by F. E. Arliss
It took three days for the Hunter to return to the Isle of Eigg against a southerly wind. Emery had time to think about what had been said, and record it on paper for the crones. She had also begun to realize that perhaps the almost forgotten gift from Dorothea, Letty and Bertha on her graduation night two years ago might actually have something to do with the vampire creation story. That was a bit scary.
The dull gold collar and purple cabochon stone had always just faded into the background of her skin. As soon as the crones had attached it around her neck two years ago, she had been shocked at how the necklace seemed to sink into her skin and disappear. The dull gold seemed to become invisible, being almost the exact same color as her skin. The egg-shaped stone appeared only as a faint purple-ish oval bruise over her carotid artery.
It was, Emery realized, almost an exact match for the description the White Desert coven had given for the collar of the ancient chest-plate. Often now, she would run her hand over the collar and feel the faint texture of the wide chain where it had sunk into her neck. The stone seemed to have disappeared into the hollows of her upper collarbone. It was definitely there - yet apparently hiding from the outside world.
On the last day at sea, Emery sat with her back propped against the mast and began to meditate deeply in an effort to contact the stone. Surging her breath with the rhythm of the sea as the Hunter broke through the rolling waves, Emery concentrated on feeling her pulse as it beat beneath the ancient collar. The collar had been made to channel magic and power through blood. Maybe it would speak to her if she tried to concentrate on her own flowing pulse.
Soon the sounds of the outside world dropped away. She could hear and feel only her blood singing through her body, gently coaxing the collar to communicate. Gradually she was aware of a spark of electricity shooting through the stone into her system. The dull gold band seemed to warm.
Holding the question of the collar’s purpose in her mind, she sent waves of concern and curiosity into her beating pulse beneath the stone.
It did have a consciousness! When Emery realized that, she almost broke her concentration. With renewed focus, she sent the image of safety and security to the stone. It was safe. She would protect it. Within minutes the spark of awareness she’d felt from the stone withdrew and was gone.
Emerging from her deep state of focused meditation, she was shocked to find a slicker spread over her shoulders and the Hunter rocking gently against the long stone pier of Thorneridge Abbey. They were home.
Glancing around and shaking herself into a more cognizant state, she rose and turned towards the pier. All four crones and the twins sat on weathered, gray crab traps gazing at her with concern etching their features.
Emery smiled, “Don’t worry. I’m fine. That said, the stone is aware.”
The crones gasped. The twins looked at each other in dismay. Emery hopped up and down. “It’s alive! It’s trusting me to keep it safe! Holy cow!” Suddenly she sank like a stone onto the gently swaying deck beneath her feet.
Clearly the crones had been filled in on the news of the meeting. Mur and Ray quickly jumped aboard the Hunter and dragged Emery into the waiting crones’ arms. Before she could even so much as catch her breath, the twins had dragged her up the pier and into the Abbey’s dark hall. The crones filed in. Ray bolted the door. Millicent and Berta could be seen casting wards over every entrance to the castle.
Emery was placed in a hot tub of water, cleansed, fed, then snuggled into her bed. She slept deeply for more than twelve hours, the contact with the stone clearly having drained her more than she’d realized. Sage burned throughout the Abbey and the aromatic smoke filled the crevices of Emery’s room.
That night, under the waxing moon, the villagers could be seen setting wards, lighting sage bundles and blessing weapons. Emery would have been shocked had she been able to view the furious activity the knowledge of the vampire stone had brought about.
The next morning Emery and Mur sat with the crones near the fire sipping tea. Ray stood statue-like behind his twin, listening intently as Emery recited the events of the convergence. The crones had clearly read the notes Emery had taken and asked the occasional question. Once in a while Mur would add a few grunted words of his own, filling in a different perspective for the crones.
For the most part everything had been accurate in her description. Millicent had chortled when Emery mentioned how arrogant the Plateausol coven had been. Dorothea, Letty and Bertha joined in, clearly enjoying a secret joke. Dorothea, seeing the twins’ and Emery’s confusion, grinned and said, “We had to go to Carcassonne to train for three months when we were girls. They were such bratty little snots. Always on about their ‘gift’ of sight. Sometimes Letty could see further scrying in water than those little nitwits.”
Millicent nodded, smiling. “I see things haven’t changed.” Bertha and Letty cackled happily.
When Emery got to the part where she’d swept Mur up and air walked to the beach to depart, Letty whooped out a sound of sheer joy. “Oh good. I got thrown into the sea from about 200 feet when one of those Musa girls let go of me when we went to the elemental training in Gibraltar. I thought I was going to drown! Serves them right to see someone walk air almost as well as they can!” she said indignantly.
“What do you mean almost as well?” Emery said with equal indignation. Then grinned lamely when she realized Letty was right. “Sorry - being my own type of snotty brat,” she added under her breath in apology.
“Well, at least you can admit it. Which is more than those Musa girls will do,” Letty said, smiling back at Emery with affection.
Dorothea had been intrigued by the description given by both Mur and Emery of the White Desert clan. “It seems they’re trying to be less creepy than when we were young,” she said in a low voice. “Do you remember how absolutely awful they were? Always reanimating corpses to play jokes on us.”
“Yes, though fortunately they couldn’t keep them going long. Maybe an hour or two for a regular corpse. Some of them could make golems and those were worse. They lasted a day or two and rotted as they walked. Absolutely disgusting,” Bertha said, grimacing and making a puking sound. Emery laughed.
When Emery woke in the morning, the realization that she wore the ‘vampire maker’ because she was a shield skin hit her. That was how she’d come to think of the heavy gold choker - as the vampire maker. The coven of the Isle of Skye had sent it to her because of the news of her gift as a shield skin.
No one could remove the collar from her neck except herself. Well, Emery supposed they could kill her and somehow try to skin her after she was dead. The knowledge of that stunned her and even though she’d slept well and been renewed with energy, the idea that some people may try to kill her in order to retrieve the stone if they knew she had it was terrifyingly real.
Over the next few days as Emery thought about it, the madder she got. If the villagers had any doubts that their little queenie had a connection to the wind, fire and the sea - they now had no doubts whatsoever. The wind rose, lighting often cracked across the heavens in huge arcs of electricity, the seas became rough and a congregation of seals and sea turtles appeared hovering on the perimeters of the isle.
Emery didn’t eat and rarely slept. The coven of the Isle of Skye had not asked for her permission to loop this death dealing device around her neck. They’d “gifted” it to her. Had the crones known what it was? That would be the first question she’d ask when she had her anger under control enough to bother. The fact was that she wore it and couldn’t remove it; she’d tried. Now that the damn thing was awake, it wouldn’t let her remove it from her own neck!!! If anyone from the coven of the Isle of Skye ever came within her sight, they were in an intensely dangerous situation. They had violated her person, her safety, her existence. There was no forgiveness for something like this. They had altered the entire course of her life, and her coven’s lives. Intentionally.
Over and over again Emery flung herself to the heavens on wa
ves of wind. Lightning flashed from her repeatedly, she was a battery arcing off waves of fury. When she came down to ground level, no matter where she was - usually over the sea - a sea turtle was there for her to alight upon. If she came down on land, sometimes it was on the mainland the wind had carried her so far, flames of fury would erupt from her feet. The fire she commanded licking at anything within reach as her rage ran unchecked. The crones could only be grateful that her fury brought rain with it or the entire isle and part of the west coast of Scotland would have been scorched to embers.
When she slept it was the sleep of the damned, usually curled into a ball among a cluster of seals on the shore. If a human approached, wiccan or not, the large male seals would rear up and huff and roar - warning any who tried to intrude on the queen that nothing would be tolerated. She wanted to be left alone - they should heed the warnings or get mauled trying.
Mur and Ray tried to approach her from the sea. She lit the ocean on fire. It wasn’t their fault. She knew that. But at this moment in time, she was too angry to care.
Daily she had conversations with the collar - trying to understand why it wouldn’t relinquish its grasp on her. It told her over and over and over again, “You are the only one that can keep me safe. Only you have the power to prevent the rise of another blood elder.” The stone had a name. It was the Osiris stone. Emery didn’t care if it was called the ‘ugly stone’, she wanted rid of it. And that, it seemed, was never going to happen.
Finally, after weeks of torrential thunderstorms, raging seas and tree-gnarling winds, things began to quiet a bit. Emery appeared on the craggy stone pier of the Abbey and waited. Dorothea practically flew down the huge stone steps to alight near Emery. She clearly wanted to hug the girl, but Emery simply shook her head.
“You might get hurt,” was all Emery said to the old crone. “But thank you for the thought.” Clearly, the girl could either read the old woman’s mind or knew her too well. “I’ll assume you knew nothing of the Osiris collar’s true nature.”
Dorothea shook her head, tears brimming up in the old crone’s eyes for the first time ever in Emery’s presence. “Of course not. I would never have put it around your neck if I knew of its purpose and power.” Emery simply nodded in acknowledgement.
“Please bring one of the bitches who sent this thing to me here. I have questions,” Emery asked this with an unequivocal command that turned it from a request to a direct order. “They will come, or they will be retrieved. I want them here within the next day’s cycle.” With that she cast herself into the sea and disappeared under the waves.
Dorothea, fearing for her safety, ran to the edge of the sea. Peering out worriedly from her worn cat-eye glasses, she had just enough time to see Emery disappear in a swirl of seals into the depths. Flames raged across the ocean’s surface indicating the direction the group of seals had departed in. Things had changed.
Chapter Fourteen
The Reckoning
Dorothea had quickly returned to the Abbey after the meeting with Emery and now sat weakly sipping tea in order to recover her composure. The others waited silently, realizing that what was happening now was likely the most important event of their lives.
“She wants a representative from the Isle of Skye here within the day,” Dorothea whispered. “She said they will come or they will be retrieved. I’m not sure what she meant by that, but it can’t be good,” the old lady croaked out. “She was so angry that she wouldn’t let me hug her. When she dove into the sea afterwards, flames flitted along the sea above where she swam. Her power is amazing and right now, out of control. I believe they should come or the consequences will not be good.”
“They deserve to be burned at the stake,” Bertha said scornfully. “They sent the damn thing as a gift, but what it really was is a curse. They did it purposefully and without informing us of the consequences.”
“Probably hoped we’d never find out,” Letty said quietly. “They hoped it would just sink in - like it did - and be forgotten. Which it was.”
Millicent began to muse aloud, “Then came this dreadful information about the thefts and what the purpose of these items could be. Now we know what the Skye coven did. They did this because they were trying to protect the stone. Which, while admirable, is something they should have discussed with us before they changed the entire course of Emery’s life with the collar.”
“She might have worn it anyway, knowing that girl,” Dorothea said sadly. “If they’d asked her, she probably would have taken it. Now they’ve forced it on her. Violating her rights as a person. It is unforgivable.”
“What do you think she’ll do to them?” Mur asked this from the doorway, surprising the crones into spilling their tea. Ray stood to his side, his face a mask of dark anger, something none of the old women could remember ever seeing. When they had been children the twins had bickered, but they had never seen anger - pure anger - on either twin’s face before.
“They should be drawn and quartered,” Ray snapped. “I’ve had the stocks, chains and stakes set out in front of the smithy.”
Most of the crones gasped. Bertha, surprising everyone, started laughing. “Ooooh, I love that. That’ll give ‘em a good scare. Bitches!”
That broke the ice and after a few stifled giggles, Millicent went to make a phone call. When she returned she was white faced and shaking. “They refused to come and Gwen Sinclaire, the coven leader, said she had no idea what we were talking about. I could tell she was scared and lying,” the older woman said, her voice trembling.
“We’ll go tell Emery she’s refused,” Ray said, his voice dark, gritty and unlike anything the crones had heard from him before. “She’ll retrieve them. One way or another,” he said. Mur nodded. The two were gone instantly into the dark hall of the Abbey.
“I had no idea they could be quite so scary,” Letty said shakily, voicing her first input since the whole ordeal had begun. “But, I can’t wait to see how she gets them here. They have no idea what they’ve done.” The other crones could only agree, worried looks exchanged repeatedly.
The coven of the Isle of Skye was known for their arcane wisdom and sense of pride in the history of Wicca. As far as Emery could tell, that was about where their skills ended too. Sure there had been wards aplenty around the picturesque castle of Dunvegan that the coven had restored and now promoted with tours and wildflower gardens. It had truly been charming and completely without challenge for Emery.
She’d simply risen from the depths of the sea, stepped from the back of a huge, battle scarred sea turtle, and with the wave of her hands brushed aside every ward in her path.
When she’d asked for the head of the coven, no one had dared defy her. A cowering middle-aged woman wearing a stuffily gentrified outfit of a long wool skirt over ankle boots and a plaid blazer with the clans crest embroidered on the lapel, had simply gaped at Emery in astonishment.
“I asked you to appear before me on the Isle of Eigg,” Emery stated stonily. “I understand you declined Millicent’s invitation.”
The older woman had attempted to draw herself up into some semblance of authority and said, “Of course I refused. I have no idea what she was on about!”
“Then who does know?” Emery bit out the simple question in a staccato burst of knife-edged bitterness. “I suggest you find them.”
A flurry of activity finally had an older woman with an upright regal carriage appearing before Emery. “I understand you’re looking for me?” the older woman asked haughtily, clearly trying to gain control of the situation by trying to condescend to the young woman who had, according to the stuttering chatter of her scared-witless maid, risen from the sea on the back of a giant sea turtle. Really, the older woman thought, where did they find these idiot trainees for the coven anyway?
“I understand that I have you to thank for this,” Emery stated in the most upscale, poshly modulated tone she possessed, gesturing to the still hidden but now slightly visible purple stone that rode just ab
ove her carotid artery.
Emery’s aristocratic voice shocked the woman into replying, “Yes, it’s an ancient relic of our clan.” Then, recovering herself in an attempt to hide her astonishment, the older woman said, “It is an honor you should be grateful for,” raising her thin eyebrows and casting a deprecating look over the wet sea-weed encrusted form of the young woman before her.
Instead of having the effect she was hoping for, the statement caused the silver antlers atop the young woman’s head to glow and small arcs of what looked like lightning zapped out, repeatedly stinging the older woman, causing her to gasp and stumble back inelegantly.
“Take her,” the young woman commanded the two tall warriors behind her. At the approach of the two equally wet, powerfully muscled men, the woman gasped and cowered. It didn’t help.
The older woman was dragged unceremoniously from the old castle and man-handled to the water’s edge. There, she was simply held aloft, her feet dragging through rough waves as the young woman first stepped onto one sea turtle, followed by the two young men onto two more turtles, her form gripped between them and dangling over the waves. The trio, with the struggling woman in tow, disappeared into the horizon as the rest of the coven, powerless to stop them, gaped in amazement.