Keegan bowed his head. “Your kindness to this pilgrim brings blessings on you.”
When they left, Keegan leaned on Mahon, and spoke only of the sea and the hills and the forest.
The minute they were in Mahon’s chamber, Keegan shook off the illusion. “Gods, I come to know the old fathers and mothers are the most courageous of us simply for putting their feet on the floor of a morning.”
He dropped down in a chair, stretched out his legs. And smiled. “Harken could have gotten every thought, but I found more than enough. They’ve already sacrificed, and more than once these last months, on the main altar. And Toric plans to slit my throat tomorrow, and offer the blood of a holy man near the end of this cycle of life to Odran, and to his faithful.”
“Bloody hell.”
“And that’s where he’ll spend his own cycle, for I’ve other plans.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
That evening, while Keegan laid out his plans, Breen and Marco spent an hour on Zoom with Sally and Derrick. As expected, she found them both fully geared up for Halloween.
“We’re going as Morticia and Gomez,” Sally told him.
“Cara Mia!” Derrick ran kisses up his husband’s arm to make him laugh.
“We want pictures!” Marco insisted. “And of the club. I’m a hundred percent you’ve gone wild there.”
“Right through with The Addams Family theme. Geo’s going as Uncle Fester. What about you?”
“I’m getting my cowboy on,” Marco decided on the spur of the moment.
“Witch.” Easy enough, Breen decided. “A good witch.”
“Sexy witch,” Sally added. “We want pictures, too. This is the first Halloween we haven’t had you here for—has to be close to ten years.”
How the hell were they going to get pictures? Breen wondered while Marco chattered on. She’d think of something.
“I know you have to get to the club,” she said as the hour wound up. “We want you to know we’re going on a little trip—research— and we’ll have spotty internet. Don’t worry if you don’t hear from us for a few days.”
It wasn’t exactly lying—and what choice did they have?
But she carried the guilt of it as she carefully sliced butternut squash for Marco’s roasted squash dippers.
“Shoulda known they’d want pictures,” he said as he prepped chicken breasts for the main. “Where the hell are we going to get costumes?”
“They won’t expect anything elaborate.” When he just looked at her, she laughed. “Okay, they’ll at least expect clever. We’ll put something together tonight, do a couple selfies.”
“I said ‘cowboy.’ Can’t be a cowboy without a cowboy hat.”
She considered while he chopped garlic. “You’ve got a ball cap.”
“No self-respecting cowboy wears a ball cap, girl. Every kind of wrong there.”
“I can do an illusion. I can do that. Pretty sure. Like …”
She turned to him, put the image in her head, then walked over, ran her hands over him.
He giggled. “No fair tickling. I’ve got a knife!”
“Pearl-handled six-shooter—toy,” she added quickly.
He looked down; his jaw dropped.
“I know you, and you’re the ‘Rhinestone Cowboy’ type.”
His shirt glittered with them in a rainbow of colors. She’d changed his belt to a bright red holster, added chaps to his jeans, and turned his high-tops into red cowboy boots with more rhinestones on the pointed toes.
“I gotta get a full load of me!”
“Get the ball cap,” she called after him. “And mine, too.”
She thought over her own, tried a black dress with a flowing handkerchief hem. Tall, spike-heeled boots.
“I look badass!” He rushed back in, stopped, narrowed his eyes at her. “Vee down that neckline, girl. And try one of those waist-cinchers, laces in the front. A red one. Better, better.”
He circled her as she worked. “I want to see red lips, and smoky eyes. Go over-the-top. It’s a costume.”
He ran his fingers through her hair, fussed until it met his level of witch-wild.
Then he put his ball cap on. “Ten-gallon me, partner.”
She gave him a rhinestone band to go with it before putting on her own cap and turning it into a classic witch hat.
“Smaller,” he told her, then tipped it off-center for flirty.
Into it now, Breen grabbed a dish towel, laid it over Bollocks, and turned it into a flowing cape.
“Super Bollocks!”
While Marco laughed, Morena walked in the door. “What’s all this then?”
“Trick-or-treat!” Marco struck his best cowboy pose. “I’m the Marco Kid.”
“I saw cowboys in your west. They didn’t shine so bright as you.”
“Have you met my friends, Super Bollocks and the Good Witch Breen?”
“I’ll tell you, if you wear that dress to the Welcome at the Capital, you won’t sit out a dance. Did you bring all that from Philadelphia?”
“It’s illusions. Our friends asked for pictures, and we had to think of something.”
“I can take them, as I know how to do it, then you’ll pour me some wine so I can tell you news.”
“Is anything wrong?”
“It’s not, and Mahon and Keegan are home. Brian sent his best to you, Marco.”
“Aw.”
They spent ten minutes posing, mugging, together and separately, before Breen poured wine all around.
“What’s the news— Wait.”
She broke the illusions and took off her ball cap.
“I really liked that shirt. Anyway, I’m making rosemary chicken in white wine. You in?”
“Who would say no?” Morena wondered. “I’m to remind you to pack, and sensibly. You’re to leave from the farm the day after Samhain, an hour after daybreak.”
“I wish you’d go,” Breen said.
“I’m needed here for now, but I hope you’ll take my love to my family and give it to them for me when you meet them. I’ll go for a short visit in a week or two.
“So first,” she began, “the taoiseach and Mahon bring back news they believe there’s someone—perhaps more than one—here in the valley keeping watch for Odran or the Pious, or both.”
“Like a spy?” Marco sautéed garlic in a skillet.
“So to speak. Someone we likely know as neighbor knows neighbor here. And more, they both agree it’s Toric in the south plotting and planning the attack.”
“Who’s Toric?” Breen asked.
“He’d be First Brother of the Pious. That’s what they call the one in charge—though they say the gods are and so on. They’ve taken a little girl, and have her spell sleeping, locked away in their round tower. They mean to sacrifice her tomorrow night.”
“Do what?” Stunned, Marco stared. “A kid?”
“They didn’t leave her there.”
“Wait, wait.” Morena tossed up her hands. “They know what they’re about. No harm will come to her, and they have elves watching over her.”
Since the two of them also seemed to know what they were about, Morena boosted herself to sit on the counter and watched them do it.
“Keegan did his own illusion, and walked right into the Prayer House as an old holy man. And as Mahon had already pointed fingers at Toric, Keegan read him, as best he could, while they talked. The Old Father’s invited to spend his final days with the Pious. And Toric plans for those days to end tomorrow night, along with the girl, as sacrifice.”
“But he’s here, so—”
“Oh, he’ll be going back, right enough, and as the Old Father, walking right into what Toric thinks is his death. But Toric will be in for what you’d say is a different turn of events.”