In the end, whose had been the great destiny?
Whose, the greater power and the greater purpose?
Nick wrapped the fingers of one hand around her slim ankle, the other pressing the delicate bones of her foot harder against him.
Her toes moved with the dexterity of the woman who’d spent a lifetime with nothing between her and the earth. The undulating articulation common to those who dug their toes into the mud, the grass. Who let the water lap at the tender skin between them. Who probably picked up dropped fishing lines and household objects. With that same, unnatural knowing, she explored him through his strained slacks.
He let his eyes fall closed for the space of a minute, the pleasure rising in him.
Just as abruptly as it started, the pleasure stopped.
Nick opened his eyes to a triumphant expression on Moira’s face as Sal droned on about marination and buttermilk and getting a good scald from the lard.
Words floated by him like leaves on a stream.
Moira had done it on purpose.
Making him hard. Leaving him that way.
She was playing a game.
When he got her alone, Nick Kingswood planned on showing her exactly what it meant to play with Conquest.
21
They were being followed.
Moira might have been sure of it sooner, but with Uncle Sal a few paces ahead of her, Nicholas Kingswood beside her, and Cheeto trotting along behind, she’d felt…safe. Contented. Like for just this handful of minutes, all was right with the world.
But of course, it wasn’t, and she cursed herself for a fool and a simpleton for forgetting it.
She glanced back over her shoulder for the third time in as many minutes, her mind shifting from Nick’s explanation of how he’d managed to get the Moira Jo from Stumps to Port Townsend so quickly—a tricky operation involving a few favorable trade winds generated by Aerin.
Nick stopped mid-sentence, his body tensing as he flipped on to high alert. “What?” he asked. “What is it?”
“Did you hear that?” she whispered, the deserted street falling suddenly silent.
Another rustle. A crash.
Sal came up beside them, lifting the baggy pants leg of his overall to retrieve the wickedly curved fish-gutting knife that had been his lifelong companion.
Nick put himself between Moira and the potential danger, already reaching behind him to summon the flaming arrow that was his birthright.
They gave a collective exhale when a small, spotted fawn staggered from the alley, blinking broad brown eyes at them.
“Aww. Would you look at that? Poor little thing’s lost his momma.” She took a step toward it, but was quickly yanked back by Uncle Sal.
“Stay here, Moira Jo. That thing don’t look right.”
“I can’t believe I’m about to say this.” Nick shifted uncomfortably on the sidewalk. “But I think your uncle might be right. Julian’s been rather busy of late. There’s no end to the hideous diseases it might be carrying.”
“Y’all don’t be silly. I’m sure the poor thing’s probably just hungry.” Moira took a few tentative steps toward the small, spindle-legged creature, her carton of leftovers in one hand, the other stretched out in invitation.
When she was only a couple feet away, she popped open the carton, withdrawing a couple French fries and holding them out as enticement.
Cheeto snorted behind her, less a warning than a witness of his discontent at Moira sharing what would usually be his dedicated snack.
The fawn’s shining black nose twitched in the direction of the fries, the little nostrils flaring before it eagerly snaffled them up.
Moira set the open carton down in front of the small, eager body, encouraged when it lowered its head and set to scarfing.
“See?” Moira said, looking back at the improbable group of the males spanning the sidewalk—a pig, an immortal, and a hillbilly. “It’s just hungry.” She reached stroked the deer’s small head, beginning at the sleek indentation between its eyes and sliding her fingers up his small, silky ear.
Which came off in her hand.
Moira stared at the tawny scrap in her palm for an undetermined length of time before it occurred to her to gasp and drop it.
“Oh, dear God. Oh, sweet baby Jesus,” she jabbered, panic reeling her back to the days when those had been her chief expletives. “Look what I did!”
“Moira Jo!” Sal hollered. “You come away from that thing. It ain’t natural!”
“Wait!” she shouted back. “I can fix this.” Moira retrieved the ear from the sidewalk held it in a rough approximation of where it had been as withdrew her wand from her bra.
“By power of water, wind, sky and sea, I ask the Goddess to stick this here ear back onto thee!” A small jet of shimmering blue light exited the wand’s tip and concentrated around the joining of the fawn’s ear and skull.
Relief washed over her when she released the ear and it stayed put. “There!” she said, fully aware of the note of hysteria in her own voice. “See? It’s okay. It’s okay.”
And it was.
Until its other ear fell off.
Followed by the small white flag of its tail. And its foreleg below the knee.
Moira sucked in a lungful of air, her throat closing over a sudden sob. “I broke it! I broke a baby deer!”
Her lament was cut short when pain, sudden and sharp, invaded her hand.
She looked down, unable to reconcile what she was seeing and feeling.
The fawn had latched on to the meat of her palm, shaking its head like a hound with a rat.
“Why, you ungrateful little fucker! How dare—”
And then she saw its eyes.
Glowing a putrid yellow, the dark pupils stretching into cat-like vertical strips.
She had seen these eyes before. Had seen this look before. Bubbling with festering hatred.
Lucy.
Agony climbed Moira’s arm like shards of ice, robbing her of breath as darkness and despair poured into her heart.
“Ain’t no demon deer bites my Moira Jo!” Uncle Sal shouted, barreling toward them, his knife raised high and Cheeto right on his heels. “Prepare yerself to get wrassled, Bambi!”
“Salvador! Move!” Nick roared. His eyes had become glowing amber, his flaming arrow pointed straight at the deer’s flank. But Uncle Sal was directly in the arrow’s path and showed no signs of changing course.
They went down in a heap, tangled legs and flying fur and the blinding flash of one of Cheeto’s fire balls.
Sal sank his teeth into the fawn’s shank and it turned loose of Moira’s hand, bleating in pain. “Ha!” Sal said, hooting in triumph. “How do you like it, you mangy-ass sum’ bitch?”
Suddenly free of the searing pain, Moira reached up to shift the fawn’s unnatural weight from her chest.
The impact had pealed a patch of pelt the fawn’s flank, strips hanging down like torn velvet. Silvery white cartilage gleamed from the exposed muscle. And just as she pulled her fingers away from the slick, slimy ribs, Nick’s arrow found its mark between them.
The fawn shrieked and writhed, a foul black smoke pouring from its mouth before it jerked and flopped over to the side.
Uncle Sal, five-time champion of the hog wrasslin’ pit, gained his feet with surprising swiftness, reaching down to help Moira do the same.
Nick sidled up to them, giving Cheeto a wide berth.
Together, they stared down at the discarded fawn husk. Singed, smoking, and missing several vital parts.
“You realize what this means,” Nick said.
“That I ought to throw the deer carcasses I picked up near the dock overboard?” Sal asked.
“It means that Lucy knows,” Nick said. “She knows that we know about the prophecy. She knows that you’ve been chosen.”
“You’re talkin’ about the devil, ain’t you?” Sal looked from Moira to Nick as he asked this. His face guileless, his hair clumping with the damp sea air like we
t crow feathers.
Moira’s heart warmed as she looked at her uncle. Common man that he was, so completely willing to accept the extraordinary. A simple gullibility that people often mocked. Never had there been a human more perfectly suited to fish her out of the bayou. To accept her exactly for what she was. What she would always be.
“Yes,” Nick said. “We are.”
22
“Thank the Goddess!” Tierra rushed Moira, enveloping her comforting, brooding warmth. “We were so worried about you.”
Her sisters had been waiting.
A simple walk it was meant to be. Moira taking a quick turn to the dock and back with Cheeto along for protection.
Moira had had no way to call. No way to explain she would be arriving late. Cell phone service had been one of the many things the Apocalypse had readily claimed as of late.
“I ran into Uncle Sal,” she said.
“Did you?” Aerin favored her with a knowing smile.
“He went back to his boat,” Moira said. “He wasn’t much feeling like company tonight.”
“I think wrestling with Lucifer took it out of him,” Nick reported.
“Lucy?” Claire shot to her feet, a sudden movement that had Dru patting himself down for weapons. “How? Where?”
“Main Street,” Moira said. “We were comin’ home from Sirens when she attacked. Apparently she’s downgraded from humans to woodland critters.”
“Sirens,” Tierra sighed, rubbing the globe of her belly. “I’d sell my soul for some fish and chips right about now.”
“You might not want to say that out loud,” Aerin advised. “All things considered.”
“Do you think she knows?” Claire asked. “About the prophecy?”
“Without a doubt,” Nick confirmed. “All the more reason to fulfill it as soon as possible.” He squeezed Moira’s hip in silent encouragement.
“There’s something we need to discuss.” Julian rose from the chaise longue, his face grave. “About the prophecy.”
“We’ve already worked that out.” Nick’s impatience bristled behind Moira as he spoke. “I’m good. She’s good. Everyone’s good. In fact, if you’ll excuse us, we’ll get working on it with all due haste and expediency,” he said, nudging her toward that stairs.
“I’m afraid it isn’t so simple,” Julian said. “There’s a ritual. Well, two rituals actually. One to summon the Bringer of Light. The other, The Dark One. Before anything can happen, we need to know which entity you and Miss de Moray might potentially be—” he cleared his throat, casting about for the least offensive word “—conceiving.”
“The Dark One.” The sound of her own voice surprised her. Moira hadn’t known she knew that.
Because she didn’t know it.
But Lucy did.
And had somehow passed it along when she bit her.
“I knew it!” Tierra leapt as well as someone as heavily knocked up as she was could. “I knew I was having the light one.”
“But Tierra got knocked up without a ritual,” Moira pointed out. “How do you figure that happened?”
“If I had to wager a guess,” Julian said, his tone suggesting that he’d never guessed at anything in his life, “it would be that because the Goddess had already departed from this plane, the other Miss de Moray conceived her replacement by default. But because Lucifer yet inhabits this planet, a willful and specific displacement will be required.”
“Wait just a damn minute.” Moira took a step toward Julian, memory washing her in the scent of parchment and port wine. “I thought you said that this wasn’t about good and evil?”
“It isn’t.”
“But you’re saying that Lucy was the Dark One or whatever you called it. And she’s more evil than wool knickers on an August afternoon.”
“Correct.” A strange sadness darkened Julian’s glacier blue eyes. “Just because she’s evil now doesn’t mean she began that way. With patience, kindness, and proper guidance, perhaps the next Ceann Dorcha, wouldn’t go so far afield from the intended purpose.”
This thought dropped the room into sudden quiet.
“All right,” Moira said holding her hands out to Aerin, who had retrieved the Grimoire from a nearby end table. “Show me the ritual.”
Aerin snagged glances with Julian and drew the book closer to her chest—a first, given its cover was basically a patchwork quilt of leathery human skin and squicked Aerin out something fierce.
“What?” Moira asked, her stomach growing heavy even as her head grew light. “What aren’t y’all tellin’ me?”
Julian cleared his throat. “There is perhaps one detail we ought to discuss before proceeding.”
“And that would be?” Moira folded her arms, her sandal-clad foot tapping expectantly.
Aerin looked to Tierra and Claire who in turn cast nervous eyes to their respective horsemen. Dru and Bane continued the chain by turning to stare at Nick.
“Would y’all quit eye-ballin’ each other and just spit it out?” Moira asked, sweat beginning to accumulate in places the sun didn’t shine.
As was typically the case when some destiny-altering bit of information to be shared, the task fell to Julian. “The Ceann Dorcha can only be conceived by those whose souls are one.”
Moira blinked at him, the words rattling around in her head like Scrabble tiles in a bag. All at once, they landed in order with a clarifying clack.
Nick Kingswood.
In order to bring forth the Ceann Dorcha, she was going to have to soul-bond herself to Nicholas Fucking Kingswood.
23
All the air in the room miraculously turned itself into cement. The weight of it pressed against Moira’s chest even as struggled to drag it into her lungs. Faces blurred. Walls swayed and bulged, and before she knew it, she was shuffling backwards.
“I…I need a minute.”
With Cheeto on her heels, Moira sprinted up the stairs and down the halls and didn’t stop until she burst through the small access door to the widow’s walk crowning Maison de Moray. Just a small, rectangular patch on the roof of the sprawling Victorian home, but it had become the place where each sister in her turn seemed to come when heavy contemplation was required.
Moira wandered over to the wrought iron railing, the night air settling on her skin like a humid cloak and her ankle warm where Cheeto leaned against her. She’d often wondered why it was people always came to high places when they needed to think. Like somehow the elevation might shrink their problems just like they did the trees and cars and houses from this vantage.
Her eyes drifted out to the sea, dark and heaving, the moon’s reflection a boiling cauldron of blood red on its surface. For the briefest of moments, Moira imagined that beyond it, she could see the fires, the hurricanes, the ash-choked sky. Moira didn’t think there was a cricket’s chance in a chicken house there was any place high enough to lessen the trouble at hand.
Bringing forth potentially evil offspring was one thing. Moira guessed if Rosemary could love her yellow-eyed, black clawed, cloven-hoofed infant, she could probably manage to form some kind of bond to whatever it was she and Nick would create.
But to bind herself to Nicholas Kingswood for all of eternity? Eternity was an awful long time. Hell, it wasn’t time at all. It was the absence of time. No beginning and no end. Just now. Forever.
Moira shivered.
Before she’d even known exactly what she was, before she’d known about her sisters, and the horsemen and Lucy, she’d had an often unadmitted daydream of herself as she would be when her hair had gone silver and her tits migrated towards her knees. Sitting in a rocking chair on the porch of an equally old house, snapping the stems off green beans and shouting at the pack of feral bayou kids to get the hell off her lawn. Well, it wouldn’t have been a lawn. Not really. Nothing so manicured and fussy as all that.
A vegetable patch maybe. Wildflowers and ivy.
Her own kids had never figured in. Nor the presence of an old man in a mat
ching rocking chair next to her. Of course, Nicholas Kingswood would never be old. And if Tierra’s experiences with Bane were anything to go by, neither would Moira if she went through with this.
In this particular moment, she couldn’t say with a surety that she planned on doing so.
She leaned forward against the railing and damn near jumped over the edge when someone cleared his throat behind her.
Moira turned, half expecting to see the horseman in question hunkering in the shadows. The silhouette she saw instead helped return her heart from her throat to its normal position in her chest.
“Uncle Sal?”
He stepped forward, swiping the trucker’s hat from his head and holding it against his chest in an oddly touching deferential gesture. “Hey, darlin’.”
Beside him, the lithe and unmistakable figure of Julian Roarke bowed. “I’ll leave you two to your counsels.”
Moira sent Pestilence the warmest smile she could muster before turning to her uncle. “I thought you’d gone back to the boat.”
“I had, but when I got there and told the boys about what happened with that devil deer, they thought maybe we oughta come back and keep an eye on things.” He scratched his gray-black neck stubble with his calloused fingertips, the resulting sound closely resembling sandpaper on wood.
Alarm jangled down Moira’s nerves. Keep an eye on things was usually a code for looking for an excuse to shoot the shit out of and/or set fire to anything that moved.
She thought about her uncles outside, then Sal’s presence on the roof, and realized for the first time that this meant he would have had to come through the house. “Did y’all meet everyone, then?”
Uncle Sal’s weathered face screwed up in surprise and consternation. “You mean your…kin?”
“My sisters,” she said. “Yes.” She’d sent him letters over the months, having disclosed her discovery of previously unknown siblings, but hadn’t gotten into the particulars about their being identical and prophesied to end the world and all.
Which Witch is Willing? (The Witches of Port Townsend Book 4) Page 12