Read Online Demon Hunts by Ce Murphy - Free Book Online Page B

impossible as if it were ordinary. The whole train of thought led me to snort at my own question before anyone had time to answer. “Like Joanne the Unbeliever has to ask.”
    â€œIt’s partly an artifact of the era,” Sonata agreed, then glanced at Billy, who looked uncomfortable. I sat up straighter, ping-ponging my gaze between them, and Sonata sighed again. “The last twelve months have been hard on the magic world, Joanne. More of us have died than usual. It’s like a catalyst was set.”
    Oh, God. I said, “Was that catalyst me?” in a small voice, and to my undying relief, Sonata’s frown turned into a quick shake of her head.
    â€œI don’t think so. I could be wrong,” she amended hastily, “but you strike me as the response, Joanne. When I look at you I see the answer to, not the start of, the troubles.”
    The hollow place in my belly came back. My brain disengaged from my mouth and went distant, surprised to hear the question I voiced: “Do you know an Irish woman called Sheila MacNamarra?”
    Sonata’s eyebrows went up. “Should I?”
    â€œI don’t know. She was an…adept. As far as I can tell, she spent her whole life fighting—” I broke off, looking for a less dramatic phrase than what leaped to mind, then shrugged and used it anyway. “Fighting the forces of darkness. She went up against the Master, the one who created the cauldron. More than once, even. I think that was sort of what she…did.”
    Recognition woke in Sonata’s eyes. “The Irish mage. I know of her. I didn’t know her name.”
    My heart leaped and a fist closed around it all at once, sending a painful jolt through my chest. “You’ve heard of her? What do you know about her?”
    Because what I knew about Sheila MacNamarra was embarrassingly limited. She liked Altoids; that was almost the sum total of what I’d learned about her in four months of traveling at her side. It was only after she died that I discovered she was an adept of no small talent, and that she’d spent her life fighting against—to put it extravagantly but accurately—the forces of darkness.
    It was only after she died that I learned how far she’d gone to protect me.
    Sonata was nodding. “I know of her as a power, yes. We don’t use names often, Joanne. You should know that by now. And mages are by their nature reclusive. As far as I know, no one’s seen the Irish mage outside of her homeland in decades. I’ve never even heard of anyone going to study with her, which is a little unusual. I don’t know if she has any protégés.”
    â€œOne,” I said. “In a manner of speaking.”
    It would have taken a dolt to miss the implications, and while Sonata was a bit of a long-haired hippy freak, she was by nomeans stupid. She sharpened her gaze on me, eyebrows shooting up again, this time making a question all of their own.
    â€œShe was my mother,” I said tiredly, “and she died a year ago tomorrow.”
    Â 
    I didn’t typically think of myself as an emotional lightweight. I didn’t tear up at Hallmark commercials, although extreme vehicle makeover shows could get me. I had a secret stash of romance novels that didn’t fit my girl-mechanic image, but even when they got angsty I didn’t sniffle over them. I had not, in fact, cried when my mother died. I’d barely known her, and I hadn’t liked her very much. But for some reason my throat got painfully tight and my nose stuffed up as I made my announcement.
    Billy and Sonata were conspicuously silent, for which I was grateful. After a couple deep breaths I regained enough equilibrium to say, “She gave me to my dad when I was just a baby, because she had to keep fighting the Master.” That was so inaccurate as to be an outright lie, but I didn’t feel like getting into the complex time-slip that had