The Connelly Boys (Celtic Witches Book 1)

by Lily Velez

  “You can’t expect us to just sit back and watch while you sacrifice innocent souls to some demon,” I said. “Especially when my dad’s one of them, when Maurice is one of them.”

  Seamus studied me for a few moments. “I have to admit, I was concerned when you crossed paths with my nephews. Alison saw you coming, warned me you’d stand in my path. I feared everything I’d worked for would be destroyed. If anyone could stop me, it would’ve been you. But as you stood before me at Crowmarsh, answering my questions about your experience with magic, or lack thereof, it was clear you posed no threat whatsoever, that you had no idea what you even were.”

  Kai’s words suddenly came to me. You have no idea what you are, do you? I hadn’t given the statement much thought, but now it throbbed between my temples. “What are you talking about?”

  “Isn’t it obvious?”

  “Clearly it’s not,” Connor spat. “So why don’t you spell it out for us?”

  “She’s one of the god-touched.”

  Jack and his brothers fell deadly silent, and one by one they turned to me, staring at me in utter disbelief.

  “A Daughter of Brigid?” Jack intoned, as if speaking the words of a prayer.

  I had to grab the bars of the drop gate tighter to keep myself standing. “What?” Seamus had to be mistaken, or maybe I’d simply misheard. Brigid’s hand-selected elite were warrior witches according to Jack.

  “Why do you think you felt compelled to rush to Jack’s defense at the rugby game? He was a witch in harm’s way, and as is your solemn calling, you were driven to protect him at all costs. Nevermind the Echo that appeared to you at the menhirs, showing you your destiny. You, Scarlet, are the bird of rare feather Jack couldn’t help but go on about, the one who was meant to arrive and lead the way. There hasn’t been a Daughter since The Burning Times until you were chosen by the goddess. A rarity indeed.

  “I tried to convince Jack the message meant nothing, of course, that your arrival was merely a coincidence. But Jack, tireless believer that he is, wouldn’t drop the matter. So my only other option was to keep you all imprisoned in Crowmarsh while I expedited my plans by going to The Council sooner than later.”

  I shook my head, unable to process the words. “That’s im—”

  “Impossible? I assure you it’s not. Though why the goddess would choose you, an ordinary girl who hasn’t yet fully come into her magic, is anyone’s guess. All the more indication to me that the path I’ve carved for our people is what’s meant for us right now. In light of that, I can’t have the five of you trying to interfere with my plans again. You’ll remain here until after I’ve performed the Reaping, at which point we can discuss the roles you’ll play at my side moving forward. For now, I’ll appoint a demon to tend to your needs over the coming days.”

  Connor’s glare was filled with vitriol. “One demon isn’t going to hold us back.”

  “Oh, I think otherwise,” Seamus said. “You see, I’ve prepared for every eventuality. That said, Lucas, I’m very sorry about this.”

  “Sorry about wh—?”

  He didn’t get to finish his sentence. Seamus produced the crossbow from Zoe’s backpack and launched an arrow straight into Lucas’s chest.

  38

  Jack rushed to his fallen brother, dropping to his knees at Lucas’s side. “Lucas!”

  Lucas fell into a coughing fit, clawing at the front of his shirt. The sight of the arrow protruding from his chest made my stomach turn over. Retreating footsteps echoed down the catacombs. Seamus had already fled the scene.

  Jack angled his brother’s head up as the younger continued coughing. Lucas’s face grew chalk white within seconds, and before Jack could get another word out, his eyes rolled to the back of his head. He was out cold.

  “Lucas!”

  Rory was beside Jack. His long, deft fingers made quick but gentle work of tearing Lucas’s shirt from the point of entry outward to get a better look. “It’s not a fatal wound,” he said. “But…” He furrowed his brow, examining a clear, slimy residue on his fingertips that he’d collected from Lucas’s wound. It was speckled with black. He sniffed it.

  “But what?” Jack prompted.

  “Seamus put something on the arrowhead. I’m not sure what it is. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  Connor was striding back and forth, cursing under his breath. “So he goes on about not wanting to harm us, and then he attempts to kill our brother right before our eyes?”

  “If he meant to kill Lucas,” I said, “why not aim for his heart?” Not that I in any way wanted to defend Seamus, but he could’ve easily taken us all out in an instant if he’d really wanted to.

  “He obviously missed.”

  “No,” Jack said after a moment of thought. “His aim was deliberate. Whatever the arrowhead was treated with, it was only meant to incapacitate Lucas, presumably for the full length of our stay here.”

  “What makes you say that?” Connor asked

  “Because, as far as Seamus knows, Lucas is the only Wayfarer among us.”

  There was a long pause as we all let that settle in. “And therefore he’s the only one who could’ve gotten us out of here,” I finished. “Seamus doesn’t know about you?”

  “That particular Mastery emerged while he was studying with The Council. By the time he returned, so many others had emerged that it fell to the bottom of the pile in terms of significance. I don’t think I ever mentioned it to him. We have to get Lucas to a Healer as soon as possible.”

  “Is there one nearby?”

  “There’s one in Rosalyn Bay, but we’ll have to drive there. I can only wayfare with one other person at a time.”

  “Can’t you just bring us one by one then?” I asked.

  “Crossing that much of a distance, basically the entire width of the country, would exude too much magic, as would the multiple trips back and forth. I would only attract demons. And they’re the last thing we need to deal with right now. Rory, let’s err on the side of caution. Go ahead and bind yourself to Lucas in case he unexpectedly takes a turn for the worse. Afterward, I’ll bring us all above level to the abbey one at a time so we can get Zoe. Then we’ll head to Rosalyn Bay.”

  It was a four-hour journey from Dublin to Rosalyn Bay. By the time we arrived, the golden arch of the sun was just starting to peek over the horizon, endless fields glowing in soft hues of yellow. It had been a tense drive, and for once, Jack didn’t have the radio on, so instead of riding to the crooning of Jerry Lee Lewis and Chuck Berry, we were contained in a vacuum of silence, each of us no doubt still reeling from Seamus’s betrayal.

  I kept playing his words over and over again in my mind. You were chosen by the goddess. I still wanted to believe there’d been a mistake, but what reason would Seamus have to lie? Alison had foreseen it, Jack and I had crossed paths just as we were meant to, and trying to protect him against the demon at the rugby game had called forth a spark of my magic. But even if it were all true, what exactly was I supposed to do? How could I possibly stop someone like Seamus?

  I glanced over my shoulder. Rory sat beside a still unconscious Lucas in the furthest row. In front of them, Connor and Zoe sat angled away from each other. I tried not to stare too much at Connor’s slightly sore nose. When he’d cast the spell to awaken Zoe from her magically induced sleep, she’d punched him square in the face, thinking she was still being held captive by Seamus.

  I was surprised when Jack guided the SUV onto St. Andrew’s property, parking behind the school’s chapel. The campus was still in the throes of early morning, its students not yet having stirred to begin a new school day. Even if there’d been boys out and about in their uniforms, though, I knew the place still would’ve felt foreign to me. Too much had happened since my last time here. I’d changed. It was like trying to squeeze a foot into a wrong size shoe.

  Rory and I followed Jack into the chapel. The place was heavy with the aroma of incense. We passed rows of stained glass windows, which brande
d jewel-toned prisms onto my arms, and made our way down the nave and past the altar until we reached a room in the back. Jack opened the door without knocking, and we filed in behind him.

  We found Father Nolan inside, polishing gold communion bread plates. He started when he noticed us. “Jack! Mother above, you put the heart crossways in me.” He pressed a palm to his chest to steady his breathing. “Where have you lads been? I feared the worst. I’ve tried to get in touch with you repeatedly.”

  “I’m sorry, Father. The past days have been something of a whirlwind to say the least. I’ll tell you all about it, but first, we need some kind of antidote for Lucas.” He produced a cloth from his pocket and unfolded it to reveal the arrowhead. It was a simple bullet point shape, ending in a slight dome. Its shape had made it easy to pull it out of Lucas’s chest, as opposed to the damage a wide broadhead would’ve done. “It’s coated with some strange substance.”

  Father Nolan took the arrowhead, holding it an inch from his glasses to better examine it. “Demon venom,” he replied almost immediately. He handed it back to Jack and strode to a space on the floor covered by a thick, Oriental rug. He rolled up the rug, motes of dust ascending into the air. There was a trap door beneath. He heaved the door open by an iron handle, its tired hinges whining in a screech that was like nails on a chalkboard. Then he nodded to us. “Let’s get to it, shall we?”

  We descended into a windowless cellar that smelled like herbs and spices. The stone walls were lined with dozens upon dozens of shelves, each one boasting glass bottles, jars, and vials of every shape and size. Their yellowing labels bore spidery, ancient script that was barely legible, but for the most part, it was easy to get a general idea of what was inside. Some were filled with seeds, some with leaves, some with grounds. And then there were odder things, things that made my stomach sour. Small bones, for instance. And preserved specimens like frogs in one case and what seemed to be rat tails in another.

  Pressing my hand to my mouth, I pulled my eyes away from the sight. In a corner, planters filled with herbs were set under lightbulbs. There was a weathered table at the center of the room with candles upon it, their stands dripping with wax. With a snap of Father Nolan’s fingers, the candle wicks roared to life with dancing flames.

  I blinked. “You’re a…?” I couldn’t get the word out. For some reason, I was afraid of offending him, given that he was a man of the cloth. I’d simply assumed his knowledge of demons hailed from his line of work.

  He only smiled in that warm, grandfatherly way of his. “I am, yes. And healing is my Mastery.”

  “But you’re a priest,” I said, my eyes dropping to his clerical collar.

  “I don’t believe the two have to be mutually exclusive,” he said. “These days, a witch can practice the Ancient Path and still follow whatever religion they choose—or no religion at all! You’d be surprised by how eclectic a witch’s personal practice can be, and by how interwoven several belief systems truly are. The early churches in Ireland, for instance, adopted many Celtic customs and symbols into their traditions. I’m of the mind we’d do better by each other if we focused more on what unites us as opposed to what divides us.”

  He grabbed a mortar and pestle, setting it upon the table beside a black-handled knife with Ogham runes carved into its hilt.

  “An athamé,” Jack said beside me. “It’s a double-edged dagger used in ceremonies and spellcraft.”

  Father Nolan went about the room, collecting bottles from the shelves and calling out herbs to Rory, who gently tore off leaves from the miniature garden across the way. As they did this, Jack explained everything that had happened since his initial return to St. Andrew’s, from the demon’s visit at the rugby game to Seamus’s shocking act of treason against them. At the mention of my being a Daughter of Brigid, the priest paused, his eyes nearly doubling in size as he took me in.

  “I should’ve guessed it sooner,” Jack had said. “It was right in front of us all this time. I wrongly assumed the Echo was simply showing Scarlet that she was a witch like us, and I thought her rarity was a nod to The Lost Clan. I hadn’t even considered the possibility of her being a Daughter, as there hasn’t been one chosen in ages.”

  By the time Jack was finished, Father Nolan was already combining all the ingredients into the mortar and crushing them, adding liquid from a flask until the mixture became a thick, sticky poultice. The smell of mint and freshly cut grass wafted through the air.

  Father Nolan then took the athamé, easily slicing the blade across his palm. I winced, but the elderly man didn’t seem the slightest bit bothered by the wound. He clenched his fist over the mortar and allowed several drops of his blood to splatter onto the wet healing paste. “The blood of a Healer is the final ingredient,” he explained to me before tying a cloth around his hand. “Rory, continue mixing that for me, won’t you? Just a few stirs and then you can take it out to Lucas straightaway. That should rouse him in no time, though it’ll take a few days for the venom to fully leave his system.”

  “Thank you, Father,” Jack said, watching as Rory finished with the mixture and hurried back upstairs to tend to Lucas.

  “Of course, Jack. You know I’m always here for you lads. I can hardly believe what’s become of your uncle. It doesn’t seem like Seamus at all.”

  “There’s something I still don’t understand,” I said. “If Seamus is taking the Mastery from each soul for himself, why would the Soul-Eater still be interested in the soul? Wouldn’t it be magic-less at that point?”

  Jack shook his head. “A witch’s entire soul is made up of magic. Your Mastery is only one part of your soul, much in the way your organs are each only one part of your human body. As long as the Soul-Eater has magic-filled souls to consume, it wouldn’t care less that Seamus has already taken out the Masteries.”

  “You must stop Seamus from himself, Jack,” Father Nolan said.

  “How can I? The Book of Fates is gone now.”

  “Nevermind The Book of Fates. There’s yet hope when a Daughter of Brigid is at your side.” Father Nolan turned to me, his eyes filled with reverence as if he couldn’t believe such an entity stood before him in the flesh, as if I were a saint materialized from one of his very prayers.

  My face heated. “I’m not sure how much help I can be. I’m not exactly warrior material.”

  “Nonsense,” Father Nolan said. “What makes you think the first Daughter was chosen because she was battle-ready? The goddess came to her because of her heart, her courage, her desire to not see her clan fall into the hands of its enemies. The annals of history called her mighty, fierce. But at the end of the day, she was an ordinary girl just like you. The only difference is that when the goddess called her forth, she willingly accepted the summons. You may not have come into your magic yet, but with a Hallowstone in your hand, the trademark weapon of a Daughter, you would be quite the force to contend with.”

  “But no one knows what became of the Hallowstones,” I said. “And I thought witches nowadays wrote them off as the stuff of legends anyway.”

  “Oh, I assure you they were never mere legend,” Father Nolan said.

  “How can you be so sure?”

  He smiled, a twinkle in his eyes. “Because I happen to have one in my possession.”

  39

  Rosalyn Bay’s coast was eerily vacant. I blamed the sky, which, despite showcasing a gorgeous sunrise earlier, was now quickly becoming the color of gunpowder, stamping out all traces of light so that it looked like evening. Fishing vessels bobbled from side to side in the jerky waters, and seagulls circled the air in lazy hoops, letting out angry squawks at the lack of fishing crews and fresh catches. The familiar briny smell of salt water filled the air, and the ocean waves pounded against the shores with dangerous, white claws in an unrelenting assault. I thought about Liam, who probably would’ve loved to surf in this weather.

  Father Nolan, Jack, and I ascended the red-and-white striped lighthouse atop the bluff at the far end of the bea
ch. It was hard to believe I’d been in this very spot recently, hoping to catch a glimpse of migrating humpback whales. Now I was hoping to happen upon something entirely different.

  “Although there are those who would have the clans believe the stones were never more than legend,” Father Nolan said, who, despite his age, easily made do with the lighthouse’s steep, interior steps which coiled round and round like a snail shell, “it’s only because the stones have been swathed in secrecy for centuries now. After what happened with Celeste, who’d stolen the Hallowstones from each clan so that no one could stand against her, the Elders came together and decided it best no witch should ever become that powerful again. This was the reason they established their temple Elsewhere, hiding away the Forbidden Spells along with other texts that could become dangerous in the hands of the wrong witch.”

  I thought about the summoning sigils Seamus had found. The Elders probably would’ve never expected their most prized pupil to go dark, to turn on them.

  “The Hallowstones were never lost, however. The Elders had simply recovered them in secret. And given their great power, it was decided the Hallowstones should be sealed away until such a time as they were needed again. So the Elders clandestinely appointed a trusted individual from each clan to become a Keeper, someone who would guard their given stone with their life. The Keepers spread to different parts of the world, and as time passed, their descendants took up the role, and their descendants after them, and so on up through the present day.”