by E. E. Holmes
The newcomers had created a casting circle all the way around our car, pressed into the tall grass like an alien-induced crop circle. The lights glinted from four amorphous candles, little more than misshapen lumps of dripping wax atop rough wooden pillars pressed into the soft earth. By the light of these candles, shapes emerged from the darkness.
There were about a dozen of them, all straight-backed and tall. At first, the men and women were not easily distinguishable from each other. Their angular faces were framed in tangles of long, dark hair, their bodies obscured by loose, flowing garments. As my eyes adjusted, the details emerged. Four of them were women; they wore long skirts, patched and draped and tattered. Their bare feet and ankles, which were glittering with golden bangles and chains, looked like reflections in a pond of their hands and wrists, which also twinkled and shone as they dangled at their sides. Three of the women were older, perhaps in their fifties, their hair streaked with glimmering strands of grey beneath a ragged assortment of head wraps and scarves. The fourth was much younger, perhaps around thirty, and all four of them wore, nestled in the hollows of their throats, the familiar curves of the triskele, carved into magnificent golden medallions.
The other eight were men, standing at silent attention, stone-faced sentinels at either side of the four candles. Their high cheekbones, weathered brown skin, and prominent noses reminded me of old tintype photographs of Native American chiefs out of history books. So, too, did the hard, humorless gazes with which they now fixed us.
“Hello, Anca,” Annabelle said, addressing the youngest of the women.
“Annabelle,” the woman replied, inclining her head. “It has been a long time, cousin.”
Annabelle turned to the rest of us, her expression wry. “Jess, Savvy, Finn, meet my dear cousin Anca, and her delegation from the Traveler Clans. Famed for their hospitality, as always.”
“These are not the circumstances under which we’d like to see you come home,” Anca said, and she gestured to the rest of us as though we were badly behaved house pets.
“Home is a relative term, isn’t it? I must say, this is one hell of a welcome committee,” Annabelle said, tossing her hair with more than a touch of her usual fire. “Does everyone get this kind of red carpet treatment, or do you reserve it just for family?”
Anca did not acknowledge the joke with even the faintest of smiles. “These are dangerous times, and you bring the greatest of threats here with you. We must take precautions.”
“I hardly think all this is necessary,” Annabelle said. “I told you we were coming. Surely there could have been a better way to receive us?”
Anca shrugged. “I am just adhering to my orders. Were you followed?”
“I don’t believe so,” Annabelle said, turning to Finn for confirmation.
“No,” he said. “Not by any means I could detect, spiritual or otherwise.”
Anca turned to the nearest man and spoke in a harsh tongue I did not understand. The man immediately turned and vanished into the looming shadows.
“And the spirit in the car?” she asked, gesturing to where Milo still hung, unresponsive, inside the Volvo.
“What about him?” Annabelle asked.
“Who is he? What has happened to him?”
“His name is Milo. He is Bound to Jessica’s sister, and is pledged as the Spirit Guide to their Gateway. He was attacked by the Necromancers and left in this state.” Annabelle said, “We don’t really know what has happened to him. That’s part of why we sought you out.”
Two of the older women looked at each other, their expressions skeptical.
“I don’t think this bodes well for the rest of the visit,” Savvy hissed in my ear. “If this is how they greet us, what do you think they’ll do when they hear the whole story of what brought us here?”
“Which of you is the Ballard girl?” Anca asked, though she was staring directly at me when she said it.
“I am.”
All of the dark eyes in the circle were now fixed on me. I could feel each pair of them, burning into me from all sides, turning my face flushed and my heartbeat to a nervous flutter.
“We’ve met you here to give you a choice,” Anca said. “This is your opportunity to walk away.”
“Walk away from what?” I asked.
“We have been instructed to bring you to our own High Priestess. We cannot guarantee what she will decide to do once she meets you and hears your story,” Anca said.
I chanced a glance at Finn. His eyes were narrowed as he scanned the circle.
“We have decided as a Council,” Anca went on, gesturing to the other women around her, “to give you the option to leave before you see her. If she determines you are too great of a risk to our Clan, she may decide to turn you in, or otherwise detain you. We thought it only fair to warn you of this possibility before we took you to see her.”
I swallowed and endeavored to keep my voice from shaking, which I failed at miserably. “What would happen if we decided to leave?”
Anca shrugged, almost coldly. “We have cast a circle here that you will not be able to break until we are miles away. If you choose not to enter our camp, your fate is your own. You will not be able to find us, and we will not trouble ourselves with what happens beyond our own borders.”
“And if we go with you, and your High Priestess doesn’t decide to turn us in? What then?” I asked.
“You would be offered the protection of the Travelers, which, if I may be so bold, is rather formidable. But, as I said, I cannot guarantee that she will choose to extend this protection. Our High Priestess will always put the safety of the Clan ahead of all else, and that may well mean that you are not welcomed here. If you come with us into the camp, you agree to leave your fate in her hands.”
I glared at Annabelle. “Blood doesn’t count for quite as much as you’d hoped, I guess.”
She smiled grimly. “Not mine, at any rate. Dormants aren’t exactly prized in our culture. Still, I must admit I’d hoped for better.”
I hesitated, playing for time. If we walked away, where could we go? The Necromancers hadn’t just found us; they’d ambushed us. They’d had time to carefully plan and stage an attack. They were probably already on our trail, ten steps ahead of us, waiting for us to play into their hands again. What choice did we have? If this new High Priestess was going to turn us in to the Northern Clans, would we really be any worse off than we were on our own? But if, by some miracle, she did decide to protect us, we might have time to regroup and come up with another plan in safety.
I turned to the others, prepared to discuss all of this, but they were all staring expectantly at me. I sought out Finn’s gaze and he nodded at me as though to say, “The choice is yours. It’s up to you.” I took a deep breath.
“We’ll go with you,” I said. “No chance we take with your High Priestess can compare with the chance we’ll take by staying here.”
“Very well,” Anca said. “Dragos, unlock the circle and untie them. For the continued safety of the Clan and the camp, we are going to blindfold you.”
“Is that really necessary?” Finn asked.
The man called Dragos, who had stepped forward at Anca’s words, looked him over with definite disdain. “You are in no position to question our decisions,” he said, in a quiet but somehow cutting voice. “You have come here seeking our help. We have decided to extend it. You will accept it under our terms, or not at all.”
“We accept it,” I said, before Finn could leap into protection mode.
Anca inclined her head to me. “Very well.”
As one unit, the eight Caomhnóir broke into the boundary of the circle, and as they did so, the darkness encasing us actually seemed to lighten, the light from the torches penetrating further toward us. The four women gathered together, conversing in low voices as the Caomhnóir approached us, obliterating the curves of the circle by sweeping their bare feet across it. It struck me that none of the other women had spoken to us, given that Anca
was the youngest. I would have thought that age meant status. I realized, though, from the little snatches of conversation that drifted over to us, that none of the other women were speaking English. It was possible, I realized, that Anca was not the leader as much as the interpreter in this group. One of the older women opened the door to the car and examined Milo, calling one of the others over to look at him by the light of one of the candle torches. I hated to see Milo so helpless and vulnerable; it was the complete antithesis of the feisty ghost I’d grown to know. Now all he could do was drift along senselessly after the women, armed with an unknown casting, tethered him to them with invisible strings, like some grisly balloon, and pulled him from the car.
Savvy made a sound halfway between a growl and a sigh of resignation, and I turned to see her closing her eyes in preparation for the blindfold now being lowered over her face. Her hands were balled into fists, and I knew, hard-boiled Londoner that she was, that she was fighting against every instinct of self-preservation she possessed not to punch the nearest Caomhnóir as hard as she could.
The last thing I saw before the fabric descended over my own eyes was Finn’s face, shadowed by more than the flickering of the torches, mouth opened in a protest that he swallowed along with his pride as he was hoisted to his feet.
We stumbled and lurched through the forest, over an ever-deepening carpet of leaf mulch and a network of roots so tangled that they threatened to snap an ankle with nearly every step. I didn’t get the feeling that the Caomhnóir were troubling to be gentle with any of us, compounding the fear that we were much more prisoner than guest. The women continued to talk amongst themselves ahead of us, and it felt like the strange cadences of their voices were pulling us reluctantly forward through the woods like the pied piper’s song.
After what felt like an hour, the ground beneath our feet began to harden and the roots became fewer and far between. At last the Caomhnóir dragging me came to a sudden stop. I slammed into his back and had to grasp him awkwardly around his waist to stop myself from falling.
“Thanks for the warning,” I muttered, righting myself.
By way of reply, he yanked the blindfold off of my face, and I clenched my eyes against what, after a solid hour of pitch blackness, seemed to be a very bright light.
We stood on the outskirts of a large, round clearing lit by a blazing, leaping bonfire at the center and a number of smaller camp fires scattered around it. Bathed in the orange glow stood about two dozen ramshackle dwellings, an odd collection of elaborate tents, retro campers, and even several wooden wagons, the type of things you’d imagine wandering minstrels or circus performers might have traveled in a hundred years ago.
“We are taking you directly to our High Priestess. Her name is Ileana, and it will be her decision what will happen to you next,” Anca told us. “Her tent is just over there.”
We followed her, a much simpler process now that we could see, to the mouth of a billowing velvet structure as large as a circus tent. Two more Caomhnóir waited in the entryway, and drew the door flaps back for us as we approached the opening.
“We’re off to see the wizard…” I sang under my breath.
“What?” Finn whispered.
“Nothing.”
7
Sacrifice
THE INTERIOR OF THE TENT was lit with guttering candle torches, so the woman basically lived in a mobile fire hazard. It was set up like an elaborate office, with carved mahogany furniture, steamer trunks full of books, and shelf upon shelf of very old, very mysterious looking objects; small statues, bottles and mason jars full of herbs, tattered books, candles, quartz crystals, and, horrifyingly, an expansive collection of small taxidermied animals. I couldn’t imagine having to move it all every time they changed locations, but then again, she had an army of burly, barrel-chested Caomhnóir at her disposal, so I suppose that didn’t trouble her. Enthroned amidst this shrine of oddities, in a high-backed wooden chair, lounged Ileana, High Priestess of the Traveler Clans.
Savvy caught my eye, and I knew her thought was the same as mine; we were trapped in some bizarre carnival nightmare, and we’d both be laughing if the situation hadn’t been so deadly serious.
Ileana looked to be about seventy years old and, unlike the leaders of the Northern Clans, she wore every wrinkle and age spot like a badge of honor on her face. For some reason, this realization heartened me; this woman obviously did not believe in leeching, at least for beautification purposes. Her long hair, threaded with white, was still thick and shining. Her long neck, wrists, and ankles were hung with dozens of chains, jewels, and strings of beads, and her bare feet rested on a pile of embroidered cushions. A wooden pipe dangled from the corner of her mouth, which was stretched into a smile. There was nothing friendly or welcoming about it; she was laughing at us. Behind her right shoulder, a golden cage on a pedestal housed a glossy black raven, which glared malevolently from one dark eye; its head, when cocked insolently to the side, revealed that the other eye had been pecked out.
Anca approached the High Priestess and pressed first her forehead and then her lips to a triskele medallion strung onto her hand from a number of chains connected to her several bulky, jewel-encrusted gold rings.
“The fugitives have arrived, High Priestess,” Anca said.
“I can see that,” Ileana said, with a slight cackle. I counted four gold teeth. “Leave us, now. Gather the Council and wait for me in the meeting circle,” she added, and Anca repeated the instructions to the three other women who had accompanied us through the woods. All four bowed and exited the tent without another word.
Ileana turned back to us and eyed us beadily before giving a derisive snort. “So here be the trouble makers. Two Apprentices, a Novitiate, and a Dormant. It’s a miracle you’ve survived for as long as you have with the full force of the Necromancers on your trail. How did you manage it?”
She seemed to be addressing me, so I answered. “We had a Tracker from Fairhaven who was helping to hide us,” I said, endeavoring to keep a tremor of emotion out of my voice, “but she was killed in our escape.”
Ileana gave a hacking cough and turned to Annabelle. “Annabelle, is it? Granddaughter of my second cousin Madalina, I believe?”
“Yes, High Priestess,” Annabelle said, rather breathlessly. She inclined her head as a sign of respect.
“How did you get wrapped up in this?” Ileana barked at her.
Annabelle cleared her throat. “One of my colleagues and I were trying to help Jessica, before we knew the nature of her gift. The Necromancers tracked us both down. They tortured us both. They killed my friend David.”
“The Necromancers show no mercy. They are quite famous for it,” Ileana said, puffing on her pipe until she resembled a crag-faced steam engine. There was no trace of sympathy in her voice.
“So you actually believe us then, that the Necromancers have returned?” I asked. “The Council at Fairhaven wouldn’t even entertain the notion.”
“The first thing you should know about the Traveler Clans is that we are not like the Ensconced Clans,” Ileana said. “We embrace change—our very existence depends on it. We do not get comfortable, and we do not get complacent. We are always on the move, and, more importantly, on the watch. We see and hear things that do not penetrate the hallowed halls of our sisters. The rise of the Necromancers has not been sudden; they have crept, a noisome little weed, spreading and growing over many years. Now, they are an infestation that threatens us all.”
“So why haven’t you done anything about them?” I asked, my nerves making me sound a bit more combative than I had intended. Annabelle shifted uncomfortably.
“We do not have the resources or the inclination to engage in battle with the Necromancers,” Ileana said, poking a gnarled finger through the bars of the cage to stroke the feathers on the raven’s chest. “We are too small of a clan to invite confrontation without aid. We have reported our findings to the Ensconced Clans, including the Northern Clans. We have been ignored.�
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“You’re not the only ones,” I said.
“Before we go on, I wish for you to tell me the story of how you came to be here. Anca has relayed what she could to me, but I would like to hear it with these very old ears of mine. And do speak up,” Ileana said, as she pulled her ankles up and tucked them under her like a small child. She stared at me expectantly, as did everyone else in the room.
I took a deep breath and told her everything, from the discovery of my abilities, to my reunion with Hannah, and all the events at Fairhaven that led up to our escape. Then with Annabelle’s help, I explained everything that had happened to us while we were on the run, right up until our less than hospitable welcome on the outskirts of the woods. Ileana listened intently, taking her eyes from me only to stuff more sweet-smelling tobacco into her pipe and light it again.
As I sat in the silence that followed the end of my story, I felt much as I did mere days before, standing in front of the Council at Fairhaven, waiting to find out my fate. I had to admit I was growing weary of constantly teetering on the edge of something terrible. If I was going to fall, I just wanted to fall already, and get it over with; at this point, the impact would be a sweet relief from the anticipation.
Just when I thought I couldn’t take another second of silence, Anca and two of the older Council members bowed their way back into the tent, followed by—
“Milo!”
He smiled faintly. “I’m going to remind you of this golden moment, when you were actually happy to see me.”
“Are you okay?” I asked.
“Yeah, I am now, thanks to the witches of Eastwick over there,” he said, thumbing back over his shoulder at the Council members who had entered with him. “They worked their magic on me. I don’t know what those Necro-assholes did to me, but it was like being paralyzed. I could see you and hear you, but I couldn’t move or speak or communicate at all.”
“They put you into corporeal shock,” Anca said. “It is a way of immobilizing a spirit, so that he cannot harm you. It usually only lasts for a few seconds, so I am not sure how the Necromancers altered the casting to make it so powerful, but it was simple enough to reverse. You should feel no lasting effects, other than a bit of weakness for a few hours.”