Hooked [Complete]

38. The House that Hearne Built

Author's Note: So, let's find out how Carrie takes the news that Cernunnos is engaged to Dru!

Song for this Chapter: Stay by Lisa Loeb. I imagine Carrie singing this one on her porch, after Hearne leaves. Porch? What Porch, you say? Read on....

Carrie felt like throwing her phone into the lake. If Maeve called one more time with a potion, a ritual, or a spell for Sean, she would remake herself right at the top of Magic Mountain and beat Maeve into an early grave with her own broom. Thank the gods Cernunnos had been engendered from the forest, and not from a mother. She couldn't imagine what she would have done if she had to deal with a goddess mother-in-law for ten thousand years.

She smirked, suddenly realizing that if she made Sean immortal, his mother certainly would not be. She could deal with Maeve for another fifty years or so, she supposed...

Ha, here was Maeve's other offspring. Lana hurried down the path to the lake.

"It's about time! Look, I don't have long. I have to get back to Sean." She gestured quickly for Lana to give her the wooden bowl she was carrying, and she swiftly cut her arm, lengthwise and deep, angling the blood into the pot. Then she poured two vials of cold blood on top of hers.

"Whose blood is that?" Lana asked.

"One is goat blood. And the other is Finn's," Carrie said. "I'm going for complete olfactory overload. If Cernunnos smells my blood in your salve—"

"He'll kill me." Lana groans.

"No, he'll refuse it and he'll come find me to yell at me for bleeding myself, and by the time I convince him to use it, my blood will be cold and much less effective. I've let Dru fumble with his injuries long enough. It's time he's whole."

Privately, Carrie was worried that Hearne hadn't been able to heal himself. The forest was in full spring blossom. He should be in his full power now. Jupiter's blast had been catastrophic, but surely by now Cernunnos' wounds should have healed.

"Listen, Carrie..."

"No, Lana. You will do this. I don't care if you have to get him dead drunk, or bash him with a brick, you will go right back up there and put this blood in your salve and put it on his legs, do you understand? Oh, here," she poured the last few drops from Finn's vial and splattered Lana in the face.

"Uhh, gross! What's that for?"

"To mask my scent, of course."

"I can't do this, Carrie."

"Of course you can."

"No I mean, I can't. Cernunnos is...gone. I was only a few minutes late. He must have left after Dru, but before I got there."

Carrie crossed her arms and raised her eyes heavenward. Stubborn man. She grabbed the bowl from Lana.

"It's okay, I'll do it. He must be feeling better, and if he is...he's taken to the forest. I know how to find him. Do me a favor? Hang out with Sean for a while?"

"Okay, sure," Lana said, and began to trudge up the path. Carrie almost offered to remake Lana above Malone's but she hesitated. After injuring Sean with her own remaking at the concert, she wasn't sure of that particular skill anymore.

As soon as Lana was up the path, Carrie left the trail. She didn't heal her bleeding arm. She let it drip, she smeared in on rhododendron leaves, she splattered into onto the bark of ancient oaks. She moved to a higher elevation, hoping to catch a breeze. Finding a large outcropping of rock, she sat, holding her cut arm out in front. She watched her blood drop on granite. She waited.