CHAPTER ONE
DUBH
The best way to hunt a witch was to look for patterns of three.
Three stones set into a wild, overgrown path. Three chimneys sending twisting ribbons of smoke into a clear sky. Three gates before the inner sanctuary—each more heavily spelled than the last. Find the house of threes, and you’d find the coven.
Dubh had traveled for days. In fact, he’d almost driven past the place. His tourist map was filled with colorful pins at every stopover—Kiss the Blarney Stone! Visit the Irish National Heritage Park!—but this miserable little village didn’t warrant a mention. He’d blown past the welcome sign without a glance, almost continuing into County Wexford. Almost. Something had pulled at his insides as he’d reached the village limits, tugging painfully at his guts. He’d turned the rental car around and followed the sensation down a rambling back road that twisted endlessly through green fields, leading him to this driveway in the woods. And there it was. A farmhouse with three crooked chimneys, windows shuttered against the dark forest.
The witch hunter watched the house. There was something unnatural about how still he was, the type of stillness reserved for death, or very deep water. He set his back to one of the oak trees lining the driveway, an ashy cigarette hanging between two fingers. The ember burned orange in the darkness, sending a thin spiral of smoke trickling up. At his feet, spent filters scattered the ground.
He knew why he’d been called. There were too many witches here for one small town. They were gathering.
In his pocket his cell phone buzzed violently, and Dubh shut his eyes. He raised the cigarette to his lips and took a drag. In, burning his lungs, filling his insides with fire. Out, tipping his head back, blowing smoke onto the breeze. He knew who was on the phone.
It rang again.
His brothers were in town. Soon they’d be reunited. After years of faded recollections and fuzzy, half-dreamed memories, he hadn’t been sure they were real. And yet he did not wish to speak with them before it was time.
Eventually the phone went silent.
Dubh watched the house. Minutes passed. Flies buzzed around his head with the smoke, and his left arm ached. When he glanced down, four long scratches trailed along his forearm.
The women had all felt the same until now, a fleeting enjoyment. They’d stirred feelings in him, fire and righteousness. The way they stared at him, dark eyes, pale faces. Their hair caught in his fingers, their screams in his ears.
This morning had been enough to sate him temporarily, but he was never fully satisfied. He hadn’t known what he was looking for. Hadn’t remembered.
Until now.
There was a little witch in every woman, but not every woman was a witch.
This would be different. The power rolled off this house in waves. It raised the hairs on the back of his neck and sent goose bumps up both arms.
These witches would give him the first real fight in years.
He ran his tongue along the inside of his teeth, feeling the jagged edge of his right canine.
Not yet. He’d attend to the others first. His sword was ready; Witchkiller would taste blood again.
In a few weeks he’d return. Push his way through the middle gate, the one with the black iron that curved into sharp fangs at the top. Something to look forward to, to make the days go by faster.
He always saved the best for last.
CHAPTER TWO
DAYNA
It was two o’clock in the afternoon, in the middle of a particularly monotonous lecture on particle physics, and Dayna Walsh was about to have a panic attack.
It started the same way it always did. Some small shift in the air around her. Subtle, but enough to make her breath catch. Suddenly it was all she could think about.
Her chest tightened, and Dayna curled her fingers around the edge of the desk, leaning forward, concentrating furiously on the front of the room. A muscle twitched in her jaw, and she scowled at the whiteboard. Of course it would happen in the middle of class.
The OCD could get especially bad at school. With nothing to draw her out of her own head, it was easy to get caught in the obsessive spiral. To zero in on her breath, how it entered and left her body.
Mr. McCabe’s voice droned on, the marker squeaking across the surface of the whiteboard. Morgan Brennan’s acrylic nails clicked sharply on her phone as she shot off text after text. Dayna’s ex, Samuel, leaned over his desk beside her, dark hair falling over his eyes.
One breath in. Two. Three. Shit. Stop counting.
Dayna wrapped her fingers around the pendant on her necklace, letting the points of St. Brigid’s cross dig into her palm. The conversation with her father this morning had kicked it off, so if she ended up having a massive panic attack in the middle of the classroom, she had the reverend to thank for it.
Not here. Not here. Not here.
Her mind kept swinging wildly from what he’d said earlier—Your mother’s back in town, she’s finally coming home from camp—to her breathing. If she could just fixate on something else, like the second hand inching across the white clock face, or the cringe-inducing marker shriek on the board….
It was no good; her mind kept looping back.
Now she was forcing each breath, drawing it in, pushing it out. It felt unnatural. Wrong. Her chest ached, and the low buzz of panic surged, twisting her stomach.
Fiona Walsh had been at church camp for years; Dayna didn’t even remember what she looked like.
Even the mere thought of Camp Blood of the Lamb made her pulse stutter, and she shifted in her chair, trying to force herself to think of something, anything else.
In front of her, Mia Blake brushed dark hair over her shoulder, and Dayna made herself focus on the way her hair fell in waves halfway down her back. Her own hair was only the tiniest bit wavy. Maybe she should curl it….
God, this was stupid. And it wasn’t working.
She smoothed a hand over the base of her throat, breaths coming short and fast.
There was a soft hiss from beside her, and she glanced over. Sam was leaning sideways in his desk, a scrap of paper in one hand. She could make out his blocky writing from there.
Someone forget to tell Mr. M it’s the last day?
She grimaced at him, nodding. Every other teacher played games or watched movies the last day before summer, but Mr. McCabe decided on a lecture.
Sam tucked the note into his desk and glanced over at her again, brow furrowed. “You look pale,” he whispered. “You all right?”
Most definitely not all right. “I’m fine.”
The classroom dimmed suddenly, as if the sun had moved behind the clouds. But darker.
Dayna frowned, turning for the window. Beyond the green stretch of schoolyard the sky was speckled with black. It blotted out half the sun, a cloud of…what were they, bugs?
Murmurs started up around the classroom. Everyone was staring now.
“What is that?” Morgan Brennan shot out of her seat, her phone hitting the desktop with a thud. A second later someone cried, “Birds. They’re birds!”
As if the revelation had cleared her vision, she saw them. Flock was the wrong word for this, there were too many. It was an approaching storm cloud, casting the school into shadow.
Nobody moved as the birds drew nearer.
She could make out more every second. A blur of coal-black feathers and wickedly sharp talons.
They were impossibly close.