Cate Tiernan - Night's Child

Instantly Morgan again sent the pain to Iona's ear with Ciaran's dark words, Iona shrieked even louder, curling up as if to get away from the agony. Sky moved closer to Morgan- Iona couldn't hold her back any longer, Iona was on her knees on the grass, both hands pressed to her ear.

Morgan counted to twenty slowly, then she released her. "You are a joke," she said with unnatural calmness. "Do not make me ask again. Hunter Niall."

Iona sat up again, holding and rubbing her head, her bony face marred by hatred. "Haven't you figured it out yet, Morgan of Belwicket? I made the ferry go down. I did it, made that wave. I took the ferry." Her eyes were glittering with an unnatural brightness, and Morgan began to believe that twenty years of fury and resentment had made Iona insane. "And I created a bith dearc that opened above the water. I took Hunter. Poor thing, he was actually trying to swim to shore when I sucked him through it."

Morgan shook, rocked to the core at the idea of what Hunter had gone through. "You? How could you possibly do that?" she got out. Iona smiled coyly, still looking like a wreck but starting to enjoy her own story. "With his true name. I have Hunter's true name."

No! No, no, no. Morgan tried to hold back her panic, knowing Iona would sense it, but she could feel the ragged edges of fear reaching for her. To know something's true name was to have ultimate power over it. Total control, in every way. Morgan had learned Ciaran's true name arid had used it to stop him for good. How could Iona have learned Hunter's?

"Years ago I met a witch named Justine Courceau," Iona went on, as if reading Morgan's question on her face.

Justine-the woman who had collected names-the woman whom Hunter had once kissed. Hunter had told Morgan that Justine had been bitter when he had made it clear nothing would never happen between them, but… that couldn't have been enough of a reason to go along with Iona's scheme. And besides, Justine hadn't known Hunter's true name.

"She hated Hunter and had spent years searching for his true name," Iona went on. "She finally found it using a bith dearc to speak to the dead. I offered to buy it from her. The silly woman wouldn't sell it." Iona's mouth crooked upward in a horrible mockery of a smile. "So I killed her. And took her soul-her power-for myself. With her power joined to mine, I was unstoppable. I was my father's daughter. And I wanted you to suffer. I wanted to cause you pain-so I created the bith dearc and stole Hunter from you with his true name." Iona stopped, wiping the disgusting glee from her face and attempting to look more in control. She laughed. "How does that make you feel?"

Oh, Goddess, Morgan thought in horror. Now she understood why Iona was oddly strong. She had taken someone's soul, absorbed her power. Who knew if she had even stopped at Justine? Iona was power mad, but the corruption of souls- of the power-was eating away at her, Morgan realized, Iona had gained power, but the power was killing her and destroying her. An icy hand clenched around Morgan's heart as she realized that Iona might have taken Hunter's soul, too. Morgan's knees started trembling, and she prayed it didn't show. A thin, cold line of sweat had started at the back of her neck and was snaking slowly down her spine. She felt surrounded by death and horror and hatred, and all she could think of was Hunter. Hunter, Hunter. Please don't let that have happened to him. She swallowed carefully and kept an iron grip on her self-control.

"Iona, where is Hunter?" she repeated flatly-staring at the shaking, weak witch huddled at her feet.

"Oh, no, he isn't dead. No, no, that would have been too quick, too easy. Hunter's been alive all this time." Iona imparted this information as if sharing a delicious secret. "Can you imagine? You grieved like a widow for all these years. And he's alive! If you call his existence living."

Oh, Goddess, she's insane. Goddess, please help me. Please get me through this. Hunter's alive.

Sky stepped forward next to Morgan. She grasped Morgan's elbow. "Where is he?" Sky demanded. Morgan was grateful-it gave her a minute to pull herself together. Finally she knew for sure. Hunter was alive. A dull throb started in her chest, and she felt the warm, heavy stickiness of blood flowing.

Iona cackled. "On an island," she said triumphantly. "An island cloaked in fog and rain, where no one goes. An island where nothing grows, nothing lives, and every day is exactly the same as the day before it. Hunter has been there, suffering, all this time, since I pulled him there through the bith dearc. Because of you and what you did to my family."

"Alone on an island?" Morgan asked, clearing her throat and strengthening her voice. Alone for sixteen years on an island. Surely he was mad by now. The thought of her beloved Hunter, her muirn beatha dan, going through such unimaginable torment for sixteen years almost knocked her to the ground.

"No," Iona said, surprising her. "There are a few other witches there, those who had angered the MacEwans through the years. I don't keep track of them. Why bother? They are nothing."

"Tell us how to get there," Sky said, her voice like stone. "Or I will gouge your eyes out and feed them to what's left of your dogs." Her tall, slender frame was rigid with tension, her hands clenched at her sides. Her face was inscrutable, still, her black eyes piercing.

Iona blinked. Morgan felt Moira step back.

Iona seemed to think for a few moments. "North," she said, then smirked. "In the ocean."

Morgan let every ounce of menace rise up in her. She gave full rein to every hateful thought, every desire she'd ever had for retribution. Malignancy welled up inside her, and she let it flow outward toward Iona. It was grotesque, the antithesis of everything she had worked toward in her life. It was darkness, it was against the Wiccan Rede, it was power and threat and bleakness and a complete absence of love or life or hope.

When it reached Iona, an invisible miasma of the worst of human expression, she recoiled and started to gag, grabbing her throat with one hand, bracing herself against the stone wall. Her burning eyes seemed to start from her head; her tongue looked swollen.

Morgan watched her writhe in pain. How far am I willing to go? She would go as far as it took.

Sky took Morgan's arm and shook her gently, and Morgan swallowed hard and with effort squashed the feelings rushing deep inside her and crumpled them into a tight, dark ball, scratchy and painful, that she pushed to the bottom of her consciousness. Looking into Sky's troubled eyes, she nodded, Iona coughed and sank to the ground, gasping. She was shaking, her eyes wide and frightened.

"Where is the island?" Sky repeated with quiet menace.

"Between North Uist," Iona said, her voice sounding strangled and thin. Her white hands were shaking, fluttering around her uncontrollably. "And the Isle of Lewis." She choked on a sob and turned her face away, one hand clutching at the grass.

"Are we just leaving her here?" Sky asked Morgan as they turned away.

Morgan paused. They didn't have a braigh-a chain used to bind witches. There was no time to deal with bringing Iona with them, constantly having to watch over her. "We'll send a witch message to the New Charter," she decided. "Have them send someone to come get her right away." Morgan glanced back at Iona, who was bent over, moaning. "She's in no shape to do much anytime soon," she said.

They walked to the car, and Moira was silent and sad next to Morgan. Morgan knew she had changed her daughter's image of her forever. What would that mean in the coming years? What would it do to Moira's ideas about magick and about love? As they headed down the hill, Morgan heard Iona moaning. But she kept walking forward, always forward, toward the car. To turn back would be to set in motion something beyond reconciliation.