It was my garden. I could have counted her nose hairs, if I’d wanted to. I didn’t, but I could see, very clearly, the wave of goose bumps rise and settle on her arms. She held off a full-body shiver through will alone, but her gaze slipped sideways, betraying uncertainty before she thrust her chin out in body language that reminded me of myself. “And how would you do that?”
Méabh took a very shallow breath. She’d thrown a similar gauntlet at me not all that long ago and I’d picked it up and bitch slapped her with it. She pretty clearly expected me to do the same again.
So, frankly, did I. I walked forward, taking point between my mother and Méabh, and spoke softly. “By having three of your blood here, Morrígan, and by having a fourth no more than a shout away. By dint of you being within my garden, where the world is shaped as I will have it. By the depth of magic lent to me by a raven, who is no less my companion than yours, and of another here who is also raven-bound. Nuada, a man, was able to break your power with a circlet and a splash of my blood. What do you think four of your daughters and their ravens and all the magic at their command can do?”
The Morrígan’s gaze slipped away again. I had the distinct impression this was not going the way she’d planned. Since virtually nothing in my life went the way I planned, I had no sympathy for her at all. “Tell me,” I said again. “Tell me what happened to Gary.”
She looked back at me, snake-quick, and hissed her answer: “He is lost to you, gwyld, daughter of my daughters. Time is his enemy and you are not its master. He fought well, he fought valiantly, but in the end, what could you expect? He was old when you sent him to fight death, and death conquers us all. The banshee comes for him, as she comes for all of those you love. It will be her beginning and his end.”
I said, “Wrong answer,” and lashed a fist out to hit her in the face.
Her head snapped back with the impact, bright blood blossoming over her mouth. I’d gotten lucky and knew it. I would never get another hit like that in. But damn, it had been satisfying.
Satisfaction lasted long enough for the Morrígan to crank her head back up and throw a backhanded fist across my cheekbone. Bone shattered and healed in the same instant, a combination of pain and relief so sharp it left me dizzy. Healing myself wasn’t working so well outside my garden, not with the bite screwing up my powers, but in here I conformed to my own template. The fact that I was even aware of the werewolf bite in here was testimony to its strength: it should have been left in the physical world, rather than tag along into my perception of myself.
In the moment I spent reeling, swords clashed. Méabh had the look of a woman planning to take it to the limit, and I wondered if she and her mother had ever gone mano a mano before. Watching the viciousness with which they struck at one another, I was just as glad Sheila and I were merely estranged, not actually enemies. People of great power generally made bad enemies. When both sides were equally stacked in the mojo department, the resulting altercations were a bit on the earth-shattering side.
Or in this case, garden-shattering. Soft dirt came dislodged under their feet, the sparse green grass losing its hold. I’d put a lot of effort into getting it as lush as it was, and was childishly upset at the mess they were making. “Méabh!”
She hesitated, which would have been fatal if she hadn’t been within my garden. Silvery-blue shields bounced the Morrígan’s next blow back, leaving both of them surprised. Méabh, however, stepped away from the fight, which was what I wanted.
This place was my heart and soul. The small changes I’d made in improving it had been part and parcel of my own spirit growing up and getting it together. I’d never fought a real battle here, or needed the garden for more than that.
Not until now, anyway. I flexed, feeling the spring’s pool respond; feeling the earth under my feet respond. The Morrígan sneered and swung her sword, such a lazy open blow that her contempt for me was clear.
I crouched, catching a bit of torn-up dirt in my fingertips, and when I scooped my open hand upward again, the garden came with it. My hand, replicated at about eight times its own size in earth, rose up and seized the Morrígan. Tossed her with my gesture across the garden into one of the sturdy stone walls. I felt like the driver of one of those giant mechs, the factory machines that let an individual lift multi-ton items. The Morrígan slithered down the wall to land on her butt in the dirt, no longer looking quite so threatening. I was beginning to think she wasn’t such a badass after all. Earthen hands ready to capture her again, I growled, “My garden. My rules.”
Rage glinted in the Morrígan’s eyes and she curled her fingers up, nails suddenly long and deadly looking. “True, so true, but it was never you I was here for, daughter of my daughters. It was never you I wanted.”
Surprise held me motionless for a fateful half second. The Morrígan’s fist closed and Sheila wailed as power dragged her across the garden. Her cries grew sharper and louder, less human and more deadly, as the Morrígan buried her fingers in her hair, then hauled her, kicking and screaming, out of my garden fair.
I came awake on the mountaintop. Raven was nowhere to be seen, but that was probably okay. He’d want to scold me for having left the Dead Zone without his guidance, and in retrospect, that had probably been a stupid thing to do. Caitríona was snapping a hand in front of Méabh’s eyes, saying, “Hello? Hello? Are ye in there so?” She yelped when Méabh suddenly came to life again and batted her hand out of the way.
My great-grandmother turned on me in a barely controlled fury. “Have ye found what we needed to know? Is she held by my mother’s master? Do ye know where to take the fight to them? Are we—”
I started out saying “No” quietly and graduated to a full-fledged bellow halfway through her last question. Her mouth snapped shut and I muttered, “No,” one more time. “We were just…bonding. Well, and she sa—”
“Bonding. Bonding? It’s your own self who won’t sacrifice the woman, Joanne. What are we to do if you cannot find it in you to learn what we must know to win this battle? This is no time for bonding.”
I looked up, more neutral than I expected to be. “I know it’s not, but this is really our last chance. This has to be over by sunset one way or another.” I’d chosen sunset because midnight was too arbitrary, too much a function of human time-keeping devices. Sunset was the end of day for older cultures, and I’d rather get it all done early than find myself holding the ball after the game ended. “Sorry I blew it. Sort of.”
I didn’t even quite know how Sheila and I had gone from sniping to bonding, but I did know I’d have regretted not having those couple minutes far more than I would ever bring myself to regret what might happen because we had. “Caitríona, do you get along with your mom?”
She startled. “What? Yes, of course I do. What kind of question is that?”
I shrugged my eyebrows. “Just hoping somebody here did, that’s all. She was glad to hear you were here, was Sheila. She says you’ll be an incredible power for good.”
Caitríona puffed up like a cardinal. “Did she, now?”
Okay, maybe I was extrapolating from what Mother had said, but the sentiment was close enough. “She’s proud of you, Cat. You’re gonna be amazing. And she says magery is about spells and preparation, so you were mostly right, Méabh. Initial explosions of power or no, Cat’s got a lot of studying to do.”