Devil's Shore (12 page)

I willed my magic to seep through my fingers to give my sisters strength, and I felt the echo of their own power, of their own shared blood. I raised our linked hands above our heads and shouted, “
Slanaitheoir, show yourself
!”

The wind blew from the dunes, carrying a wet, sour stench. He was near. Even louder we cried over the pounding surf, “
Slanaitheoir, show yourself
!”

The stench wafted over the dunes, filling our noses, filling our mouths. It crept down my throat and still we chanted, unabated, “
Slanaitheoir, show yourself
.”

The air beside the fire shimmered, and the outline of a man appeared, His skin the color and consistency of mud. Nellie’s hand grasped mine in panic but I forced calming magic into her palms. “
Just a few moments, more
,” I said to her in my mind. “
Hang on a few moments more.
”

Nellie seemed to have understood and continued to chant without faltering.

Slanaitheoir’s
skin lightened, his emerald eyes flashed with malice, with anger. His golden tunic shone in the moonlight.

“Don’t look at Him. Go,” I said under my breath. “Now.”

As instructed, Caroline and Nellie dropped my hands. I commanded the wind from across the water to blow the sand into
Slanaitheoir’s
face as Caroline and Nellie slipped into the darkness, away from
Slanaitheoir
, away from danger.

When I heard the rumble of Conor’s truck as it drove away from the beach, I snapped my fingers and the wind died down.

“Who are you to summon me?”
Slanaitheoir
roared.

“I am the Devlin witch and I will summon you at my will.”

“That violates the Agreement, the Agreement you Devlins hold so dear.”

Although blood roared in my ears, I forced myself to remain outwardly calm. I walked over to Him, my head held high, without deference, without fear. “It is you who crossed water to possess a child outside the chain. It is you broke the Agreement first, and so it is you who will pay the price.”

His hand, His hand still the color of mud, grabbed both of my wrists. The skin, like molten iron, burnt my flesh. “Sweet Orla, all alone. Shall I tell you how I will fuck you, how each of my brethren will fuck you? Shall I tell you how I will take you underground and tear you limb from limb and feed your bones to our dogs? Shall I, sweet Orla?”

“I am not afraid of you. I despise you. You’re pathetic. You can’t handle a woman, a real woman, so you feed on a little child.” I spit into His face.

His vise-like grip almost crushed my bones, but I forced back the tears, blocked out the pain and plastered a smile on my face. “Oh, the mighty
Slanaitheoir
. Is that the best you can do?”

My words bounced off Him like a summer’s rain. He stared into my eyes, and I fought not to fall into their depths or be bewitched by their beauty. “Orla,” He crooned, “shall I tell you what it felt like to fling your mother into the Feale? Shall I tell you how I laughed as I ripped the flesh from your grandmother’s bones, about how I let each of my brethren drink from her wounds? Shall I, sweet Orla? I remember what your flesh tasted like.” With that, my old scar burned. “So succulent, so tender. There is nothing like a child’s flesh. But now you’re grown, so I expect it will be tougher. Yet still I will enjoy it as I gnaw on your bones. Oh, yes, sweet Orla, your end...your end will be far worse than your mother’s. With no Agreement to protect you, it will be far worse. But I will enjoy it so much more.”

I made a mistake then. I looked him full on in the face and in His eyes. Into His hypnotic eyes, I fell. I saw my sweet grandmother in the depths of the Mountain’s caves, her head thrown back in ecstasy, in pain, as she serviced the mud creatures. I felt one turn its burning eyes to me. It opened its mouth and a high-pitched chattering spilled from its lips, melting my brain, stealing my reason.

I felt myself fall to my knees as the chattering intensified. I felt myself give into it, lose myself to the sound. But one small part of my brain remained unyielding and it was that part that caused my mouth to form the words, “
Mna dorcha. Raven-haired Women of the Mountain, I call you. Come to me.
”

A gust of wind blew from the dunes, carrying with it the sweet scent of lavender.
Slanaitheoir
broke His gaze and looked over to the dunes. The chattering in my head stopped. I dug my toes into the cold sand, drawing forth from the earth the power I needed to twist my arms from His grip.

Thus released, I stepped back from
Slanaitheoir
. A line of women, black-haired and, like myself, clothed in crimson, now marched over the dunes. Generations of Devlin women, Devlin witches, stepped out of the dark. The first headed for me, her features indistinct in the moonlight. By some instinct, I reached out to the approaching woman and as her cold flesh touched my hand, I remembered the warm hand of my mother leading me up the aisle of the church. I felt the stiff crinoline of my communion dress scratch my thighs. I remembered looking up into her green eyes, and how she’d smiled down at me. “You are so beautiful, Orla,” she had said. “God bless you, sweetheart.”

In death, her eyes were as beautiful as in life, perhaps even more so, since the tinge of madness, the taint of sadness was gone. Now they held only love, only strength. My mother said nothing as she took my left hand. The next raven-haired beauty in the line of women was my grandmother, Roisin, and she took my right hand.

As the chain of women poured forth from the dark night, each took the hand of another and we formed a circle around
Slanaitheoir
. Impotent with rage, He stood in the center of our circle. The line of woman began to move, counter-clockwise. Slow at first, and silent. Power surged through our clasped hands and soon our pace quickened. One Devlin witch, one of the earliest in our line, broke forth with a shout. Soon others joined as more than a century of pain, of suffering, spilled from them. Sounds of anguish, of agony, ripped from their throats and soon my voice joined them.

The circle quickened until our feet barely touched the sand and we were a blur of red cloaks and long black hair. Our voices rained down upon
Slanaitheoir
and He seemed to shrink within himself with each shout.

My mother and grandmother let go my hands at the same time and pushed me into the center of the circle. I tumbled onto the cold sand, only feet away from
Slanaitheoir
. Despite the presence of the line of women, I felt unsure what to do next. As if sensing my uncertainty,
Slanaitheoir’s
lips curled back in a sneer.

I closed my eyes and stretched out my arms, willing the three elements under my command, air, water, earth, to coalesce within me. To guide me. I felt
Slanaitheoir’s
sour breath on my face, and snapped opened my eyes to find His sharp teeth ready to attack.

And my left hand, almost of its own accord, dug into the center of His chest. Once the thin layer of His golden skin was pierced,
Slanaitheoir
was mud. Scalding hot muck, like the floor of the Mountain’s forest after a downpour. Like quicksand, His innards surrounded my hand. In my ears, His roars blended with those of the Devlin witches. I stretched out my fingers within His chest cavity. And then I pulled.

Images of His depravity rushed into my brain. His obsession with Kathy, His constant attentions that addled her poor defenseless mind. The revulsion of my childhood fair hair and thick flesh. His release of my mother’s limp body and laughter as her bones sunk into the waters of the Feale. The way He’d wooed my grandmother and their pledging ceremony. His passion for each Devlin witch, the alternating love and torture of each generation roared past my mind’s eye. Generation after generation of depressing sameness, the script never varying. Beautiful young women led like lambs to their eventual slaughter. For what? To satisfy
Slanaitheoir
and His endless pool of need.

My knees nearly buckled as I reached near the end of the line of women who tethered me to this creature. Then I felt
Slanaitheoir’s
first transformation. How He’d risen from the muck of the depths of the Mountain’s caves, a formless bubble of energy. Unlike His brethren, He was somehow called to float out of the mouth of the cave. I shivered with Him as His form experienced its first cool Mountain breeze. It floated outside the cool canopy of trees and into a clearing. I felt His outer layer ripple as its first ray of sunlight warmed it. His curiosity as He encountered a small cottage, a line of clean laundry drying on a fine summer’s day flowed through me. Day after day, He lingered outside the small window of the cottage, observing its inhabitants as they lived their simple lives, and the yearning that grew in him ached in my chest too. I felt His burning jealousy, His envy, as He saw John Devlin steal a kiss from his lovely young wife.

I blinked as I came back to the circle. The roaring stopped. The women were motionless, their translucent green eyes staring at my feet. My hand was empty, covered only by a faint layer of dust. At my feet lay a small dry pile of earth.

A dark-haired woman brought me the coffee can of Mountain soil. Together we scooped His outward remains into the can and mixed it with the soil of the Mountain. But His energy, His spirit, began to roar through me. He began to coalesce within me, attempted to marshal my inner elements against me. My eyes rolled back in my head and I fell backward into my grandmother’s arms.

“We’re almost there, love,” she said. She guided my left hand into the can and buried my fingers in the soil. “Release Him, Orla. Release Him to the Mountain.”

My fingers burned. The Mountain soil, infused with the magic of generations, called forth its errant son. His essence spilled from me. My grandmother’s hands covered mine as together we forced Him out of my body and into His waiting tomb.

Afterward, my mother took the woolen cloak from my shoulders and Roisin carried me into the cold waters of the ocean, rinsing away any remaining residue of
Slanaitheoir
. My mother then wrapped my shivering body in the warmth of the cloak. Together they rode with me in the car home, ensuring my body did not succumb to exhaustion. Once I pulled into my driveway, my mother and grandmother vanished. Caroline emerged from the shadows, enveloped me in her warm arms, and led me up the stairs. I was home.

Chapter 11

When I could no longer ignore my constant nausea, my missed period, I sent the boys to Caroline’s for a sleepover. I bought several bottles of Declan’s favorite merlot, cooked two steaks, swiped lipstick across my lips, lit candles. I whispered into my poor cuckolded husband’s ear how much I wanted him, how much I missed him. And a month later, when I “discovered” our unplanned pregnancy, we both decided that our fourth child, our first daughter, must have been conceived the night I cooked the steaks. All memories of his vasectomy three years earlier were wiped from his memory, compliments of my accursed Devlin powers.

When Declan came home and announced Questronics had purchased the electronics factory outside of Kilvarren and asked him to run it, my acting skills were again put to good use. “I’m not sure I want to leave,” I told Declan. “The boys are settled in their new school and I love it here now, and God knows I don’t want to move to Kilvarren, of all places.”

Declan begged, pleaded with me, and being the good wife that I was, I of course relented. Within three months, the Sayville house was packed, we had moved into a temporary rental outside Kilvarren and the builders had started on our new house. Our new house on the Mountain.

Now that I accepted my powers, I also accepted my fate as a Devlin witch, which included the Mountain and the remnants of the Five Families who lived in its shadow. I was a Mountain woman. That was my destiny and I embraced it now.

Declan and I built our house on the other side of the Devlin holding, about a mile from my mother’s old cottage, with gorgeous views of the valley below. The River Feale was on the other side of the Mountain and not within the house’s view.

The Griffin girl who’d rented my mother’s cottage moved back to England. I refurnished it and used it as my office, where I held regular “office” hours during which those who shared the blood could come to me for help. I’d found my mother’s and grandmother’s manuals and the knowledge came to me. The healing teas, the use of “sight.” I was there again for my people, but made it known that, absent emergencies, the Five Families were not to come to my home or approach me with requests when I was out and about in the town. I’d be their witch only on my terms. They were so grateful to have a Devlin woman back among them, only the real old-timers grumbled about the change in protocol.

After the birth of our daughter, Rosemary, who despite being seven weeks early was surprisingly robust, I began to hold yoga sessions. They were popular both among my Five Families brethren and those new families who’d moved into the area to work at the Questronics plant.

So my life was full. The boys adjusted to Mountain living and, if anything, thrived. Declan’s star had risen as far as he wanted it to at Questronics and he was happy with his wife and children. Sometimes he wore a quizzical look as he watched little Rosemary dance in the rain, her hand raised in the air as if she commanded the raindrops to dance for her own enjoyment. Her blue-black eyes and black locks were so different from our redheaded sons. If sometimes he stared at me as if he knew something was wrong but wasn’t quite sure what, and his confusion broke my heart, well then I suppose, in the scheme of things, that was a small price to pay for my crimes.