“Your name ain’t Joanne?” Gary sounded thunderstruck. I was afraid to look at him, for fear of seeing injury in his eyes.
“It is. It’s what I’ve used my whole life. It’s just not what’s actually on the birth certificate. You know everything else about me. I thought you should know that, too.”
“…does Mike?”
This was not the time to ask him to stop calling Morrison that. My shoulders slumped. “Yeah, he has for months. It came up a while ago.”
“Jo.” Gary touched my shoulder again, then knelt beside me, bushy eyebrows furrowed. “Jo, does he know about…?”
Grace under pressure, that was my Gary. Not willing to spell out the details of something I’d clearly been uncomfortable talking about. I hadn’t been able to look at him while I told him about Aidan and Ayita, and he wasn’t making me look at him now, either. I could have kissed him for that, though mostly I just wanted to curl up in his arms and rest. “That came up then, too. He’s known longer than anybody else. Not the details, but he knows.”
Gary exhaled noisily and let his hands fall into his lap. I dared a glance at him and found his gray gaze serious on mine. “That’s about the most important thing, then, I figure. Even if I oughta read you the riot act. A werewolf, Jo? You got bit by a werewolf?”
“It was a rough weekend.” I couldn’t find anything else to say, except, eventually, “Méabh was trying to help me save my mother. Sheila was being turned into a banshee. I had to…” I made a small, almost helpless gesture. “I had to save her.” I wondered if I had. We’d burned her bones and killed the banshee queen, but none of the banshees had come flooding down to thank us for our work and then gone off to that happy banshee heaven in the sky. I had no idea where to look for Sheila MacNamarra anymore.
“’Scuze me for sayin’ so, but I think we gotta save you. What woulda happened if Horns hadn’t been here, Jo?”
I shuddered all the way from the bottom of my soul. “We’d all be toast. I was about to hand you over to my—the—Master. He made the werewolves. Méabh bound them to the moon. I figured if I gave you and her up to him, he’d break the binding. It seemed like a good idea at the time.” I’d cut holes in jeans and shirts as a small child for that same reason. My father had nearly exploded with frustration over not understanding why I would do such a thing. I’d never been able to get across that it seemed like a good idea at the time was all the reason I could possibly need. It wasn’t a good reason, I was willing to grant that, but it was the only one I had. And handing my best friend over to a murderous dark lord had seemed like a good idea at the time.
Gary was right. We needed to save me. Because Mom, rest her soul or not, was already dead, and could do only a limited amount of harm. I was alive, kicking and infected with a poison that made me think selling my friends to the devil was a good idea. “I don’t even know where to go, Gary. We lost our guide. Aibhill eviscerated him, too. She was the banshee queen.” There was so much he’d missed, in such a short time. My head spun as I tried to figure out what was most important. “Taking her out was supposed to free Mom, but…”
But the banshees had gone silent since Aibhill’s screams had faded. Not that I’d seen my mother among them, but it wasn’t like I’d gotten a really good look at the dozen or so left after Méabh had finished razing her way through them. I’d have thought they’d come down to wreak unholy vengeance on us by now. I got to my feet, looking around the fallen castle first with ordinary sight, and then the Sight.
Evidently banshees could hide behind a sort of psychic shield, too, because they were clearly visible with the Sight. Eleven of them hung about in the rafters like right-side-up bats, and they were all staring at Gary with consternation. I looked at him, too, but didn’t see anything to worry about. He was just himself, albeit armed with my shiny silver sword.
The sword with which he’d killed Aibhill. A rock dropped into the pit of my stomach. “Oh, dear.”
“Oh, dear? Oh, dear? Jo, darlin’, you don’t say things like ‘oh, dear.’ What the hell does ‘oh, dear’ mean?” His aura got all trembly and bright, like an engine revving up.
“I think there’s a new sheriff in town. Do you still have the Sight?”
“Nah, it wore off bef— What? What? Oh no. Waitaminnit.” Gary stepped over the puddle of blood and shoved the sword into my hands. “I’m just the sidekick. You’re the boss.”
“Yeah, but you’re the one who killed the O’Br—”
He clapped his hand over my mouth. “You’re. The. Boss.” He looked at the rafters and repeated that one more time, even more loudly.
One by one, eleven heads turned my way, gazes fixing on me with far more comprehension and acceptance than they’d shown in looking at Gary. I scowled accusingly at him, but not for very long. These were women scorned, after all. That was how they’d ended up as banshees. Probably leaving a man, any man, even a good man, in charge of them was not the world’s best idea. Maybe even especially a good man, because they’d shred him while he was being decent-hearted. “All right,” I said, resigned. “All right. I’m sure you’re all wondering why I’ve called you here. Can anybody tell me how to find my mother?”
As one, their attention turned from me to the ruined castle floors. I looked, too, but my mother wasn’t imprisoned within the stone, or any other of the Poe-like dramatics that first leapt to mind. I was about to give them an earful when something moved.
The whole floor started coming alive, swirling, misting, rising up. No, not the floor: the silver-white dust that had recently been Aibhill. I gripped my sword harder and came up with a few choice words for however the hell magic-born beings were germinated. Shoving a blade through anybody should be enough to take them down permanently, although it wasn’t, of course, enough to take me down permanently. That seemed like a bad line of thought to pursue, so I just gritted my teeth and got ready for another damned fight. Gary edged nearer to me, and I wished that Cat hadn’t taken the spear with her when she ran. But then, I’d been supposed to be on her heels, so there’d have been no actual reason for her to leave it behind. Oh, well.
By the time I got through those sets of regrets and repudiations, Aibhill’s mesmerizing gown had come together again. I wanted to stick the sword in her immediately, but there didn’t seem to be any body there, just the amorphous dress. Rebuilding her lovely flesh took longer, and she remained wraithlike—I knew, because I poked her a couple times—until in one last sudden instant she coalesced as a whole, features suddenly back in place, long hair suddenly flowing, white hands reaching out. Only it wasn’t Aibhill.
It was Sheila MacNamarra.
I had promised. I had promised Méabh that if it came to it, I would be the one to finish my mother off. And now Méabh was dead, or mostly dead, and there was nobody on hand to make me keep that promise except myself.
My newly risen mother was as beautiful as Aibhill had been, but dark-haired. Green-eyed. Those things were right; the beauty was not. Mom had been prettier than I was, but not beautiful. That made it easier to breathe, “I don’t freaking think so,” and launch myself at her.
The last thing I expected was a cage of magic bars to slam up around me and hold me in place. I bounced off them, sword clanging, and gaped in astonishment for a second or two. Aibhill had not demonstrated any ability to throw magic around. Then again, Aibhill probably hadn’t been known as the Mage of Ireland while she’d lived. And on the third hand, now I really didn’t understand how creatures of pure magic were birthed, because Mom had been a hundred percent human—well, minus the touch of aos sí blood, apparently—and now she patently was not.