“She’s a Nicholson.” Teag announced his big news when we got back to the house. To my relief, we faced no hordes of zombies or demonic hounds, and if any attacks had been attempted, the wardings held fast. Baxter yipped and carried on when we returned, proving that no one was going to mount a sneak attack.
“What did you find?” I asked as we headed in to the living room. I kept on going to the kitchen since it was nearly lunch, and heated up the oven for a couple of frozen pizzas, since ordering take-out didn’t seem like a smart idea right now. Then I came back and settled into an armchair, next to the end table where Chuck placed the bandana-wrapped pieces we found at Carmen’s house.
Anthony had stepped into the hall to take a phone call, and I could hear his voice, but the words were too muffled to make out what he was saying. From the way she carried herself, I could tell that Secona still possessed Alicia. A silver chalice etched with runes sat in front of her, filled with a red liquid I hoped was wine.
“Carmen Nicholson ran away and married Diego Vincente,” Teag replied. “You can guess that didn’t go down well with Papa Nicholson, since Vincente had a criminal record.”
“For what?” Chuck asked.
“Stupid teenage stuff,” Teag replied. “Took a car for a joyride, stole money out of lockers at school, got nabbed for vandalism. Looks like Vincente straightened himself out, but he wasn’t the kind of boy Carmen’s dad envisioned as a son-in-law, and so she got an ultimatum to pick between her lover and her family, and Carmen picked Vincente.”
“And?” Mrs. Teller prompted.
“Carmen’s family cut her off, and there was bad blood for a long time,” Teag continued. “Then Vincente got sick, and they needed money. Her father wouldn’t help them, and Vincente died. That was six months ago.”
I looked at Teag with a measure of awe and consternation. “How the hell did you find all that out?”
He smirked. “Anthony’s mother. Apparently, she went to boarding school with Catherine Nicholson, Carmen’s mother, and while they aren’t close, they run in the same circles, so she knew all the gossip.”
I shook my head. The blue blood network in Charleston could be confining and cliquish, but never let it be said that the inner circle of high society didn’t keep tabs on its own. “Wow,” I replied. “Did she wonder why he wanted to know?”
Teag grinned. “Actually, she figured Carmen had gotten herself in some kind of trouble, and she wanted to warn Anthony away from taking her case.”
“So Carmen has a grudge against daddy-dearest, and it simmers for years, then really comes to a head when hard feelings cost her the man she loves,” I mused. I glanced at Mrs. Teller. “You said she had a chip on her shoulder.”
Mrs. Teller nodded. “I never pried into her personal business, but I could tell she was an angry young woman with a lot of unresolved issues. That kind of thing plays havoc with magic if you don’t settle your old wounds before you try to control real power. Like I said, I was afraid she might use what she learned from me to harm someone, so I refused to teach her. She wasn’t happy about it, but she knew to leave well enough alone and not try any of that crap on me.”
I smothered a chuckle. Mrs. Teller didn’t care for vulgarity, so her saying “crap” was the equivalent of a string of profanity from anyone else.
“So she’s upset by her husband’s death, pissed at her father, and still disowned by the family,” I recapped, crossing my legs beneath me in the armchair. “She’s got native magic, but she’s half-trained, a real loose cannon. So how does she jump from there to summoning Holmgang and calling down the Wild Hunt?”
“The Nicholson family was a founding member of the Ashley River Rod and Gun Club,” Teag replied. “As were the families of the men who fell out of the sky, and the zombies who crawled out of their graves at Magnolia Cemetery.”
“And let me guess—both the families and the club had ties to Harrison Stables out in Aiken,” I hazarded.
“Yep,” Teag said. “It’s all one big inbred tangle.”
Since Anthony’s family was every bit as blue-blooded as the Nicholson’s clan, I knew Teag’s comment focused more on the cliquishness of Charleston’s upper echelon, but there was an element of truth to the harsh words. The city’s old families tended to intermarry, and the bloodlines crisscrossed so often over the past few centuries with the same surnames popping up again and again that family trees tended to look more like snarled vines.
“Anthony gave you the tip about the Rod and Gun Club?” I asked.
“He confirmed it, but I asked Mrs. Morrissey about organizations that the key families had in common, and she rattled off a list. All the usual charity and non-profit boards, but those were too recent,” Teag replied. “Lots of other groups, but the only one that went back far enough was the hunting club.”
“Nice work,” I told him. “But I still don’t see how a bunch of fox hunters managed to call down the Wild Hunt.”
“I’ve got a theory about that,” Teag replied with a mysterious smile, “but I need Donnelly to confirm it for me, and he said he had an errand to run for Sorren, so he’ll be back in a bit. Rowan went with them, too.”
I chuckled, thinking of Sorren sending Archibald Donnelly on an “errand.” The engraved chalice next to Secona drew my attention. “Is that the chalice Sorren mentioned?” I asked.
She nodded. “Yes. Its maker did well. I’ve been scrying on and off since you left. No insight into Carmen, but if you’ve brought one of her possessions, perhaps we can change that,” Secona said with a nod toward the pieces wrapped in Chuck’s bandana.
I’d been genuinely interested in what the others had done while we were gone, but to tell the truth, I’d also been stalling. Reading objects takes a toll on me, especially when the emotions associated with them are dark and upsetting. I settled into my chair, readying myself to touch the items from Carmen’s house when Anthony ended his call and returned to sit on the couch next to Teag.
“I pulled in a favor from an old friend who knows people in Corrections,” Anthony said. “Hanna McCloud is still in jail and has been for months. She’s not likely to be the person you’re looking for.”
“And I confirmed that Kerrie Carson is in the hospital in critical condition,” Teag added, omitting how he did the confirming. “Her accident happened at the very beginning of the ‘weirdness.’ So she may be a victim, rather than a perp.”
“Maybe Carmen decided to get rid of the competition, and go after any other Weaver witches?” I wondered aloud. “Which would explain the attack on you,” I added with a glance toward Teag.
He shrugged. “Could be. If she went after Kerrie first, maybe she already knew Hanna was out of the running. But that would leave me and Mrs. Teller—and Niella—as targets.”
I excused myself to take out the pizza before it burned, keeping one ear on the conversation as I set out the pans.
“Carmen was always arrogant,” Mrs. Teller said. “Thought a bit too highly of herself. If she got rid of Kerrie, I’d bet it was more of a personal grudge than the thought that anyone might out-magic her.” Her eyes narrowed as she thought. “I think the attack on you had more to do with this Holmgang than with Carmen being afraid of rivals.”
“I’m not sure whether that makes me feel better or worse,” Teag replied.
I beckoned everyone into the kitchen to get some pizza, and we grew quiet as we ate. Once we finished, the conversation hit a lull, forcing me to confront the pieces we retrieved from Carmen’s house. “All right,” I said. “Let me take a look at the stuff we brought back. But I’d like to do it in the dining room, where I can sit at the table.” I glanced at Teag. “Would you bring the bandana in, please?”
He nodded. “Sure. Do you want me to trance with you?”
I paused. “If we used a long spelled cord, could the others see what you see?”
“We can make sure they do,” Mrs. Teller answered. “I’ll boost the signal if I need to.”
Usually Teag was the only one who glimpsed the impressions I received when I used my gift, and then only when we both held onto a piece of fabric with his magic woven into it. I’d never put on a show for a larger audience, and while that made me a little nervous, these were all trusted friends, and it would make the aftermath much easier if I didn’t have to recap my vision.
I sat in the middle of one side on the big table I’d inherited from my grandmother. The scarred wooden dining table wasn’t particularly valuable, but I remembered many family holiday meals, and that gave it a resonance of calmness and support that grounded me. Teag sat to my left, and Mrs. Teller sat on my right. The others found their seats, and Teag uncoiled a long braided cord, handing one end to me and then passing the rest of the rope down the line until Mrs. Teller grasped the opposite end.
“If this works right, you’ll see what I see. Hang on. I never know what is going to happen,” I warned. Teag used a pencil to nudge the button my way, steering it with the eraser to keep from touching it with his skin. I took a deep breath, reached for the button, and closed my eyes.
Buttons are some of my favorite things to read because they are worn close to the skin and soak up a lot of impressions. The button we found in Carmen’s house had a mother of pearl sheen to it, high-end like it came off a dressy blouse. The smooth, cold disk warmed to my skin, and I felt my gift connect.
I saw the house through Carmen’s eyes as it had been. The interior looked chic and color-coordinated, like something out of a magazine, and I wondered whether she had a good eye or she’d gone into debt to hire a decorator. Or maybe Carmen never lost the memory of Nicholson money, even as she followed her bad boy lover into family exile.
Anger permeated the sensations I read from the button, a low, persistent boil below the surface. Carmen had a mad on for the world, but underneath it all her father held a special place in her fury. I caught a glimpse of a photograph of Carmen with a handsome dark-haired man and figured that was Vincente. Grief lurked below the anger, dark as sin and deep enough to drown in. But one emotion burned brightly. Vengeance. Carmen had a plan, and the idea that those who had wronged her would get what was coming to them sustained her, helping her rise above the grief and filling her with purpose.
The image shifted, and I saw the house again, but everything was boxed, and the rooms were almost empty. I felt a tug of sadness as Carmen looked around the vacant rooms and remembered better times. Then a flare of anger drove away the regret, and I felt her resolve harden. She went back to the bedroom to retrieve a few containers to hand carry. The box on top held a small hand loom and several pieces of fabric that I recognized from the storm drain. When she looked at the cloth swatches, I could feel cold satisfaction and the anticipation that she would make people pay for their sins. She stretched down to pick up the boxes, and abruptly, the vision ended.
I came back to myself with a rush of breath and opened my eyes to find the others staring at me with various levels of astonishment.
“Nicely done,” Mrs. Teller said, breaking the silence.
“An impressive gift,” Secona murmured.
Anthony looked confounded. “I’ve seen you read objects before, and helped you through the aftermath, but somehow I never understood how real the visions are.”
“That was pretty tame,” I said, knowing that Anthony had been around to help gather my wits after a malicious object knocked me on my ass.
“So if I’m interpreting what you saw correctly, that nails Carmen as the person behind the woven fabric that caused havoc downtown,” Teag said. Mrs. Teller and I nodded.
“She was running away,” I mused. “So either she thought someone would come after her to stop her—maybe us—or she needed to go somewhere more private to finish the rest of her plan.”
“I’ll see what I can find in the registrar of deed’s records when we’re done,” Teag volunteered.
“Ready for the comb?” I asked. The others nodded, and Teag pushed it toward me. Once again, I picked up the hard plastic and willed my gift to focus on whatever memories it retained.
There’s a reason magic and ritual prefer basic materials like wood, metal, bone, and stone. The farther removed from nature an object is, the less well it conducts magic. Plastic can be tricky, and while I can get a reading from it, the images often aren’t quite as clear.
Then again, from what I could see, maybe this time it worked out well that the reception was blurry.
Once more, I saw through Carmen’s eyes, but this time, she stood in a large clearing. The image looked like a bad cable TV signal, fuzzy and breaking up a bit, but I could force my magic through the comb enough to hold the connection.
Carmen was in the middle of a circle made from braided rope. At her feet lay a shallow bowl filled with a dark liquid I bet was blood. Beyond the rope, I could see the discarded bodies of chickens and rabbits. Thick pillar candles burned at the four quarters of the warded circle. Carmen began to chant, and while I couldn’t make out the words, the thrum of power, even at a distance, raised the hackles on the back of my neck.
The breeze stirred, fluttering her hair and her loose-fitting shirt. The candle flames flickered, and the tall grass bent in waves. I could feel Carmen’s intense focus and an almost ecstatic urgency. The wind grew stronger, guttering the candles and whipping her hair wildly around her face. Fear and excitement warred inside as she called down old power and felt a response. And then, in the distance, I heard the howl of dogs and the pounding of hooves—
“Cassidy?” Anthony’s worried voice cut through the mental fog as I struggled to come out of the vision.
“I’m okay,” I assured him, but Teag pushed a glass of sweet tea at me anyhow, and I drank it greedily, needing the sugar. I pick up flashes of normal life from objects fairly often, and those little insights don’t usually bother me. But when I focus my gift on an object full of dark resonance, the effort drains my psychic “batteries” pretty quickly. I could feel the beginnings of a headache in my temples, and I felt like I’d run a mile in the heat.
“We can do this later if you need a break,” Anthony added. I waved him off.
“I’d rather get it over with. Then I can collapse on the couch and listen while the rest of you come up with a brilliant plan,” I replied, only partly kidding.
Teag rolled the lone earring toward me. The single cultured pearl on a gold stud had been fairly expensive, the kind of loss someone would miss—if they weren’t consumed by trying to summon the power of the ancient dead. The earring fit what we knew about Carmen, a woman who had left behind a privileged upbringing. I wondered if she even noticed it was missing.
I felt Mrs. Teller’s gaze on me as I reached for the earring. She gave me an appraising look, not falling for my reassurances about being all right. Then again, all of us around the table except Anthony knew first-hand about the cost of magic, and what kind of price our gifts sometimes demanded.
My fingers folded around the earring, careful not to poke myself with the sharp post. I definitely didn’t want to draw blood, not with an object like this. The strain from the readings made my hand shake, and I took a deep breath to steady myself. My magic latched onto the resonance of the earring with a sudden jolt, and I found myself in Carmen’s dining room.
I realized that what I saw happened before she packed up and moved out because Carmen sat at a dining table spread with spell books and ritual objects. I saw the shallow bowl that I’d glimpsed in the previous vision and guessed it was a scrying tool. Two silvery objects caught my attention. One was a rune-inscribed brooch and the other a dagger with elaborate engraving. They looked familiar, and then I realized that I had seen both before. These were the stolen items from the Museum and the Archive. Up close, I could see the intricacy of the carvings, and feel the old power both resonated.
A small brazier the size of an incense burner sat on a protective pad, filled with glowing embers. Carmen reached into a velvet pouch and withdrew a handful of small seeds, then dropped them into the brazier. Smoke rose as they burned, and she leaned into the aromatic wisps, inhaling deeply.
I felt my head spin as the smoke filled my lungs, and my body felt strangely light. The room pulsed in time with my heartbeat, and the colors throbbed. Carmen’s voice rose in a chant, rising and falling, her words slurred. The tethers that kept my soul in my body seemed loose as if I could float away. That idea felt both thrilling and terrifying.
Carmen’s dining room dimmed, and I saw a cold, rocky shore on the verge of a dark sea. The shadowy forms of boats drifted in the moonlight. A bonfire near the cliff sent flames leaping into the sky, and when I looked up, the Northern Lights arced like a blazing ribbon of green fire.
Silhouetted by the bonfire stood a giant of a man. His dark cloak shimmered with iridescent colors like starling feathers, falling across broad shoulders and powerful arms. I could not see his face because a headdress in the shape of a bird’s head obscured his features.
Giddy with the smoke, drunk on the borrowed power of Carmen’s incantation, I watched the man turn. Across time and distance, I swore he knew we were watching him, and that shadowed face looked right at us. Although I couldn’t see his eyes, I felt his attention on me, and my skin prickled as my gut clenched. And while I knew that the scene was of the memories imprinted on Carmen’s lost earring, that the vision her smoke produced was in the past, still I also had the sense that the man, Holmgang, somehow knew that I was there, and his oppressive stare imparted a warning.
The scene vanished and I felt myself falling. Strong arms caught me, and I heard chanting again, but this time Alicia’s voice led the litany. Gradually, my head cleared, and I realized that I lay stretched out on the couch, with the others crowding around worriedly.
“What happened?” I asked, still groggy.
Secona, still wearing Alicia’s body, sat on the edge of the couch. She pressed a length of woven fabric into my hand, and almost immediately I felt the last of the fog lift from my mind. “The woman in the vision you saw burned henbane seeds. Very dangerous—and a way seers throughout the ages have gone walking without their bodies.”
“A hallucinogen?” Anthony mused.
“Yes, but more than that,” Mrs. Teller replied. “Not all hallucinations are false. In the hands of a skilled practitioner, henbane, peyote, wolfsbane, belladonna, and others can produce astral projection and clairvoyant visions…if they don’t kill you.”
Teag knelt next to me, bearing both another cold glass of sweet tea and several ibuprofen. “Did you see what I saw?” I managed, pleased that my words weren’t as slurred as Carmen’s.
“Yes, in all three cases,” Anthony replied. “And I stand in awe of your courage, all of you. Five senses are overwhelming enough for me.”
Teag steadied me as I sat up to drink, then fixed pillows so I didn’t have to lie flat and could see everyone as they dragged chairs into my line of sight. “So what did everyone get out of all that?” I asked, grateful that Teag kept my glass refilled.
“We know what happened to the missing relics,” Teag observed.
“And the visions linked Carmen to both Holmgang and the Wild Hunt,” Secona replied. “But calling to something is very different from commanding it. I wonder if she realizes that.”
“What now?” Mrs. Teller asked. “We don’t know where Carmen is, or when she’ll make her next move. And while Carmen might not be able to control the forces she’s toying with, we aren’t guaranteed to be able to stop them, either.”
Baxter suddenly sat up from where he lay on the floor, ran to the foyer, and barked like he’d lost his mind. My head hurt too much for me to worry about the newcomer since I knew the warding would prevent a stranger from entering. But I was surprised to see Donnelly and Rowan enter. Rowan bent down and murmured a few words to Baxter, who immediately stopped yipping and ran in a happy circle around her feet before trotting off toward his food dish.
“Did you learn that from Sorren?” I asked. “That’s cheating.”
Rowan chuckled. “Sorren can glamour the dog. I just reminded him of his food.”
“Sneaky,” Teag replied.
I frowned, trying to make out what Rowan carried. Then I realized she had a wooden staff, about three feet long, darkened with age and inscribed with complicated markings. “Where did you get the staff?” I asked.
Teag gave me an apologetic look. “Forgot to mention that. While you and Mrs. Teller were out, Secona said that if the Nicholson family had a history of Weaver witches, there should be a staff, especially if their power dates back to the Norse times. I remembered that clothes press in one of the bedrooms at the mansion had a bunch of old walking sticks in the corner. Didn’t think anything about them at the time, so it never occurred to me before now that there might be a Seiðr’s staff in with the canes and hiking poles.”
“Archibald and I offered to go look, and Teag pulled a few strings through your friend at the Archive to get permission,” Rowan supplied.
“That’s no ordinary walking stick,” Mrs. Teller said, coming around the couch to get a closer look. Rowan held the staff in the light so we could all see.
“Those are Norse runes,” Secona said, rising from her seat to examine the staff. “It is a Seiðr’s tool, one of considerable power.” She ran a hand above the surface of the wood without touching it. “It still holds echoes of its last user’s magic, but they’re very faint. No one’s channeled energy through it in a long time. A pity, because it’s badly starved.”
“Starved?” Anthony echoed. “Are you saying that the staff is alive?”
Secona’s expression grew pinched as she struggled to explain. “Not as you think of life. Not sentient, like a person or an animal. But…reactive, and instinctual. A staff becomes an extension of the witch who wields it. It resonates with energy and magic—and memory. It…responds…over time to the imprint of its master’s power,” she said.
“And when such a staff isn’t used for a long time, the magic…dries out,” Secona continued. “Almost as if the energy is a sap running through it and keeping the staff primed for use. Without magic, the staff grows brittle, physically and in its energy. This will need to be cleansed and charged before we can use it against Holmgang, but once restored, it will be a fine weapon indeed.”
I thought about the walking stick that Sorren had given me, a gentleman’s sword-cane that once belonged to his maker, Alard. While my wooden spoon athame drew on memories of my grandmother to let me summon a white-cold force, Alard’s walking stick channeled my energy into a bolt of flame. I might not have the kind of power that either Secona or Holmgang possessed, but I understood what it felt like to have a bond with my athame. So I could only imagine what a seasoned, very old staff might be able to channel in the hands of an ancient and powerful sorceress.
Donnelly cleared his throat when we were all done ogling the Seiðr staff. “I think I have the last piece of the puzzle, the way to connect Carmen to the Wild Hunt,” he announced. “I just need to summon a couple of ghosts, and make them spill a few old family secrets.”