Awakening

19. Pursuit

I'm going to contact my father.

I'm terribly afraid. Not just of putting him and mum in danger, nor of putting myself in danger. More than that, I'm afraid of how changed he'll look, how old. I'm afraid he'll tell me mum is dead. I'm afraid he'll tell me that he's heard I'm a seeker, and he's ashamed of me.

I want to ask Morgan if she'll stay with me while I do it.

— Giomanach

I didn't sleep well that night. My mind was whirling with thoughts of Aunt Eileen and Paula, of finding the right spell to help them, of David, of Cal, of Hunter. I'd never been as confused about anyone as I was about Hunter. I bounced from thinking he was the most insufferable male on the planet to seeing, beneath all that arrogance, one of the most complex and fascinating people I'd ever met. There was no neat way to sum up Hunter Niall or my feelings about him.

The next morning I got up early again. I left a note for my family, saying I'd be back in time for church. Then I went for a drive. I needed to think, and I didn't want to be at home when I did. I bought myself coffee, then headed along the river to a small sailing marina.

The marina was dead quiet, since it was the middle of December. Most of the boats had been pulled into dry dock and rested on pilings in a fenced yard. I got out of the car with my cup of hot coffee and walked along the waterfront. The air was bitterly cold, but that was okay. It would force me to make my decision quickly.

What was I going to do about Aunt Eileen and Paula? Every instinct told me that I had the power to protect them, but I knew the charm I'd made wouldn't be enough. If I wanted to be sure that those thugs never bothered them again, I'd have to take more direct action. How dangerous was that?

The wind whipped off the river in an icy gust, and I decided on procrastination: I'd go visit Aunt Eileen and Paula and see if they were serious about leaving. If they were, then I'd try the spell I'd found last night on the Internet.

Shaking with cold, I got back into Das Boot.

I arrived at Aunt Eileen and Paula's just in time to see a police cruiser pulling away. Oh, no, I thought. I was too late. My heart racing with dread, I ran toward the house.

Aunt Eileen opened the door seconds after I rang the bell. "Morgan! What are you doing up this early on a Sunday? I thought you and Mary K. were coming by later."

"I–I was worried about you two," I said honestly. "I just saw the police car pulling away and—"

She smiled and put a comforting arm around me. "Come on in," she said. "Have some breakfast with us, and we'll tell you all about our undercover triumph."

"Your what?"

Paula was in the kitchen, cooking eggs, spinach, and mushrooms in a skillet. "Morgan!" she said. "Care for some breakfast?"

"Sure," I said, pulling up a chair. "Now, what happened?"

Aunt Eileen gave me a sheepish glance. "I felt like an idiot after I got off the phone with your sister yesterday. I was totally giving in to hysteria and fear."

"And to those jerks," Paula added. "For the record, I was equally hysterical."

"We decided we couldn't give in to them," Aunt Eileen continued.

Paula set down three plates containing eggs. "Short version: We drove to a security store in Kingston and rented a couple of surveillance cameras. Then we came home and put them up. At about two o'clock this morning, the camera at the back of the house caught our vandals on tape and sounded a little alarm in our bedroom. We called the cops. They were too late to catch the kids in the act, but they took the tape."

"The cruiser that just left," Eileen finished, "came to tell us that all three are now in custody, and one of them has confessed. The DA thinks she can charge them with at least two other local hate crimes. And two of them are old enough to be tried as adults. What's more, two of our neighbors on the block have offered to testify to what they saw. The community is being really supportive, I'm happy to say."

"Wow!" I exclaimed, amazed. "That's fabulous!" I nearly collapsed with relief. They had solved their own problem without my help, without magick. The choice had been taken out of my hands.

Aunt Eileen sighed. "I'm glad we caught those kids, but I have to say this whole incident has really shaken me. I mean, you hear about gay bashing all the time, but it's just not the same as when you're actually experiencing it. It's totally terrifying."

"I know," I agreed. Then I couldn't help asking anxiously, "But. . you're not going to move?"

"Nope," Paula promised. "We've decided to tough it out here—at least for now. You can't solve this kind of problem by running away from it."

"That is the best news! I am so thrilled," I told them. I got up and opened the fridge. "Oh, no," I groaned.

“What?" Aunt Eileen sounded worried. 'What's the matter?"

I turned from the fridge, which was full of disgustingly healthy foods. "Don't you guys have any Diet Coke?"

After breakfast with Paula and Aunt Eileen, I helped them rearrange living-room furniture; then I drove to church and met my family there. I made the effort because I wanted to make my parents happy—and because I felt badly in need of a nonmagickal, normal day.

After church the whole family opted out of our normal Widow's Vale Diner lunch so we could go back to Taunton for more unpacking. We got back to our house at three-thirty, and I decided to have a nice, long soak in the bathtub before calling Hunter.

The bath never happened. I'd just turned on the hot water faucet when I felt Hunter and Sky approaching. With a sigh I turned off the bathwater and went downstairs. Now what?

I opened the front door and waited. They both looked grim.

"Yes?" I demanded. "Aren't we scheduled to meet later?"

"This couldn't wait," he said.

"Come in." I led them into the den. After shutting the door I asked, "Is it Stuart Afton?"

"He's the same," Hunter answered. He looked at Sky. "Tell her."

"Last night," Sky began, "Bree and Raven and I were out studying the constellations by the old Methodist cemetery. We saw David. He was performing a ritual. A ritual I recognized."

"So what was it?" I asked.

Sky glanced at Hunter. Then she met my gaze steadily. "He was letting blood as a preliminary ritual to a larger sacrifice that will be performed once the moon moves into a different quarter."

"Bloodletting?" I said. I looked back and forth between Sky and Hunter.

"It's a payoff," Hunter said. "For services rendered. It fits with the ritual markings I found in the field where you had first felt a dark presence. He needs to offer his own blood to call in the taibhs, the dark spirit. Remember, that's how I knew it wasn't Selene. She has enough power to call a taibhs without performing that particular rite."

I felt sick. "Well, I guess that's the proof you were looking for, then," I said to Hunter.

"It's proof that he's using dark magick," Hunter said. "It still doesn't connect him irrevocably to Stuart Afton. But that's just a formality now."

"David may not have bargained on or agreed to Stuart Afton having a stroke," Sky put in. "That's the kind of extra tithe that attaches itself when you deal with the blackness."

"In any case," Hunter said, "I've contacted the council, and they've told me to examine David formally."

There was something terrible in that sentence. "What does that mean?"

"It means that with the power vested in me by the council I am to ask David whether or not he's called on the dark energies," Hunter explained, not sounding like himself. "The procedure requires that two blood witches witness my examination of him."

I looked at him.

"It will be Sky and Alyce," he said, answering my unspoken question. "We're going to do it now, right away. There's no point in wasting any more time."

"I want to go, too," I said.

He shook his head, and Sky looked upset. "No. That's not necessary," he said. "I only came to tell you because I felt you needed to know."

"I'm coming," I said more strongly. "If David is innocent, that will come out in the examination. I want to be there to hear it. And if he's not. ." I swallowed. "If he's not, I need to hear that, too."

Hunter and Sky looked at each other for a long moment, and I wondered if they were communicating telepathically. Finally Sky raised her eyebrows slightly. Hunter turned to me.

"You won't say anything, you won't do anything, you won't interfere in any way," he said warningly. I raised my chin but didn't say a word. "If you do," he went on, "I'll put a binding spell on you that will make Cal's look like wet tissue paper."

"Let's go," I said.

We drove to Red Kill in Hunter's car. My stomach was tight with tension, and I kept swallowing. I felt cold and achy and full of dread. As much as I wanted Hunter to be wrong, all the evidence pointed to David.

When the three of us walked into Practical Magick, Alyce looked up. She looked tired and ill, her face drawn and almost gray. As soon as I saw her, I felt her pain over what was about to happen. She, too, believed David was guilty, I realized.

"We need David," Hunter said quietly.

David emerged from the back room. "I'm here," he said, his voice perfectly calm. "And I know why you're here."

"Will you come with us, then?" Hunter asked.

David glanced at Alyce and said, "Yes. Just let me get my jacket. Alyce, can you get the keys for the door?"

"Of course," she said.

David disappeared into the back room to get his jacket. And then didn't reappear. We waited maybe a minute and a half before Hunter tore behind the counter and into the back room. Sky and I followed. The door that led outside from the back room was ajar.

"Dammit!" Hunter swore, going through the door to a weedy, overgrown lot outside. "I didn't think he'd bolt. Stupid, stupid, stupid!"

I wasn't sure if he was referring to David or to himself, but I was too freaked out to ask. Sky was scanning the trees at the end of the lot. "He's in there," she told Hunter.

The two of them set off at a lope across the snow-patched ground, and I followed, sick at heart. Alyce, wrapped in a lavender shawl, bustled after us.

It was dark and shadowy inside the area of evergreens where David had disappeared. The trees were tall enough to block out most of the fading daylight, and we found ourselves in a murky gray light, peering around shadowy trunks for any sign of David. I cast my senses and felt Sky, Alyce, and Hunter doing the same. It was strange to feel my power joined to theirs in this way.

My senses picked up hibernating animals, a few birds. Was Sky wrong? Had David come in here? Or was he somehow masking himself?

Sky suddenly whirled. "There!" she cried as a ball of witch fire flew straight toward Hunter.

Hunter raised a hand and murmured something, and the witch fire was deflected, bouncing away from an invisible shield and landing in a snow bank with a sizzle.

It seemed the witch fire had come from behind a tall blue spruce. Hunter moved toward it with a predator's quiet intensity.

Another ball of witch fire sped toward him, which he brushed off, not even bothering with the charm this time. I realized something in Hunter had changed. It was as if he was drawing power into him, taking in energies far beyond his own considerable powers, linked to the life force all around us. But it was even more than that.

Hearing my silent question, Sky said, "When he acts as Seeker, he can draw on the power of others on the council."

God, how much else did I not know? "Will the extra power protect him?"

"Yes and no. The act of drawing power itself will wear him out if he tries to use it for too long. But it will help him fight certain kinds of attacks."

"David Redstone of Clan Burnhide, I summon you to answer to the International Council of Witches. Athar of Kithic and Alyce of Starlocket appear as witnesses," Hunter stated in a cold, relentless voice. "You will stand forth now."

I heard David make a strange sound, as if he were in pain, and I wondered about the power of Hunter's words.

"Stand forth now!" Hunter repeated.

David staggered forward from behind the spruce, his eyes wild, pure animal terror driving him now.

The sapphire in Hunter's athame glowed with power. I watched as he traced a rectangle of blue light around David's body. David screamed and doubled over, trapped in the blue light. Hunter moved in quickly, and I saw the deceptively delicate silver chain, the braigh, appear in his hand.

Alyce put her hand to her mouth, her eyes full of anguish.

I couldn't watch but buried my face in Sky's shoulder as Hunter wrapped the silver chain around David's wrists. I heard David screaming and remembered Cal writhing in agony as Hunter bound his wrists.

"Let me go!" David was shouting. "I did nothing wrong!"

I opened my eyes. David was on his knees in the snow, his wrists bound by the silver chain. The flesh around the chain was already raised in angry red welts. Tears streamed from his eyes.

Hunter stood over him, stern and unyielding. "Tell us the truth," he said. "Did you summon a taibhs to get Stuart Afton to forgive your aunt's debt?"

"I did it for the people who lived above the store," David insisted. "They would have been homeless."

Hunter pulled on the braigh, and David screamed in agony.

"Yes," David sobbed. "I made offerings to the taibhs in exchange for its help."

"Did you offer it Stuart Afton's life?"

"No, never!" Hunter pulled on the braigh again, but David didn't change his answer. "I just asked the taibhs to make him change his mind," he said. "I never wanted harm to come to him. I deliberately asked that no harm be done to anyone when I cast the spell."

"That was foolish." Hunter's voice was surprisingly gentle. "Don't you know that's the one request the blackness will never grant? It feeds on destruction, and all who seek out the darkness are powerless to control it."

David was sobbing.

Hunter turned to look at us. "Alyce of Starlocket, do you need to hear more?"

"No," Alyce choked out, weeping silently.

"Athar of Kithic? Are you convinced?"

"Yes," Sky said in an almost whisper.

Hunter looked at me then, an unspoken question in his eyes. I didn't answer, but my own tears were answer enough.

Hunter nodded and knelt next to David. I was surprised to see him put a hand on David's back and help him stand. Hunter seemed sad, tired, and old beyond his years. "Sky and I will take David to our house for safekeeping," he said quietly. "The council will decide what to do."