Morrigan's Cross
Page 22

She changed into jeans and a white tank. Letting the subtle glamour she’d been vain enough to use that morning fade, she did her makeup, then tied her hair back into a short tail.
When she came back, Hoyt was in her kitchen, fiddling with her herbs.
“Don’t touch my stuff.” She slapped his hand away.
“I was only... ” He trailed off, then looked deliberately over her shoulder. “Is this what you wear in public?”
“Yes.” She turned, and just as deliberately invaded his space. “Problem?”
“No. You don’t wear shoes?”
“Not around the house, necessarily.” His eyes were so blue, she thought. So sharp and blue against those thick black lashes. “What do you feel when we’re like this? Alone. Close.”
“Unsettled.”
“That’s the nicest thing you’ve said to me so far. I mean, do you feel something? In here.” She laid a fist on her belly, kept her eyes locked on his. “A kind of reaching. I’ve never felt it before.”
He felt it, and a kind of burn in and under his heart as well. “You haven’t broken your fast,” he managed, and stepped carefully back. “You must be hungry.”
“Just me then,” she murmured. She turned to open a cupboard. “I don’t know what I’m going to need, so I’m going to take whatever feels right. I’m not traveling light. You and Cian have to deal with that. We should probably leave as soon as possible.”
He’d lifted a hand, was on the point of touching her hair, something he’d wanted to do since he’d first seen her. Now he dropped it. “Leave?”
“You don’t expect to sit around in New York and wait for the army to come to you? The portal’s in Ireland, and we have to assume the battle’s to take place in Ireland, or some mystical facet thereof. We need the portal, or at some point we will. So we need to go to Ireland.”
He simply stared at her as she loaded bottles and vials into a case not dissimiliar from his own. “Aye, you’re right. Of course, you’re right. We need to start back. A voyage will take much of the time we have. Oh, Jesus, I’ll be sick as six dogs sailing home.”
She looked over. “Sailing? We don’t have time for the Queen Mary, sweetie. We’ll fly.”
“You said you couldn’t.”
“I can, if it’s in a plane. We’ll have to figure out how to get you a ticket. You don’t have ID, you don’t have a passport. We can do a charm on the ticket agent, the custom’s agent.” She brushed it away. “I’ll work it out.”
“A plain what?”
She focused on him, then leaned back against the counter and laughed until her sides ached. “I’ll explain later.”
“It’s not my purpose to amuse you.”
“No, it wouldn’t be. But it’s a nice side pocket. Oh hell, I don’t know what to take, what not to take.” She stepped back, rubbed her hands over her face. “It’s my first apocalypse.”
“Herbs, flowers and roots grow in Ireland, and quite well.”
“I like my own.” Which was foolish, and childish. But still... “I’ll just take what I consider absolutely essential in this area, then start on books, clothes and so on. I have to make some calls, too. I’ve got some appointments that I need to cancel.”
With some reluctance, she closed her already loaded case and left it on the counter. She crossed to a large wooden chest in the far corner of the room, and unlocked it with a charm.
Curiosity piqued, Hoyt moved over to study the contents over her shoulder. “What do you keep here?”
“Spell books, recipes, some of my more powerful crystals. Some were handed down to me.”
“Ah, then, you’re a hereditary witch.”
“That’s right. The only one of my generation who practices. My mother gave it up when she married. My father didn’t like it. My grandparents taught me.”
“How could she give up what’s inside her?”
“A question I’ve asked her many times.” She sat back on her heels, touching what she could take, and what she couldn’t. “For love. My father wanted a simple life, she wanted my father. I couldn’t do it. I don’t think I could love enough to give up what I am. I’d need to be loved enough to be accepted for what I am.”
“Strong magic.”
“Yeah.” She took out a velvet sack. “This is my prize.” From it she lifted the ball of crystal he’d seen her with in the vision. “It’s been in my family a long time. Over two hundred and fifty years. Chump change to a man of your years, but a hell of a run to me.”
“Strong magic,” he repeated, for when she held it in her hands, he could see it pulse, like a heart beating.
“You’re right about that.” She looked at him over the orb with eyes that had gone suddenly dark. “And isn’t it time we used some? Isn’t it time we do what we do, Hoyt? She knows who I am, where I am, what I am. It’s likely she knows the same about you, about Cian. Let’s make a move.” She held the crystal aloft. “Lets find out where she’s hiding.”
“Here and now?”
“Can’t think of a better time or place.” She rose, jutted her chin toward the richly patterned rug in the room’s center. “Roll that up, will you?”
“It’s a dangerous step you’re after taking here. We should take a moment to think.”
“We can think while you’re rolling up the rug. I have everything we need for a locator spell, everything we need for protection. We can blind her to us while we look.”
He did as she asked and found the painted pentagram under the rug. He could admit that taking a step, any step, felt right and good. But he’d have preferred, very much, to take it alone.
“We don’t know if she can be blinded. She’s fed on magic blood, and likely more than once. She’s very powerful, and very sly.”
“So are we. You’re talking about going into battle within three months. When do you intend to start?”
He looked at her, nodded. “Here and now then.”
She laid the crystal in the center of the pentagram, and retrieved two athames from her chest. She placed these in the circle, then gathered candles, a silver bowl, crystal wands.