Witches of Ash and Ruin Read online

  She told them about the body in the field, the tree of life on the woman’s cheek.

  Across from her Dayna had gone pale, her fists clenched on the tabletop.

  “A murdered witch.” Brenna tapped her nails on the table, lips pursed. Meiner noted she hadn’t picked up another card.

  “Gran seems to think there’ll be more.”

  Another stretch of silence, broken only by Gran mumbling under her breath as she stared vacantly out the window.

  Brenna turned to her mother. “What about the tea?”

  “It’s…murky,” Bronagh muttered. The old woman tilted her cup this way and that on the saucer. “It suggests darkness, that something is coming. The rest is just…scone crumbs.”

  Faye snorted, leaning back to fold her arms over her chest. “Honestly, Grandmother.”

  Dayna cleared her throat, and everyone looked at her. She flushed. “Uh, I’m not sure if this is relevant, but on the way to Sage Widow, they were doing another protest at the church. They had signs with that verse on it, ‘suffer a witch to live’…”

  Faye folded her arms over her chest, her face twisted in a sneer. “Oh yes, everyone’s favorite.”

  “You think one of those church lunatics would actually kill someone?” Reagan looked doubtful.

  “They protested the liquor store last month,” Brenna said, “but they didn’t stab the clerk to death at any point.”

  “It’s worth checking out.” Bronagh looked at Dayna pointedly.

  Dayna clearly wasn’t happy, but she nodded. Meiner wasn’t sure what the exchange meant. She didn’t go to the church, did she?

  “We go to the stone circle tomorrow.” Everyone stared at Grandma King over by the window. She was still facing away from them.

  Bronagh’s lips twitched downward briefly before she smoothed her expression. “Oh, do we, now?”

  “Our coven does. Come if you like.”

  “We’re in this together, whatever the hell it is.” Faye glanced over at her grandmother. “That’s why they came, isn’t it?”

  “If we can find something the murderer touched, we could attempt a contact scry.” Grandma King turned around, eyes glittering as she stared at Bronagh.

  “Absolutely not,” Bronagh snapped. “Don’t be a reckless fool.”

  Grandma King only smiled and turned back to the window once more, and Bronagh pinched the bridge of her nose, squeezing her eyes shut in irritation.

  There was a stretch of silence, followed by a soft thud as Brenna flipped another card over.

  The back of Meiner’s neck prickled. Heavy black lines against a white backdrop depicted a grinning, skull-faced man, the wicked lines of a scythe arcing above his head.

  Death.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  DUBH

  This was how the cycle started, with the memories dropping back into place one by one.

  The first: His brothers, not what they looked like, but the feeling of their presence. The tension among them. The anger when one of them hit him.

  The second: the symbol, the strange sign with all its jutting angles and scribbled lines…He’d been tracing it for months now, on the bar at pubs, in the steam on the bathroom mirror, in the dirt with the tip of his boot. Now he knew it belonged to his family.

  And the third. The certainty of what he needed to do, the parts he had to collect.

  Dubh hooked a finger into the neck of his tie, tugging it away from his throat. It was coated in the thick stickiness of half-dried blood. He glanced over his shoulder at the blue cooler on the seat of his rental car.

  For a moment he shut his eyes and remembered how he’d dragged her, screaming, into the center of the stone circle. How Witchkiller had its fill of blood.

  Some force had driven him to wrench her mouth open. It hadn’t been easy, but he wasn’t satisfied until he had it.

  Her tongue.

  He was turning back to the road when the dizziness hit him. A surge of memory sent the world spinning, forcing him to jam his foot on the brake.

  A woman’s hand on his face, her nails sharp on his skin. Her voice murmuring in his ear.

  Tongue and eye, hand and foot. Blood and bone, ash and soot.

  He was still shaking with excitement when he drove into the parking lot. He pulled past the Irish National Heritage Park sign and into the first stall, ignoring the handicapped symbol.

  The same force guided him now.

  Pulling on his heavy jacket, he zipped it up over the blood-spattered suit and tilted the rearview mirror down. He growled under his breath at the spot of blood on the bottom of his collar and tugged his coat up.

  Down the forest path to the center of the park, he passed two sets of tourists and a woman with a fluffy golden retriever in a service dog vest. The tourists didn’t hold any interest for him, but he smiled at the woman. The kind of wide, charming grin that revealed all his teeth. He knew it was effective, and he wasn’t the least bit surprised when she flushed and smiled back. The breeze pushed a few strands of hair off one shoulder, revealing a slender, pale throat. His hands would take up that entire space.

  He didn’t flinch when the dog abruptly growled and lunged forward. She gave a little shriek of surprise and hauled on the leash, struggling to pull him back.

  “I’m so sorry. He never does this.”

  Dubh nodded and smiled and kept walking. They all did that.

  The path led him past a length of circular fence that surrounded several thatched-roof houses, and Dubh was pulled up short by a memory: running barefoot in the dirt, chasing after his brothers, a woman’s voice calling from the tiny, peaked-roof hut behind him.

  The illusion crashed down around him as he moved closer. Surrounding the huts were groups of tourists in colorful clothing, all of them gawking and snapping pictures.

  The village was a replica; he knew that. All the same it was dizzying to see it laid out like this.

  He kept walking, making his way deeper into the forest. At last the path rounded the corner, and there it was: a flat, moss-green rock set atop two massive boulders. The stones were crooked, leaning, as if the earth beneath them had swelled.

  A portal tomb.

  There was a crackle in the underbrush, and Dubh moved forward slowly, the hair on the back of his neck prickling.

  A man stood just beyond the tomb. He was taller than Dubh, but he had the same unnerving blue eyes, the same blond hair—though his was shorn close to his skull. In contrast to Dubh’s blood-spattered suit, he wore only blue jeans and a faded white T-shirt.

  “Olc,” Dubh said. The rush of half-memories made his mouth taste bitter: Competition, anger, a fist in his face. Pain in his jaw. And all of that tied together by sullen loyalty. Blood was blood.

  The man in the white T-shirt said nothing, but he swayed on his feet, blinking, shaking his head like a dog with water in its ears. A moment later he seemed to recover himself, and his expression went from confused to furious. He started forward, fists clenched, and Dubh stiffened. Another shuffle, and they both froze as a third man stepped from the trees.

  Dubh felt a jolt of anger. He hadn’t noticed him standing there. His instincts were better than that, but he’d been distracted.

  The other man didn’t share his brothers’ blue eyes. His were dark, almost black. His hair was the same golden blond, tied back in a ponytail, and he wore a plaid jacket over a black V-neck.

  Calma. The third, the oldest.

  “I had to pay to get in.” He sounded irritated.

  Across from the tomb, Olc gave a derisive snort, looking over Calma’s jacket. “Have you become a lumberjack?”

  Calma didn’t answer, only glanced from Olc to Dubh, his face calm. “Brothers,” he finally said. Then he turned to face the stones, and Dubh and Olc did the same.

  “I don’t feel anything,” Calma said.

  There was distant laughter, and Calma and Dubh both looked around. There was a group of tourists heading down the path toward them.

  “Th
is is the right spot.” Calma shook his head. “I remember it.”

  “This is bullshit.” Olc slammed his fist into the one of the stones, hard enough that his knuckles cracked. He didn’t flinch, just shook his hand out, dark brows drawn down. In the distance, the group of tourists paused to stare. When he glared in their direction, they turned and hurried the other way down the path.

  “What now?” Calma said.

  Dubh told his brothers about the woman, about the tongue in the cooler back in his car. About the words he’d remembered, blood and bone, ash and soot.

  Calma looked thoughtful. Olc looked blankly at the stones in front of him. How did this already feel routine? Like a worn leather jacket he’d misplaced and rediscovered after a couple hundred years, which still fit perfectly. He wasn’t sure what it meant. If it was a good thing.

  Calma nodded, blond brows creased. “That seems right. The women—”

  “Witches,” Dubh corrected him, and again, Calma merely nodded.

  “They never left. They’re still guarding this place.”

  “Then it’s hardly a hunt, is it?” Olc’s voice was scornful. He’d always been the arrogant one. “That makes it too easy.”

  “There’s a list.” Calma blinked at Dubh. “But you’ve already started, haven’t you?”

  Dubh frowned. This was his mission; this cycle it was his turn.

  “The judge was the first,” he said sharply. Neither of them argued, because neither could prove him wrong.

  “Do you remember the names?” Calma asked.

  Dubh’s expression went dark. “Only some.”

  “We need the list,” Calma said. “We need to be sure.”

  “I’ll wager she wasn’t even on the list,” Olc sneered. “Don’t tell me you haven’t killed before. That you didn’t do it because you wanted to.”

  Dubh ignored him, reaching out a hand, brushing his fingertips along the tomb.

  A wave of black crashed into him headfirst. He was on his back suddenly, staring at the tops of the trees as they whirled in dizzying arcs above his head.

  A woman’s face, smooth and pale, dark brows and plum lips. Her black hair long and straight. Not just a woman…his mother?

  She pushed a book into his hands, insistent, urgent. The cover was stiff leather under his fingers, and the symbol etched into the surface burned like a brand. The graceful crossed pattern, the sharp lines stretching to the edges of the circle…the same symbol that followed him everywhere.

  The woman’s voice was warped and distant, someone speaking in a dream. He could see her lips move but couldn’t make out the words.

  Her face faded a second later, and the trees stopped spinning.

  Dubh dug his fingers into the cool earth beneath him. He could smell pine and the faint scent of cigarettes from the collar of his jacket. Something stirred on the ground beside him, and he turned. Calma’s face was pale. He brushed absently at the front of his jacket as he staggered to his feet. Even Olc looked slightly dazed, leaning against the stones. They’d seen it, too.

  Dubh sat up, hands trembling. “The list. It’s in the book.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  SAMUEL

  Saturday morning, the Bible study chat was exploding.

  Sam’s phone had been vibrating the entire bike ride to the station. At first he thought it was notifications from his true crime forums—he’d set up the Butcher thread to notify him when anyone posted—but each time he checked, it was another group chat notification.

  He finally stopped halfway there and yanked it out of his pocket.

  Morgan: What’s going on? Mam drove past the stone circle and it was taped off. Sam?

  Jillian: No way it’s a murder. Like anything interesting happens around here.

  Morgan: Jill, that’s seriously messed up.

  Morgan: @SamuelByrne?

  She’d tagged him a few more times, which wasn’t surprising. Morgan’s face had been cut up during the attack, and she was refusing to go anywhere until the wounds healed, which left plenty of time to badger him. He sighed and slipped his phone back into his pocket. He wouldn’t be allowed to update them even if he did learn something. His father would tear him a new one. Plus Sam wasn’t going to be allowed anywhere near the case.

  Ironic, since he seemed to be the only one in this town who had any idea what was actually going on. He’d been studying the Butcher for years, ever since he’d figured out the killer’s pattern.

  There were so many unanswered questions about the case. So many mysteries still unsolved. Sam’s own theories had slowly developed over time, as his obsession with the case had grown. If there was a Butcher of Manchester expert, it was him.

  And now the Butcher was here, right on his doorstep. It was as if Sam was somehow woven into this, destined to be involved in some way. It was fate, or the hand of God, maybe.

  The thought made him shiver.

  When he looked up, about to kick his foot back onto the pedal, the stretch of field to his left caught his eye. It looked…empty. Sam passed the field on the way to school almost every day, and it was usually full of livestock.

  He frowned, moving closer, until his palms were pressed against the roughly hewn wooden fence surrounding the pasture. It wasn’t that it was empty, he realized, but that the entire herd of black-and-white dairy cows were lying on the grass.

  Cows, Samuel knew, generally did not lie this way, with their legs splayed in the air like broken fence posts. He stared, openmouthed, at the sight. It was bizarre, a sea of black and white stretching halfway across the field.

  The field continued to be silent and still, and it hit him a second later.

  “Oh shit.” He jerked his bike back up out of the ditch and jumped on, pedaling until his thighs burned, heading straight for the station.

  When he arrived, he was surprised to find only half the desks occupied. He’d expected his dad to call everyone in. Murder required a little overtime.

  When he walked in, the sergeant was speaking to one of his men, arms crossed over his chest. “Send someone to clear out the stone circles. I don’t want it roped off any more than it has to be. Hurts tourism if they’re afraid to stumble over a dead body at any second. No need to create a panic.”

  “But, sir, we’re going to have to call in—” The officer broke off when he spotted Sam, and his father turned, brows raised.

  “Samuel. Why are you here?”

  Sam forced a smile. “Ma got me to bring your lunch in. You left it in the fridge. Listen, Dad, the Kellys’ farm—”

  “We know.” The sergeant waved him off. “We’ve already had three calls and I haven’t even had my coffee yet. I’m sending someone over. You can put my lunch on my desk.” He turned back to the officer, and Sam nodded and ducked by, making his way down the narrow hallway to the back.

  He slipped into his father’s office and crouched by the open door, setting his backpack on the floor.

  “Look,” his father was saying, “it’s probably someone trying to throw us off the scent. Maybe they poisoned the cows, too, to make it seem like there’s some kind of lunatic running around. The judge had enemies, right? She put loads of people away.”

  Sam froze momentarily, shocked. His father had to mean Judge O’Toole, the woman who sat in the back pew of the church every Sunday. She was a steely-faced woman and not particularly friendly.

  But she’d been retired for years. Why wait this long to kill her?

  “It had to be revenge,” the sergeant continued. “He does a little internet search, finds the nearest serial killer, scratches that damned sign into something and, wham, you got everyone sniffing after a decade-old case.”

  “Wham,” Sam muttered to himself, and pulled the first Tupperware container out of his bag. Leftover stew from last night. He’d gone back and grabbed it out of the fridge. His mother hadn’t exactly asked him to bring it over, but he knew the sergeant was going to be busy today. He was just taking some initiative. And if he happened to overhea
r something while running the errand, well…

  He walked over to the desk, footsteps light, and set it on the top. He could hear the officer protesting from next door.

  “Sir, shouldn’t we call it in? I mean, a murder—”

  “Accident. We don’t know it was a murder.”

  “Well, we don’t know it was an accident either, sir. It wasn’t like she fell onto her shearing scissors a half dozen times, now is it?”

  “Watch your mouth.”

  Sam set the stew down and walked back to the bag. He was impressed the man was still arguing. His father had a way of plowing over any protests.

  Next out of the bag was a ziplock baggie with a couple of dinner buns in it. His father was saying loudly, “There’ll be questions, of course, all those rubberneckers on the way past. Have Bertie release a statement to the media.” He cleared his throat. “No foul play.”

  His officer must have given him a look, because he sighed. “Just to avoid the panic. You’ll see, it’ll be someone who just got out of jail and had a few drinks to work up his courage. Then panicked and tried to make it look like a serial killer.”

  That, Sam thought, was still the very definition of foul play. Apparently the other man agreed with him, because there was only a bad-tempered grunt in reply and then the sound of footsteps in the hallway.

  Sam placed the dinner buns on top of the container just as his father opened his door. He gave the sergeant a grin and held up a spoon. “Thought I’d lost this in my bag. Didn’t think you’d appreciate eating with your hands.”

  His father gave him a long look as he set the spoon down on the desk, then Sam turned back to him, slinging his bag over his shoulder.

  “Everything okay? Morgan says her mam drove past quite a scene in the stone circle.”

  “Of course, it’s already spreading,” his father grumbled, and stalked over to his desk. “It’s nothing. Some addict, probably. We’ll have it cleared up in a few days.” He gave Sam a sharp look. “Don’t you go reporting anything to your little friends. This is a godly town. This type of thing doesn’t happen here, and I won’t have you spreading rumors.”