Celtic Dragons

by Dee Bridgnorth

  “Any better?”

  Autumn nodded. “Yes, actually. Thanks.”

  He nodded back at her, letting his hands fall from her, back to his sides. “Anytime. You can’t hold all that inside.” Touching the underside of her chin lightly, he then moved away from her and carefully picked up the doll. “Ronan, my friend at the agency, has a safehouse set up for you. Siobhan can take them there. You stay here, with Rachel. Her recovery should be almost immediate—with this gone. By morning, we’ll be ready to move her, and I’ll be back. Don’t go anywhere without me, and don’t talk to anyone—not even people you know.”

  “Not even people I know?” Autumn had been on board until that last statement. “What am I supposed to do? Ignore the nurses who come in here?”

  “Yes,” he said. “Better yet, tell the staff that you’re nursing Rachel yourself and don’t want or need regular check-ins. Maybe it’s overly cautious, but it’s better to be safe.”

  Autumn nodded slowly. “Okay. Yes. Better to be safe. But where are you going?”

  “I’m going to deal with this.” He held up the doll. “Remember that guy I told you about, with the golf clubs? His wife has learned a lot about her magic since telling him that she was a witch. They owe me, so I’ll go to them first.”

  “It’s late at night,” Autumn reminded him, glancing at the clock. “It’s after eleven o’clock.”

  “That’s okay.”

  “I don’t want to be alone.” She blurted out the words without meaning to, then flushed, wishing immediately that she could take them back.

  Eamon put the doll down on the chair and walked toward her again, taking her hands in his. “If you get scared or if anything—anything—unusual happens, call me. I promise I’ll answer. I’ll ask Moira to stay nearby, and I would stay if I could, but I’m afraid we won’t have much time before this escalates. I need more information about what kind of spell this is.”

  She nodded, knowing that he had to go. “I’m trusting you.”

  “I won’t make you regret it.”

  He squeezed her hand gently, then let go, slipping from the room with the cursed doll in hand. Autumn missed him immediately, but as she sat down in her chair by the bed, she was comforted by the rosiness returning to Rachel’s cheeks and the gentle, easy way that the little girl’s chest rose and fell with each breath.

  Leaning back in the chair, Autumn hugged her knees up to her chest and settled in for a long night of sleeplessness, as she watched over her daughter and tried to figure out what had happened to her world.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Eamon

  It was midnight by the time Eamon managed to locate the address and phone number for Craig and Isabelle in his old case files, but he didn’t let the late hour stop him from placing the call from his office phone. He couldn’t afford to waste a single minute, and although he was maintaining an outwardly calm manner, he was all too aware of the fact that these people had the upper hand at the moment. They had clearly demonstrated that by preventing his transition and by introducing a cursed doll into Rachel’s hands without anyone realizing what was happening until the curse already had a strong hold on the child. He didn’t understand their power and he didn’t know how to look for it around him. Everything was suspect right now—everything.

  Craig’s voice was groggy when he picked up the phone. “’Lo? Who is this?”

  “Craig, it’s Eamon Cleary. I know I woke you. I’m sorry. I’m on my way to your house, and I need to talk to Isabelle.”

  “Who?”

  “Eamon. Eamon Cleary. I helped you find your golf clubs.”

  “Eamon!” Craig’s voice was suddenly alert. “Holy hell! Eamon Cleary! Damn, boy, what are you calling me this late for?”

  “I have a situation. I need Isabelle’s help.”

  “Isabelle’s?”

  “Yes. I’m on my way now.”

  “It’s after midnight!”

  “Craig, I wouldn’t be calling if I didn’t have to.”

  “All right, all right, all right,” Craig muttered. “I do owe you one, I guess. But I gotta warn you, Isabelle is cranky as hell when you wake her up.”

  “Well, wake her up. I need her past the cranky stage when I get there.”

  Eamon hung up the phone, grabbed the bag where he’d stashed the doll, and headed out the door, making a beeline for his car. The middle of the night was clearly the right time to drive around Boston, because there was hardly anyone on the roads, and he made the trip that might have otherwise taken him twenty or twenty-five minutes in just ten. It was hardly enough time to coax Isabelle out of sleep and past her crankiness, but that couldn’t be helped, and Eamon didn’t hesitate as he lifted his hand and rapped it against the door.

  There was a long delay, and Eamon was just moving to knock again when the door opened, revealing a rumpled and much older-looking Craig dressed in plaid lounge pants and a faded sports jersey. His graying hair was sticking up in every direction, and his gray beard was starting to shadow the soft, rounded line of his jaw. But his eyes, aside from the remnants of sleep still lurking in the corners, were as alert as ever.

  “Boy, this had better be a good story,” Craig said, stepping back to let Eamon inside. “We like our beauty sleep around here, I’ll have you know. And the wife needs it, if you catch my drift.”

  “I heard that,” Isabelle snapped, appearing behind Craig, her orange-red hair piled on top of her head in a messy bun and her pale face lined with sleep and irritation. She was wearing a floor-length dressing gown made out of green silk, big, fuzzy slippers on her feet, and an angry glare on her face. “Eamon, what in the world do you want and why can it not wait until morning? Haven’t you stirred up enough around here, last time you came around?”

  “Isabelle,” Eamon said, nodding a greeting and stepping further into the house, indicating that he had no intention of being scared away. “I’m sorry to wake you. It was necessary.”

  She huffed skeptically. “I doubt it.”

  “Come in, come in then,” Craig said, closing the front door. “Now that you’re here and we’re awake, you might as well stay.” He passed by Eamon, shaking a finger at him. “I’ll have you know that we’re old and boring and we go to bed by ten every night.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind,” Eamon said, taking a seat on the couch and declining Craig’s offer of something to drink. “Isabelle, I need to talk to you confidentially. I have a case—a very serious one—and there’s some kind of magic involved. I’m hoping you can help me better understand it. You’re the only witch in town that I’m familiar with right now. You’re still practicing?”

  “I dabble,” Isabelle said, still put out as she sat across from him, her arms crossed over her chest. “But I’m hardly an expert, you know. I spent most of my life denying that I had any power at all.”

  “Yeah, until I found something I loved!” Craig called from the kitchen. “Then you used your power plenty, dear.”

  “You were being excessive, dear.”

  “You could have just talked to me, dear.”

  “You don’t listen, dear.”

  Eamon cleared his throat, interrupting the tiff that was, apparently, still ongoing. “Isabelle, in theory, could you place a curse on an object that would transfer to the person in contact with that object?”

  “Are you accusing me of something?” Isabelle asked, affronted. “You show up here in the middle of the night with these kinds of questions? I don’t like this at all. Craig, I don’t like this.”

  It was difficult, but Eamon attempted patience. “I’m not accusing you,” he said, very slowly and deliberately. “I’m trying to tap your expertise on witchcraft. Something has happened to a friend, and I need direction. Can you do that for me?”

  “That’s more words than I’ve ever heard him say in a row,” Craig observed, walking back in with beer in his hands. “Sounds serious, Izzie.”

  “It is,” Eamon confirmed, leaning forward and lacing his fingers
together, his knuckles white from how hard he was gripping his own hands. “Anything you can tell me, Isabelle. Anything.”

  Beginning to blossom as she realized that her expertise was being valued, Isabelle smiled a bit, leaning back against the couch and preening. “Well, let me see. Cursing an object. Certainly, that’s possible. I could curse any object in this room, but of course, I only use my magic for good.”

  “That’s disputable,” Craig muttered, sipping his beer as he made himself comfortable on the couch beside his wife. “Can’t even let a man go golfing now and again.”

  “You were going every day! Golfing isn’t free!”

  Eamon tried to keep the woman focused, beginning to wish that he had someone else—anyone else—in the area to ask for information on witchcraft. “Tell me more, Isabelle. Can any witch place that kind of curse? Does it take a lot of power or effort? Does the curse wear off after a time?”

  Isabelle sighed dramatically, twirling her hair. “Curses aren’t hard. They’re some of the most basic spells, because the thing about witchcraft is that it’s the harmful stuff that’s usually the easiest. Kind of like how all the food that’s bad for you tastes the best. If you want to practice healthy witchcraft, there’s more work involved. If you just want to binge on curses and hexes and meddling, then that’s easy enough to do.”

  Nodding thoughtfully, Eamon rested his chin on his fingers, fixing his eyes on the pattern of the wild-colored rug that adorned Isabelle and Craig’s floor. “They’re a throwaway spell then? But they do work.”

  “Sure, they work.”

  “They could kill someone.”

  “Of course,” Isabelle said, waving a hand as though that was nothing. “It depends on the curse.” Fixing him with wide, gleaming eyes, she smiled interestedly. “So…who got cursed?”

  Eamon didn’t answer her. “If someone had immense power, would they still use a curse? Or is there something more useful—more effective—if you have a higher level of power?”

  Pouting slightly at having her question ignored, Isabelle slumped. “Oh, everyone uses curses. They’re just handy. The only thing that more power would change is how long the curse would be able to stay in place, and how specific the curse can be.”

  Eamon reached into the bag he’d brought and pulled out the doll that Rachel had loved so much. “I think this is cursed. I know it is.”

  Isabelle reached for the doll, taking it from him and running her purple-tipped fingers along its plastic face. “Hmmmm,” she murmured, tilting her head. “That’s very different.”

  “How? How is it different?”

  “It’s animated.” Isabelle put the doll down, as though she didn’t want to keep hold of it. “There’s potent magic in that toy. Very potent.”

  “Why is it animated?” Eamon asked. “What’s the purpose of that?”

  Isabelle lifted a shoulder, still eyeing the doll warily. “I don’t know. But it’s as though the doll is alive. It could…act of its own accord.”

  Eamon glanced at the seemingly lifeless toy, studying it for any sign of movement. The way the doll had winked at him earlier was still in the back of his mind, the memory a haunting one. He told Isabelle about it. “The doll winked at me when I discovered that it was cursed. It hasn’t moved since. Are you telling me that it could get up and walk around the room?”

  “Yes.”

  “Could it talk?”

  ‘Yes.”

  “Could it report to someone else what it hears?”

  “Yes.”

  Eamon’s fists clenched, his nails digging into his palm. “Is its loyalty prescribed?”

  “I would think so,” Isabelle said. “The only way to destroy it is to burn it. At least, that’s usually how you destroy animated objects. The animation, by the way, requires a great deal more power than the curse. The curse is a throwaway. The animation is a complex, demanding spell. I’ve never achieved it.”

  Craig seemed to tune back into the conversation suddenly. “Wait, you’ve tried it? I thought that you only did little silly stuff! What are you animating things for?”

  “Just in theory!” Isabelle retorted. “I can try things. It doesn’t mean I would really use the spells.”

  “You shouldn’t be messing with that kind of thing,” Craig muttered, fiddling with his beer. “I don’t like it in this house.”

  “Oh, hush,” Isabelle chided, waving a hand at him. “I just said I couldn’t do it anyway.”

  Eamon once again had to corral the couple, trying to get them to focus on the issue at hand. “Isabelle. Isabelle. Listen—this is important, and the sooner we get through my questions, the sooner you can get back to bed, right? I need to know if you know of any covens in the area. Powerful covens.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “Why? Of course there are covens in the area, but I’m not going to just tell you about them.”

  “You have to,” Eamon insisted. “At least, you have to tell me if there are any that meet in a clearing in the woods, to the north of here, protected by an invisibility shield.”

  “I don’t know of anything like that.”

  “Any witches or warlocks who are considered particularly dangerous?” Eamon pressed. “Any leads you can give me? Anything you’ve heard.”

  Isabelle bit her lip, shifting around on the couch as she made a big deal of struggling with whether or not to divulge her information. “I don’t know…”

  “Damn it!” Eamon blurted out, fed up with the woman’s antics. “A child was almost killed tonight, Isabelle. Do you know anything—anything—about a group of witches and warlocks in the area?”

  “There are whispers,” Isabelle said, growing more somber when Eamon told her that a child had almost died. “I only have a few friends in the community, but they say that there are stirrings. That some strange power has come to town. I…didn’t put much stock in it.”

  Eamon pinched the bridge of his nose, fighting off exhaustion and frustration. “Well, put stock in it, Isabelle, because I’ve seen it for myself. And that strange power has targeted someone I care about. Tell me who to talk to.”

  “Nova Oliveira,” Isabelle said quietly. “She knows everything about witches here. Her ancestors were present for the Salem witch trials, and she has a direct connection to one of the women burned at the stake. If something is happening in the witching community in Massachusetts, she knows about it.”

  He was already on his feet, reaching for the doll. “Tell me where to find her.”

  “She’s overseas right now,” Isabelle told him. “She has connections to old Massachusetts, but she married into a Portuguese family, and they spend the summer months with his family in Sao Miguel. That’s part of the Azores—”

  “I know what the Azores are,” Eamon interrupted her. “If she’s on an island in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, how is she going to know about what’s happening here?”

  “Oh, she’ll know,” Isabelle said, sounding completely sure of herself. “She keeps tabs on everything. It’s just finding her that’s the problem. If she needs one of us while she’s away, she contacts us. Not the other way around.”

  Eamon shoved the doll into the bag, zipping it up quickly. “We’re going to have to break the rule. You have to contact her.”

  “I can’t!”

  “Isabelle, a child’s life,” he reminded her sharply. “Text your friend.”

  “She’s hardly my friend,” Isabelle stuttered. “I just…I just know of her. Everyone knows about her. She’s royalty for witches in this area. I could never reach out to her!”

  He struggled not to lose his temper with the woman, knowing that he still needed her help. “Fine. Then tell me where to find her in Sao Miguel.”

  “I don’t know!” Isabelle wrung her hands, reacting to his sharp tone and obvious impatience. “I don’t know—I swear. I just…I’m not that important! I don’t know that much. I just know that if you want to know something, you talk to Nova.”

  Eamon moved toward the woman, put
ting his hands on Isabelle’s shoulders. “Then call someone who does know, Isabelle.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Autumn

  The only way that Autumn was able to keep people out of Rachel’s room all night was that she was a nurse in the hospital, and she knew a few people who were on shift. Otherwise, there would have been nurses in and out, particularly in the case of a sick child, monitoring her vital signs and overall health. Eamon’s edict that she interact with no one frightened Autumn though, and she made sure to follow it as closely as possible.

  Her only comfort as the dark night wore on and she sat in the dingy, small hotel room was that, as Rachel slept, her color continued to increase, the dark circles under her eyes began to disappear, and by morning, she was sleeping as restfully as she did on any other normal day. Autumn, herself, didn’t sleep for a moment though, and as she played her situation over and over again in her head, she became as anxious as Rachel was restful.

  “Mommy!”

  Autumn jerked her head up from her hands as Rachel’s voice broke the static silence of the room. Her immediate reaction was panic that something was wrong, but the sight of her child’s happy, bright face wrapped around her troubled heart like a soothing balm, and Autumn smiled for the first time in hours.

  “Hi, baby. How are you?”

  “Mommy, I was so sick!” Rachel was sitting up in bed, kicking off her covers. “Can you believe how sick I was? I threw up like one million times. Oh my gosh, I think I threw up more than anyone ever.”

  “I think you did too,” Autumn said, getting up and moving to sit on the bed, hugging her daughter close. “How are you feeling now?”

  Rachel squeezed her hard. “Great! Can I have cake for breakfast? Remember how you said that once we’re better, we can pick anything we want to eat? I want cake!”

  Chuckling, Autumn kissed the little girl’s dark head. “Sure. Anything you want.”