by Lily Velez
I now sat with an untouched turkey-and-cheese sandwich in front of me, struggling to find my appetite. I balled up a napkin and dabbed at the cold water trickling down from the still-wet bun atop my head. “Samhain,” I repeated. “That’s Halloween right?”
“Halloween originates in part from Samhain. Samhain is one of our Greater Sabbats and marks the end of the harvest season and the beginning of winter, or the ‘darker half’ of the year. It’s a time when we remember our dead and celebrate the lives they led. But of particular note, it’s also when the veil between this world and the Otherworld momentarily thins, making it easier to harvest power from the other side. It’s the most auspicious night of the year to hold a dark ritual.”
“But how can you be so sure that’s when the ritual will take place?”
“Our mother said it would happen when the Blood Moon fills the sky. That’s what we call October’s full moon, not to be confused with the total lunar eclipse of the same name. Our designation comes from our way of life. Back in the day, the clans would spend October hunting, slaughtering, and preserving meats for the coming winter, inevitably spilling blood. This year, the Blood Moon just so happens to fall on the thirty-first of the month.”
“If that’s the case, we only have two weeks to stop the Reaper.”
“Which is why we need to act quickly.”
Pressure built in my chest. It was bad enough when my dad’s soul had been in danger of becoming an eternal prisoner of the sluagh. But learning he was instead meant to be a sacrifice in some deranged ritual involving demons? That was a new level of terrifying. “So we know when the ritual will take place. What about where?”
“Our mother gave us a clue about that as well. She said, ‘The earth where the mother goddess sleeps awaits.’”
“The Hill of Uisneach,” Connor said.
Jack nodded. “Ireland’s sacred center. It’s one of the country’s most treasured and mysterious historical sites. It was an ancient ceremonial site, a place of worship, a seat of the High Kings throughout the years, and the place where the first Beltane fire was lit. But more importantly for our purposes, it’s also where Ireland’s matron goddess Ériu, after whom the country is named, was laid to rest according to legend, making the site holy ground. Ériu’s resting place is said to mark a hidden gateway to the Otherworld. With the veil between the natural world and the supernatural world thinning on Samhain, there’s no better place for the Reaper to hold their ritual. Being so close to a doorway to the Otherworld would amplify their magic immeasurably.”
“So why are we still talking about it?” Connor asked. “Let’s get the book and end this.”
I glanced at him, still growing accustomed to his blossoming determination when he’d been so reluctant about everything since the beginning. Seeing Alison had shaken him, and she hadn’t yet awakened by the time we’d left either. Jack and his brothers had to feel helpless, but if the witch who’d cursed Alison was the same witch running amok as the Reaper, then they knew their best chance at helping their mother was to recover The Book of Fates and bind the Reaper.
“You know we have to wait,” Jack said.
“For your contact, you mean?” I asked.
“Part of protecting the secret libraries from hunters and the Sightless entailed casting glamor spells to keep them hidden. The spells can only be undone by a member of the O'Manacháin clan, so we’ll need to be escorted by our contact.” Jack tapped a finger against the shiny lacquer finish of the table, weighing something in his mind. Finally, he cleared his throat and quickly said, “Zoe will be here within the hour.”
“Wait, what?” Connor straightened, a storm sparking in his dark eyes. “That’s the contact you reached out to?”
Jack sighed. “I had no other choice, Connor. We have few allies among the O'Manacháin clan. Choosing her made the most sense.”
Connor muttered a curse, pinching the bridge of his nose. “I swear to the gods…”
I looked between him and Jack. “What am I missing?”
Lucas was all grins, his playing cards organizing themselves into a three-level house beside his plate of pizza. “Let’s just say Connor has a very colorful history with one of the daughters of O'Manacháin.”
Jack went on, not giving his brothers the opportunity to start another argument. “Zoe will lead us to wherever the library’s located, undo the spell, and then help us in locating the book. Provided it’s even there at all. Let’s hope it is.”
“What about Seamus?” I asked. “Shouldn’t we wait for him to get here?”
Seamus had still been Elsewhere when he’d called, but even from there, he’d been able to check on Crowmarsh’s wards. Upon discovering they were down, he’d assumed the worst, so hearing Jack’s voice on the other end of his phone call had primarily been a relief, though it definitely hadn’t stopped him from immediately segueing into disciplinarian mode.
Jack could barely get a word in, but finally he’d found a large enough gap in his uncle’s telling-off to mention Alison surfacing from her catatonia and her message about The Book of Fates. Seamus, awestruck no doubt, had gone silent at that for a long moment. Subdued, he and Jack had then spoken further, the conversation ending with Seamus agreeing to meet up with us in Dublin to help search for the book.
“When he called, The Council was still deliberating the matter of the sluagh and The Black Hand,” Jack said. “They’re notoriously slow in their deliberations, preferring to avoid confrontations with hunters or the Sightless whenever possible. Now that we know it’s a Reaper we’re up against, though, it’ll hopefully change the tone of those deliberations and expedite the decision process. Even so, it may be a day or two more before he’s here. Possibly even longer. Unfortunately, we don’t have the luxury of time. Every second that passes is a second that brings us closer to Samhain and the Reaper’s ritual. It’s best we get a head start by beginning our search for the book now.”
An hour later, a knock pulled us all to the front door, where we gathered around Jack as he opened it. On the other side of the threshold stood a girl my age with flawless, olive skin and curly black hair tied back in a long ponytail. She was dressed head to toe in black, her form-fitting pants accentuating her hourglass figure, her thumbs hooked into the pockets of a vintage, faux-leather jacket. With metallic nails and an ouroboros ring on one index finger, she looked like a girl who’d just climbed off a Harley Davidson. A wing of mascara on each eyelid gave her a feline look, and she smirked at the boys.
“Hello, lads,” she practically purred. “Are you ready for an adventure?”
Zoraida “Zoe” Rivera was vivacious. She was only two or three inches taller than me, but she might as well have been the size of a skyscraper with her larger-than-life personality. As we made our way through the compact streets of Dublin, threading through crowds like fine-point needles, she carried herself with an enviable swagger I’d never been able to master.
I lost count of the number of times she turned heads. Men would look up from their pints of Guinness with mustaches made of foam, hungrily admiring her sauntering figure until she was out of view. I wanted to believe it was some kind of spell, but I knew it wasn’t. She was stunning, plain and simple. But she was beautiful in the way a deadly storm is beautiful, in the way the pink flowers of the poisonous Amaryllis are beautiful. For all the coquettish smirks she flashed at admirers with those pomegranate lips, Zoe was a modern-day femme fatale.
My eyes fell to the black backpack she carried, filled to the brim with weapons, and then to the blade strapped to her thigh holster, cloaked with magic so the Sightless were blind to it.
“Hunters,” she’d explained back in the penthouse.
“They’re here in Dublin?” I croaked. I’d been hoping we wouldn’t have to deal with their kind at all ever since learning they weren’t behind the sluagh attacks.
“Of course they are. They scour big cities like this whenever a Sabbat approaches in hopes of netting themselves a few witches. An
d Samhain is the holiest Sabbat of them all. So they’re out in droves.” She cocked a gun with a smirk, a dangerous gleam in her eyes. “But fortunately for you lot, I don’t scare easily.”
As it happened, we made it to the side street where Jack had parked the SUV without incident. Zoe assumed the shotgun seat to provide directions—and to snap off Jack’s choice in music—leaving me in one of the backseats with Connor. He’d cleaned up rather well in the hour before Zoe’s arrival. My guess was he’d paid a visit to one of the shops on the hotel’s main level because his blond locks were styled with hair product and he was even wearing cologne, the fragrance a mix of vetiver and pine needles.
Zoe had casually greeted him upon entering the penthouse, almost as if it were an afterthought, and he’d returned the salutation with enough nonchalance to suggest there was clearly unfinished business between them. I tried to picture him and Zoe as a couple or as whatever they’d been, and imagined two combustible personalities that must’ve been fireworks on the best of days and wildfires on the worst.
When we pulled up to an empty field thirty minutes outside of Dublin and filed out the SUV with flashlights, I blinked at the endless miles of pastures and grazing cows, the scent in the air a combination of wet grass and manure.
“Is this the right place?” I asked.
“O ye of little faith,” Zoe said, a smirk tucked into the corner of her heart-shaped mouth as she strode through the damp, tall grass as if strutting down a runway, her ponytail swaying from side to side.
We walked for nearly half an hour before we happened upon the ruins of an abbey, its towering, sandstone walls like a carcass in a barren wasteland. In the light of the waxing moon, it was breathtaking and haunting all at once. I aimed the beacon of my flashlight at the impressive architecture, marveling at the Gothic arches and clustered columns. With no roof and no windows, what remained of the abbey looked like old, tired bones sprouting from the earth, covered in moss and vines.
Zoe stepped up to a column, passing a hand over its façade. As she did, symbols appeared, glowing in a soft, blue light. Small sigils, I realized. She pressed her palm to the sigils and closed her eyes as she whispered an incantation I couldn’t make out. The light from the sigils quickly branched out like veins, coursing through the length of the column and then spreading all across the ruins until the entire structure was aglow in a latticework of blue.
“Here we go,” Lucas said beside me, rubbing his hands together eagerly.
The abbey shimmered, as if it were a reflection in a disturbed pool of water. And then, amidst the ripples, it began to materialize into something more. I took a step back, my eyes widening as my jaw went slack.
Breathtaking stained glass filled the gaping cavities under arches or between the traceries of rose windows. They depicted apostles and saints in striking, bright colors that gleamed like jewels against our flashlights. Grime and overgrowth dissolved and fell away. In their place, the sandstone walls shed centuries’ worth of aging, becoming like new again. Tile by tile, a roof patched itself together atop the ruins, and a lone steeple rose above it all, piercing the sky like a bayonet as a massive bell filled its center. The bell swung left to right, and the clapper within struck the metal with fervor, each loud bong a wistful tune that reverberated in my chest and held my heart closely, as if by the hands of angels.
The bell continued tolling, and as it did, the abbey’s exterior walls rebuilt themselves brick by brick. What had taken years—decades even—was completed by magic in mere seconds in a spectacle I would’ve never believed had I not witnessed it firsthand. Even the surrounding air was heavy, vibrating around us as if charged with an otherworldly energy. Finally, the walls drew themselves together, fully enclosing the abbey, and two massive doors fashioned from oak filled the arched entrance before us.
The bell sang out one more time, and then there was nothing but silence afterward. Still I stood there staring, as if expecting the abbey to metamorphose again like a chrysalis into a butterfly.
“There are sites like this hidden all over the world right under people’s noses,” Jack said, seeing my awed expression. “They’re disguised as ruins or abandoned lots, and yet they house our most prized treasures.”
“That’s nothing,” Zoe tossed over her shoulder as she pushed open the doors of the abbey and led us inside. “You should see what Stonehenge really looks like.”
Stepping into the abbey was like stepping into another era. There were black chandeliers and floor candelabras everywhere, their decorative scrolling covered in dripping wax. They each held a fleet of ivory candles, the flames of which came to life in our presence, trembling atop their wicks. The abbey was cavernous inside, the vaulted ceiling nearly touching the heavens, its ribbing giving the sense you were trapped inside the belly of a beast. Even though night had fallen, the imagery in the stained glass windows still glowed in the candlelight with ethereal beauty, painting quivering, kaleidoscope-colored shadows onto the stone floor.
I thought about the generations of people who had once called this abbey their place of worship, the pilgrims who’d walked down this very nave, the devoted who’d knelt before shrines to say a prayer and light a candle. The history surrounded me like a warm blanket, the age of the abbey sinking deep into my bones.
“It’s unbelievable,” I said, taking it all in. I turned in place, the beacon of my flashlight striping the walls and wooden pews. “But where are all the books?”
“Right this way,” Zoe said as she made for a shadowy stairwell that descended into darkness. “I just hope you’re not afraid of the dead.”
28
The dead in this case referred to the abbey’s catacombs.
We progressed through a cold, stretching corridor that smelled of earth, flanked on either side by stone tombs set within recesses. Recumbent effigies were carved upon their tops, depicting each tomb’s occupant in a state of eternal rest. Some of the stone men laid with their arms crossed in an X over their chest. Others gripped a broadsword. A few maintained a posture of prayer, hands pressed together above their hearts. They all wore crowns.
“Welcome to the Hall of Kings,” Zoe said, her tone solemn.
Torch-shaped sconces attached to the rock wall and spaced out every few feet roared to life as Zoe passed, their spitting flames bright and hot. I kept waiting for the tombs to stop appearing, but there was an endless parade of them. Eventually, I started to compare their extravagant designs. Most were decorated with the typical foliage and scrolling. The most popular symbol, however, was something I hadn’t expected.
“Harps?”
“Harps have always been revered in Celtic culture,” Jack said beside me. “It was said the All-Father had a magical harp that could call forth the four seasons. Its melodies were the favored music of the gods in their celebrations. In the hands of a druid, the harp became an enchanted weapon. He could use it to induce sleep in his listeners or provoke great joy or sorrow. Centuries later, the harp was still a staple of Irish heritage. So much so that it started to represent resistance to the British Crown in the sixteenth century. Queen Elizabeth was so threatened she ordered all harps burned and all harpists executed in an attempt to gain control of Ireland.”
“They wanted to strip us of our identity,” Zoe added. “Under penalty of death, the Irish were forbidden to speak their own language, own their own land, or receive an education.”
“But we held fast to our culture,” Jack said, “and the harp came to represent the spirit of the country. Today, it’s the national symbol of Ireland. It’s even on the back of our coins and features prominently on our passports.”
“Not to mention it’s stamped on every pint of Guinness you’ll ever have,” Lucas chimed in with a grin.
“Are these catacombs protected by the glamor spell as well?” I asked. “Wouldn’t people want to know about all this history, about the kings laid to rest here?”
“Unfortunately,” Zoe said, “that’s a risk we can’t take. These
are druidic kings after all. Their remains are as sacred to us as the bones of a saint might be in other places of worship. We regularly use them in higher forms of spellcraft, channeling the remaining embers of their magic. In fact, the magic contained in these tombs is part of what upholds the abbey’s glamor spell. That said, if hunters knew we housed dead kings here, they wouldn’t hesitate to find a way in to destroy every last bone.”
My stomach soured at the mention of hunters, and we continued our trek through the catacombs in silence. The corridor seemed to go on forever, and the more we walked, the more claustrophobic I felt, as if the walls of the catacombs were closing in on me. The stale air was stifling, as if I were breathing in ghosts with every breath. After my experience being trapped in Alison’s grave, communing with the dead wasn’t high on my list of experiences I wanted to revisit. I paused for a moment, resting my hand against the jagged rocks to right my head.
“Are you all right?” Jack asked gently, cupping my elbow. In the swaying shadows of the Hall of Kings, Jack’s face was a study in contrast. He looked as beautiful as ever, like a painting by one of art’s Old Masters. The concern in his warm gaze made my skin flush. It felt a lot like sinking into a bowl of warm honey.
“Just a little spooked, I guess.”
Jack nodded to his brothers to continue past him and then looked back to me. He still held my elbow, and his thumb softly moved back and forth over the thin fabric of my cardigan. In an effort to soothe me, I supposed, but it only worked my pulse into a frenzy. He was so close I could look at nothing else, my head tilting back slightly to take in his beautiful eyes.
“Do you need some fresh air?” he asked softly. “I’ll walk back outside with you if you want.”
My insides wobbled slightly. I glanced in the direction the others had gone. They were already turning a corner in these labyrinthine catacombs, but fortunately, Zoe’s torches hadn’t gone out in her absence.