“In case you were wondering what we’ll be taking from you.” His eyes glittered. “Blood and bone, ash and soot. Your friends are on their way.”
She tried not to let the relief show on her face. He hadn’t noticed the subtle gap in his hexagram.
Slowly, she pressed her thumb against the tip of the bone, pricking the skin until she felt a drop of blood bead on the tip. Sometimes, blood magic was stronger. Yemi didn’t approve, saying it could lead to darker things, but she had little choice. She waited until he’d turned back to the field and then whispered a quick spell of protection.
“Sciath dom. Cosain dom. Please, Danu, hear me.”
Nothing. No familiar rush of power, not even a spark. Her stomach sank.
Her friends were coming, and they were about to walk into a trap. Dubh was right about one thing: the brothers would be able to see them coming. Dayna dragged in a shaky breath and clutched hard at the grass beneath her fingers. When she got the chance, she would have to use the bone dagger. But could she?
She tried to imagine the bone in her hand, throwing herself forward, plunging the jagged point into living skin.
Dubh paced toward the point of the star, and she saw him finger the hilt of his sword. “Try not to look so worried, witch. You won’t be the only one to die tonight, just the first of thousands. After she rises she’ll purge the land of the descendants of the Tuatha de dannan. All who wronged her will die in agony. The rest of your coven, for example. Maybe we’ll even save the white-haired witch for last,” he said, and he bared his teeth. “Not because she needs to die, but just for fun.”
Dayna’s fingers wrapped around the bone dagger, and she narrowed her eyes at Dubh’s back when he turned away. She remembered her words from the car ride—it seemed like an age ago—what she’d confessed to Meiner. Now she knew it was true.
She would kill for her coven. And he would be first.
CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX
MEINER
A fire had replaced the numbness. A burning in her chest that ached and pulsed, and Meiner slammed her foot down on the gas pedal, the car growling and rattling as it shot down the back roads. The wood-paneled station wagon in her rearview mirror did not fall behind; Bronagh was going just as fast.
When she found the brothers, she would make them pay for what they’d done. For killing her grandmother, for taking Dayna.
Dayna. The name repeated in her head with each beat of her pulse. Dayna, Dayna, Dayna.
They had her, were probably planning on sacrificing her. What had she said to Dayna last? She couldn’t remember her words, just the emotion behind them, the anger. Hot and irrational and misdirected. She hadn’t been mad at Dayna, and yet they’d fought. She’d seen the wounded look on the other girl’s face and she hadn’t apologized. Too stubborn. Too stupid.
“They know we’re coming.” Reagan’s face was ashen, and she kept fiddling with her seat belt. She looked how Meiner felt.
In the passenger seat, Cora gripped the door handle, knuckles white. “Of course they do. They’ve killed one of us, taken another. They know we’ll come after them.”
Gravel popped under the tires as Meiner pulled into the lot. They met in the center of the lot just as the sun slipped below the fields stretching out around them. The three Callighans’ faces might have been stone masks, save for the flicking of their dark gazes as they looked at one another. Cora was white-faced and tight-lipped, her fists clenched at her sides. Reagan looked grim and determined, and her lips were moving constantly, as if she were silently reciting spells back to herself, or saying protection prayers. Yemi kept running her fingers over the charm necklace at her throat.
Meiner shifted from one foot to the other. Her entire body felt charged with that familiar, buzzing energy. The anger pulsed through her in waves, clenching and unclenching her muscles, sucking the breath from her body. Meiner was done fighting it. She was going to release it, let it burn and rage out of control.
The tomb was a huge, ominous mountain in the distance. Dayna was there somewhere.
“Wait a moment, girl.” Bronagh caught her sleeve as she turned. “Protection first.”
“That will take too long.” It came out in a snarl, and Meiner cut herself off, surprised, when Bronagh’s grip tightened, and the old woman yanked her back.
“Protection,” the old woman snapped, and Brenna added, “You’ll need it.”
“We’ll all need it,” Faye said.
Meiner forced herself to stay where she was while the Callighans began a protection spell, chanting, low and steady, in fluid Irish. She felt that familiar prickle of energy over her skin, raising the hairs on her arms. As eager as she was to get to Dayna, the magic felt good. It made her stronger.
Cora, too, seemed to feel the same thing, for she tipped her head back and shut her eyes, lips moving. Meiner wasn’t sure if she was chanting along or mumbling her own spell.
It seemed to take forever, as Meiner felt layer after layer of protective magic drift over her skin. She shut her eyes and ground her teeth. Dayna was in the hands of the same men who’d spilled her grandmother’s blood all over the kitchen floor.
Magic was too distant for this. Too impersonal.
She wanted to get her bare hands on them. At her sides, her fingers flexed involuntarily. She could almost feel them around their throats, closing around their thick necks, choking the life out of them.
She knew she would try to kill one of them. All of them. She’d become more like her gran than ever before. She didn’t care.
The knowledge gave her a rush of adrenaline, and she glanced toward the tomb, hands twitching and tingling. The rage needed release.
At last Bronagh stepped back. Her lined face was slack, her eyes shut as she raised her hands. “The gods’ blessings and protection on you, sisters.” Then her eyes snapped open, and her face went hard. “We should go.”
Yemi tilted her head back, staring up at the dark sky. “Oya, we don’t have much time.”
Meiner set off at a run, plunging into the darkness. Blood rushed in her ears, blocking out her ragged breaths. She ignored Cora, who cried out behind her, “Meiner, wait! We go together.”
Bronagh’s voice was already growing distant as Meiner’s long stride took her deeper into the darkness. “Don’t waste your breath, girl. The devil himself couldn’t stop her.”
The clouds overhead were so thick that only the barest slivers of moonlight slid through. She shouldn’t have been able to see, and yet she could. Something else the Callighan women had obviously thought of. Grudgingly she admitted to herself that the magic had been necessary. Still, it had eaten up precious minutes, and Meiner put on another burst of speed.
Nearing the tomb, she could make out the shape of it more clearly. They were approaching the back. She could see movement at the base, someone walking around the stone wall. One of the brothers had seen her.
She slowed as she neared the edge, and it was probably what saved her. A second later she ran head-on into something solid where there’d been nothing before. The force snapped Meiner’s head back, and she heard something crack. Pain spiked through the center of her face, and warmth gushed from her nose and down her chin. She staggered and went down hard on her knees.