Patricia Briggs: Strange Brew

Morrigan's power flowed through me, cleansing me, pushing all the blackness from my body. If light could be black, then that's what came out of me, a flood of bright, shining black light. And it felt as though it was trying to rip me apart as it went.

When it was over Michael was there, his arms around me, helping me to my feet.

"There's my whiskey-eyed girl again," he muttered, and pushed my hair back from my face.

The rustle of feathers made me turn in his arms. Morrigan reached out and took his wrist in her hand, the hand that was still covered in blood from the wound in my chest. I heard Michael suck in his breath, and I glanced down at my own skin. The wound from Gage's knife was gone, healed in whatever Morrigan had done to purge the black magic from my body. She pulled her hand from Michael's wrist, and the gash Gage had made there was gone as well. Morrigan held her hand out to me, her fist closed. It took a moment to understand what she wanted. I held my hand out and she dropped a large uncut ruby into it.

"Made from your blood, and his," she explained.

"Thank you," I said, and closed my fist around the stone, holding it up to my heart.

"Goddess," Devlin spoke up from behind us, "what do we do? She's killed twelve humans."

Morrigan turned to him. "They were evil and they would have killed you. Their altar is stained with the blood of innocents and there would be more where that came from, had they lived. Do their lives truly mean so much to you?"

Devlin's face hardened. "It is not for us to decide the fate of humans."

"No," Morrigan said. "It is not."

In that moment, I realized that she had known. When she'd shown me what my magic could do, that I could stand against Edmund Gage and win, she had known what would happen.

"Why?" I asked.

Michael and my friends cast confused looks in my direction, but Morrigan understood my question.

"Because what happened here was necessary to help you become what you were created to be," she replied.

"Gage infecting me with his power, all these deaths, that was necessary to teach me how to control my magic?" I asked incredulously.

"You may not understand it now," she replied, "but one day you will."

"I pray that whatever you hoped to gain from this was worth their deaths and the nightmares that will haunt me," I said softly.

"If the lives of a dozen evil humans will make you into the warrior who will save millions of innocents then, yes, it is well worth it."

It seemed an easy thing for her to say. She didn't have to live with the nightmares of what I'd done here tonight. Then again , I thought as I regarded her cloaked in her own darkness, a war goddess must carry the burden of far worse things .

"There will be rumors," Devlin interjected. "If the High King were to find out—"

"If he takes issue with anything that's happened here," she said, "I will deal with him."

Devlin just nodded, and pulled Justine closer to him.

Morrigan turned back to me. "Dawn is approaching, and you must go. Rest today, but if I were you I'd put Venice behind me come sunset. Sara likely will not be too pleased to find her father dead, evil bastard though he was."

I nodded.

"Go with my blessing, my children," she said, and then she was just… gone.

I sighed and laid my head on Michael's shoulder, suddenly weary to the very marrow of my bones. All I wanted was a bath and the comfort of my lover's arms around me.

"Let's get you home, love," he said, and kissed my forehead.

"Home," I sighed. "Can we go back to England?"

"Of course," Michael replied softly.

"Sounds bloody marvelous to me," Devlin grumbled. "I've grown weary of this city."

Justine arranged her borrowed cloak more securely around her. " Oui ," she said, "I liked Venice much better when the most interesting thing about it was keeping up with what Lord Byron was doing."

"Isn't that the truth," I murmured as Michael swept me into his arms and carried me to the door.