Once more I began saying the Riordan power chant, hearing the words unspool in my mind, feeling my power strengthen and swell.

I'm a Riordan, I thought. I'm the sgiurs dan. This will end here, and my descendants will go on to help Woodbanes be everything they can be, on the side of good.

Then, like children responding to a dare, we squared off and faced each other, hovering for a moment in the onyx- colored sky. I felt everything in me coil and hesitate, and then, like a bolt of witchfire, I hurtled through the night toward Selene, aware that she also was streaking toward me. I was both falling and soaring, my wings tucked close, feet drawn up: I was a weapon, going eighty miles an hour downward toward my enemy.

I was on Selene so fast that I didn't have time to really expect it-it was only a few seconds before we were swerving at the last second so we wouldn't just crash into each other. Quickly I circled as tightly as I could, and then I let all my raptor instincts take over-I quit thinking like a human, quit being Morgan altogether. I let go of all that and let my hawk free.

I don't know who drew blood first-Selene or me. But we attacked at the same moment, and my hard beak shot forward and seized her flesh, pulling and ripping. I tasted her blood, warm and salty, at the same instant I was aware of a searing pain in my right shoulder. The next several minutes were a blur of feathers and fire and a fine mist of blood arcing through the air. Selene's feathers were scorched by my fire, and the acrid smell of burned feathers filled my sensitive nostrils. Harsh, raucous screams filled the air, upsetting and distracting me-and then I realized I was making them. Finally with one huge surge of power I rose up just enough to be able to clamp one of my vicelike feet around Selene's thick neck. It reached around and I squeezed my grip as tightly as I could, as if Selene were a rabbit and I was about to have lunch.

In a frenzy Selene's dark wings beat the air around me, obscuring my sight. But still I hung on. It was impossible to fly and hold on at the same time, so I swung my wings when I could and concentrated on closing, closing, closing on Selene's neck.

This is for Cal, whom you destroyed with your evil, I thought grimly. This is for me, whom you haunted and terrorized. This is for all the people you've hurt or used or killed. You are going to die here and now, at my hand.

When I had been a wolf, I had been seized with an overwhelming lust for the hunt, a palpable desire to track prey down and rip into it. I had been able to stop myself at the last second when I realized my prey was Hunter. I felt no such inclination to stop now. Every tenet I had been raised with against murder, against revenge-disappeared now as I felt myself slowly pressing the life from Selene's body.

We were spinning now, falling toward earth in a death spiral. I was unable to keep myself aloft and hold on to Selene at the same time, so I allowed myself to fall. Selene was still beating her wings, but more and more weakly. My claws, holding her neck, ached with the pressure, the tension of staying tight, but I was locked onto her and there was no way I would let go. I glanced down and saw with a sickening realization that the ground was rushing up to meet us. Soon I would crash, probably breaking every bone in my body. I didn't think even a hawk could survive that kind of collision. But at least I would take Selene with me.

All at once I felt the life force of Selene's hawk blink out. One breath later I was sure of it-the hawk was dead. I was maybe fifteen feet from the ground, and I loosed my talons and let Selene drop heavily to the ground. Then I began beating my wings backward furiously-how to land? I didn't know!

I did the best I could, slowing myself as much as possible and setting my feet in front of me. I ended up crashing, anyway, my feet running against the ground, my wings outstretched, but I lost my balance and tumbled head over claw several times in what must have been the most humiliating hawk landing ever.

Still, I didn't break anything, and as soon I stopped rolling, I was up on my feet and leaping over to Selene. Just as I got there, the hawk's mouth opened, and once again the oily black smoke began to coil outward. I slammed my foot around its neck, crushing it shut, holding it ruthlessly.

It was horrible-the dead bird's battered and bloody body flopping and struggling against me. My own blood running into my eyes and stinging them. The oily smoke of Selene's anam stopped short. This close to her, I felt her panic, her intense fury, her hatred, her venom and malice. I flapped my wings to keep my balance, hopping awkwardly on one foot while the other held on. It seemed like hours later, but at last I sensed the final, twitching, muffled death of Selene's anam. Trapped inside a dead being with no escape, she could not survive.

Selene Belltower was no more. Yet I didn't let go, not for a long time, not until the shaking of my muscles forced me to release my grip.

Then I released my hold, folded in my wings, and began the agonizing process of becoming myself.

Selene was dead, and I had killed her.

And I wasn't sorry.

14. Hunter

We got Morgan cleaned and patched up at Alyce's. She felt terrible about the broken window, and Alyce looked at her like she was insane when she offered to pay for it. Bethany didn't think any of her wounds actually needed stitches, but she did put butterfly bandages and poultices everywhere. Then I brought Morgan to Bree's house, about half an hour before the sun came up. We woke her up, and she helped me put Morgan to bed. I said we'd explain later. As soon as I was sure Morgan was asleep and safe, I took off and went home.

Once there I took a long, hot shower, getting blood and pain and evil off me. I dropped into my bed and passed out cold.

"Here, lad, have a cuppa," Da said. I heard his voice and groaned, but then the tantalizing scent of strong tea reached my nostrils and I struggled to surface.

I propped myself up on my elbows and took the hot mug. "Cheers."

"How are you? You look all worn out." I moaned. "Don't ask. I've had better weeks. What time is it?"

"Oneish. I've been thinking about that witch, Patrice," Da went on.

"Me too," I said, and told him about everything that had happened with Patrice and Robin in the woods last night. I sighed. "I'm thinking that maybe I should ask her to turn herself in to the council. I hate the idea, but I don't know what else to do. Despite how sincere she is, now that she's done something like this, I just can't see never keeping an eye on her again. And next time she would be much more subtle, more experienced. I don't know."

I took a big gulp of tea. Ahhh. "I know that if she absolutely refuses to turn herself in, I won't make her," I went on. "I won't strip her of her powers against her will. That's a bloody awful business."

"Well, maybe you won't have to," Da said. "Look." He took out a black-and-white composition notebook. "I've been working on a translation, from Middle Gaelic. It's been very unusual, very enlightening. It seems to have been a textbook from a Wiccan center of learning, back in the 1500s. I've been finding some incredibly unusual spells, and they're almost all to do with limiting powers in some way."

"Really?"

"Yes. I mean, these spells haven't seen light of day, as far as I can tell, in hundreds of years. When I was studying for my initiation, I never even touched on this category." He flipped past pages covered with his fine, scrawly handwriting and began reading me pieces of his translation.

My brain wasn't quite up to par after the events of the last two days, nowhere near enough sleep, the trauma of having Morgan go through what she had. I squinted up at my father.