Chapter Five #2
He was on his feet even before I finished my sorrowful admission. “I am if she gets her way. When did you tell her? When you went to the toilet?”
I nodded.
He closed his eyes for a few seconds before he marched toward the front of the restaurant. I followed, desperate to do something to make up for my actions. He paused long enough to pay for my meal before asking the server, “Is there a back way out?”
The woman, who I realized with a start was a blue dragon, tipped her head to the side as she studied first Owain, then me. “Yes,” she said finally, nodding toward the back area containing the bathrooms. “Through the garden.”
Owain turned toward me, and I braced myself for the tongue-lashing I deserved, but before he had taken a step toward me, what I can only describe as a whirlwind made up of ravens swirled outside the door, the noise of their wings as they flew in a tight vertical cone formation filling the air.
“The Morrigna!” Owain grabbed my arm, and without a hesitation, we were moving through the restaurant, deftly avoiding both those dining and the handful of servers.
“What is—” I started to ask.
“Another name for an entity consisting of my mother and two of her sisters,” he said in a near snarl, hurrying through the restaurant before jerking open a door that led to a small garden space, now filled with round wooden tables and chairs. At the back, a wrought iron gate led out to an alley.
“Oh, shit. She’s here already? I’m sorry, Owain, I truly am. I feel sick about this. I’ll talk to her, OK? I’ll tell her that you’re fine, and not in any danger—”
“She doesn’t give a damn about that,” he said, pushing me through the gate to the alley. “All she wants from me is her boon. This way.”
He didn’t bother asking; he took my hand and hauled me away from the garden.
“What boon? You have a boon?” I stumbled as I glanced back, and saw with horror the swarm of ravens round the corner of the building, heading straight for us. “Ack! The birds are following us! Maybe I should talk to them?”
“Under no circumstances are you to do that,” he said, and once again took me by surprise as he spun around, releasing my hand, and positioning himself in front of me.
The raven tornado sped forward, caws scraping across the sky as it headed for us, the noise resolving itself into the same words, repeated in a chant. “The Morrigna, the Morrigna, the Morrigna comes.”
“What are you doing?” I asked, trying to move around Owain, but he more or less shoved me behind him.
“Protecting you from them. Stay back. Do not talk to them. Do not listen to them. And above all, do not agree to anything they ask of you.”
“The Morrigna. The Morrigna. The Morrigna comes!” chanted the birds.
Once again, I was swamped with guilt that I had put him in this position, but I stuffed that emotion down even as I was reaching blindly in my purse for my pepper spray. “Are those birds your mom?”
“It is the herald of the Morrigna. There. They have arrived.”
“The Morrigna comes!” the ravens cawed.
They stopped a few yards away from us, just as the figures of two women appeared at the far end of the alley.
The women started toward us, then paused for a moment.
One of the two was Jerry, while the other was a dark-haired woman in a long black coat that moved gently around her, as if she were standing in a perpetual breeze.
Jerry stared to the side and made an abrupt gesture, obviously talking to someone else. The dark-haired woman put her hands on her hips as she, too, appeared to argue with someone out of our view.
“Should we run?” I asked Owain in a whisper.
“No,” he said on a long, extremely martyred sigh. “I will have it out with her. Again. Stay back, out of the way in case she tries to bespell me again and decides you are collateral.”
“Your mother put a spell on you?” I asked, horrified. “To do what?”
“Imprison me until I returned the boon she placed on me and my brothers. I wonder who she has as a third. She had the original third Morrigan killed last year.” Owain glanced back at me when Jerry marched out of view, frowning when he noticed I had my phone out. “Are you calling someone?”
“No, Googling what Morrigans and Morrignas are. Ah.” I looked up to the now obviously impatient dark-haired woman still at the far end of the alley, gesticulating wildly at what I assumed was Jerry. “It’s three sisters who have something to do with war and kings. Your mom is part of that?”
“Yes. That’s Badb,” he said, indicating the dark-haired woman.
“Five?” I asked.
“No, the name is pronounced ‘bive,’ although Jerry says she has also adopted a more modern name. Ah. It is Macha my mother has roped into being a third member.” He rolled his shoulders.
“I will do what I can to keep you safe, but if they overpower me, get away. Find an Internet café, and don’t leave it until you are sure they are not outside waiting for you. ”
“An Internet café? Why there?” I asked, and, for the second time that day, clutched my pepper spray prepared for a fight.
“Their father was a druid. As such, they have a natural aversion to anything that flies in the face of nature, including modern technology.”
The ravens suddenly poured upward before spinning around behind us, effectively trapping us between them and the three women who were swiftly approaching.
“The Morrigna! The Morrigna!” the birds chanted again.
“Shut up!” I snarled at them, glaring over my shoulder. “We heard you the first time. Now, bugger off or we’ll see how you like pepper spray up your schnozz ... er ... beak holes.”
To my surprise, the ravens reeled back just as if they’d practiced the movement, their eyes spitting outrage at us. They didn’t leave, but at least they stopped yakking, which I figured was a point in our favor.
The three women approaching appeared to be arguing.
“Right,” I said, anger, guilt, and irritation sloshing around inside me at being the cause of trouble for what I firmly believed was a nice man, until, with no other option for resolution, I channeled it into action.
“This is bullshit. I’m not going to stand here while your mom and her sisters and those freaking ravens who never shut up do something heinous to you. ”
“We stopped,” one of the ravens protested behind me. “Not that you asked nicely. Would it have hurt you to ask instead of threatening us? We have feelings, you know.”
The other ravens murmured agreement.
I slid a glance toward Owain. His martyred expression was back and firmly in place.
“I got you into this and I’m going to get you out,” I told him. “Stay here.”
I took five steps toward Jerry and her sisters before he realized what I was doing.
“Hey,” I said as the women approached. “Your son is fine, but he’s not going to be your prisoner again.”
Owain was at my side by the time I was halfway through the sentence, his expression furious ... at me.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he asked me.
“Fixing the problem I made for you. Now, shush,” I said, taking another step forward so I was in front of him.
“You did not just hush me!” he said, outrage dripping from each word as he pulled me back to his side.
“What words of opposition do you dare speak to me?” Jerry seemed to snap her teeth together over the words, leaving me with the impression that she wanted to bite something, and I had a feeling it might be me.
“I didn’t ask you what he wants; he won’t be free of me until he gives back what he holds, and if he’s lucky, I won’t smite him on the spot.
Now, get out of my way lest I turn you into a bug. ”
“I shushed you,” I told Owain, giving him a reassuring pat on the arm. “That’s a gentler, kinder hush. Hang on, I got this.”
“No, you do not,” Owain growled, and tried again to stuff me behind him.
“Jerry, I need to tell you that I am armed, and if you make any hostile action toward Owain or me, I will defend us. The ravens are another matter. You can have at them all you want. Not that I condone any sort of animal abuse, but they have it coming.”
“Hey!” the mouthy raven protested.
I ignored it, as well as their mutters that a group poop on me might be called for.
“You dare threaten me?” Jerry seemed to swell with rage. “You, a mere knocker, think to challenge me? I am the Morrigan!”
“Oh, lordy-loo.” The woman who I figured was the one named Macha stopped and slapped her hands on her thighs.
“This is ridiculous, Jerry. It’s obvious that Owain is hale and hearty, although that mine ghost looks unhinged.
She could do anything, and I’m wearing Miu Miu.
I’m not risking that with a madwoman brandishing pepper spray. I’m going back to my Hour.”
“Will you stop protecting me?” Owain asked, his brows pulled together. Even frowning, the man was drop-dead gorgeous. “Thank you. Now get behind me so that I may face my mother’s wrath without any of it spilling onto you.”
“Dammit! Stop reading my smutty thoughts about you,” I told him, and refused to be shoved back. I gestured with my pepper spray toward the now two women. “I’m responsible for this situation, so I’m going to fix it. Let me do that, and then we’ll talk about why you think it’s OK to give me orders.”
Jerry lunged at me at that moment, her fingernails like claws as she grabbed at me.
Panicked, I leaped backward, at the same time my fingers tightened on the pepper spray, resulting in a stream of spray hitting her dead in the face.
The woman named Badb caught the edge of the cone of liquid, both women immediately screaming, while Jerry went to her knees clutching her face.
“Blessed goddess!” I gasped when I realized what I’d done.
“Holy shit,” one of the ravens said. “She took down the Morrigan. Right, that’s us done.”
The fluttering of wings faded behind us as I started forward, intending on helping Jerry. “I didn’t mean to actually spray you. Here, let me wipe it off.”