Нора Робертс - Blood Magick

He paused, knocked back the rest of the whiskey. “And through all the screaming, the chanting, the pulsing of that thick air, I heard you.” He looked down at Branna. “I heard you. ‘Come back to me,’ you’d said, and what was in me wanted that more than all the rest. Needed that more than the blood I could already taste in the back of my throat.

“So I backed away, and the air, it got colder yet, and was so thick now it was like wet rags in my lungs. I was dizzy and sick and shaky. I think I fell, but I said the words, and I was out, I was back.”

He set the glass aside. “You need to know the whole of it, the full of it. How close I came. No more than a fingerbrush away from turning, and once turned, I would have turned again on all of you.”

“But you didn’t take it,” Iona said. “You came back.”

“I wanted it. Something in me was near to desperate for it.”

“And still you didn’t take it,” Connor pointed out. “And here you sit, drinking whiskey by the fire.”

“I would’ve broken trust with you—”

“Bollocks,” Branna interrupted and surged to her feet. “Bollocks to that, Finbar. And don’t sit there saying you came back for me, for you didn’t come back for me alone, or for any of us alone. You came back as much for yourself. For the respect you have for who you are, for your gift, and for your abhorrence of all Cabhan is. So bollocks. I didn’t let myself trust you in the beginning of this, and you proved me wrong time and time again. I won’t have it, I’m telling you, I won’t have you sit here after all that and not trust yourself.

“I’m going to heat up the stew. We all need to eat after this.”

When she sailed out, Meara nodded, rose. “That says it all and plainly enough. Iona, let’s give Branna a hand in the kitchen.”

When they left, Boyle went for the whiskey, poured more in Fin’s glass. “If you’re going to feel sorry for yourself, you’d do better doing it a bit drunk.”

“I’m not feeling sorry for myself, for fuck’s sake. Did you hear what I said to you?”

“I heard it, we all heard it.” Connor stretched out his legs, slouched down in the chair with his own whiskey. “We heard you fought a battle, inward and outward, and won it. So cheers to you. And I’ll tell you something I know as easy as I know my own name. You’d slit your own throat before you’d do harm to Branna, or to any one of us. So drink up, brother, and stop acting the gom.”

“Acting the gom,” Fin muttered, and because it was there, drank the whiskey.

And because they knew him, his friends let him brood.

He waited until they were all in the kitchen, until everyone had taken a seat but himself.

“I’m grateful,” he began.

“Shut the feck up and sit down to eat,” Boyle suggested.

“You shut the feck up. I’m grateful and have a right to say as much.”

“So noted and acknowledged.” Branna ladled stew in his bowl. “Now shut the feck up and eat.”

He sampled some of the hearty beef and barley stew, felt it slide down to the cold still holding in his belly, and spread warmth again.

“What’s in it besides the beef and barley and potatoes?”

Branna shrugged. “There’s none of us here couldn’t do with a little tonic after this day.”

“It’s good.” Connor spooned some up. “More than good, so here’s another, Fin, advising you to shut the feck up.”

“Fine and well.” Fin reached for the bread on the dish. “Then I won’t tell you the rest of it, since you’re not interested.”

“What rest?” Iona demanded.

It was Fin’s turn to shrug. “I’ve shut the feck up, as advised.”

“I didn’t tell you to or so advise you.” Meara smiled sweetly. “I’m interested enough so you can talk to me.”

“All right then, to your interest, Meara, there were carvings on the walls in the cave. Old ones. Ogham script.”

“Ogham?” Connor frowned. “Are you sure of it?”

As it made him feel himself again, Fin ate more stew. “I’m speaking with Meara here.”

“Oh, give it over.” But Boyle laughed as he helped himself to the bread. “Ogham then? What did it say?”

Fin spared him a long, dry look. “My talents are many but don’t stretch far enough to read Ogham. But it tells us the cave’s been used, and as the script was high on the walls, and with magickal symbols here and there as well, very likely for dark purposes long before Cabhan’s time.”

“Some places are inherent for the dark, or for the light,” Branna speculated.

“What I felt there was all of the dark, like . . . a rooting place for it. The shadows moved like living things. And on the altar, as I was close enough to see, there were bones in a dish along with the cup of blood. Three black candles, and a book with a hide cover. Carved on it is the mark.” He touched his shoulder. “This mark.”

“So it goes back, the mark, before Teagan threw the stone and scarred Cabhan. Before Sorcha cursed him.” Iona angled her head. “A symbol of the demon in him? Or of his own dark places? I’m sorry,” she said quickly.

“No need.” Fin picked up his spoon again. “Near the book was a bell, again silver, with a wolf standing on its hind legs as a handle.”

“Bell, book, and candle, bones and blood. The symbol of Cabhan’s mark, the symbol of the wolf.” Branna considered. “So he had these things, symbols of what he became. Old things?”

“Very old, all but the candles. And they . . . made from human tallow mixed with blood.”

“Can it get more disgusting?” Meara wondered.

Connor gave her a pat. “I expect it can.”

“His tools,” Branna speculated, “perhaps passed down from father to son, or mother to son or daughter. Passed down to him, and then used for the dark. Though we can’t say if his sire didn’t dabble in such, or why he would’ve chosen the cave for his own.”

“He might’ve been a guardian,” Meara suggested. “Someone with power who guarded the demon or whatever it is, and kept it imprisoned.”

“True enough,” Branna agreed. “Whether or not Cabhan came from light or dark, or something between them, he made his choice.”

“There’s more,” Fin told her. “A wax figure of a woman, bound hand and foot with black cloth, kneeling as in supplication.”

“Sorcha.” Branna shook her head. “His obsession with her started long ago. But he could never bind her or bring her to her knees.”

“Nearly eight hundred years is a long time to hold an obsession or a grudge,” Iona pointed out. “I’d say it’s been madness that started long ago.”

“I’d agree.”

“And more,” Fin said again. “The figure had blood smeared on its belly, between its legs.”

Carefully, Branna set her spoon down. “She lost a child, early that winter. She miscarried, and was never fully well again. She had some terrible illness she couldn’t heal. Tearing pains in the belly.”

“He killed her child?” Even with centuries of distance, Iona’s eyes filled. “Inside her? Could he do that?”

“I don’t know.” Shaken, Branna rose, got wine for herself and brought the bottle to the table. “If she didn’t guard against it, in just the right way? If he found some way to . . . She had three children to tend to, and her husband off with the men of their clan. Cabhan hounding her. She may have given him some vulnerable spot to use, had a moment when she wasn’t fully vigilant.”

“We will be.” Fin touched a hand to hers. “We’ll give him nothing, and we’ll take all. This is yet more he must answer for.”

“She was grieving. You can hear her tears in her book when she wrote of the loss. Yes,” Branna said quietly. “He must answer for this, and for all.”