Chapter 12
SHE DIDN’T LEAVE UNTIL MIDDAY, AND FOUND KATHEL outside playing run and tumble with Bugs. She ignored the fact that those who worked in the stables would have seen her car still parked when they’d arrived that morning.
The juice would begin to flow from the grapevine, but it couldn’t be helped. She gave Bugs a quick rub, told him he was welcome to come with Fin anytime at all and play with Kathel.
Then she whistled her own dog into the car, and drove home.
She went straight upstairs to change out of her party dress and into warm leggings, a cozy sweater, and soft half boots. After bundling her hair up, she considered herself ready to work.
In her workshop, she put the kettle on, lit the fire. And feeling a shift in the air, whirled around.
Sorcha’s Brannaugh stood, a quiver on her back, her own Kathel at her heel.
“Something changed,” she said. “A storm came and blew through the night. Thunder raged, lightning flamed even through a fall of snow. Cabhan rode the storm until the stones of the castle shook.”
“Are you harmed? Any of you?”
“He could not get past us, and will not. But another maid is missing, and a kinswoman, and I fear the worst for her. Something changed.”
Yes, Brannaugh thought, something changed. But first there were questions. “What do you know of demons?”
Sorcha’s Brannaugh glanced down as Branna’s Kathel went to hers, and the hounds sniffed each other.
“They walk, they feed, they thirst for the blood of mortals. They can take many forms, but all but one is a lie.”
“And they search out, do they not,” Branna added, “those willing to feed them, to quench that thirst? The red stone, we’ve seen its creation, and we’ve seen the demon Cabhan bargained with pass through it and into him.
They are one. Sorcha couldn’t end Cabhan because the demon lived, and healed him. They healed, I think, each other.”
“How did you see?”
“We went in a dream spell, myself and Finbar Burke.”
“The one of Cabhan’s blood. You went with him, to Cabhan’s time, to his lair. How can there be such trust?”
“How can there not? Here is trust,” she said, gesturing to the dogs who’d gone to wrestling on the floor. “I know Fin’s heart, and would not know all we do now without him.”
“You’ve been with him.”
“I have.” And though she felt her cousin’s concern, even disapproval, she wouldn’t regret it.
“The storm came to you. I heard it when I joined with Fin, and I thought fate clashed at the choice we made. But you say it was Cabhan who rode the storm, and you felt it was his power, or rage, that shook the stones. It may be the joining angered him—this speaks true to me. What angers him only pleases me.”
“I know what it is to love. Have a care, cousin, on how that love binds you to one who carries the mark.”
“I’ve had a care since the mark came on him.
I won’t shirk my duty. My oath on it. I believe Fin may be the true change, the weapon always needed.
With him, as no three has before, we will end this.
Cabhan, and what made him what he is now.
It must be both, we believe that, or it will never end. So, what do you know of demons?”
Brannaugh shook her head. “Little, but I will learn more. You will call him by his name. This I have heard. You must use his name in the spell.”
“Then we’ll find his name. How long since last we talked in your time?”
“Today is La nag Cearpairi.”
Day of the Buttered Bread, Branna realized. New Year’s Day. “As it is here. We are on the same day, another change. This will be our year, cousin, the year of the three. The year of the Dark Witch.”
“I will pray for it. I must go, the baby’s waking.”
“Wait.” Branna closed her eyes again, brought the image into her mind from the box in her attic. Then held out a small stuffed dog. “For the baby. A gift from his cousins.”
“A little dog.” As she petted it, Sorcha’s Brannaugh smiled. “So soft it is, and clever.”
“It was mine, and well loved. Bright blessings to you and yours this day.”
“And to you and yours. I will see you again. We will be with you when it’s needed, in that I will have faith, and trust.” She laid her hand on her dog’s head, and they faded away.
Branna lowered her hand to her own dog’s head, stroked.
“Once I thought to give the little dog to my own baby. But since that’s not to be, it seemed a fine gift for my cousin’s.
” Kathel leaned his great body against her in comfort.
“Ah, well, we’ve work to do, don’t we? But first I think you’ve earned a biscuit for being so welcoming to our cousin’s hound. ”
She got one for him, smiled when he sat so politely. “How lucky am I to have so many loves in my life.” She leaned down, pressed a kiss to the top of his head, then offered the biscuit.
Content in the quiet, she made her tea, and she sat with her spell books, looking for whatever she might find on demons.
She had the whole of the afternoon to herself, a precious thing, so mixed work and reading with some baking to please herself.
She put a chicken on the boil, thinking chicken soup with chunky vegetables and thick egg noodles would go well.
If she didn’t have a houseful, she could freeze most of it for when she did.
With dusk she shifted her books to the kitchen so she could continue to work as she monitored her soup. She’d just rewarded herself with a glass of wine when Iona came in.
“Boy, I could use one of those. I took Nan back, got weepy—sad she had to go home, so happy she’s coming back.
And I thought I was done for the day.” She poured the wine.
“But Boyle texted me they’d had a group of twelve who’d celebrated New Year’s at Ashford, decided they’d finished feeling hungover and wanted guided rides. So it was back to work.”
She took her first sip. “And I’m babbling about all that—can babble about more if necessary—to keep from asking about you and Fin if you don’t want to be asked.”
“You may have gleaned we had sex.”
“I think we all gleaned that was a strong probability. Are you happy, Branna?”
Branna went to stir the soup. “I can say, without question, I’ve had a long-nagging itch thoroughly scratched, and I’m not sad about it. I’m happy,” she said when Iona just waited. “Today, I’m happy and that’s enough.”
“Then I’m happy.” She stepped closer, gave Branna a hug. “What can I do to help? In any area.”
“I’ve dinner under control. You could sit there, read over my notes, see what you think of it all.”
“Okay. Boyle and I were going to eat out, and stay at his place—and Connor and Meara the same. We thought you’d have plans with Fin and wanted to give you room. But you’ve got that vat of soup going, so . . .”
“Don’t change plans on my account. I’d already thought of freezing the bulk of it. I was in the mood to make soup, and give my head time to think that way.” She didn’t mention she’d made no plans with Fin—and wouldn’t mind a night alone.
“You’re planning to keep seeing him—being with him, I mean.”
“A day at a time, Iona. I won’t think on it further than that.”
“All right, but I may as well tell you Fin was by to talk through some business with Boyle and he looked . . . happy. Relaxed.”
“Sex will relax you in the aftermath. We’ve an understanding, Fin and I. We’re both content with it.”
“If you are, I am.” Iona sat, started to read.
Branna tested the soup, considered, then added more rosemary.
At the table, Iona said, “A portal! It makes so much sense. It’s an evil stone, created from human sacrifice—through patricide, matricide—what better way for a demon to transport into Cabhan?
It all makes sense. Sorcha burned him to ash.
We had him on the ropes—we had him bleeding under the damn ropes, but we didn’t deal with the demon. How do we?”
“Read on,” Branna suggested. She considered having her soup in her pajamas. Maybe even on a tray in her room while she read a book that had nothing to do with magicks, evil, or demons.
“A second poison,” Iona muttered, “a kind of one-two punch. And a spell that closes the portal. How do we close a portal opened through human sacrifice? That’s going to be tricky. And . . . Call the demon by his name.” She looked up and over at Branna. “You know its name?”
“I don’t, not yet. But it was the advice given me by Brannaugh of the first three.
She came to me today. And I’ve written all that down as well, but the most important part to my thinking is it was the same day for her as it is for us.
For her today was the first day of the year.
I think if we can somehow stay balanced that way, we’ll draw more from each other. ”
“Do we know any demonologists?”
“Not offhand, but . . . I suspect we could find one should we need one. I think it might be more simple and basic than that.”
“What’s simple and basic about finding out a demon’s name?”
“Asking it.”
Iona flopped back in the chair, gave a half laugh. “That would be simple. We could all come here, or all meet in the pub if you want to go over this tonight.”
“I think you can pass it all on well enough.”
“Then I will. When’s Fin coming by? I don’t want to be in the way.”
“Oh . . .” Branna went back to the soup. “We didn’t set any specific time. It’s best if we keep it more casual-like.”
“Gotcha. I’m going to go up, grab a shower, and change. I’ll just ask Boyle to swing by and get me. The four of us can put our heads together on it, and talk it to death with you and Fin later.”
“That would suit me very well.”
Evasive, Branna thought when alone again. She preferred evasive to deceptive. She hadn’t absolutely said she expected Fin. And it would give her brain a rest not to have to talk it all through, to give it all a day or two to stir around in her head first.
Maybe she’d rest her brain with the telly instead of a book. Watch something fun and frivolous. She couldn’t think of the last time she’d done only that.
“I’m heading out!” Iona called back. “Text me if you need me.”
“Have a good time.”