Hunter shook his head, the slashes on his face covered with dried blood. "I still can't believe it," he said hoarsely. His eyes looked so large in contrast with his gaunt face. "I'm so afraid I'll wake up and find this was a dream."
Morgan laid her hand on his arm. "No," she said. "This is real. We're alive, and you'll never be back there again. Of course, it will be a long road back after after everything you've been through. And unfortunately, there's no time to start healing just yet. We still have something else to face."
Nodding, Hunter wiped the sleeve of his shirt against his eyes. Then Morgan looked at Hunter's shirt and frowned. In the center of his chest were dark stains, one on top of the other, that had happened in the same place again and again. She looked down at her own dark sweatshirt, then again at Hunter's. Hunter's heart had been bleeding, just as Morgan's had.
Moira couldn't keep her eyes off Hunter. This was her biological father. Colm, gentle, warm, loving Colm, was her da, but this man he was half of who she was. And while Colm was gone, Hunter was here. But she was still as lost as ever about what that actually meant. Could she ever know this man as her father? Was it a betrayal to Colm, who had loved her with everything he had?
The sea had calmed, and it wasn't difficult to speak over the sound of the overtaxed engine. The four of them were solemn, beaten physically and emotionally and facing a dark wave.
"So this is your daughter," Hunter said, nodding at Moira. Moira shot her mum a meaningful glance and saw Sky do the same. Hunter's eyes took it all in.
"Yes, this is Moira," her mum said, then cleared her throat. "Moira Byrne."
"Byrne." Hunter looked at Moira again, speculatively, and she blushed.
"I'm a widow," Morgan said awkwardly. "Colm, my husband, died six months ago."
"I'm sorry, Morgan," Hunter said, and he seemed sincere. He loves her, Moira thought. She could sense the emotion coming from him in waves, despite his obvious weakness. Raising her eyebrows slightly, Moira looked again at her mum.
"What?" Hunter asked, noticing Moira's look, a slight frown on his face. "What are you not saying?"
Morgan started picking at a loose thread on her soggy jeans. Moira knew she did that when she was nervous. Actually, Moira did it, too. "I have something to tell you," her mum said, not looking up. "At first I thought it should wait. This must all be so much for you to take after" She stopped and took a deep breath. "But you need to know. Perhaps it will even help somehow. The truth is, I found out only-oh, Goddess, only a couple of days ago-that Moira is I was pregnant with Moira already, before I got married. Before I was with Colm."
Confusion crossed Hunter's battered, exhausted face. It was clear he was struggling even to speak at all and to understand the meaning of words he hadn't needed to use in so long.
"I'm your daughter," Moira burst out, surprising even herself. "From when you and Mum were in Wales. Before you died. I mean, I'm sorry, you didn't"
Hunter's green eyes grew even wider, taking over his too- thin face. His mouth opened slightly, almost hidden beneath his scruffy beard. Looking from Morgan to Moira and then to Sky, he didn't seem to know what to say.
"We didn't know," Moira went on more strongly. "Mum had been spelled-by my grandmother. She hadn't meant to make her forget the truth, but it happened, and then she and Dad just-" Moira stopped, seeing the growing confusion on Hunter's face. "It's a long story. But it just came out-the same time we learned you were alive."
Hunter stared at Moira blankly, as if his mind was working too slowly for him to comprehend what she was saying. He looked over at his cousin for confirmation, and Sky nodded gently.
"Oh my God, Morgan," Hunter said in his scratchy voice. "We have a daughter." He looked at Morgan again, and Moira could see his love for her shining on his face.
"Yes," Morgan said, her eyes bright with tears. "We do. But-but I still can't figure out how."
"What?" Moira asked. "What do you mean?"
"I shouldn't have been able to get pregnant." Her mum looked a little embarrassed. "We took precautions." She turned to Moira. "That was another reason I had no idea you were Hunter's."
Moira knew about pregnancy prevention spells and how a blood witch would be pregnant only if she consciously skipped them. Somehow in all the chaos of learning Hunter was her father, she hadn't stopped to think how that didn't make sense. "But you got pregnant anyway," Moira said.
"I think I might know why," Sky said slowly, and the others turned to look at her. "Remember what I already said, Morgan, about the Goddess having her way? Well, you are the sgiurs dan, fated to change the course of the Woodbanes. Maybe you were fated to have Moira. Maybe your precautions didn't mean anything in the face of fate."
Morgan blinked. "But that means that fate has something important in store for Moira."
"Like what?" Moira asked nervously, a chill going down her spine.
"I don't know," said Morgan. "But I do know that after what I saw you do on the island, you'll be up to handling whatever comes your way." She gave Moira a proud smile, and it warmed Moira deep inside.
"My daughter," Hunter said wonderingly. "I have a daughter." He gazed at Moira, drinking her in with wonder until she looked away, feeling suddenly shy. Yes, she was his daughter-but she'd been raised by another man. And she wasn't ready to make sense of all of it yet.
What if Sky was right-what if her birth had been fated? Her own mother had played such a huge role in the Wiccan world. If she was meant for something similar, then she couldn't let anyone down. Moira pictured Tess, Vita, and her gran-all back in Cobh, unprepared for the danger coming at them. A week ago it wouldn't have occurred to her that she would help fight a dark wave. Now it was unthinkable not to. She tried to sit up straighter, ignoring her aches and pains and cuts and bruises. "We need a plan," she said firmly. "To beat the dark wave."
Back on land, Morgan and Sky rented a small charter plane to take them directly back to Cobh. It would take only three hours, compared to two days of driving. The flight had cost pretty much everything Morgan and Sky had in their combined accounts, but that didn't matter.
Now that they were on the plane, headed for home, any lingering joy at finding Hunter had been put on hold. As horrific as the island had been, Moira knew she was facing something far worse. Part of her wanted to run and keep running. But there was no way she could leave her coven, her house, her town to face a dark wave without her.
"Da made a a simpler spell before I left," Hunter said. He spoke slowly and not very smoothly after not having had to talk in years. Sometimes he had to pause to think of a word. "I knew it well once, but it's gone." He frowned in frustration, his sunburned face wrinkling. "I haven't been able to work magick for sixteen years" he said; then he looked out the window, his voice trailing off, as if even admitting that was too painful to bear.
"How long did the long version take?" Sky asked Morgan.
"A little more than an hour, I think," Morgan said. "I have it all written in my Book of Shadows, but I remember that we coached Alisa for days before and even then had to help her during it." She shook her head. "I don't see how we could do it. And anyway, Alisa was able to survive performing the spell because she was only half blood witch. The spell would destroy a full blood witch. I don't see how any of us"
Hunter started to speak, then coughed. It took him a moment, and finally he was able to get the words out. "The spell Da worked, it could be performed by full blood witches," he said. "If only I could remember it, or-"
"I'm just not sure where Uncle Daniel is," Sky said. "I haven't spoken to him in a couple of months. He still travels a lot."
"Da's all right, then?" Hunter said cautiously.
"Yes," Sky said, a slight smile on her face. "He's doing well. Seeing you again will give him another fifteen years at least. But I don't know where he is, and we don't have time to track him down."
"As soon as we get home, we'll go to Katrina's," said Morgan, her face set. "Most likely the coven will be there. Maybe they'll have come up with something."
It would be hard seeing Gran again, Moira thought, for both her and Mum. But again, it was a small consideration compared to the dark wave. Right now they all had to focus on that.
By the time they landed at the small commuter airport in Cork, the weather had turned nasty. To Moira, it felt as if she hadn't seen sunshine for years. The minute she stepped off the plane, she frowned. When she touched the ground, she felt a jolt of nausea that made her swallow quickly.
Morgan narrowed her eyes. "Do you feel bad?"
"I'm going to throw up," said Moira, looking for a trash can.
"It's the dark wave," her mother explained. "It makes blood witches feel awful, hours before it arrives."
They were all tired and hungry and ill. Moira's face was killing her. Now her mum stopped, looked at the sky.
"How much time?" she asked Sky.
"Three hours? Four?" Sky said, and Hunter nodded. "At best."
Home! Moira thought with relief when they reached the cottage. She would never take it for granted again-there had been more than one time in the last twenty-four hours when she'd believed she'd never see it again. Now she was going to do her utmost to protect it.
"This is where we live," Moira heard her mum explain to Hunter. He still seemed dazed, half there. He kept touching things, running the tips of his long, thin fingers over objects, textures, as if he had to reidentify everything.
Inside, Bixby was hiding under the couch, his pupils wide and his tail fluffed. Finnegan barely greeted them, sniffing Hunter before he slouched under the dining room table, an occasional low growl coming from his throat. Hartwell Moss had been taking care of them, but she wasn't here now.
"They know," said Moira's mum, referring to the animals. She sounded ill.
Ten minutes later Morgan and Sky were poring over Morgan's old Books of Shadows. "See, it took the combination of the four of us," Mum was explaining in a low voice. "Daniel, me, Hunter, and most importantly-Alisa. And it took hours. I don't see how we can possibly" She shook her head.
"What if we each take a part?" Moira suggested, resting her head in her hands. Her skin felt clammy and cold, her head felt as if it would soon explode, and she never wanted to see food again.
"With this version of the spell, we'd all be in great danger," Morgan said in distress.
"And I won't be of any use," Hunter said, sounding at the end of his rope. Morgan had immediately fixed them all an herbal concoction to help give them energy and take away the nausea, but so far it hadn't been doing very much. Hunter took a sip of his and grimaced.
"I feel like death," Morgan said. "Hunter has no power. Let's just get to the coven and see if they know anything."
The short walk to Katrina's seemed to test their limits. Moira was dizzy and bone tired, and everything seemed to smell awful. Hunter especially looked bad, dragging his feet, swaying sometimes. His face was an unhealthy white beneath the sunburn, and his eyes kept closing as if he could barely go on. Morgan put her arm around his waist, supporting him. As soon as they were within sight of the old store, its door opened and Katrina hurried out.
"Morgan!" she cried. "Thank the Goddess you're here. You know about the dark wave?"
"Yes," Morgan said, letting Katrina usher her into the coven's meeting room. By unspoken agreement, they would deal first with the dark wave-later with their personal matters, if they had the chance. Inside, Moira saw most of the initiated members of the coven. They were obviously suffering the dark wave's effects. Pale and hollow eyed, they came forward to greet Morgan, hugging her, and Tess and Vita ran forward to greet Moira.
"Where were you?" Tess asked, looking frightened.
"I'll have to tell you later," Moira said. "But it's good to see you." She pushed her way through the crowd of people surrounding her mother and saw that the coven was looking at Hunter with undisguised interest.
"This is Hunter Niall," Morgan said shortly. "He created the New Charter." That seemed to be all the explanation she was going to offer for his presence, his extraordinary appearance.
"I haven't asked this yet because it seems too easy," Moira said. "But why can't we all just leave here now? Let the dark wave have the buildings but save the people?"
Morgan shook her head wearily. "That doesn't do any good. It's too close. The wave would follow us."
A sudden pounding on the door startled them-no one had felt anyone approach. Katrina answered it, and Ian stood there, breathing hard. Moira's heart slammed against her chest as all the horrible events of two nights ago-three? came back to her, and she looked away.
"I'm not sure," he began, trying to catch his breath. Through the doorway Moira could see his mud-spattered bicycle dropped on the ground behind him. "But I think we're all in danger."
Morgan put her hand on his shoulder. Moira saw her look at Sky, as if to ask, Is he being honest?
Sky looked over his head and nodded at Morgan, and she nodded back. Moira guessed they weren't picking up on any hidden agenda or falseness from him. She wasn't either. The night they had visited Lilith, she'd thought he'd betrayed her-he'd participated in Lilith's work. But was he here now, going against his mother? Moira was so afraid to let herself believe in him again.
"My mother's coven left this morning before dawn," Ian said, nervously looking around. "In her workroom I found- stuff to work dark magick with. Really dark magick. I hadn't really known it before." His voice was sad. Moira closed her eyes briefly and cast her senses, reaching for Ians emotions. She blinked her eyes back open, her heartbeat quickening. It was genuine, Ians pain-genuine and overwhelming. She was almost sure he was telling the truth, and doing so was ripping him up inside. "I didn't want to know what they were doing. But now there's something awful in the air."
"We're pretty sure Ealltuinn has created a dark wave," Morgan said, and Ian flinched in shock. "It will destroy everything around, all of us. Everything."
Ian looked nauseous. "A dark wave? I didn't think anyone could do those anymore."