“The book tells him,” Dayna said. “There’s a list inside; that’s how he knows. We have to find it.”
“She said find it before he does,” Meiner said slowly. “Which means he doesn’t have it. How did he know to kill the first two?”
Dayna frowned. “Sam thinks he kills in cycles, which means…he keeps trying to repeat the list. Like…he remembers some of it, but…maybe just the first part?”
“Never mind all that. Does he have magic or not? Are we fighting another witch?”
They all turned to look at Cora, who’d just come down the stairs and was leaning in the kitchen doorway. She looked pale, and her blond hair was messy.
Brenna shook her head, staring down at her cards, which she’d laid over the entire end of the kitchen table. “Certainly not. Masculine energy all over this spread.”
Grandma King snorted. “Of course there is.”
Bronagh took a moment to catch Cora up on everything, and the others went back to silently studying their books.
After a long moment, Reagan passed her book to Dayna. “I wasn’t sure about this, but…do you think it’s similar?”
Dayna took the book gingerly and laid it flat on the table. The pages were very old, and they crackled beneath her fingertips. The symbol Reagan had pointed to in the center of the page was a small square with four other squares inside.
“Yeah, I saw this one on the wall.”
“It symbolizes the god Lugh, associated with the law. The druids had their own courts, and they’d carve that symbol into the earth to invoke the god’s wisdom.”
The kitchen was utterly silent as the witches turned to look at the tapestry above the table. The god Lugh was depicted with what looked like a mini sun in one hand and a gavel in the other. Meiner could see the same realization dawning on all of them. “The woman who died,” Dayna finally said, a little breathless. “She was a judge.”
There was another deep silence, punctuated by the shuffling of Brenna’s cards. Then Bronagh muttered faintly, “Someone’s stained Lugh,” and reached up to fuss at the oily stain near the god’s left foot.
“So…what? Does this have something to do with the law? Someone with a grudge?”
“Dayna, what was it you said the dream-Cernunnos said to you?” Brenna paused in her shuffling.
“‘The black one is coming.’” Dayna shuddered.
“The black one,” Brenna mumbled. “Sure and that does ring a bell. Reagan, give me that.”
Reagan looked surprised, but she handed the book over without question. Brenna flipped through page after page, licking her finger every now and again. Cora was looking gradually more irritated. Finally Brenna paused near the middle of the book.
“Found it.”
The chapter featured a painting of a weathered stone temple, rounded, with pillars on both sides. Above the doorway hung a golden plaque. Meiner recognized the shape etched into the plate, the complex patterns of lines inside the circle. It was missing some of the sharper lines at the edges, but it was unmistakably the Butcher’s symbol.
Dayna glanced over at Meiner, eyes wide, and Meiner knew she was thinking of the stone ruins in the vision. It was hard to tell from the drawing, but it might be about the same size.
“What does it say?” Cora’s voice climbed with excitement. They’d all crowded in now, and her shoulder pressed against Meiner’s. Meiner was about to lean away and shoot her a dark look when she caught sight of Dayna’s irritated expression. She shouldn’t feel a thrill at that, she knew, but it was a bit gratifying. She inched sideways, closer to Dayna.
There was a caption under the picture.
The temple of Carman, a witch who invaded Ireland with her three sons, Dubh (the black one), Olc (evil), and Calma (valiant).
There was silence for a moment as everyone took in the picture, and then Cora said, “Carman, as in, the village of Carman?”
Brenna continued reading.
“‘She was locked away when she tried to take over Ireland, by the gods Lugh, Bé Chuille, the Dagda’”—she poked a finger at the tapestry each time, finding the corresponding gods—“‘Crichinbel…’ Hm, these last two aren’t on the tapestry.”
This time it was Dayna inching closer to Meiner, practically reading over Meiner’s shoulder, which was just as distracting, but in an entirely different way. Half of her was concentrating on an illustration of Carman—a dark-haired woman clad in black, electric currents of power crackling around her—the other was distracted by the fact that Dayna’s perfume was distinctly citrusy.
“‘She died after being locked away, and they buried her,’” Faye was reading over her shoulder now, “‘trapping her spirit in the grave.’”
“The bitch isn’t even from here. She’s from Athens.” Cora folded her arms across her chest, frowning. “Is that all we’re up against, then? A witch with a chip on her shoulder and a couple of dodgy blokes? Big deal.”
Faye frowned. “Maybe. But look at the bottom. There seems to be some debate if she was goddess or mortal.”
“If she’s a god, her sons are, too.” Meiner forced her attention back to the page, even though Dayna’s hair was now tickling her bare shoulder as Dayna leaned over to peer at the book.
Faye shook her head. “It says Carman’s dead, though. Buried in a tomb somewhere near Wexford. The brothers were banned by a spell, cut off from Ireland as long as there was water around it.”
Bronagh sighed and sank down into the seat next to her daughter, picking up her teacup. “Perhaps the magic doesn’t see it that way anymore.”
They stared at her, waiting.
“That great bloody bridge they keep pouring thousands into, the Celtic Crossing or whatever they’re so determined to call it,” she grumbled. “Ireland isn’t completely surrounded by water anymore, not really. It’s connected to England.”
Meiner’s mouth dropped open. “Wait, the Butcher’s victims started showing up—”
“As soon as the bridge went up. Then he could enter Ireland,” Reagan said, and collapsed into the chair on the other side of her. “Damn.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CORA
“Again.”
Slowly Cora opened her eyes.
The forest made the midday sky dark, the trees ominous, towering shapes above them. The glowing coals of the fire between them painted Grandma King’s weathered face in orange and black. She looked like some kind of forest wraith, crouched beside the shallow glass basin of rust-red liquid.
Cora let out a heavy sigh. “We’ve already done it six times.”
“And now you’ll do it a seventh.”
She stood across from Grandma King, in the center of the crude hexagram she’d constructed from fallen branches. Smoke rose from the pit between them, filling her throat and nostrils, making the headache pounding behind her brow a hundred times worse.
Her arms ached from the forest of tiny slashes she’d created with her dagger along the insides of her arms. She kept them on one small spot on both her wrists so they could be covered.
Blood trickled down her palms and onto her fingers. She’d protested this part of the practice initially. Why did a test run need real blood? But Gran had given her a scornful look that had shut her up fast.