Raven Calls

prop it in place. I could not for the life of me imagine what he was doing.

He took a deep breath, visible even at the distance, and glanced my way. Flicked a salute and mouthed, “I love you, doll,” and all of a sudden I understood what was happening.

Gary took half a dozen quick steps back, then ran for the sword. Dove at it, swan dive, chest open and broad and ready to be impaled.

A banshee’s scream cut the world apart.

They came from everywhere, from all directions around Tara. Streaks of white against the dark, disrupting ravens and drowning out their calls with shrieks of their own. They converged on the Lia Fáil, diving into it and restoring its light while one, and one alone, came on across the hills and smashed into the Master’s spine.

He tumbled as easily as any frail old man might, shock written large across his face in the moment before he hit the earth. The banshee queen continued on, ignoring him in favor of me. She stopped in front of me, between her daughter and the devil, and whispered, “Joanne.”

My heart broke into a thousand pieces. We had no time. There were hundreds of things I wanted to say, and I had no time. Sheila MacNamarra, tall and wraithlike in Aibhill’s flowing white robes, smiled at me. Sad proud smile, before she nodded once and turned away.

“Girls,” my mother said, and the banshees rose from the earth to join her.

Not just join her like fall into ranks, but join her. One by one, but inside the space of an instant, they rushed toward her and were absorbed. Her strength visibly increased with each impact, taking her from the death-softened red and gold that was her own aura to a white so brilliant my eyes watered to see her. The Master came to his feet in that light, his aged features raging in harsh relief. He cast away his walking stick, and brought his hands together, gathering power against Sheila in a way he hadn’t needed to with me.

And then for the third time, my mother went up against the Master for no other reason than to save my life.

I had never really witnessed a battle of magics before. I couldn’t do the things my mother could, not in life or in death. She carried lightning in one hand and fire in the other, and wielded the banshee cry as a weapon of its own. The Master met her with black ice and dampening thunder, but her song, their song, crept under his skin and flailed him just as it might any man. I had been vulnerable to the banshee magic because my mother was part of its voice.

I thought the Master was vulnerable because he had for so long been their master. The magic to strip a man’s soul from his body was his, not Aibhill’s. He had given it to her to foster her vengeance against a betraying lover, and in exchange had used her for eternity, never imagining a day when a mage in her own right might rip that power away and use it against him.

It took seven lives to defeat him: six times Sheila MacNamarra fell, a banshee ghost extinguished, and the seventh was Sheila herself. There were no nets, no magic swords, no spears or cages of any sort. He was weakened by then, and the banshees belonged to the Lower World in a way he and I did not. Sheila dove into him, into him, a thread of magic within his chest, and she screamed one last time. Brought his own power to bear against him, and shattered the shell he had made to come here with. Here, the Lower World, a place between my home and his.

He should have stopped me here, I thought as my mother died again, and forever. He should have stopped me here, because if he came through to the Middle World—and he would, he would have to now—he would be one step further removed from his own place of power, and I would be fully at home in mine. He wouldn’t wait. He would recoup from today’s losses and then come for me. Come for Aidan, and come for Coyote and Billy and Morrison and Gary. For all my friends and the people I loved, and when he did, I would be ready.

Come for Gary. Gary, who had flung himself on my sword and of whom I hadn’t thought since. All the cold calm rushed out of me and I scrambled to hands and knees, already running before I had my feet under me. Up and over low rolling hills, nails digging in the earth to give me purchase when I lost balance, all the way to the Lia Fáil, where Gary lay like Christ on the cross, arms flung wide and face to the sky.

Unbloodied, breathing and chortling. I tripped over my own feet, collapsed on top of him and started hitting his shoulders as tears streamed down my face. I honestly couldn’t talk, my rage and fear and relief so tangled together that even hiccuping sobs were almost more than I could manage. My gut roiled so hard I thought I’d throw up, and almost wished I would. Something had to give, and puking up bile sounded like a necessary release after the ten minutes I’d just had. My body spasmed with shivers, and the fists I thumped against Gary’s shoulders were pathetic in their lack of strength.

Gary sat up, pushed me upright, too, and caught my wrists at his shoulders so I’d stop hitting him. I had nothing left to fight him with. I fell forward bonelessly, the top of my head against his chest, and heaved sobs. He stayed quiet a minute or two, waiting for me to pull it together, but I couldn’t.

Eventually he murmured, “I know you told me not to do anything like that again, darlin’, but you were gettin’ your ass kicked. I could see yer ma and the others out there, stuck on the other side of the power circle, and I thought, hey, banshees, they gotta come warn you when you’re about to die, right? An’ take away the body, maybe, I forget if they do that. So I figured their raison d’être might overrule the power circle and that would get ’em in here. I knew Sheila’d help you then, if she could. So I threw myself on the sword.” He chuckled. “Never thought I’d say that and mean it literally. Your mom knocked me sideways before goin’ after you. Made sure I didn’t impale myself. Woman’s got a tackle like a linebacker, doll. Must run in the family.”

I’d stopped sobbing somewhere during the explanation, and had lifted my head to stare at him with hollow- feeling eyes. His hopeful smile with the last words made me feel like I should smile in return, but I couldn’t make it there. I’d run past the end of my resources and then had what was left dragged out and kicked across the lawn. Nothing was left. Gary’s expression gentled even further and he stood without letting me go, hugging me against his broad chest. “S’okay, darlin’. It’s all gonna be okay. I got a lot to tell you, y’know? A big ol’ adventure, and also that fight at Knocknaree.”

A laugh burst out and died again just as fast. “If your St. Patrick’s Day weekend was a bigger adventure than fighting at Knocknaree…” I had no idea how to finish that, but at least he’d made me smile.

“There’s my girl.” Gary kissed the top of my head, took my hand in his and put them both atop the Lia Fáil.

We shot up through the top of the world.

Chapter Thirty-Four

Wednesday, March 22, 3:14 p.m.

The switchback on Croagh Patrick was every bit as bad the second time as it had been the first. This time, however, I was wearing lightweight tennies, not heavy stompy boots, which helped. It was too warm for the long leather coat I had on, but it had—bizarrely—been whole again when Gary and I returned from the Lower World. I didn’t know if killing the Morrígan had undone her most recent magics, or if I’d somehow brought the idea of the coat whole and well back with me and imposed that on the real thing. Whatever the reason, I was so pleased I pretty much hadn’t taken the coat off since discovering its wholeness.

I also pretty much hadn’t stopped eating since we left the Lower World. I stopped halfway up the switchback and defiantly ate two breakfast bars and the half pint of milk I’d been lugging just for that purpose. Defiantly, because Méabh had forbidden me to eat, last time I’d climbed this mountain. Then I went the rest of the way up, and wasn’t surprised to find the mountaintop deserted save one person.

My cousin Caitríona O’Reilly, the Irish Mage. She stood where Méabh had once stood, both hands wrapped loosely around a spear two feet taller than she was. She looked like some odd new version of a Native warrior: pale-skinned, fire-engine-red-haired, wearing a hand-knitted cream sweater two sizes too large and a short black skirt over black leggings and boots as stompy as the ones I often wore. It worked: she exuded a certain confident power as she gazed toward the distant western waters. Her voice, clear and certain, carried back