The Last Days of Magic (54 page)

“The heart will be safe here until it is needed,” she avowed to her friends, to herself, and to the Morrígna.

An apparition in the shape of a swan circled overhead, shining in the torchlight.

Epilogue

And I, the Sage, declare the grandeur of his radiance in order to frighten and terrify all the spirits of the ravaging angels and the bastard spirits [Nephilim], demons, Lilith, owls and jackals, and those who strike unexpectedly to lead astray the spirit of knowledge.

—Dead Sea Scroll 4Q510–511, Fragment 1 (circa 300 BCE)

A Ferry on the Irish Sea

2016, The Night Before Sara Hill’s Body Was Found

E
xhausted from the prior sleepless night hunched over her grandmother’s secret cache of photographs and translations of the Qumran Scrolls, Sara Hill had splurged and taken a single cabin on the ferry to Ireland. But it was no use; she was too anxious to sleep. Worries for her grandmother’s safety, coupled with images of Nephilim, swirled through her restless mind. Still fully dressed, she rose from the bunk. Through her porthole she saw that the lights of Liverpool had receded, and now only the yellow lights of the ferry danced upon the dark waves. The ship began to roll as a wind blew in. Sara decided to go topside for some fresh air.

She pulled on her coat and tucked her leather satchel, laden with her grandmother’s illicit materials, under her arm and left the cabin. A short distance down the passageway, she climbed up the steep, narrow stairs to the enclosed main deck. Here travelers without cabins had staked out territory, their sleeping bags rolled out on benches or clustered on the floor. Those still awake, mostly young, played cards or read. Sara wove through the crowd and pushed open
the heavy bulkhead door to the outside walkway. The cold, salt wind mussed her hair and cut through her wool coat, but it felt good all the same. It cleared her mind. Alone on the walkway, she leaned against the rail and looked out into the dark.

She had thought she was alone. Sara felt someone passing by brush against her shoulder and take a spot at the rail beside her. Sara glanced over. A woman turned and smiled at her. Grandmother? No, it was someone who looked like old photographs of her grandmother.

“Hello, my dear,” the woman said, as if they knew each other.

Sara took a step back. “What do you want?”

“You’re walking into a trap, my dear. A group of Sidhe are lying in wait for you in Belfast. They’re after what you’re carrying. And they won’t be pleased to find you’ve read through it.”

“Sidhe?” gasped Sara, clutching her satchel against her chest.

“A small gang of militants who will do anything to keep their secrets—Brownies and Leprechauns, mostly. Violent and unpleasant as they are, it’s understandable considering all they’ve been through. My sister never should have brought you into this.”

Sara took another step back. “Your sister?”

Something over Sara’s shoulder caught the woman’s attention, and Sara spun around. Behind her stood the most beautiful man Sara had ever seen. Terror commingled with instant physical attraction and rendered her breathless. He was a Sidhe; she did not know how she knew, but she knew. “What are you going to do to me?” she managed to whisper.

“We’re not going to hurt you, my dear,” came the woman’s reassuring voice from behind her. “Don’t be scared. I’m your grandmother’s twin, Claire. I know I look strange to your eyes, too young, but aging progresses a little differently where I have been.”

“What happened to you? Does Grandmother even know you’re alive?”

“My sister might have been close to Dr. Allegro, but I was one of the students actually working on his scroll team. I learned much
more about the Nephilim than she ever did. When a Sidhe approached me—her name was Rhoswen—I went willingly. But I couldn’t tell my sister. She’d given up on Allegro and fallen madly in love with your grandfather. She had dreams of starting a family once she graduated. If I’d shared too much, she, too, would’ve had to leave all that behind.”

“But what about now?” interrupted Sara. “Is she safe?”

“She is, don’t fret. I collected her myself this morning,” said Claire. “There is much more to talk about, but we must hurry and decide what to do about your situation.”

The Sidhe spoke with a voice rich and full. “We’ve come to offer you another way out.”

“This is Lasair,” explained Claire. “Rhoswen’s son, a bit human and you won’t believe how old. Together they lead an alliance of Sidhe and crossbreeds unrelated to the militant group who plan to do you harm—those others will stop at nothing to conceal all knowledge of your photographs. Rhoswen’s faction takes a more peaceful approach. They continue to hold vigil for the Morrígna’s return. I’ve been living with them.”

Sara struggled to take all this in. One thing she did grasp was that she had been right—this gorgeous man was a Sidhe. How old could he be? As her fear receded, her attraction grew. She wondered if he was casting some sort of Sidhe spell on her, then decided she didn’t care. She forced her attention back on Claire, who was still talking.

“It’s up to you what happens next, my dear. You can take your chances with the militant Sidhe, which won’t end well. Or you can come with us. We’ll bring you to a place where we can protect you.”

Lasair gave her a sideways smile. “I’d like to show you my home.” He extended his hand.

Sara took it without thinking. “I’ll come with you, then.”

“Wonderful,” said Claire. “Now, we must be quick. The militants may well send a Fomorian or two to intercept the ship.” She glanced nervously over the side, then walked off.

Lasair led her back to her cabin. She did not ask him how he knew the way or how he opened the door she knew she had locked. “What did you bring?” he asked.

“Just that,” she said, pointing to her small, battered suitcase in the corner.

“Good. You’ll have to leave it. Now I need your clothes.”

“They’re all still packed in there,” she replied hesitantly.

Lasair smiled at her again, a smile that made her wonder when she would get a chance to seduce him, or the other way around. She found out, in part.

“No. I need the clothes you’re wearing,” he said. “It’s important.”

“All right.” She removed her coat, sat on the bunk and kicked off her shoes and socks, stood, wriggled out of her jeans, pulled her sweater over her head, unbuttoned her blouse, slid it off, and dropped it on the pile.

He looked at her. She met his gaze. “All of them,” he said.

Sara cocked her head at him. She went up on her tiptoes and kissed his lips. He returned the kiss, which to her felt like kissing chocolate, chocolate that melted into her. “There, now I’ve a reason to undress,” she said, adding her bra and panties to the pile, and then she looked up into his eyes, hoping for another kiss.

Instead Lasair sorted through the pile of clothes and began reassembling them, laying them out on the bunk. He placed panties into jeans, bra into blouse into sweater into coat, until he had everything arranged perfectly, including her shoes. He bent and breathed into the sleeve. To Sara’s amazement her clothing inflated like a balloon and then not a balloon—it became her, or rather a specter of her, lying there on the bunk.

The door opened, and Claire squeezed into the cabin. “My, you’ve grown into a beautiful woman,” she said, handing Sara a stack of folded clothes with shoes on top.

The thing on the bed that looked like Sara rose. In the confined space, it bumped against them as it wobbled toward the open door,
then walked haltingly down the passageway toward the stairs. Claire closed the door behind it.

“Where’s it going?” Sara asked.

“It’s going to fall overboard, my dear. Now, put on those clothes. We won’t be able to slip you out unnoticed like that.”

Suddenly remembering that she was still naked, Sara hurriedly dressed. “How did the militants find out about Grandmother and me?”

“There was a renovation at the Shrine of the Book, and someone discovered a children’s book of faerie tales among Allegro’s old papers. He must have overlooked it, or died before he could stash it. The shrine is always under surveillance by the militant Sidhe. They became suspicious as to why he would have such a thing. They found its hidden photos and traced the connection.”

“I can’t believe all this is happening,” said Sara as she laced up her replacement shoes.

“Your bloodline, our bloodline, has always been drawn into events involving the Nephilim, even when unconscious of the connection. It’s more than fate,” said Claire.

“My bloodline?”

“That’s why Rhoswen’s group has been watching over you. They’re the ones who made sure your grandmother escaped. But you must move now. We’ll talk of all this when we arrive, my dear.”

Sara followed Claire and Lasair out of the cabin, her satchel tucked firmly under her arm. “Where are we going after you sneak me off the ship?”

“To the Middle Kingdom, of
course.”

IN
THE
END

G
eoffrey Chaucer
died eight months after Richard II, leaving his magnum opus,
The Canterbury Tales,
unfinished. Cries of murder were largely ignored. Chaucer was the first writer interred in the area of Westminster Abbey known as Poets’ Corner.

The legate,
Cosimo de’ Migliorati, was elected pope on October 17, 1404, his reward for bringing the Irish Church into the Holy See. He took the name Pope Innocent VII, but his turbulent reign was cut short when he was found dead just two years later.

Cardinal Orsini,
previously high exorcist of the VRS League, remains in the cellar of Innocent’s fortress on Vatican Hill, bound into the bronze vessel with the demon Vepar. When the legate became pope, he had intended to have the VRS League try to extricate Orsini, but he died before he got around to it. The Orsini family faded from prominence, losing much of their land and power, due to a curious inability to produce male heirs.

Isabella,
no longer the English queen, was released from prison to return to France once the new king, Henry IV, was in firm control of the throne. Little is known of what happened to her there, except that the VRS League had possession of her body upon her death at the age of nineteen. They bound it with linen straps coated with silver, an ancient technique to prevent witches from returning from the afterlife, then interred it in the abbey of St. Laumer in Blois. In 1624, responding to reports of Isabella’s reappearance, the Vatican opened the tomb and found that her body was perfectly preserved, as if she were sleeping. For security, the body was moved to the Church of the Celestines in Paris, where
the bodies of many women of the High Coven were interred and guarded. Though, for some, just their entrails were secured there. At the time the VRS League believed that it was impossible for a necromancer to resurrect a witch who did not possess her entrails, and the guts took up so much less room than a whole body.

Queen Isabeau of France,
the Grande Sorcière, made two more attempts to gain permanent control of the English throne.
Joanna of Navarre,
the Second Sorcière, murdered her husband so she could marry Richard’s successor, Henry IV, in 1403. Shortly thereafter Henry IV developed a disfiguring skin disease and began having seizures, often leaving his new queen to speak for him. After Henry’s death Joanna was tried and convicted of witchcraft. She was imprisoned in Pevensey Castle, Sussex, England. Then Catherine of Valois, another daughter of Queen Isabeau, was sent to seduce and marry Henry IV’s successor, Henry V. Henry V died of an overdose of one of Catherine’s potions in 1422, two years after their marriage. Catherine was killed by Owen Tudor when he discovered her practicing witchcraft.

Valentina Visconti,
the High Coven’s “Keeper of the King,” was accused of using a tarot deck and witchcraft by the Duke of Burgundy, who was plotting to usurp the High Coven’s power over the French throne. Valentina was exiled and died of unknown causes.