Night's Child s-15

by Cate Tiernan

  Morgan now had Iona's full attention. Clearly her half sister was angry. Her lips were tight with annoyance, her face streaked with blood, her eye was swelling, and she was glaring at Morgan.

  "You don't know who you're dealing with," Iona said in a deadly voice. "You have no idea the things I've done or who or what I've become."

  "Really. Just who are you, Iona?" Morgan said, filling her voice with unheard waves of power like tiny seismic shocks, intended to cause discomfort and anxiety. Next to her Moira shifted on her feet. Sky stood quietly, tense and at the ready.

  Iona's eyes flared slightly and again she lost her composure for a split second. "I've become my father's daughter," she said in a voice full of rage and triumph.

  With a calculated force Morgan thought, Push, and Iona was slammed against the back of the stone wall behind her. Her breath left her lungs with an audible "oof!" and she struggled to hold on to her balance.

  "Hunter Niall," Morgan reminded her in a steely voice. "Where is he? Or should I start trying to persuade you?" She latched onto the image of Iona before her, pictured her ear, and whispered some of the words she had learned from her tath meanma-or Wiccan mind meld-with Ciaran all those years ago. Iona shrieked, grabbing her ear, her face screwed up with pain. Morgan imagined it felt as though a railroad spike were being driven into her brain.

  Iona writhed against the wall, screaming curses at Morgan that had no weight.

  Morgan took a deep breath and released her. "You see, Iona," she said, "I've always been my father's daughter. Now stop wasting my time. Where is Hunter?" The urgency for an answer was so great inside her, she was no longer even forcing this cold, hard anger to terrify Iona-it was real. It was everything she was right now-a great, pulsing need to find Hunter.

  Iona, trying not to weep, managed to stand up and lean against the wall. With no warning she stood ramrod straight and shouted a spell. Morgan felt her knees buckle and her muscles become lax. She dropped to the ground, knowing instantly that Iona had managed to put a binding spell on her.

  "You twit!" Iona screamed, standing over Morgan. "All these years you've had no idea-no idea about what I did to you-to your precious Hunter!"

  Morgan saw Sky move forward, but Iona stopped her with a flex of her hand.

  Stay put, Moira, don't move, Morgan sent, knowing her daughter had to be terrified. Her mind was reacting quickly, feeling her way through the invisible bond that Iona had put on her.

  "You're nothing," Iona shouted at her. "You're Ciaran's bastard, his mistake, his embarrassment!" At the same moment Sky and Moira began chanting together, softly-they must have exchanged witch messages. They were working a spell to interfere with Iona's.

  Morgan concentrated and felt the binding spell weaken, Iona was powerful but not nearly as strong as Morgan. Moira and Sky had weakened Iona's spell, and now Morgan could take care of the rest. With a burst of energy Morgan pushed her way through the spell, not bothering to dismantle it piece by piece but simply breaking it altogether. She broke free just as Iona was turning her focus to Moira and Sky, realizing the meaning of their chant.

  Instantly Morgan again sent the pain to Iona's ear with Ciaran's dark words, Iona shrieked even louder, curling up as if to get away from the agony. Sky moved closer to Morgan- Iona couldn't hold her back any longer, Iona was on her knees on the grass, both hands pressed to her ear.

  Morgan counted to twenty slowly, then she released her. "You are a joke," she said with unnatural calmness. "Do not make me ask again. Hunter Niall."

  Iona sat up again, holding and rubbing her head, her bony face marred by hatred. "Haven't you figured it out yet, Morgan of Belwicket? I made the ferry go down. I did it, made that wave. I took the ferry." Her eyes were glittering with an unnatural brightness, and Morgan began to believe that twenty years of fury and resentment had made Iona insane. "And I created a bith dearc that opened above the water. I took Hunter. Poor thing, he was actually trying to swim to shore when I sucked him through it."

  Morgan shook, rocked to the core at the idea of what Hunter had gone through. "You? How could you possibly do that?" she got out. Iona smiled coyly, still looking like a wreck but starting to enjoy her own story. "With his true name. I have Hunter's true name."

  No! No, no, no. Morgan tried to hold back her panic, knowing Iona would sense it, but she could feel the ragged edges of fear reaching for her. To know something's true name was to have ultimate power over it. Total control, in every way. Morgan had learned Ciaran's true name arid had used it to stop him for good. How could Iona have learned Hunter's?

  "Years ago I met a witch named Justine Courceau," Iona went on, as if reading Morgan's question on her face.

  Justine-the woman who had collected names-the woman whom Hunter had once kissed. Hunter had told Morgan that Justine had been bitter when he had made it clear nothing would never happen between them, but… that couldn't have been enough of a reason to go along with Iona's scheme. And besides, Justine hadn't known Hunter's true name.

  "She hated Hunter and had spent years searching for his true name," Iona went on. "She finally found it using a bith dearc to speak to the dead. I offered to buy it from her. The silly woman wouldn't sell it." Iona's mouth crooked upward in a horrible mockery of a smile. "So I killed her. And took her soul-her power-for myself. With her power joined to mine, I was unstoppable. I was my father's daughter. And I wanted you to suffer. I wanted to cause you pain-so I created the bith dearc and stole Hunter from you with his true name." Iona stopped, wiping the disgusting glee from her face and attempting to look more in control. She laughed. "How does that make you feel?"

  Oh, Goddess, Morgan thought in horror. Now she understood why Iona was oddly strong. She had taken someone's soul, absorbed her power. Who knew if she had even stopped at Justine? Iona was power mad, but the corruption of souls- of the power-was eating away at her, Morgan realized, Iona had gained power, but the power was killing her and destroying her. An icy hand clenched around Morgan's heart as she realized that Iona might have taken Hunter's soul, too. Morgan's knees started trembling, and she prayed it didn't show. A thin, cold line of sweat had started at the back of her neck and was snaking slowly down her spine. She felt surrounded by death and horror and hatred, and all she could think of was Hunter. Hunter, Hunter. Please don't let that have happened to him. She swallowed carefully and kept an iron grip on her self-control.

  "Iona, where is Hunter?" she repeated flatly-staring at the shaking, weak witch huddled at her feet.

  "Oh, no, he isn't dead. No, no, that would have been too quick, too easy. Hunter's been alive all this time." Iona imparted this information as if sharing a delicious secret. "Can you imagine? You grieved like a widow for all these years. And he's alive! If you call his existence living."

  Oh, Goddess, she's insane. Goddess, please help me. Please get me through this. Hunter's alive.

  Sky stepped forward next to Morgan. She grasped Morgan's elbow. "Where is he?" Sky demanded. Morgan was grateful-it gave her a minute to pull herself together. Finally she knew for sure. Hunter was alive. A dull throb started in her chest, and she felt the warm, heavy stickiness of blood flowing.

  Iona cackled. "On an island," she said triumphantly. "An island cloaked in fog and rain, where no one goes. An island where nothing grows, nothing lives, and every day is exactly the same as the day before it. Hunter has been there, suffering, all this time, since I pulled him there through the bith dearc. Because of you and what you did to my family."

  "Alone on an island?" Morgan asked, clearing her throat and strengthening her voice. Alone for sixteen years on an island. Surely he was mad by now. The thought of her beloved Hunter, her muirn beatha dan, going through such unimaginable torment for sixteen years almost knocked her to the ground.

  "No," Iona said, surprising her. "There are a few other witches there, those who had angered the MacEwans through the years. I don't keep track of them. Why bother? They are nothing."

  "Tell us how to get there," Sky said
, her voice like stone. "Or I will gouge your eyes out and feed them to what's left of your dogs." Her tall, slender frame was rigid with tension, her hands clenched at her sides. Her face was inscrutable, still, her black eyes piercing.

  Iona blinked. Morgan felt Moira step back.

  Iona seemed to think for a few moments. "North," she said, then smirked. "In the ocean."

  Morgan let every ounce of menace rise up in her. She gave full rein to every hateful thought, every desire she'd ever had for retribution. Malignancy welled up inside her, and she let it flow outward toward Iona. It was grotesque, the antithesis of everything she had worked toward in her life. It was darkness, it was against the Wiccan Rede, it was power and threat and bleakness and a complete absence of love or life or hope.

  When it reached Iona, an invisible miasma of the worst of human expression, she recoiled and started to gag, grabbing her throat with one hand, bracing herself against the stone wall. Her burning eyes seemed to start from her head; her tongue looked swollen.

  Morgan watched her writhe in pain. How far am I willing to go? She would go as far as it took.

  Sky took Morgan's arm and shook her gently, and Morgan swallowed hard and with effort squashed the feelings rushing deep inside her and crumpled them into a tight, dark ball, scratchy and painful, that she pushed to the bottom of her consciousness. Looking into Sky's troubled eyes, she nodded, Iona coughed and sank to the ground, gasping. She was shaking, her eyes wide and frightened.

  "Where is the island?" Sky repeated with quiet menace.

  "Between North Uist," Iona said, her voice sounding strangled and thin. Her white hands were shaking, fluttering around her uncontrollably. "And the Isle of Lewis." She choked on a sob and turned her face away, one hand clutching at the grass.

  "Are we just leaving her here?" Sky asked Morgan as they turned away.

  Morgan paused. They didn't have a braigh-a chain used to bind witches. There was no time to deal with bringing Iona with them, constantly having to watch over her. "We'll send a witch message to the New Charter," she decided. "Have them send someone to come get her right away." Morgan glanced back at Iona, who was bent over, moaning. "She's in no shape to do much anytime soon," she said.

  They walked to the car, and Moira was silent and sad next to Morgan. Morgan knew she had changed her daughter's image of her forever. What would that mean in the coming years? What would it do to Moira's ideas about magick and about love? As they headed down the hill, Morgan heard Iona moaning. But she kept walking forward, always forward, toward the car. To turn back would be to set in motion something beyond reconciliation.

  They passed the four Rottweilers on their way to the car. Morgan walked past them and got into the car, pressing her hand over her still-bleeding chest. She leaned her head against the window as Sky and Moira got in. Casting her senses, she realized that they were both on the edge of breaking down: frightened, sad, upset, anxious.

  After they flew through Arsdeth, some color returned to Sky's pale face. "Hunter's alive," she said, looking at Morgan. "We're going to find him. That's what matters."

  17. Moira

  By the end of that day they had reached the Isle of Lewis. The drive had been tense, with no one speaking much until now. Moira's hands were still trembling, and no matter how many deep breaths she took, she couldn't seem to get her heart rate to slow down. She'd thought what she'd seen with Lilith had been incredible, but that fight between her mum and Iona… she'd never felt such sheer terror in her life.

  And worse, she'd felt helpless. She knew she and Sky had helped a little, when they'd worked together to weaken Iona's binding spell on her mum. But that had probably been mostly Sky. What if Moira was just holding them back? Her power was nothing next to that of Morgan of Belwicket.

  Morgan of Belwicket. Moira finally understood the awe she'd always heard in people's voices when they said those words. Her mum was a stronger witch than she'd even believed existed in the world. She'd thought the stories had to be exaggerated, but now… it was all so unbelievable. Had that really been her mum, whirling spells at Iona that had reduced her to a whimpering mess on the ground? "Let's just go now," Morgan said.

  "No." Sky's voice was final. "It's dark. No one will rent us a boat at this time of night. And we're all exhausted-we need to be prepared for what's ahead."

  Curled up in the backseat, Moira listened to them argue, torn between a strong desire to find Hunter as soon as possible so she could come face-to-face with the man she'd just learned was her father-and a terrible fear of it at the same time. There had been so many shocks, so many terrors in the past twenty-four hours alone. She was still consumed with the grief of learning that she wasn't really Colm's daughter, the horror of knowing that her mother was Ciaran's daughter, the intense disbelief of seeing for real what Morgan of Belwicket was capable of. And underneath it all-a fresh, piercing pain over Ian’s betrayal. How could she deal with meeting Hunter now, in the middle of all of this? But how could she not yearn to see him, to know him? To save him from whatever that terrifying woman, Iona, was doing to him?

  Iona. Just thinking the name brought a bitter taste to Moira's mouth. She'd always known evil existed, but today she had seen it close up, alive. She shivered, pulling her jacket more tightly around herself.

  "He's alive," Morgan was saying sharply. "We have to go now! Hunter's out there and he's alive, and we're going, right now!"

  "Morgan," Sky said, her voice just as sharp. "We don't know what's waiting for us out in the middle of the bloody ocean. We don't know what kind of power or magick we're going to need to use out there. But I do know that I couldn't light a damn candle right now! And neither could you!"

  "But-" Morgan began.

  "You're Morgan of Belwicket! You may be one of the most powerful witches to walk the earth, but you're not a goddess!" Sky said, raising her voice. "You're not totally invincible, even if you think you are!"

  Moira's eyes got larger. She propped herself on one elbow to see better. Her mother was looking at Sky with a shocked expression on her face.

  "Is that how you think I see myself?" Morgan asked in a small voice.

  Impatiently Sky shook her head and ran a hand through her fine, light hair. "No. I'm sorry. I didn't mean that. I'm saying that we all have limits. Look, Morgan, Hunter was-is- my cousin. I grew up with him. He's like my brother. We were best friends. Don't you think I want to find him? Don't you think I'm desperate to see if he's truly alive? Don't you think I'm desperate to get to him as soon as possible?"

  Morgan didn't say anything, just looked at Sky. Her face was scraped and her hands still had dirt on them. She looked pale and wrung out and like she was about to cry.

  "Iona's waited sixteen years to do this," Sky went on patiently. "She knows we're going to the island. She gave us just enough information to possibly find it. Lilith was a plant of hers. Don't you see? All of this is her plan."

  Morgan looked away, then looked back and nodded.

  "If Iona has been consuming souls and increasing her power through dark methods, we're going to need to be in better shape to fight her," Sky said. "Everything in me is telling me to jump into the ocean right now and swim out there to get Hunter. But I know that if we are going to try to save him, if we're going to go up against Iona on her terms, on her ground, we need to be able to pull out all the stops. Do you follow me?"

  Morgan sighed. "A few hours," Sky said, sounding weary and beaten. "That's all I'm asking for."

  Morgan nodded again. "You're right," she said quietly. "I hate it, but you're right."

  Moira sat up, brushed the hair out of her eyes, and wiped away the tears that had slipped out. She looked down at her hands, which were still shaking. Be still, she thought, focusing her energy and shutting out all of her fear and confusion. As she watched, the trembling began to stop. Moira felt a small jolt of triumph.

  "Right. Good," said Sky. She started the car again and drove off. Two minutes later she said,"Look, there's a bed-and- breakfast
. Tomorrow morning we'll rent a boat. All right?"

  "Yes," Morgan said, sounding exhausted.

  Moira gathered her coat and put it on. Dread welled up in her, and she swallowed back her nausea. She could do this. She could be strong, too. Her mum needed her. And he-Hunter-needed her, too.

  The sky was barely streaked with pink and orange when Moira, her mother, and Sky got up the next morning.

  Moira had slept like the dead, closing her eyes as soon as her head hit the pillow. She'd had many dreams, but the only one she remembered was of Hunter. In it he had said, "Don't find me, I am lost forever," and Moira had responded, "I must find you. I'm your daughter." Tears on her cheeks, she'd sat bolt upright in her narrow bed. She'd lost one father six months ago. Today would show whether she would gain another one or lose him as well. But how could she see a stranger, Hunter, as her father?

  Down at the harbor Sky was negotiating to rent a twenty-foot fishing boat for the day. It was big and clunky, with an outboard engine and a canvas tarp on aluminum poles as the only cover. To Moira it looked ancient and only vaguely seaworthy. Its name was Carrachan: "Rockfish."

  Moira's mum turned to look at her. "You're staying here," she said in a no-nonsense tone. Moira's mouth dropped open in shock. After all this-after facing Iona without flinching and seeing her mum become another person, she was being asked to stop now? Her mother went on: "You're fifteen, you're not initiated, and you're my only child. I cannot lose you. You're going to stay in the bed-and-breakfast until we get back. Don't wander around. Stay in the room and don't open the door."

  "What?" Moira cried, staring at her mother. "You can't be serious! After all this?" She waved her arms in a completely inadequate description of the last three days. "You need me!"

  "No discussion," her mum said firmly. "You're staying here. Sky and I will do what we have to out there, but I won't be able to think if you're not safe."