The Morrigan's Curse (12 page)

“I KNEW I HIT
him,” Griffyn exclaimed, picking up the knife. “But where'd he go? There's no blood trail past this point.”

Addie stared at the blood—on the ground, on the knife—and felt sick.

Madoc had a tight grip on her arm. “How'd he get away?”

“Is there a brownie hole?” Kel asked. “The kid said he could travel by brownie holes. That was how the Morder guy found me, to tell me where Addie was being held. It's some kind of spell the Dulacs discovered.”

Griffyn started kicking the garbage cans as if the boy might be hiding inside one.

“I claimed protection for him!” Addie yelled at Griffyn. “You had no right to hurt him!” Or kill him. The boy had gotten away, but did he survive a knife wound to the back? Addie shivered, overcome with worry for a total stranger. She couldn't even remember what he'd said his name was. Jack, maybe?

“How could you have a Transitioner as your vassal?” Madoc demanded. “Especially one from the Dulac clan?”

Addie shook her head, bewildered. She didn't know how she could've acquired a vassal, nor could she pinpoint the exact moment she'd known he was one. She'd wanted to hit him with her defensive spell as soon as she saw him, but she hadn't been able to. When Kel yelled for Bran, Addie had been afraid for the boy. And when he grabbed her hand on the stairs, she'd known he was trying to lead her to safety.
I should have gone with him when he asked me the first time.

“You didn't fall for his lies, did you, Addie?” Kel asked.

She turned on him. “How much of our conversation did you listen to?”

“All of it,” Kel declared. “And a good thing I did! He was trying to kidnap you.” Then Kel spilled everything he'd heard the boy say. “Addie wasn't buying it,” he finished. “Not until he showed her something from the Carroway house, and then she let her emotions get the better of her.” He looked at her with sympathy, like he only had her best interests at heart. “Addie, you said yourself that you saw him in the Dulac building and recognized his mark.”

Addie glared at Kel tearfully. The letter
could
have been taken from the Carroway house before the fire. But how had the Transitioner known about Dale's head wound and the baby? She desperately wanted him to have been telling the truth.

“He shouldn't have been able to enter the house,” Madoc
insisted. “My wards repel both magical invasion and physical intruders! No one can enter who hasn't been invited.”

“The boy
must
be
Adelina's vassal,” Bran said. “If he was bonded to her, the wards wouldn't have recognized him as an intruder. Invitation was magically implied.”

“How could he become her vassal without her knowing about it?” Kel demanded.

“By swearing himself to the head of her family,” Bran said. Then he looked at Madoc. “Which means she's not the only Emrys left.”

Addie felt a flutter of emotion. Was Evangeline really alive?

Madoc shook her again. “What do you know about the brownie holes?”

“Nothing!” He didn't need to be so rough. It was the truth. She knew
nothing
about them. But now that she'd seen the boy put his arm into one—seen its opalescent ripple in reality—she was able to spot the one hanging in midair behind the trash cans.
Can I actually get into it?

“There's a brownie hole in her bedroom,” Kel said. “The boy stuck his arm into it, and Addie said she couldn't see his arm anymore. For all we know, there could be an army of Dulacs with him. In fact, that kid might still be here, and we just can't see him.”

That was a horrible thought. Addie looked at the blood on the ground, imagining an invisible boy lying there, hurt, maybe dying.

“If there was an army of Dulacs with secret access to this island, we would already be overrun,” Bran said. “And the Dulacs would not have sent a mere boy to lead their attack.”

“Nevertheless, the security of the island is compromised.” Madoc cursed soundly. “I
like
this house.”

“They know where we are!” Ysabel called from the doorway.

“Yes, we realize that,” Madoc said, dragging Addie away from the brownie hole and back into the house. “We'll move immediately.”

“But now we know where they are, too.” Ysabel was holding up a handful of papers. “The boy dropped these in Addie's room. They show where he came from.”

Madoc passed Addie off to Griffyn. No one was going to let go of her, she realized, for fear she'd disappear just like the Transitioner. Madoc took the papers from Ysabel and leafed through them. Addie glimpsed maps of the northeastern United States. One of them had locations circled in red and a straight line drawn between the coast of Maine and someplace in the middle of either New York or Pennsylvania. Addie couldn't tell which without a closer look. Madoc frowned at Addie. “Can a brownie hole extend this great a distance?”

“I told you, I don't know anything about them,” she said angrily. “Ask Kel. He heard what I said.”

Bran took the maps from Madoc's hand, examining them thoughtfully even though the geography of America was unfamiliar to him. “I don't think the Dulacs are involved,” he
said finally. “Or any other powerful clan. This was a clumsy attempt to reach Adelina by someone with few resources—most likely the older sister. We only ever had the half-breed's word she was dead, and he was a proven traitor.”

Addie trembled from head to toe.
The older sister.
Addie had buried Evangeline already in her mind. But she was alive.
I am not the last.

“Adelina is valuable as a key to the Eighth Day Spell,” Madoc pointed out. “Any number of people might want to take her from us.”

“But who else would send an underage boy to do the job?” Bran replied. “A boy Adelina was compelled to protect? If he's a vassal to her sister,
this
is where she's located.” He stabbed the end of the red line on the map with his finger. “Furthermore, she's repeatedly tried to observe Adelina through scrying, and given the failure of this abduction attempt, may do so again.”

“We'd better leave the island at once,” Madoc said. “Everyone should collect any personal items they want; we won't be returning.” He looked pained.

“Very well,” said Bran. “But we're also going to prepare for another scrying attempt.” He waved the handful of maps. “This gives us exactly the information we need.”

Addie's heart sank. Her position as ally and pupil had been precarious at best. But with her older sister resurrected from the grave, Addie had the feeling that she'd just been demoted to
hostage
.

It happened on the plane after they'd left the island—a prickling sensation that raised the hairs on the back of her neck and on her arms. Most people would never notice the touch of scrying, but Addie and her siblings had been trained by their father at a young age to be on guard against spies.

She'd hoped there would be no more attempts. There hadn't been any since the day before yesterday when Bran had sent his electrical bolt through the spell connection and the boy said they'd been
zapped
. Maybe Evangeline, if that was who it really was, had been too cautious to try again. But Bran was right. After her vassal failed to rescue Addie and was wounded—
please not killed!
—Evangeline probably couldn't resist. Addie was going to have to block the spell the same way she'd done before, this time for her sister's protection instead of her own.

The trick was to do it without giving herself away. They hadn't tied Addie to the chair, but she was under close observation. She didn't shut her eyes or give any outward sign of concentrating, but turned her head to gaze out the plane window at the clouds.
A sea of clouds,
she thought.
I am completely surrounded by impenetrable clouds.

Unfortunately, she wasn't subtle enough to fool Ysabel, who was seated beside her and watching her like a hawk. “She's casting a spell,” Ysabel declared. “A blocking spell, I think.
Someone's scrying for her now.”

A hand grabbed Addie's ponytail and yanked her head back painfully. Griffyn, of course. Leaning over her seat, he placed one of his knives against her throat, the way he'd done before. Her concentration broken, she glared at him balefully.
We both know you won't do it.

He grinned at her, as if guessing her thoughts. “Father said no lasting damage. But that leaves me a number of options.”

Ysabel held up a series of signs, one at a time, for the person on the other end of the scrying spell to see—white sheets of paper with simple directions written in thick black marker.

What they wanted Evangeline to do.

What they would do to Addie if Evangeline did not follow their instructions precisely.

Bran crossed the plane to stand over them with his Spear. He motioned Griffyn away and addressed Addie. “You understand, we must show her that we mean what we say.”

He said it like he regretted what was to come, but Addie didn't believe him. He enjoyed this. “I really didn't expect anything else,” she told him bitterly.

For pride's sake—and for the sake of the sister who was watching—she tried to be tough. She really did. But when Bran lowered the Spear, it only took about five seconds for her to start screaming.

THERE WAS A WEIGHT
on his chest, and at every breath pain lanced through his body. Eventually Jax was driven to force his eyelids open and investigate.

A pair of black, glittery eyes in a smushed-up face peered back at him anxiously.

“Now you turn up,” Jax whispered.

Stink tilted his head and rotated his ears.

“Get off him,” growled a voice from nearby. A hand swiped at Stink, and the brownie leaped from Jax's chest to the headboard of the bed. Immediately, the weight hindering his breathing disappeared, although the pain didn't lessen much. A man with carrot-colored hair leaned into Jax's field of vision. This man's face usually wore a relaxed and rather stupid smile, so it was strange to see Michael Donovan looking angry.

“Awake, are you?” Donovan crossed his arms. “Usually,
when an associate appears on my doorstep with a knife wound, I patch him up and no questions asked. But
usually
, said associate turns up on the
doorstep
. He doesn't fall out of thin air in front of my daughter. So, you wanna tell me how you landed at Tegan's feet in this condition?”

Jax licked his dry lips and tried to process the question. On one hand, it was a relief to have Donovan mad at him, because it suggested he wasn't dying. On the other hand, it was mind-boggling for Donovan—thief, con man, and all-around nuisance—to act like a protective father.
Did I really show up at Tegan's feet? How embarrassing.

“I didn't mean to,” he croaked. A flurry of activity in the doorway caught Jax's attention: a flash of orange hair, a grunt, and the sound of wrestling. There was an eavesdropper to this conversation.
Two
eavesdroppers, Jax bet. “I was traveling by brownie magic and got dumped off with someone who would help me. I didn't, uh,
specify
Tegan. I'm just grateful that”—he tried to swallow, but his mouth was like a desert—“that your family was willing to—” Jax couldn't stand it anymore. “How hurt am I?”

Donovan reached for a plastic water bottle, the kind with a straw, and maneuvered it into Jax's reach. “Drink,” he said gruffly. “I had a healer come. Not the most talented guy in the world, but he does his best, and I helped stitch you up. You were lucky the knife missed all the
important stuff.” Donovan shook his head. “You lost a lot of blood, though.”

Jax sucked on the straw while Donovan held it for him, pausing only to ask, “Did you call Riley?”

“Call him? It's the eighth day, Jax. We can't call him.”

It was the same day, then. Good. Jax tried to raise himself on one elbow, and intense pain sliced through his torso. He gasped. Donovan put the water bottle aside. “Easy there. You're healing, best as my associate could do, but you need to rest. Except first, you're going to tell me what happened.”

Jax told him the story as concisely as possible: how he'd used the brownie tunnels to reach Evangeline's sister and how Stink's desertion had left him unable to use the tunnel magic effectively. Stink ran up and down the headboard, chittering loudly like he was making excuses. “I thought the tunnels would take me to Riley,” Jax finished. “But I was too close to passing out to focus much.”

“You could use some tips on housebreaking. You made a lot of mistakes.”

Mindful of the fact that this man had probably saved his life, Jax didn't mention that he had no interest in housebreaking normally.

“Sleep,” Donovan ordered him. “The healing magic will keep workin' on you, but it takes time.” There was another commotion in the doorway, and Donovan frowned. “Hold on . . .” He left the room, and Jax heard a
whispered conversation in the hallway. “Okay, but just for a minute,” Donovan said finally.

Tegan slipped into the room, then hesitated and hung back near the door. Her twin brother Thomas popped in behind her, grinning from ear to ear. “Hey, Jax!” he said cheerfully. “That was awesome. You should've seen—” Donovan grabbed his son by the collar and hauled him out of the room, leaving only Tegan.

Jax wasn't surprised Thomas thought getting knifed was cool, but he
was
startled to see Tegan with her eyes and nose all red, like she'd been crying. Jax felt even more embarrassed—and a little sick to his stomach. He must've been in really bad shape to scare her enough to make her cry. Tegan didn't scare easily, and Jax had never seen her cry. Not even when that crazy Kin lord Wylit had threatened to use her as a human sacrifice.

“You need anything?” she asked from across the room.

He could use another drink of water, but he didn't want her giving it to him through the straw like he was a baby. “Move the water bottle closer?” he asked instead.

She peeled herself away from the wall and pushed a small table closer to the bed, making sure the water was close enough for him to reach without stretching. “Thanks,” he began. “I—”

“You were stupid,” she interrupted him angrily. “That was a really stupid thing you did. If you'd asked
me
—”

“You said you didn't want to be involved,” Jax
reminded her. “You hung up on me.” Tegan scowled, but didn't argue. “I had to try,” Jax went on. “It was our best shot of getting Addie away from them.”

“Yes, it was,” Tegan said. “But you did it
stupidly
. First of all, if you'd told Riley, he could've ordered your brownie to stay with you the whole time. If you'd brought Evangeline with you, she could've waited safely in the tunnel, completely untouchable by the Llyrs while your brownie found Addie. Then, all it would've taken was Evangeline sticking her head out and saying, ‘Come here,' and Addie would've gone with her
sister
without argument. Riley could've had his allies, the Morgans, ready to assault that island the instant you had the girl safely away. And this would all be
over
.”

Jax didn't know what to say. She was right.

Tegan threw up her hands and started pacing the room. “I didn't want to be involved,” she muttered. “It's not our kind of thing. But you're going to get yourself killed. You're making me rethink this . . .”

Jax watched her pace and argue with herself. He heard her say
I
and
me
, and something dawned on him that should have occurred to him long ago. He'd been told that talents always ran stronger in one gender than the other and that clans were run by the oldest member of the more talented gender. His cousin Sloane outranked her father because the Dulac talent was female dominated, just like female
sensitives were stronger than males. “You're in charge of your family,” he said, breaking into Tegan's tirade. “You're the Donovan clan leader.”

Tegan shot a look at Jax as she continued to pace. “I let Dad think he's in charge most of the time, 'cause it keeps him happy. But yeah, when it's an important decision,
I
make it.” She whirled around, hands on her hips, and glared accusingly at Jax. “We're not the kind of people who save the world!”

“But you already did, once,” Jax said quietly. Tegan had done her part on the pyramid to help defeat Wylit and repair the Eighth Day Spell.

“In case you haven't noticed, my father and brother aren't the sharpest tools in the shed,” Tegan snapped. “And now I'm going to have to risk their lives because you and Riley can't manage to rescue one stupid girl
or
save the world without help. Thanks a lot, Jax.” She stalked out of the room and, just before she closed the door, she stuck her head back in to say, “Jerk.”

Same to you.
That was his usual response, but Jax couldn't muster the sarcasm to say it. Because something else had finally dawned on him, and it was kind of a shock. Tegan was doing this for
him
. Just like she'd gone to New York to help rescue Billy—for
Jax's
sake, not Billy's.

And that was awkward, because Jax didn't like Tegan very much. Well, he admired certain qualities in her. She
was smart and brave; he trusted her at his back in a pinch; she always had a plan—and Jax would pound into dust anyone who tried to hurt her. But he didn't
like
her.

Right?

He wasn't aware of falling back asleep, only of Michael Donovan waking him. “Sorry, Jax. But we're driving you out to Riley instead of making him come here to get you. For some reason.” The last was said with a pointed glance over his shoulder and an irritated tone, so Jax guessed Tegan was issuing orders and her dad didn't like them.

Donovan was surprisingly gentle helping him out of bed and into one of Thomas's shirts. Jax didn't feel quite so weak or dizzy, and the pain had lessened. He was healing quicker than naturally possible, thanks to Donovan's “associate,” but it would still take time to recover. Billy's arm, after what had been a very bad fracture, had taken a week to heal completely even with Jax's Aunt Marian's magical assistance.

Stink scampered at Jax's feet instead of riding on his shoulder as they followed Donovan out of the bedroom. “Are we in your house in Pennsylvania?” Jax asked. Then he got a glimpse out a window and, spotting a familiar city skyline, realized they couldn't be.

“We borrowed an apartment outside New York City for the time being,” Donovan said.

“Borrowed, as in . . .” Jax wasn't sure how to finish his sentence. The Donovans had a strange concept of borrowing. This might be someplace they'd broken into, for all he knew.

“As in
borrowed
,” Tegan said sourly. “The owner knows we're here.” She was standing in the middle of a cramped living room, surrounded by over a dozen tanks of propane, stacked cases of bottled water, batteries, and canned goods.

“You guys preparing for the apocalypse?” Jax asked.

Thomas grinned proudly. “Just a little side business. After the Impossible Hurricane, we were getting fifty dollars for a carton of bottled water!”

Jax looked at Tegan, but she stared at the floor and wouldn't meet his eyes. It was the first time he could ever recall her looking ashamed of her family. “C'mon,” she said. “It's going to take a couple hours to get there, even with no traffic.”

Riley and Evangeline must be worried sick by now,
Jax thought, checking his Grunsday watch. It was ten thirty at night, and they weren't going to make it back before Evangeline disappeared. But he could hardly complain about the Donovans taking too long at fetching a healer, stitching up his wound, and giving him time to rest before driving him home. He thanked them again and made a point of not wondering whether the car they put him in was stolen or not.

They did not, in fact, make it to the cabin before the end of Grunsday. Stink, who'd been dozing on Jax's lap, shook himself awake just before midnight and leaped through a brownie hole. Donovan pulled the car over as soon as the transition occurred and got out of the vehicle to call Riley. He stood outside of their hearing, although Thomas rolled down the window trying to eavesdrop. After a few minutes, Donovan got back in the car and handed the phone to Jax. “He wants to talk to you.”

Jax glanced at the twins, wishing they weren't going to overhear him getting yelled at. “Hey, it's me,” he said.

“Jax.” There was a long, long moment of silence, and then Riley asked, “Why didn't you tell me what you were going to do?”

“I didn't know if it would work,” Jax said. “And I was afraid you'd order me not to try it. The flaws in my plan have already been pointed out to me.” He looked at Tegan. “But go ahead and yell if you're going to. Don't make me wait for it.”

“I'm not going to yell.” Riley sounded very subdued.

Jax glanced at Donovan, wondering what he'd told Riley and why he'd left the car to do it.
I had a closer call than Donovan let on,
Jax thought.
That's why he's not acting like himself and why Riley's not cursing and yelling and calling me an idiot. That's why Tegan was crying. I scared them all.
“I'm sorry,” he said.

Riley sighed. “Based on what Donovan told me, I
think I already know the answer to this question, but I gotta ask—you don't know where Evangeline is, do you?”

Jax sat up in alarm. “Ow—what do you mean? Isn't she with you?”

“No,” said Riley. “She took the Land Rover late this afternoon without telling anyone, drove off, and didn't come back.”