flopping forward. The ground bubbled beneath her, the dying roots tightening their grasp on her body. She was being dragged under inch by inch, the earth swallowing her whole along with what remained of the fae who’d tricked us all.

  “Aileen!” I cried, dragging myself toward her. Pain burned through my arms, but I ignored it, desperate to get to the witch before she was pulled under entirely.

  “Boone, keep your distance,” she said, holding up her hand.

  All I could see was The Tower with its storm clouds and crumbling facade. The Tower must fall in order to be rebuilt. Aileen had been drawing it for months, which could only mean…

  I pushed up onto my knees, a hairsbreadth away from the churned up quicksand. “You knew this was going to happen, didn’t you?”

  “Listen to me,” she said. “We don’t have much time, and there is much I need to tell you.”

  “Aileen,” I wailed, grasping her hand. “You can’t leave me. I’m sorry. I’m sorry!”

  “It’s not your fault, Boone. They would’ve found us eventually. It’s not your fault.” Her grip tightened around mine as the roots snaked around her waist and dragged her deeper. “Now, listen.”

  I nodded, willing to do whatever it took to redeem myself. Anything.

  “Your role in this story was always going to be greater than mine,” she began. “The Tower…” She cried out as the roots squeezed around her belly. “Skye will come when she hears of my passing. The call of the Crescents is in her blood, and fate will bring her here, no matter her circumstances. She doesn’t know who she is, Boone. You must help her. Guide her. Help her magic awaken. She’s the last Crescent. The last.”

  “How? How can I show her what I don’t understand?”

  “You don’t need to understand,” she replied, a tear rolling down her cheek. “You can’t tell her. She must discover it for herself. Her legacy will guide her, but you… You must protect her, Boone. You know what’s at stake.”

  “Everything,” I whispered.

  “Find Robert O’Keeffe,” she added as her shoulders sank below the earth. “He’ll know what to do next.”

  “Aileen…” I said with a moan. “I don’t know how to do this without you…”

  “You can do this, Boone,” she whispered. “I’ve seen it… Promise me.”

  “I promise.”

  She was dragged under until her chin grazed the earth around her, and the only thing remaining of Hannah was the churning roots that had ensnared Aileen.

  “Thank you,” I murmured, tears spilling down my cheeks. “For everything.”

  “Go,” she said in a grating voice. “Go back to Derrydun. Protect them… Protect…her.”

  The earth heaved… Then…

  Aileen was gone.

  Chapter 15

  Staring at the closed sign that hung on the inside of the door of Irish Moon, I frowned.

  Two weeks had passed since Aileen’s death, and I still expected her to be sitting behind the counter with her tarot cards in hand, forcing another reading on me. The witch had been my mentor, but more importantly, she’d been the closest thing to a mother I'd ever had. She’d helped me when I had nothing and when I was lost inside my own mind. That was why her loss was so hard to handle. She had given me life.

  It was dark inside the shop. Not even the muted hum of crystal energy cut through the hardened shell that had grown over my heart.

  Thinking about the conversation I’d had with Hannah in the clearing, I grimaced. She’d seemed to know who I was and what I’d done, but the secret of my true identity had gone with her to the grave. All I knew was that my past somehow intertwined with Carman and the plight of the witches. I believed that, somehow, I’d fought for something bigger than myself, and I was hunted for it. I was on the side of good, or at least, I hoped I was. There was no way of knowing for sure, but right now, hope was enough.

  Aileen… How she’d known to find us, I would never know, but she’d sacrificed herself to save me without a second thought. All this time, she’d been prophesizing her own death, and I’d been the catalyst.

  In her last moments, I’d made a promise to help her daughter…the daughter she’d never had the chance to see grow up. How could I look Skye in the face knowing that if not for me, her mother would still be alive, and she would still be safe on the other side of the world?

  I didn't know, but I had to.

  It wasn’t until the next morning had dawned that I realized I’d witnessed true Crescent magic. The purest, ancient witch legacy there was in the whole of Ireland. That was what Skye would inherit, and I had to be there to protect her.

  Honestly, all of this chaos… I owed the Crescent Witches everything.

  Movement beside me drew my attention, and I glanced down at the man who’d found me lingering on the street. He was rather short, the top of his bald head barely reached my shoulder, and his belly was round, giving him a rather jolly appearance. His suit was ill fitting, but it only added to his friendly
character.

  “Boone,” the man said. “All right?”

  I nodded. “As well as I can be, Robert.”

  “It’s strange to see the shop closed,” he went on. The strange little lawyer Aileen had asked me to see was full of his own mysteries. “I almost expect her to come and let us in.”

  “To be sure…”

  “Are ye likin’ your new accommodation?” he asked. “I trust it suits ye well enough?”

  “Aye.” I couldn’t stay at Aileen’s cottage, considering it all belonged to her daughter now. After a few days on Sean McKinnon’s couch, Robert had assisted in finding me a small cottage a mile down the road, still well within the boundary of the hawthorns. It was a fixer-upper, but the work had kept my mind busy, though at night…

  Thinking of Hannah, I wondered how she managed to deceive us all.

  “I don’t understand why no one remembers Hannah,” I said. “It’s as if she was never here at all. It’s strange.”

  “She was one of the higher fae,” Robert explained. “Trickery was her nature, Boone.”

  “I never had an inkling she was more than human. Not once. Do you think Aileen knew?”

  The lawyer shrugged. “It was always hard to tell what she knew.”

  “She never mentioned you, either.”

  Robert chuckled and patted his belly. “Us wee folk have to look out for ourselves,” he said cryptically.

  The sound of screeching tires interrupted our conversation, and we glanced up as a silver car careened around the hawthorn in the middle of the road and came to a halt in the coach bay beside Mary’s Teahouse.

  “Ahh, right on time,” Robert declared.

  I raised an eyebrow, watching as a woman unfolded her long legs from the car and stood beside it, slamming the door closed. She was tall, her long black hair sweeping halfway down her back. She was quite beautiful to look at, and for a moment, I was stunned.

  Her skin was as pale as ivory, and her figure was slender, the curve of her waist slight. She was wearing a short dress, the dark, floral fabric wrapping around her body and fluttering to mid-thigh, and scuffed black combat boots were laced up on her feet. She looked like a grown-up version of Mairead.