Back to the Beginning Chapter 20: Seachrán as Bheith, a sweep fanfic

Disclaimer: Holy crap … I can't believe it's been over a month since I've updated. I am soooooooo unbelievably sorry. I promise I won't let it happen again. Or, at least, I'll try not to let it happen again … next semester I have German II, Chemistry, AP World History, and Geography, so … we'll see, I suppose. Okay, copyright stuff. The Sweep series belongs to Cate Tiernan. The song used in this chapter belongs to Kelly Clarkson. … I think that's it. On another note, please review when you're done reading! I would hate to have to pull the story because no one is giving feedback (I mean, if no one is reading the story, it's somewhat pointless to keep updating, isn't it?). I love writing this, and I hope that you are enjoying reading it … but how would I know you're enjoying it unless you review? Oh, and the title means "Delusion from Existence."

sweetsoutherngal: What would I do without your many encouraging reviews? Thank you so much and please keep reading!

moon-faery69: Thanks for the compliment :P I love your stories, too (Go The Big Pear!). Keep reading! Oh, and there's a tribute to Sky's coffee high in the chapter :hehe: Sorry I couldn't explicate on it more ; )

By the way, I was reading a thread on a Sweep discussion board about who would play all of the characters if the books were made into a TV show, which got me thinking …

Morgan: Alyson Hannigan
Willow kicks butt, man. She can be sweet, shy, evil, and in charge completely believably.

Hunter: Drew Fuller
You know Chris from Charmed? For some reason, he strikes me as a Hunter. Although I guess the Jude Law from Alfie might work, too … ;)

Sky: Mischa Barton
I'm not really a fan of The OC, but she's a) blonde, b) British, and c) capable of being just as stubborn as Sky.

Bree: Charisma Carpenter
Looks like a supermodel? Beautiful but best friend material? Definitely Cordelia ;)

Robbie: Nicholas Brendon
Can't you just see him as the dopey best friend? See? He's already got experience there.

Raven: Amy Lee
I heard someone say that she's too old to play Raven, but she's only 23. She could play someone who's 18.

Alisa: Michelle Trachtenberg
Kinda whiney, teenage-angsty … definitely Michelle Trachtenberg.

So there you have it. Comment on my choices in those reviews that you will hopefully be sending my way. Oh, and I think that Seth Green would make an awesome Cal Blaire. Who doesn't love Oz?

In case you can't tell, I'm a huge Buffy fan. Go Scooby Gang! Okay … finally … on with the story.

Title: Seachrán as Bheith

Morgan

"This is a good macaroon," I said as I bit into one from the plate that Sky had been passing around.

"Thanks," she said with a smile. "It's Ma's recipe. She used to make them for us all the time."

"Yes, there's nothing better than Aunt Shelagh's baking skills," Hunter said with a grin, biting a cookie in half. "Coupled with Uncle Beck's … it was very hard to maintain a diet around our house."

"I know," Sky grinned. "Always out of shape, the lot of us."

"Are you kidding me?" Hunter asked in disbelief. "You're very nearly a twig. Four years on the drill team and you think you were out of shape?"

Uproar instantly exploded at the table where we were all sitting, looking at an old Niall/Eventide family scrapbook that Hunter had managed to dig up.

"You were on the drill team?" Bree cried, her eyes wide.

"You were a dancer?" I gasped. This was truly shocking.

Raven looked miffed. "Yes, Sky was a dancer! Why does everyone always insist on making a conversation out of it?"

Wow … suddenly I didn't know Sky Eventide anymore. I had never pictured her as a dancer prep-type.

"The operative word is 'was'," Sky said irritably. "I'm not anymore, obviously!"

"Wasn't the team motto 'Once a Highstepper, always a Highstepper'?" Hunter asked curiously. Sky just glared at him.

"Shut up."

"Wow," I said. I looked at Raven with wide eyes. "That totally goes against everything you stand for, Raven."

"I know," she said miserably.

"At least I had extracurricular activities," Sky said, clearly searching for a way to redeem herself in her girlfriend's eyes. She looked at Hunter. "The only thing you ever stayed after school for was the science club."

Bree snorted. "Oh, I bet that mattered a lot."

"What now?" I asked absently.

"Well, come on," she laughed. "Hunter's so hot that I doubt it mattered that he was a science geek."

Hunter looked slightly offended. "Hey, geek in question sitting right here."

"I'll bet the phone never stop ringing at your house," Bree said, grinning as she examined what must have been a recent photo of the Eventide family plus Hunter and Alwyn.

I recognized Shelagh and Beck and Sky, and common sense told me that the other four girls must be Sky's sisters. Judging from the labeling on the back, Aimee, tall with the same light blonde hair as Sky, was the oldest. Next was Shannon, a year younger than Aimee with curled brown hair and big brown eyes. Sky stood next to her younger sisters Cara and Chelsea, both brunettes and both of whom took after Beck more while Sky and Aimee looked like carbon copies of Shelagh. Alwyn's bright red hair in the picture had clearly been straightened, and I was struck by how different she looked from Hunter. I couldn't help but wonder what the third Niall sibling, Linden, had looked like. I would ask Hunter or Sky, but it wasn't really something that they liked to talk about.

I snapped back to reality in time to hear Hunter and Sky still arguing.

"Of course the phone stopped ringing," Sky was saying.

"No, it didn't," Hunter scoffed. "Well, it did, but only when Aunt Shelagh unplugged it out of frustration around six every night because she couldn't stand its incessant ringing."

Raven just groaned with disgust. Hunter grinned.

"Well, come on, what would you expect? Sky and her sisters all made the varsity dance team as freshmen and stayed on it for four years. Alwyn was co-captain of the cheerleading squad."

"And you had the hotness," Bree grinned.

"I didn't know that there are British cheerleaders," Robbie said, surprised. "The English always seem so uptight." Hunter and Sky glared at him, and he just shrugged. "Do you deny it?"

"All I'm saying is that, if you wanted to be the most popular girl in school, you had to compete against Aimee, Shannon, Sky, Chelsea, and Cara Eventide and Alwyn Niall. It couldn't be done."

"We weren't –" Sky began to object.

"You guys had your own show at the pep rallies. Don't try to argue with me."

As Hunter and Sky went on to bicker about something else from their high school lives ("For the last time, I was not the one who spilled grape juice on your Highsteppers sweatshirt! Why would I steal your Highsteppers sweatshirt?"), I realized how strange it was that we were all sitting around the kitchen table talking about things that had no point whatsoever, considering what had happened earlier in the day. Considering how the blood witches among us had just lost their powers.

I shivered slightly. I wanted to curl up and take a nap, but something in me made me afraid to close my eyes. I couldn't help the strange sense of foreboding lurking at the corners of my mind.

He drowns in his dreams
An exquisite extreme, I know
He's as dumb as he seems
And more heaven than a heart could hold
And if I tried to save him
My whole world could cave in
It just isn't right
It just isn't right

"This is where you saw it?" Sky asked, looking around her. "You're sure?"

"No," I said sarcastically. "It was at the other Ballynigel cemetery."

"There's another one?" Bree asked.

I ignored her and resumed combing the area around the circle of graves for clues, remnants of magick, or anything that might give us a clue as to what was happening. Hunter had finally decided that the best plan of action would be, instead of arguing over who stole Sky's Highsteppers sweatshirt, to visit the cemetery—in pointedly broad daylight—and see if we could sense any of the Diobhail's presence and maybe discover what they were planning.

So far, our efforts had been useless.

Hunter was running his hand along the top of my grandmother's grave, which had been filled back in since my last visit. I guessed that whoever the groundskeeper was, if there even was one, had replaced the dirt.

"Mackenna Riordan …" Hunter whispered in awe, staring at the worn and weathered inscription. "She was an incredible witch, very powerful …" He looked at me with a small smile. "Like another Riordan descendent that I know."

I couldn't help but smile back slightly.

Sky was examining the headstone, too, but unlike Hunter, she was looking at the back of it. "If you two would keep focused, you might have noticed the inscription back here." As we knelt down beside her to look, I felt my stomach tighten in anger. Someone had carved runes into the stone. Someone had defaced the block of stone that marked the resting spot of a powerful Wiccan high priestess. More importantly, my grandmother. It took a lot of willpower to remove my nails from my palms, where they had dug into my skin when I clenched my fists.

"Runes for … the moon cycle," Hunter said, tracing over a rune that somewhat resembled a waxing gibbous moon. "And numerals … times, dates … it all fits. It points to today."

"No," Sky said quietly, pointing to another sigil. "Tonight."

I bit my lip as a sudden wave of fear washed through me. What was happening tonight? Something that involved us?

Was it when they were coming for us?

"What's tonight?" Robbie asked, unable to help the trace of fear that slipped into his voice.

No one answered him.

Oh, and I don't know
I don't know what he's after
But he's so beautiful
Such a beautiful disaster
And if I could hold on
Through the tears and the laughter
Would it be beautiful
Or just a beautiful disaster?

We spent the afternoon by ourselves that day. Not literally, but emotionally. No one spoke much even though none of us ventured anywhere without the other five present—well, except to the bathroom, but that was a given. No one wanted to be alone. Everyone was too afraid. Of what? We didn't even know.

We contemplated leaving Portrush, just running away from whatever could have been coming for us, but we didn't have anywhere to go. Our round-trip airline tickets to take us back to New York weren't for two weeks yet, and we didn't have enough collective money with us to buy six last-minute trans-Atlantic tickets.

Hunter, Sky, and I found ourselves up in the conference room back at the lodge for hours at a time, trying to call our powers back to us but stopping short of performing a power-calling circle. Our last circle had been a little too intense and consequence-filled for us to be eager to try one again. Hunter sat in an armchair, drawing complex rune charts on sheets of graph paper with an expression of utmost concentration on his face, and Sky was trying, judging by the look of disgust on her face without much luck, to summon witch fire. Raven and Bree were both sitting in corners of the room, gazing into space. Robbie stared ahead of him, and I sat against the wall next to Bree, Indian-style, softly reciting my power chant under my breath.

"An di allaigh, an di aigh …" No luck. I didn't feel even the slightest stirring of magickal energy.

"Where are they?" I whispered under my breath, feeling immeasurably pathetic. I missed feeling … well, like a witch. Ever since I had become a witch, feeling magick inside had become part of my life. Now that I had to feel once again what life was like without it … it was lonely.

When Sky asked if anyone wanted anything for dinner, no one answered. I don't think that she expected any of us to … as if we could eat when we felt like this.

When the day had finally, after what felt like a millennia, disappeared into night, I forced myself to eat half a sandwich before going back out into the lobby, where Hunter and Sky were discussing what the plan for the evening would be. It was decided—despite, I suspect, internal uncertainties in all of us—that Hunter, Sky, and I, the three blood witches, would act as sentries throughout the night, making sure that nothing happened and that … well, that no one tried to attack us. Hunter questioned whether the three of us should take shifts alone or whether the others should stay with us as a precaution. Bree and Robbie immediately agreed to the latter plan, and seeing as Raven had been set against letting Sky stand guard alone in the first place, unanimity was reached.

I bit my lip slightly, internally wondering how we would split it up. I wasn't quite sure that I was ready to be alone with Hunter for a two-hour period. Not after what had happened before. I hadn't granted him that amount of forgiveness yet. He must have sensed my trepidation; I thought I heard him sigh before he said that Bree should take a shift with me. Bree agreed, and we volunteered for the second shift of watch. Robbie and Hunter would take the first for two hours, then Bree and I for two hours, then Sky and Raven for two more hours. It would last us until four o'clock in the morning. As much as I hated to think that something might happen beforehand, it was unlikely that anything would happen after late night and early morning had passed by.

Robbie and Hunter stayed downstairs after the rest of us went to bed. The trouble with splitting up us three blood witches was that our witch message communication systems were down; how were we supposed to communicate telepathically when we couldn't even summon witch fire? It was a risk we had to take, though.

I didn't fall asleep right away. I'm not even sure if I ever did. Maybe I just lingered between consciousness and sleep, torn with worry and fear. After I had mechanically put on my pajamas, brushed my teeth, and gotten into bed, I just lay there, trying not to think. I could hear Sky and Raven talking quietly in the room next to mine, but their voices faded in and out. The next thing that I was aware of was Bree shaking me lightly.

"Morgan, come on. It's our turn."

"Did something happen?" I murmured groggily. "Robbie and Hunter, are they –"

"They're fine. Nothing happened." She gave me a very nervous smile. How was it that even at midnight she managed to look like a supermodel? "Are you ready?"

"Yes."

His magic and myth
As strong as what I believe
A tragedy with
More damage than a soul should see
And do I try to change him?
So hard not to blame him
Hold on tight
Hold on tight

The lodge was so quiet when Bree and I descended down the staircase to the lobby that I shivered involuntarily, a chilled feeling already settling in my stomach. Robbie and Hunter had left blankets and pillows out, but even with three warm cotton blankets wrapped around me, I still felt cold. I couldn't shake the feeling that something seemed off. Bree suggested turning on the television and seeing if anything good was on, but the only things on Irish televisions at midnight are infomercials from American filters, old black-and-white movies, and prayer channels that don't show anything but nuns reading from the Bible.

Not very much choice.

Eventually we settled for a black-and-white movie, but seeing as we had tuned in about halfway through, things didn't make sense to me. I think that one guy was having an affair with his best friend's wife while his best friend was trying to hide from the police for tax evasion.

But, then, I was so tired that I could barely keep my eyes open, so I had no idea what was transpiring on the screen in front of me. In fact, if it weren't for Bree, I would have fallen asleep the second that I plopped down on the couch. She nudged me every couple of minutes, saying, "Morgan, come on. You have to stay awake."

I think that she was trying not to fall asleep, too, though, because she went into the kitchen and came back with two huge mugs of coffee. She offered me one, but I declined; I don't really like the taste of coffee. I think she ended up drinking mine in addition to hers, because for the next half-hour she was bouncing up and down on the couch next to me, thereby making further sleep on my part impossible.

Her coffee high wore down around 1:45 as another black-and-white movie started playing. I didn't even bother trying to pay attention to this one; all of my energy was focused on staying awake and not collapsing back against the couch. I had no idea why I was so tired, but I felt like sleeping for 20 years like Rip Van Winkle couldn't have been such a bad thing right then.

"Morgan, do you get this Richard guy? His motives seem totally messed up to me, and I think …"

Bree was commenting on one of the guys in the movie, but I wasn't hearing her. My eyes were open, but I wasn't seeing. I finally let them drift closed. Bree would wake me if something happened. She was too high on coffee to not notice …

Because I don't know
I don't know what he's after
But he's so beautiful
Such a beautiful disaster
And if I could hold on
Through the tears and the laughter
Would it be beautiful
Or just a beautiful disaster?

Sky

It's difficult to sleep when one is, against one's will, horribly terrified that a clan of ethereal demons might attack during the night. Understandably. For most of the night, I had been hanging between falling asleep and just relaxing in bed, semi-aware of what was going on around me. I heard Robbie and Hunter troop back upstairs after their shift in the lobby was over, and vaguely made the connection in my mind that it was Bree and Morgan's turn. I didn't hear them go downstairs, though, so I'm not sure how alert I was to my surroundings.

I was conscious enough, however, to notice the sudden lack of warmth beside me that meant that Raven had gotten out of bed. Opening my eyes slightly to squint in the darkness, I asked, "Raven?"

She was sitting up in bed, listening intently and looking towards the door. I furrowed my eyebrows. "What are you doing?"

"Shh," she whispered, putting a finger to my lips. "Do you hear something?"

I sat up slowly, no longer squinting but craning my ears. "Something what?"

"Kind of like a low thud, but quieter."

I listened again for a moment. Now I could hear what she was referring to. Something heavy was clonking its way down the hallway outside our room, its heavy footsteps echoing in the silence.

"What is it?" I whispered, my voice shaking a little more than I would have liked it to.

"I don't know," she murmured. "I just heard it a second ago."

We sat there for a moment, not saying anything, just listening. It was like one of those moments in a horror movie when time seems to stand still as you listen to the footsteps echoing outside your hiding spot. I think we were both holding our breath even though our hearts were thumping increasingly fast with every millisecond. We both must have jumped at least a foot in the air with alarm when something rammed into our door with a resounding bang that echoed in my ears.

"Oh, my God!" I cried, clambering over the bed to the opposite wall, pulling Raven with me. She looked terrified.

"What's going on?"

I couldn't speak; my throat was constricted with fear. I could easily tell what was on the other side of that door.

"It's the Diobhail," I managed to whisper, my voice shaking uncontrollably.

The door hadn't budged from the huge beating it received; luckily, the doors were a good three inches thick and had heavy locks on them—thievery must have been common back in the 1800's. Even so, I could hear the demon outside raining blows on the door, and I could see the hinges, which had weakened slightly with age, beginning to quiver.

"Oh, Goddess," I whispered, now almost completely losing my head. "Goddess … what do we do? What do we do?"

"Distract him!" Raven insisted. "We have to get to the others somehow."

My hands were shaking so badly that I clenched my fists together to keep from going completely insane. "I can't, my magick hasn't come back yet!"

"What?" she cried. "Hunter said it wouldn't take this long!"

"I know, if it was back, I'd feel it." I groaned and let out a growl of frustration and panic. "And I know I could stun it or knock it out if I had –"

I had been on the verge of forming some kind of escape plan—one that involved hoping against hope that, in a moment of pure terror, my powers would sense that it was about time they came back—when I was suddenly being kissed with such a passion as to make linear thought impossible. The pounding outside the door, the fear inside, everything seemed to vanish instantly. When Raven pulled away a moment later, my brain had all but turned to mush.

"You feel it, don't you?" she murmured, her breathing heavy. "The energy?"

I nodded mutely, my mind still reeling. I did feel the energy, so much that I felt like I was standing on air. At Raven's nod, I cast a semi-nervous look towards the door and thought, Here goes something.

I wondered what the look on my face was when I pulled open the door and, without further ado, sent a stream of bright, shimmering magick at the invading force. In the darkness of the hallway, I could barely see what was lying on the ground in front of me. Raven looked into the hallway, peering cautiously over my shoulder.

"Did you get it?"

"Yes," I whispered, searching for the light switch on the wall. When I found it and it clicked on, we both gasped. Lying in front of us was a creature almost identical to Morgan's description of a Diobhail. Brown, cracked skin. Misshapen, jagged teeth. Its eyes had rolled back into its head, and its neck was twisted to the side. Wearing what looked like a rough-hewn brown robe and an almost medieval doublet, it truly looked like something out of a horror movie.

Raven was staring at it, a look of mixed horror and fear on her face. "What the hell is that?"

"Raven! Sky!"

Bree and Morgan were running down the hallway towards us. Morgan's eyes were wide, and Bree looked frightened.

"Are you guys okay?" Morgan demanded. "What's going on?" She looked at the unconscious demon on the floor and let out a cry. "Oh, God …"

"One tried to come in through the window in the lobby," Bree whispered, her voice shaking.

"Luckily, Bree momentarily stunned it," Morgan said, still staring at the Diobhail lying on the floor.

Raven wrinkled her nose. "How'd you do that?"

Bree held up a small bottle innocently. "Pepper spray. Useful for every mugging and the occasional life-threatening demonic attack." She looked at Morgan. "It just seemed to make him angry. He'll be figuring out that we took the side stairs up here while he was screaming and grabbing at his eyes."

My eyes widened. "You didn't knock him out?"

Morgan looked guilty. "Um, no powers, remember, which is why we should probably –" She paused and looked confused. "But, wait, how did you guys stop this one?"

I just smiled slightly and took Raven's hand. "We fought him off." I saw Raven smiling through the corner of my eye.

Suddenly, though, the sound of a crash and thundering roar echoed from the direction I recognized as the way to the east wing.

"Oh, no," Bree cried, paling. "He knows we're up here!" She gave her can of pepper spray a shake. "They don't make this stuff like they used to."

I groaned and grabbed the pepper spray from her. "Forget about your pepper spray! Let's get Hunter and Robbie and get out of here while we still can!"

"Here, here," Morgan said desperately. We were about to turn and head down the hall to the 300 rooms, where Hunter and Robbie were, when the two in question suddenly rounded the corner and very nearly crashed into us.

"We saw one!" six voices cried at once. A pause. "You saw one?"

As the thundering down a nearby hallway grew ever louder, we all realized what was going on at the same moment: the lodge was being stormed.

He's soft to the touch
But frayed at the end
He breaks
He's never enough
Still he's more than I can take