Meaghan shuddered at the sound of Shaw’s name, or maybe it was at the vehemence in Jude’s voice. Acid heat prickled behind her eyes. Her entire body tightened painfully. Kyle murmured something wordless and kissed the top of her head.
The tightness relaxed.
She swore she felt someone smiling at her. At them. “Did you see that, guys? Her aura darkened for a second or two, but it cleared as soon as Kyle kissed her.” The voice was Deck’s, and to Meaghan’s relief, it sounded awed rather than upset.
“I knew he’d be good at this,” Roslyn said. “Now let’s get this started. Elissa’s baby will need nursing soon, and I have patients to see.”
“Hearth, home, heart,” all the witches chanted three times. The first time was ragged, but by the third repetition, the voices wove together, creating something larger than the sum of its parts. Meaghan didn’t recognize all the voices; it seemed a lot of people had gathered to help her.
The chant died down, leaving Meaghan vibrating in a pleasant way and ready to swear the whole world was vibrating as well. Roslyn intoned a few sentences in a language that wasn’t English. Meaghan heard music played on unfamiliar instruments, light and lyrical, but edged with power. One might have been a harp, but Meaghan wasn’t sure. Maybe she was confused by the open space around them, the unfamiliar acoustics of outdoors, but she’d swear the music rose up from the ground. Well-being washed over her, a sense of health and security that felt like Garrett’s minor healing magic multiplied about a thousand times.
Jan sang in the foreign language rather than simply speaking. As she did, the music grew louder and Meaghan’s sense of well-being multiplied. With Jan’s magic came a sharp, antiseptic herbal smell, a sense of brusque setting things to rights.
Deck was chanting now. He sounded uncertain, not like the confident women, but something about his voice soothed the alarm caused by that strange music, soothed the fear Meaghan couldn’t entirely suppress even though she knew the Donovans were trying to help her. Deck’s voice was deeper than Kyle’s, though not Jude’s basso rumble, and it had a familiar musical rhythm. She realized he was matching the cadences of his voice to the sound of the ocean.
Then she realized her breath and Kyle’s also matched the rhythm of the waves.
They’d said she had an affinity to water, and Kyle was a creature of the ocean. Assuming Deck was using his water magic, it made sense it would affect both her and Kyle.
She wondered if it was supposed to affect her on the level she was feeling, more intimate than her entire past experience, except for Kyle’s kisses and those few moments after yielding herself to the ocean’s power before she’d drifted into unconsciousness. She stirred, restless, aroused, yet content. Kyle was hard against her, reacting either to the magic or to her arousal. Maybe both.
The sound of the sea grew louder as Deck chanted. The moist Oregon air felt even damper, but in a good way. Fecund, not rainy.
When Elissa incanted, Meaghan swore the bed of herbs she lay on was actually growing underneath her in response to Elissa’s voice. The air turned warmer. It was technically summer, late June, but for the first time it felt almost hot instead of cool and damp.
All the witches were chanting together. She felt the magic weaving, braiding. She thought that if she could see, an elaborate, multicolored knotwork would actually be visible. The air shivered with power. Meaghan’s head swam, but it wasn’t unpleasant.
The weaving voices dropped in volume, but continued as a buzzing background. Meaghan heard the soft brush of someone stepping closer. From the spicy heat, it was Elissa. “We have gathered,” Elissa said, “to cast out what does not belong, what lingers against nature in this world. Shaw, you are dead. Chenier, the last vestiges of you have left this world and your fae rider is banished. Your magics have no power here. Meaghan is free from your influence. Begone.”
Meaghan’s head twinged and her gut twisted.
Panic pressed down on her, heavy and leaden. She could scarcely breathe. Memories of Shaw swirled in her head, memories that simultaneously repulsed and warmed her.
Her thoughts didn’t make sense. Was this the latent spell fighting back? Elissa had helped kill Shaw, Elissa and Jude and the other dual, Rafe, the dual who buzzed with magic even though duals weren’t supposed to have magic. They were all trying to help her, and she knew Shaw had done terrible things, and it was whispered he’d been possessed. But knowing they’d killed him made it hard to trust fully, hard to open to these people.
She still dreamed of Shaw. Still dreamed of his hard, harsh hands on her body, his cock in her. Still dreamed of the way he’d hold her when she’d go into seizures after she came. He’d been using her. She knew that. But he’d also been one of the few people who’d touched her for anything other than medical purposes. One of the few who seemed to care for her. And these people, these witches, had killed him. However kind they seemed, they’d killed Shaw. Now they wanted to remove her last link to him.
But she wanted it gone. She knew she did. She’d asked for their help.
Something exploded in her head. Her usual darkness tinged with the blood hue that was the only color in her visions and nightmares, the only color in her life. Pain stabbed near her heart. Maybe they were actually cutting the magic out. They’d said the ritual wouldn’t harm her, but maybe they’d realized the only way to free her from the Agency’s influence was to kill her too.
That would have been all right a few days ago. But now she’d tasted freedom. Tasted kisses from someone who wasn’t using her. She’d tasted real life, life away from the Agency, and she wasn’t going to lose it. Maybe it was selfish, but she didn’t want to die. She struggled against Kyle’s arms, which had felt like a shelter only seconds before, but now felt like a prison. “No!” she screamed.
But the scream sounded alien. Sounded furious rather than frightened, though mostly what she was experiencing now was panic. Sounded too deep and harsh to come from her vocal cords.
She wasn’t sure she’d opened her mouth.
This wasn’t right.
She covered her mouth and clenched her teeth, so when a scream of “Fuck no!” burst forth, she knew it wasn’t from her mouth. It came from her skull and her gut. Like Jude had feared, Shaw was dead, but he was fighting back.
Kyle gripped her harder. “Relax,” he whispered. “Let the magic work.”
“What he said,” Jude rumbled as his big hand came to rest on her head. “The sorcery’s trying to confuse you. Been there, done that.”
She took a deep breath, tried to listen, tried to get back to how good the witches’ magic had made her feel, how healthy and content and, well, horny. The pain in her chest eased up.
And she knew, unambiguously, that being free from the last vestiges of Shaw was a good thing.
The pressure inside her skull was getting worse, though. Maybe she should have mentioned the neurological disorder, she thought blearily. Maybe the warring magics were aggravating it. It would be ironic to get free from Shaw and then die. But at least she’d die her own person, not a lab experiment, not a weapon.
Something burst like a bubble, with a soft pop. The pain in her head stopped, and she could breathe freely.
The music waxed louder, and so did the surf, going from a soft shushing to a roar and a crash. The moist air coalesced into warm, drenching rain. The surf grew even louder, closer.
Water closed over Meaghan’s head, filling her lungs.
Chapter Nine
Deck choked on a tidal surge of oceanic power.
Not his. Meaghan’s. Whatever magical levy had been holding her water power in check collapsed abruptly under the ritual’s onslaught. She was a strong water witch, stronger than he was. But she was completely uncontrolled, untaught, and without meaning to, she was using her powers in dangerous ways.
Deck sensed the wave building at the same time Meaghan began to thra
sh and bubble as if she were drowning. She was so attractive to water right now that it was actually raining over her, but that wasn’t the worst of it. The humidity in the air was collecting, rushing into her, and given how humid Oregon was, it was going to kill her with its love.
Shit shit shit shit.
“Jude, hold her up,” Deck yelled. “Kyle, do something—she’s drowning. Someone get her shielded, fast!” He was probably best suited to that, being the water worker, but there wasn’t time. They’d set up the ritual in the seaside garden area, just beyond the beach, because of Meaghan’s latent water power. It had seemed like a good idea at the time. But not now.
A big ass rogue wave was on its way as the ocean rushed to greet the water witch just released from her bonds. Pity the ocean didn’t know it would endanger said witch and them, not to mention a few fishing boats and whichever of the kids were on the beach—and there were always some, either Donovans or kids playing hooky from town. With any luck, Heather was with them. But she was only thirteen, even if she was powerful. He hadn’t been blowing bubbles when he’d said she was better than he was in a ritual setting. But pulling something out of your ass in a crisis took practice. There were a lot of factors to consider so that while trying to avert a disaster at point A, you don’t cause one at point B.
Deck didn’t have that much practice in actual crises. He tried to avoid them whenever possible, instead of rushing into them like his parents and some of his other relatives did. But spontaneously improving the wave conditions for his surfing buddies without fucking things up down the coast couldn’t be that different from dissipating a big wave on the fly without fucking things up down the coast.
He kept telling himself that, anyway. It was definitely harder since he wasn’t right on the beach. He could see the water, feel the water, but they were high enough up that even the big surf only spritzed the area.
Most of the time. He’d never seen it himself, but his parents’ generation remembered a storm that brought waves crashing onto the garden they were in now, despite the water witches’ and weather workers’ efforts.
The wave that was coming was one of those.
With half his brain, Deck worked desperately to pull the water back from Meaghan’s lungs, to give her room to breathe. With the other half he reached out to the ocean, reminding it of all the good times they’d shared, imploring it to calm the fuck down.
The ocean acknowledged him, but the wave was still building. Meaghan was calling it without knowing she was doing so, and her wild call appealed to the untamed ocean more than Deck’s more contained power could.
People were springing into action all around him, mostly working on Meaghan. Jan and his grandmother had taken over for Kyle, who’d kept her breathing long enough for the healers to get a handle on the magical aspect of the problem.
Great. With them taking care of Meaghan, he could focus completely on what he had to do.
Which was to stop playing nice. The Donovan way was to work gently with the powers of nature, but even the more rule-bound older generation admitted it didn’t always work. In tight situations, you had to punt—and this was a tight situation.
Deck chanted, not one of the traditional Gaelic spells, but a steady English chant of “Calm down. She just meant to say hello, not call the great waves.” Donovan ancestors had learned Gaelic water spells from the aquatic fae called selkies when Ireland was still tiny kingdoms ruled by feuding kings, but sometimes Deck needed simpler words, words from the heart. “Please. Calm down. Don’t hurt anyone.”
Deck sensed the ocean recognized his words and was trying to obey, but Meaghan was still sending out her wild call. Less than a minute had passed since he sensed the wave building, but there was no time to waste. What had started far out to sea was now dangerously close to shore.
Deck did something he almost never did. He called deliberately upon his other power, the one that played neither by Donovan rules nor those of his mother’s family, from whom he’d inherited it.
Lightning flashed out of a clear sky, followed by a great clap of thunder as the lightning struck the water. At the same time, he made his water power into a metaphysical fist and smashed down on the growing wave.
The lightning was just enough energy to heat the surface of the water a degree or two. Even magical lightning couldn’t violate physics completely, which was a damn shame under the circumstances. And the impact of the “fist” would do nothing against the vast force of a riled-up Pacific. But magical lightning meeting a magically conjured wave had an effect that physics hadn’t figured out how to explain yet, especially when backed up by a dope slap from his other powers.
The ocean had a consciousness of sorts, and the desperation behind the lightning strike and blow got the wave’s attention.
Gave him room to slip soothing water magic in while the wave was, for want of a more precise word, distracted.
The wave began to dissipate. It would take time for the ocean to calm itself completely, but Deck’s sense of the water’s movement told him the immediate danger had been prevented.
Surrounded by healers, Kyle supporting her, Meaghan was breathing normally. Thank the Powers. But water magic was never that fucking simple. Deck still had to disperse all the wave energy properly, making sure it didn’t store up and end up doing something freakish later. He dispersed it into a series of waves, all up and down the coast, large enough to make for a great day of surfing or boarding or wave watching, but no danger as long as people were halfway careful. Maybe he could get Paul to help him put a keep-away spell on the closest public beaches for the next few hours, something to keep newbie surfers and little kids away.
Meaghan sat up, shakily. “Why is my hair wet?” she said. “And why do I feel the ocean is inside me?”
Before anyone could answer, she started to seize.
And then she stopped.
Her wet hair tried to stand on end, but the convulsion stopped before it started. With his own water power, Deck sensed how Meaghan’s raw connection to the ocean was buffering the worst effects of the vision that even he could tell was coming.
“The Agency figured it out,” she said, her voice deep and raspy yet sexy, not the light, shy, girlish voice Deck had heard only a few times but would, he realized with a start, recognize anywhere. “The Agency knows I’m still alive and its blocks on me are gone. They know there are only a few places where this could have happened, and they are looking for me. And when they find me, they will find Jocelyn. Even if I leave here now, they will find Jocelyn. I saw it just now.” Her voice returned to normal as she added, “I’m so sorry.”
“We knew we’d have to deal with them eventually,” Elissa said drily. “Better that we get to choose the ground.” Elissa really had changed, Deck thought. Her earlier rant when Meaghan told her story might have been bravado in the face of fear, but this sounded like Elissa had thought things through and was prepared for a fight.
Looking around, he saw the same determination on the faces of everyone in the circle. He’d expect it from Jude and Rafe, who were big carnivores, territorial and protective of their woman and cub and, by extension, of all the Donovans. Jocelyn was the granddaughter Aunt Jan thought she’d never have, so of course Aunt Jan was game. And Aunt Bath was testy anyway, because of the ghosts. But Kyle looked ready to kick some butt too. Demons and devas, even Grandma Roz looked ready to kick some butt and hundred-year-old healers didn’t do that kind of thing. Even less than otters did.
Deck thought longingly of Hawaii, where the surfing was always good and where Pele’s influence kept dark magic away. The volcano spirit had no qualms about flaming anyone who caused trouble on her turf. Right now, it sounded great.
How quickly could he get a ticket to Hawaii? Would Kyle come with him?
“How much time do we have?” Trust Jude to ask the practical questions.
Meaghan shook her head as if it w
ould jar her thoughts loose. “They’re confused now, angry. They know the spells on me are gone, know my full powers are loose—hell, they know I’m alive and they weren’t sure before—but they don’t know where I am. Someone was aware of the spells being removed, and before you ask, I don’t know who. The visions are never that clear. Someone Shaw would trust to monitor the spells…”
“If the person is smart, it shouldn’t take him too long to figure out there are only a few places a witch can disappear off the magical grid so entirely, and only a few people on the West Coast who can break the kind of spells that were on you,” his grandmother said, the harsh truth only slightly softened by her gentle, lilting brogue.
“Basically us or the Hailey-Moritomos down in Monterey. Maybe the de la Vegas, but their main power base is in Mexico so they don’t feel as strongly about pranking the Agency as American witches do. We might as well have sent up a fucking flare.” Deck put it together way too easily. He could only hope the people at the Agency were a little slower.
He suspected they weren’t.
Forget Hawaii. For the first time in his life, he felt that Donovan urge to face trouble head on.
Kyle wasn’t going to abandon Meaghan. Deck could tell by the look on Kyle’s face and the way the muscles in his tan arms roped from holding Meaghan so close, by the way Meaghan clung to the otter as if he was her safety in what had to be a terrifying world. Kyle, the otter who wanted to be a hero, wouldn’t be able to resist that. Hell, Deck wasn’t sure he’d be able to resist the little blonde’s combination of fragility and strength, even if he weren’t able to sense the oceanic power that surged in her, calling to his from a distance.
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