Heir of Danger (13 page)

What if he’d spoken out—even once—against the growing madness infecting his father and the Nine?

What if he’d walked away as soon as he’d realized where the plan would lead the
Other
?

What if he’d intervened when Freddie lay dying amid the flames of his house and the bodies of his family?

What if he’d warned the
Amhas-draoi
himself instead of sending Daz Ahern in his place?

Would events have turned out differently? Would Father have come to the same realization as his son, or would he have seen Brendan’s hesitation as weakness and his second thoughts as treachery? Would the
Amhas-draoi
have listened, or would they still have attacked blindly and savagely, seeing death as the only way to deal with such sinister evil as the Nine hoped to unleash? Had Father died cursing his youngest son’s name?

There were no answers, no matter how many times he went round and round in his head. Only more questions. More pain. More voices infecting his sleep. More faces crowding his dreams.

But tonight new questions buzzed in his brain like sand flies.

What if he’d succeeded seven years ago in handing the Sh’vad Tual over to the
Amhas-draoi
?

What if he’d not had to escape retribution? What if Máelodor had died with the rest of the Nine?

Would Brendan have married Elisabeth as he’d intended? Would he even now be a sedate father and husband? His days spent playing the responsible landowner? His nights entwined with a passionate wife?

In the years of his exile, he’d refused to ask those sorts of questions. The future had been the next hour, the next day, the next week. There was no energy to spare to look deeper.

Only recently had he begun to envision an existence beyond that of fugitive. Yet it had been too long since he’d sought to dream. He could see nothing beyond his interview with Scathach. Beyond crawling from under the weight of his past deeds. If he tried reaching further, all was vague, indistinct, unknowable.

All but for a wild mane of red hair and a pair of bewitching brown eyes.

For some reason, he’d always thought she would be the one person he could count on. If all else collapsed around him, Lissa Fitzgerald’s childlike faith would never falter.

Tonight, he’d attempted to put that theory to the test.

He curled and flexed his fingers, the ache of his injury a dull throb. The fear in Lissa’s eyes had punched him hard. He’d not anticipated how hard. Elisabeth knew of the
Other
and still she shrank from them.

From him.

He gave a wry bark of laughter.

Smart girl.

Thanks to Jack’s gold, Brendan had planned to hire a chaise. Make the rest of the journey in comfort if not style.

He drew back into the alley beside the coaching inn.

So much for plans.

How he knew the three men standing within the circle of lantern light belonged to Máelodor, he couldn’t say. Nothing marked them as such. No great “M” sewn upon their chests. No aura of death surrounding them. In fact, they looked rather ordinary. Unassuming expressions. Clothing neither filthy nor finicky. But Brendan had lived within Máelodor’s sinister shadow for too long to ignore the warning bells going off in his head or the prickle of magic crawling under his skin, lifting the hairs at the back of his neck.

He retreated, already reevaluating his options.

Was their appearance here sheer coincidence? Unfortunate, but nothing to fear as long as he stayed out of sight
until they departed? Or had they followed his trail from Dun Eyre and any movement on his part would be seized as a chance to capture him and the stone he carried?

He couldn’t wait to find out. He was already behind schedule. Jack would be waiting for him in Dublin. The longer he delayed, the greater chance for something else to go wrong.

Ducking down the narrow passage between the posting inn and stables, he made his way back to Elisabeth. Prayed she’d stayed put as he’d ordered her and not gone wandering off. She seemed convinced the danger was real, but he couldn’t stake all on her common sense. As he remembered, she’d never been a paragon of obedience. And from what he’d seen so far, time hadn’t improved her.

The tavern he’d picked catered to the Irish scraping a living in the cabins and cottages clustered on the outskirts of the lakeside market town. They smoked and drank and cursed and fought in the two rooms making up the tap. Slept it off before a roaring fire, their breathing loud, their smell overpowering.

He’d slipped the publican a few extra pennies for the privacy of a chamber off the kitchen. Not exactly the best of accommodations, but at least they could relax out from under the suspicious, hostile glances of the normal patrons.

That had been the plan.

Once more, his plans had failed him.

As he ducked beneath the low lintel into the murky, smoke-filled room, his watering eyes fell immediately on a tableau he wouldn’t have believed had he not seen it for himself. A crowd of men listening in attentive silence to a harper upon a stool in the chimney corner. Eyes closed in a gaunt, weather-beaten face, his fingers darted and slipped
over the frets of the ash-wood harp in his lap. But the plaintive beauty of the music was nothing compared to the singer accompanying him, whose poignant longing was wrung from every note as she sang of love and loss and war.

“Siúil go sochair agus siúil go ciúin . . .”

What the hell was she about? Could he not leave her alone for two seconds without catastrophe following? He checked his impulse to drag her away by the hair. With Máelodor’s assassins close, the last thing he needed was to draw attention. Nor did he particularly need twenty drunken farmers denied of their entertainment venting their anger on him. He liked all his limbs just where they were, thank you very much.

Across the room, Elisabeth’s eyes lifted to his. Her face pale as moonlight compared to the ruddy, wind-chapped features of those watching her in rapt attention. Her red hair aflame in the low light from the fire.

“. . . Siúil go doras agus éalaigh liom . . .”

Had she always possessed a voice like this? He couldn’t remember. It made him wonder what else about the hoyden tagalong he’d forgotten. Or overlooked.

“. . . Is go dté tú mo mhúirnín slán.”

It took him a moment to realize her siren song had ended. Silence roared in his ears as he crossed the floor in two angry strides, grabbing her by the elbow, dragging her to a corner away from the others. “Am I wrong or did I order you to stay out of sight until I returned?”

She lifted her chin, face flushed, eyes shining and dark. “Killer escaped.”

He drew up short. “What has that bloody dog to do with you singing to a bunch of drunken peasants as if you were on the damned stage at Crow Street?”

“When I went after him, they took me for a serving girl. I tried explaining, but it only made them more insistent.” She flushed, dropping her gaze to her clasped hands.

Unexpected fury reddened his vision. “They didn’t hurt you, did they?”

“No. Rogan”—she pointed to the harper—“stepped in before it came to that. He asked if I could sing, though whether he hoped I’d succeed and distract them or fail and make them more enraged, I’m not sure.”

“If you’d stayed put instead of running after that blasted dog—”

“Well, if you’d been here—”

“I was trying to secure you a carriage. Onwen can’t continue to carry both of us. Forgive me for chivalry,” he said, glaring at her.

“Chivalry?” Hands on hips, she glared right back. Why couldn’t he have been forced to abduct a nice biddable woman instead of this harridan? It would have made his life so much easier. “Is that what you call kidnapping me in the middle of the night, forcing me to wear putrid clothes, dragging me about the countryside, and making me sleep in a closet?”

“Let’s not forget saving your ungrateful skin.”

She flung herself away with a frustrated groan. “No, we can’t forget that. Though I’ve yet to see hide nor hair of these villainous murderers you seem so convinced are after me.”

The door opened. Three men shouldered their way into the room.

Furious, Brendan gestured toward them. “Elisabeth Fitzgerald? Let me introduce you to said murderers. Satisfied?”

Elisabeth’s shoulder ached, a stitch cramped her ribs, and her heart pounded in fear.

Brendan remained oblivious to her labored breathing. Each time she stumbled, he yanked her to her feet. Never slowing. Unheeding of her pleas to rest. A moment only for her to get her wind back.

The men had barreled through the tavern, sending tables and tankards flying, hampered by the cramped room and the shoving and cursing of those they knocked over in the chase.

Grabbing her hand, Brendan had dragged her through the kitchen to the screams of serving maids and a cleaver-brandishing cook. Out the back door into the yard, careening through the mud and filth. Into the safety of dark alleys. Ducking in and out of empty lanes. Emerging near the lake, where the darkness gathered against the shoreline and every fish jump or ripple of wind-pushed water against the rocks seeming loud as a cannon blast.

Her legs throbbed and her chest was on fire. She couldn’t seem to pull enough air into her lungs. She stumbled, her ankle twisting beneath her. Brendan’s hold almost wrenched her arm from her socket as she fell.

“Just a little farther,” he urged.

“To where?” she pleaded, hobbling and wincing. “I can’t run anymore.”

Bent double, hands on his knees, Brendan sucked in great deep breaths while casting a desperate look around. The lake on one side. High hedges opposite and a stone wall. He jerked his chin toward an iron gate. “Through there.”

“And then what? On foot, we’ll never escape them. We can’t walk to Dublin. It would take weeks.”

Weeks more time she’d be trapped with Brendan. Weeks longer she’d be unable to send word of where she was and what had happened. Weeks when Gordon would be assuming she’d run off with another lover.

The pain in her chest expanded.

Two men rounded the bend, slowing to a trot. The third stepped from the hedgerow farther ahead. Effectively trapping her and Brendan between.

Three on one. And they were a big three. Meaty. Broad-shouldered. Flat-nosed and squinty-eyed. Brendan didn’t stand a chance by himself.

He shoved Elisabeth behind him. Slid a knife from his waist, holding it as if he actually might know how to use it. A reminder that the changes wrought by his years away weren’t all visible. Brendan might act the joker, but it was only an act. Anyone who trusted too much in his nimble charm would regret it.

“Look, he’s got himself a little knife.”

“Oooh, I’m scared.”

“Are ye thinking you can be stopping us all, Douglas?”

The men jeered, their faces empty of any emotion save contempt and brutality.

Brendan’s response came too low to hear, but a flick of his fingers and the closest man went down in a heap of twitching limbs, eyes rolling in his head, a horrible gargling moan the only sound as he writhed upon the ground.

“Battle magic!” shouted one.

The two still on their feet rushed Brendan, causing him to spin out of the way, his concentration broken. One raised his arm, the night shattered by the crack of a gunshot.

Brendan went stiff before slumping, a hand clamped to his right shoulder.

Elisabeth opened her mouth to scream, but the best she managed was a strangled whimper. Her limbs went dead. She couldn’t move. Couldn’t cry. She could only stare, mesmerized, at the blood seeping slow and black from the ugly hole in Brendan’s shoulder. Her stomach slammed into her throat, cold washing through her as if she’d been plunged into ice water. “They shot you,” she gasped. “Brendan, they shot you.”

“Did they?” he grunted through clenched teeth. “Hadn’t noticed.”

Then they were there. Rough hands grabbing her. Hateful words whispered in her ear.

Brendan spun at the final moment, his knife a flash of silver. A scarlet bib splashed across the shirtfront of one attacker as he dropped to his knees.

Still gripping her hard by the shoulder, the last man knocked the knife away. Slammed his fist into Brendan’s jaw. Hammered a knee into his stomach. Punched his wounded shoulder.

Brendan toppled to the mud. Groans from a tight jaw, eyes squeezed shut.

“Damned bastard,” the man snarled. “That’s fer Keg and Perry.” He kicked Brendan hard in the ribs. “Think ye be hurtin’ now. Wait ’til the Great One’s gotten his hands on ye.”

The rattle of harness and a low whistle startled them all alert.

Around the bend, a canvas-covered wagon bumped and rattled, a pair of bony, short-backed ponies in the shafts, a tall, leggy chestnut tied at the back. Elisabeth recognized the tavern’s harper at the traces.

“Here now, ladies,” he spoke quietly to the ponies.
“Looks as if we’ve stumbled on what you might call a gang of Mohocks bent on mischief.” He pulled up, staring at the gruesome scene before him, his eyes seeming to glow in his thin face. “Let the girl go now, friend.”

“Fuck yerself, old man,” the man snarled.

Rogan merely chuckled, laying his whip across his knees, a strange, focused expression upon his face. “I don’t think that’s humanly possible.” He motioned toward Elisabeth. “Let her go, and be off with you. The sergeant and his men will be here soon.” His voice came slow and even. No trace of fear or anxiety, just a rich endless sea of sound. “You don’t want to explain yourself to them, do you?”