Brighid's Mark by Cate Morgan

channel in one movement.
    “How’d you know?”
    “What are you talking about? Where are you?”
    “Jackson Square. There’s already a summoning area set up.”
    “What?”
    “I found a ring of obsidian. The staging area’s ready to go. The power building around here is unbelievable. Maeve wasn’t kidding when she said this was a trap.”
    “Alive or dead?” she demanded. Liam’s heart felt as though it were about to take flight.
    “What? What are you talking about?”
    “The obsidian—alive or dead? Has it been drained?”
    “No, it’s definitely alive.” Static filled the speaker with a high, momentary whine before his voice came through again. “Donny? What are you—”
    The line went dead.
    Callie and Liam stared at one another, questions flooding the small space between them until an unbridgeable abyss yawned. The radio fell from Callie’s nerveless fingers. “Chase.”

Chapter Four
    Callie and Liam entered Jackson Square by the southern entrance. Callie adjusted the strap of the baldric over her shoulder and buried her hands in her jacket pockets. She stood, outwardly composed, eyes on the triple spires of St. Louis Cathedral as she toyed with Liam’s ring in her pocket.
    The cathedral resembled a ghost ship in the thick, humid mist brought on by the Louisiana rain. Trees rustled a sticky drizzle in a warning wind, so the rain must have just stopped. No wonder Chase had been so annoyed. His van enjoyed wet weather about as much a cat when caught in it.
    She tried not to think about Chase and Donny as she waited for Liam to relock the gate behind them. She was even less successful in forgetting Liam’s body cradled against hers, his kiss making the blood pound in her veins. He didn’t kiss like Legba—it had been so, so much better. The breath was still tight in her chest, heat pooled her gut, held in curling, lazy abeyance. There had been so much unexpected heat in him, driven to get out, to bleed itself into her like the sun after a tremendous storm. She wanted to bask in him.
    His footsteps crunched along the gravel path until he stood beside her, close but not hovering, simply giving her the space she needed to focus.
    “Chase was right. This place is thrumming with power.”
    “It’s always like this,” Liam told her. “Something to do with the proximity of the cathedral.”
    “Good. We’re going to need it.” She moved forward.
    The path had once been well maintained. One storm too many, a war and the constant tread of shuffling feet had seen to the Square’s trim geometry.
    The four paths of the Square were bisected by one large circular path and a smaller one at its center. At the larger ring, she paused, stooped to run her fingers through cool, damp grass. After a moment, she extracted a large hunk of rock, hefting it thoughtfully. Unlike the dead obsidian she’d found in Chicago, which had been charcoal gray and porous with drained life, this palm-sized specimen was glossy black with orange striations like veins. With a humorless smile, she replaced the hunk of obsidian and wiped her glove on the side of her jacket. The rock’s living energy tried to seep its way to her bare skin, nipping like insects.
    Callie and Liam continued to the smaller ring, where a crumbling stone block bravely upheld the remains of a bronze statue gone green with age and crawling moss. She could just make out the rearing horse; more prominent was the headless horseman waving its hat, like a friendlier version of Sleepy Hollow’s well-known demon. There, nestled in Spanish moss, lay the thirteenth piece of obsidian. Callie watched it warily. It was about the same shape and size of a human heart. She imagined it pulsing with life.
    “No Chase, no Donal,” Liam observed.
    “No.”
    “So why isn’t the obsidian drained?”
    Callie didn’t look away from the keystone as she removed her left glove. “Because one of them betrayed us and the other is a hostage. I’m supposed to do the summoning to