Raven Calls

Destiny. The stone cries out for all of Ireland to hear when a worthy man lays hand on it. The Morrígan comes to wed him, and we kneel before our new king.”

“You get a lot of people eager for that job when they know the wedding bed ends up with a sacrificial knife through it?” My analogy sucked, but Lugh got the point. So to speak.

“It is an honor and a duty to be tested,” he said stiffly, and just to teach me a lesson, struck off across the hills while he spoke. I chased after as he replaced stiffness with haughtiness that I was sure covered uncertainty. “All creatures must die. What better reason than for your people?”

Wrongness twitched up my spine again, just like it had when I’d contemplated Ireland’s emotional balance. “See, now, I get you’re elves or whatever, but if I’ve learned one thing being a shaman it’s that blood sacrifice is just not cool. It leads to all kinds of bad moj—” I broke off and glared over my shoulder at Gary, who had no problem keeping pace as we approached the Lia Fáil. He widened his eyes and mimed zipping his lips: no MojoJo from him. Satisfied, I finished, “Bad mojo. I can’t see that undergoing a 180- degree reversal, even over the course of a jillion years. Also,” I said, glancing around, “if there’s going to be a sacrifice here, shouldn’t there be a bloodthirsty crowd gathering?”

“It is a private affair,” Lugh said, still uptight and arrogant about it.

I snorted, then gaped as the penny dropped. “Oh, shit. You mean you didn’t know this would happen when you signed on, don’t you. Oh, crap. This cannot be good. This can’t be good at all. Sacrifices are bad enough. Secret sacrifices, that, no, just no. I put my foot down. That’s enough of this bullshit. Where is she? I’m going to have a word with this chick.”

Lugh, wordlessly, pointed skyward. I whipped around, arms akimbo.

The woman who stalked out of the sky was my mother.

Chapter Five

It wasn’t really, not after a second shocked look. But that first one was a blow to the gut, sharp enough to make me breathless and sick. I took a woozy step backward and clung to the standing stone like an ingénue while I took stock of the Morrígan.

She was actually far more beautiful than my mother, but there was a definite similarity. More than just the long jet-black hair and light-colored eyes: they had a ferocity I didn’t think I shared. In my mother, that ferocity came out in the way she chewed Altoids.

In the Morrígan, it was more in the way she charged down out of the sky with a blazing sword in one hand and a trio of shrieking ravens flapping around her shoulders. Lugh, the damned fool, stepped between me and her and flung his arms wide, making himself an easily skewerable target.

Gary muttered, “Elves ain’t too bright,” as he lumbered by me and tackled Lugh to the ground just as the Morrígan swung her sword at him.

It slammed into the Stone of Destiny so hard that something, either the stone or the sword, should have shattered. Neither did, but the clang nearly broke me into a billion pieces. Chills dashed up my spine, down my arms, back up again and took up residence at the base of my neck, where they did a tap dance. Lugh gave a little grunt that made a nice counterbeat to the tapping. Gary rolled off him as the Morrígan squalled in pure outraged astonishment. The ravens took their distance from her and she landed on the ground in a cinematic rush of blue robes and black hair. It was very John Woo. All we needed was a flock of doves.

The Morrígan came to her feet in a surge of power and grace and began stalking toward Gary. “You dare deny me my sacrifice?”

He sat up and jerked a thumb my way. “Not me, doll. Her.”

I waved and produced my best perky smile. “Hi.”

The Morrígan gave me a dismissive look, then looked again more carefully. “You bear my lord’s mark.”

“I do?” I glanced at myself, half expecting the sign of the cross or some other inappropriately modern religious marker to have cropped up on my skin. Then I clapped my hand at my throat, where the necklace’s pendant had a quartered cross. “Oh! This?”

“No.” She flicked a finger and the sleeve of my new $1800 leather coat ripped apart to expose the bandaged werewolf bite. My vision washed out, leaving nothing in the world but my ruined sleeve. Static filled my ears, mostly drowning out her, “That. What does a sister in blood wish with my sacrifice?”

It hadn’t split on the seam. The leather was damaged. It couldn’t be fixed, and there was no earthly way I was going to get an exchange on an item damaged by supernatural beings. I lifted my gaze inch by incremental inch to fix the laserlike focus of consumer fury on the Morrígan.

Gary mumbled, “Uh-oh,” and got out of the way.

“First,” I said in the lowest, deadliest voice I had at my disposal, “fix my coat. Then we’ll discuss what I want with your sacrifice.”

To my utter astonishment, she arched an eyebrow, shrugged and flicked her finger again. My coat put itself back together, not a hint of damage done to it. The wind sailed right out of my rage and despite myself I said, “That was kind of cool. How’d you do it?”

“Will it and it is so. The Master gives us such gifts. You must be new to your mark, if you haven’t yet learned that. Now.” Her eyebrows arched again. “My sacrifice?”

“Oh yeah. You can’t have him.” I smiled at her, all pleasant resolution. Amazing what a little thing like an undamaged coat sleeve did for my humor. Then her answer began trickling toward comprehension, and cold slid down my spine. “Um. Mark of the Master? You mean your boss is the same… Shit. Shit, shit, shit shit shit.” It didn’t take very many repetitions for that to become an absurd-sounding word. I said it one more time for good measure, turned around, kicked the Stone of Destiny and turned back.

This time, though, I had a sword in my hand. My silver rapier, taken off a god and usually resident beneath my bed. It had at least two feet of reach on the Morrígan’s short sword. I hoped like hell that was enough to make up for what I suspected were her vastly superior fighting skills.

She looked wonderfully nonplussed by the new addition to my accessories. It was all I could do to not dance a jig. The blade was part of my psychic armor, so I’d been pretty sure I could pull it from halfway across the world. The Morrígan’s astonishment was just a terrific bonus. Gary gave a triumphant “Hah!”

Lugh, as astounded as the Morrígan, said, “No gwyld I know carries a sword,” and then it was on.

She was fast. God, she was fast, and had obviously been using a sword forever, whereas I’d started learning barely a year ago. Her first flurry came down like an avalanche, short blade cutting the air so quickly it made the whipping sounds children usually add to swordplay. I couldn’t see it, not even with the Sight running at full bore. Instead I watched her shoulders, her hips, her feet and somewhere at the back of my mind all the training Phoebe had pounded into me did its job. The rapier was where it needed to be time and again, preventing the Morrígan from skewering me.

My arms were already getting numb, and she’d been hitting me for only about half a minute. I hadn’t come close to an offensive measure. I was going to earn Lugh a whopping fifteen seconds of life if I didn’t do something else fast.

Do something else fast. That was the key. I whispered, Rattler? I need your gift of speed, silently, and a slithering, sibilant personality came to life within me.

We ssstrike, he agreed, but he sounded weary. As well he should: barely a day ago he’d stripped me right down to the core in order to make sure I survived getting smashed by a truck. It had taken a lot out of both of us, even if spirit animals didn’t technically have a lot to be taken out of. He was less of a sketch of light in my mind than usual, but adrenaline pumped through my veins, lending me the swiftness of a striking snake.

The Morrígan was astonished again when my rapier came up and not just blocked, but tangled and threw her short sword to the side. Not away: her loose, strong grip was too much for that, but I made an opening with the parry, and for the first time pressed the fight. She dropped back, not retreating, but distancing herself so she could get a better look at me. I’d apparently suddenly become worthy. That wasn’t exactly the accolade I