Prologue

Death at the Stones

Author's Note: For those of you who remember this note being incredibly apologetic have no fear! I'm not discontinuing and re-writing this again. I just reread the prologue and felt it was incredibly inadequate and did a poor job of actually setting the scene. So, hopefully this one is better! I'll be editing all of tge other ones cery slowly. At first glance most of the issues are technical errors and author goofs, so it shouldn't be too difficult.

Enjoy!

Darkness fell as the sun left the horizon behind and the day succumbed to the night. Figures hooded in dark ceremonial robes carrying torches that flickered an eerie green across the night-scape trudged up the steep incline of a hill from three sides. Each group ascended the hill and formed three half circles out of three groups of thirteen. One group dragged three victims behind them.

One girl, about eleven or twelve, hung limp between two of the robed persons eyes wide open and a dreamy smile on her face. Behind her was a woman dressed in a hospital gown with a profound baby bump still protruding from her stomach. Her matter blond hair fell over her shoulder and into her bowed head. Every movement of her lips formed a repeated question: "Where is my baby?" Wide eyes stared at nothing as the acolytes pulled her limp form along. The last was an old blind woman. She was different than the others. Though her body held the tale-tell signs of being drugged her mind seemed to have repelled the hallucinogenic. Every sound she made was loud and demanding: "Where am I? How dare you? Where are you taking me?"

Brianna barely breathed horrified at the scene she could see from the corner of her eye. The urge to sob, to run to them, and cut down each and every mother's daughter of them was almost too great to resist. It took every ounce of self-control in her possession to keep from doing so. The bracelets that housed her weapons hung limp around her wrists. They called to her, appealed to the part of her that begged her to begin the slaughter.

She couldn't.

A breath escaped her as the elder woman's voice echoed around her demanding that the three covens of sorceresses release her. This one was the strongest, the most defiant, and she would go last. She yelled at all of them, offered curses fowler than even Brianna had uttered in the past, and struck some of her assailants. The little girl's face remained serene as her lips formed the words of an old Disney song Brianna hadn't realized was still shown. The post-partem woman just hung limply in the hands of one group of thirteen muttering her single question: "Where's my Baby?"

Brianna, disgusted with herself, her aunt, and the entire situation, felt the nausea well up her throat. She swallowed it back down and chose to deal with it later, after everything was finished and she could mourn them appropriately. One shallow breath later and she pushed her emotions to the back of her mind. Then she sent her power into the ground and the wind to search for the soon-to-be murderess.

A moment later she found the bitch and she smiled grimly. The Morrighan was at the center of the stone circle and from the way she felt the wind hitting her skin she knew the Raiphahim had taken her Crone persona and form. This made her magically powerful, but physically disabled. Easier to kill so long as one had the right weapon. Brianna did.

Across from her Karen and Matt hid themselves behind three other pillars blessedly out of sight of the sorceresses. This time Brianna peered around her stone, lips pinched tight, and looked for the one hosting the ritual.

There she was!

Behind the elder walked a tall and proud old woman with a deceptively kind face and big blue-gold eyes that promised light and life and some sort of wisdom. All profane, and all a lie. This was the Morrighan and she was doing... something. Brianna and her team hadn't quite discovered what it was. The use of Stonehenge was a clue, a good clue, but beyond that they hadn't deciphered.

The three groups of thirteen entered the stone circle and the young girl was thrust into The Morrighan's waiting arms first. Brianna didn't tense into battle ready position. There was nothing that could be done for those already dead. At least, that was what she kept telling herself in the hopes it would make allowing these people to die such a gruesome death easier. It didn't.

Morrighan's voice crackled into the crisp autumn air and the dark, twisted, language of the Raiphahim - something Brianna had never really been able to understand - leeched out into the night. Only a few lines were uttered before a hand gnarled into dark claws and plunged itself into the girl's chest. She screamed and Brianna winced hating herself as she stood by and watched. Orders were orders.

They aren't my orders, she thought bitterly.

The next girl, woman, was thrust forward. Tears stained a heavily painted face and her full, red painted lips quivered in the dim green light. It made her look sick though Brianna wouldn't have been surprised if she was a bit. She looked like she had been snatched right out of the birthing room. Traces of blood wafted into her nostrils from the woman's direction.

Brianna swallowed bile again and continued to remain crouched in her place as the gnarled claw-like fingernails of The Morrighan plunged into her chest and ripped out her heart. The human didn't even scream. She simply let out a faint "ugnk" and slumped against the stone altar. Blood bubbled from the corner of her mouth.

Brianna's eyes watered. She blinked it away and sucked in a deep breath.

Bloody hell, she thought. Bloody fucking hell!

It wasn't as if she'd never seen a person die before, but to be the one to stand behind a pillar and just allow it to happen all because the woven gentry wanted to know where The Morrighan was trying to go was an entirely different matter. Such an act was worst than anything she'd done before, but they were orders from the Council of Nobles - a group of people she had no control over these days.

Was she sick for letting these women die or were her enemies sick because they did the deed in the first place? Brianna found this situation far more sinister because she and her team weren't doing anything. She hadn't returned to OLYMPUS just to let innocent people die!

There was nothing for it. Amorphasia was meant to disable human sacrifices. It also had no cure as Brianna had discovered so long ago.

Alyan, she thought as the image of the last time she'd seen him floated across her mind's eye.

The third woman was murdered as well. Sacrificed as those disgusting bastards liked to call it. She curled her lip. Whether she was more disgusted with herself or the people who made it their life's ambition to hurt others Brianna wasn't sure. All she knew was that the only way she could feel the least bit atoned for the sin of apathy was to slaughter each and every one of those sons of bitches as quickly and efficiently as possible.

At this point it was her call. Brianna let the final fell words die into the increasing wind before she stood drew back the bow she'd held strung onto the dry autumn ground and aimed the arrow loosely placed in her hold at the acolyte next to The Morrighan. Typically it was better to kill the sorceress who conducted the ceremony, but Brianna felt a deep sense of need to directly engage with her. The arrow flew and the acolyte crumbled. The body hit the ground with a muffled thump. The groups tensed and Brianna unstrung her bow, allowed it to morph back into her quiver, and allowed her knives to materialize into her hands. She stepped into the green light.

"The angel of death has come for you, The Morrighan," she said coldly.

Brianna didn't give anyone time to respond. She didn't even give Karen and Matt a minute or two to get themselves situated. Blades flashed in the moonless sky that glittered with thick dumps of stars and sliced through the living necks of two sorcerers closest to her. Black blood pooled around the bodies as they slowly crumbled to the earth like broken porcelain dolls. Without much thought she moved to her next victim, and the next, and the next. None of the little sycophants mattered to her. Each teal eye was fixed on the dark, bottomless pools of a distinctly enraged Morrighan.

Once Karen and Matt took control of the fighting Brianna grinned and leapt for the Raiphahim. She pushed fire around the blades. The Morrighan used her magic - a mistake - and stopped the flooding onset of white hot flame. Brianna came up underneath her and thrust up. The long knife's blade, already stained with black blood, entered her stomach with a satisfying slick squelch.

The blade's strike wasn't deep enough. The Morrighan stepped back with a snarl and hurled another glob of black magic toward her. Brianna blocked it with a wall of silver wind and pushed it out and against the torrent of darkness. The sorceress maintained her strength. Brianna chuckled darkly and let go of her control and just forced a steady stream of the Light Wind magic. The Morrighan grunted and flew backwards. She hit the ground closest to three intricately placed pillars of Stonehenge. They glowed red - a stark contrast to the rest of the circle which glowed an eerie green - and the power twisted and turned into what Brianna supposed was a sort of door.

Brianna approached, knives ready to strike in different places that would assuredly reach her heart. The Morrighan struggled to launch another attack, but Brianna broke through it again and stabbed down. The blades entered her heart.

The Morrighan shuddered. Clawed fingers grabbed Brianna's shoulders and a sharp gasp to escape her lips. Pain lanced through her shoulder when she attempted to struggle out of her grasp. The decrepit hag chuckled out green blood. Brianna wrinkled her nose at the pungent odor that followed.

"My last gift to my cousin," she rasped

Brianna barely moved to try and dislodge The Morrighan's nails before the witch shoved her away. She only had time to look and see the top of the archway pass above her head. Then the world became dark and Brianna felt… nothing.

She fell down, deep down, through an endless void. Time seemed to stall. Her lungs didn't seem to want to work. Every muscle hung limp as she floated through the vast endless night of the void. There was nothing to breathe, nothing to hold onto, touch, or feel. Each strand of hair remained unmoved, a wrinkle of clothes stationary, and Brianna had the sick feeling that her enemies must have done it.

They had finally killed her.

Then a distant sound, like the wind rushing through trees, met her ears. Brianna wanted to move her head in the direction of the noise, but her body still refused to cooperate. A curious thing happened at this point. Her ears popped and heralded a loud rushing in her ears. Startled her lips parted and her eyes widened only to abruptly close later when her body burst out into daylight.

For a moment air cradled her body in its gentle hand and held her suspended. Then the wind picked up, her body buckled inward, and the air left her lungs. She fell.

Briefly.

"Oof!"

It took her a moment to realize that she'd landed on a person. Another moment passed and her world became night.