Chapter 40

The search into the Opari had helped Quinn keep a lid on the overwhelming anxiety and fear that had threatened to overwhelm him ever since Suzi had called him about the girls disappearance. Now it flared anew as they drove along to the old man’s cabin. He had no idea what they would find there. His training has accustomed him to fear. Fear was a tool he had been taught to use, but this was different and he had no clue how to handle it. He finally understood the warning Mr. MacLeish had given him about relationships. “He who has wife and children hath given hostages to fortune...”.

He did his best to quell the fear and shifted his attention to Anna and Niamh’s conversation as he pulled his truck onto the road that led up to Cayden MacLeish’s rustic cabin.

“I wonder what there is about the Keeper’s house that drives the Druid,” Niamh mused.

“I wonder as well,” Anna said. “The house has become the symbol of the Keeper. It’s long been a mystery to the covens. I’d bet it was the House who chose you, Lachlan as much as it was the old man.”

“Mr. MacLeish told me the house was built by old Finn’s great grandfather one hundred and fifty years ago, but there had been dwellings of one sort or another on the site since the melting of the Puget Sound Ice Sheet. Its foundation is laid half in and half out of Opari, it’s a tardis—larger inside than outside. There are rooms I never explored and I lived there a long time.”

Quinn stopped his lecture when they came around the corner and spotted the old cabin. Black with age, it was built in the old way with the hands of a Master Crafter from precisely cut and squared cedar logs. The morticed joints were still as tight as the day they were chopped out. The cabin faced south over a meadow of wildflowers. The Opari wilderness looked behind it.

He quickly spotted the Druid sitting on the top step of the big wrap-around porch, gazing out over the meadow. Katrinka sat in front of him, one step down between his knees. She was obviously spellbound. She sat perfectly still, staring straight ahead. The Druid’s left hand held a black blade to her throat, the other held a wooden wand dark with age. Quinn’s runes throbbed as they picked up on the power that swirled around it.

The Hag stood behind him. Rocking side-to-side, crooning, and muttering to herself.

Sweet mother, she is far gone.

The door to the cabin was wide open. Obviously, he had had time to go through the place to find whatever he was looking for.

Quinn turned to the two women. “Let me get out first and talk to him. When you get a chance get out and circle around. Let’s see if we can generate an opportunity to snatch Katrinka and get her away from him.”

Quinn got out of the truck and approached the house.

The man known as the Druid was small and slight with a shock of coarse black hair and brown eyes almost black. He smiled and watched as Quinn walked up.

Quinn searched his face for a sign of weakness and found none.

“I assume you are the one the Leprechaun called the Druid,” Quinn said mildly “Why are you on my property?”

“I’ve been looking for a particular item for over five hundred years, boy. It’s a book or more accurately a bundle of scrolls written on lambskin. The author was a defrocked priest who spent his life studying and writing about the Druids. Most of the Druidic Spellcraft was never written down, but somehow this man managed to uncover a good deal of it.”

The Druid smiled down at the little girl and gently stoked her hair.

She sat staring straight ahead her eyes blank.

“My bargain for Lachlan Quinn, is this. Find it for me and I will only kill you. These others may go free. This girl has served her purpose and gained me entry, but unfortunately, the house still hides its treasures. It’s a blessing that all my attempts to kill you failed.”

“I’ll be honest with you,” Quinn said. “That doesn’t sound like much of a deal.”

The Druid waved the wand and a wall of pain crashed through Quinn, driving him to his knees.

“I know all about those protections the Vísdómur gifted you, boy. They are useless against the old magic. Loose that symbiote you carry, I will kill it and cut the girl’s throat.”

Quinn shakily got to his feet, mind racing for an opening. He noticed the two women had managed to circle around behind the Druid.

“Niamh,” he mind-spoke, “ you and Anna are good right there. When you get a chance, grab the girl and take shelter in the house. Don’t come out till I come get you.”

“Why do you want the Book, Druid?”

“It’s my key to life. It takes an iron will to live as long as I have, boy. The things I’ve had to do to stay alive would sicken you, but they were necessary. The Book has a spell that will free me from the risk of taking a soul for my renewal every fifty years. I will have that peace of mind. Stop delaying, or this girl will suffer pain you cannot imagine.”

Quinn watched the Hag as she paced in circles clockwise then counterclockwise on the porch behind the druid muttering and chanting.

The drone of her voice must have irritated the Druid because he shouted, “For God’s sake, woman. Would you be quiet.”

She ignored him. Her muttering grew more strident.

“Quinn, Anna says that she’s moving deosil and widdershins. The Hag is spellcasting.”

Quinn looked up and smiled suddenly. The Hag was muttering and pacing clockwise then counterclockwise inside a hastily drawn pentagram. His glyphs flared as the spell began to work.

“Tend to your associate, Druid. She calls.”

“What are you talking about, boy?” The Druid turned and looked at the witch who now slashed her palm with a small black knife. She fetched a coin out of her pocket and placed a round coin in the blood.

The Druid’s eyes grew round. “Why do you have that token? I told you to give it to the assassin,” he shrieked. “Stop that right now.”

“Oh, Sweet Mother of All, the power. I love the power,” her voice was shrilly ecstatic. “All the lovely, lovely power.”