by M. L. Briers
“I hope you mean that in the nicest way,” she said, and I got the distinct impression that she was flirting. Yea! They were both outlanders, although I still didn’t know where she was from.
“Oh, sure, witches are just so much fun to be around,” Jack said, teasing, or maybe not.
“Says the faerie,” Malachi offered, and Jack muttered something under his breath, but I didn’t catch it.
“You have fae blood?” Nena looked intrigued, but the fact that a small frown appeared on her forehead didn’t bode well for Jack. Perhaps she was of the same school of thought that gran was, that faeries and witches didn’t mix well. Boo!
“Apparently,” Jack muttered.
“You know, as you are on the faerie Isle, it’s probably not a good idea to disrespect your heritage,” Malachi warned him. Now it was Jack’s turn to frown.
“Really?” He looked at me for answers.
“Why are you asking me?” I shot back. Did I look like the bookworm of the family?
“You’re a…” He lifted a hand and motioned up and down my body.
“W-i-t-c-h?” I offered back slowly. You’d think the man would be able to say the word by now.
“Exactly,” he said, snapping his hand back as if I was about to bite him. Then his mobile phone went off, and he was saved by the bell. Literally. “I need to take this.” He said pushing up and walking into the hallway.
Silly man, didn’t he know that vampires had a couple of listening devices strapped to the side of their head?
“What’s he saying?” I hissed at Malachi.
“Isn’t it funny that when it suits your own nosy needs that you want me to eavesdrop on someone else’s conversation…”
“Stop talking, and listen,” I shot back.
“I’m a vampire, I can multitask,” Malachi said, but before I could berate him some more, Jack walked back into the room.
“Sheep?” I offered, feeling guilty for telling Malachi to eavesdrop on him in the first place.
“Yes,” Jack said, and I groaned inwardly. If I’d known it was a stupid dead sheep, then I wouldn’t have mentioned it. “I have to be going.”
“Where?” I asked. Perhaps we should be plotting the trail of dead sheep around the Isle.
“Back at the Point,” Jack said, and my heart tried to escape my ribs. That wasn’t good.
“I’ll come with you,” I said, pushing up on my feet, and Jack gave me something of an old-fashioned look that questioned my sanity.
“Why?” He asked, and I shrugged my shoulders.
“Sightseeing,” Malachi said, and I went to grasp hold of that explanation, but Jack got in there before me.
“It’s dark,” he offered, and I grimaced.
“But, there maybe northern lights tonight,” Nena said. “I’ll come as well.”
“Why don’t we all go?” Malachi said pushing up to his feet. I don’t know if he just didn’t want me being around Jack, didn’t like the thought of dead sheep, or if he still didn’t trust the new witch — but, it looked like we were having a boy-girl, boy-girl outing.
“It’s police business, I can’t take any of you in my car,” Jack said, Mr Rulebook himself.
“That’s okay, I prefer my motorbike, it goes really fast,” Nena said, teasing the policeman amongst us.
“That’s…” Jack started, and I couldn’t help but chuckle.
“She’s pulling your leg,” I offered back.
Nena didn’t seem like a person that lived by the rules of the road if she could get away with them. But now was not the time to wind Jack up.
“Shouldn’t we be going rather than talking about it?” Malachi asked.
“I can’t let you near the crime scene,” Jack said.
“That’s okay — I really don’t need to see dead sheep,” I tossed back.
“Well, I can’t stop you from following me,” he said, looking a little confused.
“We’ll see who gets first,” Nena chuckled. And I groaned inwardly.
“Where are you going?” Moira asked as she stalked into the living room just as we were leaving. “Gran said we’re still doing it tonight.”
So, the spell was on after all. But I still couldn’t leave Jack to go to the Point alone.
“To see some dead sheep,” Malachi said in a bored tone.
“Why?” Moira sneered at the thought.
“Because it’s at the Point,” I said. “And Jack’s going.”
“At the Point?” Moira scowled back at me.
“Someone wanna let me in on what’s going on?” Malachi asked.
“In the car,” I told him, not wanting to be overheard talking about my vision.
“Maybe you could just drop your magic, open your mind to me, and you don’t have to say a word,” Malachi grinned.
“You don’t have that many brownie points yet,” I said.
“Really? Because I thought I was doing very well, especially before Jack arrived,” Malachi grinned, and I knew what he meant — so much for him being a gentleman.
The sound of Moira’s knowing chuckle played on my nerves, like that wasn’t going to come up later.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
~
It was cold, dark, as windy as hell, and a big old waste of time. We’d tracked all the way out there for Jack to take a quick look around the scene, make a few notes, talk to Dougie, who had been the first to respond to the report and leave again. But at least it had put my mind at rest that Jack wasn’t going to go flying off the cliff to his doom.
What made it worse was that as we drove back home, I remembered a very important part of my vision — it hadn’t been night-time. How stupid was I?
“So, you still have a soft spot for Jack,” Malachi said, breaking me out of my thoughts and bringing him into them.
“He’s a friend, sort of,” I said.
I didn’t know if Jack and I were friends, but that didn’t mean that I was going to ignore my vision if we weren’t. That would just be wrong.
“And what are we?” Malachi asked.
Boom! There was a question that I really didn’t want to answer — yet. I was going to need a little time to think that one through.
“Is that the northern lights?” I asked, turning to look out of my window and grimacing at how badly I’d just handled that.
“That’s actually a really bad attempt at deflecting,” Malachi said, calling me on it. “But, I’ll give you a pass for tonight.”
“That’s big of you,” I shot back when perhaps I should have just not said anything.
“If you open your mind to me then I can tell you exactly what you’re feeling,” he offered, bless him – not.
“Not a chance in hell.”
I didn’t need to think about that one. I didn’t know what I was thinking, and I really didn’t want to be the last one of the two of us to know.
“That kiss was…”
“Yes, it was, and can we talk about something else?” I said and grimaced inwardly this time.
I wasn’t handling this well at all. Being put on the spot was never good for me, I could think fast on my feet, but not at times like these.
“Let’s go full-circle and talk about Jack’s obsession with dead sheep,” Malachi tossed back, sarcasm dripping from his tone.
I got that he was unhappy with my answers, reactions, and brain farting, but there was little that I could do about it at that moment in time. If he wanted clarity, then he was going to have to wait until I found some.
I didn’t say anything, and neither did he. We just drove toward home in silence. It was – awkward.
~
We made it back home without having any more awkward conversations between us, probably because we didn’t say another word to each other all the way back. We hadn’t been gone that long, but by the time we got home Gran and the others had already set up the spell.
I left Malachi behind me as I stalked into the greenhouse and noted Gran taking something from another hole in t
he wall. I really needed to check out the whole of that wall when she wasn’t around because it was like buried treasure of the witchy kind.
Gran carried what looked like a roll of parchment to the table in the middle of the room, and my parents and sisters were already in place around the table, and I rushed forward to take up my place but didn’t get too far.
“Maggie, cleanse your aura,” Gran snapped at me.
I ground to a halt as if I’d hit an invisible wall. Luckily, I’d made it just before I was about to enter the circle. In my rush to get away from Malachi, I had forgotten the basic rules of crafting, and that was never a good thing, in fact, it could have been very bad indeed.
I did as I was told, getting rid of the bad vibes, and trying not to think of anything but what we were doing. I entered the circle with perfect trust because that part was easy. If you couldn’t trust your family then who could you trust?
Gran was unrolling the parchment against the black silk cloth that had been placed on the table. It tried to roll back on itself, but she used heavy lodestones to keep the corners in place.
“When we are all ready,” Gran’s voice was serene, and yet that remark felt as if it was aimed right between my eyeballs.
I watched and waited as Gran lifted the Athame. The silver blade picked up the dancing flame of the candles and Gran went about the practice of spell casting.
Whispered words on her breath as we all focused on the spell that she was performing, bolstering the magic with our own, and asking the Goddess for wisdom and help in the matter at hand.
With the tip of the blade; she pricked her index finger, a few drops of blood hit the parchment below, and sat dormant in the middle of the most beautiful map of Skye I had ever seen.
Each one of us, in turn, added our blood to Gran’s. Then the mood changed, her whispered words became faster, more concentrated, and as the blood on the map started to move, we all followed its progress.
It was searching as we were, looking for a certain kind of magic, and when it stopped, we knew that it had found the right destination.
“Oh — my — Goddess,” Eileen bit out.
“We should have known,” Moira said tossing up a hand in frustration. It made sense; Gran had already given us the clues that we’d needed to solve this thing.
“We need to go, now,” Gran said, “before there’s a chance that they get away.”
~
There wasn’t going to be time to consider how blind we had been to the clues along the way. We needed to get to where the spell was being performed before it was too late and the culprit moved on.
As we started to climb into our cars, the sound of Nena’s bike coming up the dirt road made me hesitate in step. I rushed to meet her as Malachi started the engine of his car.
Nena pulled the bike up in front of me and flipped her visor up. “You found it?” She asked, sounding a little disappointed that she’d missed it.
“I thought you were coming right back?” I asked. Something didn’t feel right, and it wasn’t just the fact that someone was performing dark magic on the island.
“I was talking to Jack. He got a call and said he needed to go to the graveyard…”
Oh, how that wasn’t what I wanted to hear. My heart got stuck in my throat, and my chest felt as if I was getting a bear hug from Ross.
“That’s where the magic’s coming from,” I bit out over my shoulder as I ran back toward Malachi’s car and yanked open the passenger door. “Now — we need to go now.”
I wasn’t sure how I got the words out when I could barely breathe, but I was glad that Malachi didn’t hesitate. The instant I slammed the door closed; he stomped his foot down on the accelerator, and the car took off down the drive.
I just hope we got there in time.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
~
Isn’t it funny, I know my home like the back of my hand, I know it was night, and I know I wasn’t really paying attention to the road as my mind raced with the possibility of what lay ahead, but as I tried to focus on where we were I couldn’t quite make out anything at all.
“Faster,” I begged. After all, this was all my fault. I shouldn’t have allowed Jack to go off alone — stupid, stupid me.
“Any faster and we’ll be breaking land speed records,” Malachi tossed back. I shot a look at him, ready to beg once more, but the strained look on his face told me to be quiet. “You finally figured out that you want Jack.”
Hello?
What the hell was he talking about?
Where the heck had that come from?
“I don’t want Jack — I just don’t want Jack dead,” I tossed back.
It wasn’t like I had to give Malachi an explanation for why I needed to be at the graveyard, why I needed to help Jack, but it also felt wrong not to.
“I can be the bigger man about this, Maggie,” Malachi said.
I wasn’t entirely sure if I wanted to slam my forehead against the dashboard or slam Malachi’s forehead against the dashboard. The man was being insane.
“Would you stop?”
“The car?”
“Not the car — don’t you dare — stop acting like I wronged you in some way, or am about to,” I snapped back.
This was insane. Jack was in danger — someone was performing dark magic — and Malachi was jealous?
“Fine,” he bit out.
“You’d think after all the time that you’ve been alive you would have a better handle on people,” I snapped back.
“Normally I can read people’s minds,” Malachi said. I guess he had a point there. Cheater.
I didn’t hesitate. The stakes were too high for me to be squeamish about what was in the darkest recesses of my brain. I dropped my magic and allowed him inside my mind.
Admittedly, I tried not to think about him or anything him related, and I definitely wasn’t thinking anything X-rated.
“Interesting,” Malachi said, and I felt a pang of guilt, for what I didn’t know, it was tinged with an edge of shame, and again, I had no idea why because I had no idea what he was poking around at in my brain.
“Shut up,” I said, pushing back in the seat and practically grinding my teeth with annoyance.
Perhaps I shouldn’t have done it, but done it I had, and there was no going back now.
~
I saw it in the distance as we drew up to the graveyard. It wasn’t as if the witch was being stealthy about things — not with the bonfire that was burning, its flames were dancing in the wind and illuminating the area with a creepy orange-red light that was like a red rag to a bull in my mind.
“Calm down,” Malachi bit out.
“Do not read my mind,” I snapped back.
He could cherry-pick what he wanted from my thoughts about him, about Jack, but I didn’t need him knowing every single thing that went through my brain.
“You will not put yourself in harm’s way tonight,” Malachi warned me.
“We are all putting ourselves in harm’s way tonight,” I said, and that was the truth of it. Nobody knew what was going to happen, but I had a feeling that everything up to his point had been somehow stage-managed by that witch.
“You think this is a setup?” Malachi asked.
“You don’t?”
“Jack’s call?”
“But what else?” There had to be something, something more. The witch must have known that we would all come as one and that we would all try to stop her.
What did she have up her sleeve that we weren’t expecting?
“We should leave, come about this a different way, at different time…”
“No. It needs to end here tonight. We don’t even know who she is yet, but we know that she’s right there,” I reasoned.
“It’s too dangerous. If it’s a setup…”
“Then we have to meet it head-on.”
Was that the best thing to do? I didn’t know. But if the witch had brought Jack to the graveyard then what would happen to him
if we left?
“We’re in a damn convoy,” Malachi bit out, suddenly hitting the brakes and turning the steering wheel, and I kind of freaked out at the sudden change of direction.
“No, you can’t leave Jack,” I bit out.
“I’m not leaving,” Malachi assured me, grabbing his phone and swiping the screen. “Yeah, probably a trap – rescue Jack, kill the witch – we’ll go left, you go head on – got it.” He swiped the screen once more and tossed the phone onto the dashboard.
“Hello?” I felt frustration clawing within me.
“I keep forgetting you can’t hear.”
“I can hear just fine … just tell me,” I bit out. I so wasn’t going to rise to the bait.
“Just as I said, we’re not taking any prisoners, and Duncan agrees…”
“Oh, well, as long as Duncan agrees,” I bit back.
“Work with me here, not against me. Vampires, good guys, that witch – bad guy.” His sarcasm annoyed me so, but he had a point.
~
It wasn’t as if she couldn’t see us coming. The graveyard was on pretty open ground, and she was expecting us, but Malachi was right, and boy, did I not want to keep on saying that, but at least we weren’t all in a convoy anymore.
“Where possible, stay behind me,” Malachi said as we left the car. Fat chance. “I mean it.”
“Stop reading my mind,” I bit back, but I didn’t think now was the time to argue about it.
“Stop making me — just do as you’re told.”
“Oh boy, are we going to have words later.”
“Let’s hope there’s a later.”
Well, that made me think twice. I noted the other cars pulling up and felt a sense of trepidation for what could happen. My whole family was here, everyone that I loved and cared about, and that only made me more determined to see this done and dusted.
Malachi was r… damn, right. We needed to end it here tonight by whatever means necessary.
As we closed in on the bonfire, and the hooded figure of the witch – I was so ready to end her that I could taste it.