Bloodstone (25 page)

Then a thought occurred to me. “You were singing with Deirdre. Do you know her?”

“Nah, just met her. Why?”

His eyes darkened as I revealed what had happened. “A nice lady like that. She didn’t deserve that. Do you know who the Warrior is?”

I nodded. “I think Deirdre may have been her aunt. Or she may be my sister. I’m not exactly sure yet. Her name is Ivy. She’s fourteen.”

He tilted his head and said, “Are you shittin’ me?”

“It gets worse. They have her.” I told him about the threats.

Mahoney stood up, determined. He said, “Well let’s go get her.”

SIXTY-THREE

My phone finally caught a cell tower on the walk to the inn. I scrolled through my messages. There were quite a few from Cinnamon wondering where I was. I texted her and told her I had Thor and that I was on my way to Birdie’s. She messaged back that she got pulled over for speeding after picking up Thor’s dinner, and thanks to the arsenal in the back seat (oops), it took far longer than it should have. She finally convinced the officer that the knives were for a stage play she was performing in. When she got home, after waiting for me for an hour and realizing I wasn’t coming back, Thor took off and she had been searching for him and me ever since.

Derek also texted wondering why I wasn’t answering his calls and to say that he couldn’t find the bat guano and did I want him to scrape some off of random houses? I ignored that and dialed my voicemail. Leo called to say that he was heading to Chicago with John, that Deirdre had been in an accident and was air lifted to a hospital.

Oh, thank Goddess. She wasn’t dead! I said a prayer, asking for her to pull through and stuffed the phone in my pocket, shoving away a twinge of guilt for abandoning her on the highway.

It was nine p.m. when we got there. I had one hour until I was to collect Ivy at the Riverview hotel and I told this to Mahoney.

Fiona answered the door. “Mr. Sayer, how nice to see you.”

No shocked expression, no hint of surprise, she just greeted him as if the dead rose every day in these parts. Geez.

To me she said, meaningfully, “Stacy, your grandmother is waiting for you upstairs.” Then she frowned and said, “My stars, child, why do you always come here looking like something the cat wouldn’t kill.”

There was simply no way to respond to that so I didn’t.

She asked the man if he was hungry and he was. The two walked toward the dining room and I crawled up the stairs, preparing for the wrath of Birdie and more lectures on how the sky was falling. Thor followed me but then got distracted when he spotted an empty bed. He settled in for a nap as I repeated the whole picture frame, hidden doorway trick from earlier.

Birdie was pacing when I entered the room.

“Well?” she demanded.

My grandmother. Sharp and to the point. Like an ice-pick.

“Really? No, hi granddaughter, glad to see you’re still alive? Just, well?”

Birdie rolled her eyes dramatically.

I said, “You want the good news or the bad news?” I hopped on top of the round table. The look on her face said she didn’t appreciate me disrespecting her furniture. I hoped the look on mine said I didn’t give a flying monkey’s ass.

“Okay, let’s start with the good.” I clapped my hands. “I found the Guardian. Interesting turn of events, I must say. You would think that the almighty council in their infinite wisdom would appoint some hot guy built like a barbarian with dreamy eyes and defiant hair, but no. They chose a beer guzzling middle-aged moron who managed to take a hit off a puffer fish.”

Birdie looked surprised. “Mr. Sayer?”

“Mr. Mahoney,” I corrected.

She nodded. “I see.”

“Oh, but wait! It gets better. Because it’s not really a party until someone gets shot.”

I let that sink in for a few seconds.

She didn’t blink. Just said, “Leo called. I am aware of the situation.”

“The situation? Is that what we’re calling it? I was shot at, Birdie, and Deirdre is fighting for her life because of it. That bullet was surely intended for me. And let’s not forget that a fourteen-year-old girl is being held hostage by heaven knows who and I still don’t know what it’s all about!” I was talking so fast, spit flew from my mouth. The more I talked, the more livid I became.

“Do you know who Deirdre is?” she asked.

The question came as a surprise. “No. Why, do you?”

“I spoke with the council. She was the original Warrior, but then she did something stupid that brought much attention to herself. Got herself arrested and seriously injured a boy. So she was stripped of the position. Ivy is her replacement.”

Right, Derek's story about Deirdre shattering her boyfriend’s jaw. “Are they related?”

“I can’t say.”

“Can’t or won’t?”

She sighed. “What I mean is I do not know the answer to that.”

I wasn’t sure if I believed her, but enough was enough. I slid off the table and stood, not caring about what she wanted, what the council wanted or what was expected of me any longer.

She asked, “What was in the safety deposit box?”

“A lottery ticket.” If she could play games then so could I.

Fiona stepped through the opening then.

“I will ask you one more time,” Birdie said in an unwavering tone. “What. Was. In. The. Box?”

“And I will ask you one more time. What is the secret, Obi-Wan?”

Fiona said, “She has earned it, Birdie.”

Birdie whirled around to her sister and shouted, “She lost the Warrior.”

“Two, in fact,” I don’t know why I said it. It just slipped out, but it certainly didn’t help my case.

“But she found the Guardian, Birdie. He’s in the dining room right now eating a baloney sandwich.”

Seriously, who chose him?

I walked around both of them and said. “It doesn’t matter anymore. This ends tonight. I’m going to make the exchange.”

“You will do no such thing, Anastasia!” Birdie said.

The hell I won’t. “I’m going to get my sister, Birdie and that is that. Game over.”

I was about to storm out but the exit was gone. “Damn it, Birdie, put the door back.”

She didn’t speak for a while as I glared at her.

Finally she whispered, “She isn’t your sister.”

I said, “Excuse me?”

She repeated herself.

“And how do you know that?”

Fiona looked away as Birdie said, “Because I know where your mother is.”

SIXTY-FOUR

I waited fourteen years for my mother to return. Fourteen years of graduations, boyfriends, jobs, birthdays.

Fourteen years wondering if I was an orphan—or just abandoned.

I steadied myself, trying to gain composure so that I wouldn’t slap my grandmother. “Birdie, you had better not be serious. Because if you have known where she was all these years and you didn’t tell me, I don’t think I could ever forgive you.” My voice didn’t crack, even though there was a lump in my throat.

“Sit down, Stacy,” she said softly.

Birdie never called me that, despite the fact that it was indeed my given name. Anastasia is something she made up to annoy my mother because Birdie felt it was bad luck to name a female child after her father.

Given the current predicament, maybe she was right about that.

I filled my lungs with all the air in the room and blew it out slowly. “I’ll stand, thank you. Get to the point. I only have forty-five minutes.”

She bowed her head for a brief moment, then spoke. “As you know, all Geraghty women are born with a gift. From the moment you came into this world, I knew you were powerful. It radiated all over your tiny pink body. I was delighted for you, for the opportunities you would have to make a difference in the world. So few people get that in life. Fewer still, take the risks required to inspire change, but you were a fighter from the get-go. You learned everything early and your gift was there right from the start. Even in your crib, you would babble away at the walls and I knew you were talking to the ancestors. Sometimes, I think they may have taught you even more than your mother and I did. You took to magic as if it were as natural as the air you breathed.”

Watching her wax nostalgic was both unsettling and heart-warming. My grandmother was simply not the bread-baking, knee-bouncing, drawing-hung-on-the-fridge type.

“At first, your mother was as excited about your talent as I was, but then
her
gift grew stronger and somehow, it transformed to focus only on you.”

“What was her gift?” I couldn’t believe I didn’t remember, but I had buried all of that so deep down that not everything had resurfaced.

“She could see events before they unfolded.” She paused and took a sip of water. “You cannot imagine how awful it was to watch her suffer through every scraped knee she couldn’t prevent. Every tear she knew would fall, but couldn’t be there to dry. It was a nightmare with no escape and it nearly drove her insane. There were times when I insisted she go away for a bit. The distance seemed to ease the visions, but then they would come back stronger. Of course those trips sparked rumors of mental hospital stays, but she was at a spiritual retreat.”

Locked up with your mother. That’s what Bea meant.

She leaned in, took my hand and said, “And then your father died and more than ever she was desperate to keep you safe.”

Tears welled up in my eyes then, but I fought them back.

“And then, the worst vision of all came. You were fourteen and the council had verified you as the Seeker. Your mother didn’t tell me until it was over, but she saw a vision of a man taking you. Then she saw your lifeless body.”

I leaned in closer.

“She did not hesitate, did not discuss it with me even, she just acted.”

“What did she do?” I asked.

“She took his life, before he could take yours.”

I sat back, stunned. “My mother murdered someone?” My brain was fogging over, trying to wrap itself around what I just heard. But I didn’t recall a trial, or even any rumors of a crime. Surely people would have known in this tiny hamlet. I said this to Birdie.

“The matter was not taken care of via the court system. You see, the man she killed was a member of the council. Her sentence was passed down via Celtic law.”

“Where is she then?”

Birdie paused, glanced at Fiona. “She is serving her punishment on the old soil. You cannot contact her just yet. But I am hoping when this—your first quest—is over, I can prove to the council that the measures your mother took to ensure your safety were in the best interest of all. With that, her release is imminent and your path will continue.”

I shot her a confused look.

Birdie smiled, “Your gifts are great and with great gifts come great challenges. In time, you will hone your skills to be prepared for any task that comes.” She squeezed my shoulders, looked deep into my eyes. “You have to understand that she begged me not to tell you what she had done for fear that it would ruin you.”

Her absence nearly did ruin me. All those nights I cried myself to sleep thinking my mother didn’t love me. The memory made me shudder.

“Why are you telling me now then?”

“Because I wanted you to understand the importance of this. It isn’t just about the book. It’s about my daughter and my granddaughter. You must trust me.”

I stood up, weighing everything she had said. Fiona was wearing a poker face, but I saw love in her eyes. And truth. Birdie was telling me the truth and how could I blame her for hiding it from me? The gravity of it all came crashing down and I felt the fight rise within me again.

With my mother’s freedom at stake, there was only one thing to do.

Bluff.

“I will trust you, Birdie, on two conditions. First, you tell me what was on the first page of the Ballymote book. As Fiona said,” I flicked my eyes to my great aunt, “I have earned it. And two,” I pulled the map from my pocket, set it on the table. “You tell me what this is.”

Fiona and Birdie both read over the map, their eyes wide as saucers.

Fiona gasped, “It isn’t—”

Birdie said, “No, but it’s a good replica and altered well enough to work.”

“Hello?” I tapped the table. “Seeker of Justice here, impending doom and all that, so can you please let me in on what we’re staring at?”

“Insurance,” Birdie said and smacked her hands together, a mischievous look on her face. “Think about it, Anastasia. What does the book of Ballymote open with? What is the first thing the reader sees?”

“A drawing of Noah’s Ark.”

Fiona nodded, excited as a school boy who just discovered boobies.

IVY GERAGHTY’S PERSONAL BOOK OF SHADOWS