Morrigan by Jonathan King (cat reading book txt) 📕

all right?” Morrigan asked, and the worry in her voice surprised Abel.

“He will be in a moment.” Brigid placed a hand over Abel’s bleeding neck and mumbled an incantation in Gaelic. Fire spread through his veins, and he couldn’t hold back a scream. Then the pain vanished. He touched the place where the vampire had bitten him and found only smooth skin and clotting blood.

“You’ll still be weak from the blood loss,” said Brigid, handing him a rag that smelled suspiciously like fish, “but at least you’re not bleeding out anymore.”

“Thanks.” Abel rubbed at the blood on his neck, and then his clothes, but they were stained an indelible red once more. “I don’t suppose we could go back to the banshee at the laundromat and get this stuff cleaned?”

Morrigan looked away, and Abel changed the subject. “So, vampires, huh? Should I be worried about Frankenstein’s monster next?”

“Don’t be stupid,” Morrigan snapped. She took a breath and tried again. “That was the Dearg-Due. I’ve run into her in the past, but now she’s on Cora’s team.” She shook her head, and Abel admired the way her hair wrapped around her face. “You could have been killed.”

“I’m sorry.”

“No, it’s not your fault. Her song gets in people’s heads, messes with their minds, especially men. You’re not a jerk, just an idiot.”

“Thanks…” said Abel.

“But I should have stopped you,” Morrigan went on. “I didn’t see her face until she was leaving with you. If I had recognized her sooner, if I’d been paying attention…”

“I didn’t know you cared.”

Morrigan stared at him with an unreadable expression. “You don’t know me at all.”

“It’s just, the way you looked at me back in the pub, I saw how disappointed you were,” said Abel. “I wanted to show you I could be the capable guy you thought I was.”

“You don’t have to impress me,” said Morrigan. “I’m not one of your church deacons or widows in the singles ministry. You don’t have to be perfect or meet all my expectations.”

“I know I don’t have to impress you,” said Abel. “But I want to.”

Morrigan cleared her throat. “Well, you did clear a room of Red Caps in a matter of seconds when I couldn’t.”

“You keep saying that,” said Abel, “but it was an accident. I had no idea what I was doing.”

Brigid chuckled. “Abel, back in the early days of Ireland, when the first settlers were almost entirely female, the one male among them turned himself into a salmon to escape. How? Nobody knows. But he did.”

Abel looked at Morrigan to see if they were joking, but there wasn’t any laughter in her smile, only honesty. “Nobody knows how magic works,” she said. “I don’t know how I do any of the things I do. But I do them anyway.” She clapped a hand on his shoulder. “You fit right in.”

Abel smiled, but the smile faded. “Hey, how did that Dearg-Due know where to find us?”

Morrigan’s eyes narrowed. “Cora must know where we are. I don’t know how, but she knows.” She turned to Brigid. “It’s not safe at your shop.”

“I’m sure it’s safer than you think,” said Brigid.

Abel pointed down the street. “I’m not.”

The shop was on fire. Flames snaked through the windows and the holes in the roof, withering the nearby grass and sending heat rippling off the corrugated metal.

“Cora,” Morrigan muttered as they pulled up in front of it.

Mac stuck his head out the window. “You want me to put it out?”

“Thanks, dear heart,” said Brigid, “but I’ve got it.” She hopped down from the truck bed and stepped toward the inferno. She flexed her fingers in little warmup stretches, and then threw out her arms, inhaling. Jets of orange flame peeled off from the building and formed itself into a ball in the circle of her arms, growing denser and brighter as she siphoned off more fire.

Abel slipped down into the truck bed, shielding himself from the heat and the smell of smoke and seared metal as best he could. Even Morrigan and Mac turned away. But Brigid stood unwavering, clothing blowing in the hot wind but unsinged, not a drop of sweat running down her face, her eyes glowing with reflected firelight.

The last of the flames slipped through the window and into the fiery ball. With a swing of her arms, Brigid tossed it upwards, discharging it into the sky. Abel thought briefly of the pillar of fire leading the Israelites in the wilderness. No wonder the ancients had thought Brigid was a goddess.

Then it was done. The shop lay still and dark and quiet except for the tick of cooling metal.

Brigid turned to Abel, panting, and shrugged. “See? No idea how I did that.”

Abel and the gods climbed out of the truck and sniffed the air. “Smell that?” Morrigan asked.

They all nodded.

“Gasoline,” said Mac.

“Somebody set this fire,” said Abel.

“Not with magic either,” said Brigid. “This was a good old fashioned arson.”

Abel combed through his memories for a suspect. “What about that eyepatch guy you said was spying on us?”

“We lost him,” Morrigan said. “I’d have noticed if he followed us this far.” Something down the street caught her attention. “Like I noticed that truck a couple of times…”

Abel followed her gaze to a nondescript eighteen-wheeler parked on the side of the road a few blocks away. Its back doors hung wide open, and as they watched, the roar of a starting motor echoed from the depths. The burly figure of Eyepatch on his motorcycle burst out of the shadows, down the ramp, and right past them. Morrigan snatched at him as he passed, but he swerved away, nearly mowing down Brigid in the process.

“Switching vehicles,” Morrigan muttered. “Oh, he’s good.”

“He’s getting away!” Mac shouted, lumbering toward his truck.

Morrigan grinned and raised a hand to the skies as the biker turned a corner. “He’ll be back.”

The motorcycle’s rumble faded away to almost nothing … and then it grew again, joined by something else, something that sounded like the caws of a thousand