Descending

by C E Dimond

  It felt as though we were missing a bigger piece of the puzzle, the key point in the grand scheme of it all. Blood of Blood. Whose blood? All of it was giving me one big headache.

  “I need a nap.” I decided; I wasn’t really one for naps but this was frying my brain. She nodded, and I stood up, pushing my chair back from the table and headed up the stairs to my room. Flopping down right on top of the covers I pulled the pillow securely beneath my head and closed my eyes tightly, drifting off to sleep.

  “We must leave.” A male’s voice echoed through her ears and her tired eyes opened with great protest.

  “It is the middle of the night,” her tired mind was willingly convincing her that they wouldn’t get very far in the dark.

  “We must leave now,” he insisted, carefully he helped her to sit up. She had been sleeping soundly in a bed of leaves along the River Shannon. “He has learned where we are, we must move again before he has the chance to catch us.”

  They had been running for months and part of he knew it would never truly end. It had been her fault; she had refused the life that had been offered to her for a life of love. A lift on the run with the man she loved. So, she offered no more protests and getting to her feet began to collect what very little belongs they had with them.

  “How did he find us this time?” She wondered but she knew his great power, the power of those he aligned himself with, there was no great mystery how the King managed to find them again and again.

  “Someone in the last Village sent word.” It had become increasingly difficult to know who they could trust. Still, they had many friends too, and it was this reason alone he had failed to yet catch them.

  Once the bags were secured to the horses, he lifted her first and then followed, his arm coming to rest around her waist holding her tightly before they took off, speeding once more into the night.

  My eyes fluttered open, and I glanced at the clock. My nap had turned into more of a full-on sleep and the archives were closed.

  I sighed in defeat.

  It wasn’t the end of the world. I decided instead I would go to the archives the next afternoon.

  I reached out and stretched, feeling the satisfying crack of my joints as they fit back into place. I sat up next and a familiar smell was wafting through the door and into my room. My stomach growled in hunger. Getting to my feet I walked out of the room and down the stairs to find my sister had taken the liberty of ordering Chinese takeout.

  “Where are you getting all the money for all of this?” I wondered, taking a seat at the table across from her. It was the first time I’d thought to actually ask. I knew how I’d been funding my trip, my emergency credit card.

  My eyes fell to the food, my mouth watering in the anticipation of dinner.

  “We have trust funds.” She said with ease and I blinked in surprise. “Our parents had money placed aside for each of us. College or whatever. Now it’s mine.”

  That explained a lot I realized; the takeout was the least of it. She had her Ducati, her clothes, the house, and associated bills.

  “Right.”

  “You could probably have yours too, if you were willing to talk to him.”

  Now was so not the time to discuss having a heart to heart with my estranged father about money.

  “Not now,” I begged I was too hungry and potentially sleepy to really get into this with her again.

  What it came down to was quite simple. I still wasn’t ready. I wasn’t sure that I would ever be ready, or if this was even something you could prepare for. I had convinced myself it was. I believed that the more time I had, the more ready I would become. It seemed like the more time I spent learning, researching, the more confused I became and the less certain I was of- well, anything.

  “Fine.”

  The one good thing about our growing relationship was that she had seemingly learned when to stop pushing me. She was resigning to my requests far more often than when we’d first met. We were more cooperative and less argumentative which meant we were getting a lot more accomplished. It truly was starting to feel like real teamwork.

  We ate dinner with no further discussion of our father. Instead, we talked about locations the prophecy could have been referencing and made a deal that once I had taken a look at the archives, we would start a sightseeing tour of our own.

  It only begged to reason that if we went to all the locations, one particular place would have to feel right.

  Our magic was stronger here, and I thought maybe that meant being able to sense things more than before. It was worth a shot at least. At this point, I knew that we had nothing left to lose.

  15

  Things had changed. My mission was still the same, but my motivations seemed clouded now. Did I still want the same things? The very next morning, I began packing up my things for my usual stop at the archives.

  First, I was going do something a bit more fun. I have promised to meet Keilan and John for lunch not too far from the house.

  ​Once I had everything I needed in my bag, I said goodbye to my sister and left on a mission. I walked down the street alone, headed toward the sandwich shop we’d made plans to meet at.

  Since my run-in with the guys in the alley, I had been on high alert of everything going on around me. Wearing headphones, was not even an option anymore, and I made sure to keep my eyes focused ahead of me.

  I considered myself lucky. My journey to lunch proved to be rather uneventful, nothing but city sights to see. No wayward Warlocks had popped up anywhere.

  I stepped around the last corner heading toward the shop, moving with ease through the sudden crowds on the street.

  I stopped suddenly; a spine-tingling sensation came over me. A brief moment of confusion sunk in until, before I knew, in the next instant, he was there.

  The mark on my arm burned. In fact, it now felt on fire like it had only once before. I turned my eyes to settle on the man, who until now, I had only ever seen in visions.

  Cormac McLoughlin, my father.

  What could I do? Scream? Run?

  I was so close, I could see them through the window, Keilan and John were seated next to each other. The two oblivious that my father stood only feet away from them.

  I willed her to look up, to notice.

  What could she do? She was with John, and it was the middle of the day. She couldn’t very well shift in the middle of a sandwich shop and attack Cormac where he stood.

  Not only would it draw attention none of us needed, I didn’t know whether my father would hurt her or not.

  It took me a moment to formulate a plan, but soon I decided that I knew what I was doing. There was no turning back now. I had my phone securely in my hand and Keilan’s number on the notification screen. She had been texting me to see where I was. Holding down on the fingerprint sensor without drawing too much attention to myself, I opened the message, pressing the green phone button next to her name to call, hoping to whatever God would listen, that she picked up the call.

  Stepping forward, I made the motion of looking down at it I was watching my step. Instead, I was glancing down at my phone to see that the call had connected; she was listening.

  I stopped only a foot away from him.

  “Dad,” I said unnaturally.

  That hadn’t been what I wanted to say. Still, there were people around, I couldn’t quite say what was coming to mind.

  The next motion I had not expected from him, a hug. My muscles stiffened from it. In part, because it had been a while since anyone had hugged me, but the real reason was that I had been expecting some sort of attack.

  “You have nothing to fear from me Fionnuala,” His voice was so soft, reassuring, I almost believed him. “You’re my daughter,” He continued, “you were taken from me and I just want our family to be reunited.”

  I just stood there, arms at my side, letting him hug me. His words were not what I had been expecting, and my usual instincts were skewed.

  I wanted to believe
him. Deep down in my soul, I wanted to know that this man, this Warlock who had made up half of my DNA was not the monster everyone had convinced me he was.

  I knew everything that Iseult had said about him. She claimed that he wasn’t the big bad wolf the others would have us believe. Even my brief encounter with him, in the visions, and now standing before him for the first time had me doubting them.

  Still, it was hard to discern if he was sincere or not. I knew that the best monsters, the most unassuming ones were master manipulators.

  He was one of those people that was hard to read. I thought about how Patrick had explained the way Niamh had fallen for him. I could imagine it, even in our limited exchanges. Cormac just had a way of making you believe him. He said the things that you wanted to hear and so you could let yourself trust in his words.

  Everything that I’d learned of him from the coven was telling me he didn’t have a sincere bone in his body. Unfortunately, I knew that at the end of the day, it didn’t matter what they had told me. I knew that I was going with him, even if my instincts told me to run. My curiosity ran too deep. I needed to figure this all out for myself.

  I drew back from the awkward hug and stared up at him. His thick dark hair, dark eyes looked at me with a gentleness that took me by surprise. I just looked at him, saying nothing. I stared and tried to see myself in him. There were a few similarities, ones I’d observed before, but I was looking into those darkened eyes for something else, some semblance of hope. It wasn’t the first time I’d seen him, but it was the first time I’d seen him in person.

  I knew that what I was really looking for, was something that told me I could trust him.

  I tried to imagine what Iseult had seen, what he had said to her that made her trust him without any hesitation, without any doubts. She hadn’t had the Coven putting any sort of preconceived ideas in her head, no pollution to fight through and perhaps that had made it easier for her.

  I wondered again how he had found me. I wondered if he had grown impatient of waiting, and worst of all I wondered if my sister had finally betrayed my trust. Just when I thought that things had been starting to get better between us, this happened.

  “You need to come with me.” There was a desperation in his voice I hadn’t anticipated hearing “I have the information you’re looking for and I know, together we can figure this all out.” He promised.

  I didn’t feel as though I had much of a choice. I had already expected he may have held the missing pieces, and this was my chance. This was the moment that I’d been searching for, the man who had the answers I was desperately craving. This was an opportunity to learn about the other half of myself.

  I knew that I didn’t feel ready for this, in fact, I felt entirely ambushed. No one was ever ready for this, standing here, I no longer had to be convinced of that now. It didn’t matter how much preparation I’d had, or how many pep talks I’d given myself. There was never a right moment to face your estranged father. Some things just had to happen.

  “Let’s go” I muttered in agreement. I stepped away from him, creating a bit more distance between us. Whatever weird energy was flying around us, had started to catch the attention of those passing by.

  He placed a hand on my back and led me down the street. As he started off, I followed his guiding hand, weaving through the unsuspecting people and eventually, we made it to his car.

  Childhood adages were playing through my mind again and again. Never get inside a stranger’s car. You’re most likely to be kidnapped by someone you know. Don’t ever let them take you to a second location.

  I was half tempted to ask him what the password was, but despite it all, I somehow didn’t feel like I was in danger. At least, not more danger than I could handle.

  Getting inside, I waited in the silence as he loaded my bag into the trunk of the car. I looked down at my phone and praised the Gods that the call still in progress.

  “Kei, I don’t know where he’s taking me,” I told her, my voice barely above a whisper. I spoke without lifting the phone to my ear. “Call my cousin Declan, tell him everything” and I’d quickly rattled off his phone number before I could see him heading towards the driver side door.

  Quickly, I ended the call, slipping the phone back into my jacket pocket.

  I didn’t know what my plan was now, but I hoped she could do something with the information.

  A million questions were running through my head. Had Iseult really known he was coming? Had she actually told him where to find me? Why hadn’t she just told me? Where was he taking me?

  It was a lot to try to calm my nerves. I figured I’d have the rest of this lovely journey to figure it out. I just had to get him talking somehow.

  As he climbed into the driver’s side and started the car, I turned my head to look at him really taking a moment to take him in.

  So this was really him. The great, evil, Cormac McLoughlin. He something of a legend at Broadhaven, a cautionary tale they told to illustrate the outcomes of greed and having an insatiable hunger for power.

  Despite the tales, the legends, at his very basic form, this man was my father. A part of him was part of me, despite my insistence that I was nothing like him. I couldn’t help but fear that somehow, without even having met him before, he had a hold on me I wouldn’t be able to fight.

  “Where to?” I asked moments later, wishing I hadn’t spoken at all.

  A clever, knowing smirk crossed his lips, and it made my uneasiness grow.

  “You’ll see,” he said.

  Reaching two fingers over toward me, I leaned away but not far enough. He touched his fingers to my forehead, and then, everything went dark.

  16

  When I woke from whatever spell had been cast on me, I found that my head ached. It was pounding; it felt like something, or someone was trying to escape through the surface of my skull.

  “No bad dreams I hope.”

  The voice caused goosebumps on my skin as I turned by blurry eyes in the direction of the voice. Trying to fight through the pain, I had nearly forgotten about my father, about the car.

  It all began to come back to me now, as my wakefulness set in. I soon realized that I wasn’t in the car any longer. In fact, it felt like I was lying on the grass. It turned out that it was because I was lying on the grass.

  With one deliberate motion, I rolled over onto my side and pressed my right forearm down into the ground. I felt weak as I tried to push myself up.

  “Eugh,” I mumbled placing the palm of my hand to my forehead. “What the hell did you do to me?”

  I felt strange to say the very least. Although I’d never experienced it before, it felt like I’d been drugged, or at least what I imagined being drugged might feel like. Except, in this case, it had been a simple touch to the head that had knocked me out cold.

  “Well, it was a bit of a lengthy drive here. I wasn’t exactly in the mood for catching up.” It almost sounded like he was trying to make a joke.

  I wasn’t amused. Great, he was truly the father of the year.

  “What are you saying Dad, I talk too much?” I’d delivered the title with disdain; I didn’t feel like he didn’t deserve it yet.

  We had hardly talked at all, outside our meet and great in my vision. What exactly did he think I was going to talk to him about? All the missed birthday presents? Allowance back pay?

  Maybe he thought I was going to start asking ‘are we there yet’?

  To be fair, there was a high possibility that might have been the case. Sometimes I wasn’t always the most patient, particularly when I didn’t know where we were going.

  “No,” he said then, a bit more genuine now. “I knew you had anxiety about car travel after your accident. I thought it would be easier for you if you could just sleep through the trip.”

  “Oh.”

  There he went again, blurring the lines between expectation and reality. He always seemed to be able to catch me off guard. That certainly hadn’t been the answ
er I’d been expecting.

  I hated to admit it, but I knew that he was probably right. It might have given me a serious amount of anxiety to sit through any sort of lengthy car ride. It would have made the experience even more difficult given the fact that I didn’t trust the driver.

  It wasn’t all that surprising that he had taken me out of the city but at the same time I also didn’t understand the need for the drive.

  I reached for the phone in my pocket and glanced at the time. We’d left the city approximately three hours earlier. In America, a three-hour drive would have gotten us to the next big city, at best, but in Europe, I knew that was a much shorter distance. For all I knew, we could have been in a different country by now.

  “We’re on an Island, would have taken much more than a simple car ride to get us off of it. Besides, we only drove about forty-five minutes. You have been sleeping the rest of the time.” He assured me.

  I felt strangely relieved to learn I hadn’t missed an entire three-hour drive. I did, however, feel a bit uneasy that he’d simply been standing there waiting for me to wake up from his spell.

  My eyes turned to my father, who was now seated on the grass not too far from where I was laying. Behind him, just beyond a fence, there were some cows grazing in a yard and even further in that distance, what appeared to be a graveyard and a chapel.

  “You knocked me out to bring me to church?” I asked. “You could have just asked. What is this, some type of ambushed baptism?”

  My words seemed to amuse him, as I saw his tightly closed lips turn up into one of the first genuine semblances of a smile I’d ever seen from the man. So he could smile, really, genuinely smile.

  “No, we’re not here for the building. The reason we’ve come here is far beyond all of this.” He got to his feet and stepped closer, offering out his hand to help me to my feet.

  With some reluctance, I took it, pushing myself up off the ground.