But there was so much blood. It spilled out onto the grass and stained the fabric of Dayna’s shirt, spreading alarmingly fast. The witch hunter stooped down to grab Dayna, and Meiner put on another burst of desperate speed.
The ground surged beneath her, bucking and heaving under her feet as a low rumble started up, growing louder. The shadow was almost completely across the moon now. The night was so black it was hard to make out more than shapes in the darkness.
Meiner cried out, gritting her teeth, stumbling toward Dayna on shaky legs as the earth surged up to meet her, knocking her off balance. Everyone else seemed equally thrown off; even the brothers weren’t moving, though the one with the sword attempted to stumble toward the Callighans.
After a moment the earth stilled, the roar breaking off. Meiner dove forward, throwing herself on the brother with the broken back. She jerked him up and off Dayna, a savage scream ripping from her throat as she threw him down outside the hexagram and put her fist into his face.
The skin on her knuckles bruised after three punches, broke after five. She hardly felt it.
She was roaring, throat raw, blood rushing in her ears, hitting him again and again. His face was a bloody mess, but she didn’t stop.
The buzz coursed through her, lighting every inch of her skin. She was alive, alive, alive. It felt so good to give in, to let the rage take over. She hit him again and again, teeth bared in a savage snarl.
When she broke away, rearing back, her fist raised to strike again, she heard it. The wheezing gasp from the hexagram.
The ground seemed to drop out from under her.
Dayna.
She turned and stumbled forward, snatching at Dayna’s arm. Her hand slipped over the girl’s skin, slick with warm blood, and she tightened her grip on Dayna’s wrist. With a grunt she pulled her up and out of the bone hexagram, depositing her limp body on the grass. She straightened, whirling around with her hands up, the buzz of magic surging as a deep voice said from behind, “It’s too late.”
The brother with the sword was smiling up at the tomb above them, his expression exultant. “Can’t you feel her?”
As if triggered by his words, the roar began again.
A sharp, terrible crack followed, echoing around the clearing over the sound of the wind. Horror churned in Meiner’s stomach. A deep split appeared along the surface of the grassy tomb, continuing down to break open the stone wall, which began to crumble in on itself. On the ground Dayna rolled over, limbs flopping bonelessly as she blinked up at the tomb. She looked dazed.
A low, angry buzz was coming from the mound, like someone had disturbed a nest of wasps.
Something was coming to life; something was waking.
The three brothers turned to face the tomb, faces tilted up to the mound. When they turned, Meiner saw black smoke leaking from their mouths, from their eyes. Their mouths moved in unison.
“D’éist me do ghlaoch. I listened to your call.”
As one, their gazes flicked across the hexagram, fixing on the Callighans. Carman had begun to wake, and now the pentacle needed one last piece. Bronagh moved before they could, more swiftly than the old woman should have been able to, her daughter and granddaughter behind her. The witches were emanating a strange silvery light, as if they’d pulled the moonlight down for themselves.
They crashed together, witches and hunters, screams and cries drowning out Yemi’s chanting, light eating away at the darkness. Meiner tensed, watching as Brenna flung one of the brothers across the clearing, at the same time Faye was sent crashing against the trunk of the nearest sapling, her expression twisted with pain and dismay as black smoke wreathed her.
As they were separated, the light from the three witches dimmed, and Meiner felt her chest tighten with dread. Something had happened to the witch hunters; the cracked tomb had bestowed new strength on them.
The shortest one, Dubh, charged forward. He swung his sword in a wide arc, and Bronagh caught it in clasped hands, her face like steel. They stayed locked there for a moment, Dubh’s face filled with an ugly, eager light. Meiner realized with a horrible start that the smoke pouring off him seemed to be actively seeking the woman’s face. It curled upward like it was alive, probing at Bronagh’s skin. She turned her head away, but it persisted, twisting sooty tendrils up toward her eyes.
Dubh jerked his sword out of her hands, and Bronagh cried out, a thin arc of blood trailing through the air, splattering her gown. The witch hunter thrust the blade forward, his smile wide and ugly.
“No!” Meiner stumbled to her feet as the steel struck home, vanishing into the black dress, plunging into Bronagh’s middle. The witch’s face drained of blood, her mouth opened slightly.
She fell. It was a slow, gentle movement, as if she sank down onto the grass of her own accord, skirts billowing around her.
Above them, the barest sliver of silver moon had returned.
There was a terrible scream from Faye, echoed by her mother, and the two women were at Bronagh’s side the next instant, so fast that Meiner had not seen them move. Brenna’s scream was half animal, the shriek of a wild bird, and she crooked one clawed hand at Dubh, sending him backward, crashing into his brother.
This time the ground shook so powerfully that Meiner pitched forward, falling hard onto her hands and knees. When she looked up, the black smoke was billowing out around Bronagh, consuming the air around it, engulfing the three women.
Dubh turned from the Callighan women, his face triumphant. His sword was still gripped in his right hand, still stained with Bronagh’s blood. His eyes were all pupil, tear ducts leaking black smoke. His gaze raked across the hexagram, came to rest on Dayna. Meiner stiffened.
Reagan hurtled forward as the witch hunter limped toward Dayna. She placed herself in front of the bone hexagram, hands raised, her voice low and furious as she chanted under her breath. The shimmer in the air slowed Dubh, and his face twisted with the effort. His body moved as if he waded through sludge. Still he moved forward, and Reagan’s arms shook as she held them aloft. He was fighting the magic.
Meiner could think of only one thing to do. Even though it was reckless. Even though she had no clue what it might do, and every instinct was screaming to go to Dayna. They had run out of options, and now all she had was the mad hope that Gran had been on their side all along. That she had known all of this was going to happen.
She ground her teeth and forced herself to step past Dayna on the grass, past the line of bones, and into the hexagram.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-ONE
CORA
She should have been worried about what was happening to the Callighans, about the black smoke consuming them. But all Cora could do was stare at the hexagram in horror. Blood had been spilled there. And not the right way. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go.
Meiner had dragged Dayna out of the pentacle and deposited her into Reagan’s arms, and now she stood in the center like she would do the ritual. Like this was her moment.
Cora stepped past the bloody-faced witch hunter, who was on his back on the ground, his rattling gasps loud even above the wind.
Meiner’s arms were spread wide, her head tilted back. Her lips were already moving in the familiar shapes of the words Cora knew so well. This was her spell.
Cora didn’t care about anything. Not about Dayna, or the Callighans or the witch hunters. It might as well have been Cora and Meiner facing off across the bones.