Heathcliff

I’m not worried about leaving Cathy alone with Edgar Linton. Even if she wasn’t currently possessed by a god and gifted with extra strength, she’d be more than a match for that sap on her worst day. And I taped him up good. He’s not getting out of that chair.

It crosses my mind that maybe I should worry about Cernunnos hurting Edgar. But Cathy seems to be in control for now. If anything did happen to Edgar, I sure wouldn’t cry. But it would be another mess to clean up, and I’m fucking tired of those.

Outside, it’s pale and misty. Early morning. The damp, cool air feels good on my face, against my bare legs.

Everything’s soaked from the rain. The eaves of the church drip slowly and the gravel in the parking lot gleams black. Before coming outside, I grabbed my boots from the women’s bathroom and put them on, but they’re soaked too, and coated with mud. They squish as I walk.

Yanking open the door of Hindley’s truck, I pluck my phone from the cupholder and call up the Coosaw Lockwoods.

Meemaw will answer the phone. She’ll be sitting in the den, in the old brown recliner.

On the folding table beside her, there’s always a glass of sweet tea, the TV remote, the cordless phone, and a heavy crystal ashtray with a cigarette propped on the edge.

She has smoked a pack a day for years, but no lung cancer.

That resilience and her unusually sensitive hearing are extra gifts, along with her necromancy skills.

Other than me, she’s the most powerful necromancer in the clan. But she hasn’t resurrected anyone since she was about sixty-five years old. Said it was getting harder and harder to find the way back out of the Vague.

During one Thanksgiving at the Coosaw Lockwoods’ place, when I was about nine, she grabbed the front of my shirt and pulled me close with a gnarled hand, her smoke-bitter breath in my face.

“You listen up, boy. I got my sons all here, my daughters-in-law, my grandchildren, my nieces and nephews, and a couple great-grandchildren, too. All my blood. And none of them—not one”—she poked my chest for emphasis—“have a fraction of the power you got. And you got an extra gift, too, like me. You got that strength. You hide it, but I see it.” Her dry, wrinkled fingertips drifted along my cheek as she muttered confidentially, “That’s why you’re my favorite.

You may not be blood, but you’re more like me than any of ’em. ”

After that, I loved her, no matter how many times she cuffed my ears or swore at me. I don’t call her often, but I’m always relieved when she answers. Still alive .

She answers this morning, with her usual croaky rebuke. “Heathcliff. You ain’t called me in a coon’s age.”

“Sorry, Meemaw.”

“Damn right you’re sorry. You’re interruptin’ my show.”

“Sorry,” I repeat. “I got a couple questions, Meemaw. Ain’t nobody else got answers but you.”

“That so?” She clears her throat. “Well, go on then.”

“Have you ever heard of someone getting rezzed and then not waking up?”

“Sure. That’s what happens when someone’s been rezzed before, and then they get another tattoo to be rezzed again.”

“I thought no one could be rezzed more than once.”

“They shouldn’t ,” she says. “Never said they couldn’t .

You rez someone a second time, and they can’t quite grasp life again.

They liable to never wake up at all…or if they do, it’ll be for short periods of time.

They’ll be up and about awhile, and then they start feeling strange, and they go unconscious again. ”

That explains why Ian always came back to the Grange after his excursions.

“You rez somebody twice?” Meemaw asks.

“Yeah. Me and Hindley. I don’t think Hindley knew he’d been rezzed before.”

“That Hindley. Got dirt for brains and beer for blood. But at least he’s still practicing.

Most everyone else had to quit. Just couldn’t manage a decent rez no more.

Not like in my day. When I was young, I was making money—ooh, you shoulda seen it!

That’s how we got this house, this land.

And now all these relatives just keep sucking away what I saved up, sucking it dry.

They don’t wanna work. Nobody wants to work these days. ”

I’m not getting into that conversation with her, so I pivot to my next question. “Meemaw, I remember you told me once about the Gancanagh.”

“The Love-Talker,” she says quietly. “The ruiner of women—and men, too. He’s got the gift of persuasion.

Can’t make you do anything right away or control you, exactly—it ain’t so obvious as that.

He works on you awhile. Makes you believe things are your ideas when they’re his.

Softens you up so everything he tells you seems true, plain as day. ”

“Sounds like you knew one.”

She doesn’t answer right away. Probably taking a pull of her cigarette.

“That was long ago, when I lived in N’Orleans for a while.

I knew this man—gentle, quiet, always at the edges of parties.

He was handsome, kinder than most. He asked me a lot of questions about my family, my ancestry.

And I told him everything. Not because I was young or stupid, mind you, but because he persuaded me.

Later I realized he had his hooks into a whole lot of people, and he pulled the strings.

A puppeteer, he was. Master of marionettes.

Gancanagh and dúbailte, like us—double-gifted. ”

“Are you sure he was Gancanagh?”

“Some things get blurry when you’re old, Heathcliff, but others become clearer than ever.

I know what he was.” There’s a clink of glass through the phone, a slurp of liquid.

“There’s patterns, if you want to see ’em.

Like what I seen over the past couple years.

I been gettin’ more phone calls like yours, sometimes from people I ain’t spoken to in decades.

Calls about new supernaturals poppin’ up.

Gifts we thought was lost for good, comin’ back to light.

New generations growing stronger, instead of the gifts fading like they used to… ”

My attention strays from her words, veers to Ian.

The Gancanagh who brainwashed a whole church congregation and instigated Cathy’s murder.

Everything fits now. The times when he’d leave the Grange and come back.

Double-gifted, with the power to shapeshift.

He’s fucking dangerous, and he’s out there somewhere—or he’s lying in bed at the Grange right now, asleep. Which means he’s vulnerable.

“Meemaw, I gotta go. I need to call Hindley.”

“I gotta go, too. We’re all leaving soon, heading up your way.”

“Why?”

“It’s Halloween, dumbass,” she snaps. “You got cotton in your head? Samhain rituals tonight.”

“Right.” Fuck . “See you soon.”

She mutters something and ends the call.

Shit…the Coosaw Lockwoods are coming up to Kinsale, and my girlfriend is possessed by the god they’ve been wanting to raise, there’s a Gancanagh-púca hybrid running around, and I’ve got the leader of the Wicklow congregation duct-taped to a chair.

Plus there’s a handful of unknown supernaturals on their way from Asheville.

Perfect. Just fucking perfect.

I call Hindley next. I already saw a bunch of missed calls and enraged texts from him, so I’m more or less prepared for the storm of profanity he unleashes the moment he answers my call.

“Shut up!” I bellow. “I’ll let you knock my lights out next time we see each other if you’ll just shut up and listen! You’re in danger!”

Hindley holds his tongue for a second, long enough for me to say, “I talked to Meemaw about Ian. I can’t explain right now, but, Hindley, he’s been getting up and sneaking out.

He’s fucking dangerous. I need you to go into that room right now, and if he’s asleep, you gotta chain him to the bed, duct tape him, whatever.

He can shapeshift, so maybe use iron or blessed water if you got any—”

“Why the fuck would I have iron shackles and blessed water? That’s Wicklow anti-pagan shit.”

I ball my hand up into a fist and set it to my forehead, breathing through the frustration. “Whatever you got that can limit someone’s powers, use it. Lock him down until I can get there, or until the Coosaw folks get there. Shouldn’t take ’em long, they’re leaving soon.”

“I know. I was supposed to be back here in plenty of time to get the place ready, but since someone lost his shit, punched me out, and stole my truck, I had to Uber back to the Grange. Do you know how much Ubers cost? Too fucking much, that’s what. I swear, Heathcliff, when I get my hands on you—”

“Hindley! Go to the fucking guest room and see if he’s there!” I yell. “And watch out, because if he knows you’re onto him, he might kill you.”

“You’d probably buy him a drink if he did,” Hindley snarls. His voice changes a little, like he’s moving, and I hear the squeak of stairs, the rattle of the padlock I placed on the guest room door.

I hold my breath, waiting. “Is he there?”

“Hold your horses.”

A long pause, and then Hindley says, “He’s here in bed, like always.”

“Lock him down,” I urge. “Tie him up, chain him, hold him at gunpoint—just don’t let him leave the house.”

“You’re talkin’ crazy,” Hindley replies. “Where you getting this idea that he’s been waking up and wandering around?”

“I’ll explain later. Right now, you just need to restrain him, you hear me?”

No answer. I look at my phone and see that the call has ended. Either he hung up on me, or…something else happened. Something worse.

Crap.

I stride back across the parking lot and take all the steps in one bound. After setting my phone on a console table in the church lobby, I head into the sanctuary. “Cathy, I’ve got some answers.”

At first I don’t see her. I only see Edgar Linton, his face ashen and his eyes bulging. He jerks his head toward the pews on my left.