Burning Bright (Ivy Granger) (27 page)

“I’m an old woman,” Kaye said, baring her teeth and giving
an impatient snort.  “I’ll take my chances.”

“No,” I said, shaking my head.  “If we’re going to do this,
we do things my way.”

Kaye glared at me, but I stared right back into her sharp,
kohl rimmed eyes.  She sighed and slumped against the counter.

“Fine, have it your way, girl,” she said.

She plucked the apple from the counter, put it in her mouth,
and took a bite.  Judging from her grimace, it wasn’t the tastiest of
apples—the bitter fruit of faerie schemes rarely are.  I pulled the bag from my
pocket that held the second apple, ready to follow her lead, but Kaye shook her
head.

“Not yet, dear,” she said.  “Wait and watch.”

Kaye finished eating the apple, core and all, and nodded to
Arachne.

“Add a spoonful of the potion to three fingers of wine,” she
said, instructing the young witch.

Arachne poured wine into two large goblets and spooned
liquid from the steaming cauldron into each.  I swallowed hard.  At least the
potion didn’t smell bad.  The scent of cinnamon, clove, and berries were thick
in the air as Kaye lifted a goblet to her lips.  She coughed, hand flying to
her mouth and she lowered herself onto a nearby chair.

Kaye’s hand came away stained with blood, not wine, but she
didn’t grimace in pain.  She said that taking the potion wouldn’t hurt and I
trusted her not to lie, not about this.  She smiled and sat back in the chair,
hand dropping to her side.

I stood transfixed.  There was no rise and fall of her
chest, no light in her drooping eyes.  Kaye was dead.

“What do we do?” Arachne asked in a whisper.

“We wait,” I said.

As we watched, the tattoos on Kaye’s skin began to retreat. 
Dark, black, intertwining lines faded first from her hands, then her neck and
arms.  Torn had said that dying would give me a chance to be free of the faerie
bargains I’d sworn to, but I hadn’t given much thought to what the experience
might do to a witch as old as Kaye.  Apparently, I wasn’t the only one who was
getting a clean slate.

Kaye had been cursed with those tattoos as part of the cost
of using powerful magic.  It was the price she had paid, one that would
eventually catch up with her.  Her magic had already weakened, but I suspected
that she would die or burn out the last of her magic entirely if there was no
longer bare skin available to allow the tattoos to spread.  She’d come close to
that during our battle with the
each uisge
, damn close.

I’d like nothing more than to see the clock turn back on
Kaye’s tattoos, but one truth echoed inside my head—having her magic at full
strength wouldn’t do Kaye any good if she remained dead.

I held my breath, the sound of Arachne’s teeth grinding
against her hair the only sound in the room.  Come on, Kaye.  Wake up.  My eyes
felt gritty and dry, but I didn’t dare blink as I watched Kaye for any signs of
life.  Oh god, what if the apples were some kind of faerie trick?  What if they
didn’t work at all?  My stomach twisted.

What have I done?

Kaye gasped, a reverse death rattle from deep in her throat,
and I covered my mouth with a trembling hand.  Ceff stepped forward and bent to
place his fingers against her throat.  He nodded and smiled.

“She will live,” he said.

The “but” hung heavy in the air.  Kaye was back from the
dead, but I didn’t kid myself that everything was fine.  Dying wasn’t easy on
the body and Kaye was hundreds of years old.  There was still a chance that she
had suffered irreparable brain damage.  She may never regain consciousness.

Only time would tell.

I bit my lip and leaned forward, gloved hands shaking as I
place them wide on the stone countertop.

“Kaye?” I asked.  “You alright?”

“Give…me…a…second,” she said between wheezing gasps for
breath.  “Always…so…impatient.”

Her eyelids fluttered open, the dark eyes filled with their
usual shrewd intelligence and, a hint of mischief.

Arachne rushed over to her side, waving a hand in front of
Kaye’s face.

“How many fingers am I holding up?” Arachne asked, leaning
forward.

“Three,” Kaye groused.  “And if you keep waving that fool
hand of yours in my face, that’s how many big, ugly warts I’ll put on that
perky little nose of yours.”

Arachne’s hands flew to her face and she shook her head,
backing away.

“You wouldn’t,” she said, voice muffled behind her hands.

“Don’t test me, child,” she said.  “By the Goddess, I’ve
just died and come back to life.  It has been one hell of a day.”

I let out a shaky laugh.  Kaye was alive, thank Mab, and
just as sharp as ever.

“Go on,” she said, making a shooing motion with her
hands—hands that no longer carried the tattoos of spent magic.  “I can’t breathe
with you all hovering like a band of moroi.”

“As you wish,” Ceff said.

He stepped aside to give the woman space, but I couldn’t
help but step closer, eyes wide and shining.  I was no moroi—phantoms who draw
life from the living—but I was drawn to Kaye just the same.  I couldn’t stop
staring at her skin.

“Kaye,” I said, pointing.  “Your tattoos, they’re gone.”

She held up her arm, pulling the lace sleeves of her dress
away from the unblemished skin.

“Well I’ll be,” she said.  “That is…unexpected.”

I’m pretty sure that there wasn’t much that surprised the
witch, so I backed off and gave her a moment to let the implications sink in. 
If her bare skin meant what I thought it did, then her magic was back to full
strength, or would be as soon as she recovered.  Judging by the slow grin
tugging at her lips, she’d just realized that as well.

The glaistig better watch her back.

“Feeling better?” Ceff asked.

I smiled, doing an internal inventory, and nodded.

“Now that you mention it, yeah, I do,” I said.  “I feel
great.  Never better.”

It was the truth.  No more bone crushing fatigue.  No wobbly
knees or shaky muscles pushed to the brink of exhaustion.  The weight of one
unfulfilled bargain—the compulsion to kill Kaye—was gone.  I rubbed my gloved
hands together thinking about just how much I was going to enjoy seeing the
look on The Green Lady’s face when I showed up later tonight with an angry
witch bent on revenge.

“Arachne, fetch me the cot we keep in the back,” Kaye said,
frowning at me.  “That potion packs more of a wallop than I expected.  Best to
be prepared, we don’t want Ivy getting a concussion from hitting her fool
head.”

Without the yoke of the glaistig’s bargain around my neck, I
felt like I could take on anything.  Too bad the first thing I had to face was
death.  I’d rather go knock some fire imp heads together than drink Kaye’s
potion.  Such is life.

Arachne carried in a folding cot and set it up beside the
counter where I stood.  I’d been on that cot more times than I’d like to admit,
usually with Kaye stitching me back together.  Taking on cases involving the
fae hadn’t been good for my health.

“Go on, lie down, dear,” Kaye said.  “Might as well get this
over with.  We still have a lot to do tonight.”

I sighed.  Our plan had worked.  Kaye had eaten her apple
and drank a goblet of poison, died and been resurrected.  Now it was my turn.

“You ready?” Arachne asked, shaking hands reaching for the
second goblet.

Watching Kaye die had left me with some serious thoughts. 
It put things into perspective.  And the fact that the witch had survived was
no guarantee that the second apple would work on me.  There was nothing in
Kaye’s books to reassure me.  I was about to drink a poisonous brew, but I was
no fool.  There were no guarantees as far as I was concerned.

I may not make it back.

“There’s a phone call I need to make first,” I said, pulling
out my phone.  “Think you can keep The Emporium from eating me, or making me
walk around in circles for hours?”

Kaye lifted her unblemished arm and waggled her fingers.

“Oh I can do a lot more than that, dear,” she said.  “So
much more.”

I
stepped out
onto the sidewalk and took in a lungful of spring air.  Mud and car exhaust
never smelled so sweet.  I just hoped I’d still be here to enjoy the coming
summer.

But I didn’t know, not for sure.  That was why I needed to
call my mom.  I’d gone years resenting her for her distance.  I believed it
meant that she didn’t love me, couldn’t love the freak child that I’d become
when my powers began to manifest.  But that hadn’t been the full truth.

My mom hadn’t been afraid of me, she’d been afraid
for
me—and the geis that my dad put on her made it impossible for us to talk about
my fae blood.  We’d lost years to a misunderstanding and a well intentioned,
but misguided spell.

After figuring that out, I’d come to see my mom in a
different light.  We were beginning to have a better relationship with each
other, but I was still guarded.  There was so much left unsaid, and I didn’t
have the excuse of a magical geis.  Before going through with my crazy scheme
to unburden myself of faerie bargains, I needed to set things straight with my
mom.  I had to let her know that I love her.

Too bad the Moordenaar had other plans.  Pesky assassins.

Thwap, thwap, twhap
.  Three arrows sunk deep into my
flesh, each imbedding their tips into vital organs—stomach, liver, heart.  I
noted the deadly strikes with a strange detachment, as if the injuries were
happening to someone else.

My phone slid from my hand, shattering on the sidewalk.  Shattering
like the fragments of my soul.  Where do half-breed souls go when they die? 
I’d never thought to ask, and now it was too late.

“Finish her,” a voice like the whisper of a scorpion said
from the growing shadows that blurred my vision.

At some point, I’d fallen.  I could see approaching black
and silver boots, but I no longer cared.  I’d finally get some sleep.  I let my
eyes drift closed.  It’s funny how comfortable cobblestones are when you’re
dying.

A low, rumbling growl startled me awake, though I couldn’t
move.  I lay there helpless, unable to reach my weapons.  Just like in every
nightmare I’d ever had, the monsters I saw everyday were finally going to catch
me—and there was nothing I could do about it.

“The gargoyle?” another voice asked.

“We have pierced her vital organs,” said a third voice. 
“That and the poison will do the rest.”

“Then leave the guardian, he has not been marked for death,”
the first man said.  “The traitor will die before the day is out.  Our work
here is complete.”

A monster loomed over me, casting what was left of my vision
into shadow, and roared.  Eyelids growing heavy, I sighed and let them drift
closed again, no energy left for the monster.  But it grabbed my jacket and
shook me until I opened my eyes.

A grotesque face hovered close to mine.  It was familiar,
but it took my brain a minute to give it a name.

“H-h-humphrey?” I asked.

At least, I tried to say his name.  It came out more like a
wet, stuttering croak as I choked on my own blood.

“Do not speak,” he said, words tumbling like rocks in a
landslide.  “I will take you to Mistress Kaye.”

My head fell back as the gargoyle lifted me into his arms,
spread his wings, and flew—actually flew—through The Emporium.  I heard a gasp
and then all hell broke loose.  I couldn’t help but laugh.  It was too funny.

I let down my guard for one second and sidhe assassins come
along and turn me into a half human pin cushion.  Funny bastards.

“Ivy, eat,” Kaye said.

I choked as someone shoved food into my mouth.  It tasted
like apples and mold and blood.  I gagged, but someone held my jaw shut.  I
struggled against the vice-like grip.  I couldn’t swallow, couldn’t scream for
help…couldn’t breathe.

T
he visions
went on forever.  At least, I thought they were visions.  Maybe this was the
afterlife and I was doomed to an eternity of repeatedly playing out the painful
moments of a young couple’s tragic life.  And it was a tragedy—that was for
certain.

Faeries may have an obsession with The Bard, but Shakespeare
got his inspiration from somewhere.  I was guessing that Romeo and Juliet had Manannán
mac Lir and Ailinn to thank for the bittersweet ending to their romance.

Manannán had three wives—Fand, Aife, and Iuchra—but when he
met Ailinn it was love at first sight.  The two were inseparable until the
Milesians invaded the north.  Manannán rode north on his sea chariot to help
the Tuatha Dé Danann repel the invading army.

Fand, jealous of Ailinn and angry at her husband for ending
her own affair with her lover Cúchulainn, saw her opportunity for revenge.  She
sent messengers to the border villages of the north, spreading the rumor that
Ailinn was dead.

On his return journey south, Manannán was told falsely that
Ailinn had died during his absence.  He used Fragarach the Answerer to force
the truth from the man, but since the man believed the rumor, he continued to
claim that Ailinn was dead.   In his grief, Manannán turned his sword on
himself.

When news reached Ailinn that her lover had taken his own
life, she too takes her life to be joined with him for eternity.  But in a
cruel twist of Fate, Manannán is not dead.  His sword Fragarach did not hit any
vital organs, and its blade was so sharp that his wounds knit in a day.  In
frustration, he rode home, learning along that way that he’d been tricked by Fand,
but he was too late to save Ailinn.

When he arrived on the hillside where they’d promised to
meet when the war was over, a tree bearing silver apples grew from Ailinn’s
fresh grave.  The sea deity’s tears flooded the land, creating Emain Ablach and
turning the hill into an island.