Crossroads Burning

by Nash, Layla

  “Uh-oh,” Liv said. “Sass embarrassed him. A lot. In front of a lot of people.”

  My heart sank and my hands shook just a little as I reached out to steady myself on the cool wall of the cave. Well, shit. Maybe I’d end up running through the ley magic to stay alive, if Ronan decided he wanted to kill me, too.

  Temperance shook her head with a disappointed frown as she cut a look in my direction. “I warned you, girl. And still you chose to—”

  “I didn’t choose to,” I said. I knew I shouldn’t have interrupted her, since she was my many times great-grandmother and my real grandmother would have smacked me with a spatula for being disrespectful. But I couldn’t take another lecture about my poor decision-making. “I didn’t think I had any other options. It wasn’t like we had the full story or a whole lot of time to come up with a way to deal with him. He didn’t seem that crazy when we took the spell off him.”

  “They never do,” Temperance said under her breath. She shook her head and looked to the stairs, her lips pursed.

  “How did you end up here, then? In the cave and in the Crossroads?” I asked slowly, not certain I wanted to know the answer. Maybe this was where Ronan caught her, and her death had been far worse than her ghost revealed. A ghost’s nature depended on how a spirit remembered itself, not on how its death occurred, so most ghosts weren’t particularly frightening. But I didn’t think my heart could take knowing that Temperance died a horrible death at her brother’s hands and I’d been the one to free the murderer.

  “I fell in love,” she said, as simple as that.

  I traded looks with Lucia. I didn’t know exactly what I’d expected, but it wasn’t love. Terror or exhaustion or poverty, maybe. No other options. Rattler’s Run wasn’t exactly the place where a powerful bandrui might choose to hide from her crazy-ass brother. “Who did you fall in love with?”

  “He was a great warrior.” Her voice turned wistful and a little dreamy, like a teenager in love. “A great leader. He was a native. I keep his name close to my heart; I will not speak it, in case Ronan should learn it and use it to punish my love.”

  “And Ronan found you?” Liv sat forward, clutching her knees to her chest. “He found you and your love and killed you? How? How could he have—”

  “Liv,” Lucia said. “Give her a chance to answer, for God’s sake.”

  Temperance seemed to have a soft spot for Liv, though, and only smiled tolerantly. It irked, just a little, since all I got from our ancestor was attitude and a frown. The ghost pretended to take a deep breath. “It was difficult to be with my love, with the attitudes of the town and settlers in general. He saved my life when I was in this place you call the Crossroads and Ronan attacked. My love was a medicine man descended from Coyote himself and drove Ronan off for a time, and so I went to stay with the tribe. It caused no end of difficulties with the town, enough that I had no interest in going back. I thought…My love thought that the tribe’s magic could conceal me from Ronan, and that he could protect me. And it did, for a time.”

  “For a time,” Liv repeated in a whisper. She sounded near tears. “Only for a time?”

  “Yes. Long enough for us to grow accustomed to safety and love and our life together. To bear a child—a daughter.” Temperance turned away once more. “And that was also long enough for Ronan to finish his dark work and come after us.”

  Something rumbled through the earth and we all froze. The rock shivered and cracked in places, and I edged closer to the stairs. I did not want to be crushed to death by rocks or buried alive or trapped below the earth with no way to get out. “Is he here, Lucia?”

  “I can’t tell without getting closer,” Lucia said, peering at the rocky ceiling and through the earth to the prairie above us.

  “He’s close,” Temperance said. Her hands clenched into fists at her sides. “He might not know our exact location, as he was only moderately capable with ley magic, but he will get here eventually. You do not have much time.”

  “What happened next?” I demanded, my heart racing. We had to figure out what we needed to know before Ronan got there or the earth collapsed on us. I wished with every cell in my being that we could have taken her above ground and spoken with the ghost under the wide, open sky, but that wasn’t how ghosts worked.

  “I hid my child with others, to keep her safe, so Ronan could not find her. He attacked and... killed everyone. He killed my love and his family and as many of the tribe as he could find, and he gave them reason to curse the name Luckett. But that wasn’t enough for Ronan.” Silvery, ghostly tears tracked down her cheeks, though her voice never wavered. “He did not kill me. He bound me as he worked the curse on himself until he was a werewolf.”

  “He was a werewolf?” Olivia looked around, her expression pinched, as the stone creaked. “But if he bit you, how did—? Why aren’t you a werewolf?”

  “He twisted the curse,” Temperance said. She rushed, urgency making the ghost lean forward, closer to Lucia and me. As if she could will us into understanding. “He cast it on himself, don’t you see? He wanted to control other druids, the bandrui, even witches and the coyotes. He wanted to create an army of magical beings for his vengeance, and he started with me. It would have been his greatest revenge, to force me to obey his will.”

  “Then what?” I asked, needing to keep her talking. Whatever binding Ronan had done on her still held, so even though he was a complete fucking douchebag of a guy, he knew how to bind and curse.

  Lucia retreated to the stairs, gesturing for Olivia to follow her. “Keep talking, Sass. We’ll try to work the concealment from up here, buy us some time.”

  “Be careful,” I whispered. I didn’t want them to face Ronan without me. I didn’t want them to bear the brunt of his rage over what I’d done. It came back times three. It was only right that I pay the price for my crime.

  Temperance took a step in their direction but was kept behind the circle, her ghostly arms outstretched. “Be careful, daughters.”

  “We will,” Olivia said. She smiled, a bright brief spark of joy, then ducked the craggy ceiling and stayed on Lucia’s heels.

  Then the ghost turned to me. “Ronan knew my power was useful as a werewolf, particularly a bitten werewolf. I kept enough of myself under my control that I was not completely the werewolf—I could think and plan. I knew I wouldn’t be disoriented if he turned me back. I was no use to him in werewolf form, though. He controlled me and bent me to his will in that form, but he grew frustrated that my magic would not work. He feared that I would run and he would not be able to find me or use me for his own ends, so he bound me to this town and these ley lines. He used one of the curses he’d learned in England, from one of the ill who were brought to me for healing, and he bound us all here.” She shook her head mournfully before going on. “Ronan could turn himself back to human and I remained in wolf form; he thought he could control me that way, as well, while he was in his human form. And he could, to some extent.”

  I absorbed every word even as my thoughts raced with what kind of binding I’d need to keep Ronan from killing us all or chasing us forever. As much as I disliked being bound to Rattler’s Run, I still liked having roots and a place to call home. “So he was human but you were still a werewolf. A bitten werewolf, so half-wild.”

  “Yes.” Temperance moved more, her edges blurring and changing, as magic oozed out of the cracking and creaking stone. “He thought he could still control me if he returned me to my human form, where I could still use my magic. He wanted that at his disposal. And I let him think that. He returned me to my human form and I pretended to obey him until I was strong enough. He fell for it. He believed in his own superiority. When it was time, I struck—I cursed him with the werewolf curse, a version of it, and it stuck. It bound him in his own head and prevented him from escaping the wolf form, from using his magic.”

  “That’s why we felt your curse on him but not the other curse—it was his own magic. There was no way of telling the other magi
c was on him, that he’d done it to himself.” I shook my head, clutching my hair in both hands.

  Temperance didn’t do more than nod. “I was still bound to this location but Ronan was as well, and I’d bound him to prevent him from hurting others. He could still bite those who wandered too close, and so I tried to warn the tribe and the town away. Periodically druids and witches would follow the lines here and wander into the Crossroads, and he would bite them. He called wolves to him and bit them as well, turning them into—”

  “Dire wolves,” I whispered. Of course. It never occurred to me to wonder what would have happened if a werewolf bit an animal.

  “Yes.”

  “How do we defeat him?” I asked. We didn’t have time for anything else, and I just had to hope that she was still in the cave—that the cave still existed—so we could learn more from her later. “How do I bind him?”

  Temperance struggled to speak, trying to spit out the words, but her face twisted and her entire body convulsed. “I cannot say,” she whispered. “He has bound me too well. You will know, daughter. You will know the way. He must stay human and he must not find his magic.”

  “If I remove the curse he cast on himself—that will keep him human?” I backed toward the stairs. One of the candles in the circle wobbled and then fell, the light extinguishing. Lucia shouted at someone, far above.

  Temperance dipped her chin, close to a nod, and I sucked in a breath. So that was step one—take off his own curse. Remove his ability to bite and control others. If we could at least do that, then we had a chance of protecting the town and everyone else. He could always cast it on himself again later, but we’d worry about that if we didn’t manage to bind his power as well.

  “Here,” she said, and when I glanced back, she hadn’t moved or held anything out. But I felt something heavy at the small of my back, and found a thick book, easily three times as large as Ronan’s book of knowledge had been. This book felt friendlier, more helpful—wiser. Her book of knowledge.

  Temperance inclined her head to me, her figure already fading. “Balance the debt, daughter. Be careful.”

  The cave shook and dust sifted down all around me as she disappeared, and I ran up the stairs as the first stalactites crashed to the ground.

  Chapter 58

  Chaos filled the darkness above ground. Even the headlamps didn’t help see what attacked and where. Eyes reflected the light back at us from all angles, and Lucia and Olivia stood back-to-back as they fended off dire wolves and werewolves alike. There had to be at least ten, possibly more. And beyond it, somewhere in the darkness... Ronan laughed.

  He laughed.

  It chilled my blood at the same time it made me madder than hell. Furious for myself and my sisters, for Temperance, for all of our ancestors and relatives who were bound to Rattler’s Run because of his ego and weakness. Rage filled me until I wondered why I didn’t levitate three feet off the ground from it. The bastard. The unbelievable bastard would know what it was to cross the witches of Rattler’s Run. He’d learn.

  Lucia held my rifle, firing off rounds to keep the wolves at bay, while Olivia chanted to create a ward to protect us, to buy us time. My hands shook as I held Temperance’s book, though the tremors were not from fear. Not by a long shot. “Any sign of the others?”

  “No, your boyfriend hasn’t showed up,” Lucia snapped. She aimed the rifle, tracking one of the braver dire wolves, and waited until it paused to squeeze the trigger. The boom of the rifle nearly deafened me and made it a whole hell of a lot harder to understand her when she went on. “But no sign of the rest of Ronan’s friends, either. Just dire wolves.”

  “We can handle wolves,” I said under my breath. “We can do this.”

  “I’m glad you’re confident,” she said. “But work fast. Liv is warding as much as she can. I don’t have that much ammunition left, but I can buy you some time. Do it, Sass. Make that fucker regret everything he’s ever done.”

  “I’m on it.” I braced my feet and stared into the darkness, searching for the almost-familiar spark that was Ronan. He’d been around enough, and worked enough magic, that I could find him. He left a signature in the air as he moved, and true to what Temperance told us about him, he was a coward. He wouldn’t risk himself until his minions weakened us for him to take the killing blow. Which meant he wasn’t expecting us to bypass the minions and attack him directly.

  Which was exactly how we fought, we three Lucketts. Direct. Offensive. Aggressive. No passive-aggressive bullshit in our house.

  And since I knew what I was looking for, I could untangle the strands of Ronan’s curse on himself from the rest of his magic.

  He didn’t notice at first, because he kept focusing on the werewolves and sending orders to them. I felt that, too—the green lightning that zinged out from him through the ley lines and direct to the werewolves, guiding them like a puppeteer with a dozen marionettes.

  I focused on my breathing as I muttered under my breath, eyes squeezed shut as I trusted my sisters to protect me. Lucia fired the rifle every few heartbeats in measured bursts that kept the wolves away, and the bright magic of Olivia’s wards surrounded us like a wall of brambles. We could do it. We could—

  I wrenched at his curse, at Ronan’s magic, and he shouted. He shrieked with rage and then all of his magic directed at me. It tore at Olivia’s wards and the werewolves and dire wolves rushed us from every direction, and I went to my knees with the effort of keeping hold of the curse. It had to come free. It had to. We wouldn’t survive if it didn’t. We might not survive even if it did, but if it didn’t... we didn’t stand a chance.

  Lucia spun, moving between Olivia and me, and shouted directions to Liv on where to shore up the wards as our younger sister staggered and almost fell. I hauled at the curse and clenched Temperance’s book in my left hand, needing her strength and guidance. The book was a comfort, it was a strength, and then—then it was the key.

  Temperance couldn’t tell me how to defeat him, but the book could. The book did. The book whispered of vengeance and punishment, but underneath it was an unending ache for balance. Balance. What was taken had to be returned. What was broken had to be joined. What was bound had to be freed.

  The demand for it shot through me until I felt electrified, hanging from hooks as the lightning wrenched through me and I stared into eternity. What we do comes back to us times three. The universe required symmetry and balance and an accounting. All debt would be paid.

  The pressure tightened in iron bands around my chest and drove the air from my lungs, and I found Ronan’s eyes glowing gold and fevered through the darkness. He did it. He stole the breath from my body and shook the earth beneath my feet, trying to protect himself, as thunder rolled in the distance and the book tried to drag me down to the ground.

  But the book knew what to do, regardless of how Ronan tried to distract us. The book recognized the way to tidy up all those uneven sums, to balance the equation like those complicated chemistry tests I’d suffered through in high school. I squeezed my eyes shut as Lucia shouted about reloading and needing more ammunition and Olivia wailed about her wards and I focused. Focused. Mother, help us. Gran, help us. Please. Anyone. Help us.

  We couldn’t do it alone. Even as the book showed me where to find the curse, how to slow Ronan down, the werewolves and dire wolves circled around us. They would kill us eventually. We would die, eventually. And the caves would remain open for anyone to exploit. Maybe Ronan would survive us after all and would have his way, bringing Heathrow and Whitehouse and all the rest of them. My chest ached, and not just from Ronan’s evil magic.

  But there was only one thing to do, and the book reminded me what it was – balance the debt. Fix the broken. Free the bound. I exhaled and everything else in the world disappeared. Only the book and magic and me.

  The book knew Ronan to his core, knew all his secrets and tricks. The book showed me the way.

  It was there, hidden within a tangle of his magic, an anom
aly that felt a little bit like the way the glamour hid the caves. It was right there in plain sight but twisted just a bit to conceal it within the normal. His power, his curse, directed against himself.

  The last piece fell into place to take the curse, to disable it, to unwind it and then... to pull it free.

  Free. Gone. Destroyed.

  Balance. What was broken, fixed. Fixed.

  The curse disintegrated as it separated from Ronan, falling into nothing, not even the ash of old magic left behind. But the backlash from its removal sent me to my knees, and Liv groaned as a pressure wave of magic raced across the plains and drove the clouds into dense piles above us.

  Lightning crashed through the sky as Ronan screamed, fighting as his own curse fragmented and fell apart. The storm gathered and clouds piled up and more lightning struck all around us, bouncing off Liv’s wards, and the werewolves paused. They hesitated as Ronan’s control disappeared, and their heads turned to look for the easier target, the one that didn’t hide behind wards and fight back with bullets. I held my breath and hoped – prayed – that the dire wolves and werewolves would turn on Ronan and destroy him. That they had enough of their minds about them to know he was the one who cursed them – and to punish him for it.

  What was bound, freed.

  The werewolves, freed. The dire wolves, freed. The Lucketts… maybe. For the first time, it felt possible.

  Chapter 59

  I stayed on my knees, exhausted, and let the remains of the curse dissipate into nothingness. My whole body shook as I held Temperance’s book to my chest. Thank the Mother. The dire wolves retreated, confused with the disappearance of Ronan’s guiding control, and we could breathe. We could recover.