Night's Child s-15

by Cate Tiernan

  Morgan opened her arms wide. She was full of power, the power of generations of her ancestors. She was made of power, she was power itself.

  "I am the sgiurs dan!" Morgan cried, and her voice, clear and strong, pierced the air, pierced the fog of Iona's power. Iona looked startled and took a step backward, then straightened her shoulders and strode forward.

  "You're nobody!" Iona cried. "You're nothing! You're going to be the first to die!" She held out her stick, about to begin a new spell.

  Morgan felt Moira drawing some of her power back and whirled to see what her daughter was doing. In one move Moira was back on her feet and lunging for Sky's athame. She pulled it from the tree and whispered something, then threw it at Iona, hard, furious power showing in her eyes, Iona tried to deflect the athame, but Moira must have spelled it with a ward-evil spell, and it hit her shoulder, knocking her off balance. Iona clapped one hand to her shoulder, where dark blood was oozing sullenly through her robe. Morgan whirled to see Moira standing by her tree, angry red marks on her face, furious power showing in her eyes.

  With one hand Morgan flashed the shape of a rune through the air, even as she began to sing the first notes of Ciaran's true name, Iona gaped at her, but Morgan continued as swiftly as she could, calling a color from the air, singing the tight, hard song that defined who her father was to the entire universe. In seconds she was finished.

  "You are going to die!" Iona shrieked. She raised both arms and started to swing her stick in a huge arc over her head.

  "I know your true name!" Morgan commanded. "Enough!"

  Iona wavered, her arms jerking as she tried to keep her balance. The major part of her strength, Ciaran's soul, was now under Morgan's command, Iona fought against her, her bony jaw clenched until Morgan thought it would snap.

  "I am the Destroyer, Iona," Morgan shouted. "Didn't your father ever tell you that?" She felt tall and terrible, and even as Iona struggled against her internal force, Morgan's power swelled and rose. She was the conduit for power that had been held deep within the earth for centuries. It was gathering now, rising, and pouring out from her. Sky grabbed one hand, sending her power to Morgan.

  "Ciaran is powerless. You are powerless!" Morgan cried, pointing at Iona.

  Iona stood there, shocked and with the first glint of fear on her face. But she wasn't beaten yet. Harsh, dark words were pouring from her lips, and her arms moved, writing sigils in the air. A slow rumbling shook the sand beneath their feet, and Morgan whirled to see its source. The cliff above the cave was spitting, the rocks being rent with the last bit of Iona's stolen power. Even with Ciaran bound, she had enough power to craft a spell that was rending thousands of tons of black basalt, fracturing a hill of stone. Rocks and pebbles, boulders and shards, began to rain down on them.

  Morgan hurried toward the sea, with Sky following close behind. Morgan grabbed Moira's hand and yanked her backward. Hunter was looking up at the wall of rock, then at Iona, and Morgan rushed forward to drag him into the water.

  "It won't be enough!" Iona shouted, laughing.

  Huge waves of stone tumbled down the side of the hill, thudding into the sand, bouncing off one another. In a split second Morgan had made her decision. Scaoil, she thought, and she sent her power out in a tightly coiled knot that knocked Iona squarely on the chest. Her back hit the rough wall by the cave, and in the next instant a huge boulder tumbled down, sweeping her thin body to the ground like a stick puppet. Moira cried out and covered her face, looking away. Morgan gathered Moira to her, still urging everyone backward. They were up to their necks in the frigid, salty water, and still cannon-ball-size rocks were striking the water all around them. Morgan treaded water, keeping Moira, Hunter, and Sky in sight. Her face crumpled as she saw two of the withered witches pinned beneath a house of rock. The cave had been crushed, no doubt killing any who had been inside.

  Eventually the hill was nothing more than a crumbled rock pile, half as tall as it had once been. There was only a small area of sand still visible, and slowly, all holding hands, the four of them made their way through it, shivering uncontrollably as the cold air hit their wet bodies.

  Teeth chattering, Morgan turned to look at her family, all of them.

  "It's over," she said wonderingly. "It's over." Tears of joy washed the salt from her eyes, and then they were all hugging, crying, laughing.

  "Thank the Goddess." Morgan felt completely and utterly drained but so thankful.

  "Blessed be," Sky said, smiling and shaking her head.

  Morgan.

  Morgan froze, blood draining from her face. Hunter, Sky, and Moira all looked at her quizzically, and she held up one finger.

  Iona's voice was surprisingly strong in Morgan's thoughts. How had she survived the rock slide in her weakened state?

  Morgan. This isn't over, Iona said. At this moment Lilith and Ealltuinn are making their final move-on Belwicket. You're not home to protect it By the time you get back, everything you knew and loved will be a black, smoking plain. You see, I am my father's daughter. A dark wave. As soon as Morgan thought the words, her whole body shook, as though a shock of ice water moved through her veins. She felt dizzy. No. It can't be. Not Belwicket. Not her coven, her home!

  "You're lying!" Morgan shouted desperately, looking back at the stunned faces of her family. "You haven't the power! You haven't the skill!"

  "Perhaps not," Iona's voice replied from behind Morgan. Stunned, Morgan spotted Iona crawling weakly from a small space beneath several fallen rocks. She was battered-a huge cut bled fiercely on her arm, and she limped, scarcely able to stand-but she was alive, Iona reached the sand and cackled, enjoying Morgan's stunned expression. "You bound Ciaran," she said. "But you didn't bind me. And what you don't realize is that I am not relying only on my own power"-her voice was weakened now, no better than a desperate hiss-"but also that of my ally, Lilith Delaney. It's Lilith who cast the dark wave spell. That was what she truly wanted all along-to rid her country of the so-called good Woodbanes, like Belwicket. It was just a fortunate coincidence that I wanted their future high priestess dead."

  As Morgan opened her mouth to reply, Iona suddenly extended her hand and spat out a chain of ugly words. "Feic thar spionnadh! Theid sedltachd thar spionnadh!"

  Morgan barely had time to react as a sharp spear of energy, glinting silvery blue in the sunlight, sped toward her. Automatically she threw up a blocking spell. She was shocked that Iona would try to hurt her in her weakened state-what possible good could it do her? But then her thoughts turned darker, Iona was clearly beyond reason. She was crawling blindly toward a single purpose-hurting Morgan. As Iona's attack reached Morgan, something unexpected happened. Morgan had long known that her element was fire, and so she called on the power of fire to add strength to even her most basic spells. But as Iona's sharp spear of light reached Morgan, it bounced off the shield she'd created and turned to roaring orange flame. Before Morgan could take in a breath, the flame turned upon Iona and consumed her.

  "No!" Iona wailed as the flame overcame her body. The fire grew, and soon an oily, roiling black smoke-eerily like the smoke that had invaded Belwicket's circle-emerged from the fire. Morgan gasped. In a matter of seconds the flame burned to nothing and winked out. No evidence of Iona's body remained on the beach. No smoke, no charred earth, nothing. Morgan stared, disbelieving, at the spot where Iona had stood. She's dead, she thought finally. Evil serves no purpose. It consumes you. But before she could react further, she remembered Iona's final promise.

  "We have to get home as soon as possible," she cried, turning back to her family and running for the crude boat they had rented only hours before. "There's a dark wave coming for Belwicket!"

  19. Moira

  They had to swim back to the beach where they had left their boat, since rock slides had destroyed most of the original path. Sky, Morgan, and Moira held on to Hunter, helping him along. They climbed on board with difficulty, and Morgan and Sky pushed the boat off the sandbar. Sky started the
motor, and then the island was in back of them and they were headed out to sea. Moira shivered, not only because she was freezing and wet and her face burned where Iona had raked it: what had happened on the island had been far worse than anything she could have expected. All those poor people-dead. That horrible witch, Mum's half sister-dead. Not just dead, Moira thought. Burned to death by her mum's own deflection spell. She'd thought she couldn't be any more horrified by what her mum was capable of, but she'd been wrong. There wasn't even time to react, though. Because the four of them were heading back home, where another, even bigger disaster awaited them Moira had heard about dark waves, of course, but during her lifetime nobody had seen one. When she'd asked her mum about it, she'd explained as best she could-it was a huge, sweeping cloud of evil, made up of tortured souls who were hungry for new energy. A dark wave could kill any number of people, it could level houses, it could leave a village as nothing more than a black, greasy field. Moira was torn between her terror of what they'd find when they reached Cobh and the many other emotions battling inside her at the sight of Hunter, real and alive in front of her.

  Hunter shook his head, the slashes on his face covered with dried blood. "I still can't believe it," he said hoarsely. His eyes looked so large in contrast with his gaunt face. "I'm so afraid I'll wake up and find this was a dream."

  Morgan laid her hand on his arm. "No," she said. "This is real. We're alive, and you'll never be back there again. Of course, it will be a long road back after… after everything you've been through. And unfortunately, there's no time to start healing just yet. We still have something else to face."

  Nodding, Hunter wiped the sleeve of his shirt against his eyes. Then Morgan looked at Hunter's shirt and frowned. In the center of his chest were dark stains, one on top of the other, that had happened in the same place again and again. She looked down at her own dark sweatshirt, then again at Hunter's. Hunter's heart had been bleeding, just as Morgan's had.

  Moira couldn't keep her eyes off Hunter. This was her biological father. Colm, gentle, warm, loving Colm, was her da, but this man… he was half of who she was. And while Colm was gone, Hunter was here. But she was still as lost as ever about what that actually meant. Could she ever know this man as her father? Was it a betrayal to Colm, who had loved her with everything he had?

  The sea had calmed, and it wasn't difficult to speak over the sound of the overtaxed engine. The four of them were solemn, beaten physically and emotionally and facing a dark wave.

  "So this is your daughter," Hunter said, nodding at Moira. Moira shot her mum a meaningful glance and saw Sky do the same. Hunter's eyes took it all in.

  "Yes, this is Moira," her mum said, then cleared her throat. "Moira Byrne."

  "Byrne." Hunter looked at Moira again, speculatively, and she blushed.

  "I'm a widow," Morgan said awkwardly. "Colm, my husband, died six months ago."

  "I'm sorry, Morgan," Hunter said, and he seemed sincere. He loves her, Moira thought. She could sense the emotion coming from him in waves, despite his obvious weakness. Raising her eyebrows slightly, Moira looked again at her mum.

  "What?" Hunter asked, noticing Moira's look, a slight frown on his face. "What are you not saying?"

  Morgan started picking at a loose thread on her soggy jeans. Moira knew she did that when she was nervous. Actually, Moira did it, too. "I have something to tell you," her mum said, not looking up. "At first I thought it should wait. This must all be so much for you to take after…" She stopped and took a deep breath. "But you need to know. Perhaps it will even help somehow. The truth is, I found out only-oh, Goddess, only a couple of days ago-that Moira is… I was pregnant with Moira already, before I got married. Before I was with Colm."

  Confusion crossed Hunter's battered, exhausted face. It was clear he was struggling even to speak at all and to understand the meaning of words he hadn't needed to use in so long.

  "I'm your daughter," Moira burst out, surprising even herself. "From when you and Mum were in Wales. Before you died. I mean, I'm sorry, you didn't…"

  Hunter's green eyes grew even wider, taking over his too- thin face. His mouth opened slightly, almost hidden beneath his scruffy beard. Looking from Morgan to Moira and then to Sky, he didn't seem to know what to say.

  "We didn't know," Moira went on more strongly. "Mum had been spelled-by my grandmother. She hadn't meant to make her forget the truth, but it happened, and then she and Dad just-" Moira stopped, seeing the growing confusion on Hunter's face. "It's a long story. But it just came out-the same time we learned you were alive."

  Hunter stared at Moira blankly, as if his mind was working too slowly for him to comprehend what she was saying. He looked over at his cousin for confirmation, and Sky nodded gently.

  "Oh my God, Morgan," Hunter said in his scratchy voice. "We have a daughter." He looked at Morgan again, and Moira could see his love for her shining on his face.

  "Yes," Morgan said, her eyes bright with tears. "We do. But-but I still can't figure out how."

  "What?" Moira asked. "What do you mean?"

  "I shouldn't have been able to get pregnant." Her mum looked a little embarrassed. "We took precautions." She turned to Moira. "That was another reason I had no idea you were Hunter's."

  Moira knew about pregnancy prevention spells and how a blood witch would be pregnant only if she consciously skipped them. Somehow in all the chaos of learning Hunter was her father, she hadn't stopped to think how that didn't make sense. "But you got pregnant anyway," Moira said.

  "I think I might know why," Sky said slowly, and the others turned to look at her. "Remember what I already said, Morgan, about the Goddess having her way? Well, you are the sgiurs dan, fated to change the course of the Woodbanes. Maybe you were fated to have Moira. Maybe your precautions didn't mean anything in the face of fate."

  Morgan blinked. "But… that means that fate has something important in store for Moira."

  "Like what?" Moira asked nervously, a chill going down her spine.

  "I don't know," said Morgan. "But I do know that after what I saw you do on the island, you'll be up to handling whatever comes your way." She gave Moira a proud smile, and it warmed Moira deep inside.

  "My daughter," Hunter said wonderingly. "I have a daughter." He gazed at Moira, drinking her in with wonder until she looked away, feeling suddenly shy. Yes, she was his daughter-but she'd been raised by another man. And she wasn't ready to make sense of all of it yet.

  What if Sky was right-what if her birth had been fated? Her own mother had played such a huge role in the Wiccan world. If she was meant for something similar, then she couldn't let anyone down. Moira pictured Tess, Vita, and her gran-all back in Cobh, unprepared for the danger coming at them. A week ago it wouldn't have occurred to her that she would help fight a dark wave. Now it was unthinkable not to. She tried to sit up straighter, ignoring her aches and pains and cuts and bruises. "We need a plan," she said firmly. "To beat the dark wave."

  Back on land, Morgan and Sky rented a small charter plane to take them directly back to Cobh. It would take only three hours, compared to two days of driving. The flight had cost pretty much everything Morgan and Sky had in their combined accounts, but that didn't matter.

  Now that they were on the plane, headed for home, any lingering joy at finding Hunter had been put on hold. As horrific as the island had been, Moira knew she was facing something far worse. Part of her wanted to run and keep running. But there was no way she could leave her coven, her house, her town to face a dark wave without her.

  "Da made a… a simpler spell before I… left," Hunter said. He spoke slowly and not very smoothly after not having had to talk in years. Sometimes he had to pause to think of a word. "I knew it well once, but it's… gone." He frowned in frustration, his sunburned face wrinkling. "I haven't been able to work magick for sixteen years…" he said; then he looked out the window, his voice trailing off, as if even admitting that was too painful to bear.

  "How long did the long ver
sion take?" Sky asked Morgan.

  "A little more than an hour, I think," Morgan said. "I have it all written in my Book of Shadows, but I remember that we coached Alisa for days before and even then had to help her during it." She shook her head. "I don't see how we could do it. And anyway, Alisa was able to survive performing the spell because she was only half blood witch. The spell would destroy a full blood witch. I don't see how any of us…"

  Hunter started to speak, then coughed. It took him a moment, and finally he was able to get the words out. "The spell Da worked, it could be performed by full blood witches," he said. "If only I could remember it, or-"

  "I'm just not sure where Uncle Daniel is," Sky said. "I haven't spoken to him in a couple of months. He still travels a lot."

  "Da's all right, then?" Hunter said cautiously.

  "Yes," Sky said, a slight smile on her face. "He's doing well. Seeing you again will give him another fifteen years at least. But I don't know where he is, and we don't have time to track him down."

  "As soon as we get home, we'll go to Katrina's," said Morgan, her face set. "Most likely the coven will be there. Maybe they'll have come up with something."

  It would be hard seeing Gran again, Moira thought, for both her and Mum. But again, it was a small consideration compared to the dark wave. Right now they all had to focus on that.

  By the time they landed at the small commuter airport in Cork, the weather had turned nasty. To Moira, it felt as if she hadn't seen sunshine for years. The minute she stepped off the plane, she frowned. When she touched the ground, she felt a jolt of nausea that made her swallow quickly.

  Morgan narrowed her eyes. "Do you feel bad?"

  "I'm going to throw up," said Moira, looking for a trash can.

  "It's the dark wave," her mother explained. "It makes blood witches feel awful, hours before it arrives."

  They were all tired and hungry and ill. Moira's face was killing her. Now her mum stopped, looked at the sky.