Healing Hands (The Queen of the Night series Book 2) (20 page)

Chapter Twenty-Six

Mooney

After school on the sixth day of my incarceration, Corey thrashed about downstairs cussing a blue streak which would have gotten him weeks of restriction if my mom still lived. I rushed to my door and looked at Deputy Jimmy. By tacit agreement, he allowed me to join him in a sprint down the stairs. Definite sounds of a struggle came from the kitchen. Furniture was being thrown around and maybe even broken. Once in the door, I immediately grasped the situation. “Jimmy, help him. Restrain that gnome!”

Jimmy was so overwhelmingly powerful he had the scrawny gnome imprisoned in moments.

“Omigosh, how did you catch Arianrhod’s spy from the garden?”

Corey was still winded from his struggle, but he nodded his head as he gasped for air. Finally he said, “The air hole’s got something he wants to tell us.” 

I had walked over to where Corey stood, behind the overturned kitchen table. It smelled like roast pork only gross. Corey’s hands smoldered. Blisters were starting to form and they looked painful. With a quick glance to make sure Jimmy was preoccupied and wouldn’t notice, I reached down to Corey’s damaged hands behind the cover of the sideways table and healed him quickly.

He smiled his thanks, but it looked more like a grimace.

The gnome sported nasty looking blisters on his chest and one arm. I made no effort whatsoever to heal him. “You, you’re the moonflower gnome that spies on my family for Arianrhod. Tell us what happened to the Brideog doll and Madison McLoed!” 

Next to me Corey held up his hands. Jimmy thought Corey offered a gesture of supplication, but the gnome’s eyes widened in terror.

Jimmy shook the gnome to urge his response. “Tell us your name,” he ordered in his law enforcement voice.

“M-m-mooney…They call me Mooney…”

Corey spoke first. “I thought about what Fiona said. She wanted to find out what happened to the doll after you threw it in the backyard, so I started keeping a watch out there. Soon Ginger, Rock and I were taking shifts looking out the back windows. I saw this guy transform from a vine into…this, and then Arianna herself came out of nowhere last night and started talking to him. As soon as I could, I went out there to chat with him myself. What did you do with the doll, Mooney?”

“I took it,” he said in a small voice.

“And then what happened?” asked Jimmy.

“A voice called me from the front yard, so I spoke to it. She asked me to get the doll and the toy bed and give them to her. I took them to the fence on the right side of the house and gave them to a pretty young woman who was waiting for me on the other side.”

“What did the woman say to you?”

“She asked me if the boy had touched the doll, too. She wanted to be sure her plan would work.”

Jimmy asked Mooney, “Are you willing to tell your story to the High Council?”

“Oh, he’ll talk…” Corey said while wiggling his fingers.

***

A massive group of people crowded into our living room. The five judging members of the High Council and Paula sat around the coffee table. Jimmy still had the restrained gnome in his arms. They stood in front of the group. Evan, Madison and I were asked to stand around as well. Fiona, Rose and Corey hovered in the background.

I couldn’t stop from scanning Madison, looking for something in her aura or physical health which might explain why she had been so malicious. There was a strong haze of gold hovering over the other colors, meaning she was powerfully magical, as many Seers were. She had spikes of purple which indicated her power of premonition. Shades of red and black indicated how angry she was at getting caught. Gray meant fear, but there was also something else. A translucent brown color existed, not the solid gray-brown of a tumor, but an indicator of a personality trait or emotion. I’d never studied the meaning of this particular shade of dark walnut brown and made a mental note to ask Jenny about it the next chance I got.

The gnome choked out his confession and Madison was placed under house arrest. The rest of the room let out an audible sigh of relief. Jimmy’s cousin, Bobby, also a police officer, had been Evan’s guard for the week long incarceration. The two policemen escorted Madison away.

Fiona placed a motion before the council. She asked that Evan and I be considered ‘coveted’.

“What’s that?” I asked Rose, who had come to stand beside me.

“It’s when the clan declares you to be protected from retribution from the magical community. Even Arianrhod herself couldn’t try to harm you without it being considered an act of war.”

I remembered Corey’s comment and thought
we’re already at war
. Instead I said, “Isn’t that what we wanted for Corey?”

“Yeah, but after it was determined he had no magic, it wasn’t necessary.”

“Oh,” Such a thing wouldn’t stop Arianrhod. She’d needed little incentive to kill many of my ancestors, including all four of my grandparents, who had done nothing wrong.

Fiona informed me that the council needed to deliberate the motion and Evan and I had to wait for their decision in my room.  

***

Stunned at the rapid turn of events and drained from the emotional roller coaster of the last week. I just sat on the edge of my bed with my shoulders hunched over, saying nothing. Three feet away from me, Evan did the same thing. We didn’t talk. Finally, Fiona stood in the doorway. She addressed us briskly.

“The council has made its decision. First off, Evan, the council wanted me to send you their apologies for your treatment this week. Your status on the council and as Great Seer has been reinstated.”

“That’s good,” I said, hopefully.

“They need me,” growled Evan. I wondered if he preferred the ‘running away’ plan.

“You’re right,” Fiona snapped, “We all need you. You have a responsibility to the clan and to Llew.”  Evan accepted this.

She continued. “Okay, you’ve both been declared ‘coveted’, and I just wanted to say one more thing to the two of you before I left.” 

Evan and I waited patiently.

“Clan law is specific. Neither of you is allowed to marry. Neither of you is allowed to have children. Madison’s accusation was taken seriously because of the implication of Brighid’s blessing, not because they thought you guys were intimate.”

Huh
?

“In the old days, a ritual like the Brideog ritual was enough to establish a common law marriage. Maggie invited Evan, Evan accepted the invitation. He entered the house and was accepted. Brighid gave the house her blessing, end of story. By ancient clan law, the two of you would be married by now, so here’s the bottom line. Don’t get pregnant. Don’t do anything that might be construed as a common law marriage, like move in together, and for Goddess’ sake, don’t elope. In the past, the Great Healer and Great Seer had a huge generation gap between them. It is unprecedented that you are so close in age. Since you are both forbidden to marry anyone else, why shouldn’t you want to take comfort in each other?  It makes perfect sense to me but remember, the law is specific. DO NOT GET PREGNANT. Am I understood?”

Evan and I just stared at her, from the opposite sides of the bed, with jaws dropped and eyes wide.

After a moment she decided our reaction equaled confirmation. “Okay,” she nodded and left.

For a long time, neither of us said anything. Then Evan spoke slowly, as if still trying to come to grips with what she’d said. “Did the leader of the clan just give us permission to have sex?”

“Great-Aunt Fiona is more progressive than I realized.”

***

Soon after, we were forced back to reality by Corey. He came into the room grim-faced and sat between us.

“Thanks, Corey, you did good,” I said softly, ruffling his hair.

He didn’t smile. “Yeah, but we still have a problem. It’s in the basement. Follow me.” 

Evan and I got up and walked after him.

Our house was built in 1920. It doesn’t have a basement. It has a root cellar accessed by steel, storm doors from the backyard, but it’s built solidly. I didn’t hear the muffled shouts until we stood in front of the double doors. Corey pulled back the sliding bolt and opened one of them. Evan helped him pull the other one open. We walked down the stairs and I pulled the string which turned on the single bulb mounted in the ceiling.

In the center of the cellar, tied to a chair and covered with blisters, was Mooney. His mouth was gagged, but he still made a racket. Immediately, I scanned him to see what other injuries he sustained. There weren’t any, but he had the same translucent walnut brown haze in his aura that I’d noted in Madison.

Corey explained why Mooney was still with us. “Rock helped me get him down here and tied up.”

After Mooney had confessed, I had forgotten all about him, assuming he’d been allowed to return to his home.

Corey echoed my thoughts. “I couldn’t let him go back to the moon garden. He knows my secret. The first person he’d tell would be Arianna and it would all be over.”

“What secret?” Evan asked.

“That Corey really is the Destroyer,” I replied, shocked, as the pieces fell together in my mind.

“Yup, that’s the one,” confirmed my brother. He took a weary seat on the floor.

Evan and I did the same.

He continued to explain. “You see, the first day you were under arrest, when you guys talked on the phone, I listened in on your conversation. You said Arianna wanted to kill you anyway. I can’t let you die, Maggie. You’re all I have left. You know as well as I do she’s killed a lot of people in our family, so when you were downstairs or in the bathroom, I’d sneak in your room and look at the family tree you have on the wall. I recognized a few of these names from the stories in the Poet’s Play.” 

I’d thought he’d slept the whole time, but he must have been listening instead.

“I also recognized them from my dreams. Leslie MacDougall was an in-betweener. She was born to a generation of Healers who would not become a Great Healer. After her older sister gave birth to the next Great Healer, Leslie mysteriously died.”

I disagreed with him, “No Corey, she died during the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1944. She was a nurse in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“Mark Stewart,” my brother continued, “was the younger brother of grandpa Ewan. Two years after Dad was born, he died too.”

Again, I had a counter-argument. “Mark died in Vietnam, Corey.”

“And Dad died in Afghanistan!” he shouted, “but we know Arianna murdered him!” Corey had a good point. Arianrhod’s pruning may very well have gone beyond revenge and infanticide.

Corey finished his argument. “The war began a long time ago. Now we know we’re in it, we have no choice but to fight back or we’ll be the next to die.”  He lowered his voice, “if she finds out I have the power to kill her, or that I might someday, I’m dead meat. Besides, Mooney confessed. There’s no way we can let this guy go free.”

“I know, he confessed to helping Madison, but it sounds like you’re talking about killing him. We aren’t murderers.”

“Self-defense and capital punishment aren’t murder. He confessed to killing Grandpa Kyle and Grandma Kathryn. He also confessed to killing Rhonda MacDougall in 1915. He’s been a bad gnome for a long time. If we let him out of our sight for a second, he’ll go to Arianna and tell her I’m the Destroyer. Then she’ll find a way to kill all of us. There’s no way I’m letting him go free.”

I looked at the blister-covered gnome in horror.
Was my brother already guilty of torture?  Should I let him become a killer as well
?  I looked frantically to Evan. “Isn’t there something else we can do?  Can we wipe his memory, or put him in prison?”

Evan shook his head. “Only the Sidhe can alter memories, but Sidhe charms don’t work on gnomes and the clan has no facility for incarceration. Besides, as a shape shifter, he’d find a way to escape. I’m surprised he hasn’t found a way to escape yet.”

“I talked to Rock about all of this before I came to you. I asked him about prison, and about spells. There’s no other way to keep us safe. The only reason he’s still here is because Rock put this silver chain around his neck.”

I peered to where Corey pointed. The silver chain was barely visible. It seemed to have sunk into his skin. I shivered and took a step back.

“Yeah, it’s gross,” Corey explained. “Rock said magical creatures that have become evil, and defied the laws of nature, are allergic to silver. It’s like acid to them. Mooney has committed more than one pre-meditated murder. He can’t come back from that. The pain is keeping him from shifting, but it won’t work forever. I’m sorry, but I need your help.”  My poor, sweet, exuberant brother had aged from eleven to forty-two overnight. Instead of a cute kid, I saw a weary soldier.

Evan look resolved as well.

I accepted their decision. “I’m here for you,” I took hold of Corey’s hand and squeezed it.

“I’ll do it, I mean, but when I do, I’ll get hurt.”

“I’ll heal you. It’s okay.”

“I need help getting rid of the body,” he looked pointedly at Evan.

“No problem,” Evan replied with steel in his voice.

Corey stood up and walked over to the now frantic gnome. I opened my Healer vision to know when the deed was done.