What was the old saying? It’s better to ask forgiveness than to ask permission? She would make no more phone calls. She’d not ask for guidance. The time for action was now. Tonight.
Maisy collected her special knife from its hiding place at the back of her dresser drawer. She wadded up the ceremonial robe and stuffed it into an oversize purse. The robe wasn’t necessary, but she liked it. When she’d tried it on she’d felt so powerful...so much more powerful than she’d ever been. Her abilities were annoyingly minor. Why have magical powers if they were going to be so insignificant she could barely qualify for a sideshow?
Her father had been able to control all the elements. With a wave of his hand he could control water, fire, earth and wind. Unfortunately, he’d married a woman with no magic at all. He’d spent most of his life hiding who and what he was from the woman he loved.
Maisy had been fifteen when her own abilities had come to life. She’d been shocked, though to be honest there wasn’t much about her abilities to inspire fear or amazement. She could control water, to a minor degree. Dishwater in a sink, drinking water in a glass, a narrow stream if she worked very hard.
Bathwater.
After her mother had drowned in the bath, with a little help from Maisy, everything had changed. She’d thought without a mortal woman to influence her powerful father, they could travel the world. He could teach her, train her to be what he was. Powerful. It had worked, for a while. He had tried to train her, for a while.
Unfortunately, he’d eventually figured out what Maisy had done and had been horrified. She’d had no choice but to kill him, too. Her father had always preferred showers to baths, and she’d never been able to figure out how to drown someone in a shower, so she’d taken care of him with a knife. A knife she’d kept near her ever since. It was special. The knife had sentimental value.
After that, Maisy had been on her own for a time, and then she’d found Walsh. He was convinced they’d been drawn together by the powers of the universe, that like called to like. Maybe he was right. Like her, he was hungry for more than he had in his life. More power. More of everything. And he had a plan to get what he wanted.
She couldn’t afford to be stopped on her way out of town. Once she had the enhanced powers it didn’t matter what everyone knew. They’d all bow to her. Walsh intended to name his clan Ansara, after his mother’s people. He intended to call others like him, like her, to Cloughban and take over the village and the surrounding land. People would come, of that she had no doubt. Would they care if they were led by a man who called himself Ansara or would they be satisfied with a woman named Payne? She doubted they would care at all. The Payne clan did have a certain ring to it. Why go back when it was possible to move forward instead?
Walsh intended to take the girl’s power for himself, and she had allowed him to go on believing. Why would he think for a minute that she’d stand back and allow him to reap the benefits of this operation, when she’d been the one to do all the work? He wasn’t that good in bed. No man was. Still, sleep with a man and he became gullible enough to believe anything he was told. That was her experience, anyway.
He couldn’t come into Cloughban yet because too many people remembered him from his last visit. Years ago he’d come to Rye for help, as so many before him had done. Walsh had been born with some gifts, but like Maisy he wanted more. Much more. When he’d found out about the girl he’d instantly begun to wonder how he could use her.
It had taken him years to find the spell that would kill Cassidy Duncan and transfer all her powers to the one who wielded the knife. It had taken her just a few weeks to find that spell among his things. She’d searched his room while he slept—drugged just a little bit—and had finally discovered what she needed hidden under the false bottom of a dresser drawer.
He’d actually hidden the most powerful words she could imagine in his sock drawer. What a moron.
When this was over, Walsh Ansara would be answering to her, not the other way around. He could lick her boots and do her
bidding, say “Yes, ma’am” when she passed along her instructions. She’d always wanted a lackey, or two. Or a hundred.
If Walsh didn’t give her everything she asked for, she’d dispose of him with her newfound powers. She wouldn’t need bathwater or a stream. She might rip his heart out or burn him alive. And then...oh, what a life she could have!
In Maisy’s fantasies, Rye became the man he’d once been. Dark. Powerful. Heartless. Few here knew who he’d been, what he’d done, but she knew. Walsh knew, too, and he’d been foolish enough to share the information with her. Together she and Rye would rule Cloughban until the new Payne clan grew stronger—thanks to the stones, and thanks to her—and then they’d move beyond this small, insignificant town.
Walsh had used the Ansara name to call a few dark strays to him. His strays were nothing special, nothing at all to write home about. They were far from fierce. But they would do, for now.
Maisy dialed the sat phone again. Why hadn’t Walsh been answering his phone? He had to be anxious; they were hours away from the end of his plan. Mere hours!
Chapter 15
Rye never closed the Drunken Stone on a weeknight, but tonight he hung a Closed Until Further Notice sign on the front door and locked it. He called Doyle and told him to take a couple weeks of paid leave. His chief cook and bottle washer didn’t seem to mind taking an unexpected bit of time off, though he had sounded surprised.
Of course he was surprised. Everyone would be. Other than Sundays, he could not recall a time when he’d shut the doors to his business.
Alone with Echo, one kiss led to another. And another. They ended up in his bed. Their place. The only place he had known real peace in a very long time. She offered pleasure and comfort. She offered her body, her mind and her soul. Here, in the dark, they could forget everything for a few precious minutes.
He loved her. He couldn’t tell her so, couldn’t offer her a life here. But he loved her. That was an unexpected awareness he fought hard to hide. He pushed it down, shoved it back. If she saw or sensed his feelings for her she was wise enough—or kind enough—not to mention them. Like him, she had to realize that their relationship, no matter how deep it might go, was temporary.
Curled in his arms, naked and sweating and sated, she sighed. All they had was now, this moment. It wouldn’t last. He’d loved Sybil at one time, and look how that had turned out.
“I need a shower in the worst way,” Echo said as she disengaged, slowly and reluctantly leaving him and heading for the small attached bathroom. She flipped on the light, illuminating herself. She was picture perfect, nude and shapely and relaxed.
Maybe she wanted some company in that shower.
He joined her under the hot water, scrubbed her back, let her scrub his. He hadn’t had many really nice moments in the past few years. Hell, in his entire life. This was one. This was a moment to remember, a memory he’d call back after she was gone.
“I need to try to bring on another vision,” Echo said. Water ran down her body, pooled at her feet. “I’ve never been able to do that, but I am stronger now, and the more we know about what’s going to happen...” She shook her head. The tips of her hair were wet, her body gleamed. “I need to figure out how we can save Cassidy. There must be something we can do!”
Echo’s vision of a danger to Cassidy was one of the future. He wanted to agree with her that, given the timeline, surely circumstances could be changed. If they could determine a date and a time, they could make sure Cassidy was properly protected. Nothing about the future was certain.