by Sierra Rose
About to ask about the new mare that was due to be brought in this week, Kerry was suddenly brought short by the wave of pain searing through his head as the clear blue morning sky darkened with black clouds and howling winds.
“Well, this storm certainly blew in quick,” Deirdre spoke over the howling winds as she grabbed for a plate of food. “You get yourself in before it starts…”
“It’s not real.” Kerry sighed, reaching for his coffee to sip when a strong gust of wind like a hand slap took it from his grip. “Not wise.” He spoke coolly as his tone began to frost over.
Deirdre had heard that tone before in her former employer but not in Kerry, at least not in awhile. So as she started to turn toward him, the large shadow at the edge of the woods caught her attention. “Lord preserves us,” she whispered, automatically crossing herself. “Kerry, do ye see…”
The hand on her arm that gently nudged the woman behind him said that the master of the house had indeed seen the creature of shadow standing on the outside of the main property line.
“The land’s been protected by circles cast by generations of my family, so you aren’t coming any closer than you have.” His voice had gone to icy frost with power that came from both sides of his family; gray-blue eyes were starting to change. “I’d back off if I were you, mate.”
Wind kicked up and swirled as the shadow’s red eyes seemed to glow with hate but even as Deirdre started to gasp, Kerry’s hand that bore a ring passed down from his father raised and the wind stopped.
“Child’s game,” he sneered. “You want to impress me, try something else.”
“Your baby brother has more power than you, boy,” the creature seemed to speak from the wind.
Kerry felt his blood run cold then his eyes went to slits. “Mind your tongue, demon, and leave my land.”
A mocking laughter came from around them, as the wind seemed to sing. “You were born the eldest of the five. Five into one, one to become five but it will take only one to fall to break the circle,” it taunted, loudly. “The weak one will fall. Will you fall this time, Kerrigan Douglas Nolan Fitzgerald?
“Named for the whore that brought you into this world, will it be you who falls this time as your weak-willed father fell fifteen years ago protecting her and the brat?” it asked in a sneer.
Feeling his temper starting to spike, Kerry knew with a sudden burst of clarity what this was and suddenly felt weak done to his bones. “You have no power here nor does your master. Leave now and tell Sebastian that my father stopped him for fifteen years and he should stay where he is because he will not win.”
Smoky eyes showed with power as Kerry’s hand moved and lightning flashed to strike the shadow in its heart. “My father and mother gave their lives to protect what was theirs and he still won’t hurt them,” he murmured to himself as the sky cleared and he sat down heavily.
“Kerry?!” Deirdre was by his side, concerned. She hadn’t seen or heard the entire event but knew by the way his eyes were still slit and his fingers sparked that something major had happened. “Are you alright?!”
After several shaky breaths, Kerry finally was able to shake off the past and look at the woman. “I’d prepare some rooms, Deirdre,” he sighed, standing uneasily a moment before regaining his balance and heading for his private rooms in the upstairs.
Before the confused housekeeper could ask for whom, Kerry paused to look back with an odd look of mixed emotions. “For the first time in fifteen years, this house will have all five of my parents’ sons in it.”
“Blessed be.” The older woman breathed at that thought, unsure of how that would be, and knowing that it could cause more problems.
Cork, County Cork Ireland:
“I need to examine my own damn bloody head for this.” It was hard not to hear the grousing voice muttering to himself as he crossed the yard from the stables.
The voice was strong and with a light and natural Irish accent but seemed to fit the rugged build of the tall and lean man it matched.
Patrick ‘Mac’ Fitzgerald easily vaulted over the stone fence of his patio to see the reason he was muttering to himself already setting up a tape recorder.
“Your cook said I could come on out and set up, Mr. Fitzgerald,” a soft, lilting musical voice called his way as Mac approached the table.
Maggie Cavanaugh was a freelance reporter for a local newspaper from Mayo who had been badgering him for months for an interview, and for some reason this time Mac gave in and allowed the young woman into his private home in Cork.
Mac had done enough research on her to know she was a decent writer or else he wouldn’t have agreed to talk to her, but he hadn’t been expecting the 5’4” ball of energy with long wild and curly red hair that was waiting on him.
“Yeah, well she’s not much on guests so you’re lucky she showed you this far,” he shrugged, sitting in a chair across from Maggie to watch her set up some equipment, but what intrigued him most were the glasses she kept pushing aside.
“Near or far-sighted?” he asked offhandedly, figuring it was probably the former since she had spotted him a good five yards away.
Maggie blinked bright green eyes as she paused to think then she remembered the glasses. “I’m near-sighted, really but I only use ‘em when I’m working.” She replied, sitting back in the chair to look closer at her host.
A professional writer and reporter, she’d done a lot of research into the Fitzgerald family in general and the second-born son in particular.
He was better looking than she’d been expecting. He seemed more rugged with long legs. His dark blond hair, cut very short, had streaks of a lighter blond running in it.
She knew from family sources about his singing career with his brothers and that it had stopped when he’d been sixteen. The information since was sparse and muddled except he grew up in County Cork with relatives and was very diverse in his occupations.
Mac sat and waited, figuring on and amused by what she was doing. “So, what makes me so interesting to your paper that you’d spend months badgering my office?” he finally asked, a small pull in his mind putting him off slightly.
Looking up with a genuinely honest and chipper smile, Maggie just grinned at him. “You’re interesting,” was her reply, opening a small notebook. “You were a member of the famous Fitzgerald brothers who even sang for the Queen.”
“I was eight and hardly remember that.” Mac shrugged it off, reaching for a glass of tea on the table and shooting a look that clearly spoke volumes but if the reporter caught it, she chose to ignore it.
“You’ve got licenses in medicine, law and veterinary medicine.” Maggie went on easily, looking up. “You seem to want to be a lot of things.”
Mac’s smile was easy, the one he used when wanting to distract. “I get bored easily so I have a lot of ways to go.” He poured her tea out of manners his mother pounded into him.
“You stopped singing when you were sixteen.” Her eyes took on a curious look. “Around the same time as when your parents died.”
This time his smile stayed but it tightened, as did his eyes that Maggie saw actually spark. “That’s a closed subject,” he replied evenly, refusing to speak to anyone about that.
Sensing that he meant it, Maggie let it drop. Figuring it time to change the subject, she looked to the fields. “You raise horses?”
“Sometimes, mostly it’s a hobby.” On safer ground, Mac followed her eyes but he also felt something in the distance that was making his lunch twist in his stomach. “We toured the States once and my father showed us some Appaloosas on a farm in Virginia. I like them a lot.”
The woman felt that love when he spoke of the horses but also caught the loss when he spoke of his family.
After a couple minutes of silence, she coughed and looked at her book again. “My editor gave me a couple mandatory questions he insisted I ask you so I’ll apologize in advance.” She laughed lightly but couldn’t quite cover the unease she had.
“Uh-oh, that’s never good,” Mac grinned to put her at ease because he did like this quirky girl and sensed her unease. “Ask away. Trust me, I’ve been asked everything.”
Maggie wasn’t sure about that but took a deep breath. “Well, the main thing he wanted me to ask was how you manage to do it all?”
“All?” Mac’s brow rose. “Like what?”
“Do everything you do, travel like you do and still manage to be… a practicing witch?”
If he was startled by the question outwardly, Mac didn’t let on as he grinned easily at the woman, but inside his gut was twisting.
“Your editor must have a lot of guts to try that since it’d be real easy for a libel suit on that one.” He sipped his tea in order to gain some time, to gauge how much this perky redhead may actually know.
Maggie took a deep breath but didn’t flinch from the cold eyes that were now aimed at her. “How right is he?” she countered then raised a hand to begin ticking off points on her fingers. “You were born in Fitzgaren in County Kerry. The town was founded by your ancestors and legend has it the Fitzgerald family has long held the power. Your mother was Brenna Kerrigan whose own mother never made any denial that she was a…”
“My mother is off-limits.” This time there was no denying the edge to Mac’s voice but before he could go on, a sudden snarling from the fields where a lovely white stallion was heard making all kind of noise.
Looking away from the equally firm green eyes, Mac stood to see what the issue was when he saw the large black wolf in the fenced off area with the horse.
“What the bloody hell?” He whispered, instinct had him laying a hand on the patio fence to jump it and try to help the horse when the wolf raised its head and blazing red eyes stared into his, and he felt the blow to his chest.
“Oh my God!” Maggie screamed as the wolf jumped on the horse and began to shred it, but she also knew she couldn’t leave Mac in this shape as she dropped to her knees next to him, shocked to see what she saw but also shocked to see his eyes.
His smoky gray-blue eyes had gone totally to smoke and his words, muttered to himself, were in Gaelic, a language she only knew a few words.
“The wolf…” The horse’s scream was ringing in her ears but then so was something else, like the taunting laughter of a child. “It’s not real.” She slowly came to realize, grabbing at Mac’s arm. “It’s not real, is it?”
Not hearing her, Mac focused fully on the wolf as he shook off the blow. Leaning on the wall, his eyes sharpened to stare at the big black wolf tearing into his horse but he could hear above the noise the words in the winds coming from what appeared to be a boy on the fence line.
“You were born of the five. Five into one, one to become five but it only takes one to fall and break the circle,” the taunting child crooned from somewhere. “Which will it be? Who is the weak one this time? Will you fall, Patrick MacKinley Fitzgerald? Will you fall like your whore mother and coward of a father?”
Mac’s eyes flashed but Maggie’s grip on his arm held him back as she threw something from her huge bag into the tree line.
“You can’t enter here, monster!” she shouted defiantly, eyes dark with anger that whatever this was that was happening would use what this man loved to hurt him. “Get away or…”
“Hush.” Mac’s tone was quiet but firm as he edged her away from the wall to face the now snapping wolf, but it hadn’t come any closer. “You won’t win by taunting someone who grew up with the brothers I did, demon. Go away and try that on someone else.”
The wolf seemed to sneer but the boy on the fence looked straight into Mac’s eyes. “Three have refused my master, two there are to go and two with the temper of your father. Which of your brothers will accept the offer that your despised father spurned? It only takes one to fall to break a circle.”
It was several seconds of uneasy silence after both wolf and boy had vanished did Mac breathe fully, and then it was a harsh Irish oath. “Shit.” He muttered, slumping down in a chair, when he remembered the reporter. “You saw that?” he asked, wondering how hard it would be to get her to forget.
Maggie was staring at him in plain shock but just as Mac was about to pour a glass of whiskey, she sat down. “You’re one of the five.” It wasn’t a question but a statement in almost awe.
“What?” Mac blinked, hoping she wasn’t catching onto too many things.
“What that thing said, about the five into one and all that.” She gestured. “You’re one of the five that forms the circle said to shield the world from evil.”
Knowing his day couldn’t get much worse; Mac poured himself a glass of whiskey and drank it with a hiss. “What’s a nice Mayo reporter doing knowing about such paranormal things like that?” he tried to make light but his chest was hurting too much and his head was pounding.
“My Gran’s Book of Shadows had a whole section in it about ‘the five,’” she replied, still shocked at everything she’d seen.
“Yeah, well most of…” Mac stopped in mid-sentence to stare at her. “Book of Shadows?” he repeated warily. “You’ve seen an actual Book of Shadows?”
Maggie shrugged. “My Gran on my Mum’s side had a Book of Shadows which came to me after her death. She also kept this big book on you and your brothers,” she smiled slightly with dimples that winked. “Always said ‘those dang Fitzgerald lads were of the five.’”
“Your Grandmother on your Mum’s side?” Mac stared hard, for the first time actually looking deeper, and again started muttering under his breath. “Oh, this is just bloody great.” He slumped back and closed his eyes, “You’re a bloody witch.”
“I prefer the term ‘user of everyday practical magic,’” Maggie shot back with a sniff then blushed as he just lifted a brow at her. “Alright, but I haven’t really practiced seriously. I mostly know enough to know which spells to use to not blow my brothers up from time to time.”
“Well isn’t that just fine and dandy then,” Mac muttered, making a choice that could doom them both. “Well, I hope you like traveling ‘cause you’re about to meet my family,” he decided.
“What?” Maggie stared at him, “Why?”
“First off because you saw the same thing I did which no one should have been able to, so that means you could be in danger,” Mac replied then sighed. “And second, because you’re a hereditary witch with a Book of Shadows on the one thing that we need in order to stop another disaster.”
Still reeling at this sudden turn, it took Maggie a second to realize he’d left the patio. “Wait a bloody minute,” she ran after Mac to find him in the kitchen giving orders to the cook. “According to my sources, all five of you haven’t been in one place in…”
“Fifteen years,” Mac finished with a dry laugh. “Kerry tries to stay in touch but all five of us haven’t been in the same place since the day our parents were put in the ground, so I won’t promise it’ll be a friendly reunion given Ryan’s attitude.”
“What was that thing?” she finally had to ask. “If it could break the circle, so to speak, why hasn’t it before?”
Mac paused to consider that. It had been something he’d studied and thought on a lot since he’d been sixteen years old.
“Kerry’s the oldest so he’ll know more but from my point of view, it couldn’t because of something either one of or both of my parents did on the island fifteen years ago when they died,” he sighed, lightly touching a photo on a shelf. “Whatever that was belonged to what killed them and it knows it’ll take only one of us to either give in to it or die for it to win.”
Maggie didn’t care for that much but she considered. “So who does it consider the weakest?”
Surprised by how fast she was catching on, Mac shrugged. He knew by what the boy had said what would happen. “‘Two that are left with my father’s temper,’” he repeated, rolling his eyes. “Ryan and Roarke both got our Da’s temper when it’s unleashed and both have weaknesses to exploit, but as to who would give in…,” he on
ly shrugged. “Who knows, and I hope Kerry’s ready for company and has answers.”
Maggie Cavanaugh began to wonder if she shouldn’t have left this assignment alone while she wandered around the downstairs after her host had disappeared upstairs.
“You said your Gran had a book on us,” Mac came back down the stairs a few moments later with an overnight bag slung on his shoulder. “Just clippings of a devoted fan or…”
“She always seemed interested and had all the albums your family put out until the last one,” Maggie considered that question. “When it was announced that you wouldn’t be together anymore due to a death in the family she didn’t seem surprised. In fact, she seemed to be expecting it because she told my Ma once that it was contained for now but…”
Mac swore silently under his breath. “Kerry had to know. Our grandmother had to know.” He was angry but fought to control it as he saw the young woman’s confusion. “Short of it… A warlock tried to kill my brother fifteen years ago and my parents got in the way. They died, Roarke lived, and we found ourselves yanked apart.
“My theory is, on that island fifteen years ago my parents, before they died, cast some sort of shield to bind the evil but something that powerful can only be held so long and it looks like it’s loose and God help us all if it can’t be stopped again.”
Monte Carlo, Monaco:
A normal night in the small country usually meant calm seas, clear skies and crowds of tourists or visitors crammed onto the beaches or the casinos.
World known for its Royal Family and also for its casinos, it was where a lot of people came when seeking to lose themselves for awhile in noise, in the luck of cards or slots or table games. Some went away with much less than they arrived with and those very few who came away from a night at the tables with much more.
Then there were the ones who broke even when luck just couldn’t seem to make up her mind. That was certainly how security consultant for the rich and famous, Ryan Fitzgerald, was seeing the night.