Chapter 30
CHAPTER THIRTY
Bad stories weave enchantments. Good stories can break them.
A good story might break an enchantment, but Carys knew that first she had to break the endless cycle of attention, worship, veneration, and power that was enabling Macha to keep an entire hillside in thrall.
“We have to pull the plug. Somehow we’ve got to pull the plug.”
Pull the plug?
Electricity, Cadell answered Seren.
We must break the current of her power.
Carys had to grab the crowd’s attention somehow. She had to stop this insanity before it all boiled over. Boil. Heat.
How do you kill heat?
What are you thinking, sister?
“Hey, Laura!” Carys shouted. “Remember that Grateful Dead festival in Baywood they ended up canceling a couple of summers ago?”
“Yeah!”
It had been a gorgeous summer interrupted by a freak rainstorm that had driven the old hippies back to their trucks and camper vans.
“We need to break up this party!” she shouted.
It was a glorious summer night in Southern England with balmy air and a warm breeze wafting over the countryside, which meant that everyone was prone to being outdoors to enjoy the weather anyway.
Even people who hadn’t seen Macha online were probably hearing about the party happening at Cley Hill. They were followers, not worshippers. The people camping on the hill and grilling hamburgers and sausages on the hill. But followers or worshippers, their energy fed Macha just the same.
“We need to rain them out!”
Someone walked between Carys and Laura with an honest-to-God boom box on their shoulder.
“What did you say?” Laura yelled.
“Rain!” Carys yelled. “Can you make it rainy and cold?”
Duncan grunted and shifted under her. “Rain has to be the least magical thing about England. You’re probably on to something there.”
“Rain?”
Carys nodded.
That’s actually quite brilliant.
“You don’t have to sound so surprised,” Carys muttered.
Naida’s eyes brightened. “Macha has thinned the barrier between the worlds here. I believe the earth will listen to me. I can help.”
Laura patted Cadell’s shoulder. “Okay, dragon. Get me to anyplace that has some water, bare earth, and open sky.”
That woman is in love with Cadell.
“Go!” Carys ignored Seren because wow, this was really not the time to gossip about that subject. “Find someplace that’s away from here.”
Cadell turned and started back toward the slope of the hill where they had walked up.
“Wolf!” Duncan tossed Godrik a phone. “Give that to Laura.”
Godrik nodded, then moved through the crowd with Naida on his shoulders.
“What do you want us to do?” Lachlan shouted.
“How secure am I on you two?”
“You weigh nothing,” Duncan said. “What do you want?”
“Let’s see if we can get closer.” Carys needed to see Macha up close. With her right eye open, Duncan and Lachlan moved her through the crowd, and Carys had a chance to scan the spirits and demons the war goddess had called.
There were the now-familiar internet worshippers and so many demons of despair. The muddy-brown creatures were draped over people’s shoulders and whispering in their ears.
Carys’s heart hurt, especially when she saw the longing, hopeful eyes of the people they tormented.
You have a soft heart, sister.
“They just want to be part of something.” Carys repeated Duncan’s words, feeling her eyes fill with tears. “They want magic. They want something beautiful.”
The Morrígan will not give them that. She will only feed on their attention.
Duncan and Lachlan held Carys on their shoulders and waded through the crowd, moving like a living wall through the flood of people as crows and starlings circled overhead.
The chain around Carys’s neck heated. She looked up to see Macha’s eyes on her.
“Epona’s daughters.” The goddess’s voice came to her ears. “What are you doing on my hill? I feel your sisters on the other side, but their prayers are useless and futile.”
Epona’s cult must be gathered in the Shadowlands. They might be trying to pull her through as she thins the barrier.
“Did you come to worship me, daughters of Tegan?” Macha stood and lifted her arms, raising them to the blood-red gash in the sky where black crows circled and power rained down. “Shall I show you how to dance?”
Carys yelled down at Duncan and Lachlan. “She spotted me!”
“What should we do?” Lachlan asked again.
Just keep walking.
“Keep walking.”
Cadell spoke to her mind. Naida and Laura are calling the rain, but I feel the goddess’s attention on you, nêrys. I should come.
Stay with Laura and Naida! Protect them. I’m safe with Duncan and Lachlan.
The Morrígan began to dance to the drumbeat of two men on either side of what could only be described as an altar.
There were flowers and offerings of food. Bags of drugs and wads of cash. People had thrown clothing and mobile phones while others danced naked around the altar.
Carys saw a woman rake her fingernails across her breast, and blood welled from the scratches.
Blood offerings. The Morrígan’s favorite.
“She’s getting more powerful.”
And the red gash in the sky was widening. Through it, Carys could see darkness swirling like blood spreading through water.
The Morrígan lifted her hands to the sky and danced, turning in circles to show off her half-naked form to the worshippers around her.
Everyone who hadn’t had their phone out before pulled it out and started recording.
“Millions of people will see her,” Duncan said. “That’s going all over the world.”
As Macha turned, Carys saw all three of the goddess’s aspects fully—the nubile young woman, the lush mother, and the wrinkled elder. Her hair flashed from red to black to white as she turned, whipping around in the wind.
“Macha,” the crowd began to chant. “Macha. Macha. Macha.”
“What the fuck is happening?” Duncan asked. “Carys, are you okay?”
“Wait.” She narrowed her eyes, pulling the eye patch back over her left eye so she could focus her vision on what she was seeing.
Red-haired maiden.
Black-haired mother.
Silver-haired crone.
And round and round she went, the one turning to three turning to one whirled vision in Carys’s eye.
But as she turned into one and three, another vision became clear too. The nubile body was scarred with a deep bruise over her abdomen, purple and green, weeping blood from under the ribs.
Her dark eyes were bleeding, but not to cause terror. One eye was completely destroyed, the socket empty and dripping blood.
And as she turned, she leaned a little, as if one of her legs was broken. When Carys looked closer at the whirling dancer, she saw deep punctures in the Morrígan’s leg.
Wounds from a wolf’s bite.
“She is wounded.” Carys couldn’t laugh because the sight before her became more horrible by the second, but she did feel a sense of relief. “You guys, we did hurt her. Badly.”
Carys flashed back to the days immediately after the Morrígan’s barrow had risen and a conversation with the son of a god. “I assume you’ve heard of The Cattle Raid of Cooley…”
The eel.
The bear.
The bull.
“It’s not the same story, Carys Morgan, but it just might rhyme.”
Each battle had weakened the goddess, and now all Carys needed to finish her was…
A story.
Carys felt a drop land on her shoulder.
The dancers worshipping in front of Macha’s altar slowed, then stopped. They looked at the sky, turning their faces up to the clouds that had gathered over Cley Hill.
And a loud groan came from all of them.
“Stop!” Macha screamed. “Where are you going?”
It wasn’t everyone, but while the crowd at the top of the hill continued to dance and sway and chant, some of them even more enthusiastically than they had been before, the Morrígan wasn’t looking at the worshippers closest to her.
She was looking at the phones being turned off and stuffed into pockets.
She was looking in the distance at the crowds that were no longer pushing up Cley Hill.
Macha stomped her foot. “Stop it!”
Nothing stops a party like rain.
I see it. Carys smiled. I feel it.
The crowds on the hillside were breaking up. Fires were going out, and the few people who had brought rain ponchos were holding them over other revelers, joking as their attention shifted from Macha to the people around them.
“Look!” Macha screamed like a petulant child. “Look at me! Look at me!” She stamped her foot and lifted her arms to the bloody sky.
Carys followed her hands and saw the crows and starlings massing over Cley Hill, but even the birds were having trouble flying through the rain that was growing ever harder, soaking the hillside and turning the fine clay soil into mud.
Nêrys, I am not shifting, though with Naida and Laura’s magic around me, the urge to do so is very strong.
Wait! Cadell, you can do this. The crowds are still worshipping her up here. We need to drain her power.
“You!” Macha pointed to Carys. “Get them and bring the horse goddess’s daughters to me!”
“Daughters?” Lachlan looked up and their eyes met.
My love.
“Not now!” Carys was worried the crowd would riot. “Put me down! Quick.”
Duncan and Lachlan slowly lowered Carys to the ground as muddy revelers turned on them, reaching for Carys.
“I don’t think so,” Duncan growled. “Back off, boy.”
The two Scotsmen stood on either side with Carys between them, blocking the people from reaching her.
Carys saw Lachlan reach for the short sword hidden in his coat.
“No!” she shouted. “You have to let them take me!”
“What?” both men shouted.
“Fuck no!” Duncan said.
“I will defend you unto death itself!” Lachlan’s eyes were flashing.
“That’s what she wants!” Carys yelled over the thunder that was rolling across Salisbury Plain. “She wants violence, remember?”
Nêrys…
Cadell’s voice was low and bestial.
Not yet, old friend!
Carys tugged on Duncan’s arm, forcing him to listen as a muddy hand grabbed her wrist. “She wants violence,” she said. “You can’t give it to her. It will only make her stronger.”
“I can’t.” Duncan’s eyes went wide as two young men covered in mud walked over to Carys and grabbed her by the shoulders. “Don’t ask me to let you go!”
The gold chain in her skin burned, and when she turned to look at Macha’s servants, she saw the red flush of anger covering their skin.
“It’s okay.” She kept her voice calm. “I’ll go to Macha. I’ll go.”
Duncan roared and raised his fist. “Absolutely fucking not!”
“No.” She turned to him and put a hand on his arm. “Let me go.”
His eyes were wide and crazed with fear. “Carys—”
“I have to go,” she said. “This is what I’m supposed to do, remember?”
He shook his head. “No.”
“Please.” She felt them start to drag her away, and she sent one last look to Lachlan before she went with Macha’s servants. “Don’t fight them, f’anwylyd. That’s what she wants. Put the sword away, my darling. Let me go.”
Lachlan’s eyes went wide, and he froze. “Seren?”
Nêrys, I am shifting. She cannot—
Stop. Seren’s mental voice was firm.
Peace settled over Carys’s body.
Wait.
Carys whispered to Cadell, We will tell you when it is time.
The two men took her by the arms, dragging her up to Macha’s altar. She slipped in the mud and nearly fell, but they lifted her, carrying her up and over fallen humans that Carys forced herself to ignore.
She ignored the tug of her heart as she left Duncan and Lachlan behind her.
Gods old and new, protect them, Seren whispered in her mind.
The rain continued to fall, and the waves of dark magic that had streamed from the hillsides up to the gash in the sky had turned to more of a trickle than a flood.
The men flung Carys onto the altar, and she fell to her knees on the grassy knoll.
Macha stood over her, glaring down her nose.
“Epona’s daughters.” Macha sneered. “What exactly do you think you’re doing?”
Carys looked up, and as she did, the Morrígan’s gaze fell on the glowing gold collar around Carys’s neck. “No!”
Macha ripped the rag from Carys’s head, and twin visions swam in front of her eyes.
The young social media sensation, still glowing as if untouched by the rain.
The wounded goddess, blood pouring from an empty eye socket.
“You’re hurt, Morrígan.” Carys managed to get to her feet. “We can see your wounds.”
“You interfering bitches,” the Morrígan sneered. “You think you can stop me?”
“No.” Carys shook her head. She looked over the crowd, a jumble of mortals and magic drenched in rain.
Far from a fearsome crowd, the humans still shuffling around at the top of Cley Hill looked cold and wet and tired. They didn’t look angry. Just a little disappointed and confused.
And bored.
Nêrys. I see you.
Carys had to force her eyes to remain on Macha even though she longed for the safety of her dragon’s presence.
“You can’t win.” Carys looked up at the red gash in the sky. It was starting to close as the dark magic that fed it thinned and dissipated.
“I have already won!” Macha threw out her arms. “Look at my Fianna come to serve me!”
“All these people?” Carys stood. “You think they’re your Fianna?” She shook her head. “They’re just regular people, Macha. They just want something to believe in.”
You’re provoking her. Is that wise, Professor?
Oh, now you know what a professor is?
“Most of them are already leaving.” Carys pointed at the people walking down the hill in groups, following the footpath back to the village, returning to their cars or taking shelter from the rain in the forest below. “Look.”
The goddess watched the humans walk away, and the crows over her head circled and called.
She is growing angry. I hope you know what you’re doing.
Carys kept talking in what Laura called her “professor voice.” “They didn’t really believe in you, Macha. Modern humans want something to distract them, and you gave them that.”
The internet worshippers left next. Carys saw them and their buzzing blue and pink lights heading toward the back of the hill where the downhill path started. The rain was too heavy to keep their phones out, and Macha had stopped dancing naked.
Without the feedback from their live streams, they quickly lost interest in the woman on top of the hill.
“They will come back!” Macha spun back to Carys. “You can’t keep up the rain all night.”
Carys sighed. “Morrígan, this isn’t the Shadowlands. By the time you dry out, they’ll be distracted by something else.”
“What?” The Morrígan threw up her arms. “What could possibly match the thrill of the goddess of war?”
Cadell, Seren whispered. Now.
With a roar and a great crack of thunder, Cadell took his true form in the Brightlands, and a dragon spread its wings over Salisbury Plain.